The philosophy of “Living without regret in a regretful life”
A political scientist and writer Narzulla Juraev is known to the reader with his books and articles like “The necessity in “The Avesta”[1], “Theoretical basics of philosophy of history”[2], “The magic of The Avesta”[3], “From pleading to secret praying.”[4] His next book “Philosophy of Suffering” is exactly about this topic.
While we speak about this work, it is expedient to primarily note that the author expresses his views about philosophy of humans and life based on interpretation of thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche. The human issue takes the leading position in philosophic trend of Nietzsche. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine world philosophic thought without Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. If we take Narzulla Juraev’s words, the philosophy of Nietzsche: “it was a totally new, magnificent and classic real turn in thought in world philosophy and culture that was named the “Nietzsche turn.”
We are aware that during the era, which was called “The magnificent age,” i.e., the second half of XIX century, the genre of philosophic novels returned to tradition in fiction. The most well-known book of Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” which he wrote and published in 1880’s, belongs to this genre and greatly influenced to future development of philosophy and literature. Especially the fact that this prosaic poem was written in the unique literary style that is specific to Nietzsche only, in its turn, was a serious trigger to development of “Symbolism” in world literature.In this meaning, it was not without reason that N. Juraev assessed this novel of F. Nietzsche as “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” is a rare event.” The novel was created as an absolutely specific prosaic poem, where the thought and feelings, the sense and sensibility, highest philosophic thinking and emotional artistic merit merge together. It deserves praise that this rare piece of art, which brought huge fame to Nietzsche, was translated into Uzbek by a known scholar of literature, perceptive writer and translator Ibrohim Gafurov with his magic taste and great expertise[5].
While “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” is classified as a “philosophic novel,” it automatically requires interpretation of the meaning and sense of this notion. This is a notion that was a widely spread literary term in XX century and is applied to philosophic novels that are written in the form of a novel, where philosophic theory takes the leading position in plot and characters.
However, in scientific-literary processes, we can see that educational-upbringing oriented works are also identified as philosophic novels. Sometimes the works written in utopia or anti-utopia genres are also called philosophic novels.
The history of this literary genre dates back to antique era. In other words, not only the literary-fiction values of the works in “philosophic intercourse” genre, founded by Plato and Xenophon but also their theoretical meaning-essence of such was also important. In Western Europe, the genre of philosophic novel was formulated in its modern look in the Age of Enlightenment.
While in the first half of XIX century some realistic orientation writers started paying attention to this genre, as we said above, in the second half of XIX century, some outstanding representatives of world literature like Nietzsche took the philosophic novel genre to its new stage of development.
The important aspect of this is that in some cases, we see that Nietzsche’s works are also identified as “intellectual novels.” This term was first proposed by Thomas Mann in 1924. T. Mann particularly classified the works of Nietzsche as “intellectual novels.”
In such works, the boundary between science and arts becomes impossible for perception, abstract thoughts get life, vague thinking stands live and delicate and majestic characters totally charm the reader with their specific mood. In the second half of XIX century the “intellectual novel” genre became a rare event in the world literature with its specific features. Especially, as N. Juraev noted, Nietzsche’s prosaic poem “Thus spoke Zarathustra” “is the work that caused an overturn in European philosophic thought.”
When we look at Nietzsche’s life, we should bear in mind that he was born into and grew in a family of religious people. N. Juraev wrote,“Nietzsche was born into the world of theology.” The writer always had a poor constitution from childhood. This tragic state that created problems during entire life and fate of Nietzsche, ran in close association with development of the writer’s philosophic views. Speaking the words of the author, the life itself that was specific to Nietzsche “became a source of absolutely incomparable, extremely perceptive spiritual storms, moral hurricanes, endless thoughts, borderless reflection and thoughts of a person.”
It is indubitable that Nietzsche introduced the notion of “philosophy of life” into the world philosophic thought and created its scientific-theoretical bases. In his philosophic doctrine, Nietzsche proposed the idea of “living without grief in a life that is full of grievance.” In other words, Nietzsche dreamed of an ideal person and ideal life style, whereas this is a non-fulfilling dream.
In reality, in its true essence, Nietzsche’s philosophy is a philosophy of human studies, very unique, very vast philosophy of life. The roots of this philosophy consist of soul and feelings. Nietzsche says that for a human, the importance and role of art in understanding the philosophy of life is very high. Creation of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” of the writer as a result of sufferings of soul, mental offences and moral disturbances clearly confirms this thought. It should however be especially noted that to understand Nietzsche requires living like Nietzsche and outliving his sufferings and pains.
Like other scholars, N. Juraev proposes studying scientific and creative activities of Nietzsche in three stages.
The first stage – the era of domination of influence of Schopenhauer and Wagner. During this time, Nietzsche wrote the works “The Birth of Tragedy,” “Untimely Meditations.”
The second stage – the time, when positivism and interest in natural sciences radically grew in the activities of Nietzsche. The classic works of Nietzsche “Human, All Too Human,” “The Wanderer and His Shadow,” “The Dawn,” “The Gay Science” were written during this stage.
The third stage – the time, when the philosophic thought of Nietzsche was at its apogee, his specific scientific and ideological discoveries were on top of world philosophic thought. His very majestic and unique works “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” “Beyond Good and Evil,” “On the Genealogy of Morality,” “Bitter Wisdom,” “Antichrist” and unfinished “Will to Power” were created during this time.
If we pay attention to the fact that in XVIII century Europe the philosophy of Zaroastrism was widely spread and scholars at various scientific-research centres, large libraries expressed serious interest to the book of “The Avesta” and started studying it, the factors, associated with creation by Nietzsche of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” get cleared to certain extent.
