Nietzsche rejects every attempt to construct abstract universal moral systems because the very construction means the posession of universal abstract morals, i.e, applicable to all people. Such a construction, being abstract, reduces life to a fictional entity, while at the same time it pretends to be applicable to all. The modern book of law is such an attempt. Like the bible is.

Any such construction is an attempt to reduce life to abstract categories, abstract definitions of right and wrong, and abstract explanations why these morals exists and why one should cling to them, and abstract ways to make oneself or others a better person.

Now it would be no problem if people want to conduct their life according to these rules, and transform life to conform to the abstract image they have. If only they would apply the system to themselves only. The problem though is that because of the claim of universality it is thought to be applicable to all, like is thought for almost any western systems of thought which are mostly abstract views. Abstraction and universality are concepts that lead away from real life and locality. The same holds for the abstract world of science which claimes to be universally valid. Same problem here.

Where does this desire for abstraction and universality come from? I agree with Nietzsche that the roots lay in ancient Greek. Mathematics (the ultimate form of abstraction), physics, metaphysics, and abstract moral, have origins in the minds of the mathematicians, physicists, metaphysicists, and moralists alive back then. The philosophers, that is. Which made its way to the modern-day world, causing the existential misery it finds itself in.

Yep. Throw away a perfectly good real opportunity for an infinitely better but imaginary one. Reminds me of Pascal's wager. — TheMadFool

I would not describe it as a 'perfectly good real opportunity.' Perhaps you are aware of this, but Nietzsche specifically called out Pascal as the poster child of how a great talent can be misled by morbid ideas (more in N's notebooks than actual books).

On Nietzsche's side, one is risking a lot. The desire for certainty is not any kind of promise it will be met. Honesty is the wager.

On Pascal's side, the wager is not even a gamble. There is nothing to lose if you shove your chips across the board. The casino is an illusion. You are not here.

I would not describe it as a 'perfectly good real opportunity.' Perhaps you are aware of this, but Nietzsche specifically called out Pascal as the poster child of how a great talent can be misled by morbid ideas (more in N's notebooks than actual books).

On Nietzsche's side, one is risking a lot. The desire for certainty is not any kind of promise it will be met. Honesty is the wager.

On Pascal's side, the wager is not even a gamble. There is nothing to lose if you shove your chips across the board. The casino is an illusion. You are not here. — Paine

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Pascal's wager.

Risk-seeking.

In accounting, finance, and economics, a risk-seeker or risk-lover is a person who has a preference for risk.

While most investors are considered risk averse, one could view casino-goers as risk-seeking. A common example to explain risk-seeking behaviour is; If offered two choices; either $50 as a sure thing, or a 50% chance each of either $100 or nothing, a risk-seeking person would prefer the gamble. Even though the gamble and the "sure thing" have the same expected value, the preference for risk makes the gamble's expected utility for the individual much higher. — Wikipedia

Risk-aversion.

In economics and finance, risk aversion is the tendency of people to prefer outcomes with low uncertainty to those outcomes with high uncertainty, even if the average outcome of the latter is equal to or higher in monetary value than the more certain outcome.[1] Risk aversion explains the inclination to agree to a situation with a more predictable, but possibly lower payoff, rather than another situation with a highly unpredictable, but possibly higher payoff. For example, a risk-averse investor might choose to put their money into a bank account with a low but guaranteed interest rate, rather than into a stock that may have high expected returns, but also involves a chance of losing value. — Wikipedia

It looks like people are gambling with their lives; in monetary terms, as per the US federal government, that's $10 mil per head.

William Lee Bergstrom (1951 – February 4, 1985) commonly known as The Suitcase Man or Phantom Gambler, was a gambler and high roller known for placing the largest bet in casino gambling history at the time amounting to $777,000 ($2.44 million present day amount) at the Horseshoe Casino, which he won. — Wikipedia

William Lee Bergstrom's bet is just one-fifth of $10 mil.

