Yea… or like any groupie and his boy band. But your analogy isn’t even appropriate, if you’re already reading like a burglar, picking and choosing what you will and won’t take. (“The worst readers are those who behave like plundering soldiers: they take away a few things they can use, soil and jumble what remains, and slander the whole”).
To the contrary, Mo: I take away a few things I can’t use, etc.
25 or 30 years ago, I read a lot of Nietzsche, a lot. I kept at it
for about ten years. I still remember most of it, but what happens is you
don’t give up Nietzsche, he becomes less relevant, far less relevant.
He sounds really profound and shit at 20 or 25 but at 50, not so much.
at 20, you think yourself to be the ubermensch and much later, you
realise you aren’t and that is ok. Nietzsche thought his idea of
eternal recurrence really means something and was his most important
idea and it isn’t. Age has a tendency to make most philosophers
thought seem far less important.
Kropotkin
Peter, if you think the Eternal Recurrence was Nietzsche’s most important idea then you’ve really missed a lot.
It’s just an easy concept to cover in philosophy class because it has a catchy name, it only has a limited amount of information on it - leaving a lot to the imagination, and it is an obvious example of existential ethics.
The extent to which Nietzsche understood the consequences of Existentialism is what keeps me interested “beyond 25”. His particular route is in many ways insignficant, with all his Ubermensch and Higher Man stuff. It’s the larger concepts that underlie these details that really bring things like Modernism and Essentialism to their knees. And things like that are really important. Value precedes truth, for example.
Sure, look at the vast majority of Nietzsche fanboys, and you certainly weren’t alone if you thought you were the Ubermensch after reading him. But if that and the ER were all you had to take from him then of course he would have become less relevant with age and wisdom…
Don’t worry, everybody, I am the first who has made reading Nietzsche possible. My discovery of K F Vollgraff will throw philosophy in a new dimension. If it’s not too late already.
Yes? You must be working in science then. Cool.
To most people, it is absolutely futile to know any scientific laws or systems.
I am a philosopher. This means that I need to know a bit about exact science as well as about psychology. Nietzsche is the most thorough psychologist to date.
If you are not interested in the human psyche, Nietzsche is just fucking useless. I agree, dump him.
Yay, it’s Jesus.
Before, when I opened a Nietzsche book I was mysteriously unable to read him. Now that “K F Vollgraff” (whatever that is) has been discovered, salvation awaits.
Fingers crucified that today’s date is not greater than 0 T.L. (Too Late).
That’s not what he said. He said Nietzsche thought the eternal recurrence was his most important idea. And in fact, he has some reason to think so, as Nietzsche called the eternal recurrence “the fundamental conception” of Thus Spake Zarathustra (in the first section of the chapter on that book in Ecce Homo) and said that that book stood by itself among his writings (in the fourth section of the Preface to EH). The fundamental conception of the book that stands by itself among his writings.
In the ninth aphorism of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche defined philosophy as the “tyrannical drive” to create “the world in its image”, “the most spiritual will to power, to ‘creation of the world’, to the causa prima.” In this sense, Nietzsche’s philosophy is the philosophy of the eternal recurrence of the world as will to power and nothing besides.
its not about recognizing 30 letters
This conclusion is logically fallacious.
A critical, seminal thought experiment of Existentialism that felt like it played a signficant part in leading to the creation of the most (but not the only) important book (according to him) does not amount to his philosophy being exhaustively defined only in terms of this thought experiment (combined with another famous concept, which also happens to have a catchy name). He regarded TSZ as his most important book, but more went into it than ER.
Will to power is a lot more fundamental to his philosophy, though I object to the absolutist phrasing of the closing words of that suspicious book that bears the name of the concept, in light of the rest of his philosophy… for example:
You reference the closing words of aphorism 9 in the first chapter of Beyond Good and Evil, but that very same chapter covers a pretty damning criticism of willing, whether it be “will” (as in will to power) as though “it” were the subject (BG&E 17) or even “I will” (BG&E 16) - in light of the immediate causation that this implies, of giving light to noumenal “truth”. He closes that aphorism with “but why do you want the truth at all?”
How is that remotely compatible with his truth “This world is the will to power–and nothing besides!”… ?
If that is what he is saying then what he is saying is irrelevant, since we’re talking about other people’s “giving up Nietzsche”, not Nietzsche’s own opinions about his own works.
