Nietzsche discussion thread

[Commodore]

In what way was he a troglodyte?

Scorn and disdain are not substitutes for a substanive rebuttal. If anything, they reveal a lack of one.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Commodore' post='1293117' date='Mar 29 2008, 16.39']In what way was he a troglodyte?

Scorn and disdain are not substitutes for a substanive rebuttal. If anything, they reveal a lack of one.[/quote]

Despite the fact that I am drunk, very drunk indeed - does Nietzsche approve of this, that I know not - I will attempt to answer your question.

Your second paragraph is unclear. Are you attacking Nietzsche or me. If it is me, be your on guard for a terrible counter offensive! If it is the N-man than be warned: i have it on good authority that he killed god. With a BLT sandwich. If you're not careful Zombie-N-man will rise from his grave and slay you with Currywurst.

Troglodyte in his love of Cesar Borgia and other fuckers most notable for being the assholes in history.

[Gigei]

Ah am I alone in thinking by "Troglodyte" you meant physically and emotionally repulsive?

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

First of all, Commodore, of course I appreciate your presence and your thoughts, but this is [i]philosophical discussion[/i] thread. That means (1) we operate using the principle of charity and (2) we [i]discuss[/i]. Temujin has been more than forthcoming with his justifications for his opinions on this thread, and so if you just wanted to ask him what he reasons are instead of insinuating that he doesn't have any, I would personally consider it a big favor. Thanks.

[quote name='Commodore' post='1292924' date='Mar 29 2008, 11.46']Well I don't want to live in a world where the individual is a servant of his fellow man.[/quote]

Is that really all there is? The will to power, or servitude to fellow man? What about the very notion of virtue ethics that Nietzsche scorns? Courage, development of the intellect, temperance, all for [i]their own sake[/i]. Not because we have a will to power, but a will to self-actualization.

[quote name='Temujin' post='1293044' date='Mar 29 2008, 14.05']So while we don't agree with him on everything, we shouldn't and we do not have to. But he did say a lot of things that nobody had ever said before and on that basis alone deserves our respect and our response.[/quote]

Sure, and in context of the times, he's utterly revolutionary. But unlike, say, Plato, his pure philosophical ideas themselves aren't as great outside of their context, IMHO. The will to power just isn't a great idea. As a [i]descriptive[/i] notion, it's not revolutionary (even for the times), and as a prescriptive notion, it's just frightening.

By which I mean, it doesn't offer any of the things that a ethical system should offer. It doesn't make society better, it doesn't make an individual happier, and, most of all, I would argue that it doesn't develop a person into their best self, either, even though I think that's maybe what Nietzsche thought.

On the other hand, like we talked about earlier in thread, Christianity has become pretty firmly entrenched in our cultural ideas of right and wrong, and so I suppose it's worth something to go entirely in the opposite direction just for the sake of trying to throw it off.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1294609' date='Mar 31 2008, 10.31']Sure, and in context of the times, he's utterly revolutionary. But unlike, say, Plato, his pure philosophical ideas themselves aren't as great outside of their context, IMHO. The will to power just isn't a great idea. As a [i]descriptive[/i] notion, it's not revolutionary (even for the times), and as a prescriptive notion, it's just frightening.

By which I mean, it doesn't offer any of the things that a ethical system should offer. It doesn't make society better, it doesn't make an individual happier, and, most of all, I would argue that it doesn't develop a person into their best self, either, even though I think that's maybe what Nietzsche thought.[/quote]

I'm still not sure what Nietzsche meant by the Will to Power. But it seems to get interpeted in three ways:
1) As related to an internal struggle for self-actualization.
2) As related to actual attainment of temporal power
3) As a abstraction through which one can understand the world.

The third case is as a descriptive notion, in which case it's mostly a response to Schopenhauer (and Spinoza?), but as you say interesting, but not revolutionary.
However the use of the world "Will" is in part synonymous with [i]instict[/i]. So the concept of the Will to Power is also an attack on the idea of Rationality. And Nietzsche took this idea to more of an extreme than Schopenhauer did (i.e. One can do what one wills but not want what one wills), and I'm not certain he was right to.

