/lit/ - Literature

>>17208882
>Because you've never come even close to experiencing the situation we're describing. I have gone through months where I was in so much pain and discomfort, I got no pleasure from anything. I couldn't enjoy anything because the pain made nothing enjoyable. I couldn't enjoy a conversation, or a meal, or a movie, or a book, or anything. The best days were neutral, where nothing particularly bad happened, but nothing good either.
Nobody is debating how painful and miserable and horrifying suffering can be, we're discussing wether or not it's bad.
This is not a philosophical argument, it's an account of an individual experience and it seems like you're just attempting an appeal to emotion. Hume says all philosophical reasoning must be a combination of experience and pure reason. You aren't even attempting to reason, you cannot even explain why suffering is bad; your argument is that "it brings no pleasure" which is evident and inherent to suffering and proves nothing. Nietzsche wasn't a hedonist and neither am I.
>However, if you have physical pain so bad that it is always in your head, you are always aware of it, there is no way to get any pleasure out of anything whatsoever.
You haven't read Nietzsche, this has become very clear, and while it's a complete waste of time to argue when you're still locked into (hedonist) moralistic objectivity but I'm bored.
Pleasure=/=good and pain=/=bad.
The suffering of someone, including the complete absence of any pleasure, any comfort, any hope, the most unbearable suffering and lack of joy and positive emotions, can still beget "good", something beneficial can come out of that situation. This does not mean we have to like this suffering, that we should smile and rejoice knowing that a man has spent his life in such pain, but to paint it with the brush of "bad/evil" is to lie, and will lead you down a path of life denial that ends in nihilism.
It seems I was right that you responded to express your defeatism. You should really read Nietzsche, I was arguing with you under the assumption that you had but you're never going to be able to grasp this stuff unless you read it from him first. Transcending these moral values of good/evil is a primary principle.

>>16386560

>>9504627

>Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it.

Here he is absolutely right, except for the fact that he believes 'universalist egalitarianism' and that which produced it to be good things.

Luckily, if that is the argument he's taking, he was preemptively blown the fuck out by Nietzsche.

>>8977915

Chomsky is pure ressentiment.

As you may have noticed, ressentiment is extremely popular with normies and lefties.

He's the literal embodiment of "The West is always wrong/evil/etc." Although he calls himself an anarchist, he frequently identifies with the Left in general. Recently, for example, he made some Youtube video advertising for what is basically a Left-wing reading club to counter the rise of Populism.

His whole shtick is that natives and/or the 99% being screwed over is somehow a problem for those of us who benefit from it. Sorry bub, not buying your ressentiment.

>It is not surprising that the lambs should bear a grudge against the great birds of prey, but that is no reason for blaming the great birds of prey for taking the little lambs. And when the lambs say among themselves, "These birds of prey are evil, and he who least resembles a bird of prey, who is rather its opposite, a lamb,—should he not be good?" then there is nothing to carp with in this ideal's establishment, though the birds of prey may regard it a little mockingly, and maybe say to themselves, "We bear no grudge against them, these good lambs, we even love them: nothing is tastier than a tender lamb.

I will continue to wring my bread from the sweat of other men's brows. The salt makes it all the tastier, Chomsky.

>>8894376

The Genealogy of Morals is probably your best bet.

That said, you should be very careful when reading it. It's easy to miss or fail to appreciate some very key ideas - in part because Nietzsche occasionally mentions them in a very passing manner.

As to why, part of the reason is that it's a book he didn't really want to write. Beyond Good and Evil only sold around 100 copies at the beginning - his publisher said that people just weren't "getting" his ideas/work, and encouraged him to write a sort of introductory work. There are times when Nietzsche loses sight of this, and writes as if he's addressing people who know what he's talking about, or who are familiar with his terminology/phrases/etc.

It was a very easy read for me, but then the Genealogy of Morals was actually one of his last works that I read.

>>8841803

You could take a look at a similar line in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

>Small people need small values.

Nietzsche hated the state, but nonetheless saw it as a necessity to keep the rabble in line. For example:

>“All-too-many are born: for the superfluous the state was invented.”

His ideal state would be one that accepts the fact that 'Great Men' are beyond its remit - whether in regard to obligations, laws or otherwise.

>“Where the state ends—look there, my brothers! Do you not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the Overman?”

Unfortunately this was not (and has not) been the case - all are subject to state and at its mercy. As a disclaimer, any who *are* beyond the state today are most certainly not great men - but rather celebrities, bankers and the like. Most frustrating to Nietzsche was that the state took the achievements of Great Men as its own.

