Many biographical books and articles were written about Nietzsche. Much was written about his personality as well.
I claim that the key to understanding his personality, his self-understanding, his lifestyle, relationships with others, his friendships, his idealizations of his friends, his conflicts with a number of them, and them distancing themselves from him, etc., is the fact that he was a narcissist.
This fact also aids in explaining some of his concepts, like for example the concept of free spirit or in German Freigeist, his writing style and the composition of most of his works and his opinion of the importance of his writings.
Childhood and adolescence
Nietzsche had been from childhood impressing his mother and sister, first with his readings of the Bible and soon after with his writings, poems, essays, stories.
In his Nachlass, the preserved writings composed until age 19 alone comprise 900 printed pages.
According to Vaknin, one of the necessary elements in the development of the cerebral kind of narcissism is that the child derives praise and attention from its family members based on the demonstrations of its intellectual prowess.
High expectations were placed on Nietzsche from an early age.
After the early death of his father, a few months before Nietzsche turned five, he had as the only male in the household with six women been groomed to be a scholar and a writer, motivated also by a desire to replace his father, evidenced by the fact that they used to call him der kleine Pastor, the small pastor.
He was driven by others and in turn also by himself towards extraordinary intellectual achievements.
From then on he lived to write.
He had therefore prodigious early intellectual development.
From then on he lived to write, writes Joachim Kuehler in his biography of Nietzsche called Nietzsche.
He had therefore prodigious early intellectual development at the expense of the development of his personality and emotions.
According to Sam Vaknin, there is nothing more narcissistically gratifying than the admiration and adulation garnered by precocious child prodigies, Wunderkinder.
That was a quote from Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
Nietzsche presented himself as chosen and feminine and through this provincial affectation of the distinguished would enrage his friends, writes the biographer Joachim Kuehler.
Vaknin considers heightened sensitivity in childhood and adolescence as indicative of certain types of narcissism.
One of the characteristics of narcissism is the belief in being special and chosen for great things.
Vaknin, the narcissist firmly believes that he is unique and that he has a mission to fulfill, a destined life.
Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth in a letter on the period of circa 1856 when Nietzsche was 12 years old.
Quote, as one sees from everything told so far, superbly from the remarks of his friends, Fritz affected his entire surroundings in a noticeably educative way, without being somehow aware of it.
This was a quote from the book Begegnungen mit Nietzsche.
In the same letter, Elizabeth then recalls an encounter with a man who had been a student in the same elementary school as Nietzsche. He was a few years older than Nietzsche, who had told her about the influence Nietzsche had on his classmates.
I quote, they did not dare to say a crude word or an inappropriate remark in front of him.
One time a boy tapped himself on the mouth and exclaimed, no, one cannot say that in front of Nietzsche. What does he do to you then? he asked.
Oh, he looks at you like that, that the word remains in your mouth.
The otherwise very free-spirited referendary concluded thoughtfully.
Fritz appeared to him always like the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple.
He, the referendary, was firmly convinced he, Nietzsche, will once become something quite great.
Elizabeth wrote a number of times that Nietzsche was a very serious child.
According to Vaknin, a narcissist typically takes himself very seriously.
According to Eugen Gali, Nietzsche had said to his landlord in Silsmaria that he had done too much in his youth, that as a student he used to study all night and when he would feel very sleepy, he would put his feet in a bucket of cold water in order to stay awake.
This was again a quote from Peganegen with Nietzsche.
Paul Heinrich Viedemann wrote that Jacob Burckhardt told him in 1875 the following about Nietzsche.
That is the misfortune of child prodigies in the original Wunderkind.
Because he was already in Schulp Forta, a wunderkind, they wanted to see always greater wonders from him.
So he was exerted beyond measure, and his health was damaged at the route.
In Schulp Forta boarding school, he was subjected to a military-like strict regulated schooling, which included getting up before five in the morning and eight hours of lectures daily.
This is according to the book, Zarathustra's Disciple: The Life and Works of Friedrich Nietzsche from Joachim Koller.
Koller also states the following on Nietzsche's relationship with his mother and sister.
Since they forced him into the wunderkind role since his school days, the mother took the role of the strict educator, the sister of the archival disciple.