Perhaps such an interpretation betrays your own dependence on what you know about Nietzsche’s own opinions, in order to derive your own opinions? Have you really “given up Nietzsche”?
… not that anyone has yet commented on my previous obvious question about what is meant by “giving up” …
For all we know, Peter does the same - he follows his opinion about Nietzsche with Nietzsche’s opinion without distinction, also suggesting the former were dependent on the latter.
Nietzsche was not an existentialist. Existentialism and pomo etc. can be traced back in great part to misinterpretations of Nietzsche, especially by Heidegger. Anyway, the reason Nietzsche’s philosophy in that sense is what I said it was is that the doctrine of the will to power is not in itself an expression of a will to power (“the most spiritual will to power”). Only willing, i.e. persuading or convincing oneself of, the actuality of the eternal recurrence—and not a mere experiment with the thought of it, either—makes it such an expression.
“Conviction as a means: there is much that one achieves only by means of a conviction.” (Nietzsche, AC 54.)
“[I]n ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing.” (Blake, MHH Plate 12.)
Yes, the will to power is Nietzsche’s archê, like Heraclitus’ fire…
“But who feels pleasure?— But who wants power?— Absurd question, if the essence itself is power-will and consequently feelings of pleasure and displeasure!” (WP 693, Kaufmann ed.)
As soon as Nietzsche’s opinions are irrelevant to you, haven’t you already given him up?
I never said I’d given up Nietzsche; I said I’d given up a part of him, and in that sense his philosophy as a whole. I am, however, one of Nietzsche’s best readers: taking away a few things I cannot use, polishing and ordering what remains, and exalting the whole!
I am one of those that do not readily understand what is exactly meant by “giving up”. It seems something like «what does it takes in order to consider that he’s just ‘another philosopher’, without ascribing a critical importance to his views», or so I interpret your «Where you always talk about Nietzsche, but, you know, it’s clear that you have given him up». (I do not really understand the “circle jerking” sentence either, but whatever that might be, I believe it’s about posters and not about Nietzsche himself).
Now, the good news is that, in a way, Nietzsche said “to give him up”, more than once.
You maybe never implied this, but, to be sure, by no means Nietzsche ever required the cult of his person.
Nietzsche is forced to put his person (which for Nietszche is tantamount to say his fate) in the foreground, because his bodily person is the source of his philosophy.
(The quote is not thoroughly faithful to the original – by omission – but that serves my point and I think that this leisure can be accepted in this context, thou in a broader view I could be rightfully accused of forgery).
There are many reasons why he thinks so, it is a belief connected with the major tenets of his philosophy. Within this context, and just to privilege one of the many reasons for this position, Nietzsche interpreted himself as the soul and the body who most thoroughly experienced the disease of decadence, and who emerged triumphant on it, the man in which will-to-power overcame Nihilism, redeemed the world, affirmed life against back-worlds. (As he was declared insane not long after writing what is in the quote above, one may have comprehensible doubts…). Be as it might, Nietzsche thought that the Überwindung (the overcoming) could not be philosophically severed from his person - from his mind and body, if that helps to understand better.
Yet Nietzsche wanted the reader to focus on his philosophy, not on himself. References to himself, including notably his philosophical autobiography Ecce Homo, are to be understood as the provision of elements required in order to understand his philosophy. From this angle – even if that may sound paradoxical – Nietzsche is shy about himself.
So, why most people always focus on the man and not on his philosophy?
Well, the man is a seducer and an excellent company for sure – it’s difficult to pull away from his spell.
(and see also BGE 295).
Trying to be more specific, my guess is that too many people start with the Zarathustra and too soon. It is puzzling – or, unfortunately, it is not puzzling at all – how TSZ has become a book for teenagers, pretty much like Les fleurs du mal, while they should be read by people who have lived a little longer – and a little more. The preaching of Zarathustra - and his style - is indeed a serious faux pas to start with Nietzsche’s works (as bad as starting by reading unpublished works such as On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense). That is «a book for all and none», yet most people seem oblivious about that (and probably think that it is just a cool caption). Nietzsche has warned many times that it is a very special book requiring a very long time – and I mean many generations - for its disclosure, yet, from the most gifted scholar to the less gifted forum poster, all claim to have the key for it… (I guess that Nietzsche himself started soon to be worried about the wildest interpretations around this book and has profused several interventions in later books trying to prevent extravagant readings).
