[size=95]Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.
[Of the Way of the Creating One.][/size]
Nietzsche only bids the fewest to go beyond him—and only in the sense of going from an inferior position to an equal position—not to a superior position. For there is no superior position to the one of genuine philosopher.
I disagree. Nietzsche approached philosophy from the scientific or scholarly disciplines of psychology and philology; however, he was foremost a philosopher.
It is important to note the retrospect in this sentiment, for only by casting away our servitude do we discover if we have any greater worth-- or thereby perish, and become worthless. One cannot know if he is fit to be a master before he casts away his chains, and he may very well perish by putting himself to this test. I express a similar idea of danger in self-knowledge in this aphorism:
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623. Insofar as it belongs to the great cacoethes and immedicable instincts of human nature, whether we have the sting of a bee or a wasp we cannot know until it happens that someone has provoked us. I speak here, of course, to the purity of our conscience; as to rather or not retribution against our foe, resistance to danger, and vengeance may prove merely disastrous for us, just as the bee’s sting. At bottom, the purity (which is not to say the strength) of one’s conscience may be said to consist rather in the privation from temptations than the capacity to resist them. [/size]
A similar cacoethes is at work in self-mastery; and, as with conscience, the purity and the strength of our will to self-mastery and self-knowledge are very different things.
In Beyond Good and Evil, as well as in Ecce Homo Nietzsche writes about psychology as the highest aim or the true essence of his philosophy, psychology is the queen of sciences and of solving fundamental problems, he writes frequently of the human instincts and will in this light, the light of a psychologist. And of course Ascolo is correct also, it matters less what Nietzsche said about himself or his philosophy so much as what he actually presents himself and his ideas as, what type and methodology he employs.
In Ecce Homo he states his hope that one day philosophy will rise up to meet and surpass his critical examinations of it, to become more of a true science of the earth and of man and overman rather than a superficial endeavor of over-rationalism, mechanism, moralism and the other-worldly. Nietzsche says that he does not want followers and that he is afraid in the future he might be worshipped as an icon or idol – rather he tells us that he wishes to be not mistaken for what he is not, he desires those who understand him and desires that these use him to examine themselves, to make themselves a fertile ground for the future world of the overman. Nietzsche does not want obedient lapdogs, followers or scholars but rather bids us take our own journey, using his words as a means to this end.
And yes in Zarathustra he mentions this concept also. Zarathustra is many things to Nietzsche, but certainly one of these things is a template and method for viewing Nietzsche’s own task and his own methods – Nietzsche clearly intended Zarathustra to illustrate the relationship between a teacher/student, master/disciple, philosopher/adept, etc, and how the essence of this relationship is not one of obedience or memorization or idolizing or devotion, but of understanding and self-affirmation (the self-affirmation of the student, the student’s workings on himself in light of the masters teachings). Zarathustra is the teacher of the eternal return and the overman, just as Nietzsche himself is (among other things of course).
No a decadent is the one who thinks he can justify the world as a piece of art. To survive is not to find meaning in suffering, it is to justify one’s suffering to one’s self, to rationalize it, to contrive an excuse for it. I could commit a holocaust 10,000 times and the survivors would just shrug their shoulders and march into a future filled with uncertainty, and the possibility of atrocities of a similar and greater order. That is decadence.
So, you mean “to find guilt” in your own suffering?
That would mean you are not quite able to suffer from all things and to justify them, i.e. to give them a meaning?
To give a meaning to suffering means basically to find out a new future… not only to destroy what hurts.
If Christians hurt, they should maybe not be destroyed, maybe only put into a new place? Like an asylum…
A future to what? Let me get this straight. You embrace suffering in the name of the future, and you affirm the future and life only to strengthen your will so that you can more easily endure the suffering that is to come.
“He who has a why for life can put with any how.”
