Philosophers through the ages have debated on how to change the world from a political viewpoint. For centuries the changing of political systems for the better has been a major topic of discussion for many philosophers.
In his article, Alan Levine contrasts the theories set forth by two well-known philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Chinua Achebe. Both of these well respected philosophers have proposed their own theories on political and social reform.
Achebe is a twentieth century African philosopher, and Nietzsche lived in Germany in the nineteenth century. Both these philosophers dealt with their own respective cultures and did not consider the relevance of their theories to other societies. Achebe was concerned only with African politics, and did not mention Nietzsche, or much of European politics. Likewise, Nietzsche was concerned primarily with a European perspective, and did not discuss, to any extent, the outside world. Yet it is interesting to note that, despite being from widely different cultures, they had similar views on political and social values.
It is worth mentioning that when both these philosophers discuss politics, they are not concerned with minor details, such as how the voting system works, what the role of public administration is, and so on. Instead, it is the moral codes underlying the political and social systems that both focus their work on.
Nietzsche criticized the moral values of the Western world he was raised in, and similarly, Achebe condemned the values and morals of the African world he belonged to. However, both Achebe and Nietzsche strive for one purpose, namely, Revaluation of values. This is Nietzsche's term which designates the replacing of one set of values with another throughout a society. The task is obviously difficult, and both acknowledge this. The technique that each philosopher used was to look at past historical revaluation of values, and use that to advocate another desirable moral system for the future.
Another source of interest, is that when comparing the two revaluations of values, we are shown that both philosophers heavily criticized Christianity and some other aspects of the Western social system.
Nietzsche was born in 1844, in the Prussian province of Saxony. His father passed away shortly after that, leaving Nietzsche to be raised by his mother, sister and two maiden aunts. He later went on to study classical philology at universities within the German cities of Bonn and Leipzig, and at the age of twenty four earned a professorship at Basel.
Unfortunately, he is one of the most misunderstood philosophers, and is maligned with having fascist ideas. For example, when many German soldiers went to fight in the First World War, they carried with them, a copy of the bible in one pocket and Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra in the other. Scholars who have read and studied Nietzsche agree that there is no link between his work and fascism, or national socialism. Nietzsche, was, in fact, anti-anti-Semitism. His work was heavily distorted by his sister, Elisabeth Förster Nietzsche, who edited many of Nietzsche's writings for her own political agenda. She did so following her brother's final mental breakdown, and with total control of his writings, she abused the position to distort his writings. Nietzsche died in 1900, and his sister released the edited work, The Will To Power, in 1901.
Elisabeth Förster Nietzsche admired Adolph Hitler, and there exists photographs of both of them meeting together. However, Nietzsche, himself, was not anti-Semitic, and he disapproved of his sister's marriage with an anti-Semitic, Bernhard Förster. He has even been known to say that he would like to ``shoot all anti-Semites'', but he also criticized Judaism, particularly the role played by Jews in the degeneration of Christianity. However, many speculate that Nietzsche would have wanted nothing to do with the Nazi revolution.
One of Nietzsche's key concepts is the relativity and incompatibility of moral values. He states that unless moral values or human belief are created by human beings, they have no reality. These values do not describe anything true about the world, but instead they reflect the human psychophysical drive that Nietzsche calls the Will To Power. This Will To Power, Nietzsche argues, resides in every human being, but with varying extents. Some people are weak-willed, and some are strong-willed. This, in itself, shows that Nietzsche was not a unitarian.
The strong-willed population are responsible for creating almost everything whether it is art, religion, philosophy, science or politics. The weak-willed population are the ones that create nothing, and are just the matter upon which the strong-willed work.
Nietzsche states that these two different types of people, the strong-willed and the weak-willed, each look at the world in a different manner. They also have two different kinds of morality, and he dubs these the ``master morality'' and ``slave morality''. It must be noted that Nietzsche, when creating these two classes of people, did not refer to an actual, literal existence of masters and slaves, but he referred to psychological drives that underlie people's wills.
