How to become Ubermensch?

[surreptitious75]

I know a little about Nietzsche but I seriously need to read up on him to gain a greater understanding of him
I understand how he thought one can become better through suffering because it is suffering that defines us
I would not be put off by him at all because my sense of detachment does not allow for emotional judgements
I am currently reading The Gulag Archipelago which in terms of enduring extreme suffering is as Nietzschean as it is possible to be
The Nazis took his idea of Superman and completed distorted it because it was about self improvement not creating the master race

[Fixed Cross]

You certainly don't sound as misguided as most.

[surreptitious75]

I have a biography of his which I never finished because the writing was so dry and academic but I will give it another go
I have Zarathustra but need to get Will To Power and maybe Ecce Homo and perhaps a really good biography of him too

Am going through a serious book binge at the moment and one name on that list is Nietzsche
Also Marx / Popper / Locke / Hume / Kant / Crowley / Aurelius / Socrates / Aristotle / Rand

So much to read and so little time to read it but one does what one can
Knowledge is to the mind what exercise is to the body so read on I say

[Fixed Cross]

Solid programme - N comes into his own among his peers.
Here's a piece of very early writing.

In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history"—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.

One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts.

https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201 ... _Sense.htm

Given your focus now on Russia, and suffering; of Dostoyevsky, N said that he was the only one of whom he could still learn some psychology.

[Antithesis]

[surreptitious75]

I must have read a very bad translation of Crime And Punishment because it did absolutely nothing for me at all
Though I am aware there was much suffering in Dostoyevskys own life which is why he wrote the way that he did
I shall have to get a better translation because that is regarded as one of the true greats of literature so it needs to be read again

The Gulag Archipelago is brutal and depressing on an absolutely momentum scale - a truly clinical study of the human condition
I am nearly halfway through it and I intend to read more of his work - apparently it is now compulsory reading in Russian schools

Also Kafka who was another great existentialist writer and for me is more accessible than Dostoyevsky
I also have to get War And Peace too - Russian writers can really express the true darkness of the soul

Also need to get some Sartre and Foucault and Camus and Koestler as well

[Fixed Cross]

The only thing N said that can be tied to the Nazis and the Soviets was something like, 'there will be massive experiments, and mankind may perish of them. Oh well!'

If you look at the nazi leadership, they were all frail, unappetizing neurotic dwarflike men. Their idea of a master race was a gigantic herd. About as un-Nietzschean as possible. That can be said about the particular values. But the general, brutal audacity of the Nazi and Soviet experiments (both forms of Marxist atheism) was something by which N would not have been shocked in the least - something he saw coming, too.

The central idea of popular nazism however was not bravery but coziness, Heimlichkeit, belonging to a great group. The USSR was a little more manly, if you ask me. At least it sent us into space, which is a Nietzschean accomplishment.

[Fixed Cross]

My favourite Russian writer is Gorky. Im not fond of Tolstoy.

Kafka is quite hilarious.

[Fixed Cross]

Hitler did of course possess great courage, but it was evidently a compulsive man without self control and it is very likely that the stories are true that he had "handlers" in the great German steel industry.

It was, due to the extravagant greed the French and English permitted themselves as victors in the treaty of Versailles, inevitable that Germany would either fall apart or harshly re-organize. WWII is really to blame on the idiots who drafted that treaty.

Except, further back, the whole situation was started by Bismarck, who played France against Austria and created the German nation and so ushered in military modernity. He introduced the modern rifle in warfare and invented pre-emptive military diplomacy.

The nazis made an extraordinary portrait of Otto von Bismarck, who was of course an admired contemporary of Nietzsche.



All of this however can only serve as preliminary scrimmages on the early path to the Uebermensch. It is boorish cowardice to consider it anything more.

[Fixed Cross]

:-"

Lol don't be whistling at me dude.
You didn't know Untermensch is not a Nietzchean concept and like Prometh you thought N advocated a duality of slave vs master morality.

N is against morality.

Not saying you don't have some relevant points, but you're in need of teaching as much as the others here. Ignorance is not ridiculous if it is coupled with modesty, it is ridiculous if it is coupled with pride. N did not advocate ridiculousness.

[Fixed Cross]

The aim is: overcoming morality (which is the sublimation of values, a set of sublimated values) in order to arrive at a direct consciousness of values.

One must be healthy like a lion in order to apprehend ones values directly, without the intermediary of morality.

That's been my success in philosophy. To de-sublimate values. I.e. to overcome morality.

