Freud and Nietzsche on Human Nature. Etc

While it can be said that Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud offered virtually identical views of human nature and of the society in which they lived, it must be stated that they lived in different societies, and that their views, while somewhat identical, were both prophetic and antithetic in the eras in which the two men developed their ideas. While their concepts may have a similarity, it would be wrong to say that they had similar views of human nature, since human nature is a phenomenon that continually evolves, given the period in which it can be found and where it either thrives or wanes. Nietzsche is far the more pessimistic, seeing Man needing to be led by a Superman, while Freud analyzes the troubled psyche to delve into the past and find the reasons that can make life more livable.

Question 1: What is human nature?


The bridge from Nietzsche- and what he thought, to Freud- and what he discovered people think about- is the crossing from intellectual loftiness to everyday concerns with mental and physical well-being. Yet, their views of human nature were rather similar, especially in the concern for pleasure and pain.

It may be oversimplifying intellectualism of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries- but any difference between the two men tends to be one of a struggle for the outer person, as exemplified, say, by Nietzsche, versus a struggle for the inner person, as provided by Freud and the beginning of psychoanalysis. Human nature, as opposed to reason, is not something carved on stone, or a tradition to be followed. It is buffeted by both pain and pleasure, success and failure. And yet, human nature is not an individual trait, but a societal one.