I really dislike that Prussian Teutonic superiority he seasoned a lot of his writings with. Mixed in with all of that, I find numerous pearls of wisdom that are very enlightening for me. I was wondering if anyone else felt the same, or just post your own opinion on him no matter what you think, in the spirit of good discussion.
Anonymous
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I wrote a paper on Nietzsche and his influence on the Nazi medical experiments. What I found is that the Nazis misinterpreted him. The biggest thing that should seperate him from the Nazis is that he wasn't an anti-Semite, and he was against the herd mentality, which is what the Nazis craved.
His idea of the superman has nothing to do with social darwinism. It has to with breaking away from the status quo and society. I think Nietzsche was brilliant and often misinterpreted. Nietzsche's visions were a nihilism that had goals of making the world a better place by destroying what is in existence in terms of society.
Duke Paul-Muad'Dib Atreides
I think Nietzsche has some brilliant ideas, yet his emphasis on de facto social Darwinism is unappealing. I believe that our success as a species has resulted from cooperation with one another, not competition, so the perfect morality would not be in the strongest surviving as he claims. There are also, as you say above, German nationalist declarations that I dislike as well, which served as much of Adolf Hitler's inspiration.
Rob
Nietzsche was groundbreaking in a lot of ways, but I see him as more of a jumping off point for more refined, modern philosophy than the be-all end-all. A lot of his writings show their age, especially with their hints of Social Darwinism.