As Nietzsche states in Genealogy of Morals 6, in which he's talking about how politicians are the New priests due to the fact that political superiority always orbits around psychological superiority. — Vaskane

Not sure, but perhaps you shouldn't read Ayn Rand as she sounds right up your alley!

Sound vaguely Nietzschean? — schopenhauer1

But Nietzsche's Ubermensch is not resentful. He does not advocate or feed off of resentment.

To link Nietzsche and Rand is to misunderstand both.

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. — Fooloso4

But Nietzsche's Ubermensch is not resentful. He does not advocate or feed off of resentment. — Fooloso4

I mean that can take up volumes and volumes about Republican resentment. It arguably started with Barry Godwater's 1964 campaign and before him with the John Birch Society. Before this, one could safely be a "Northeastern Republican" which meant a sort of Eisenhower or Rockefeller Republican in which you were moderately pro-business but did not mind some government intervention and could generally be considered pro-Civil Rights and cultural liberal (for the time.. this is pre-60s libertinism and hippies). This movement percolated in the 70s with the rise of the Christian Evangelism and its slow migration with the "Moral Majority" cultivated by Nixon (though Nixon himself was simply a pragmatist, more Old School Republican than John Bircher type). Also mix in there a rabid anti-communism, a reaction to the hippies and freedoms of expression, thought, and identity, and you had the roots of the Reagan Revolution in the 80s, which fully formed in the 90s with Gingrich Congress coupled with the repeal of the Fairness Act in regards to media which paved the way for talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh to stoke those flames. Then you can end with social media, Fox News, and conservative media in general (and their counterpart liberal media trying to keep up by competing for the other side). That's what you have now.

To link Nietzsche and Rand is to misunderstand both. — Fooloso4

I think they inform each other. Rand is the natural outcome of Nietzschean thinking as applied in a more stringent/focused way.

Rand is the natural outcome of Nietzschean thinking as applied in a more stringent way. — schopenhauer1

I don't think so. As with other influential thinkers throughout history, his work has been taken and twisted in different ways. Rand claimed that the individual owes nothing to society.

Nietzsche says:

THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS

(BGE, 211)

He might agree that the individual owes nothing to society, but that is because, and here he agrees with Aristotle, magnanimity is about who one is rather than what one owes. One cannot be both magnanimous and resentful.

He might agree that the individual owes nothing to society, but that is because, and here he agrees with Aristotle, magnanimity is about who one is rather than what one owes. One cannot be both magnanimous and resentful. — Fooloso4

I mean, Nietzsche seems to be seething with resentment for the "slave morality" which is pretty equivalent to Rand's "collectivists" not letting the elite industrialists, inventors, artists, and scientists reach the necessary heights they are capable of. And a Randian would argue that by allowing the maximum individual freedoms of these individuals, it WOULD unleash a magnanimous outcome for humanity.

I'd also like to argue that this simplistic ideology is simply reductive and doesn't account for all the times in history when collectivist government intervention promoted all these things. It seems more-or-less a useful cudgel for unfettered business regulations, or to justify not helping those who might benefit from various programs that would get them means for at least living somewhat comfortably. Hence it was largely lauded by a slew of conservatives:

https://www.politico.com/story/2012/04/7-pols-who-praised-ayn-rand-075667

However, as I stated previously, this "Tea Party" Republican that was started by Goldwater through Reagan, has sort of morphed into something else as @Count Timothy von Icarus seemed to summarize well above. So the influence of Rand in that 2012 article might give way to something like the influence of fascist / cult of personality tendencies, and 1930s isolationism and hostility even to free trade.

I don't think so. As with other influential thinkers throughout history, his work has been taken and twisted in different ways. Rand claimed that the individual owes nothing to society.

This is certainly true. I feel like philosophers themselves can be more or less culpable in how their work ends up perceived. For example, we end up with so many different Hegels because his work is dense and not written in a way that is particularly easy to understand.