The strong-willed promote only the values systems that aid their ability to express their wills and goals in life. They create a master morality which is their ability to get what they want in this world. Weak-willed people embrace codes that are aimed at restraining the strong, to protect themselves only. In master morality, the weak suffer at the hands of the strong, whereas in slave morality the strong are constrained by the weak. This, according to Nietzsche, is a system that does not promote everybody's good.
Slave morality is for the weaker beings within the society. The weak try to hold down the strong and labels those who act on their own will and who ignore the suffering of others, as evil, as it is indeed these people who choose not to restrain themselves. It is the slave morality that Nietzsche is not fond of, as slave morality is founded on a fiction of choice. The strong cannot help but be strong, whereas the weak could not be strong even if they wanted to. Even though Nietzsche supports master morality, he does not want to totally reject slave morality. He recognizes that slave morality is meant for certain types of people and that it make sense.
The strong-willed people create a master morality in which they are described as ``good'', as they achieve what they want to in life. However, persons who cannot achieve their will are considered to be impotent and weak. The weak-willed do not blame the strong-willed, because if they could, they would follow the same actions. Nietzsche argues, this this way, there is no guilt for following our inner impulses, no matter where it leads us. This, Nietzsche says, should be the new system. There should be no hatred, or hiding of one's beliefs, and each class of people should accept who they are. They should not judge or criticize the people of the other races, and accept what is laid out for them.
Nietzsche argues that, throughout Western history, the most disastrous moment was when the slave morality took over master morality. This occurred, according to Nietzsche, when Christianity overtook the pagan values of ancient Rome. He claims pagan values are an example of master morality. He goes on to state that the priests took the side of the weak, and convinced them that they are good, and the strong-willed people are evil. This is when the weak started to hate the strong because of their success and because they mistreated other human beings. The weak introduced values of universal love and brotherhood, amongst themselves, and they hated the strong because of their success. According to Nietzsche, the factor that motivated this transvaluation is the resentment of the weak people.
What happened to the will that people once had prior to transvaluation? Nietzsche states that this will does not disappear over time, but rather, it is internalized and leads us to having a guilty conscience. Over time, this will turns against us, and instead of physical outbursts we possess psychological outbursts. He claims this is physical cruelty, and madness of the will, as man who believes himself sinful turns his will unhealthily against himself. Nietzsche considers this ``the most terrible sickness that has ever raged in man''. He concludes that the struggle between master and slave morality is not yet over, and he wants to introduce a new type of master morality.
Nietzsche, however, was only concerned with how the West thought and acted, and did not concern himself with the rest of the world. One of his famous quotations is ``God Is Dead'', meaning that the ideas of God and of faith no longer have the social meaning or command the authority that they once did, and that it is therefore possible now to construct an ethics, or social moral values, founded on human greatness rather than divine favor. He focuses on Christianity, but what he states can be applicable to other Abrahamic faiths, namely, Islam and Judaism. Unfortunately, he never dwelt into this topic of discussion.
When Nietzsche stated ``God Is Dead'', many would believe he was a nihilist. Nihilism was a topic of a lot of his work, however, he did not believe in nihilism; he was interested in the effects of nihilism, as Kierkegaard was. When he analyzed nihilism, he did not accept that there is no truth, as many nihilists conclude, but that there are certain types of truth for the different types of people that exist within a social circle.
There exists some religions similar to what Nietzsche was asking for, particularly Buddhism. The religion is without a God, and this is an example of morality that is based on human moral code. On the other hand, though, the Buddhists believe and follow what the Buddha laid out for his followers, and this may prove to be what Nietzsche would have rejected. As other examples, some African tribes follow the moral codes that they believe come from their dead ancestors.
Another statement Nietzsche has said, in his publication, The Gay Science is "Do not spare your neighbor! Man is something that must be overcome!". This goes against the common Christian ethic, ``love thy neighbor as thyself''. He wants us to overcome this stale ethic and "destroy" even our neighbor. However, this is not to be taken literaly as a killing, or hurting of our neighbor. Rather, he wants us to destroy our neighbor's values and in this sense we destroy him, showing him that man is something to be overcome.
