/lit/ - Literature

2/3

>But where is your internal value when you no longer know what it is to breathe freely; when you have scarcely any command over your own selves, and often feel disgusted with yourselves as with some stale food; when you zealously study the newspapers and look enviously at your wealthy neighbour, made covetous by the rapid rise and fall of power, money, and opinions; when you no longer believe in a philosophy of rags, or in the freedom of spirit of a man who has few needs; when a voluntary and idyllic poverty without profession or marriage, such as should suit the more intellectual ones among you, has become for you an object of derision? On the other hand, the piping of the Socialistic rat-catchers who wish to inspire you with foolish hopes is continually sounding in your eyes: they tell you to be ready and nothing further, ready from this day to the next, so that you wait and wait for something to come from outside, though living in all other respects as you lived before—until this waiting is at length changed into hunger and thirst and fever and madness, and the clay of the bestia triumphans at last dawns in all its glory. Every one of you should on the contrary say to himself: "It would be better to emigrate and endeavour to become a master in new and savage countries, and especially to become master over myself, changing my place of abode whenever the least sign of slavery threatens me, endeavouring to avoid neither adventure nor war, and, if things come to the worst, holding myself ready to die: anything rather than continuing in this state of disgraceful thraldom, this bitterness, malice and rebelliousness!" This would be the proper spirit: the workmen in Europe ought to make it clear that their position as a class has become a human impossibility, and not merely, as they at present maintain, the result of some hard and aimless arrangement of society. They should bring about an age of great swarming forth from the European beehive such as has never yet been seen, protesting by this voluntary and huge migration against machines and capital and the alternatives that now threaten them either of becoming slaves of the State or slaves of some revolutionary party.

3/3

>May Europe be freed from one-fourth of her inhabitants! Both she and they will experience a sensation of relief. It is only far in the distance, in the undertaking of vast colonisations, that we shall be able to observe how much rationality, fairness, and healthy suspicion mother Europe has incorporated in her sons—these sons who could no longer endure life in the home of the dull old woman, always running the danger of becoming as bad-tempered, irritable, and pleasure-seeking as she herself. The European virtues will travel along with these workmen far beyond the boundaries of Europe; and those very qualities which on their native soil had begun to degenerate into a dangerous discontent and criminal inclinations will, when abroad, be transformed into a beautiful, savage naturalness and will be called heroism; so that at last a purer air would again be wafted over this old, over-populated, and brooding Europe of ours. What would it matter if there was a scarcity of "hands"? Perhaps people would then recollect that they had accustomed themselves to many wants merely because it was easy to gratify them—it would be sufficient to unlearn some of these wants! Perhaps also Chinamen would be called in, and these would bring with them their modes of living and thinking, which would be found very suitable for industrious ants. They would also perhaps help to imbue this fretful and restless Europe with some of their Asiatic calmness and contemplation, and—what is perhaps most needful of all—their Asiatic stability.

Discuss.

>>15745576
this text is the opposite of a defense of slavery, learn to read please

So this is what happens when a midwit tries to understand Nietzsche

>>15745596
Idiot. Nietzsche praised Theognis of Megara's views on slavery and considered it an essential part of culture. He isn't arguing against slavery here, but instead telling the socialists that if they want to rise above slavery they must stay on the move and move abroad. He is not against the existence of slavery here.

>>15745615
> Fie, that we should allow ourselves to be convinced that, by an increase of this impersonality within the mechanical working of a new society, the disgrace of slavery could be changed into a virtue! Fie, that there should be a regular price at which a man should cease to be a personality and become a screw instead! Are you accomplices in the present madness of nations which desire above all to produce as much as possible, and to be as rich as possible?
My guess is you somehow reversed the meaning of parts like this, like you thought he was calling slavery a virtue, rather than lamenting the effort of society to make it so. Nietzsche is expressing a position on slavery: He is calling it a disgrace.
Which makes sense in the greater context of Nietzsche

>>15745615
>Fie, that we should allow ourselves to be convinced that, by an increase of this impersonality within the mechanical working of a new society, the disgrace of slavery could be changed into a virtue! Fie, that there should be a regular price at which a man should cease to be a personality and become a screw instead! Are you accomplices in the present madness of nations which desire above all to produce as much as possible, and to be as rich as possible?
I'm guessing you reversed the meaning of parts like this, like you thought he was calling slavery a virtue. He was calling it a disgrace and effectively criticizing capitalism for trying to redeem it

>>15745753
You have it wrong. To Nietzsche, slavery is the greatest slander possible. The Hellenes expressed this as well, and regarded the slave as an irredeemable type, one of extremely poor stock whose existence was absolutely vital to the existence of the aristocracy. He is not against slavery at all, because he loves aristocracies.

