?Why did Nietzsche go crazy
10 years were enough to shake the history of philosophy from beginning to end
Hashem Saleh
To reach the pinnacle of poetry like Al-Mutanabbi and Victor Hugo is something that is understandable and acceptable, albeit reluctantly. To reach the pinnacle of thought like Descartes, Kant, and Hegel is something that is understandable and reasonable, even if it is also reluctant. As for reaching the pinnacle of poetry and thought at the same time, this is strictly prohibited. This is unbearable and intolerable. Is this why Nietzsche went crazy? who knows? Or did he get too close to the greatest secret and his eyes were blinded?
In May 1879, Nietzsche resigned from the University of Basle in Switzerland due to his many worsening illnesses, even though he was only thirty-five years old: that is, in the prime of his youth. The university was convinced of his circumstances and circumstances and agreed to pay him a modest monthly pension, sufficient to pay for room rent, food and drink, and to buy some books and references. As for clothes, he only needed the bare minimum: only one spare change, two sets and two shirts. Enough of God and the faithful fighting evil. Starting from that moment, Nietzsche became a lost person, homeless on the roads and paths. Starting from that moment, he became a true philosopher and an outstanding writer.
He only had ten years left to live a sober life. Then he will turn on the other side of the foot of madness. But these ten years were enough for him to write his major works that have dazzled the world for one hundred and fifty years until today. Starting from that moment, the whole world, with its deep valleys and deep forests, became like a wide-open book for people to philosophize about. Could Nietzsche spend his whole life giving university lessons at specific times, annoying job constraints, and grading student papers? No way. This is a life that is not worthy of a volcanic, seismic philosopher on the verge of exploding... We say that, especially since he hated university philosophy and the university professor and considered him “like a donkey” who carries burdens and ready-made ideas that he repeats over the years until retirement age. Is this life? Is this a philosophy?
In this way, his genius was unleashed and his creative energies were opened wide. Ten years were enough to shake the history of philosophy from beginning to end.
All my writings are nothing but victories over myself!
This is what he kept saying. They are indeed victories over illness, dangers and difficulties. It triumphs over his early upbringing in particular. Most important of all, they were victories over the accumulated inherited heritage that was deeply rooted in mountain mentalities. Here lie the Nietzschean earthquakes. Where did he spend the last months before his mind completely exploded? He spent it in the charming Italian mountain city of Turin, where he felt relieved and somewhat restored to health. He settled there in the fall of 1888, showed an enormous appetite for writing, and his creative energies exploded in all directions.
No one expected that it would collapse after only four months, nor did he expect it, of course. But things were piling up and the lightning explosion was approaching. We say this especially since he was able to write 5 consecutive books in just 5 months. Who can write a book every month?
So why the hurricane? Why collapse after all these victories he achieved over himself and his illnesses and pains? Is it because he exhausted himself too much and his mind eventually exploded from too much deepening and concentrating? Does philosophy go crazy if we take it to its ends, to its depths? Can the greatest secret of any creature on earth be revealed? No one writes 5 books in 5 months or even 4. Or is it because he said everything he could say and reached the peak of genius creativity and all that remained for him was to fall to the ground? Or was it because he was suffering from syphilis, which had plagued him since his early youth in the brothels of Cologne in 1966. Or had that beautiful seductress, Salome, driven him crazy? Mother? Mother? Mother? God knows. Some say that he paid dearly for his shocking attack on Christianity.
We should not forget that it was the religion of his fathers and grandfathers, and that his father was a Protestant priest and his grandfather was the same, his great-grandfather was also...etc. It is known that his mother, Franziska, went crazy when she heard that he had become an atheist after having been a devout believer and even a devout person throughout his childhood and early youth. How did he turn against all that? How did he turn against himself and his innermost depths? Didn't he pay a heavy price for this coup? He has the right, of course, to dismantle the sectarian and sectarian fundamentalism inherited from the Middle Ages. He has the right to uproot it from its roots, as his teacher Voltaire did, who dedicated one of his books to him, saying: To Voltaire, one of the great editors of the human spirit. But he has no right to eradicate religious sentiment itself.
