It would take a truckload of charity not to call the above an evil thing to say, an evil teaching. — ZzzoneiroCosm

It's a hyperbolic criticism to an exaggerated interpretation of the virtue of meekness within Christianity.

I don't see Neitzche as evil or simplistic. I see his criticisms of traditional ethics as presenting significant challenges to it and I think he points out the consequences of the declaration of God's death. — Hanover

Opening of Will to Power talks about the coming of European nihilism. That truth as a function of subjectivity was coming to an end.

That truth as a function of subjectivity was coming to an end. — Jackson

Share with me that quote. The subjective nature of truth seems critical to Christianity, so it would make sense that he sees its destruction imminent.

Share with me that quote. The subjective nature of truth seems critical to Christianity, so it would make sense that he sees its destruction imminent. — Hanover

Not a quote. Nietzsche is explaining that as values went from being objective properties of the world to subjective judgments, values themselves looked arbitrary.

Opening of Will to Power talks about the coming of European nihilism. — Jackson

I wonder what is the evidence that there is much difference to culture between alleged nihilism and Christianity? It's not like Europe under centuries of Christianity wasn't free of abusive power, endless and bloody wars, poverty, hatred, tribalism and general misery brought about by ignorance and ideology.

Apes are no longer merely objects for amusement, except amongst the ill-informed or childish. — Banno

The ape might well have been a common representative figure for what might have been considered to be stupid, low, a joke and so on in Nietzsche's day, but his use of the ape as a symbol for such is not at all relevant to how the apes are seen today, nor is how we see apes today at all relevant to Nietzsche's usage. Ever heard of anachronism?

Share with me that quote. — Hanover

30 (Nov. 1887-March 1888; rev. 1888)
The time has come when we have to pay for having been
Christians for two thousand years: we are losing the center of
gravity by virtue of which we lived; We are lost for a while.
Abruptly we plunge into the opposite valuations, with all the
energy that such an extreme overvaluation of man has generated
in man.
Now everything is false through and through, mere "words'
chaotic, weak, or extravagant:

http://www.newforestcentre.info/uploads/7/5/7/2/7572906/nietzsche_-_the_will_to_power.pdf

It's a hyperbolic criticism to an exaggerated interpretation of the virtue of meekness within Christianity. — Hanover

It can be interpreted that way. I call it a truckload of charity. If I said it, I think you would call it an evil thing to say.

Zarathustra is a condolence for inadequate juveniles, something to be transcended as one reaches towards adulthood. — Banno

If you'd ever had a single moment of self-illumination you might have some idea what you're talking about.

Ever heard of anachronism? — Janus

Well, yes, indeed, that is what I have been arguing: we grew out of it. If it is the "iconic passage from Zarathustra", so much the worse for Nietzsche's fatuous fatidic alter-ego.

If you'd ever had a single moment of self-illumination you might have some idea what you're talking about. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I have, and I do. It's a shame you've missed it.

You chose a particularly poor quote for your OP. That's down to you, not I.

Well, yes, indeed, that is what I have been arguing: we grew out of it. If it is the "iconic passage from Zarathustra", so much the worse for Nietzsche's fatuous fatidic alter-ego. — Banno

The trope represents the notion of reaching a greater potential than it is commonly believed we are capable of. The symbols Nietzsche used are not suited to our time, to be sure, but the underlying idea is relevant.

Your unthinking prejudice is so pungent I can smell it coming to me through the ether.

You chose a particularly poor quote for your OP. That's down to you, not I. — Banno

Your objection is silly, as if you're so offended on behalf of the apes that they might have been used to describe a less advanced man so much so that you can't move beyond it and address the substance of the quote.

It does not signify power over others, but power over the self, in order to reach one's fullest potential. I think it would be less misleadingly termed "the will to empowerment". — Janus

But power exhausts itself in what it takes power over and is replaced by a new trajectory of will to power.A given Will to power cannot be separated from the value system that it posits, and that is serially overcome by a wholly different value system ad infinitum( eternal return of the same). This is different from a ‘growth’ oriented notion of empowerment and optimal potential.

Apes are no longer merely objects for amusement, except amongst the ill-informed or childish. — Banno

In ‘Who is Zarathustra’s Ape?’, Peter Groff argues that
Nietzsche’s model of nature was not a Darwinian evolutionary position, and that he used the word ‘ape’ to refer not to a primate but to an approach to thinking, the mimicking or ‘ apeing’ of ideas.

“Nietzsche writes: “No animal is as much ape as the human being.” The human being is more ape than any ape because so much of what it is and does is rooted in superficial imitation.”

https://philarchive.org/archive/GROWIZ

I take Neitzche's superman to be a rationally advanced person who rejects the slave morality of Christianity and derives his morality from this world — Hanover

At the center of Nietzsche’s philosophy was a critique of ‘rationality’. Reason to Nietzsche was nothing but a product of the oppositional relation of the affective drives to each other. The superman doesn’t master these drives with reason. On the contrary , he embraces and encourages the overcoming of reason through the creative becoming that the clash of drives fosters.

