I did not state or imply that I agree with Ligotti (or Zapffe), only that his book inspired – reinforced – my own conclusion that 'anitnatalism is futile' (which I only characterize as 'Zapffean'). — 180 Proof

Ok, but how, why?

To be clear, antinatalism doesn't mean that you believe that an outcome of "zero humans" is possible. I think there is a whole web of pessimistic (don't read that in a derogatory way), beliefs that go with it, and that it is not even about achieving some outcome.

Also, this thread is more about the inquiry regarding consciousness, and "Psychogenisis" not antinatalism. You kind of steered it there.

I think this is the tit for tat game of limited escalation. All out attack will likely respond in an all out counter-attack and retaliatory strike. — ssu

Just curious, what do you see as Iran's (and by association, their proxy armies) ultimate vision, one where they would never need to use violence against adversaries again? I just want us to be clear here the means and ends here, as they get lost in this "Elephant vs. tiger" crap.

We're alive. No amount of bewailing will change that; in fact, it will likely make us miserable (more miserable, if you prefer). Horror can be self-imposed, particularly that horror claimed to be cosmic. This is the ultimate example of disturbing yourself over matters beyond your control. — Ciceronianus

You look at it as a zero-sum game, like just ignoring the problems means the problems go away. That is not the case. One is reflecting upon the problems as if an outside looking in. It is an inherent part of our self-reflective capabilities. To not do so is to have bad faith... That is to say, to think that one has to take the positive "life must be good because I can't change it" view. But just because you cannot change it, doesn't mean it is thus good. I believe in the idea of pessimism as a sort of therapy. It is good to recognize, publicly the situation, not just some private angst or therapy session. Just as we are all forced publically to "deal with X" situation (work, other people, life circumstances, angst, existential issues, pain, suffering, whatever we are forced to contend with).

You are assuming that the individual who grows from the DNA will be the same individual no matter what happens. But, in the first place, it doesn't follow that any individual will grow from that specific DNA, and it certainly doesn't follow that any particular individual will grow from that DNA. If my mother had suffered a deficiency of folic acid while that DNA was growing inside her, the resulting baby would have been born with spina bifida. I cannot imagine that. Therefore that person would not have been me. My family were middle class. If they had been working class, their children would have developed differently. Would they have been the same people? No clear answer. — Ludwig V

So that's not necessarily the case. I think the interesting feature of my argument is that all that has to matter is the case that you actually have a causal-history (which we all do), and that actualized causal-history represents your life currently. Your current life supervenes on a pair of gametes, and no other. Any other pair of gametes would not even have lead to the possibility of this actualized existence, therefore, your identity necessitates the supervenience onto this and causal-historical circumstances and set of gametes.

@Ludwig V

I have not fully kept up with the most recent posts/discussions in here, but I saw the word "supervenience" and thought it might help in this case convey my point better.

That is to say, a particular person's identity is not equivalent to the gametes, but it must by necessity supervene onto the set of gametes. Why?

In causo-historical terms, there was this set of gametes that are the terminus when looking back at how far back one may go before any actualized version of you would have changed if prior circumstances had changed. After this event, if everything happened as it had, YOU would be the person you are. However, if ANYTHING had changed related to the meeting of those gametes, YOU would not even exist, even if there was a person created by a similar set of gametes and had a life that was quite similar.

"How do you combine a bunch of building blocks and get something completely new that wasn't in the blocks to start with?" Intuitive answer is you simply don't. Same as how you don't get an ought from an is.

I've decided that ontologies are a lot like impressionist paintings. They look better from far way. :rofl: — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Sure. How does that take root in oppressed, economically and socially exploited populations? — Vera Mont

By working with pro-democratic forces. See Japan, post WW2 for example on a society that went from feudal to militarist (ala Germany), to democratic. Indeed it did keep its isolation so that helps.

Turkey (prior to Erdogan era) can be another example of reform.

At the end of the day it's up to people to be vigilant about keeping democracies. America is a bit different, being it is one of the oldest and longest running ones.

Germany really never had a democracy prior to Weimar from its 1866 origins as a modern state. It had various military regimes run by Bismarck and the Kaiser.

The Arab states also never really had an internal democratic movement. Hell, one can argue even France had multiple cycles of democracy, mob rule, and dictators.

So by-and-large, democracies are hard to come by and maintain. It needs a sort of civic tradition that is instilled both top-down and ground-up.

The big factor in much of this is economic instability. Economic disparity creates resentment, and this gets harnessed by anti-democratic forces. You blame an external force perhaps, or you turn towards ultra-nationalism, or radical religious elements. Then you have larger players in the region like Iran, crate para-military groups within states.

Also in the mix, that cannot be denied in the Global South is the influence of Russia/the Soviet Union in creating socialist "liberation" movements that used ideas of liberation and hatred of the West and the Global North. All of it becomes one corrupt and authoritarian government after the other, some more religious, some more authoritarian. Of course you cannot deny that some people have control of resources, and some do not. Since the Global North was the first to exploit these resources, it becomes a target for the woes. Nationalism and religious radicalism dominate over liberalism, as liberalism seems the tool of the West. However, I would argue that this is a false notion that is often magnified from the religious radicals and the anti-Global North folks. Rather, if harnessed correctly, it could lead to booming development with less economic disparity. Radicalism is not the answer to injustices perceived in economic disparities. More well-rooted liberalism is proven to work pretty well, and provides the maximum personal freedoms, which some would say in a political sense, is the optimal and most just circumstance.

