Could Friedrich Nietzsche be considered something of a Machiavellianist?

Question

I've never read Nietzsche before, only a brief bio. I've just begun reading the Antichrist yesterday and started to mull some ideas over in my mind and wanted to ellicit some of your insights and opinions. You can answer some of these questions which I have formulated, or simply give me a general overview of what you believe/know of him and his phiosophy of " Will to Power ", based on what you know!

Was he something of a philosopher who had a Machiavellian bent?

Did he seem to be a kind of " proponent " of social Darwinism in the early part of the Antichrist?

What is your understanding on what he was speaking about when he was talking about the "Hyperboreans"?

Did he have any influence on the German culture and the preceeding n**i regime?

Answer 1

1.Nietzsche is very different from Mechiavelli. At some points, Nietsche gets close to Mechialvelli, specially the Philosophy of War and its political and ethical Justification.

But generally speaking, Nietzsche offers deep and innovative Ideas about the Society. While Mechiavelli plays on the surface of the Matter.

2. Yes, the Uebermensch (superman) is that Kind of evolutionary person, who would prefer advantage in the Nature, instead of catching at old Ideas and Traditions

3. About the Hyperborean Nietzsche didn't proceed enoughwhich made his Hyperborean exposed to a heavy Criticism, neglecting some very important questions

4.The n***s exploited Nietzsche... Friedrich, the one who defended once the Horse, and condemned rather beat the Owner who treated the animal badly, would not tolerate the Crimes Genocides.

www.ahmadannan.webs.com

Answer 2

considered more of a buffoon, who went insane in the midst of his own rambling.

Answer 3

"Was he something of a philosopher who had a Machiavellian bent?"

Yes, very much so.

"Did he seem to be a kind of " proponent " of social Darwinism in the early part of the Antichrist?"

Not quite Social Darwinism. As one of my fellow Nietzscheans once wrote;

"Will To Power [WTP] is opposed to Social Darwinism [SD]; whereas SD talks of evolution's will to survival, Nietzsche argued that Nature does not seek to so much survive, as to FLOURISH.

WTP describes that constant expansion of things even to the point of their own extinction and destruction [and hence not always to survival].

Nietzsche noticed that it was NOT the best human specimens who survive and flourish, but the mediocre, the average - even the down-right botched.

The great tragedy of life is that the rare and highest types are the most threatened and vulnerable."

"What is your understanding on what he was speaking about when he was talking about the "Hyperboreans"?"

I think the link is the Greek hero Theseus. As Nietzsche writes, "we have found the exit out of the labyrinth of thousands of years." Check out the myth of Theseus, the Minotaur, and Ariadne; as well as that of Ariadne and Dionysus. Also, as I once wrote;

"Wikipedia tells me that Theseus did indeed visit the Hyperboreans! Does that make him one? Perhaps not. Or does finding the exit to the modern labyrinth by that very fact make one one?"

Perhaps anyone who finds the way out of said labyrinth of thousands of years may be considered a Hyperborean? In any case, the formula for getting out of that labyrinth is "a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal": the Yes to what is good (see section 2), the No to what is bad (ibid.), and a straight line to the goal of goals: the Overman!

"The problem I thus pose is not what shall succeed mankind in the sequence of living beings (-- man is an *end* --): but what type of man shall be *bred*, shall be *willed*, for being higher in value, worthier of life, more certain of a future.

Even in the past this higher type has appeared often: but as a fortunate accident, as an exception, never as something *willed*. In fact, *it* has been the type most dreaded, almost *the* dreadful; [...] a *higher type*: which is, in relation to mankind as a whole, a kind of overman [Übermensch]."

[section 3-4.]

Compare this to:

"And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called "the devil!"

So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the Superman [Übermensch] would be *frightful* in his goodness!

And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would flee from the solar-glow of the wisdom in which the Superman joyfully batheth his nakedness!

Ye highest men who have come within my ken! this is my doubt of you, and my secret laughter: I suspect ye would call my Superman - a devil!"

[Thus Spake Zarathustra, Of Manly Prudence.]

"Did he have any influence on the German culture and the [...] n**i regime?"

Yes, he did.