Forgive me if I don’t participate in your derivative zoological fantasy. I am not a Nietzschean. I have no desire to become a “lion”, (to get that self-bestowed merit badge), but only chuckle at people claiming to be “lions”, (or finding themselves to be “geniuses”), yet display no such characteristics at all. If you believe you are a genius, keep telling yourself that. No doubt the thought is nurturing. If you believe that I lack your creative genius, that too will comfort. I’ll let you Nietzscheans fight it out amougst yourselves, like inter-denominational squablers, the Church of Saint Nietzsche vs. The Chapel of Mother Nietzsche. Who has inherited the divine Truth? (Personally I believe Sauwelios has a much firmer grasp of Nietzsche’s conceptions. He has not watered down the doctrine to an “acceptable” level). Meanwhile, my critique Nietzsche is as it has always been, at the level of power. He simply is not as powerful as he thought he was, nor claimed, because he misunderstood power. That his followers (of every stripe) suffer from the same delusion is really of no surprise.
Oh, you ‘chuckle’ don’t you? - that is exactly what the christian fundamentalist on our previos board used to bring out as a response when confronted with something he could not handle intellectually.
Your soul betrays itself; only when faced with someone who calls himself a master do you feel inclined to respond - whith ‘you are not a master!’ in whichever form you think hides your resentful face best for the occasion. In the meantime, you say nothing, and understand nothing.
I’ve yet to see you respond rationally to a single argument. All you do is shriek: NO!
Handle something “intellectually”? I have not noticed anything intellectual being presented by you. Please rephrase your “intellectual” thought which I cannot handle. As to Christian Fundamentalists, I don’t much talk to them pretty much for the same reason that I don’t talk to Nietzschean Fundamentalists.
Actually I just laugh at the unMasterly conduct. That followers of Nietzsche are prone to overstatement and over-self-estimation is not a surprise.
If you would like to actually present an “argument”, I’d like to see what you think an argument looks like.
D: Glad you ask. One of the things you both overlook is that since Nietzsche primarily advocated self overcoming in his philosophy, it cannot be of any consequence what your thoughts of the man himself are to your interpretation of his philosophy. It is a guarantee for shortcircuiting it.
I’ve presented this argument earlier, and it was overlooked by both of you.
Predicatably, because it removes the entire basis for your conflict, which took place on a more emotionally satisfying level.
As for the Lion, I was speaking of Sauwelios, not of myself. You have to stretch his intellect beyond the comfortable for the Lion to come out - for the young philosopher Sauwelios to actually say something himself.
fight between servants end up in name calling. Fights between masters end up in deepening of the subject matter. If you can rationally go into the argument presented above, that will happen.
You call that an intellectual argument?
Yes, it’s an argument that asks you to exert yourself.
If not for me, why not do it for the thread?
According to you, such an argument is so intellectual, I can’t handle it.
Let’s see.
Jakob says, “Philosopher “x” preaches “y”, therefore what you think of anything that philosopher “x” says in exemplifying “y” has nothing to do with “y”, in fact “y”, by the mere fact of his preaching it, and your undeterred embrace of it, stands as its own value and can never be critiqued. “y” for the sake of “y”. Nevermind that philosopher “x” says that “y” is not a transcendent property, nor a sharable truth, but rather is something that is manifested, and that all the y’s (y’, y”, y’“, y’‘’', y”"') of his expressed exemplification of “y” are evidence of “y”, and never mind that each and everyone’s “y” status is marked by their exemplifications of “y”, and are subject to a critique of y-ness, and never mind that my own “y-ness” impells me to undermine philosopher "x"s very own conception of “y”, exposed at the level of its exemplification; and never mind that all those who philosopher “x” claims are deprived of “y-ness” are strikingly similar to philospher "x"s very own ememplifications of “y”, “y” by the very virtue of it being “y” is both commendable and unquestionable for followers of “x”.
Wow that is quite an argument.
Now as an onlooker of philosopher “x”, and not a devotee, I find it absurd.
For starters Nietzsche has had a big hand in WOII and the ideal of nazi germany. That is allready pretty powerful. On top of that, he has got people who’se family is exterminated by said nazi’s to incorporate the will of nazism into their thinking. That is more powerful than any philosopher since Plato. And there is no end in sight - even his despisers happily spend time discussing him. Discussion of his ideas will increase with time, as the nature of reality unveils itself as far more terrifying than the most fanatical modern pessimist had imagined.
As for me ‘watering down’ Nietzsche to make him acceptable - I simply accept the most horrifying facts of life, because I affirm all of life.
I assure you there is no watering down going on. I’ve suffered and redeemed more than my fair share of reality.
None of this was “done” by Nietzsche.