Understood in the first sense it is laudable. And I think for Nietzsche the Will to temporal power was only good as it came out of the Will to internal power.

And his critique is more than just a critique on Christianity. It's also a critique on the idea that ethics are possible without a ultimate-abstraction like God backing it up. There's an article I randomly ran into in a Papist magazine I can look up that says this more eloquently than I can.

Temz

P.S. My views are colored by the fact that for a couple of years I mistranslated, Der Wille Zur Macht, as "The will to do/create," which to some degree it is, but not 10% as much as I thought.
Anyway, I'm still a fan of that misinterpretation ;)

P.P.S. Should we start on the second chapter or TOI. On this thread or another.

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

[quote name='Temujin' post='1294694' date='Mar 31 2008, 11.24']I'm still not sure what Nietzsche meant by the Will to Power. But it seems to get interpeted in three ways:
1) As related to an internal struggle for self-actualization.
2) As related to actual attainment of temporal power
3) As a abstraction through which one can understand the world.[/quote]

I'm only see justification for (2) and (3). And mostly (2). Which is what I'm not liking about Nietzsche. I really want to be able to see the first interpretation in his writing, but I haven't found justification for it in Twilight of the Idols.

I think we can just move on to The Problem of Socrates in this thread, since it hasn't gotten overly long yet.

What I like about Nietzsche here is the rejection of the idea in Plato (and Plato's Socrates) that life is transient and therefore less than some eternal objective truth.

Also, I understand the frustration with dialectics. Hell, anyone who posts on this board can probably understand that. :) But okay, it's impossible to have a rational justification for everything. At some point, one has to just put a foot down and say, well, this is my premise because I believe it, most other people seem to believe it, and we have to start from somewhere. Like Rawls' veil of ignorance. It's a thought experiment, but it's power is in how many people, put in the thought experiment, agree with Rawls. And so he moves forward from there. But there's no ultimate rational justification, and at some point Plato's (or Socrates's) search for one seems very much like :bang:

So, what should we do instead then? What's Nietzsche advocating? Anything? And when Nietzsche says we can't extricate ourselves from decadence by waging war against it, what is he suggesting? That he knows how we can, or that we need to accept that we can't, or what?

[Eponine]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1291982' date='Mar 28 2008, 11.40']On the other hand, to borrow from the second chapter of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, "If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It's a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavily on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens."

And so we're back to the idea that we were going over in the Buddhism thread that sparked this one - that maybe happiness and intellectual fulfillment are two different things - two goals we should balance. Because, let me tell you, the idea of the eternal recurrence certainly doesn't make me happier. But ignoring introspection and the bigger questions seems kind of shallow too. I've got to admit, I've never been able to really get along with people who don't watch the news because it's "too depressing."[/quote]

Going back to this idea (sorry, I hate moving backwards but I just read the thread), it seems that at least partially, an acceptance of eternal recurrence could be satisfied by an acceptance of Buddhism (in regards to renouncing attachments). In order to not be weighed down unbearably by our responsibilities, we would have to detach ourselves from our choices as well as to the things that could have made those choices unbearable. What are we more attached to than our own past mistakes?

No doubt Nietzsche would have considered this cowardice, as he seems to advocate becoming strong from bearing our life completely every time and not accepting any form of avoidance. Is renouncing attachments a form of avoiding responsibility?

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1294753' date='Mar 31 2008, 12.08']I'm only see justification for (2) and (3). And mostly (2). Which is what I'm not liking about Nietzsche. I really want to be able to see the first interpretation in his writing, but I haven't found justification for it in Twilight of the Idols.[/quote]
eek, falling behind in reading Twilight, so I don't know if I can counter that in the text. I'm also not sure Twilight is the right springboard for a discussion of the Will to Power.


