Nietzsche, Niceness, Niches & Nihilism for Novices

By the time Nietzsche was becoming a force in the western intellectual arena, there were some changes of attitude pervading society which gave him options of expression that many of his predecessors lacked. Certainly, before the industrial revolution – that is to say, before science showing itself to be the major force of change and
incredibly useful, it was plenty harder for anyone to criticize the church in any way. Not that such critique didn't happen, but retaliation was swift and effective.

Nonetheless, Nietzsche did make remarkable leaps and recognized key factors in the currents of history and society. It is as though a gigantic 3-d stereo noise image were stood in front of western thought, but instead of a picture of a schooner (sailboat), the image had the word “Change” across it. Nietzsche's piercing intellect and aptitude for pattern recognition let him see the underlying issue while the rest of the West simply marvelled at such an extreme example of pointillism1. Nietzsche set to work on this issue with an unflagging intensity
and keenness. One of the products of his work was a full and sharp rebuke of the dominant religious thought of Nietzsche's setting; Christianity.

It is this aspect of Nietzsche that invariably garners the most attention, the
most respect and the most resentment. It is the concepts that fuelled this riposte against the Christian world's model that this paper considers.

Nietzsche was concerned with a psychological concept he called “ressentiment.” It is a psychological manifestation that can be most basically equated with resentment and the spirit of revenge. Ressentiment predates Christianity. It manifests as a reaction to the unfairness and unpleasantness people find as a condition of
the world they live in. It is the history of civilization to have ruling classes and slave classes. The slave classes are the breeding ground and nursery of ressentiment, for it is they (the vast majority) who have the most to be unhappy about. To Nietzsche, ressentiment is lowly and loathsome.

Before looking any further at ressentiment, it is appropriate to consider what Nietzsche thought of Jesus. It is crucial to note that Nietzsche did not consider Jesus to be literally the offspring off an omnipotent, omniscient being. In fact, Nietzsche didn't really give any credence to the notion of such a god, saying “In a formula: Deus, qualum Paulus creavit, dei negatio.”2

Jesus, though mortal, did achieve a kind of transcendence in Nietzsche's figuring. Jesus was capable of thinking outside his paradigm. Further, Jesus completely overcame the innate sense of ressentiment that has plagued humanity for millennia. This separates Jesus from all others in the Christian tradition, indeed from all
others in western history entirely.

Now, Nietzsche asserts that although Jesus overcame this ressentiment, in so doing he had made an extraordinary leap that his followers were not only incapable of achieving, but even of understanding. Herein lies the separation of Christ himself and the religion practiced in his name. Although Nietzsche cites the gospels of Matthew and Mark4 as well, it is primarily Paul against whom he levels his indignance. The philosopher Robert Anton Wilson has described the religion as being “hijacked” immediately after the death of Christ. Nietzsche would readily agree, accusing Paul of appropriating Jesus' credibility to further his own devices which are steered primarily by Paul's ressentiment.

Nietzsche strongly asserts that many things written about Jesus and his teachings by the apostles were corruptions of what Jesus was truly about. It was the nature of such misrepresentation that powered the popularity of Christianity, because it appealed to the slave mentality, filled with ressentiment, which so many could readily identify with. Christianity, as Paul built it up, sought to equalize conditions for the enslaved and developed many tools to do so.

Reconsider for a moment Nietzsche's famous statement “God is dead.” As previously stated, Nietzsche did not really believe in God as conceptualized in Christianity. For clarification, consider that “Nietzsche has in mind a number of things. One is the demise of belief-systems featuring something like the 'God-hypothesis,'
and of modes of interpretation and evaluation that turn out to be unable to stand on their own in the absence of such beliefs.”5 In short, his references to God are much a metaphor to Paul's constructs, which are considered lies by Nietzsche's understanding.

Removing these constructs would leave two millennia of western culture without a frame of reference, essentially without a moral compass; for it is God that stands as an absolute. It is the absolute of God that defines truth. Without this anchor, there is interpreted to be a vacuum and nature abhors a vacuum, even human nature.
What is to replace this void, then? Nietzsche works with the concept of “Perspectivism.”

