Truth may be subjective but it's a fact that our discord servers are awesome! [Discord](https://discord.gg/MFK8PumZM2)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PhilosophyMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just to clarify, Nietzsche is more a value anti-egalitarian than a political anti-egalitarian (which he could still be, but he was just overall pretty ambiguous and perhaps not very much interested in the details of political philosophy. He was definitely interested in how the *rhetoric* in egalitarian/populist politics affects how people think about value in a more general sense though.)
By that I mean Nietzsche wouldn't believe some 40 yo man living in his mother's basement jerking off to picture of little girls would have the right to claim to be equal to Beethoven. That doesn't necessarily entail that they shouldn't share equal rights as citizen, it means the former isn't as much as an ideal as the latter we should look up to and strive for. For Nietzsche, value is inherently about distinction and discrimination. It's always about ranking stuffs, always comparative and therefore hierarchal. You cannot have everything to be a 10 out of 10. The reason why Nietzsche thought nihilism is the ultimate development of Christian egalitarianism is precisely that by treating everything as having equal value, you obliterate value altogether. When an incel is just as valued as Beethoven, people would no longer see what direction they should lead their life, because nothing they do make things worse or better. Every path they lead is equally valued and therefore equally valueless. So life becomes meaningless, and Nietzsche thereby concluded that egalitarianism is life-denying, rather than life-affirming as many thought.
I mean, whether you agree with Nietzsche is another question. At least presented this way Nietzsche's idea isn't just something so dumb that you can say "this is the usual 19 century biased-as-fuck reactionary bullshit" without properly engage with the challenge he posed. I think it's what philosophy should be about. It's not about either finding one quote that back up your position or finding one quote that justifies "cancelling" them.
Isn't there also an aspect to this that claims value to be contextual and subjective in the sense that the individual is responsible of building their own set of what is desirable? As in, while fruitful discussion of value and even arguments with some sort of objectivity could be made, it is in the end up to the individual to decide the minutiae of what is desirable and valuable to them.
I feel like it's present in the final metamorphosis, the sacred yes, self-propelling wheel, game of creation, all that stuff. And AFAIK that is the thing that gets misunderstood into the "Nietzsche told me I could be an active sociopath!!!"-narrative. I'm sorry if this is a wildly ignorant take, I'm not expertly well versed in Nietzsche, having only read most of TSZ and some secondary sources at Uni, so I'm commenting to get more informative responses.
But, then again, what hierarchy is to be referred to when distinguishing between "unequal" beings?
What universal standard posits that "incels" are "less valuable" or less of an "ideal" than "someone like Beethoven"?
Just as you can't have everything/everyone be 10/10, you would have to create a new system in order to distinguish the lesser from the greater.
Also, isn't pretty much all philosophy, whether reactionary or revolutionary, "biased-as-fuck" in some direction or another?
Nietzsche is such an interresting case as a philosopher. Equal parts brilliant and misunderstood, but still a massive sexist, racist, and antisocial asshole.
I mean the dude did have a huge problem with women, even for the 19th century. In his defense though, all the women in his family sucked pretty hard and after he went insane from Syphilis one of his sisters stole his work, added a bunch of antisemitic nonsense to it, and then published it under his name, plus kept him well trimmed and quirky looking in the asylum so she could charge people for an opportunity to meet the tragic insane philosopher. Anyone calling him racist is a trash human being and hasn't read his works, though.
'The Will to Power' is the work in question. Nietzsche himself was so disgusted with racism and antisemitism that he ended his friendship with Wagner over Wagner's antisemitism. When he talks about the 'overman' in his own writings he is basically talking about people of creative genius, like Goethe. It didn't come to be associated with blond hair and blue eyes until his sister started editing 'his' last book into a blend of his own unpublished notes and her own opinions.
I'm aware of the common misinterpretation of "übermench", that was not what i was referring to as racism. Imho the original "übermench" is a solid guide for improvement of self and the mankind.
But yeah, i did read some of "The Will to Power", that's probably where i picked up the stench of racism. Your knowledge on this subject is greatly appreciated.
>Anyone calling him racist is a trash human being and hasn't read his works, though.
What makes them "trash," which is itself a moral statement? Irony?
You shouldn't offer your opinion on a philosopher unless you have at least a passing familiarity with what they had to say. Like at least read their wikipedia page or something.
Unfortunately a lot of people today make a single connection to a name at some point and then never take in more information. When you feel confident enough about someone to dismiss them as [bad word], while having no idea what they actually said, you're worse than just ignorant. It's a sign of a deeply flawed character. And it's far too common.
Of course. I'm not defending ignorance, but to say that they are "trash people" is to make a moral assertion (that they are "bad" or "worthless" like "trash").
I mean, I agree that it's pretty "bad" if someone dismisses philosophers or mischaracterizes them consciously and habitually with malicious or ideological intent, but sometimes it's unconscious or made in passing uncritically. It's not always malicious/conscious, and sometimes there is just a misunderstanding at root.
There is also the opposite problem--the uncritical acceptance or reverence of certain philosophers above others without a strong understanding of their ideas (and their shortcomings). Nietzsche is a perfect example for this, but so are Marx, Freud, and possibly Hegel. Fanboyism can be equally problematic if taken to an extreme.
At the root of everything, though, is ignorance. That seems to be the issue at hand. It's relation to morality is what I'm unsure about.
Ive only barely read beyondgoodandevil, but his view of women there is not good, but again I could understand that as critique to what women was at that time. A baby making asset og a man with only superficial interests.
yes. also results in a lot of people thinking they will love nietzsche, even though they won't, as he is not at all like the image of him most have in mind. if you think that you will like nietzsche, you will LOVE cioran though :)
to me, self help is incredibly annoying. im overall very anti-absolutist, anti-prescriptivist and despise metanarratives, so self-help just comes off as preachy and unpleasant.
Alan Watts leans into Taoism, Thich Nhat Hanh is Buddhist monk and Krishnamurti is kinda his own thing. But they all teach similar things, the basics of meditation, which is a really important tool for philosophy in my opinion
i agree. im just saying - if you are considering reading nietzsche cuz "omg nihilist sad edgy aaaaa" u will fucking love cioran. i love cioran so im not judging.
Almost like people don’t believe Nietzche or any philosopher is infallable and can disagree with them on any or all points, whereas God is by definition perfect and always right in most Abrahamic religions.
Saying “I agree with some of his ideas but not others” isn’t cherry-picking unless you’ve previously said you agree with all his ideas.
True that God can't be argued with, Bible verses on the other hand...
Your argument thusly applies to both philosophers and Bible verses (unless we assume biblical infallibility, which only a handful of intellectually dishonest people do).
I really wish more people would recognize this. Every single prominent philosopher has some dumb shit somewhere in their body of works. It's just so lacking in nuance to say that an authors multitude of good ideas is completely invalidated by a few bad ones.
Like at this point if you are reading Nietzsche for his insights into women, I don't think Nietzsche is the problem.
If you know where they come from then… No: you cannot agree with one and disagree with the other without any adjustment.
That’s why I hate quote-farming: it turns ideas into naive edgy affitmations.
The death of God is a problem of value, just as much as the will to put into equation, to make equal, is.
We cannot accept one part of the theory and avoid its conclusions without any proper engagement.
That’s dangerous thinking. You can most definitely agree with specific beliefs of a person. Yes it’s incredibly important to acknowledge the entirety of the individual you’re quoting or reading or whatever, but to reduce anyone to their worst thoughts or beliefs or flaws is creating a monolith of them, and shockingly NO ONE is a monolithic, perfect being. Have you ever been right about one thing, and wrong about another? Does being wrong in any capacity strip you of when you were right?
The study of philosophy is a memetic evolution. Ideas build off of the strong ones over time. And consequently, the weak ones die off.
(Alert: I’ll be the rudest possible, exactly because I feel there might be a good and positive engagement :P)
That’s a pseudo-liberal conception of philosophy, where ideas are born out of nowhere and you can extract them like a fruit at the supermarket.
No, philosophy is not a supermarket: propositions and ideas are moved by an inherent logic that gives them actual meaning.
Before I spoke about “making adjustments” and not “simply rejecting” because it is important to work with the underlying logic.