What he is expressing there is this: the socialists have it wrong by fighting against the "impersonal enslavement" that capitalism imposes on them, because slavery doesn't oppose against culture, and is instead a requirement of it. Rather, what they should be focused on is avoiding this slavery by traveling abroad frequently in order to become cultural masters and to migrate to places where they dominate and continuing to do so whenever the moment arises where they may stagnate and become enslaved by their surroundings. At no point does he say that this system must be done away with because it creates slaves; he believes, like Theognis of Megara, that those who are slaves belong to slavery, and slaves are a necessity for any aristocracy to form. He wants there to be slaves, but doesn't want all of Europe to lose sight of this balance and let themselves become enslaved by the various hallucinations impersonally imposed by capitalist globalism. He resented all the Europeans around him who were just staying cooped up in their homes fuming over capitalist globalism rather than taking action to become masters over it.

>>15745818
none of that translates to a defense of slavery

>He is not against slavery at all, because he loves aristocracies.
that's a leap and it doesn't work

But yeah, nothing in this text supports your interpretation. Perhaps something else does, concerning this apparent praising of Theognis of Magara's views. Post that and maybe you have something to stand on. It seems like you are coloring this text with perceptions that are based outside of it.

>>15745888
>It would be better to emigrate and endeavour to become a master in new and savage countries, and especially to become master over myself
He is saying it right there. Europe is no longer viable for Europeans to remain as masters in, they must move to "new and savage countries" to remain masters. This is a far cry from what socialists and anti-globalists would ever tell you about the current situation; they are already slaves and they give a slave's interpretation of the matter.

I'd post more aphorisms supporting me (many of which are in Daybreak) but I'm too tired. Either in the morning or if I re-create the thread another time. The topic of slavery in Nietzsche is a pretty big one and it's no mystery that he supports the notion of slavery in general.

>>15745888
>>15745818 is correct

>>15745968
That doesn't help you. You're abusing a small and irrelevant overlap with your interpretation, as the issue isn't whether it's better to leave society and become a master in a new place, the issue is whether slavery is being validated by Nietzsche. You claim that Nietzsche is defending slavery, that is not supported in this text.

>This is a far cry from what socialists and anti-globalists would ever tell you about the current situation
I don't care.

>it's no mystery that he supports the notion of slavery in general.
Not only is that insanely false but it's even refuted in the text you just provided. You're being ridiculous and it's no wonder you're running away

>>15745975
Either you're samefag or you're falling for his rhetoric, but you should bother to read this a little more carefully.

Nietzsche is sympathetic to a lot of controversial features of older cultures and maybe that's throwing you off, but if you can't see that OP is dancing around the issue that the text he provided not only doesn't support his claim that Nietzsche is defending slavery but outright contradicts it. It could well be the case that Nietzsche says something supportive of slavery somewhere else, but he seems to have no intention to provide evidence of that. Until then, what the fuck are you on?

>>15746003
It's not irrelevant. He is telling socialists to become masters in new countries. Masters require slaves. Master-slave morality, hello? Do you know anything about Nietzsche? Have you even read his Genealogy? Have you read Zarathustra, On the Tarantulas? He wasn't against the existence of slaves, far from it.

>I don't care.
Are you stupid?

>>15746037
Yes, I have.

>Masters require slaves. Master-slave morality, hello?
Again, the steps of your reasoning are miles apart. I think you're confusing this with the Master-Slave dialectic. A Nietzschean Master doesn't need a Slave to obtain status as a Master, and Master morality is just a species of morality that Nietzsche explains as a phenomenon, it's not actually his prescription to his audience, although it's certainly closer to his ideals than slave morality so it's a natural confusion. If you've read TSZ you should understand the distinction between the Master of Master morality and the ideals explained by Zarathustra.

In any case, using this as a justification of interpreting Nietzsche as being supportive of slavery is to base your interpretation on an implication rather than something directly stated. That's the first problem.

>Have you read Zarathustra, On the Tarantulas?
See you thought you could bluff me on this but I have read this and it does not support your claim. You can drop this point and move onto a new one, or you can double down and I can tell you how you misread TSZ. I have a copy within arms reach, your move

>>15746116
>between the Master of Master morality
forgive errors like this, it's late

>>15746116
Okay, since you are so adamant:

http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=171667

Read it and weep. This is Nietzsche's "The Greek State". There is nothing ambiguous about this topic there. Secondary commentary is in that link to assist you if needed.

Once you have read that, you might see what point Nietzsche is making in the OP passage, and how he was riffing on the socialists and anti-globalists of his time. They were right, in a sense, but also deeply misguided.

