Distinctions Between Recent And Older European Philosophies

Distinctions Between Recent And Older European Philosophies

The 18th and the late 19th Centuries played homage to conservative philosophy that was mainly characterised by early philosophers examining the nature of their institutions and seeking to apprehend the principles by which they lived. This kind of philosophy saw various philosophical scholars judge the then peoples’ ways of living based on the principles of human nature (Kirk, 2001, 409). Conservative philosophers sought to let the people discover the best means of upholding their good moral values. Nietzsche was one of the early philosophers who articulated for the conservation of societal values.

On the other hand, the late 19th Century and 20th Centuries saw an emergence of ‘radical’ philosophical scholars who analysed and identified points of arguments from the many conservative works that were already put in place by the early philosophers such as Nietzsche. One of these contemporary philosophers included Julian Young. This paper will use both Nietzsche and Young in contrasting conservative philosophical with radical Continental philosophical ideas.

Julian Young’s philosophical works have been greatly praised for applying real-life examples in their arguments. However, some of his works have been criticised for being manifested with examples that do not reflect the seriousness of the philosophical ideas expressed in them, for instance, he has constantly incorporated global warming ideas as part of his examples in some of his works. He appropriately underlined the view that postmodernism, despite having been embraced with value diversities, was not different from the earlier 19th-century philosophical modernism that Nietzsche greatly hated (Fukuyama, 2010).

In this scenario, Young critiques the philosophical works of Fredrick Nietzsche-a Greek philosopher whose works had borrowed a lot from Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophical works; especially Schopenhauer’s work titled ‘The World as Will and Represented, which was published in 1818 and revised in 1844 (Magee, 1997, p.289). Nietzsche’s works, as noted by Becker (2003), were mainly pre-occupied with the “the problem of morality” and it was from the same perspective that Young developed his criticisms (p. 123).

Young begun by reviewing the contradictions that emerged when Nietzsche engaged in social criticism, especially in his first work titled the ‘Birth of Tragedy’-a title that was to be later renamed ‘Hellenism and Pessimism’(Young, 2003, p.44-45).

In this book, Nietzsche had pointed out that the Greek people known in advance all the sufferings that were associated with their existence or lifestyles in the world. This, he stressed, were revealed in their myths that emphasized more on the negatives that were associated with the existence of their Greek people in the world. For instance, the myth about a vulture which fed on an important member of society (a philanthropist) had showed that the majority of Greek people were fully informed on the ‘terrors and horrors’ that existed in their society (Young, 2003, p.45). The metaphor of a vulture feeding on a philanthropist underscored the vulnerability of the society – vulture is an inherently harmless bird hence its ability to kill a prominent personality only served to outline how vulnerable the Greek society was. As such therefore, it is expected that the society ought to have prepared itself fully to overcome the many challenges and/or sufferings that characterized its daily lifestyles.

On the other hand, while re-telling this chapter, Young wanted to highlight the distinction that existed between the conservative and radical continental philosophy. This is so because though Young strongly believed that Nietzsche had come up with this evocative theory not only to make ‘us’ understand ourselves in the ‘polished mirror’ provided by the Greeks in their myths, but also to promote the works in his field of profession – literature (Young, 2003, p.45). Young felt this philosophical idea (which was conservative in nature) had not, in any way, developed with the right intention by Nietzsche but had just been tailored to achieve Nietzsche’s ulterior motive. He went on justify his assertion by highlighting that by insisting that people had to support music dramas of, his the most trusted German philosopher friend, Richard Wagner to fight their nihilism or “unknowing/or meaningless” notions, he was only promoting Wagner’s attempt to build an opera house at Bayreuth (Young, 2003, p.46). This house was used to host music festivals that were to give praise to philosophical works of various authors. This, according to Young, was not radical, but conservative in nature.

Though many people may disagree with the views of Julian Young in opposing Nietzsche’s and Schopenhauer’s ideas on the need to support their societal values, it should be noted that the fact that the Bayreuth music festivals have been held to regularly in present days to praise conservative ideas points to the fact that their proponents may have achieved their first success in the battle for their recognition. In further justifying his criticism, Young had noted that Nietzsche had used an “ambiguous” solution called Apollonian. This solution called on individuals to enhance their consciousness through art; a requirement that was also to be fulfilled in another way if the same individual expressed his consciousness in the midst of many individuals seated at a place (Young, 2003, p.46). To Young’s view, this argument was just tailored to support Wagner’s music festivals – which required participants to make their performances that supported literary works in front of a large audience – a principle referred to “us” by Nietzsche and by Schopenhauer as “‘principium individuations.” This criticism points to the notion that Nietzsche as a renowned conservative philosopher did not entirely restrict himself within a particular philosophical era and/or genre; he at times veered into completely different genres and/or eras.

