This thread's all a bit too fanboy for my taste.

Russell portrayed he of the moustache as an insecure, pretentious man with a fear of morality. There's quite a bit to that. While Russell was an aristocrat, N. was an aristocrat wannabe, expressing a bitter intellectual's fantasy of strength. Of course such psychologising is not a critique of what he actually says. Except that ressentiment has such a central place in N's criticism of Christianity - so it seems fitting to treat his philosophy as reverse ressentiment...

The Übermensch is a much maligned character. Where would he be found now? Not Musk or Trump, derivative and failed as they are. No, the modern Übermensch is Freddie Mercury, at least as he was portrayed in Bohemian Rhapsody. Mercury transcended conventional norms in music, performance, and identity, reinventing himself again and again, displaying the will to power in his stage performance as well as in punching out Sid Vicious.

Nietzsche remains the idol of post-pubescent males. Someone to consider and grow beyond.

:wink:

This thread's all a bit too fanboy for my taste. — Banno

No fanboy here, son. Just a man, like you.

Russell was a pretty poor analyst of Nietzsche though. Very easy to overturn his poor understanding of Nietzsche's work.

Except that ressentiment has such a central place in N's criticism of Christianity - so it seems fitting to treat his philosophy as reverse ressentiment... — Banno

Except it wasn't.

MAN is the rope that binds the two opposites of animal and the Superman together... man doesn't achieve the "Ubermensch" type any more than man can revert back to being wholly animal... except maybe wolfman.

For Nietzsche, the highest presentment of man is that type who continually overcomes themselves in their opposites. The Judaeo-Christian morality system seeks to kill off the opposition. Rather than becoming greater thereby.

Of course such psychologising is not a critique of what he actually says. Except that ressentiment has such a central place in N's criticism of Christianity - so it seems fitting to treat his philosophy as reverse ressentiment... — Banno

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. — DifferentiatingEgg

That is a lot to gather from my modest comment.

I did say the lack of information left many possibilities. So if you want to delve into what you meant, feel free to do so.

Edit: Yeah, I didn't think you'd have the ability to back your criticism of Nietzsche with substance. Most cannot.

Nietzsche remains the idol of post-pubescent males. Someone to consider and grow beyond. — Banno

Perhaps it’s not Nietzsche one needs to grow out of but a shallow, post-pubescent reading of his ideas and his character. I’ve recently discovered something in Nietzsche’s work that appears to ‘grow beyond’ the current thinking on the relation between affect (emotion, mood , feeling, becoming, value) and truth (perception , cognition, reason, identity, empiricism). The most sophisticated contemporary accounts , like those of Damasio, Prinz, Haidt and Ratcliffe) treat these as a reciprocally causal interaction. Nietzsche, however, sees identity and truth as derivative of difference, affect and desire. Deleuze, Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida are among those who continued to follow Nietzsche’s thinking on this well past their post-pubescent stage.

I’ve recently discovered something in Nietzsche’s work that appears to ‘grow beyond’ the current thinking on the relation between affect (emotion, mood , feeling, becoming, value) and truth (perception , cognition, reason, identity, empiricism). — Joshs

C G Jung says Nietzsche's Zarathustra in TSZ was referring to Jesus in the bible in his 2 volume seminar transcripts of his study group talks.

Deleuze, Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida are among those who continued to follow Nietzsche’s thinking on this well past their post-pubescent stage. — Joshs

I'd say that Heidegger interpreted Nietzsche correctly, for the most part, and that Derrida interpreted Heidegger correctly, for the most part.

Then there's the question of who has interpreted Derrida correctly, at least for the most part. Maybe it's you, Joshs. Why not?