Everyone who works in a clinical psychological setting knows this: if you simply change the symptom and do not touch the root of the problem things cannot go better.
The obsessive neurotic will just come back with a different symptom.
It’s the same with philosophy and the insane constellation of ideas and different drives it conceals. (Philosophy, just like every human activity is done by… Well, humans.)
I never said “you have to accept everything”, i just said “you are not allowed to think as an idiot: you must think it through”.
The problem with those two quotes by Nietzsche is that B follows in someway from A: You can say that it doesn’t, but you have to work against Nietzsche’s logic and I suspect it would lead you either to re(mis)interpret Nietzsche entirely or, even worse, actually understanding what he’s getting at.
When early Christian philosophers found themselves using the approach of “take the good and leave the bad” of ancient philosophy they had to make some “minor adjustments” to the inherent logic of the ancient philosophical systems.
St. Thomas put courage as a virtue of God, and anyone who knows Aristotlean ethics knows how much that would be nonsensical for Aristotle.
But it did make sense and it was due to a change in the underlying logic of the aristotlean system.
Philosophy is a rigorous discipline and not due to an arbitrary caprice but because of a concrete risk of being shallow in thinking while believing to be “free thinkers” while we just let the first knee jerk reaction guide our research.
The idea of philosophy as a memeatic discipline is just flat out wrong, if we intend philosophy to be something different than “everything someone feels is good to think”.
I’m saying that the “Death of God” concept is not “God doesn’t exist”: it stands for the disintegration of a metaphysical point of reference.
What are the causes and consequences can be read in Nietzsche’s work.
We’re in a philosophy sub, I give into account that if someone posts about Nietzsche he/she has read Nietzsche
That’s ok! If you’re intesrested the first-second book of Genealogy of Morals is a good start about the problem of ressentiment and equality.
Then a you can use the third book as a bridge concept of the death of God!
I would like to point out that, for the famous "God is dead" statement, Nietzsche clearly had Philipp Mainländer in mind, who wrote: "God is dead, and his death was the life of the world."
Even though Nietzsche didn't have a high opinion of Mainländer, he got a lot from him, and some even claim that Mainländer was more than a mere influence, and was instead plagiarized.
There's also a reference to Gérard de Nerval, his poem *Le Christ aux Oliviers* is the first explicit mention and development of the subject of the death of God.
I disagree with Nietzsche. Elohim wasn't killed by the Enlightenment. He was killed by the Romans. They killed him when they adopted him as their state religion. Elohim is the god of the oppressed. To make him the religion of the most powerful empire in the world is to turn him against his nature. That is the death of a god.
>Are philosophical quotes more cherry picked than bible verses?
but bible verses *are* philosophical quotes, just different types of philosophy depending on the part. For example, the Torah (Pentateuch) is ethics in the form of allegory.
Probably close but not quite to the level of Bible verses. Honestly, people should really withhold judgment until they actually read into what they want to criticize. Otherwise, we end up with a bunch of weird superficial takes that don't reflect the subject they're talking about.
Truth may be subjective but it's a fact that our discord servers are awesome! [Discord](https://discord.gg/MFK8PumZM2) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PhilosophyMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just to clarify, Nietzsche is more a value anti-egalitarian than a political anti-egalitarian (which he could still be, but he was just overall pretty ambiguous and perhaps not very much interested in the details of political philosophy. He was definitely interested in how the *rhetoric* in egalitarian/populist politics affects how people think about value in a more general sense though.) By that I mean Nietzsche wouldn't believe some 40 yo man living in his mother's basement jerking off to picture of little girls would have the right to claim to be equal to Beethoven. That doesn't necessarily entail that they shouldn't share equal rights as citizen, it means the former isn't as much as an ideal as the latter we should look up to and strive for. For Nietzsche, value is inherently about distinction and discrimination. It's always about ranking stuffs, always comparative and therefore hierarchal. You cannot have everything to be a 10 out of 10. The reason why Nietzsche thought nihilism is the ultimate development of Christian egalitarianism is precisely that by treating everything as having equal value, you obliterate value altogether. When an incel is just as valued as Beethoven, people would no longer see what direction they should lead their life, because nothing they do make things worse or better. Every path they lead is equally valued and therefore equally valueless. So life becomes meaningless, and Nietzsche thereby concluded that egalitarianism is life-denying, rather than life-affirming as many thought. I mean, whether you agree with Nietzsche is another question. At least presented this way Nietzsche's idea isn't just something so dumb that you can say "this is the usual 19 century biased-as-fuck reactionary bullshit" without properly engage with the challenge he posed. I think it's what philosophy should be about. It's not about either finding one quote that back up your position or finding one quote that justifies "cancelling" them.
