Nietzsche was a nutter.

Post #44,028 by marlowe 6/30/02 11:11:43 PM Reply	Nietzsche was a nutter. [link\|http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/site.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_NS&newDisplayURN=200206170042\|Not just incidentally, but essentially] Excerpt: After the Second World War, admirers of Nietzsche sought to distance him from the irrationalist rhetoric of his early disciples. Such misguided adulation had, in their view, led to his disastrous appropriation by the Nazis. "Nietzsche's thought," wrote R J Hollingdale in his influential 1965 biography, "is not irrational at all." Nietzsche's insanity was simply a misfortune, of no philosophical significance one way or the other. But this is too easy a solution. His descent into madness was not sudden but gradual. Evidence of it is visible in his last published work, Ecce Homo, which contains chapter headings such as "Why I am so clever" and "Why I write such excellent books". And why draw the line there? Ever since his retirement from Basel University, Nietzsche's behaviour had been increasingly erratic and unconventional. Was madness not perhaps the hidden germ, the daemonion, from which his clairvoyant insight sprang? How could he have found the audacity to posit reason as questionable, had he himself not placed one foot outside its bounds? I say: I've given plenty of thought myself to the relation between irony and earnestness. My conclusion is that irony is just fine, even useful, even necessary sometimes. But there has to be a bottom line somewhere, or else there's no point. Nietzsche's problem was he couldn't settle on any axioms, so he could never really get any traction. No first step, no journey. His mind was scrambled. He was a mess. He was the first Ozzy Osbourne of philosophy. (Sartre in his dotage being the second.) [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Truth is that which is the case. Accept no substitutes. If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage.
Post #44,094 by screamer 7/1/02 11:31:18 AM Reply	Helter Skeltor I've given a lot of thought to a similar subject lately as I have been listening to a lot of the music I did as a teenager. The same sounds and lyrics, but much deeper lyrics than I remembered. For me, popular music was as much a philosophical influence as say any philosopher or organized religion. The conclusion that I have reached is that it is always best to separate the (wo)man from the art. Pete Townshend and John Lennon (though not lunatics) seem to have lived close to the edge of sanity at many points in their lives. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. probably has had a string of not so sane moments throughout his life as well. Nietsche was to his generation and to those who followed - a popular artist and a man. The medium he used was novel/treatise instead of popular music. It's not hard to see how people can take some of his more obscure thoughts and bastardize them in the same manner that Charles Manson did to the Beatles or Hitler to Nietszche. It does not erase, in my mind, the poetry of In My Life or Imagine. Nietzsche's body of work is too broad to summarize in a few sentences, but it is important to keep in mind the Enlightenment and "new ideas" that he was rebelling against. In this context, a lot of the venom that he directed makes a bit more sense. Most good artists/writers try to use satire or humor to let society see the flaws of their ethos in a "non-threatening" manner. Nietschze (especially in The Gay Science) was letting loose with all cannons. Somewhat like Lennon did with Revolution in 1968... Not a popular song with the hippies, I would imagine. Just a few thoughts, Screamer "God is dead" Nietschze "Nietschze is dead" God "You say you'll change the constitution Well you know We all want to change your head You tell me it's the institution Well you know You better free your mind instead But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow Don't you know know it's gonna be alright Alright Alright"
Post #44,175 by marlowe 7/1/02 11:12:38 PM Reply	Too broad to summarize? I'll summarize it in two words: brownian motion. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Truth is that which is the case. Accept no substitutes. If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage.