In some cases, a philosopher's work can have implications that they themselves either didn't recognize or tried and failed to get around. For example, I don't think Fichte is guilty of grossly misreading Kant. I think he comes to a conclusion that is largely based on Kant's analysis, even if Kant himself didn't want to go in that direction, and indeed we know from Kant's papers and revisions that Kant was quite aware that he had a dualism / subjective idealism problem on his hands.

With Nietzsche, the fact that so many interpreters have been led variously into "might makes right," egoism or valueless post-modernism, seems to represent the same sort of problem. No doubt, Nietzsche himself seemed to denigrate more "brutish" views, abhor antisemitism, etc. But the question would be whether a substantial challenge to these takes can be mounted from within the philosophy itself. It's just like how scholars' assertions that Kant didn't want subjective idealism (some argue the opposite) don't really do anything to show that his system doesn't lead to subjective idealism, they just show that he would have been unhappy with that conclusion.

But what's the Nietzschean critique of self-described Nietzscheans like Bronze Aged Pervert? I haven't seen one.




It's telling that there are virtually no children in Ayn Rand stories. One wonders how exactly someone becomes a "great person," by oneself. We might ask why no great industrialists existed for the first 200,000+ years of the race's existence.



It's pretty over the top. All the heros are attractive, robust geniuses. All the villains and stand ins for opposing ideologies are corpulent degenerates with no redeeming qualities. It's kind of like old Disney movies, where you wonder why people can't tell that the bad guys are bad just from looking at them.

There is one scene in Atlas Shrugged where an entire trainload of people dies in an accident and we get a kaleidoscopic view of how all of them deserved to die due to embracing leftist parasitism in their various ways.

That alone doesn't totally spoil the books, but it gets old given their collosal length. Closest work I can think of is "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," books, where all the good guys are successful, hyper competent, intellectual feminists, and all the bad guys are almost comic renderings of fat, middle aged, untalented misogynists. Those at least had fairly interesting murder plots though, and to be fair, parts of the plot and tone of Atlas Shrugged were still good.

I feel like philosophers themselves can be more or less culpable in how their work ends up perceived. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In Nietzsche's case it is a question of perceived by whom. He does not want to be understood by just anyone who reads him. His explicit about this. Perhaps being aware of the fact that a philosopher cannot control how he will be read, he attempts to have control over how he will be misread.

Our highest insights must–and should–sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when
they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for
them. The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to
philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims, in short,
wherever one believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights –….
[consists in this:] the exoteric approach sees things from below, the esoteric looks down
from above…. What serves the higher type of men as nourishment or delectation must
almost be poison for a very different and inferior type…. There are books that have
opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul, the lower
vitality, or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them; in the former case, these
books are dangerous and lead to crumbling and disintegration; in the latter, [they are]
heralds’ cries that call the bravest to their courage. Books for all the world are always
foul-smelling books.

Beyond Good and Evil, 42 (aph 30)

Do you deny he had contempt for slave morality? Can you explain in your own words what you think suppose he meant by master slave morality? Surely we can agree the distortions of the national socialism of his sister was a twisted version, but the only thing I got for why Rand got it wrong was that she was “resentful”. then you made obtuse references to him not wanting most people to understand him anyways.

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. — Joshs

You first said:

Especially the part about morality being a trick of the weak to constrain the strong. This is what Nietzsche called ressentiment. — Joshs

I don't understand. How is morality "a trick of the weak to constrain the strong"? Where's the trickery? Even when it is in reference to self-overcoming?

People spread germs which can harm a strong person etc etc, a weak person might try to entrap a strong person to child payments etc etc. — Vaskane

How can someone still rightfully be called "strong" if they can be overcome by germs, entrapments, etc.?

