The post Darwinian era was an age where many honest, thinking minds found it difficult or impossible to accept Christian theology. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was perceptive enough to see that the vacuum created by the collapse of Christian values would prove devastating for Europe. His Thus Spake Zarathustra[1] was published in 1883-85. A new messiah, an ‘ubermensch’, a higher man or overman was the need of this dark hour. Yeats captures the mood of the age in ‘The Second Coming’:
‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’[2]
Yeats was writing in 1919, in the aftermath of World War I. His words proved prophetic. World War II saw the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. German soldiers were given copies of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra during World War I and during the build up to World War II. Germany, humiliated by the Allies in World War I was ripe for Nietzsche’s superman. Both Hitler and Mussolini were ‘inspired’ by Nietzsche, though it is not clear how much of Nietzsche Hitler actually read. Hitler visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar several times. There are pictures of him standing next to Nietzsche’s bust. Nietzsche was never anti-Semitic and the idea of an organized idol state did not appeal to him (pp. 64-65) but the Nazis used his work selectively. Ideas like the overman, the master race, and the lords of the earth provided a justification for their ambition. Dostoevsky captures this unethical strain: In his novel The Brothers Karamazov,[3] the protagonist Ivan seems to feel that if there is no God, everything is permitted. The chapter called ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ is set in the fifteenth century. A hundred people have been executed the previous day. Jesus appears and every one rushes to him asking for mercy and miracles. The Inquisitor throws Jesus in jail and tells Him not to speak, to add nothing to what He has said already. He must give no excuse for granting men free will or try to justify His glorification of suffering. The rules have changed. Satan is in command because he makes men happy, gives them dominion over earth:
‘Why hast Thou come to hinder us...We are not working with Thee, but with him(Devil) – that is our mystery...we took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar and proclaimed ourselves rulers of the earth...we shall triumph, and shall be Caesars, and then we shall plan the universal happiness of man’[4]
The discipline of living within a common moral code is a relic of the dead past so it is back to the law of the jungle. Nietzshe rephrases this to: ‘nothing is true, all is permitted.’[5] Existential thinkers like Sartre, Camus and Kierkegard took a different track. They wrote about the dilemma of existence and what came to be known as the existential ‘angst’ (anxiety). Sartre’s work is an acceptance of a Godless existence. His ‘solution’, like that of Russell is a humanist ethic. All we can aspire to is ordinary, everyday human decency. Camus uses the myth of Sisyphus to express the hopelessness of human life: Sisyphus is cursed by the Gods to push a huge boulder to the top of a mountain. As soon as he reaches the peak, the boulder comes crashing to the base and Sisyphus has to start pushing the rock to the top again. This cycle goes on for an eternity.[6] Camus’ ‘Etranger’ (stranger) is ‘alienated’, out of sync with his environment, a misfit in his social milieu.[7] Kierkegaard, a deeply religious man, expressed his anguish as an ‘either/or’: Accept the old, flawed morality or face the anguish of living without God. The post war era was scarred by the raw hunger and desperation of hundreds of thousands of homeless destitutes living on the streets with nowhere to go. To use a phrase of Franz Fanon, Europe was littered with the human debris of ‘the wretched of the earth’. Countries like Poland went through the fire first with the Nazis and then with the Soviets. The ‘scorched earth’ policy of the Russians created vast acres of dead land pock marked by the dust of pillaged home and farms.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, touted as the solution to the moral chaos in the Christian world, ended up as a part of the problem. His prophet is closer to Yeats’ ‘rough beast’ than to future human perfection; a thinly veiled disguise for Nietzsche himself. Swamiji’s thesis that every evolution is followed by an involution is proved by Nietzsche: After Jesus of Nazareth, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra! Nietzsche had this to say about why he chose the Persian prophet:
“People have never asked me, as they should have done, what the name Zarathustra precisely means in my mouth, in the mouth of the first Immoralist; for what distinguishes that philosopher from others in the past is the very fact that he was exactly the reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the metaphysical, as force, cause, end in itself, was his work...Zarathustra created the most portentous error, morality, consequently he should also be the first to perceive that error...all history is the experimental refutation of the theory of the so called moral order of things...To tell the truth and to aim straight : that is the first Persian virtue...The overcoming of morality through itself – through truthfulness, the overcoming of the moralist through his opposite – through me –: that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.” (Nietzsche, p.13-14)
There is no denying Nietzsche’s intellectual brilliance. The problem is his ethic, his values. Nietzsche discards Christian morality and the utilitarian, democratic, rational, ‘thou not I’ ethic based on it. This is slave morality. The Christian ethic has ceased to be a valid foundation for thinking men. Pity and compassion are dead abstractions. Man has become weak through dependence on salvation from outside himself. Nietzsche ‘transvalues’ the Christian ethic and replaces it by a cult of individuality and a language of self. Each one of us must get in touch with the depths of his soul and create his own destiny .We need to develop a personal ethic, rules which will govern our life. Every man is a law unto himself and creates his own values. We are free spirits and need no outside morality. There is no universal morality. All we have is interpretations of morality. Nietzsche rejects Kant’s categorical imperative; i.e. treating others as ends in themselves and not as a means to our personal goals.[8] Our primal instinct is the will to power. Exploiting others to serve our goals is a sign of strength. Nietzsche either ignores or treats the ordinary individual with contempt. The herd is meant to serve great individuals like Goethe and Napoleon.
The old ethic assumed that the ordinary human being was rational, would pursue happiness and work to get the most out of life because he had free will. This is not true. There is chaos in our hearts. We are tethered to nihilistic primal instincts over which we have little or no control. The idea of the unconscious had been around since the eighteenth century. Nietzsche uses it to bring out the dark irrational elements in man’s soul. The aggressive, violent, primitive chaos at the core of our being must be transformed into ‘a dancing star.’ We are not made in the image of God. The face that stares back at us from the mirror is evil. This is our deepest reality. Evil is good. Suffering fuels achievement. Weakness both inside our psyche and outside is contemptible. The values which we create for ourselves should be so grand that they are a work of art and can be repeated eternally like a Beethoven symphony.
Nietzsche’s grand vision is partly subjective: He was a man of poor health and physique: He celebrates warriors and war like qualities. He did not get much recognition and appreciation for his work. Even the few copies of his books that he commissioned could not be distributed; the ordinary person becomes a thing of contempt, too stupid to understand his lofty ideas. He had a gentle streak when it came to animals: He was outraged when he saw a horse being whipped in the street. Nietzsche tried to stop the beating and actually put his arms around the animal. As a result, he collapsed in an epileptic fit and had to be committed to a psychiatric facility. His health was poor and his eyesight dim. His brain collapsed during the last ten years of his life and he was declared insane. These adverse circumstances embittered him. Beethoven wrote his beautiful ninth symphony based on Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ when he was completely deaf. Nietzsche created Zarathustra.
