/lit/ - Literature

>>17352651
sage

Continuing from:
>>17345896

>>17352656
Nietzsche BTFO. Seethe.

This will also be helpful in understanding the argument.

"That sheer will has its limits must still be acknowledged. A posse ad esse non valet consequentia ("The conclusion from the possible to the actual is not valid"). Success, for instance, does not depend exclusively on will, even the greatest effort of will cannot force it. Rather, accomplished and perfect motion is distinguished by the fact that in it willed effort recedes. Great works of art, for example, always appear effortless; in an excellent painting, in a superb statue, the artistic effort and painstaking workmanship vanish in the perfection of the whole. Will and success are not identical, and therefore the will to power by itself does not accomplish anything. It may fail, it may come to ruin, and this does happen particularly when it is not consistent with the human nature from which it springs. It may lead to a mere caricature of power, to a distortion showing that little or nothing has resulted from all the willed effort. What such an exaggerated will for power achieves is like the work of a bad artist who wants to depict strength. In order to create the impression of extraordinary strength, he exaggerates all muscles and proportions except that basic proportion from which alone the power of a figure can become effortlessly manifest. The assertion of an all-present will to power remains lopsided unless the higher authority has been established, without which this will to power can be neither convincing nor successful.

Overvaluation of will in itself contains a destructive element. It implies an overestimation of movement, of direct action, of the human type which blindly follows its instincts, of the raw vitality of life. Likewise, movements enforced by sheer will tend to become themselves mechanical and unfree, because they push on towards their objectives where they are bound to fail anyway. But this dynamic thinking is by no means a sign of exuberant physical strength, nor is it a sign of a rich personality, overflowing with ideas. On the contrary, it is deeply significant that our idea of the highest power is one of divine calm, and that we associate the sublime, not with motion, but with a majesty which rules from rest. The will to power, in contrast, strives for power, because it doesn't have it. It is a poor will; that is why it is so greedy for power."
- FG Jünger

It is helpful to see the democratic character in Nietzsche's writing style. This goes beyond his desperate search for a master, who he then pathetically attempts to dismiss. The very style of critique is, at best, just like the madman in the village: the intent, even if unconscious, is to create discourse where there is none, where it is not even possible. This is the very center of Nietzsche's aesthetics, neither the audience nor the art are central, but the artist himself - a bourgeois and sentimental conservatism. Even in his theory of tragedy the aesthetic power is in a collective feeling of truth, and to a degree the single figure who has created this perspective shift. Plato's judge of festivals has simply been moved into the theater, reduced to an actor.

More generally, the effect is that of women's gossip. All of the words and events are stilted with dramatic effect so as to force, if not the individual and their character, then her perspective, the great power of chance which allowed her this great experience. 'The monarchy is falling but, my dear, I have been chosen by other forces.' The pantheism of perspective demands that the ideas become subject to equality. However, most of the minor dramas are forgotten in a week - all that remains is the coarse lie which has been given something to gnaw on.

An opposed method is that used by Ernst Jünger, the only true heir to Nietzsche. In a review of The Worker it was noted that he was 'venturing into the zone of the headshots'. We can see great meaning in this, even if it was not the original intent. Jünger's method leads to astonishment, awe, and in our age a horrific peace or silence. All who have seen the event are left with nothing to say, not due to failure, but because the law has been sensed at the deepest level, known as in death which is only heightened by memento mori. What is revealed is the total authority within the image, the dominion of metaphysical laws which play out with the force of war - a martial decision rather than democratic reordering.

The difference is that of Nestor and Odysseus, Plato and Aristotle as Herder identifies them, the forest and the trees, as Hölderlin describes the force of character. He who distributes wealth of the common is a necessary figure, one who will be loved by the majority, at least for a time. But his manner does not endure the wear of the ages. The strength of symbols is defeated where there is metamorphosis, and he who relies on them too heavily leaves us with coins with a deformed stamp. The counting takes longer, and the value increasingly uncertain. And where the law is worn away from the face only the elements remain.

It is helpful to see the democratic character in Nietzsche's writing style. This goes beyond his desperate search for a master, who he will later attempt to dismiss with pathetic slander. The very style of critique is, at best, just like the madman in the village: the intent, even if unconscious, is to create discourse where there is none, where it is not even possible. This is the very center of Nietzsche's aesthetics, neither the audience nor the art are central, but the artist himself - a bourgeois and sentimental conservatism. Even in his theory of tragedy the aesthetic power is in a collective feeling of truth, and to a degree the single figure who has created this perspective shift. Plato's judge of festivals has simply been moved into the theater, reduced to an actor. In its form the law is that of the freedom of the press, and just as the history of newspaper all traces of aristocracy are eventually worn away - one even sees this from the beginning with the bloated cartoon heads. Nietzsche's perspective is from within the political attack columns.

More generally, the effect is that of women's gossip. All of the words and events are stilted with dramatic effect so as to force, if not the individual and their character, then her perspective into prominence - what everyone must see is the great power of chance which allowed her this wonderful experience. 'The monarchy is falling, but, my dear, I have been chosen by other forces.' The pantheism of perspective demands that the ideas become subject to equality. However, most of the minor dramas are forgotten in a week - all that remains is the coarse lie which has been given something to gnaw on.

>>17353697
An opposed method is that used by Ernst Jünger, the only true heir to Nietzsche (one who saves with a Christian hand). In a review of The Worker it was noted that Jünger was 'venturing into the zone of the headshots'. We can see great meaning in this image, even if it was not the critic's intent. Jünger's method leads to astonishment, awe, and in our age a horrific peace or silence. All who have seen the event are quietened, not due to a failure in communication, but because the law has been sensed at the deepest level. If anything, the technique is overwhelming in that a veil is lifted from the territory, its inner elements become known - as in a death which is only heightened through the enduring images of memento mori which have been ingrained within one's character. What is revealed is the total authority within the image, the dominion of metaphysical laws which play out with the force of war - a martial decision rather than democratic reordering.

The difference is that of Nestor and Odysseus; Plato and Aristotle as Herder identifies them; the forest and the trees, as Hölderlin describes the force of character. He who distributes the wealth of the common is a necessary figure, one who will be loved by the majority, at least for a time. But his manner does not endure the wear of the ages, becoming the life of the forest floor. The strength of symbols is defeated where there is metamorphosis, and he who relies on the symbols too heavily leaves us with coins with a deformed stamp. The counting takes longer, and the value becomes increasingly uncertain. Where the law is worn away from the face, only the elements remain.

>>17350129
>the worker is the lowest type of human who only cares about tasks
>the worker struggles against labour
How are these the same thing?
>tyrant
>centralisation of law
How are these the same thing? You seem to be confusing surface similarities with the essence of what is said. The potential movement afterwards is stopped because of this way of seeing.

>>17350045
>intimate knowledge of power's inner workings
Where do you think he demonstrates this? I get the feeling that he did not even read the introduction of Xenophon's work. If he had read it at all he would not have assumed authority over the greatest of the Greeks.
Are you really going to tell me that he had a better knowledge, even of the artistic, than Homer? People seem to fall hard for his self-promotion, another interesting trait...

>>17350598
>a society of will-less men
But in democracy all that remains is the will. And it goes beyond this, it is tied to the death of the gods. After them, at the extreme, all that remains is the will, their can be no fate, nor even elemental forces.
The will is what builds secular society, it is a replacement of force, the absolute power of the mundane.

"Talent. - In a humanity as highly developed as the present one, everyone acquires by nature access to many talents. Everyone has innate talent, but only a few are born with and trained to a sufficient degree of tenacity, persistence, and energy that anyone of them really becomes a talent, that is, becomes what he is, which is to say: discharges it in works and actions."

A good quote that contradicts what has been said previously in his defense. One can relate it to the Socratic elements: here, every man is 'golden-souled', but the state or national order prevents his proper training.
And in contradiction, it is the 'iron-souled', the labourer, that is needed to bring about the highest. A complete inversion of Greek order, the democracy of the lowest.

effortposter can't bump his own thread a few times in a row

>>17352651
What do you think Nietzsche believes?

>>17354780
Thanks for the bump, anon. But I think people just want to shitpost in peace.

>>17354903
Himself.
Although belief in something doesn't make it true. You would think the Antichrist would understand this better than most.

"The gradual development of equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it has the principal characteristics of one: it is universal, it is enduring, each day it escapes human power; all events, like all men, serve its development.

Would it be wise to believe that a social movement coming from so far can be suspended by the efforts of one generation? Does one think that after having destroyed feudalism and vanquished kings, democracy will recoil before the bourgeoisie and the rich? Will it be stopped now that it has become so strong and its adversaries so weak?"

