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 “manâ€): 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 beastsâ€).”
[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.
The distinction is that I take Nietzsche deadly seriously and still manage to be joyful [fröhlich] about it (cf. The Gay Science, section 382, “The great health”).
You are only here to debase Nietzsche. Where is your positive teaching? You refer us to Spinoza - and what did Nietzsche say about Spinoza?
“[C]onsider the hocus-pocus of mathematical form with which Spinoza clad his philosophy—really “the love of his wisdom,†to render that word fairly and squarely—in mail and mask, to strike terror at the very outset into the heart of any assailant who should dare to glance at that invincible maiden and Pallas Athena:—how much personal timidity and vulnerability this masquerade of a sick hermit betrays!”
[BGE 5.]
The dour face of Pallas Athena is all you have shown us in this thread. Is that, then, also only - a mask?
It’s who he really is, it seems. I’ve found the answer to the sour face, looked up some of his older posts to see how life afirming he is when he’s not reaction but acting.
I kept thinking he actually had philosophical a point, he seemed so confident of it. But rejecting Nietzsche is just a kind of penitence.
This is a nice illustration of what usually drives Nietzsche’s debasers - fear to look reality in the eye.
I suppose your anwer would be no. How predictable that you hate the idea of the eternal recurrence.
Your take on philosophy is typically modern - the numbing illusion that everyone shares your fears and inhibitions (because they are advertized on tv.)
Unlike you, I don’t habitually swallow whatever Nietzsche says. He, like the compulsive reative type constantly turns on those he once worshiped. What does Nietzsche say about Spinoza:
Oh poor little Nietzsche, his “dualitude” was broken when he couldn’t handle Spinoza’s truth, when it wasn’t anthrpomorphic enough for him, when it didn’t make Nietzsche grand enough for himself. The “sick hermit” whose form is meant to guard against others is of course not describing Spinoza (for his form was meant for access, not “protection”. He freely discussed it with others). This is typical of Nietzsche to accuse others of his own faults. Spinoza lived with the freedom of mind that Nietzsche could only dream of, away from the shadows of an infinite paranoia which has made Nietzsche “sick”.
It is a mask only in the mind of mask wearer, such as Nietzsche was, a hysteric. There is nothing dourer about Spinoza, it is a philosophy of joy–sans mythology and animal references–for those who have the mind to read it.
I suppose because you are driven by fear, you mistake “amazement” for some kind of negative feeling. That you see “fear” in these words, I suppose would make that your fear.
The lady doth protest too much. Such is the case of most “Nietzscheans”, they announce, shriek, “thunder” their affirmation of life, in slogan after slogan, fear after fear. So much whistling past the graveyard. How many times does the “I am great” talk have to reveal to others how weak one is? The Eternal Return is nothing but a myth the frightened make up to appease their insecure minds, that somewhere, somehow (by the force of some ridiculous logic) this moment, this effort is being recorded. It is nothing more than a God’s Little White Book of Deeds, and not even put into a clever disguise. It is pacifier that Little Nietzsche needed to suck on so that he wouldn’t slip into his dreaded Nihilism.
You have no idea what my philosophy is. If anyone projected his fears onto “everyone” (indeed) upon the entire universe, it was Nietzsche.
