My rank name change. Or: the pride of a Nietzschean.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

For years, I have had the automatic rank of ‘Philosopher’ under my name here on ILP—until yesterday, when I requested a different one. The automatic one appealed to my vanity; the new one hurts it, but at the same time appeals to my pride. This appeal was formulated by Nietzsche:

[size=95]What a philosopher is, is hard to learn, because it cannot be taught: one has to “know” it from experience—or one ought to be sufficiently proud not to know it.
[BGE 213.][/size]

Formerly, it was my artist’s pride—but also my artist’s unreasonability—that made me think I ‘knew’ it from experience. For in the same passage, Nietzsche also describes the artist’s experience:

[size=95]Artists may here have a more subtle scent [than most thinkers and scholars]: they know only too well that it is precisely when they cease to act “voluntarily” and do everything of necessity that their feeling of freedom, subtlety, fullness of power, creative placing, disposing, shaping reaches its height—in short, that necessity and “freedom of will” are then one in them.
[ibid.][/size]

As an artist, in the narrow sense (a songwriter, or “lyric poet” as I like to call it), I know this experience from my moments of ‘inspiration’—which were few enough—; but although I sometimes attain what the psychologists call “flow” in my philosophical thinking and writing, I don’t think I can pride myself on this:

[size=95][F]or example, that genuinely philosophical combination of a bold exuberant spirituality which runs presto and a dialectical severity and necessity which never takes a false step[.]
[ibid.][/size]

I know the first, but the second? And in combination?—I rather think I belong to those who run ‘staccato’:

[size=95]It is hard to be understood, especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati [the way the river Ganges runs, ‘presto’] among men who think and live differently, namely kurmagati [the way the tortoise walks, ‘lento’], or at best “the way frogs walk,” mandeikagati [‘staccato’][.]
[BGE 27.][/size]

Is not all my Nietzsche-interpretation froglike in this sense—as I leap from quote to quote, for example? My genius is in my association, in my finding connections between things, but this is not a ‘free’ association—a “stream of consciousness” as the psychologists call it, which however “never takes a false step”: for in so-called ‘free association’ there are no false steps; everything is permitted… I however want dialectical severity first and ‘freedom’ second; I am still learning to dance, and may well never master it in my lifetime.

But what does all this matter to you?—This whole post is an appeal to certain prides—an appeal for fellow workers, for such as concede that they are no ‘saints of knowledge’ (see my signature), but who will nevertheless be its workers, its warriors!

[size=95]There is an instinct for rank, which more than anything else is already the sign of a high rank[.]
[BGE 263.][/size]

This is an appeal to those who have this instinct, those who occupy a high (but not the highest) place in the natural order of philosophical rank and are therefore noble enough to recognise their superiors in this order—men like Nietzsche, Heraclitus, Plato, Empedocles, Bacon, Descartes, and Socrates! Of all these “wisest ones” (TSZ, Of Self-Surpassing), however, Nietzsche is the only one who has learned and taught the knowledge sought by all philosophy:

[size=95]The world viewed from inside, the world defined and determined according to its “intelligible character”—it would be “will to power” and nothing else.—
[BGE 36.][/size]

I am grateful to Laurence Lampert, whom I recognise as my superior among the “philosophical workers” (BGE 211), at least overall, and whose books have clarified my mind on these matters. I recommend his books to whomever feels addressed by my appeal. Join the Philosophical Workers’ Party today!

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I am a saint of knowledge.

  1. Exarare stipulas.-- [Loensis in Epiphyllides.] Love uproots that tree of Ovid, whose branches ascend into the Heavens, and whose roots descend into Hades; but still more, she buries those that had been fruits upon the tree of knowledge, and, beatifying, sets into the firmament what was at once concealed beneath the earth.

314. Beware of apparent virtues!– How good the works of a bad painter seem to us- yes, when he happens to be painting something we despise! The true critique must be prepared to see past his sentimentality, as well as behind and into it.