They had to always demand new achievements from him, through which his health was damaged in the route.
Later, when he no longer wanted to fit in the rectangular frame, they began to dismantle him.
Every move towards freedom was suspiciously tracked, freedom of movement was punished with withdrawal of love.
This was again a quote from Koeler's book Nietzsche.
This shows that Nietzsche was treated as a special child and his caregiver's life was conditioned by him accomplishing extraordinary things in the intellectual realm.
His whole life he remained in compulsive dependence from mother and sister.
He hated them, cursed them, would not talk to them, yet would always come again to the cross, says Koller.
These passages are a clear indication that Nietzsche did not manage to separate from his mother and sister and therefore also did not fully individuate.
Failure to separate an individual from the mother is another one of the important conditions for the development of narcissism, according to Vaknin.
Demeanor appearance and personality.
Narcissism is expressed also in body language and posture.
Often a narcissist displays a haughty posture, a vigilant gaze and a stance intended to leave an impression of superiority or of possessing hidden powers.
This is a paraphrase of something stated in Vaknin's book, Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
Paul Dyssen, Nietzsche's classmate from Schulpforta, when they were between the ages of 14 and 20, described Nietzsche's hypervigilant gaze and behavior when Nietzsche was in an authority position, so-called Primus, in his class.
I quote, I can still see Nietzsche how he goes through the rows searching in vain for a reason to intervene.
He came to where I was sitting, leaned over and said, Do not speak so loud to the one next to you.
Hypervigilant demeanor and behavior are typical of narcissists. We noticed this also in some of Nietzsche's photos from his 20s.
This is a photo from 1869 when he was 24.
Nietzsche made a conscious effort to present himself in a certain way in his photos.
We noticed right away the sharp, intense, vigilant gaze and a heightened sense of self.
Consider the following photo.
A photo from Nietzsche's military service in 1868.
We notice again the sharp, now even hyper-vigilant gaze and a commandeering posture in accordance with his military uniform, with his sword drawn out, no less, as if he had just ordered the decisive charge against the French positions at Sedan.
Dyssen reported that during his time in Schulpforta, Nietzsche was withdrawn and somewhat shy, had little interest in social activities and was therefore not well known to other students.
He also writes that he was mocked for his reclusiveness.
This is from his book Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche.
One of Nietzsche's teachers in Schulpforta, Otto Bender, wrote the following about him.
He was a quiet, pondering young man, third in himself, meaning introverted, of not a very strong constitution on whom, among other things, the long hair stood out.
This was again a quote from Begegnung mit Nietzsche.
Doyen and Nietzsche would go on long walks together during which they would discuss philosophy, religion and art.
It is worth noting that reclusiveness, having few friends, avoidance of social activities involving more than a few people, preference for solitary activities indicate a schizoid personality.
You can find this in the DSM-5.
Consider the following photo from Nietzsche's Schulpforta period, precisely from 1861 when he was 16 or 17 years old, and his gaze, which seems as if directed inward.
Later, as a professor, Nietzsche would, for example, advise his students against taking notes.
I quote, as Plato said, that is bad for the memory. End quote.
Another sign of hypervigilance? Plato said, that is bad for the memory." Another sign of hypervigilance?
Wilhelm Wisse, Nietzsche's fellow student in Leipzig, claimed that Nietzsche was reluctant to join the student philological society, which was named after their professor Ritschl, due to his special, meaning enlarged, sense of self, he did want to in that way be considered a student and a follower of someone else.
He had, according to Wisse, only joined the society after Ritschl had generously praised him, which I will quote in the next paragraph, so he was generously praised for a study he wrote.
This is what I've stated about Wisse what Wisse said about Nietzsche and the Philological Society is also from the book Begegnung mit Nietzsche that was a paraphrase during the third semester of his philology studies, Nietzsche was invited by his professor Ritschl to his office regarding an essay he wrote for the student society he was a member of.
And Nietzsche wrote the following about the encounter.
To which purpose did you set this work? He asked me.
I said the nearest that as the basis of a talk in our student society, it had already fulfilled its purpose.
Now he asked for my age, my study time and so on.