How does Nietzsche portray his Zarathustra? He is ‘a seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, a bridge to the future. (p.168) ‘He is a ‘Roman Caesar with the heart of Christ,’ a higher being. It is difficult to understand how you can logically have the heart of Christ when you reject Christianity. “Behold Zarathustra! Walketh he not amongst us as if amongst animals?’ (p.107) Zarathustra stands out from the rabble.” Men are not equal “and neither shall they become so. (p.123) Swami Vivekananda says ‘you are what you feel. If you feel like Christ, you are Christ.’ Would Jesus have said that he walked among men as among animals? Zarathustra is the ‘awakened one’ in ‘the land of the sleepers.’ Nietzsche draws up a triangular structure: the wide base is populated by the insignificant superfluous ones, the ‘herd.’ Their only purpose in life is to serve, obey and sacrifice themselves for the superman. A little higher are the companions of the superman. They have the qualities of warriors. They seek out their enemies and wage wars with courage. It is war that sanctifies every cause. At the pinnacle stands the superman in his solitary splendour:
‘Thou (Zarathustra) goest the way to thy greatness; here shall no one steal after thee! Thy foot itself hath effaced the path behind thee, and over it standeth written: Impossibility’ (p.184)...I will have hedges around my thoughts, and even around my words, lest swine and libertine should break into my gardens! (p.226)
Those who cannot be taught to fly must be taught ‘to fall faster. ‘(p.248)
This is the mark of a Caesar according Nietzsche. Russell‘s criticism of Nietzsche’s superman theory is scathing:
‘...the superman’s desires and pleasures and pains are so immeasurably more intense than those of ordinary men that they contribute more to the total than those of millions of the “bungled and botched,” as Nietzsche calls them...vanity and conceit furnish the definition (of the superman): I am, of course, a superman, and I must admit enough people of approximately equal merit to give the group a chance of surviving the indignation and ridicule of the rest. But this is not a theory; it is a myth generated by megalomania.’[9]
Reading Nietzsche in conjunction with Swami Vivekananda is a discipline like no other. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra does not speak simple, direct English like Swami Vivekananda. He ‘spake’/’speaketh from an invisible pulpit throughout the prologue and all four parts of the book. The style is dramatic and aphoristic. Nietzsche speaks in metaphors which contradict each other. Vivekananda expresses complex ideas in a way that everyone can understand. He has this amazing way of becoming one with people at different levels of intelligence, education, morality and spirituality. It is only when you read and re read him that a familiar word or sentence takes on new meaning. Non thinkers are a blessed lot: there is hope for a man with a little heart. Dry intellectualism is dust. Vivekananda leaves the door open for everybody:
“Thou art the man, Thou art the woman, Thou art the strong man walking in the pride of youth, Thou art the old man tottering on crutches. Thou art in everything. Thou art everything O Lord.”[10]
There is no difference between the greatest man and the lowliest worm. Everything in the universe, everyone in the universe, man, animal, insect, bird – are all He, are all God. Each soul must come to truth and freedom at last, some sooner than others. The squirrel that brings his tiny quota of sand to build Sri Rama’s bridge is as great as the mighty monkeys. The little birds who hurl themselves into the fire to feed their guests are just as moral as the sanyasin. (1.50, 51) There are other differences. It never occurs to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra that he needs to modify and rethink his ideas, that perhaps people reject his teachings because they are unethical and elitist. Vivekananda is emphatic about each person being responsible for his fate. When we are faced with failure and rejection, we need to change ourselves and try harder:
“...when we have nobody to grope towards, no devil to lay our blame upon, no Personal God to carry our burdens, when we are alone responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best. I am responsible for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil...I have neither death nor fear...the body is not mine, nor am I subject to the superstitions and decay that come to the body, I am Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Absolute; I am the Blissful One, I am the Blissful One, I am the Blissful One.” (2.202)
For Nietzsche, the ‘I’ is sacred., for Vivekananda, the ‘I’ is universal, the sum total of all the souls in the universe. It is holy because we are all part of one infinite existence. I must love my neighbour as myself because he and I are one.
[1] Nietzsche, Friedrich, (2009), Thus Spake Zarathustra (,Mumbai: Wilco Press)
[2] Yeats, William Butler (1920) .Michael Robartes and the Dancer, Churchtown, Dundrun: The Chuala Press. Full text at www.PotW.org.
[3] Dostoevsky, Fyodor, (2004) Translated by Constance Garnette, Maire Jaanus, The Brothers Karamazov, (New York: Barnes & Noble))
[5] Nietzsche, op. cit, p.309
[6] Camus, Albert (1955). The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, translated by Justin O’Brian (London: Hamilton)
[7] Camus, Albert (1988) The Stranger, (New York: Knopf)
[8] Kant Immanuel, (1989) “Good Will, Duty and Categorical Imperative,” ed. Anthony Sefaris, Ethics and Social Concern, (New York: Paragon House): ‘Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.’
[9] Russell, Bertrand,(2010) Human Society in Ethics and Politics, ( London: Routledge Classics), p. 59
[10]The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9, 1997), 2. 211 Davidson,Pramila,"Plato's Allegory of the Cave," Prabuddha Bharata,August 2009
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