241. In the absence of women. – A peacock does not envy his fellow peacock’s feather, no matter how beautiful it is.

  1. A woman’s stratagem in love.– If a woman cannot inspire a man with love for her, she will break that tremendous cask of his self-love. The few supple drops left in him she shall claim for herself.

  2. Woman, exempted.– The vices of a beautiful woman are worthy of commendation, for they are more pleasant, more endearing, and more tolerable than the virtues of an ugly one. Oh yes! It is far to easy to admire that curious ‘cerna venare leonem’ * while an ugly woman with the very same vices is called masculine.

Latin phrase from ‘Sidronius Hoschii Elegarium.’ Translation: a doe with the blood of a lion.

  1. With an impatient and rude taste, there are some who consider the cream, almonds, and the raisins spent in making a delicacy to have been thrown away, and weap; who despair to have thrown out the water they have used to bathe in, as Plautus says in the Strobilus. Likewise there are those who cannot keep friends- for they believe that they have spent too much of themselves in them.

  2. A person who opened himself too early to guilt can never turn away from it; this is a wound that becomes like a stomach in which one digests nearly the whole of his experiences.

  3. The woman learns how to forgive a man in proportion as she- forgets what to expect of him. The riddle of woman-- what then is left to forgive?

  4. The saying “Happiness is a bad heart with good digestion” is thought provoking. Only the most prodigiously ruminating animals, who can afford to ingest both husk and stone, and who are equipped with the most strenuous digestion, are capable of happiness.

  5. In the final case one is tempted to pay a respect to those Greek poets, and drink deeply from the Pierian cup, or not at all: it is the willingness and the very caprice to fill his breast to its very brim with a passion, even to the point of writhing as well as heartache, and even if it means that in exalting this one he should debase the very state of his soul, so that the ‘invisible sun’ he lives by should become visible and, by his own indwelling of that luminary, should he become at once blind to the entire reciprocity of feelings, that makes the true poet. Chastity may teach one of love, but love will never teach one of chastity. That poet might well declaim with Thuanus: hinc frigore Caucasus horrens imminet, hinc flammas Sicelis Aetna– and with respect to the human heart, he must in any case be like Nonus’s Endymion who, striving upon the knowledge of those remotest most movements of the spheres, sleeplessly pursues his own investigations, even though he knows not where he stands in that appalling deep, and still, whither he goeth.

Yet the salt of youth excels in taste the bread of life; and most poets amongst us carry with us that Selene in our hearts, who begs Zeus to let Endymion sleep forever. To those visionaries of this first class, there is what I conceive to be the high point in every poem, at which the basic reception of life owing itself to the poet appears for the first time on scene, however so shameful and cruel it might be: in perpetuam rei memoriam, in perpetuam cogitatione memoriam. In this, the poet shall further imagine, contrary to the advice of that ancient medical axiom, to have gained an insight into the nature of his affliction through the mendicant which he deems effective in relieving his suffering, and to have traced the origin of his fall into sin, as in Genesis, according to the measure of his aspiration to Heaven and to knowledge: like Dante, his spiritual eidolons and Beatrices shall serve to be his adumbratio Parhassi, * which shall also serve favorably to color the earth in light as well as shadow. Yet- whence our boar? Whence our lion? Whence the yoke? Whence our chariot? Alas, that beautiful Alcestis is one of the oldest obstacles upon the path to wisdom; and a philosopher must wait until she has made a sacrifice of herself before he can go on any further.

If the poet could after all be a hedonist, it is difficult to say rather or not he would be so inclined to snatch all twenty four golden droplets of honey from his little dulce cubile die: [Petrus Lotichius in Secundi Solitariensis-- the sweet honeycomb of the day] for, like those children who howl and wail for the stars, the moment he discovers something is beyond his reach, he ceases to desire it. Or- not even beyond his reach, but by the fact that he should permit nothing to offer itself to him- unless it is by self-sacrifice; yes, all fruits must ripen before their time, and all flowers must wither and fall to the earth before they are plucked-- he should even have his own mother make a vow to pudicity, and take aims to reclaim her innocence for having given him birth, while in the final case he is left to clean up all the lees of that broken cask of his life. Let that passage of Adrianus’s Galatea be sung unto him:
[i]
Illa vagos quondam sensus hac voce monebat,
nescitis miseri quot mala gignat amor.
Tempore forma perit, paucisque ea carpitur annis.
Dum licet, Idalii pellite tela Dei.
His ego firmatus monitis me posse putavi innocua
Cypriam mente videre Deam.

