It is enough to follow my work even for a few days to realize that I am heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche.
I'd go so far as to say he's one of the people, both living and dead, who has had the greatest influence on my life.
You will often see me defend him, possibly too passionately, from what I feel is unfair criticism.
But I am not his blind follower. I recognize his flaws, and we don’t share all of the same values.
After all, Nietzsche himself often stated that he was not seeking followers and that his best students would have to disagree with him and go their own way.
As the title suggests, this time I want to rethink what I feel is Nietzsche’s ugliest idea, or at least one of the ugliest.
By "re-thinking," what I will actually try to do is not make the case that his idea is not as bad as it sounds, but rather, using the rest of his philosophy, try to get something valuable even out of such an ugly idea. More specifically, I would like to turn this ugly idea into something that can be useful for one of the most relatable, and maybe even most feared, human troubles, one that even Nietzsche himself suffered from: heartbreak.
Being the explosive and controversial thinker that he was, there are plenty of Nietzsche’s ideas that could be called ugly and even cruel. So if anyone would like to suggest another one for a future essay or even a sort of open discussion, I would be more than open to that.
However, at this point in time, for me, Nietzsche’s ugliest idea is looking at human beings purely through the lens of one’s own goal or journey.
"A human being who strives for something great considers everyone he meets on his way either as a means or a delay and obstacle—or as a temporary resting place" (Beyond Good and Evil)
It is not only in this one section of Beyond Good and Evil that Nietzsche expresses this idea, but this is probably the most explicit and famous example of it.
What I would like to focus on is the "means" part of this statement. We can all recognize that there are people in our lives who are holding us back and hindering our development, so I think it’s not controversial to agree with Nietzsche that there really are people who can be viewed as "delays and obstacles" on our journey.
And for the sake of focusing on what I want to be the point of this essay, I would say that if someone is a "temporary resting place," they can also fall into the category of being "means," so I won't be focusing on that category as a separate one.
As we continue, I want to remind you once again that this is not me providing an interpretation of this idea that will justify what Nietzsche said, but rather using this idea for our own goal(s). We will be using Nietzsche as the means to our own end. Ha, got you, Nietzsche!
"A human being who strives for something great," Nietzsche says, is the one who views others as means. The one who has a grand project, a high and worthy goal.
We know that for Nietzsche, the greatest thing to strive for, the greatest project and goal, is to create yourself. It is to create yourself into a character, and your life into a story, that you could affirm and be willing to live, over and over and over again.
If we take this into account, we can start seeing "the means to our end" in a slightly different light.
If we are really striving for something great in the Nietzschean sense, we are not necessarily looking at people as means on our mission to conquer the world or make billions of dollars. We are looking at people as means on our journey of creating, and ultimately affirming, ourselves and our lives.
We are now at a point where the "X factor," heartbreak, can enter the discussion.
What does heartbreak have to do with Nietzsche, and further, with his idea of viewing people as means?
When Nietzsche talks about affirming everything, saying "Yes!" to everything, he is clear that what makes this such a great and difficult task is that you need to say "Yes!" to the most painful things in your life just like you do to the most joyous moments of your life.
And as much as we want to talk about the great challenges, obstacles, and even dangers that we might encounter in pursuing our goals in life, we would be lying if we didn’t admit that heartbreak is one of the most painful things that a human being can experience.
Nietzsche knew this very well.
In 1882, Nietzsche met a psychoanalyst and essayist named Lou Andreas Salome. It is said that he fell instantly in love with her, and during the summer they spent together, he proposed marriage to her on at least two separate occasions but was rejected.
Although we cannot know for certain if Salome was the only or the main reason for it, after Nietzsche and she parted ways, he fell into a period of mental anguish. It ended up being one of the most difficult periods of his life, as he testifies both in his writings and his personal letters to friends.
However, out of this period emerges what he calls his greatest gift to humanity, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and he proceeds to have by far his most productive period as a thinker and writer.
In his later works, he frequently refers to this time as the most difficult in his life, but also the one he owes the most to.
Knowing how much he valued overcoming suffering and creating something out of it, I believe it would be fair to say that he wouldn’t be the great Nietzsche that we know today without this heartbreak.
This brings me back to us trying to make some use of his ugly idea.
What does it mean to say that someone is a means to an end in your journey to create yourself and affirm your life?
Could it possibly mean that every heartbreak, every rejection, and every betrayal is a necessary element of your story?
Could it mean that, if you are affirming yourself today or wish to affirm yourself in the future, it is not possible without affirming all of those painful experiences and, more importantly, all of those people who were involved in them?
If, at any point in your life, you can say a passionate "Yes!" to who you are and what your life is, you must recognize that all of those people were means to you arriving at that point. Without them and the experiences you went through together, no matter how painful they were, you wouldn’t be the person who is saying "Yes!" to who they are; you wouldn’t be the person who would live their life over and over and over again.
There is no need to de-humanize them and say that they were "just" means to this end. They were, however, means. They are integral parts of the story called your life and, instead of looking back on them with resentment and pain in your heart, today or at some point in your story, you will look back with a smile and say: "You played a part in me becoming who I am. And I love who I am. So thank you."
If you were hurt in any way by someone in your past, as I’m sure we all were, I truly hope you arrive at this point.
I believe you will.
Thank you for reading.
To my premium supporters, who this essay is intended for, thank you. Maybe me saying it every week is getting old, but I will not get bored or tired of saying it:
you are the reason I am able to invest my time and energy into researching and writing every day. I will keep trying my best to repay you by providing some value through my writing.