I’ve been reading that, perhaps, Friedrich Nietzsche doesn’t deserve the unqualified admiration many, including me, have afforded him. His narrative flair, admonition to become; to rise above the masses and his denigration of the humble subservience, the ‘slave morality’ the church imposes, was, and still is I suppose, heady stuff for energetic youth who see before them boundless opportunity once they break free of the shackles of their controlling elders. I guess the problem becomes, how many friends and relatives end up under the bus as our young Nietzschean races toward becoming all she can be.

Our young pursuer of truth doesn’t realize, I guess, that Nietzsche’s ‘Overman’ is beyond her reach, the amoral purveyor of ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ will without second thought cast her into the abyss alongside her fellow inferiors. Our philosopher’s dismissal of moral proprieties, advocacy for the advancement of a dominant ‘higher man’ and elimination of the decaying races was philosophical fodder upon which the fascist evils of the 20thl century fed.

There’s no doubt Nietzsche was a great intellect (with an ego that matched). It’s unfortunate his social isolation or, perhaps, his austere Christian upbringing took him down such a pessimistic path. What would it have taken, I wonder, for him to have found true human compassion?