The Lesson from a Mad Man; Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche, one of the most famous modern philosophers, believed that the world was a sad and sorrowful place, devoid of meaning. Yet he still found value in it, through human ability to change and...

This post was written by James Tracy who publishes his Stoic content on Everyday Ponderings on Substack

Nietzsche, one of the most famous modern philosophers, believed that the world was a sad and sorrowful place, devoid of meaning. Yet he still found value in it, through the human ability to change and control what goes on around us. 

Today we are going to be looking at one of Nietzsche’s works, “The Parable of the Madman”. In this work, Nietzsche discusses the death of God, and how it might impact the world. When Nietzsche proclaims God dead, he follows it with this statement; “ What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?”. (The Gay Science -Nietzsche).¹

Now when Nietzsche speaks of the “death of God” he is not just speaking as to how it would cause a crisis of meaning and morality, but also, to how it would allow for the opportunity for people to tear down their preexisting moral conceptions and replace them with values more aligned to human creativity and perspectivist² thinking; “One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star." ( Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche)³

We can take what Nietzsche is saying about God; that his death would result in a loss of direction for humanity, and apply it more broadly to our own lives. We often perceive the world through an unchanging lens, our definitions of right and wrong strict and unyielding, and our desires and wants, although malleable, remain narrow in scope. Nietzsche, in his writings, calls us to question this rigid view of the world and shows us his nuanced view of ethics and his rejection of dogmatic thinking. By destroying the lens through which people view the world (God), and the chaos that it causes, he exposes our reliance on a single point of view.

In order to help us overcome this all too common flaw in human thinking, we must learn how to question things from multiple perspectives, to derive meaning from statements in more than one way. In the words of Nathan Schlueter “...you’re going to have to get used to asking questions that might make you a little bit uncomfortable.”

And so, I leave you with this; The next time you find yourself passing a moral judgment, I encourage you to view the scenario through many different perspectives.

Thank you all for reading, this was a fun one. Until next week,

Stay curious,

-J.P.

1. https://s3.amazonaws.com/saylordotorg-resources/wwwresources/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/PHIL304-4.3.2-ParableoftheMadman.pdf

2. the theory that knowledge of a subject is inevitably partial and limited by the individual perspective from which it is viewed.

3. https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil394/Thus%20Spoke%20Zarathustra.pdf