For some, Nietzsche shall remain a “misunderstood” and “distorted” philosopher, for others their love affair with Nietzsche shows little signs of abating and yet surely a re-examination of his character and philosophy is long overdue. Notably the parallel between his philosophy and Hitler’s grand scheme of things.
Oh please, look around you. If you don’t see social hierarchical structures everywhere you turn, then you’ve been living under a rock. Yes, they may all be blindly following their herd instinct, but some definitely do benefit, weather they realize it or not, from the manipulation and suppression of others.
Sure! You might even say the death of God was the trigger for the French Revolution, but did they appreciate the implications of this to the same extent that Nietzsche did?
Do I have to look around or do you have to carefully read what other people write? I said that there are no powerful elites not that there are no elites. In fact, I said that there are rich elites that are part of the herd.
The point being that herd morality is not created by masters, but by slaves themselves.
Masters want their slaves to follow their own master morality (which is tailored to every class.) Slave morality is undesirable.
Your understanding of what benefit is is shortsighted, typically slavish, thinking that money automatically equals good. What matters is strength, not money. You may be earning a lot of money, but if you are becoming weaker in the process, then it’s no benefit.
That doesn’t make any sense. Elites are, by definition, powerful. Is everything one gargantuan democratic indistinguishable blob to you where everyone’s exactly equal?
Right, because wealth has no impact on power.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that all slaves are on an equal playing field.
According to Nietzsche, master morality means: creating your own values, even if that’s dominating over another. Masters most certainly wouldn’t want their slaves adopting that morality.
Who said anything about money? We’re talking about the balance of power between different factions in society. There are those who are going to listen to and try to practice the morality which is preached to them, and then there are those who will only preach but will not practice. The latter can sway the former a lot more readily than the former can the latter, and if the morality being preached happens to be a slave morality, particularly a morality of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, then the latter will definitely have a lot more power over former.
The point is to make an effort to understand what I am saying, not to intentionally misunderstand what I am saying by employing the easy method of literally interpreting the meaning of my words. Perhaps I am using the wrong words to express something that is true, something that implies that what you are saying is wrong. Have you thought about that?
Don’t answer. You haven’t. You lack basic discipline. Which is why you are horribly irritating.
And I am not even sure I am using the wrong words. For example, the word “elite” comes from Latin “eligere” which means “choose”. The word “elite”, literally speaking, means “select few”. Nowhere is power implied.
Thus, you are merely wasting my time. Which is your point: to distract yourself, and by extemsion others, from what I am saying.
You should be ashamed of yourself, you fag.
Never did I mention that everyone is equal. What I did mention is that everyone is degenerate, whether they are at the top of the social hierarchy or at the bottom of it.
Being the leader of the pack does not necessarily mean being powerful in its true biological sense.
Whether you spoke of money or not is irrelevant. You are still shortsighted.
Never did I say that wealth has no impact on power. What I said is that wealth does not necessarily indicate or lead to power.
I am afraid you have a mild form of autism. Drug induced, perhaps?
Herd morality is undesirable, and thus not something that true masters would be intererested in preaching to their herd, because it portrays masters as “evil”. Masters want their slaves to think of their masters as what they are – good.
Master morality means autonomy, which is to say, it means making your own decisions.
The trick is that there is an infinite number of decisions in life and that at any point in time any individual can only control a finite number of decisions.
People have limits. There are decisions they can make, and then, there are decisions they cannot make.
Higher people are less limited, i.e. they have more freedom, thus they can make a wide range of decisions. Lower people are more limited, i.e. they have less freedom, thus they can make only a narrow range of decisions.
From this fact alone social hierarchy follows. Higher men make decisions for lower men. It’s natural.
Thus, as you can see, slaves too can follow master morality. In other words, they can make their own decisions, which is to say, those decisions that are within their power.
The problem occurs when lower people assume the role of higher people and then start making decisions that are not within their power. Basically, when lower people (i.e. slaves) acquire far more freedom they can actually handle.
This occurs after the aristocracy becomes so powerful it achieves all of the goals it has set for itself. The lack of new goals leads to atrophy. The aristocracy weakens and loses the ability to control, to limit the freedom of, its lower castes. This is when herd morality kicks in.
