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A question for Nietzscheans
 

offline welt on 2018-02-04 19:55 [#02543394]
Points: 2035 Status: Lurker



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?


 

offline marlowe from Antarctica on 2018-02-04 21:36 [#02543409]
Points: 24571 Status: Regular



No.


 

offline Hyperflake from Wirral (United Kingdom) on 2018-02-04 21:50 [#02543410]
Points: 30707 Status: Regular



"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


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2018-02-04 22:12 [#02543411]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker



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.


 

offline welt on 2018-02-05 11:16 [#02543524]
Points: 2035 Status: Lurker | Followup to fleetmouse: #02543411



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.)


 

offline welt on 2018-02-05 11:29 [#02543525]
Points: 2035 Status: Lurker



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.


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2018-02-05 14:03 [#02543528]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker



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.


 

offline welt on 2018-02-05 14:54 [#02543530]
Points: 2035 Status: Lurker | Followup to fleetmouse: #02543528



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)


 

offline Hyperflake from Wirral (United Kingdom) on 2018-02-05 15:39 [#02543531]
Points: 30707 Status: Regular



Some deep thinkers on this forum


 

offline RussellDust on 2018-02-05 15:51 [#02543532]
Points: 15891 Status: Lurker



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.


 

offline RussellDust on 2018-02-05 15:55 [#02543533]
Points: 15891 Status: Lurker | Followup to Hyperflake: #02543531



Thinking doesn’t have to “look smart”. :D


 

offline welt on 2018-02-05 16:01 [#02543535]
Points: 2035 Status: Lurker



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


 

offline Hyperflake from Wirral (United Kingdom) on 2018-02-05 16:02 [#02543536]
Points: 30707 Status: Regular | Followup to RussellDust: #02543533



yes its true, I think you were unintentionally philosophical
there!


 

offline RussellDust on 2018-02-05 16:07 [#02543537]
Points: 15891 Status: Lurker | Followup to welt: #02543535



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. It’s 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.


 

offline RussellDust on 2018-02-05 16:08 [#02543538]
Points: 15891 Status: Lurker | Followup to Hyperflake: #02543536



How dare you!!? :P


 

offline Hyperflake from Wirral (United Kingdom) on 2018-02-05 16:15 [#02543539]
Points: 30707 Status: Regular | Followup to RussellDust: #02543538



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


 

offline welt on 2018-02-06 11:02 [#02543688]
Points: 2035 Status: Lurker | Followup to RussellDust: #02543537



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
which argues for it


 

offline Advocate on 2018-02-09 20:00 [#02543987]
Points: 3319 Status: Lurker



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:
LAZY_TITLE


 


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