Nietzsche and Christianity meet Hegel

I have no desire, nor interest in “allowing” him to do anything. I owe him nothing. In fact his conception of “y” is remarkably un-y-like, as he has exemplified it.

He failed. There is no reason why I should listen to what he says about “y” because he made “y” up to make himself feel better, a delusion as is exemplified by his exemplification.

I think that Sauwelios has got a pretty good read on Nietzsche, how he meant his exemplifications to be understood as just what it meant to be “y”; he has done well not to turn him into a Hallmark Card for generation “x”. As such, he has both embraced Nietzsche as Nietzsche understood his truth to be, but also has suffered from the same weakness. You, and other self-proclaimed “creative geniuses” (not my phrase) have made Nietzsche a slogan machine for one’s self-infatuations, and deprived yourself and others of the critique that Nietzsche was offerring.

It is known as a poisoned well (a dog fell in it). You can either climb down and with great difficulty drink from it, grow intoxicated, spasm and die (under the delusion of your own greatness); or you can drop pennies into it from above, looking into its murk, see your distorting reflection and think your wishes will be granted. I say, walk on. There are other more interesting things in the world.

In all of this, I still have not seen an “argument” from you. Only a plea.

There was a moment in my life when, after endlessly mulling over similar greviiences, I seriously contemplated using sabotage to initiate a lone revolutionary war against the government. I plotted for months on exactly how I would dramatically bring national attention to social wrongs that urgently needed righting. Unlike Timmothy Macvey and the Uni-Bomber, I devised a strategy that could dynamite a hundred remote power pylons similateneously and cut the grids and bring entire cities to a standstill without killing people - and by its sheer audacity attract hundreds of not thousands of similar closet revolutionaries, who would come pouring out of the woodwork, armed to the teeth with their hoarded kalishnikovs, and we would bring down the temple of Baal and establish a new social order. I swear, at that time, just one more act of oppression by the government, similar to Waco or Ruby Ridge would have pushed me over the edge.

Thank God that teenage moment passed and kept my name and that of my family from the infamous legions of would-be-do-gooders who thought they knew better on how to govern the masses and gain power by using the immediacy and drama of war to over-throw the status quo.

Nietzsche simply perpetuates the immature, independent, ill-bred, stage of rebellious self-determinsim that is idolized by teenagers.
Jesus took a long-term forgiving step into inter-dependenct human relationships and is admired by responsible parents who have come to realize that compassionate social behavior depends entirely on breeding.

It is about allowing yourself something. He is dead, has no use for your allowing him anything.

He did not fail - enough people listen to him. Do you honestly think your opinion determines his victory or faillure?

I have made Nietzsche into what he aimed to be; a friend who offers challending advise and teaching. You try to make him into something he aimed not to be - his weakest, most helpless self, so he is no match for you. I think that tells something about our natures.

Nice metaphor. But if that’s really the statement you want to make, then why linger?

You clearly haven’t understood it.

Entertaining thread.

If I may, the most powerful statement of the lot is this:

With that said, I have also identified this to be at least partially true, not only in this thread, but in others:

I have read him closely. I have no desire to help myself to the poison that he choked on. Nor the poison that others choke themselves on.

I have little respect for the average listener of Nietzsche. I think Nietzche made several interesting points, but really very little of what he said drunk, Spinoza had not already said sober.

He is so lucky to have had your help. Surely he is appreciative.

Occasionally one puts a sign up by a poisoned well, for those that are lost. For those enamored with those waters, more pleasure to you. I must say though, for those that climb down in to the well, like Sauwelios, I have a bit more respect. There is something bold about it, even in something misguided.

Yes. the Intellectual arugument (that is what you called it I believe), is something “I just can’t handle”. Given what you take for what constitutes an intellectual argument, I understand better why you like Nietzsche so much. He has arguments, even intellectual arguments, but I see no argument here.

The Lion is closely connected to Bhairava, and thus, to shamanism:

“In the form of the ‘Man-Lion’ Narasimha, especially popular with the esoteric Pâñcarâtras, and also as the equally tantricized ‘Boar’ Varâha, Vishnu does closely approach Bhairava in character, to the point of emerging like Bhairava from the sacrificial (stake-)pillar. The myth then reveals two different, but complementary, faces of the bhakti-ideology incarnated in Vishnu: an orthodox face linked to Brahmanism and preoccupations with purity and the other, secret, face turned towards the transgressive valorization of impurity symbolized by Bhairava.”
http://www.svabhinava.org/brahmanicide/Vishnu-Bhairava/default.htm

As for Bhairava;

It is not necessary, let alone desirable, to be a Lion all the time:

“Naturally there can be no question of a total extinction of the ego, for then the focus of consciousness would be destroyed, and the result would be complete unconsciousness. The relative abolition of the ego affects only those supreme and ultimate decisions which confront us in situations where there are insoluble conflicts of duty.”
[Jung, Aion.]