I would not describe it as a 'perfectly good real opportunity.' — Paine

Yep, it's real but we can conceive of a better deal (heaven); Christianity/other religions step(s) in and annoounces that heaven is real, it's just that you have to die to get there and not only that you have to earn it, pay for it with good deeds.

As you can see, the moment you think of the this and now as not ideal, you open the doors to Pascal's wager. You can't have one without the other. Hence, my statement, "perfectly good real opportunity".

I'm familiar with the passage. Very typical of Nietzsche, full of assumptions, pronouncements, exclamation points and rhetorical questions.

So that's the extent of your attempt to critique what Nietzsche writes in that passage? Just a few supercilious characterizations?

Nietzsche, if I am not mistaken, admired the Stoic spirit of acceptance of what cannot be changed, like Spinoza, but what do you say of his critique of the Stoic's belief in logos and providence?

Very typical of Nietzsche, full of assumptions, pronouncements, exclamation points and rhetorical questions. — Ciceronianus

I can't comment on the merit of his ideas but the prose is so bombastic I can't ever get though more than a few sentences before needing to leave in a hurry. It's like being stuck next to a hectoring uncle who teaches lit crit somewhere.

tzsche, if I am not mistaken, admired the Stoic spirit of acceptance of what cannot be changed, like Spinoza, but what do you say of his critique of the Stoic's belief in logos and providence? — Janus

My point is he makes no criticism. There is no critique. He just says they're wrong. He also says he's right.

Thus he claims Nature is unjust, pitiless, indifferent. He claims we can't live according to Nature.
To live is to be unjust, to be different. He says the Stoics practice self-tyranny. He declares. That's all he does.

It's odd that he appears to know very little about Stoicism, or perhaps he simply means to mischaracterize it. The Stoics felt that Reason is the basis of the divine, immanent spirit guiding the universe. Because humans have the ability to reason, they share, in a small way, the Divine Reason. Living according to nature is to live in accordance with what reason dictates; reason is the special characteristic of humans as parts of the world, so to live according to nature is to live in accordance with our own nature. Living according to Nature isn't merely to imitate Nature in all respects, which obviously is impossible.

Living isn't being unjust or different. We can certainly be unjust, and different, but according to the Stoics being unjust, being immoral, arises from the failure to recognize that all humans have within them a portion of the divinity, and the desire for things beyond our control. We should be just to each other as we are the same as partakers in the divine. The desire for things beyond our control is unreasonable. Stoicism isn't self-tyranny, unless tyranny consists of seeking to avoid being angry, hateful, bitter, maniacal, etc., and to seek tranquility.

There are arguments that can be made against Stoicism, but Nietzsche doesn't make them. He just rambles on, beating a rather awkwardly contrived straw man.

I can't comment on the merit of his ideas but the prose it so bombastic I can't ever get though more than a few sentences before needing to leave in a hurry. It's like being stuck next to a hectoring uncle who teaches lit crit somewhere. — Tom Storm

I'm afraid that's true. All too often it seems he's too excited and self-righteous to do more than proclaim. I picture him breaking pen after pen as he condemns various and sundry people and beliefs. He always seem to be in a great hurry; he rants, in fact. This is why I call him, unkindly, "Frantic Freddy."

Maybe requires a more felicitious translation than Helen Zimmern's (read below) to ease his apprehension of "Frantic Freddy's" style of thinking in order then to follow Zarathustra's thread through his labyrinth – if he dares? :smirk:

You want to live "according to nature"? Oh you noble Stoics, what deceptive words these are! Imagine a being like nature, wasteful beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without purpose and consideration, without mercy and fairness, fertile and desolate and uncertain at the same time; imagine indifference itself as a power — how could you live according to this indifference? Living — is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is not living estimating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? And supposing your imperative "live according to nature" meant at bottom as much as "live according to life" — how could you not do that? Why make a principle of what you yourselves are and must be? — In truth, the matter is altogether different: while you pretend rapturously to read the canon of your law in nature, you want something opposite, you strange actors and self-deceivers! Your pride wants to impose and incorporate your morality, your ideal onto nature, even into nature, you demand that it be nature "according to the Stoa," and you would like all existence to exist only after your own image — as an immense eternal glorification and universalization of Stoicism! For all your love of truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, so rigidly and hypnotically to see nature falsely, namely stoically, that you are no longer able to see it differently — and some abysmal arrogance finally still inspires you with the insane hope that because you know how to tyrannize yourselves — Stoicism is self-tyranny — nature, too, lets itself be tyrannized: is not the Stoic — a piece of nature? ..... But this is an old, eternal story: what formerly happened with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as any philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image, it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical drive itself, the most spiritual will to power, to the "creation of the world," to the causa prima. — Beyond Good and Evil, Chap. 1, sec.9

As you can see, the moment you think of the this and now as not ideal, you open the doors to Pascal's wager. You can't have one without the other. Hence, my statement, "perfectly good real opportunity". — TheMadFool

When you put it that way, the 'now' sounds like a description of a Bed and Breakfast one reports visiting without enthusiasm. It was okay for the night but not anything to celebrate.

Nietzsche is asking for one to put oneself in a vulnerable position by choice. The bird he held in his hand is free to fly away. He seeks a verification that may not happen. That is why he keeps talking about being courageous.

On Pascal's side, the risk being taken on by his interlocutors has already been accepted. These people have deferred the sufferings for their sins upon some kind of existence they have already abandoned. They are numb and suspicious. Pascal proposes a period of accommodation rather than call for people to fall on their knees in fright. Those cards have already been played.

I've wondered more than once whether my aversion to certain writers is related to the translation of the works into English. I can't know, of course, but it seems that it may not be, as this aversion relates primarily to 19th century authors, but Germans in particular. Would all translations have the same defects?

Maybe the Romanticism of the time induced them to write in such a florid, bombastic style, and aphoristically. You see the Romantic bombast in the music of the time as well--consider Wagner and Franz Liszt. I prefer their contemporary Brahms. As to Nietzsche in particular, maybe he was too much devoted to the mad god Dionysus, forsaking Apollo altogether. The Stoics were never followers of Dionysus as far as I know.

I think some of the style comes from growing up in a dour religious household.

Maybe so. I wonder, also, whether the fact Christianity became less and less credible had an unsettling effect on thinkers and writers of the time, leaving them all a bit frantic.

↪Ciceronianus
I think some of the style comes from growing up in a dour religious household — Paine

Would you have preferred he write in a different style?

Don’t you think that if a writer is astute enough to distill the spirit of their time and put it under critique, that they would be as deliberate and insightful in choosing their style of attack?

Point taken. He was a writer of his time taking on the challengers as they appeared.

But I think there is a geometric element in his rhetoric that endeavored to show what the reverse of conventions produced. I don't read N as someone so simple to think he could just reverse what was commonly held and be accepted as someone trying to do serious work.

A lot of the language demonstrates elements beyond specifc propositions. Something like, 'you say reverence has to be couched in such and such a language. Well, this is what it sounds like if I use the exact opposite means of expression.' Nietzsche was a pretty astute student of the use of 'egotism' in European literature. It seems strange to me to read his use of the form without a grain or two of salt.

So, sincere? Yes, to a fault. Unaware of that quality as a matter of rhetoric? Very unlikely.

Don’t you think that if a writer is astute enough to distill the spirit of their time and put it under critique, that they would be as deliberate and insightful in choosing their style of attack? — Joshs

No question, but the merits of that second aesthetic choice may still be up for debate.

Would you have preferred he write in a different style? — Joshs

That is an interesting question. He was clear that if someone wanted to do better, then do better. That is as honest a response I can imagine.

Maybe the Romanticism of the time induced them to write in such a florid, bombastic style, and aphoristically. You see the Romantic bombast in the music of the time as well--consider Wagner and Franz Liszt. I prefer their contemporary Brahms. As to Nietzsche in particular, maybe he was too much devoted to the mad god Dionysus, forsaking Apollo altogether. The Stoics were never followers of Dionysus as far as I know — Ciceronianus

Understood. (I also prefer Brahms. Btw, N did outgrow and then repudiate both Wagner and his music ... as not Dionysian enough!)