(One should pay attention to the concept of “raising” here).
So while the Z. was a book for eternity, for all time – and not to be read “too fast, too soon” - Nietzsche started his recruiting campaign by Beyond good and evil.
Here again, one should focus on the “strength” and “school for gentlemen”.
Nietzsche chooses his readers, selects them, breed them.
That is just consistent with his position about why his philosophy can’t be severed from his person – and yet it is about his philosophy that he cares most (because that is his victorious will-to-power). So, only natures capable of enduring the same truths can fully enter his philosophy. By the same token, it is quite clear that this “peer”, this chosen reader, is the man always capable “to give him up”. Nevertheless – again - it is not a matter of understanding.
Nor it is a matter of choice. It’s not up to the reader to chose when he could “give him up”… There is no possibility, it happens as it has to happen – necessity at work.
Silhouette: Peter, if you think the Eternal Recurrence was Nietzsche’s most important idea then you’ve really missed a lot.
It’s just an easy concept to cover in philosophy class because it has a catchy name, it only has a limited amount of information on it - leaving a lot to the imagination, and it is an obvious example of existential ethics.
K: please read what I said, N. said it was his most important idea, not me.
and Kaufman brings this point up also.
S: The extent to which Nietzsche understood the consequences of Existentialism is what keeps me interested “beyond 25”. His particular route is in many ways insignficant, with all his Ubermensch and Higher Man stuff. It’s the larger concepts that underlie these details that really bring things like Modernism and Essentialism to their knees. And things like that are really important. Value precedes truth, for example.
K: Which “larger” concepts do you refer to?"
S: Sure, look at the vast majority of Nietzsche fanboys, and you certainly weren’t alone if you thought you were the Ubermensch after reading him. But if that and the ER were all you had to take from him then of course he would have become less relevant with age and wisdom…
K: I took plenty from him, however as I age it becomes less important and other idea’s become more
important. His revaluation of values and his quote: A popular misconception: to have the strength to
have your values, when It is a greater strenght t have an attatck on your values. to paraphase as I don’t recall
the exact quote.
Kropotkin
I think Nietzsche would say “Why the fuck are you even asking?”
One can never learn Nietzsche by following Nietzsche like a disciple. One must take in Nietzsche and let him sink into one’s soul, let him become infused into not only one’s thinking but one’s way of life. Only then will one have grasped the spirit of Nietzsche. One then understands that there is no giving up Nietzsche for one never followed Nietzsche to begin with–one united with him…
Okay, let me take this down a notch: all I mean to say is that if you like the guy (Nietzsche) and you’ve been inspired and enlightened by his teachings, great, but still, be yourself man, don’t make life into a constant question: WWND (What Would Nietzsche do?). If you want to be guided by Nietzsche and his wisdom, just be inspired by him on the occasions when you read him, and let that sink into the background of your mind where it will work its magic. You don’t have to be constantly thinking (and worrying) about it. If you’ve been inspired, good enough. That will remain within you, somewhere in the bowels of your unconscious, and always, to some degree, informing your every thought, decision, and move (well, okay, maybe not every thought, decision, and move, but it will act as a sort of fuzzy and ambient quiet force even when you’re not thinking of it). If you let that happen, there will never be a need to ask when to quit Nietzsche.
Atanno (great post), others,
I think what I am trying to say is this: Can one appropriate Fitz into their life such that they can reference his ideas better/more succinctly than pointing to the passage? Or is a philosophy so intractably tied to free will so complex that it’s impossible to really summarize better than what he managed to do?
Maybe I am out to lunch here, but there is the sense in which some philosophers ‘say it first’ and some ‘say it right.’ This thread isn’t so much about Nietzsche so much as appropriating and being able to talk about philosophy (in present day.) But with regards to Nietzche, he is hard to ‘sum up’ without using Nietzche to do it. Is this just me who experiences that? I know Sauwalious can feel me on this one.
When talking about, say, Heidegger, you are getting into such abstraction you need to very precise in what you say - but it’s not reeeally the same. It’s like it’s a different kind of complicated. Did Nietzche say it right? is Thus Spoke a stand alone artifact that demonstrates some sort of truth in a way that cannot be improved upon?
Quite the statement. I know. But stay with me for one more paragraph.