I have — Banno

No one who has would denigrate the prophets.

I do — Banno

I'll take your word for it. To my lights you have no idea what you're talking about. I don't throw that phrase around carelessly.

Maybe go back to defending direct realism year after year after year - like a record player that needs a kick.

What kind of 'empowerment' could he envisage, other than political power, the domination of the strong over the weak? The religious cultures that he abjurs depict fulfillment in terms of divine union or transcending the self, but there's nothing that can be mapped against that in Nietszche's philosophy as there's nothing beyond the ego. Is there? — Wayfarer

For Nietzsche power doesn’t control , it is both dominating and dominated , within the same psyche. The ‘ego’ or self does not rule , it is a community of drives in tension with each other. The strong for Nietzsche overcomes itself , displaces itself , transforms itself. Its strength is in reinvention, not holding onto some self-constant value system.This is the polar opposite of fascism, which desires the forcible institution of fixed values. For Nietzsche there is nothing beyond the relation of drives, and that means plenty beyond the ego.

“… our world of desires and passions is the only thing “given” as real, that we cannot get down or up to any “reality” except the reality of our drives (since thinking is only a relation between these drives)…”

The symbols Nietzsche used are not suited to our time, to be sure, but the underlying idea is relevant. — Janus

The underlying idea? That the bungled and the botched are to be the objects of derision? That's not a sentiment that deserves sympathy. That's the attitude adopted by Putin's soldiers, and the eighteen-year old "well regulated Militia" as they storm the classrooms of America.

There is a reading of Nietzsche that involves becoming a better individual. There is also a reading of Nietzsche that leads to the diabolical treatment of others. The fan-boy adoration evident in some here ends in Belsen. If one would have a balanced view, then one ought acknowledge this.

You incapacity to actually address the criticism is telling; instead you hide behind misfiring insults. There is a truth in Russell's admonishment of Nietzsche that ought be acknowledged. Instead we have grovelling apologists.

You should be thanking me for making your pitiful thread even vaguely amusing. Even this throw-away comment will add pages.

I think he felt like the botched and the weak stood in the way of humankind's evolution. And literally felt it would benefit humankind to do them in.

Monstrous. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I think it’s monstrous to want the weak and botched to thrive at the expense of everyone else.

He’s talking about values, and is usually figurative. If you read this as “kill all the disabled people” or something— no I don’t think that’s accurate. Nietzsche himself was sick most of his life.

@Joshs

From the excerpts you provide in your post, it looks like Nietzche was mostly interested in how Darwinism knocks off humanity from the pedestal it had put itself on. Humans were no longer special in the living world, made in the image of God as some like to put it. We were just another animal, an ape to be precise, and we had to come to terms with that fact; a hard pill to swallow for some, but for others a piece of cake. In essence Nietzsche was putting his own weight behind the Copernican revolution of the 16^th century.

bungled and the botched — Banno

If you had read what I wrote instead of jumping in half-cocked you would know I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment.

He's a complicated man, certainly not pure evil, but has said things I'm comfortable with calling evil.

The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.

What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—
— Nietzsche - The Antichrist

It would take a truckload of charity not to call the above an evil thing to say, an evil teaching. — ZzzoneiroCosm

:up:

Agreed.

I think it’s monstrous to want the weak and botched to thrive at the expense of everyone else. — Xtrix

Where do you see that happening?

If you read this as “kill all the disabled people” or something— — Xtrix

Again, he says: One should help the botched and weak to perish.

If you have a specific justification for a figurative reading, I'm all ears.




As to who we should understand the botched and weak to be... If it's some set of human beings - no matter how numerically insignificant a set - then this is an evil teaching.

If you had read what I wrote... — ZzzoneiroCosm

I read what you wrote; you praise with faint damnation.

Right. Hold fast to your agenda.

It's a poet's praise for what I consider a great and beautiful - world-illuminating - inspiring and invigorating - passage of poetry. Not all of Zarathustra, just my cherry-pickings.

You were piqued by it and mistook it for praise for Nietszche. I never once praised the man.


As to your issues with the ape trope, the others have explained it well enough: you're just playing the purist to satisfy an agenda.

As to who we should understand the botched and weak to be... If it's some set of human beings - no matter how numerically insignificant a set - then this is an evil teaching. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Why?

Pedophiles, rapists, murderers. They’re a set of human beings. They seem the botched and weak to me. Doesn’t seem evil to help them perish.

But Nietzsche can be interpreted any way you like. He’s been blamed for the Nazis and for everything else under the sun. Not without some reason, of course. But given he’s intentionally being contrarian and provocative, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

I think his emphasis on values is still relevant.

Your specific justification for a figurative reading?...

Doesn’t seem evil to help them perish. — Xtrix

It seems evil to me.