Nietzsche discussion thread

[AverageGuy]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1289425' date='Mar 26 2008, 14.56']The Romans themselves were initially hostile to Christianity until Constantine issued the Edict of Milan removing the penalties for professing Christianity in 313 A.D.[/quote]
The Romans weren't actively hostile to Christianity for awhile before that. Christians were a common scapegoat, but Galerius declared it a legitimate religion in 311, and there were a lot of Christians living in Rome even before that. In fact, Constantine's battlefield conversion meant that Maxentius had thousands of potentially hostile citizens in an about-to-be-besieged Rome, and wouldn't you know it, the next day he decided to march to Milvian Bridge.

[quote name='Nous' post='1289724' date='Mar 26 2008, 18.15']Their word for virtue, 'arete', is the same as excellence. Even Socrates's (or Plato's) argument on why evil is caused by ignorance relies on the idea that virtue in advantageous. (I'm not quite sure how stoics fit into this.)[/quote]
Stoics don't. I'll add that Greek philosophers still tended to be against excess, so their egoism tended to be tempered by a desire for moderation. Don't know how that fits into slave/master morality and its effect on Nietzsche, but I'll throw it out there.

[quote name='Temujin' post='1290385' date='Mar 27 2008, 08.42']3) Nihlist. I think he viewed himself as Post-Nihlist.[/quote]
Yes. The nihilism argument comes out of "God is dead," but Nietszche wasn't the first person of his time to have the sentiment, and I always thought he was mainly challenging the old morality instead of saying there should be none.

[Caligula_K]

[quote name='"AverageGuy"']The Romans weren't actively hostile to Christianity for awhile before that. Christians were a common scapegoat, but there were a lot of Christians living in Rome before Constantine became emperor, and Galerius declared it a legitimate religion in 311. In fact, Constantine's battlefield conversion meant that Maxentius had thousands of potentially hostile citizens in an about-to-be-besieged Rome, and wouldn't you know it, the next day he decided to march to Milvian Bridge.[/quote]

Yep. Its a bit of a misconception to say that Rome in general was completely hostile to Christianity; aside from Nero, no Roman emperors before the mid third century tried to persecute Christians on a widespread level; most persecutions in the first few centuries AD were ad hoc affairs in the provinces, and as Pliny writes famously in his letter, he didn't really know what to do with Christians (Trajan wrote back to say that while Christians should be tried if charged, they should not be sought out nor should anonymous accusations be accepted). Then there were occasional persecutions by emperors during the third century crisis, likely in order to blame the disorder on these outsiders who didn't practice the rituals of the community and thus endangered it, and who didn't worship the emperor and were thus suspect- the greatest persecution was of course Diocletian's. As Average Guy points out, Constantine's edict of Milan is also very similar in many ways to Galerius', and its clear that Diocletian's Great Persecution was only carried out in the areas of the tetrarchal empire where the emperor there wanted it to be (Constantius, for example, likely didn't persecute). Finally, many adherents of Roman religion remained hostile to Christianity, particularly the well educated, many aristocrats and the peasantry. This is a pretty simplified version in itself, but we can't really say that Rome was hostile towards Christianity until Constantine came along and changed everything.

[quote]I think it's fair to say that the Greeks took the inward focus further since most modern moral philosophers would not even conceive of justice as a mental state (in addition to a social good). Isn't that the idea behind the return of Virtue Ethics - to take the focus back inward?[/quote]

Although the Stoics in particular did preach introspection at the expense of community (see Seneca's avoid the crowd letters, and he was more moderate), I think that we're overstressing the "egoism" of most Greek philosophers. They argue for the pursuit of individual virtue indeed, but mainly so that the virtuous man could justly support the community. See Plato's Guardians from the Republic, for example,.

[BLU-RAY]

Hmm, I, too, have a copy of the Portable Nietzsche, but it's back at school, maybe I'll try and get in on this next week. Neat thread.

Oh, and the Kant attack ad is phenomenal.

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

[quote name='Triskele' post='1291331' date='Mar 27 2008, 23.03']yeah, there's another one with Kant attacking Nietzsche[/quote]

On that video, I hate it when people say Nietzscheeeee.