How can someone still rightfully be called "strong" if they can be overcome by germs, entrapments, etc.? — baker

“Out of life's school of war—what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.” (Twilight of the Idols)

Well, IMO, while the modern nu/alt-right certainly shares a lot with/ in some way grows out of more venerable right wing traditions, it is itself something new. It seems to get it's start in the late 1990s and early 2000s, being a phenomena driven by Gen X and Millennials. The biggest cultural examples I could think of would be the emergence of the "Manosphere" blogs, influencers like Andrew Tate, Roosh V, etc., the emergence of "Pick Up Artist" culture, writers like Jack Donovan, and the resurgence of machismo in more mainstream entertainment post 9/11.

A big part of the new movement is its almost total divorce from Christianity, and outright hostility to neoliberalism, particularly the ideals of free trade and free movement. Also, and embrace of post-modernism, despite often vocally decrying it.

To my mind, the movement is a reaction to a confluence of factors. One, is the cumulative effect of major changes in patterns of migration that began in prior decades, but built up steam since 2000. This led to the realization that many Europeans would indeed likely become "minorities in their own country," sometime this century. There is a similar anxiety in the US, although it is less coherent there.

This normally gets most of the attention, but I would say just as important, if not more, is the fallout of the sexual revolution, which has led to a large number of men who remain perpetually single through most of their adult lives. The decline in marriage, birth rates, and relationships also is tied into the growing academic achievement gap between males and females, which is quite stark. This achievement gap itself has been cited as a major cause for the decline of marriage (in the aggregate, women tend to not want to marry men with less education, and now far fewer men complete post-secondary education). This gap also feeds into the widening gender gap in political preferences, which in turn makes relationships less likely.

Rising inequality plays into this as well, as growing inequality is the engine for status anxiety, which seems particularly acute for young men. Then you have the "overproduction" of graduate degrees; too many highly educated people competing for not enough opportunities. Economics also matters in that it makes sense that men feel more threatened by migration, as they tend to be dominant in fields like construction, which are more affected by the increase in the labor supply, and are dominant in tech, which is easy to offshore.

All this has led to an ideology that is on the one hand
openly hostile to "post modernism," (the constant refrain of folks like Jordan Peterson) while being itself highly post-modernist. For example, there is the idea that the news media and scientific community cannot be trusted because, really, they are beholden to and invariably influenced by whoever finances them while also being enslaved to hegemonic "woke" social factors. There is also an embrace of relativism re morality.

The result is a movement that is nihilistic, without a clear picture of what it wants, but also driven by resentment. The solution to this lack of a cohesive vision to unify the movement? Conflict! Gotta have that civil war, the "Boog." Plus, a civil war dovetails very nicely with the fetishization of "warrior culture," and the consumption of the accoutrements of combat, tactical gear, etc. It's participation in warfare that will be transformative — for the individual as much as it will be for society at large.

This is something it has in common with modern liberalism, which also increasingly defined what it wants to see, and individual virtue, in terms of conflict. Granted that in the liberal vision the conflict is generally more social, speaking truth to power, less kinetic.

With these sorts of social forces becoming increasingly potent, it's interesting to note how completely out of place texts like Porphery's "Life of Pythagoras," or the various Lives of the Saints would be in our current culture. "You mean they just give up on achieving status and go out into the desert and fast?" You couldn't sell "The Life of Saint Anthony," today. Anthony would have to actually fight the demons who attack him, not just get beat up by them. This is ironic, considering these come out of an ancient Roman/Greek culture that was in many ways a lot more martial and patriarchal that ours.

Nietzsche is very popular within the nu-right, but less so than some of those he inspired. Julius Evola and Rene Guenon, and to a lesser extent Aleister Crowley, would be examples here. These guys differ a lot from Nietzsche but I see a significant overlap in tone, and how they flatter the reader. The reader is part of a cognitive elite, and needs to overcome the chains thrown upon them by the "sheep," a motif that becomes pretty common in the 20th century. Past thinkers don't need to be seriously engaged with but can be dismissed in a torrent of abuse.