It is a fact that in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” the author reflected the philosophy of life, bright and dark aspects of human life, conflicts and sufferings. In his work, Nietzsche suffers about people getting so much mean and uses Zarathustra to say,“We have forgotten to enjoy our lives.” Generally, “For Nietzsche, Zarathustra becomes a means of carrying the idea, expressing the thoughts very passionately and with very unique feelings.”
It was not without reason that Nietzsche used a sub-name of “For everybody and nobody” in the second edition of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Actually, the idea of “Over man,” the call for perfection and maturity, proposed in the book relates to everybody, the entre humanity. But nobody can meet such high requirements and supreme criteria.
In other words, while an idea of an ideal person is bases for supplication of Zarathustra, supplication of Nietzsche, unfortunately, no perfect man has yet been grown. Essentially, the “Over man is a man who is close to God.” While, “Primarily, Over man is a human being.”The author’s book is dedicated to everybody, at the same time to nobody, in other words to the Supreme man, who does not yet exist.
Nietzsche sees the human sense in the motto of Zarathustra “Good thought, good word, good deed.” According to N. Juraev, the philosophy of Zarathustra is combination of entire human thought. For Nietzsche, who deeply perceived and understood his surrounding world in its entirety, integrity, with all its joys and oppressions, humans are reflected as “a symbol of a world, full of contradictions, and not free from defects.” In Nietzsche’s heart, the supplication, intended for an imperfect man, who always lives with guilt and defects, can never get perfect, can never become an ideal person, “is turned into a volcano with very powerful, enormous optimism, bitter suffering, high soul and painful woes.”
Nietzsche looks at human life through views of Zarathustra. In the work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” Nietzsche performs an equal intercourse with Zarathustra, worships Zarathustra and eventually becomes Zarathustra himself. It should be noted that with the help of Zarathustra’s symbol, Nietzsche managed to create a fundamental concept about his inner feelings, scientific-theoretical conclusions and human studies science. In the meanwhile, we should note that N. Juraev drew a justified conclusion that “Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” can be called as a rare magic of word art and philosophic thought.”
Nietzsche was a great expert in Oriental philosophy. He is one of the world scholars, who thoroughly studied the style of Oriental thinking, treated it with conviction and widely promulgated it. According to Zarathustra, and Nietzsche, and in his turn, according to the author of this book, “Creativity, innovativeness is humane.” The measure that honours the man and the criterion that glorifies the man is education.” “Education is courage.” By pleading with the help of Zarathustra’s speech, Nietzsche calls us for awareness, for improving our self-preservation instinct.
When we speak about this, the idea of Nietzsche “Eternal recurrence” is quite expedient to discuss. For this idea takes a specific and individual position in Nietzsche’s philosophic thought. The eternal recurrence idea, proposed by Nietzsche is based on the ideas of “incarnation” and “reincarnation” of Buddhism, i.e., rebirth of soul, including return of soul in tasawwuf philosophy. For Nietzsche, the idea of eternal recurrence is a symbol of life.
If we explain the idea of eternal recurrence in a simpler way, according to Oriental philosophic thought, eternally alive human soul descends to the Earth, takes its position in a human spirit, becomes the pearl of this spirit and has a position of the power to move the person. According to interpretation of world philosophers, the soul, i.e., human soul that has descended to the Earth passes through tests, sufferings and examinations. The difficulties, tortures assist in relieving of human soul from evil, and in purification of human body. It reinforces human will and improves the nobility in his mentality.
As N. Juraev notes, the theory of eternal recurrence of Nietzsche was born as a reflection of Oriental thought in a totally new era and different space. In its turn, all this brightly proves the great devotion that Nietzsche addressed the Oriental philosophic thought with. Nietzsche’s views are proof of him using not only Greek, but also Oriental, including Movarounnahr sources of thought.
By giving theological touch to his ideas, Nietzsche seeks salvation in humane ideas of the Orient, and gets reliance from them. Partly, Nietzsche sees a free and liberated person in Zarathustra’s symbol. Deeply studying and delicately interpreting this philosophic theory of Nietzsche, N. Juraev comes to the following conclusion: “The only saviour of a human being, the only power that turns him into a valuable is morality!” He notes, “Human soul is the home of God.”
To put this in other way, Nietzsche’s doctrine is “Nietzsche style” interpretation of Oriental philosophy. Moreover, we think it expedient to note that the formulae of negation of negation in world philosophy found its deserved solution in Nietzsche’s doctrine.Speaking with the help of Zarathustra, Nietzsche pleads to call absent as absent, and present as present (existing as existing and non-existing as non-existing). Of course, as the author of this book writes, “Not everybody is able to say “No.” For saying “No” requires powerful, strong will and final conclusion. Saying “Yes” is a symbol of open skies, bright, at the same time, gentle, peaceful, calm life. The two contradicting powers are reflected in the symbol of “No” and “Yes.”
And so, in N. Juraev’s terms, “In world philosophic thought, alongside with the conscious, initiated by Aristotle, Nietzsche opened absolutely new aspects of nihilism – absolute negation position of metaphysics – which is impossible to locate in imagination.”
Dear reader! The book you have is easy to read, and the important side of it is that it is written in Nietzsche spirit, i.e., emotionally and in a philosophic style. Meanings of scientific-philosophic notions and other sophisticated terms are given in a simple and comprehensive language. The bibliography that the author used is vast, and use some rare and unique works has to be noted. We hope that this book will be interesting and useful for you.
