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This also skips on how his sister edited his yet-unpublished works after his death, to include her German ultranationalist and antisemitic views, while he was opposed to them.
A kinda similar situation to that of Kafka, wherein Max Brod, who was supposed to burn all of Kafka’s manuscripts, instead e.g. rearranged the chapters of ‘The Trial’ for no good reason, such that it probably reads way more surrealistically. I’ve recently listened to some kinda restored edition that attempts to put back the intended order, and while it’s still a mess at times, the happenings are pretty understandable.
“That’s Cute.” -Machiavelli
Ooh. Very stigmatized ethos surrounding that one. Guess I need to find out what the heck happened there
To a few philosophers, particularly the hardcore rationalists, Nietzsche’s struggle for self-ownership as meaning was, in modern terms, a truckload of copium
I can see the argument for that. It kind of fits the narrative of
“slave morality”. Can I read these philosophers statements? I kind of want to know what they’re aboutEdit: completely misspoke. Don’t know wtf I was talking about there
On the rationalist hub per excellence, LessWrong: lesswrong.com/posts/NxYgL5nPMT…
Criticism of Nietzsche has been out there for a good while. Bertrand Russell, for example, wasn’t a fan of Nietzsche, calling his ideology “an appeal to the emotions”: reddit.com/r/Nietzsche/comment…
Calling Nietzsche’s philosophy “irrationalist” is still a common trend: monthlyreview.org/articles/on-…
Even Marxists hammer on Nietzsche’s hardcore individualism: queer-bolshevik.medium.com/a-c…
Just quick short thoughts before I continue reading because I really thought these are immediately striking without further dissection:
Philosophy aside, the comment on LessWrong that said “Nietzsche is a great source of aphorisms, and may be able to trigger some Deep Thoughts in readers, but a lot of his writing seems more like a sort of performance art to me. At least on a superficial level, he’s much easier to read than Kant or Hegel, but that also means he does not even try to argue his point in a rigorous way”. Spot on, this is like the main barrier to his books. I see this as the first problem you’ll encounter before getting to how fascists twisted his words into justifications for doing fuck-all
Then, I REALLY like this Monthly Review article. This passage pointed out a perspective of the problem initially sounding like a misread about how “this is just doing barbarism but with extra steps” but actually pretty accurately describes how greater powers in the world will take almost anything we try to do and turn it into barbarism: The liberalization and deregulation of the most intimate sphere of the person will completely achieve the fetishism of the commodity. And the sole revolt which will from here on be permitted to the Nietzschean by power, when an irreducible part of his disarmed consciousness has, through misunderstanding, fomented some insurrection, will be total annihilation, bestiality towards the other animal which his masters will have brought into the neighbouring cage.
I still need to finish it and get to the Marxist critique but thank you for this
Philosophy aside, the comment on LessWrong that said “Nietzsche is a great source of aphorisms, and may be able to trigger some Deep Thoughts in readers, but a lot of his writing seems more like a sort of performance art to me. At least on a superficial level, he’s much easier to read than Kant or Hegel, but that also means he does not even try to argue his point in a rigorous way”.
Meh. If rigor were the path to the truth, wouldn’t we have the found the One True Philosophy? At the end of the day, all that matters is if the philosophy vibes with you, which you can discover just as well from a comic book version of the philosophy as painstakingly deriving every point.
I think thinking you’re using your rational mind to determine the capital-T Truth is delusional.
Yeah not so much that. It was kind of refreshing to read something where the author gives up on trying to preempt arguments against him early in the process of creating his work (exhausting, boring, and as time goes on inevitably futile).
I meant more that the prose is full of self-certain trueisms and has that superficiality to it. It doesn’t discount his points to me either, I’m often a vibes person myself. But it offloads a lot of the cognitive work of basically finishing his philosophy onto you as you’re reading it. I think that’s probably the deeper cause of most other problems people have with his philosophy, like how bad actors took and used it for nefarious shit. But, he was a lonely guy in a lot of pain who took to writing to manage it so that’s par for the course.
For all the good it does you. The public will ruthlessly interpret your work however it wants; look at Broicism (neé Stoicism) or Christianity.
Ooh, I have some opinions about Christianity’s potential to be used by bad actors. Honestly I feel pretty similar about it as I do Nietzsche but more like the architecture for doing evil has always been latent in the ideology for as long as it has existed sperate from Judaic and Gnostic faith.
I definitely would like to hear more about how exactly Broicism diverges from Stoicism though, if you have the time. You’re the first person I’ve heard say that it’s different.
The fact that I know about LessWrong because of Behind the Bastards should say a whole lot about how “moral” their “rationalism” really neither of those things and personally I feel like their thought predecessors would be pretty embarrassed by them
Yeah, rationalism has been twisted into individualism with a lot more steps. If they were truly rational (as in, considering our current knowledge of astrophysics and biology, the heat death of the universe and the origins of survival instinct), they would have probably ended up noticing that attempting to make things better for hypothetical future people is equally as worth(less) as making things better for the people of now - both are merely postponing the unavoidable.