Yep., seems to be an eerie playbook.

It's pretty simple. Democracy alone doesn't mean much. In 1932 Germany, the Nazis got a majority vote and then preceded to tear down the institutions of the Weimar government.

Egypt voted in the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2010s and so they were to become a sort of theocartic state. The army took it back under Sisi.

Democracies need guard rails like separation of powers, personal and civil rights, and rule of law. They are a network of interlocking, and often layered parts. It needs all levels of government to accept this legalistic-oriented entity. Just voting in people does not a democracy make.

Largely, it seems to me, religion has to be secularized to a major extent as to matter less than upholding personal freedoms. The US prospered because of its separation of church and state, despite conservative notions of "values". Values can inform your decisions, but values that favor a religion should not. Relatively speaking, most liberal democracies should come to the same spectrum of conclusions: No cruel and unusual punishment, respect one's personal beliefs- whatever they may be as long as they are not harming others, due process and rights of representation, people should be able to peacefully protest and write their thoughts, things like this. It might be vanilla and boring, but it's what it is. The excitement of some apocalyptic and mystical notions of a theocratic state should have no considerations in a liberal democracy. On the other side, the army is absolutely beholden to the civilian body-politic.

January 6th, 2021 in the US was a very minor version of what happens when peaceful protest turns violent. If a country has many January 6th like events, then you get room for the use of marshal law. On the other side, marshal law can be used for perceived enemy threats real or not. Thus, it is easy for a fragile liberal democracy to get permanent military control.

Basically it comes down to how people handle differences of opinion and grievances respectfully. That takes a culture that allows respectful differences of opinion.

Interesting. He talks at length of antinatalism, and not usually against it. Quite opposite, he often makes fun of them (anti-antinatalists), (e.g. "Cult of the Grinning Martyrs"). He does question his own beliefs, and says, it's a matter of opinion, but he is simply applying pessimism to his pessimism. I don't think he is negating it though. If you can show me where he does though, I'd be interested.

Also, being that Zapffe himself came to an antinatalist conclusion, "Zapffe compares his messiah to Moses, but ultimately rejects the precept to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," by saying "Know yourselves – be infertile, and let the earth be silent after ye."

I am not sure if your conclusion is necessarily Zapffe's, though it sounds like it's simply your take on Zapffe, which you have not given any support for in your last comment.

Still all seems like a thought experiment to allow a certain amount of freedom to the person who understands it.

341

The Heaviest Burden. What if a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to you: "This life, as you live it at present, and have lived it, you must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to you again, and all in the same series and sequence - and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and you with it, you speck of dust!" - Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him: "You are a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that thought acquired power over you as you are, it would transform you, and perhaps crush you; the question with regard to all and everything: "Do you want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon your activity! Or, how would you have to become favourably inclined to yourself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?
— Nietzsche, Gay Science

If not already the sweetest concept, what must you begin doing at this moment to make reliving your life, infinitely more times, exactly as it is, the sweetest concept to your ears?

As Nietzsche details, this is the heaviest burden at the core of the essence of Eternal Return.

Same with this.. Go tell me what the REAL Nietzschean expert knows about this idea, and then I will probably just see that it is indeed the same as I characterized. There is a difference between KNOWING something and then EVALUATING that something. A lot of posters on this forum think that simply KNOWING what someone said confers that one must ACCEPT THE TRUTH of what is said. That is not the case.
— schopenhauer1

First -- get it straight, I am a real Nietzschean expert. Which is why when you say stuff like this:

Eternal Reoccurrence:
Again, Schopenhauer dealt with these issues in a more nuanced and informative way. This can easily be co-opted by fitness instructors and company gurus.. Rand types actually, who want to make sure that everyone is living the best moment they can over and over, embracing the "suck". Nope, the suck just sucks, and you are not a pussy for acknowledging this. It is just life. It's juvenile to think that at every moment one is calculating the best way to live that. Why? Because if you lived to the extreme at all moments, you end up burning out, becoming homeless, dying, suffering more. But then if you claim that it requires structure as well, it just starts looking like a Randian industrialist, artist, inventor, and the like. You become exactly sublimating in the way that is conducive to society. Besides which Freud got to these ideas better with his ideas of the Id, Ego, and Superego. You can't just live as an Id.
— schopenhauer1

Just makes me laugh about the fact you're not even talking about Nietzschean philosophy and psychology, but just some fantasy of it, your own personal fantasy. Just like how the Father and Mother Oedipalize the child with their own personal fantasies about their child via psychoanalysis. — Vaskane

Ok so let's compare here:

schopenhauer1 said:
Nope, the suck just sucks, and you are not a pussy for acknowledging this. It is just life. It's juvenile to think that at every moment one is calculating the best way to live that. Why? Because if you lived to the extreme at all moments, you end up burning out, becoming homeless, dying, suffering more. But then if you claim that it requires structure as well, it just starts looking like a Randian industrialist, artist, inventor, and the like. You become exactly sublimating in the way that is conducive to society. Besides which Freud got to these ideas better with his ideas of the Id, Ego, and Superego. You can't just live as an Id.