Then there's the question of who has interpreted Derrida correctly, at least for the most part. Maybe it's you, Joshs. Why not? — Arcane Sandwich

Correctness doesn't go very far. I like Deleuze’s view of truth:

“… what someone says is never wrong, the problem isn't that some things are wrong, but that they're stupid or irrelevant. That they've already been said a thousand times. The notions of relevance, necessity, the point of something, are a thousand times more significant than the
notion of truth. Not as substitutes for truth, but as the measure of the truth of what I'm saying.” (Negotiations)

Philosophy does not consist in knowing and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, Remarkable, or Important that determine success or failure. Now, this cannot be known before being constructed. We will not say of many books of philosophy that they are false, for that is to say nothing, but rather that they lack importance or interest…Only teachers can write “false" in the margins, perhaps; but readers doubt the importance and interest, that is to say, the novelty of what they are given to read.(WIP)

what someone says is never wrong

See, here's the problem. I disagree with that. On principle. It just sounds false, to my ear, at least. Do you agree with it yourself? Or do you share my intuition about it? And if you do, are you under the impression that our intuitions are unreliable in that case? Because they're certainly unreliable in the case of garden path sentences, for example.

Philosophy does not consist in knowing and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, Remarkable, or Important that determine success or failure.

Curious that this is the New Emperor's approach in a nutshell.

But I'll agree with your rejection of the idea of a "correct interpretation".

It is rare that I have been enticed to join a discussion such as you have provided.

Sounds like the first line was all that was needed to me

His style certainly isn't for everyone.

No need to participate in a discussion you're not prepared for.

No need to participate in a discussion you're not prepared for. — DifferentiatingEgg

No need to indulge in gratuitous insults.

If one is not willing to participate in a discussion are they ready to discuss?

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
will·ing
adjective
ready, eager, or prepared to do something.
"he was quite willing to compromise"
Similar:
ready
prepared
disposed

If one is not willing to participate in a discussion are they ready to discuss? — DifferentiatingEgg

Now you will never know unless you happen upon the discussion in another thread.

All it ever was: an invitation for you to expose yourself. You already know I don't need you to elaborate.

Nietzsche makes it exciting to rethink everything.

He was a necessary correction to the rigidity of human aspirations.

He took the table that propped up everything the history of western philosophy and culture had to say and soundly flipped it over, shaking anything loose that deserved no ground.

I disagree with what he thought was left on the table as he turned it back over. But he was good at tearing down (in many cases), and good at writing, at his art, at what he built in witness to the torn.

He gave us the tuning fork and the hammer. (Not just he hammer)

He gave us the image of the tightrope walker (the precariousness of the “truth seeker”).

He gave us the gay science, the most honest approach to philosophy and truth.

He gave birth to post modernism, but I believe he would disown this offspring as a bastardization and simplification of what he actually said.

As a critic of his fellow man, he was as hypocritical as all of those he railed against. As a critic of morality, he yielded a priesthood, repleat with dogma and sins.

He exaggerated (lied) in order to unmask hidden truth.

But instead of resetting things in academia, he became reified himself despite all his resistance to reification.

He is misunderstood and misapplied by many.

He was a metaphysician (of the Apollonian and the Dionysian), a truth seeker, a new type of moralist.

But he was a horrible judge of others (Christ, Kant, Hegel, Socrates, Napoleon, etc). He would not deny his own biases, and he let them color all he made of Christianity, of morality, of science and of most other philosophers. So he was a bad judge of himself as well.

He was a genius at identifying facade and delusion. He was impoverished at identifying beauty and good.

He will forever be read. And justifiably so.

He is among the most important philosophic thinkers and writers in history, these being Plato/Socrates, Aristotle, and Kant along with him. (Pretty much everyone else said less than these).

But Nietzsche would not have been Nietzsche without there first being all of the institutions and ideas he tore down. So he should have been more humble and grateful towards them. He gave himself too much credit and them, too little.

But I love the guy for things like this:
“In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of “world history” -yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.”

-Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral Sense

Why resist such a clear thinker and engrossing writer as one of the great ones?

But no need to believe everything he said just as well.

Dude, you're still a novice with his material.

If you want the pedantic version of that let me know and I'll take you to school.

It's obvious you don't know the very important detail that Nietzsche bases the Superman and Amor Fati off of Christ's example... mostly because you've not really read Nietzsche's works he flat out tells you how he admires Christ. And it wasn't until Nietzsche, 200 years after the Earthquake at Port Royal, did Christ regain his image as God's grace, to accept all men, mad or not.