And as I said goodbye, he explained that he had never from a student in the third semester since something similar in terms of the methodical strictness and the security in combination.
On top of that, he urged me to make out of the work a small book and promised me his help in acquiring some collations.
After this scene, my sense of self went into the air." End quote.
This quote was from the book Friedrich Nietzsche from Montinari.
Elizabeth wrote the following about hers and Nietzsche's encounter with a natural scientist during their travels in the early 1870s.
A lively discussion ensued about one of the above stated topics, namely medicine and natural sciences, regarding which my brother had at the beginning remarked that he is not very adapted, since he never dealt with them much.
During the discussion, gradually, my brother had demonstrated such knowledge on all those theories and they're for and against, that finally the German professor, who had a lot of humor, astoundedly exclaimed, but admired colleague, you claim to know little of that, and I have not yet found anyone who knows so much about it and had reflected upon it so much.
My brother explained very eagerly that he really believed that other scholars knew more about it, yet he had to admit to the humorous colleague that he had, out of courtesy, spoken so modestly of his own knowledge.
This was a quote from Begegnung mit Nietzsche.
Such behavior is. This was a quote from Begenung und Zeit.
Such behavior is common in narcissists.
According to Vaknin, there is something called the membership posture, I quote.
The narcissist always tries to belong, yet at the very same time he maintains his stance as an outsider.
The narcissist seeks to be admired for his ability to integrate and ingratiate himself without investing the efforts commensurate with such an undertaking.
For instance, if the narcissist talks to a psychologist, the narcissist first states emphatically that he has never studied psychology.
He then proceeds to make seemingly effortless use of obscure professional terms, thus demonstrating that he had mastered the discipline all the same, which is supposed to prove that he is exceptionally intelligent or introspective.
He likes to think of himself as a renaissance man, a jack-of-all-trades or a genius, end quote. This was a quote from Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
In the conversation recounted by his sister, Nietzsche had first made a disclaimer by understanding his knowledge of the topics they started discussing, which were the area of expertise of his interlocutor.
This is what Vaknin calls the narcissist pseudo-modesty.
Then he proceeded to demonstrate a level of knowledge much greater than that which he had in the beginning confessed to possess.
The difference between the initially understated level of knowledge and that which he had through the course of the discussion displayed had made the subjective impression about his knowledge in the mind of the scientist he was talking to significantly greater than it would have been had he at the beginning given an evaluation of his knowledge of those scientific topics which was closer to reality.
True that, Nietzsche has succeeded in extracting a greater amount of narcissistic supply, meaning admiration, praise, amazement from the natural sciences professor than he otherwise would have.
Quote, in Nietzsche's whole being there was a demand, meaning directed at others to attain his contentedness. This is from a text on Nietzsche's activity as a professor in Basel.
In his 20s as a young professor, his acquaintances described his appearance and the care he took with his clothes in terms that described a 19th century dandy.
Quote, there was something grand in German phynem, in his whole demeanor, end quote.
Also the extraordinary care he takes in his appearance, sorry, this is a quote again, so quote, also the extraordinary care he takes in his appearance, especially with his suit, by the way, without any girlish coquetry and the need to impress, all the more as his mighty mustache adequately protects him from the reproach that too much femininity abounds in him." End quote.
Again the quote from the same text, which is in the description.
In the memories of his students and pupils from the time he is regularly described as personally very amicable, friendly, gentle, good-natured.
Complete opposite of the latter author of Beyond Good and Evil and Genealogy of Morals, who praised brutality and men whose law.
Could that change be explained by him being during his Basile years, a pro-social or a people-pleaser narcissist, as Vaknin calls it?
Here is how one of Nietzsche's older colleagues from Basel University, Jakob Burckhardt, had described Nietzsche's reception there, quote.
He found himself with barely 24 years of age, before even passing his Examen rigorosum in Leipzig, completely unexpected and against custom, placed in the chair for Greek literature at the Basile University, and they are celebrated and coddled from young and old as an early ripe genius as a stimulating teacher adored and loved, soon also as an original writer.
All in all almost like a miraculous apparition.
What else was missing to fill the measure of sense of self to the point of overflowing?
