Nietzsche and the Death of God

Shore’s own judgments and connections

One way to situate Nietzsche, Shore's through line here: he is Hegel's alter ego, an anti-Hegel perceiving every antagonism and contradiction Hegel does, yet flatly refusing reconciliation, directionality or telos.

Put simply Shore's way of placing Nietzsche: he is Hegel's mirror image. He sees every conflict and contradiction Hegel sees, but flatly refuses Hegel's promise that they resolve, or that history has a direction or goal.

Hegel's philosophy, by crowning the belated present as the goal of all history, deifies history and sets it, as "the sole sovereign power," in place of art and religion.

Put simply Nietzsche on Hegel: by treating our own late age as the goal all history was heading for, Hegel turns history into a god. It becomes "the sole sovereign power", taking the place of art and religion.

Zarathustra teaches that humanity must be surpassed: a rope stretched above an abyss between beast and Übermensch, it must serve as a bridge. No Übermensch, Zarathustra included, has yet appeared.

Put simply Nietzsche's Zarathustra: humans must be surpassed. Humanity is a rope over an abyss between beast and "Übermensch" (a future "overhuman"), and must serve as a bridge. No Übermensch has yet appeared, Zarathustra included.

Announcing "God is dead" is not atheism. It reports an event: humanity has crossed from a world God organized into one without him, and we ourselves did the killing.

Put simply Nietzsche: saying "God is dead" is not saying there is no God. It reports that something has happened: we have moved from a world God gave order to into one without him, and we killed him.

Where to read it Nietzsche, The Gay Science §125.

What dies with God is arguably not any being, physical or metaphysical, nor one religion's creed. The word names a belief that reality has order, purpose and wholeness.

Put simply Nietzsche's "God" arguably is not a being of any kind, nor one religion's beliefs. The word stands for the belief that reality has order and purpose and makes sense as a whole.

Nihilism is simply another name for the death of God: the crisis in which our supreme values become worthless and the principles that once structured reality no longer do.

Put simply Nietzsche: "nihilism" is another name for the death of God. It is the crisis that comes when our highest values lose their worth and the principles that once ordered reality stop doing so.

Both labels fit Nietzsche, late German romantic and early existentialist; Shore finds it helpful to see him as arriving late to romanticism and early to existentialism.

One way to situate Nietzsche, Shore's through line here: he is Hegel's alter ego, an anti-Hegel perceiving every antagonism and contradiction Hegel does, yet flatly refusing reconciliation, directionality or telos.

Put simply Shore's way of placing Nietzsche: he is Hegel's mirror image. He sees every conflict and contradiction Hegel sees, but flatly refuses Hegel's promise that they resolve, or that history has a direction or goal.

Existence, honestly confronted, is dreadful; the question is whether it can be made bearable at all. The answer: "only as an aesthetic phenomenon," through grandiose art, is the world justifiable.

Put simply Nietzsche: looked at honestly, existence is dreadful, and the question is whether it can be made bearable at all. His answer: only as art, through great creation, can the world be justified.

One way Shore sorts thinkers: system-builders and dismantlers. Hegel builds; Nietzsche, who offers no solution or telos, takes everything apart, vividly and creatively, and in that sense anticipates deconstruction.

Put simply Shore sorts thinkers into system-builders and dismantlers. Hegel builds. Nietzsche offers no solution or goal and takes everything apart, vividly and creatively, and in that sense looks ahead to later "deconstruction".

Opera should break with its French and Italian models and become distinctively German: grandiose, heavy with pathos and philosophical weight, drawn from medieval legend, and recovering ancient Greek drama.

Put simply Wagner: opera should stop copying French and Italian models and become truly German: grand, full of strong feeling and philosophical weight, drawn from medieval legend, and reviving ancient Greek drama.

Wagner built a cult of opera as well as of himself: the opera house, once somewhere to gossip and drink, became a temple entered in reverent silence.

The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Wagner, presents his music-dramas as continuing Greek tragedy, a tradition prized because it made people into artists of living.

