Reading The Challenge of Nietzsche

Nothing says “Christmas” quite like a quality book on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.  What better proclaims the miraculous birth of salvation than “god is dead,” right?   The Challenge of Nietzsche by Jeremy Fortier was published in 2020 but it sat in my Amazon wish list until I received a copy as a gift this past holiday.  The book's subtitle, “How to Approach His Thought,” might indicate that it is an introductory level book.  True enough, Fortier offers a sweeping narrative through the span of Nietzsche's early, middle and late period thinking.  With stronger interest in the latter two periods of his life.

But, the aim of this book is more specific than a general introduction of all facets of Nietzsche's philosophy would necessarily entail.  Rather, this “approach to his thought” is an attempt to uncover a particular, fundamental thread that serves as an underpinning for the broader Nietzsche .  In short, this book is about how his thought evolved over his working life through the lens of the Free Spirit, Zarathustra, and Nietzsche's late autobiographical work.

According to Fortier, Nietzsche's “Free Spirit” was initially a rebellion of independence from the tremendous influence Richard Wagner held over the professor's young life.  His first work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), was heavily Wagnerian.  But, Human, All Too Human (1878) and The Wander and His Shadow (1880) broke free of the early Nietzsche.  Eventually, he came to question the Free Spirit's degree of independence (even isolation) from the world.  Nietzsche's title character in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883 - 1885) came down from his mountaintop and explored how to properly engage the world.

This established a “tension” between the two concepts.  Nietzsche found both useful and both flawed in some respects.  In his later work, particularly in Ecce Homo (1888), Nietzsche found some resolution by coming to the understanding that this tension was a necessary part of his self-discovery and that it is precisely this competition between them that benefits the “philosopher of the future.”

Honestly, this book could have been written as a 30-page essay and be just as meaningful for me.  Instead, the reader is challenged to read into a lot of depth and analysis that is not worth the meager insights attained.  Fortier spends too much time on the Nietzsche-Wagner problem and overemphasizes The Case of Wagner (1888) as a work compared with his other works.  He goes into tiresome depth about things like the importance of Bizet's opera Carmen to Nietzsche.  I was aware Nietzsche adored the opera and saw it several times.  The deeper reasons for it are, frankly, not that interesting or insightful.  

For all his rambling ways, Fortier's analysis of how the Free Spirit (emphasizing the importance of internal self-discipline) differs from Zarathustra (emphasizing the importance of socialization and world transformation) is important.  First of all, it demonstrates how Nietzsche's philosophy changed as he matured.  Secondly, it shows how Nietzsche incorporated both of these concepts into his philosophy, not as one inferior to the other but as a combination of both as important to realizing a fulfilling life.

Fortier starts with:  “The Free Spirit and Zarathustra can be thought of a representative of two different ways of being in the world....The Free Spirit strives to remain as comprehensively critical and independent of the world as possible.  Zarathustra, in contrast, is not merely critical and independent, but he also strives to be creative (constructive), and thereby contribute to (help to change) the world.” (page 10)

The author contends that The Wanderer and His Shadow “constitutes a decisive turning point in Nietzsche's thought...the Free Spirit's concern with historical philosophy is supplemented, and to some degree overshadowed, by a deeper emphasis on psychology.”  (page 51)  Nietzsche proclaimed the importance of “the closest things” in one's life as being of critical importance.  By this he meant “eating, housing, clothing, social intercourse.”  The importance of what might be considered mundane life.

Zarathustra later became the embodiment of “the closest things,” a contrast to the untethered Free Spirit who lives beyond culture.  Zarathustra, according to Fortier, “...represents an attempt to engage more fully and sympathetically with many features of human life that the Free Spirits deny to themselves.  Thus, Zarathustra sets out to have a lasting, creative impact on the world, and understand that project as an expression of his love.” (page 124)

Love is not a word a lot of Nietzsche scholars use when describing the philosopher's thoughts.  But Fortier shows that love is an essential aspect fueling Nietzsche's fire.  Love as passionate and desiring, in seeking common hearts and minds.  This is an important insight because Nietzsche was a highly passionate individual.  He was a robust enthusiast of the late-Romantic Age – which is why he fell in love with Wagner and his music (and Schopenhauer before that) to begin with.  

