Then why state there is nothing wrong with genocide, and pull my name into your comment? Your disclaimer did not work detrop, as you have often stated the masses need to be controlled in various posts.
Chuckle, perhaps, if you do not pull me into your comments regarding dictatorships, and not having to put up with the regulated capitalist aspacia.
With regards 
Indeed: it is master morality:
“It was the Jews who, with awe-inspiring consistency, dared to invert the aristocratic value-equation (good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = beloved of God) and to hang on to this inversion with their teeth, the teeth of the most abysmal hatred (the hatred of impotence), saying “the wretched alone are the good; the poor, impotent, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone are blessed by God, blessedness is for them alone—and you, the powerful and noble, are on the contrary the evil, the cruel, the lustful, the insatiable, the godless to all eternity; and you shall be in all eternity the unblessed, accursed, and damned!”… One knows who inherited this Jewish revaluation…”
[The Genealogy, first treatise, section 7.]
Nietzsche again inverts this inverted value-equation; he again inverts the Natural Order of Rank. The Jews had turned it 180 degrees, had stood truth on its head; Nietzsche turns it another 180 degrees, so that truth is stood on her feet again.
“The order of castes, the supreme, the dominant law, is merely the sanction of a natural order, a natural lawfulness of the first rank, over which no arbitrariness, no “modern idea” has any power. In every healthy society there are three types which condition each other and gravitate differently physiologically; each has its own hygiene, its own field of work, its own sense of perfection and mastery. Nature, not Manu, distinguishes the pre-eminently spiritual ones, those who are pre-eminently strong in muscle and temperament, and those, the third type, who excel neither in one respect nor in the other, the mediocre ones—the last as the great majority, the first as the elite.”
[AC 57.]
These three castes correspond to sattva, rajas, and tamas respectively. Rajas I should like to translate as “will to power”: the warriors are distinguished by the strength of their will to power; the mediocre are distinguished by the weakness of it; and the highest, the Brahmanas [those who represent the deification of power], by the supreme strength of it:
“The erotic fascination inspired by the ascetic issues from his painful attempt to tame the will, a project that paradoxically requires of him a superhuman strength of will”.
[Daniel Conway, Love’s labor’s lost.]
Sauwelios: HAIL NIETZSCHE!
how christian !!
and then of course i follow with a quote for the “great man” - oh dear
Flee, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung all over with the stings of the little ones.
Thus Spake Zarathustra - Flies in the Market Place (of ideas?!)
Do you have any idea how common your approach is?
That quote is from Zarathustra’s speech Of the Flies in the Market-Place. And this forum is, of course, also a market-place. And indeed, I am stung all over with the stings of little men! And I am myself, perhaps, a “great man”:
“In the world even the best things are worthless without those who represent them: those representers, the people call great men.”
[ibid.]
But I do not only represent Nietzsche; I also represent myself. I am myself a deviser of new values. What you see here is the camel, who is commanded by the dragon to carry his teaching into the market-place. But next to the dragon is the child, next to Odhinn there is Tyr. The camel’s the servant, the lion’s the warrior, but above them is the Dragon Child!
Hail Nietzsche!
My interpretation of the passage was based on the idea that Nietzsche encourages the approach of knowlegde and the disobedience to public morality regardless of the name one gives it; I interpreted cirminal as an honorary title. According to you, Nietzsche thinks of one who does this as lofty, save when he does it under the name of Christianity - then it is criminal against his (Nietzsche’s) morality.
I will give Nietzsche the benefit of the doubt and stand by my own interpretation.
As you estimate my thinking based on my manic corrspondences with Sauwelios I can’t blame you for making the judgements you make. But they are as misguided as the correspondences you read. Let me explain something about myself, as I must seem a very disturbed and deprived entity.
I have never been obsessed with Christianity, just interested in a mystical experimental sense like I have been in islam, zen, yoga, kabbalah, etc. I care not for morality - am very bad at it when I pretend I do - I think healthy morality is generated effortlessly by the healthy individual and all struggle with it is both symptom and a cause of bad health. I am not a Nietzschean either, although when I am in agony, I recognize myself in Zarathustra when he speaks of the redemption from suffering by creation. (when I am not in agony I don’t think in terms of Nietzsche, but he has been a trustworthy friend through the valley of metasphysics) In reality (as opposed to around this coffeetable) my expression is ultra-existential and hence easily makes a turn for the absurd. I will post a link of a video I once made in my signature soon to make clear something about that. Think I’ll call it ‘The Hammer’. It illustrates the birth of nihilism in my mind born of psychedelic horror and death, and my struggle with it.
I will look closer at Kierkegaard at your recommendation. I always liked the feel of the guy but have only read fragments. What do you recommend?
By the way Detrop - the original post of this thread is completely absurd. I hope you noticed that.
That the latter is nonsense can easily be appreciated: by sketching the case that public morality encourages the approach of knowledge.