But I'm sigging the classic line at the end.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1291357' date='Mar 28 2008, 00.24']On that video, I hate it when people say Nietzscheeeee.[/quote]

The real pronunciation is actually pretty obvious if you study German.

Nietzsche viewed "God is Dead" not as an atheist imperative, but an observation. God no longer has meaning in our lives.
Nietzsche was pretty clear that he loathed Nihlism. "Man would rather Will nothing than not will." And Willing nothing is pretty boring/pathetic when you could will something substantial.
He wanted a life-affirming, non-christian and non-nihlist philosphy.
There's some evidence he actually formulated one as well, but had his mental collapse before he could write it. His final books, Twilight of the Idols and the Antichrist were the first two in a series culminating in a book discussing Eternal Return and a positive philosophy.

Twilight is his attack on the old Greek Philosophy, Antichrist on Christianity. His next book was to be an attack on Nihlism. The two after were to be discussions of his own ideas.

[Shevchyk]

Somewhere, Eddison is staring at his CRT in disbelief, incapable of understand how a civil discourse on Nietzsche is happening on the intertubes. And that image of people rushing about saying "OMG! ONOZ!" is doing little dances in my head.

Anyway, moving right along...

There seem to be different notions of how to read Nietzsche's comments regarding women, since he was admittedly peculiar about them. Was he sexist? Depends how far along in going completely bugfuck he was (by 43, 44 he was already hitting the sanity exits).

Without sounding like some defender of chauvinism, sexism, or any other ism (except for Darryl Kerriganisms, whatever that might be like, it could only be awesome), my professors taught us to take a road that does not assume the worst. With regards to the statement: "If a woman has manly virtues, one feels like running away; and if she has no many virtues, she herself runs away," it could be read as asking for there to be some kind of balance in the sexes. Not - and I'd underline that 'not' if I knew how - that men and women adhere to some sort of social model/role, but rather, that the two find some kind of harmony in each other. In light of his desire to move away from Christian morality and to seek a new morality, what kind of roles men and women would have is a mystery to me.

Also: Temujin is fairly on the mark. God wasn't *literally* dead, he simply lost meaning in peoples' lives. The German Catholics of whom Nietzsche was critical during his age were not people he perceived of as being authentically Christian, for a variety of reasons, one of them being their adherence to a system of belief that had less to do with God and more to do with archaic rituals and notions about Christianity.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Shevchyk' post='1291539' date='Mar 28 2008, 05.45']There seem to be different notions of how to read Nietzsche's comments regarding women, since he was admittedly peculiar about them. Was he sexist? Depends how far along in going completely bugfuck he was (by 43, 44 he was already hitting the sanity exits).

Without sounding like some defender of chauvinism, sexism, or any other ism (except for Darryl Kerriganisms, whatever that might be like, it could only be awesome), my professors taught us to take a road that does not assume the worst. With regards to the statement: "If a woman has manly virtues, one feels like running away; and if she has no many virtues, she herself runs away," it could be read as asking for there to be some kind of balance in the sexes. Not - and I'd underline that 'not' if I knew how - that men and women adhere to some sort of social model/role, but rather, that the two find some kind of harmony in each other. In light of his desire to move away from Christian morality and to seek a new morality, what kind of roles men and women would have is a mystery to me.[/quote]

Nietzsche, like most of his contemporaries, labeled characteristics of woman that we now would view as socially-created, as intrinsic to the fairer sex. Some of the behavior he criticizes as womanly are in fact human behaviors, and to that extent his criticism of the behavior still holds.
I hope that makes sense. It took me ten minutes to write that damn paragraph.

Though one of his aphorisms from BGAE on woman is among my favorites.
"Women. They make the highs higher, and the lows - more frequent."

[Shevchyk]

[quote name='Temujin' post='1291547' date='Mar 28 2008, 05.02']Nietzsche, like most of his contemporaries, labeled characteristics of woman that we knew would view as socially-created as intrinsic to the fairer sex. Some of the behavior he criticizes as womanly are in fact human behaviors, and to that extent his criticism of the behavior still holds.
I hope that makes sense. It took me ten minutes to write that damn paragraph.