It sounds completely irrational to seriously consider the heat death’s impact on anything when nothing will be alive to experience it, if you ask me
Hadn’t noticed the reply until today, but the point is that the heat death of the universe makes all actions be effectively inconsequential in the long run - in a final state where nothing is able to suffer the consequences of our past actions or even remember them, the only thing in our control is how fast do we arrive there.
First time? - Epicuros
hedonistic meaningless living
As if a life embedded in asceticism was supposed to be any more meaningful
Nietzsche was explicitly, spitefully against asceticism. On the Genealogy of Morals is largely about how church clerics valorized ascetic lifestyle in order to trick the masses into always striving to be better, to settle for less, to doubt and be suspicious of joy – when actually the church has explicitly created two moralities because the rich, powerful, and aristocratic were not expected to (and Nietzsche was not in favor of) living ascetic lives.
The whole point of this meme is that Nietzsche was a life-affirming philosopher. He absolutely did not advocate for an ascetic lifestyle because he believed the joy was the highest pursuit of human life.
Now, if you find this contradictory, well Nietzsche is an extremely contrary and frustrating writer. His writing is beautiful and prosaic, but he’s endlessly skeptical In one line he is saying something so profound and affirming, and the next line ascerbic and devastating. He flatters you, makes an airtight case for the flattery, then rips it to shreds; then he rips that to shreds and he is back to flattery. I’m sort of unconvinced that he even is a philosopher, but I love his writing and prose. He was the master of suspicion.
Right! I’m glad to see someone thinking critically about what hedonism to fundamentslly means, rather than relying on the more pejorative usage of the term.
I realised once that, even tho I was a drug free tee totaller who didn’t party or have sex much, I was still a hedonistic at that time because I played videogames as much as possible.
What would be considered hedonistic back then? Talking a walk in the woods and climbing mountains for pleasure?
Unironically, yes maybe. If it is seen as avoiding your responsibilities, and doesn’t contribute to some area of society (but rather sees-to the “worship” of you yourself) then it is hedonistic
Edit: other guy said it better than me
Having kids (one of whom is special needs) plucked me out of the nihilism well that I was drowning in. I’m so thankful for them. Now, I don’t even have time to think or contemplate life. lol
Nihilists can have, and love and care for, children.
It’s all about making your own meaning, and I imagine having kids is one way a lot of people do that.
If you accept that caring for the wellbeing of your kids is inherently meaningful then you must also accept there is meaning inherent in taking care of your own self :3
only while the kids exist as you forced them into existence thereby incurring the responsibility
for a thought experiment, imagine you could see your entire life and decide to be born or not based in your mind at the point of death
what would be the point of living a ‘bad’ life?
I would personally have chosen No, and it’s a big reason why I’m not going to have a kid. Very grateful that my wife agrees
I’m sure they’ll be grateful for their chance to pick between being a soldier in the Water Wars, or maybe getting lucky enough to find a human job that pays in food and living accommodations.
Sorry to be that nihilist but I am so grateful for finding a partner that agrees that reproduction is wildly irresponsible to both the world, and that future being who you KNOW and cannot deny that existence will likely be worse for in basically the first time in human existence outside of the world wars and the Black Death.
If I were forced to switch places with a child today I would be pretty upset about the future I had been subject too. But they’re just so cute right? And all my friends are having them too!
Downvote away!
What you’re saying sounds more like doomerism to me than it is nihilism. It’ll get better. Hang in there ❤️
You’re the absolute worst and completely useless. Fuck off with your bullshit opinions and grow the fuck up.
Could you maybe put some effort into your response, explaining why you so strongly disagree with an opinion I’ve developed over a pretty long time? Because you’re the one that looks childish responding so emotionally
Oh ouch, my underdeveloped feelings
I always found his frantic fear of nihilism to be a little adolescent, like “how could humanity possibly survive the death of God? How will we live a life without inherent existential or moral purpose?” You just do, Freddy.
You just do, Freddy.
A lot of people don’t.
There’s a whole superstructure to religion - culture, ethics, public infrastructure, social networks, financial networks, a common history and language - that you need to supplement as you dispose of the older system.
What the European socialists discovered at the turn of the 20th century was that you can’t just burn down all the churches and start over from scratch. Anarchism without some new common social foundation just ends in civil war and foreign occupation.
Subsequent generations still need a scaffolding to cling to as they mature. And if that scaffold isn’t rooted in some new existential or moral foundation (or if it’s rooted in a rotten one) you end up with ultra-nationalism, or Victorian mysticism, or whatever paint Ayn Rand was huffing.
And yet in almost every one of those examples the problem was people sticking to the existing religions and culture being too terrified to let go or incapable of accepting that others have moved on.
the problem was people sticking to the existing religions
“The problem with religion is that people won’t stop being religious” is circular and thought-terminating
culture being too terrified to let go or incapable of accepting that others have moved on
How do you sooth public anxieties at a national level?
How do you foster egalitarian social habits?
Seems like you’d need some kind of broad social project or moral imperitive for a nation’s worth of people to align with.
Teenagers are dumb.
