What exactly is it about Nietzsche that is so attractive to people who haven't read any other philosophy?

What exactly is it about Nietzsche that is so attractive to people who haven't read any other philosophy?

Probably the fact that he tears down the entire Western philosophical tradition

Because of his aphorisms. It makes people really think.

The image of it.

How many people do you think read books from before the invention of photography?

What percentage of the population have concerned themselves with Ancient Greek literature?

His emotionality.

this desu

He's fun and easy to read, if nothing else.

9/10 of his writing is what he received from original thinkers like Rochefoucauld, Emerson, Carlyle, Schopenhauer, de Gobineau, etc

Most people haven't read those, so on reading him they perceive a multitude of brilliant observations.

Also, his style appeals to those with a sense of superiority.

It's atheism without nihilism. It gives people without a goal (atheists) something to work towards.

>atheism is intrensically nilhist
you what fucking twat

Well, if it's not intrinsically nihilist, then it's definitely much more nihilistic than any other world view.

>to not believe in gods is to not believe in anything
wew lad

You're being silly. I've already shown that I don't believe atheism is always nihilistic because I've posted that Nietzsche's philosophy is atheistic, and not nihilistic.

Of course Nietzche's philosophy can easily be argued to be nihilistic,.

Not necessarilly - but wasn't that his entire point?

And when nothing but the subject is absolute, when everything lies in the relative - then what is that value other than zeroes over zeroes?

Not to rob it of meaning, user, just to strip it down: nude and ghostly.

because he's an emotional poet pretending to be a philosopher and people are emotional dumbfucks.

1 or 2 percent at most.

>neechee
>not a nihilist
brainlet detected

Hank Green detected.

This. Lured me in with aphorisms as a wee lad and after I read all his works I realised I got thoroughly memed on.

He's not an atheist, though.
Yes it is, you fucking delusional twat.
Yes, your fr*g who writes about killin' a-rabs is a nihilist.

Anal autistic please go back to /r/atheism

>He's not an atheist, though.
t. Theist

Psued spotted

His philosophy can be easily misread as justifying being a flaming egomaniac, which is what most people are these days anyway.

t. a good catholic boi

0,01 being generous.

[vague speculation]

Side note: I really dislike other people, especially those who claim to be superior, and aren't, unlike I

A worldview that believes in the existence of an afterlife and interprets the #1 value of all things in the physical world as preparing us for it is far more nihilistic. It is akin to saying that the meaning of music is to prepare us for the silence after, or the meaning of living a fulfilling day is to prepare us for a restful sleep the night after.

he writes very well
lalso this
and this

what is it about Veeky Forums that anything popular must be shit?

>A worldview that believes in the existence of an afterlife and interprets the #1 value of all things in the physical world as preparing us for it is far more nihilistic

But in such a scenario the physical world still has inherent meaning so it can't be nihilistic.

There is no meaning in that worldview to someone who loves the physical world for itself. I don't listen to music to hear the silence after it, and even attempting to do so spoils the whole thing for me. The silence after is the worst part of it.

I don't care about that someone, but about what fits the definition. You shouldn't call something nihilistic because you don't like it, seeing as it confuses the term. An analogy is not a valid argument when discussing something this pragmatically factual because it can only be appropriately described in a literal fashion.

He's a meme spread to impressionable youngins by elites who wish to return to the days before christian ethics, when the powerful could rule as gods on earth

Nihilism is the emptying of meaning. The higher joys of this world mean nothing when there is an afterlife waiting for us ahead. Hence why religion usually promotes an ascetic lifestyle, discarding all of the higher joys in life.

Even if everything in the world has bad value attached to it, it still has value attached to it. Nihilism means the absence of value. Whether this is positive or negative value doesn't matter.

>bad value
No, it has NONE when there is an afterlife. That is why asceticism is promoted by afterlife believers. They see NO VALUE in the higher joys (i.e. the riskier ones).

They see no positive value in the higher joys, yet they still interpret them within the framework of their belief system, thereby attaching value to them, value they deem inherent.

The only reason he's popular is probably because of Nazi Germany and his retarded sister.

That's fine, but it's still nihilistic to anyone who lives for his passions.

He was partly responsible for Nazi Germany though, and without his sister intervening.

No, it's opposed to their belief system, but it's not nihilistic. A nihilist couldn't even be opposed to a belief system seeing as he himself as none. The very concept of nihilist is contradictory.