My laments for thee, they do recall my roving lusts,
though the fruits of misery I am unwilling to let bear upon the stalk of love.
To beauty time lays waste, that is assured;
though I shan’t even permit her fruit to bear;
as long as it is permitted me to drive out amor’s dart, upon Aphrodite’s very temple.
For it strengthens me in this conviction,
to suppose that the Cyprian goddess, too, was innocent.[/i]

  • In a Greek epigram.
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As the final, longer aphorism suggests: it is because I am blind to the whole reciprocity of feelings, that I must take my rank as a saint of wisdom…

“Yet the salt of youth excels in taste the bread of life; and most poets amongst us carry with us that Selene in our hearts, who begs Zeus to let Endymion sleep forever.”

Do you?

4

Convince me.

5

Only one thing is harder to convince another of than ones own innocence: ones own youthfulness.

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And your youthfulness is your sainthood of knowledge? Please explain.

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My innocence would have been my sainthood. I have never been touched by another human being, not even my favorite authors. I am not impressed with most of what I read, it doesn’t touch me, it doesn’t move me. I have no side to fight on except for the side of truth, and truth is victorious in the final case anyways. I am a saint of knowledge; I must write, I have no choice, because I cannot be ‘touched’ by anyone else.

8

And that is the miracle of it: the over-rich and over-flowing inspiration of this saint comes from a profound lack of inspiration, and even an insensitivity that, in any other circumstance, one would be tempted to call stupidity.

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In what does the innocence of the saint of wisdom consist?-- in the fact that for his whole life he has never been touched by another human being, neither in love or in death; and not even in those works of his favorite poets and authors has he laid down unto the warmth of another’s soul. He often finds himself unimpressed even with the greatest of writers; and what he does read does not touch him, it does not quell or quench him, and it offers to him no consolation or solace. He must therefor write; he does not volunteer himself, but does so because he cannot be attained to by anyone else, and he must therefor attain to and reach himself. And that is the miracle of this saint: such an over-rich, such an opulent and over-flowing inspiration originates out of a profound lack of inspiration, and even an insensitivity so immense that, in any other circumstance, one would be tempted to call it stupidity, or in the best case, would mistake it for the like.

10

“Would have”. So you never attained it?

This remark of yours made me wonder why Nietzsche would use the word “saint” in that context at all. I was then reminded that he wrote that other peoples had saints, but the Greeks had sages (somewhere in The Will to Power, I believe). So could a ‘saint of knowledge’ be simply a sage? One who has ‘wisdom’, in the sense of “knowledge”?

The words “saint” and “warrior” are probably also meant to allude to the Brahmin and Kshatriya (warrior) castes of India.

So you are touched by yourself in writing? Or reaching out to touch others? Perhaps imaginary, future others?

The truth is victorious in any case, not just the final case. But we are warriors of knowledge, not of truth.

What do “to touch” and “to move” mean? Do they not mean: “to exercise power over”?

11

Dear Sauwelios, how do you like that? Painful, isn’t it?

This parody is surely delivered onto us apes by God himself, as a lesson. How not to be, what not to say, where never to presume. It’s written everywhere, but bears repeating anyway, that the import of this particular lesson only becomes apparent when others, perhaps even people of promise, are reduced to nothing by not paying heed to this inherent flaw of the vehicle. Right in front of our eyes.

