Freidrich Nietzsche and Aizawa Seishisai: Comparison of Philosophical Works

Introduction

Freidrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher known for his contributions to Western philosophy in the 19th century and their effects on standard philosophical thought since then. In 1886, Nietzsche published “Beyond Good and Evil”, where he wrote about the development of modern moral systems and offered his own ideas on the relationship between master and subject. Nietzsche denied that there is an objective set of moral values regarding the concepts of good and evil or more simply, between right and wrong. If one man were to suggest that stealing from your neighbor is immoral, Nietzsche would argue that that “immorality” is subjective to that person and would not necessarily hold up in another’s moral compass. The central idea of right and wrong in those situations are beholden to that given person’s moral compass. Nietzsche felt that these concepts were illusions that we as humans sought to live by and did not exist in this world independent of humanity. His goal in writing “Beyond Good and Evil” was ostensibly to free humankind from the kind of false notion that morality is good for them. According to Nietzsche, we as human beings are no better than animals, and the concept of free will does not exist. Nietzsche also wrote extensively on what it means to be noble, the stages of religion in society and what it means to be an “Overman”, all concepts that hold considerable bearing on the general development of civilizations. Aizawa Seishisai was a Japanese nationalist thinker of the Mito school during the 19th century who wrote his “New Theses” piece, a collection of essays regarding the conditions between the East and West, the reasons for the West’s rise to power and, and his opinion, the needed changes Japan as a country must undertake in order to address the Western threat. Aizawa wrote that a sovereign “protects his empire, preserves peace and order” and that the Japanese people “should be of one mind, that they should cherish their sovereign and that they should be unable to bear being separated from him”. Aizawa believed loyalty to the sovereign and filial piety to parents formed the basis of all morality so that the Japanese would live happily and die happily for the sake of the emperor and their parents. These two thinkers both had very influential ideas regarding morality, the ills of their societies and what can or should be done to remedy the problem of their civilizations.

Influential ideas of Freidrich Nietzsche and Seishisai Aizawa

Commentaries on morality

It is worth noting that Nietzsche’s critiques on existentialism and religion are some of his more influential commentaries on morality. Nietzsche believed that man’s biggest issue for men during his time was how mankind would justify living their lives in order to make living them more valuable and meaningful. Nietzsche felt that man attempting to justify life through the use of morals and comparing decisions between preconceived notions of what is “right and wrong” would have undoubtedly led to nihilism. Ultimately, Nietzsche proposed that men should justify living their lives not through a subjective set of morals or even through a more abstract concept of God, but instead through the greatest level of the earthly man possible, the Overman (Zarathustra). The Overman’s role in life is to pursue a life that is beyond morals and to singularly live and potentially risk everything (including life) for the express purpose of enhancing humanity. For men to think and live like the Overman was the greatest goal attainable. Instead of pursuing abstruse concepts or goals on intangible things, such as morals and God, we should instead focus on becoming the Overman ourselves. Nietzsche suspected that men who were devoted to Platonism or to Christianity was detrimental to mankind’s pursuit of becoming the Overman because the concepts espoused by those two practices of thought relied primarily on faith and reason. For many years, the Western civilization has always focused on projecting morals and particular values within its societies in order to live securely. These sentiments lead to the development of a false world composed up of lies. Nietzsche continues to write not that God does not exist, but that the concept of God is a lie and that morals and “God” are two separate concepts that signify different things. God and morality is a social construct developed by the Western civilization and has become a distraction for those who are in pursuit of greatness. The death of god (as a belief in living life through God, not through the belief that God is dead) would indicate the end of this distraction, resulting in a world where humanity can finally pursue their terrestrial duties to the real world. The false world composed up of morals and Christianity will eventually lead to nihilism and only through abdicating these concepts can we live freely and in pursuit of greater ambitions. The Overman lives a life in search of achieving self-mastery, instead of living a life subjected to the loose concepts of good and evil.

In 1853, the United States demanded that the Japanese Shogunate would open two of its main ports to the West. The Japanese government at this time was weakened due to Japan’s rigid traditionalism which led to their steady economic decline and had no choice but to give in to the Western demands. Once the ports were open, many thinkers and nationalists debated on how to address the new open-door policies that should follow. Aizawa suggested a war policy for all in the land to live as if the enemy were right on the border, under the pretense that a nation can be strong in its defense if its citizens live in fear of inevitable death. He continues to write that loyalty to the sovereign and filial piety to parents formed the basis of all morality, so that the people would live happily and die happily for the sake of the emperor and their parents. Aizawa also felt that after the introduction of Buddhism, Japanese citizens overtime had become lax in their fundamental duties of loyalty and filial piety and that long periods of peace led to the Japanese becoming weaker and sluggish. It is interesting to note that Aizawa felt that citizens of all classes in Japan during the 19th century were only interested in self-gain and had little, if any concern for the security of the nation. Nietzsche wrote extensively on the Overman and how mankind should seek to better themselves and become self-interested in their lives in order to achieve greatness, yet clearly Aizawa disagreed and felt a self-interested society is one that cannot achieve greatness. Yet again at ends with Nietzsche, Aizawa has also wrote about morality and favored a society where all people are morally unified in support of the ruler, calling it “the basis of true governance”. It would not be a stretch to assume that Aizawa felt that supporting the ruler and respecting your parents was the “morally correct” thing to do and that living through the interests in self-gain would be considered “morally incorrect”. Who is to say who is right or wrong in this regard?