When you live by laws that say half of you is shit and must be repressed and ignored... you only come out as a crippled halfman...who denies even their humanity... there is no divorce between Christ and others, even the insane and murderous... just as a person should affirm all that is within them amd temper the most destructive bits from the extremes of our opposites.

Dude, you're still a novice — DifferentiatingEgg

Admittedly so. I approach Nietzsche as I approach all philosophy, with gaiety. Screw any deeper understanding of a mankind who has no progress to speak of since Cane and Abel first debated out their solutions.

In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented the deeper understanding of Nietzsche… One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary…and when it is done…nothing happened.

Look dude, if you come out of the gate from such a lofty perch of wisdom about Nietzsche, you win. I don’t mean to blaspheme his image. Thanks for offering to take me to school but my blissful love of the Nietzsche I know, as just another dude who contradicted himself, and had weaknesses, as much as all the rest, serves me fine. His works are full of insight and wisdom, and his bullshit detector about academia, the middle class, culture, some psychology, and truth, was spot-on.

he flat out tells you how he admires Christ. — DifferentiatingEgg

And I would call Christ the best example of the overman. And he was right that we should each find our own Gods - that’s exactly the kind of unique relationship Christ called people to seek - except I don’t see where Nietzsche showed he ever found a God.

But does Nietzsche admire the Christ who was authentically God, so the story goes, but who became a slave instead? Does he admire how Christ repeatedly lived not according to his own will but instead the will of his Father? Unto the self-sacrifice, self-denial, of death? All for the sake of love, and a new life? Does he admire pity, and charity, and humility, and think it courageous to ask for forgiveness of sins, or to forgive others?

to accept all men — DifferentiatingEgg

God doesn’t accept all men, he loves each one so much he would hang on a cross to death for each one. For Nietzsche.

Christianity (which is synonymous with Christ in the true Christian, the saint) doesn’t call us to be nihilistic rejectors of this life (Nietzsche was wrong), but to participate in the fulfillment of its promises. There’s work to be embraced and things about ourselves to overcome (Nietzsche was right), things of our own making, requiring our own un-making, or better, our own re-making. We aren’t here to repress our base instincts, but to build our own new instincts. We don’t refrain from murder despite wanting to murder; we teach ourselves how we don’t want to murder, and to refrain from nothing.

But this is a digression, one that a smart man like Nietzsche should have figured out, but was too proud of his freedom and his discoveries about human nature to ponder.

Napoleon exemplified a great man? He was just another asshole, mostly like the rest of us. When Napoleon was done, nothing happened (Nietzsche should have stopped the analysis there), other than further lost ground maybe.

Admittedly so. I approach Nietzsche as I approach all philosophy, with gaiety. Screw any deeper understanding of a mankind who has no progress to speak of since Cane and Abel first debated out their solutions. — Fire Ologist

Well, that's an interesting outlook

Thanks for offering to take me to school but my blissful love of the Nietzsche I know, as just another dude who contradicted himself, and had weaknesses, as much as all the rest, serves me fine. — Fire Ologist

Nietzsche made observations about things, suggesting contradiction and hypocrisy suggest him prescribing a way for people to follow which he himself is adamantly against to the point he tells you to fuck right off to find your own way that's right for you because that is Nietzsche's way...

Nietzsche openly discusses his weaknesses none of which are contradictory to his philosophy or psychology he details a life of living between two opposites and attempting to overcome the weaknesses within him... Overcoming isn't about denial of weakness... its about accepting its there in the first place, and accepting it as a part of you that you cannot simply call "Evil" and exercise it from human existence...

God doesn’t accept all men — Fire Ologist

God doesn't give a fuck about accepting all men... Jesus does. And according to the God stories... Jesus was sent to Earth by God to save humanity from the laws of God presented by Moses.