Put simply Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, dedicated to Wagner, presents Wagner's operas as heirs to ancient Greek tragedy. He prizes that tradition because it made people into artists of their own lives.

Russell's quip: Nietzsche's view of women, like any man's, projects his feeling toward them, and that feeling is plainly fear: "nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him."

Put simply Russell mocks Nietzsche's line about bringing a whip to women: like any man's, Nietzsche's view of women reflects his feelings toward them, plainly fear. "Nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him."

An excess of history sickens us: awareness of the past, and of its great figures, makes us feel small. Only the strong, with abundant "plastic power," can bear much history.

Put simply Nietzsche: too much history makes us sick. Knowing the past and its great figures makes us feel small. Only the strong can bear a lot of history; he calls the strength they need "plastic power".

Hegel's philosophy, by crowning the belated present as the goal of all history, deifies history and sets it, as "the sole sovereign power," in place of art and religion.

Put simply Nietzsche on Hegel: by treating our own late age as the goal all history was heading for, Hegel turns history into a god. It becomes "the sole sovereign power", taking the place of art and religion.

Nietzsche blames Hegelian philosophy's huge, persisting influence for making every crisis of German culture in his century more dangerous; believing oneself a latecomer is "paralyzing and depressing."

Put simply Nietzsche: Hegel's huge, lasting influence made every crisis in German culture in his century more dangerous. Believing you have arrived late, at the tail end of history, is "paralyzing and depressing."

Anti-Hegelian as he is, Nietzsche's thinking has something dialectical about it: one Genealogy of Morals aphorism has great things "bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming."

Put simply Nietzsche attacks Hegel, yet his own thinking has a Hegelian streak of things turning against themselves. In one aphorism, great things "bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming."

Where to read it Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay §27.

The revered virtues may owe their worth to being "insidiously related, tied to, and involved with" their wicked opposites, perhaps even sharing one essence with them: good and wicked, true and false, come together.

Put simply Nietzsche: perhaps the virtues we revere get their worth from being secretly tied to their wicked opposites, maybe even being the same thing at bottom. Good and wicked, true and false, belong together.

Suffering is not wholly negative and should be embraced, not merely endured, because whoever says yes to one joy says yes to every woe: "all things are entangled, ensnared, enamored."

Put simply Nietzsche: suffering is not all bad. We should embrace it, not just put up with it, because saying yes to one joy means saying yes to every sorrow too: "all things are entangled, ensnared, enamored."

Nobody yet knows what good and evil are, "unless it be he who creates": the categories we live by must be questioned, not trusted.

Put simply Nietzsche: no one yet knows what good and evil are, "unless it be he who creates." So we must question the moral categories we live by, not trust them.

Nietzsche is a fierce critic of the Western tradition and accepts none of its core beliefs: truth, morality, God, democracy, or the idea that virtue makes a person happy.

Nietzsche's charge: Christianity is a slave morality. The weak, resenting their masters, brand the strong as bad, declare their own weakness virtue, and accept oppression for a promised reward hereafter.

In the text In the Genealogy of Morals (1887), First Essay §§10–11, the man of ressentiment conceives "the evil enemy", while "bad" is the word of aristocratic origin.

Nietzsche holds that the egalitarianism of Christianity, a religion he calls nihilistic, also infects democracy, which he regards as rule by the mediocre, working against the vitality and heroism life requires.

Zarathustra teaches that humanity must be surpassed: a rope stretched above an abyss between beast and Übermensch, it must serve as a bridge. No Übermensch, Zarathustra included, has yet appeared.

Put simply Nietzsche's Zarathustra: humans must be surpassed. Humanity is a rope over an abyss between beast and "Übermensch" (a future "overhuman"), and must serve as a bridge. No Übermensch has yet appeared, Zarathustra included.

What eternal recurrence means is disputed. On one Kantian reading, you should live every moment as though it would return forever, acting only as you would wish to see repeated.

Put simply Nobody agrees what Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" means. One reading, echoing Kant: live every moment as if it would come back forever, doing only what you would wish to see repeated.

