Even though they are near contemporaries with each other,
has Friedrich Nietzsche’s insightful critiques ever been influenced by the
works of Charles Darwin?
By: Ringo Bones
Even though Charles Darwin has been dead 18 years when
Friedrich Nietzsche published his The Will To Power back in 1901, many familiar
with Nietzsche’s iconic work swore that it is largely influenced by Charles
Darwin’s The Origin Of The Species By Means of Natural Selection, especially
about the concept of “survival of the fittest” in an adverse environment. But
is this a conjecture that holds water in philosophical terms?
The term “survival of the fittest” was actually first coined
by biologist Herbert Spencer after reading Charles Darwin’s The Origin Of The
Species and was used in Spencer’s Principles of Biology back in 1864. During
Friedrich Nietzsche’s time as an impressionable student, he noticed that the
Aristotelian leaning outlook of the universe adapted by Western Christianity seems
to be creating some sort of “Kultur Kampf” during the political turmoil
sweeping across Europe during latter half of the 19th Century. It
seems that the most cherished of Western Christian values that Nietzsche holds
dear since childhood has been subjected to a violent tumultuous disillusionment
right before his very eyes, hence his declaration that (the Christian) God is
Dead. It seems that towards the end of the 19th Century, the truism
of Christianity’s Aristotelian view of the universe had been superseded by
Charles Darwin’s more pragmatic “survival of the fittest” which could explain
the salient theme behind Nietzsche’s The Will To Power.
To contemporary readers the term “power” in Nietzsche’s The
Will To Power seems to be a catch-all phrase describing his renewed hope of
mankind via scientific innovation and exploration as a way of escape from the
political turmoil sweeping across Europe at that time. It may have been safe to
assume that Friedrich Nietzsche probably agreed with Alfred Nobel that if he
invented a weapon powerful enough that it would cause terrible mass casualties,
the powers-that-be will refrain from waging war forever. Although Nobel was
kind of half-right with the advent of the thermonuclear weapons arms race
during the height of the Cold War that limited global conflicts to “conventional
police actions” like the Korean War, Vietnam, the then Soviet Union invading
Afghanistan, etc. Even though Nietzsche’s philosophical stance may seem
anathema to Abrahamic Theology from the point of view of us level-headed high-level
thinkers, many a post Cold War religious extremists – like Osama Bin Laden’s Al
Qaeda and the current Islamic State - has since adapted Nietzsche’s
philosophies to further their own theological political ends.
Given that Pope Francis and his "science synod" at the Vatican had recently accepted Darwinian Evolution back in October 2014, will Pope Francis will soon be "buddying-up" with Friedrich Nietzsche?
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