Page 89 - Liberating Liberals V2

Liberating Liberals
and its morality is one of resentment against the winners. Yet everyone, including Nietzsche, has periods when they need a savior, or at least some extreme relief. Ayn Rand, one of Nietzsche’s most famous acolytes, needed the Medicare and Social Security that Friedrich would have undoubtedly condemned as herd security.69 And Nietzsche himself needed a pension from his university professorship after his health was broken from diphtheria contracted during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. He may also have contracted syphilis on various leaves from that war.70
Nietzsche’s loser self becomes apparent in his disdain for politics. He chides the multitudes for “blinking” at the harsh realities of existence, and then he blinks, even shuts his eyes, at one of the largest factors of reality — the political world.
Nor do you have to live Nietzsche’s ideal of
a high-intensity life. If you have quiet, peaceful satisfaction then that is a type of passion too. As long as it’s not the peacefulness of quiet desperation. Of course some of almost everyone’s life is quiet desperation because life can be very long and can sample every extreme.
Nietzsche’s concept of the Overman is also overemphasized. He maintains that whole societies and their entire histories exist to produce one healthy Overman, and, of course he’s one of them. It’s true that an entirely freethinking person is probably rare,
74