End quote.
We can only wonder whether Nietzsche would have perhaps better managed his narcissism had he not been allowed to take such a big shortcut in his academic career.
But what the adulation and attention Mali had described were not enough for Nietzsche.
So he had allied with Wagner in his project of advocating for a cultural reform in Germany, based on Wagner's music and on a return to some aspects of the ancient Greek culture, namely Greek tragedy, as propagated by himself in his work the Birth of Tragedy, through which he had seriously damaged his reputation in philology.
That work led to him being no longer taken seriously by his peers in that field. He had effectively ruined his own academic career just three years after its very promising start.
Then finally, when Nietzsche had in 1879 quit his job of a university professor, he was slowly cut off from most of his previous ties in society, went to a lower standing in society and became a lone, wandering tinker and writer whose books sold in no more than a few hundred copies at best.
In terms of narcissism, we would say he had lost a previous narcissistic supply and did not acquire nearly sufficient new supply.
Is that when he became an antisocial envious narcissist, angry that the world did not recognize his no question indubitable genius?
Paul Ray, a friend of his and an important influence in Nietzsche's transition to his middle period and free spirit philosophy, said that Nietzsche is, quote, not one human, but a conglomerate of humans, end quote.
This quote was from the 15th tome of Nietzsche's collected works called Nietzsche's Leben, concordance and so on.
Erwin Rode, a friend of Nietzsche's, striking change of philosophical direction with his work Human, All Too Human.
Can one simply strip his soul and take another one instead? Instead of Nietzsche, suddenly become Rei.
One can if he is a narcissist.
Rosa von Schinow wrote about the time she spent in Nietzsche's company in 1884 also the following.
Quote, as in the illumination of a flash, I saw for the second time in the dangerous in original Ferengnis folle depths of his personality.
For a moment, another Nietzsche appeared to me again.
This was a quote from Begegnung mit Nietzsche.
Nietzsche wrote to Heinrich von Stein, quote, it was my destiny to hide behind masks, end quote.
According to Overbeck, one of Nietzsche's most loyal friends who remained on friendly terms with him even in the second half of the 1880s when most others had long abandoned him, Nietzsche's accomplishments were primarily not to any single very pronounced ability, but due to his great ambition, zeal and striving to greatness.
According to Wachn, striving to overachieve is a characteristic of the narcissist who had the status of a wunderkind.
Heinz describes Nietzsche as having had a theatrical development.
Quote, playing with himself, he had, so to speak, pulled from his decoration magazine one scenery in original, Coolice, after the other, until the whole theatre play was there.
Everyone can now experience that from his Nakhlas, who was as close to him as I, could experience it.
In original German, Erlebn.
Overbeck in the same text also states that at times their friendship was strained due to Nietzsche's such mercurial nature, and he had to make an effort in order to remain friends with Nietzsche over the years.
Overbeck also states several situations which made him question his friend's genuineness, namely Nietzsche's horrified reaction, most probably to the possibility of intimacy with her, to the visit of a female admirer, and his relationship with Lou Salome with its idealization devaluation pattern.
Vaknin, quote, the narcissist's perception of his life and existence is discontinuous.
The narcissist is a walking compilation of, quote, personalities, each with its own history.
The narcissist does not feel that he is in any way related to his former, quote, selves. The narcissist is an assemblage. He plays host to many personas. One of the personas is always in the limelight, limelight in quotes. This is the persona which interfaces with the outside world and which guarantees an optimal inflow of narcissistic supply. Thus the narcissist is spatially and temporarily discontinuous." End quote.
Overbeck said, based on their conversations, that Nietzsche was not really self-confident. Quote, regarding Nietzsche's genius in the highest sense, Nietzsche had not believed in it, or to put it shortly, in himself. I have heard in my conversations with him as a friend two insistent confessions on that, at least in the years before he had stepped forth in public with the highest demands he put on himself. End quote.
Therefore, Overbeck interpreted Nietzsche's, quote, extravagances of sense of self, and quote, as a sign of a lack of belief in himself. Overbeck said that Nietzsche had showed that he did not find his center.
Nietzsche says about himself in one letter written in 1885, quote, it is difficult to find out who I am, end quote.
