Nietzsche and Nihilism

All right,  I was thinking of writing another illuminating post to lift the ignorant toiling masses,  but that can wait for a brief comment on this post which commits the error of conflating Nietzsche with nihilism. This is a common error, yet one which arises not due to confusion regarding Nietzsche's works but due to deliberate mis-characterization by a generation of philosophers of diverse schools antagonistic to his idea.

The fundamental problem is that Nietzsche was not a Nihilist, rather he warned against the collapse of society in an orgy of Nihilism.

Nietzsche is popularly known for his critique of Christianity, however while he wrote devastating polemics against Christianity, most notably The Antichrist, his main preoccupations were attacking prevailing weltanschauung  in post Enlightenment Europe which can be broadly characterized as secular and rational, and

His argument essentially was that any philosophical system having discarded belief in existence of a God (or to be more specific Christian God), can not continue to assume a moral framework, which is founded upon the premise of existence of such God. This argument is best captured in his famous proclamation, "God is dead" .

His concern, as he wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, went further than the logical flaw in secular philosophy of Kant or Hegel . He worried, correctly in my view, that, having removed  "veil of God", civilized man may end up annihilating himself out of despair of the futility of existence*. Thus his admonitions about gazing into abyss and fighting the monsters .

He realized that post-Christianity Europe robbed of its purpose in form of Christian Eschatology , must be supplied with a new purpose, a new teleology so as to speak. Nietzsche accomplished this by appropriating Schopenhauer 's "will to live" (which was influenced by Vedanta and Buddhism , as was the norm for German Romanticists looking for world-view alternative to Christianity). In this he employed "theory of natural selection" , which since its introduction had revolutionized the philosophical landscape and held promise as alternative to traditional religion. Nietzsche fused the two to propose will to power. Explored in The Gay Science , Beyond Good and Evil , and Ecce Homo, his philosophy found full expression in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. There he introduced the concept of Ubermensch, which was the final goal of civilized man.

At the time he wrote the book, it didn't get many followers but by the turn of 20th century this idea gained wide currency owing to translations and reprints. This idea distorted through antisemitic literature appealed to Adolf Hitler combined this with pseudo scientific race theory to conceive of Aryan race which was to rule the world. Rest is a rather unfortunate history. One effect of this was Nietzsche became persona non Grata as far as philosophy was concerned.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to dismiss his concept of "becoming" . However his critique of secular and rational world view remains as relevant. This incidentally was my purpose for baiting earlier. Too bad it ended in non sequitur .

* This was not something unique to Nietzsche. This concern for nihilism is reflected in works of Fyodor Dostoevsky such as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment