Do you think this is true? — Shawn

Are you asking if that is what Plato said, what his view on it was. Or if what Plato said is true in reality, in how things play out?

I don't think I really understand what you are getting at.

Interesting way to put it. Plato really couldn't fit into his picture Thrasymachus' portrayed psychopathy or sociopathy that pervades humanity instead of being guided by man's intelligence (nous) and strivings for eudaimonia. — Shawn

This is how Plato would frame things perhaps ;-).

Thrasymachus or any realist would say that Plato is essentially doing the same thing, i.e. vying for (political) power with his philosphy, he just isn't as aware of it as they are. Or if he was and his whole philosophy was a conscious ploy for power than he was even more devious than any sophist.

Positive. as I believe, with Nietzsche, that this is essentially where philosophy took a wrong turn, in siding with Plato's idealism (as all of western philosophy is a footnote to it afterall) over Thrasymachus realism.

Insofar as philosophers have been idealists, of course they didn't esteem him, they cannot, because it flies in the face of all of their basic assumptions.

Justice is the advantage of the stronger, might makes right, is a description of how things work, not a declaration of how we want things to be.

Something changed in him deeply after some revelation involving Amor Fati, and it mirrors quite a bit of that which he says of Jesus' Glad Tidings in his much later works. — Vaskane

You could also view Amor Fati as a classic Tragic formula, i.e. the tragic hero who aims high and knows he will fail in the end, but still loves and affirms it all anyway.

I think this is the difference with "Good tidings"/"Euangelion", in tragedy there is no good news ultimately, the only justification is life itself.

The kingdom of heaven it seems to me is a kind of psychological trick where the world gets shut out to attain inner peace. The 'heros' aim in this case is not going under, spending himself in attaining some wordly goal, the aim is inner directed... feeling good.

In the whole psychology of the “Gospels” the concepts of guilt and punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. “Sin,” which means anything that puts a distance between God and man, is abolished — Nietzsche, Antichrist 33

I agree that Nietzsche probably saw this as an improvement upon the moralising relgions, but Jesus way is not the only way to attain that. It was absent in Greek culture too, before Socrates in Homeric Greece at least... there was no sin the Gods didn't commit themselves.

Anyway I got to go, I enjoyed the discussion.

Yes I get that you don't want to claim that he wants to promote Chirstian values, but that he was inspired by Jesus specifically. I guess I just have gotten another sense from reading his work. I seems to me he got most of his inspiration for re-evaluation from the pre-socrates Greeks. That was his first intellectual love so to speak, and it seems to have stuck with him. But I could be wrong offcourse.

a man who asserts appearance is more valuable than truth — Vaskane

And what do you mean with appearance in opposition to truth, there is only appearance ;-).

He wasn't married to it insofar it conflicts with life-affirmation. Some fictions are necessary for life,... some, not that many, truth is still important. He did choose Zarathustra for that reason.

"Nietzsche does not demur of Jesus, conceding that he was the only one true Christian.[28] He presents a Christ whose own inner life consisted of "wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the inability to be an enemy".[29]

Nietzsche heavily criticizes the organized institution of Christianity and its class of priests. Christ's evangelism consisted of the good news that the 'kingdom of God' is within you:[30][29] "What is the meaning of 'Glad Tidings'?—The true life, the life eternal has been found—it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in you; it is the life that lies in love free from all retreats and exclusions", whereby sin is abolished and away from "all keeping of distances" between man and God.[29]

"What the 'glad tidings' tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children".[31] - WiKi on AntiChrist — Corvus

What is I think important to realise here is that, while most of these discriptions of Jesus may sound positive to "our modern ears", Nietzsche probably wouldn't have evaluated these all that positively. "Peace", "Free from all exclusions" "away from keeping all distances", "no contradictions" etc etc... all of these things don't contribute to overcoming, but to a kind of sterile unproductive happiness. On the contrary Nietzsche might say, for overcoming you need struggle, pain, difference, hierarchies... the pathos of distance,

So in short, whileNietzsche probably descriptively agrees with all of this, his evaluation of these things is just totally different.

Thank you for the reference.

The Redeemer type
Nietzsche criticizes Ernest Renan's attribution of the concepts genius and hero to Jesus. Nietzsche thinks that the word idiot best describes Jesus. — Wiki

Yes, this was the idea I got from reading the Anti-Christ, that he though him to be a bit of an idiot... but an idiot can be likeable I suppose.

Also interesting that he may have gotten that description from Dostoevsky's novel the Idiot. That would make a lot of sense actually, and also explains Nietzsches ambivalence towards such a figure.

