(Jul 22, 2019 01:22 AM)Syne Wrote: It seems it was also his first sin, the one that led him to search for the "higher man". The initial distress he heard being his own, reflected in his protege "higher men", who were all flawed in ways expressly linked to their desirable traits as "higher men". Their disillusionment was both the "higher" perspective he sought and the result of their own distress, which thus couldn't be escaped. Thus the whole search is him trying to justify or escape his own self-pity. And it's his last sin when he realizes he need only let it go. The search and the distress.
Nietzsche seems to be relating that the only purpose is in struggle, and that happiness, as purpose, is impossible.
(Jul 22, 2019 04:21 AM)Syne Wrote: So what's your answer?
Certainly my take isn't "very similar to" yours.
Self-pity was what I was looking for, but no, your take isn’t similar to mine.
"I overcame myself, the sufferer."
— And wandered I alone, for WHAT did my soul hunger by night and in labyrinthine paths? And climbed I mountains, WHOM did I ever seek, if not thee, upon mountains?
And all my wandering and mountain-climbing: a necessity was it merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:--to FLY only, wanteth mine entire will, to fly into THEE!
(Jul 22, 2019 03:16 AM)Syne Wrote: Next time, just ask, instead of the vain attempt to poison the well, SS.
Oh wait, that would too far out of character for you. You take to trolling and baiting like breathing.
I apologize. I didn’t mean to step on you. I didn’t see you lying there in the swamp.
C CJul 23, 2019 07:42 PM (This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2019 08:01 PM by C C.)
(Jul 21, 2019 09:03 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: . . . And, yes, I like philosophy probably because I enjoy riddles. So, I’m a big Nietzsche fan, of course, but I haven’t been able to find too many people that agree with my interpretation of him, not even some of the feminist philosophers, which is very surprising. . .
Nietzsche was surely interpreted somewhat differently for the brief period prior to his Aryanism sister mediating his body of work and selling that out to the rising bloodsports of German politics. His anticipation of de-realization and art as a path towards truth, as contributions to the ancestry of continental philosophy and the developments toward postmodernism, is another lead weight hung around his neck (as far as one stripe of critics using that, goes anyway). Then came -- to this day -- maladjusted young males and other rebellious bipedal impulses symbolically seizing onto him as part of their nihilistic phase, prior to finally integrating or settling themselves into the establishment in at least an outward way.
So your views about his literature as expressed in here are appreciated, in that it's a boon to have a "coming in without tainted preconceptions" hermeneutical approach to Nietzsche that departs in minor to major ways from how his thought has been popularly portrayed. For instance, by the time I got old enough to sample philosophers I was already contaminated with such stereotyping. Plus, what the latter marketing occasionally advertised as therapy -- for those uprooted from or disillusioned by their traditions -- sounded like things I was already working out or coming to terms with incrementally. In fact, the transition was so tediously gradual that I don't believe I ever had any kind of crisis.
NOTE: From this point on I started detouring off the path as I'm sometimes prone to do, so just ignore it. Occasionally difficult for me to delete something after I wasted a few minutes rambling off on it before the brakes kicked in.
A sort of "crisis" for me actually came more from later realization that ANY stance regarding the nature of what was going on behind appearances was potential BS (i.e., including materialist doctrines). So in that respect, encountering something much earlier like ... "The 'true world'—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!" might have beneficial.
But OTOH... since in the 20th-century that led to PoMo icons like Richard Rorty espousing items like any non-Western cultural system that comes along is just as right as any other, or the former... I'm probably glad I first encountered pessimism about metaphysics via Kant rather than other versions of Ernst Mach's brand of skepticism (with respect to Mach declaring everything from Platonic realms to scientific realism superfluous).
In suspending belief about a "noumenal world" conforming to cognitive perceptual forms and thought-forms, Kant actually left nothing remaining for such but being the very lawfulness or regularities that the observed world was conforming to. (Although that applies to whatever continuation of the older tradition, not the rehabilitation of it that Kant introduced.) IOW, Kant stripped Plato's realm of generalized entities so bare that it was left not being any kind of "place" at all, but just generative principles existing via what they yielded. (Similarly, if there were any universal moral laws like Kant proposed, they would likewise be their very effectiveness, not aloof objects with spatiotemporal coordinates in some elsewhere.)
I understand what Nietzsche probably means below[*] by also chucking the categorization of the immediate external world as an "apparent" world -- if there is no archetype then there is nothing deserving classification as ectype, either. But "appearance" doesn't always mean "possible imitation" or "flawed representation" -- its primary definition arguably has to do with "showing", as does the etymology of "phenomenal".