Frederick Nietzsche
Sorry to quote Nietzsche again to you, but do you see this quote as a rationalization, justification, a contrived excuse?
dec·a·dence /ˈdɛkədəns, dɪˈkeɪdns/ Show Spelled[dek-uh-duhns, dih-keyd-ns] Show IPA
–noun
1.the act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay: Some historians hold that the fall of Rome can be attributed to internal decadence.
2.moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.
3.unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.
4.(often initial capital letter) the decadent movement in literature.
Read Frankl’s words. As far as I am concerned, what you are describing above is not decadence. Decadence to me is when I eat three peanut butter cups in a row. What you decribed above is man’s great capacity to overcome not only himself but those who would destroy him through his suffering and still to continue on.
Even in the degradation and abject misery of a concentration camp, Frankl was able to exercise the most important freedom of all - the freedom to determine one’s own attitude and spiritual well-being. No sadistic Nazi SS guard was able to take that away from him or control the inner-life of Frankl’s soul. One of the ways he found the strength to fight to stay alive and not lose hope was to think of his wife. Frankl clearly saw that it was those who had nothing to live for who died quickest in the concentration camp.
I despise Frankl. You do not question life, you people do not question the value of life. You take it for granted that it has value, and with that as a premise you are free to contrive excuses for both your own suffering and the world’s suffering. Which book did you read this in? That life has value? I am not interested in taking anything from you, but you have to realize that perhaps the suffering of the world is more worthy of our consideration that how much you enjoyed your food today, or how much Cezar, Coatless, and Anthem enjoy jacking themselves off in my threads. I am not being mean, I am asking you, in light of everything I have said on these boards, to at least concede the existence of the question of the value of life.
Psychology as queen of the sciences is one of the sciences; philosophy, in this context, is not.
[size=95]All psychology so far has got stuck in moral prejudices and fears; it has not dared to descend into the depths. To understand it as morphology and the doctrine of the development of the will to power, as I do—nobody has yet come close to doing this even in thought: insofar as it is permissible to recognize in what has been written so far a symptom of what has so far been kept silent.
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Here psychology is shown to depend on the new philosophy. The question is then how Nietzsche came by that philosophy. In section 22, the philological approach is shown to at least relativate the (then-)dominant interpretation (nature as ‘lawful’). It is not shown to have been the way by which Nietzsche came by the alternative he offers there (and, which it is implied there, obviously(?), he endorses). And in section 36, the psychological approach is shown to arrive at the hypothesis that the world be ‘will to power’ and nothing besides. Psychology, then, is shown there to be the path to the fundamental problem of the nature of Nature—the fundamental question of philosophy in its proper sense, as metaphysics (in the Aristotelian sense as restored by Heidegger—who called the nature of Nature, which is Lampert’s phrase, “the Being of being(s)-as-a-whole”). So first psychology is the path by which philosophy arrives at the new archê (the will to power), and then, when philosophy has arrived there, it becomes morphology and the doctrine of the development of that archê. Its rank as queen of the sciences therefore always derives from its use to philosophy.
Also in section 23, Nietzsche calls the domain laid bare by psychology, even before it arrives at the new archê, an “immense and almost new domain of dangerous insights”, and says that “there are in fact a hundred good reasons why everyone should keep away from it who—can!” That is, not everyone should try to go beyond Nietzsche or even beside him.
I have to look that up (do you remember which chapter, by any chance?), but I don’t think he ever meant for philosophy to wholly become a science. When you say “more of a” science, I am reminded of my own imperative that philosophy be purified by science (as opposed to corrupted by theology). This would mean that philosophy become the meta-science, arriving at the probability that the world be will to power and nothing besides by way of scientific method.
Three quite different things. I agree that he does not want obedient lapdogs—but followers and scholars? As for followers:
[size=95]I need living companions, who will follow me because they want to follow themselves—and to the place where I will.