The way I would make sense of it, is that Jesus is only a yea-sayer in the sense that he affirms his inner world of sensations, because he has become incapable of taking up the world as it is.... that is affirmation out of ignorance. Nietzsche would want us to affirm the world as it is right?

With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth.
— ChatteringMonkey

Perfectly inline with the prior parts of the section even on Nietzsche's ideas of destruction:

"Negation and annihilation are inseparable from a yea-saying attitude towards life." — Vaskane

Notice the quotation marks arround free spirit though. He's saying it tongue in cheek, 'technically' he's a free spirit... because nothing gets to him anymore, that is he's not a free spirit for the same reasons other free spirits are free.

And because nothing gets to him (but his inner sensations), he doesn't even negate anymore. If negation is inseperable from yea-saying, then where does that leave us?

What is that to the third stage of the three Metamorphoses? — Vaskane

Degeneration? ;-)

The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration. — ChatteringMonkey

Childishness is not the same as childlike. In any case in context it seems clear to me that he doesn't mean it as a positive in this particular instance.

But alright, I will grant you that there seems to be some aspects of the dionysian in Jesus. It is speculated that Jesus was inspired by the figure of dionysus, which does make some sense to me, in the dissolution of bounderies and emphasis on love.

I also vaguely remember Nietzsche saying something along the lines of the Ubermensch being a Ceasar with the heart of Christ.

Still in context of his whole philosophy, what Nietzsche valued and so on, something seems off to me with the idea that Zarathustra is essentially the same as Jesus. Like the way he talks about Jesus in the anti-Christ seems to paint a picture of Jesus as this weak figure, oversensitive to pain and unable to deal with reality. How would one reconcile that with what Nietzsches seems to value and his positive valuation of figures like Ceasar or Napoleon... they seem nothing like Jesus.

So yeah, I still think maybe he liked some particular things about Jesus, but disliked most of the rest.

Well it seems to me it's not only their pessimism that got them fired, but especially their activism.

I think maybe there is a case to be made that a scientist shouldn't be trying to be an activitist or politician, because these two activities don't allways go together all that well for obvious reasons.

In an ideal world, a scientist describes the world as best as he can, and then politicians and activists take up the task of changing the world informed by the picture scientists have painted. Mixing the two doesn't seem ideal, if not for reasons of potential conflicts of interest, then for reasons of credibility.

But given the scope, severity and urgency of the problem, and the fact that politics doesn't seem to work as it should, I can definately understand more scientists going in that direction.

Hansens position seems to be a minority position among Climate scientists, which doesn't mean he's wrong ofcourse, but still a minority position.

If he's got the right idea though...

He is a symbol for Nietzsche, but a symbol for the psychological state of bliss ("kingdom of heaven") and a symbol for the values he opposes because they are life-denying (Jesus on the cross turning the other cheek, giving universal forgiveness to mankind)... hence the "Anti-Christ".

It is true that he thought what the church made of Jesus teaching was a gross falsification (and much worse), but that doesn't mean he condoned or even subscribed to Jesus ideas.

I can only repeat that I set myself against all efforts to intrude the fanatic into the figure of the Saviour: the very word impérieux, used by Renan, is alone enough to annul the type. What the “glad tidings” tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children; the faith that is voiced here is no more an embattled faith—it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit.The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration. A faith of this sort is not furious, it does not de nounce, it does not defend itself: it does not come with “the sword”—it does not realize how it will one day set man against man. It does not manifest itself either by miracles, or by rewards and promises, or by “scriptures”: it is itself, first and last, its own miracle, its own reward, its own promise, its own “kingdom of God.” This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse[8]—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.—Here it is of paramount importance to be led into no error by the temptations lying in Christian, or rather ecclesiastical prejudices: such a symbolism par excellence stands outside all religion, all notions of worship, all history, all natural science, all worldly experience, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books, all art—his “wisdom” is precisely a pure ignorance[11] of all such things. He has never heard of culture; he doesn’t have to make war on it—he doesn’t even deny it.... The same thing may be said of the state, of the whole bourgeoise social order, of labour, of war—he has no ground for denying “the world,” for he knows nothing of the ecclesiastical concept of “the world”.... Denial is precisely the thing that is impossible to him.—In the same way he lacks argumentative capacity, and has no belief that an article of faith, a “truth,” may be established by proofs (—his proofs are inner “lights,” subjective sensations of happiness and self-approval, simple “proofs of power”—). Such a doctrine cannot contradict: it doesn’t know that other doctrines exist, or can exist, and is wholly incapable of imagining anything opposed to it.... If anything of the sort is ever encountered, it laments the “blindness” with sincere sympathy—for it alone has “light”—but it does not offer objections... — Nietzsche in the Antichrist

Nietzsche himself yes, Jesus no, would be my interpretation. Zarathustra is the mouthpiece for Nietzsches philosophy. A lot of his next work Beyond Good and Evil is a restatement of the ideas Zarathustra expresses in Also sprah Zarathustra.