Levine introduces Chinua Achebe, probably the most famous African writer in history. Achebe was born in 1930, in the village of Ogidi, which is now Nigeria. Achebe has been awarded several international prizes for his work and he is credited with writing truly African literature. Levine discusses the first two novels written by Achebe, Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. These two books describes what occurs, over a period of three generations, to an extraordinary family, the Okonkwos. Each Okonkwo generation had a leader of the Igbo nation. However, times for the region was not always stable, and this shows that Achebe seems less attached than Nietzsche to previous historic times. Having said this, neither of them wanted to restore the past, but Nietzsche clearly preferred master morality of the pre-Christianity days.
In his two books, Achebe writes about the changes that each generation of the Okonokwo family lived through, and the story is set in the early twentieth century. The first generation of the Okonkwo family experiences the initial arrival of British white men. The second generation cooperates with the whites, and the third generation tries to imitate and excel in white society.
Prior to the arrival of the British, the Igbo tribe are proud, powerful and extremely self-reliant. The whites first appear as missionaries and slowly, over time, they make their way into the tribe. The real problem occurs when Okonkwo's only son, Nwoye, converts to Christianity, abandoning the tradition of his tribe. This transformation represents a revaluation of values which eventually tears the tribe apart.
Nwoye's son, Obi, the third Okonkwo, is the first in the village to obtain a university education as well as a decent job in the civil service. The tribe starts to let the youth follow Obi's direction, and acquire knowledge of the white man's ways and to believe in the Western ideals. This leads to the tribe to internalize white values and eventually they are ``strangers in this land'', as they lose all the Igbo traditional moral and social codes. Over the period of three generations, the tribe's world is turned upside down.
The traditional Igbo society was a community that met all their human needs and were materially and spiritually self-sufficient. Everyone was united, and everyone had a sense of purpose and attachment to others. The community reflects master rather than liberal of slave morality, as it was a warrior culture whom were harsh to some of its own inhabitants as well as outsiders. They were barbaric according to slave morality yet unproblematic under master morality. Slavery existed during their time, and it was uncontroversially accepted. The tribe also practiced ritual human sacrifice and the sacrifice of a particular young boy, captured in war, was one of the reasons why Okonkow's son, Nwoye, rejects the traditional religion.
Achebe describes the joy and free-spiritedness of the pre-Christian Okonkwo world, similar to how Nietzsche described pagan morality prior to the Christian revaluation; the strong follow their will and they are rewarded accordingly with honors. The collapse of the African tribe was due to the transvaluation of values, as the values and meanings of the traditional world are inverted.
Levine points out that another similarity between Achebe and Nietzsche is that the Christian revaluation is based around the qualities that is rejected by the master morality. For example, instead of the barbaric fighting of the African tribe, going to battle unarmed and trying to make peace is praised by Christianity. This behavior would have been rejected by the traditional values of the tribe, but now, instead of fighting, they prayed to God for peace. The tribe had turned away entirely from their traditional values.
Nietzsche and Achebe want their work to benefit people. They want people to read their work and rethink their current political and social stance. Nietzsche claims that the strong-willed people can save the West from the abyss of nihilism, and for Acehebe it is his fellow Africans. I do not think, though, that Nietzsche would have supported some of the traditions that were practiced in the Igbo society, such as slavery and cruelty toward outsiders. Achebe does not really discuss this topic. As stated before, Nietzsche was not against any particular race of people, and therefore even though, Achebe and Nietzsche want the same for their own people, it seems hard to believe that Nietzsche would support some of the Igbo traditions. Though, both do support one another in many other ways, such as their views on what Christianity has done. Like Nietzsche, Achebe states that Christianity ``leveled everybody down''.