You quoted Nietzsche saying:
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him: "You are a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that thought acquired power over you as you are, it would transform you, and perhaps crush you; the question with regard to all and everything: "Do you want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon your activity! Or, how would you have to become favourably inclined to yourself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?

I don't see how that diverges much from my interpretation. Again, he is pretty abstract here and up for interpretation. I take him as meaning that we should live a life where we would say "yes!" to life over and over.. Sometimes you have to wait at the post office (aka Satan's asshole) for hours, or visit someone you dearly love in a hospital, or deal with terrible tragedies, and these are not things one would want over and over again.

And then the next move is to say "NO You fool!! HE means that you must EMBRACE the SUCK!"

Well, suck just sucks.

Take a look at these! :snicker:

However strange and wicked Freud’s own project may be in the way it unsettles and shocks us – recall his warning to the audience of his lectures on psychoanalysis at Vienna, that he ‘will show … how the whole trend of your previous education and all your habits of thought’ will be challenged – he addresses an audience he seeks to convince through values he believes we all share: the value of the search for truth, the commonality of our
faculty of reason, and the shared space of our reality. Nietzsche, though, questions those very values and hence renounces the pretext that what he has to say can be grounded in a shared set of assumptions.

Well, I think you are trying to show difference in form, and I'm just trying to show some similar ideas that were tackled better with Freud's ID, Ego, Superego.. I see these all as basically folk psychology, but can be useful. Nietzsche's transformative Apollonian is kind of ID-like. But ID on its own burns out. It is just instinctual drive for pleasure. It is tempered by society's expectation's in development, (Superego), until one forms a sense of balance between one's own interests, and that of living in a society (Ego).

Anything that tempers Nietzsche just starts looking technocratic and I don't think a Nietzschean would want that. So I brought up throw away burnout culture.. Punks, traveling with all that money you have accumulated, living on the road like a glorified Jack Kerouac.. I mean hell, RV culture for retired folk might be considered Nietzschean then.. But I don't think it's that either.. Pursuing your interests to the best of your ability was better stated within Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs anyways. So I don't know what to make of Nietzsche except as a sort of jumping off point for other people who made similar articulations but more systematically. I don't know what a systematic Nietzschean philosophy looks like since it's a hodgepodge of ideas that are roughly related, and have much to do with pursuing one's interests aggressively and not being meek.

I'm driving, but I'll get your first comment now, the rest later. You never read much of Nietzsche imo, that aside, you've also never read Nietzsche from Nietzsche's perspective so you'll never know Nietzsche. — Vaskane

Be careful! But also, you should write a book called "Nietzsche on Nietzsche" and have Nietzsche explain himself to himself.

Yes, as with worship of other philosophers, I am not debating Nietzsche on his own terms, because I don't agree with his terms.

That's like saying, "Debate Donald Trump using only arguments that Donald Trump would use". Of course, that is a bad example because he has no actual beliefs other than narcissism, but you get my point.

Your version of the Ubermensch is beyond strawman, to the point of I know you've never read Nietzsche level of stupid. — Vaskane

Yet you haven't said so. Don't worry when you flesh out your "radically different version based on the REAL Nietzsche" I will just show how it is indeed what I described. But go ahead, shit or get off the pot. Go read Schopenhauer then. I can say to go read anyone.

Eternal Recurrence for Nietzsche is more of a thought experiment for "The Heaviest Burden." Obviously you wouldn't understand that cause you've not read Nietzsche's Gay Science. — Vaskane

Same with this.. Go tell me what the REAL Nietzschean expert knows about this idea, and then I will probably just see that it is indeed the same as I characterized. There is a difference between KNOWING something and then EVALUATING that something. A lot of posters on this forum think that simply KNOWING what someone said confers that one must ACCEPT THE TRUTH of what is said. That is not the case.

Freudian Psychoanalysis is based off Oedipalizing Family Structures and doesn't know shit about the Apollonian and Dionysian. Deleuze destroys Freudian Psychoanalysis, and Deleuze is very well versed in Nietzsche. — Vaskane

I don't confer any Truth (capital letter T) to Freud, I only see that his general ideas are more on the mark than Nietzsche's notions.

You can make the following moves.. ]
Nietzsche is all ID I claim..
You can say

No he isn't! He believes in TEMPERED enthusiasm for life.

I say:
Then he is an Ayn Rand

You say NO He's not, he believes in a more generalized overcoming to be an ubermensch etc. etc.

It's all the same thing in circles.

Also, for the Nth time ... Resentment vs Ressentiment guys pretty vital to learn the difference. Sorry, resentment is an emotion that all humans experience. The strong and the weak both experience resentment. Both however don't react the same way, the fact most here cannot use the terms correctly show most shouldn't even be discussing Nietzsche. Learn his philosophy and psychology before pretending to know it. — Vaskane

Why do you suppose that Nietzsche's armchair philosophy of "slave morality" (asceticism and the like), is out of ressentiment? Just knowing this fact doesn't mean it's thus the right analysis. It is very idiosyncratic to setting up his own justification.