He provides a route for confused people to live a worthwhile life through constructing their own self-meaning instead of relying on previous modalities of existence that confused those people in the first place.

People forget that he wasn't all that highly regarded or read among Anglos until Kaufman popularized him (and arguably sanitized him)

It's relative, like heat. A thing feels hotter or colder to your hand depending on how much heat is in your hand. Depending on your worldview, some other worldviews will appear as if they empty your world of meaning, which you'd call nihilistic.

I don't think there is any reason to believe that he attracts any more newcomers to philosophy than the average philosopher does. Many people start with Plato, Marx, Nietzsche, Hume, Locke, etc

No, it'll appear as opposed to your belief system and as valuing things that make you feel uncomfortable. At best, they shift meaning, but that's only when you embrace them.

OP is talking about this ephebe

I embrace them... as nihilistic, but also as like a particular diet which is hygienic for some spirits but not my own.

how so?

Read Kaufman's edition of Will to Power, and then watch The Triumph of the Will and find out. Hitler also handed out Thus Spoke Zarathustra to his high ranking officers for a reason. Not saying Nazi Germany happened primarily because of Nietzsche, but he definitely helped shape Hitler's vision of it which he did manage to obtain for some length of time.

He's the anti-philosophy philosopher. He's one of the few philosophers who have come close to what it actually means to be human, rather than getting trapped in autistic abstraction.

>what it means to be human
pls

Well >somebody needs to get laid

>(((Kaufman)))

Simplicity and the cringeworthy bombastic rhetoric.

"Thus Spake Zarathustra."
Fucking really, Fred? That's the name? You know at least Fichte just followed the German tradition and described the book, and that was its fucking name.

Spoke*

>"Thus Spake Zarathustra"
i don't know why this is funny but it is

No, I won't read someone with a personal and highly emotional stake in the game. Much like I like Russell but his treatment of Nietzsche is pathetic as well because of Russell's awful presumptions.

I have no idea really because if you actually read his shit when you haven't read any other philosophy literally your first reaction is gonna be "Man I should read some other philosophy" with a few exceptions like the antichrist.

I think people say they like him purely because he's popular and don't read him, and in some cases read him and don't understand what the fuck he was on about.

I don't know, but he's even more attractive to people who have read philosophy. It's always a breath of fresh air returning to his work.

>What exactly is it about Nietzsche that is so attractive to people who haven't read any other philosophy?

Would people like Nietzsche as a person if they bumped into him?

There's a chunk of artists/writers/philosophers that the "cool kids" feel like they have an "affinity" with but wouldn't give the time of day to them if they were alive.

modernity's elites have ruled and keep ruling as gods on an infinitely superior scale than any king, prince or warlord of ancient times, all under the supposedly level playing field of capitalism and pious protestant ethics. if youngins were truly hooked on nietzsche there would not be this much last man faggotry stinking up earth right now

Do you know what that word means?

fpbp. Nietzsche is great, maybe the best, but too often he gets used as an excuse to skip reading people like Kant or Hegel because why bother? Nietzsche already proved they're wrong, and that stuff is hard

>just followed the German tradition
Why would anyone ever do that?

>Germans

this basically

>old hag
>ephebe
Nope

You're saying he's not an ephebe

False, the 'afterlife' is not so much an end to life, but the more glorious life to come. Nietzsche misinterpreted this point because proddies just don't understand it. Not his fault.
Buddhism is nihilistic, Christianity is not. Nothing is annihilated but one's weakness.

Isn't this why this board likes stirner?

In the most simplest of terms, Nietzsche is popular because he gave people space that didn't exist before. He created space out of nothing like any great artist. And by that I mean, his proposal of the superman is an ever evolving, moving goal to aspire to (or most people read it this way anyway) and therefore it's appealing to human nature. It's a challenge.

Similarly, I believe Hitler said something similar to "my spirit shall rise from the grave and the whole world will know I was right" (I know it's a misquotation, but he's said similar anyway) and it's basically him saying he's planted the IDEA of what could be, and that's all that matters. And whaddya know? People are still moved by him (whether you agree or not) you cannot deny that he is still impactful. People will read into it in their own way, but it's pretty much Nietzsche opening a window to a new world and showing that more is possible. As , though most people can't fathom that much, they just read face value.

>He set a challenge, maybe an impossible challenge
That's why he's so popular

*le emotions are bad faec*

If it's the more glorious life to come, then this is the less glorious life. But what if I want this life only and more than anything else?

