What is aggrandizement and who is Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900)?
Friedrich Nietzche is a german philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. One of his main concerns is the aggrandizement of humanity, which is making out of humans something larger, bigger, and more powerful. It seems more like an obsession that took over him. In his book Beyond good and evil, he discusses the idea of aggrandizement – “A New Greatness” – and claims that this was “the task” of philosophers.
Properties of greatness:
- Capable of being different
- Most solitary and concealed
- Live by personal initiative
- Most divergent – familiar and accustomed to many fields
- Creator of values
- Master of virtues
- Super-abundant of will
Nietzche saw a general degeneration of man, especially due to democracy. As you notice this, you will experience great agony. The after-effect of this was the declaration of independence of science, which in that era, screamed loud “FREEDOM FROM ALL MASTERS” but haven’t realized that a new master has emerged – science itself. Science flourished and philosophy sunk and reduced to merely a “theory of knowledge” especially after science defeated theology.
This created as he called it a generation of “Learned Humans” – the humans of science:
- Moderate and calm
- Common virtues: non-ruling, non-authoritative, non-self-suffcient
- Adaptable – especially to rank
- Sunshine of a good name
- Full of petty envy
- Lynx eyes for the weak points in the nature of elevations which he cannot attain
- Possess instincts of mediocrity – destructive for the exceptional
- Religion of sympathy and comfort – Preaches “to relax”
This doesn’t stop here, The learned man has an ideal and is called “The Objective Man”. Who believes in objectivity.
- Personality seems accidental, arbitrary, and disturbing
- Sets himself to reflect on his suffering in vain
- Unable to command nor destroy
- False, Fragile, and questionable
- Constrained love and artificial hate
- Habits of compliance to all objects and experiences
- Radiant of hospitability
- No purpose in himself – a mirror accustomed to prostration
- The most costly instrument for the powerful, whom scientific instinct blossoms. A slave of the sublimest kind
- Easily injured, soft, delicate
- Needs a “frame” to shape himself and be “something”
This kind of humans will crash under life problems as they rebel.
To be continued
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