According to Fortier, the differences between Zarathustra and the Free Spirit are somewhat resolved with his acquisition of self-knowledge from a lifetime of introspection.  Specifically, this comes from Nietzsche's understanding of the importance of his recurring bouts illness.  By the time he wrote Ecce Homo in 1888, he had been seriously ill for most of his adult life.  Overcoming his illness to remain productive became a source of philosophical inspiration for him.  “Nietzsche's struggles with illness (and the self-disciplined regimen that they compelled him to develop) point to ways in which the soul can be spurred to train and condition itself through successive stages of self-overcoming.”  (Page 144)

In doing so, Nietzsche elevates his illness and his struggle for health to a metaphysical level.  For clarification, the author refers back to aphorism 382 that Nietzsche wrote earlier in The Gay Science (1882): “We who are new, nameless, hard to understand, we premature births of a yet unproven future, we require a new end and a new means, too, namely a new health, one that is stronger, craftier, tougher, bolder, merrier than all healths have been so far...[We are] in need of one thing above all else, great health - of the kind you not only have but also still constantly acquire and have to acquire because time and again you give it up, have to give it up...” (page 158)  

Fortier is insightful to point out that in Ecce Homo Nietzsche sees both the “self-disciplined and liberated” qualities of the Free Spirit and the “being-outside-yourself” of Zarathustra as necessary modes of existence which bring “health” to the searching soul.  They both inspire “new acts of creation.”  Further, they are both part of a continuum through a life that “constantly acquires” new competence and insights.

“The moment of health and reaching beyond oneself is an essential part of Nietzsche's experience and understanding of the world, but it is not, cannot be, and is not desired as the whole of that experience and understanding.  It is, rather, part of an ongoing development and interplay between health and illness...for the dynamic of health and illness is, for Nietzsche, such that one can be led continually away from and back toward oneself, and thereby continually be exploring and learning from oneself.” (page 160)
 
Regarding the Free Spirit and Zarathustra, Fortier concludes: “...for Nietzsche neither one of these characters represents a complete, final, and altogether superior approach to life...he made use of both, in order to think through (and get through) different periods of his life.

“...protect your independence through a stringent self-discipline that minimizes your dependence on others as much as possible; eventually realize, however, that you have overestimated the degree to which you are or ever can be wholly independent, and once you recognize that tension in your existence, strive to affirm it rather than escape or resent it; open yourself to the capacity for love that connects you to others, and wait to uncover within yourself a wider world; occasionally forget yourself by immersing yourself in a plethora of human possibilities that you are not; learn to love the world for what it is, rather than for what you can make it; learn the necessity of your own mistakes and suffering; learn that there is no end to this process, but only a process to be repeated, through which you come to know yourself ever more deeply.” (page 162)

This is a brilliant though incomplete synopsis of Nietzsche's human philosophical project.  It does not directly pertain to the death of god, eternal recurrence or the will to power, for example.  It does, however, find obvious correlation to self-overcoming and amor fati.  So Fortier supplies, at best, a partial “approach to his thought.”  Nevertheless, it is an accurate portrayal of Nietzsche's existential application of his life's work.  This is important and often overlooked in most analyses of the philosopher's work.

Fortier attempts to use selected works and autobiographical material to introduce the reader to Nietzsche as ultimately a master of the self-understanding and, perhaps more importantly,  what Nietzsche came to see as the nature of the path to self-understanding before his illness finally overtook him.  Despite sometimes getting into the weeds with minutia that yields less fruit than the work it takes to get there, the author presents a worthy overview of an essential yet frequently ignored framing of this philosophy by including how Nietzsche came to intimately view his illness and his life amidst the concepts he explored.

In doing so, he makes a rather controversial claim.  “...to read Nietzsche's writings within the context set by his autobiographies is to recognize that his work was not intended primarily as a doctrinal or metaphysical philosophic system, or as a literary achievement, or as a revolutionary manifesto.  Those dimensions may be found within Nietzsche's writings, but his writings were first and foremost part of his own project of aspiring self-knowledge, and his work therefore ought to be judged first and foremost on the basis of how effectively (or deficiently) his writings help readers acquire such knowledge for themselves.” (page 163)

Fortier is telling us “how” to approach Nietzsche, as a revelation of “constantly acquired” competences based upon deep personal introspection and awareness.  To that extent, The Challenge of Nietzsche is a welcome addition to my library and a splendid way to introduce readers, however new or experienced they might be, to an alternative application of his thought.  Not as rigid concepts that must be plumbed deeply and held passionately as a cultural force but, rather, as an example to the rest of us of how self-discovery works, for everybody, as an invitation to live life beyond whatever it is that we think and believe.

This opens up the possibility to a more universal application of Nietzsche, much as a master, teacher, and guru.  Certainly, Nietzsche advocated the death of god.  But, if we take Fortier's worthy perspective, Nietzsche ultimately came to see that concept as a catalyst for self-discipline, world-transformation, and as a step toward a healthy (and relevant) life within the world that is constantly becoming.  Anyone reading Nietzsche's often “dangerous” ideas would benefit from keeping this in mind.