>>17355553
Tocqueville is entirely correct here, democracy is providential, it is of a great order that no man can contest with. Even kings of the largest empires were brought to their knees by this order, and the aristocrats and great men serve just as well as the slaves - perhaps moreso because of the wounded visage of power.

We can go further than the idea that power rises hand-in-hand with democracy: power, as a means of this great order, is the very cause of democracy. The kings so consumed with the will to power built entire outposts and hidden lairs opposed to their own courts. They undermined their own sovereignty in the shadow of the Leviathan, and in the end were left with nothing but halls of portraits, chambers of gossip, and empty traditions as graves of the memory of power.

The great men are much like Antigone figures attempting to prevent the burial of all they have created.

>>17355608
>Antigone figures, wounded in the laws where there is no longer a soul,

Or to put this in meme language
>This thread
vs
>Nietzsche thread
>>17352914
Which one has aristocratic qualities and which one democractic?

What is easily missed is that power is not a thing in itself, it is a substratum, a link between the elements of order and dominion. To elevate it above the elements, the nomos, is to formalise the processes of power, not that which forms it. The end result is an absolute weakening, mechanised processes of those without the laws which create dominion and its frontier, as in >>17355096
At the heights one sees the Tyche of Greece, or the Pomerium of Rome. Power is only a reflection of the order dedicated to their light.

>>17356460
This is the same law as the spirited man with no outlet, he exhausts himself in the search. Like all modern diseases, Nietzsche's sickness formed of the will.

>>17355745
Two bait threads with hundreds of posts. Says a lot.

Bumpp

Bump

>>17355553
>Would it be wise to believe that a social movement coming from so far can be suspended by the efforts of one generation?
He gave a speech in parliament to that effect in his later years. He said, as I remember, that the last special privilege left over from the aristocratic age was property, and that there was now nothing standing between the new democratic man and a total liquidation of all private property. Very similar outlook as Karl Marx, who despised Tocqueville as far as I can tell.

>>17352651
Nietzsche and Tocqueville are using democracy in different senses, I think. Nietzsche seems to be talking about the growing cosmopolitanism in Europe, whereby old classes of people (ethnic groups, but also think of sailors, voyageurs, cowboys, blacksmiths, people who are physiologically shaped by their occupation) are being replaced by a new kind of supranational jack-of-all-trades chameleon people, and that in this new mob the old values and traditions with their degrees of initiation and mythos will be replaced by an aimless mob of unexceptional undifferentiated peoples where a few strongmen profit. Tocqueville is referring to democracy in the actual sense.

Tallyrand also remarked on this subject:
>But that line of 'progress' held many surprises: when faced with the utmost elementarity, Talleyrand met two exemplary characters: the woodcutter and the fisherman. He drew his portrait: and what appeared was not the profile of two forms abandoned by history in its infancy, but the anticipation of two faces that history was about to assume: they were the silhouettes [105] of the first new men, already in waiting for Tocqueville. In their deserts, they were preparing to enter the scene as representatives of the mass. Indeed, they were the representatives of those who an era without irony would have called "mass men". Not in the big city, but in the desolation of untouched nature, the odor specificus of the mass came to Talleyrand. It was a curious fact, to be noted. Talleyrand attached those two portraits, as instructive clinical cases, to his Mémoire sur les relations commerciales des États-Unis avec l 'Angleterre, which he would have read at the Institut on 4 April 1797. "

>>17359785
The woodcutter.
>"The American woodcutter is not interested in anything. Any idea of sensitivity is remote to him. Those branches so elegantly thrown by nature, good foliage, a vivid color that animates one part of the forest, a stronger green that darkens another, all this is nothing. He has no memories to have anywhere. The only idea of him is the amount of ax strokes it takes to cut down a tree. He didn't plant; he doesn't know those pleasures. The tree he could plant is worth nothing to him, because he will never see it grown enough to be able to cut it down: and it is destroying that makes it live. He destroys himself everywhere: therefore any place suits him. He does not care about the field where he has put his work, because his work is only effort and no idea of sweetness is mixed with it. What comes out of his hands does not go through all those stages of growth that so soften the cultivator. He doesn't follow the fate of his products. He does not know the pleasure of new attempts. And if, in leaving, he does not forget his ax, he does not abandon regrets where he has lived for years ".

>>17359790
The fisherman.
>"The American fisherman acquires an almost equally careless soul from his profession. His affections, his interests, his life are arranged on the margins of the society to which he is believed to belong. It would be prejudicial to think that he is a very useful member of it. Because we must not bring these fishermen closer to those of Europe and believe that this is the way to train sailors, to create skilled and robust seamen. In America, except for the Nantucket whaling, fishing is a lazy business. Being two leagues from the coast when they don't have to fear bad weather, a mile when the weather is uncertain, that's all the courage they show. And the line is the only harpoon they can handle. So all their knowledge is only a small ruse; and their action, which consists of holding one arm out of a boat, is very much like idleness.
>“They love no place and only know the land through the ugly house where they live. It is the sea that gives them nourishment. So a few more or fewer cod decide on their homeland. If they seem to decrease in a certain part, they leave immediately and look for another homeland where there are more cod.
>"When certain political writers have said that fishing is a kind of agriculture, they have said something that looks brilliant but has no truth. All the qualities, all the virtues that are linked to agriculture are lacking in the man who gives himself to fishing. Agriculture produces a patriot in the good sense of the word. Fishing only knows how to create cosmopolitans

Continuing from the same book:
>"He is not a La Bruyère of barbarism who spoke in these terms to the members of the Institut, but a sociologist of the age of inflation and paramilitary gangs. Rathenau and Hitler resound around him, hoboes climbing on trains and police on horseback. We don't see the trunks of majestic trees, but waste paper flying to Wall Street, in the silence of Sunday. We extract Talleyrand's Woodcutter from its frame of exotic woodland and discover Jünger's Worker: in him the uniform of the soldier and that of the worker already overlap, without even the need for steel storms to be unleashed. That man is a point of application of technical violence: his place can be anywhere, because his mind has lost the mnemotechnical loci on which to hang the images ("he has no memories to dispose of anywhere"). Shadow of him is the parasite, the Fisherman, the one whom society casually counts among its members, but does not belong to society. His inertia is malicious and hostile, he is one of the migrating Lumpen, proletarian jellyfish.
>"Woodcutter and Fisherman will one day find themselves enemies: for now, in American solitude, they share hatred for the land that still generously surrounds them. It is hatred for what grows and, as it grows, softens and wears out. Their rhythm is different: that of the blow, of the snatch, a metaphor for the gesture of the player who throws the dice. And in this devotion to the blow their cosmopolitan mission is discovered: the blow is the same everywhere ("it destroys everywhere: therefore every place suits them"), the plant has the flavor of a single place. The verbose citoyens that Talleyrand had left in Paris were still good and stolid agricultural patriots, but they already seemed archaic and out of date in the face of these two new masks who, across the frontier, experienced the gestures of burgeoning history.

>>17359785
Looks interesting, thanks.

>>17359694
This is very much true though. Even in the monarchies you see very early on a reduction to property concerns. This can be seen playing out as a cultural force as well, undermining property from within.
One of the opposite effects of decadence is the will to destroy wealth, even one's own. Quite the opposite of Nietzsche's idea that the great man can increase the value of objects past their limits.

>>17359785
It is worth keeping in mind how much earlier Tocqueville was speaking, not to mention the profound effects his thought generated. Nietzsche benefitted greatly from this, and also had the advantage of the strongest philosophy in modern times already laid out before him.

There is certainly a divide, similar to Schmitt and Junger, where one focuses on the laws and the other nomos-types, general forces, or psychology. But this cannot be discounted in Tocqueville, his vision is also wide and far-reaching. He pointed out how far back the conflict originated, as well as this neutralisation wherein whole continents were becoming more similar than neighbouring towns at the beginning of the modern period.
Much of his understanding is also that of theology, particularly in the pantheism which develops as a force to recreate all things as one.

>>17360603
This is also present in his early analysis of what we now call "planned obsolescence". But rather than class concerns we see in it political forces and the very reasons that such a universal man is being created.

Can the same be said of Nietzsche? More often than not, his vision is limited by his critique, or his perspectivism. The vision of law is not strong in his, he would even deny it. Much of what he stumbles on is accidental, and sometimes there are great errors. We see this particularly in the first quote posted on workers and tyrants, a good critique on the surface, but entirely wrong in the depth of the laws.
Workers are not merely slaves, and there is no indication of a movement towards tyranny or great men. As I have pointed out, and Tocqueville had done this, the great man is reduced just as much as the worker before the barricades. He is part of the general malady, and merely responds to providential forces.

