What do we make of Nietzsche today? Considered by some as the father of existentialism, it seems that others hold Nietzsche in contempt, as representing the hazards of philosophy, of going too far, by going mad in the end — Nemo2124

And others view him as the father of postmodernism.

Nietzsche certainly is still quite relevant whether we want to believe it or not. His influence has already had several far reaching consequences that are, and will continue to shape consciousness for some time. However, many people still run foul of not fully realizing and actualizing his works.

The real secret about Thus Spoke Zarathustra is, as Nietzsche details it within Ecce Homo, a dithyramb, under the rubric of music. You see, Nietzsche recreated the Dionsysian Dithyrambs, which is music in literally form that incites a self abnegated (cup not full) reader into a state of heightened creativity and intelligence, by breaking you out of the Apollonian mold...

It readies you for that Dionysian Wisdom that the Apollonian mind finds abhorrent...

That wisdom which is always seemingly a crime to obtain: Oedipus, Prometheus, Adam and Eve...

Because the greatest presentment of man is always presented as if gained through a crime... through the crime of wisdom.

And so long as man attempts to shun the Dionsysian Wisdom, man will continue to grow weaker and weaker still through the denial of life.

Crime is a domain that comes after human nature, and thus it could be argued that specific criminals are more complete humans... for accepting a part of themselves that others would shun or attempt to repress.

This is one of the big differences between "Good and Bad" and "Good and Evil" mortalities that N mentions in Genealogy of Morals...

And others view him as the father of postmodernism — Joshs

Yeah, but that's like saying Nietzsche's responsible for Nazi Germany too. Just a poor interpretation of Nietzsche, regardless of N sprouting the idea in someone's mind... thats due to their incipient reification with his ideas making it their own.

And others view him as the father of postmodernism
— Joshs

Yeah, but that's like saying Nietzsche's responsible for Nazi Germany too. Just a poor interpretation of Nietzsche, regardless of N sprouting the idea in someone's mind... thats due to their incipient reification with his ideas making it their own. — DifferentiatingEgg

I view Nietzsche as the father of postmodernism, and as a critic of existentialism. I am not alone in that assessment. Some of Nietzsche’s most notable interpreters ( Deleuze, Foucault, Klossowski, Bataille, Heidegger , Derrida) see his work as an attack on existentialist humanism from a postmodern vantage.

Well, Nietzsche was a fan of Voltaire, Voltaire had "postmodern" thoughts too by pretty much the same assetments of Nietzsche. Id bet the majority of arguments for Nietzsche's "postmodernism" can be found prior. If we're going to nit pick...

Nietzsche's not beyond structuralism or grand narrative, in fact people organize into hierarchies regardless as Nietzsche determines might makes right. Though of course that might is tempered in its opposite for the greatest outcome.

BGE 200 says (also he gives examples of men of the age of dissolution) "The man of the age of dissolution... always arrives exactly, at those times, when the masses longing for repose, step forward, they are complementary to each other rising from the same cause..." The Higher-man is the grand narrative...

Sure, he was against systematized dogma and dialectical thought etc etc...but not post structuralism.

Post modernism in it's entirety (not even the most extreme example of) would, imo, likely be grimaced at by Nietzsche, even if there are some bits of it that can be found in his works... even if they are major players.

But Nietzsche certainly was the first to challenge objective truth, history provides examples "time and time again" number of examples... it certainly wasn't Nietzsche he disccuses from the historical sense that there are no moral facts for example.

Even the structure of history is that "might makes right."

And just because Nietzsche and the Nazis and even Zionism share similar ideas doesn't mean he's the father of either of those movements regardless of what they may have appropriated from him. Same goes for post modernism.

He influenced the fathers of postmodern thought. To be more precise.

What do we make of Nietzsche today? Considered by some as the father of existentialism ... — Nemo2124

I view Nietzsche as the father of postmodernism, and as a critic of existentialism. — Joshs

Freddy seems to me 'an absurdist skeptic of European modernity' (both heir to Epicurus, Spinoza & Voltaire and predecessor of Zapffe, Camus & Rosset). "Some are born posthumously" ... yet, apparently, his protean works have been coopted – mis/appropriated :mask: – by both existentialists and postmodernists (as well as nazi / fascist propagandists). Just my two shekels.

