My boyfriend hates Nietzsche

I have been with my boyfriend since 2019, and since then we've talked a lot about our interests and the way we feel about various people and their ideas. He knows I love Nietzsche because of the books I've read in the past few years and the videos I watch about him and the way I like to talk about him. I read my first Nietzsche book in 2017 and began to read more a couple years later, and since then have only come to appreciate him more. My boyfriend is often watching boring shit about ancient times as he's obsessed with history, but starts making fun whenever I want to watch something about Nietzsche. I won't even start with his thoughts on Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the ideas presented in it. I've thought about it and I still don't understand why he hates him. For anyone who doesn't know who I'm talking about btw, just search "Friedrich Nietzsche" and you'll find out lol. My boyfriend is fairly religious but I've decided that this can't be the reason he hates him because I think that you can believe in God AND like the works of Nietzsche. I'm more open to the possibility of a God than not and I think Nietzsche is the greatest philosopher ever. I tried to explain to my boyfriend that it's not as simple as "he hates God" or "he is trying to denounce religion and morality", but he doesn't get it.

He thinks that he's boring and arrogant. I think Nietzsche's work goes way beyond what most people can perceive or imagine. It's so much more than what we all seem to think it is, and he is way more complex than most can even begin to understand.

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hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

Nietzche was a clown whose ideas were behind the ideology of Nazi Germany.

SW-User

@hippyjoe1955 a lot of people seem to think that because of how he's been interpreted by some. It's really unfair though because he wasn't even vaguely antisemitic...he was against all of that

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@SW-User the nazi faith was/is not limited to antisemitism. It is the idea that mankind is the maker of his own destiny. That man should take over and damn the consequences which is the idea behind much of Nietzsche's writings.

SW-User

@hippyjoe1955 I suggest you read more about who Nietzsche really was and what he really said, and how some of it has been blatantly misrepresented.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@SW-User I read some of his works in college. They are not good. I won't waste my time on them knowing what they led to in the past.

SW-User

@hippyjoe1955 Fine, you don't like his works and that may come down to a matter of taste. You can't say that his "ideas were behind Nazi Germany" though as this is false and therefore very misleading.

Nietzsche wasn't a fascist, as he didn't believe in nationalism or any of the other main components of fascism. He lived just before the creation of Nazism so his writings were always going to make him vulnerable. Some of his writings are open to interpretation because the reader is given a certain degree of freedom, and because his work is deep and complex. I would add that his sister, who was an antisemite, tried to present his work as being vaguely antisemitic while Hitler and the Nazis were rising to power. She had always disagreed with and never really undersood Nietzsche's ideas.

Again, Nietzsche's work didn't lead to the Nazis.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@SW-User By their fruits they are known. I don't like Neitzche in large part because of how his ideas led to things like the Nazi doctrines.

SW-User

@hippyjoe1955 His ideas did not lead to any Nazi beliefs lol

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@SW-User They most certainly did. If you combine Nietzsche with Marx you have Nazi.

SW-User

@hippyjoe1955 🤦🏻‍♀️

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