Please don’t put your words into my mouth. Nietzsche usually thinks of the criminal as the strong man under unfavorable circumstances. These “unfavorable circumstances” are, of course, slave morality. The criminal is a master, [note the comma] who naturally does not fit in the Proteus-bed of slave morality (“One law for the lion & ox is oppression”). So Nietzsche’s heart goes out to these criminals, but not to the slaves who are not fit for master morality. If public morality reflects master morality, its criminals, such as Christians (but not only these), are anything but lofty.
How magnanimous of you.
I have shown that you do not understand all of Nietzsche. Be a man and be magnanimous enough to acknowledge that.
Nihilistic knowledge? Certainly not: that is the basis of Nietzsche’s morality.
I have never mentioned anything of the sort. I mean, I have mentioned a Nietzschean order (which is implied in the passage in question), but I have never said that a man of knowledge should violate this.
Or wait: I see what you mean now. A man of knowledge violates this order, which is based on knowledge, by confessing himself a Christian. It is a sin against the integrity of the spirit.
It was you who challenged me, remember? I have accepted your challenge, and provided a passage that you do not understand. That you fail to acknowledge this does not take away from this fact.
I have got the idea of starting a book study of The Antichristian in the Essays and Theses forum. Maybe that will illumine your mind.
It is, by the way, a Procrustes-bed, not a Proteus-bed.
I found a key within a key in the passage in question! The key to that passage was:
“The criminal character of a Christian increases when he approaches knowledge [die Wissenschaft].”
“The criminal character of a Christian” is “das Verbrecherische im Christ-sein” in German - “what is criminal in [or: “about”] being a Christian”! So what is criminal consists here in being a Christian, not in approaching knowledge.
Given what we know of the “truth,” how is what you are suggesting not itself a synthesis? Or is that your point?
No, Rome is very nihilistic, and thus the point about Christianity.
Also, the example of Jesus is one who actually resists human authority in the name of truth. In other words, Jesus is about democracy and the masses inherently, ie, the meek shall inherit… Very much a subtext about the polis/demos and against the notion of a Caesar/Republic with a very limited conception of the “citizen.”
Also, I think the example of the Godhead and the Alpha/Omega is clearly an attempt to make a usable dialectic for combining the reality of the human, original sin, with the ideal of the human.
Jesus makes a nice thesis for the ubermensch antithesis. Neither example is workable in reality, neither is truly “human.”
I wasn’t sure if it counted as a synthesis when I wrote it since it is more of a middle road without an actual fusion of nuclei. I tend to think in terms of was and clash, release of blind new energy when I think of synthesis, Perhaps that is too dramatic.
What do you mean by nihilistic here? My understanding fo nihilism does not apply to Rome - nihilism as belief in nothing, thinking that there is no point to exsitence. Rome was built with great love for the world, and especially itself. It still is a monument to existence.
I can see your point, but that subtext is, I think, not objectively present in the Bible. The New Testament makes no mention of politics at all - it simply scetches worldy affairs as unimportant. Of course it was an actual threat to the authority of the Caesar - so much that he had to become a Christian in the end.
What is significant to me is that the art of the Augustus period, when Christianity was no factor, is of the highest standard of Roman craft and aesthetic - closely resembling the classical Greek period, whereas in the Constantine period it had fallen to a degenerate state.
The mob of figures below are from Constantine period, the circles above are ripped from an arch from a much earlier period. The interest in art seems to have been almost entirely lost. My point is that I consider the factual Christian influence on Rome as degenerative - in terms of art at least. No wonder, with the emphasize on the afterlife. Id sooner call Rome under Constantine nihilistic than under Augustus.
I think the gnostic Christian wrotings are by far the most useful to this dialectic. For one thing, they involve Mother Earth as opposed to the father in Heaven - a polarity absent in the final donctrine. I think the Bible has been mostly effective in securing the power of Caesar, who became the pope - as a representant of the Holy.
With this difference that the Ubermensch is a goal, whereas Jesus is (supposedly) a historic figure.
Nietzsche is not very clear about the Ubermensch. Sometimes he is the robust Caesar type, sometimes he is the sensitive hermit who flees from the stenches of the mob.
Then again - Jesus is also different in every description of him.
Sauwelios - I see that to understand where I have misunderstood Nietzsche, I am to trust you as to what could be implied by him, instead of read what he actually wrote. This is a nonsensical demand. You have provided no material to back up your interpretation, and the more you try to argue against it, the more my interpretation of the passage appears valid.
Yes, by all means, write some essays.
To whom? Certainly not to me.
Let us indeed go back to what Nietzsche actually wrote:
“Jede Theilnahme an einem Gottesdienste ist ein Attentat auf die öffentliche Sittlichkeit. Man soll härter gegen Protestanten als gegen Katholiken sein, härter gegen liberale Protestanten als gegen strenggläubige. Das Verbrecherische im Christ-sein nimmt in dem Maasse zu, als man sich der Wissenschaft nähert. Der Verbrecher der Verbrecher ist folglich der Philosoph.”
I will now translate this literally.
“Every participation in a religion [literally “in the service of a God”] is an assassination attempt on public morality. One should be harder against Protestants than against Catholics, harder against liberal Protestants than against devout [“strictly believing”] ones. The criminal character of being a Christian increases in the degree to which one approaches science. The criminal of criminals is consequently the philosopher.”
