Sam Vaknin is a very interesting psychological writer who connects these two concepts. Here is a sample of one of his writings connecting the two in the form of an e-mail response.
samvak.tripod.com/superman.html
What do you think of the connection? Are Nietzsche’s writings advocating narcissism? Is Nietzsche a narcissist? Do his writings at least breed narcissism in readers?
I don’t have time to read the article now, but the first thing that comes to mind when I read this thread is that for Nietzsche there is only narcissism. This is not necessarily to say that he is advocating it, but that humans are necessarily so. Meaning, the moralists are deluding themselves if they think altruism is obtainable, humans are such that narcissism is the only possibility.
But Nietzshce is also ‘advocating narcissism’ if you posit that by ‘degrading altruism’, one is in effect, ‘advocating naricissism’, as Nietzsche routinely labels anyone with altruistic thoughts as decadents and goes as far as labelling Herbert Spencer a decadent for seeing some value in altruism. From what I’ve read, Nietzsche doesn’t seem to label selfishness and egoism as the only possibility, but as the desirable and preferred possibility.
I don’t think Nietzsche is arguing against altruism on strictly moral grounds, he is arguing against it because it is hypocrisy and intellectually dishonest. The importance is not altruism as such, but what underlying drives lead someone to believe in altruism. Given that a human is not capable of altruism, to advocate it, is to lie to yourself and others. The question is, why do you have to lie? Is it because the ugly truth of your humanity is too much for you to bare?
Consider the way he conceives of ressentiment developing, the two are intimately connected in his writings.
“Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt thou also be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to thine own beauty.
Then will thy soul thrill with divine desires; and there will be adoration even in thy vanity!”
[Thus Spake Zarathustra, Of the Sublime Ones.]
Nietzche wrote something to the effect that once man conceived of the idea of a god, thei idea of not becoming one becomes intolerable.
Revaluation of all values would strive to find a way through a nihilism that would have us believe that this could not be true.
To concieve of man as nothing but an ape would be to be overcome by the nihilism. To walk backward, crablike, to a value system that is no longer believed contradicts the truth, and this too is succumbing to the nihilism of illusion.
It is indeed narcissistic to create a value system that would allow man the possibility of becoming a god.
But given man’s nature is to will oneself as a god, this is the only purpose that a revaluation of all values could possibly serve.
Ah, Sauwelios’s quotes always explain everything to me, just requires a bit of brainpower, but you basically put it all out on paper. Thanks.
I will say this. Anyone who writes a couple of tracts entitled “Why I am So Wise” and “Why I am So Clever” plainly has too much self-regard for their own good. Now don’t get me wrong, Nietzsche was brilliant, but he said that he didn’t “believe in himself”, which indicates knowledge of and admission of major character issues.