[surreptitious75]

In Gulag a fourteen year old boy the truth about the camps to Gorky and he was shot on the same day
So for Solzhenitsyn he was a useful tool for the state who told the world what they wanted him to say

[surreptitious75]

The single biggest cause of the Second World War was not Adolf Hitler but the Treaty Of Versailles
No sooner had the ink on it dried than Germany started to rearm and the British and French just let it happen

They had one chance to stop Hitler in I936 when he marched into the Rhineland and once again they let it happen
The French were looking to the British but the British were not interested and from then on he knew he had them
This was the only time that he was truly worried before the war because he did not know what their response would be

[Fixed Cross]

In Gulag a fourteen year old boy the truth about the camps to Gorky and he was shot on the same day
So for Solzhenitsyn he was a useful tool for the state who told the world what they wanted him to say

There is of course a vast abyss between the political effect of literature and its literary value. I do not judge art in the moral sense. Though its interesting to know this story.
Gorky conveys the reality of the rise of Communism very hauntingly. I like haunting stories of changing worlds. And rarely was there a greater world-change than at the outset of Russian Communism.
I doubt there will ever be a political situation of greater consequence - before it happened, the world was a premodern, fragmented tapestry of separate realms, and when it was done with, the world had been brought together in a massive political web.

[surreptitious75]

The overthrow of the bourgeoisie was advocated in Das Kapital and was then brutally put into practice by both Lenin and Stalin
Advocates of communism may try to separate the political and social and economic aspect from the personalities of its leaders
But the two factors cannot be treated as entirely separate in my opinion

Solzhenitsyn quotes a figure of 66 million deaths under communist rule from between I9I7 to I953
Under Mao there were 60 million dead and Pol Pot murdered I million of his countrymen and women
That last figure seems insignificant by comparsison but Cambodia only had a population of 5 million

So that is I27 million dead under direct communist rule between I9I7 to I979
For me it makes communism effectively redundant as a political philosophy

Furthermore the desire to render everyone entirely equal by giving all power to the state removes any notion of aspiration that there might be
Capitalism is not a perfect system by any means but it does at least offer the possibility for self improvement if one actually works hard enough

[promethean75]

So that is I27 million dead under direct communist rule between I9I7 to I979
For me it makes communism effectively redundant as a political philosophy

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-c ... chtenstein

[surreptitious75]

I would make a distinction between a system that deliberately kills it citizens and one that only inadvertently kills them
No system is perfect but I would much rather live in a capitalist society than a communist one and so would most people

[promethean75]

antithesis. on the comparison of stirner and nietzsche. stirner was no where near as popular and widely read as nietzsche... but the moment you read stirner, you realize that he was nietzsche before nietzsche was nietzsche. ideas so similar it is suspected by many that N had read S, although there's no definitive proof. some even go so far as to say he plagiarized him.

but what you find once you strip all the romantic garnishing away from the ubermench is striner's voluntary egoist and 'unique one'. for stirner the highest type would be anarchistic and oppose any kind of formation of 'state'... for nietzsche the highest type - a description that often changed throughout his writing - was originally the master statesman, the establisher of great states, etc. but if you follow nietzsche's thoughts you find him eventually appear to lose both hope and interest in politics and redefine the ubermensch to be independent of his original master/slave morality; the overman was no longer concerned with 'leading' and instead sought to emancipate himself from the dirty business of politics, so to speak. he most likely felt that statecraft would inevitably lead to fascism and nationalism - which he despised - but maintained the idea that the higher type still must not be reduced to the simple citizen. hence, he wouldn't lead or follow. now you see here a big ass circle in the development of the idea... one that ends up back at stirner's formula.

so what i see is a unique relationship between these two beasts. nietzsche was an undeniably smarter and more elaborate thinker/writer, but because of this complexity he lacked the sinewy strength and solidness that stirner had. perhaps because stirner was simpler and much more skeptical of philosophical thinking in general, he wasn't able to complicate the concept of the higher type as nietzsche did. in the end, when nietzsche arrived back at stirner, we can only ask 'you had to do it the hard way, didn't ya, fritz?'

what really happened was N refused to embrace nihilism (which he was consciously trying to avoid), while stirner reveled in it. the natural consequence of N's refusal, while also acknowledging the complete loss of objective values in the world, was to try and do the impossible; replace those lost values with new, subjective values to be declared law and sanctioned by the master, ubermensch type, for the purposes of elevating mankind to new heights. in a word, creating and forcing new objective values onto the world.

stirner, on the other hand, was a bit more aware of the impossibility/absurdity of such a project in a world governed by ubiquitous class conflict... and in a sense he saw, before marx and engels, the fundamental problem that had to be resolved before any such nietzschean project could be realized. nietzsche was naive enough to believe such a revolution of supreme politics by the hand of the masters could be possible in such an environment. stirner wuz like 'umm... no. it'll never happen, B.'

somewhere in the halls of ILP i did a post where i made the critical connection between what i called the beginning and end of the ethical spectrum of man... on one end you have stirner, on the other marx and engels. and between them, the entire course as well as the final solution was plotted. a resolution that if not reached... that is to say, doesn't resolve the stirner problem of egoism... would never facilitate a truly ethical world based on a civil contract. and every possible 'philosophical position' meanwhile falls somewhere between these two extremes. one is either essentially an anarchist, or one is essentially a marxist. any ideology short of the principles and practices of marxism cannot substantiate a workable system of ethics that all are obligated to observe, uphold and defend. hence, as stirner called it, the 'state' is only an abstraction and there exist no 'men', only individuals.

this fact alone is interesting, but not as interesting as the lengths those opposed to marxism will go to pretend there is, or even can be, a working social contract in a society where the means of production are not democratically owned by the producers themselves. it's a seemingly simple thing to note and one asks 'how could something so trivial be such an important thing to note', yes. it's the ramifications and consequences of this arrangement (in a capitalism) that extend so far into socio-political-economic life as to permeate every aspect of civil existence itself. that's why it's a big deal, and that's why the anarchist doesn't take society seriously until this problem is resolved. western capitalism is a non-starter for the social contract.

