A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories)

by Nigel Warburton

Perhaps influenced by his understanding of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, he saw the Übermensch as the next step in humanity's development. This is a bit worrying, partly because it seems to support those who see themselves as heroic and want to have their way without consideration of other people's interests. Worse still, it was an idea that the Nazis took from Nietzsche's work and used to support their warped views about a master race, though most scholars argue that they distorted what Nietzsche actually wrote. Nietzsche was unfortunate in that his sister Elisabeth controlled what happened to his work after he lost his sanity and for thirty-five years after his death. She was a German nationalist of the very worst kind and an anti-Semite. She went through her brother's notebooks, picking out the lines she agreed with and leaving out anything that criticized Germany or didn't support her racist viewpoint. Her cut-and-paste version of Nietzsche's ideas, published as The Will to Power, turned his writing into propaganda for Nazism, and Nietzsche became an approved author in the Third Reich. It is highly unlikely that, had he lived longer, he would have had anything to do with it. Yet it is undeniable that there are plenty of lines in his work that defend the right of the strong to destroy the weak. It is no surprise, he tells us, that lambs hate birds of prey. But that doesn't mean we should despise the birds of prey for carrying off and devouring the lambs.