Nietzsche was a pussy.

There, I said it.

For a guy who was one of the first people in history to have the balls to say “God is dead” he sure did espouse a lot of the same hopes for the future as religion does.

I mean, come on, his whole übermensch idea is such a crock of shit. He claimed that humans would rise up and no longer be as animals and instead of being the created, become the creators. Through rejection of classical religious philosophy, he believed man would be able to transcend the chaotic animalistic nature inherent in their biology. He tried to accomplish as much through his work, hoping and scraping every moment to be remembered as the original übermensch.

He may as well have been hoping to be the first person to attain eternal life through following scripture. One only has to look at human history in the time since he posited such ideas to see that humans will likely never escape their barbaric and biological nature. For thousands of years we have slit each others throats in mad grabs for influence and power. Even Nietzsche himself was as much of a slave to his animal biology as anyone else, an often bitter and angry figure.

Closely tied to his concept of übermensch were his ideas about active and reactive forces. He considered people who had original, outlandish ideas to be active forces in the world. Positive forces which drove change in society. He considered reactive forces to be unoriginal thought, sheep-like in quality. He made the assumption that only certain people, pathetic people, had thoughts that were made in reaction to what they experienced in life.

What makes this patently absurd is Nietzsche’s inability to admit to himself that his ideas are just as reactive as anyone’s. All thought stems from the experiences an individual has in their life, and those experiences shape and form lines of thought. His ideas would be much different if his life experiences had been different.

He had a failure to recognize that all human thought is reactive, even down to a molecular level. Nietzsche was reacting to the time period in which he lived as much as you or I respond to the time periods in which we live.

In that way, Nietzsche and I are a lot alike.

Except, I’m not a pussy.