Nietzsche wrote that some men are born posthumously. Perhaps others are ''murdered'' posthumously. I was one of the Walter Kauffmann generation, and just accepted the ''tertiary syphilis'' diagnosis (when it was actually nothing but a theory). This is an excellent corrective. No matter what the ''experts'' said, my heart always believed that he'd stared too long into the abyss. And living a life of solitude has very real dangers as well. How typical of a mother to blame it all on ''drugs'' rather than the endless battle with pain that the drugs were intended to alleviate! This was the first I have ever heard of ''notebooks'' N. wrote in the asylum. I'd be interested to know what happened to them, but can well imagine his sister got rid of them. Great job!
Well formed response. My personal theory is enlightened men with access to idea’s & philosophies which leap frog over the common base needs of society lead to a uncomfortable isolation & loneliness. I often wonder how Galileo felt leaving his loft entering the streets of Florence & it’s squalor irrespective of the influence of the Medeci, How do you engage with society, find another soul to debate with & share ideas ? I read Nietzsche at 16, I identified which books to study ( post sisters acquisition) & I was filled with enthusiasms….but where do I go to allow them to take flight ? Intellectual isolation is a weight to bare , you can learn to internalise it or escape with drugs or alcohol, I chose the former, throwing myself into generating enough wealth to roam Rome with my 82 Hasselblad & a roll of B&W film , I threw myself into analogue photography , collecting Japanese wood block prints & 20th century Persian silk carpets . I was fortunate, for surely I would have become a difficult man to be around. The sadness of it is, that Nietzsche today would be further away from an open audience in 2023 than he would in 1885. Good luck to the star gazers, the pilgrims of new ideas & the gardeners of the aesthetic.
There is the disputed story of his autobiography smuggled out that reveals an incestuous relationship with Elizabeth his sister. I think Kaufman disputed it and they point to references to Detroit that would have been generally unknown to them in Europe however there are old u tube lectures by a top US Californian? Jung institute head who, in one lecture. agreed with the autobiography story, My Sister And I (?) linking it to his inner psychological pathology.
Probably from writing all that writing that they started translating at the same time instead of waiting most great artist release art at the end of their life as I been told
Fantastic work! I've always thought that people attributed his fall into madness to epitomise the madman archetype because of his madman parable and many other writings. People seem to have the preconceived notion that because he was such an eccentric character that he was bound to fall prey to his own wisdom, falling into madness. Reminds me of Lovecraftian lore, that one should not delve too deeply into the secrets of life lest one goes mad from the revelation. Then of course adding a myth such as the Turin Horse incident and of course defamation through a syphilis misdiagnosis.
Yeah he's definitely someone that's tied up intimately with madness and it's interesting that it's such a theme throughout his works and you can see in the letters as well that there's an anxiety in him about going mad (probably because of his father's demise). The Lovecraftian idea is interesting; it brings to mind an Emily Dickinson poem actually that "Much Madness is divinest Sense - To a discerning Eye - Much Sense - the starkest Madness - ’Tis the Majority In this, as all, prevail - Assent - and you are sane - Demur - you’re straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain -" I can see a lot of the approach to Nietzsche in this. His insanity was a convenient excuse for dismissing his writings and keeping them at arm's length. I actually learned about the connection between the Turin horse incident and Crime & Punishment from one of your videos so your imprint is in there!
Eternal: The Turin horses story is an attractive narrative. Why? Because of the irony of a man who spoke so often against pity collapsing in empathetic pain after trying to save a horse that was being beaten. The irony, man, the irony! It adds another level of emotional depth to his contradictory personality. But apparently, his actually collapse was far less interesting than the one that people have come to know and love. Sometimes a mental collapse is just a mental collapse.
I am currently writing a thesis on Nietzsche, and causally searched for details about his decline. So glad I found a video with more scholarly detail than academic papers I have seen on the topic.
Haha awesome Sean I was curious to get to the bottom of it so I did consume quite a bit of literature to get to this response. Thanks for the kind words!
One thing we can learn from this is, that a doctor should write "I don't know" much more often as the diagnosis, than just making a rampant and wild guess. EDIT: I was surprised by the conclusion. I have been hospitalized for my thoughts. They still have not diagnosed me properly. My problem was, that all my experiences and thoughts were being held up by a very faulty philosophical structure, and it was holding up an immense weight of trauma, and past and at the time current suffering and incredible stress. When that support structure was evaporized through study and learning, I went insane. I tried to speak of this, but my words were interpreted as that of a madman, though to this day I know I was right in having my thoughts. I had to figure things out myself by more study and experiences, and learning to change myself. I was medicated, without which I surely would never have recuperated. They only let me out once I could mask myself well enough. I knew that even the mention of philosophy would scatter the room for some reason. What scared me the most during that time was the thought, that the entire world was being run on extremely faulty mental structures, and anyone who learns enough or won't straight up deny facts will be locked away because they can no longer function. I knew I could not bury all my thoughts, so I though I had to literally bury myself, and never speak of what had happened. I felt that if it really is the case, that everything is absolute, pure madness, then I had to die. I have found that this is not really the case, because simply put, more intelligent and well versed people than I are doing just fine. That meant, that intellect or learning in itself was not fatal, though it can be extremely dangerous. It's best not speak of these things, because it causes tremendous suffering for some people. I don't believe in anything supernatural or religious or weird, or in self superiority or any super powers. Quite the opposite. I took life by the horns because I was a naive fool, and got on a terrible ride of my life. I'm not sure whether I was proverbially mauled to death, or whether I held on long enough to become strong enough. In any case, it is more than possible, that a man with Nietzsche's thinking ended up institutionalized at some point in his life, since it can happen to his lessers.
Thanks for sharing your experience Lawrence. I do think there's a possibility of thoughts having an unravelling effect. I think schizophrenia is a very important mental formation in human society and it's one that our culture has proven truly appalling at integrating. I think the otherness that psychosis offers is dismissed too quickly because it is different and I suspect there's also a greater darkness and panic in the communications of psychosis in the same way that an individual's shadow when repressed too severly and for too long can come out in an explosion rather than being gently released through more consistent relief. From my perspective it is not a question of intelligence. When coupled with intelligence of course it can be a true gift to the culture but there's no correlation between intelligence and wisdom. There's an old Sufi tale where a sufi saint is asked what grace has brought him and he responds that when he wakes in the morning he feels unsure as to whether he'll be alive in the evening. His interlocutor says that surely everyone knows this to which the saint replies yes they know it but they don't feel it. I think intelligent people can know but they don't feel the problem intimately. Nietzsche felt these problems intimately and I think those experiencing psychosis are often experiencing something that the rest of us know (I think there has to be an allowance made for the nature of the content of psychosis. It's not a factual language any more than the Bible is. It speaks a different language of truth). All of which is to say...I'm not sure really. I think that thoughts could bring down the house but I don't think that's to do with the thoughts but with the solution they dissolve into. The same thought that doesn't even register with one person might wipe out another. There are dangerous thoughts but they require a certain nature to mix with before they become dangerously explosive.
@The Living Philosophy I agree with your conclusion wholeheartedly. I always felt that some people would find their entire existence liberated by my thoughts, and for me and my structure, be it the result of my nature or my experiences, had the adverse effect. I also know that my thoughts are far from original, but at the time I felt like I was going the same path as Nietzsche, which was terrifying for me at the time since I felt like my life hadn't even begun yet, amongst other things. Also, if a mind like Nietzsche's could be broken by thoughts alone, what chance in hell did I have? After readjusting, I find myself both with feelings of immense liberation, and on the other hand a certain echo of how things used to be for me, and how they still in many ways are and will be forever. I feel like I have moved house in my mind almost to the point where I could shake hands with my life with a clear conscience. I myself had to readjust, and the fault was definitely in me rather than vice versa. I do still honestly feel that life for an intelligent being can be a rather panic enducing experience. Thank goodness for humor, medicine, poetry and the arts, and kindness. There can never be enough of those, and they can mainly even be the best reasons to ever have existed in the first place. There is so much to be grateful for in our modern life.