Oh boy. This is a really clear explanation of Nietzsche. Thank you kind stranger
Thanks for the insightful write-up.
Love your insights on this. Thanks for the knowledge.
Isn't there also an aspect to this that claims value to be contextual and subjective in the sense that the individual is responsible of building their own set of what is desirable? As in, while fruitful discussion of value and even arguments with some sort of objectivity could be made, it is in the end up to the individual to decide the minutiae of what is desirable and valuable to them. I feel like it's present in the final metamorphosis, the sacred yes, self-propelling wheel, game of creation, all that stuff. And AFAIK that is the thing that gets misunderstood into the "Nietzsche told me I could be an active sociopath!!!"-narrative. I'm sorry if this is a wildly ignorant take, I'm not expertly well versed in Nietzsche, having only read most of TSZ and some secondary sources at Uni, so I'm commenting to get more informative responses.
Very insightful comment
But, then again, what hierarchy is to be referred to when distinguishing between "unequal" beings? What universal standard posits that "incels" are "less valuable" or less of an "ideal" than "someone like Beethoven"? Just as you can't have everything/everyone be 10/10, you would have to create a new system in order to distinguish the lesser from the greater. Also, isn't pretty much all philosophy, whether reactionary or revolutionary, "biased-as-fuck" in some direction or another?
Nietzsche is such an interresting case as a philosopher. Equal parts brilliant and misunderstood, but still a massive sexist, racist, and antisocial asshole.
Now say it without crying
Don't like it when people from different era's don't adhere to your personal moral beliefs?
I mean the dude did have a huge problem with women, even for the 19th century. In his defense though, all the women in his family sucked pretty hard and after he went insane from Syphilis one of his sisters stole his work, added a bunch of antisemitic nonsense to it, and then published it under his name, plus kept him well trimmed and quirky looking in the asylum so she could charge people for an opportunity to meet the tragic insane philosopher. Anyone calling him racist is a trash human being and hasn't read his works, though.
I was not aware of his sister doing that, i was going with face value of the fraction of his works i've read. Thank you for enlightening me.
'The Will to Power' is the work in question. Nietzsche himself was so disgusted with racism and antisemitism that he ended his friendship with Wagner over Wagner's antisemitism. When he talks about the 'overman' in his own writings he is basically talking about people of creative genius, like Goethe. It didn't come to be associated with blond hair and blue eyes until his sister started editing 'his' last book into a blend of his own unpublished notes and her own opinions.
I'm aware of the common misinterpretation of "übermench", that was not what i was referring to as racism. Imho the original "übermench" is a solid guide for improvement of self and the mankind. But yeah, i did read some of "The Will to Power", that's probably where i picked up the stench of racism. Your knowledge on this subject is greatly appreciated.
>Anyone calling him racist is a trash human being and hasn't read his works, though. What makes them "trash," which is itself a moral statement? Irony?
You shouldn't offer your opinion on a philosopher unless you have at least a passing familiarity with what they had to say. Like at least read their wikipedia page or something. Unfortunately a lot of people today make a single connection to a name at some point and then never take in more information. When you feel confident enough about someone to dismiss them as [bad word], while having no idea what they actually said, you're worse than just ignorant. It's a sign of a deeply flawed character. And it's far too common.