Another similarity with Nietzsche and Achebe are the type of people that are attracted to Christianity. Achebe argues that it is the resentment and revenge that make people attached to the religion. Nwoye, after all, converted to Christianity after the killing of a child, and this action angered him. Nwoye converted to Christianity, even though he did not understand much of the Heavenly Father, but he did so to leave the tribe. Nwoye was also despised by his father, whom he was never close with. He converted to escape from his father's beatings and terror, and Christianity condemns cruelty. The similarity with Nietzsche is that Nwoye's conversion had something to do with his attempt at spiritual revenge. The traditional Igbo society looked down on newborn twins, and they are left outside to die. With Christianity, the mothers of newborn twins, or other types of osu, or outcasts, convert not because of spiritual reasons, but to simply gain power, and to escape from the bottom of the tribe's hierarchy. After converting, they see themselves as being liberated. This is similar to what Nietzsche stated, that the religion of love gets its power from hatred.
Though Nietzsche has a strong preference for master morality, Levine points out that Achebe's evaluation of master morality is not as simple. Achebe does not state his own personal view on what he thought about the Igbo's values. This is extremely odd, as Achebe speaks highly of the tribe, so one would obviously conclude that Achebe is a strong supporter. However, Achebe does not explicitly state what he thinks of the slavery, barbaric wars that the Igbo society practices. Levine does not write more on this topic, but this should be emphasized. Obviously, Achebe and Nietzsche prefer the master morality, but would Nietzsche in particular support some of the darker aspects of master morality? Achebe does not state much on this topic. Is it because Achebe does not want to deal with the issue of the old traditional barbaric laws of the Igbo nation as he does not fully support them, or does he support them? This may prove to be an embarrassing situation for Achebe.
Achebe respects liberation, and also supports the Igbo society, but both of these ideas merged together may seem contradictory to many readers. This shows that Achebe does not suggest as severe of a change as Nietzsche suggests, though he wants the African culture to distance itself from Christianity and the Western thoughts as much as it possibly can.
This introduces another interesting topic. Nietzsche admits that he does not have a substantive vision of the future planned, but he has a general outline, such as ranking, nobility, deep and awesome beauty. On the other hand Achebe wants Africa to distance away from Christianity such that the culture remains truly African and respects itself. However, Achebe also criticizes the rampant corruption that lingers in Nigeria, but corruption does not exist at such a large extent as it does in the Western world, and he notes this.
Achebe is admitting, maybe, that some aspects of the Western world are not bad after all, and the system he wants may have to borrow some of them. Nietzsche, therefore, may have considered Achebe too entangled in the Western ideas, and accepting of the culture from which Achebe seeks liberation. What may seem surprising is that Achebe is a product of a fractious multicultural situation. He was raised and educated in both the Western and Igbo worlds, and Achebe has incorporated both into his life.
I think that Achebe wants to take the best aspects from both the Western and African worlds, and use them to contribute to the new system. Achebe, though, does not speculate which aspects these are, and to what extent these aspects should be spread out. It in unclear at times, how much of a change Achebe wishes. He does not seem to extremely dislike the Western culture on one hand, but he does want to remove it from the African society, but it is difficult to imagine to what extent this should occur.
Nietzsche is more extreme in his way of thinking about the removal of the moral codes that are taken from divine sources. Having said this, both Achebe and Nietzsche want very similar things for their own cultures. What makes the topic interesting is that both philosophers are in very different parts of the world from one another, yet, they generally agree with one another on a number of issues. What makes Achebe interesting is that he contrasts two different cultures, and describes the merging of one over the other, and the demise of the original culture.
Levine's article covers a very intriguing topic, and he, like myself, found it frustrating that Nietzsche did not dwell on the other cultures of the world. Levine finds both Nietzsche and Achebe to be valuable philosophers. A topic that I wish Levine would have discussed is other religions around the world, and not just Christianity, but this was after all the religion of choice for both philosophers to discuss.
Levine smartly summarizes each philosopher, and outlines the similarities with both of them, and even shows that both philosophers contradict themselves at times, but admits that when looking at new systems in a method that is not abstract, this will occur. However, Levine downplays some of the topics in which Nietzsche and Achebe disagree.
Levine's conclusion points out that Nietzsche seeks more fundamental and radical change in the moral system than Achebe, as it is Achebe who seems more accepting of both sides. Levine also notes that portraying a transvaluation of values for a new system is a daunting task, and both Nietzsche and Achebe have acknowledged this, however, by exposing the history of a society, this aims to incite another system.