So even in an agnostic context as to whether there is an archetype slash "true world" or not, I still hang on to there being a world of "appearances" because I really don't want to mistakenly sound like an eliminative materialist indirectly suggesting that there is no manifested content to my or anyone else's perceptual processes. (IOW, that usual not-even-nothingness which matter is normally wallowing in, at least in the context of mainstream physicalist metaphysics usually being against any manner of panpsychism. Minority materialists like Galen Strawson are merely being contrarian in the latter respect, not part of the majority crowd.)
- - - footnote - - -
[*] 1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of virtue,—he lives in it, he is it.
(The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition "I, Plato, am the truth.")
2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue ("to the sinner who repents").
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more insidious, more evasive,—It becomes a woman, it becomes Christian.)
3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an obligation, a command.
(At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, Königsbergian.)
4. The true world—is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. And as unattained it is also unknown. Consequently it no longer comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown constrain us to?
(The grey of dawn. Reason stretches itself and yawns for the first time. The cock-crow of positivism.)
5. The "true world"—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright daylight; breakfast; the return of common sense and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all free-spirits kick up a shindy.)
6. We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? the apparent world perhaps?... Certainly not! In abolishing the true world we have also abolished the world of appearance!
Gary Aylesworth: "In "Twilight of the Idols", [..Nietzsche..] traces the history of this distinction from Plato to his own time, where the “true world” becomes a useless and superfluous idea (1889, 485–86). However, with the notion of the true world, he says, we have also done away with the apparent one. What is left is neither real nor apparent, but something in between, and therefore something akin to the virtual reality of more recent vintage." --Postmodernism, Precursors ... SEP
LeighaJul 23, 2019 08:10 PM (This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2019 08:30 PM by Leigha.)
I'll join the Nietzsche fan club. It's not everyday that we are told that suffering is necessary for a valuable life. He didn't seem to believe that self pity was the appropriate response to suffering (maybe no one actively chooses self pity, rather it comes upon us in a passive way) rather, we need to stop trying to avoid suffering, because life will amount to worthlessness, then. To paraphrase, he felt that the body was meant to suffer, but the mind is meant to derive something useful and beautiful even, from suffering.
Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing (although, don't follow Catholicism now) that led me to fall in love with Nietzsche, as Christianity is built around the idea of Christ's suffering as redemptive. I saw the connection, and thought...wow, someone who isn't religious is encouraging people to view suffering as a beautiful part of life.
I had only heard that idea preached as part of a religious message during Sunday masses, not as philosophy. It was very freeing for me to discover Nietzsche.
EXCERPT: Overall, socialism isn't winning over the majority of college students. When broken down by major, though, its popularity doubled with philosophy students. [...] Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is gaining momentum among college students. ... While Sanders is coming out as a 2020 frontrunner, a recent poll by College Pulse, a survey and data analytics company, found socialism isn't favored by the overall majority.
Only 39 percent of the 10,590 undergraduates polled had a favorable view of socialism, and the same percentage responded that they had an unfavorable view. When respondents were broken out by major views of capitalism shifted considerably. Philosophy majors were most likely to view socialism positively, with 78 percent of those polled saying they had at least a somewhat favorable view of it. Anthropology majors were a close second at 64 percent, followed by English majors at 58 percent and international relations, sociology and music majors all at 57 percent.
Least likely to view socialism favorably were accounting and finance majors at 20 percent and 22 percent respectively. Only 12 percent of respondents said they would be enthusiastic about a presidential candidate who described themselves as a socialist, compared to the 22 percent that would be very uncomfortable. (MORE)
It would be interesting to compare the results of that poll to a similar poll where the question was "do you support the US military? The US highway system? Air traffic control? The CDC? Town fire departments?" (i.e. all socialist agencies.) I suspect you'd see a very different distribution. Indeed, it might almost be the opposite distribution when the question focused on the military.
SeattleJul 23, 2019 09:27 PM (This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2019 09:28 PM by Seattle.)
(Jul 23, 2019 08:10 PM)Leigha Wrote: I'll join the Nietzsche fan club. It's not everyday that we are told that suffering is necessary for a valuable life. He didn't seem to believe that self pity was the appropriate response to suffering (maybe no one actively chooses self pity, rather it comes upon us in a passive way) rather, we need to stop trying to avoid suffering, because life will amount to worthlessness, then. To paraphrase, he felt that the body was meant to suffer, but the mind is meant to derive something useful and beautiful even, from suffering.
Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing (although, don't follow Catholicism now) that led me to fall in love with Nietzsche, as Christianity is built around the idea of Christ's suffering as redemptive. I saw the connection, and thought...wow, someone who isn't religious is encouraging people to view suffering as a beautiful part of life.
I had only heard that idea preached as part of a religious message during Sunday masses, not as philosophy. It was very freeing for me to discover Nietzsche.
I agree although I think Nietzsche was overly focused on the suffering. : I agree that we shouldn't be too focused on "happiness" as that's not a sustainable state. People become martyrs embracing suffering when it's usually better to realize that there is some pain and suffering as part of life along with happiness and joy and focusing on some sense of fulfillment in life is probably the better balance and is more sustainable.
LeighaJul 23, 2019 09:59 PM (This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2019 10:17 PM by Leigha.)
(Jul 23, 2019 09:27 PM)Seattle Wrote:
(Jul 23, 2019 08:10 PM)Leigha Wrote: I'll join the Nietzsche fan club. It's not everyday that we are told that suffering is necessary for a valuable life. He didn't seem to believe that self pity was the appropriate response to suffering (maybe no one actively chooses self pity, rather it comes upon us in a passive way) rather, we need to stop trying to avoid suffering, because life will amount to worthlessness, then. To paraphrase, he felt that the body was meant to suffer, but the mind is meant to derive something useful and beautiful even, from suffering.
Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing (although, don't follow Catholicism now) that led me to fall in love with Nietzsche, as Christianity is built around the idea of Christ's suffering as redemptive. I saw the connection, and thought...wow, someone who isn't religious is encouraging people to view suffering as a beautiful part of life.
I had only heard that idea preached as part of a religious message during Sunday masses, not as philosophy. It was very freeing for me to discover Nietzsche.
I agree although I think Nietzsche was overly focused on the suffering. : I agree that we shouldn't be too focused on "happiness" as that's not a sustainable state. People become martyrs embracing suffering when it's usually better to realize that there is some pain and suffering as part of life along with happiness and joy and focusing on some sense of fulfillment in life is probably the better balance and is more sustainable.
I don't think that Nietzsche was suggesting for us to seek out a life of suffering. It would seem that he thought happiness wasn't achievable without some semblance of suffering in one's life. His opinion rested on that we shouldn't seek to avoid suffering to the point where we fear it. Other philosophers like John Stuart Mill were busy teaching the idea that happiness should be sought after, and one's primary goal in life.
Even today, that is a very popular (western) cultural message, yet how do we objectively define happiness? A life void of suffering, one could say - but, that is where Nietzsche comes in. He dares us to think about a life that despite suffering, can be valuable. Suffering doesn't make our lives less valuable. as if somehow our luck has run out, or if only we had done this, that, or some other such thing...we wouldn't be in this ''mess.'' That's a very western, contemporary view, unfortunately. And it causes a lot of drug, sex, and alcohol addiction, sadly.
''Happiness is in power increasing -- that resistance is being overcome.'' - Nietszche
Happiness, peace and sustainable joy aren't found by ''default,'' but rather happiness/peace is found through the struggles of life.
(Jul 23, 2019 07:42 PM)C C Wrote: A sort of "crisis" for me actually came more from later realization that ANY stance regarding the nature of what was going on behind appearances was potential BS (i.e., including materialist doctrines). So in that respect, encountering something much earlier like ... "The 'true world'—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!" might have beneficial.
But OTOH... since in the 20th-century that led to PoMo icons like Richard Rorty espousing items like any non-Western cultural system that comes along is just as right as any other, or the former... I'm probably glad I first encountered pessimism about metaphysics via Kant rather than other versions of Ernst Mach's brand of skepticism (with respect to Mach declaring everything from Platonic realms to scientific realism superfluous).
I was raised as a Christian. So, there was lots of mourning, and then an exhilarating sense of freedom, and then, of course, fear of that freedom.
I think he called Kant a Christian in disguise, didn't he?
(Jul 23, 2019 08:10 PM)Leigha Wrote: I'll join the Nietzsche fan club. It's not everyday that we are told that suffering is necessary for a valuable life. He didn't seem to believe that self pity was the appropriate response to suffering (maybe no one actively chooses self pity, rather it comes upon us in a passive way) rather, we need to stop trying to avoid suffering, because life will amount to worthlessness, then. To paraphrase, he felt that the body was meant to suffer, but the mind is meant to derive something useful and beautiful even, from suffering.
Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing (although, don't follow Catholicism now) that led me to fall in love with Nietzsche, as Christianity is built around the idea of Christ's suffering as redemptive. I saw the connection, and thought...wow, someone who isn't religious is encouraging people to view suffering as a beautiful part of life.
He accepted his suffering as his own, his own creation. It's about changing your perspective. The eternal recurrence is about a continuous self-overcoming. It’s about becoming someone that you and you alone could bear for all eternity.
He saw Christ's elevation as a product of resentment…
And from that time onward an absurd problem offered itself: “how could God allow it!” To which the deranged reason of the little community formulated an answer that was terrifying in its absurdity: God gave his son as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. At once there was an end of the gospels! Sacrifice for sin, and in its most obnoxious and barbarous form: sacrifice of the innocent for the sins of the guilty! What appalling paganism!–Jesus himself had done away with the very concept of ”guilt,” he denied that there was any gulf fixed between God and man; he lived this unity between God and man, and that was precisely his ”glad tidings”.... And not as a mere privilege!–From this time forward the type of the Saviour was corrupted, bit by bit, by the doctrine of judgment and of the second coming, the doctrine of death as a sacrifice, the doctrine of the resurrection, by means of which the entire concept of ”blessedness,” the whole and only reality of the gospels, is juggled away–in favour of a state of existence after death!... St. Paul, with that rabbinical impudence which shows itself in all his doings, gave a logical quality to that conception, that indecent conception, in this way: ”If Christ did not rise from the dead, then all our faith is in vain!”–And at once there sprang from the Gospels the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the shameless doctrine of personal immortality.... Paul even preached it as a reward...
*When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in ”the beyond”–in nothingness–then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether. The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all natural instinct–henceforth, everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is a cause of suspicion. So to live that life no longer has any meaning: this is now the ‘meaning’ of life....
(Jul 23, 2019 07:42 PM)C C Wrote: A sort of "crisis" for me actually came more from later realization that ANY stance regarding the nature of what was going on behind appearances was potential BS (i.e., including materialist doctrines). So in that respect, encountering something much earlier like ... "The 'true world'—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!" might have beneficial.
But OTOH... since in the 20th-century that led to PoMo icons like Richard Rorty espousing items like any non-Western cultural system that comes along is just as right as any other, or the former... I'm probably glad I first encountered pessimism about metaphysics via Kant rather than other versions of Ernst Mach's brand of skepticism (with respect to Mach declaring everything from Platonic realms to scientific realism superfluous).
I was raised as a Christian. So, there was lots of mourning, and then an exhilarating sense of freedom, and then, of course, fear of that freedom.
I think he called Kant a Christian in disguise, didn't he?
(Jul 23, 2019 08:10 PM)Leigha Wrote: I'll join the Nietzsche fan club. It's not everyday that we are told that suffering is necessary for a valuable life. He didn't seem to believe that self pity was the appropriate response to suffering (maybe no one actively chooses self pity, rather it comes upon us in a passive way) rather, we need to stop trying to avoid suffering, because life will amount to worthlessness, then. To paraphrase, he felt that the body was meant to suffer, but the mind is meant to derive something useful and beautiful even, from suffering.
Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing (although, don't follow Catholicism now) that led me to fall in love with Nietzsche, as Christianity is built around the idea of Christ's suffering as redemptive. I saw the connection, and thought...wow, someone who isn't religious is encouraging people to view suffering as a beautiful part of life.
He accepted his suffering as his own, his own creation. It's about changing your perspective. The eternal recurrence is about a continuous self-overcoming. It’s about becoming someone that you and you alone could bear for all eternity.
He saw Christ's elevation as a product of resentment…
And from that time onward an absurd problem offered itself: “how could God allow it!” To which the deranged reason of the little community formulated an answer that was terrifying in its absurdity: God gave his son as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. At once there was an end of the gospels! Sacrifice for sin, and in its most obnoxious and barbarous form: sacrifice of the innocent for the sins of the guilty! What appalling paganism!–Jesus himself had done away with the very concept of ”guilt,” he denied that there was any gulf fixed between God and man; he lived this unity between God and man, and that was precisely his ”glad tidings”.... And not as a mere privilege!–From this time forward the type of the Saviour was corrupted, bit by bit, by the doctrine of judgment and of the second coming, the doctrine of death as a sacrifice, the doctrine of the resurrection, by means of which the entire concept of ”blessedness,” the whole and only reality of the gospels, is juggled away–in favour of a state of existence after death!... St. Paul, with that rabbinical impudence which shows itself in all his doings, gave a logical quality to that conception, that indecent conception, in this way: ”If Christ did not rise from the dead, then all our faith is in vain!”–And at once there sprang from the Gospels the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the shameless doctrine of personal immortality.... Paul even preached it as a reward...