But number 2 is definitely not the whole of the Will to Power. Consider Nietzsche's absolute loathing for Bismarck. If he adored simply temporal power that wouldn't be the case. It was more of this idea of outer power emanating from your inner strength. But he claimed to be revolted by those who had temporal power while being sickly examples of the human race. (See the first essay in the Genealogy of Morales).

I think Nietzsche saw artists, and particularly musicians(composers), as better exemplars of the Will to Power than politicians.

Unfortunately, Heidegger's work isn't online. He, more than anybody else, pushed the idea that the Will to Power was a metaphysical concept. (i.e. Heidegger's Will to Power as Art(


For a concrete example from the text, the prologue of Zarathustra comes to mind (though I know you find it tedious). Zarathustra preaches to the crowd watching the rope-walker that there greatest thing you can experience is "your hour of greatest contempt," which is to say bitter hard self-inspection, as well as his talk of the three transformations.


temz

(And does anybody know where Cocomaan has gone off to? We have a philosophy thread and our resident philosopher is a no show?)

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Eponine R' post='1295135' date='Mar 31 2008, 16.04']Going back to this idea (sorry, I hate moving backwards but I just read the thread), it seems that at least partially, an acceptance of eternal recurrence could be satisfied by an acceptance of Buddhism (in regards to renouncing attachments). In order to not be weighed down unbearably by our responsibilities, we would have to detach ourselves from our choices as well as to the things that could have made those choices unbearable. What are we more attached to than our own past mistakes?

No doubt Nietzsche would have considered this cowardice, as he seems to advocate becoming strong from bearing our life completely every time and not accepting any form of avoidance. Is renouncing attachments a form of avoiding responsibility?[/quote]


Nietzsche is really explicit about his views on Buddhism in the Anti-christ
(link below. See section 20-22. It isn't that long.)
[url="http://www.fns.org.uk/ac.htm"]http://www.fns.org.uk/ac.htm[/url]

To sum up he viewed Buddhism as a nihlistic, anti-life religion. He also says it's a more advanced religion than Christianity because it is already "beyond good and evil*"


* Nietzsche contrasted Good and Evil with Good and Bad. His beef with declaring something evil is that it is a negative way of defining your morality - I am a good, because I am not doing what that fucker does or am in opposition to that fucker, as opposed to I am a good when I am virtuous, and bad when I fail to be virtuous. Thus Good and Evil was decadent, and Good and Bad life-affirming.

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

[quote name='Temujin' post='1295154' date='Mar 31 2008, 16.18'](And does anybody know where Cocomaan has gone off to? We have a philosophy thread and our resident philosopher is a no show?)[/quote]

In the Buddhism thread, when I brought up the possibility of doing this thread he said:

[quote]Yeah, we could do it in the lit forum. I can't promise my total involvement, because I'm currently doing research for 3 papers and a thesis, but I'd be game.[/quote]

How did Nietzsche divine that Borgia and/or Napoleon were full of inner strength? He does seem to have a fetish for men who were ultimately conquered, captured, and killed. They even both had successful escape attempts. Strange.

[Bellis]

I'm going on holidays for the next 6 days, so I won't be checking this thread. But I did pick up [b]Twilight of the Idols[/b] from the library. It looks like a different translation than on the link in the OP, but hopefully it's still readable, and I'll be reading the thread when I get back to have it explained to me. :)

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1392095' date='Jun 10 2008, 10.33']If you read Zarathustra, you'll understand. Nietzsche was a bitter shut in, someone who was most likely reviled in his day and age. You don't need to physically be a troglodyte to be considered one. I almost see Nietzsche as the David Irving of his age, hated. See the analogy? Totally undermining the moral systems of the age.[/quote]

Also dude sucked with the ladies. He was really bitter about that.
He took a really strong position against German Nationalism, which put him in opposition to most other germans of his time.