@@Lawh Amen to that Lawrence. The only thing in your comment that I would pick at is this exceptionalism of Nietzsche. I think the fact that someone is a higher intelligence shouldn't be confused with the character traits that matter when going through hell: grit, wisdom, faith being words that come to mind. Intelligence and expressive ability might amplify the collective value of the experience but I don't know how helpful they are in the individual experience of the underworld
@@TheLivingPhilosophy I agree, though any attributes I myself would wish to improve upon, I would automatically consider myself inferior to Nietzsche. Whether it be true or even a useful measure to make. I guess it's my personal default setting. When it comes to people in general, I would not wish to rank anyone in any fashion. I think the difference is, that I can only judge myself alone, and can say nothing of others. I guess what I'm getting at is, that making yourself go insane is neither an achievement, nor anything to have shame over. It's neither here or there. I personally prefer myself to be in the sad Socrates camp, though I have had many doubts along the way. Even changes of heart in my weakest moments. At least I feel that I really did challenge myself to seek nothing but what I felt was important.
I don’t understand why people use his mental condition as a reason to disregard him, because his same opinions today are less controversial. Nietzsche suffered a lot in his life no doubt, so it’s easy to be skeptical of his way of life, but he welcomes suffering. It’s his very suffering that lead to the creation of his great work, and the same is often true of us as individuals. Our deepest trenches can lead us to our greatest stories of overcoming. As someone who has been both depressed and grandiose at different times in my past, it is a blessing and not a curse. It’s a signal that can be learned from, and it’s ultimately an impulse that is trying to lead you somewhere. Some of my greatest achievements were born out of a feeling of grandiosity, and I suspect many others have the same experience. It’s not a purely negative state although it’s not sustainable.
I am ashamed to admit I was one of those who had bought into the whole sypilis diagnosis. Your presentation has totally won me over that this was in fact a misdiagnosis. From what I’ve read I am now inclined to believe that he had a benign brain tumour, but as you point out we will never be sure.
Nietzsche is the incarnation of that ancient of all ancient archetypes: he who straddles the tightrope between genius and insanity. Nothing below but an abyss looking up at him.
Many thanks for this, only just found it... Nietzsche's sudden collapse has always fascinated me. My wife is a Nietzsche scholar and over the years translated a lot of the letters and unpublished notebooks - M III (1) contains loads of almost Spinozist or semi-pagan reflections on how ''human consciousness may be a development of the mineral world via plant and animal' ). Over the years I've developed an eye for how much Nietzsche was interacting with the mineral, chemical and plant world... and although he wasn't a 'total 'drug fiend'' he was self-medicating with some very heavy substances throughout his nomadic life. Insomnia caused by chloral hydrate is hellish: three of four days without sleep would twist anyone's noggin. Blinding migraines, ever-deteriorating vision, problems after having part of his sternum removed etc meant he was fairly consistently mooching for chemical remedies. The speed at which he went totally nutzoid and almost totally mute suggests something like a psychotic break... but precisely what caused it is guesswork. In Resa von Schirnhofer’s memoir there is a similar suggestion with a hint of trippy menace, as if the outside has taken root from within: ''With a distraught expression on his pale face [Nietzsche] leaned wearily against the post of the half-opened door and immediately began to speak about the unbearableness of his ailment. He described to me how, when he closed his eyes, he saw an abundance of fantastic flowers, winding and intertwining, constantly growing and changing forms and colours in exotic luxuriance, sprouting one out of the other. “I never get any rest,” he complained...'' (CWN 164).
Didn't Nietzsche's father also die of a brain disorder of some sort? And I also read somewhere that he started getting the headaches, nausea and vomiting as early as 9 years old. That would give weight to the organic disorder hypothesis but organic disorders can also be exacerbated by many other factors to produce a final health crisis. He did take all those drugs and he pushed himself incredibly hard so who really knows and, in the end, his ideas are what they are and should be judged on their merits. Anyway, thanks for putting things in perspective here. The more I learn of history the more cases of misinformation I come across that causes me to rethink some of my positions but in the end one should always want to know the truth above all.
You're absolutely right they called it "softening of the brain" though it's not quite clear what that was. The authors of the articles all connect the condition of his father and the loss of his brother to what happened to him. Some have argued that it was heritable syphilis (Nietzsche's doctor in Jena Otto Binswanger) while others have argued that it was a heritable brain condition (Leonard Sax's brain tumour thesis). Thanks for the quality feedback and thanks for watching!
I finished reading Crime and Punishment a couple of days back and before that, I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov. Reading what his fate had been like of Ivan's and Raskolnikov really shocks me.
Without examining his body or dining a DNA test I bout we will ever know. However I’ve always found the Bipolar theory very compelling. You can see both depression and grandiosity in his writing. He seems so similar to a number of famous artists speculated to have the condition, some of which he admired.
I always suspected that it was linked to his Eternal Recurrence. It gave everything significant and made his reality too vivid. Paralysis was the most rational response to operating under such a reality. It may be a too romantic reading of the situation, but I've had a hard time shaking the notion. Reality became too vivid to continue to think in the abstract.
Profoundly grateful for this work! I read Nietzsche seriously for several years as a very young man in the 60s and 70s. Kaufmann's intro to Nietzsche was my first real intro to western thought beyond Euclid and some Plato and Descartes. I learned German and Latin and Greek, mostly poorly, but I did immerse myself in western thought and literature, all because of my youthful passion for Kaufmann's translations, especially of BG&E and the Genealogy. Nietzsche's "descent into madness" was a central romantic myth of my youthful quest. I took Kaufmann's word on the subject as scholarship. In the background was Thomas Mann's treatment of the theme in Doctor Faustus. I think I used the horse flogging thing in a tweet as recently as this year. I have been disabused of many other romantic myths over the years, so this came as no real shock except for the pleasant surprise at the concise way you demolished it. Truly grateful for the education.
He probably did had some genetic predisposition that has contributed to his psychosis, at least on his father's side. He was paranoid that he will end up like his father, he did mention that he might be going insane, but that might have been caused by the drugs he was taking which was opium and sodium chloride. If you haven't yet read Jung's seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathustra, it is a bone chilling hypothesis on what really might have happened to Nietzsche.
Jung peddled the diagnosis of syphilis,and he based this on Nietzsche’s dream with frog. What a super scientific thought! There was indeed a genetic predisposition, but coming from his mother (not father!), as several members of her family had mental illness. Her brother had severe depression, was put into a mental asylum and died of suicide. Knowing N’s relationship with his mother, he must be turning in his grave.
It is so refreshing to find this out....after all this time.....and the waste of opportunity -- for those who have dismissed him throughout the years, from misperceived wrong views -- of one of the most prolific thinkers that has come along since Socrates. I love it...because the more we can lift the curtain on history we mostly find how inaccurate it really is...a kind of entropy in time.
Y'know what I think you are spot on with the comparison with Socrates. It's amazing to see how much influence he's had in the last century and a half so it's good to do anything to get his story sorted out as much as possible
Yes but they also both came to an early and unjust end, perhaps because they were to dangerous for their time? These men were critized, hated and misunderstood during their life, but they will be loved forever. Perhaps there was too much in their genius and their work to unpack to be acknowledged. In that way they gave themselves to the future.
Nice. And for me is funny that a lot of times when people say that an artist, thinker, etc. had mental issues, it's kinda like... normal, like can't have one without the other. But with Nietzsche he is often called a madman, to completely discredit his work. That is my experience when talking about Nietzsche with people. A quick question. Did Nietzsche say he is Polish, just to mock the Germans, or is there some truth behind it??
Absolutely I think at the end of the 19th century it was an easy get out to keep the dynamite of Nietzsche at bay by dismissing all his writings as the ravings of a madman. As for the Polish question I'm not 100% sure. There was definitely a desire to distance himself from the Germans but I also remember that when he mentions the Polish ancestry it's as a connection to nobility and his aristocratic lineage I think (whether there's any truth to the claim or not!)
Just because he didn't have syphilis doesn't mean he wasn't a madman. He was brilliant, sure, but intelligence and sanity are separate things. It's even possible that very high intelligence may be a contributing factor.
That is very true I didn't mention that. This ties in with the thinking about the brain tumour and the bipolar aspects since there's a family history for both
Thanks for clearing this up, I noticed some videos would still mention the syphilis diagnosis. Have you read what Carl Jung thought on Nietzsche's decent into madness? A video about Jung on Nietzsche would be interesting. Enjoying the videos, thank you.
i am in philosophy in Paris, and one of my teacher , a really amazing one, Michele Cohen Halimi, said that the syphilis was brang to turn Nietzsche as an insane person and discredit a big part of his work, because he was against the raise of the national socialism in germany , where his sister was really involved. He even wrote in Ecce Homo , in a not censured version that the only reason he would reject his hypothesis of the eternal return was his siter and mother, 2 monsters. His sister made erased thos parts and said he became crazy because he had disturbed sexual habits. The sister took all in charged when he turned totally unresponsive and even took his concept, who was just an idea, and she wrote the book by herself the will of power to feed the raise of the nazism in germany. The way Nietzsche worked his hypothesis was to write in a book every aspect who could be rejected, every aspect who could lead to a misinterpretation.. he really did the real work of a philosophist...the fact is some said he had the same condition of his father died, a tumor in his brain.
