Nietzsche's American Idol: in Nietzsche's Overman to his Death of God we can see the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson who "exercised a continuous influence stronger than that of any other writer on Nietzsche" and was “one of the prototypes of Zarathustra”
thelivingphilosophy.substack.comSubmitted by thelivingphilosophy t3_z7uo0z in philosophy
livebonk t1_iy8oyl6 wrote
I think we see in Emerson the Nietzschean ideal of rejecting the institutions and dogma of your youth to consciously and carefully choose your own value system, and embracing something to give meaning. Nietzsche found meaning in art, but art is a dialogue with other ideas and does not preclude philosophies or religions or German identity that Nietzsche abhorred. When you tell people to consider and reconstruct all value and meaning then of course they will end up in completely different places. Some will embrace a different kind of religion or nature worship or whatever, some will create a system of post-rationalism that allows for rationally choosing the morality of the masses, some will be racists or embrace national identity to imbue their life and actions with meaning, even if they know it's something they chose and not fundamentally true. And all of those choices I think Nietzsche would argue against.