Though one of his aphorisms from BGAE on woman is among my favorites.
"Women. They make the highs higher, and the lows - more frequent."[/quote]


Erm...
"...that we knew would view as socially-created..."

You mean "...that we knew would be viewed as socially-created"?

Or no?

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Shevchyk' post='1291629' date='Mar 28 2008, 08.14']Erm...
"...that we knew would view as socially-created..."

You mean "...that we knew would be viewed as socially-created"?

Or no?[/quote]

oops!
I meant "Now"

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

[quote name='Temujin' post='1291547' date='Mar 28 2008, 06.02']Nietzsche, like most of his contemporaries, labeled characteristics of woman that we now would view as socially-created, as intrinsic to the fairer sex. Some of the behavior he criticizes as womanly are in fact human behaviors, and to that extent his criticism of the behavior still holds.[/quote]

If I'm following you this is still the stuff of a big ongoing debate in feminists circles.

So, if we cut the sexism out of it, are the "manly" virtues are the "good" virtues? And they are what [i]all[/i] persons should strive for?

On the non-nihilist, non-religious philosophy, that's what always bugged me about Nietzsche. Almost every other philosopher that we consider worth reading actually proposed something. But did he really fail to? After all, what is a new moral philosophy but a system? And Nietzsche hates systematizers.

[quote]26 I mistrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.[/quote]

So, maybe he intended every person to cast off their idols and thereby come to an internal state where they could discern what they really believe, [i]their[/i] truth, in their own mind. A kind of Platonic ethical subjectivism - Platonic in the state that the required mental state is the universal, and subjective because the end, the moral imperative, will differ for each person.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1291714' date='Mar 28 2008, 09.41']If I'm following you this is still the stuff of a big ongoing debate in feminists circles.[/quote]

hmm.... yeah, than you probably followed me.

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1291714' date='Mar 28 2008, 09.41']So, if we cut the sexism out of it, are the "manly" virtues are the "good" virtues? And they are what [i]all[/i] persons should strive for?[/quote]

I'm not sure what manly virtues are to Nietzsche. And I'm not sure if it wasn't so much the maleness of the virtue that is good, but that the virtues Nietzsche valued were rarely posessed by women. He saw them as male virtues, therefore, but that does not mean they are not universal human virtues, or possessed by the hyper-masculine.

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1291714' date='Mar 28 2008, 09.41']On the non-nihilist, non-religious philosophy, that's what always bugged me about Nietzsche. Almost every other philosopher that we consider worth reading actually proposed something. But did he really fail to? After all, what is a new moral philosophy but a system? And Nietzsche hates systematizers.[/quote]

hmm... take this aphorism

[quote]34 On ne peut penser et ecrire qu'assis [One cannot think and write except when seated] (G. Flaubert). There I have caught you, nihilist! The sedentary life is the very sin against the Holy Spirit. Only thoughts reached by walking have value.[/quote]

I take walking hear to be a metaphor for life experience. The lessons that stick with us are the one we learn through experience not books.
A related question (mine, perhaps not Nietzsches), is: What is truly our philosophy, the one we pontificate upon, or the one that directs our daily behavior?
In this way one virtue is more of "a knot to tie our destinies around," because you cannot live coherently according to a 1000 different rules.
The thought experiment of the eternal return is a way of insuring that all of your knowledge is with the strong weight of (eternal) experience.*

My take is that Nietzsche believed that more important than the creation of maxims, was the process of learning, creating and philosophizing. It is not why we live our lives, but how that is important. I always took the intentional difficulty of reading him as being his way of making the reader "walk through" the ideas. Does this make sense? I have a splitting headache, so I'm not sure of my eloquence.


* P.S. Does anybody have the first page of The Unbearable Lightness of Being on hand?

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

[quote name='Temujin' post='1291810' date='Mar 28 2008, 09.37']I take walking hear to be a metaphor for life experience.[/quote]

It could also just be a reference to Aristotle's Peripatetic school, peripatetic meaning "the ones walking about." Aristotle gave all his lectures while walking around.

