Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophical Outlook: The 'Will To Power' Is His Theory Of Salvation From Pain And Suffering
By Essar Mehdi
November
19, 2020
Friedrich Nietzsche
-------
Philosophy
is generally understood as the love of wisdom. And this wisdom can never have a
singular understanding. There has to have a plural meaning to wisdom. Devotion
to a monolithic understanding of wisdom and philosophy has led to exclusion of
many philosophies.
This query
was profoundly interrogated by Hamid Dabashi in his piece for Aljazeera
entitled as Can non-Europeans think? Though it was written seven years back it
did expose the Eurocentric bias towards different philosophies operating in
different regions. Wisdom after all, as Peter Adamson an American professor of
philosophy, says is where you see it. Walt Whitman, the famous American poet,
saw wisdom in every inch of space, Khalil Gibran found wisdom not in words but
“meaning within words”, William Blake experienced the entire world of wisdom in
a “grain of sand”, and Gandhi revived wisdom when he elevated politics to the
realm of spirituality. Man is not just “logical” and “rational”; man is also a
visionary, a mystic, a poet, and a wanderer. He can envisage wisdom in all
these pursuits and quests.
Friedrich
Nietzsche was a German philosopher whose wisdom and philosophy too was rejected
during his lifetime. His rejection of conventional morality and religious
values was conceived as antithetical to faith. Nietzsche himself came to view
God as a creation of man, not the other way around and saw faith diametrically
opposite to the pursuit of truth.
Though I
don’t consider Nietzsche’s ideas about religion true but interrogating them
would answer many questions that are yet to settle down. Nietzsche’s idea of
the Übermensch which is translated as “superman,” “superhuman,” and “overman”
had many takers across the world. George Bernard Shaw’s well-known play “Man
and Superman” was motivated by Nietzsche’s idea of a superman as he equated Übermensch with an overflowing “Life
force”. In the same vein, Allama Iqbal’s conception of “Mard-e-Mo’min” is believed to have Nietzschean influence. Although
there are many similarities between Nietzsche’s Übermensch and Iqbal’s Mard-e-Mo’min
but still there exist stark differences. Nietzsche’s Übermensch is devoid of
love and sympathy. He is brimmed with the lust for power and perceives piety as
the expression of the weak. On the other hand, Iqbal’s Mard-e-Mo’min is powerful but this power is supplemented by love,
the expression of the will is chastened through contemplation of the beautiful,
and “the arrogance of reason is curbed by the mellow wisdom of mystical
insight”. Nietzsche’s Übermensch
contemplates power as an end in itself while Iqbal’s Mard-e-Mo’min deliberates
power as means to a greater end. Nietzsche’s Superman is a fanatic whereas
Iqbal’s Mard-e-Mo’min is tolerant. Both Nietzsche and Iqbal envisage power as
an important feature of a perfect man. Yet, Nietzsche’s Superman has the “power
of coercion” and Iqbal’s Mard-e-Mo’min bears
the “power of persuasion”. Iqbal’s Mard-e-Mo’min
resists temptation while as, Nietzsche’s Superman falls for it. Nietzsche’s
perfect man deeply yearns for the “will to power” and longs for a world without
God, on the contrary, Iqbal’s perfect man exists only to “realize his personal
relationship with the God with whom he lives, works and talks.” Nietzsche’s Übermensch is above every law and
discovers the sources of law within himself, on the other hand, Iqbal’s
Mard-e-Mo’min cannot be a law unto himself. He can’t transgress the limits
imposed by the Divine Law. Moreover, Iqbal’s Superman goes beyond the earthly
bounds and touches the pinnacle of perfection that is known as Insan-i-Kamil.
Iqbal had absorbed Nietzschean philosophy very deeply as he prudently said
about Nietzsche in Payam-e-Mashriq
that “his heart is a believer though his brain is an infidel”.
Nietzsche
wrote extensively bringing to fore fundamentally new philosophical ideas. The
radical break from the past came to light with the publication of Nietzsche’s
book The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche argued in this book that the tragedy of
Ancient Greece was the highest form of art due to the mixture of an
intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian elements.
Nietzsche maintained that the fragile balance between the two has not been
achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians.
The
juxtaposition between the Dionysian and the Apollonian elements epitomizes the
delicate balance of power and piety, logic and emotion within Greek art of
tragedy. With the coming of Socrates and the philosophers who followed him,
this balance was shrugged apart. The reason was given primacy to such a degree
that the value of myth and suffering was relegated to the back-burner.
According to Nietzsche, the European culture since then been only Apollonian
signifying decadence, love for weak, and hatred for power.
Nietzsche’s
central philosophical outlook is the “will to power”. Nietzsche suggests that we
do things that make us feel powerful. Becoming the most powerful is the only
panacea that can lift man above sufferings. In his book “The Antichrist”
Nietzsche writes that “what is good? — All that heightens the feeling of power,
the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? — All that proceeds from
weakness. What is happiness? — the feeling that power increases — that a
resistance is overcome.”
Though
Nietzsche had many admirers but some well-known philosophers have scathingly
critiqued him. Bertrand Russell in his book “A History of Western Philosophy”
describes Nietzsche as an insecure man, motivated by hatred against
Christianity, and fear of moral values. Nietzsche according to Russell condemns
love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear. Although Russell’s critique is
genuine but rising above the pain and feeling the sense of painlessness doesn’t
mean hatred of love.
Nietzsche
experienced suffering throughout his life and he genuinely needed a philosophy
to counter that ineffable agony. He philosophized that one has to rise above
pain to feel painlessness. His will to power is basically his theory of
salvation from pain and suffering. After all, a philosopher and his philosophy
are the product of his time and Nietzsche was no exception.
Original Headline: Understanding Nietzsche's
Realm of Ideas
Source: The Greater Kashmir
New
Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism