Thus Spoke Zarathustra
What do we make of Nietzsche today? Considered by some as the father of existentialism, it seems that others hold Nietzsche in contempt, as representing the hazards of philosophy, of going too far, by going mad in the end. Yet when you delve into Thus Spoke Zarathustra, you see a text that is so full of gusto and passionate rhetoric that the reader is transformed reading it. It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the riotous words of an incredulous madman, who dares utter the following words: 'God is dead'. How daring... How dare he? Even today, I think that Nietzsche could be declared to be a brave philosopher. I think Nietzsche is becoming more-and-more relevant, especially in this era of social media conformity.
Comments (86)
Quoting Nemo2124
And others view him as the father of postmodernism.
Nietzsche certainly is still quite relevant whether we want to believe it or not. His influence has already had several far reaching consequences that are, and will continue to shape consciousness for some time. However, many people still run foul of not fully realizing and actualizing his works.
The real secret about Thus Spoke Zarathustra is, as Nietzsche details it within Ecce Homo, a dithyramb, under the rubric of music. You see, Nietzsche recreated the Dionsysian Dithyrambs, which is music in literally form that incites a self abnegated (cup not full) reader into a state of heightened creativity and intelligence, by breaking you out of the Apollonian mold...
It readies you for that Dionysian Wisdom that the Apollonian mind finds abhorrent...
That wisdom which is always seemingly a crime to obtain: Oedipus, Prometheus, Adam and Eve...
Because the greatest presentment of man is always presented as if gained through a crime... through the crime of wisdom.
And so long as man attempts to shun the Dionsysian Wisdom, man will continue to grow weaker and weaker still through the denial of life.
Crime is a domain that comes after human nature, and thus it could be argued that specific criminals are more complete humans... for accepting a part of themselves that others would shun or attempt to repress.
This is one of the big differences between "Good and Bad" and "Good and Evil" mortalities that N mentions in Genealogy of Morals...
Quoting Joshs
Yeah, but that's like saying Nietzsche's responsible for Nazi Germany too. Just a poor interpretation of Nietzsche, regardless of N sprouting the idea in someone's mind... thats due to their incipient reification with his ideas making it their own.
I view Nietzsche as the father of postmodernism, and as a critic of existentialism. I am not alone in that assessment. Some of Nietzsches most notable interpreters ( Deleuze, Foucault, Klossowski, Bataille, Heidegger , Derrida) see his work as an attack on existentialist humanism from a postmodern vantage.
Nietzsche's not beyond structuralism or grand narrative, in fact people organize into hierarchies regardless as Nietzsche determines might makes right. Though of course that might is tempered in its opposite for the greatest outcome.
BGE 200 says (also he gives examples of men of the age of dissolution) "The man of the age of dissolution... always arrives exactly, at those times, when the masses longing for repose, step forward, they are complementary to each other rising from the same cause..." The Higher-man is the grand narrative...
Sure, he was against systematized dogma and dialectical thought etc etc...but not post structuralism.
Post modernism in it's entirety (not even the most extreme example of) would, imo, likely be grimaced at by Nietzsche, even if there are some bits of it that can be found in his works... even if they are major players.
But Nietzsche certainly was the first to challenge objective truth, history provides examples "time and time again" number of examples... it certainly wasn't Nietzsche he disccuses from the historical sense that there are no moral facts for example.
Even the structure of history is that "might makes right."
And just because Nietzsche and the Nazis and even Zionism share similar ideas doesn't mean he's the father of either of those movements regardless of what they may have appropriated from him. Same goes for post modernism.
He influenced the fathers of postmodern thought. To be more precise.
Quoting Joshs
Freddy seems to me 'an absurdist skeptic of European modernity' (both heir to Epicurus, Spinoza & Voltaire and predecessor of Zapffe, Camus & Rosset). "Some are born posthumously" ... yet, apparently, his protean works have been coopted mis/appropriated :mask: by both existentialists and postmodernists (as well as nazi / fascist propagandists). Just my two shekels.
I recommend Klossowskis Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle for insights into his thinking that may be new to you. You might also enjoy Daniel Smiths comments on Klossowskis book.
I'm not sure that resonates with me or what it even means.
By the way, to quote just highlight what the other person has written and click on the quote option that comes up. The quote will show up below.
Quoting Nemo2124
But it still seems predicated on notions of improvement, on the idea that you are not good enough, that you ought to transcend yourself. Why?
I'm curious what a good example of such Nietzschean self-overcoming actually looks like. As someone who enjoys the half-arsed and the mediocre more than anything, the idea of working at reinvention, shedding patterns, behaviours and beliefs, seems tedious and possibly unrealistic.
For Nietzsche man is the entity that grows out of his opposite, incited to higher and higher births, man is that which intertwines two opposites.
Here's an example of basic positive overcoming of oneself in one's opposite from both perspectives... an obese and lazy person begins activity and several positive life affirming benefits begin to occur.... say they get into great shape, and suddenly hit a wall... and theyve run out of excess stored fat, but want to get stronger than they currently are... so what do they do? Go back to overeating as their old fat boy tendencies used to illicit and begin eating a surplus of nutrition for growth of muscle, rather than fat and train the body to utilize the excess for positive growth. Then when you want to shred back down you cut overeating...
Thus it's a cycle of over eating and under eating, a cycle of converting a downgoing into a cycle of overgoing... basically you end up finding room in both "Good and Bad" (opposites) such that each have room to fuel the other once the cycle of one gives way to the cycle of the other, ad infinitum.
Thanks guys but I am asking specifically about why this resonates.
Anyways, sorry Tom.
Carry on.
To accept our loathing of mankind to overcome the loathing of mankind.
Most people prefer presenting their loathing of mankind as "evil" which must be objectly disregarded... exercised, slain, killed off...
I'm not following, I'm afraid.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Huh? Who do you think is a misanthropist? Nietzsche or the rest of us?
Yes, I'm fascinating, both as an intellectual and as a person.
The Dionysian Dithyrambs are music in literary form that incite a self abnegated reader into a certain psychological state ... Thus Spoke Zarathustra's ultimate effect is the overcoming of the loathing of mankind (which is also a person's own self-loathing).
To accept our Good and our Bad, rather than in the antithesis of values which rejects half of who we are...
To even overcome shame and guilt, as we can see in the dithyramb of the Vision and the Enigma from Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
What do you value in Nietzsche - as far as living your life is concerned?
Allow me to then get into that a little further as to what I mean by literary music, we can delve into Ecce Homo and Birth of Tragedy:
Quoting Nietzsche
By self abnegated I mean, getting immersed into the story, rather than critically thinking about something such as "time is a circle" and then being like "what that's not how reality works?!" and then you break immersion and miss the whole purpose of the story as a thought experiment. Cause the Apollonian consciousness often hides the Dionsysian world from their view. Self abnegation allows for one to see beyond their "Mayan Veil."
And for Nietzsche, music animates the body, via a sort of ontological instinct, and furthermore Nietzsche considers Thoughts as arising out of our Insincts ...
What Nietzsche means by throwing lightning is that Thus Spake Zarathustra is a book that ontologically activates "Will to Power."
I think he was just.. a bit silly.
:rofl:
You've been listening to -dare I say- too much heavy metal. :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche says that Truth and Deception are essentially (boiled down to the essence) the same thing, in this case they're both narratives. Generally speaking, truth is seen as Good, and Lies as bad, but there are times when the reverse of this valuation holds true...
And thus the best narratives tend to hold some deception to them... (When lying and truth are both aligned for what's good)
You don't listen to Zarathustra because he's "right" you read it to experience the effects of the dithyramb, which affects the self-abnegated reader. And incites their will to power.
Your view does not include the parts of Nietzsche that recognizes he was a member of the tribe he railed against. The irony of being a philologist who could only serve a few scholars. Reading as an ascetic performance.
"Ah hah! Nietzsche read books he was an ascetic!" is like "Nietzsche says theres a "God" behind his book Birth of Tragedy so I guess God's not dead, Gotcha Nietzsche!"
Kinda comical if anything.
Reading certainly can be an ascetic practice, but it's generally not for most.
Russell portrayed he of the moustache as an insecure, pretentious man with a fear of morality. There's quite a bit to that. While Russell was an aristocrat, N. was an aristocrat wannabe, expressing a bitter intellectual's fantasy of strength. Of course such psychologising is not a critique of what he actually says. Except that ressentiment has such a central place in N's criticism of Christianity - so it seems fitting to treat his philosophy as reverse ressentiment...
The Übermensch is a much maligned character. Where would he be found now? Not Musk or Trump, derivative and failed as they are. No, the modern Übermensch is Freddie Mercury, at least as he was portrayed in Bohemian Rhapsody. Mercury transcended conventional norms in music, performance, and identity, reinventing himself again and again, displaying the will to power in his stage performance as well as in punching out Sid Vicious.
Nietzsche remains the idol of post-pubescent males. Someone to consider and grow beyond.
:wink:
No fanboy here, son. Just a man, like you.
Quoting Banno
Except it wasn't.
MAN is the rope that binds the two opposites of animal and the Superman together... man doesn't achieve the "Ubermensch" type any more than man can revert back to being wholly animal... except maybe wolfman.
For Nietzsche, the highest presentment of man is that type who continually overcomes themselves in their opposites. The Judaeo-Christian morality system seeks to kill off the opposition. Rather than becoming greater thereby.
That is a lot to gather from my modest comment.
Edit: Yeah, I didn't think you'd have the ability to back your criticism of Nietzsche with substance. Most cannot.
Quoting Banno
Perhaps its not Nietzsche one needs to grow out of but a shallow, post-pubescent reading of his ideas and his character. Ive recently discovered something in Nietzsches work that appears to grow beyond the current thinking on the relation between affect (emotion, mood , feeling, becoming, value) and truth (perception , cognition, reason, identity, empiricism). The most sophisticated contemporary accounts , like those of Damasio, Prinz, Haidt and Ratcliffe) treat these as a reciprocally causal interaction. Nietzsche, however, sees identity and truth as derivative of difference, affect and desire. Deleuze, Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida are among those who continued to follow Nietzsches thinking on this well past their post-pubescent stage.
C G Jung says Nietzsche's Zarathustra in TSZ was referring to Jesus in the bible in his 2 volume seminar transcripts of his study group talks.
I'd say that Heidegger interpreted Nietzsche correctly, for the most part, and that Derrida interpreted Heidegger correctly, for the most part.
Then there's the question of who has interpreted Derrida correctly, at least for the most part. Maybe it's you, Joshs. Why not?
Correctness doesn't go very far. I like Deleuzes view of truth:
See, here's the problem. I disagree with that. On principle. It just sounds false, to my ear, at least. Do you agree with it yourself? Or do you share my intuition about it? And if you do, are you under the impression that our intuitions are unreliable in that case? Because they're certainly unreliable in the case of garden path sentences, for example.
