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So ... as I was re-reading Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ these days ... I noticed a very blatant contradiction in his train of thought In Chapter 11 Nietzsche comes up with a criterion for correct actions/world-interpretations: Pleasure. "An action prompted by the life-instinct proves that it is a right action by the amount of pleasure that goes with it" In Chapter 50 however, when he argues against the idea that Christianity is true because it leads to authentic salvation-experiences/pleasure, he aggressively rejects pleasure as a criterion for correct actions/world-interpretations. "Pleasure—ever be a proof of truth? So little is this true that it is almost a proof against truth when sensations of pleasure influence the answer to the question “What is true?” or, at all events, it is enough to make that “truth” highly suspicious." So, by his own standards, Nietzsche's defense of an Anti-Christian reversal of Christian values, which is based on the criterion of pleasure ("Lust" in the original German text) is highly suspicious and almost a proof against its truth. So my question is: Is Nietzsche the original self-contradictory Social Justice Warrior? |
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No. |
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"An action prompted by the life-instinct proves that it is a right action by the amount of pleasure that goes with it" if that was right everyone would be strung out on heroin surely and wanking at the same time |
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It seems that you've run afoul in confusing Nietzsche's sense of what is right versus what is true. In one of the most famous passages in BGE he says: The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment [...] renouncing false judgments would mean renouncing life and a denial of life. As for the double duty pleasure seems to be doing here, it depends on context - for Nietzsche, Christianity was inextricably befouled by the ressentiment of slave morality - any pleasure would be the thin gruel of wish fulfillment, of fantasy revenge deferred and unfulfilled, rather than the simple, direct, life affirming, joyous bloodlust of a nobleman slaying peasants from horseback. |
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But this objection kicks off the following thought. Step 1. The distinction initially seems to make sense: Rightness of actions doesn't depend on the truth of the judgements that go along with it. / Rightness-of-action and truth-of-an-judgement are not necessarily connected. Okay, I can accept that for a few seconds. Taken to its extreme that would mean that rightness-of-action has nothing to do with true-judgements. Step 2 Well, how are true-judgements and right-actions connected, then? But Nietzsche doesn't consider truth as irrelevant. He bangs on and on and on about the falsity of Christianity - as if truth is relevant to him. (Chapter 38 of TAC for example) Step 3 So apparently for Nietzsche the 'falsity' of Christianity is only an argument against it because he also sees Christianity as an indirect, crooked expression of Will to Power. I see the point. Truth is not an absolute value for Nietzsche but a secondary value that only gains its value from serving an absolute value (straight and un-crooked Will to Power). Step 4How does he establish that Will to Power is the absolute value, though? So doesn't Nietzsche treat it as true that Will to Power is the absolute value? ... But how does he know that and why is it relevant? ... Truth is not an absolute value for Nietzsche, so from that perspective it's not necessarily relevant to see Will to Power as the absolute value. .... So what other criterion can he fall back on to defend the absolute value of Will to Power? - Wouldn't it have to be pleasure/lust. That's what he seems to say ...... But if he goes down that road ... then he has to accept that religion leads to authentic salvation-experiences ... which in turn speak for the truth of those religions. (Which, Nietzsche, to some extent does, when he starts discussing the "problem of the psychology of the Savior" (chapter 28 ff), and admits that Jesus experienced real salvation.) |
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Besides ... I find it really creepy that Nietzsche wrote the Anti-Christ roughly 2 years before he went insane. (Probably due to a brain-tumor) And in that book he goes on and on to describe those he disagrees with as "ripe for some sort of madhouse", as "three-fourths insane" ... describes the Christian ideal as the "whole earth as a madhouse" .... and THEN he went insane himself .... It's creepy. Imagine it. You're sitting at your desk, banging on a about how everyone is insane or 3/4 insane. And 18 months later you are insane and writing letters to your friends, in which you explain why you are God and created the world. It could happen to all of us. |