*When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in ”the beyond”–in nothingness–then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether. The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all natural instinct–henceforth, everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is a cause of suspicion. So to live that life no longer has any meaning: this is now the ‘meaning’ of life....
Oh, I (personally) saw the connection, when I thought back then as a Catholic, to Jesus' suffering, and how it was an illustration of the ''Christian life,'' that there would be suffering in this life, and in following Jesus, but this suffering will yield joy. That is the Christian premise, and promise, if you will...but, I personally made the connection to Nietzsche's take on suffering. I was simply fascinated that a man who wasn't religious could help me find suffering...redeemable.
As an aside, he was an unbeliever, so...it's not unsettling (or unusual) that he would attack Christianity.
(Jul 22, 2019 01:22 AM)Syne Wrote: It seems it was also his first sin, the one that led him to search for the "higher man". The initial distress he heard being his own, reflected in his protege "higher men", who were all flawed in ways expressly linked to their desirable traits as "higher men". Their disillusionment was both the "higher" perspective he sought and the result of their own distress, which thus couldn't be escaped. Thus the whole search is him trying to justify or escape his own self-pity. And it's his last sin when he realizes he need only let it go. The search and the distress.
Nietzsche seems to be relating that the only purpose is in struggle, and that happiness, as purpose, is impossible.
(Jul 22, 2019 04:21 AM)Syne Wrote: So what's your answer?
Certainly my take isn't "very similar to" yours.
Self-pity was what I was looking for, but no, your take isn’t similar to mine.
"I overcame myself, the sufferer."
— And wandered I alone, for WHAT did my soul hunger by night and in labyrinthine paths? And climbed I mountains, WHOM did I ever seek, if not thee, upon mountains?
And all my wandering and mountain-climbing: a necessity was it merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:--to FLY only, wanteth mine entire will, to fly into THEE!
That's all you got? Well, I did assume you were only asking so you could pretend to be better than others, without having anything of significant substance yourself.
(Jul 23, 2019 10:13 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(Jul 23, 2019 08:10 PM)Leigha Wrote: Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing (although, don't follow Catholicism now) that led me to fall in love with Nietzsche, as Christianity is built around the idea of Christ's suffering as redemptive. I saw the connection, and thought...wow, someone who isn't religious is encouraging people to view suffering as a beautiful part of life.
He accepted his suffering as his own, his own creation. It's about changing your perspective. The eternal recurrence is about a continuous self-overcoming. It’s about becoming someone that you and you alone could bear for all eternity.
Everyone's suffering is of their own creation.
(Jul 23, 2019 09:09 PM)billvon Wrote: It would be interesting to compare the results of that poll to a similar poll where the question was "do you support the US military? The US highway system? Air traffic control? The CDC? Town fire departments?" (i.e. all socialist agencies.) I suspect you'd see a very different distribution. Indeed, it might almost be the opposite distribution when the question focused on the military.
The difference is that the vast majority benefit from those, even if only as deterrents, insurance, or secondary benefits. That's why they aren't inherently socialist agencies. Cooperation is not exclusive to socialism. Some form of cooperation is a feature of just about every government system.
(Jul 24, 2019 01:02 AM)Syne Wrote: That's all you got? Well, I did assume you were only asking so you could pretend to be better than others, without having anything of significant substance yourself.
Nope. Just waiting for you to catch up. Did you get my swamp comment? You did say that you've read his work, right?
(Jul 22, 2019 01:22 AM)Syne Wrote: Thus the whole search is him trying to justify or escape his own self-pity. And it's his last sin when he realizes he need only let it go. The search and the distress.
Nietzsche seems to be relating that the only purpose is in struggle, and that happiness, as purpose, is impossible.
Jul 23, 2019 02:52 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 23, 2019 02:59 PM by Secular Sanity.)
I agree that we shouldn't be too focused on "happiness" as that's not a sustainable state. People become martyrs embracing suffering when it's usually better to realize that there is some pain and suffering as part of life along with happiness and joy and focusing on some sense of fulfillment in life is probably the better balance and is more sustainable.