Curious that this is the New Emperor's approach in a nutshell.
But I'll agree with your rejection of the idea of a "correct interpretation".
It is rare that I have been enticed to join a discussion such as you have provided.
No need to participate in a discussion you're not prepared for.
No need to indulge in gratuitous insults.
Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
will·ing
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ready, eager, or prepared to do something.
"he was quite willing to compromise"
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Now you will never know unless you happen upon the discussion in another thread.
He was a necessary correction to the rigidity of human aspirations.
He took the table that propped up everything the history of western philosophy and culture had to say and soundly flipped it over, shaking anything loose that deserved no ground.
I disagree with what he thought was left on the table as he turned it back over. But he was good at tearing down (in many cases), and good at writing, at his art, at what he built in witness to the torn.
He gave us the tuning fork and the hammer. (Not just he hammer)
He gave us the image of the tightrope walker (the precariousness of the truth seeker).
He gave us the gay science, the most honest approach to philosophy and truth.
He gave birth to post modernism, but I believe he would disown this offspring as a bastardization and simplification of what he actually said.
As a critic of his fellow man, he was as hypocritical as all of those he railed against. As a critic of morality, he yielded a priesthood, repleat with dogma and sins.
He exaggerated (lied) in order to unmask hidden truth.
But instead of resetting things in academia, he became reified himself despite all his resistance to reification.
He is misunderstood and misapplied by many.
He was a metaphysician (of the Apollonian and the Dionysian), a truth seeker, a new type of moralist.
But he was a horrible judge of others (Christ, Kant, Hegel, Socrates, Napoleon, etc). He would not deny his own biases, and he let them color all he made of Christianity, of morality, of science and of most other philosophers. So he was a bad judge of himself as well.
He was a genius at identifying facade and delusion. He was impoverished at identifying beauty and good.
He will forever be read. And justifiably so.
He is among the most important philosophic thinkers and writers in history, these being Plato/Socrates, Aristotle, and Kant along with him. (Pretty much everyone else said less than these).
But Nietzsche would not have been Nietzsche without there first being all of the institutions and ideas he tore down. So he should have been more humble and grateful towards them. He gave himself too much credit and them, too little.
But I love the guy for things like this:
In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of world history -yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.
-Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral Sense
Why resist such a clear thinker and engrossing writer as one of the great ones?
But no need to believe everything he said just as well.
If you want the pedantic version of that let me know and I'll take you to school.
It's obvious you don't know the very important detail that Nietzsche bases the Superman and Amor Fati off of Christ's example... mostly because you've not really read Nietzsche's works he flat out tells you how he admires Christ. And it wasn't until Nietzsche, 200 years after the Earthquake at Port Royal, did Christ regain his image as God's grace, to accept all men, mad or not.
When you live by laws that say half of you is shit and must be repressed and ignored... you only come out as a crippled halfman...who denies even their humanity... there is no divorce between Christ and others, even the insane and murderous... just as a person should affirm all that is within them amd temper the most destructive bits from the extremes of our opposites.
Admittedly so. I approach Nietzsche as I approach all philosophy, with gaiety. Screw any deeper understanding of a mankind who has no progress to speak of since Cane and Abel first debated out their solutions.
In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented the deeper understanding of Nietzsche One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary and when it is done nothing happened.
Look dude, if you come out of the gate from such a lofty perch of wisdom about Nietzsche, you win. I dont mean to blaspheme his image. Thanks for offering to take me to school but my blissful love of the Nietzsche I know, as just another dude who contradicted himself, and had weaknesses, as much as all the rest, serves me fine. His works are full of insight and wisdom, and his bullshit detector about academia, the middle class, culture, some psychology, and truth, was spot-on.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
And I would call Christ the best example of the overman. And he was right that we should each find our own Gods - thats exactly the kind of unique relationship Christ called people to seek - except I dont see where Nietzsche showed he ever found a God.
But does Nietzsche admire the Christ who was authentically God, so the story goes, but who became a slave instead? Does he admire how Christ repeatedly lived not according to his own will but instead the will of his Father? Unto the self-sacrifice, self-denial, of death? All for the sake of love, and a new life? Does he admire pity, and charity, and humility, and think it courageous to ask for forgiveness of sins, or to forgive others?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
God doesnt accept all men, he loves each one so much he would hang on a cross to death for each one. For Nietzsche.
Christianity (which is synonymous with Christ in the true Christian, the saint) doesnt call us to be nihilistic rejectors of this life (Nietzsche was wrong), but to participate in the fulfillment of its promises. Theres work to be embraced and things about ourselves to overcome (Nietzsche was right), things of our own making, requiring our own un-making, or better, our own re-making. We arent here to repress our base instincts, but to build our own new instincts. We dont refrain from murder despite wanting to murder; we teach ourselves how we dont want to murder, and to refrain from nothing.
But this is a digression, one that a smart man like Nietzsche should have figured out, but was too proud of his freedom and his discoveries about human nature to ponder.
Napoleon exemplified a great man? He was just another asshole, mostly like the rest of us. When Napoleon was done, nothing happened (Nietzsche should have stopped the analysis there), other than further lost ground maybe.
Well, that's an interesting outlook
Quoting Fire Ologist
Nietzsche made observations about things, suggesting contradiction and hypocrisy suggest him prescribing a way for people to follow which he himself is adamantly against to the point he tells you to fuck right off to find your own way that's right for you because that is Nietzsche's way...
Nietzsche openly discusses his weaknesses none of which are contradictory to his philosophy or psychology he details a life of living between two opposites and attempting to overcome the weaknesses within him... Overcoming isn't about denial of weakness... its about accepting its there in the first place, and accepting it as a part of you that you cannot simply call "Evil" and exercise it from human existence...
Quoting Fire Ologist
God doesn't give a fuck about accepting all men... Jesus does. And according to the God stories... Jesus was sent to Earth by God to save humanity from the laws of God presented by Moses.
Quoting Fire Ologist
No it's not... huge reason why the account of the life of Jesus Christ in the Gospels is vastly different than the rest of the Judaism the disciples populated the Bible with... the very Judaism that Jesus rejected.
Is it okay if I twist things about you and declare it to the world? Nietzsche would simply turn his head and wait for an opportune time to dunk on you, if he ever cared to do so in the first place. That is to say, you'd have to be worth his time and even worth befriending for him to even discuss you in the first place.
You skipped all the good parts. Like I am doing with Nietzsche.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Turn the other cheek. Not my will, but thine be done.
Nietzsche admired that man?
Spot on wisdom.
But it is a life we each can live.
Unless Christ actually rose from the dead and remains present on earth in the Church. Nietzsche didnt think so.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Not the case, according to the stories. I am here to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. Every jot and tittle.
But enough with the fables.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Spot on wisdom.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Call weakness whatever euphemism you want - the point is there is an exercising that is essential to becoming a great man. Nietzsche and Christ said that, and you just did.
See, the thing is, Nietzsche was right that the vast majority of so-called Christians are not at all like Christ. But, because he wouldnt rely on other men (perfectly reasonable), he threw out the God Jesus with the bath water, and minimized how a free man would respond to seeing the risen Jesus, as if only delusion and projection and wish fulfillment could explain it, despite his own admiration for the man Jesus, the liar who claimed to be God before he was killed for nothing but a fable.
And his will in the Gospel speaks to a very specific equation...Jesus loved even those who would kill him. He did not divorce himself from even his greatest negations...
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Notice that even those who set aside these laws are still going to be in the Kingdom of Heaven? Because no distance comes between him and others...even those who set aside his laws...because he has come to save them from the laws. In the kingdom of heaven the values are reversed from the real world...where the greatest presentment of man comes through a crime of some kind...
I thought you were going to go to the part of the Bible that Nietzsche quotes in Twilight, something like: what need is there of laws to sons of God.
I still love Nietzsche, even though you dont think I know him.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I think the point is that setting aside the laws, for we who subjected ourselves to the laws, is bad. Maybe we all have a get out of jail free card because of Jesus, but, for me personally, there is still work for me to do (like the acts, not just faith, that Nietzsche spoke of in your prior quote from the Antichrist). No one can say what least in the kingdom of heaven really means, so I personally do not take this quote to mean the laws dont matter, nor would I teach others accordingly.
The laws wont matter once they are fulfilled - thats when there is nothing left to repress or exercise as you put it.
Jesus loved even those who would kill him. He did not divorce himself from even his greatest negations...
But he said on the cross to forgive them father. Yes, you are right about Gods love and acceptance of us as children, but he rejects so many of the things we do, for which we need to be forgiven to become his friends. I tell you these things not as slaves, but as friends.
He wants us to take responsibility, and offer our lives we are now responsible for back to him, so he can return them in heaven.
Weve morphed into theology. You can win there too if it has to be a competition.
Shoot, what did I win? A participation trophy? Lol
No. Give me the quick & dirty (no doubt it's worth reading if you mention it).
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Teachers Pet award?
Look, you say lots of insightful things. I dont really want to go for awards either.
If you dont think I sound like I know Nietzsche, I dont know why, but we both know it doesnt matter.
Nothing positive youve said about him or quoted contradicts what I think. Maybe you dont understand me when I tell you what I think he means, and maybe thats my fault. But I dont see the point of battling wits in internet Nietzsche camp.
You said a lot of things I would say when talking about Nietzsche, raising the war of opposing forces, and amor fati. We havent mentioned slave morality which is a key criticism of Christianity and driver of any morality and democracy and bourgeois values; theres the fulcrum of resentment that sprouts our decadence; we havent talked about the will to truth as the building of a facade (the Apollonian) while at the same time Nietzsche was a seeker of truth, always. Much tension to hold in hand when attempting to look for Nietzsches meaning. We havent touched on instinct and the Dionysian, which is another conversation again.
And theres so much more. And every line, quotable and enjoyable to read.
I might just suck as a writer - how do you know from these few posts what I know of anything to be so bold out of the gate jump and offer to school me?
That said, I played along and begged for more, so dont think Im judging you. DifferentiationEgg jumps in - Battle of wits it is!
I can tell you love Nietzsche too.
Like I said, he always makes my top five on any list of who you need to know if you are bent on the whole history of philosophy, regardless of what Nietzsche thinks about bending over other peoples words
And the quote I mentioned before wasnt from Twilight, it was from Beyond Good and Evil. It was 164: Jesus said to his Jews, The law was for servants; love God as I love him, as his son. What are morals to us sons of God? I cant find it in the Bible right now but I believe its there similarly to how Nietzsche quoted. Its a good quote for the gist you are getting at (acceptance of all deeds/all of us in the kingdom of heaven according to Jesus). But Id argue none of that happens until one has overcome tendencies towards bad faith and inauthenticity, etc..), that I agree with, about Nietzsche, and personally, about what Jesus wanted us to know as well. Which is why I dont agree with Christianity dying on the cross - Christ is at least as alive as Nietzsche remains, as we keep looking to his books for quotes.
And Nietzsche was wrong about a lot of what he thought being Christ-like means for the Christian. Its freedom and Gods power, like Gods will through us, like a Will to Gods power and glory but again, enough with the fables.
He was too harsh on Kant, on Socrates, and so many others too.
Im telling you, Nietzsche was high priest of a new religion with Zarathustra as prophet, and the all-too-human as his devil. All for effect - so wed keep reading his truth, his tragic, awe-full, sense of things.
And Im sure Jesus loves Nietzsche to save him from nothing happened and God is dead anyway. Thats my heaven - Nietzsche saved as well as the rest.
This came close to a conversation we might both enjoy, neither of us doing much to help the other one enjoy it. Maybe its just the way philosophers are - at odds with everyone else, like we are at odds with our own experience.
Should we go back to respecting each other yet, or am I still competing for some more equal participation than a student would have in some teachers class?
The point is you say things that are more so said about common caricatures of Nietzsche's work.
Quoting Fire Ologist
There you go again, refusing to interpret his complexity not by the forces behind Nietzsche's mask (as Nietzsche did with Zarathustra), but rather interpretation through your own... it's for reasons like this that make it all too easy to spot "not Nietzsche," but rather a caricature there of. To get at the essence of Nietzsche
If you want me to get into the nitty gritty of it all, I'm more than happy. Most here seem to find it pedantic though.
Why would I want that from you? Why would I think you had anything to say about Nietzsche that I didnt already know?
So hard no.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I wasnt interpreting his complexity in that statement.
You are definitely subject to your own mask, and it is obstructing your view of what I said.
You sound like a religious zealot for Nietzsche now. Really kind of weird to me when people who basically agree on something wont admit that.
I would think it would be interesting to you to wonder, how could someone who knows and loves Nietzsche also claim to know and love Jesus as God? But instead, youve got me all figured out and your answer is he doesnt understand Nietzsche. Or Jesus. No curiosity, or self-awareness of the fact that you have no idea who I am or how far this could go.
Are you a musician? I mean a real musician? I am.
Have you truly lived the Dionysian? Experienced the ecstatic intoxication, the undertow, that drives as much as it inspires the willing to drive?
Notice, my only characterization of your words has been insightful.
To be honest, you are the caricature of person who truly understands Nietzsche - and there are a lot of you.
I have no idea how deeply you understand Nietzsche, nor do I really care anymore.
I just point that out because you are missing out. Im trying to find something new here in these exchanges. Sort of the point of communication, if exchanging information. You arent. You already know all about me and are just hinting at how much I am missing, as if there was something wrong, or dare I say, immoral, about thinking not-Nietzsche was Nietzsche. Who gives a shit what you think you know?? I dont anymore.
I gave you an opportunity (many opportunities) to show some respect. You blew it, for sake of your own aggrandized self-importance. You dont need my respect. Happy for you, but its a shitty way to engage with others - why do you bother???
If I was you, from what I can tell about you, I wouldnt respond. (I would actually apologize, but thats just because I actually respect others as I respect myself.). But then, I wouldnt have posted your very first response either.
And you suck at Christianity. Just dont get it at all.
"Interpretation reveals its complexity when we realise that a new force can only appear and appropriate an object by first of all putting on the mask of the forces which are already in possession of the object." Deleuze
This is our difference. There's nothing of self importance in being able to critique a person's inability with understanding Nietzsche. You have a personal reading of Nietzsche, I'm not doubting that. I'm not attacking your personal relationship with Nietzsche's works. Im mostly critiquing as you said and obviously from your own mask...
Quoting Fire Ologist
Before that you made him sound like a oxymoron of hypocrisy and is just such a base way of examining Nietzsche through the antithesis of values... which he rolls his eyes at.
Nietzsche wasn't a metaphysician at all, Nietzsche values in Beauty and Good simply don't match your own hence you don't understand Nietzsche's values of Beauty and Good...
You see him through your own mask...
You have yet to go beyond your reification of Nietzsche...
Im glad you responded with a small move towards a conversation. Although you are still in school teaching me, the student.
It is my claim that Nietzsche was a metaphysician, not Nietzsches (which I think you know). So if I addressed that, I would have to tell you what I think, not what Nietzsche thinks.
You dont ask what I think, but, the quote from Deluze is a metaphysical claim. Mask upon mask is a metaphysic of masking. An epistemology that begs for subjects/objects as much as any other claim about the reality of being human in itself.
My claim of metaphysics is not meant to contradict the complexity of right interpretation, but just admit the presence of the word right in this sentence, like Deluze used the words can only and already in possession - these are absolute-speak words, building metaphysical claims.
Nietzsche didnt value metaphysics, but he didnt hide its presence. He just didnt care. Thats fine. Allowed for other insights to flourish. Was a breath of fresh air in the long history of stuffy monasteries.
I dont expect you to accept this or really think its anything new, or important, that you havent already digested and disposed of. To the flames. - Hume
And I can see why you assume this Deluze quote helps clarify the difference between us.
The difference between us is that I am not assuming anything about you. Other than you are basically just like me and everyone else - a person. I dont know you. Other than you think you know Nietzsche and think you know me.
I agree you know Nietzsche. I disagree that refuting what I am saying is helping you bring that across.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I know. You dont understand what I am saying. I am the oxymoron - I know and love Nietzsche and Christ. You wont allow that to be the case.
I see some contradictions in Nietzsche, but they are not my focus, just the admission that he is just another jackass philosopher, like Socrates and you and me. The wisdom and the error is not lost on me (cant tell about you).