During the first few centuries of the Christian monastic experiment, when the whole, focused effort of thousands was channeled into probing the true self at fortress-like selfsufficient retreats, many ordinary people witnessed the seeming “production” of great genius among these simple renunciates. Unusual powers, insights, and knowledge were almost commonplace with their so called “elders”. An old Orthodox monk recounts this story:

The brothers were returning from the woods, each with a load of firewood. Happy springtime was fast approaching, but the ice still stood undisturbed on the river which, normally, they would cross to return to their mountain habitat. The leader of the group stops everyone: “Brothers, the air is warm and spring is almost here. Follow me, as we take the long way around the river.” However, one of the blessed seekers, laughed at that: “Brother! But don’t you know I prayed to our Lord and fasted for a whole 14 days last month? I may have not slept much, and I’m tired like everyone, but I can’t tell you how LIGHT I’ve become! How unbearably LIGHT!” and saying that, the monk quickly took off his shoes and grabbed a second bundle of firewood in addition to his own. Clearly wishing to illustrate to everybody just how light he now was, he sprung across the thin ice hopping and skipping like a ballerina. Everyone watched in astonishment and then in horror, when closer to the middle of the river the ice broke a maw and swallowed the enlightened one. A few gut-wrenching, screams, and he was gone. Nothing could be done to help and he drowned within seconds in the ice-cold water.

The monks are modest and stop at this point, but the story could be extended with the important mention that the enlightened brother didn’t just sink, he sank straight to Hell. It’s one of those special cases when we can really be quite certain.

The body is often called a vehicle, but the mind is also a vehicle. Against the background of the joyful springtime river, waters rushing forth finally free of the ice, we can imagine that vehicle as a manual rowboat. Being a very old boat, it has as usual, many holes. None of them are fatal, because everyone who has any sense has a bucket with him for the journey, and uses it to scoop water from the bottom of the boat and chuck it back outside, into the river. This way, with a little effort, you could safely get across the river in one lifetime.

The parodist, however, also has a bucket, and also scoops with it. Only he scoops from the outside and ever adds more and more water to his boat, and his very enthusiasm in doing so is what endangers the entire team.

-WL

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:laughing: =D> :wink:

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I would sincerely suggest that it’s better to say nothing at all when you learn about the pain, humiliation, and death of others who come before you, than to put everything you heard onto a quote-banner and subtitle it with animated hepatitis faces.

-WL

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er, hepatitis faces. . . . ?

To be frank, and intended ironically within my contrasting “faces”, is the realisation that your commentary, while accurate, nonetheless falls prey to the exact same motives and ends which you see in others here.

Judgment is a bias, and a mask for vanity and hubris - and often enough, hubris is masked by a devoutly pious image of being the neutral benefactor, impartial, distant, cool and cautious. The “Worker” if you will, serves this image, and so is adopted - either as an honest foolishness, as in the case of others here, or as a dishonest foolishness, as in the case of those who would spew their insightful criticisms wide open while at the same time attempting to appear nonjudgmental and gracefully indifferent in their slandering and self-righteousness.

15

Nietzsche was quite focused on being understood, on being accepted. While he certainly made the most of the fact that he was for the most part shunned and misunderstood, his need for acceptance is quite clear in much of his writing, especially those commenting on academic philosophy, or on himself.

Nietzscheanism is a brilliantly accomplished feat of the hiding of vanity and insecurity. Nietzsche succeeded in taking the concept of legitimate pride and twisting it to conform to his own vain and self-tormented psychological needs. . . this is not a criticism of his overall philosophy, of course - as a psychological accomplishment it is bold and astounding in its scope, and its depth and genuine sincerety lends it to being a wonderfully equipped mental opponent which which we may challenge ourselves to ourgrow our current limits. Likewise Nietzsche cleverly hid many occult insights and psychological practices and exercises in his writings - TSZ itself is an entire work dedicated to such clever delving. . . and through his autobiographical writings he reveals quite clearly that he explored even his own rationalisations and meticulous cloaking of his deepest insecurities. Nietzsche attempted what most of us are never honest enough with ourselves to realise all our philosophical intrigues are half-heartedly and unconsciously aimed at: transmuting pain into pleasure, insecurity into confidence, failure into success, obscurity into recognition – in otherwords: escape into fantasy. But we must give Nietzsche credit for his psychological workings on himself, and for his system of thought that arose from these methods - of all the dishonesties, deceptions and tricks created by man throughout history under the guises of “true” ideologies or philosophies or moralities, Nietzsche’s is by far one of the most honest lies.