>>17360634
And even if we set all this aside, it should be remembered what lies at the heart of Nietzsche's method. He follows, out of resentment, the sophists, whose entire thinking is that of democratic forces and appeals to them. Ironically, what serves as the source of Nietzsche's methods is also of the Greek decline. This indicates a lower type, being part of the leveling process, as is clear in the methods of a Callicles or Thrasymachus who appeals to the limited concerns, the general view or desires of the individual.
Even Nietzsche's idea that the worker class can be discarded is one with the leveling process, which sees the herd as easily replaceable. This is entirely common with socialism and fascism, which views the herd as a net zero. Liberalism also sees the herd as replaceable, but this is strengthened by a political theology in which the individual and a wealth of life remains (even if entirely abstracted).

>>17360671
The paradoxes are one of Tocqueville's great insights: the centralisation which forms along with democracy; the equality which increases division and disparity; the individualism which rises as part of the generalisation to a single type. Nietzsche cannot see these paradoxes because he cannot see the law of democracy. To see these contradictions would drive him to madness and weakness, because he was one of the great examples of such forces playing out.

>>17360704
Simply put, critique is entirely a force of the democractic mind, just as appeal to the majority is a force of the willless. This indicates Nietzsche's proximity to the types that he, on the surface, despises.
Nietzsche's desperation for power and recognition is a result of being entirely abandoned by power, just as a titanic individualism is an equalising force to the faceless worker. For all his stated desires for aesthetic life his main concern is that of knowledge, and, in the end, he writes an instruction manual to ensure that he is understood by the plebeians which he had first set out to write against.
One so adamantly opposed to the leveling process should have abandoned the idea of printing press use altogether.

>>17360761
This is the strength of a Tocqueville or Schmitt. Being able to see the impossible forces of a providential order brings with it humility. One cannot proscribe that which one is a part of, which is the source of the friend/enemy distinction. The new order can only rise from within, genealogy is only denied by those closest to its painful realisations.

One could write entire books filled with references where Nietzsche falls short of his predecessors - for example, Holderlin's Cerberus, or Goethe's death of god - however, a general picture of his falling short of the great laws should suffice. Even on his own territory, Nietzsche does not measure up.

>>17359785
>>17359790
>>17359799
>>17359811
These seem entirely barren descriptions, almost as if Talleyrand were as impoverished as what he describes.
Tocqueville's strength is in retaining sympathy for what he sees, a humility in approach before the law. Another who is capable of this is Platonov, who has much more cutting remarks than the worst of the conservatives in regards to the death character of the low classes. But his remarks are also true, not barren critiques which are also a reflection. This is possible only where there is a strength of law in the individual, a wealth of being.

>>17360840
For example, Tocqueville's description of the farmer's deadening process, in which trees are stripped of their bark and left to die, is a much more penetrationg vision. It is a metaphorical and synoptic insight, rather than the cold eyes of one who sees only an enemy, or his own weakness.

>>17360849
Who else would come to the conclusion that work is not the intent of the worker, that he is with each effort moving away from the work process? This can only come from one who is capable of seeing into the heart of such communities, even if completely foreign, and capturing the essence of their being. Work is not work for them, it is a powerful form of being and an elemental connection with nature.
One sees the results of this where every sector of society has been leveled into the work process, but where nature is no longer present there can no longer be a powerful order of work. This is where worker's movements develop, but these are in no way workers in the elemental sense.

>>17360671
>Nietzsche's idea that the worker class can be discarded
Where does he write about this?

>>17361466
Just the general sense in which he speaks of them. But there are plenty of examples, in the other thread it was discussed how they give way to the higher man, as if shed off like a husk of history. That quote may be HATH?
And where he refers to them being cast off as the devil's lot, mere statistics. There is an almost socialist tone in it. Can't remember that one but I'll look for it.

Bump

Can you tl;dr the argument?

>>17362857
Will to power is not essential in man.
It is rather a malady of the elemental ordering behind equality.
Which in turn may be of divine laws, even if God is Dead.
We see this in the drive towards the new order even from above; as in Tocqueville's commentary on kings.
This places Nietzsche squarely in modern historicity, the centralisation of the individual, and the will to equality.
This may be seen prominently in Nietzsche's character, although it lays buried in his writing and ideas.
This is most clear where he treats the greats like workers, as mere statistics to be tossedd aside.
While seeing himself as a Leviathan figure.
Hence he sees heroism and tyranny in the opposite sense of the Greeks, where equality is simply an occasionalism, or becoming, of the self-state.
He reduces the Greeks to mere aesthetic in order to be equal with theem.

>>17362984
>tossed aside
This only works in theory, and where aesthetics have been elevated into a god; romanticist formalism at its death.

>>17362984
Echoing liberal historicism his turn against the greeks is an aesthetic indifferentism; there is a monstrous quality in his thought, a Kantian hubris which must live with the world as if it were a gorgon.

>>17363068
This may be understood as an inversion of Holderlin's freeing the Germans from the tyranny of the Greeks; Nietzsche sees himself as completing the Greeks as a means to free himself into aesthetic tyranny.

>>17363096
There is ironically a Christian character to this. The eternal recurrence of the eschaton of the self.

Also keep in mind that the intent is not really a critique of Nietzsche. At the highest he should be read as a sacrificed figure (although there is danger in this). The concern is really an indirect means of understanding aesthetics in our time and the predominant idea that technical rationalism is in conflict with the poetic imagination. This in turn leads into the higher questions.

>>17362984
Lots of mistakes in that but I'm tired.

>>17359785
You're basically correct. You can see it in how he uses the word democracy. For example:

>Democracy is Christianity made natural: a kind of "return to nature" after, on account of its extreme antinaturalness, it could be overcome by the opposite values. Consequence: the aristocratic ideal henceforth loses its naturalness ("the higher man," "noble," "artist," "passion," "knowledge," etc.; romanticism as cult of the exception, the genius, etc.).

>Democracy represents the disbelief in great human beings and an elite society: "Everyone is equal to everyone else." "At bottom we are one and all self-seeking cattle and mob."

>European democracy represents a release of forces only to a very small degree. It is above all a release of laziness, of weariness, of weakness.

>In any case, even as a restless mole under the soil of a society that wallows in stupidity, socialism will be able to be something useful and therapeutic: it delays "peace on earth" and the total mollification of the democratic herd animal; it forces the Europeans to retain spirit, namely cunning and cautious care, not to abjure manly and warlike virtues altogether, and to retain some remnant of spirit, of clarity, sobriety, and coldness of the spirit—it protects Europe for the time being from the marasmus femininus that threatens it.

>"The will to power" is so hated in democratic ages that their entire psychology seems directed toward belittling and defaming it. The type of the great ambitious man who thirsts after honor is supposed to be Napoleon! And Caesar! And Alexander!—As if these were not precisely the great despisers of honor!

>The strata and class struggle that aims at "equality of rights"—once it is more or less over, the war against the solitary personality will begin. (In a certain sense, the latter can maintain and develop himself most easily in a democratic society: namely, when the coarser means of defense are no longer necessary and habits of order, honesty, justice, and trust are part of the usual conditions.)

>>17363773
Good examples. What is most interesting is the extent of his moralising, which highlights the reactionary will - moralising becomes a technical and overwhelming force, leading to blindness. A result of this could even be the drawing out of nihilism.
And aside from a few symbolic associations his understanding of democracy is entirely wrong.

>>17364432
>worse than moralism
i.e. instrumentalism and its connection with fate.

>>17364432
I wouldn't say it's wrong, when you can easily look at modern day cosmopolitanism and see exactly what he's talking about. Among the cosmopolitan population, for example American yuppies, the idea that anyone is morally superior to another in any way is generally laughed at and disregarded. Moral superiority of any kind is assumed to be impossible.

>>17364757
>not wrong
Fair enough. But compared with Tocqueville's insight into democracy they are weak. And at a high level of political philosophy they lead towards the coarse lie.
There is strength in how it is stated, which is what most are attracted to, but such methods can lead to doom, the opposite of truth.

In terms of moral superiority, we see nihilism or a decadent apathy, and yet there are also other groups ready to destroy great sectors much in the same way Germany and the old regime was destroyed. It is more correct to say that moral superiority has shifted into the most minor organisational differences, while the opposition is intensified.
The degrees in which morality searches out its perfect strata are narrowed, but within that smaller territory the effects become more violent. Tocqueville saw it in this way.

>>17365022
Grammar is so shit today.

