How is Nietzsche even relevant? I've read the first 50 pages of Thus Spoke Zarasthura. Beautiful title, quite good articulation, but it was like a madman scribble. Like, for example, why does he condemn crime against earth? Why does it even matter if a man commits crime against earth, especially for an atheist like himself? Why must a man live with virtue, when virtue itself according to him, a nihilist, is meaningless? Why does he hate the preachers of death, when death seems to be a better choice than his nothingness? And isn't Overman basically a transcendence into nothingness? What he calls liberation is what seems to me a vanity, an enslavement of man by the ideology of eternal recurrence of life or whatever this jackass believed in. This is like a book that leads you absolutely nowhere, rewards you nothing, like the worst aphorisms ever. I don't get all the praise for Nietzsche. Is he famous because he could write 300 pages of absolutely nothing? Or is it because he told other nihilists in the world that they could pretend to be something even though there is literally nothing?
Nietzschecucks, explain this
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>nightstick
>nihilist
Honestly, stop reading Nietzsche, dude. Yes, he's an interesting thinker, and had a great deal of influence both philosophically and literarily (here's where you will probably find the most significant influence). But, he wasn't too much of a philosopher. It's not exactly that he just "spouted opinions" as some people might say, but Nietzsche truly does not have the same clarity of thought as other philosophers. His artistry, I think, got in his way. I learned this after spending way too much time with Nietzsche and regretting it. Just move on, and start with the real philosophers, like Heidegger or something.
This is what happens when people read Zarathustra first.
read heidegger's lectures on nietzsche dipshit
>Thinks Nietzsche isn't a real philosopher
>Recommends Heidegger
>hy does it even matter if a man commits crime against earth, especially for an atheist like himself?
Its his way of trying to explain his philosophy of only believing in what you can see and expect from the earth. Nietzsche believed people had religion because they hated the earth and themselves and only lived for an unseen imaginary world beyond it. So for Nietzsche, who obviously doesn't believe in the afterlife and thinks existence only amounts to what we experience on the earth, to truly live is to love the earth and our current state of existence. You bring up him being an atheist like it someone supports your issue with it but I think its just adding to your confusion. The very fact that Neitzche believes in nothing beyond the earth justifies his belief in the earth itself.
>Why must a man live with virtue, when virtue itself according to him, a nihilist, is meaningless?
Where does it say this in the book? Neitzche is awed by our power to create good and thus sees what he would call 'good virtue' as extensions our own being. Don't confuse this with the slave morality he discusses so much in Zarathustra. The difference between the two is the "slaves" have accepted what good has been presented to them and become docile in the art of creation.
> Why does he hate the preachers of death, when death seems to be a better choice than his nothingness?
Literally what. Every passage is about him justifying his existence wtf
>And isn't Overman basically a transcendence into nothingness?
Its an embracing of nothingness not a transcendence into it.
You've fallen for the meme that Neitzche is a nihilist which is interesting because he doesnt really ever allude to that in Zarathustra. The entire book is very anti-nihilism because its mostly responding to Christian virtues and the possibility of creating our own 'good' for ourselves in relation to such. Neitzche believes in a 'good' but states that the good is what we create from ourselves.
Idk, I can see that disorganization in earlier stuff but his later stuff is more structured. By the time the Genealogy of Morality roles around he's got some pretty clear and directed prose, and the essays tend to follow a more logical pattern while referencing his other texts.
>to truly live is to love the earth and our current state of existence
But there's nothing really worth loving on earth.
>Where does it say this in the book?
He talks about virtue a lot without telling us the point of virtue.
>Every passage is about him justifying his existence wtf
Yeah, justifying checkmate. He wants people to embrace the checkmate.
>Its an embracing of nothingness not a transcendence into it.
I think I read the word transcendence once.
>creating our own 'good' for ourselves
>not pseudo nihilistic
Like I said, he pretended that his existence and will mean anything. He never truly said the purpose of creating our own good, why is it good to create our own good. He's a closet nihilist. The fact that Nietzsche himself went insane means that his ideology is a scam, it couldn't even work on him.