As is evident from the section from Ecce Homo I quoted above, Nietzsches Zarathustra is inspired by the Historical Zarathustra, but yes he is definately not meant to be the same, but rather the opposite, moralist <-> immoralist.

As for Jesus, I don't see why one would get the idea that Nietzsches Zarathustra is anything like Jesus, other than he is meant to be a kind of prophet-type.

I dunno, I think all of this is pretty straightforward.

But there wasn't anything specifically about Jesus in the aphorisms you encouraged me to read, other than the very last sentence I had quoted.

He's an immoralist because he rejects the traditional metaphysical systems of Good and Evil moralists have set out historically.... he's beyond Good and Evil, not beyond good and bad. You can be an immoralist and still have virtues in his conception, it just won't be the traditional Platonic formula for virtues of "the good, the true and the beautiful", but rather 'vir'tu with emphasis on the latin root "vir", manly.

Alright I have read through it, once more, and it just seems to confirm what I already wrote earlier, Nietzsches aim is to flip the moralist/prophet project on its head.

People have never asked me as they should have done, what the name of Zarathustra precisely meant in my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist; for that which distinguishes this Persian from all others in the past is the very fact that he was the exact reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra created this most portentous of all errors,—morality; therefore he must be the first to expose it. Not only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other thinker,—all history is indeed the experimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things,—but because of the more important fact that Zarathustra was the most truthful of thinkers. In his teaching alone is truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—that is to say, as the reverse of the cowardice of the "idealist" who takes to his heels at the sight of reality. Zarathustra has more pluck in his body than all other thinkers put together. To tell the truth and to aim straight: that is the first Persian virtue. Have I made myself clear? ... The overcoming of morality by itself, through truthfulness, the moralist's overcoming of himself in his opposite—in me—that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth. — Nietzsche

I shall have an excellent opportunity of showing the incalculably calamitous consequences to the whole of history, of the credo of optimism, this monstrous offspring of the homines optimi. Zarathustra, the first who recognised that the optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist, though perhaps more detrimental, says: "Good men never speak the truth. False shores and false harbours were ye taught by the good. In the lies of the good were ye born and bred. Through the good everything hath become false and crooked from the roots." Fortunately the world is not built merely upon those instincts which would secure to the good-natured herd animal his paltry happiness. To desire everybody to become a "good man," "a gregarious animal," "a blue-eyed, benevolent, beautiful soul," or—as Herbert Spencer wished—a creature of altruism, would mean robbing existence of its greatest character, castrating man, and reducing humanity to a sort of wretched Chinadom. And this some have tried to do! It is precisely this that men called morality. In this sense Zarathustra calls "the good," now "the last men," and anon "the beginning of the end"; and above all, he considers them as the most detrimental kind of men, because they secure their existence at the cost of Truth and at the cost of the Future. — Nietzsche

Why Nietzsche choose Zarathustra should be clear, he was the first moralist, the first monotheist, the inventor of Good and Evil etc etc... On top of all of that, Zoroaster was the one to proclaim truthfullness as the highest virtue. And then a bit further Nietzsche clearly states that the moralist is necessarily a falsifier of reality... a liar. So you see the irony in the use of symbolism here, he used the stated values of the first moralist precisely to overcome the moral traditions he himself gave rise to...

Literally the last sentence of his last work :

"Have I been understood? Dionysus versus the Crucified"

There's still a versus there. If you want to make a case that they compliment eachother and even come together in the end, by all means do, but I certainly haven't seen any evidence for that.

They consequently are versus each other, Complimentary Opposites PAIRING to generate something greater. — Vaskane

Yes it was his first book, immature and still under the influence of Schopenhauer (and Hegel) as he said so himself. He views evolved over time, and he moved progressively more towards the dionysian later. Either way Apollo and Dionysus were certainly not identical like you would have it with dionysus and Christ.

Yes I know, he disliked the church doctrines even more than the true Christian ideal.... that doesn't mean he liked Christs true teachings. It is possible to dislike multiple things and for different reasons.