The for the ego insoluble conflict of duty in Zarathustra’s speech Of the Three Metamorphoses is that between the dragon’s “Thou shalt” and the spirit’s own “Thou shalt”:

“[T]he lion fails to win freedom from the imperatives of morality as such. For although the old tablets are shattered, they are replaced with new ones upon which are engraved solemn commandments: Thou shalt sacrifice what is most dear [i.e., the dragon’s “Thou shalt”] for the sake of the truth; Thou shalt be free; Thou shalt revere reverence; and Thou shalt utter a sacred yes by willing your own will. The lion’s apparent defeat of the dragon reveals itself as a stunning victory for morality, or the spirit’s higher morality, inasmuch as right and obligation are conspicuously at work throughout the spirit’s transformations and in its highest instantiation. Since the idea of the sacred persists and indeed is regenerated in the final metamorphosis of the spirit [i.e., the child], the dragon, the symbol of morality, lives on and prospers in the spirit’s heart.”
[Peter Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist.]

One is reminded of Crowley:

“[T]his Ecstasy [in this case, the rage of the lion] is (so to say) the throe of Birth of the new faculty [notice the implication: birth → child]. It is surely natural for an observer to be startled, for the moment, by the discovery of a new Universe. Ananda [“bliss”; cf. Shiva’s bull, Nandi] must be mastered manfully, not indulged as a vice in the manner of the Mystic! Samadhi must be clarified by Sila, by the stern virtue of constraint: and then appears the paradox that the new Law of the Mind has “come not to destroy but to fulfil” the old.”
[Little Essays toward Truth, Understanding.]

OK let me take it all in a new direction ignoring the fun “bitch fest” previous

Has anyone dipped into Zizek’s puppet and the Dwarf - he takes a weird line Directly from GK Chesterton (from “the Thrilling Romance of Orthodoxy”- on that self same “climatic moment” in the bible the “my God my God - why have you forsaken me” bit.
For Chesterton this shows christianity as the only religion to incorporate a constant level of deep doubt. If one aspect of God doubts his main self then surely it extends to the core. For Chesterton Christianity has in some weird way taken in atheism, revolution and doubt unlike the positivism of other beliefs. Sort of kierkigaardian!?!?

Personally i think its piffle but what does any one else think? - Specially interested in views of those who would see 'emselves as christian:

(its all on the net @ dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/bo … y/ch8.html)

Krossie; thanks for that, I didn’t know there was allready thought on this weird concept. I’m not exactly a Christian, but as I believe in myths as much as in ‘real’ reality, I’d say this is a pretty interesting exaplanation, and it certainly places Christianity above Islam in my book. It makes of God a kind of Gambler, who just goes with his whims and passions and sometimes, when faced with the consequences, doesn’t know how to deal with it. This is to me the only plausible explanation for a God who is both immanent and ominpresent. Evil, or suffering, as a risk. God losing faith in his own abilities to create a good universe - that also makes sense to me - because they are both human - hence, verifyable patters of behaviour.

It tells us something about the nature of God - that he is reckless, a mad scientist. Goethe said: “Be bold and great forces will come to your aid” But this now begs the question ‘and then, what?’
There is aparently (I’m still going by the interpretation of God losing faith) no end, no paradise, no reward for total uncompromising exertion - Jesus found himself in hell at the end of his life. He had been too fanatical. God lost his faith in God’s omnipotency - and saw the truth about himself, that he was just a slob like all of us.

This brings me to the Nietzschean idea that God is something which is attained - by enduring, consistent and calculated use of human minds and hands. Gods potency for manifestation depends on patience, realism - on counting on by the physical and psychological laws one has learned - not on metaphysical ones. Aparently, God is a bit autistic, and needs to be taken by the hand.