According to Vaknin, a narcissist does not have a core of personal identity and therefore lacks a consistent sense of self as well.
Nietzsche's letters show a great preoccupation with himself, his ailments, daily routines, walks, moods, his works.
Julius Picard, Nietzsche's colleague at the University of Basel, wrote a few anecdotes from his acquaintance with Nietzsche from the 1870s.
Quote, another time at the annual banquet of the rectorate, someone had made a toast to the academic society and remarked additionally that since not everyone can be a scholar, original Fachgelehrte, there had also to be cultivated Philistines, original Bildende Philisten. The phrase recently coined by Nietzsche was completely appropriate in his sense. He stood up and left. As I followed him home shortly after, he laid on the bed completely beside himself, meaning very upset. In the dark room his eyes had an eerie glow. As I tried to calm him down, he stared at me, quote, But Picard, did you not hear how all of them made fun of me? End quote. It sounded like a touch of paranoia, end quote.
Vaknin claims that what he calls referential ideation and paranoia, which narcissists tend to exhibit, stems from their enlarged sense of self-importance.
Quote, the narcissist holds himself to be the center of the world. He is not merely the center of his world, as far as he can tell, he is the center of the world. This constant obsession with one's locus, with one's centrality, with one's position as a hub, leads to referential ideation, ideas of reference. This is the conviction that one is at the receiving end of other people's behaviors, speech and even thoughts. The person suffering from delusional ideas of reference is at the self-appointed center of imaginary constant attention.
When people talk among themselves, the narcissist is convinced that he is the topic of discussion. When they quarrel, he is most probably the cause. When they smirk, he is the victim of their ridicule. The narcissist often erroneously believes that people discuss him, gossip about him, hate him, defame him, mock him, berate him, underestimate him, envy him or fear him.
End quote.
Another anecdote about Nietzsche which Picard remembered.
Quote, sometime later as he traveled to Montreux for a stay, I strongly recommended to him to make a detour from there to Lausanne to visit the cathedral. He promised he would and held his promise, but how? From his description, I have reconstructed the path which he took in about two hours. From the train station he went eastern around the town by the prison after the village Chailly and returned always astray over the Washire, finally back to the train station just before the departure of his train, without having seen a trace of the town, not to mention the cathedral.
But why did you not ask for directions? Picard asked Nietzsche.
Childishly ashamed, he replied, you know Picard, they would have laughed at me.
This overly great sensibility, which was over time only increased, concludes Picard.
Picard thought that the degree of Nietzsche's sensitivity was somewhat pathological, therefore.
Nietzsche, at age 26, thought that one or two pedestrians he would ask for directions in Lausanne, would laugh at him for asking for directions.
Again, a sign of referential ideation.
Any suggested help, advice, or concerned inquiry are immediately caused by the narcissist as intentional humiliation.
That was again a quote from Vaknin.
Avoiding to ask for directions is a behavior typical of narcissists.
From Picard's account, it cannot be claimed that this also was the reason why Nietzsche did not ask for directions, in addition to the rationally anticipated ridicule.
But narcissists usually avoid doing it because that would jeopardize their enlarged sense of self, precisely their delusion of omniscience.
How can someone so smart, so knowledgeable as him, ask others for directions?
By doing that, he would consider ignorance and the inability to find a way on his own, and he cannot accept that.
Therefore, he would rather spend a long time walking around an unknown town, going on wrong paths, which in some cases as in Nietzsche's, reaches a point that he does not find a destination at all.
Picard wrote also of the occasion when one evening Nietzsche played a piano piece he had composed.
After he had finished playing, he asked Picard what he thought of it.
Picard had some reservations about it, as did the other persons present, according to him, to which Nietzsche said, but Picard, you did not understand that these were stars on the sky during a night's stroll.
Picard wrote that Nietzsche was very sad as a result of that short conversation.
Quote from Vaknin, the narcissist is easily hurt and insulted, narcissistic injury.
Lou Salome on Nietzsche in 1882, quote, are we close to each other?
No, not at all.
It is as if a shadow of those representations of my feeling, which until a few weeks ago blessedNietzsche, separates us, pushes itself between us.