>>15746154
Every time I address one of your attempted points, you run off to a different one. It's cheap, tiring, and disappointing. You were very confident with this reasoning about master morality and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I want you to follow up on it.

>he was riffing on the socialists and anti-globalists of his time. They were right, in a sense, but also deeply misguided.
again, don't care

>>15746222
You should care because that's precisely how he defends slavery in the OP passage. By attacking their attacks on capitalist globalism, he implicitly defends slavery.

And of course I am still confident with that reasoning. Master and slave are part of the relativistic whole. What makes one a master and slave is both what one possesses on the inside and what one possesses on the outside. He wouldn't be telling the socialists to move to foreign countries to avoid slavery if he thought it was entirely an inner matter. On the Tarantulas also cements his philosophy as fundamentally anti-egalitarian, which would make it opposed to any notion that sought to reduce inequality, such as that which considers slavery unnecessary. The link I provided before should make this all abundantly clearer.

>Nietzsche defends slavery because I find it inescapable
Are you one of those last man creatures he wrote about or just a Jew? Nietzsche's aristocracy is not a feudal bloodline descent, and slavery is not absolved by wealth. It's the slave who makes himself a slave, and the aristocrat the aristocrat.

>>15746276
>By attacking their attacks on capitalist globalism, he implicitly defends slavery.
The interpretation of a critique of socialism as a defense of slavery belongs to you alone. I think he's just calling these social/political movements ineffective, there's no translation to a value statement about slavery.

>Master and slave are part of the relativistic whole. What makes one a master and slave is both what one possesses on the inside and what one possesses on the outside.
This is vague and completely avoids the point. You're conflating Nietzsche's suggestion to become a master somewhere with a wholesale prescription of master morality, and consider that to be corroborated by Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It isn't. Again, the Master morality remains distinct from the ideals expounded in TSZ.

>On the Tarantulas also cements his philosophy as fundamentally anti-egalitarian
Yes
>which would make it opposed to any notion that sought to reduce inequality
More or less

>such as that which considers slavery unnecessary.
Aaand here's the leap.

No. Nietzsche's opposition to egalitarianism does not, even by your little journey of logical bunny hopping, lead to a validation of slavery.

TSZ contains a lot of opposition to egalitarianism, as well as opposition to all manner of culture and politics. Society and the state itself are antagonistic to the philosophical project he is describing. Having any stake in political discussion becomes questionable. It must be borne in mind that this is an individualist philosophy in an extreme sense. It's not this, that, or the other feature of a particular kind of society that is the problem, it's society itself.
So no, TSZ does not lead to a proposition about slavery being retained in society via its opposition to egalitarianism. It's more like society can do whatever the fuck it wants and it's not your concern as a philosopher.

>The link I provided before should make this all abundantly clearer.
Again, you're just coming up with diversions so you don't have to be held accountable for anything. I'm still waiting for you to provide direct textual evidence as basis for anything you say, but all you do is point to the distance.

But I did actually look at what you linked. It also contradicts your argument, as it says Nietzsche considers the role of slavery in society to be a problem. I'm not sure why you linked that. Maybe you saw that Nietzsche was sympathetic to the honest way the Greeks integrated slavery culturally? I believe that's an extension of Nietzsche's appreciation for how the Greeks appreciated all the cruelties and dark truths of life. Fear, hatred, and insanity all have a place in the divine for the Greeks. That doesn't mean that Nietzsche is a political advocate for fear, hatred, and insanity.

>>15746390
yeah well, youre still a manlet virgin

>>15746925
Well, no

>>15747061
post body pics faggot

>>15745576
He was incel who got rejected by two women at age 28 and 32. His works is pure garbage.

>>15747510
what a way of addressing his arguments, congrats faggot, you're "spoiler"ngmi"spoiler"

>>15747510
what a way of addressing his arguments, congrats faggot, you're "spoiler" ngmi "spoiler"

>>15747581
>>15747572
neither am I bcos im retarderedrd

>>15746390
>The interpretation of a critique of socialism as a defense of slavery belongs to you alone.
No it doesn't. There is secondary literature exploring Nietzsche's views on and defenses of slavery which you can search for yourself.

>This is vague and completely avoids the point.
It is clear and addresses the point, the point being that master and slave are attitudes, and attitudes require effects in the world in order to be rightly measured as one or the other. A Prometheus is a god despite his chains, but he is no longer a god in effect because of them.

>No. Nietzsche's opposition to egalitarianism does not, even by your little journey of logical bunny hopping, lead to a validation of slavery.
And yet all hierarchy requires there to be a lowest class, effectively a slave class, in order to function. For him to he pro-hierarchy, but not be pro-slavery, seems hypocritical, don't you think?