>>17365022
In cosmopolitanism, I'd say that moral superiority has been replaced with political correctness, which isn't about morality. Morality requires a sense of the divine, e.g., it is derived from a deity or someone of noble birth. In cosmopolitanism, there are no deities and no one is regarded as being of noble birth. At best, you have people who are born to wealthy parents, and some do respect the opinions of the wealthy... but the wealthy class today is hardly a noble class, because as soon as that class tries to assert itself as being morally superior, political correctness comes in to reprimand it. Not to mention, wealth can easily be lost, so in short, the cosmopolitan simply doesn't consider the wealthy to be morally superior. The cosmopolitan sees no noble class and doesn't want one.

What you're left with is a society that doesn't believe in moral superiority at all, but other kinds of superiority. What you own, where you work, what people you know, how you look and conduct yourself, etc. However, whenever anyone with superiority in any manner tries to assert him or herself as morally superior, political correctness says "No!" and puts a stop to it. The mob of political correctness is the democratic mob, or the "everyone is equal to everyone else" mob. Political correctness is also something that changes over time, which is why "democrats eat their own" is a phrase. Just because you're politically correct today, it doesn't mean you will be tomorrow; being politically correct does not grant you any form of divinity, which means it does not grant you any form of moral superiority. Simply put, if cosmopolitanism is an expression of democracy, then clearly democracy does lead to the absence of a noble class.

>>17365022
>>17365198
So, what Nietzsche was really arguing, against democracy and with his idea of the Overman, was the continuation of a sense of moral superiority in society even as it becomes more democratic and as science advances and exposes the divinity of past aristocracies to be baseless. He didn't want us to lose our sense that a moral superiority was possible, because then we would have no center of gravity as a species, and everyone would eventually just isolate themselves in their little huts, pleasuring themselves to no end, avoiding all pain and consequently achieving or creating nothing of value compared to past ages.

On the one hand, Nietzsche makes many of the earliest democratic observations himself, for example, with his perspectivism... the idea that everyone has their own right and wrong, and that no one has a sense of right and wrong that is perfect or morally superior... but on the other hand, THROUGH those observations, he created a sense for a new divinity. Yes, no one is divine, not even the human species is divine, we are all animals and we each ultimately derive our sense of right and wrong from our unique perspectives; HOWEVER, there's still something that sets us apart, in fact it can only be detected once we arrive at all those conclusions, once we become democratic ourselves, and that's the will to power.

>>17359785
These quotes are from Calasso's Ruin of Kasch, if I'm not mistaken.

>>17365303
>the idea that everyone has their own right and wrong, and that no one has a sense of right and wrong that is perfect or morally superior
Is this not just free opinion? That was several hundred years earlier. Maybe even the 13th century.

>>17365345
Nietzsche's idea is a bit more radical than just free opinion, because "everyone" for him includes everything outside of the human species too. There is no divine being or species on earth. I'm not saying he was the first to have the idea, either.

>>17352651
What you call equality is simply the result of technological advancement and the indolent lifestyle that follows. There are more and better examples of democracy throughout history wholly devoid of centralized power or equality.

In short? You are stupid.

>>17365022
It's pretty insane to compare the the 'vanity of small differences' we see across the average westerner to the third reich and the degeneracy it was responding to. You should watch a documentary on Vienna in the 20s. It's like if everyone in metropolitan areas was a gay or a black instead of that being a minority, it's a complete sea change.

>>17363773
>>In any case, even as a restless mole under the soil of a society that wallows in stupidity, socialism will be able to be something useful and therapeutic: it delays "peace on earth" and the total mollification of the democratic herd animal; it forces the Europeans to retain spirit, namely cunning and cautious care, not to abjure manly and warlike virtues altogether, and to retain some remnant of spirit, of clarity, sobriety, and coldness of the spirit—it protects Europe for the time being from the marasmus femininus that threatens it.
I thought you guys Nietzsche wasn't actually a Nazi?

>>17365549
This is the rest of that passage:

>Socialism—as the logical conclusion of the tyranny of the least and the dumbest, i.e., those who are superficial, envious, and three-quarters actors—is indeed entailed by "modern ideas" and their latent anarchism; but in the tepid air of democratic well-being the capacity to reach conclusions, or to finish, weakens. One follows—but one no longer sees what follows. Therefore socialism is on the whole a hopeless and sour affair; and nothing offers a more amusing spectacle than the contrast between the poisonous and desperate faces but by today's socialists—and to what wretched and pinched feelings their style bears witness!—and the harmless lambs' happiness of their hopes and desiderata. Nevertheless, in many places in Europe they may yet bring off occasional coups and attacks: there will be deep “rumblings” in the stomach of the next century, and the Paris commune, which has its apologists and advocates in Germany, too, was perhaps no more than a minor indigestion compared to what is coming* But there will always be too many who have possessions for socialism to signify more than an attack of sickness— and those who have possessions are of one mind on one article of faith: “one must possess something in order to be something.” But this is the oldest and healthiest of all instincts: I should add, “one must want to have more than one has in order to become more*” For this is the doctrine preached by life itself to all that has life: the morality of development. To have and to want to have more—growth, in one word—that is life itself. In the doctrine of socialism there is hidden, rather badly, a “will to negate life”; the human beings or races that think up such a doctrine must be bungled. Indeed, I should wish that a few great experiments might prove that in a socialist society life negates itself, cuts of! its own roots. The earth is large enough and man still sufficiently unexhausted; hence such a practical instruction and demonstratio ad absurdum would not strike me as undesirable, even if it were gained and paid for with a tremendous expenditure of human lives.

>>17365587
>Indeed, I should wish that a few great experiments might prove that in a socialist society life negates itself, cuts of! its own roots. The earth is large enough and man still sufficiently unexhausted; hence such a practical instruction and demonstratio ad absurdum would not strike me as undesirable, even if it were gained and paid for with a tremendous expenditure of human lives.
This guy was a fucking psychopath

>>17365602
genius*

Hard to tell the difference though.

>>17365602
He was right tho

>>17352651
>central power
>democracy
pick one
literally an oxymoron

>>17365636
Retard filter

>>17365474
All of this occurs before technology.
Read more.

>>17365524
That wasn't my point. It was that minor reform movements now see the destruction of nations as a natural course.

>>17366661
No it doesn't. Read more.

>>17365587
The precise problem with socialism was growth, too much and too fast. It can also be seen as a form of becoming in which too much is stripped away - afterwards there is no possibility of healing.
Germany's weakness was, as Junger correctly points out, a result of an inability to reconcile with its socialism/the left. Within the world civil war a nation is crippled without such equalising forces.
The left and right may be seen as land and sea, or the human and beast of the centaur. Without the left-wing the nation is without its sea, or head, forces.

>>17366740
You haven't read Tocqueville.
You can try explaining how industrial tech causes the shift in the 13th century or you can stop shitting up the thread with bait.

>>17366740
And if you knew anything about democracy you would know that Xenophon comes to the same conclusion as Tocqueville.
Equality isn't just an economic or cultural phenomenon. It is a force within the morphology of state types.

>>17366767
Yeah because the 13th century is what comes to mind when one thinks of equality and democracy.

>>17366869
>CONSEQUENTLY Tocqueville did NOT understand democracy.
Good luck with that.

>>17365198
Yes, moral superiority is the wrong word for it, even though something resembling morality remains. Or in the sense of post-consequentialism, values are little more than a means to drag people along with the transitional order.
Morality is replaced with instrumentalism, and formalism with ossification. Real domination, as the marxists identify the order, is only an accumulation of forces, not the intent.

>>17365303
But is Nietzsche's concern a moral one, or aesthetic?

Bump

>Nor is this phenomenon peculiar at all peculiar to France. Whithersoever we turn our eyes we shall witness the same continual revolution throughout the whole of Christendom. The various occurrences of national existence have everywhere turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have aided it by their exertions: those who have intentionally labored in its cause, and those who have served it unwittingly; those who have fought for it and those who have declared themselves its opponents, have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to one end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly; all have been blind instruments in the hands of God.
>The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress. Would it, then, be wise to imagine that a social impulse which dates from so far back can be checked by the efforts of a generation? Is it credible that the democracy which has annihilated the feudal system and vanquished kings will respect the citizen and the capitalist? Will it stop now that it has grown so strong and its adversaries to weak? None can say which way we are going, for all terms of comparison are wanting: the equality of conditions is more complete in the Christian countries of the present day than it has been at any time or in any part of the world; so that the extent of what already exists prevents us from forseeing what may be yet to come.