But either way, his concepts are loosely connected and so becomes up to the participant to make of it what they will.

If you want to provide your explanation of Nietzsche by quoting a few passages and then explaining your ideas on it, go ahead.

If you want to provide academic interpretations of it, and then provide commentary, go ahead.

But, to pretend that his writings are clear and systematic and that anyone reading them will just "get it" by reading them because the language is clear and direct, then that seems false to me. His writings are extremely idiosyncratic and obscurantist. Unlike Schopenhauer, who though lengthy in his prose, was a clear, direct writer and you can always see the plain understanding of his ideas, EVEN in his aphorisms which were meant to be short but convey some profound ideas.

So, if you would like to indicate what you (or another academic you think is accurate) got about Nietzsche's ideas, go ahead. I know that Hubert Dreyfus is a good place to start. There are others that are also a bit more accessible. But, this is one of those cases where "reading the text" doesn't necessarily get you that much closer to a more direct understanding of the author's ideas without prefacing it with some secondary literature.

What I do get from Nietzsche, I don't like, and I feel leads to even worse philosophies. Either they are trivially true, framed better by other philosophers, and are too open for any interpretation. Some think these are strengths, but I see it as tiresome and useless.

Cursory list of Nietzsche's ideas:

Will to Power:
Clearly taken from earlier ideas of Will, mainly from Schopenhauer, but instead of "will-to-live" it is "will-to-power". Will to power is more amorphous and to me, is just about individual creating their own values and overcoming challenges, embracing life etc. It's basically positive praise of the individual to become his own person.. This was treated better in an existential way by Camus giving more concrete examples of the actor and such, and Maslow with his idea of self-actualization. Both of which I think don't contend with the real problems Schopenhauer already discussed and defeated many years earlier.

Ubermensch:
Someone who is able to transcend the conventional morality and live life to its fullest. Every cocaine addled world-traveler thinks they're an ubermensch. Every punk rock drunk howling at the moon thinks he's an ubermensch. Every hipster doofus leading a bohemian lifestyle thinks he's an ubermensch. Every Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk thinks he's an ubermensch. Every dictator and cult of personality thinks he's an ubermensch. In a descriptive sense, it can describe a lot of meglomaniacal thinking. In a normative sense, it is narcissistic duschbaggery.

Eternal Reoccurrence:
Again, Schopenhauer dealt with these issues in a more nuanced and informative way. This can easily be co-opted by fitness instructors and company gurus.. Rand types actually, who want to make sure that everyone is living the best moment they can over and over, embracing the "suck". Nope, the suck just sucks, and you are not a pussy for acknowledging this. It is just life. It's juvenile to think that at every moment one is calculating the best way to live that. Why? Because if you lived to the extreme at all moments, you end up burning out, becoming homeless, dying, suffering more. But then if you claim that it requires structure as well, it just starts looking like a Randian industrialist, artist, inventor, and the like. You become exactly sublimating in the way that is conducive to society. Besides which Freud got to these ideas better with his ideas of the Id, Ego, and Superego. You can't just live as an Id.

Apollonian and Dionysian:
Again, this is better laid out by Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego. Also, Schopenhauer's theory of aesthetics is more in depth, exploring the idea of how the artist is bringing out the forms of the object, and how this temporarily stops one's will. Even if you don't agree with him, it is more explanatory.

Now you have lost me completely. What is the substrate of a substance? — Ludwig V

That individual substance is bracketed as its own thing and not another instance of similar substance.
OR
That set of gametes is its own thing and not another instance of a set of gametes.

The fact that it is that set of gametes is the crucial aspect of the matter, is what I am saying by "causal historical".

I can't make much sense out of Nietzsche's writing - I find the often histrionic prose style close to unreadable, even the Kaufman translation (but that's on me). — Tom Storm

Nah. He's pretty obscurantist. It's as clear as mud to me, granted I can't read it in its original Klingon, I mean German.

I think I agree with this. Jack London was another writer who sometimes thought of himself as a Nietzschean, but his account was via Herbert Spencer fused to what he called Nietzsche's 'blonde beast'. London's own journey from homelessness to best selling author of muscular fiction he often dramatized as a journey of personal self-transformation (which it was). London was probably more in the Rand mold, although he (ironically) saw himself as a socialist. — Tom Storm

I think a lot of people at the turn of the century were influenced by Nietzsche, especially artists, writers, and the like.

Perhaps a step form London to Rand was HL Mencken, who was also a Nietzsche enthusiast:

He (Nietzsche) believed that there was need in the world for a class freed from the handicap of law and morality, a class acutely adaptable and immoral; a class bent on achieving, not the equality of all men, but the production, at the top, of the superman.”

― H.L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche — Tom Storm

Yep. Rand was an admirer of Mencken, a fellow admirer of Nietzsche, and even wrote to him about it.

OK. Forget the business about DNA. There are many people in my life who I meet only sporadically. I don't know what happens to them when I'm not there; I may or may not have sporadic second-hand information about what has happened to them. When I meet them, how do I know they are the same person? (You can stipulate, if you like, that I assume that there is, in fact, a continuous causal history covering the time when I was not there. I will stipulate that I don't know what that history is.)