Views on society and civilization

What does it mean to be noble? Nobility (or the qualities that make one person noble) can have many different meanings but often boils down to having either virtues, honor or integrity (or some combination of all three). Aizawa would have agreed that living a life of loyalty to your parents and revering the Emperor was not only the morally correct thing to do, but would ultimately save Japan in future struggles. He likely would have also agreed that a nation focused on national defense and loyalty to your superiors was not only the morally correct thing to do, but are also noble pursuits. These sentiments fly opposed to those proposed by Nietzsche and Aizawa would have surely thought that the concept of the “Overman” and the Japanese pursuing it would have certainly led to further decline of Japan as a nation. Aizawa felt that the strength of the West for years was derived from their underlying Christian values rather than their military might. He staunchly argued that Christianity was the true threat from the West and an equally unified religious and moral belief from Japan was necessary to combat it.

Aizawa considered how the “Western Barbarians” dominated the seas and other countries for hundreds of years under the pretense of Christianity. He looked at Christianity as the engine which would supplant its followers with the needed courage to go to battle and “devote their resources to the cause of insurrection”. He considered greed to be the real motive, veiled under the divine rule of Christianity, behind the Western barbarians and their conquest of the world. Aizawa was not quite incorrect in his analysis of Christianity as Nietzsche would argue that there may have been a time where civilization required the psychological need for a “God”, but the West is slowly moving past that need. Nietzsche identified three stages of religion in his “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” piece. The first stage was the Age of Sacrifice where god was an arbitrary and omnipotent figure who must be appeased by its people. Through this fear of god, the powerless men could feel powerful and make some sense of the world, as if there was something they could do to prevent floods and sub-optimal harvests. The second stage of religion was the Age of Saints. Through this stage, men utilized the concept of god to take power over themselves, sacrificing their own desires to prove that they are stronger than their instincts. Nietzsche would note that most of humanity’s best achievements could have been attributed to this way of thinking as the belief of self-sacrifice for the betterment of society was what drove men into accomplishing wonderful feats (this stage would also have yielded the highest number of “Overmen”). In the third and final stage (the stage that Nietzsche believes that most of humanity now lives in), the concept of believing in a higher god becomes less important. Instead of discovering and developing new practices to improve humanity, the debate between which social ideals should become the new or “best” foundation of a healthy society instead becomes the new role of faith. Adhering to a powerful being in your life was no longer the crucial motivation in men’s lives but rather man’s pursuit in life became determining who was in charge of what on earth. Nietzsche’s hope was for humanity to overcome the third stage of religion and for the world to return once more to the more empowering practice of thought described in the second stage. It was then that men were the most “noble” and achieved mankind’s greatest accomplishments.

It may be worth analyzing which stage of religion Japan during the 19th century lived in. Aizawa believed that Japan’s citizens should “be of one mind, that they should cherish their sovereign and that they should be unable to bear being separated from him”. The duty of the Emperor’s subjects to himself was the supreme duty of the land’s citizens based on previously established ideals built from the heavenly progenetrix (Amaterasu). The ideals were composed of heavenly virtues related to filial devotion and respect to all persons on Japanese land. During this time, Interpreters in Japan were translating various works and theories regarding the sciences and medicine from the West. Aizawa lamented in the fact that many of these interpreters began to espouse these theories and ideals as something that Japan should eventually emulate for the benefit of the country as a whole. He wrote to warn Japan of the dangers of adopting these new foreign ideas and that doing so would spell imminent disaster for Japan’s identity where they would become no different than “China, India or the Occident”. Aizawa’s fears for Japan were based on “who was in charge of what” where the West had their innovations and various developments in the sciences and medicine and that Japan conclusively should not partake in them. Aizawa was governed by his belief in what social ideal should become the role of faith in Japan and that evidently it should be one that disregards all things Western while revering the Emperor and maintaining the heaven-given virtues of old. It appears that Aizawa, and a good portion of Japan, were all thinkers who fell under Nietzsche’s third age of religion. Through writing these three stages of religion, Nietzsche certainly endorsed the concept of simple faith for people who practice religion in the true sense — for the sake of self-betterment and enhancement of society rather than the idea that religions should instead shape those societies. Aizawa would have argued that repelling the Western barbarians, who were bereft of nobility would have been the most noble action to take by Japan’s citizens in order to protect that social order that he so vehemently supported whereas Nietzsche would have taken Aizawa’s adamant sentiment regarding the Western aversion as backwards thinking that will not propel Japan forward and instead hold them back from enhancing their society.

