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{{person|name=Friedrich Nietzsche|occupation=Philosopher|birthday=October 15, 1844|ethnicity=German<ref>https://culture.pl/en/article/was-nietzsche-polish</ref>|image=File:Nietzsche.jpg}} | {{person|name=Friedrich Nietzsche|occupation=Philosopher|birthday=October 15, 1844|ethnicity=German<ref>https://culture.pl/en/article/was-nietzsche-polish</ref>|image=File:Nietzsche.jpg}} | ||
'''Friedrich Nietzsche''' is an extremely influential 19th century German philosopher and [[protocel]]. | '''Friedrich Nietzsche''' is an extremely influential 19th-century German philosopher and [[protocel]]. While initially a nihilist, being a strong critic of tradition [[religion]] and other forms of objective morality, he eventually developed a "new" form of ethics based on overcoming weakness.<ref>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/</ref><ref>https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/the-troubled-relationship-between-nietzsche-and-postmodernism-de6d4de8ef1d</ref> | ||
His maxim of the eternal return posits that people should make decisions that result in a beautiful life that they would want to live for eternity. | |||
==Romantic life== | ==Romantic life== | ||
He was | He was rebuffed by every woman he approached and never had a genuine [[romance]].<ref>https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1305/did-nietzsches-philosophy-arise-from-his-lack-of-success-with-women/</ref> There have been predictable claims that he was [[homosexual]] in light of his lifelong bachelorhood, though there is no convincing textual or biographical evidence of this assertion.<ref>https://glreview.org/article/the-case-of-nietzsche/</ref> | ||
=== Syphilis === | |||
Likely owing to the controversial nature of his philosophy, several wild claims about Nietzsche's sexuality were made after his death. | |||
One of the most prominent claims is the idea that his late-life insanity was attributable to syphilis induced dementia.<ref>https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv4ncnxx.16</ref> | |||
In 1902 the German neurologist Paul Möbius published an influential but likely spurious case study of Nietzsche's mental health entitled "Neitzsche's Pathology" that claimed he died from syphilis he contracted from a hooker at a brothel.<ref>http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/jns/reviews/richard-schain.-the-legend-of-nietzsches-syphilisM/</ref> | |||
Nietzsche did receive a contemporary diagnosis of advanced syphilis after a mental breakdown that resulted in his admission to a sanitarium in Switzerland. | |||
Dr Leonard Sax, who authored a study regarding Nietzsche's death, has criticised this initial diagnosis. | |||
Sax concluded Nietzsche likely did not have syphilis as there were no tests for syphilis during his lifetime, and he did not exhibit most of the symptoms of late-term syphilis. Nietzsche also lived far longer after his 'diagnosis' than one would expect for a terminal syphilis patient (more than a decade).<ref>https://www.leonardsax.com/Nietzsche.pdf</ref> | |||
An autopsy was never conducted on his body, and thus the cause of his death is ultimately unknown. | |||
In more recent times, this claim was echoed by the psychiatrist Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, a fierce critic of Nietzsche's life and work. Lange-Eichbaum claimed Nietzsche's philosophy deserved partial responsibility for crafting the ideological underpinning of the Nazi movement and the Holocaust, despite Nietzsche vocally being largely opposed to the anti-semites of his era and certain beliefs of the Völkisch nationalists of his time, including his sister Elisabeth, who notably attempted to create a 'racially pure' and 'Jew free' settler colony named Nueva Germania in Paraguay together with her husband Bernhard Förster.<ref>https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3313279/Madness-of-Nietzsche-was-cancer-not-syphilis.html</ref><ref>https://reaction.life/elisabeth-nietzsche-nueva-germania/</ref> | |||
=== Alleged incest === | |||
In 1951 a book was published entitled "My Sister and I" that was ostensibly based on a manuscript written by Nietzsche in 1889-1890 during his stay in a mental asylum. Written in a similar tone and style to his other works, the book claims that Nietzsche had an incestuous sexual relationship with his sister Elisabeth and an affair with Cosima Wagner, the famous German composer Richard Wagner's wife (the latter claim being mirrored elsewhere). | |||
The work, sensational on its release, is widely considered to have been, in reality, authored by Nietzsche scholar Oscar Levy, though Levy's daughter denied this. The text contains several anachronisms that make it unlikely it was written by Nietzsche, and the text is generally dismissed by scholars as merely being a vulgar, pulpy forgery, though a minority claim it is authentic.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sister_and_I_(Nietzsche)</ref> | |||
=== Claimed sexual relationship with Cosima Wagner === | |||
During his lifetime Nietzsche had a close personal relationship with the German composer Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima (the daughter of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt), a relationship that soured significantly towards the latter stages of his life. | |||
Nietzsche engaged in heavy [[simp|simping]] on behalf of Cosima, despite her being married, and frequently brought gifts for her, chaperoned her, and even wrote poems and love letters in her name, with Nietzsche later proclaiming Cosima as his "wife" during his delerium before his death.<ref>https://www.afr.com/politics/friedrich-nietzsche-and-cosima-wagner-19891117-k3pey</ref> | |||
Nietzsche's clear romantic feelings for Cosima have led to claims that the relationship between the two was overtly adulterous, especially in light of the later fierce rivalry between Nietzsche and Richard Wagner. | |||
This rivalry was previously believed to be primarily brought about by Wagner's late-life Christian turn, as revealed by the Christian themes of his famous opera Parsifal, which irritated Nietzsche greatly, as he despised Christianity and its 'slave morality' exalting the weak and humble. Nietzsche accused Parsifal of resulting from Cosima's 'corruption' of her husband's worldview, indicating the ambivalent nature of his feelings towards her. | |||
Cosima's private diaries reveal her initial polite fascination and later contempt concerning Nietzsche and do not indicate any evidence of his romantic interest in her being reciprocated by her to any serious degree.<ref>http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/bio/cosima.htm</ref> | |||
==Misogyny== | |||
His writings contained many misogynistic phrases, some would argue, stemming from the many rejections he experienced at the hands of women. | |||
ess-of-Nietzsche-was-cancer-not-syphilis.html</ref> His philosophy contained many misogynistic phrases, some would argue as a result of the rejections he experienced at the hands of women. | |||
==Quotes on women== | ==Quotes on women== | ||