Just to be clear: herd morality means mindless morality, morality followed only because everyone else is doing it. Don’t confuse this with slave morality which is a reationary morality induced by abuse at the hands of the powerful. The two go hand in hand, obviously, but not all the time. Out of the two, it’s slave morality which is far more likely to say that the masters are “evil” but even then, not necessarily. What’s at the core of slave morality is the slave’s own self-validation in virtue of the position he’s in. The meak shall inherit the Earth means: those in a slave position (or subject to slavery) are the good guys. It’s the idea that because of your slave status, nothing’s your fault, nothing that you do is really your decision, so you’re always innocent.
I can see how you’d say that a master wouldn’t want his slave adopting a morality like that, but I think it would be even worse for the master to wish a master morality upon his slaves: the idea of the slave inventing his own values and doing what he wants doesn’t exactly strike me as a way to ensure the security of the slave’s subordinate status. Rather, I think the master couldn’t care less what kind of morality his slaves adopt, as long as they continues doing what they’re told. The only sense I can see the master wishing a master morality upon his slaves is in the sense that “what’s good for me is also what you should be striving for.” So if the master believes slaves should obey their masters, I can see him preaching this to his slaves. But he certainly wouldn’t preach: invent your own values and do as you please.
^ Here I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
You are trying to distract yourself and others from the fact that it is actually you, and not me, who thinks that he is at the center of the universe.
You apparently think that you do not deserve to be punished for your behavior. You take your particular instance of behavior to be unconditionally good. Beyond criticism.
You want to portray me as if my reaction to you is rooted, not in reality, but in my frustration with you. This is not the case. My reaction is rooted in the fact that you are an evasive person. You are denying reality. You are not merely frustrating me. You are an arrogant moron.
You have no interest in trying to understand what I am saying. In fact, you think that you have a right to deal with me in any way you want. It’s a free choice for you, beyond any kind of criticism.
What you want is to “win”. You have no genuine interest in discussion at all.
You are even celebrating the fact that you can do as you please, without any regard for limits. “Why should I make an effort to understand what he’s saying?” you ask yourself.
Really, what you are asking is why should you stay within the limits when it is possible, and pleasurable, to simply transcend them, which is to say to forget them, in the face of difficulty?
Why should you try to understand what I am saying before responding to me when you can simply imagine what I am saying and then respond to this imagination?
It’s easier after all.
Because you can does not mean you should. But then, you’re a drug addict. What can I expect.
I can predict your next move. You are going to say something like “my behavior can be excused because you were wrong anyways”. But do you actually know that I am wrong or are you simply erasing the boundaries between certainty and uncertainty in order to be able to interpret uncertainty as certainty, and thus, assumption as fact?
You are one sad fuck.
What does it matter whether we moved beyond Latin or not? What is your point? To simply spite me? How does that affect my statement that modern elites are degenerate?
You need to learn how to shut the fuck up. You need to learn some boundaries. When to open your mouth and when to keep them shut.
But you apparently think that you are some God given perfection that must be treated with respect unconditionally.
You think that you are beyond any kind of limitations. You are free to do anything you want and can.
If you can be gay, if it gives you pleasure, then why not be gay?
Who am I to demand of you to behave in any sort of way?
You cannot comprehend the fact that I am speaking on behalf of reality, not on behalf of my personal interests.
You are a retard not because I think so, but because you are one.
Who cares whether there are hierarchical relationships within herd or not? How is that relevant?
Do you even understand the concept of relevance?
Idiot.
Regarding master morality, master morality does not mean “invent your values and do as you please”. Master morality means being realistic. It means knowing your limits. It would be unrealistic for people who are enslaved to “do as they please”. Masters impose limits. That’s what they do. They reduce the number of decisions people can make. They do not teach people how not to think for themselves. They make it impossible for them to do so. Do you understand? They use overt force. They do not manipulate. They do not lie.
The extreme excessive life style of the last three French kings had led to the fact that the French people had nothing to eat. The terror system of the French revolution gave the first example of modern terrorism and modern state terrorism. Some people interpreted the French revolution as hell, as an ungodly situation of evil, of the devil himself.
