Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Will to Power, Eternal Return, and Zarathustra
“[…] Only appear justified as an aesthetic phenomenon existence and the world.” With this strong sentence, and all the consequences that flow from it, can be summed up the first stage of Nietzschean thought. His central work, The Birth of Tragedy, is inspired by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche hoped his thesis on the art would be applied by Wagner in his operas. This work is, among other things, a deep philological, artistic, and philosophical focus on the birth and evolution of Greek tragedy. Two key forces are present in these plays: first, Apollo, the Greek god of the sun and light, and on the other hand, Dionysus, the god of wine and drunkenness. Both gods are used by Nietzsche metaphorically and symbolically, relating to these meanings: Dionysus is the will (the central object of the philosophy of Schopenhauer), the irrational, the night, the instinctive. Tragedy would correspond with times of music and dance, and those involved in the choir. As for Apollo, he would represent the light of reason, harmony, joy, the light of day, corresponding with words (logos, word, reason) and the characters. Obviously, their values are opposites: Dionysus is usually that part of the tragedy in which everyone participates, fusing their consciousness into a collective party, and Apollo is the individual (the character with their own ideas, thoughts, or moral principles, who is not identified with the collective). For Nietzsche, the beginning of Greek tragedy is marked by the Dionysian: the viewer is an active part of the representation, a character, which neutralizes their conscience to become another. This is where, for example, the catharsis of which Aristotle spoke is produced. The tragedy, from this point of view, would be total art in which the individual ceases to be, is founded on the common, and delivered to the Dionysian values. But the preponderance of the choir decreased to make way for the classical Greek tragedy. Nietzsche embodies this transition in Euripides: with him, the chorus becomes less relevant, and the individual characters gain importance. The Dionysian and vital essence of the tragedy was covered with an Apollonian blanket, seemingly harmonious and balanced. Instinct is covered and annulled by the logos. If this process starts with Euripides, Socrates will be responsible for completing it: with him, the Dionysian and the vital dimension of life disappear, giving way to a reflective and theoretical vision of it. The dialogue and the search for universal truth now dominate over instinct, error, and Dionysian intoxication. The harmonious and balanced appearance of Apollo hides forever the Dionysian chaos. Therefore, Nietzsche’s proposal is precisely to recover the original meaning of Greek tragedy: to expose Apollo and for Dionysus to regain the prominence it deserves. That is what Nietzsche, and epitomized by Schopenhauer, expects from Wagner. To the extent that the will (and not thought or truth, as in most previous philosophers) is one of the key concepts of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche hopes that his thinking is a turning point that allows it to become a Dionysian factory. Similarly, he projected onto all the artistic work of Wagner derived from The Birth of Tragedy, hoping that Wagner’s opera, conceived as a total art that combines all the others, would assume the mission of returning to Dionysus. Wagner’s personal disagreements, linked to his refusal to realize this art project, caused a progressive detachment, ending with a final break between the two authors. However, the role of Dionysus and all the values it symbolizes will reappear again and again throughout Nietzschean philosophy. The Dionysian proposal would be like the phoenix: philosophical Dionysus died, but all his ideas come to life embodied in a new symbolic figure, Zarathustra.
Zarathustra, the prophet of life, replaces Dionysus. Zarathustra responds to the theoretical necessity of breaking with all previous philosophy and creating a new set of ideas. Proposals associated with Dionysus were clearly influenced by Schopenhauer. Taking Zarathustra as the protagonist of his thought, Nietzsche seeks to develop his own original philosophy, far from any kind of metaphysical theorizing. Despite this change, the criticism will continue going against all previous philosophy and against Christianity. Zarathustra will, from this perspective, be the new prophet to come and replace all previous ones, who have perverted the message of life. Zarathustra may be regarded as the antichrist, the messenger of God’s death. In the same way, Thus Spake Zarathustra, the work in which Nietzsche presents the message of the new prophet, became the new Bible of Nietzsche, where direct and indirect references to sacred texts are constant, although the message is completely opposite. Here are some of the concepts that Zarathustra preached. Poder. For Nietzsche, the will to life is will to power, the will to be more, to expand and assert oneself. Trying to find a definition of this concept in Nietzsche’s works is impossible: what do appear are different characterizations. It is not to be confused with simple human will, or the concept that Schopenhauer uses. Will to live is life itself, trying to impose and expand, to make all your wishes, showing its creative power. If we interpret this from the metaphor of life as a work of art that appears in The Birth of Tragedy, we may conclude that it is the will to create. This desire is an amalgam of forces: desires, instincts, passions, impulses that lead man to prevail over others, to dominate their environment, to make his will. The proper interpretation, therefore, must escape from pure biology (it will not be able to exemplify a kind that is imposed on another), but also the political and racist interpretations: “I am what I have to overcome to himself.” The will to power has an individual dimension, which prevents any of the above-mentioned interpretations: it is neither the domination of one people over another, nor the mere victory in any field. It is a creative will of values that displays full force (not poorly understood in a physical sense) and individual abilities. Everything is, for Nietzsche, the will to power, a concept that ends up becoming one of the key interpretations of his vision of nature. The world is will to power, overwhelmed and overflowing life permanently expanding, vying for more and more. In addition, nature is associated with another central concept of Nietzsche’s philosophy: the eternal return. The eternal return, inspired by Greek mythology and the Presocratics, the key idea of eternal recurrence is the repetition, the cycle that runs over and over again, and nothing points to a final state, or with no possibility for any kind of linear progress or evolution. Aristotelian teleology, the Platonic world of ideas, or heaven promised by the Christians are absurd conceptual creations: “If the universe had a purpose, it should have been attained. And if there is for him a final state, it also should have been reached.” The eternal return thus includes materialistic connotations, with a clear temporal effect: there is no more than the present, the here and now, the world we live in today. The past is gone and the future does not exist, so man must be faithful to the living present, the only reality that we really live. A repeated eternally present, a land of processes that begin and end without end: this is the eternal return, which invites us to stay true to our time, “faithful to the earth.” But Nietzsche goes beyond the purely cosmological significance. The eternal return ends up becoming a value, it is the way to affirm life, it is the expression of the will to power that is released from the burden of the past and fear about the future. The eternal return is the proper time and the will to power. Zarathustra becomes the prophet of this new concept, which raises the Greek view of nature to the status of moral value. Nietzsche appreciates two aspects of this idea: The innocence and lack of direction of change, noting especially the Heraclitean fragments. The change is just that: change, without moral or metaphysical respect. It makes the affirmation of life that is opposed to any kind of pessimism. The eternal return guarantees that there is only one reality (the present) and that there is no development towards “another” world, whether it is interpreted in a religious sense (the Christian heaven) or political (a utopia or a better society to build). As a result, everything is good and justifiable, since everything is repeated. The world is turning, playing, dancing in the world around him cord. The eternal return is a reflection of this desire for eternity, the will of the whole to stay. Itself is infinite, eternal, and all this living, life and existence itself. For this idea to penetrate into society and reach man, it is necessary to move towards the concept: the transmutation of values.