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Kant & Co.

Nietzsche: Love, Guilt & Redemption

Eva Cybulska peers into Friedrich Nietzsche’s stormy psyche.

Where one can no longer love, one should – pass by!
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), ‘Of Passing By’

Whatever I create and how much I love it – soon I have to oppose it
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ‘Of Self-Overcoming’

Few would associate Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) with love. And yet this most passionate of philosophers wrote ‘with blood’ and only about things he loved. Characteristically, he felt an urge to oppose what he loved – moreover, he had to kill it. Redemption was for Nietzsche not a deliverance from sin, but a total affirmation of life, with all its pain, suffering and absurdity. As for the guilt – few have been burdened with more!

Paradox permeates Nietzsche’s oeuvre.

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