[quote]So, what do we know:
- The ubermensch is not a nihilist
- The Will to Power is a will to something, perhaps a will to greatness

If Nietzsche wants us to be the "dangerous question marks of our age", I think he's advocating exactly what you hate Raidne- namely a post-modern solution to the problem of nihilistic society. I think it would something as subtle as a change in language, but that's my own bias talking.[/quote]

I'd say Nietzsche viewed one of the challenges of contemporary philosophy was overcoming Nihlism.

Well my replies here are rather weak.

[Jaerv]

Maybe that's a little bit off the topic (though it links to the "male language"- discussion from the beginning of the thread), but I always liked his poetry (see below for two examples). Most of his philosophical writings are also characterized by a very expressive - often purely poetic - language, possibly explaining parts of the fascination they inspired among german readers.



[b]Venice[/b]
At the bridge I stood
lately in the brown night.
From afar came a song:
as a golden drop it welled
over the quivering surface.
Gondolas, lights, and music —
drunken it swam out into the twilight.
My soul, a stringed instrument,
sang to itself, invisibly touched,
a secret gondola song,
quivering with iridescent happiness.
— Did anyone listen to it?

(Translation by Walter Kaufmann)



[b]To the Unknown God[/b] (1864)
Once more, before I wander on
And turn my glance forward,
I lift up my hands to you in loneliness —
You, to whom I flee,
To whom in the deepest depths of my heart
I have solemnly consecrated altars
So that
Your voice might summon me again.

On them glows, deeply inscribed, the words:
To the unknown god.
I am his, although until this hour
I've remained in the wicked horde:
I am his—and I feel the bonds
That pull me down in my struggle
And, would I flee,
Force me into his service.

I want to know you, Unknown One,
You who have reached deep into my soul,
Into my life like the gust of a storm,
You incomprehensible yet related one!
I want to know you, even serve you.

(—Translation by Philip Grundlerhner)



[b]Venedig[/b]
An der Brücke stand
jüngst ich in brauner Nacht.
Fernher kam Gesang:
goldener Tropfen quoll's
über die zitternde Fläche weg.
Gondeln, Lichter, Musik —
trunken schwamm's in die Dämmrung hinaus ...

Meine Seele, ein Saitenspiel,
sang sich, unsichtbar berührt,
heimlich ein Gondellied dazu,
zitternd vor bunter Seligkeit.
— Hörte jemand ihr zu? ...



[b]Dem Unbekannten Gott [/b](1864)
Noch einmal, eh ich weiterziehe
und meine Blicke vorwärts sende,
heb ich vereinsamt meine Hände
zu dir empor, zu dem ich fliehe,
dem ich in tiefster Herzenstiefe
Altäre feierlich geweiht,
dass allezeit
mich deine Stimme wieder riefe.

Darauf erglüht tief eingeschrieben
das Wort: Dem unbekannten Gotte.
Sein bin ich, ob ich in der Frevler Rotte
auch bis zur Stunde bin geblieben:
Sein bin ich—und fühl die Schlingen,
die mich im Kampf darniederziehn
und, mag ich fliehn,
mich doch zu seinem Dienste zwingen.

Ich will dich kennen, Unbekannter,
du tief in meine Seele Greifender,
mein Leben wie ein Sturm Durchschweifender,
du Unfassbarer, mir Verwandter!
Ich will dich kennen, selbst dir dienen.

[Guest Radnica]

PSA: I'm happy to broaden the discussion off Twilight of the Idols and into other stuff. I think it was good to start with some concrete passages so we're not all over the place, but I think we've got enough grounding to get into his ideas generally.

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1392095' date='Jun 10 2008, 11.33']If Nietzsche wants us to be the "dangerous question marks of our age", I think he's advocating exactly what you hate Raidne- namely a post-modern solution to the problem of nihilistic society. I think it would something as subtle as a change in language, but that's my own bias talking.[/quote]

I agree, but to me that leaves the big questions unanswered. And he also, IMHO, goes off completely in the wrong direction. So there's no higher truth. Sure, I agree. But we don't want to say that means morality does not exist. Yep, I'm cool with that too.