Post #44,263 by screamer 7/2/02 2:23:34 PM Reply	Okay... well that's a fair summary Going back to my youth, I was thrown out of high school for two days for uttering the summary "Shakespeare is shit" during a reading of MacBeth. For a 17 year old American boy growing up in the seventies, I thought that was an accurate summary. Like my old movies and albums, upon rereading Shakespeare as a 40 year old, I found a lot in there that didn't exist for me as a teenager. As I acquired more life experiences, a lot of what the Bard had to say makes much more sense. Passages on death, for example, are meaningless until someone you really care about dies. Passages about love and life are meaningless to those who haven't yet experienced them. The older I get, the less I know for sure. I summarized Nietschze's work the same as you not too long ago in these very fora, but as a favor to an old friend, I reread him as well. Mr. Nietschze was a humanist. He wrote about society as an outsider looking in. He saw all the sound and fury and recognized it for just that - "signifying nothing". By and large, what I get out of his writings is a sense of how absurd the notion of any Utopian society is. So, okay, you still have a young mind and are sure of what you're sure of. Nietschze is shit, Democrats are shit, black is shit, white is shit. Makes it very easy to categorize the world around us... After all, it is a very simple world. Let's see if you still feel that way in a few more years. No sarcasm intended. Just a few thoughts, Screamer You need elephant balls If you don't want to crawl On your hands Through this world T. Petty - Rhino Skin
Post #44,421 by marlowe 7/3/02 7:49:55 PM Reply	You expect me to regress in a few years? I've already been through that "oh, it's all so complicated" phase. Everything's a mystery until you figure out how it works. I like Nietzsche. Really, I do. He was a first rate troll, and I'm one of those people who doesn't have a knee-kerk reaction to trolling. But he wasn't a competent philosopher. He had no center. None. And so had no traction, and no direction. I've lived long enough to know when somebody just isn't going anywhere. Now Kierkegaard... there was a man who could stare into the void and glimpse the other side. When he used irony, it actually converged on something. He was getting somewhere, though it was a long hard slog. But to be honest, he had his problems too. Now William James had traction. He could talk about religion and real life and not feel like he had to choose between the two. Oh, and by the way, I was kind of into Shakespeare when I was in high school. Those tragedies were so much closer to real life than anything else they were trying to cram down my throat. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Truth is that which is the case. Accept no substitutes. If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage.
Post #44,753 by screamer 7/8/02 11:20:58 AM Reply	Yes, we all do :-) Regress... To quote the immortal words of Don Henley in The Heart of the Matter, "the more I know, the less I understand. All the things I thought I'd figured out, I have to learn again..." As I said, I knew everything (and then some) when I was 18. As I age, I realise that a lot of "what I know" may be open to interpretation... That was what I was trying to express in my limited role in our "truth" thread. (Not interested in starting that again :-) In most instances, I tended to understand if not always agree with your position). This is just an observation, but a lot of people seem to mellow with age and accept that there is a limit to what they can learn and or know. It is critical (and according to many studies - healthy) to keep trying to learn as much as you can. But there are only so many hours in a day, so many days in a year and so many years in a lifetime. I caught some of Shakespeare when I was in high school, but now a lot more makes sense to me as I have gained life experience (fancy smancy term for "becoming an old fart"). I'm glad you clarified your position in the last post - and I have to agree, Nietzche was a nutter. In the regard to critiquing any author/poet/etc., everyone is most definately entitled to an opinion. My fear is when people automatically dismiss a novel or song or whatever simply because the artist was nuts - without even giving it a glance. (Definately not the case for you.) I got nothing constructive to add to this thread at this point... Just a few thoughts, Screamer Nietschze has an "s" in it Celina Jones
Post #46,235 by deSitter 7/20/02 5:35:39 PM Reply	Re: You expect me to regress in a few years? Nietzsche was very competent. The reason he sometimes appears to be stumbling is that the real content of his work in ethics is the application of complementarity rather than Newtonian/Aristotelian determinism to ethical ideas, and for this he had no model. Complementarity, which may be briefly described as the assumption that "things" - concepts, objects, the usual suspects - exist as a union of polar opposites, that appear as one or the other with a certain definiteness, with neither aspect being knowable with certainty at the same moment as the other, or with either being exactly defined while the other remains completely undefined, depending on context supplied by the "observer" - complementarity is embodied in the "human" of Neitzsche's talks (see "Human, all too Human"). So his aphorisms are in a sense ethical acts of observation. Quantum mechanics came later and provided the new physical basis for complementarity. Most intellectual activity is still Newtonian; the lessons of complementarity are slow to be learned. You cannot read Neitzsche the way you do Kant - instead one should read Kant the way one reads Neitzsche. -ross
Post #46,266 by mhuber 7/21/02 2:59:19 AM Reply	Read Kant the way you do Neitzsche? That's a lot of absynthe to be drinking. Theoreticaly - I've never touched the stuff in real life. But I have come down with malaria and a 106F+ fever, and Neitzsche seems like he would have made more sense at that point rather than at my usual 96F. I think holding the book might have been a problem though - things were melting a lot. ---- United we stand Divided we dominate the planet without really trying
Post #46,278 by boxley 7/21/02 10:28:27 AM Reply	you Kant Reed Nietche Nietche is Apollonaris and Cognac, Kant is Boodles and tonic. thanx, bill ."Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, I had to subsist on food and water for several weeks." W.C. Fields
Post #46,314 by deSitter 7/21/02 8:47:45 PM Reply	Read Kant the way you do Neitzsche? -yes ..that is with complementarity to guide you rather than determinism. The way we organize the world mentally is very much influenced by our physical models. One can apply the new modes of thinking wherever the old one was effective, with the required changes. One of the required changes here is not to expect things to "make sense" the way they did before. They make sense inside a new order. -drl
Post #46,419 by marlowe 7/22/02 6:34:11 PM Reply	You been taking lessons from Ashton? Try saying all that backwards to find out if it makes any less sense. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Everything's a mystery until you figure out how it works. Free Joel Mowbray! I'm a-gonna put a gun rack on my SUV.
