"No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink." - Nietzsche
In this quote, from the “Ubermensch” category from the website, Nietzsche talks about the sad state of humanity. In the lecture, Professor Murdaco mentioned that Nietzsche believed that man was living under a “spiritual sickness”. One can see here exactly what this means. Man is a leaderless mob; it has no “shepherd” to lead this one, colorless herd. Conformity is rampant in this society, as no person has the courage to think differently. The individual needs to be set free. Everyone lives the same way: they go to work for their full-time job, has a little pleasure during the day, then a little at night, but one must remember to always live healthy and morally. This type of life is a manufactured, plastic happiness, one invented by men themselves to make everyone believe that it will bring fulfillment.
Reading this quote, I could not help but think of modern times. Nietzsche was writing in the late nineteenth century and considered life during that time to be a conformist blur; every man was a drone with no individuality. But today it’s clear that the life that Nietzsche hated, the life of full-time drudgery, with a little pleasure thrown in, has become the accepted norm. This is true not just in Europe and the US, but also around the world. There are no radical ideologies anymore to really compete with this vision. What would Nietzsche think about this? Most likely, he would not be content with it, being completely disenchanted with mankind.
But I also couldn’t help but think that maybe certain people crave this type of lifestyle. Nietzsche argues that this type of life is an “invention of happiness” but is this really true? Many people true find happiness in this type of life and the failure of ideologies like Communism and Fascism shows that maybe the previous types of living, in which man was supposed to be set free, were wrong. Also, Nietzsche arguably underestimates the influence of conformity under such a society. Under such a society, there are numerous examples of brilliant thinkers, innovators, leaders, etc. The previous examples of “Ubermensch” only led their people to disasters, like Hitler - as Professor Murdaco wrote, Nietzsche’s ideas influenced the Nazi thinkers later on.
Germany essay:
In the following, I will be discussing the government of Germany. Germany is officially called the “Federal Republic of Germany” though most people just called it “Germany”. In earlier years, it was called the “German Empire” or the “German Reich”. As a government type, it is considered a federal republic, meaning that the central government has some powers which is shares with different states.
Though we think of Germany as just one country of the similar people, in reality Germany has sixteen states. The country was formed in 1871 from a number of states and many of these states have kept their unique ways. One can see how this state mentality is important in the government of Germany. Germany has a legislative branch of two houses, one of which is the Bundesrat. This is a collection of state governments, who have to vote as a bloc. The other house is the Bundestag, which is just a collection of politicians of parties who have gained over 5% of representation. So the German system is somewhat similar to the US’, in that they have two houses. However, Germany has more of a state-focused system.
The chancellor of Germany is Angela Merkel, who is in the Christian Democratic party. The CDU is the leading party in the Bundestag, with 33% of the votes. The second one is the Social Democrats with 23%. The head of state is Joachim Gauck, who became this in 2012. In the government, business associations and employers’ organizations, as well as trade unions, religious, immigrant, expellee and veterans groups are the most important.
About your Nietzsche Quote Analysis essay:
ReplyDeleteI agree with that Nietzsche's thought of people's way of life and lack of happiness is wrong. Some people do enjoy the predicable everyday of life and there is room for them in these days. There is also room for the person who wants to think outside the box and do something what people consider crazy. An example of this is could be Steve Jobs and what he did with apple. People thought he was crazy to envision apple becoming what it is today. But without people like Steve Jobs our society becomes stagnant.
Yes, actually the Steve Jobs example is precisely what I was contemplating when I wrote my analysis. Nietzsche argues that the confines of society lead us all to be such pathetic conformists but I don't know if I would argue with this. I would argue our society actually allows us to release our individual energies. On the contrary, it is other ideologies like Communism, Fascism, etc., that try to stifle the individual and view humanity as one big, massive, colorless mass. I think there is lots of room to work within our current system to release one's individual energies. If people are conformists, then maybe it is not our system that is to blame, but the people themselves.
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