This is something. Here is my own take on it:
Philosopher x preaches y because philosopher x is x and he wants to become y. If we interpret him as y, we allow him to work towards y. If we interpret him as x, we can only see that x is really x and wants to be y but fails, because we still see him as x.
You say that your own y-ness leads you to undermine x’s conception of y. But I see Dunamis-x trying to undermine Sauwelios-x’s conception of Nietzsche-x. You both have said nothing about y.
I have no desire, nor interest in “allowing” him to do anything. I owe him nothing. In fact his conception of “y” is remarkably un-y-like, as he has exemplified it.
He failed. There is no reason why I should listen to what he says about “y” because he made “y” up to make himself feel better, a delusion as is exemplified by his exemplification.
I think that Sauwelios has got a pretty good read on Nietzsche, how he meant his exemplifications to be understood as just what it meant to be “y”; he has done well not to turn him into a Hallmark Card for generation “x”. As such, he has both embraced Nietzsche as Nietzsche understood his truth to be, but also has suffered from the same weakness. You, and other self-proclaimed “creative geniuses” (not my phrase) have made Nietzsche a slogan machine for one’s self-infatuations, and deprived yourself and others of the critique that Nietzsche was offerring.
It is known as a poisoned well (a dog fell in it). You can either climb down and with great difficulty drink from it, grow intoxicated, spasm and die (under the delusion of your own greatness); or you can drop pennies into it from above, looking into its murk, see your distorting reflection and think your wishes will be granted. I say, walk on. There are other more interesting things in the world.
In all of this, I still have not seen an “argument” from you. Only a plea.
There was a moment in my life when, after endlessly mulling over similar greviiences, I seriously contemplated using sabotage to initiate a lone revolutionary war against the government. I plotted for months on exactly how I would dramatically bring national attention to social wrongs that urgently needed righting. Unlike Timmothy Macvey and the Uni-Bomber, I devised a strategy that could dynamite a hundred remote power pylons similateneously and cut the grids and bring entire cities to a standstill without killing people - and by its sheer audacity attract hundreds of not thousands of similar closet revolutionaries, who would come pouring out of the woodwork, armed to the teeth with their hoarded kalishnikovs, and we would bring down the temple of Baal and establish a new social order. I swear, at that time, just one more act of oppression by the government, similar to Waco or Ruby Ridge would have pushed me over the edge.
Thank God that teenage moment passed and kept my name and that of my family from the infamous legions of would-be-do-gooders who thought they knew better on how to govern the masses and gain power by using the immediacy and drama of war to over-throw the status quo.
Nietzsche simply perpetuates the immature, independent, ill-bred, stage of rebellious self-determinsim that is idolized by teenagers.
Jesus took a long-term forgiving step into inter-dependenct human relationships and is admired by responsible parents who have come to realize that compassionate social behavior depends entirely on breeding.
It is about allowing yourself something. He is dead, has no use for your allowing him anything.
He did not fail - enough people listen to him. Do you honestly think your opinion determines his victory or faillure?
I have made Nietzsche into what he aimed to be; a friend who offers challending advise and teaching. You try to make him into something he aimed not to be - his weakest, most helpless self, so he is no match for you. I think that tells something about our natures.
Nice metaphor. But if that’s really the statement you want to make, then why linger?
You clearly haven’t understood it.
Entertaining thread.
If I may, the most powerful statement of the lot is this:
With that said, I have also identified this to be at least partially true, not only in this thread, but in others:
I have read him closely. I have no desire to help myself to the poison that he choked on. Nor the poison that others choke themselves on.
I have little respect for the average listener of Nietzsche. I think Nietzche made several interesting points, but really very little of what he said drunk, Spinoza had not already said sober.
He is so lucky to have had your help. Surely he is appreciative.
Occasionally one puts a sign up by a poisoned well, for those that are lost. For those enamored with those waters, more pleasure to you. I must say though, for those that climb down in to the well, like Sauwelios, I have a bit more respect. There is something bold about it, even in something misguided.
Yes. the Intellectual arugument (that is what you called it I believe), is something “I just can’t handle”. Given what you take for what constitutes an intellectual argument, I understand better why you like Nietzsche so much. He has arguments, even intellectual arguments, but I see no argument here.