No that other set of gametes won’t do. This one only does. Otherwise, no you.
— schopenhauer1
I thought you were saying that I am over-focused on gametes, yet here they are again, front and centre stage. — Ludwig V

It's not that they are gametes so much, as that they are this set of gametes. There is a difference.

As to the aspect of a continuous identity, that isn't an issue. Rather, as long as you admit that your life has been actualized in some fashion, that actualized history could not have been that actualized history without that set of gametes. It is largely irrelevant how those gametes themselves operate to create your identity. It is simply that that substrate of substance is that substrate and not another.

@Vaskane @Count Timothy von Icarus @Fooloso4

Interestingly I found this article comparing the two. It is clear this guy is an adherent of Rand, so that's the bias in trying to distance her from Nietzsche, but I think underneath this distinction you can find the comparisons pretty easily:

Hicks concludes that “differences between Nietzsche and Rand greatly outweigh the similarities.”

Rand herself dismissed Nietzsche, saying he was “a mystic and an irrationalist” preaching a “’malevolent’ universe” with an epistemology that “subordinates reason to ‘will,’ or feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character.” She said he was a poet who “projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling of man’s greatness.” But she condemned him for:

…replacing the sacrifice of oneself to others by the sacrifice of others to oneself. He proclaimed that the ideal man is moved, not by reason, but by his “blood,” by his innate instincts, feelings and will to power — that he is predestined by birth to rule others and sacrifice them to himself, while they are predestined by birth to be his victims and slaves — that reason, logic, principles are futile and debilitating, that morality is useless, that the “superman” is “beyond good and evil,” that he is a “beast of prey” whose ultimate standard is nothing but his own whim. Thus Nietzsche’s rejection of the Witch Doctor consisted of elevating Attila into a moral ideal — which meant: a double surrender of morality to the Witch Doctor.

The article I started with, said: “The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt.” That is absolutely correct. If we get to the bottom of how Rand developed her ideal man, John Galt, it isn’t found in the Nietzschean elements of Renahan, or in the “purposeless monster,” Hickman. When we follow Rand’s development of her main characters, what we see is an evolution away from Renahan. She moves from criminals, who express their individualism through rebellion against society, to men who express their individuality through acts of creation. Instead of individuals who try to subordinate others to their will, her heroes are those who seek to trade value for value. You won’t find the Renahan character in Galt at all. But, in Galt you will find the repudiation of Renanhan. — Ayn Rand, Nietzsche and the Purposeless Monster

Such a man indeed shakes off with a shrug many a worm which would have buried itself in another; it is only in characters like these that we see the possibility (supposing, of course, that there is such a possibility in the world) of the real "love of one's enemies."What respect for his enemies is found, forsooth, in an aristocratic man—and such a reverence is already a bridge to love! He insists on having his enemy to himself as his distinction. He tolerates no other enemy but a man in whose character there is nothing to despise and much to honour! On the other hand, imagine the "enemy" as the resentful man conceives him—and it is here exactly that we see his work, his creativeness; he has conceived "the evil enemy," the "evil one," and indeed that is the root idea from which he now evolves as a contrasting and corresponding figure a "good one," himself—his very self!

11

The method of this man is quite contrary to that of the aristocratic man, who conceives the root idea "good" spontaneously and straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material then creates for himself a concept of "bad"! This "bad" of aristocratic origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred—the former an imitation, an "extra," an additional nuance; the latter, on the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the conception of a slave-morality—thesetwo words "bad" and "evil," how great a difference do they mark, in spite of the fact that they have an identical contrary in the idea "good." But the idea "good" is not the same: much rather let the question be asked, "Who is really evil according to the meaning of the morality of resentment?" In all sternness let it be answered thus:—just the good man of the other morality, just the aristocrat, the powerful one, the one who rules, but who is distorted by the venomous eye of resentfulness, into a new colour, a new signification, a new appearance. This particular point we would be the last to deny: the man who learnt to know those "good" ones only as enemies, learnt at the same time not to know them only as "evil enemies" and the same men who inter pares were kept so rigorously in bounds through convention, respect, custom, and gratitude, though much more through mutual vigilance and jealousy inter pares, these men who in their relations with each other find so many new ways of manifesting consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship, these men are in reference to what is outside their circle (where the foreign element, a foreign country, begins), not much better than[Pg 40] beasts of prey, which have been let loose

16.