Theres a question - is there anywhere in Nietzsche where you think he was talking out his ass? Or is he more like Jesus to you, the way and the truth incarnate? If that question isnt to assuming.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Well you have yet to admit your assumptions about me. Your reification of Christians perhaps?
Do you have any masks?? Dont you see Mietsche through your own masks? Or are you the reincarnation of Buddha?
If you say you have no masks, youre blind or a liar; if yes, then what is the point of focusing only on mine? We both have masks - such is the shitty condition of life. Lets tear them down together instead mocking the pimples on each others masks.
I certainly have masks. Do you have any reifications?
How do you know my values? Maybe you dont know what a Christian really is. In my view, a Christian is NOT 99.99 percent of those who call themselves Christians, including myself, so how do you know what my values or sense of beauty or good is?
Ill give you a hint - you dont. You simply dont. I havent said anything about it, and no interpretation of some ideology that you might have can summarize anyone, let alone my wonderful self.
You havent touched the surface of this mask, let alone seen underneath. Try something else.
Talk about Nietzsche or Deluze if you want. Ask me some questions about me if you want. But the conclusions of yours about me are seeming like some sort of mechanism or medium for you to engage here. You need a foil to defeat to make a positive contribution. So tedious.
I dont need to know what you think, I know what you said. Saying Nietzsche was a metaphysician when he wasn't doesn't matter what you think about that. It's like trying to explain why 2+2 = 5. I don't need to know the logic behind it.
Quoting Fire Ologist
The point being you should revisit Nietzsche's works, not disclose what I know. Especially when you're going to try and write a half shitpost on Nietzsche from a base dialectical perspective.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Actually if we go back, we can clearly see you're the one who denies Nietzsche's correct evaluation of Christ's equation with the Judaism in the rest of the Bible... You won't allow Nietzsche's interpretation to be the case. This is one way you start twisting Nietzsche. You should try self abnegation before handling his works.
Quoting Fire Ologist
I dont need to know your values to know that you don't understand Nietzsche's values... thats why you said he was impoverished and unable to understand beauty. Thus his understanding of beauty is so far beyond you comprehension it's alien to you.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Logic dictates me bringing it up that I do... the point was literally in the words... you choose not to see Nietzsche from his modality, rather through your own caricature.
More or less, I told you to revisit Nietzsche and do so under the forces that brought him about... not your own, from the slave moralist's point of view.
As Deleuze explains adequately enough, you find contradiction and metaphysics within Nietzsche's works because it reflects your mask.
he wasnt
You said what is not. You didnt say what is. So nothing to discuss in this whole passage besides me.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
you should .
No new content. Oh, shit post . Too vague.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Havent twisted one word. Nietzsche was a lot of things - like all other great ones, he was profound, insightful, revealed truth, and blew the punchline, got it wrong - he was all of those. He was a social critic, a critic of academia, a critic of western thought and art, a psychologist, a crappy scientist, etc. Bit most of all, he changed the game, made it new again.
Not inclined to offer specifics with someone who just asserts correct evaluation of Christ's equation with the Judaism in the rest of the Bible both as if I didnt know that and as if it was enough to support your overall assessment of what there is to know about Nietzsche.
Are you saying if I only understood Nietzsche as deeply as you, I would understand the Bible better or something?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Or maybe I ate Nietzsches beauty for breakfast and used it to make my shit post.
What can I say to make you see something more than you are seeing?
Plato saw appearance and reality where the appearance was the world of objects and all illusion; reality is the formal, the permanent and fixed. Nietzsche turned this upside down. The appearance is the Apollonian, the flashing facade, where people like Socrates build their formalities and truth all of which is more akin to lies, to mask their weakness, unpossessed of the deeper source of truth, the Dionysian, not rigid and reified, but alive as instinct, this life, the raw existential beast of life, and only tamed honestly as will, not truth, and as art, made most beautiful in the tragic and in intoxication.
The dance is real. We need both Apollo and Dionysius to discern the human (therein lies the metaphysics, but forget I said anything if metaphysics is such a dirty word in Nietzsches mouth - Im sure Nietzsche would curse me for accusing him of ever saying something metaphysical, right?.). But, the world tended too far away from the Dionysian, and Nietzsche reset it all. Every institution that hinted at truth, took blows and many lies were uncovered.
Thats my own take of course. I could be wrong. Or maybe you think Im correct, only shallow? Hard to tell how little I know about Nietzsche from what you are saying.
So there is some more actual content for you to pillory and dismiss, more content than youve provided in this whole exchange. And youre the expert.
Oh thats right, you said Nietzsche was correct and I didnt know that. About Jesus and God. And I twist words. Maybe actually saying something about him, and maybe not for the sake of refuting something I said, but just to share something you love about him. Just a thought. I mean does everyone you know say they love Nietzsche? Maybe Im a dime a dozen to you. Thats probably it. You must really be a teacher. Do you treat all of your students this way?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Is it even possible that you are choosing to read my words through your modality? Through the lofty perch beyond good and evil (even though you are making me feel like a sinner against your St. Nietzsche).
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Careful, that could be a mask creeping in. Who is logic? Whose will be done? Its not logic, its you brother. Own that driver. What would Nietzsche do?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Show me how my brother, like a chorus, sing to me of his forces. Or, wait, you want me to just revisit Nietzsche. You point is just wrong, see Nietzsche. Not helpful as Inalready did and obviously thats not been enough for you to deign to share something you think. Besides Im wrong.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Thats an assumption. Thats your mask showing again. You have no idea of how I work out my will. You cant know who is a slave and who isnt by some posts here.