The Lion is closely connected to Bhairava, and thus, to shamanism:
“In the form of the ‘Man-Lion’ Narasimha, especially popular with the esoteric Pâñcarâtras, and also as the equally tantricized ‘Boar’ Varâha, Vishnu does closely approach Bhairava in character, to the point of emerging like Bhairava from the sacrificial (stake-)pillar. The myth then reveals two different, but complementary, faces of the bhakti-ideology incarnated in Vishnu: an orthodox face linked to Brahmanism and preoccupations with purity and the other, secret, face turned towards the transgressive valorization of impurity symbolized by Bhairava.”
http://www.svabhinava.org/brahmanicide/Vishnu-Bhairava/default.htm
As for Bhairava;
It is not necessary, let alone desirable, to be a Lion all the time:
“Naturally there can be no question of a total extinction of the ego, for then the focus of consciousness would be destroyed, and the result would be complete unconsciousness. The relative abolition of the ego affects only those supreme and ultimate decisions which confront us in situations where there are insoluble conflicts of duty.”
[Jung, Aion.]
The for the ego insoluble conflict of duty in Zarathustra’s speech Of the Three Metamorphoses is that between the dragon’s “Thou shalt” and the spirit’s own “Thou shalt”:
“[T]he lion fails to win freedom from the imperatives of morality as such. For although the old tablets are shattered, they are replaced with new ones upon which are engraved solemn commandments: Thou shalt sacrifice what is most dear [i.e., the dragon’s “Thou shalt”] for the sake of the truth; Thou shalt be free; Thou shalt revere reverence; and Thou shalt utter a sacred yes by willing your own will. The lion’s apparent defeat of the dragon reveals itself as a stunning victory for morality, or the spirit’s higher morality, inasmuch as right and obligation are conspicuously at work throughout the spirit’s transformations and in its highest instantiation. Since the idea of the sacred persists and indeed is regenerated in the final metamorphosis of the spirit [i.e., the child], the dragon, the symbol of morality, lives on and prospers in the spirit’s heart.”
[Peter Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist.]
One is reminded of Crowley:
“[T]his Ecstasy [in this case, the rage of the lion] is (so to say) the throe of Birth of the new faculty [notice the implication: birth → child]. It is surely natural for an observer to be startled, for the moment, by the discovery of a new Universe. Ananda [“bliss”; cf. Shiva’s bull, Nandi] must be mastered manfully, not indulged as a vice in the manner of the Mystic! Samadhi must be clarified by Sila, by the stern virtue of constraint: and then appears the paradox that the new Law of the Mind has “come not to destroy but to fulfil” the old.”
[Little Essays toward Truth, Understanding.]
OK let me take it all in a new direction ignoring the fun “bitch fest” previous
Has anyone dipped into Zizek’s puppet and the Dwarf - he takes a weird line Directly from GK Chesterton (from “the Thrilling Romance of Orthodoxy”- on that self same “climatic moment” in the bible the “my God my God - why have you forsaken me” bit.
For Chesterton this shows christianity as the only religion to incorporate a constant level of deep doubt. If one aspect of God doubts his main self then surely it extends to the core. For Chesterton Christianity has in some weird way taken in atheism, revolution and doubt unlike the positivism of other beliefs. Sort of kierkigaardian!?!?
Personally i think its piffle but what does any one else think? - Specially interested in views of those who would see 'emselves as christian:
(its all on the net @ dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/bo … y/ch8.html)
Krossie; thanks for that, I didn’t know there was allready thought on this weird concept. I’m not exactly a Christian, but as I believe in myths as much as in ‘real’ reality, I’d say this is a pretty interesting exaplanation, and it certainly places Christianity above Islam in my book. It makes of God a kind of Gambler, who just goes with his whims and passions and sometimes, when faced with the consequences, doesn’t know how to deal with it. This is to me the only plausible explanation for a God who is both immanent and ominpresent. Evil, or suffering, as a risk. God losing faith in his own abilities to create a good universe - that also makes sense to me - because they are both human - hence, verifyable patters of behaviour.
It tells us something about the nature of God - that he is reckless, a mad scientist. Goethe said: “Be bold and great forces will come to your aid” But this now begs the question ‘and then, what?’
There is aparently (I’m still going by the interpretation of God losing faith) no end, no paradise, no reward for total uncompromising exertion - Jesus found himself in hell at the end of his life. He had been too fanatical. God lost his faith in God’s omnipotency - and saw the truth about himself, that he was just a slob like all of us.
This brings me to the Nietzschean idea that God is something which is attained - by enduring, consistent and calculated use of human minds and hands. Gods potency for manifestation depends on patience, realism - on counting on by the physical and psychological laws one has learned - not on metaphysical ones. Aparently, God is a bit autistic, and needs to be taken by the hand.
Let’s look at your own use of the instrument of ratio; you make assertions (Nietsche is yuck!) and then reason from there. If defending assertions by circular reasoning based on that assertion is what you call argumenting, no, I have made no argument. If, on the other hand, you see argumenting as using reason as a means to get to a higher level of reason in order to understand something which is not understood from the inferior reason - then I have.
“I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.”
Systematic reasoning is the antithesis of thought. That murky pit is your own vision of the well of genius.