You should've read BG&E first tbqh OP, because it's obvious you don't understand what Nietzsche was trying to do.
Looks like the same shit basically. The "my own idea and will matter" shit.
The point was that Nietzsche was concerned with what would happen to society after science had essentially destroyed Christian metaphysics.
He thought two things would occur, either people would become hyper-nihilistic, or they would resort to authoritarian and nationalistic ideologies.
He even predicted in Will To Power that communistic ideas would spread so much because of the death of God, that a war would eventually happen that would kill tens of millions of people. Turns out he was right.
What he is trying to do in Thus Spake Zarathustra, is to create a narrative and an idea that is powerful enough to make sure the nihilism is conquered. Unfortunately he turned insane and died before he could finish his work.
>But there's nothing really worth loving on earth.
Neitezche would call this a supposition of your own. You are convinced that their is nothing worth loving on earth because you have zero belief in any of it.
>Yeah, justifying checkmate. He wants people to embrace the checkmate.
And yet you don't explain what is wrong with that at all. Amor fati means loving what is beyond your control.
>He talks about virtue a lot without telling us the point of virtue.
Neitzche recognized virtue as inseparable from the human condition, he explains its purpose and nature, which I think pretty much tells you "the point" of it. The point of virtue is to express our own being.
>Like I said, he pretended that his existence and will mean anything...He never truly said the purpose of creating our own good, why is it good to create our own good.
The 'good' is good because it is a creation of our own being. If you are to philosophically, in any school of thought, consider anything as truly 'good' you have to acknowledge at some point down the line something justifies itself, for Neitzche this is the will. So the truth is the exact opposite of what you're saying; will means everything, because with it man creates his own independent existence. He explains it pretty well I havent read any of his other works aside from Zarathustra so maybe you should be taking your time.
good post. i'm currently reading zarathrusta and i want to add - nietzsche's superman is motivated by a singular virtue which is discovered and self-evident to him. the text is a bit confusing because he also uses the word "virtue" to stand in for religious dogma, which he looks down on.
>The fact that Nietzsche himself went insane means that his ideology is a scam, it couldn't even work on him.
this is the point you completely discredited yourself.
The only thing that makes Nietzsche "complicated" is your expectation of him being a Philosopher. As soon as you realize that he was a literal dudebro airhead and his texts are basically Rococo Maddox "articles" everything makes perfect sense.
At this point you're saying a lot more about yourself than Nietzsche.
>Why must a man live with virtue, when virtue itself according to him, a nihilist, is
meaningless?
Congratulations, you've spectacularly missed the point. Nietzsche was not a nihilist, he was an anti-nihilist, everything he wrote about was warning of the dangers of nihilism
>clarity of thought
You idiots and your 'Will to System', fetishizing the formalization of thought as you do, are what's ruining philosophy. Your thinking, or rather spirit, taken to its logical conclusion, results in the abortion known as analytic philosophy.
If you read Nietzsche, you'd know he mocks your kind frequently. You want your philosophy to be set out and structured like a science.
But evidently, you couldn't meet his standard. Like most Last Men, what you idolize is a straight path. You couldn't handle Nietzsche's winding path, and so you turned back. Good riddance.
Just to add, if you read TSZ to any meaningful degree, then you'd recollect the part where Zarathustra says the Overman must learn to bathe even in muddy/murky water.
You can take that to be a metaphor for Nietzsche's philosophy. It reminded me of the bit in Joyce's Finnegans Wake in the bar/tavern with Roderick O'Connor drinking last night's dregs.
This guy.
>How is Nietzsche even relevant?
Well, to find that out, you can either read more than just 50 pages of his only mythological / prophetic work out of the dozen+ other books he wrote, or you can go and take some university classes on him, or even read one of the hundreds of books writteb by scholars who have commented and analyzed him. Your choice.
...
>You are convinced that their is nothing worth loving on earth because you have zero belief in any of it.
You can't create your own belief. To create my own belief would be to deny myself.
>And yet you don't explain what is wrong with that at all.
To live willingly with imperfection is to deny myself. Didn't Nietzsche too address the danger of self denial?
>Amor fati means loving what is beyond your control.