It should be noted that Nietzsche leveled ample criticism against Christianity, especially regarding morals inspired by morality. He believed that all of humanity was motivated by the singular will for power and that the morals of Christianity were at odds with this will for power. Power referred to Nietzsche’s “will to power” which was attributed to the main driving motivations of human beings: ambition, achievement and the yearning to attain the highest possible positions in life. Power, according to Nietzsche, was a resident of the material world, and the morality of Christianity forsakes the material world for a spiritual world. Since Nietzsche believed that Christianity moved its followers towards a meaning that he felt was non-existent, he criticized it as an evident nihilism. Nevertheless, Nietzsche never saw Christianity as a powerful strength in Western society, but rather as a problem that will hold humanity back.

What would Nietzsche have considered to be noble? Nietzsche fortunately has written extensively on nobility where he drew his inspirations from past aristocratic classes in his “On the Genealogy of Morality” piece. Nietzsche has defined nobility as encompassing five distinct character traits and are as follows 1) The noble man is solitary, independent, and dealing with others as means to his ends. 2) He is driven by his work, having unified his personality to focus on his project and seeks responsibilities. 3) He is essentially ‘healthy’, knowing what is good for him and choosing that. 4) He wills his life unconditionally, and perhaps can will eternal return as well. 5) He has reverence for himself, honoring himself as powerful, and exercising power over himself in setting and striving for his own values. This sense of reverence extends also to the past – there is no assumption that what is new is better. Aizawa would have vehemently disagreed with Nietzsche, notably on the first and last of his proposed character traits. A self-interested man who only reveres himself are certainly not qualities that would make that man noble. Aizawa has written extensively on Japan’s national polity, particularly the connection to the establishment of Japan as a country by the loyalty and filial piety of its forebearers and the importance of military strength and welfare of the Japanese people. In his “New Theses” piece, Aizawa ties Shinto mythology (worship and thanksgiving) and Confucian ethics (loyalty and filial piety) together as the “national substance” that Japan should strive for. This “national substance” is riddled with moral and religious overtones that Aizawa regarded as indispensable to order and social unity within Japan. It would suffice to say that both of these thinkers would have dismissed each other in this regard.

Conclusion

It stands to reason that both of these thinkers, however, might have strongly believed that countries should be governed by the few (or singular) elite. Nietzsche at his time was an ardent advocate of aristocratic ethics. Neither Nietzsche nor Aizawa would have believed in democracy as the ruling principle of the land. Nietzsche considered the “noble soul” as the final judge of right and wrong, not some preordained idea of morality that was culturally constructed by society. Nietzsche knew that nobles would say that one particular act or idea was “good” because he wanted to encourage it, whereas “bad” acts or ideas were conversely discouraged. Implicit in this idea is that nobles would highly value the ability to enact their wills (the Will to Power). Aizawa similarly believed that the Emperor would conduct himself based on what he thought was right and wrong and that all of Japan should revere his actions for the betterment of their society. Nietzsche would have considered the Japanese Emperor as an Overman of sorts, a man who wrote his own values and did not feel limited or controlled by the moral beliefs of others. Nietzsche lamented that people during his time were dominated by conventional moral views. He blamed Christianity for its subsequent weakness and submission among its followers and thought the modern man was contemptible and pathetic as a result. People want their will to be done, but they are too pitifully weak to do it. The Japanese Emperor would have superseded this weak state and likely would have been considered an Overman by Nietzsche.

Both of these authors were highly revered for their written works on philosophy, morality and what was needed to address (in their opinions) the modern ills of their societies. The fact that these authors proposed many different ideas within the same subjects may have resulted from their cultural upbringings of their time. Aizawa wrote in favor of a national polity shared by a unified people and wrote to promote the well-being of Japan as a country and people, whereas Nietzsche wrote to promote the well-being of humankind in general. Both writers wrote profoundly anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian pieces that were rooted in calling for societies to return to the more ancient ways of ordering society. Although their prospective opinions on how to ameliorate the ills of society was nothing particularly futuristic, libertarian or modern, their works still offered tremendous insight as to what potentially makes a man noble and separate from the rest.