Recently I had the urge to re-visit some of my writings on Friedrich Nietzsche. This occurred after I had a brief exchange of ideas with Dr. Mahinda Pathirana. As far as I know, Mahinda Pathirana has extensively written about Nietzsche. For me Friedrich Nietzsche is an enigma. I am still discovering him.
Nietzsche came from a very pious family and his love for Christianity was immense. However untimely deaths of his father and his brother lead Nietzsche to view Christianity through a critical lens. His psychological trauma transformed him to become a so-called anti-Christ. In later years he became a destroyer of Christianity as well as the destroyer of metaphysics. He used the title "anti-Christ as a mark of distinction.
Nietzsche stated that there are no facts, only interpretations. He introduced a philosophy of culture. He introduced the antithesis of nature. Nietzsche believed that human beings have no intrinsic values. For Nietzsche, humans are predatory animals. He found no value in suffering. He further elucidated that suffering has no meaning. For Nietzsche strength was the ultimate virtue. He admired Wagner, idealized masculinity, and wrote about " will to power".
Nietzsche's intellectual vandalism was prominent. He was"philosophizing with a hammer". There is racism, antisemitism, cruelty, and misogynism in his works. Yet the Western world cannot evade Nietzsche's philosophy. There are no canonical interpretations in his work, only oxymoronic constructions.
Nietzsche gave us the courage to question our convictions. He was the neo-Socrates, rather neo-Socrates of subjectivity. We can say that Nietzsche was the son of Charles Darwin and the brother of Bismarck.
Ruwan M Jayatunge M.D.
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