Anyone here know Gurdieff? His take on art is interesting. He says “true” art is instantly recognizable by anyone. There is no subjectivity at all. But, also, there is also hardly any true art at all so that’s why our artistic endeavors seem subjective. I think the Sphinx or something was the only thing that he named. Now, this line of thinking is interesting. This “jigsaw puzzle” thinking as I like to call it. That is, consider art/philosophy to be jigsaw puzzle game. You can arrange the pieces and have them sort of overlap—you can cheat, essentially—and still see the picture fairly well. Or you can do the puzzle correctly so that there is no ambiguity where each piece should go. It’s “locked in”, and it’s novelty cannot change.
Be it sculptures or in-text, this comes very close to presupposing some sort of an a-priori Plato thing, but I don’t think that it has to. But this is what I am saying:
Is the ‘strength’ or public reception (to re-hash) a philosophical idea related (fully or partially) to the author’s ability to come as close as possible, or perhaps to arrive, at the idea as it exists ‘in thought’? ‘In thought’ sounds of kind vague, but that is the best I can come up with. “Not written down yet.”
If the above is true, it may account for the tendency to over-quote Fritz. I mean let’s be honest here: it’s not because we’re trying to be cool. It’s the nature of Nietzsche. He was a writer as much as he was a philosopher, and I think that speaks to something beyond “Oh, this just reads really well.”
Getting back to the ‘say it first,’ ‘say it best’ thing: if you have the insight to even spot an undisturbed philosophical patch of grass to formulate new thought on, then you’re going to be pretty good at saying what you want to say. But maybe all the factors can come together (in Nietzsche’s case, with his sickness, the pain, and all of the bad luck) to create a mind that was so able to articulate his truth, that it became what Gurgieff might admit into his classification of “pure art.”
Anyone still with me?
Go ahead, give up Nietzsche. So what? He’s not the end all know all. He’s not who you’re supposed to follow. He’s not your master.
I always thought of Nietzsche as something that you’re supposed to be done with by sophomore year. I swear I’m not trying to be a dick, but when people hear that, and they tell me that I must not understand him, I just nod my head I don’t know what to say. If you’re all caught up in him and you think he’s the greatest shit since sliced bread, you either need more exposure to other philosopher, or you have a poor aptitude for philosophy. People need to get out of all this how to live life, how should I feel, how should I be, what is it to be kind of shit and start studying how the world actually is, as opposed to reading a shit ton of commentary on how it ought to be or how it is in the fantasies of so many old philosophers.
Sure. If your only obligation toward philosophy was a class in your sophomore year.
Pretty good indication, innit?
So what you’re saying is that people need to stop ethics, and do science? I’m just clarifying… your beef is not so much with Nietzsche, it’s with philosophy more generally…
You know this is “ilovephilosophy” .com, right?
Von, my only obligation to Nietzsche, not to philosophy. Work on your comprehension buddy.
The second part, just shut up man. Read it again and try and understand.
Ethics based on feelings and goals and self made ideals are not as good as ethics that are structured and consistent and executed in a methodological way.
Yes. But of what kind of thing is a man convinced, when his conviction gives him the capacity to move mountains?
It is always twofold: the existence of a supreme value, and his own right to it.
He is convinced of a certain value which he may attain (in which glory he may partake), and then there is a thought that leads to the conviction that this value exists - an explanation.
Nothing about the explanation does not matter in the slightest, except that it can be believed.
Who can believe what? Religions are “meant” for certain types. Perhaps if one is born in the desert, there simply isn’t any sense in trying to glorify anything except a merciful void. If one is born in a splendorous house in a rich family living in the most scenic and nourishing part of the world, the Gods to adore would be family Gods. Thus the masses and the wealthy are forcibly divided by their own self-glorification as the masses and the wealthy.
The supreme value in Nietzsche’s case was the entire universe in all of time. He had as much love for the mechanisms that causes his suffering as the ones causing beauty of everything else, as he saw no difference between them. Nietzsche’s temperament is the the exact antithesis of Christ, whereby the antithesis of life itself is recognized as having ruled since the final death of the Roman republic.
What is falling down now is the Christian republic-turned-empire. A new Rome is not yet possible - the lands are too barren, Rome arose out of the splendor of an Italy unblemished by, in a word, plastic. So we enter a time where “giving up Nietzsche” is not really possible anymore - all beliefs will come to be harmonized with the affirmation of the will to power. There is no method to hide it anymore. Or: the will to power is too evident in the methods of hiding that will. At the very end of such a process stands an Achilles.