The falseness of mental “steps” of thought or reasoning lies not in its being “permitted” or not - self-honesty and integrity is the only arbitor of truth or falseness regarding mental actions.

Dialectical thought ought to be shed at the first attempt of genuine honesty and personal self-discovery. Your “dances” through your own discarding of your ‘freedom’ in favor of your ‘instincts’ is not much more than an elevation of reactionary sentiment and false judgment of oneself - a warped mirror of rose-colored glass. But in this way, ironically enough, it certainly conforms to the rigid demands of a “dialectical severity”.

Nietzsche’s obcession with rank, his elevation of it into an “instinct”(!) is a quite clear indication of what type of psychological ailments lie causally beneath the surface level of his philosophising.

Instinct of rank as nobility, as those who are “high” and superior - what a tremendous reactionism! Rarely does one have the honesty to admit such yearnings and fantastical hopes! Nietzsche in this regard certainly deserves our admiration.

Ah, will to power - “and nothing else” . . . to think that so many adherents to Nietzsche still cling to an antogonistic attitude towards religion - and to think that Nietzsche himself admonished “metaphysics”. No, he was only more clever than most of us give him credit for. We fail to appreciate the magnitude of his accomplishment with such fictions as willing to power - these constructs reveal some of the most honest and far-diving investigations into the needs of the mind, and expose the inevitable faith that lies deepest within Man. Nietzsche’s attacks on religion and empiricism were not in this sense ironies or tragedies, as they initially appear, but rather genuine attempts to move beyond that which Nietzsche knew himself, and all of mankind, to be ensalved to. In his desperate attempts to circumvent and overcome the psychological rules of the human mind, Nietzsche ended up, as is the case with all apparent and superficial exceptions, only proving the rule instead.

Belief is the prison within which the mind resides. Concepts and words are the bars and walls of this prison, and vanity and hubris, the gatekeepers.

16

That is what we all suspected all along, Mr. Man - everybody is bad, and you alone are good. It was utterly foolish of Ascolo Paroditis, Sauwelios and myself to think that we were somewhat good ourselves. Well, we humbly and without hidden ironies thank you for the diagnosis. Yellow faces, meanwhie, still indicate problems with the liver.

-WL

17

It would seem the conversation has diverged into new territory - or perhaps it has been there all along. The accuracy or clarity of my insights here notwithstanding, I would caution against impulsive readings of my comments on Nietzsche and his philosophies with regard to my personal motives - while certainly your intention is clear, I would wager that even you might be coming up somewhat short on your estimation of just how little one can be moved in so short a time.

And as for the deliberately provoked psychosis we have spoken of previously - a wonderous trait of such intricate pathologies is that they may manifest by degrees.

18

I’m not sure I understand what you are working at. Explaining what Nietzsche means? If so, what is that except the process of relating Nietzsche to yourself, or more accurately, relating yourself to Nietzsche? What is the harvest of that work?

19

When did I ever deny this? The task, however, is to interpret this. Why did he want to be accepted? Do we take the ‘human, all too human’ angle? Or shall we suppose that Nietzsche had a non-petty reason for wanting to be accepted.—

Is that so? Is Nietzsche merely the champion of self-determination and the like? Of total arbitrariness? Of nihilism? Or is there something to him.—

How poetic. But is not the whole notion of a difference between ‘genuinely honest’ thought and dialectical thought a dialectical thought? Is it not an instance of A ≠ ¬A?

First off, you did not understand me if you thought I’d discard my ‘freedom’ in favour of my ‘instincts’: for “free” and “instinctive” belong together here.
Then: reactionary how? False how?
Then: how does it conform?
And by the way: I’m getting fed up with your ungrounded assertions. Don’t waste my time.

How profound of you.

