/lit/ - Literature

>Turgenev made the witty remark that there are inverse platitudes, which are frequently employed by people lacking in talent who wish to attract attention to themselves. Everyone knows, for instance, that water is wet, and someone suddenly says, very seriously, that water is dry, not that ice is, but that water is dry, and the conviction with which this is stated attracts attention.
>Similarly, the whole world knows that virtue consists in the subjugation of one’s passions, or in self-renunciation. It is not just the Christian world, against whom Nietzsche howls, that knows this, but it is an eternal supreme law towards which all humanity has developed, including Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism and the ancient Persian religion. And suddenly a man appears who declares that he is convinced that self-renunciation, meekness, submissiveness and love are all vices that destroy humanity (he has in mind Christianity, ignoring all the other religions). One can understand why such a declaration baffled people at first. But after giving it a little thought and failing to find any proof of the strange propositions, any rational person ought to throw the books aside and wonder if there is any kind of rubbish that would not find a publisher today. But this has not happened with Nietzsche’s books. The majority of pseudo-enlightened people seriously look into the theory of the superman, and acknowledge its author to be a great philosopher, a descendant of Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. And all this has come about because the majority of the pseudo-enlightened men of today object to any reminder of virtue, or to its chief premise: self-renunciation and love – virtues that restrain and condemn the animal side of their life. They gladly welcome a doctrine, however incoherently and disjointedly expressed, of egotism and cruelty, sanctioning the ideas of personal happiness and superiority over the lives of others, by which they live.

>>12408002
I don’t even need to look this up to know it is not but Tolstoy. But he might have agreed with it.

Misreading of Nietzsche. He thinks Nietzsche's doctrine is that every man as Overman should do whatever he fancies--but this is not Nietzsche's thought at all, Nietzsche is most emphatic that those few who are able should not abandon rules altogether, but should discard tradition and forge their own sets of values. The Overman truly reverences greatness, as he understands greatness, and so truly obligates himself towards this greatness in his own code of conduct. But he does have such a code of conduct, his behavior is not flighty as the wind, now this, now that, as he pleases; but it is burdened with a great weight, a serious charge, to pursue after what is valued. The Overman is free only from the trek to a destination that no longer exists. He is not free from journeying altogether, as is supposed.

>>12408043
It's from his essay "What is Religion and of What Does It's Essence Consist?" as translated by Jane Kentish.

>>12408002
Start with the Greeks.

>>12408185
Name one good idea from ancient Greek philosophy.

"No."

>>12408201
That women are the reincarnation of evil men.

>>12408083
Right, N calls for people to break free of thoughtless dogma and invent new, rational values that celebrate life and the human experience, instead of damning it as sinful and something we should look forward to being over so that we can get to the good part, heaven. He wants us to figure out how to make THIS the good part.

>>12408227
I'm with you if you take out the word "rational."

>>12408225
kek

>>12408002
>presenting nothing complete or coherent
Do I have to keep reading? I already know he's retarded on this subject by this alone.

>In reply to the question: what must we do? the answer is now put straightforwardly as: live as you like, without paying attention to the lives of others.
Already he is talking about something only vaguely and indirectly related to Nietzsche.

>>12408041
The rest just seems like buzzwords and insults with no substance. Great job, Tolstoy.

>>12408983
Somebody insulted my ideas!
Quickly! to the rescue!

>>12408041
>>12408002
This is the substanceless and strawman riddled ramblings of a seething autist. Reeeeeee why do people like something I don't like.

>>12408227
no he doesnt

>Nietzsche was the nazi man

"no"

>>12409078
Keep in mind that Tolstoy wrote this in 1902, nearly 20 years before the Nazi party formed.

>>12409097
Keep in mind that Tolstoy is the most overrated hack retard of all time and a good barometer for how midwit someone really is.

>>12409109
Never said he wasn't, only that accusing him of jumping on the "le nietzsche is just a nazi" bandwagon is retarded.

>>12408041
I completely agree, based Tolstoy

>>12409077
He does

>>12409066
Don't tout something with no substance as if it has any.