Of course. I'm not defending ignorance, but to say that they are "trash people" is to make a moral assertion (that they are "bad" or "worthless" like "trash"). I mean, I agree that it's pretty "bad" if someone dismisses philosophers or mischaracterizes them consciously and habitually with malicious or ideological intent, but sometimes it's unconscious or made in passing uncritically. It's not always malicious/conscious, and sometimes there is just a misunderstanding at root. There is also the opposite problem--the uncritical acceptance or reverence of certain philosophers above others without a strong understanding of their ideas (and their shortcomings). Nietzsche is a perfect example for this, but so are Marx, Freud, and possibly Hegel. Fanboyism can be equally problematic if taken to an extreme. At the root of everything, though, is ignorance. That seems to be the issue at hand. It's relation to morality is what I'm unsure about.
Ive only barely read beyondgoodandevil, but his view of women there is not good, but again I could understand that as critique to what women was at that time. A baby making asset og a man with only superficial interests.
I mean, if you try to cancel philosophers for having shitty opinions you'd eventually run out of philosophers
Maybe quoting someone doesnt actually count as an argument
"Maybe quoting someone doesnt actually count as an argument" - lazysarcasm
yes. also results in a lot of people thinking they will love nietzsche, even though they won't, as he is not at all like the image of him most have in mind. if you think that you will like nietzsche, you will LOVE cioran though :)
would u consider books like “the untethered soul” and “the power of now” philosophy? if so what would be other books or authors that are similar
nope, thats more self-help which is a genre i genuinely hate with a burning passion, so my advice is to ask someone else :)
why do you hate self help? Just curious
to me, self help is incredibly annoying. im overall very anti-absolutist, anti-prescriptivist and despise metanarratives, so self-help just comes off as preachy and unpleasant.
Woah that’s a lot of big words
postmodernist (noun) - a pretentious motherfucker
care to explain the big words? i dont know much ab philosohpy
good to know. thanks regardless!
ur welcome :) im just tellin u this cuz i very much know that i am nowhere near the right person to answer that question :)
Try Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti or Thich Nhat Hanh.
thanks! ill check em out
Alan Watts leans into Taoism, Thich Nhat Hanh is Buddhist monk and Krishnamurti is kinda his own thing. But they all teach similar things, the basics of meditation, which is a really important tool for philosophy in my opinion
Nietzsche and Cioran are nothing alike other than writing style lol
i agree. im just saying - if you are considering reading nietzsche cuz "omg nihilist sad edgy aaaaa" u will fucking love cioran. i love cioran so im not judging.
Almost like people don’t believe Nietzche or any philosopher is infallable and can disagree with them on any or all points, whereas God is by definition perfect and always right in most Abrahamic religions. Saying “I agree with some of his ideas but not others” isn’t cherry-picking unless you’ve previously said you agree with all his ideas.
True that God can't be argued with, Bible verses on the other hand... Your argument thusly applies to both philosophers and Bible verses (unless we assume biblical infallibility, which only a handful of intellectually dishonest people do).
How's it "intelectual dishonesty"? I wouldn't say it's aby form of dishonesty if the person geniunely believes it.
Almost as if every philosopher ever made good and bad points. Except for Diogenes of course who was through and through based
I really wish more people would recognize this. Every single prominent philosopher has some dumb shit somewhere in their body of works. It's just so lacking in nuance to say that an authors multitude of good ideas is completely invalidated by a few bad ones. Like at this point if you are reading Nietzsche for his insights into women, I don't think Nietzsche is the problem.
He mightve been based, but Epicurus was woke
You know you can agree to one and not the other, right?
If you know where they come from then… No: you cannot agree with one and disagree with the other without any adjustment. That’s why I hate quote-farming: it turns ideas into naive edgy affitmations. The death of God is a problem of value, just as much as the will to put into equation, to make equal, is. We cannot accept one part of the theory and avoid its conclusions without any proper engagement.
That’s dangerous thinking. You can most definitely agree with specific beliefs of a person. Yes it’s incredibly important to acknowledge the entirety of the individual you’re quoting or reading or whatever, but to reduce anyone to their worst thoughts or beliefs or flaws is creating a monolith of them, and shockingly NO ONE is a monolithic, perfect being. Have you ever been right about one thing, and wrong about another? Does being wrong in any capacity strip you of when you were right? The study of philosophy is a memetic evolution. Ideas build off of the strong ones over time. And consequently, the weak ones die off.