I feel that amor fati can only be applied when you have faith in the infinite, since fate is gruesome. And again, it would be a denial to call life and natural occurrence to be not gruesome. Is there even a reason to think that natural occurrence isn't gruesome? The human mind has the ability to create the idea of transcending materials and perception, this is natural. As proven by history, to be repulsed by the limitations of nature is in our instinct, our identity as the human species. Even when there are little things in nature that we can enjoy, there is no such thing as content. How can you live with knowing that there is nothing beyond our perception? I don't think Nietzsche has ever addressed this problem.
>The point of virtue is to express our own being.
Well, what is the point of expressing our own being? Why is it even worthy of expression?
>The 'good' is good because it is a creation of our own being.
But what if I think that my own being is without value? Like I said, it is natural for humans to be disgusted by limitations. To be content by our creation is the biggest self deception. We can't understand what we want.
What if I can't go on? The first 50 pages and some analysis on the internet already make me disinterested in his works.
>But what if I think that my own being is without value?
cool for you, you can freely discard yourself in the dustbin of history
This.
If you don't think the same then you're just not critical enough about yourself. Man is a creature of "beyond all or nothing." We want more than the whole world can provide, it's in our nature.
I don't think I have any value in the grand scheme of things either but I recognize that this is merely a side-effect of my flawed constitution so I don't let it completely muddle my world-view.
>What if I can't go on? The first 50 pages and some analysis on the internet already make me disinterested in his works.
That's fine. Someone as impulsive and impatient as you shouldn't be reading them anyway then.
This shit wasn't just written down by Nietzsche one lax Saturday morning in his PJs eating a hearty bowl of Power Pops. These works take months to complete, after literal decades of study and contemplation of thousands of years worth of literature and philosophy. Your 50-page read of one random book of his is laughable. You will absolutely never grasp anything in philosophy with that impatience, let alone Nietzsche, who is a monster of wisdom that most learned scholars even have trouble tackling.
You shouldn't go on. I can tell reading more wont help you understand. You are a petty, small minded person who can only understand ideas in the context of your shallow thoughts and miserable life. There's no room for Nietzsche in your head, the deformed state he had to take to fit is completely unrecognizable.
>How can you live with knowing that there is nothing beyond our perception? I don't think Nietzsche has ever addressed this problem.
yes he does you stupid little fucker.
>To live willingly with imperfection is to deny myself.
...no.
>You can't create your own belief. To create my own belief would be to deny myself.
....no.
>Well, what is the point of expressing our own being? Why is it even worthy of expression?
pointfliesbyyourhead.gif
>But what if I think that my own being is without value?
then kys.
>What if I can't go on? The first 50 pages and some analysis on the internet already make me disinterested in his works.
then stop posting.
obviously nietzsche is not meant for whiny children discontent with their lives. you lack the persistence and hardiness of soul that nietzsche is so fond of, and are unwilling to seek it. i hope you are trolling for your own sake, you miserable fuck.
>These works take months to complete, after literal decades of study and contemplation of thousands of years worth of literature and philosophy.
Zarathrusta was actually written in a couple weeks after Nietzsche had some fit of inspiration. I read it in the Introduction.
>Congratulations, you've spectacularly missed the point. Nietzsche was not a nihilist, he was an anti-nihilist, everything he wrote about was warning of the dangers of nihilism
That doesn't make him any less of a nihilist. A smoker who warns you about the dangers of smoking isn't any less of a smoker.
>Zarathrusta was actually written in a couple weeks after Nietzsche had some fit of inspiration. I read it in the Introduction.
a recurring theme with nietzsche is energy expending itself a long time of subterranean accumulation
this is certainly the case with zarathustra
Nietzsche understood nihilism as the product of measuring the value of the world according to "purely fictional categories". To him, God is the ultimate fictional category. All roads to nothingness in life (that includes all idealism, even truth) join at the end and become the road leading to God. His understanding of "the world" then, if all these fictional categories are discarded, is very sage-like, very obscure, like the logos of Heraclitus or the enlightenment of Bodhidharma.