Freddy seems to me 'an absurdist skeptic of European modernity' (both heir to Epicurus, Spinoza & Voltaire and predecessor of Zapffe, Camus & Rosset). "Some are born posthumously" ... yet, apparently, his protean works have been coopted – mis/appropriated :mask: – by both existentialists and postmodernists (as well as nazi / fascist propagandists). Just my two shekels. — 180 Proof

I recommend Klossowski’s ‘Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle’ for insights into his thinking that may be new to you. You might also enjoy Daniel Smith’s comments on Klossowski’s book.

https://philarchive.org/archive/SMIKRO

I read through much of Klossowski's Nietzsche book decades ago and didn't finish it. Nothing "new" for me then (after more than two decades of studying Nietzsche and his legion of 'interpreters').

Can you say some more about what specifically you get from reading Zarathustra and what you think is important about the work?

What I like about Nietzsche is how he develops this character of Zarathustra as a proxy to promulgate his wide-ranging views. This is unlike his contemporaries or those who preceded and followed him. By taking the figure of this proto-philosopher Zarathustra (Zoroaster) as his point of departure he is able to innovate and affirm human existence.

Sure, but that's the approach - what about the book's content you find particularly interesting? When you say, "I think Nietzsche is becoming more-and-more relevant..." I'm interest in which ideas and why?

The idea that we find ourselves somehow limited by social conditioning and seek to overcome that stage of psychological development by, in a sense, surpassing ourselves. I find that the tight-rope walker scene in the book perfectly shows this: that man is something to be overcome in order to reach the stage of the superman. Perhaps it's the ultimate self-improvement guide and in this day and age, we're constantly being challenged to improve ourselves to conform to media stereotypes, for example.

The idea that we find ourselves somehow limited by social conditioning and seek to overcome that stage of psychological development by, in a sense, surpassing ourselves. — Nemo2124

I'm not sure that resonates with me or what it even means.

By the way, to quote just highlight what the other person has written and click on the quote option that comes up. The quote will show up below.

Perhaps it's the ultimate self-improvement guide and in this day and age, we're constantly being challenged to improve ourselves to conform to media stereotypes, for example. — Nemo2124

But it still seems predicated on notions of improvement, on the idea that you are not good enough, that you ought to transcend yourself. Why?

I'm curious what a good example of such Nietzschean self-overcoming actually looks like. As someone who enjoys the half-arsed and the mediocre more than anything, the idea of working at reinvention, shedding patterns, behaviours and beliefs, seems tedious and possibly unrealistic.

I'm curious what a good example of such Nietzschean self-overcoming actually looks like. — Tom Storm

In an act of Nietzchean resentment, white Australia has cultivated a slave morality grounded in a negative self-affirmation. Instead of the claim, ‘I come from here. You are not like me, therefore you do not belong’, the dominant white Australian asserts: ‘you do not come from here. I am not like you, therefore I do belong’. Might the depth of this self-denial manifest dramatically, not in any failure to embrace a more positive moral discourse but, in the fact that white Australia has yet to produce a philosophy and a history to address precisely that which is fundamental to its existence, namely our being as occupier? — Toula Nicolacopoulos George Vassilacopoulos

But it still seems predicated on notions of improvement, on the idea that you are not good enough, that you ought to transcend yourself. Why?

I'm curious what a good example of such Nietzschean self-overcoming actually looks like. — Tom Storm

For Nietzsche man is the entity that grows out of his opposite, incited to higher and higher births, man is that which intertwines two opposites.

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman — Zarathustra

It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consists precisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposed things—perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. — Nietzsche BGE 2

Here's an example of basic positive overcoming of oneself in one's opposite from both perspectives... an obese and lazy person begins activity and several positive life affirming benefits begin to occur.... say they get into great shape, and suddenly hit a wall... and theyve run out of excess stored fat, but want to get stronger than they currently are... so what do they do? Go back to overeating as their old fat boy tendencies used to illicit and begin eating a surplus of nutrition for growth of muscle, rather than fat and train the body to utilize the excess for positive growth. Then when you want to shred back down you cut overeating...

Thus it's a cycle of over eating and under eating, a cycle of converting a downgoing into a cycle of overgoing... basically you end up finding room in both "Good and Bad" (opposites) such that each have room to fuel the other once the cycle of one gives way to the cycle of the other, ad infinitum.

Thanks guys but I am asking specifically about why this resonates.

Ok, sorry about that, then. Misinterpretation on my part. There are no facts, there are only interpretations, yadda yadda. Didn't Nietzsche himself say that false statement?

Anyways, sorry Tom.

Carry on.

Well, because there's the matter of being more complete human beings...

To accept our loathing of mankind to overcome the loathing of mankind.

Most people prefer presenting their loathing of mankind as "evil" which must be objectly disregarded... exercised, slain, killed off...

Nothign to apologize for at all. I enjoy your contributions greatly.

I'm not following, I'm afraid.

To accept our loathing of mankind to overcome the loathing of mankind.

