[fusion event]Nietzsche's heritage (Ayn Rand? Nazis? Other?)

## Nietzsche's Influence Discussion Starter

The modern world lives in the long shadow of Nietzsche’s declaration that “God is dead,” a line often misunderstood as a celebration of atheism rather than a diagnosis of civilizational crisis. Nietzsche believed the collapse of the Christian moral horizon stripped us of the metaphysical grounding that once anchored truth, dignity, and equality.

What emerges in that vacuum is not liberation but disorientation, a culture struggling to invent meaning while still clinging to moral instincts inherited from a faith it no longer fully believes. In this sense, modern liberal and progressive values are, as Nietzsche saw them, secularized Christianity: an attempt to preserve the ethic of compassion and equality after its theological foundation has dissolved.

Yet Nietzsche forces us to confront the darker possibilities hidden in this transition. If human beings cannot live without absolutes, then the death of religious metaphysics invites the rise of new “political religions”, nationalism, ideological purity, utopianism, and the glorification of strength. Nietzsche’s own aristocratic radicalism pushes this logic further, rejecting egalitarianism as a comforting lie and celebrating hierarchy, creativity, and the will to power. His critique resonates across today’s political landscape: the left must grapple with the Christian inheritance in its moral vision, while the right often misreads Nietzsche as a prophet of resentment and cultural revolt. In both cases, he reveals impulses we may be uncomfortable acknowledging.

The real philosophical challenge Nietzsche leaves us with is not whether God is dead, he believed that question had already been settled, but what we are prepared to put in God’s place. Do we seek a renewed moral framework grounded in equality and mutual concern? Do we embrace the creative task of forging new values suitable for modern conditions? Or do we, as Nietzsche feared, drift into passivity or resentment, grasping for identities that promise meaning without demanding responsibility? A conversation about Nietzsche is ultimately a conversation about the future of value itself: who creates it, who benefits from it, and what kind of human being our age is shaping.

A very different but equally revealing inheritance surfaces in Ayn Rand’s objectivism. Though she rejected fascism, Rand drew heavily from Nietzsche’s exaltation of the self-creating individual, suspicion of herd morality, and belief that greatness justifies itself. Her early writings were explicitly Nietzschean, portraying heroic figures liberated from ordinary moral constraints. Even when she later distanced herself from him, the imprint remained. Rand’s “ideal man” is, in many ways, a domesticated Übermensch: rational rather than ecstatic, industrial rather than aristocratic, but still defined by the conviction that moral obligation flows upward, not outward.

What Rand lacked from Nietzsche was his psychological depth and tragic sensibility; what she shared was his insistence that the individual stands prior to the community and that equality is often an alibi for mediocrity. Whether one admires or rejects this lineage, it raises a difficult question: when does the celebration of individual excellence empower genuine human flourishing, and when does it become a justification for cruelty, domination, or willful blindness to the suffering of others?

Including a comparison between Rand and Nietzsche as she strongly carries forward the torch of individualism into our modern era and the two ought to be bridged in a modern conversation and reflection on the current world

Ayn Rand vs. Nietzsche: The Individual vs. the Aristocratic Individual

1. Nature of the Individual
- Rand: The individual is every rational human being capable of independence. Individuality is universal.
- Nietzsche: The true individual is rare and exceptional. Individuality is the privilege of higher types.
2. Moral Framework
- Rand: Morality is rational, objective, and life-serving. No coercion or domination.
- Nietzsche: Morality is created by the strong. Higher individuals may legitimately dominate or create new values.
3. Social & Economic Vision
- Rand: A meritocratic, capitalist society of rational producers.
- Nietzsche: A hierarchical aristocracy where higher types flourish through the labor of the many.
4. View of the Masses
- Rand: All people have the potential for reason and autonomy.
- Nietzsche: Most people are herd-like and incapable of self-overcoming.
5. View of Power
- Rand: Power must be earned through reason; coercion is immoral.
- Nietzsche: Power is natural and often admirable; struggle and hierarchy may be necessary for greatness.
Core Difference:
- Rand: Every individual is potentially great.
- Nietzsche: Only a rare few can ever be great, and the rest support them.

## Discussion Questions

1. If “God is dead,” is any claim to universal morality anything more than wishful thinking, or cultural domination in disguise?
2. Are modern progressives simply Christians who stopped believing in God but kept the morality? If so, is this intellectually honest?
3. Does human equality have any rational foundation, or is it merely a comforting myth we tell ourselves?
4. Are we witnessing Nietzsche’s prophecy of new “political religions” in real time, nationalism, identity politics, wokeness, and anti-wokeness alike?
5. Is the average person capable of true self-creation, or do most people want the herd, and deserve it?
6. Did fascists distort Nietzsche, or follow his ideas to their logical conclusion? What in his philosophy makes this possibility so uncomfortable?
7. When does the celebration of excellence become an excuse for cruelty, and when does egalitarianism become an excuse for mediocrity?
8. Ayn Rand turned Nietzsche’s aristocratic ideal into a capitalist superhero. Is her “ideal man” a noble vision, or a narcissist with good PR?
9. If resentful masses are dangerous, what about resentful elites who believe they’re entitled to rule? Which form of resentment is worse today?
   10. Given Nietzsche belief in a radical aristocracy to lead us, how can we qualify that within our given structure? Is it redeemable? Should we aspire to create perfect role models and leaders for people to follow regardless of its ultimate viability?

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## Nietzsche Quotes

· “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” ,The Gay Science,
· “Must we not ourselves become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” ,The Gay Science,
· “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”, Twilight of the Idols
· “There are no moral phenomena, only moral interpretations of phenomena.”, Beyond Good and Evil,
· “Equality is a lie invented by the weak to level the strong.”
· “Become who you are.”
· “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.” ,Thus Spoke Zarathustra
· “Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.” ,Beyond Good and Evil,
· “One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.” ,Thus Spoke Zarathustra
· “Nothing on earth consumes a man more than the passion of resentment.” ,Ecce Homo
· “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.” ,Beyond Good and Evil,
· “To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
· "A quiet hint to Conservatives., That which we did not know formerly, and know now, or might know if we chose, is the fact that a retrograde formation, a reversion in any sense or degree, is absolutely impossible. We physiologists, at least, are aware of this. But all priests and moralists have believed in it, they wished to drag and screw man back to a former standard of virtue. Morality has always been a Procrustean bed. Even the politicians have imitated the preachers of virtue in this matter. There are parties at the present day whose one aim and dream is to make all things adopt the crab-march (from side to side, rarely forward or back). But not everyone can be a crab. It cannot be helped: we must go forward, that is to say step by step further and further into decadence We can hinder this development, and by so doing dam up and accumulate degeneration itself and render it more convulsive, more volcanic: we cannot do more."Twilight of The Idols, Skirmishes in a war with the age, aphorism 43
· "The essential characteristic of a good and healthy aristocracy, however, is that it experiences itself not as a function (whether of the monarchy or the commonwealth) but as their meaning and highest justification, that it therefore accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to slaves, to instruments."
As an Aside a great movie that really explores Nietszche’s idea’s to their natural conclusions is “The Menu” released in 2022

In person will be at 10113B Seattle Slew Lane. This meetup location may not have sufficient chairs for all of us, so it is advisory to bring a portable chair. The location also does not have food for sale. I will bring several large pizzas, and will request $2/slice. One pizza will be vegetarian. Tap water is available, please bring any other drinks desired.

Online will be: https://teams.live.com/meet/93583191724730?p=hY3jxVvnOciVl2aRn5