It turns out that Tocqueville was a religious person and was consequently interpreting history through a religious lens. It turns out that the satirical take "CONSEQUENTLY TOCQUEVILLE DID NOT UNDERSTAND DEMOCRACY" might as well be true. It is hard for a person to take seriously a religious interpretation of the history of democracy. I imagine that such an interpretation would be laughed at by historians. Consequently, the truth of Tocqueville's assertions about the history of democracy would only be proved by proving the truth of Christianity, which is a monumental task. It is better to remain skeptical of all such grand interpretations of history.

>>17368183
Additionally, it is a good idea to take a look at what OP wrote about the quote that I highlighted. OP writes "democracy is providential, it is of a great order that no man can contest with." Is this really something that is found within the quotes that I highlighted above? OP also writes that "power, as a means of this great order, is the very cause of democracy." Does Tocqueville say that at all in the highlighted quotes? It seems to me that OP is trying to interpret some sort of metaphysical thesis or deep statement of power out of Tocqueville despite Tocqueville not really saying anything of the sort. If we take a look at instances where Tocqueville mentions power, we see that he is talking about it in an ordinary sense.
>"...landed property was the sole source of power. Soon, however the political power of the clergy was founded..."
>"The transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political influence..."
>"In the course of these seven hundred years it sometimes happened that in order to resist the authority of the Crown, or to diminish the power of their rivals, the nobles granted a certain share of political rights to the people."

In all of these cases we see that Tocqueville is not making some grand assertion about power, but is instead talking about power in an ordinary sense, specifically the political sense. OP's assertion that 'power...is the very cause of democracy' is only trivially true insofar as political power is necessary for there to be any form of government at all, i.e., there is no democracy without power. Tocqueville himself doesn't seem to claim that power is the cause of democracy. He instead starts his interpretation of the history of democracy by looking at the church's assertion of its political power, but he does not tell us why or how this happened. He writes, "Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded, and began to exert itself." He does not offer a cause for the self-assertion of the church's political power nor does he offer an explanation of how this self-assertion occurred. Tocqueville does not write anywhere anything to the effect of 'power... is the very cause of this democracy."

>>17368183
So according to you any religious thinker should be ignored? Pull your head out of your ass.

>>17368309

To be a bit more charitable to OP, we should note that OP actually wrote "Power, as a means of this great order, is the very cause of democracy." What does OP mean by this? He says earlier that 'democracy is providential, it is of a great order that no man can contest with." In my earlier analysis, I wrote that this quote of Tocqueville's, that 'democracy is providential', essentially asserts that the history of the rise of democracy is evidence of God's will. He applies a religious interpretation to history. When OP writes 'it [democracy] is of a great order that no man can contest with', he is basically saying that democracy is of God's order. And when he writes 'power, as a means of this great order, is the very cause of democracy', he is really saying nothing other than "God is the cause of democracy". As I have said before, Tocqueville's statements on the history of democracy are therefore grounded upon the truth of Christianity. If Christianity is true, then Tocqueville's interpretation of history may stand. If Christianity is false, then they fall. To lend further credence to the idea that Tocqueville's interpretation of the history of democracy is fundamentally religious, one should note that Tocqueville writes that "It is not necessary that God himself should speak in order to disclose to us the unquestionable signs of His will; we can discern them in the habitual course of nature, and in the invariable tendency of events: I know, without a special revelation, that the planets move in the orbits traced by the Creator's finger." It is impossible to maintain that Tocqueville's interpretation of the history of democracy is some grand statement about power or whatever. It is wholly a religious interpretation of history.

(All quotations here are from the Introduction of Tocqueville's Democracy in America).

>>17365198
>Morality requires a sense of the divine, e.g., it is derived from a deity or someone of noble birth.
fucking lel. What is wrong with beta males and deifying a made up hierarchy by the ruling class.

>>17365198
>What you own, where you work, what people you know, how you look and conduct yourself, etc. However, whenever anyone with superiority in any manner tries to assert him or herself as morally superior, political correctness says "No!" and puts a stop to it.
lol all those people have transvalued all the patriarchal racist values and what you call a putting a stop to this is just putting a stop to old deprecated values. The overman has won you have failed dwt.

>>17368183
>>17368389
I'm not surprised you've only read the introduction.

>>17368183
>It is hard for a person to take seriously a religious interpretation of the history of democracy. I imagine that such an interpretation would be laughed at by historians.
What's happening?

>>17368430
He's right though.

>>17368448
You misread that part. The politically correct mob doesn't like it when anyone with "privilege" tries to assert themselves as morally superior. Privilege and political correctness also changes over time as the mob grows in numbers and diversity. In cosmopolitanism, which is the modern democratic landscape, no one considered morally superior survives the mob for long.

>>17352651
>Tocqueville's understanding that democracy rises in hand with centralising power?

A perennial idea, the Christological advent is strictly top-down, the crucifixion strictly bottom-up.

>>17369927
Are they not together?

>>17368430
There's no such thing as morality just like how there's no such thing as truth when there's no "center of gravity" to rely on. An astronomical object moves in a void without a sense of direction without it. Morality and truth work in the same manner. The mob is the void, which is why they have no sense of direction and slowly but surely consume and convert everything into the mob. Wherever there's still a center of gravity, the mob labels it as "privilege" and seeks to eradicate it.

>>17370237
Why should we make the mob the center of truth?

>>17370254
We shouldn't. I'm not advocating for the mob. The mob can't be a "center," it's anti-center. If there was only a mob, then it would be total anarchy, no up or down, no sense of progress in any field, no strength or weakness, no greatness, etc. A sorry state of affairs for mankind.

The wisdom of Solon - If Nietzsche had read the Greeks he would have known that the fortunes of men may only be judged after their deaths. Much as the law of his age, he struggled only against death, so could not see its wealth. The worker dies in his fields, leaning against his machines - a Cleobis or Biton figure, even if tortured. Where they are not carried off in wagons by oxen the towers and workshops mourn for the entire city. The greatest wealth in history as inheritance or sacrifice is given by them. Nietzsche, in endless search of fortune, finds only recurring death - the whole of Greece laughing as Chrysippus. Consequently, Nietzsche did not understand fortune. His death less than that of a worker.

The wisdom of Solon - If Nietzsche had read the Greeks he would have known that the fortunes of men may only be told after their death. One with the law of his age, he struggled only against death, and so could not see its wealth. The worker dies in his fields, wounded by time leaning against his machine - a Cleobis or Biton figure, even if tortured. Where he is not carried off in a wagon by oxen, entire cities cry out in mourning from the sirens of towers and workshops. The greatest wealth in history as inheritance or sacrifice is given by them to the future. Just as they work against toil, they work against the unending future. И шли вы, гpeмя кaндaлaми. (And grudgingly you went with fetters on your feet.)Nietzsche, in eternal search of fortune, finds only recurring death - the whole of Greece laughing, as Chrysippus, within the history of his consciousness. Consequently, Nietzsche did not understand fortune. His death lower than that of lowest worker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjauwKb42d4

>>17370586
>If Nietzsche had read the Greeks
What's up with retards on here repeating this? He was a philologist. Do none of you know what that word means?

>>17371155
>when neetch say thing it universal
>when someone else say thing it nothing
Retard.

>>17371295
I just want to know what leg you think you can stand on with that statement when he literally:

>knew Greek and Latin
>taught classes at a university on the Greeks
>published papers on the Greeks as a philologist
>had books on the Greeks in his library
>even traveled with Plato's Laws at one point according to a letter

Didn't read the Greeks? Are you insane?

Interesting thread.

>>17371372
He was blind so carrying the books was just for pseud points.

>>17371484
Oh okay, so you're just trolling. Carry on then

>>17371155
>>17371372
>>17371555
It's obviously a joke.

>>17371609
Yes, already figured that out.

>>17371155
>He was a philologist
Why do you think this is relevant? You're a follower of a life-affirming philosophy but you're all dull as shit.

>>17371640
Clearly not.

>>17371684
>Why do you think this is relevant?
Because it means he read Greek texts in the original language.

>>17371694
What do you think trolling means? Look at the post above yours.

>>17371714
Sorry, anon, but you're fucking dumb. You should stop reading since it clearly hasn't helped.
Maybe you can get your money back on that unmmarked Herodotus...

>>17371746
yawn

>>17371756
You're only proving why a step away from Nietzsche is necessary. You've made him into an idol for last men.

>>17371821
Is this really how you like spending your Sunday?

>>17371834
lmao. Why wouldn't I? Isn't the purpose of this place to learn?
It's empowering to know when one has stumbled on a truth.

