Hence, if one were to decipher a basic or underlying approach to social reality which emanates from Nietzsche’s philosophy, it would be to pose a challenge to authority and tradition by virtue of his staunch opposition to anachronism and reactionary powers on one hand, and his criticism and deconstruction of Christian morality and Christianity in general on the other hand. Nietzsche’s view of Christian morality and Christianity in general can perhaps be summed up by the following statement:
“Morality is no longer the expression of the conditions of life and growth, no longer the most fundamental instinct of life, but it has become abstract, it has become the opposite of life, Morality as the fundamental perversion of the imagination, as the ‘evil eye’ for all things. What is Jewish morality, what is Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; unhappiness polluted with the idea of ‘sin’; well-being interpreted as a danger, as a ‘temptation’; physiological indisposition poisoned by means of the canker-worm of conscience…”
And at the opposite end of Christian morality and its “arrogance” and absurdity is art, as Nietzsche argued. Nietzsche wrote: “Here, in this extremest danger of the will, art approaches, as a saving and healing enchantress; she alone is able to transform these nauseating reflections on the awfulness or absurdity of existence into representations wherewith it is possible to live: these are the representations of the sublime as the artistic subjugation of the awful, and the comic as the artistic delivery from the nausea of the absurd.”
And while Nietzsche may come off as arrogant and haughty due to his unabashed and shameless employment of irony and sarcasm, Nietzsche does display a bit of humility by adding a bit of self-deprecation to his discourse. As Nietzsche wrote: “…Perhaps I am a buffoon…And none the less, or rather not none the less – for there has hitherto been nothing more mendacious than saints – the truth speaks out of me. – But my truth is dreadful: for hitherto the lie has been called truth. – Reevaluation of all values: this is my formula for an act of supreme coming-to-oneself on the part of mankind which in me has become flesh and genius.”
Nietzsche even prophesized or predicted the “Great Wars” that came soon after his death. And one of the reasons for why Nietzsche was able to prophesize or predict the obliteration of the power structures in Europe was because he was able to differentiate between appearance and reality and in turn “unmask” Christian morality and shed light on the prevailing ontological condition which was concealed by false appearances. As Nietzsche wrote: “The unmasking of Christian morality is an event without equal, a real catastrophe. He who exposes it is a force majeure, a destiny – he breaks the history of mankind into two parts. One lives before him, one lives after him…”
Ultimately, in the basic choice or tradeoff between reason and instinct, Nietzsche sided with instinct over reason. As Nietzsche argued: “Every error, of whatever kind, is a consequence of degeneration of instinct, disintegration of will: one has thereby virtually defined the bad. Everything good is instinct – and consequently easy, necessary, free. Effort is an objection, the god is typically distinguished from the hero (in my language: light feet are the first attribute of divinity.)”
Moreover, the Nietzschean deconstruction of Christianity and Christian morality as well as the Nietzschean realization that Western modernity and Christian morality cannot be reconciled and brought together leads to the famous “God is dead” proclamation of Nietzschean thought, which as part of the iteration of nihilism will be something that should be highlighted sometime later.
Adam A. Azim 