>>12408041
Lol "the whole world knows" level argumentation, fucking dumbass

>Its another Nietzsche is a hedonist argument
>Its another Nietzsche is an anarchist argument
>Its another Nietzsche is an fascist argument
>Its another Nietzsche is an ((((((X)))))) argument
you didn't read Nietzsche - you read exactly who you wanted to

Based and Christpill

i wonder what Nietzsche would have wrote about gnostics if he knew anything about them

>>12408227
>invent new, rational values that celebrate life and the human experience

What nonsense. What absolute gobbledygook. What does "rational" mean in this case? What does it mean to "celebrate life and the human experience"? How is Nietzsche so sure that the Christian system isn't perfectly capable of doing that? Maybe Nietzsche should have read more Aristotle, that way he'd know how to define the terms of his arguments.

>>12408983
>presenting nothing complete or coherent
he is right on that though, Nietzsche is not presenting any system

>>12409379
Well, in the dubiously authentic Will to Power an attempt at some kind of systematic arrangement is in fact made fwiw.

>>12409351

I’m sure that Nietzsche read Aristotle, he was a classical philologist. I’m also sure that he didn’t care about how Aristotle constructed arguments, since Nietzsche wasn’t interested in how arguments were constructed until his time. As he would put it, he was the first philosopher who was also a psychologist.

his thoughts are mediocre and reflect he doesn't know anything of the world other than superficial trivia that amounts to nothing. it's no wonder his book was heralded so much it's written by a slave for slaves. somebody who writes this kind of nonsense can't have any real insight to the profound truths of the world.

the people who wrote the religions like buddhism and confucianism he mentioned understood what nietzsche meant more thoroughly than he did. nietzsche was okay but it's only relative to the lame stuff produced by western philosophers.

>>12408002
>That pic
Me at family gatherings verbatim

>>12408002
>limited and abnormal German, suffering from power mania.
Ha!
>They gladly welcome a doctrine, however incoherently and disjointedly expressed, of egotism and cruelty, sanctioning the ideas of personal happiness and superiority over the lives of others
Reminds me of that other quote from Wyndham Lewis about the grocer's superman. I can see how boring this ideal must have been to a man like him.

>>12408201

>>12409234
I think that means you actually have read him.

>>12408002
>>12408041
It is disconcerting to see that Tolstoy, in his analysis of Nietzsche, resorts to the three lowest modes of argument according to the DH, it is obvious that his exposure to N is cursory at best, based on hearsay at worst. With the substance of his presentation of the material it seems he may have been exposed to Zarathustra, the most abstract and poetic of N's work, Twilight and Anti-Christ, both slight, minor works, and the oft-cited Will to Power, which as >>12409505 points out is the least comprehensive compilation of his thought. I have only read "The Cossacks," by Tolstoy, so I am in no position to judge his merits as a writer, it would be nice if he had showed the same consideration and humility and deferred judgment of a fellow intellectual to one vested with the authority of scholarly study. In short, I think he was just indignant that somebody had dared title a book "The Anti-Christ," and proposed that his beloved faith was a mechanism for further transgressions against the spirit and the flesh.

>>12408201
Virtue ethics

>>12408083
>Just make your own rules
Yea what could go wrong there

>>12411007
Somebody has to do it.

>>12408002
>>12408041
This is what state philosophers do to your brain, people.

>>12408201
the concept of philosophical systems constiting interdependant ideas/cateogires/points

>>12408083
>U DUN GET NIETSHAY DUMDUM
- every Nietzsche fanboy in response to any criticism of Nietzsche, ever

>>12408002
t. Read only Zarathustra

Genealogy has full take down of atheism, demagogues, and Nazis before Nazis (and gommies too) oh shit tolsy btfo

>>12411081
This.
You'll notice they never explain exactly what they think Nietzsche supposedly meant, beyond vague statements about "rational values" and "greatness."

I don't know, I don't know half enough to read Nietzsche intelligently and I've barely touched Tolstoy.

>>12408002

Yes.

>>12408002
No.

>>12408002
I think so.
Nietzsche effectively advocated for everyone to become sociopaths in hopes that maybe one person would transcend morality.

>>12408002
>>12408041
That Tolstoy can not understand Nietzsche in the slightest is why Tolstoy's philosophy is, in the end, superficial and hypocritical, and his writings hold no value beyond aesthetic.