>>17371940
whatcha learning bro, other than how to waste people's time

>>17372034
I learned that Nietzscheans cannot and do not read (no offense to those who engaged in good faith).
I already knew that from the countless bait threads, and the cowardly responses anytime Nietzsche's stupidites are brought up, but it's always nice to have more proof. And definitely not wasting my time because I learned a lot with this thread.
As a good Nietzschean, you're only capable of projecting. What are you doing wasting your time here when you can't even read?

>>17372145
Dude, you seem autistic. Lighten up a bit.

>>17372211
>DUDE WHY YOU MAKE JOKE
>DUDE LIGHTEN UP A BIT
So this is the power of the will to power. Thanks for keeping the thread bumped, retard.

>>17372274
The joke was dead over an hour ago. Also, I contributed to the thread, I don't mind bumping it.

>>17372297
What post is your contribution?

>>17372341
This thread brings up a question answered here:
>>17365022
In its purely technical aspect it is a bit like diminishing returns, where the resources have become depleted a much greater effort is required to complete their extraction. This often occurs at a loss. At first the organisation ossifies, then it decays, or feeds on itself.
Morality is perfect in establishing being, or even becoming in many cases. But in great shifts there is a mechanical quality to change, becoming reveals its destructive qualities and to strip away the old order its morals must die or be replaced by something else.

Morals are simply not enough for the neutralisation process in the transitional period. It is the same as what Tocqueville says of American monuments, they must take up a much greater territory and force while also disappearing into nature to achieve the same effect. This is essentially the law of technology in the modern era. One does not overcome morality, it becomes instrumentalism.
It is a mistake to characterise this as a religious effort, it is a stripping away of the sacred into the profane. Hence why it takes so much more effort to achieve the same results as a moral society, the elements are weakened.
Junger said of Nietzsche that he moralised three times as much as an amoralist.

>>17372347
The ones with quotes from Nietzsche and on cosmopolitanism.

Did you learn anything from that?

>>17368183
>>17368309
>>17368389
Missed these. Thanks for the effort response at least. Give me a bit to answer you.

>>17368183
All of the best histories are written by religious people. And there is no reason to believe that anyone would laugh at Tocqueville, he is the historian of democracy, a Herodotus figure, and arguably the greatest historian of modern times.
There is also no reason to think that just because a Christian writes a book related to secular topics that he must prove the truth of Christianity within the separate subject. That is a ridiculous assertion. A fisherman can still appreciate vegetables, and he may also grow them, even if he is not an expert. The quality of the vegetables will not be lowered by the fact he is a fisherman, if he is intelligent he may even be able to adapt his skills to his garden - a net for his beans perhaps.

This is all aside from the fact that even modern democracy begins as a Christian idea, or at least the founders were all Christians. It is commonly understood as a schism, but as Tocqueville points out it has providential elements. This is to see deeper into the question, and without this one is not even seeing democracy, only its effects.

>>17372528
>>17368183
And I'm not a Christian, just in case you think that is the reason for my position.
Who do you think is a better historian of democracy?

>>17368309
>democracy is providential, it is of a great order that no man can contest with
>it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress
You think these are saying the opposite?

>>17368309
How is divine decree simply power in the ordinary sense?
How much Tocqueville have you read? Although I don't know that this matters given that you're misreading basic things.

>>17368309
You should also keep in mind that in reading one is not necessarily attempting to regurgitate ideas of others, especially when you know they are engaged in a comparison.
To have a philosophical discussion it is necessary to read beyond single sentences or paragraphs, often engage the whole of an author's works, and even fill in metaphysical laws so that the engagement is with forces and ideas rather that the individual and the material.
This is necessary for any thinking which is not simply labour.

>>17367388
Both. Without any moral center of gravity, the unaesthetic mob will quickly absorb those who are or can rise above it in character, mind, and talent. That's why he created the Overman, as a new ideal, but one that also doesn't operate as a classic ideal does and rely on any past moral systems, which he knows will soon become impotent and disappear. He's very careful in creating a new goal that can support the democratic mob while also leveraging it.

>>17368389
To be of a great order does not necessarily imply something like occasionalism, that all things are but an occasion of God. It means that the great laws are of that realm, even where god is diminished.
This is where Nietzsche's Death of God is weak in comparison to that of Goethe, or Schiller. Like you, he believes that the order must end in its entirety. But this is not possible, the laws remain even in the absence of god, they may even be increased - one of the great lessons of theology, and which Tocqueville alludes to in his remarks on pantheism.
(I think pantheism was likely what I was discussing in those comments, but i'm not going back to them.)

>>17368389
Finally, can you have power without a religious order? The answer should be obvious given the state of the modern world, all power is dispersal, a negation.
We are at a point now that people are desperate to explain all the madness around us, but there is no power in the secularised ideas, even though they are formed through the plundering of the whole of history. Instead, people look to religious answers to explain the clown world we live in. But the power in the answers is lost because they do not know how to think in religious terms.

>>17372755
But is the overman not an aesthetic consideration first and foremost? Nietzsche does not make law as the formative order, he is even against law and form, says they are untrue.
He also speaks of aesthetics as the highest consideration in life, and that the greatest men are to be the example one strives toward. This suggests that morality is a subordinate consideration, or even impossible when we consider Nietzsche's more extreme position of subjectified heroism.

>>17372755
Also, his ideal of the great men contradicts this given that it is entirely a 'classic' ideal (and partly the brutal men of his own age).
Ironically, this is also what disappears completely, or even happened before Nietzsche's time, as Tocqueville suggested.
Laws are strengthened in our age, at once deepening in elemental force and becoming invisible, as in magical qualities. That he thought any of this was new just reveals his blindness, and his obsession with innovation is entirely a product of his time, the concerns of lesser men who do not see that in their great transformations that they are being dragged along by fate.

>>17372755
And "moral center of gravity" seems contradictory to any possible reading of Nietzsche. Eternal becoming cannot exist with a moral center of gravity, they are exact opposites.

>>17372848
>But is the overman not an aesthetic consideration first and foremost?
It's one possible configuration of Nietzsche's will to power, or the Dionysian. The Dionysian in The Birth of Tragedy was an early form of the will to power in his thought, and as he fleshed out the idea, he also arrived at another idea, the Overman. It's not a goal so much as a result of chance (which is what makes it "earthly"). It's not a hero or saviour figure, or an evolutionary event, but "the lightning to lick you with its tongue...the frenzy with which you should be inoculated" (Zarathustra).

I suppose you could call it an aesthetic consideration, then, if we surmised that Nietzsche's moral-aesthetic rested on this Dionysian earthly chance that requires the disassembling of institutions and dissolving the individual into an intoxicating cosmic punch bowl in order for the potential for it to arise. However, it's important to frame it this way, and not as something that is the result of necessity, because then you risk labeling Nietzsche as simply another classical moralist or aesthete.

>>17372934
Read his God is dead passage in full.

>>17373262
This is precisely what I am getting at. It is not a hero, saviour, etc. It is a substratum, the same way that all modern thought is limited and conditioned by the substratum.
It is an aesthetic power equal in its force to technical systems. And an inversion, or Copernican revolution of heroism, no longer outside, but inside. As Diomedes absolute power and humility returns to creation, there is in him the total violence of the law. In Nietzsche there is a hubris of aesthetic force, but in comparison to a hero it is nothing (or even a negative).

>>17373262
He is also completely wrong about the Dionysian. How does this effect what he is building? I think the end of his life reveals this.

Further, one may assume that if Homer destroyed the Greeks, wouldn't Achilles be an even lower being? Given that the greatest hero is an actor, and Homer his famous poet. This greatest of acts would then completely falsify Nietzsche's philosophy, leaving him with not only an aesthetic striving, but a bad one. Unless he points to an alternative to Homer and Achilles, I'm not aware of anything though.

In any case, it is probably one of Nietzsche's worst ideas, showing not only his bad character but also judgement.

>>17373375
The significance of this should be obvious, since the closest to the superman would be someone like Achilles. It indicates a man who would even turn on himself - it is an aesthetics of devastation. We also see this in his work, in its tortured and fatalistic criticism.

>>17373375
I think the issue here is that you refuse to address Nietzsche on his own turf, which is deeply entrenched in 19th century philosophy and science, and instead keep bringing him to an outsider's turf. You're never going to topple his ideas or philosophy this way because you're not actually addressing him.

Also, whether Nietzsche was "wrong" about the Dionysian or not isn't really important. Later on, he dropped it in favor of his will to power idea anyway, only occasionally bringing up Dionysus still like in reference to an earlier work. Ultimately, you have to address the will to power if you want to address Nietzsche.