Beside, Young disagreed with Nietzsche’s point of view that the Homeric Greeks had erected a ‘transfigured ‘self-portrait that t, according to Nietzsche, symbolized the presence of Jesus in their midst thus seducing the Greeks to continue existing. In using the ‘transfigured’ portrait, Nietzsche wanted to stress how ancient Greeks were strongly involved in upholding Christian principles as opposed to modern day Christians who were ungodly to the extent that they had led to the death of ‘God’. Though Young does not directly question the Christianity principle behind the idea, the fact that she questioned the use of the imagery by stating that Jesus never had sex and even went ahead to state that Nietzsche had contradicted himself when he affirmed that transfiguration referred to ‘illusion’ and ‘lies’ and that Homer’s works, whether good or evil, were deified justified her opposing stance on the whole issue (Young, 2003, p.46-47). Young went ahead to wonder why Nietzsche had taken delight in the ‘beautiful forms’ of Homer even after having discovered that they contained a lot of lies (Young, 2003, p.47). To him, he saw a sinister motive in Nietzsche’s arguments. He compared it to a person who at one instance affirmed that life was terrible, and after a short while reaffirmed that the same life was terrible. Young compared Nietzsche’s case to the lifestyles of “star” or famous persons who, despite engaging in all kinds of evils, for instance drunkenness and prostitution, still attracted positive attention from members of the public who wanted to be associated with their ‘stardom’. This, in Youngs opinion, was not worth it.

Young felt that the adopted Apollonian approach was very poor and that there was no way it could have been used to ‘fight’ nihilism, ‘nausea’ and despair. This was supported when Young stressed that the pain of things affected the victim no matter what power the victims had (Young, 2003, p.48).Moreover, though Nietzsche had associated Apollonianism with negativity, he had contrasted his perception in his view of Dionysian when he associated this second ‘solution’ with rapture, intoxication, ecstasy and frenzy and bringing a sense unity amongst people. However, this view was opposed by Young, who saw it as leading to lose of the individualism hence value (Young, 2003, p.49). To Young therefore, Nietzsche was thus contradicting his first solution.

Conclusively, Young noted that the early Nietzsche’s had adopted a lot from his predecessor, Schopenhauer, but as time came to pass, the ‘later’ Nietzsche had come to acknowledge his “weakness” to the extent that he re-stated that his earlier works had been compiled when he was suffering from ‘romanticism’-a combination of pessimism and world comfort (Young, 2003, p.50). He even went ahead to advise the youths to abandon metaphysics. This showed that his earlier conservative ideas lacked the moral foundation as articulated in them.

Young’s view cannot be sustained in Critchley’s perspective of Nietzsche’s work. To start with, it is vital to note that Critchley, as a 20th Century philosopher, had previously succeeded in putting the philosophical disputes of the 20th Century in a nutshell by applying ‘balanced’ or objective critiques to the philosophical works of the 19the Century philosophers (Critchley, 2003, p.2). It is from this objective assessment that his perspective on Nietzche’s work cannot be sustained with the assessment of Julian Young. This is because though Young, in most of philosophical works, had criticised Nietzsche perspectives on nihilism without deriving any meaningful conclusion from them, Critchley was of the view that Nietzsche’s view of nihilism could be interpreted in two forms-active and passive forms(Critchley, 2003, p.83).

With passive nihilism, he held the view that a person of that nature simply focused on activities that could help in transforming his nature (for instance pleasure), especially when faced with challenges or sufferings of the world. When faced with such challenges, a passive nihilist achieved a mystical stillness or calm contemplation. This was referred to as European Buddhism in the words of Nietzsche (Critchley and Schroeder, 1999, p.12).

Active nihilism was viewed by Critchley as a mere expression of physiological decadence-individuals engaging in acts of wildly creative terrorism (Critchley, 2003, p.83).

Likewise, Critchley saw nihilism as not being the negation of the moral principles of Christianity in the world, but a consequence that led to this negation (Critchley, 2003, p.84). This view fails to sustain Young’s earlier.

However, Critchley and Young’s views corresponded when Critchley stressed that the cultural mood of weariness, exhaustion, apathy and fatigue as was summarized in Nietzsche’s memorable formula dubbed ‘Modern Society’ no longer had the strength to excrete.

From the arguments presented by the two authors, I can side with Julian Young. This is because he has identified and clearly justified his points of disagreement. For example, he clearly highlighted that Nietzsche had affirmed that Apollonianism contained a lot of weaknesses and negativity and yet Nietzsche had strategically advocated for adoption of its principles; with the main intention of coercing the masses into supporting Wagner’s music festivals.

The arguments accompanying Nietzsche’s philosophical work were many. This highlights the fact that his work had knowledge ‘gaps’ that gave its critiques foundations for launching their criticisms. Furthermore, Nietzsche’s “surprising” worldly actions may have contributed in creating knowledge ‘gaps’ in his conservative ideas (Small, 2007, p.203). For example, his decision to walk out of Wagner’s music launch event left many radical and later philosophers arguing that he did not hold firm stands over issues, some of which he had strongly advocated for in his works.

References

Becker, L.C. (2003). A history of Western ethics. New York: Routledge.

Critchley, S. & Schroeder, W.R. (1999). A companion to continental philosophy,USA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Critchley, S. (2003). A very short introduction to continental philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fukuyama, F. (2010). Nietzsche: A philosophy in context, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/books/review/Fukuyama-t.html

Kirk, R. (2001).The conservative mind: from Burke to Eliot, Regnery Publishing, Washington D.C.

Magee, B. (1997).The philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Small, R. (2007). Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Young, J. (2003). The death of god and the meaning of life. New York: Routledge.