Anyhow, I think Fukuyama's fusion of Hegel and Nietzsche in explaining this phenomena is pretty apt. The Last Man, having all his basic needs met, and living in a society that gives a sort of base level recognition to all, feels that universal basic recognition is no better than no recognition at all. Thus, he lashes out violently for recognition.

This also explains the huge success of dystopias and apocalyptic stories, where often the apocalypse changes the protagonist from ignored and low status, transforming them. They end up being highly respected leader and hero, whose inner virtues have only been realized through the collapse of civilization.

A popular meme in the movement is Hopf's:

"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

The implication being that the liberals, neoliberals, prehaps Baby Boomers in general — the sheep — are the weak men. The movement is the strong men who will create good times. But Fukuyama makes a good point, that people who are enjoying prosperity, security, and liberties unmatched in almost all of human history, who are then lashing out to destroy their societies might actually be the "weak men creating bad times." That said, I think the movement has plenty of good points about problems with modern society.

In this, Fukuyama might have might have a critique of Nietzsche himself, as embodying not the vision of the Overman, but of the Last Man, creating his own phantasm of conflict to deal with the threat of degenerating into a bovine consumer. You could variously take Fukuyama as indicating that Nietzsche was a prophet predicting this crisis, or as the first of the Last Men. Maybe both. In any event, what Nietzsche doesn't seem to predict is that his message might be extremely popular with the Last Men, and that they might all embark on the journey to become Overmen. What does that look like? And how do you sort between true Overmen versus Last Men lashing out for recognition who are convinced they are Overman, without it simply becoming a No True Scotsman situation?

THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS

There are a few quotes like this in his corpus. I have a hard time understanding them. Nietzsche is not particularly concerned with political philosophy and the masses. So why must the philosopher rule?

A common critique of Nietzsche is that his philosophy doesn't work in the social dimension. How does a whole community of Overmen interact and actually form a cohesive society? A common rebuttal to this is that Nietzsche simply isn't writing for the masses. He doesn't even want to be understood by most. He's writing for a small elite, the few.

But then why does this self-concerned elite need the reigns of temporal power, which also tend to bind? Can't they do their own thing?

It seems to me it comes out of two things. One, Nietzsche's aversion to asceticism. His ideal can't very well live the life of the fictional ancient philosopher ideal of Appolonius, Porphery's Pythagoras, etc. But then I think Russell is on to something here when he suggests this just seems to be thrown in because leaders = high status = good — which gets to the idea that the Overman is a phantasm born out of the imagination of the Last Man.

Maybe this doesn't preclude transformation into the Overman, but it seems to complicate the picture. After all, the works written for the elite, the few, are now probably the very best selling works if philosophy, and arguably have the most cultural influence of any "philosopher," even if not being as influential in philosophy proper.

If Nietzsche's prophecy of the Last Man is accurate, then we are forced to conclude that the Last Men really dig the idea of the Overman.

But Nietzsche's Ubermensch is not resentful. He does not advocate or feed off of resentment.

:up: This is fundemental, and is restated many times in stark terms. That said, I don't think anyone could convince me that Nietzsche's actual work isn't dripping with ressentiment. Hence the thesis that the Last Man is the father/womb of the Overman. It actually makes sense, in that, who could recognize the deleterious effects of resentment more than the Last Man himself?

And maybe this is even a good thing. The Overman might be exactly the God the Last Man needs. For my part though, I find the lack of focus on the tradition of reflexive freedom fatal to the Overman concept. The fifth book of the Gay Science, added later, after the Genealogy, is a good summation of thoughts on the "free spirit" of the future age. But it is very much Lockean freedom from external constraint that is countenanced, not reflexive freedom.

This certainly shows up in Nietzschean fiction. Miura, R. Scott Bakker, Rand — the heros all have saint-like self control added to their virtues and the villains all embody an essentially Platonic evil, rather than being resentful sheep.