>>17373262
With God is Dead, I am not sure your meaning. Do you mean time, danger, and absolute freedom of the sea? That is on the side of what I meant with eternal becoming (or infinite is more appropriate to his meaning in that passage), but I do not see how that would be a moral center of gravity. Would it not be premorality? (In the same sense of prehistory)
Time has also proven a move in the opposite direction, that only a god, or his ground/laws, can save us. The further we moved towards the atheist death of god, rather than the christian, the weaker people became. If anything the most desperate search for god begins, much like the search for buried talents.

>>17373456
Why should I fight on his turf, especially when he is the type to just run away?
It's a curious position to appeal to humanism as well, was this not precisely the period of decline he was against. And I don't know what exactly I got wrong. Perhaps you can point it out.
Is it that attempting to speak in terms of metaphysics, dialectic, and laws is impossible because Nietzsche said there was no truth? That would imply that there can be no turf.
Just what are you trying to get at?

>>17373456
My position is also not outside the 'turf' of 19th century philosophy. I've mentioned Goethe and Holderlin, and I allude to other thinkers. (It's literally a Tocueville thread)

And perhaps you can explain how a Dionysian philosophy built upon a false idea of Dionysus is irrelevant. Is this the great power of perspectivism at work?

>>17373456
>you have to address the will to power if you want to address Nietzsche.
It was. That's the main point, or at least its origin.

Bumpd

>>17373461
I said to read the passage in full because in it he treats God as a moral center of gravity. It's not a contradictory reading of Nietzsche at all, that's precisely what the God is dead line means. There is no longer a moral center of gravity to refer to, and that's the dilemma that the West faced in the 19th and 20th centuries.

>>17373482
>Why should I fight on his turf, especially when he is the type to just run away?
If you don't fight on his turf, then you're not addressing him. Pointing out that his idea of Dionysus may not be accurate to the Greeks' idea of the god doesn't refute him at all. Will to power is the idea you have to address, not the historical accuracy of his usage of Dionysus in one book.

>And I don't know what exactly I got wrong. Perhaps you can point it out.
For starters, you called it one of his worst ideas, when it's easily his most original and the most vital to his philosophy. If you don't understand the will to power, you can't understand any of his other ideas. The Overman, eternal recurrence, and amor fati don't make sense if you can't make heads or tails of the will to power.

Will to power is a difficult concept to talk about. It's easier to say what it isn't than to say what it is. That's why you have to read between his lines to understand it.

>>17373498
It's still outside his turf, because you're not really addressing his ideas. You're addressing an interpretation of an ancient society that he held in his younger years. He himself called The Birth of Tragedy something of an embarrassment in Ecce Homo, even though it had inside it all his major ideas in an embryonic form. The interpretation of the past as outlined in The Birth of Tragedy isn't the same as what he thinks.

>>17373936
That doesn't work though, as Nietzsche did not believe in that center of gravity.

>>17373936
>worst ideas
I was referring to his comment that Homer destroyed the Greeks. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. Saying that the greatest, or second greatest, artist of all time was bad for art is one of the dumbest things ever said. One up from his attack on Socrates, because at least some would be stupid enough to accept Socrates 'ruined the Greeks'.
No one in their right mind would accept Homer. It's pure resentment and/or bad character.

>>17375051
He lived through its death and it concerned him. He embraced and was happy for its death, but he wasn't naive or shortsighted enough to ignore the negative consequences of the event: nihilism and the growing mob that seeks to disparage and dilute the will to power. This makes Nietzsche a "democratic man" since the death of God is part of the development of European democracy, but he's also one who is aware of both the positive and negative sides of democracy.

>>17375101
Still irrelevant to the argument. So your characterisation of him is wrong, and not on his turf.

>>17375083
But what did Nietzsche mean with those comments? Can you tell me that? The meaning is related to his greater project, and his idea of the will to power.

>>17375230
>Still irrelevant to the argument.
How so? What argument, exactly?

>>17373936
And Nietzsche never risked his own life for the will to power. There is nothing to suggest that he even attempted to return to action.
So what basis is there that it is some vital force of the cosmos when its creator didn't even follow it?

>>17375243
You said that Nietzsche had a moral center. But Christianity being important to Europe's past has nothing to do with Nietzsche's moral center of the future. It's doubly wrong.

>>17375243
Yes, subjectified heroism. But just because his attack on Homer makes sense in his philosophy, which is bad to begin with, doesn't make the argument good. Subjectified consequentialism is like saying the burning of the Great Library was good because the arsonist liked fire.
It's idiotic to say that Homer made Greek art more shallow. In fact, there really are no words for how stupid it is. Yet, here you are defending it in shallow terms.
What does this say? As I said, Nietzschean is Kantianism made sick.

>>17375283
Also, it's difficult to say that it is part of his philosophy given that he constantly turned against his own thinking. It is simply a matter of course in his thinking to switch between slave morality and infinite becoming. The dismissive manner in which he deals with the greats and even himself is simply a matter of one who sees history as a creation within the cathedral of the self, one which will later be burned down.
Elsewhere I have given it more care, in the sense that Pindar attacked Homer. But this is acceptable given Pindar's intent, and an equal care to what Homer was attempting; the power of law is overwhelming in both of them. Nietzsche has no care for the law, or really anything but his own feelings. He deals with matters like a scorned teenage girl, or a Thersites.

>>17375250
What do you mean by risk your own life? How is it related to the will to power?

>>17375262
Nietzsche wanted us to continue to have a sense of a moral center. Without one, the species would devolve into mob. On the one hand, democracy is responsible for the destruction of Christianity (despite also being an evolution of it), for the death of God, and for the disappearance of a moral center, and these things increase the potential for the Overman, so they're good; on the other hand, they also increase the power of the mob, which seeks to eliminate the Overman, and hinder the will to power wherever it flourishes. This Nietzsche views as bad and synonymous with sickness or weakness. His moral center is the will to power and it's what he gave to us to replace God.

>>17375283
You haven't yet told me what the meaning of the comments is. If anything, this is what's irrelevant to the argument. Do you think he was disparaging everything about Homer and Socrates with those comments or something?

>>17375320
>turned against his own thinking
For instance, that in one moment he wants the independence of the Greeks, another democracy, another still tyranny, and finally, what is likely closest to his aesthetics of selfishness, the lowest form of permanent civil war.
This is really what his attack on Homer, following his attacks on all the other amounts to, the will to power is tied to democratic thought, only at the extremes. It is of a man who believes in fighting only where he will remain alone. The heroism of Achilles as a substratum of the underworld and a categorical imperative. Even though it would seem Achilles is one of his endless list of enemies.

>>17375329
The will to power isn't a moral center.

And what does it matter that he didn't write a critique of everything they said. The fact that he said Homer made art shallow is dumb enough on its own. The reality is that Homer raised the heroic violence to the highest possible aesthetic while Nietzsche larped in his room about the aesthetic life whiloe being ncapable of understanding its basics (at least when compared to the Greeks, let alone Homer).

>>17375388
It can function as one and does for the Overman, who is the ultimate configuration of the will to power. Nietzsche derives his idea of good and bad, healthy and sick, strong and weak from it. The mob also despises it for this reason, because the mob despises all moral centers and wants them gone, preferring to operate without them.

>The reality is that Homer raised the heroic violence to the highest possible aesthetic while Nietzsche larped in his room about the aesthetic life whiloe being ncapable of understanding its basics
Wrong and also a fallacy and irrelevant. Nietzsche's comments are more nuanced than you understand them to be and it's because you're ignoring what the will to power is and how it works as a moral center in his philosophy.

>>17375434
How is it wrong? What was so bad about Homer? I really want to see what he got wrong in heroism and violence.
As for a Nietzschean complaining about fallacies? LMAO

>>17375434
And the will to power was already btfo multiple times in this thread. If you don't like my argument, show how Junder is wrong. Keep in mind that he (or his brother) is considered the only true heir to Nietzsche.
The ability of a philosophy to have use in the real world - as in its potential for action - is obviously important. Your suggestion that it doesn't only goes to show Nietzsche's proximity to ultrademocratic values and subjectification.
Nietzsche promoting a philosophy of action while not partaking in it is also obviously significant. How much value/power can a philosophy have if the creator turns to immediate heresy? Zero, or a negative.

Tocqueville on the infinite perfectability of man in democratic and aristocratic societies

"Continual changes then pass at each instant before the eyes of each man. Some worsen his position, and he understands only too well that a people or an individual, however enlightened [it or] he may be, is not infallible. Others improve his lot, and he concludes from this that man in general is endowed with the indefinite faculty of perfecting himself. His reverses make him see that no one can flatter himself with having discovered the absolute good; his successes inflame him to pursue it without respite. Thus, always seeking, falling, righting himself, often disappointed, never discouraged, he tends ceaselessly toward the immense greatness that he glimpses confusedly at the end of the long course that humanity must still traverse.

