"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
Makes sense.
"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
Every time someone is asked to expain this line, they explain the previous line. Explain the second!
Fuck bitches get money
Somethin' about the fear o' death I reckon
People are going to glance at this thread and think the question was answered.
The tormentors becomes the tormented
People become what they love and hate because their mind focuses on it
The hall of mirrors folding in on itself
Madness
I reckon it's about nihilism
That's the first line. I understand the first, but what does the second mean?
I reckon you're about nihilism.
My first two lines are for the first, the second two for the second
Its a continuation of the first line. Where if you become the deranged, and go too far down that path, instead of being continuallu moulded by it you with inevitably start to influence that power which had first influenced you.
and if you shitpost long enough into /pol/, /pol/ will shitpost back into you
its obvious really, but maybe you just enjoy discussions
The abyss staring into you is madness? I didn't know an abyss could stare.
I enjoy that you haven't answered the question.
it can't. unless you're mad.
Seeing things that aren't there?
You become entwined in something and it affects you.
Take Veeky Forums, or specifically Veeky Forums, for example. I bet after a while of being here you read more and it began to affect how you looked at things (eg. Books). Thus you stared into the abyss (go on Veeky Forums) and it stared back (influenced your behaviors)
Basically, from my interpretation, is that when you engage in something, anything, it affects you no matter what.
It's a metaphor my man. The first sentence is a general case and the second a specific case. The abyss is a metaphor for nihilism/meaninglessness and if you look too deep into it you will see the nothingness staring you back down, driving you to madness like Nietzsche.
When you stare into nothingness, you realize that your conception of self is ultimately a nothingness.
And by nothingness I mean whatever lies beyond the ego and appearances (our sense-making, concepts-and/of-objects-in-the-world), i.e. the ultimate world of becoming, the nonreducible, non-uniform, chaotic, non-identical, Heraclitean flux
This interpretation is pretty specific. I am not OP though
Here is explanation of the second line:
When you fight a monster, the monster fights you back.
If you contemplate emptiness/ennui (chaos, the core of all deprevity) thoroughly enough, you risk being convinced by it that It's overwhelming strength is the best way.
It's a similar statement to the above with the shuttle difference that this is more or less a conscious, willing decision to give up morality as opposed to accidentaly doing so in the struggle against perceived immorality.
OP here. This is the only answer that seems to explain how an abyss can stare back.
Other feedback has been more or less correct, but doesn't address the aspect of how an abyss can stare. If he meant "you become the abyss," why didn't he just say that?
You mean slave morality? That's a decent interpretation.
Hey, why does an abyss stare?
METAPHOR
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Taking it literally is dumb.
The abyss is a seperate thing from the self and the whole statement is meant as a warning to people who may confuse inevitability with their personal despair.
The abyss is characterization of the infinite unstopabble evil that cannot be fought and eventually consumes everything.
To combat it, the living must acknowledge it, think about it. stare at it.
Be careful though
Stare to long or think too hard and you might find it beginning to consume you. (Your hurdles that you cant overcome are mirrored in the abyss)
I replied to this by replying to myself sorry.
I don't mean slave morality.
That's him building a framework while simultaneously forgetting that he already presumes an objective morality outside of the metaphysical God.
I.e.
God is dead this is bad
'Cause
People don't have morality this is bad
'Cause
There must be a source of morality
'Cause
And he never addresses why there has to be an objective moral sauce.
Just histrionically pretends it's a great and terrible challenge.
>evil
lol, try reading Nitzsch desu.
This guy gets it
Morality is born out of nature. It's an element of the survival of social animals, but it is an abstract one. Since morality is abstract, it's up to our egos whether or not something is morally good. Nietzsche liked the concept of good and bad (desirable and undesirable), just not good and evil.
I don't think it is dumb. I know Nietzsche thought "Beyond Good and Evil."
Salt
WE ALWAYS WERE THE ABYSS!?
That not only makes sense at a metaphor, it also incorporates more philosophy.
So far, abyss can stare back
>because you are mad
>because you are the abyss
I know what niezche was going for.
It's irrelevant because his premise was based on the distress at the idea of genuine meaninglessness.
He was incapable of recognizing that his distress at nothingness is an offshoot of a universal thing in anything that carried the definition "alive"
Evil=death
Good=life
It doesn't matter if it's just stupid thoughts or inane predilections. It exists and logically the outcome is core morality.
