By James Zheng
As a madman philosopher who brings shiver to Western philosophy and innovates the philosophical cognition of the world, and as a sheer critic of traditional philosophical theory, he is a celebrity in the history of philosophy who made the dreadful claim that “God is dead”: this is Friedrich Nietzsche.
In one of his works, Human, all too Human, he explores human nature from two aspects of potential and fatal defects. Despite his criticism of humankind as being “merciless,” the author finally expresses the hope that human nature can break free of social norms and become a person of free thought. His ultimate goal is summarized as what he calls the Free Spirit.
The writing structure of Human, all too Human is a collection of essays. I choose some quotations that I appreciate and think are worth analyzing.
“Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.” (It is pleasure, not adversity, that makes friends.) Nietzsche put forward that what makes people have a common cognition is not the same suffering but the sharing of interests. Even though it was generally believed that “adversity for individuals forges love,” Nietzsche didn’t take it.
“Not everyone likes to hear the truth being told in a pleasant way. I hope that at least no one will think that by speaking falsehood in an unpleasant way, falsehood will become truth.” The beginnings of these two sentences doesn’t match their endings, and it feels that the former part should change its meaning with the latter part, so the correct statement should be that the truth is said in an unpleasant way and the fallacy is said in the opposite. He reverses and satirizes this thought intentionally. People reject truth because truth is told in an unpleasant way since truth exposes things people wish to hide and are unwilling to admit, and falsehood is readily accepted by people since it is told in a pleasant way and is often what people wish to hear. Nietzsche expresses that people might confound the nature and substance of falsehood and truth. He pointed out that in society, truths are denied because truth itself is very difficult to say in a pleasant way; if it is said in a pleasant way, it will lose its uniqueness and make some people unhappy. On the basis of this, Nietzsche stated that he is afraid that those fallacies that would make people unhappy would be turned into truth.
“For an outright knower, knowledge is irrelevant.” There are two possibilities for Nietzsche to express his meaning: 1. For a person who can see through or fully grasp a certain ability, he no longer approves of the importance of this ability. 2. For a person who sees through everything, knowledge (in this case, knowledge presented by the outside world) is of no importance. There is transparently a contradiction, though the sentence still flows well.
From the three quotes, Nietzsche criticizes the major imperfections as the property of being egoistic, ignorant, and misguided. I like his destructive honesty. And though I cannot fully interpret his quotes in a most satisfying way, we can all be open-minded about what he originally meant by these quotes. At last, I hope these quotes could be edifying to you.
Humanity Editor: Doreen Yuan
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