Back to Nietzsche

   I have just listened to Robert Salomon commenting on some of Nietzsche’s famous sayings… “God is dead”.

   Robert Salmon says that this is not a direct remark on religion, on the entity of God but that Nietzsche has seen and comments in his typical way on the hypocrisy of the common Christian. I do not disagree with this, but I find it incomplete. From what I have understood from the works of Nietzsche, “God is dead” refers in my opinion, to the fact that archaic beliefs should not be held strong in an age in which human problems need another means of solving. In other words, there is no need to believe in the existence of a supreme being like that of God… it has come the time when humans should have the capacity to act moral by their own instinct and not as an imposed rule. In other words, the time to replace the inorganic with the organic…

   Of course this statement, God is dead, is shocking for the simpler minds… I find this statement in its full context beautiful, not that Nietzsche said it, it was said long before him by many others, but that Nietzsche has the will and power to complete the argument. He has the patience to argument and demonstrate each aspect of this remark… I find that impressive. Not only that he has written millions of words in this effort but he has dedicated all his work to this idea, and I find in that the greatest love statement to the humankind. Having the courage, the will and the gift to argument so beautifully and so energetic against evil at the time when evil was considered a general good, and still consider evil necessary and not fight it unconditionally is, in my opinion, brilliant!

   Of course, my interpretation of Nietzsche works may be distorted and it may change after I read his works again, but no matter how many times I will read Nietzsche, I am convinced that I will still believe that he loved humankind even though he spoke for so few…

Consider this, humanity is made up from different types of individuals, each individual with his own skill or non at all. It is fair to say that the progress of human kind is in the hands of each and every single human being? No. Then should the notion of progress and evolution be explained and discussed in terms that are understood by every individual? That would be redundant... as Nietzsche said: In the end things must be as they are and have always been—the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare. Truth is not a common thing, and if it is then it is not of value…