Huh?
Nvm I'm either too stupid too explain or I'm too stupid to understand freddy.
It means that if you're obsessed with something, you eventually start assimilating characteristics of it. For example, if you critique capitalism, you will feel a sense of disgust at the idea, yet the idea of poverty within capitalism is worse than wealth, even though wealth creates that poverty. The mind then self inserts into the dychotomy as a wealthy person to escape the horrors of poverty (all in the context of only thoughts and psychology.) So what I mean is that when you can't eliminate an evil, the mind tends to situate itself in the position of the beneficiary of that evil, and this ultimately influences you and changes who you are.
I've felt this happen to me many times. It's almost a Stockholm syndrome of thought if you think about it.
That's an interesting take on it. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
Nobody is saying that, mate.
You're right that Nietzsche is a hypocrite. Most people are, and he really tended to ramble.
It seems like he never banished good and evil from his mind. Maybe he didn't claim to, but that seems worth contemplating as a writing philosopher.
I understand your desire to reject everythig Nietzsche wrote.
You're having a normal emotional response to witnessing something you stringly dislike. Ramblers and hypocrites are good to stay away from in many settings.
but also the rambler and the hypocrite stares back into you, and me too
If you ironically shitpost too much, you will in the end only shitpost (in reality you have always been shitposting because shitposting is still shitposting)
Can't find an arguement in this post, try again
That might be because I'm agreeing with you and empathizing.
The Abyss doesn't stare, at all. Only you do. That's the goddamn point.
>overwhelming strength is the best way.
what kind of strength, and the best way to do what?
>T. Stemsperg
Death is one of the many forms that it stares back at you...
but really, It is fitting you used a gun in the photo because I interpret the line as a stand-off, you know the famous philosophy line about "The World is everything that is the case"?
That is about not being able to go beyond the world. you can ask questions and discover truths of the world within the world, just as you can understand how life works and explore all the variations of life, but when you come to that edge of life, where life ends, it stares back at you with nothing...you stare at it for some degree of truth or it to reveal itself but it stares at you with equal conviction, ... it is like the two sides of the coin meeting at the edge, and they can share the edge, but neither can go beyond because ONE has to end. to enter the abyss or to understand it would be to END your life
they are at a standoff because one needs to CEASE TO BE, and so silence or staring is the result as both contemplate the other
It's a metaphor and personification (idk the English term) meant to illustrate an idea.
You have to be a sperg to try and take it literally.
"THIS SUMMER....2018...THE ABYSS CAN STARE BACK...."
SAMUEL L JACKSON
...
JONNY DEPP
...
SOME FUCK
...
STARRING IN...
SOME TIRESOME APHORISM THAT DOESNT MEAN ANYTHING ANYMORE
This. The abyss is within you. When one gazes into the abyss, one will not be frightened of being mistaken. But suggest that this abyss is a mirror, and it is as if you attempted to murder them, as you attempted to murder the facade that one is good and the abyss is an enemy separate from the self.
This thread is some small child level bait and you guys are falling for it, shame
I don't get Kafka's metamorphoses, how can a human turn into a bug? Why didn't his family ask themselves what happened to their son? Doesn't make sense!
The abyss is a metaphor for the the drive towards death or the Freudian Thanatos
Another way to convey this thought would be; When you stare a monster in the eyes, the monster inside you also recognises it's own monstrosity.
This is the simpledst yet most correct answer
woah
When you fight the monster,a part of it rubs onto you.Thats what i would say
"The abyss" can gaze back at you because it is actually the name of the main character's cat in the book. Jesus, for a board called Veeky Forums, y'all sure don't seem to read the source material very often.
I don't haave an answer and I'm kinda drunk right now but this is what I imagine:
>oi look at that stupid abyss
>its so empty and dark
>its the opposite of life
>there is nothing in it... it is an abyss
>does the abyss feel?
>... how can I judge the abyss?
>am I any better than the abyss, or am I empty as it too?
>my life is as pointless as gazing into an abyss
>the abyss reflects me
>I am full of emptiness and I don't exist
> neither of us do
>there is only darkness in this world
>we are the abyss
that makes all kinds of sense
people become impious if they become dissillusioned with their cause, like french revolutionaries who became what they feared in many ways
if you see how humans act that act will make a mark on you and can change you (warcrimes, murder, that kind of stuff)
The emptiness within and without you has a life of its own if you give it that.