And of course this is all cursory, prompting your accusations of shallow on any given point. Im not writing my thesis here, and we arent fashioning a Platonic dialogue. At least your make a shitty Socrates to my mere Thrasymachus.
I wish youd answer one question: is there anything you dont like about Nietzsche - no loose ends or nits to pick anywhere? Because I dont think anyone in history has said enough while avoiding all missteps. Do you? (Maybe Heraclitus, the greatest of the great ones. But Nietzsche is by far my favorite one to read.
And seriously, the metaphysician thing is a small piece, who cares, ignore it. Its the point you stuck on, not more than 10 percent of what is great about Nietzsche. Dont I get any credit towards my final grade for spelling his name right so many times?
How about some content that isnt about me, not posted for the sake of refuting me, just a quick piece of something important about Nietzsche that the novice can understand. Thats what the thread was for wasnt it? I gave a bunch. You called it shit, but actually you mostly just shit on it. So its hard to tell whose shot is who anymore. Start us over how about it?
You don't want to hear "what is" about Nietzsche, doesn't mean I won't point out what you said about Nietzsche was halfassed at best. That you've no interest in why it's half assed, that's on you. So we'll reiterate the next point.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Quoting Fire Ologist
Never said you did, I said you've barely got an understanding of Nietzsche especially from the Dialectical point of view.
Quoting Fire Ologist
...I said Nietzsche utilized Jesus as a basis for the Ubermensch because of equation of Jesus's life in the gospels which is vastly different than the Judaism errr "Christianity" of the Disciples...
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
You wanted to talk about the disciples equation of Christ...rather than Christ's equation...
Quoting Fire Ologist
But we can see that even Christ brings those who sets the laws of God aside into the Kingdom of Heaven, and as you've shown through Christ aka God, we're already forgiven... is wasted breath. We're already forgiven for following the equation of Jesus...
Do keep in mind Nietzsche feels pretty much only Christ was a Christian... (AC 39)
We got this bit here of you accusing Nietzsche of being a slave moralist:
That is to say ...Quoting Fire Ologist
A priest is the highest form of slave moralist... Nietzsche wasn't a slave moralist, but rather a higher human who affirmed the demands of his own life.
Quoting Fire Ologist
In tragedy the Dionysian hero is represented in the Apollonian form.
It's actually of this world and a phenomenon that occured in reality thus not metaphysics... Socrates was the final death of Tragedy... (Parmenides>Euripides>Socrates) Plato comes after... so it's Plato who flips it on it's head... Not Nietzsche... you see it from the slave moralist perspective so you saw it from Plato's point of view...
See what I mean?
You keep saying Nietzsche flipped it over... but Nietzsche points to "them" flipping it over ... so we can logically say Nietzsche's flipping it right side up... by your analogy...
And I showed that's the case with the whole bit on Plato...
Seeing instinct as the creative life affirming force is one of those forces behind Nietzsche's mask that brought about Nietzsche. One you probably understand instinctally as a musician... but confuse through your concept of beauty created through consciousness...? (Socrates > Plato>...>You)
So hes flipping it back. Its the flip thats my point. In order to show how the shallow lovers of form (Plato, Socrates, slave moralists) built a world based on facade and ignored rhe undercurrent that gives birth to these forms, he flipped 2000 years since Plato/socrates back over. He revealed the repressed underbelly.
You are nit-picking me about which version of Socrates we are taking from Nietzsche to sustain the narrative that your deeper understanding of Nietzsche can mean something to anyone else but you.
Look I see your neck-deep into Nietzsche, maybe intoxicated a bit with it.
Thanks for trying to elevate my understanding.
I do wish you would point out some limitations he had, if any in your view. Since you dont like my criticisms, I am curious of the degree critical thinking you would apply. Its fairly not-Nietzsche to find no flaws in anything some other human does. Im sure you have some criticisms.
This is as much theology as it is Nietzsche-ology, but Nietzsche was wrong here. In my free-thinking, adult, pre-schooled, considered, tested, humble opinion.
Jesus didnt reject the law which creates judgment of sin and the need therefore of repentance - Jesus was sinless, so unable to be judged and so remained free to make his own laws and show us what to become of ourselves. But he walked a particular path and did not skip around in the mountaintops. Although Jesus never needed the law to guide him in his life, his life not once deviated from the law. That means something. And Jesus flat out said he was not to abolish the law. That means something too. Nietzsche didnt bother to explain how Christ could be beyond the law AND subject to it. The overman Christ, though he did not need any law, ended up honoring his parents, not ever lying, not ever stealing, no adultery, etc etc. He commanded us to live God and seek Gods will. Jesus could use himself (more precisely, his Father) to seek what to do, and did not need the law as guide, but what he actually did was not whatever he wanted to do - he had to eat when hungry because his stomach demanded it, and bleed when broken, like anyone, subject and enslaved. Jesus still IS the law by taking form, making an appearance.
So there is analysis of the meaning of the Jesus story, and a psychology of Christ, that Nietzsche didnt address that precisely misunderstands Christs relationship to his Father, himself and to us. The law set out before Jesus was born is in the mix of what Jesus meant.
But so what - because of Nietzsche we are digging deep into our relationship with ourselves and what we are to make of the limitations we encounter, like others laws.
Im hopeless. I still hope you arent hopeless.
You could muster up a criticism of Nietzsche.
I hope someone else is enjoying this. I am to a degree. Are you?
