Nietzsche's fall: A theory of unrequited love

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Sorry if this reeks a bit of pathos. I actually typed this up for my girlfriend in the summer. We took a class on Nietzsche together, whom she despises for his misogny, and I was trying to defend him, to help her get over the megalomaniac personality so she could appreciate the philosophy, but she never got over it. So sorry if this appeals more to a femminine audience. She agreed with my theory, but she certainly doesn’t agree with Nietzshe as far as I know.

[i]Nietzsche is popularly known for his misogyny – a misogyny that is misunderstood. To get to the root of his supposed disrespect for the opposite sex, we must take a closer look at the man himself. Nietzsche was raised amongst a household full of women when Death abruptly enveloped his father with its black cloak at an early age. At the expense of his demise, Nietzsche was ascribed his destiny by his feminine household to be a Lutheran priest, like his father, to compensate for the masculine absence.

As soon as he was ripe of age, however, he ditched theology and took up philology in an act of rebellion. Why? Were his ambitions genuine? Perhaps, but wasn’t this revolt an act of rebellion against his upbringing, a desire to prove his intelligence, to assert himself in place of what was expected? When it came to intelligence, Nietzsche suffered from a biting inferiority complex I think – “Woman is more intelligent than man,” he rather bluntly states – but is he being honest here? Is he just playing the clever slave again (look at the picture with him, Lou and Ree/he is hiding/he is playing the slave/fool it seems)? If we see man as inherently good deep down, perhaps Nietzsche was only trying to bring forth the inner being of his supposed weaker sex counterparts – primarily, that of his badly educated mother and the vigilant spirit of his sister Elizabeth.

However, Nietzsche read Stirner – that was his mistake. He could only see his ego and his own self in the reflecting gazes of the others. In the end, his plan backfired. Nietzsche could not handle the ascetic life of which he was deprived of the love and care of the opposite sex. He could never establish a love relationship with Lou Salome because he had to prove his superior intelligence; but when she abandoned him, he was truly heartbroken for life.

Did Lou analyze him correctly though? Did Nietzsche actually become insane, or was he so desperate for love and attention that he had to pretend insanity in order to get it? Well, Lou never came back and Elizabeth was the only one who would provide the love and care he needed and deserved. He writes in Ecce Homo and Twilight that sickness is the means by which he is strengthened. However, Nietzsche went too far – he faked his illness. He lied and he lied and he lied until the lie became truth. He played the slave until he became one.

Nietzsche was the horse. He was abused and whipped by the master. He couldn’t live the mendacious philosophy of his alter ego in the end. He saw himself in the form of a slave animal taking a beating from its master on a street in Italy.

He was compassionate. He fell.

Did Nietzsche die of a broken heart?

And what of Elizabeth? Did she not somehow get revenge on her brother for his hardness on her, as well as his unwillingness to accept the relationship between her and her betrothed? She exploited the philosophy to compensate for the sudden suicide of her fascist spouse, for whom Nietzsche had nothing but contempt. [/i]

Any thoughts? Just a theory I whipped up. It seems like his isolation would drive one to such madness. It seems almost inevitable I think. His grandeur, his desire for great love, his introversion and the need to objectify the subjective factor seems to be the root - the incompatibility of which led to his demise. What do you think?

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a) I see no reason to understand Nietzsche’s misogyny as “misunderstood”; it is much more likely that he was simply a product of his age, and his opinions on women are among the few general areas in which he is just blatantly wrong. The good news is that what he says about women has almost nothing to do with the rest of what he says. Also, there is plenty of feminist literature on Nietzsche, and a lot of it, ironically perhaps, is positive. Look into it, if you’re interested.

b) Can you fake a brain tumor?

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a) I agree that his misogny is in some part a product of his age. I am just trying to trace it more to his upbringing, to do more of a closer analysis, as he was raised in a household full of women. Thinking about it in terms of Jung’s homosexual, the homosexual is attracted to the same sex stemming from an inability to relate to the same sex parent. Without even the presence of a same sex parent, it is not so much that Nietzsche is homosexual (although he could have been), but with a preponderance of females in his life, it makes sense to see this as a major cause to his hostility towards women. For the most part, I was trying to convince my girlfriend that their is a personal cause to his misogny, and it is partly to do with personality, perhaps stemming from that upbringing. It is not so much that Nietzsche’s views on women are incorrect, I think they are just more personal and subjective that most people think they are, as he was a very introverted thinker.

b) Yes, I think I can fake a brain tumor. But the brain tumor doesn’t come until after I have fucked my mind up. The brain tumor doesn’t come til after I have faked. Maybe if you keep telling yourself you are ill, you will become ill. Try it. I dare you.