Here you can also catch a whiff of his disdain for Herbert Spencer, who 'countered' the 'Great Man' theory by arguing that Great Men are the products of their societies and NOT vice versa. This was contrary to Nietzsche, who strongly believed that societies are the result of Great Men.

>>8821130

>Implying that's not the most unbermensch way to live and die. Not living by any standards of "morality" and what not by your own, even if it means dying of aids

The ubermensch makes his own morality, whereas decadence is the absence of such - "world-laziness", as Nietzsche calls it. Decadence/hedonism are extremely easy things to live by - they are not morality/standards so much as the absence of morality/standards.

>Don't forget Nietzsche died from syphilis he contracted from a prostitute.

This was a posthumous lie, though - usually claimed to be the cause of his madness/etc. The reality was that he had a slow-growing tumour behind his right eye socket for many years, which caused his health and sight to deteriorate (alongside the injury he received whilst mounting his horse during his time as a cavalryman within the Prussian army.)

The tumour probably ended up pushing too much against his cranium, which eventually induced madness.

>>8795914

>power
>requiring justification

Scratch the surface, pal. You'll find the real memes.

>>8675354

>I would say that the modern right, in the form of the religious right and the William F. Buckleys and Margaret Thatchers of the world, regard is Nietzche's philosophy as inimical to them as much as left-liberals do.

Luckily they're a dying breed, as Trump's effortless GOP coup demonstrates.

>The only leftists I have seen who have attempted to co-opt Nietzche, that I have seen, have been the postmodernist, identity-based philosophers who see him as a "philosopher of difference". They tend to run up against a wall, though, due to the fact that Nietzche is also pretty clearly anti-egalitarian, which, to me at least, puts him at odds with leftist values.

Pretty true. Those 20th century French post-modernist/structuralist hacks somehow manage to reconcile their readings of Nietzsche with ideologies ranging from Marxism to Foucault's much more general "muh Human Rights."

>>8649715

The idea that without labour, people will 'cultivate' themselves, is delusional at best.

We can already catch a glimpse of the future even now. In many if not most sectors, modern man works far less than his predecessors. Far from cultivating himself, he spends his free time either stupefying himself with drugs/alcohol/etc, or else wasting countless hours on fruitless entertainment (TV/Gaming/etc).

The one lesson that modernity is teaching, is that the more time the common man has, the less he knows what to do with it.

Exceptions are found in higher men - the geniuses. Our ancestors knew this, which is why they rightly placated the common man by indenturing him in a life of toil - with rare exceptions during festive seasons/etc to make it bearable.

>>8604408

Nietzsche is horribly understood, or rather misunderstood, in 99% of academia; especially outside of actual Philosophy departments, precisely because his philosophy is not systematic. Indeed, he even argues against the 'Will to System' - which is a huge problem for most of academia who are, in their own way, retarded/autistic. Specifically, they thrive on clarity, well-defined (and consistently used) terminology, and any philosophies/ideologies that have a clear 'path'/'plot'.

All of these things are very far from Nietzsche, which is why, in Politics departments, for example, they prefer faggots like Rousseau/Hobbes/Locke/Fukuyama/etc. They all have well-structured books and a very clear 'idea' which permeates their work - as opposed to Nietzsche, whose aphorisms on occasion can appear so contradictory/extreme that you'd mistake him for someone with schizophrenia.

>>8582420

>I don't think our culture is without a purpose. I just don't think common people such as you and I can understand the purpose.

Spooky.

The reality is that Nietzsche touched upon this problem. The function of any state is, first and foremost, the preservation of the individual. As to why this is the case, you need look no further than etymology: an individual can exist without a state, but a state cannot exist without individuals. Hence, the individuals come first.

Function is not the same as aim, however. The function of a drill is to drill holes, for example: but that is not the be all and end all of why we use a drill. We drill holes for all sorts of reasons, the point being that we give a drill its purpose.

Modern society, however, exists entirely on the basis of its function. Marxism and Socialism, chiefly, are responsible for having (essentially) instituted Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the PURPOSE of society - which is self-defeating, as the preservation/care of individuals is merely the state's function. The function of a thing cannot be its purpose.

Let's say, nowadays, that we are (in the Western world) essentially free FROM our needs - this leaves the question of what we are free FOR? The answer, invariably, is that modern man is generally free to do whatever he likes - freedom, in the modern sense, is hedonism (or 'World-Laziness' in Nietzsche's terms) par excellence.

>>8575365

Sounds like you just don't like Nietzsche, buddy.

>The Portable Nietzsche

>Faust (Part II)

>Peer Gynt