Nietzsche Dreams of Schwarzenegger

Aristotle Would Have Liked Oprah - Lessons for Living and Other Philosophic Musings
by Ethel Diamond

What exactly is the meaning of life, and where can I find it? The resource to answering that question, and the questions posed by many philosophers, is found in Ethel Diamond's new book Aristotle Would Have Liked Oprah: Lessons for Living and Other Philosophic Musings An easy-to-read guide to the basic philosophies of life, Diamond humanizes philosophers and illustrates the seeds of their ideas and beliefs, as well as the applications of philosophy to modern-day life. Without directly mapping out the roads to happiness and inner-peace, Diamond steers us in the right direction to finding our own paths to personal prosperity.

"The original point of philosophy was to help people better their lives. It wasn't created and nourished for the enjoyment of just a few, select academics," Diamond explains. "I wrote this book because I wanted to bring some of the terrific ideas of the most intelligent people... where they belong: available as an aid to the thinking person who is trying desperately to fulfill life's daily obligations but at the same time knows deep down that there's 'something' missing."

Aristotle Would Have Liked Oprah also contains a humorous appendix titled Words of Wisdom For Those Special Occasions, which suggests practical philosophic replies to everyday.

Diamond humanizes and decodes the sometimes intimidating world of philosophy, as exemplified in chapters titled "Bacon Brings It Home," "Kant Not Only Can, He Did," and "Heidegger Digs Seinfeld." Diamond has transformed centuries-old works and notions into a language that is both unclouded and entertaining, while making it easy to relate ancient philosophies to everyday life.

And would Aristotle have liked Oprah? Diamond believes that had he lived in modern times he would have greatly admired the talk show host, for both hold the same basic belief: "happiness depends upon ourselves." And neither tolerates the notion that our childhood, spouse or career choice causes or prevents happiness, but instead "provides the background for our pursuit of it."

Life is what you make it, and the same can be said of philosophy. Ethel Diamond provides us with the questions, and it is up to each of us to find the answers within ourselves.

Nietzsche was a very complex figure. The best description of him might be the following: Picture a non-Jewish Woody Allen (hard to do, I know, but just stay with me on this one) who imagines that he is Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was Friedrich Nietzsche-a frail, sickly, nerdy, anti-Semite (that's why we had to make Woody a gentile) who had the fantasies of a powerful, artistic warrior-king and the observational and writing abilities of an Oscar Wilde. Not an easy mix, I'm afraid, and at age forty-four he became mentally ill and never recovered.

The contemporary layperson best knows Nietzsche as the author of the comment "God is dead." This has engendered the mistaken notion that the basic thrust of his thought is negative. Nietzsche actually was an incredibly positive thinker, one concerned about and trying to find a way to avoid what he feared was the impending collapse of traditional values.

The "death of God" meant simply that the Judeo-Christian moral interpretation of the world and ourselves was no longer a viable one. Along with God's death came the death of all metatheories and other kindred notions involving some type of ultimate reality that transcends this world.

But it was through the creation of new values that Nietzsche hoped to overcome what he expected would be the inevitable disillusionment that would accompany the loss of metaphysical answers. (Most likely, however, Woody Allen's reaction, "Not only is God dead but try getting a plumber on weekends" is not quite what he had in mind).

Although Nietzsche was a serious type, I don't think he would have found this media-driven age totally devoid of value, for he looked to art as the means for a creative transformation, a glimpse of the kind of life that could be lived more fully. Frankly, I believe he would have been fascinated and excited by the effect that contemporary media has on culture. Larry King Live, with its ability to reach out and influence the thoughts of millions, is a transformative power beyond Nietzsche's wildest dreams.

Not that Nietzsche felt he had "the answer" to anything. In fact, his whole project was to destroy the notion that anyone had any answers. He emphasized that each and every bit of information is no more than a perspective-one person's way of looking at something.

Indeed, Nietzsche was way ahead of his time with the notion that even science operates within a certain perspective. For hundreds of years, people assumed scientists approached their research with a total objectivity.

The realization that their own viewpoints unconsciously influence the way they interpret data was considered a revolutionary insight when the physicist-historian Thomas Kuhn proposed that thesis in 1962. But this was really an idea Nietzsche had presented almost seventy years earlier.

Nietzsche stressed the difference between "types" of humans, between the higher types and the herd. He also spoke of a "superman" type who represented the attainment of the fullest possible life.

Nietzsche didn't invent this term. The word superman had appeared several times in classical literature before his time, but he was the one who popularized the term by making the concept an essential part of his philosophy. Nietzsche expected a new order for the world and the superman was the ideal human whose "strength of will, hardness and ability to make far-reaching decisions" would enable him to fearlessly face the unseen future. Because superman is strong willed and independent, he becomes the means through whom human values will be re-created. God is dead, but superman represents the new man who will forge humankind into the future by the strength of his will.

An unbelievable concept, you say? Permit me to print the words of someone we are all familiar with who sounds just like the type of person I think Nietzsche had in mind:

"When I was ten years old I got this thing that I wanted to be the best in something, so I started swimming. I won championships, but I felt I couldn't be the best. I tried it in skiing, but there I felt I didn't have the potential. I played soccer, but I didn't like that too well because there I didn't get the credit alone if I did something special.... Then I started weight lifting.... I won the Austrian championship in 1964 but I found out I was just too tall. So I quit that and went into bodybuilding. Two years later I found out that that's it-that's what I can be the best in."

Words of the one and only Arnold. And he hadn't even started thinking about movies yet!

Nietzsche believed in the power of self-creation, and self-creation is what any course of self-improvement is about. Most of us do not have the ability or the drive that Arnold had to become the best in everything we do, with one important exception: Each one of us is capable of re-creating ourselves into the best possible person we can be.

© 1999 Ethel Diamond All rights reserved.

About the Author

An alumna of Barnard College and NYU Law School, Ethel Diamond - a businesswoman, wife and mother - returned to school to study philosophy. Rereading the wisdom of the great philosophers from her middle-aged vantage point, she was astonished to see how relevant it is to everyday life. Eager to impart that insight in a format that would enable people to use philosophy to enhance their lives, she wrote this book. Ethel has two children and resides in New Jersey with her husband, son and two German Shepherds.