I felt anger by the libel and thought how much anger you must feel for a hero to suffer so much injustice. I will try to read "Thus spoke Zarathustra." Perhaps I will meet the point that you quoted in this video.
Just about any historical figure I've done the slightest bit of research on from 1500 to 1950, I've found something about them having syphilis. There was even a rumor that Winston Churchill had congenital syphilis. When you look closer, the evidence is often surprisingly weak.
I don't think there are any. Aside from the letters that he wrote in the days before the full breakdown he was basically catatonic for the last decade of his life with only moments of lucidity. So those letters would be the only bits available from after the break
Holy crap. First time I heard the Nietzsche horse story I had only a couple years earlier read Crime and Punishment and I was like, well that's an interesting coincidence/resemblance.
A general problem that any researcher has is isolation and loneliness because the more rare your knowledge becomes the fewer people that can understand it or understand you, since to a certain extent we change as we learn. If you want the highest levels of scholastic attainment you have to be comfortable with many hours studying alone and fewer people you can talk to about your work. Now in Nietzsche's case I think you're also throwing on top of that an immersion into phenomenology of a sort which can be intimidating if taken too quick.
I agree that he has syphilis, he had a breakdown. But due to his sickness, and due to his psychological suffering and the madness of discovering the will to power, the reality of life's suffering. All it took was a horse being wiped, mercilessly and he saw the suffering of that animal, only then did he broke down and he went to the horse and whispered in his ear eether it's, italian, German or in Latin, I do not know what language he used. He whispered in the horses ear and said, "I understand you." The was was escorted into inapsychic ward to be treated for his madness.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the fact that Nietzsche's father suffered a terminal neuro- degenerative disease. As a physician i can tell you that genetic neurological manifestations can vary widely in affected members. Medicine and autopsy techniques were quite primitive in his father's day, and we don't know the actual diagnosis in either the father or his son's case. Females in the lineage are spared in many genetic diseases, e.g. hemophilia. That may be the case in the Nietzsche family neuro-denerative disease.
Just off the top whenever I hear anything about someone like him 'going mad' I often think about myself in our society today. I feel like I may get to their point as well but that's why I feel like it's more of them being sane in an insane world.
He may or may not have contracted a physiological disease, but like Van Gogh, it was mostly caused by his alienation from others. It's nearly impossible for the average person to be around a person like this, especially when, at the time, they were indistinguishable from absolute losers or dangerous madmen. (Mind you, they weren't totally devoid of these characteristics either.) Imagine having painted hundreds of works, including many masterpieces, or having written tomes that would later become priceless contributions to the human endeavour and the common person doesn't consider you as valuable because they don't understand or in most cases don't even take the time to experience your work at all. Most people don't care until others care and even if that happens, the appreciation is nearly always a superficial projection anyways. People like Nietzsche now because they envision themselves as the tightrope walker, when in reality they are couch sitting last men. The only walk the labyrinth in their imagination. Plenty of people easily understand them for what they are, because they are also mediocre. The difference between a middle class failure and success is far closer than either are in relation to a truly great person. It only seems close because people kid themselves into believing the sacrifice of excellence doesn't demand everything. Most people see themselves not as mediocrities, but temporarily embarrassed billionaires and geniuses, all the while producing nothing, let alone anything of actual value to culture. People don't exactly die from illness so much as illnesses are always present and a healthy immune function enables recovery. It's only when one falls beneath the threshold of natural healing that anyone considers them to have a disease. When you are young you can go without the company of others because you are insulated by youth. There's vitality in the bank for you to withdraw from, but like anything else in the world it is subject to entropy. Intelligence is not too dissimilar to weight lifting in that you need to tear the old tissue to create the new. Surely the sharpness of his thoughts cut up his brain, but it's the lack of acceptance which hindered the natural healing process that the average person takes for granted. Many times he recovered and with an increased synaptic capacity as a result, but at a certain point the solitude that is necessary for an artist or philosopher to create can become neglect that cuts the branch from under the being that is after all, still human (and of course, all too human.) If you don't have the choice to be mediocre it's only natural that you would shoot for the stars, because the gutter is guaranteed. For most this is a risk too great to truly endeavour, but for a person who couldn't walk the middle road, it's their only chance to be accepted and their is little risk, because they are already ostracized. The rewards outweigh the risks, because they already live without what most would be risking to lose. The great people of history are mythologized and this myth becomes distortion, betraying the human being that each of this people still were. The story is too fascinating to easily allow understanding of the neglect that always necessitates the entire enterprise. If a lonely person pays for the company of women and contracts a disease as a result, we scandalize the individual instead of feeling the appropriate shame of being an exclusionary, petty bourgeoisie materialist. Most people who claim compassion for these men do so from the safe distance away from the vagrants they stepped over on the way back to their couch. We'll never know how many genius works have been lost to neglect. Nietzsche and Van Gogh are rare mostly because they were obsessive documentarians of their own experience, so they left something that stood a hope of being considered, long after the people who neglected to do so had also succumbed to time. I imagine countless portfolios and manuscripts are just thrown in the garbage after the dude dies.
Really means metaphysically great Signifier, but there is none, just interpreparations and different understandings, this was also Nietzsches great argumentation: God is dead, no moral truths anymore.
a key point, "abandon all hope ye who enter here." Even the great Nietzche couldn't escape the locked door of the inner psyche. w/o guidance (thanks Virgil), you will be lost. yes, even you. tread carefully and thoughtfully.
Great video. Thank you. I have a theory on his condition. Due to his symptoms even as a child, with his pupils and his seizures, migraine and so on. Not dementia but rather an undiagnosed brain damage? Just a thought and observation based on experience from work and my own son.
Misinformation has been around a long time - I guess, as long as human beings have been around. Interesting and informative post. I came here after discovering and getting immersed in Bela Tarr's film, The Turin Horse.
I think it's very probable that the drug abuse was the main issue. I'm experimenting very similar dementia, anxiety and social incompetence. I don't think is as bad as he had, but I heavily relate to the symptoms and to his writings. My story is only with a weed problem, but seeing his history with all the drugs he took, I'm not surprised of his symptoms. I smoked since I was 15 until my 23s. Then one day I was high on a festival and my brain made a switch from which I never recovered (now I'm 30). My IQ and social competence plumered and remained broken for the rest of my life. I have also been suggested by my psychiatrist that I may be bipolar, so I guess this disorder and hallucinogens just don't go together. It's crazy to me how many people lose their lifes due to drugs every year and we seem to be unable to stop it. Not only the hard drugs are the problem, you really don't know how anything will affect you until you cross an invisible line. Be careful with weed, nowadays people think is ok to smoke but it really has its risks. If you are ever curious about my case or want someone to talk to about drugs you can reach out for me.
@@JoBlakeLisbon I know mate, he took other drugs. There's many theories about why he had his mental breakdown, I just happen to believe drugs really fit the profile given my experience.
He had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. His works are riddled with it. Like most narcissists he had a crisis of confidence in his 50s that led eventually to a process known as "narcissistic mortification" and that drive him insane. His symptoms are consistent with the terror of mortification experienced by narcissists.
When someone has beliefs that are strongly contested, as his were, it requires the ego to assert itself and possibly inflate a little bit to sustain its efforts to individualize. If the opposite would have happened, his work would likely never have been completed. Personally if Nietzsche saw the impact his work had on society, I doubt he would regret a single thing, and he was actually RIGHT, so his views while grandiose, were not WRONG. Nietzsche would likely affirm those who are narcissistic, and see it as a confirmation of the will to power, rather than a disability. Although it definitely can be a disability, I think if Nietzsche had it, he made the best use of it possible and in the end it wasn’t selfish at all, but a great service to future generations.
@bewaterbro He certainly wouldn't have done. His works were aimed at a small "elite" of people he presumed to be similarly minded. He considered himself to be part of that "elite" as a result of his (delusional) belief that he was a member of polish nobility. He believed that the "elite" should be encouraged to step outside of "morality" to do as they pleased since only by this means could they achieve "greatness". He had little interest in "humanity" as a whole, perceiving people outside the "elite" as being little people of no consequence bound to the beliefs bestowed to them by "elites". This whole world-view is spawned by narcissism. I'm sure people who are very narcissistic consider it perfectly normal.
