Was it philosophy you were first interested in?

>Was it philosophy you were first interested in?
>I studied philosophy almost exclusively from the age of seventeen to twenty-one, and only the great philosophical systems. I disregarded most poetry and other literature. But I broke happily very soon with the university, which I consider a great intellectual misfortune, and even a danger.

>Were you reading Nietzsche then?
>When I was studying philosophy I wasn’t reading Nietzsche. I read “serious” philosophers. It’s when I finished studying it, at the point when I stopped believing in philosophy, that I began to read Nietzsche. Well, I realized that he wasn’t a philosopher, he was more: a temperament. So, I read him but never systematically. Now and then I’d read things by him, but really I don’t read him anymore. What I consider his most authentic work is his letters, because in them he’s truthful, while in his other work he’s prisoner to his vision. In his letters one sees that he’s just a poor guy, that he’s ill, exactly the opposite of everything he claimed.

>You write in The Trouble with Being Born that you stopped reading him because you found him “too naïve.”
>That’s a bit excessive, yes. It’s because that whole vision, of the will to power and all that, he imposed that grandiose vision on himself because he was a pitiful invalid. Its whole basis was false, nonexistent. His work is an unspeakable megalomania. When one reads the letters he wrote at the same time, one sees that he’s pathetic, it’s very touching, like a character out of Chekhov. I was attached to him in my youth, but not after. He’s a great writer, though, a great stylist.

>Yet critics often compare you to him, saying you follow in his tracks.
>No, that’s a mistake, I think. But it is obvious that his way of writing made an impression on me. He had things that other Germans didn’t, because he read a lot of the French writers, that’s very important.

>You’ve said that you also read a lot of poetry in your youth.
>That was after. It was, if you like, the disappointment of philosophy that made me turn to literature. To tell the truth, it’s from that point on I realized that Dostoyevsky was much more important than a great philosopher. And that the great poetry was something extraordinary.

Is he /ourguy/?

Other urls found in this thread:

itinerariesofahummingbird.com/e-m-cioran.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

His point about Nietzsche is incredibly cogent. It makes me want to read his letters now. Nietzsche truly was an incredible writer, and because of this his philosophical ideas are incredibly widespread now, from high to low culture. At the end of the day, though, all great thinkers are pathetic invalids at the end of the day. It's tragic, but it's the truth. We humans are all broken in some way.

holy shit stop posting your dumb opinions

well done andrew. very good speech :)

What have to do the coherence of a writer and his ideas, with the value of the ideas themselves?

Cioran is a total bro. I remember hearing an anecdote about him where he confided to a friend that "I actually like living". His half-serious/half-ironic pessimism tickles me just right.

That entire interview is just a really pleasant, enjoyable read. It always cheers me up; he just has this relaxing matter-of-fact way of answering every question. Thank God for Cioran.

>Anti-Natalist cuckold

No, thanks!

b-b-but there is a will to power.

Given enough randomness, the law of large numbers states that eventually there the conditions will be such that the next state will be determined largely by a very small amount of information in the previous state.

>implying he's wrong
Nietzsche is so weak he could be beat to death by a 15 year old.

can you link it?

>physical strength implies transcendent value

hello peterson

I think what Cioran was alking about is that after you read Nietzche you realize he is writing and exploring certain notions of philosophy as a coping mechanism. Or as an agent provaecteur.
Nietzche critisies others waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much without turning the lens onto himself other than saying "I must transcend theistic/or God derived morality"

it's a funny cycle
>Nietzsche reads Schopenhauer and thinks "this is naive pessimism"
>Cioran reads Nietzsche and thinks "this is naive optimism"
And I personally thinks that Cioran represent naive pessimism.

>cuckold

If anything he's more of a pimp, having women provide for him.

itinerariesofahummingbird.com/e-m-cioran.html

How is Cioran naive?

He has a pleasant way of answering questions.

You haven't read Ecce homo. Nietzche calls himself a decadent. Human All too Human also contains a lot of autobiographical about himself that don't paint him in the best light.
>The martyr against his will. In one party, there was a man who was too anxious and cowardly ever to contradict his comrades. They used him for every service; they demanded everything of him, because he was more afraid of the bad opinions of his companions than of death itself. His was a miserable, weak soul. They recognized this and on the basis of those qualities they made him first into a hero and finally into a martyr. Although the cowardly man always said "no" inwardly, he always said "yes" with his lips, even on the scaffold, when he died for the views of his party. Next to him stood one of his old comrades, who tyrannized him so by word and glance that he really did suffer death in the most seemly way, and has since been celebrated as a martyr and a man of great character.
This is pretty clearly autobiographical.

>he is writing and exploring certain notions of philosophy as a coping mechanism
This is just incredibly obvious from the first time you read Nietzsche. I feel like I've spent all day talking to a mental patient every time I read him

I mean, have you read him before? A Short History of Decay is one of the funniest pieces of writing I've ever come across, and I don't mean that in an edgy way where I find depressing stuff funny, the work is actually a black comedy.

thanks

If you sincerely think that Nietszche's work isn't in itself one huge lens turned on itself then you're a retard.