There's very much to admire about Lord Russell's works (& logic-chopping) but his potted and unscholarly A History of ... is certainly not one of them.
As Freddy Zarathustra himself cautions his close readers (foreshadowing his Ecce Homo) ...
[quote=Also Spoke Zarathustra]Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you One pays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath? You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you to lose me and find yourselves; and only then when you have all denied me will I return to you that I may celebrate the great noon with you.[/quote]
(emphasis is mine)
Yet it sufficiently impress the Swedish Academy that they awarded Russell the Nobel Prize for Literature .
Something that Zarathustra, with his swollen, distended prose, did not achieve.
Just as Russell's inaccuracy in detailing the Tractatus... Russell left a rather laughable critique on Nietzsche, thinking Nietzsche was a misogynist.
Without any judgment on the merits, couldnt that lack of award simply point out that more folks besides Russell misunderstood Nietzsche? Or maybe the Academy is wisely highlighting Nietzsches genius by not putting his work in the human award-worthiness box? I think more likely the former, because who doesnt like a good award.
"In a work widely regarded as the most important contribution to Nietzschean studies in recent decades, Domenico Losurdo instead pursues a less reductive strategy. Taking literally the ruthless implications of Nietzsche's anti-democratic thinkinghis celebration of slavery, of war and colonial expansion, and eugenicshe nevertheless refuses to treat these from the perspective of the mid-twentieth century. In doing so, he restores Nietzsche's works to their complex nineteenth-century context, and presents a more compelling account of the importance of Nietzsche as philosopher than can be expected from his many contemporary apologists."
The book is over 1000 pages, quite meticulous and the arguments powerfully stated; looking beyond Nietzsche's philosophical texts towards his letters and other written material. The book changed my outlook on Nietzsche. Even if you will not fundamentally agree with Losurdo (who does not claim that Nietzsche should be discarded, by any means), I think there is a lot to grapple with. Highly recommend.
Seems like hot garbage by a dumbass who doesn't realize Nietzsche's so far from Nationalism it's pathetic... Otium is far from Eugenics that the this loserdo interprets Nietzschean values from.
Quoting Maw
If you think Nietzsche celebrates any of that from the Nationalist view point rather than from the individual view point such as colonial expansion then it's quite obvious you've missed the mark on Nietzsche as he is quite overtly against those concepts in any form of Nationalist expression of them...
To impose slavery upon others is to impose slave morality upon them... it shows this 1000 page book is a blustery blunder. Specifically denying the life of anyone in slavery to an objective perspective and outcome, which is literally the definition of what Nietzsche declares as slave morality.
Really just goes to show what you're interested in...
Looking at the table of contents, It does not seem to challenge Heidegger's claim that Nietzsche produced the last metaphysic.
A bit of text toward clarification upon that topic would be appreciated.
Edit to Add: Pardon my question. It is too off-topic.
Oh, right colonial expansion and eugenics isn't about Nationalism at all... :roll:
The fact dude even suggest Nietzsche celebrates those things is straight trash.
That the masses prop up the higher social rank is what Nietzsche details for OTIUM... not eugenics... The Superman isn't about domination over others...it isn't about literally breeding a new type of man.
How the fuck is suffering with them from them (the only time Nietzsche declares the superman becoming reality) the same as breeding a new type of superman?
the type "Superman" already exists...
You insulted Nietzsche with that donk post about Nietzsche... Maybe read Nietzsche vs someone's work about Nietzsche which lead you astray. Also, I'm sitting here watching my father waste away in hospice. I was bitter.
His approach to science - the gay science. Meaning, each step towards "knowledge" must be made with an awareness that we are likely fooling ourselves. Seek the truth, but never claim truth is the only, highest goal, and never assume the truth you find may not one day be made false.
He flipped the Reality-Appearance divide for me. I saw appearance as the world of changing things, more material in nature, and the world of reality as hidden, only seen in ideas and truth. Nietzsche reminded me that we only claim to see "reality" and formal ideas at all because by unmasking material appearances, and that really, these appearances are as formal as ideas ever get to be. The appearances, the Apollonian, the rational-knowing-truth seeking, are all aligned; but reality, the Dionysian, the tumultuous world of instinct and power, this is the hidden reality. He toppled the age-old distrust or hatred of the body that favored only things of the mind. He reminded us of the body, of man's absurd place opposed to this body. And he didn't deny the absurdity or the opposition, just that we have been looking at it from one side, and of the two sides, the less real side.
This is the salient point here: Nietzsche's notion of the Superman. It's not one that we can easily dismiss. To surpass oneself, to determine your limits and completely transcend them with a view to what? To becoming a Superman, because man is a tightrope between animal and his self-surpassing.
There is something to be said for that in this day-and-age, where the mass proliferation of a stifling technology in tandem with a media-saturated environment has lead to a widespead mediocrity. Nietzsche call to humanity (that few understood) was to wake-up and stop wallowing in self-pity.
Couldn't agree more. Nietzsches Superman was someone who broke through the sludge of herd thinkingsomeone who became more, not by chance, but through struggle.
Today, were drowning in cheap convenience and empty noise. We can hardly hear ourselves think. Mediocrity has become the comfortable way to live. If Nietzsche had something to say to us now, it would be this: wake up. Be your own crafter of thought. Stop borrowing your mind from everyone else.
His idea of the Übermensch still matters.
Finding the truth is the duty of philosophy. Science only deals with the current state of existence. Physicists, for example, are trying to find the laws of physics. And there is more, the Art. So it is not only about science.