@@PGHEngineer Giving birth to the antidote of Nihilism puts him next to a saint in my view. Individualism no doubt has its perils though, and Nietzsche was indeed an extreme version of the coming movement. The idea that we have to submit to events of the past, and accept them as universally true is not the path forward either. Collectivism and individualism both have thorny edges. Collectivism at its extreme just projects God like status onto the herd, no matter its whims.
Under the prevailing egalitarian worldview, psychiatry does not recognize any natural hierarchy of ability among individuals, but only degrees of deviation from the established norms in thought and behavior. There can be no judgments of greater, average, and lesser minds, only "normal" and "abnormal" ways of thinking. Under this framework, a genius who recognizes the greatness of his achievements and an unremarkable businessman who believes the world should cater to him are both classified as narcissists, despite the fact that the former's pride is grounded in reality and the latter's is based in delusion, because the notion that one person can be greater than another is rejected on principle. Nietzsche emphasized the idea that the most mediocre people have so little understanding of greatness that they are unable to recognize it in others, and unless a great man has been established in culture for long enough that praising him has become customary, they are more likely to denigrate him with accusations of heresy and immorality, or in the current day, DSM-5 labels.
The bipolar hypothesis is very convincing - it would explain his delusions of grandeur perfectly, as well as his sporadic work ethic. Nietzsche was famous for spending months without writing a single work, then producing entire works in a matter of days
While the audience here will no doubt find it fantastical and inadmissible in scientific discourse, I find the most enlightening insights into Nietzsche's biography come from the Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner, who looked into events using direct spiritual insight.
Haha sorry friend if anything though it's them pesky 19th century doctors you should be talking to - giving out paretic syphilis diagnoses based on astigmatism!
In truth we shall never know the truth of Nietzsche's madness, for all we have are different possibilities and conflicting interpretations. And how fitting, eh?
Thanks Glenn always good to see the work appreciated. Yeah it was part laziness by the doctors and then sensationalized smear by some of the biographers who came after
There is a more recent publication in March 2023 by Eva Cybulska: ˋNietzsche and bipolar disorder. A critical evaluation of diagnostic hypotheses from historical and epistemological perspective.’ NB. Sax published his epistemologically and historically unsustainable diagnosis of brain tumour in 2003, not 2002. The meningioma, that he alleges Nietzsche had, would have been spanning for over 35 years-the longest growing meningioma in medical history. Not a bad try by a specialist in adolescent gender problems, Sax’s specialty.
I think Nietzsche was so smart...an Uber philosopher that saw the fallacies of Plato, Schopenhauer and the rest, whose goal was to destroy belief and supposition, and he couldn´t take it...he was the only one, the first to say, for example ¨God is dead¨ and suchlike. He was too alone.
This excellent video starts with a mistake: it was JANUARY 3, 1889, not, as stated at 00:36, "February 3, 1889." Later he does refer to January 3. But, as a whole, I found this presentation impressively careful and plausible. Kudos to the speaker/creator.
Let's say that Nietzsche is still windsurfing the mind ocean, and the kraken of conscience didn't get him. The same way it's possible for a future craft to speed up and catch that old Voyager (?) still out there boogieing along in interstellar space, some future craft or AI could catch up with Nietzsche...I wonder what he would do if invited back into the fold? Did he let go of his identity at the end on purpose or was he - his awareness - split off his identity without his volition, or the identity part diminished altogether. Smokey stoves (coal?) producing no heat but plenty of CO couldn't have helped. Maybe they should have cleaned the chimney more often, could have made the difference.
Very interesting! I remember having read the challenge to the paretic syphilis diagnosis...and I had always felt that this diagnosis was to 'convenient' a get out clause for contemporaries as a way to try and 'side-line' Nietzsche's work as the work of a 'diseased' mind...I don't think the man even really had sex more than once...maybe not even that! So, even then...it would have been dreadfully unlucky for him to catch something like that from so short and exposure...although I guess not impossible. I myself subscribed to a mixture of the drugs he was taking...potentially the end result of his life long migraines...and perhaps the psychological 'implications' of his philosophy and his grander societal implications (such as Europe descending into the 'sea' of great wars and blood in the coming century...which he was correct about) which drove him to madness...but I would also like to thank you for putting me right on the whole 'hugging a horse' of a break down he allegedly experienced in Turin...I had always taken that part of the story as being true until just now! Just goes to show what gossip as a 'scholars footnote' can do!
We love our myths... Virtually everyone still believes that Luther dramatically nailed his theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church although modern historians tend towards the view that's just latter propaganda.
But madness is not something present at all points in his life. Why bother with that idea, its so fleeting. And what IS madness? Can you ever really know? You cant, so why bother?
It seems likely that this old school Incel never had sex at all. The story about him and the sex workers was the only thing I ever read or heard that suggested that he did. A combination of being bipolar and taking drugs does seem to be a plausible explanation. Especially the oral cocaine. His manic, grandiose style, so attractive to young men, tastes like a central nervous system stimulant to me. Also, when a bipolar person takes stimulants, it can very often cause a manic episode. And, once he is in one, drugs that calm and relax would not have been affective in ending the mania until it was ready to end on its own. They might, however, keep him from killing himself during the long dark periods of depression that followed, as well as the pain of his physical ailments. We must be careful here. I read one person who said that one of the drugs he took for insomnia, chloral hydrate, produces hallucinations. I have tried it, and it does not. It is just a sleeping pill, a really boring drug whose only effect is to make a person sleepy. Opium and hashish do not generally producer hallucinations either. But they can put one into vivid, dream like states. Of course, one must avoid the common mistake made by the young, to think that if you take the same drugs that a genius took, you will produce work as good as what that genius produces. You will not. If anything, it will probably make your work worse.
Im the old testament the Israelites are not permitted to see the face of God because if they did they would die. Nietzsche believed in accepting every aspect of life no matter how difficult - Perhaps he saw the face of God.
Nietzsche wrote that some men are born posthumously. Perhaps others are ''murdered'' posthumously. I was one of the Walter Kauffmann generation, and just accepted the ''tertiary syphilis'' diagnosis (when it was actually nothing but a theory). This is an excellent corrective. No matter what the ''experts'' said, my heart always believed that he'd stared too long into the abyss. And living a life of solitude has very real dangers as well. How typical of a mother to blame it all on ''drugs'' rather than the endless battle with pain that the drugs were intended to alleviate! This was the first I have ever heard of ''notebooks'' N. wrote in the asylum. I'd be interested to know what happened to them, but can well imagine his sister got rid of them. Great job!
Interesting that many people conflate independent thought with madness and drug addled.
Well formed response. My personal theory is enlightened men with access to idea’s & philosophies which leap frog over the common base needs of society lead to a uncomfortable isolation & loneliness. I often wonder how Galileo felt leaving his loft entering the streets of Florence & it’s squalor irrespective of the influence of the Medeci, How do you engage with society, find another soul to debate with & share ideas ? I read Nietzsche at 16, I identified which books to study ( post sisters acquisition) & I was filled with enthusiasms….but where do I go to allow them to take flight ? Intellectual isolation is a weight to bare , you can learn to internalise it or escape with drugs or alcohol, I chose the former, throwing myself into generating enough wealth to roam Rome with my 82 Hasselblad & a roll of B&W film , I threw myself into analogue photography , collecting Japanese wood block prints & 20th century Persian silk carpets . I was fortunate, for surely I would have become a difficult man to be around. The sadness of it is, that Nietzsche today would be further away from an open audience in 2023 than he would in 1885. Good luck to the star gazers, the pilgrims of new ideas & the gardeners of the aesthetic.
Superb writing. Carrying excellent insights.
There is the disputed story of his autobiography smuggled out that reveals an incestuous relationship with Elizabeth his sister. I think Kaufman disputed it and they point to references to Detroit that would have been generally unknown to them in Europe however there are old u tube lectures by a top US Californian? Jung institute head who, in one lecture. agreed with the autobiography story, My Sister And I (?) linking it to his inner psychological pathology.
Probably from writing all that writing that they started translating at the same time instead of waiting most great artist release art at the end of their life as I been told
Fantastic work! I've always thought that people attributed his fall into madness to epitomise the madman archetype because of his madman parable and many other writings. People seem to have the preconceived notion that because he was such an eccentric character that he was bound to fall prey to his own wisdom, falling into madness. Reminds me of Lovecraftian lore, that one should not delve too deeply into the secrets of life lest one goes mad from the revelation.