What is even the psychology of someone who wants an afterlife? It is suspicious. It implies you aren't satisfied and are too weak to change things here for your ideal.

Why do people like such an anti-democratic philosopher?

Democracy is a tyranny against the strong.

Again, you're making mistaken assumptions. The weak have no glory in the next life, only the strong do.
If this world is enough for you, then you are weak. It is enough now, but not later.
I never said that I 'want' an afterlife, but that doesn't escape that there will be one.

>If this world is enough for you, then you are weak.
So, what mental gymnastics have you jumped through to reach this conclusion?

No gymnastics, just a Will which you lack.

You're not making Christianity any cooler, you're just making Nietzsche even worse.

I'm not here to make anything cool, you teenager.

I was quoting King of the Hill, it was supposed to poke fun.

Lighten up.

I don't watch reddit television

wew

But King of the Hill had been on air for like a decade before reddit was invented.

I thought that episode with pretty funny, I'd recommend it.

t. redditor

>If people I don't like people who do something then I won't do it because they are bad therefore it is bad.
Are you sure you've read Nietzsche?

Yes I have, and I understood him.
Why do you think I haven't seen that episode?

I'll make use of this thread to ask a related simple quesiton.
I'm interested in philosophy but I've only read Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, though I've been watching hours and hours of lectures on YouTube.
What's the shortest way to get to Nietzche? I'm very interested in his ideas but I feel I might be missing a lot if I just go for it now. I read Plato's The Republic and dropped it halfway (I appreciate it's literary value and repercusion in history but it's not what I'm looking for atm)

I'm not making a comment on whether or not you've seen that episode or even any King of the Hill at all, for all I know you've seen all of it with director's commentary. I'm saying you're applying a really crude version of slave morality.

No it's not. You don't understand my reasoning.
I'm not using 'reddit' as in reddit.

You've yet to make a well drawn out case as to why an afterlife gives everything value. I'll tell you more straightforwardly why I think it strips value from everything rather than gives.

If there is an afterlife, then isn't it reasonable to ask: "what's it like?"?

You could say we don't and can't know. In which case, why does something I don't and can't know have any bearing on what I do?

If we can know, forgetting the part about there being compelling evidence, then what are the options? It's either a horrid place, a neutral place, or a beautiful place. If it's a horrid place, I don't want to shape anything in my life around it. If it's a neutral place, I still don't want to shape anything around it.

If the afterlife is a beautiful place, the next reasonable question is: "why does this first life exist then?"

If there's no rhyme or reason, then all we do here becomes pointless. Might as well kill yourself and get there faster.

BUT WAIT — there's usually a warning about doing that. If you want your soul to be light enough to measure on the scale fairly, you must live a certain way. You cannot do certain things.

So now, the afterlife is a beautiful place and this place exists to get us there, but some things in this place are forbidden. It's become a glorified waiting room with rules with all things simply paraphernalia; not very amusing. Also doesn't allow you to live the way you'd like; you need to live a certain way, otherwise, fuck off. You are eternally a child here.

There is no room for becoming an adult in this situation. Yet there's so many higher joys in life. Why can't I do them? What kind of hell is this?

"It's the Devil's trickery." That's the next explanation. A fantastic little piece of circular reasoning, that one is. Introduce yet another element that is unfalsifiable, no problem. Still doesn't resolve the issue of this being a glorified waiting room. And thus life becomes rather empty and focused on slaving over the commands of incommunicable forces. So fun.

I would rather life be the ultimate end to itself: in that world, all things are as valuable as you make it. Now that is truly liberating and something I can get down with.

Lol the guy literally wrote a book agaisnt the most famous composer of his time and had a very strong anti-anti-Semitic position. The Nazi's interpretation of Hitler's uberman is a stretch. Like Nietzsche was not concern with nationalism in the least.

Can you refute this for me so I get motivated to read Kant? What's the value if it's BTFO by Neeche.

Once again, you don't understand one bit.

You sound like you could be a professor at some community college.

Their political agenda was incompatible with Nietzsche but I don't think their philosophical temperament was that off the mark.

And you sound GAY

>I'm not using 'reddit' as in reddit.
I know, you're using reddit as a catch-all term associated with a generalized idea of people you don't like.

Which is precisely why it's slave morality.

It's not about people at all.

His ideas became something of a groundwork for modernity such that they are almost taken as self-evident. For instance the idea that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". If you challenge that idea then prepare for [Existentialism intensifies]