This concept suggests that there are greater truths and lesser truths, both of which can be argued for the same notion. The value of truth is relative however, not absolute, and must be determined by the angle from which one views the issue
at hand, i.e. what their perspective is.

A decent metaphor can be made from international fi nance: Think of the
Christian God as the gold standard after World War Two, against which currencies had pegged rates. In 1973, the world converted to a sort of fi nancial perspectivism and left the gold standard, allowing rates to become fluid according to where you were spending your currency.

Nietzsche put much stock in science. Perhaps mostly because of its approach to understanding things; scientific method represents to Nietzsche a more valid way of considering the world. One can infer from his writing that science integrates well with Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism, for it seems to capture the greatest
amount of truth that can be garnered from the greatest number of vantage points or perspectives. He seems to dismiss the efforts of any philosopher or philosophy that either rejects or even fails to take into proper account,the contribution of science.

It is so commonly known, that it is nearly redundant6 to explain that Christianity has actively stood against science for aeons. Here again is a major problem for Nietzsche; the active suppression of any other way of looking at an issue except their own. Rigid and inflexible, the church is not only myopic and inferior to the nearly pan-optic eyes of science, but outright detrimental - a threat to society!

A common topic of science, when discussing Nietzsche, is Darwin. Clearly, Darwin's theory of evolution is in direct conflict with Christian ideas of creationism. There is more that makes Darwin enticing at this juncture, however. Evolution is commonly seen as relating to, or illustrating elements of Nietzsche's notion of will to
power.

Many misinterpret the will to power as a sensibility to go out and club the tar out of anybody who stands in one's way - claw your way to the top and remain king of the hill for as long as possible. Evolution presents us with a better measure of will to power. In evolution, survival is of the fittest. This
does not necessarily mean the fastest, highest and strongest, though admirable traits they are. Instead, evolution considers survival to be a function of the best adaptations to one's world. Those animals which best exploit their
environmental niches are the ones who, barring unforeseen circumstance, will outstrip all others. Will to power might be conceived of as the active adaptation and exploitation of the niches one finds themselves in. It is that drive that motivates our continuance through constant transformation. Such alignment with an obviously heretical idea pits Nietzsche again against the church.

There is a synergy at work between the aforementioned concepts of ressentiment, who Jesus was and what Christianity became, the death of God, perspectivism, science and the will to power. There is no meritable way of abridging the relationships of these concepts more than Nietzsche himself has done, therefore a brief assessment
of these considerations is called for.

In these considerations there is plenty to both fault and acclaim Nietzsche for. It may be a matter of interpretation and therefore entirely arguable, but his faults seem to stand out as more obvious. It is to some cons of his presentation, then, that attention will first be diverted.

Nietzsche likes to assert that he speaks with a sort of deferential objectivity. He stresses several times that his words have no “moralic acid” or “moral poison” - it's nothing personal, just the facts. But: one would be blind not to notice there are passages in The Antichrist where his sheer vehemence, even vitriol says otherwise. The principle of charity, as defined in the art of argumentation if not Christianity, could be well exercised on certain passages of Nietzsche's work.

Another concern that Nietzsche cannot address came after his death. Will to power, as identified with biological and Darwinian thought, leaves no room for the Christian idea of pity. It stands horrified by the notion of pity. Nietzsche was sure this (pity) was a most unnatural state. Ironically, field study shows that pity is a behaviour commonly exhibited by animals, (symbols of an unadulterated will to power), in the form of altruism, or leastwise pseudo-altruism. The term is applied within specific parameters in biology, but indicates more or less exactly what one should expect. This is a wonderful marriage of science and religion which adds a new layer of complexity to ontology/theology.

Strike three has to do with the relation of the slave classes, wherein Christianity flourished at its start and the ruling class (Romans) who represent will to power, lack of pity, science and the other things Nietzsche doesn't like about Christianity. Here he fails on a few fronts.

Firstly, Nietzsche states how quickly the Roman Empire is overrun by Christian mentality. This great, noble empire is simply swept aside by a flood of Paul's followers. One must disagree with such an interpretation. It was the blood of emperors that took the thrones, not the lineage of slaves. The science, technology, sociology and art of the empire represent a huge part of our culture today. It would be fair to say that the Romans assimilated Christianity to a large extent.