Then of course adding a myth such as the Turin Horse incident and of course defamation through a syphilis misdiagnosis.
Yeah he's definitely someone that's tied up intimately with madness and it's interesting that it's such a theme throughout his works and you can see in the letters as well that there's an anxiety in him about going mad (probably because of his father's demise). The Lovecraftian idea is interesting; it brings to mind an Emily Dickinson poem actually that
"Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
’Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you’re straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -"
I can see a lot of the approach to Nietzsche in this. His insanity was a convenient excuse for dismissing his writings and keeping them at arm's length.
I actually learned about the connection between the Turin horse incident and Crime & Punishment from one of your videos so your imprint is in there!
👍😭❤️
I guess “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Eternal: The Turin horses story is an attractive narrative. Why? Because of the irony of a man who spoke so often against pity collapsing in empathetic pain after trying to save a horse that was being beaten. The irony, man, the irony! It adds another level of emotional depth to his contradictory personality.
But apparently, his actually collapse was far less interesting than the one that people have come to know and love. Sometimes a mental collapse is just a mental collapse.
I am currently writing a thesis on Nietzsche, and causally searched for details about his decline. So glad I found a video with more scholarly detail than academic papers I have seen on the topic.
Haha awesome Sean I was curious to get to the bottom of it so I did consume quite a bit of literature to get to this response. Thanks for the kind words!
@@TheLivingPhilosophyyou're amazing! keep doing what you do
One thing we can learn from this is, that a doctor should write "I don't know" much more often as the diagnosis, than just making a rampant and wild guess.
EDIT: I was surprised by the conclusion. I have been hospitalized for my thoughts. They still have not diagnosed me properly. My problem was, that all my experiences and thoughts were being held up by a very faulty philosophical structure, and it was holding up an immense weight of trauma, and past and at the time current suffering and incredible stress. When that support structure was evaporized through study and learning, I went insane. I tried to speak of this, but my words were interpreted as that of a madman, though to this day I know I was right in having my thoughts. I had to figure things out myself by more study and experiences, and learning to change myself. I was medicated, without which I surely would never have recuperated.
They only let me out once I could mask myself well enough. I knew that even the mention of philosophy would scatter the room for some reason. What scared me the most during that time was the thought, that the entire world was being run on extremely faulty mental structures, and anyone who learns enough or won't straight up deny facts will be locked away because they can no longer function. I knew I could not bury all my thoughts, so I though I had to literally bury myself, and never speak of what had happened. I felt that if it really is the case, that everything is absolute, pure madness, then I had to die. I have found that this is not really the case, because simply put, more intelligent and well versed people than I are doing just fine. That meant, that intellect or learning in itself was not fatal, though it can be extremely dangerous. It's best not speak of these things, because it causes tremendous suffering for some people. I don't believe in anything supernatural or religious or weird, or in self superiority or any super powers. Quite the opposite. I took life by the horns because I was a naive fool, and got on a terrible ride of my life. I'm not sure whether I was proverbially mauled to death, or whether I held on long enough to become strong enough.
In any case, it is more than possible, that a man with Nietzsche's thinking ended up institutionalized at some point in his life, since it can happen to his lessers.
Thanks for sharing your experience Lawrence. I do think there's a possibility of thoughts having an unravelling effect. I think schizophrenia is a very important mental formation in human society and it's one that our culture has proven truly appalling at integrating. I think the otherness that psychosis offers is dismissed too quickly because it is different and I suspect there's also a greater darkness and panic in the communications of psychosis in the same way that an individual's shadow when repressed too severly and for too long can come out in an explosion rather than being gently released through more consistent relief.
From my perspective it is not a question of intelligence. When coupled with intelligence of course it can be a true gift to the culture but there's no correlation between intelligence and wisdom. There's an old Sufi tale where a sufi saint is asked what grace has brought him and he responds that when he wakes in the morning he feels unsure as to whether he'll be alive in the evening. His interlocutor says that surely everyone knows this to which the saint replies yes they know it but they don't feel it. I think intelligent people can know but they don't feel the problem intimately. Nietzsche felt these problems intimately and I think those experiencing psychosis are often experiencing something that the rest of us know (I think there has to be an allowance made for the nature of the content of psychosis. It's not a factual language any more than the Bible is. It speaks a different language of truth).
All of which is to say...I'm not sure really. I think that thoughts could bring down the house but I don't think that's to do with the thoughts but with the solution they dissolve into. The same thought that doesn't even register with one person might wipe out another. There are dangerous thoughts but they require a certain nature to mix with before they become dangerously explosive.
@The Living Philosophy I agree with your conclusion wholeheartedly. I always felt that some people would find their entire existence liberated by my thoughts, and for me and my structure, be it the result of my nature or my experiences, had the adverse effect. I also know that my thoughts are far from original, but at the time I felt like I was going the same path as Nietzsche, which was terrifying for me at the time since I felt like my life hadn't even begun yet, amongst other things. Also, if a mind like Nietzsche's could be broken by thoughts alone, what chance in hell did I have?
After readjusting, I find myself both with feelings of immense liberation, and on the other hand a certain echo of how things used to be for me, and how they still in many ways are and will be forever. I feel like I have moved house in my mind almost to the point where I could shake hands with my life with a clear conscience. I myself had to readjust, and the fault was definitely in me rather than vice versa. I do still honestly feel that life for an intelligent being can be a rather panic enducing experience. Thank goodness for humor, medicine, poetry and the arts, and kindness. There can never be enough of those, and they can mainly even be the best reasons to ever have existed in the first place. There is so much to be grateful for in our modern life.
@@Lawh Amen to that Lawrence. The only thing in your comment that I would pick at is this exceptionalism of Nietzsche. I think the fact that someone is a higher intelligence shouldn't be confused with the character traits that matter when going through hell: grit, wisdom, faith being words that come to mind. Intelligence and expressive ability might amplify the collective value of the experience but I don't know how helpful they are in the individual experience of the underworld
@@TheLivingPhilosophy I agree, though any attributes I myself would wish to improve upon, I would automatically consider myself inferior to Nietzsche. Whether it be true or even a useful measure to make. I guess it's my personal default setting.
When it comes to people in general, I would not wish to rank anyone in any fashion. I think the difference is, that I can only judge myself alone, and can say nothing of others.
I guess what I'm getting at is, that making yourself go insane is neither an achievement, nor anything to have shame over. It's neither here or there. I personally prefer myself to be in the sad Socrates camp, though I have had many doubts along the way. Even changes of heart in my weakest moments. At least I feel that I really did challenge myself to seek nothing but what I felt was important.
@@Lawh That sounds like the noblest hill of all to die on Lawrence
Self hatred and abuse by putting one self judgment to a perfectionist standard can make many mentally sick
I don’t understand why people use his mental condition as a reason to disregard him, because his same opinions today are less controversial.
Nietzsche suffered a lot in his life no doubt, so it’s easy to be skeptical of his way of life, but he welcomes suffering.
It’s his very suffering that lead to the creation of his great work, and the same is often true of us as individuals. Our deepest trenches can lead us to our greatest stories of overcoming.
As someone who has been both depressed and grandiose at different times in my past, it is a blessing and not a curse. It’s a signal that can be learned from, and it’s ultimately an impulse that is trying to lead you somewhere. Some of my greatest achievements were born out of a feeling of grandiosity, and I suspect many others have the same experience. It’s not a purely negative state although it’s not sustainable.
I am ashamed to admit I was one of those who had bought into the whole sypilis diagnosis. Your presentation has totally won me over that this was in fact a misdiagnosis. From what I’ve read I am now inclined to believe that he had a benign brain tumour, but as you point out we will never be sure.
Nietzsche is the incarnation of that ancient of all ancient archetypes: he who straddles the tightrope between genius and insanity. Nothing below but an abyss looking up at him.
And this is the very image of ‘tight rope walker Nietzsche evoked in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He fell to his death with his body crashing down.
