Nietzsche’s World: Historical, Cultural, and Philosophical Foundations
Nietzsche’s Historical, Cultural, and Philosophical Contexts
Historical Background: 19th and 20th Centuries
The historical background spanning the 19th and 20th centuries is characterized by a disparity of approaches, largely driven by significant social, cultural, and political events. Industrialization was a foundational characteristic of this era. While it was hoped that industrialization would alleviate human misery and foster a social order promoting cultural and moral development, it instead led to significant worker exploitation and precarious living conditions. This resulted in widespread impoverishment, the emergence of a new working class (the proletariat), and the enrichment of a few factory owners, forming the new capitalist class (the bourgeoisie).
The demand for raw materials fueled colonialism, leading to the conquest of territories on other continents. The European way of life became increasingly urban, and populations multiplied rapidly. The political doctrine of nationalism surged, advocating belief in the superior virtues of one’s own nation and its right to fight and prevail over others. Colonialism also found a political basis in nationalist ideals. This nationalism underpinned conflicts between nations, leading to World War I. Nationalism and racist ideologies later inspired Hitler’s policies, triggering World War II.
Politically, liberalism emerged as a vindication of the principle of freedom. Economic liberalism, which formed the basis of capitalism, became particularly significant. Another political movement, traditionalism, arose, asserting the historical past and the values of tradition and race. Socialist and anarchist political doctrines also gained traction.
Cultural Landscape: Romanticism, Positivism, Vitalism
The 19th century was profoundly shaped by Romanticism and Positivism. Romanticism, a cultural and aesthetic movement, reacted against Enlightenment rationalism. It emphasized the value of feeling, intuition, and imagination as gateways to understanding the world. Positivism emerged as a counterpoint to Romanticism’s excesses, advocating a new vision of reality rooted in objective facts, which led to the rise of literary realism.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Vitalism, a philosophical current associated with Nietzsche, asserted life itself as the primary and radical reality. Furthermore, the dissemination of culture expanded through:
- Efforts against illiteracy
- Compulsory primary education
- The proliferation of newspapers and magazines
- Increased cultural creation within universities
Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context and Influences
Nietzsche’s vitalism championed the primacy of will over reason and offered a profound moral critique of Kantian philosophy. He rejected Enlightenment values and its defense of speculative reason. Instead, vitalism conceives life as a creative act, an exaltation of instincts, unconscious drives, and non-rational intuition.
Nietzsche is considered one of the great “masters of suspicion,” who, alongside Marx and Freud, suspected that dark interests lay hidden beneath the values of modernity and Western culture. Each contributed uniquely to this perspective:
- Marx formulated historical materialism as a tool to uncover class interests.
- Freud developed methods to access irrational motivations.
- Nietzsche, in turn, identified the will to power and the resentment of the weak against the strong as hidden forces behind the moral values of Western civilization.
Among his key influences, Heraclitus stood out. Nietzsche admired Heraclitus for recognizing that the “self” is an empty fiction, and that “reality” is a constant flux, governed by the law of opposites, exemplified by the Apollo-Dionysus opposition.