Sunday, July 2, 2006
Nietzsche contra Evola
I realise that this subject has been touched upon before but I wish to explore this using primarily the writings and thoughts of Julius Evola and Friedrich Nietzsche, although hopefully not exclusively.
It is common knowledge that Nietzsche held in disdain the idea of "god" and sought the deification of a certain type of man into a new being, the Superman.
"Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead![Zarathustras Prologue, part 2, Thus Spake Zarathustra]
Nietzsches conclusion that God is dead inevitably leads to the conclusion that man and man alone is the pinnacle of earthly existence. However within the species of man it is necessary to differentiate by both race to race and man to man. In short a hierarchy is called for.
"God hath died: now we do desire-the superman to live."[Chapter 73, Thus Spake Zarathustra].
Nietzsche saw the Superman as the meaning of the earth and everything accordingly must be subordinated to his awakening and arrival.
In essence he is the function of the Will to Power and domination.
Evola criticises this approach. "One can see from this that Nietzsches nihilism stops halfway. It sets up a new table of values, including a good and an evil."[Ride The Tiger]. There is the dichotomy. In the elimination of "god" and the affirmation of the Superman concept Nietzsche far from going "beyond good and evil" creates a new Weltanschauung with its own set of values, in essence a form of "good and evil".
Evola added "A true nihilism does not spare even the doctrine of the Superman."[Ride The Tiger].
Yet Evola in his way was proposing his own form of "Superman" through his "Doctrine of Awakening". Yet Evola did not reject the concept of "god" at all but through his Awakened One sought a synthesis between the human and the divine.
Are both doctrines of the Superman irreconcilable?
Is the concept of the Superman something to be desired, rejected or something that we should dread?
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