Most people prefer presenting their loathing of mankind as "evil" which must be objectly disregarded... — DifferentiatingEgg

Huh? Who do you think is a misanthropist? Nietzsche or the rest of us?

↪Arcane Sandwich
Nothign to apologize for at all. I enjoy your contributions greatly. — Tom Storm

Yes, I'm fascinating, both as an intellectual and as a person.

Many humans are...

The whole of my Zarathustra is a dithyramb in honour of solitude, or, if I have been understood, in honour of purity. Thank Heaven, it is not in honour of "pure foolery"![3] He who has an eye for colour will call him a diamond. The loathing of mankind, of the rabble, was always my greatest danger.... Would you hearken to the words spoken by Zarathustra concerning deliverance from loathing? — Nietzsche, from Ecce Homo

The Dionysian Dithyrambs are music in literary form that incite a self abnegated reader into a certain psychological state ... Thus Spoke Zarathustra's ultimate effect is the overcoming of the loathing of mankind (which is also a person's own self-loathing).

To accept our Good and our Bad, rather than in the antithesis of values which rejects half of who we are...

To even overcome shame and guilt, as we can see in the dithyramb of the Vision and the Enigma from Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Not sure any of this helps my sense making efforts. But it takes all sorts, right?

What do you value in Nietzsche - as far as living your life is concerned?

Allow me to then get into that a little further as to what I mean by literary music, we can delve into Ecce Homo and Birth of Tragedy:

The whole of Zarathustra might perhaps be classified under the rubric music.... Before Zarathustra there was no wisdom, no probing of the soul, no art of speech: in his book, the most familiar and most vulgar thing utters unheard-of words. The sentence quivers with passion. Eloquence has become music. Forks of lightning are hurled towards futures of which no one has ever dreamed before. The most powerful use of parables that has yet existed is poor beside it, and mere child's-play compared with this return of language to the nature of imagery. — Nietzsche

By self abnegated I mean, getting immersed into the story, rather than critically thinking about something such as "time is a circle" and then being like "what that's not how reality works?!" and then you break immersion and miss the whole purpose of the story as a thought experiment. Cause the Apollonian consciousness often hides the Dionsysian world from their view. Self abnegation allows for one to see beyond their "Mayan Veil."

And for Nietzsche, music animates the body, via a sort of ontological instinct, and furthermore Nietzsche considers Thoughts as arising out of our Insincts ...

What Nietzsche means by throwing lightning is that Thus Spake Zarathustra is a book that ontologically activates "Will to Power."

Still very relevant. Not particularly well read - and he has the awkward problem of most people reading him being dumb late-high-school, early-University edgelords who think his philosophy will deliver them from their internal shortcomings.

I think he was just.. a bit silly.

he has the awkward problem of most people reading him being dumb late-high-school, early-University edgelords who think his philosophy will deliver them from their internal shortcomings. — AmadeusD

:rofl:

You've been listening to -dare I say- too much heavy metal. :rofl:

Those fellas certainly do LOL.

Those fellas certainly do LOL. — AmadeusD

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Dude, I'm dying :rofl: :death:

Nietzsche is kinda silly, though, in part, I believe it's just part of his mischievousness...

In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche says that Truth and Deception are essentially (boiled down to the essence) the same thing, in this case they're both narratives. Generally speaking, truth is seen as Good, and Lies as bad, but there are times when the reverse of this valuation holds true...

And thus the best narratives tend to hold some deception to them... (When lying and truth are both aligned for what's good)

Verily, I beseech you: take your leave of me and arm yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still, be ashamed of him! Maybe he hath deceived you. — Nietzsche in Ecce Homo

You don't listen to Zarathustra because he's "right" you read it to experience the effects of the dithyramb, which affects the self-abnegated reader. And incites their will to power.

Your view does not include the parts of Nietzsche that recognizes he was a member of the tribe he railed against. The irony of being a philologist who could only serve a few scholars. Reading as an ascetic performance.

Not even sure what that's saying, I suppose you'll have to elaborate cause I can see it being an attempt at saying many things... not quite certain which option to pick... If you could guide me down your thoughts a little further, that would be appreciated. It's okay if you cannot though, at that point it just feels like you wanted to use a common, albeit poor, counter to Nietzsche's own philosophy and psychology, which has little to do with what I've said here.

"Ah hah! Nietzsche read books he was an ascetic!" is like "Nietzsche says theres a "God" behind his book Birth of Tragedy so I guess God's not dead, Gotcha Nietzsche!"

Kinda comical if anything.

Reading certainly can be an ascetic practice, but it's generally not for most.