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.
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.
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.
Yeah, you wanna join? 
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:
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.
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
For the sake of saying this is my personal interpretation of when Nietzsche went slightly mad (although he had always been extremely neurotic, perhaps since his Father’s/Brother’s deaths) would have to be after the second edition of The Gay Science was published while he was working on The Wagner Case. After Twilight, Nietzsche takes a serious turn for the worse.
A more interesting question for this forum, has anybody read anything beyond Nietzsche?
A show of hands please.