Nietzsche's theory of nature - Essay Example

Nietzsche theory of nature As suggested by the famous philosopher Nietzsche nature is a pure chaos. The human beings are considered to be animals as far as his opinion about human beings is concerned and they are all part of the so called ‘nature’. In my opinion Nietzsche thinks that nature has no purpose and is without a goal. There is no system that handles it methodically so things may happen in a chaotic fashion and without any rhyme or reason at all. The theories he has presented and the documentation found that has been written by him all press upon this issue that things are not constant and nature is unpredictable. This may lead to the point that as if Nietzsche has a very pessimistic view of life. Furthermore as a known fact he did not believe in Christianity and has been found to oppose it time and again, his study differs from the basic philosophy found in Christianity that god created humans, nature, and animals. To understand the true idea presented in his theory we need to come to the level of exploring human nature itself. Who are we? Who created us? Do we all have the same believes that are taught in Christianity? It is clear from his work that Nietzsche was not a follower or believer of Christian religion. He has opposed the very being of god and even declares that the god is dead. Whatever the reason for his death but he does not exist for mankind. But the question is then who is managing all the things that happen around us or take place every second of the day. According to him this is just coincidental and because everything is a catastrophe can also have indirect meaning toward the Christian god. According to his work we find that Nietzsche also says that people have “Will to Power” and this can be applied to the study of environmental ethics. The following text will discuss how these ideas or philosophies are linked with our nature. This paper starts off with the introduction of Nietzsche theory of nature so that the following parts are clearly understandable. Furthermore it will continue to explain what Nietzsche meant by humans being part of nature and the Will to Power. Lastly it will dwell on the issue as to why it is chaos for Nietzsche. The underlying thesis for this paper is as follows: Human, as part of nature, are also pure chaos but, they try to form system or concept through the will to power. “Humans as Chaos” according to Nietzsche As suggested by Nietzsche man desires to live "according to Nature." (9; ….. ) He calls human beings frauds as he suggests that there is nothing such as living like nature. Nietzsche believes that nature and humans are different in their characteristics and attributes. He asks in general whether one can imagine to themselves to be indifferent to the power—and further more questions “how could you live in accordance with such indifference?” He is critical and also sarcastic in his way of asking human beings as to why they compare themselves to nature. Nature is limitless and extravagant he says and has its own way of working things. On the other hand what does human being do? in his opinion humans try to run nature the way they think best. As man is the ultimate being and creation of God thus he wants to use this power and modify the things going on around him. Isn’t living life close to respecting, desiring, being unfair, to be restricted, near to the attempt of being different, he says. Furthermore the idea that humans are aggressive by nature the statement as living according to nature in actuality will mean living in accordance to life, so how can one do anything that is otherwise or different. He attempts to further shed light on this natural yet so indifferent methods of humans by suggesting that there is no need for people to make principles based upon what they are themselves and should be. It can be quite the opposite he says as one might imagine to go through the ecstasy of reading the rule of one’s own principles in Nature it is understandable that they would be looking for an altogether different thing. He calls people “you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders!” (9; ………) So much is the negativity he holds against the way human beings function. It is to him a shocking reality that things could be so deceiving and yet people try to justify themselves by saying it is what nature has taught them. Man is a proud being and undoubtedly in their pride they “wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein.” (9; ……) His philosophy of human nature cannot be denied. While talking of nature he is referring to things that is created by someone or something and just compares human nature with what was Nature itself. To him everything in the human nature is close to what was naturally present yet the humans have tried to mold this into the ways they find suitable. The text quoted herewith highlights this point: “With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY,” It is true from the above that people always strive to be the best, to be richest, etc. in doing so they tend to use methods that are contradictory to what Nature had taught them or instilled in them. By birth they were not corrupt but as they grow up they realize the strength there is in power and the thirst for power brings corruption. What is rich or poor? Does a child know the difference but men have created that difference and use different ways to gain wealth that in turn leads to power. However, these actions often involve harming the nature itself and may cause destruction of sorts. To understand we may refer to the Industrial Revolution. Undoubtedly there was wealth and people gained power but at the expense of damaging the natural environment. These will to power that is created by human will lead to catastrophe because we are harming the nature. As is the rule of nature good begets