Many thanks for this, only just found it... Nietzsche's sudden collapse has always fascinated me. My wife is a Nietzsche scholar and over the years translated a lot of the letters and unpublished notebooks - M III (1) contains loads of almost Spinozist or semi-pagan reflections on how ''human consciousness may be a development of the mineral world via plant and animal' ). Over the years I've developed an eye for how much Nietzsche was interacting with the mineral, chemical and plant world... and although he wasn't a 'total 'drug fiend'' he was self-medicating with some very heavy substances throughout his nomadic life. Insomnia caused by chloral hydrate is hellish: three of four days without sleep would twist anyone's noggin. Blinding migraines, ever-deteriorating vision, problems after having part of his sternum removed etc meant he was fairly consistently mooching for chemical remedies. The speed at which he went totally nutzoid and almost totally mute suggests something like a psychotic break... but precisely what caused it is guesswork. In Resa von Schirnhofer’s memoir there is a similar suggestion with a hint of trippy menace, as if the outside has taken root from within: ''With a distraught expression on his pale face [Nietzsche] leaned wearily against the post of the half-opened door and immediately began to speak about the unbearableness of his ailment. He described to me how, when he closed his eyes, he saw an abundance of fantastic flowers, winding and intertwining, constantly growing and changing forms and colours in exotic luxuriance, sprouting one out of the other. “I never get any rest,” he complained...'' (CWN 164).
The quote is from ''Conversations with Nietzsche'', S. l. Gilman & D. J. Parent, 1987,
Didn't Nietzsche's father also die of a brain disorder of some sort? And I also read somewhere that he started getting the headaches, nausea and vomiting as early as 9 years old. That would give weight to the organic disorder hypothesis but organic disorders can also be exacerbated by many other factors to produce a final health crisis. He did take all those drugs and he pushed himself incredibly hard so who really knows and, in the end, his ideas are what they are and should be judged on their merits. Anyway, thanks for putting things in perspective here. The more I learn of history the more cases of misinformation I come across that causes me to rethink some of my positions but in the end one should always want to know the truth above all.
You're absolutely right they called it "softening of the brain" though it's not quite clear what that was. The authors of the articles all connect the condition of his father and the loss of his brother to what happened to him. Some have argued that it was heritable syphilis (Nietzsche's doctor in Jena Otto Binswanger) while others have argued that it was a heritable brain condition (Leonard Sax's brain tumour thesis). Thanks for the quality feedback and thanks for watching!
He died from throat cancer when Nietzsche was 4
I finished reading Crime and Punishment a couple of days back and before that, I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov. Reading what his fate had been like of Ivan's and Raskolnikov really shocks me.
Without examining his body or dining a DNA test I bout we will ever know. However I’ve always found the Bipolar theory very compelling. You can see both depression and grandiosity in his writing. He seems so similar to a number of famous artists speculated to have the condition, some of which he admired.
I always suspected that it was linked to his Eternal Recurrence. It gave everything significant and made his reality too vivid. Paralysis was the most rational response to operating under such a reality. It may be a too romantic reading of the situation, but I've had a hard time shaking the notion. Reality became too vivid to continue to think in the abstract.
Profoundly grateful for this work! I read Nietzsche seriously for several years as a very young man in the 60s and 70s. Kaufmann's intro to Nietzsche was my first real intro to western thought beyond Euclid and some Plato and Descartes. I learned German and Latin and Greek, mostly poorly, but I did immerse myself in western thought and literature, all because of my youthful passion for Kaufmann's translations, especially of BG&E and the Genealogy.
Nietzsche's "descent into madness" was a central romantic myth of my youthful quest. I took Kaufmann's word on the subject as scholarship. In the background was Thomas Mann's treatment of the theme in Doctor Faustus. I think I used the horse flogging thing in a tweet as recently as this year. I have been disabused of many other romantic myths over the years, so this came as no real shock except for the pleasant surprise at the concise way you demolished it. Truly grateful for the education.
He probably did had some genetic predisposition that has contributed to his psychosis, at least on his father's side. He was paranoid that he will end up like his father, he did mention that he might be going insane, but that might have been caused by the drugs he was taking which was opium and sodium chloride. If you haven't yet read Jung's seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathustra, it is a bone chilling hypothesis on what really might have happened to Nietzsche.
Jung peddled the diagnosis of syphilis,and he based this on Nietzsche’s dream with frog. What a super scientific thought! There was indeed a genetic predisposition, but coming from his mother (not father!), as several members of her family had mental illness. Her brother had severe depression, was put into a mental asylum and died of suicide. Knowing N’s relationship with his mother, he must be turning in his grave.
It is so refreshing to find this out....after all this time.....and the waste of opportunity -- for those who have dismissed him throughout the years, from misperceived wrong views -- of one of the most prolific thinkers that has come along since Socrates. I love it...because the more we can lift the curtain on history we mostly find how inaccurate it really is...a
kind of entropy in time.
Y'know what I think you are spot on with the comparison with Socrates. It's amazing to see how much influence he's had in the last century and a half so it's good to do anything to get his story sorted out as much as possible
Yes but they also both came to an early and unjust end, perhaps because they were to dangerous for their time? These men were critized, hated and misunderstood during their life, but they will be loved forever. Perhaps there was too much in their genius and their work to unpack to be acknowledged. In that way they gave themselves to the future.
Thank you for setting the record straight.
Nice. And for me is funny that a lot of times when people say that an artist, thinker, etc. had mental issues, it's kinda like... normal, like can't have one without the other. But with Nietzsche he is often called a madman, to completely discredit his work. That is my experience when talking about Nietzsche with people. A quick question. Did Nietzsche say he is Polish, just to mock the Germans, or is there some truth behind it??
Absolutely I think at the end of the 19th century it was an easy get out to keep the dynamite of Nietzsche at bay by dismissing all his writings as the ravings of a madman.
As for the Polish question I'm not 100% sure. There was definitely a desire to distance himself from the Germans but I also remember that when he mentions the Polish ancestry it's as a connection to nobility and his aristocratic lineage I think (whether there's any truth to the claim or not!)
"Kinda" is not a word in the English language.
@@excelsior999 pedantic
Just because he didn't have syphilis doesn't mean he wasn't a madman. He was brilliant, sure, but intelligence and sanity are separate things. It's even possible that very high intelligence may be a contributing factor.
It could have been a heritable condition. His father also had an early death.
That is very true I didn't mention that. This ties in with the thinking about the brain tumour and the bipolar aspects since there's a family history for both
Another clear video. Thank you so much for sharing and setting the record straight.
Thanks Remco! Glad you enjoyed it!
I'd never questioned the popular narrative of Nietzsche's breakdown and madness. It makes me wonder what else I think I know that I really don't.
Thanks for clearing this up, I noticed some videos would still mention the syphilis diagnosis.
Have you read what Carl Jung thought on Nietzsche's decent into madness? A video about Jung on Nietzsche would be interesting.
Enjoying the videos, thank you.
Divine mania , higher state of consciousness. I saw that video that you mentioned.
Fascinating - well done - great production - love the artwork - God Bless
With our mind
We create our reality.
Nietzsche descends into silent because he thinks dangerous thoughts and lives dangerously.
We don't create reality with our thoughts.
i am in philosophy in Paris, and one of my teacher , a really amazing one, Michele Cohen Halimi, said that the syphilis was brang to turn Nietzsche as an insane person and discredit a big part of his work, because he was against the raise of the national socialism in germany , where his sister was really involved. He even wrote in Ecce Homo , in a not censured version that the only reason he would reject his hypothesis of the eternal return was his siter and mother, 2 monsters. His sister made erased thos parts and said he became crazy because he had disturbed sexual habits. The sister took all in charged when he turned totally unresponsive and even took his concept, who was just an idea, and she wrote the book by herself the will of power to feed the raise of the nazism in germany. The way Nietzsche worked his hypothesis was to write in a book every aspect who could be rejected, every aspect who could lead to a misinterpretation.. he really did the real work of a philosophist...the fact is some said he had the same condition of his father died, a tumor in his brain.
I felt anger by the libel and thought how much anger you must feel for a hero to suffer so much injustice. I will try to read "Thus spoke Zarathustra." Perhaps I will meet the point that you quoted in this video.
Just about any historical figure I've done the slightest bit of research on from 1500 to 1950, I've found something about them having syphilis. There was even a rumor that Winston Churchill had congenital syphilis. When you look closer, the evidence is often surprisingly weak.
Holderlin's madness was much more lengthy, harrowing, and mysterious!
Are the notebooks from his madness days available ?
I don't think there are any. Aside from the letters that he wrote in the days before the full breakdown he was basically catatonic for the last decade of his life with only moments of lucidity. So those letters would be the only bits available from after the break
Holy crap. First time I heard the Nietzsche horse story I had only a couple years earlier read Crime and Punishment and I was like, well that's an interesting coincidence/resemblance.