But, and here's my big problem, IMHO, godless morality is derived from [i]social[/i] justice. There's no other way to do it. Instead, Nietzsche roots his system in aesthetics and individual excellence. I think that's great, and I love the idea of the eternal recurrence as sort of an aesthetically-based thought experiment, but it doesn't necessarily give us anything that we would call "moral."

I know I'm begging the question, and Nietzsche would say that I've just failed to throw off traditional notions of morality, but our internal state - our psychic justice - is only one half of the puzzle. Living in harmony with other people - social justice - is also a necessary condition for happiness. I'm pretty sure that either has been or could be proved empirically.

I forget where he said it, but Nietzsche said he despised Christians because of their slave morality, but also because they were invested in personal reconciliation with God. He believed that this personal redemption was even at the expense of the fellow person and our material world. The question he posed was: how can one have a truly altruistic act here on earth if you are aiming to please Yaweh in the end? How can a preoccupation with Heaven truly redeem your person among your fellow human beings?

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1392546' date='Jun 10 2008, 15.36']At the beginning of BGaE, he says "imagine that Truth were a woman: what then?"[/quote]

I would guess that he means what if truth were fickle, unknowable, [i]in flux[/i].

[Bellis]

It's not fresh right now, so I don't have much to add. This is what I wrote in the April Reading thread:

[quote]Superficial thoughts - he's entertaining if nothing else, with his shock-jocklike shots at Christianity, other writers and philosophers, and his love of the Laws of Manu and his exortations to the weak to go kill themselves. I bet Ayn Rand had orgasms reading this stuff.[/quote]

I felt he had an unhealthy need to pick on George Elliot and others.

[JoannaL]

[quote name='Jaerv' post='1392216' date='Jun 10 2008, 18.43']Maybe that's a little bit off the topic (though it links to the "male language"- discussion from the beginning of the thread), but I always liked his poetry (see below for two examples). Most of his philosophical writings are also characterized by a very expressive - often purely poetic - language, possibly explaining parts of the fascination they inspired among german readers.[/quote]

Yes, I would like to support that thought and point out that he himself thought of himself often as a poet (and didn't like it). There is that beautiful poem somewhere at the end of Zarathustra ([i]only fool (jester?), only poet[/i]... unfortunately I don't have an english translation of it ) where he argues about the (his) relationship with poetry and truth.
I think it is [b]extremely[/b] important to keep that in mind when reading Nietsche. Sometimes he says things just for the beauty of the thought or even for the beauty of the words. Sometimes he is a poet. So to read (understand) him is more difficult than say Kant because Kant just uses words to communicate his ideas. I could imagine that a translation even makes it worse because often the translator has to decide if he wants to translate the thought or the words correctly and so always misses some layer of meaning.

About the ubermensch: As someone who reads Nietzsche as a poet my 2 cents are:
Nietzsche critizes any religious focus on a next life and he also critizes the focus on the normal daily life.
In both he isn't interested. His ubermensch is someone who lives life self aware and to the fullest. It is a little bit like 'carpe diem' but with no hedonistic part. To be awake, to understand the fullness of living and develop oneself to ([i]more than = uber [/i]) one fullest potential that is important.
So to criticize him because he has no social ethics is beside the point. This belongs to the realm of daily life and is not part of his philosophy. He is not interested in this questions. Perhaps he acknoledges that there are other things than individual self perfection like getting food or having laws but he isn't interested in this details of life.

Sorry for my bad english I know it is suicidal to take part in a philosophical discussion if you don't know the language well, I just couln't help myself...

[Dinsdale!]