Let us come to a conclusion.The two opposing values, "good and bad," "good and evil," have fought a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the world, and though indubitably the second value has been for a long time in the preponderance, there are not wanting places where the fortune of the fight is still undecisive. It can almost be said that in the meanwhile the fight reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the meanwhile it has become more and more intense, and always more and more psychological; so that nowadays there is perhaps no more decisive mark of the higher nature, of the more psychological nature, than to be in that sense self-contradictory, and to be actually still a battleground for those two opposites. The symbol of this fight, written in a writing which has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history up to the present time, is called "Rome against Judæa, Judæa against Rome." Hitherto there has been no greater event than that fight, the putting of that question, that deadly antagonism. Rome found in the Jew the incarnation of the unnatural, as though it were its diametrically opposed monstrosity, and in Rome the Jew was held to be convicted of hatred of the whole human race: and rightly so, in so far as it is right to link the well-being and the future of the human race to the unconditional mastery of the aristocratic values, of the Roman values. What, conversely, did the Jews feel against Rome? One can surmise it from a thousand symptoms, but it is sufficient to carry one's mind back to the Johannian Apocalypse, that most obscene of all the written outbursts, which has revenge on its conscience. (One should also appraise at its full value the profound logic of the Christian instinct, when over this very book of hate it wrote the name of the Disciple of Love, that self-same disciple to whom it attributed that impassioned and ecstatic Gospel—therein lurks a portion of truth, however much literary forging may have been necessary for this purpose.) The Romans were the strong and aristocratic; a nation stronger and more aristocratic has never existed in the world, has never even been dreamed of; every relic of them, every inscription enraptures, granted that one can divine what it is that writes the inscription. The Jews, conversely, were that priestly nation of resentment par excellence, possessed by a unique genius for popular morals: just compare with the Jews the nations with analogous gifts, such as the Chinese or the Germans, so as to realise afterwards what is first rate, and what is fifth rate.

Which of them has been provisionally victorious, Rome or Judæa? but there is not a shadow of doubt; just consider to whom in Rome itself nowadays you bow down, as though before the quintessence of all the highest values—and not only in Rome, but almost over half the world, everywhere where man has been tamed or is about to be tamed—to three Jews, as we know, and one Jewess (to Jesus of Nazareth, to Peter the fisher, to Paul the tent-maker, and to the mother of the aforesaid Jesus, named Mary). This is very remarkable: Rome is undoubtedly defeated. At any rate there took place in the Renaissance a brilliantly sinister revival of the classical ideal, of the aristocratic valuation of all things: Rome herself, like a man waking up from a trance, stirred beneath the burden of the new Judaised Rome that had been built over her, which presented the appearance of an œcumenical synagogue and was called the "Church": but immediately Judæa triumphed again, thanks to that fundamentally popular (German and English) movement of revenge, which is called the Reformation, and taking also into account its inevitable corollary, the restoration of the Church—the restoration also of the ancient graveyard peace of classical Rome. Judæa proved yet once more victorious over the classical ideal in the French Revolution, and in a sense which was even more crucial and even more profound: the last political aristocracy that existed in Europe, that of the French seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, broke into pieces beneath the instincts of a resentful populace—never had the world heard a greater jubilation, a more uproarious enthusiasm: indeed, there took place in the midst of it the most monstrous and unexpected phenomenon; the ancient ideal itself swept before the eyes and conscience of humanity with all its life and with unheard-of splendour, and in opposition to resentment's lying war-cry of the prerogative of the most, in opposition to the will to lowliness, abasement, and equalisation, the will to a retrogression and twilight of humanity, there rang out once again, stronger, simpler, more penetrating than ever, the terrible and enchanting counter-warcry of the prerogative of the few! Like a final signpost to other ways, there appeared Napoleon, the most unique and violent anachronism that ever existed, and in him the incarnate problem of the aristocratic ideal in itself—consider well what a problem it is:—Napoleon, that synthesis of Monster and Superman.

17.

Was it therewith over? Was that greatest of all antitheses of ideals thereby relegated ad acta for all time? Or only postponed, postponed for a long time? May there not take place at some time or other a much more awful, much more carefully prepared flaring up of the old conflagration? Further! Should not one wish that consummation with all one's strength?—will it one's self? demand it one's self? He who at this juncture begins, like my readers, to reflect, to think further, will have difficulty in coming quickly to a conclusion,—ground enough for me to come myself to a conclusion, taking it for granted that for some time past what I mean has been sufficiently clear, what I exactly mean by that dangerous motto which is inscribed on the body of my last book: Beyond Good and Evil—at any rate that is not the same as "Beyond Good and Bad."
Note.—I avail myself of the opportunity offered by this treatise to express, openly and formally, a wish which up to the present has only been expressed in occasional conversations with scholars, namely, that some Faculty of philosophy should, by means of a series of prize essays, gain the glory of having promoted the further study of the history of morals—perhaps this book may serve to give forcible impetus in such a direction. With regard to a possibility of this character, the following question deserves consideration. It merits quite as much the attention of philologists and historians as of actual professional philosophers.

"What indication of the history of the evolution of the moral ideas is afforded by philology, and especially by etymological investigation?"