A general problem that any researcher has is isolation and loneliness because the more rare your knowledge becomes the fewer people that can understand it or understand you, since to a certain extent we change as we learn. If you want the highest levels of scholastic attainment you have to be comfortable with many hours studying alone and fewer people you can talk to about your work. Now in Nietzsche's case I think you're also throwing on top of that an immersion into phenomenology of a sort which can be intimidating if taken too quick.
Great video. I had a little criticism on Jung's video on philosophers but really enjoy your content and discovered your channel today. Subscribed
I agree that he has syphilis, he had a breakdown. But due to his sickness, and due to his psychological suffering and the madness of discovering the will to power, the reality of life's suffering. All it took was a horse being wiped, mercilessly and he saw the suffering of that animal, only then did he broke down and he went to the horse and whispered in his ear eether it's, italian, German or in Latin, I do not know what language he used. He whispered in the horses ear and said, "I understand you." The was was escorted into inapsychic ward to be treated for his madness.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the fact that Nietzsche's father suffered a terminal neuro- degenerative disease. As a physician i can tell you that genetic neurological manifestations can vary widely in affected members. Medicine and autopsy techniques were quite primitive in his father's day, and we don't know the actual diagnosis in either the father or his son's case. Females in the lineage are spared in many genetic diseases, e.g. hemophilia. That may be the case in the Nietzsche family neuro-denerative disease.
I thought I did but that's a big oversight on my part. His brother also died as a young boy from the same condition if I recall correctly
Just off the top whenever I hear anything about someone like him 'going mad' I often think about myself in our society today. I feel like I may get to their point as well but that's why I feel like it's more of them being sane in an insane world.
1:00 I thought immediately of the Crime dream
Great video brother!!
Excellent work - I subscribed
what a great video! thank you for making this incredible content!
He may or may not have contracted a physiological disease, but like Van Gogh, it was mostly caused by his alienation from others. It's nearly impossible for the average person to be around a person like this, especially when, at the time, they were indistinguishable from absolute losers or dangerous madmen. (Mind you, they weren't totally devoid of these characteristics either.)
Imagine having painted hundreds of works, including many masterpieces, or having written tomes that would later become priceless contributions to the human endeavour and the common person doesn't consider you as valuable because they don't understand or in most cases don't even take the time to experience your work at all.
Most people don't care until others care and even if that happens, the appreciation is nearly always a superficial projection anyways. People like Nietzsche now because they envision themselves as the tightrope walker, when in reality they are couch sitting last men. The only walk the labyrinth in their imagination. Plenty of people easily understand them for what they are, because they are also mediocre. The difference between a middle class failure and success is far closer than either are in relation to a truly great person. It only seems close because people kid themselves into believing the sacrifice of excellence doesn't demand everything. Most people see themselves not as mediocrities, but temporarily embarrassed billionaires and geniuses, all the while producing nothing, let alone anything of actual value to culture.
People don't exactly die from illness so much as illnesses are always present and a healthy immune function enables recovery. It's only when one falls beneath the threshold of natural healing that anyone considers them to have a disease. When you are young you can go without the company of others because you are insulated by youth. There's vitality in the bank for you to withdraw from, but like anything else in the world it is subject to entropy. Intelligence is not too dissimilar to weight lifting in that you need to tear the old tissue to create the new. Surely the sharpness of his thoughts cut up his brain, but it's the lack of acceptance which hindered the natural healing process that the average person takes for granted. Many times he recovered and with an increased synaptic capacity as a result, but at a certain point the solitude that is necessary for an artist or philosopher to create can become neglect that cuts the branch from under the being that is after all, still human (and of course, all too human.)
If you don't have the choice to be mediocre it's only natural that you would shoot for the stars, because the gutter is guaranteed. For most this is a risk too great to truly endeavour, but for a person who couldn't walk the middle road, it's their only chance to be accepted and their is little risk, because they are already ostracized. The rewards outweigh the risks, because they already live without what most would be risking to lose.
The great people of history are mythologized and this myth becomes distortion, betraying the human being that each of this people still were. The story is too fascinating to easily allow understanding of the neglect that always necessitates the entire enterprise. If a lonely person pays for the company of women and contracts a disease as a result, we scandalize the individual instead of feeling the appropriate shame of being an exclusionary, petty bourgeoisie materialist. Most people who claim compassion for these men do so from the safe distance away from the vagrants they stepped over on the way back to their couch.
We'll never know how many genius works have been lost to neglect. Nietzsche and Van Gogh are rare mostly because they were obsessive documentarians of their own experience, so they left something that stood a hope of being considered, long after the people who neglected to do so had also succumbed to time. I imagine countless portfolios and manuscripts are just thrown in the garbage after the dude dies.
You're better than all of us plebs. You're the best person ever, greater than Nietzsche himself with all your great contributions that rival his.
Amazing! Would love more on his "madness." I kinda feel like he decided to check out and quietly laugh at everybody.
This is what I was actually looking for and I wasn't disappointed.
On the side note, guys, I also have problems with my other eye, it often turns red.
Inigualable!🎉
Viva por siempre!
Gran F.N.
Pascal apparently had very similar symptoms.
I'm certain because it was of his own worldview, his amor fati, and his family relationships. His worldview because he was truly alone.
Really means metaphysically great Signifier, but there is none, just interpreparations and different understandings, this was also Nietzsches great argumentation: God is dead, no moral truths anymore.
Interesting vivid story telling. Intelligence behind. Love it. Keep this stamina up if possible. I subbed right away.
a key point,
"abandon all hope ye who enter here." Even the great Nietzche couldn't escape the locked door of the inner psyche. w/o guidance (thanks Virgil), you will be lost. yes, even you. tread carefully and thoughtfully.
Really misleading thumbnail. Thought the video was about me.
Great show! Dionysians tend to burn out fast. Thankfully they reappear fast. Antonin Artaud was more Neitzche than Neitzche !
Wow ! How fascinating. You are by far the best channel I have found on TH-cam and I say that in ernest. Thank you very much for your work !!
Great video. Thank you. I have a theory on his condition. Due to his symptoms even as a child, with his pupils and his seizures, migraine and so on. Not dementia but rather an undiagnosed brain damage? Just a thought and observation based on experience from work and my own son.
Interesting, thanks.
Great video
Thanks Santos!
Too much feasting on the local talent when on holiday in Italy...
Misinformation has been around a long time - I guess, as long as human beings have been around.
Interesting and informative post. I came here after discovering and getting immersed in Bela Tarr's film, The Turin Horse.
I think it's very probable that the drug abuse was the main issue. I'm experimenting very similar dementia, anxiety and social incompetence. I don't think is as bad as he had, but I heavily relate to the symptoms and to his writings. My story is only with a weed problem, but seeing his history with all the drugs he took, I'm not surprised of his symptoms. I smoked since I was 15 until my 23s. Then one day I was high on a festival and my brain made a switch from which I never recovered (now I'm 30). My IQ and social competence plumered and remained broken for the rest of my life. I have also been suggested by my psychiatrist that I may be bipolar, so I guess this disorder and hallucinogens just don't go together. It's crazy to me how many people lose their lifes due to drugs every year and we seem to be unable to stop it. Not only the hard drugs are the problem, you really don't know how anything will affect you until you cross an invisible line. Be careful with weed, nowadays people think is ok to smoke but it really has its risks. If you are ever curious about my case or want someone to talk to about drugs you can reach out for me.
Weed wasn't even available in Europe in the 1800s mate.
@@JoBlakeLisbon I know mate, he took other drugs. There's many theories about why he had his mental breakdown, I just happen to believe drugs really fit the profile given my experience.
He had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. His works are riddled with it. Like most narcissists he had a crisis of confidence in his 50s that led eventually to a process known as "narcissistic mortification" and that drive him insane. His symptoms are consistent with the terror of mortification experienced by narcissists.
When someone has beliefs that are strongly contested, as his were, it requires the ego to assert itself and possibly inflate a little bit to sustain its efforts to individualize. If the opposite would have happened, his work would likely never have been completed. Personally if Nietzsche saw the impact his work had on society, I doubt he would regret a single thing, and he was actually RIGHT, so his views while grandiose, were not WRONG.
Nietzsche would likely affirm those who are narcissistic, and see it as a confirmation of the will to power, rather than a disability. Although it definitely can be a disability, I think if Nietzsche had it, he made the best use of it possible and in the end it wasn’t selfish at all, but a great service to future generations.