Not making any distinctions anymore, not resisting anything anymore, is not life-affirming. The basic principle of life is precisly making those distinctions in order to affirm its particular will.

Read the passage about "inner subjectivity" being the only reality left for Christ. Christ is the orginal hippie in search for eternal bliss. Projecting your will outward into the world doesn't matter anymore, it's all about feeling good.

No, I don't think so. It is Dionysus VERSUS The Crucified... AGAINST the Crucified. That is the fundamental opposition he settled on in the end, after starting with Dionysus VS Apollo in the Birth of Tragedy.

Also he deemed the old testament much higher than the new testament, the gospel. So a rejecting of Jewish doctrine is not necessarily allways a positive in Nietzsches book.

I don't see how that proves your point. It describes the "kingdom of heaven" as a psychological state to be attained here on earth... that is the idea of not resisting to anything anymore, of turning the other cheek.... out of an oversensitivity to pain. Bliss. He describes it, but that doesn't mean he subscribe to it. Nietzsches whole philosophy is about making distinctions and valuation based on those distinctions, wherein pain plays a vital role... they couldn't be much further from eachother.

Yes sure that's also a big part of it, he tempts people who aspire to greatness, many among them were artists, the list is endless.

So it was natural for Zarathustra was depicting Jesus, and tacitly Nietzsche himself too. I am glad that I am learning something about Nietzsche with this discussion. Thanks. — Corvus

The only similarity is that Jesus and Zarathustra were creators of values. That's the one aspect Nietzsche could respect in Jesus, that he had the strenght of his convictions, and managed to overturn conventional morality and create something new to suit his character. That's why (as I said above) he choose a prophet-type as the mouthpiece for his philosophy in Thus spoke Z, because they were doing a similar prophet thing, creating new tables of values.

Where they took that exercise however, what values they created, could not be more different.

One other straightforward reason for his continued influence up to now, is that most of the 20th century French philosophers took him up, they were all Nietzschians in some ways.

Who is supposed to be Zarathustra? Here in your statement above, it sounds like you are implying Z. was N. Would he be Nietzsche himself? Or some other bloke? — Corvus

Historically zarathustra was the first monotheist, inventor of the good and evil dualism.... the archetype of prophet-moralist leading people astray, away from the earth towards some abstract ideal.

Nietzsche choose him as a mouthpiece for his philosophy because he symbolises everything Nietzsche thinks is wrong about these kind of wisdom-traditions.

..which people hadn't realized yet.
— ChatteringMonkey

Is this part of the reason why his writings remain so influential? — Bret Bernhoft

Yes, one of the reasons probably... Nietzsche's main question, how we get beyond Christian values after the dead of the Christian God is still an open question. But other reason also play a role no doubt, he was a very good writer, he has a knack of drawing you in... he's a tempter ;-).

I think the probability depends on 1) whether the US will face a serious economic crisis or not, and 2) whether someone with enough charisma and talent will stand up to organise that populist movement.

1) Things were way worse still in Weimar Germany. A serious crisis for the US doesn't seem that imminent at this moment, but that could change fast in a fragile global economy that has some serious issues going forward.

2) Trump maybe wants to go that direction, and maybe can get some popular support, but I think ultimately he doesn't have the skills/talent to pull it off. But you know maybe he inspired some people.

I don't hold this against them, since even modern political scientists "select on the dependant variable," all the time (e.g. "Why Nations Fail"). The analysis can still be a good vehicle for ideas, even if it's mostly illustrative. But it hardly seems like Nietzsche sets out to do a history of morals and simply "comes across his results." This is even more apparent in light of his publishing history. By the time he is publishing his mature work, he already has the core of what he wants to say laid out, and the analysis seems obviously there to support and develop those ideas, not as a form of "discovery." — Count Timothy von Icarus

He was a classical philologist, and studied ancient Greek texts from a young age. Check out his dissertation on Theognis of Megara. What sets him apart is that he actually did have a good and untainted (source texts) understanding of a part of history that was radically different than his own culture, at an ealy age. What that does, is it gives you a perspective outside of your own culture, and a point of reference from where you are able to evaluate the valuations you are given by your culture and upbringing. Lacking this external point of view, you invarialbly just end up regurgitating contemporary valuations, as many philosophers did.

So you are right that he already had his point of view made up before writing his mature works, but he did have to do a real re-evaluation of his values following a religious crisis and his classical studies at a young age, and a bit later after his falling out with Wagner and Schopenhauer... This was the impetus for his entire philosophy, and why he became a philosopher instead of a philologist, a real personal need to re-evaluate the values that were given him at the time.

