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…
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.
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.
I think all monotheisms are toxic; not sure how you think Christianity and Judaism are different, architecturally speaking. It just cracks me up that Jesus explicitly talks about all the ways religion is misused (Good Samaritan, Pharisees, etc.), he lays it out and black and white, and it just gets ignored. Not to mention how its used to support hierarchy when smashing hierarchy is absolutely in the text; but it’s complicated because the appropriation of Jesus was well underway when the bible was decided on. I think if Jesus was able to self-publish his memoirs, Christianity would never have gotten off the ground.
Sweeeet, I’ve been curious about this since my first assumption has always been that “Bros” just were doing Stoicism in its best possible interpretation. Maybe I’m too critical of it and not of them.
That’s valid and a pretty widely agreed on belief. I tend to make a few more concessions for Hebrew and Catholicism because they have controls and political structures for negating barbarism built in to their scriptures, even if those controls have failed in both past and recent history.
The difference with Christianity from those is you’re given leave by the text to engage selectively and do post-modern interpretations of what Jesus wants or the personal cost of not living up to his expectations. Like it’s not that he’s being ignored, it’s that his sacrifice canceled any price I have to pay for my actions in this life. You’re right, though. The person Christ was pretty different from the faith that inherited his name, they probably wouldn’t have had much to do with eachother if he had a choice in the matter. Mainly because he was a Jew and that’s not compatible with how Christians want to believe he was.
I’m not sure what concessions Catholicism has. It built itself into a major political player and was the spiritual foundation of the feudal system and king’s right to rule… and this for over a thousand years.
The Catholic Church was aware there was stuff in the bible that wouldn’t go in its favor, which is why they killed anyone who tried to translate it into a popular language… At the same time, all these priests and bishops and cardinals and popes COULD read it, and they consistently chose to support their own power. Very human, that, craving power above all else.
One defining weirdness of Christianity is the emphasis is puts on FAITH, on protestations of belief. I don’t think even Judaism cares that much about it.
But the religious situation around Jesus’ time was absolutely WILD. I’d start with The Life of Brian, but then read about the Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (there are probably better books by now). There were cults springing up all over the place, each with their own vibe-coded stories that were ChatGPTd from prevailing culture. I think thinking of “Judaism” as an unitary religion/culture is a bit of anachronism.
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.
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.
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
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 term “broicism” is implicitly a critique. I don’t know much about the stoics, but I understand it has a bit more emotional complexity where as broicism is just machistic indifference repackaged. Here’s one article: https://www.trillmag.com/culture/broicism-the-manospheres-obsession-with-stoicism/
I think all monotheisms are toxic; not sure how you think Christianity and Judaism are different, architecturally speaking. It just cracks me up that Jesus explicitly talks about all the ways religion is misused (Good Samaritan, Pharisees, etc.), he lays it out and black and white, and it just gets ignored. Not to mention how its used to support hierarchy when smashing hierarchy is absolutely in the text; but it’s complicated because the appropriation of Jesus was well underway when the bible was decided on. I think if Jesus was able to self-publish his memoirs, Christianity would never have gotten off the ground.
Sweeeet, I’ve been curious about this since my first assumption has always been that “Bros” just were doing Stoicism in its best possible interpretation. Maybe I’m too critical of it and not of them.
That’s valid and a pretty widely agreed on belief. I tend to make a few more concessions for Hebrew and Catholicism because they have controls and political structures for negating barbarism built in to their scriptures, even if those controls have failed in both past and recent history.
The difference with Christianity from those is you’re given leave by the text to engage selectively and do post-modern interpretations of what Jesus wants or the personal cost of not living up to his expectations. Like it’s not that he’s being ignored, it’s that his sacrifice canceled any price I have to pay for my actions in this life. You’re right, though. The person Christ was pretty different from the faith that inherited his name, they probably wouldn’t have had much to do with eachother if he had a choice in the matter. Mainly because he was a Jew and that’s not compatible with how Christians want to believe he was.
I’m not sure what concessions Catholicism has. It built itself into a major political player and was the spiritual foundation of the feudal system and king’s right to rule… and this for over a thousand years.
The Catholic Church was aware there was stuff in the bible that wouldn’t go in its favor, which is why they killed anyone who tried to translate it into a popular language… At the same time, all these priests and bishops and cardinals and popes COULD read it, and they consistently chose to support their own power. Very human, that, craving power above all else.
One defining weirdness of Christianity is the emphasis is puts on FAITH, on protestations of belief. I don’t think even Judaism cares that much about it.
But the religious situation around Jesus’ time was absolutely WILD. I’d start with The Life of Brian, but then read about the Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (there are probably better books by now). There were cults springing up all over the place, each with their own vibe-coded stories that were ChatGPTd from prevailing culture. I think thinking of “Judaism” as an unitary religion/culture is a bit of anachronism.
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.