[quote]What I don't understand is how Rand got to selfishness as virtue from the ubermensch.[/quote]

AFAIK, Ayn Rand always denied Nietzsche influenced her.
Of course nobody believed her.
Including the National Review, which published an extremely negative review of her book:
[url="http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp"]http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/fl...00501050715.asp[/url]
And afterwards, every time WFB entered a room she was in, she'd theatrically storm out.
That review itself does a decent job answering your question, btw, and is an amusing, well-written read:
[quote]Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal.[/quote]

What confused me was how she simultaneously adopts the Ubermensch/Last Man distinction so thoroughly, but ignores Nietzsche's rejection of bipolar morality, expressed in the title Beyond Good and Evil.


I don't think of Nietzsche as a philosopher much interested in Politics, because he wasn't interested in society but in individuals. He saw the developments of his time as the freeing of an individual from society. In Aristotle's day it was impossible to live without strongly involving yourself society. Nietzsche on a couple of occasions noted that the latest birth of man was that of the individual. This jibes well with his focus on individual genius artists as the ubermensch (see his early enthusiasm for Wagner).


His critique of Christianity came in multiple parts:
1) He believed it worshipped death, and was therefore unhealthy. He called it Nihlist for this reason.
2) It just cribbed it's best stuff off the Jews, whom he had far more respect for as the originators of a moral system.
3) A quote from Zarathustra: "Is not pity the cross upon which he-who-loved-man died? But I will not let my pity be a crucifixion." Which is an attack on christian ethics.
4) It's not really their slave morality. His relationship with master and slave morality was more ambiguous than simply prefering the first to the second.

A note: Nietzsche, like many of his contemporaries, was a Lamarckian. This is relevant when considering his ideas of human transformation.

And does anybod know much about Spinoza? I know Spinoza was Nietzsche's favorite philospher, but I don't know anything about Spinoza's ideas.

Also can we work in the Watchman graphic novel into this discussion :D

[Jaerv]

[quote name='Radnica' post='1392655' date='Jun 10 2008, 22.10']Living in harmony with other people - social justice - is also a necessary condition for happiness. I'm pretty sure that either has been or could be proved empirically.[/quote]

There are studies that demonstrate such a correlation, yes. But it is in no way a perfect correlation, meaning that there are many exceptions. Think of soziopaths, for example, or persons with schizoid personality disorder. Both are not really interested in other persons and their relations to them. Thus, having good relations to fellow humans is very important for [i]most[/i] people but [i]not[/i] for all.


Edit: This reply is of course only relevant if "necessary condition" was meant on a psychological level, somethnig like a "need for affiliation".

[Guest Radnica]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1393059' date='Jun 10 2008, 18.58']I completely agree. I'm channeling Hannah Arendt and "Crisis in Culture" here (because I read it two days ago, heh) but she cites Kant's idea of judgment in [i]Critique of Judgment[/i]; Kant says the difference between rationality and judgment is that judgment is a community activity. When you are on a jury, you are acting as an "everyman" - you are the anonymous figure of the public realm. The important part is this - Kant says that when you judge, you do so with the idea that [i]anyone else standing in my shoes would judge the same way[/i].[/quote]

Really? Rawls ripped off Kant [i]that much[/i]? Anyway, I'm heavily influenced by Rawls' social justice, and he was inspired by those thoughts of Kant's, as was Arendt, so I think we're on the same page.

And I really do think that people have to function in a community to be happy. Otherwise, why are we all here? Why aren't we off writing journal entries to ourselves offline? And of course, that's exactly what Nietzsche did. And he was very solitary. But, IMO, he doesn't seem very happy, you know?

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1393059' date='Jun 10 2008, 18.58']What I don't understand is how Rand got to selfishness as virtue from the ubermensch.[/quote]

What's to prevent anyone from getting anything from the ubermensch? It's a pretty ethically subjective concept, no?