On the other hand, it is of course equally necessary to induce physiologists and doctors to be interested in these problems (of the value of the valuations which have prevailed up to the present): in this connection the professional philosophers may be trusted to act as the spokesmen and intermediaries in these particular instances, after, of course, they have quite succeeded in transforming the relationship between philosophy and physiology and medicine, which is originally one of coldness and suspicion, into the most friendly and fruitful reciprocity. In point of fact, all tables of values, all the "thou shalts" known to history and ethnology, need primarily a physiological, at any rate in preference to a psychological, elucidation and interpretation; all equally require a critique from medical science. The question, "What is the value of this or that table of 'values' and morality?" will be asked from the most varied standpoints. For instance, the question of "valuable for what" can never be analysed with sufficient nicety. That, for instance, which would evidently have value with regard to promoting in a race the greatest possible powers of endurance (or with regard to increasing its adaptability to a specific climate, or with regard to the preservation of the greatest number) would have nothing like the same value, if it were a question of evolving a stronger species. In gauging values, the good of the majority and the good of the minority are opposed standpoints: we leave it to the naïveté of English biologists to regard the former standpoint as intrinsically superior. All the sciences have now to pave the way for the future task of the philosopher; this task being understood to mean, that he must solve the problem of value, that he has to fix the hierarchy of values. — Vaskane

Yes this idea of the "good man" being seen with resentment seems still very Randian as well. People scoff at the individualist trying to build something in the world with their ingenious, and the collectivists (the heard, the slave morality) see them as selfish, when the selfishness is the way for them to express their inner capacities and in the process transform the world. I can see the naive appeal of this, and also have many criticisms and a sort of cringiness to this whole notion.

One main difference I guess is that Rand attaches her notions in a more traditional milieu. Basically these people are just idealizations of the "Great Men" of history.. Where Nietzsche might entertain a Napoleon, she emphasizes industrialists and the like. To me it's just a different mode of the same idea. Nietzsche's can be applied more universally perhaps.. One becomes a manic transformer into a powerful agent "in general", one is applied in a certain economic model.

But to talk about, the future conditions of suffering are an unknown, which is an argument against suicide. Not only that, but the conditions of suffering are also relative. A young adult athlete might end up killing himself after a tragit accident that puts him on a wheelchair. People born without movement in their legs do not kill themselves over being on a wheelchair, because that is all they have known, and they make do without being able to walk, and sometimes they make do wonderfully. Of course, there is a limit to this, such as Harlequin disease or glass bones, but we do put down Harlequin disease patients and always have — they end up dying shortly after birth anyway. — Lionino

My response is not based on the empirical per se, but the empirical can be added to it. Rather, it is contra the paternalistic idea that imposing the limitation of life's choices (as life can only provide a range of choices one may have ultimately never wanted to choose from), known suffering (one knows of suffering but is willing to expose others to it anyways), and unknown suffering (one doesn't know ALL the forms of suffering), is acceptable. Rather, it indicates that procreation is in fact a violation of a deontological sort against the person who is so affected by this decision (the child born).

In Kantian terms, it is violating the principles of non-malfeasance which ultimately has its basis in not using people for a means to your ends.

I have. He is an obscurantist asshole philosopher that is a hotbed for ill-defined ideas for thesis statements so you can then call me an asshole for not reading him on a philosophy forum. He's like continental philosophy's version of the revered analytic Wittgenstein. Overmined, and worshipped.

Read more Schopenhauer so you can fix your ideas that Nietzsche perverted :wink:

lmao Ayn Rand characters aren't beyond good and evil dumbass — Vaskane

Again, you haven't defined it. You gave some example that you fit into a thesis- the Hip Hop artist because he is "overcoming" his circumstances. So anytime someone turns a bad situation into something good, he is a Nietzsche Ubermensch now? Okie dokie. I'm glad we can resolve that now.

It's ill-defined. The fact that you cannot even define it without looking basically like Ayn Rand's characters proves that it's basically that in drag, or vice versa rather.

Right, but if we are going for survival, which was my initial premise, natalism would be the answer. — Lionino

Sure. But obviously one could contend that "survival" is some moral mission, especially above and beyond that of imposing the conditions of suffering for a future person.

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. — Fooloso4

I mean, Ayn Rand's notion of the industrialist and artist actually fits this description so I think it is more evidence that her vision embodies the Overman of Nietzsche- A sort of of master morality, but refined to a point to smooth the edges to make them maximize their capacities.. A life-affirming philosophy, blah blah.

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. — Fooloso4

I think you are actually just reiterating Rand's characters.. Your descriptions of Nietzsche's higher man, seems pretty much in line with Rand's, not opposed or different than it.

First off, I think Nietzsche is utterly wrong in his assessment, and largely garbage. The idea of an Overman and the idea of some new synthesis based on master morality but without its destructive qualities, is not useful, and again, leads to people like Ayn Rand.

And as you can tell by my handle, I think his inversion of Schopenhauer simply leads to a confusing and manic philosophy of a love of life that I do not see is the case, nor endorse. So you can call me all the names you want, I see what I see in my assessment ..

From Counts own depiction of Randian characters, one can tell they ring hollow when struck with a hammer. They are black and white boring contrasts. You can clearly see Rand is a dualist who doesn't think Beyond Good and Evil. And thus she herself is merely spewing dogmatic trash, which is essentially non Nietzschean. — Vaskane

Great, but since Beyond Good and Evil is ill-defined, it will be reshaped in a sort of "fanfiction" to Nietzsche. Her "Objectivist" philosophy is just one version of it.