@bewaterbro He certainly wouldn't have done. His works were aimed at a small "elite" of people he presumed to be similarly minded. He considered himself to be part of that "elite" as a result of his (delusional) belief that he was a member of polish nobility. He believed that the "elite" should be encouraged to step outside of "morality" to do as they pleased since only by this means could they achieve "greatness". He had little interest in "humanity" as a whole, perceiving people outside the "elite" as being little people of no consequence bound to the beliefs bestowed to them by "elites".
This whole world-view is spawned by narcissism. I'm sure people who are very narcissistic consider it perfectly normal.
@@PGHEngineer Giving birth to the antidote of Nihilism puts him next to a saint in my view. Individualism no doubt has its perils though, and Nietzsche was indeed an extreme version of the coming movement. The idea that we have to submit to events of the past, and accept them as universally true is not the path forward either. Collectivism and individualism both have thorny edges. Collectivism at its extreme just projects God like status onto the herd, no matter its whims.
Under the prevailing egalitarian worldview, psychiatry does not recognize any natural hierarchy of ability among individuals, but only degrees of deviation from the established norms in thought and behavior. There can be no judgments of greater, average, and lesser minds, only "normal" and "abnormal" ways of thinking. Under this framework, a genius who recognizes the greatness of his achievements and an unremarkable businessman who believes the world should cater to him are both classified as narcissists, despite the fact that the former's pride is grounded in reality and the latter's is based in delusion, because the notion that one person can be greater than another is rejected on principle.
Nietzsche emphasized the idea that the most mediocre people have so little understanding of greatness that they are unable to recognize it in others, and unless a great man has been established in culture for long enough that praising him has become customary, they are more likely to denigrate him with accusations of heresy and immorality, or in the current day, DSM-5 labels.
@_sidereal OK ill bite. What objective measure are you using to define Nietzches' greatness?
The bipolar hypothesis is very convincing - it would explain his delusions of grandeur perfectly, as well as his sporadic work ethic. Nietzsche was famous for spending months without writing a single work, then producing entire works in a matter of days
He got possessed by Dionysus
"why so pale?"
"I spent the night w/ Dionysus and Bachuus. I think there were two of them. I toasted the one in the middle. "
While the audience here will no doubt find it fantastical and inadmissible in scientific discourse, I find the most enlightening insights into Nietzsche's biography come from the Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner, who looked into events using direct spiritual insight.
5:44 don't have a go at the eyes, mate, that's astigmatism i've had since the age of five!
Haha sorry friend if anything though it's them pesky 19th century doctors you should be talking to - giving out paretic syphilis diagnoses based on astigmatism!
Solid research 👊
Thank you!!
very nice, thank you!
It's not him who's crazy, it's us..
Thank you for your work. I discovered your channel through this video and will return in future as time permits.
Delighted to hear it Shak!
In truth we shall never know the truth of Nietzsche's madness, for all we have are different possibilities and conflicting interpretations. And how fitting, eh?
Great video! Incredibly well researched. I had always wondered if the syphilis diagnosis was part of a smear campaign. Now I know.
Thanks Glenn always good to see the work appreciated. Yeah it was part laziness by the doctors and then sensationalized smear by some of the biographers who came after
Dont believe so-called experts. He was a horrible vain person with ridiculous and nasty notions, including racism and sexism.
There is a more recent publication in March 2023 by Eva Cybulska: ˋNietzsche and bipolar disorder. A critical evaluation of diagnostic hypotheses from historical and epistemological perspective.’ NB. Sax published his epistemologically and historically unsustainable diagnosis of brain tumour in 2003, not 2002. The meningioma, that he alleges Nietzsche had, would have been spanning for over 35 years-the longest growing meningioma in medical history. Not a bad try by a specialist in adolescent gender problems, Sax’s specialty.
What about the deaths of his Father and younger brother ???
I literally read it as ""The Myth of Sisyphus" at first hahahaha
LOL! Now that would be one saucy video topic!
I think Nietzsche was so smart...an Uber philosopher that saw the fallacies of Plato, Schopenhauer and the rest, whose goal was to destroy belief and supposition, and he couldn´t take it...he was the only one, the first to say, for example ¨God is dead¨ and suchlike. He was too alone.
Thanks
Anyways!!!! nietzsche is indeed a dynamite😭❤️❤️(but what a!! Tragedy😔)
Thanks!
Was it January or February 1889?
This excellent video starts with a mistake: it was JANUARY 3, 1889, not, as stated at 00:36, "February 3, 1889." Later he does refer to January 3. But, as a whole, I found this presentation impressively careful and plausible. Kudos to the speaker/creator.
So that's in the police records?
Amazing work thank you
Wow, neat video.
It seems the abyss stared back into him as fiercely as he gazed into ....it !
Let's say that Nietzsche is still windsurfing the mind ocean, and the kraken of conscience didn't get him. The same way it's possible for a future craft to speed up and catch that old Voyager (?) still out there boogieing along in interstellar space, some future craft or AI could catch up with Nietzsche...I wonder what he would do if invited back into the fold? Did he let go of his identity at the end on purpose or was he - his awareness - split off his identity without his volition, or the identity part diminished altogether. Smokey stoves (coal?) producing no heat but plenty of CO couldn't have helped. Maybe they should have cleaned the chimney more often, could have made the difference.
Great video, thank you for the clear delivery and in depth research. Keep it up :)
Very interesting! I remember having read the challenge to the paretic syphilis diagnosis...and I had always felt that this diagnosis was to 'convenient' a get out clause for contemporaries as a way to try and 'side-line' Nietzsche's work as the work of a 'diseased' mind...I don't think the man even really had sex more than once...maybe not even that! So, even then...it would have been dreadfully unlucky for him to catch something like that from so short and exposure...although I guess not impossible.
I myself subscribed to a mixture of the drugs he was taking...potentially the end result of his life long migraines...and perhaps the psychological 'implications' of his philosophy and his grander societal implications (such as Europe descending into the 'sea' of great wars and blood in the coming century...which he was correct about) which drove him to madness...but I would also like to thank you for putting me right on the whole 'hugging a horse' of a break down he allegedly experienced in Turin...I had always taken that part of the story as being true until just now! Just goes to show what gossip as a 'scholars footnote' can do!
This man was a God
Who says ''God is dead'' gets to know the answer in speaking to birds. In German ''you have a bird'' means you are crazy.
God is a madman who sits on the shore, morphs into a flamingo, and flys off into the sunset without a care in the world.
Even if he didn’t have it. I hope he was still out there getting that strange lol
We love our myths... Virtually everyone still believes that Luther dramatically nailed his theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church although modern historians tend towards the view that's just latter propaganda.
But madness is not something present at all points in his life. Why bother with that idea, its so fleeting. And what IS madness? Can you ever really know? You cant, so why bother?
I'd hesitate to label Nietzsche's assessment of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as delusional. He may well have been right on the mark with that statement.
It seems likely that this old school Incel never had sex at all. The story about him and the sex workers was the only thing I ever read or heard that suggested that he did.
A combination of being bipolar and taking drugs does seem to be a plausible explanation. Especially the oral cocaine. His manic, grandiose style, so attractive to young men, tastes like a central nervous system stimulant to me.
Also, when a bipolar person takes stimulants, it can very often cause a manic episode. And, once he is in one, drugs that calm and relax would not have been affective in ending the mania until it was ready to end on its own.
They might, however, keep him from killing himself during the long dark periods of depression that followed, as well as the pain of his physical ailments.
We must be careful here. I read one person who said that one of the drugs he took for insomnia, chloral hydrate, produces hallucinations. I have tried it, and it does not. It is just a sleeping pill, a really boring drug whose only effect is to make a person sleepy.
Opium and hashish do not generally producer hallucinations either. But they can put one into vivid, dream like states.
Of course, one must avoid the common mistake made by the young, to think that if you take the same drugs that a genius took, you will produce work as good as what that genius produces. You will not. If anything, it will probably make your work worse.
it was syphilis
Mixed premises
Im the old testament the Israelites are not permitted to see the face of God because if they did they would die. Nietzsche believed in accepting every aspect of life no matter how difficult - Perhaps he saw the face of God.
The myth of syphilis. Those who knows, knows.
Both this guy & Nietzsche need a clue
my man
Take a shot every time he says syphilis
This ring true to today, get a bunch of medical opinions of people who want to truthfully help you
Yes, Nietzsche's opponents wanted to defame him as a sinner with this cheap syphilis story. Maybe he is a victim of religious sects.