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Falseness has a special meaning in Nietzsche. It's not just the opposite of true - for something to be false in the relevant sense is for it to be counterfeit, artificial, deceptive, shoddily fabricated, a poor substitute, somehow ersatz. It's parasitic, inimical. Compare what he says in Zarathustra about the state: Somewhere still there are peoples and herds, but not where we live, my brothers: here there are states. State? What is that? Well then, lend me your ears now, for I shall say my words about the death of peoples. State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. It even lies coldly, and this lie crawls out of its mouth: “I, the state, am the people.” This is a lie! The ones who created the peoples were the creators, they hung a faith and a love over them, and thus they served life. The ones who set traps for the many and call them “state” are annihilators, they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there are still peoples the state is not understood, and it is hated as the evil eye and the sin against customs and rights. This sign I give you: every people speaks its own tongue of good and evil – which the neighbor does not understand. It invented its own language through customs and rights. But the state lies in all the tongues of good and evil, and whatever it may tell you, it lies – and whatever it has, it has stolen. Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, this biting dog. Even its entrails are false. Anyways, I'd suggest that finding apparent or even real contradictions in Nietzsche is a game for fools and babies. A sympathetic reading of Nietzsche - ah, now that's a game for MEN. Maybe put down the book he wrote shortly before losing his mind and read Zarathustra, Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil, his most muscular and vital works. Then go back to The Antichrist and see if it doesn't make a little more sense in context. |
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Okay. Thinking of 'falseness' as primarily having to do with 'ersatz' etc rather than in traditional sense of 'incorrect representation of a state of affairs' is a fair point. .... But still, the question remains: How I can tell what is an 'ersatz'-value and what is a 'primary'-value? ... Nietzsche obviously thinks it has to do with something like enhancement of life. But how do you decide what is an enhancement of life and what not? It's not so obvious and trivial... ..... I'm reading Nietzsche with sympathy. I'm pushing because I think he has a lot of things to teach me. I think what he describes as slave-morality is a real phenomenon at work in myriad ways in our life. But I also don't think he himself was free of slave morality. And I think Nietzsche's idea that you should judge ideas by how "life-enhancing" they are contains a lot of truth. But I think from that it follows that many religious forms of lives have to count as definitely live-enhancing. It's ridiculous to describe the practice of Sufi-Muslims as wishful thinking and ersatz-actions to me: The salvation-experiences are right here right there as real as as can be. So there's something real going on. (As Nietzsche himself admits to some extent) |
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Some deep thinkers on this forum |
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I’d have to side with fleetmouse here. As for your initial question, I would say definitely not. He was a pretty tortured man, and it shows in his writing, and thinking. Had never heard of the brain tumour theory. Mind you it’s been a while. |
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Thinking doesn’t have to “look smart”. :D |
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Well yes, the SJW-question was a lame 'trollish' joke. .. A sort of "Teasing is a sign of affection"-thing. ... People sometimes/often tend to get it wrong. :O |
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yes its true, I think you were unintentionally philosophical there! |
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Ha ha, I get ya! Oddly, I learnt a lot about his life reading a short “graphic novel” (they’re comics really, not a fan of the term) on his life. in French though. Shame neither of you speak French, as it’s a must have for fans. Peeps, do you speak French a bit, being from a bilingual (English/French) country? I must say I do love the way they speak French there. |
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How dare you!!? :P |
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my thinking is very chaotic I think, not to the point of being classed as a mad man, but I don't seem to have much control over what I choose to think about |
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Yes, no French for me. ... I took French lessons for a few months but forgot almost everything by now. ... The only languages in which I can have a substantial conversation are German and English. In Russian I can have limited conversations about food and sleep..... I wish I'd speak far more languages, since it seems perfectly humanly possible to master 4 or 5 languages. .. Regarding the hypothetical brain tumor. Of course now you can't know for certain, but there's a good article from 2013 argues for it |
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Nietzsche had a very complex understanding of Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. He was obsessed with Ancient Greek philosophy basically. With no understanding of it, it's difficult to understand. My help with this was this book: |
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