Christianity (which is synonymous with Christ in the true Christian, the saint) doesn’t call us to be nihilistic rejectors of this life (Nietzsche was wrong), but to participate in the fulfillment of its promises. — Fire Ologist

No it's not... huge reason why the account of the life of Jesus Christ in the Gospels is vastly different than the rest of the Judaism the disciples populated the Bible with... the very Judaism that Jesus rejected.

—I shall go back a bit, and tell you the authentic history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. The “Gospels” died on the cross. What, from that moment onward, was called the “Gospels” was the very reverse of  what he had lived: “bad tidings,” a Dysangelium.[14] It is an error amounting to nonsensicality to see in “faith,” and particularly in faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing mark of the Christian: only the Christian way of life, the life lived by him who died on the cross, is Christian.... To this day such a life is still possible, and for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will remain possible in all ages.... Not faith, but acts; above all, an avoidance of acts, a different state of being.... States of consciousness, faith of a sort, the acceptance, for example, of anything as true — Nietzsche, The Antichrist § 39

Is it okay if I twist things about you and declare it to the world? Nietzsche would simply turn his head and wait for an opportune time to dunk on you, if he ever cared to do so in the first place. That is to say, you'd have to be worth his time and even worth befriending for him to even discuss you in the first place.

You skipped all the good parts. Like I am doing with Nietzsche.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Turn the other cheek. Not my will, but thine be done.”

Nietzsche admired that man?

only the Christian way of life, the life lived by him who died on the cross, is Christian — Nietzsche, The Antichrist § 39

Spot on wisdom.

But it is a life we each can live.

The “Gospels” died on the cross. What, from that moment onward, was called the “Gospels” was the very reverse of  what he had lived: “bad tidings,” — Nietzsche, The Antichrist § 39

Unless Christ actually rose from the dead and remains present on earth in the Church. Nietzsche didn’t think so.

And according to the God stories... Jesus was sent to Earth by God to save humanity from the laws of God presented by Moses. — DifferentiatingEgg

Not the case, according to the stories. “I am here to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. Every jot and tittle.”

But enough with the fables.

Overcoming isn't about denial of weakness... its about accepting its there — DifferentiatingEgg

Spot on wisdom.

accepting it as a part of you that you cannot simply call "Evil" and exercise it from human existence... — DifferentiatingEgg

Call weakness whatever euphemism you want - the point is there is an exercising that is essential to becoming a great man. Nietzsche and Christ said that, and you just did.

See, the thing is, Nietzsche was right that the vast majority of so-called “Christians” are not at all like Christ. But, because he wouldn’t rely on other men (perfectly reasonable), he threw out the God Jesus with the bath water, and minimized how a free man would respond to seeing the risen Jesus, as if only delusion and projection and wish fulfillment could explain it, despite his own admiration for the man Jesus, the liar who claimed to be God before he was killed for nothing but a fable.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Turn the other cheek. Not my will, but thine be done — Fire Ologist

And his will in the Gospel speaks to a very specific equation...Jesus loved even those who would kill him. He did not divorce himself from even his greatest negations...

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Notice that even those who set aside these laws are still going to be in the Kingdom of Heaven? Because no distance comes between him and others...even those who set aside his laws...because he has come to save them from the laws. In the kingdom of heaven the values are reversed from the real world...where the greatest presentment of man comes through a crime of some kind...

I thought you were going to go to the part of the Bible that Nietzsche quotes in Twilight, something like: “what need is there of laws to sons of God.”

I still love Nietzsche, even though you don’t think I know him.

Notice that even those who set aside these laws are still going to be in the Kingdom of Heaven? — DifferentiatingEgg

I think the point is that setting aside the laws, for we who subjected ourselves to the laws, is bad. Maybe we all have a get out of jail free card because of Jesus, but, for me personally, there is still work for me to do (like the acts, not just faith, that Nietzsche spoke of in your prior quote from the Antichrist). No one can say what “least in the kingdom of heaven” really means, so I personally do not take this quote to mean the laws don’t matter, nor would I “teach others accordingly.”

The laws won’t matter once they are fulfilled - that’s when there is nothing left to “repress” or “exercise” as you put it.