When you put it that way, the 'now' sounds like a description of a Bed and Breakfast one reports visiting without enthusiasm. It was okay for the night but not anything to celebrate. — Paine

Why? I think your impression of what I said reflects the peculiarities of your own worldview.

Nietzsche is asking for one to put oneself in a vulnerable position by choice. The bird he held in his hand is free to fly away. He seeks a verification that may not happen. That is why he keeps talking about being courageous.

On Pascal's side, the risk being taken on by his interlocutors has already been accepted. These people have deferred the sufferings for their sins upon some kind of existence they have already abandoned. They are numb and suspicious. Pascal proposes a period of accommodation rather than call for people to fall on their knees in fright. Those cards have already been played — Paine

So the choices are grin and bear it or gamble your life away. Tough call.

There is no doubt I am viewing the matter through my own peculiar view of the world.

I meant no offense. The comment was put forward as an alternative reading of Nietzsche and Pascal to your interpretation.

Nietzsche spoke specifically against the 'punishment of self' Pascal applied to himself. I am not aware of any remarks by N regarding Pascal's wager. Leaving aside my reading of Pascal in the context of Christian expression, what text of Nietzsche exemplifies the grin and bear it quality you hear?

Leaving aside my reading of Pascal in the context of Christian expression, what text of Nietzsche exemplifies the grin and bear it quality you hear? — Paine

Nietzsche is asking for one to put oneself in a vulnerable position by choice. — Paine

Vulnerable means, in my book, to be deprived of all means of escape/relief - there's nothing you can do (amor fati) and so :grin: and bear it!

Vulnerable means, in my book, to be deprived of all means of escape/relief - there's nothing you can do (amor fati) and so :grin: and bear it! — TheMadFool

That expression is at odds with Nietzsche saying life keeps happening despite the entropy. The cups keep getting filled over. We have no idea why.

And what do you make of all the language surrounding freedom from bad science and sick thoughts? He does not replace all that with sunshine. That absence is part of his proposition, if you could make it a sentence, the sentence would have been written.

:up: That is a better translation. I have the Penguin Classics edition on my shelves translated by Hollingsdale (I think), but I kind of remembered the passage and searched and posted the first one I found.

Vulnerable means, in my book, to be deprived of all means of escape/relief - there's nothing you can do (amor fati) and so :grin: and bear it!
— TheMadFool

That expression is at odds with Nietzsche saying life keeps happening despite the entropy. The cups keep getting filled over. We have no idea why.

And what do you make of all the language surrounding freedom from bad science and sick thoughts? He does not replace all that with sunshine. That absence is part of his proposition, if you could make it a sentence, the sentence would have been written. — Paine

For me, Nietzsche's amor fati is a call to reconfigure our attitude towards life/reality as there really is nothing we can do to alter our circumstances and religion makes an already bad situation even worse by portraying this life/reality as a base of sorts where you prepare for your real (after)life of eternal bliss (heaven), such an outlook having the overall effect of allaying/assuaging our suffering/misery which then delays amor fati and the benefits that come with it.

I believe the passage I quoted was translated by Walter Kaufmann (who I prefer even to Hollingdale).

Also Sprach Nietzsche on Amor Fati:

"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it." From Ecce Homo.

Quotes from the Stoics:

"Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?" (Marcus Aurelius).

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” (Marcus Aurelius)

"Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy." (Epictetus)

Amor Fati wouldn't seem to be the most novel or revolutionary of Freddie's insights.

Amor Fati wouldn't seem to be the most novel or revolutionary of Freddie's insights. — Ciceronianus

Yes, it could seem that way if you haven’t read much ‘Freddie’.

:ok:

One difference between N and those Stoics is that N dd not appeal to a cosmic Good as a point of departure.