From posts of yours I’ve read before (but never responded to because…), I concluded that you are indeed on the side of the Last Man. I therefore suppose that the reason you find it preposterous (if not to say…) to think of ranking as an instinct is that you think there is no natural order of rank, so there can be no natural recognition or conferring of rank; to think so must be caused by any number of psychological ‘ailments’… From this, however, it is quite clear what type of defects lie causally beneath the surface level of your psychologising.

Why?

I think I already know the answer: liberals (i.e., nihilists) like you must think that everything that does not spring from nihilist, arbitrary ‘self-determination’ must needs be ‘reactionary’!..

Yet they would be wrong, i.e., un-Nietzschean, about that.

Only ‘metaphysics’ in the common, but faulty sense of the word. Metaphysics in the original, Aristotelian sense (as reinstated by Heidegger) is for Nietzsche, as for Heidegger, tantamount to philosophy itself: see BGE 9.

Cleverness, the only power the slave understands…

Nietzsche does not attack religion as such: see BGE 61 and 62.

To whom?

Yes, exceptions can only be apparent and superficial, can’t they… The rule being the slave, of course (“enslaved to”!).

The basic psychological rule of the slave mind is self-deception regarding its own psychological rules. Self-deception is itself a form of the will to power, however, which is the basic psychological rule of the animal mind (not just the human).—

20

I presume that, by “you”, you mean me, not us (we philosophical workers).

I seek to understand what Nietzsche means—that first and foremost. But I think I understand enough already to know that such understanding compels to action, to ‘battle’.

But ultimately it’s not about Nietzsche. It’s about philosophy. Thus one of the tasks of us philosophical workers shall be to correct Nietzsche’s biology—put generally, to scientifically purify Nietzsche’s philosophy. In fact, it was said particular task—which I have taken up myself, for now—that compelled me to start this thread, to write my appeal for fellow workers. We shall be the philosopher’s hounds: cf. BGE 45.

The harvester of our work will be the actual philosopher himself: see BGE 211. I write “philosopher” in the singular because there is really only one philosophy: all actual philosophers are instances of a single philosopher type. But thus far, as far as we know, only one philosopher has attained to the object of all philosophy: knowledge of the essence of the world. That philosopher is Nietzsche, who established that the essence of the world is will to power (cf. BGE 186). So future philosophers will not be ‘free’ to make just anything out of the fruits our work, as BGE 211 might suggest to some (e.g., to our nihilist friend, The Last Man). Their will to truth is will to power—they cannot change that. Even if they will teach differently (as, e.g., Plato has), their esoteric philosophy will—

But with this, I arrive at another matter to be researched by philosophical workers: how much did Nietzsche know of the esotericism of past philosophers? And how gradually did he arrive at that knowledge? Plato, for instance, may be sharply distinguished from Platonism: Plato’s Platonism may be regarded as his exoteric teaching, meant to protect the Greek Enlightenment—which was budding with the Sophists, Plato’s ostensible ‘enemies’ (cf. WP 428)—from the active disapproval of the many: Platonism is in this sense a secret compromise of intelligence with stupidity.—But due to this rash compromise of Plato’s, intelligence became the handmaid of stupidity, philosophy of religion. With the death of the Christian God (Christianity being Platonism for the people), philosophy did not yet become free, however: for that God was killed by science, and science simply took the place of religion: philosophy was now the handmaid of science. But philosophy must rule both science and religion. Of the essence of philosophy is justice, so it will not unjustly discard science, as said religion did, or religion, as modern science tends to do: science will be its right hand, religion (or art!) its left hand; but without the connotation of left as sinister: rather, science will correspond to the left brain, religion or art to the right brain (for Nietzsche’s conception of religion as a specific form of art, see BGE 59; but note that he is talking about Romantic art there, not Dionysian art. The pagan religious man could be regarded as the highest rank among Dionysian artists).

__Religion
Philosophy_______Science

became

___Science
Philosophy_______Religion

shall become

_Philosophy
Science_________Religion

And the latter is how it should be, and indeed has always been esoterically, at least.