In as far as that, Christianity can be said to have assimilated Rome, too. In times to come, the church engaged in many acts of conquest under the guidance of its original dogma. The Christians may not have made it to the emperor's throne, but they did like the idea enough to invent their own throne, (the papacy). The more
one looks, the more one finds ways that Rome and Christianity learned from one another.

Truly when one gazes into the abyss, the abyss gazes back.

Nietzsche also fails to recognize that the success of this new church, this new way of thinking could be interpreted as a particularly forceful will to power. This may be because Nietzsche thinks of will to power as a trait of individuals, but it is unlikely. Such a lack of vision would be uncharacteristic of him.

All this in mind, one must still acknowledge the things Nietzsche did right. It wasn't for nothing that he was considered to be possibly the greatest thinker of the 19th century.* In balance to what has just been stated, one should take appreciation of what follows hereon...

It seems that many sources like to cite as a positive Nietzsche's lively, engaging and often humourous style. This surely should be granted: he is sparkling in how he lays out his ideas. Glitter is not a criteria with which one can support an argument however; consider these more substantial positive attributes...

His identification of ressentiment is a true and accurate description of the human condition. Nothing for humanity to be proud of, naturally, it is something we must all acknowledge. Christianity wrestles with this negative psychological phenomena as much as any atheist. In response, many Christians deny or ignore the accusation
of ressentiment, but it is a deception as much to themselves as to the world.

Another form of deception occurs through obfuscation and the suppression of knowledge, most glaringly illustrated in Christianity's refusal to acknowledge or somehow incorporate science throughout its history. Whether intended or not, the effect of not recognizing science is an implication of desire to control the masses,
maintain the status quo, enforce mediocrity and bring about what Robert Wilson called “a revolution of lowered expectations.”

Nietzsche also identifies the psychological craving for that personal immortality afforded by the Christian hereafter, wherein one is never forgotten and always accounted for by some beneficent being. In short, we want to be somehow special in existence. He accounts this as sentimentality and therefor weakness of will. Most
would readily agree that there is a definite comfort afforded by such an immortality. Yet desire - wishing for it - doesn't make it so. The concept is backed only by its presupposition. As previously stated, Nietzsche's lack of (argumentative) charity leads him to call it (this immortality or special personal recognition) a lie. The term “lie” is something of an inaccuracy, for it is still one of a myriad possibilities - albeit immensely unlikely.

In closing, Nietzsche was a brilliant person, despite a lack of academic manners. His bluntness and ego is best tolerated by considering him as actually funny – as the old saying goes “laugh or cry.” The fact that so many people cannot laugh, however, (and at that, mostly Christians), denotes an undue insensitivity which challenges many of us to defeat our own Ressentiment. It does not seem that this method of challenge was intentional. (He might have considered the maxim “One catches more fl ies with honey than with vinegar.”)

Specific misses on Nietzsche's part are forgivable, as nobody yet in history has hit perfectly and unerringly on what is to come. His ability to assess history allowed him to extrapolate a mode of thought that would run through society at least to the present and likely through the next couple generations.

Possibly the most unfortunate thing about Nietzsche is the sheer propensity for humanity to misinterpret him. Nietzsche sensed an impending paradigm shift in the West. He was indeed working for it. He himself suggests it would take longer than his life to achieve. In his time, he was radical and tried to think outside his
cultural milieu. Since he could not outwit his own Ressentiment, it is overwhelmingly likely he couldn't think outside his historical box.

His success, then, lies in the fact that he thought at the extreme edge of what the paradigm of his time would allow. At the moment of his writing, his words – his concepts – were so advanced that they could only truly be appreciated by a few.

Today, due to a series of factors, we have a different cultural milieu which allows for different thought. Society at large is now in a position to receive and work with Nietzsche's concepts. Certainly Nietzsche would be proud, were he here now, to see that his influence has reverberated through the last hundred years of Western thought and to know that his echoes sound louder as time passes.