All this has led to an ideology that is on the one hand
openly hostile to "post modernism," (the constant refrain of folks like Jordan Peterson) while being itself highly post-modernist — Count Timothy von Icarus

There are at least two disparate uses of the world ‘post-modernist’ floating around in our era. The first is a socio-political term referring to practices of consumerism and other aspects of mass culture. The other use has almost nothing to do with this kind of analysis, referring instead to a loosely connected community of philosophical approaches that critique such notions as foundational truth , realism and objectivity, grand narratives of history, etc. It sounds like you’re talking about the first use here. As far as your (or Fukuyama’s) analysis of Nietzsche’s ideas, I don’t think any useful assessment of his thinking can get off the ground until one deals with the basis of the arguments made within such philosophical approaches as phenomenology, poststructuralism, hermeneutics, neo-pragmatism, enactivism, new materialism , the later Wittgenstein, deconstruction and social constructionism countering traditional realism. I dont find Fukuyama’s thinking to be up to the task of effectively grasping what these philosophers are up to.

I mean, Nietzsche seems to be seething with resentment for the "slave morality" which is pretty equivalent to Rand's "collectivists" not letting the elite industrialists, inventors, artists, and scientists reach the necessary heights they are capable of. And a Randian would argue that by allowing the maximum individual freedoms of these individuals, it WOULD unleash a magnanimous outcome for humanity. — schopenhauer1

I just want to know what John Galt and co. eat and who is cleaning their toilets.

In other words, Rand always struck me as a plebeian attempt to reimagine, reinvent aristocracy, with all its entitlements.

Peterson is talking about both. He, and the movement as a whole, is very hostile to critical theory and critiques of objectivity, even as they also employ these techniques frequently to critique opponents. Others, but not Peterson, tend to embrace grand narratives of history as both a means of building up the concept of "the West," and of slandering their opponents (the parasitic classes destroying the West).

As far as your (or Fukuyama’s) analysis of Nietzsche’s ideas, I don’t think any useful assessment of his thinking can get off the ground until one deals with the basis of the arguments made within such philosophical approaches as phenomenology, poststructuralism, hermeneutics, neo-pragmatism, enactivism, new materialism , the later Wittgenstein, deconstruction and social constructionism countering traditional realism. I dont find Fukuyama’s thinking to be up to the task of effectively grasping what these philosophers are up to.

What does that laundry list have to do Fukuyama or anything I've wrote and why is a big list of terms developed decades after Nietzsche was writing the only way to properly engage with his writing? Surely he can be engaged with on his own terms. And since a good deal of Nietzsche corpus focuses on representations and critiques of prior thinkers, surely the accuracy of these claims can be analyzed without appealing to say, Wittgenstein.

I mean, does someone really need to be steeped in New Materialism and 21st century thought to decide if Nietzsche accurately represents or responds to Plato?

Do you deny he had contempt for slave morality? — schopenhauer1

This needs to be seen within its historical context. It was a way of self-overcoming. It turns inward and makes its weakness into its strength. Their inwardness led to their power. Rather than impose rule on the world they learned to impose their will on themselves and rule themselves. Nietzsche saw this as a great advancement for mankind.

This overcoming now threatens to be man's undoing.

the only thing I got for why Rand got it wrong was that she was “resentful”. — schopenhauer1

Nietzsche and Rand had different notions of what it means to be an individual. Rand held to Liberalism's claim of the sovereign individual. Nietzsche thought that only a few are capable of becoming individuals. Rand grounds man on the low value of individual rights. Nietzsche held to the possibility of a higher man. Something achieved not given.

In Nietzsche's case it is a question of perceived by whom. He does not want to be understood by just anyone who reads him. His explicit about this. Perhaps being aware of the fact that a philosopher cannot control how he will be read, he attempts to have control over how he will be misread.

