Nietzsche and Gandhi, Society
Friedrich Nietzsche and Mahatma Gandhi, two mammoth political figures of their time, attack the current trend of society. Their individual philosophies and concepts suggest a fundamental problem: if civilization is so diseased, can we overcome this state of society and the sickness that plagues the minds of the masses in order to advance? Gandhi and Nietzsche attain to answer the same proposition of sickness within civilization, and although the topic of unrest among both may be dissimilar, they have parallel means of finding a cure to such an illness as the one that plagues society. Nietzsche’s vision of spiritual health correlates directly with Gandhi’s image of industrialism and the self-sufficiency. This correlation prevails by highlighting the apparent sickness that is ubiquitous in both of the novels.
Nietzsche sees our past as replete with decadence and spiritual decay. Oftentimes the values that we blindly accept have a contemptible origin; such is the case with the foundations of good and bad. The definition of good was judged so by ““the good” themselves, that is to say, the noble the powerful, high stationed and high minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good” (Nietzsche 25-26). These words, coined by the nobility, are prevalent within our thoughts and did not arise from the actions of man; rather it arose with a direct connection to power and wealth. The value of good, bad, wealth, and poverty are deeply rooted in the core of civilization and therefore convey the advanced state of sickness in society by expressing a weakness of mind amongst the public.
A disruption of values arises as a powerful factor in the creation of Gandhi’s theory pertaining to spiritual sickness and the general decay of the mind. The values in debate here depict the struggle between brute force and passive resistance. Gandhi claims that “passive resistance, that is soul force, is matchless… How then can it be considered a weapon of the
Nietzsche sees our past as replete with decadence and spiritual decay. Oftentimes the values that we blindly accept have a contemptible origin; such is the case with the foundations of good and bad. The definition of good was judged so by ““the good” themselves, that is to say, the noble the powerful, high stationed and high minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good” (Nietzsche 25-26). These words, coined by the nobility, are prevalent within our thoughts and did not arise from the actions of man; rather it arose with a direct connection to power and wealth. The value of good, bad, wealth, and poverty are deeply rooted in the core of civilization and therefore convey the advanced state of sickness in society by expressing a weakness of mind amongst the public.
A disruption of values arises as a powerful factor in the creation of Gandhi’s theory pertaining to spiritual sickness and the general decay of the mind. The values in debate here depict the struggle between brute force and passive resistance. Gandhi claims that “passive resistance, that is soul force, is matchless… How then can it be considered a weapon of the
Cited: Gandhi. The Penguin Reader. New York: Penguin Book Inc., 1996. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. New York: Random House Inc., 1989.