Let’s look at your own use of the instrument of ratio; you make assertions (Nietsche is yuck!) and then reason from there. If defending assertions by circular reasoning based on that assertion is what you call argumenting, no, I have made no argument. If, on the other hand, you see argumenting as using reason as a means to get to a higher level of reason in order to understand something which is not understood from the inferior reason - then I have.

“I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.”

Systematic reasoning is the antithesis of thought. That murky pit is your own vision of the well of genius.

You have misunderstood my critique of Nietzsche. The reason that he is “yuck” is his own standard of “yuck” (he corresponds to a ressentiment laden, hysterical figure). I have other critiques of Nietzsche, primarily that his conception of power is more reactive than active, despite his insistence to the contrary, when measured against other conceptions, this I do not present here. For me he fails under his own standards, and by my standards. In otherwords, his bark is worse than his bite.

Ah. I get it. What you mean by “intellectual argument” that others can’t handle is any non-systematic assertion such that non-contradiction has no more bearing. By what standard this is either an “argument” or “intellectual” I don’t know. But I see no “intellectual argument” on your behalf. Of course when you unleash the word “argument” so to mean anything Jakob asserts, and “intellectual” to mean anything that Jakob says, then yes, I can’t handle your intellectual arguments.

Golly, what a surprise! - Dunamis makes another assertion, which for all we know is just a sentiment, the argument for which he does not present, only conveniently mentions that it exists (Hm - what could be this sense of deja-vu?)
Never mind, Dunamis. You win. You don’t like Nietzsche, I’m convinced.

In keeping with Nietzsche’s dictum, that truth can stand on one leg, but can only walk with two, I present an alternative, less poetic, description of the “three metamorphoses of the spirit”:

"The road to wisdom. Tips for overcoming morality.
The first course. Revere (and obey and learn) better than anyone else. Accumulate in oneself, and let struggle among itself, all that is worthy of reverence. Bear all hard and heavy things [Alles Schwere tragen]. Asceticism of the spirit - courage. Time of community.
[The overcoming of evil, petty tendencies. The much-encompassing [umfängliche] heart: one conquers only with love. Fatherland, race, it all belongs here. (Richard Wagner prostrated himself before a profound and loving heart; likewise Schopenhauer. This belongs to the first level.]
The second course. Break the revering heart, when one is most firmly bound. The free spirit. Independence. Time of wilderness. Criticism of all that is revered (idealisation of the unrevered), attempt at inverse valuations.
[The overcoming also of good tendencies. (Unnoticed that natures such as Dühring and Wagner and Schopenhauer did not even stand at this level!)]
The third course. Great decision, whether fit for the positive position, for affirmation. No longer any God or man above me! The instinct of the creating one, who knows where he intervenes. Great responsibility and innocence. (To enjoy anything, one must approve of everything.) To give oneself the right to act.
[Beyond Good and Evil. He adopts the mechanical worldview and does not feel humbled beneath fate: he is fate. He has the destiny of humanity in his hands.]

  • Only for a few: most will already perish in the second way. Plato, Spinoza? perhaps successful [geraten]?
    To beware for actions that do not belong to the attained level, e.g., wanting to help those who are not significant enough, - this is false pity."
    [Nietzsche, Nachlass.]

S; Interesting, useful elaboration.
I can see how 2 follows from 1, but how does 3 follow from 2?
I can see that the camel is at some point at the end of the struggle of his revered ideas, and a pyramid has formed. Then the will reaches for something beyond, and turns the pyramind upside down, with all possible disastrous consequences.
But what is the difference between 2 and 3, really? The way 3 is here described almost sounds more like the lion than they way 2 is described.

on a personal note:
In 3, I can clearly recognize myself in the state I was in when I made ‘Oranje in Dagen van Strijd’ - I gave myself the right to act, I knew where I had to intervene and did so from a sense of great responsibility - responsibility for the shred of innocence left in the state embodied by me.
This was of a short timespan, 15 months work - and then I began compromising - I had not enough experience or credentials to go on at the level I started with the increasing diffusion.

Perhaps the reverences of the 1st level hadn’t been properly crystallized into a pyramid - so the 2nd level wasn’t really free, so the 3rd level wasn’t completely ‘me’.
Makes sense. I needed Ayberk.

I know, it is weak, I had allready written this discussion off - but dude, please try to understand - you don’t have to overcome Nietzsche, you are not Nietzsche!

You don’t understand. All Willing is Will to Power in Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s Will to Power (his entire philosophy) has to be overcome, just as any other Will to Power in the world.