Where to read it Nietzsche, The Gay Science §341.

Announcing "God is dead" is not atheism. It reports an event: humanity has crossed from a world God organized into one without him, and we ourselves did the killing.

Put simply Nietzsche: saying "God is dead" is not saying there is no God. It reports that something has happened: we have moved from a world God gave order to into one without him, and we killed him.

Where to read it Nietzsche, The Gay Science §125.

What dies with God is arguably not any being, physical or metaphysical, nor one religion's creed. The word names a belief that reality has order, purpose and wholeness.

Put simply Nietzsche's "God" arguably is not a being of any kind, nor one religion's beliefs. The word stands for the belief that reality has order and purpose and makes sense as a whole.

Sooner or later everyone concludes that the harmonious world where contradictions resolve, Hegel's end of history, is never coming. Unity cannot be found: life is nothing but difference.

Put simply Nietzsche: sooner or later we all realize that a harmonious world where every conflict is resolved, the end of history Hegel promised, is never coming. There is no unity to be found; life is all difference.

Nihilism is simply another name for the death of God: the crisis in which our supreme values become worthless and the principles that once structured reality no longer do.

Put simply Nietzsche: "nihilism" is another name for the death of God. It is the crisis that comes when our highest values lose their worth and the principles that once ordered reality stop doing so.

No replacement God can end the nihilist crisis, and every such attempt fails, because wanting an ordering principle is where the crisis began: the disorder has no real cure.

Put simply Nietzsche: the crisis cannot be solved by putting a new God in the old one's place. Every such attempt fails, because wanting something to order everything is where the crisis began. There is no real cure.

Other readings Bernard Reginster (The Affirmation of Life, 2006) reads Nietzsche's philosophy as aimed at overcoming nihilism, through a revaluation of values that affirms life, suffering included.

In some sense Nietzsche does not care whether a God actually exists; what counts is whether we believe in one and arrange our lives around that belief.

Shore sees mourning in Nietzsche: he dismantles every system and shows morality impossible, offers nothing to make up the loss, yet still grieves for God and for morality.

Freud's verdict: no one who has ever lived, or is likely to, understood himself as deeply as Nietzsche.

For Shore, Nietzsche's announcement of God's death could never be retracted, like the Bastille's fall for Hegel; everyone since must reckon with it and its potential implication: everything is permitted.

Put simply Shore: once Nietzsche said God is dead, it could not be unsaid, just as for Hegel the storming of the Bastille could not be undone. Everyone since must face it, and its possible implication: everything is permitted.

Nietzsche born in the Prussian province of Saxony; his Lutheran-minister father dies while he is very young and he is raised by five women.

Nietzsche starts at the University of Bonn, first drawn to theology, then philology and literature.

Nietzsche, 24 and without a completed doctorate, is offered a chair in classical philology at Basel.

Nietzsche forms an intense friendship with Wagner (and Wagner's wife Cosima).

Franco-Prussian War; Bismarck provokes it to unify German states; Nietzsche volunteers as a medical orderly and returns in ruined health.

The German Empire is declared after Bismarck's victory.

The Birth of Tragedy Die Geburt der Tragödie

The Birth of Tragedy is published, dedicated to Wagner.

The Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben

Nietzsche publishes the essay on the uses and disadvantages of history, attacking Hegel.

Nietzsche retires from Basel, nominally for health reasons, and lives on in isolation, largely in sanatoria and cold rooms.

The Gay Science Die fröhliche Wissenschaft

The Gay Science is published, containing the madman's announcement of God's death.

Nietzsche proposes to Lou Salomé via his friend Paul Rée and is rejected; the famous whip photograph follows.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra Also sprach Zarathustra

Beyond Good and Evil Jenseits von Gut und Böse

On the Genealogy of Morals Zur Genealogie der Moral

The Anti-Christ Der Antichrist

Nietzsche collapses in Turin and is institutionalized; he never regains sanity.

Nietzsche dies.