>Again, you're just coming up with diversions so you don't have to be held accountable for anything.
I have been making arguments with reasoning and providing references. You can have the decency to acknowledge this.

>But I did actually look at what you linked. It also contradicts your argument, as it says Nietzsche considers the role of slavery in society to be a problem.
Quote him where he says that.

>>15746390
>Society and the state itself are antagonistic to the philosophical project he is describing. Having any stake in political discussion becomes questionable. It must be borne in mind that this is an individualist philosophy in an extreme sense
The based actually read Nietzsche poster
>>15747641
>all hierarchy requires there to be a lowest class, effectively a slave class, in order to function
The cringe dialectician

>>15748825
>Accordingly we must accept this cruel sounding truth that slavery is of the essence of culture; a truth of course, which leaves no doubt as to the absolute value of existence.

>The enormous social problems of today are engendered by the excessive sensitivity of modern man, not by true and deep pity for that misery; and even if it were true that the Greeks were ruined because they kept slaves, the opposite is even more certain, that we will be destroyed by the lack of slavery: an activity which neither the original Christians nor the Germanic tribes found at all objectionable, let alone reprehensible.

>Examine the lives of the best and most fruitful people and peoples and ask yourselves whether a tree that is supposed to grow to a proud height can dispense with bad weather and storms; whether misfortune and external resistance, some kinds of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, mistrust, hardness, avarice, and violence do not belong among the favorable conditions without which any great growth even of virtue is scarcely possible. The poison of which weaker natures perish strengthens the strong—nor do they call it poison.

>The proper aim of the State is the Olympian existence and ever-renewed procreation and preparation of the genius, compared with which all other things are only tools, expedients and factors towards realization.

Nietzsche's words, not mine. Do you also consider him a dialectician?

>>15746285
>>15746390
In regards to the matter on what makes one an aristocrat or a slave to Nietzsche, here is a passage that makes the physical an indispensable component of these moralities in his theory, and also addresses the whole matter of exploitation (slavery):

>Mutually refraining from injury, violence, and exploitation, placing your will on par with the other's: in a certain, crude sense, these practices can become good manners between individuals when the right conditions are present (namely, that the individuals have genuinely similar quantities of force and measures of value, and belong together within a single body). But as soon as this principle is taken any further, and maybe even held to be the fundamental principle of society, it immediately shows itself for what it is: the will to negate life, the principle of disintegration and decay. Here we must think things through thoroughly, and ward off any sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially a process of appropriating, injuring, overpowering the alien and the weaker, oppressing, being harsh, imposing your own form, incorporating, and at least, the very least, exploiting, — but what is the point of always using words that have been stamped with slanderous intentions from time immemorial? Even a body within which (as we presupposed earlier) particular individuals treat each other as equal (which happens in every healthy aristocracy): if this body is living and not dying, it will have to treat other bodies in just those ways that the individuals it contains refrain from treating each other. It will have to be the embodiment of will to power, it will want to grow, spread, grab, win dominance, — not out of any morality or immorality, but because it is alive, and because life is precisely will to power. But there is no issue on which the base European consciousness is less willing to be instructed than this; these days, people everywhere are lost in rapturous enthusiasms, even in scientific disguise, about a future state of society where "the exploitative character" will fall away: — to my ears, that sounds as if someone is promising to invent a life that dispenses with all organic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a corrupted or imperfect, primitive society: it belongs to the essence of being alive as a fundamental organic function; it is a result of genuine will to power, which is just the will of life. — Although this is an innovation at the level of theory, — at the level of reality, it is the primal fact of all history. Let us be honest with ourselves to this extent at least! —

>>15749191
>what makes one an aristocrat or a slave to Nietzsche,
It would still be "oneself".
You may think exploitation is only the domain of the aristocracy as though death does not come to them too: slaves too exploit their position, and in an unhealthy aristocrat they find the impulse to ravage him equally. Slaves are no more dead than invasive weeds are dead, just as aristocrats are not dead and so all can be vectors of those basic urges of life. There is no constant slave or aristocrat. There is only the various expressions of will which ultimately all incorporate and exploit each other.

>>15746116
Whether Nietzsche’s “master” needs a slave in the literal sense is perhaps less important than the idea that what is required is some sort of oppressive social hierarchy (cf. the “pathos of distance”).

>>15749256
>It would still be "oneself".
But "oneself" does not live inside a vacuum, it is not a thing-in-itself. Consciousness, likewise, is not independent of the body, is not a thing-in-itself. A healthy will, a "genuine will to power," which Nietzsche says is "just the will to life," will come from a healthy body, and a healthy body "will want to grow, spread, grab, win dominance" as he says.

Don’t mind me, just saving a thread about to die