You are trying to distract yourself and others from the fact that it is actually you, and not me, who thinks that he is at the center of the universe.
Hey, I have no problem drawing attention to the fact that I’m at the center of the universe.
You apparently think that you do not deserve to be punished for your behavior. …Um You take your particular instance of behavior to be unconditionally good. Beyond criticism.
You want to portray me as if my reaction to you is rooted, not in reality, but in my frustration with you. ← Yeah, 'cause I see none of that. This is not the case. My reaction is rooted in the fact that you are an evasive person. You are denying reality. You are not merely frustrating me. You are an arrogant moron.
You have no interest in trying to understand what I am saying. Sure I do. I just find it fun to troll you on the side. In fact, you think that you have a right to deal with me in any way you want. It’s a free choice for you, beyond any kind of criticism.
Um, isn’t it with everyone?
What you want is to “win”. You have no genuine interest in discussion at all.
I want both.
You are even celebrating the fact that you can do as you please, without any regard for limits. “Why should I make an effort to understand what he’s saying?” you ask yourself.
Because you’re the one who wants to say it. Onus is on you.
And I do get a little bit more of what you’re saying every time you speak… well, except when you take a moment out to tell me how much of an arrogant moron I am.
Really, what you are asking is why should you stay within the limits when it is possible, and pleasurable, to simply transcend them, which is to say to forget them, in the face of difficulty?
What limits? Anderson’s rules of philosophical conduct?
Understanding you is difficult, yes, but I’m not driven to overcome difficulty for its own sake (let alone to prove how much of an ubermensch I am). You have to entice me with something.
Why should you try to understand what I am saying before responding to me when you can simply imagine what I am saying and then respond to this imagination?
That’s the way communication works. Someone utters something, the other imagines what they mean and responds based on that interpration. If they’re mistaken, the first person will let them know somehow (of course, there’s always talking past each other). I’m not about to list out a whole ream of possible interpretations and ask you: Did you mean this? How 'bout this? Oh, well what about this?.. I’m holding you responsible for being clear.
It’s easier after all. ← Like I said, give me a reason to try.
Because you can does not mean you should. But then, you’re a drug addict. What can I expect. ← I think maybe you need to do a few drugs.
I can predict your next move. You are going to say something like “my behavior can be excused because you were wrong anyways”. But do you actually know that I am wrong or are you simply erasing the boundaries between certainty and uncertainty in order to be able to interpret uncertainty as certainty, and thus, assumption as fact?
You strike me a teenager who dropped out of high school at 15. No I don’t know that you’re wrong, but you aren’t exactly selling yourself as a genius (more like a whiny ass pussy who can’t get a grip on his anger management issues). I see very little potential for something useful coming out of this discussion either through my efforts to dig into your meaning or your own to be clear. I think it would be a waste of my time, so I’m going to act on that.
Now trolling you… that’s an immediate pay off for sure!
You are one sad fuck.
What does it matter whether we moved beyond Latin or not? What is your point? Um, that that’s not the way most people use the word? Really, why would you fall back on a dead ancient language for your definitions and expect everyone else to jump through hoops trying to figure that out 'cause you won’t say so up front? To simply spite me? How does that affect my statement that modern elites are degenerate?
My comment about elites was in response to your claim that elites aren’t powerful.
You need to learn how to shut the fuck up. You need to learn some boundaries. When to open your mouth and when to keep them shut.
^ I’m putting that into my sig.
But you apparently think that you are some God given perfection that must be treated with respect unconditionally.
What, am I the only one who sees that?
You think that you are beyond any kind of limitations. You are free to do anything you want and can.
Are we talking in the context of a internet forum discussion?
If you can be gay, if it gives you pleasure, then why not be gay?
Waow! Waow! Waow! Now that’s a line I simply will not cross!
Who am I to demand of you to behave in any sort of way?
Exactly… no really, exactly.
You cannot comprehend the fact that I am speaking on behalf of reality, not on behalf of my personal interests.
I can comprehend it, I just know it isn’t true. At best, you might be speaking from a mix of reality and personal interest.
You are a retard not because I think so, but because you are one.
Who cares whether there are hierarchical relationships within herd or not? How is that relevant?
