So... Nietzsche's NOT evil??

I imagine I'm not the only person out there who, for a long time, knew of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche but had this strange vague impression that he stood for "nothingness." I knew he said useful things such as, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," and "God is dead." Maybe he hated women? Someone once told me that Ayn Rand studied Nietzsche and hated him. Other than that, I was just not exposed.

So, imagine my surprise when I actually studied him in a Philosophy class. I'm working my way into a Philosophy Grad program, and I've had a life-long love of philosophy, but I just never read much existentialism. I blame Kant. I attempted to read him in the budding days of my interest and was left utterly confused by his convoluted "Critique of Pure Reason" (which CLEARLY requires prerequisites). Basically, at that point, Nietzsche became one of those people who don't even believe in reality or logic.

I was lucky enough to get an Existentialism professor who had written a lot about Nietzsche and had a passion for his philosophy. His introduction to this part of our class included words such as "life-affirming" and "positive atheist." The prof went on to talk about how Nietzsche's goal was to OVERCOME Nihilism. What?? I thought he invented the stuff!

Soon, I felt like I was reading letters from a long lost friend. I felt a special bond between myself and the long-dead writer because he seemed to be writing about Atheism from my perspective. He talked about the detrimental qualities of religion, and the will to power seemed to be a poetic and genius explanation of the world as it is. Things I had often felt in my heart were suddenly appearing on these pages of 100-year-old text. For the first few weeks I wished that I could have read his work much sooner in my life. For the past few weeks, I have been thankful that we were able to "meet" when I was at a more intellectually-mature age - otherwise, the 14-year-old me might have run off to join some Nietzsche cult. Throughout the class, I learned the actual meaning of Nihilism, and Nietzsche's desire to move beyond that into a life in which one creates their own values and meaning for life. He is even an idealist at times.

We actually discussed Nietzsche's influence (and it is a huge one) on Ayn Rand, and I found myself wondering if maybe she misinterpreted some ideas that brought her to despise him. (My professor seems to think this was the case.) Hey - I can't blame her - I misinterpreted all existentialists for a long time. Their differences, at least, are far fewer than I had been lead to believe and their similarities striking.

Most of all, this was such a FUN part of the class. Yay for knowledge! :)

S.A.M.