collapse of religious faith and the mounting belief in the Darwinian notion of a relentless evolution of the species, he could see in this combination the destruction of any basic distinction between man and animal (Stumpf 377).
So Nietzsche saw the problem as a social problem affecting other men. He had already accepted what he saw as the death of God, and he welcomed what he saw as the accompanying opening up of opportunities for a more life-affirming philosophy than that of Christianity. But for less able men and women, Nietzsche felt that the loss of the anchor of God and religion would lead to horrible wars. Nietzsche's philosophical search, then, involved the desire to find, for himself and others, a new foundation for human values and behavior.
Stumpf writes "in his search . . . Nietzsche turned to the aesthetic dimension of human nature as the most promising alternative to religion. Only as an aesthetic phenomenon . . . are existence and the world eternally justified" (Stumpf 378).
The question, then, in Nietzsche's own terms, is whether or not his aesthetics were adequate in filling the nihilistic void left by what he perceived as the death of God and religion.
It is this observer's view that Nietzsche did not overcome nihilism through his embracing of the aesthetic dimension. The concept of nothingness, or of alienation from the universe, from God, from other men, and from oneself, cannot be healed through an appreciation for and involvement in art, aesthetics, or Greek tragedy, which is where Nietzsche concentrated his aesthetic argument.
The story of Zarathustra is the story of the coming into being of the Superman, the man who does not shrink from the concept of the death of God but instead embraces it whole-heartedly, believing it to be the opportunity to grow beyond theretofore established religious limitations.
Lo, I teach you the Superman! The Superman is the meaning of the earth. L...