Both. We need a group replicating sameness in its members, and indivuals breaking away from it and introducing new standards in the group. Much like in evolution, its an interplay between replication and mutation that allows for some kind of progression.

Things are getting better and worse, depending on how one looks at it and what one values.

Pinker, Rösling and the like will point at material conditions objectively improving, and present nice charts to illustrate their point. Others will point at climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification,... all kinds of ecological degradation.

Both can be, and are true at the same time. Conditions are getting better for humans overall, while the biosphere deteriorates. What we have been doing essentially is increasing material wealth for humans at a cost to the environment.

The question then is, what is more important? I think ultimately we can't escape the fact that we grew out of and depend on this biosphere we are degrading, and we will have to pay the price eventually. So even if we wouldn't value ecosystems inherently, but only care about say human flourishing narrowly, even then, degrading the biosphere will eventually also have its consequences for that.

If we were on the titanic five minutes before it crashed on that iceberg, pointing at all the material wealth and luxury on the ship to argue that things never have been better objectively would seem rather strange indeed... Where we are heading should be an important factor in this equation.

Of course people will disagree about that too, eventough the science is pretty clear... overall the biosphere is deteriorating rapidly on most metrics. And on the other hand there is little to no evidence that we can actually grow and innovate ourselves out of these problems, which would be the obvious proposed solution... traditionally economic growth has had a strong correlation with overall ecologiocal degradation.

Yes I guess I basically agree with your analysis :-), but disagree with the assumption that the world is going to continue in this upward trajectory I suppose.

No.

Morality is not the driver of things, nor does it evolve on its own/following its own logic. Rather, morality is a by-product of, or is at least enabled by, other non-moral processes.

To be more specific, the idea of moral progress is a result of technological and economical progress, that is in turn based on an exponential increase in energy-use. Or to put in another way, we have been able to construe and sustain these moral standards because we have an unprecedented energy-surplus... to put it maybe a bit flippant, you don't need slaves if one barrel of oil can provide work equivalent to 25.000 hours of human labour.

Whether or not we will deem the meat industry immoral in the future will depend in part on whether we can maintain this upward trajectory of increase in energy-production that may be needed to provide alternatives (as it stands lab-grown meat is very expensive and energy-intensive) ... and that is by no means a certainty with fossil fuels ultimately being finite and the effective replacement of them questionable.

Yes, I'm against it, for physical and psychological reasons.

Entropy is a fundamental law of the universe, so ultimately any non world-denying spirituality can only be tragic.

And psychologically a techno-utopia wouldn't even be desirable. We can only thrive if we have some challenges to overcome... this is how we grow as people.

It's the latest incarnation of plain old gnosticism, that promisses that the material world can be overcome for some truer ideal world. And that's a pernicious lie, because mind does in fact not rule over matter... faith in it could eventually destroy the natural world in an impossible attempt to attain its ideal.

What I won’t do is resign myself to doing nothing because it’s a big, difficult problem. — Mikie

How you got this from what I said is bizarre.

I guess we are both kind of arguing a bit of a strawman version of eachothers position then?

I’m not at all certain. I make the choice not to dwell on the idea that we’re probably screwed. It’s useless and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. — Mikie

You make a choice to stick your head in the ground?

It obviously does matter what the likelyhood of succeeding is. Suppose we have a very small chance of succeeding to stay below a certain limit of climate change, than I think it would make sense to allocate a lot more money to resilience measures.

I feel like you are overselling all these psychological effects. That is probably our main point of disagreement. I think it's better to look at our situation as it is, and figure out what to do from there. A failure to aknowledge that is far more dangerous than anything like a self-fulfilling profecy it seems to me.

The real problem is that we have a real problem.

Plenty. I’ve seen none from you whatsoever other than “I doubt it can be done. — Mikie

I doubt it can be done without certain consequences...

You haven't seen them because we haven't talked about that specifically.

Most of these 81 pages have been about rebuking climate change denial, which is a clear cut matter. That doesn't mean there isn't a real discussion to be had about how we are going to solve it.

And yes, I'm still in the process of making up my mind, I don't see how one can be so certain about something with this many moving parts.

That’s been done. — Mikie

You really believe that there no more debate to be had about how we are going to solve this? That seems rather close-minded. I feel like we only have scratched the surface of how we are going to balance different issues.... In any case, I don't think there is one kind of solution, it will also greatly depend on the situation of your country.

Industrialization and modern capitalism goes hand and hand — Mikie

Communism relies on industrialization too, unless you are going for the Pol Pot variety.