Is it a crime to be a Christian? Does one break the law (Thomas Common translates Verbrecher as “law-breaker” in order to retain the sense of “breaking”) by being a Christian? No? Then what is Nietzsche talking about? According to what measure is being a Christian a criminal state? There cannot be any doubt: according to Nietzsche’s measure; what other measure could he be talking about?
It does not matter to me whether it is acknowledged here that I am right; it suffices that an intellectually conscientious person knows that I am. And although you have asked that I go back to the text, the context supports my explanation - section 38 is conclusive.
I think you project your own mind’s unclarity on Nietzsche’s writings.
Caesar was an epileptic. Nietzsche writes about him;
“The means by which Julius Caesar defended himself against sickliness and headaches: tremendous marches, the most frugal way of life, uninterrupted sojourn in the open air, continuous exertion—these are, in general, the universal rules of preservation and protection against the extreme vulnerability of that subtle machine, working under the highest pressure, which we call genius.”
[Twilight, Skirmishes, section 31, entire.]
And is this not a kind of escape from the morasses? The sensitive hermit flees into robustness… Oh, and Jesus was the soul of Caesar, of course.
By the way, I have found out why the most spiritual human beings are the strongest (as Nietzsche contends in AC 57):
“We consider [man] the strongest animal because he is the most cunning [listig]: his spirituality is a consequence of this.”
[AC 14.]
That of public morality of course.
I’m the only one who actually interprets the text at hand. You take a couple of elements from the text, throw them in a stew allready saturated with elements of your own fabrication which you advertize as having their origin in Nietzsche, and you serve the soup as the gospel of Nietzsche by Sauwelios.
Yes, but what public morality - didn’t I already address this question?
"[W]e can no longer stand it if a priest as much as uses the word “truth.” If we have even the smallest claim to integrity, we must know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope, not merely is wrong in every sentence he speaks, but lies—that he is no longer at liberty to lie from “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest too knows as well as anybody else that there is no longer any “God,” any “sinner,” any “Redeemer"—that “free will” and “moral world order” are lies [does “everybody else” really know this? Does everybody else have at least a modicum of intellectual integrity?]: seriousness, the profound self-overcoming of the spirit, no longer permits anybody not to know about this… All the concepts of the church have been recognized for what they are, the most malignant counterfeits that exist, the aim of which is to devalue nature and natural values; the priest himself has been recognized for what he is, the most dangerous kind of parasite, the real poison-spider of life [by whom?]… We know, today our conscience knows—, what these uncanny inventions of the priests and the church are really worth, what ends they served in reducing mankind to such a state of self-violation that its sight can arouse nausea: the concepts “beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “immortality of the soul,” and “soul” itself are instruments of torture, systems of cruelties by virtue of which the priest became master, remained master…”
[AC 38.]
Who is this “we” that Nietzsche is talking about?
“Everybody knows this: and yet everything continues as before. Where has the last feeling of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen, an otherwise quite unembarrassed type of man, anti-Christians through and through in their deeds, still call themselves Christians today and attend communion?..”
[ibid.]
Why should these anti-Christians still call themselves Christians? Is it not for the sake of power? But in a democracy, the power is to the people; therefore, these anti-Christians still call themselves Christians because public morality demands that of them!
Nietzsche is essentially calling people to honesty:
“Granting that as a theory this [the will to power] is a novelty–as a reality it is the fundamental fact of all history: let us be so far honest towards ourselves!”
[BGE 259.]
What would happen if a statesman told the truth - if he said in public that he was only into politics for the sake of power? - Fact is that public morality was in Nietzsche’s time, and still is now, Christian, all too Christian.
The Antichristian is a Revaluation of All Values. In the last section, Nietzsche even suggests that one should no longer reckon time from the beginning of Christianity, but from its end - that the year 0 should be reckoned the year -1888. When Nietzsche says, in the first proposition of his Decree Against Christianity, that “[e]very type of anti-nature is depraved”, that is a revaluation of the Christian idea that every type of nature is depraved. In Christianity, the least depraved man is the priest; against those who teach nature, one doesn’t use arguments, but the penitentiary (or the stake); every non-participation in divine service is an assassination attempt on public morality; one should be more severe toward Protestants than toward Catholics, more severe toward liberal Protestant than toward the orthodox, because they approach knowledge, not because they are Christian; the philosopher is the criminal of criminals because he has attained knowledge, nihilistic knowledge; the “blessed” places in which Christianity has hatched its eggs should be maintained or restored, and revered as holy places; the sermon on unchastity, being a public instigation to naturalness, is something contemptuous; sexual love is despised as “dirty”; one should prefer, one should be honoured to eat with a priest at one’s table; etc. etc.
Now how hard is this to appreciate!
“Definition of Protestantism: the partial paralysis of Christianity—and of reason…”
[AC 10.]
Nietzsche encourages the complete paralysis of Christianity, whereas Christianity encourages the complete paralysis of reason.
Jakob rolls five on six sided dye…
Penalty to morale, failed save throw…
Nine hit points lost…