[Antithesis]

Promethean; I dunno bruh, I dunno.
I don't think Nietzsche said exactly what Stirner said, but just more elaborately.
Both of them weren't ethical nihilists, rather they were ethical subjectivists, sentimentalists, like Davie Hume.
But whereas Stirner's subjective sentimentalism was more egalitarian; many could be liberated from ethical objectivism, Nietzsche's was more elitist; only a few could be liberated.
Stirner was more, up in the air, about what sorts of precarious unions egoists would form, nondescript, whereas Nietzsche was more down to earth, descript; unions of egoist masters ruling over objectivist slaves, either that and/or Bohemian egoist artist poet philosophers.

[Fixed Cross]

Ill keep this quote short, so you morons could, hypothetically, attempt to read it without fainting.

"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which thou art unwilling to believe—is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.
What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.
Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.
Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego's ruler.
Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.
There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who then knoweth why thy body requireth just thy best wisdom?
Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings.

[Antithesis]

I think fixed is too fixated on Nietzsche's Dionysian side and not enough on his Apollonian, because he himself is Dionysian.

[Antithesis]

Ill keep this quote short, so you morons could, hypothetically, attempt to read it without fainting.

"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which thou art unwilling to believe—is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.
What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.
Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.
Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego's ruler.
Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.
There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who then knoweth why thy body requireth just thy best wisdom?
Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings.

All this means is just that the uncompartmentalized and unconceptualized self is greater and more than the compartmentalized and conceptualized self (ego).
It doesn't mean we shouldn't have some sense of self, in contradistinction to otherness, and desire to rule over otherness, if we're able and so inclined.

[promethean75]

Oh snap... I feel a quote-battle between Max and Fritz coming on.

I'm tryna tell y'all Max done did all that shit already.

[Fixed Cross]

I think fixed is too fixated on Nietzsche's Dionysian side and not enough on his Apollonian, because he himself is Dionysian.

Well hell, Im not going to argue this.

Ill keep this quote short, so you morons could, hypothetically, attempt to read it without fainting.

"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which thou art unwilling to believe—is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.
What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.
Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.
Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego's ruler.
Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.
There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who then knoweth why thy body requireth just thy best wisdom?
Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings.

All this means is just that the uncompartmentalized and unconceptualized self is greater and more than the compartmentalized and conceptualized self (ego).
It doesn't mean we shouldn't have some sense of self, in contradistinction to otherness, and desire to rule over otherness, if we're able and so inclined.

Surely it is required of the Beyondman that he rules over mankind. But my, and Nietzsche's point here is that the ego isn't going to cut it.

Ive been having a disagreement with Parodites for a long time about Nietzsche - he take the Will to Power theory as a phenomenology, I take it as a thinking method. A thinking method which allows to overcome the petty conceptuality of "A" = "A" and makes inequality the basis for thought. My self valuing logic is based on this. It is a logic of conquest, where we can conceptualize the self without tying it down, reducing it to the past.

N introduced a Philosophy of the Future. We reason from the future, not toward it. We reason from the future so that we control it before others get there.

[Antithesis]

Stirner and Nietzsche, S&N were similar, in that they both weren't afraid of moral gods, ghosts or ectoplasm,

Not afraid, but N completely rejected morality and moral gods.

Nietzsche was against all morality, he never advocated Master Morality. He just said it existed.

Nietzsche did ethics differently than our Judeo-Christian, liberal-social tradition, in fact he stood that tradition on its head, but he wasn't an ethical nihilist, he didn't do away with ethics altogether, he was an elitistic and individualistic ethical subjectivist.
He believed objectively strong, smart, healthy people would tend to subjectively esteem strong, smart, healthy people, attitudes and behaviors both in others and themselves, as well as those with biopsychological potential to develop themselves into such people.
He was sort of a proto-social Darwinist.

His ethical thinking had both aretaic and consequentialist components.

Not all ethical subjectivists are going to think and feel alike about ethical matters, just as not all ethical objectivists do.

260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light. There is MASTER-MORALITY and SLAVE-MORALITY,—I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close juxtaposition—even in the same man, within one soul.

All morality is anti-Nietzschean.

N was nuanced, his ethics were broad, dynamic and intricate, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying the gist of his work is elitist.
And, 'higher civilizations'?
That sounds like more ethicizing from N.
I say ethicizing rather than moralizing because I think of ethics as more of an introspective and philosophical approach to valuation N took than the usual impersonal, theistic, objectivist or cultural relativist approach.