The shadow of Nietzsche's representation of her feeling?
Wouldn't that be what Vaknin calls the snapshot used to create an internal object?
In this case, the internal object of Lou Salome in Nietzsche's mind.
And Lou rightly notices that that became a problem in their relationship, just as the theory of narcissism claims.
Inevitably, a discrepancy between the internal object and the real person it refers to becomes evident, which causes issues in the relationship with the narcissist.
Salome continued, and some hidden depth of our beings we are worlds apart from one another.
And, meaning Nietzsche, has in his being like an old castle, some dark cell and hidden cellar space which is not noticeable upon fleeting acquaintance, and yet can contain his true self.
Oddly, recently a thought occurred to me with sudden might that we could once even stand in front of each other as enemies.
Salome had noticed that there are two layers of Nietzsche's personality, the surface level, which he presents to others in his everyday life, and another one, much different and more difficult to perceive.
The second layer which could contain his truest, she says. Rightly so, we can add.
On the two layers of the narcissists' personality, Vaknin writes, narcissists may fake personal warmth and an ongoing personality.
This is the routine of the narcissistic mask.
But as one gets to know the narcissist better, his mask falls. His narcissistic makeup wears off, his muscles relax, and he reverts to the narcissistic tonus.
The narcissistic tonus is a bodacious air of superiority mixed with disdain.
The imagery which suggested itself to Lou Salome in describing what she had perceived of Nietzsche's inner world is interestingly among that which also Vaknin uses when he metaphorically describes the narcissist's inner self, quote, "an old palace," end quote, which nobody inhabits, he adds.
Salome showed good psychological perception again incorrectly, as would soon be proven, expecting that their relationship could turn from a very close, friendly relationship into its opposite.
She also claimed Nietzsche was a sadomasochist, which she connected with a, quote, "certain bisexuality," end quote.
In 1882, Nietzsche had asked his sister to refrain from criticizing Salome, stating the following reason.
We have such a commonality of gifts and names that our names will at one point have to be stated together, and each disparagement that hits her will first hit me.
So the priority for Nietzsche in advising his sister against criticizing or disparaging Salome was not primarily, if at all, Salome's sake, but his own.
He was worried that an attack on Salome would in the future also be an attack on him, due to the, as he claims, great correspondence in their views and aims.
Also regarding Nietzsche's tendency towards sadomasochism, there is something in regarding something which happened in his childhood, which is an indication of that.
And that is a story told by his sister Elizabeth of the time when Nietzsche had during his first year in Schulpforta intentionally burned his finger with matches.
And that is a story told by his sister Elizabeth of the time when Nietzsche had during his first year in Schulpforta intentionally burned his finger with matches and later with sealing wax, which left a scar, in order to prove a point to his classmates during a discussion about Mucius Scaevola.
A quote from Vaknin.
The cerebral narcissist is often celibate even when he has a girlfriend or a spouse. The cerebral narcissist is sometimes a latent, hidden, not yet outed, homosexual.
Ludwig von Schiefla, a student of art history in Basel in the mid to late 1870s, eight years younger than Nietzsche, was on one occasion the only student in the lecture room listening to Nietzsche's lecture.
During the walk after the lecture, Nietzsche suggested to Schiefla to walk with him to his apartment. As they were walking arm in arm, Nietzsche had offered to Schiefla to join him on a trip to Italy, so they could watch together, quote, "the clouds in Veronese's homeland."
Schaeffler refused invitation to which Nietzsche had for a few moments reacted with distinct sadness.
According to Kula, Nietzsche preferred the company of young men who during the day listened to his lectures and in the evenings, this is a quote, "and in the evenings drank Kulmbacher beer in his apartment."
He also went for days-long trips in the mountains with some of them, states Kula.
Kula also argues that many of the metaphorical and allegorical places in the works of Nietzsche's middle period and his Zarathustra are hints to encoded the expressions of his homosexuality.
And that one of the reasons why Nietzsche spent so much time in Italy since around 1878 was that in southern Italy in Sicily, homosexuality was not legally forbidden, and because there the cultural attitude towards it was more or less tolerant, unlike in Switzerland or Germany.