Because you’re saying there isn’t.
Do you even understand the concept of relevance?
Psh!.. Irrelevant.
Idiot.
Regarding master morality, master morality does not mean “invent your values and do as you please”. ← Talk to Nietzsche. Master morality means being realistic. It means knowing your limits. Ok, if you’re just going to make up your own customized definitions (and change them) this conversation is going to take a loooong time to resolve itself. It would be unrealistic for people who are enslaved to “do as they please”. Masters impose limits. That’s what they do. They reduce the number of decisions people can make. They do not teach people how not to think for themselves. They make it impossible for them to do so. Do you understand? They use overt force. They do not manipulate. They do not lie.
Remind me of what your point was again?
You are lowering the standard of communication in order to avoid feeling embarrassed for your petty and very rude behavior.
This is supported by your suggestion that there is no universal standatd of philosophical conduct. Instead, you think that everything is relative, like a true egalitarian that you are. There are only personal standards of conduct (e.g. Anderson’s standard of conduct.) And when you fail even according to your own standard, then you can simply lower it, so you can never feel embarrassed about anything. In this way, you can never be held responsible for anything. You are innocent no matter what you do.
Thus, it does not matter what you think, for in the absence of strict standards, you cannot think. You can only pretend that you think.
In the absence of clear standards, there is no distinction between uncertainty and certainty, fantasy and reality, ignorance and knowledge. Everything becomes the same.
You even admit that you think that there is no difference between merely imagining what the other is saying and making a genuine attempt to understand what the other is saying.
Your victim mentality does not allow you to see reality as it is. Whoever is angry with you must be so because he is a 15 year old drop out.
Keep making shit up. Why not, if you can get away with it? There is no club that can discipline you – and only a club can discipline you. Words have no effect on you. You are “strong” enough not to let words affect you.
Nietzsche never said that master morality means “doing as you please”. You did.
You really do think that the world should make itself apparent to you, without requiring any effort on your part, don’t you?
The reason this discussion is going nowhere is not because I am not communicating with sufficient clarity, but because you are being evasive. You have no interest in confronting what I am saying.
He who speaks with little clarity can be confronted with a demand for clarification. You can ask “what do you mean?”
That’s not what you are doing.
What you are doing is lowering your own standards while demanding that the other increases their own.
You thereby turn yourself into the subject of the topic. No discussion can be had with someone who is not willing to pay attention.
We all know you are a sad loser who suffers from deep feelings of inferiority. No wonder then that you grab every opportunity to feel good about yourself.
You changed the topic from “what is master morality” to “what is the definition of the word elite”.
You needed to feel superior in some regard, so you picked one of the lowest games, the game of vocabulary definitions.
I am wrong because I am using the word elite in the wrong manner.
And even there, you suck. You sad fuck.
You are lowering the standard of communication in order to avoid feeling embarrassed for your petty and very rude behavior.
I’m petty and rude???
This is supported by your suggestion that there is no universal standatd of philosophical conduct. That’s not what I said. Instead, you think that everything is relative, like a true egalitarian that you are. Relativism != egalitarianism There are only personal standards of conduct (e.g. Anderson’s standard of conduct.) ← Oh my God, you took that seriously. And when you fail even according to your own standard, then you can simply lower it, so you can never feel embarrassed about anything. In this way, you can never be held responsible for anything. You are innocent no matter what you do.
Relativism doesn’t mean there is no standard for philosophical discourse. Being a relativist doesn’t change the way the brain fundamentally works. The brain is still persuaded mostly by logic, evidence, and all the other usual suspects. All that relativism is is the acknowledgement that whatever you believe and perceive, it can be traced back to a source (a book, a thought, an experience, a tradition, etc.). It is the acknowledgement that X is true according to such-and-such. But that doesn’t mean one can invent whatever crazy idea one wants, or turn whatever belief on or off willy-nilly, the least of all reasons being that the brain just doesn’t work that way, even if you’re a relativist.
Thus, it does not matter what you think, for in the absence of strict standards, you cannot think. You can only pretend that you think.
Oh, trolling certainly requires standards… maybe not philosophical ones, but still…
In the absence of clear standards, there is no distinction between uncertainty and certainty, fantasy and reality, ignorance and knowledge. Everything becomes the same.
