:lol: good point!

Germs. Gravity. Children. Promises. Memory ... wtf, think! :sweat:

First, Nietzsche did not say it worked. And second, there are more weak than there are strong.

What's more, those who suffer from mental disorders may not be insane, but could be individuals in the purest sense, because they are by nature isolated from society." — Vaskane

This runs into the problem of what isolation might be. Your description tells a story about it.

Germs. Gravity. Children. Promises. Memory ... wtf, think! :sweat:

Yet more gibberish.

If the "weak" can constrain the "strong", then the "weak" aren't actually weak, and the "strong" aren't actually strong. What gives — baker

It’s more a matter of constraining the impulses of strength within oneself. By ‘strength’ Nietzsche meant a will to continual self-overcoming ( not personal ‘growth’ as in progress toward self-actualization, but continually becoming something different). The weak path is toward belief in foundational morality, a god who favors the meek, universal truth and the supremacy of proportional logic.

...the supremacy of proportional logic. — Joshs

Do you mean propositional logic?

By ‘strength’ Nietzsche meant a will to continual self-overcoming ( not personal ‘growth’ as in progress toward self-actualization, but continually becoming something different). — Joshs

I've never understood the point of 'continual self-overcoming'. What does this mean (or look like) in practice when you are going about your daily business? It sounds kind of tedious.

I've never understood the point of 'continual self-overcoming'. What does this mean (or look like) in practice when you are going about your daily business? It sounds kind of tedious. — Tom Storm

I think it means not constantly wanking in public

I think it means not constantly wanking in public — bert1

Well, that is tedious, as I suspected. Why should some sickly, proto-incel and misogynist tell us what we can do and can't do in public!?

Do you mean propositional logic? — Tom Storm

yep

Umberto Eco is pretty good on this apparent contradiction in political narratives. His "Eternal Fascism," is a good example.

You see this quite a bit in modern "nu-right," diatribes. These are generally something like: "weak, effeminate, craven, and degenerate Jews, leftists, feminists, immigrants, etc. are all horribly oppressing us strong, clear eyed, powerfully willed hereditary warriors."

How exactly are the strong being endlessly defeated by the weak?

Generally there are two answers.

First, it is because there are innumerable "hordes of subhumans" attacking the numerically inferior "pure." It's just a matter of numbers. However, there is significant confusion on this point, because the movement also wants to claim that the pure are also "the moral majority," and in the US context that, "Trump won in a landslide, if not for the rigging," etc.

I see this bipolar attitude vis-á-vis wanting to be the "moral majority" versus a "small, beset elite," as being a manifestation of the nu-right's increasing ambivalence towards democracy of any form. On the one hand, they increasingly want to dispense with democracy—"Red Ceasarism," and all. On the other, democracy has been "the principle," for so long that they can't help but make appeals to popular opinion and their place in a "true majority."

The second, more popular explanation is that "strong" have allowed their hands to be tied by a "false morality." It's here that a relation to Nietzsche's ideas is more obvious. Generally, the claim is that economic elites, the "neoliberals," or simply "the Jews," have tricked the strong into a false morality. Once the strong "wake up," and form their own morality, this age of evil will be resolved.

Generally, it is said that this will not occur until some sort of cataclysmic war, which will have the side effect of turning the currently low status practitioners of the ideology into hardened, grizzled war heros. You can't really underplay the extent to which "war will act as a force of self-transformation and self-actualization," plays into these narratives.


This is a fairly popular line of thought. Hence the popularity of (fairly poor) takes on Nietzsche in this space, for example "Bronze Age Pervert," and to a lesser extent Ayn Rand. I don't think these are particularly accurate interpretations of what Nietzsche had in mind, but it's easy to see how his ideas are easy to co-opt here, and it's a potent and popular modern example of this sort of thinking. Eco goes into good detail on why the enemy needs to simultaneously be "so strong and so weak."




You overcome the tedium. :smile:



Always funny how careful analyses of people's true reasons for believing what they do (Nietzsche, Marx, etc.) so often turn out to entail:

Them: weak, cowardly, desperately making up illusions
Us: clear eyed and strong, powerful truth seekers.

Nietzsche has the whole spiel about how others decide where they want to end up re morality, and then invent reasons for getting there. It's a good critique, but it seems like it could easily be turned back on his own work and his fairly rigour free retelling of Jewish history that just happens to paint a picture where the "real story," lines up with his beliefs.

I always felt these had a lot in common with the old: "you only reject the obvious truth of Christ because you want an excuse to do whatever you want." I'm not against arguments from psychoanalysis as a whole, but they seem to easily fall into this problem of being "too neat."

I've never understood the point of 'continual self-overcoming'. What does this mean (or look like) in practice when you are going about your daily business? It sounds kind of tedious — Tom Storm

We all do it anyway, whether we want to or not. Another way to put it is that life takes you where it wants you to go, not where you think you should. The feeling of tedium, boredom, meaninglessness arises out of being stuck in a situation, set of practices, way of life, a value system or worldview that one no longer fully relates to. But if we are taught that the way of moral, spiritual and empirical truth involves chaining ourselves to fixed, foundations, we will consider overcoming to be a mark of immorality, irrationality, madness, nihilism, infidelity. As a result we will bear the tedium of our chains as a sign of righteousness. Your emotions tell you how continuous your self-overcoming should be.

The feeling of tedium... — Joshs

I've felt bored since I was a small child. The feeling has never left me...

But if we are taught that the way of moral, spiritual and empirical truth involves chaining ourselves to fixed, foundations, we will consider overcoming to be a mark of immorality, irrationality, madness, nihilism, infidelity. — Joshs

Maybe my problem is that I've always felt everything was contingent upon culture and history and that there is no foundation or immutable point of reference for humans. Perhaps I need to become a Christian fundamentalist to self-overcome.

You overcome the tedium. :smile: — Count Timothy von Icarus

I suffer from incurable ennui.

The second, more popular explanation is that "strong" have allowed their hands to be tied by a "false morality." It's here that a relation to Nietzsche's ideas is more obvious. Generally, the claim is that economic elites, the "neoliberals," or simply "the Jews," have tricked the strong into a false morality. Once the strong "wake up," and form their own morality, this age of evil will be resolved. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, we're certainly hearing variations of this one.

The other one we hear is that the silent majority is being controlled by the woke mafia.

Nietzsche has the whole spiel about how others decide where they want to end up re morality, and then invent reasons for getting there. It's a good critique, but it seems like it could easily be turned back on his own work and his fairly rigour free retelling of Jewish history that just happens to paint a picture where the "real story," lines up with his beliefs.

I always felt these had a lot in common with the old: "you only reject the obvious truth of Christ because you're blinded by your own pride and shame at your sin." I'm not against arguments from psychoanalysis as a whole, but they seem to easily fall into this problem of being "too neat." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps. Then again, your reading of Nietzsche may be too neat.

I've felt bored since I was a small child. The feeling has never left me... — Tom Storm

If it never left you, you wouldn’t know you had it. What I mean is boredom is a comparison, just as sadness or happiness. It requires a letdown from a state which was non-boring or at least less boring. We live our lives as a series of creativity cycles, and boredom is one element of these cycles, the phase of the curve where what had held our interest become constraining and redundant. This indicates that in boredom a part of ourselves has already moved onto the next cycle, but we perceive the incipient phase of the new as a landscape without recognizable landmarks, as dull and empty.

Maybe my problem is that I've always felt everything was contingent upon culture and history and that there is no foundation or point of reference for humans. Perhaps I need to become a Christian fundamentalist to self-overcome. — Tom Storm

Existentialists like Sartre were caught in transition between two worlds, the old one of foundational certainty and the new one of ungrounded values. As a result their philosophies were an act of mourning the loss of the old. They hadn’t yet reached the point of affirmatively celebrating ungroundedness , because they still considered negation as a bad thing, inferior to ultimate truths. So they believed they were stuck with an inferior way of life but couldn’t go back to the old one.

How so? In what way is Nietzsche's "historical analysis" more actual historical analysis than Hegel or Vico's? I would say Marx actually has a leg up in this department, despite the same charge being easy to level at him.

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."

And as his critics demonstrate, you can do psychoanalytical explanations in circles. E.g., Bertrand Russell (another famously uncharitable philosopher) on Nietzsche:

In place of the Christian saint Nietzsche wishes to see what he calls the "noble" man... The "noble" man will be capable of cruelty and... crime; he will recognize duties only to equals. ... The "noble" man is essentially the incarnate will to power.

What are we to think of Nietzsche's doctrines? ... Is there in them anything objective, or are they the mere power-phantasies of an invalid?

It is undeniable that Nietzsche has had a great influence...

Nevertheless there is a great deal in him that must be dismissed as merely megalomanic.

He condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear. I am afraid my neighbour may injure me, and so I assure him that I love him. If I were stronger and bolder, I should openly display the contempt for him which of course I feel. It does not occur to Nietzsche as possible that a man should genuinely feel universal love, obviously because he himself feels almost universal hatred and fear...

