/lit/ - Literature

>>16384804
>>16384941
>>16384999
>>16385032
I posted that. I am generally hesitant to participate in these threads because any sort of thoughtful post tends to get buried, and Nietzsche threads are notoriously bad. I think the severe division is a good sign in writing, it is like two sides responding to a mortal wound. Most interesting in the Nietzschean responses is the complete inability to see his own methods used against him.

A rough outline of my arguments can be found here:
>>/lit/thread/S15886638#p15891964

One has to be careful with such things however. 'Refutation' is an entirely wrong way to go about philosophy, especially when dealing with any high-level figures. Even critique is something of a catastrophe of thought, and when you engage with other thinkers it is best to have the intent of carrying on a thread, even with an enemy you must give them their due. Nietzsche's status however suggests the necessity of a severe critique, especially when much better thinkers are buried and forgotten because of that status.

Nietzsche is, of course, notoriously difficult to engage with. For one, he contradicts himself to the extreme, which is why any argument is simply met with quote spamming, and why any political position can lay claim to his ideas. He has moments where he is brilliant, appearing equal to the greats, and then in the next line he comes across as an idiot. But rather than dismissing this outright one should understand Nietzsche as something like a political advisor in times of crisis: a useful member of the court if the ruler himself is a discerning thinker. One has to be able to sort through the brilliance and the incredible power for mistakes.

Holderlin's "Of Truth" is revealing here. Nietzsche may be understood as one who is willing to be manipulated and fooled by the first instincts to truth. There is strength in this because in certain moments one must give himself over to fate, or the immediate necessity of decision - any plan is better than no plan - but this is where the instincts may become completely separated from spirit. The will may be set entirely against fate. For the Greeks there was an understanding that one who surpasses the law of drink, a certain number of vessels, is no longer one with the festival and is to be rightly abandoned by Dionysus. The drinker must master his alcohol to elevate it into something greater, beyond madness and even fate. At the same time this was something of a tentative law. Nietzsche was not one for such subtlety, and his incapacity for the decisions of a great drinker suggests his enslavement to the will, one which could set itself against fate or the dionysian.