[quote name='JoannaL' post='1393556' date='Jun 11 2008, 05.26']About the ubermensch: As someone who reads Nietzsche as a poet my 2 cents are:
Nietzsche critizes any religious focus on a next life and he also critizes the focus on the normal daily life.
In both he isn't interested. His ubermensch is someone who lives life self aware and to the fullest. It is a little bit like 'carpe diem' but with no hedonistic part. To be awake, to understand the fullness of living and develop oneself to ([i]more than = uber [/i]) one fullest potential that is important.
So to criticize him because he has no social ethics is beside the point. This belongs to the realm of daily life and is not part of his philosophy. He is not interested in this questions. Perhaps he acknoledges that there are other things than individual self perfection like getting food or having laws but he isn't interested in this details of life.[/quote]

Yes, from inside Nietzsche's system, it is, indeed, beside the point. But to evaluate its worth from the outside, like I said, I only care about a system of ethics to the extent that it creates happy people and a happy society. Nietzsche's model is too focused on excellence to be either. At the end of the day, where does individual self-perfection get anyone.

Also, just a little side comment - have you ever met anyone who lives their life this way? I have, as there are plenty of them in law school. They are [i]not[/i] happy people. It conflates what psychology would call a performance orientation - to be the "best" at something - with a mastery orientation - to gain understanding of something. The latter makes people happy, but it's the former that people think of when they try to perfect themselves. It's not a desirable way to go about life, and it's almost an illness in American culture.

[quote name='JoannaL' post='1393556' date='Jun 11 2008, 05.26']Sorry for my bad english I know it is suicidal to take part in a philosophical discussion if you don't know the language well, I just couln't help myself...[/quote]

First, your English is quite good - perfectly understandable - and second it's supposed to be a [i]friendly[/i] discussion after all so don't worry. Thirdly, we're all talking about a philosopher who's works we're reading in English imperfectly translated from German, so what the hell? :)

[quote name='Deutschdale!' post='1393584' date='Jun 11 2008, 06.13']A note: Nietzsche, like many of his contemporaries, was a Lamarckian. This is relevant when considering his ideas of human transformation.[/quote]

I am not familiar with this term, but it seem to have something to do with genetically inheritable acquired characteristics? I can kind of see what you mean, but could you elaborate? What specifically did Nietzsche think was inheritable?

[quote name='Deutschdale!' post='1393584' date='Jun 11 2008, 06.13']And does anybod know much about Spinoza? I know Spinoza was Nietzsche's favorite philospher, but I don't know anything about Spinoza's ideas.[/quote]

Spinoza roots God back into the earth. It's like a Final Fantasy Gaia planetary life-force kind of thing, I think. So Spinoza's always going on about God, but he means God in sense of a transcendent knowledge of reality. Still, Spinoza is a Plato-type philosopher, always after the fundamental principle of the all, and Nietzsche, IMO, is no such thing, so I don't really get it.

[quote]Also can we work in the Watchman graphic novel into this discussion :D[/quote]

I'm only a little bit familiar, but why the hell not?

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1393763' date='Jun 11 2008, 10.07']Raidne and I have the same problem with this, however: while the atomistic model looks good on paper, I think it is still lacking. If anything, we are turning [i]back [/i]to community because of its integral role in the human condition.[/quote]

That's important to a philosphy of politics, but is it important to a philosophy of aesthetics? All I mean to say is that the questions that interest you and Raidne, and the questions that interested Nietzsche don't line up perfectly. If you try to look for his answers to those questions you may not find them, or rather only find your opinions of the opinions you despise, in the distorted reflection of Nietzsche's work.

Though to meander in that direction anyway (what the hell, why not?), even though there be benefit in recognizing our importance relative to society, great people often arise in rejecting/surpassing the inherent boundaries of their society. I don't like the idea of a philosophy that says everybody should have the same relationship to their society; there ought to be variation.

To requote you: (and digress the discussion)
[quote]If anything, we are turning [i]back [/i]to community because of its integral role in the human condition.[/quote]

what precise phenomenon are you referring to? the tendency of westerners from nuclear families to attempt to create more tribal/small communal identites as they reach maturity? The resurge in national/international sentiment in the west? That is a sentiment that peaked in the days of Fascism, and perhaps reached a nadir sometime in the 1970's.