It never occurred to Nietzsche that the lust for power... is itself an outcome of fear. Those who do not fear their neighbours see no necessity to tyrannize over them....

I will not deny that, partly as a result of his teaching, the real world has become very like his nightmare, but that does not make it any the less horrible.

It is necessary for higher men to make war upon the masses, and resist the democratic tendencies of the age, for in all directions mediocre people are joining hands to make themselves masters… He regards compassion as a weakness to be combated… He prophesied with a certain glee an era of great wars; one wonders whether he would have been happy if he had lived to see the fulfillment of his prophecy.

There is a great deal in Nietzsche that must be dismissed as merely megalomaniac… It is obvious that in his day-dreams he is a warrior, not a professor; all the men he admires were military. His opinion of women, like every man’s, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. “Forget not thy whip”–but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks.

Is this good analysis of Nietzsche? I don't think so; it seems like you could come back with another psychological explanation of why Russell was such an ass all the time to people*. I can only imagine the back and forth that could have occured if both were alive at the same time...


* it did occur to me that this analysis might be satire on Russell's part, but this seems too charitable, based on the rest of his corpus.

How so? In what way is Nietzsche's "historical analysis" more actual historical analysis than Hegel or Vico's? I would say Marx actually has a leg up in this department, despite the same charge being easy to level at him — Count Timothy von Icarus

In order to treat Nietzsche’s approach to history fully, I think one needs to be familiar with the following:

1)The difference between history and historicism.

2)The difference between objective empirical history and genealogical history.

3)What Nietzsche meant by the “untimely”

If Russell had any inkling of what Nietzsche was up to , his own philosophy wouldnt have been so backward. At the very least, a grasp of the later Wittgenstein’s thinking would be a prerequisite for understanding Nietzsche, and Russell was woefully inadequate at this.

I didn't write that passage. It's by one of my least favorite philosophers, the wonderful Bertrand Russell. It's really a case study in the pitfalls of psychologism as a form or argument, as you could easily come up with a similar argument attacking Russell, and go in circles forever.



Can you have credible explanations of cultural phenomena grounded in a historicism that eschew any sort of commitment to objective history? How then should we prefer any argument grounded in historicism more than any others if they conflict?

Doesn't countering other's arguments require reflecting them accurately rather than beating up on strawmen? But if that's true, then there is a certain sense in which an accurate accounting of the facts of the history of ideas is always essential.

I don't see how it can't hurt the credibility of an argument to claim "here is the history of these sets of ideas," and then to demonstrate a shallow, or inaccurate knowledge of the relevant history, even if the argument is still salvageable on other merits.

Take religion. Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud also developed explanations for religion around the same time as Nietzsche, explanations that also nicely happened to support their particular overarching message. How do we judge between these, in some ways mutually exclusive, versions of history and why wouldn't they be subject to the same charge of "working towards a pre-existing conclusion?"

I must say that I understand just ever so slightly more about Nietzsche than the average person — which is very close to nothing —, but I believe that when Nietzsche talks about strenght or weakness it is from an individual point of view, and it is not only practical strenght, but strenght of spirit also. The corrupt and ugly may win with cunning but that does not make them stronger than the brave and beautiful.

Take religion. Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud also developed explanations for religion around the same time as Nietzsche, explanations that also nicely happened to support their particular overarching message. How do we judge between these, in some ways mutually exclusive, versions of history and why wouldn't they be subject to the same charge of "working towards a pre-existing conclusion?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see your point. Could it not be said that most thinkers work towards a pre-existing conclusion? I would have thought most philosophical argument is a series of post hoc justifications.

His opinion of women, like every man’s, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. “Forget not thy whip”–but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women,

You and Russell obviously don't know what the whip is. Yet another metaphor hidden in plain sight. The whip is what Zarathustra uses to create dance and song. And can be seen in the second dance song. So the old woman said to Zarathustra "forget not thy dance and song." Those elements of Dionysus that women love. — Vaskane

Who are Nietzsche's women? They include Life and Wisdom. (Zarathustra, "The Dance Song")

Nietzsche begins Beyond Good and Evil by talking about another woman:

Suppose that truth is a woman – and why not?

How men treat flesh and blood women, and how they respond, is taken up in The Gay Science. Here we find a discussion of how the "weaker sex" exerts its strength. Behind much of Nietzsche's criticism of women is a criticism of men.

I am interested to see how you will develop this distinction.

I have not looked into this but I suspect that at least in part he is playing on the singularity/duality/plurality of man/men, male/female and god/gods found in Genesis 1.

