ovid10

ovid10 t1_j1rh33z wrote

Nietzsche was about desconstructing all categories of things. He was pointing out how much of what we believe is false, and often manufactured to serve a purpose. Which was sort of part one of his project - philosophizing with a hammer as he put it. The real point of his work is, once those categories are destroyed and you can no longer rely on them, how do you address the void? His ideas on a will to power was a way to keep going in spite of this void. He’s not a nihilist - he was attempting to address how one responds to nihilism (with the decay of institutions, namely the Church, the questions of nihilism would naturally arise to people back then.) You have to view everything in context of the larger project, not just individual sections or quotes.

He was also obviously very influential on other thinkers like Frankl and Foucault. If you get into Foucault, having more familiarity with Nietzsche can help (although, I’ll say it took me about 4 readings of selected Foucault works before I had a clue of what he was doing. Once you get it, it kinda clicks and it’s hard to unlearn, but he was doing something similar to Nietzsche in deconstructing things.)

Note: It’s also important to realize that he was co-opted by the Nazis partly via selective editing from his sister after he went insane and died. She may have been a Nazi or she may have just been trying to survive in Germany, but the effect is the same.

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