He was no nihilist. He spoke in the language of nihilists, but that is all. In Buddhism, Nietzsche would be known as a Pratyekabuddha, a person who attained the ultimate insight of the Buddha in an age through personal contemplation / without the Buddha's teachings, and as such usually re-engages with the world without the understanding required to properly convey this insight, or sometimes with the intentional desire to stray people away from it. Kind of like an antichrist, fallen from heaven, which Nietzsche referred to himself as (but not cast out -- voluntary leave).
Sauce?
>merely a side-effect of my flawed constitution
Yes, your constitution is flawed, your worldview is flawed, nothing is without flaw. It's not providing a feeling of content if it's flawed.
>Someone as impulsive and impatient as you shouldn't be reading them anyway then.
Yeah, there are many better books I can read anyway.
>Someone as impulsive and impatient as you shouldn't be reading them anyway then.
Yeah, reading is excruciating and there are better books to read anyway.
>yes he does you stupid little fucker.
Don't just read that last sentence. I really don't get this worship of eternal recurrence.
>...no.
Humans have always been discontent of imperfection and limitations. We create art, technology, civilization, religions, etc. We just want to get out of this miserable world.
>...no.
Why not? To believe in what you know to be against your ideals would be self deceiving.
>pointfliesbyyourhead.gif
alright, what's your point by this?
>then kys.
So, nietzsche debunked?
>obviously nietzsche is not meant for whiny children discontent with their lives
Only simple minded animals would be content of their lives.
>you lack the persistence and hardiness of soul that nietzsche is so fond of
What's the point of persistence and hardiness of soul? And isn't it synonymous to ignorance?
>small minded
>shallow thoughts
Human mind is always small and shallow.
>miserable life
I don't think mine is miserable, because I have faith, and it's not in myself. Faith in self can't truly liberate anyone.
>him, a nihilist
this thread should have ended right there
useless cunts
>Thinking Nietzsche meant what we mean we he uses the term nihilist
>Not realising he has an idiosyncratic use for the term
>Thinking he isn't a nihilist when it's the basis of all of his ethics
explain this to me
Nietzsche, in his use of the term nihilist means something like life denying rather. This is why he sometimes calls Christians nihilists.
But christians accept life.
No, Christians sacrifice life for afterlife.
I don't know how you use the word, but Nietzsche is definitely not a nihilist. Could you explain what you mean by nihilism and how it connects to Nietzsche?
Wrong. Earthly life, however much they love to profess it, is merely a secondary concern to the Christian. A prelude if you will, to the main event that is Heaven/the afterlife.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this is dangerous - which Nietzsche realized. You'd either have to be naive or live a very sheltered life to be unaware of the extent to which your average Christian is merely 'content' with earthly life (at best) or positively hateful of it (at worst).
>You can't create your own belief. To create my own belief would be to deny myself.
Dude what does that even mean. You probably didn't start with Plato given how you fail to completely address the essence of all your arguments. You claim that this facet of Neitzche somehow means the denial of self yet you dont tell me WHY that is, or for that matter WHAT the self is in the first place. If you understood what everyone else in this thread is saying you'd understand that to create your own belief in terms of this philosophy is to fulfill the self to the greatest degree. Go read the republic and come back when you have the potential to understand existenalism.
en.wikipedia.org
you aren't smarter than nietzsche. you're someone of middling intelligence who's only just started picking up more "serious" books. read some more before you start spewing off your shit ideas like this again.
The only relevant reply.
>Christians sacrifice life for afterlife
not really, unless you think getting drunk and fornicating 24/7 is "living"
You mean they demonize life with their Seven Deadly Sins and their Hell, attempt to systematize it with their commandments, and more or less shit all over of it with their concept of afterlife and morality. Everything they do devalues it. The very existence of an omnipotent, omniscient god devalues it.
They don't accept life. They tyrannize it.
Since the term nihilist without qualifiers is somewhat vague I will add that he is a moral nihilist (or moral anti-realist if you prefer the term).
plato.stanford.edu
Nietzsche's moral nihilism is necessary for all of his ethics. To fail to realise his stance on moral realism is to misunderstand all his ethics and to misunderstand his whole stance on the history of enlightenment philosophy. I don't know how to go about trying to prove it to you because I don't understand how anyone can read Nietzsche without this in mind, absolutely nothing works without it.