From The Gay Science:

22

Man and Woman
Seize forcibly the wench for whom you feel
Thus thinks a man. Women don't rob, they steal.

63
Woman in music.- Why is it that warm, rainy winds inspire
a musical mood and the inventive pleasure of melodies? Are
they not the same winds that fill the churches and arouse
thoughts of love in women?

In both cases (and perhaps others) the heading is singular 'woman' but what is said is plural 'women'.

If 'woman' as concept is considered does the same hold for 'man'?

According to 22 men use force but women are a force:

The magic and the most powerful effect of women is, in philosophical language, action at a distance, actio in distans; but this requires first of all and above all-distance.

(60)

Ressentiment is the enduring psychological state of resentment in which resentment is behind one's creative force for valuation. A strong resentful person may only ever raise to the level of say priest/politician (ie someone who directs the resentment of the masses). Getting strong people behind herd mentality (objective resentful beliefs that deny life) kneecaps them from becoming what Nietzsche calls a Higher Human. — Vaskane

God, this reminds me so much why I despise Ayn Randian philosophy :lol:

God, this reminds me so much why I despise Ayn Randian philosophy — schopenhauer1

A favorite of today's Republicans.

I see this bipolar attitude vis-á-vis wanting to be the "moral majority" versus a "small, beset elite," as being a manifestation of the nu-right's increasing ambivalence towards democracy of any form. On the one hand, they increasingly want to dispense with democracy—"Red Ceasarism," and all. On the other, democracy has been "the principle," for so long that they can't help but make appeals to popular opinion and their place in a "true majority."

The second, more popular explanation is that "strong" have allowed their hands to be tied by a "false morality." It's here that a relation to Nietzsche's ideas is more obvious. Generally, the claim is that economic elites, the "neoliberals," or simply "the Jews," have tricked the strong into a false morality. Once the strong "wake up," and form their own morality, this age of evil will be resolved.

Generally, it is said that this will not occur until some sort of cataclysmic war, which will have the side effect of turning the currently low status practitioners of the ideology into hardened, grizzled war heros. You can't really underplay the extent to which "war will act as a force of self-transformation and self-actualization," plays into these narratives. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think what you describe here, sir, is a doctrine of the "alt-right" that's been swimming around since about 2015 or so.

A favorite of today's Republicans. — Fooloso4

And yesterday's. It's been their true north for a while.. Although, with the populism that laid out, it's taken on different seasonings. More culture war now than individual.

Never read Ayn Rand. Is she preachy? — Vaskane

Oh god yes.

Sound vaguely Nietzschean?

The provocative title of Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness matches an equally provocative thesis about ethics. Traditional ethics has always been suspicious of self-interest, praising acts that are selfless in intent and calling amoral or immoral acts that are motivated by self-interest. A self-interested person, on the traditional view, will not consider the interests of others and so will slight or harm those interests in the pursuit of his own.

Rand’s view is that the exact opposite is true: Self-interest, properly understood, is the standard of morality and selflessness is the deepest immorality.

Self-interest rightly understood, according to Rand, is to see oneself as an end in oneself. That is to say that one’s own life and happiness are one’s highest values, and that one does not exist as a servant or slave to the interests of others. Nor do others exist as servants or slaves to one’s own interests. Each person’s own life and happiness are their ultimate ends. Self-interest rightly understood also entails self-responsibility: One’s life is one’s own, and so is the responsibility for sustaining and enhancing it. It is up to each of us to determine what values our lives require, how best to achieve those values, and to act to achieve those values. — Rand - IEP

The book depicts a future United States on the verge of economic collapse after years of collectivist misrule, under which productive and creative citizens (primarily industrialists, scientists, and artists) have been exploited to benefit an undeserving population of moochers and incompetents. The hero, John Galt, a handsome and supremely self-interested physicist and inventor, leads a band of elite producers and creators in a “strike” designed to deprive the economy of their leadership and thereby force the government to respect their economic freedom. From their redoubt in Colorado, “Galt’s Gulch,” they watch as the national economy and the collectivist social system are destroyed. As the elite emerge from the Gulch in the novel’s final scene, Galt raises his hand “over the desolate earth and…trace in space the sign of the dollar.” — Ayn Rand Britannica

And yesterday's. — schopenhauer1

It would be interesting to trace that back. When did resentment become central to Republicans? One might think that it is the have-nots who would be resentful, but those with wealth and power can also be resentful. In the name of freedom they stand against any policy or regulation that impedes their ability to become wealthier and more powerful.