Below is a brief correspondence I had with a reader:
Mr. Martinez,
I found your article online [Sex-abuse Worldview Vs. Christian Worldview], titled as above in the
subject field. I was very interested in the subject
matter you discussed, the moreso because I myself have been greatly
influenced by Nietzschean ideas (this doesn't mean I'm passionately
anti-christian; only that I tend to fall more on the side of Nietzsche's
way of seeing things, as opposed to the way of traditional
Christianity). I would like to begin a correspondence with you via
email on this topic, as there were some areas you brought up which I
wished to explore further. Some things I would like touch upon are, for
instance, this whole notion of the degree to which Adler was influenced
by Nietzsche. I realize that Adler's ideas on power dynamics were
derived from Nietzsche's philosophy, but I'm not so sure about his ideas
on self-actualization.
Granted, there's a definite intonation in Nietzsche's writings which rings strongly of something like self-actualization, but could the similarities here to Adler's theories be mostly a matter of coincidence (although Munch obviously thinks the contrary)? After all, Adler was also influenced by Christian thinkers like Dostoevsky, and there are similarities between Nietzsche's and Dostoevsky's psychological observations. I was also curious as to what your thoughts were on Soren Kierkegaard, another Christian thinker who capitalized on notions of self-actualization. Kierkegaard viewed the process of becoming an authentic individual as being indispensable to genuine Christianity.
I'm aware that your article was primarily on the loss of Christian values in American culture, and how this loss seems somehow to be tied in with this Nietzschean-Freudian-Jungian-Adlerian emphasis on individuality. To the best of my understanding of Nietzsche, however, he doesn't consider all values/opinions to be of equal worth. He believed that vital qualities in a human being determine his choice of values, as a venu of self-expression. He favored value systems that were "life-affirming"; a future which is willed is only worth as much as it is an affirmation of life (i.e., without a vision the people perish). Individual self-creation also becomes necessary in a world which has become deprived of meaning after the death of God, insofar as lack of meaning is life-negating. But Nietzsche's self-creative act is to be something lofty and reverential, not an exercise of petty narcissism. When postmodernists speak of a "value-free" ideal in which -- so it seems to me -- "self-actualization" is in fact an exercise of petty narcissism, I think what's being represented isn't so much Nietzschean as it is the product of liberal democracy. The bourgeoisie are, after all, diminutively selfish creatures who foster the edict, "live and let live" -- private citizens who are concerned only with their own lives and how to make themselves "happier". They have little or no social consciousness. Nietzsche hated democracy as much as he hated Christianity.
Sincerely,
Ken X
Mr. X,
Below are my reponses to your questions.
WSU Professor Paul Brians disagrees with you. Please read:
Psychology
The
two grandfathers of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and
Carl Jung (1875-1961), both had a deep admiration for Nietzsche and
credited him with many insights into the human character.
Alfred Adler (1870-1937) developed an "individual psychology" which
argues that each individual strives for what he called "superiority,"
but is more commonly referred to today as "self-realization" or
"self-actualization," and which was profoundly influenced by Nietzsche's
notions of striving and self-creation. The entire "human potential
movement" and humanistic psychology (Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Rollo
May, etc.) owes a great debt to this line of thought. Even pop
psychologists of "self-esteem" preach a gospel little different from
that of Zarathustra. The ruthless, self-assertive "objectivism" of Ayn
Rand (1905-1982) is difficult to imagine without the influence of
Nietzsche.
[http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/nietzsche.html]
There is a difference between Kierkegaard's:
"The more
superior one person is to another whom he loves, the more he will feel
tempted (humanly speaking) to draw the other up to himself, but
(divinely speaking) the more he will feel moved to come down to him.
This is the dialectic of love."
And Nietzsche's:
"Master morality," which was different from Christian morality – or
"slave morality," as he called it. He thought the weak have the morality
of obedience and conformity to the master. Masters have a right to do
whatever they want; since there is no God, everything is permissible.
There is the same difference between Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.
Thanks,
Fred
Pray an Our Father now for the
restoration of the Mass and the Church as well as for the Triumph of the
Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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