Our highest insights must–and should–sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when
they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for
them. The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to
philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims, in short,
wherever one believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights –….
[consists in this:] the exoteric approach sees things from below, the esoteric looks down
from above…. What serves the higher type of men as nourishment or delectation must
almost be poison for a very different and inferior type…. There are books that have
opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul, the lower
vitality, or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them; in the former case, these
books are dangerous and lead to crumbling and disintegration; in the latter, [they are]
heralds’ cries that call the bravest to their courage. Books for all the world are always
foul-smelling books.
Beyond Good and Evil, 42 (aph 30) — Fooloso4

From the introduction to a Hare Krishna book:

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https://blservices.com/product/the-heart-of-transcendetal-book-distribution/

There's a pattern for dismissing some potential readers, and it can be found all over the places and genres. Once one has seen a few of examples of it, it starts to get silly. All these exalted, oh so special people. And so many of them, so many!

My favorite is Julius Evola titling his book "Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul."

I find esoterica quite interesting, but this facet of it can make trying to discuss it extremely tedious. "Oh, you don't agree with/love x, well then you absolutely cannot have understood it. It wasn't written for you." Ironic, in the esotericists themselves have a tendency to lambast competitors in stark terms.

This is modern esotercism, you don't really see that in Renaissance/Reformation era stuff. Arguably, a lot of the old obscurantism was just functional , aimed at avoiding censorship, although I think it also leads to interesting writing and opportunities for interpretation — "death of the author" and all.

“Out of life's school of war—what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.” (Twilight of the Idols) — Joshs

This is obviously not true on the face of it, as evidenced by many broken people who have survived a serious physical injury or disease, or a socio-economical fall.

It seems to me that the famous saying is actually intended as a motto, as a life maxim, in a sense like, "Make every effort to overcome life's hardships and don't allow yourself to be adversely affected by them."

There is an old trend of formulating advice or motivation in the form of statements in the indicative, as opposed to in the imperative or some other irrealis grammatical mood.

A common critique of Nietzsche is that his philosophy doesn't work in the social dimension. How does a whole community of Overmen interact and actually form a cohesive society? A common rebuttal to this is that Nietzsche simply isn't writing for the masses. He doesn't even want to be understood by most. He's writing for a small elite, the few.

But then why does this self-concerned elite need the reigns of temporal power, which also tend to bind? Can't they do their own thing? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me that overall, Nietzsche (and Rand etc.) are trying to do something similar as Machiavelli did with The Prince, except that unlike Machiavelli, they weren't actually functional parts of the ruling elite, and it shows in their reasoning.

I imagine that the true Übermenschen don't write books about Übermenschen, and don't read them either. It seems to me that for the actual aristoracts, the actual elites, actually making a point of saying the things Nietzsche (and Rand etc.) do would be considered vulgar and unbecoming, even if they, ie. the aristorcrats in fact believed those things and held them close to their hearts.

So why must the philosopher rule? — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I understand it, it is not that they must rule but that they do. Perhaps the quote in context sheds light:

THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!" They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is--WILL TO POWER. --Are there at present such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST there not be such philosophers some day? . . .

(BGE, 211)

Nietzsche's political philosophy is an inversion of Plato's. Both are concerned with the politics of the soul, and in that sense works of psychology. For both Plato and Nietzsche the question of who is to rule is of central importance. For Plato it was the poets who ruled. For Nietzsche it is Christian Platonism.

Hence the thesis that the Last Man is the father/womb of the Overman. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is this Nietzsche' s thesis? Aren't they two different outcomes?

From a source we might not expect:

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside! The honorable thing to do is put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest.