[Zarathustra’s Prologue, 9.][/size]
Granted, this is said in the Prologue; and it goes only so far. (Thus in the first chapter of Part III, “The Wanderer”, Zarathustra implies he is thenceforth unfollowable. But then, we can never follow Nietzsche to become the teacher of the eternal recurrence…)
And as for scholars: did Nietzsche not express his hopes that one day there would be academic chairs devoted exclusively to the study of TSZ?
In order to really understand Nietzsche, one must first become a scholar and study TSZ; and in doing so, become a follower as Zarathustra requires. I of course recommend reading Lampert to that end, particularly his Nietzsche’s Teaching, in which he does precisely that. I consider it a waste if people leave Nietzsche behind prematurely, thinking they’ve already distilled the most from him. If that’s the path your journey takes, however, so be it.
I don’t see that so. One suffers because one has taken a wrong position. One gets out of this position and enters solitude. In solitude one finds out a new future. One gets out of this solitude and takes another position much happier than before. One finds “new wells of strength” around him…
Joy is greater than woe says the reborn!
The decadent says “woe is greater than joy!”
But the too-high-one feels “life is only joy! eternal joy!” This is probably Zarathustra.
The value of life as a problem can exist only under decadents.
You said that decadents are somehow dependent on arts, but Nietzsche claims that about the evil ones (mixed races). Although socialists as typical decadents do gladly listen music, but the evil ones think the music plays only for them.
How exactly do you interpret the grand consequence of this psychology to be in any way involved with nature and metaphysics? This is from the Dawn:
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“Take the very word “will,” which Schophenhauer twisted so as to become a common denotation of several human conditions and with which he filled a gap in the language (to his own great advantage, in so far as he was a moralist, for he became free to speak of the will as Pascal had spoken of it.) In the hands of its creator, Schopenhauer’s will, through the philosophic craze of generalisation, already turned out to be a bane to knowledge. For this will was made into a poetic metaphor, when it was held that all things in nature possess will.”[/size]
In section 36 he says that the world- seen from within, would be will to power. Seen from within, which is to say, from the standpoint of the human, psychological, animal. He is essentially saying that we are capable of interpreting the world only in terms of impulses- will, and that the interpretation of this impulsiveness or will is power; power as this world of will and the impulses, but in possession of as great a degree of reality as “the emotions themselves.” Through and through, this is not a metaphysical claim, and does not touch upon the problem of Being. It only serves as a heuristic for the development of a psychology more qualified to explore humanity in Nietzsche’s terms.
Your point does not really interest me, nor do you. Nietzsche does. And Nietzsche’s warning his readers in that speech for the dangers on the way of the creating one.
[size=95][T]here are in fact a hundred good reasons why everyone should keep away from it who—can!
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My point stands; there are bees and wasps of conscience. One cannot know rather or not he is capable of enduring the pangs of conscience in revenge until he has stung; one cannot know rather or not he is destined for self-mastery before he casts his chains away; one cannot know if he has any worth beyond that of a servant until he has done so, and cannot avoid risking profound destruction in this test. There is always danger in self-knowledge. As Nietzsche says,
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41. One must subject oneself to one’s own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one’s tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves and before no other judge. [/size]
To cast our chains off; this is one of the greatest tests that one must submit one’s self to. And rather or not I interest you should be of little regard, in the face of reason. In the face of a point you either concede to it or refute it, you don’t just wave your hands and say that I don’t interest you, as it is not my concern to interest you, but to reduce you to a bed of ashes.
Finally, how can we see the world any other way? That is irrelevant to the fact that what we have in section 36 is a heuristic principle, not a metaphysical supposition, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the question of being.
Do you think aphorism # 41 was meant for everyone? Most people avoid their tests. Whether one does so is already a test. As it says in the Nachlass:
[size=95]Solitude probes most thoroughly, more than any illness proper, whether one is born and predestined for life—or for death, like by far the most.[/size]
but do you see this quote as a rationalization, justification, a contrived excuse?