/lit/ - Literature

>>15466871
>Nietzsche's adolescent infatuation with conquerors and great souls never quite left him, he never achieved the quotidian detachment and clarity of a sage
Talk about coping. He was raging against Schopenhauerian and Christian "otherworldism" and depending on how you interpret "will to power", he was a staunch ontological materialist. His "adolescent infatuation" was completely in line with his overarching thought and ideas. Besides, it seems to me only unsuccessful men ever "achieve the quotidian detachment" -- you think Napoleon was an "infatuated adolescent" too? Maybe that's why you're Anon and Napoleon was Napoleon.
Saying you're "totally above being ambitious and securing a chapter in the history books and fucking women and chasing riches and attaining power bro" is the biggest cope there is. It's the entire basis of the slave morality Nietzsche criticizes. In fact, by saying Nietzsche never "attained the clarity of the sage" you're just putting the cart before the horse: Nietzsche is precisely claiming that being a sage is a bullshit cope.

>>15162612
How coincidental that in the era in which we have relegated Great Man theory to the dustbin, the fall of Rome as well was the "result of a slow process of societal change", as everything seems to be these days. How coincidental that the Age of Democracy, in which bureaucrats rule and where nothing is ever anyone's fault, sees no Great Men in the past, no individuals who decide the course of history, but only societies and their invisible "processes". Of course, in this view, where the individual is (by definition) of no significance, of course in this view "degeneracy" doesn't exist. The Romans didn't become lazy or lax, they didn't rest on their laurels, they didn't naively assume "barbarians" would become Romans in due time -- because there were no "Romans". In this view of history, "Rome" as a society is greater than the sum of every individual Roman. They play the same trick, ironically, with the concept of "institutional racism" which just means you can say some organization is racist without having to point to any individual of that organization being racist. So Romans didn't suddenly become weak, Rome became weak. Whose fault is it? No one's fault. And if it's no one's fault, you can't prevent it. It's another "slow process of societal change." And if you can't prevent it, well, should an analogue happen today -- can you stop it? should you even try to stop it? Best to stop thinking of these questions.

>>15084087
>The door of Raguideau's cabinet did not shut close, and Bonaparte plainly heard him dissuading Madame de Beauharnais from her projected marriage. "You are going to take a very wrong step," said he, "and you will be sorry for it, Can you be so mad as to marry a young man who has nothing but his cloak and his sword?" Bonaparte, Josephine told me, had never mentioned this to her, and she never supposed that he had heard what fell from Raguideau. "Only think, Bourrienne," continued she, "what was my astonishment when, dressed in the Imperial robes on the Coronation day, he desired that Raguideau might be sent for, saying that he wished to see him immediately; and when Raguideau appeared; he said to him, 'Well, sir! have I nothing but my cloak and my sword now?'"

Het Hart van Napoleon. Dutch book by a Belgian author about Napoleon's women life.

>>14301899
Look how pic related took advantage of rapidly changing social conditions, a time when his country was finding its way still.