Of course if one rejects Nietzsche’s “The entire world is a world of conflict, exploitation and over-mastering” from the start, one doesn’t have to overcome Nietzsche at all, but simply become bemused by Nietzsche (and his followers).

Well, as you know, life’s stages correspond to the evolutionary stages of humanity. But is further evolution necessarily progress? Nietzsche thought not:

“Mankind does not represent a development toward something better or stronger or higher, in the sense accepted today. “Progress” is merely a modern idea, that is, a false idea. The European of today is vastly inferior in value to the European of the Renaissance; further development is altogether not according to any necessity in the direction of elevation, enhancement, or strength.”
[The Antichristian, section 4.]

Rather, enhancement lies in the overcoming of the old by the young:

“To be sure, one should not yield to humanitarian illusions about the origins of an aristocratic society (and thus of the presupposition of [every] enhancement of the type “man”): truth is hard. Let us admit to ourselves, without trying to be considerate, how every higher culture on earth so far has begun. Human beings whose nature was still natural, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey who were still in possession of unbroken strength of will and lust for power, hurled themselves upon weaker, more civilized, more peaceful races, perhaps traders or cattle raisers, or upon mellow old cultures whose last vitality was even then flaring up in splendid fireworks of spirit and corruption. In the beginning, the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their predominance did not lie mainly in physical strength but in strength of the soul—they were more whole human beings (which also means, at every level, “more whole beasts”).”
[Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 257.]

This is where the fault of your philosophy lies: the end is not wisdom, but power; wisdom is only a means to power.

I don’t think it is a question of turning the pyramid upside down; that reeks too much of slave transvaluation. But to understand what it’s like, we have to turn to the other leg, Of the Three Metamorphoses:

Illusion and arbitrariness - this sounds like Dunamis’s disillusionment with Nietzsche! So he, or she, may well be in the Lion stage. But now we must immediately add the following:

“Who will prove to be the strongest in the course of this [nihilist crisis]? The most moderate; those who do not require any extreme articles of faith; those who not only concede but love a fair amount of accidents and nonsense; those who can think of man with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on that account: those richest in health who are equal to most misfortunes and therefore not so afraid of misfortunes - human beings who are sure of their power and represent the attained strength of humanity with conscious pride.”
[WP 55.]

“Those who can think of man with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on that account”: does this only go for man as a whole? Or, if not, only for oneself? Or does it also go for individual other human beings - e.g., for Nietzsche? Can I, for instance, - a follower of Nietzsche’s - think of Nietzsche with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on that account? Do I dare perceive him as - human, all too human?

A more accurate question, in this case - as my admiration of Nietzsche’s has nowise lapsed and is continually growing -, is: can I think of Nietzsche as a mortal human being instead of as a god? I have once, jokingly, suggested that Nietzsche be deified as the Hindu god Nitsha - and indeed, Nietzsche’s Works are the stuff epics are made of. But I can bear to read the desperation in his letters, the sickness, his struggle with his meningioma. I can bear to look at his grave, and assure myself of the fact that he is dead. The great god Nitsha is dead. Ah, but rejoyce, rejoyce! He hath been reborn - I am myself the spiritual incarnation of Nietzsche in many ways.

The difference between a follower in my style and a follower in the pejorative sense is at bottom the difference between a great spirit and a believer. A believer has his backbone in his convictions; a great spirit, a strong skeptic, on the other hand, avails himself of convictions.

What you suggest is that Dunamis takes Nietzsche too seriously. That is what I have suggested. Dunamis says the opposite.
Maybe now you understand why I considered fausts remark about Nietzsche’s humor the most Nietzschean post so far. This was when the thread was still in development.

Someone who needs to revere Nietzsche to sustain himself would certainly not have compared him to the Great Cornholio. Dunamis missed this.

I think that your focus on women in that thread was much noo serious. Being serious with regards to women is an error to begin with. Sexuality - that is another matter. But we’ve covered this territory for now.

As you hopefully see now, there are no blind followers here. All see Nietzsche in his all too human form. I cannot see Sauwelios’ will, but my will is to use Nietzsche - not to overcome him. I don’t care if that is inconsistent with his doctrine - in fact I am glad. And incidentally I’ve overcome him with that. Who cares?

More power to you. If misunderstanding Nietzsche is your way of “using” Nietzsche, may you continue to misunderstand him as much as possible. As for Nietzsche being a big joke, well of course, in this I agree.