Post #46,448 by deSitter 7/22/02 8:47:49 PM Reply	Ashton, from lessons taking, been you? I didn't think so, hometown. -dross
Post #44,118 by boxley 7/1/02 3:29:58 PM Reply	He was a nutter and rather a critique in the manner of marx rather than a philosopher. Having spent time with the chronics its not hard to tell the difference between the mad and the brilliant. thanx, bill TAM ARIS QUAM ARMIPOTENS
Post #44,176 by marlowe 7/1/02 11:15:35 PM Reply	Madness is fine for art, up to a point... but it's not worth shit in philosophy. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html] Truth is that which is the case. Accept no substitutes. If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage.
Post #44,218 by boxley 7/2/02 10:21:41 AM Reply	ed zachery TAM ARIS QUAM ARMIPOTENS
Post #44,124 by Ashton 7/1/02 4:11:22 PM Reply	But then.. so was Paul He of the misogynist persuasion, assigning his affliction to Gawd (natch) and screwing-up a lot more lives of all genders: than Nietzsche could ever have influenced. 'Sall in the eye of the beholder.
Post #44,168 by orion 7/1/02 10:24:51 PM Reply	Graphiti says it all '"God is dead!" -Fred' Written in block print '"Fred is dead!" - God' Written in gothic print *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #44,193 by Brandioch 7/2/02 1:26:53 AM Reply	Nietzsche! Nietzsche For Complete and Total Idiots from the same people who brought you Zen For Stupid People, a collection of proverbs, aphroisms, and thoughts for those who say "God bless you" whenever you say "Nietzsche." * If you stare into the void long enough, you'll get a real bad headache. * If you would give birth to a dancing star, better go for that caesarean section. * God is dead. Get over it. * I teach you the superman. Kryptonite you'll have to work out for yourself. * Woman was God's second blunder. So nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah. * What I understand by 'philosopher': a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger. Or alternatively, a small hairless duck. * Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. Moooo! * The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. Where the movie "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" came from, I don't know. * The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously! This is also the way to the greatest Nielson ratings. * The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort, but not as great as new Garlic Flavored Mentos! Mentos: It's the Chewy Mint! * So long as the priest, that professional negator, slanderer and poisoner of life, is regarded as a superior type of human being, there cannot be any answer to the question: what is with those funny looking robes? * Neither as an ethical code nor as a religion has Christianity any point of contact with things as they actually are. On the other hand, it's tres chic as a fashion statement. * The Christian religion grew upon a soil of such utter falsification, where the deepest instincts of the ruling factions were opposed to nature and natural values to such an extent, that Christianity became a death struggle against reality which was only surpassed by the 1992 Mets. * What is good? All that elevates the feeling of power, the will to power, my ability to get laid. * What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. For example, those "Hey, Vern!" movies. * What is happiness? The feeling that power increases--that resistance is being overcome. Thus, Pepto Bismo is happiness. * Life is an instinct of growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power. Also, an award winning game from Milton Bradley. * Beyond Good and Evil or beyond door number 2? Let's make a deal! * What fails to kill me leaves me alive. I mean, duh.

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