All because Malcom X read Nietzsche and influenced Hip Hop to do its own thing, to create for itself a world in its own image. To express the rawness of nihilism and overcoming it through self reliance and self overcoming, rather than falling in line to be the next digital text book expert at Amazon careers! Woah what a cool job. :nerd: In fact, I brought this concept up to PhD Charice Yurbin at UCLA and she absolutely loved the idea of the concept of research I was digging into, calling it "absolutely fascinating." — Vaskane

Sounds great for a thesis, but doesn't ring as some truth of anything. I don't need to read Nietzsche to understand the notion of catharsis, and sublimation. Other philosophers like Zapffe, Freud, have gone over this, and less manically and less self-importantly in their writing styles.

So, if you want to understand master morality, look at Hip Hop as a case study. There are insights that can be utilized to gain power with the masses: but the biggest truth to me is that the masses are waking up from their thousands of years within their labyrinthine slumber to cherish the concepts of the ancient world, the concepts Nietzsche brought back into the light. — Vaskane

I don't know, this actually seems to be a picture of the alt-right ideas that laid out:

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. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That depends on how you define that person's identity. I agree that, given that I have brown eyes, it is not now possible for me to have blue eyes. But I might have developed blue eyes at some point in the past and if that had happened, it would not now be possible for me to have had brown eyes. You are suppressing the antecedent in Kripke's proof. — Ludwig V

Then you aren’t getting me because you’re focused on the genetics and not the causal history part which is uniquely an event that is tied to the person. No that other set of gametes won’t do. This one only does. Otherwise, no you.

My remark about recognising the limitations of the model is based on two issues. First, all this simply assumes that we can count a causal process as a cognitive or symbolic activity. But there's an issue about whether this is legitimate. Second, the example is fascinating because it simply ignores the so-called "hard problem". — Ludwig V

:up: This falls right into another thread I made about how people often (unintentionally) assert mental states in the equation when trying to account for physical states, mix and matching them, without explaining how one is the other. You rightly pointed out that fallacy here, something akin to a homunculus fallacy.

What you don't seem to recognize is that whether any slight change means that the causal-historical events cannot result in me existing is a decision taken by you. If you check the detail, you will find that differences in the 98% of our DNA that is, as they say politely, non-coding, will make no difference to the outcome. Which other changes make a difference is something we have to assess on a case-by-case basis - brown eyes rather than blue eyes are unlikely to count. — Ludwig V

It's not a decision "made by me", or so I am theorizing. Rather, causal-history is essential to that identity, because it is necessary. Any other causal-history is someone else. Even twins or clones are someone else, as I am not asserting only gametes as the necessary component. However, it is the physical substantiation of the causal-historical event. It isn't all some empty case of causality. It is a causal-historical event of something (the substance of the set of two gametes in this instance).

I don't understand you at all. Before conception, there were many possibilities of many conceptions, some of which would have resulted in someone much like me. So what you say here is simply false. — Ludwig V

Then let me clarify. This determination can only happen in hindsight. That is to say, whatever the "present you" that is looking back now, that is the person in question. Prior to conception, any outcome that led to another set of gametes would not have been you. The actualized you right now, had to come from this set of gametes and no other, otherwise, you don't exist, or that isn't you, or whatever the valid way to phrase that is.

I don't see a problem in saying that I might have been born with fair hair and blue eyes. If I had been, it would have been because of a variation in my DNA. Other possibilities would be more problematic. — Ludwig V

Now, I think this is just false. Whatever sperm or egg was fertilized, that conception could not have led to the person presently looking back on their life.

The pragmatist theory of truth is about practical consequences based on their success in solving a problem, and thus is an argument for pluralism for methods that lead to an outcome. As far as I see, it has nothing to do with what outcome is deemed as successful. If we are going for someone not suffering in the future, that would be antinatalism.

If a belief leads to a groups' extinction while its opposite leads to its survival, the belief would be false. — Lionino

How is that about truth or falsity?

Right, that is why I said can be rejected, just like you said can be supported. — Lionino

Ok

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.

Right, but even then, under evolutionary truth, antinatalism turns out to be false, even if there are no humans around anymore — especially when there are not more humans around. The truth value of something does not depend on whether there is someone there to state it. — Lionino

What makes it “truth”? It seems a category error to apply “truth” to a process. You haven’t explained how this term is meant to be used in this context. It seems like a misuse.

Of course, but I will not pretend that the moral argument works either. Antinatalism can be rejected by default in frameworks such as virtue ethics and deontology, as well as ethical egotism. Being that AN works under the premise that suffering outweights joy in life, it could also be rejected within consequentialism, as most people would reject that premise. — Lionino

This is all false. Antinatalism can be supported in almost any normative theory, including deontology.

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.

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.

My point was more of, if we accept that truth is determined by the universally held views of the surviving group, antinatalism will soon enough become false, and it will do so every time, as the holders of that view will eventually extinguish themselves. — Lionino

Ok, so you are trying to pose a hypothetical scenario and treat it like a "meme" that gets phased out. But the problem is the same as the naturalistic fallacy as applied to humans.. Humans are so plastic that it is possible that humans have the ability to refrain from procreation and discontinue humans for ethical reasons, like suffering (that those future humans might face if born). Humans are not if/then enough to count out those possibilities. Granted, the likelihood is low, that is not due to some fixed law, simply people's preferences which rather than fixed by physical or innate mechanisms, are largely social, personal, and existential depending on how you look at it.

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.

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.

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!