Nietzsche vs. Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer's concept of cosmic pain (Weltschmerz) and his philosophy of compassion (Mitleid), explore the human experience of empathy, and thus to our interconnectedness as human beings.
Despite of Nietzsche's admiration for Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was strictly against his philosophy of pity. Even though it is known that Nietzsche aimed at transvaluing all values, one still wonders how one could possibly resent such a beautiful idea.
Nietzsche however, believed that feelings of compassion only weakened the possibility to become a Superman (Übermensch). For him, the Superman is not someone with super-magical powers, but one who has transcendent the ego completely. In order to reach this state of mind, the individual has to surpass three stages. First, there is "the camel" with it's burden on it's back. Carrying the weight of the world, he eventually reaches the stage of the lion in which no more suffering exists, but total control, will power and strength. The final stage however, has surpassed all these conscious and ego ridden stages and results in the blissful state of "the child". This stage can be compared to the Golden Age, in which we see the wonders of the world with the innocence of childlike eyes.
As Nietzsche believed to carry the pain of the world on his shoulders, he chose to live in solitude in the Swiss Alps for several years. Here, according to his three stages, he found himself to be in the stage of the camel, indulging on his calamity. When he eventually believed to have surpassed this stage, he was ready to become the lion, and thus to re-socialise in order to teach his philosophy, just as the prophets had done before him after their enlightenment in solitude. In the form of Zarathustra, he finally walks down from his ivory tower in the mountains, but only to find that the first villagers he speaks to have no ears to listen! Nietzsche never reached the last stage on the way to transcend and become the Superman. Instead, he escaped from the conscious state of mind that he intended to surpass with his forthcoming insanity.