>>12411656
what 'value' do you think its missing exactly?

>>12411124
This comic makes me long for annihilation

>oh no no no
>he just misread
>he just misunderstood
>he just read "wrong" works
Kek, this board is ever more pathetic.

>>12409234
für alle und keinen

>>12409796
My dude.

>>12411112
Walter Kaufmann wrote an entire book on it with extensive quotes and cross references. Maybe read a little rather than spend so much time on /lit/?

>>12411812
Existential value, analysing and reconstructing the very core of what it means to be human. Or at least attempting to. Claiming that "to strive to do good" is enough of an answer to the question of what it means to be human paints Tolstoy as either a brainlet or a hypocrite, and that's the very question Nietzsche pondered. You can (and probably should at least to some degree) dislike Nietzsche's means and his answers, but you at least need to see the necessity in asking the questions.

>>12411913
This. And this is why Tolstoy's works seem so childish and clinical compared to Dosto's. But I recommend reading Sestov's Dosto and Nietzsche.I agree with him that Tolstoy had seen the egoist truth but disregarded it out of fear and never really could hide it in his texts.

>>12411851
>>12411081
Maybe NEETshe should've written like a normal person instead of spewing witty aphorisms like a shitposter

>>12409234
>Nietzsche being inconsistent made him appeal to a wide variety of political currents
it's his own fucking fault

>>12409262
I'd say they're in the evolutionary line of the ubermang seeing as how they threw the whole traditional value of trusting God right out the window.

Could Tolstoy had read raw Nietzsche, that is nietzsche's philosophy untainted by his sister's hand? Wouldn't it be unfair to criticize Tolstoy because he seems like a retard to us that have more legit ressources on N thoughts?

>>12411884
>Kaufmann
kek
Oh... no... you- you didn't fall for that meme did you anon?

>>12408233
>For Nietzsche, then, our morality amounts to a vindictive effort to poison the happiness of the fortunate (GM III, 14), instead of a high-minded, dispassionate, and strictly rational concern for others.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/#CritReliMora

>>12410852
>Virtue ethics is a good idea

TOP KEK

>>12409351
Nietzsche argues christianity inverts natural virtues by chastizing those who are active and passionate while calling them sinners, he calls it a religion for the dregs of society who are hopeless and need to judge the strong, but out of incapacity to show anything better they resort to the otherworldly as they cannot find it fair they are weaker and so must find ever more unnatural explanations

>>12409379
>Nietzsche is not presenting any system
How much of a brainlet are you?

>>12408083
>ACKSHYUALLY neetch was talking about deranged uncle power fantasies lmao Tolstoy btfo

>>12409510
here's the reply you wanted

>>12408041
is this a joke? N was against the will-to-nothingness, as it is with ascetic priests and monks and so on. not the same thing as restraint of one's passions. higher men practice self denial

>>12408002
>>12408041
After having read Resurrection, I have lost all respect for Tolstoi. It felt like reading some pre-modern piece of shit commie degenerate SJW rambling, all-around disgusting.

>>12411913
The funny thing is, I liked Death of Ivan Ilyich and Family Happiness, but felt like vomiting after Ressurection which felt like a retardedly naive piece of commie propaganda.

>>12409351
Nietzsche makes a compelling argument why Christianity is anti-reality and anti-life, therefore a poisoned distortion of existence, turning the world upside down and twisting the original values of life like strength, bravery, beauty or health, replacing with anti-values of the slave masses like weakness, cowardice, envy, sickness, vengeance and resentment which only makes sense if you have a complete disregard of actual life and place all values in an imaginery afterlife where everything will be compensated for being a loser or punished if you amounted to or achieved something in this life.

>>12408225
lmao, you got some sauce on that?

>>12408083
self-awareness of your ubermenschness absolutely guarantees that you aren't the ubermensch, like how the only way to actually be cool is not trying to be cool

>>12413439
That's not even a working analogy brainlet. If it was like being cool, then you couldn't be cool and aware of it. You can, by the way.

>>12412114
Kaufmann is the best translator of Nietzsche. The one who fell for the dank meme is (You).