— Wittgenstein Culture and Value

“Out of life's school of war—what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.” (Twilight of the Idols)
— Joshs
This is obviously not true on the face of it, as evidenced by many broken people who have survived a serious physical injury or disease, or a socio-economical fall — baker

Nietzsche was among the first philosophers to critique the long-standing bias within philosophy giving preference to presence over absence, the general over the singular, and most importantly, positive unification over negation. Negation has traditionally been thought of as a lack, an accident, something standing in the way of and opposing itself to the good and the true. But postmodern writers
like Nietzsche see negation as a positive, affirmative power. The influence of this thinking can be seen today in the change of language from the disabled to the differently abled, from normal and abnormal neurology to neurotypical and neuro-atypical, from pathologizing schizophrenia to the affirmative message of the Hearning Voices movement. Oliver Sacks’s positive accounts of people with Tourette’s, autism and other alterations in behavior was influenced by Nietzsche.

He wrote:

I am compelled to ask, with Nietzsche: ‘As for sickness: are we not almost tempted to ask whether we could get along without it?’—and to see the questions it raises as fundamental in nature.

As far as your (or Fukuyama’s) analysis of Nietzsche’s ideas, I don’t think any useful assessment of his thinking can get off the ground until one deals with the basis of the arguments made within such philosophical approaches as phenomenology, poststructuralism, hermeneutics, neo-pragmatism, enactivism, new materialism , the later Wittgenstein, deconstruction and social constructionism countering traditional realism. I dont find Fukuyama’s thinking to be up to the task of effectively grasping what these philosophers are up to.

What does that laundry list have to do Fukuyama or anything I've wrote and why is a big list of terms developed decades after Nietzsche was writing the only way to properly engage with his writing? Surely he can be engaged with on his own terms. And since a good deal of Nietzsche corpus focuses on representations and critiques of prior thinkers, surely the accuracy of these claims can be analyzed without appealing to say, Wittgenstein.

I mean, does someone really need to be steeped in New Materialism and 21st century thought to decide if Nietzsche accurately represents or responds to Plato? — Count Timothy von Icarus

What do you suppose are Nietzsche’s ‘own terms’? Isnt that the central question? We never read a philosophy by descending into the pristine purity of their thinking. As Nietzsche understood better than most, our readings of philosophers are perspectival, filtered through our own cultural template. This is why objective history is always history as written by the victors, and Nietzsche was not interested i. doing objective history. What he wanted to do was lift out structures of power relations that are presupposed by any history. In spewing forth my laundry list, I didn’t say one has to know these approaches, I said one needs to understand their basis, what ties them together with Nietzsche. Otherwise , one may end up reading Nietzsche through the lens of more traditional philosophy and only trivialize his ideas.

Here’s a fair synopsis of Nietzsche’s "The Use And Abuse Of History"

https://www.thoughtco.com/nietzsches-the-use-and-abuse-of-history-2670323

Negation has traditionally been thought of as a lack, an accident, something standing in the way of and opposing itself to the good and the true. — Joshs

This has got to be a Western phenomenon, though, because in Eastern philosophy, the distribution seems to be more even. There, some desirable, positive phenomena or traits are defined in terms of negation (e.g. ahimsa 'non-violence'), but also some negative ones (e.g. avijja 'ignorance').

He wrote:

I am compelled to ask, with Nietzsche: ‘As for sickness: are we not almost tempted to ask whether we could get along without it?’—and to see the questions it raises as fundamental in nature. — Joshs

A Buddhist teacher once said that when going to the doctor, one should not say "Doctor, something is wrong with me", but instead, "Doctor, something is right with me", reflecting that in some other cultures, disease and other forms of hardship are considered an ordinary given of life, far more normal than in Western culture.

You don't like him because you don't like me. — Vaskane

Lol. The self-importance!

Doesn't countering other's arguments require reflecting them accurately rather than beating up on strawmen? — Count Timothy von Icarus

From what I understood, the theory of informal logical fallacies seems to be a rather novel development, and that in the past, what are now considered informal logical fallacies used to be considered valid means in debate.

When we now read, for example, Schopenhauer's Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, we read it as satire, as examples of how not to engage in discussion and debate, but apparently he actually believed that this was how to go about conversations/debates.