You even admit that you think that there is no difference between merely imagining what the other is saying and making a genuine attempt to understand what the other is saying.
No, there really isn’t. There is a distinction, however, between knowingly or willingly imagining what another is saying, and imagining what another is saying unknowingly or unwillingly. Just in order to understand what one means by “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,” you need to have an imagination. You need to form a picture in your mind of a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog just in order to be able to say “ah, I understand what you’re saying.” You need an imagination to understand abstract philosophical concepts too. The difference is when someone says something from which an immediate and obvious interpretation readily springs to mind and when one doesn’t. The quick brown fox example is a case in point: it’s patently clear what the utterance means, so it doesn’t strike us as something requiring guesswork to interpret correctly. ← This is like your (obviously erroneous) assertion that elites aren’t powerful. Now if you said something like elites are Marxists, I’d question what you mean by this as it’s not immediately clear. But in both cases, I’m using my imagination to come up with an interpretation. In the former case, the interpretation springs to mind as obvious (thereby not prompting me to deliberately invent one consciously) whereas in the latter case, no obvious interpretation immediately jumps at me so I have to consciously and deliberately use my imagination to come up with something. The thing is, in the latter case, because I know I had to invent it, I’m more inclined to ask before proceeding.
Your victim mentality does not allow you to see reality as it is. You said I’m making up my own standards. Isn’t that master mentality? Whoever is angry with you must be so because he is a 15 year old drop out.
Keep making shit up. Why not, if you can get away with it? There is no club that can discipline you – and only a club can discipline you. You would resort to a club. Words have no effect on you. You are “strong” enough not to let words affect you.
Nietzsche never said that master morality means “doing as you please”. You did.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t; but a master who creates his own values would most likely do as he pleases.
You really do think that the world should make itself apparent to you, without requiring any effort on your part, don’t you?
The reason this discussion is going nowhere is not because I am not communicating with sufficient clarity, but because you are being evasive. You have no interest in confronting what I am saying.
No, just that people should learn basic communication skills before entering into a philosophical debate.
He who speaks with little clarity can be confronted with a demand for clarification. You can ask “what do you mean?”
I’m going to have to do that for every one of your utterances because even when you do seem clear, you (apparently) mean something totally different.
That’s not what you are doing.
What you are doing is lowering your own standards while demanding that the other increases their own.
No, just expecting you to learn basic communication skills before entering into a philosophical debate.
You thereby turn yourself into the subject of the topic. ← No, that would be you turning me into the subject of the topic. No discussion can be had with someone who is not willing to pay attention.
Hey, I have an idea! Why don’t we actually get back to the topic! Then maybe we wouldn’t have to talk about me or you, and I can actually have an opportunity to pay attention.
We all know you are a sad loser who suffers from deep feelings of inferiority. No wonder then that you grab every opportunity to feel good about yourself.
You changed the topic from “what is master morality” to “what is the definition of the word elite”. ← Because it was relevant.
You needed to feel superior in some regard, so you picked one of the lowest games, the game of vocabulary definitions.
I am wrong because I am using the word elite in the wrong manner.
^ Glad you’re finally starting to recognize that.
And even there, you suck. You sad fuck.
Nietzsche signals Marx, that to really matter, philosophy has to change the world, not merely to interpret it. He is widely imitated, his aphorisms are interpreted every which way, but the lasting impression of meanings behind them are mere shadows, of the last bastions of an ever recurring theme via Platonic ideas-as visions.
Whoever descends to the modern vernacular of the profane, while harboring some connection with the past’s Sacred foretaste, deserves to be tarred and feathered.
I would rather go mad then to envisage giving up on the extreme subtleties of a perennial philosophy.
The conflict is irresolute, and the blind deniers simply parrot some up to date critique, while blaspheming the original intent of the will’s tremendous power. The power is in the stress of realizing that it is irresolute, hence the reduction of the phenomenological into that of the existential, eclipsing the logicality, but not the sense of it’s eclipse. It is a nihilistic despair, but it’s nihilization extends vertically, as well as horizontally, but n a maddening rush, of inclusion, of thr Other, and from it grows the forms of it’s exclusion, a transformative bridge connecting all ages, places and existences. The ideal is born out of the idea, of willfully connecting the despair of the particular to the harmonic wholeness of the universal.
To me, Nietzche’s gift is all encompassing the sadness of Schopenhauer with the joy of a mysteriously magical overcoming of time and space, of the beast with the beauty of higher level connection: compassion.
This level’s aim is forgiveness and juxtaposition of opposites into the highest score snooker dialogue.
Magnus, you’re losing the debate with Gib. Just throwing that out there. You can’t just call him a fag and say he has no discipline and then tell him he’s wrong for reading what you wrote and thinking that’s what you meant to say. You’re just losing the debate man. It’s pretty bad.
This ‘debate’, if you could call it that, is incredibly disgusting. You are both acting like aggressive children with a demented interpretation of each other; with intolerable subtleties of profanity and polemic arrogance, achieving nothing.
I never intended this thread to be argumentative. The contributions from jerkey, Arminius and Turd are perfect exemplifications of what I originally sought after.
Let’s retain ourselves in a civil manner, please, for the better of us all.
This ‘debate’, if you could call it that, is incredibly disgusting. You are both acting like aggressive children with a demented interpretation of each other; with intolerable subtleties of profanity and polemic arrogance, achieving nothing.
Yeah, you wanna join?
I never intended this thread to be argumentative. The contributions from jerkey, Arminius and Turd are perfect exemplifications of what I originally sought after.
Let’s retain ourselves in a civil manner, please, for the better of us all.
Hey, I got no qualms with that. I can very easily carry on a civilized discussion, but I can’t promise it won’t happen along side a bit of trolling with Mr. Anderson.
Try it! Ask me a question. Let’s have a discussion.
Here’s what I originally wrote, soon after you’d posted your OP:
His early writings are superb. Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, […]
This suggests you consider those two books examples of his early writings. But BGE was written in 1885-86 and published in '86. Its sequel (Nietzsche actually called it its sequel) is On the Genealogy of Morals, which is from 1887. These books are usually considered part of another “period” than his writings from 1888. And yet there’s only a year between these last two “periods”.
::
Thus far what I originally wrote.
I would just like to get any opinions anyone has on Nietzsche and why he is at all significant when he was slightly mad.
When did he go slightly mad? Isn’t the Zarathustra slightly mad to say the least? But I think I see what you mean. Something changed in the course of 1887: Nietzsche was increasingly worried by his (seeming) lack of impact. So let’s say that’s when he went slightly mad (and that he stayed slightly mad until he went completely mad in early 1889). Why are his writings from that period significant? Because they constitute Nietzsche’s coming out as Zarathustra (cf. GM II 25)–i.e., as much more than a scholar (cf. BGE “We Scholars”). They constitute Nietzsche’s coming out as a “philosopher proper” (BGE 211), a world-historical event like Plato.
In reading these reply’s, one sees how Nietzsche has become a
kinda Rorschach test…
I too read Nietzsche as a young man. it is clearly a young man’s wet dream
because it allows the reader, a young man with ego, to dream he is the
ubermensch and all that stuff about herd mentality doesn’t apply to him because
he is above all that…but this based on a misreading of N…
the ubermensch is not about being the superman, but about one
who overcomes himself…Uber can mean above and below…’
It was never about overcoming other people and becoming
a “superman”, nope, it was about the man who can overcome himself,
become something else… Recall it was N. who said, “we must become who we are”
and one does this by overcoming… but what is overcome? Man’s basic nature…
N. real agenda was to find a morality that is not defined by god…
to find a morality that man created, thus his emphasis on the creators
of values…But to become the creator of values, you have to overcome
that which society has trained you, herd mentality and the like…
This is the reason why N. didn’t really talk about politics…
the battle for N. was within the individual and the courage to
create new values by overcoming oneself…
I have noticed everywhere I go in my personal philosophy,
N. has already been there… it is rather disconcerting that
every road I take, N. has already been there… I intend to return
to N. when I am ready to reread him in my research into modern
philosophy, maybe in a couple of years…but first medieval
philosophy calls me…
Kropotkin