He has no right to eradicate the greatest moral values given by the Christian religion that urge charity, compassion, mercy, and love for others (in parentheses: These are values that also exist in Islam if we understand it correctly and not in the manner of the Muslim Brotherhood, who have no compassion or mercy, but only sectarianism. And sectarianisms, excommunications, and bombings). Fortunately, his mother had not seen his latest book on religion, otherwise she would have gone into cardiac arrest immediately.
What were the first signs of his mental breakdown?
Documented news tells us what it says: He continued to write in a rational and coherent manner until almost the last moment of the year 1888. But after that, expressions of madness began to appear and mix with rational, coherent or still logical expressions. His unknown delusions began to appear little by little. He started to feel the crazy panorama. In parallel, his personality swelled and turned into a cosmic delirium. Is it paranoia?
Then, on January 6, 1889, that is, the beginning of the new year that witnessed its collapse, the great professor Jacob Burckhardt, professor of Nietzsche and the entire generation, received a delirious letter in which he said:
“The thing that violates my modesty and modesty is that I embody in my person all the great people who have appeared in history. Recently, I witnessed my funeral and burial twice in the cemetery... What is this? What is this nonsense? What is this madness? Who will witness his funeral and burial in the cemetery?
When this letter reached the great Swiss professor, he immediately called Nietzsche's closest friend, Dr. Franz Overbeck, and handed him the letter, saying: Something has happened to Nietzsche. try to understand. Try to do something. Hurry, hurry. Then the man rushed and immediately boarded the train from Switzerland to Italy in order to save the situation if possible. But it's too late.
He says what it says: When I entered the room, I found him lying half-reclined on the couch with a written piece of paper in his hand. I approached him to greet him, but as soon as he saw me, he suddenly rose to his feet and rushed towards me and threw himself into my arms. He did not say a single word, did not utter a single phrase, he was just sobbing loudly with tears flowing from his eyes. And all the parts of his body were shaking and trembling as he repeated one word: only my name. As if he was crying out to me. Human sensitivity had not completely disappeared in him then. His mighty mind had not been completely extinguished. Later, he only remembered his mother and sister, who supervised him until he died in 1900. (In parentheses: see his photo with his mother, which is more than touching). Suddenly, his sister Elizabeth felt that she possessed a treasure trove: his genius works! It began to sweep all of Germany from beginning to end, while he never sold more than ten copies of it in his lifetime. He even published it on his personal account despite his poverty and misfortune.
But shortly after his madness, his fame spread and his fame took off. Then his voice began to penetrate, like thunder, the dark sky of European humanity. His books have sold for millions. In fact, his book “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” was turned into, as it is said, the Fifth Gospel. German youth came to him and imbibed his ideas. He predicted this when he said: “There are people who are born after they die. “My moment will come, but I will not be here.”
Madness messages
I will stop only at that card that he sent to Cosima, the wife of his friend and former teacher, the famous musician Richard Wagner. All the fears and embarrassments that prevented him from revealing his emotions and feelings to her, madness freed him from. It seems that he had been fond of her for a long time when he used to visit them in the country house and spend several days as their hospitality. Of course, he was flirting with her lightly. But it was pure, flawless, virginal love.
He says to her in that crazy message:
“My very dear beloved, princess of princesses. It is wrong to consider me an ordinary person like other people. I have lived a long time among men, and I know everything they can do from the bottom to the top. Among the Indians I was a Buddha in person. To the Greeks, I was Dionysus. Alexander the Great and Caesar of Rome are also my manifestations. Even the poet Shakespeare and Lord Francis Bacon were embodied in me. I was Voltaire, Napoleon, and perhaps Richard Wagner himself. I embodied them all.
But this time I come as the victorious Dionysus who will make the whole earth a ball of light and a holiday party. The heavens themselves began to dance, sing, and ululate as soon as I arrived... and I was also hanging on the cross.”
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* Asharq Al-Awsat, July 27, 2024 AD.