[quote]* P.S. Does anybody have the first page of The Unbearable Lightness of Being on hand?[/quote]

Yes, I do.

[quote]The idea of the eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?

Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. We need take no more note of it than of a war between two African kingdoms in the 14th century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a hundred thousand blacks perished in excruciating torment.

Will the war between two African kingdoms in the 14th century itself be altered if it recurs again and again, in eternal return?

It will: it will become a solid mass, permanently protuberant, its insanity irreperable.

If the French Revolution were to recur eternally, French historians would be less proud of Robespierre. But because they deal with something that will not return, the bloody years of the Revolution have turned into mere words, theories, and discussions, have become lighter than feathers, frightening no one. There is an infinite difference between a Robespierre who occurs only once in history and a Robespierre who eternally returns, chopping off French heads.

Let us therefore agree that the idea of eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than we know them: they appear without the mitigating circumstances of their transitory nature. This mitigating circumstance prevents us from coming to a verdict. For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit? In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?

This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted.[/quote]

Ha! This is one of favorite, favorite books, but I had forgotten that it's where I lifted the idea that the eternal recurrence is almost an aesthetic approach to morality - what a person could stand to experience, if it were repeated again and again. For me, it is not the lightness of being that is unbearable, but the mental repetition of every mistake that you've ever made in your life. The weight of it is unbearable. It's the lightness of it all that makes it bearable, and makes us free.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1291841' date='Mar 28 2008, 11.04']It could also just be a reference to Aristotle's Peripatetic school, peripatetic meaning "the ones walking about." Aristotle gave all his lectures while walking around.



Yes, I do.



Ha! This is one of favorite, favorite books, but I had forgotten that it's where I lifted the idea that the eternal recurrence is almost an aesthetic approach to morality - what a person could stand to experience, if it were repeated again and again. For me, it is not the lightness of being that is unbearable, but the mental repetition of every mistake that you've ever made in your life. The weight of it is unbearable. It's the lightness of it all that makes it bearable, and makes us free.[/quote]

I don't know much about Aristotle and Nietzsche. Was he a fan?
And why did Aristotle feel walking around was the right way to philosophize? I find this interpretation without that unsatisfying; the quote then becomes a 19th century Quentin Tarantino one liner. Fun to repeat to your friends, but without real insight.

And now it is time to play the Devil's Advocate, Domaine, because I fall on the opposite side of the question. For me it is the feeling of lightness can be revolting; like waking up next to a woman you don't know after a drunken evening. One thinks, "what was the point of that, I don't even remember the previous night."

But as for you, clearly you read philosophy and perhaps engage in the incessant partisan conflict of the General Chatter board. Somebody who pursued lightness would ignore politics, religion and philosophy in favor of the ephemeral. Unless you see these discussions as something of a game? A lot of debaters have something of that attitude. William F Buckley comes to mind. Also Sir Scot E.

I am on the other side; I view understanding politics as a kind of burden, but it only really vexes me when I see at as a pointless burden - one I can't let down though it is ultimately irrelevant. It is lightness, irrelevance, that bothers me.

Perhaps I'm being to black and white with this. I think most people would find too much lightness and too much weight as both terrible, but would have different ideas of what "too much" meant.

Also thanks for typing that up! :thumbsup:

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

[quote name='Temujin' post='1291931' date='Mar 28 2008, 11.08']I don't know much about Aristotle and Nietzsche. Was he a fan?[/quote]

I don't actually know either. Has anyone here read the Birth of Tragedy or his earlier stuff? Maybe that would shed some light on it. [i]Certainly[/i] though, he was familiar with the Peripatetics, so I would guess he was trying to invoke something they believed, which may have very well been the point you were getting at earlier.

That would be great, by the way, because it fits with Aristotle's concept of phronesis (moral knowledge), which he repeatedly emphasizes over and over the Nicomachean ethics has to ether be taught or come from experience.

It's a small world - I used a Nietzsche quote in my intro on the paper I wrote on phronesis: "To educate educators! But the first ones must educate themselves! And for these I write."