It doesn't matter what is actually true only that this is what Nietzsche thought.
>overcome nihilism by pursuing passion, art, self-ownership and struggle.
he fails. he has a good vision but he does´t have an answer to"nihilism", and he knows it. it´s a fucking liar.
Your skepticism is healthy, but also wrong, because nihilism is not a problem or a question that necessitates an answer. It is an interpretation and an expression, neither of which have anything to do with truth.
He's right, Freddy's project failed. He announced his Umwerting aller werte answer to nihilism magnum opus multiple times and then failed to deliver.
He was a loser.
>thinking Nietzsche has answers
what part of DESCRIPTIVE philosopher did you miss in your entry to Philosophy class?
this is the long and short of it, really.
If you think he "failed" then you don't actually get perspectivism or what his message was about.
>tfw best friend has become obsessed with Nietzsche and is now a nihilist unironically
What the fuck do I do about him? He's becoming very annoying.
>and is now a nihilist unironically
What the fuck does this even mean?
how does this god awful thread have 50 replies?
>according to him, a nihilist
You brought that baggage, so he seems to contradict his project as you imagined it. But Nietzsche isn't a nihilist the way Dawkins is an atheist. He's not a peddler, but sees that the wave has overtaken us, unwanted.
I would tell readers to start Nietzsche with The Birth of Tragedy. His own modern project is exactly the same as that he imagines Socrates' to have been. That way you will at least see what he's trying to do, and possibly -- if you come to share his view of what's at stake -- even admire him for it
Fug. I wrote Birth of Tragedy but I really meant The Problem of Socrates
>picks up Nietzsche
>probably hasn't read most/any relevant philosophy/lit leading up to him
>reads zarathustra first
>expects to understand it
OP you do realize people spend years trying to understand certain philosophers. You aren't going to do it by reading 50 pages.
>You probably didn't start with Plato
Enlighten me. I don't go to philosophy school. I haven't read anything by plato directly. Republic, it is 300 pages of boring drama like dialectics for the scholars and scribes to decipher in an extra 200 pages or so. Which part should I focus on? Doctrine of truth? Ephystemology of the cave? What?
>You claim that this facet of Neitzche somehow means the denial of self yet you dont tell me WHY that is
Self empiricism alone can't answer anything. At least from my experience, induction can't give the reason to live. He said that we live to fulfill ourselves, but we know that humans can never fulfill themselves to their content. There is always a certain moment when we have to cool down and tell ourselves, "this is all of it." To believe our perception is to deny our wants and needs that go beyond all observable facts. We demand the infinite, so to believe in the finite would be against our ideals. We would have to lie to ourselves that we are content by all the limitations we have, just like the dumb animals around us do. How can you live with such self denial?
>you aren't smarter than nietzsche
Well I never said that I am. I'm a person of average IQ and average intelligence. Excuse me if this is due to my limitations of intelligence and knowledge. I'm still young and I haven't read many books. There are probably 5 billion smarter, more literate people in the world than me. However, what I REALLY don't get is the fascination of nietzsche. He was a lot smarter than me, but I find that he couldn't prove anything to me.
Of course I can't get a book by reading the cover. But it was a book of unnecessary length. It feels repetitive and convoluted.
Well, it's a good thing that they do. Life under the sun itself can't ever fulfill a man's needs. Like I said before, according to my own empiricism. We are a creature of "beyond everything or nothing."
>Of course I can't get a book by reading the cover. But it was a book of unnecessary length. It feels repetitive and convoluted.
I sincerely hope you are baiting along with the rest of these retarded Nietzsche threads. As elitist as it may sound, you can't just "into" Nietzsche (same goes for most philosophers). You can't come to conclusions about something you know very little about.
Is there a reason for nietzsche not to make his book as readable as something like summa theologica?
