Part II. The Psychology of Friedrich Nietzsche as a Psychopathological Problem

In Nietzsche's world of ideas is revealed an impulse to destruction, which in his judgment of certain points of view and convictions, allowed him to go far beyond what appears psychologically comprehensible in a critic. It is indicative that by far the greatest part of all Nietzsche has written is the result of this drive for destruction. In the Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy, the entire Western cultural development from Socrates and Euripides to Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner, is presented as a path of error. The Unzeitgemässen Betrachtungen, Untimely Observations, on which he began work in 1873, was started with the decided intention “to sing off the entire scale” of his “enmities.” Of the twenty observations planned, four were completed. Two of these are warlike writings which, in the most cruel manner, ferret out the weaknesses of the opponent Nietzsche attacks, or of the opinions unsympathetic to him, without bothering in the least about the relative justification of the one assailed. Of course, the other two are hymns of praise of two personalities; nevertheless, in 1888 Nietzsche not only retracted everything (in the Fall Wagner, Case of Wagner) he had said in glorification of Wagner in 1876, but Wagner's art, which he first praised as the salvation and rebirth of the entire Western culture, he later represented as the greatest danger for this culture. And he also writes about Schopenhauer in 1888, “In this sequence he has interpreted art, heroism, genius, beauty, the will for truth, the tragedy, as consequential appearance of negation or the need for negation of the ‘will,’ and this, with the exception of Christianity, is the greatest psychological forgery in history. More carefully considered, in this he is merely the heir to Christian interpretation, only that he still knew how to sanction what was rejected by Christianity and the great cultural facts of humanity in a Christian, that is, in a nihilistic sense.” Therefore, even in face of things he once had admired, Nietzsche's sense of destruction, or drive toward destruction, does not rest. In the four writings which appeared from 1878 to 1882, the tendency to destroy established points of view outweighs all that Nietzsche himself brings forth as positive. For him it is of absolutely no consequence to search for new insights; he would much rather shake up those already existing. In 1888, he writes in his Ecce Homo about the work of destruction which he began in 1876 with his Menschliches Allzumenschliches Human, All Too Human, “One error after another is calmly laid upon ice; the ideal is not refuted— it freezes to death. Here, for example, freezes the genius; in another corner further on, freezes ‘the saint;’ under a thick icicle freezes ‘the hero;’ at the end freezes ‘the faith,’ the so-called conviction; sympathy also cools off considerably. Almost everywhere freezes the ‘thing in itself’ ...” “... Human, All Too Human, with which I prepared for myself a very quick, sudden end to all dragged-in, higher, cheating, ‘idealism,’ ‘beautiful feeling,’ and other womanlinesses ...” This drive for destruction incites Nietzsche to pursue with almost blind anger the victims upon whom he has thrown himself. He brings out judgments against an idea, against a personality whom he believes he must reject judgments which are not at all in relation to the reasons he offers for his rejection. The way he pursues opposing opinions does not differ in degree, but merely in manner from that in which typically argumentative people pursue their opponents. It is less a matter of the content of the judgment which Nietzsche brings forth. Often one can justify the content. But in those cases where doubtless he was justified to a certain degree, one will have to admit that the way he reached his judgments represents a distortion in a psychological sense. Only the fascination of his form of expression, only the artistic treatment of language can cast a veil of deception over the facts. But Nietzsche's intellectual lust for destruction becomes especially clear when one considers how few positive ideas he is able to bring against the points of view which he attacks. He makes the assumption that all of culture up to the present has brought about a completely false ideal of humanity; to this objectionable type of human being, he opposes his idea of the “superman.” As an example of a superman there floats before him a real destroyer, Cesare Borgia. To imagine such a destroyer in an important historical role gave him real, spiritual pleasure. “I see before me the possibility of a perfect super-earthly magic and charm of color; it appears to me that it shines in all its dreadfulness of refined beauty, that an art is at work, so divine, so divinely devilish, that one would search in vain for thousands upon thousands of years for a second such possibility. I see a drama so rich in sensuality, and at the same time so marvelously paradox, that all the deities in Olympus would have had occasion for immortal laughter—Cesare Borgia as Pope ... Does anyone understand me? Well, that would have been the victory for which I long today; with that Christianity was done away with.” (Nietzsche's Works, German Edition, Volume VIII, p. 311) How Nietzsche's sense for destruction outweighs his constructiveness shows itself in the disposition of his last work, in his Umwertung aller Werte, Transvaluation of All Values. Three-quarters of it were to be purely negative work, He offers a destruction of Christianity under the title Der Antichrist, The Antichrist; an annihilation of all present philosophies which he called a “nihilistic movement,” under the title, Der freie Geist, The Free Spirit; and an annihilation of all previous moral concepts, in The Immoralist. He called these moral concepts “the most fateful form of ignorance.” Only the last chapter announces something positive: Dionysus, PhilosoPhie der Ewigen Wiederkunft, Philosophy of the Eternal Return (Nietzsche's Works, German Edition, 1897, Volume VIII, Appendix, p. 3). He has been able to fill only this positive part of his philosophy with any substantial content.