good and evil begets evil, thus we in turn are facing damage from what we have created by ourselves. Forming Social Networks The topic and the thesis concluded refer to the creation of society. How has man, even though generating chaos made use of its ills formed a social network? Once again there is a negative aspect about human beings who although have formed social groups but what do they lead to. According to Nietzsche people try to abstain commonly from damages, violence, and exploitation while putting the will of oneself on parity in comparison to the will of others. As a result one can say that found with this is a sense of conduct that may be found good by individuals especially if there are certain conditions present like: the exact similarity of men in totality of not only force but the extent of worth, plus a co-relation with one system. Nietzsche says that it is just a matter to take the basics a little more generally and possibly if understandable as the basic rule for society, immediately it would reveal itself. According to him it is the “Will to the Denial of Life”. This was his own rule that explained this will by stating that it was basically dissolution and decay. He uses terms like “appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation” to explain the will. Considering all the faults that exist in humans and the made-up methods as suggested by Nietzsche, the fact that man has created societies or groups and is managing the different functions within these social groups is not less than an achievement. Social ethics do demand proper functioning of groups of people and so far we see that man is successful in attaining that. “Life is precisely ‘Will to Power’.” (259; ………) This statement, as emphasized by the German philosopher leads us to think about the basic existence of mankind. Some may think that if one is manipulating ideas or procedures that they are corrupt or flawed, however Nietzsche does not agree with this. On the contrary, he says it is similar to the human nature itself as this is basically part of human beings and is more close to the result of the essential power. in the will which is close to the “Will to Life”. For it being a theoretical observation as it does not have any statistical proofs it is a very unique idea . Here, however, we will consider it more as a realistic feature which exists in all human beings thus Nietzsche says that we should all be true to ourselves at this point. Nietzsche calls man an animal who no doubt is a complex creature and is also untruthful, crafty, and enigmatic, mysterious as compared to the rest of the creatures because of the fabrication and knowledge, instead of because of his strength. Thus the will of life and will of power lead human beings to create societies and groups. This protects and also boosts the feeling of self-security and self-image. Environmental Ethics We are all aware of what environmental ethics relate to and thus the important question is how can the theory relate to the environmental ethics? Although Nietzsche died in 1900 his philosophies relate to this era more than they did in his own time. It is a fact that every “environmental ethic” is based on some sort of a norm of nature and to go against the ethics is like over ruling the natural world. In today’s world things are becoming unavoidable with all the changes that are taking place with regards to the advancements in technology and standards of living. Thus to ask “how should we relate to nature?” is problematic enough. Consider what the environmentalists are telling us about the destruction man-made things have caused to the natural environment. There is a similarity in it with what Nietzsche said as he condemned the World Wars and the industrial revolution. We as human being have to interpret what the nature is telling and then relate it to the ethos of human nature in order to establish the ethical grounds that will not be harming the environment that we live in. The wars and the industrial revolution both indicate the opposite of nature loving. They don’t even indicate that we have any sense of environmental ethics from Nietzsche’s point of view. It is important to be able to clearly identify what is the priority with respect to nature itself and help improve the social and environmental network around us. Conclusion In the paper we have taken only some points that he had presented in his theory but in the end all of them do point out that there is some system. Even in forms of societies man has made some sort of a system. This definitely shows that no matter what one may say the world would seize undoubtedly had it been working in a chaos. It is only there still because there was and still is a system. This system can be on a smaller scale a group of people living in an area or be as vast as the sun rising and setting and the moon appearing and disappearing. We cannot however deny as the philosopher suggest that the Will of Power is the strongest thing in human beings. How this has led to bringing damage is also a fact that we should accept. The destruction as he says brought around by certain decisions that men have taken have undoubtedly brought more harm than did good. But it is still part of the bigger circle that we call life. The points emphasized in the beginning all dictate that men are equal to animals when they come to the part where they need to establish their power. It is accurate to the core of the existence of mankind but without it would there have been any change in the way man lived. It was because of this will to be superior and better that did bring the changes. It is sad however that in the path thus followed humans have harmed the environment to a great extent. Yet they have managed to make societies and moved in groups that still exist and that are how the circle continues. Reference 1. Nietzsche Read More