>To believe our perception is to deny our wants and needs
no. needs, necessities are already a fantasy and you desires/wants are perceived. even worse, taking seriously what you perceive, acting on them, especially desires is what makes you unhappy, because what you perceive, feel, think changes constantly without control from you
There's a lot more being discussed in Nietzsche than in Aquinas. A much broader philosophical tradition behind it, too. Theology is also not philosophy. By nature, Nietzsche is going to be a more complex read than Summa Theologica... and he is also more complex than most other philosophers.
That said, yes, there is also a reason for why he writes in the style that he does. Much like how the sage delivers brief messages that appear cryptic (but are actually very clear to the sage), Nietzsche requires that the reader read in between the lines as well, because he is not just scribbling out some thoughts — he's guiding you to think at a higher level. You can't just explain something like that in words all the time. You have to teach by example.
>needs, necessities are already a fantasy and you desires/wants are perceived
Then all humans share the same perceptiveness in that regard. What differs man from animal is a man has fantasy, it is natural. Even though man's fantasy is beyond nature and beyond materials, it would be a crime against nature to disregard your fantasy, because to fantasize itself is natural. So is the desire to get more and more, is also natural. How is it not true? Isn't to live according to (observable) nature against our nature?
>taking seriously what you perceive, acting on them, especially desires is what makes you unhappy, because what you perceive, feel, think changes constantly without control from you
Humans have an eternal longing for harmony, don't they? We may even demand to end the constant changes of our mind. There is no peace and sound for humans without taking everything seriously. We must solve every disharmony within ourselves to achieve absolute happiness. And yes, it has to be absolute, it's a human nature to demand the absolute, and to turn down our demand, I think, would be against our nature. Not taking everything seriously isn't solving anything isn't it?
Zarathustra is no way to begin, it's way to end.
m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mmuh reason!!!!!!!!!!
Good philosophy is not literally autistic, you yourself have been poisoned by the hacks of history. If you started with the Greeks, I'd go chronologically with his writing, skipping all the fake crap by his sister and ending with Zarathustra.
Really, the most value Nietzsche has is being a major critic of all philosophy. Everything else, Kierkegaard essentially covered before him, and others criticized dogmatism and hyper-rationalism before both of them.
>No, Christians sacrifice life for afterlife.
Not at all, stop believing everything Nietzsche told you, you untermensch.
You can read Ecclesiastes and realize that Christianity is life-affirming, and Nietzsche like every other moron rejected it due to ignorance.
Nietzsche has no ethical system, he simply describes how to enter dialogue with oneself to create one's own if so desired.
He's writes on metaethics, he rejects a universal ethics in his metaethics.
Life is transformation - a cycle of creation and destruction. Christians believe in the eternal constant, which is antithetical to this life. Jesus himself said through his teachings you will no longer taste death; but one must taste death in order to taste life, as they define one another.
Just walking thru don't mind me
You sound like a godless faggot.
Genealogy of Morals doesn't follow any academic methodology. It's a great work, but Nietzsche just uses history as a literary device to express his philosophy.
>I read the first 50 pages of one book by an extremely influential philosopher.
>How is he even relevant?
Consider sudoku.
>academic methodology
The literal antithesis of real philosophy, prized by those who lack the required imagination/abstraction/etc for anything not structured and formalized like a science.
If you don't think he "failed" than you haven't read his biography, correspondence or nachlass.
>Life is transformation - a cycle of creation and destruction.
Only under the sun.
>antithetical to this life
The human psyche is antithetical to this life as well. Unlike animals, our demands are a discord to this life.
>one must taste death in order to taste life
You can accept it only if you're a mindless animal.
Is BGaE a goo place to start with him? I tried starting with TPZ but I feel like Im constantly runing into contradictions like OP said.
>However, what I REALLY don't get is the fascination of nietzsche. He was a lot smarter than me, but I find that he couldn't prove anything to me.
That says more about you as a person than it does nietzsche as a philosopher. Why don't you read and think a little more rather than coming up with your shitty babby arguments to block out any new knowledge? Oh wait, it's because you're a shitty teen that has to be right about everything in the world. This is a truly awful thread man. Delete it.
That's what literature is for.
>he rejects a universal ethics in his metaethics
But he still provides prescriptive ways in which people should act, which is to what I refer to. He has no morality but he does have an ethical system.