And so, he writes for people who will teach themselves moral knowledge, which can only be done through experience. But Nietzsche would add, I guess, an enlightened experience, where we throw off our idols so we can have true perceptions of that experience.

I think we're on to something here....

[quote]And why did Aristotle feel walking around was the right way to philosophize? I find this interpretation without that unsatisfying; the quote then becomes a 19th century Quentin Tarantino one liner. Fun to repeat to your friends, but without real insight.[/quote]

Yeah, I agree. I think you're right.

[quote]And now it is time to play the Devil's Advocate, Domaine, because I fall on the opposite side of the question. For me it is the feeling of lightness can be revolting; like waking up next to a woman you don't know after a drunken evening. One thinks, "what was the point of that, I don't even remember the previous night."

***

Perhaps I'm being to black and white with this. I think most people would find too much lightness and too much weight as both terrible, but would have different ideas of what "too much" meant.

Also thanks for typing that up! :thumbsup:[/quote]

By the way, you can call me Raidne. I'm just stuck with my weird "champagne name" from general chatter for the next 20 some days. :)

So, OK, on the one hand, "the unexamined life is not worth living." Which is from Socrates, and Nietzsche surely read that and thought about it.

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."

So, again from the second chapter: "The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all."

IMO, Nietzsche tended way too far toward weight. Most philosophers are people you'd happily modify your life on, but not [i]that[/i] guy. :)

[Ser Spidey]

I just skimmed through the thread because Raidne reccommended it on her birthday.

It seems interesting, I'll respond to something when I get some sleep.

For now, just a good joke:

[i]Nietzsche: God is dead.

God: Nietzsche is dead.[/i]

[Commodore]

"Nietzsche is dead"

--God

[Ser Spidey]

[quote name='Commodore' post='1292535' date='Mar 29 2008, 04.38']"Nietzsche is dead"

--God[/quote]
I suppose you can put it that way as well. :P

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

Damn it, I read ahead, and I have to say that it all just pissed me right off all over again. Nietzsche's good a springboard for other ideas, IMO. Period.

Color me unsurprised that Cesare Borgia is supposed to be a role model. The guy's a glorified war lord.

Husband and I were talking it over last night, and we decided Raven from Snow Crash is the ultimate ubermensch. :)

Maybe it's because I'm just a weak-willed shallow woman, but that's just not the kind of world I want to live in. It's one thing to adopt a government system that recognizes that everyone's out for themselves, and even where there are rewards for the strong and the dedicated, but one shouldn't create an entire prescriptive ethical system out of it.

[Commodore]

Well I don't want to live in a world where the individual is a servant of his fellow man.

To each his own.

[Dinsdale!]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1292793' date='Mar 29 2008, 09.59']Damn it, I read ahead, and I have to say that it all just pissed me right off all over again. Nietzsche's good a springboard for other ideas, IMO. Period.

Color me unsurprised that Cesare Borgia is supposed to be a role model. The guy's a glorified war lord.

Husband and I were talking it over last night, and we decided Raven from Snow Crash is the ultimate ubermensch. :)

Maybe it's because I'm just a weak-willed shallow woman, but that's just not the kind of world I want to live in. It's one thing to adopt a government system that recognizes that everyone's out for themselves, and even where there are rewards for the strong and the dedicated, but one shouldn't create an entire prescriptive ethical system out of it.[/quote]

Yeah, i wish somebody would've told Ayn Rand that when Nietzsche called for new philosophers, he didn't mean her...

Nietzsche was a bit of a troglodyte, wasn't he? That means like Rudyard Kipling he'll probably be with us for ever.

And even so, he teaches us something about [i]how[/i] to conduct philosophy which is pretty worthwhile. And hidden is the incredible arrogance of his writing style is a dose of humility - he continuously talked about new philosophers who would surpass. A lot of philosophers think they are the alpha and the omega.

and to rehabilitate him a little more, the idea of social contextualization of behavior sprung out of Nietzsche, as did the idea that maybe fucking wasn't sinful but pleasurable, and our pop-psychology focus on self-esteem.

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.

/temz