I am just trying to see it is a physiological disease stemming from a mental disease rather than a physiological causing the mental disease, although some say he contracted siphylis, which would defeat the point of my argument. This is even what Lou Salome had argued - that Nietzsche’s insanity was the effect of his views. I am just seeing it more as an effect of personality type. After reading the Jungian type of the introverted thinker, it just makes sense that his inability to objectify the subjective factor, to make his subjective ideas tangible realities would lead to his isolation, and an inrush of unconscious contents, a weaking of the ego, as is the case in the schizophrenic, would lead to insanity from a lack of contact, from his isolation. I just see the whole incident with Lou salome as playing a bigger part in this than most people think, as it has been reported that Nietzsche never really got over it.

By the way, does anyone out there think that Nietzsche became schizophrenic, or was it really just a brain tumor?

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I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like Nietzsche hated his mother, Lou or his sister - he thought highly of each of them (Lizzy’s anti-semitism and marriage to Forster notwithstanding). Cosima Wagner is another example that comes to mind of a female he held in high regard. If his mother and sister had been abusive, for example, I’d be much more inclined to see a connection. But the sole fact that he was raised by women doesn’t seem to offer any tangible evidence for his misogyny. If anything, I’d understand it as an irony.

Much of what he said was personal and subjective. That’s a big part of what makes him interesting (as the poet-philosopher par excellence) in the first place. I just tend to think that what he said about women wasn’t given the same subjective scrutiny everything else was. When I suggest he was a product of his time, what I mean is that anything said about women really didn’t matter much; that what Nietzsche said about women pretty much blows (especially by comparison to what else he dealt with) emphasizes that fact - he (i.e. his era) didn’t care enough to consider the issues more carefully. I could certainly be wrong about this, but that’s always been my impression. The way I empathize with him on women, for example, is by reverting to how I thought about girls when I was twelve - that’s the context in which they make the most sense.

And you honestly don’t think that’s reaching a bit? I mean, I’ll grant you that it’s a possibility - but only in that “yeah, anything’s possible” sense of the term.

Okay, now we’re getting closer to each other. But this is ultimately a different argument than one which deals more exclusively with his misogyny. The general question of whether his mental activity proper could have “caused” his insanity - that’s something I’d consider a genuine (as distinct from above) possibility.

The thing is, his symptoms post-collapse are well documented. Schizophrenia doesn’t really fit, imo. But, as mentioned, I wouldn’t dismiss outright the potential that he ultimately “lost” himself and that the tumor is something of a coincidence. That said, I’m in no position to speculate.

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A word from Fritz himself…
I will never admit the claim that men and women have equal rights in love; these do not exist. For men and women have different conceptions of love; and it is one of the conditions of love that neither sex pre-suppose the same feeling and the same concept of “love” in the other. What a woman means by love is clear enough; total devotion (not mere surrender) with body and soul, without any consideration or reserve, rather with shame and horror at the thought of devotion that might be subject to special clauses or conditions. In this absence of conditions her love is a faith.
A man, when he loves a woman, wants precisely this love from her and is thus himself as far as he can be from the presupposition of feminine love. Supposing, however, that there should also be men to whom the desire for total devotion is not alien; well, then they simply are—not men. A man who loves like a woman becomes a slave; while a woman who loves like a woman becomes a more perfect woman.
A woman’s passion in it’s unconditional renunciation of rights of her own presupposes precisely that on the other side there is no equal pathos, no equal will to renunciation; for if both partners felt impelled by love to renounce themselves, we should then get— I do not know what; an empty space?
A woman wants to be taken and accepted as a possession, wants to be absorbed into the concept of possession, possessed. Consequently she wants someone who takes, who does not give himself or give himself away; on the contrary, he is supposed to become richer in “himself”—through the accretion of strength, happiness, and faith given him by the woman who gives herself. A woman gives herself away, man acquires more—I do not see how one can get around this natural opposition by means of social contracts or with the best will in the world to be just, desirable as it may be not to remind oneself constantly how harsh, terrible, enigmatic, and immoral this antagonism is. For love, thought of in its entirety as great and full, is nature, and being nature it is in all eternity something “immoral.”
Faithfulness is accordingly included in a woman’s love; it follows from the definition. In man, it can easily develop in the wake of his love, perhaps as gratitude or as an idiosyncratic taste and so-called elective affinity; but it is not an essential element of his love—so definitely that one might almost speak with some justification of a natural counter-play of love and faithfulness in man. For his love consists of wanting to have and not of renunciation and giving away; but wanting to have always comes to an end with having.
It is actually man’s more refined and suspicious lust for possession that rarely admits his “having,” and then only late, and thus permits his love to persist. It is even possible for his love to increase after the surrender; he will not readily concede that a woman should have nothing more to give him.—
Quoted from the book, “The Gay Science” by Friedrich Nietzsche