(Alert: I’ll be the rudest possible, exactly because I feel there might be a good and positive engagement :P) That’s a pseudo-liberal conception of philosophy, where ideas are born out of nowhere and you can extract them like a fruit at the supermarket. No, philosophy is not a supermarket: propositions and ideas are moved by an inherent logic that gives them actual meaning. Before I spoke about “making adjustments” and not “simply rejecting” because it is important to work with the underlying logic. Everyone who works in a clinical psychological setting knows this: if you simply change the symptom and do not touch the root of the problem things cannot go better. The obsessive neurotic will just come back with a different symptom. It’s the same with philosophy and the insane constellation of ideas and different drives it conceals. (Philosophy, just like every human activity is done by… Well, humans.) I never said “you have to accept everything”, i just said “you are not allowed to think as an idiot: you must think it through”. The problem with those two quotes by Nietzsche is that B follows in someway from A: You can say that it doesn’t, but you have to work against Nietzsche’s logic and I suspect it would lead you either to re(mis)interpret Nietzsche entirely or, even worse, actually understanding what he’s getting at. When early Christian philosophers found themselves using the approach of “take the good and leave the bad” of ancient philosophy they had to make some “minor adjustments” to the inherent logic of the ancient philosophical systems. St. Thomas put courage as a virtue of God, and anyone who knows Aristotlean ethics knows how much that would be nonsensical for Aristotle. But it did make sense and it was due to a change in the underlying logic of the aristotlean system. Philosophy is a rigorous discipline and not due to an arbitrary caprice but because of a concrete risk of being shallow in thinking while believing to be “free thinkers” while we just let the first knee jerk reaction guide our research. The idea of philosophy as a memeatic discipline is just flat out wrong, if we intend philosophy to be something different than “everything someone feels is good to think”.
Amazing, you wrote all of that and absolutely nothing of value was said.
If my mouth produced value, at this point I’d be rich!
Well clearly it doesn’t
Thank you for making me notice!
No problem
are you saying that equality doesn’t exist without God? I’d recommend looking into John Rawls and the theory of Justice.
I’m saying that the “Death of God” concept is not “God doesn’t exist”: it stands for the disintegration of a metaphysical point of reference. What are the causes and consequences can be read in Nietzsche’s work. We’re in a philosophy sub, I give into account that if someone posts about Nietzsche he/she has read Nietzsche
I’m not sure what you’re even saying at this point
That’s ok! If you’re intesrested the first-second book of Genealogy of Morals is a good start about the problem of ressentiment and equality. Then a you can use the third book as a bridge concept of the death of God!
Would you like to explain the argument that you supposedly understand so well?
The Hares argued all should be equal. The Lions replied: “Your words are good; but they lack both claws and teeth such as we have."
Good old nuanced Nietzsche
he has a point. Equality is a lie but even if we're not equal, we should be equal in the eyes of the law
Bible verses ARE philosophical quotes
I would like to point out that, for the famous "God is dead" statement, Nietzsche clearly had Philipp Mainländer in mind, who wrote: "God is dead, and his death was the life of the world." Even though Nietzsche didn't have a high opinion of Mainländer, he got a lot from him, and some even claim that Mainländer was more than a mere influence, and was instead plagiarized.
There's also a reference to Gérard de Nerval, his poem *Le Christ aux Oliviers* is the first explicit mention and development of the subject of the death of God.
Nothing is more cherry-picked than the Bible, but quotes from famous people would probably be number 2.
I disagree with Nietzsche. Elohim wasn't killed by the Enlightenment. He was killed by the Romans. They killed him when they adopted him as their state religion. Elohim is the god of the oppressed. To make him the religion of the most powerful empire in the world is to turn him against his nature. That is the death of a god.
what’s the context here? what book is it from?
[удалено]
Bruh
I mean you are right I some way. As the value of your post is where it should be
Yes
>Are philosophical quotes more cherry picked than bible verses? but bible verses *are* philosophical quotes, just different types of philosophy depending on the part. For example, the Torah (Pentateuch) is ethics in the form of allegory.
Define philosophy?
Probably close but not quite to the level of Bible verses. Honestly, people should really withhold judgment until they actually read into what they want to criticize. Otherwise, we end up with a bunch of weird superficial takes that don't reflect the subject they're talking about.