“Jesus loved even those who would kill him. He did not divorce himself from even his greatest negations...”

But he said on the cross to “forgive them father.” Yes, you are right about God’s love and acceptance of us as children, but he rejects so many of the things we do, for which we need to be forgiven to become his friends. “I tell you these things not as slaves, but as friends.”

He wants us to take responsibility, and offer our lives we are now responsible for back to him, so he can return them in heaven.

We’ve morphed into theology. You can win there too if it has to be a competition.

You can win there too if it has to be a competition. — Fire Ologist

Shoot, what did I win? A participation trophy? Lol

Have you read Nietzsche, The Aristocratic Rebel by Domenico Losurdo?

Have you read Nietzsche, The Aristocratic Rebel by Domenico Losurdo? — Maw

No. Give me the quick & dirty (no doubt it's worth reading if you mention it).

let me know and I'll take you to school — DifferentiatingEgg

what did I win? — DifferentiatingEgg

Teacher’s Pet award?

Look, you say lots of insightful things. I don’t really want to go for awards either.

If you don’t think I sound like I know Nietzsche, I don’t know why, but we both know it doesn’t matter.

Nothing positive you’ve said about him or quoted contradicts what I think. Maybe you don’t understand me when I tell you what I think he means, and maybe that’s my fault. But I don’t see the point of battling wits in internet Nietzsche camp.

You said a lot of things I would say when talking about Nietzsche, raising the war of opposing forces, and amor fati. We haven’t mentioned slave morality which is a key criticism of Christianity and driver of any morality and democracy and bourgeois values; there’s the fulcrum of resentment that sprouts our decadence; we haven’t talked about the will to truth as the building of a facade (the Apollonian) while at the same time Nietzsche was a seeker of truth, always. Much tension to hold in hand when attempting to look for Nietzsche’s meaning. We haven’t touched on instinct and the Dionysian, which is another conversation again.

And there’s so much more. And every line, quotable and enjoyable to read.

I might just suck as a writer - how do you know from these few posts what I know of anything to be so bold out of the gate jump and offer to school me?

That said, I played along and begged for more, so don’t think I’m judging you. DifferentiationEgg jumps in - Battle of wits it is!

I can tell you love Nietzsche too.

Like I said, he always makes my top five on any list of who you need to know if you are bent on the whole history of philosophy, regardless of what Nietzsche thinks about bending over other people’s words…

And the quote I mentioned before wasn’t from Twilight, it was from Beyond Good and Evil. It was 164: “Jesus said to his Jews, ‘The law was for servants; love God as I love him, as his son. What are morals to us sons of God?’” I can’t find it in the Bible right now but I believe it’s there similarly to how Nietzsche quoted. It’s a good quote for the gist you are getting at (acceptance of all deeds/all of us in the kingdom of heaven according to Jesus). But I’d argue none of that happens until one has overcome tendencies towards bad faith and inauthenticity, etc..), that I agree with, about Nietzsche, and personally, about what Jesus wanted us to know as well. Which is why I don’t agree with Christianity dying on the cross - Christ is at least as alive as Nietzsche remains, as we keep looking to his books for quotes.

And Nietzsche was wrong about a lot of what he thought being Christ-like means for the Christian. It’s freedom and God’s power, like God’s will through us, like a Will to God’s power and glory…but again, enough with the fables.

He was too harsh on Kant, on Socrates, and so many others too.

I’m telling you, Nietzsche was high priest of a new religion with Zarathustra as prophet, and the all-too-human as his devil. All for effect - so we’d keep reading his truth, his tragic, awe-full, sense of things.

And I’m sure Jesus loves Nietzsche to save him from “nothing happened” and “God is dead” anyway. That’s my heaven - Nietzsche saved as well as the rest.

This came close to a conversation we might both enjoy, neither of us doing much to help the other one enjoy it. Maybe it’s just the way philosophers are - at odds with everyone else, like we are at odds with our own experience.

Should we go back to respecting each other yet, or am I still competing for some more equal participation than a student would have in some teacher’s class?