/lit/ - Literature

Neither religion nor atheism appeal to me. Any books about a third position?
Pic unrelated

>>18975969
You just realized this? literally how new are you?

>>18525066
>gonna ignore one of the most influential men of existential work, where Nietzsche wouldn't even have existed without
>because he said some naughty things about women he's not sleeping with and was probably right

The door is always there dumb ass. Go and don't come back

>>15804360
>This is not a philosophical race – these Englishmen. […] That fatuous dolt, Carlyle, knew well enough what England lacks and has always lacked; Carlyle, that half-actor and rhetorician who tried to conceal under impassioned grimaces what he knew about himself: namely, what he lacked – real power of intellect, real profundity of spiritual vision, in short: philosophy.

>>15795670
>My conception of genius. — Great men, like great ages, are explosives in which a tremendous force is stored up; their precondition is always, historically and physiologically, that for a long time much has been gathered, stored up, saved up, and conserved for them — that there has been no explosion for a long time. Once the tension in the mass has become too great, then the most accidental stimulus suffices to summon into the world the "genius," the "deed," the great destiny. What does the environment matter then, or the age, or the "spirit of the age," or "public opinion"!

>Take the case of Napoleon. Revolutionary France, and even more, prerevolutionary France, would have brought forth the opposite type; in fact, it did. Because Napoleon was different, the heir of a stronger, older, more ancient civilization than the one which was then perishing in France, he became the master there, he was the only master. Great men are necessary, the age in which they appear is accidental; that they almost always become masters over their age is only because they are stronger, because they are older, because for a longer time much was gathered for them. The relationship between a genius and his age is like that between strong and weak, or between old and young: the age is relatively always much younger, thinner, more immature, less assured, more childish.

>That in France today they think quite differently on this subject (in Germany too, but that does not matter), that the milieu theory, which is truly a neurotic's theory, has become sacrosanct and almost scientific and has found adherents even among physiologists — that "smells bad" and arouses sad reflections. It is no different in England, but that will not grieve anybody. For the English there are only two ways of coming to terms with the genius and the "great man": either democratically in the manner of Buckle or religiously in the manner of Carlyle.

>The danger that lies in great men and ages is extraordinary; exhaustion of every kind, sterility, follow in their wake. The great human being is a finale; the great age — the Renaissance, for example — is a finale. The genius, in work and deed, is necessarily a squanderer: that he squanders himself, that is his greatness! The instinct of self-preservation is suspended, as it were: the overpowering pressure of outflowing forces forbids him any such care or caution. People call this "self-sacrifice" and praise his "heroism," his indifference to his own well-being, his devotion to an idea, a great cause, a fatherland: without exception, misunderstandings. He flows out, he overflows, he uses himself up, he does not spare himself — and this is a calamitous involuntary fatality, no less than a river's flooding the land. Yet, because much is owed to such explosives, much has also been given them in return: for example, a kind of higher morality. After all, that is the way of human gratitude: it misunderstands its benefactors.

In origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest class: Socrates was plebs. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But ugliness, in itself an objection, is among the Greeks almost a refutation. Was Socrates a Greek at all? Ugliness is often enough the expression of a development that has been crossed, thwarted by crossing. Or it appears as declining development. The anthropologists among the criminologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo. [“monster in face, monster in soul”] But the criminal is a decadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal? At least that would not be contradicted by the famous judgment of the physiognomist which sounded so offensive to the friends of Socrates. A foreigner who knew about faces once passed through Athens and told Socrates to his face that he was a monstrum -- that he harbored in himself all the bad vices and appetites. And Socrates merely answered: "You know me, sir!"

You are ready for N.<div class="like-perk-cnt">&#x1F378;</div>

Hi lit,

I just wanted to ask: why read?
We live in a time where we can just
spend our days masterbating and
taking hits from the bong all day long
and it will be just as pleasurable if not
moreso than reading books.

just thinking aloud.

Miss me with that gay shit.

>The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes
>everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle; the
>last man lives longest.

What did he mean by this?

Where to go after this guy? I just can’t care about any other philosopher before him. This guy perfected philosophy. What aspects of his thought do people like Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida and Delueze develop? The only one I have read Is Heidegger and I was really excited but then I just started feeling let down. Looking back, I think it wasn't really worth it. Phenomenology in general seems kind of dull to me now.
I mention these people because they are the so called "nietzscheans".

How yo read this guy's books?
His aphoristic style makes it so disorienting. Sometimes I get too much into trying to make sense of one of them but he just does not develop his ideas enough.
The genealogy of morals was one of the mostrar brilliant books I have read and it had such a nice rythm. But now I'm trying to get into human, all too human, is it Is a completly different thing.

>The last man, or the last race (German: Letzter Mensch), is a term used by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra to describe the antithesis of his imagined superior being, the Übermensch, whose imminent appearance is heralded by Zarathustra. The last men are tired of life, take no risks, and seek only comfort and security.

>The last man's primary appearance is in "Zarathustra's Prologue." According to Nietzsche, the last man is the goal that modern society and Western civilization have apparently set for themselves. After having unsuccessfully attempted to get the populace to accept the Übermensch as the goal of society, Zarathustra confronts them with a goal so disgusting that he assumes that it will revolt them.[1] Zarathustra fails in this attempt, and instead of repelling and manipulating the populace into pursuing the goal of the Übermensch, the populace take Zarathustra literally and choose the "disgusting" goal of becoming the last men. This decision leaves Zarathustra disheartened and disappointed.

>The lives of the last men are pacifist and comfortable. There is no longer a distinction between ruler and ruled, strong over weak or supreme over the mediocre. Social conflict and challenges are minimized. Every individual lives equally and in "superficial" harmony. There are no original or flourishing social trends and ideas. Individuality and creativity are suppressed.

>Nietzsche warned that the society of the last man could be too barren and decadent to support the growth of healthy human life or great individuals. The last man is only possible by mankind having bred an apathetic person or ethnic group who are unable to dream, who are unwilling to take risks, and simply earn their living and keep warm. The society of the last man is antithetical to Nietzsche's theoretical will to power, the main driving force and ambition behind human nature, according to Nietzsche, as well as all other life in the universe.

>The last man, Nietzsche predicted, would be one response to the problem of nihilism. But the full implications of the death of God had yet to unfold: "The event itself is far too great, too distant, too remote from the multitude's capacity for comprehension even for the tidings of it to be thought of as having arrived as yet."[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man

Jesus Christ, could anybody have given a more perfect prediction of modern liberalism?

>“The reabsorption of semen by the blood is the strongest nourishment and, perhaps more than any other factor, it prompts the stimulus of power, the unrest of all forces toward the overcoming of resistances, the thirst for contradiction and resistance. The feeling of power has so far mounted highest in abstinent priests and hermits (for example, amoung the Brahmans).”

Did the misrepresentation of his philosophy (nihilism) destroy western civilization?

>Opinions and fish.— Possessing opinions is like possessing fish, assuming one has a fish pond. One has to go fishing and needs some luck—then one has one's own fish, one's own opinions. I am speaking of live opinions, of live fish. Others are satisfied if they own a cabinet of fossils—and in their heads, "convictions.

There is no better philosopher than Nietzsche.

prove me wrong /lit/