One cannot believe how many facts naturally flow from this philosophic theory according to which man is indefinitely perfectible, and what a prodigious influence it exerts even on those who, always being occupied only with acting and not thinking, seem to conform their actions to it without knowing it.

I meet an American sailor and I ask him why his country’s vessels are built to last a short time, and he replies to me without hesitation that the art of navigation makes such rapid progress daily that the most beautiful ship would soon become almost useless if its existence were prolonged beyond a few years.

In these words pronounced at random by a coarse man concerning a particular fact I perceive the general and systematic idea according to which a great people conducts all things.

Aristocratic nations are naturally brought to contract the limits of human perfectibility too much, and democratic nations sometimes extend them beyond measure."

>>17375767
This situates Nietzsche within the democratic and neutralising force of becoming. But not only this, as it is equal to the technical and telluric quality of machine production as well, the planned obsolescence of all creation, all acts.
This can be likened to what Schmitt says in the intellectual activity which brings forth the creation from the future. Nietzsche is not simply in the middle of a democratic idea of becoming, but a Christian one.

>>17375790
The comments on aristocracy are significant as well, since they highlight the opposite paradox that placing limits is the only path to freedom and being. Again, Diomedes being the highest example of this, dionysian violence which is a return to creation, not a blind leap into the future, where all that remains is the utmost violence (in terms of numinous law).

What allows for this higher order is the perfectibility which frees itself, not in the death of every moment, but in metamorphosis where all elements are raised to the highest while working in conjunction. This is what Goethe says of nobility, and it is the sense of power the gods have - the freeing of the proteus. The gods are strongest where they master what they have inherited, not in separating from the elements but extending them. Where they become separated there is weakness, a defeat of the will and striving before the highest laws. This is what Homer mastered in his works, and what Nietzsche attempts to profane in his secularised heroism.

>>17375790
how does this place nietzsche within the 'democratic and neutralizing force of becoming?' also, where (book + aphorism number) does nietzsche say that 'homer made art shallow?'

Bump

>>17375715
It's wrong because 1) you're making it sound as if Nietzsche discredited Homer on all accounts, when he never does that with anyone, and 2) Nietzsche did understand the basics.

>>17375735
>And the will to power was already btfo multiple times in this thread.
I haven't seen the idea addressed with an original thought in the whole thread other than by myself. As for Junger,

>Will and success are not identical, and therefore the will to power by itself does not accomplish anything.
>The assertion of an all-present will to power remains lopsided unless the higher authority has been established, without which this will to power can be neither convincing nor successful.
Nietzsche basically agrees with all that, so it's not a refutation.

>The will to power, in contrast, strives for power, because it doesn't have it. It is a poor will; that is why it is so greedy for power.
This is a misunderstanding of what the will to power is. It isn't, as he suggests, a will that only exists when there is a lack of power. As Nietzsche puts it:

>A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.

The will to power is immanent, something that occurs even when a "living thing" "discharges its strength," i.e., already has power. In fact, that's precisely when the will to power becomes expressed the most vividly in the world.

>Nietzsche promoting a philosophy of action while not partaking in it is also obviously significant. How much value/power can a philosophy have if the creator turns to immediate heresy?
He obviously DOES partake in it. What, do you think that the will to power can only be expressed in a single kind of action? What do you call everything he wrote? That was him "discharging his strength," and imposing his will on the world.

>>17375767
>Aristocratic nations are naturally brought to contract the limits of human perfectibility too much, and democratic nations sometimes extend them beyond measure.
Replace "human perfectibility" with "will to power" and that's what Nietzsche's stance is. While their philosophy is different, I'm not seeing how any of this makes Nietzsche what you say he is.

>>17377905
I literally just said that he didn't go against Homer on everything. And that's not the point in any case. Please don't make idiotic arguments to try and drag the discussion down.

You're picking similarities to suit your purposes in the Junger comments. They clearly aren't the same. Again, stop trying to drag the discussion down to your level.

"Not an original thought besides me." Now you're just being a faggot.

"misunderstanding of what the will to power"
Again, you're reading things as if people must accept the will to power and Nietzsche's doctrine. You need to learn to read and understand the difference between critique and dialectic.

>>17377905
>imposing his will on the world
>redditors who can't read
>liberalist-marxists
How'd that work out for him?

>>17377960
Once again reading at a surface level.
Ask yourself, what is the original argument?

>>17377978
>I literally just said that he didn't go against Homer on everything. And that's not the point in any case.
To be honest, I don't know what your point is with the whole Homer thing, other than to try and "one up" Nietzsche on a secondary issue. If you sourced the quote like the other poster asked you to do it might be easier to see what you're getting at.

>Again, you're reading things as if people must accept the will to power and Nietzsche's doctrine.
No? If you want to refute an idea, you have to talk about the idea, lol. Junger obviously doesn't understand the idea and I just showed how.

>You need to learn to read and understand the difference between critique and dialectic.
You need to learn to think and understand the difference between refuting an idea and refuting a straw man.

>>17377989
>>17377997
Cowardly responses. Why bother continuing with you if all you're going to do is avoid the argument?

>>17376088
You're a different poster?
Because if the drive towards absolute power and infinite perfection is unique to modern democracy then Nietzsche is in line with this mode of thought. (This is aside from many other connections.)
This is strengthened by the opposite order in which the ariostocrat recognises his natural limits, the limits of power, and is strenghtened by this. At the surface this would seem unlikely, that striving for power would be more freeing than setting limits, but what is unique to the modern transitional period is that the great becoming of power is also an undoing of power. It is a destructive and neutralising process.
Nietzsche's power can only be seen within this, it is one with destruction and isolation. This can also be seen in primitive societies that do not grow, or in civil wars of the court, at best there is a surface appearance of great violence, and ossification of structures. But in terms of real power there is only decline.

The Homer quote is in Human all too Human. I'll have to look up the number later.

>>17378035
>only one to post anything substantial
>no you're the coward
You haven't made any arguments. You're treating Nietzsche like a god and misreading things to suit your purposes.
Be honest, do you really think that Junger's comment about weakness was an attempt to explain the will to power in Nietzsche's terms?
You cannot see the forest for the trees.

>>17378073
>The Homer quote is in Human all too Human. I'll have to look up the number later.
The only thing in that book that I see that might be related is this:

>Homer.—The greatest fact in Greek culture remains this, that Homer became so early Pan-Hellenic. All mental and human freedom to which the Greeks attained is traceable to this fact. At the same time it has actually been fatal to Greek culture, for Homer levelled, inasmuch as he centralised, and dissolved the more serious instincts of independence. From time to time there arose from the depths of Hellenism an opposition to Homer; but he always remained victorious. All great mental powers have an oppressing effect as well as a liberating one; but it certainly makes a difference whether it is Homer or the Bible or Science that tyrannises over mankind.

Nothing really suggesting that Homer made art shallow, unless I'm overlooking it. Is that the passage you were referring to, though?

>>17378106
>You're treating Nietzsche like a god and misreading things to suit your purposes.
I haven't done that. Again, Junger doesn't understand the fundamentals of the idea, so his argument doesn't work against it. You said that will to power was "btfo multiple times in this thread" and that simply hasn't happened.

>>17377905
>>A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.
Again, why didn't Nietzsche do this? Because he didn't have any power, he was a selfish decadent who didn't care about anything but succubus aesthetics.
Compare his efforts to Goethe, who was not only using art to create the greatness of his life, but the world plan of his era. That is power, strength, and incredible wealth, and it appears willless in its becoming.
This proves Junger's comment that Nietzsche's gluttony for power is because he had none. Much of it is really just self-resentment for his Christianity. The same can be said for the egoism/extreme individualism of the era, the building of the cathedral of the self. The individual was dying, and the reaction was at once trying to save it while giving it a burial.

Nietzsche was entirely of his era. Power and the age of great men was coming to an end, individuals were losing any sense of strength or ability to take meaningful action. Nietzsche's fetish for power was in simple terms a LARP, the building of the image of heroism in his mind. But he didn't understand heroism so he was left to take ideas from others and then crudely dismess them as a replacement for his own character.
He resented his own lack of power. That was the only power he had, the defense of nothing on the way to a worthless death.

>>17378138
>Junger doesn't understand the fundamentals of the idea
How so? Your other comment was a clear misreading because he was discussing power as being, not Nietzsche's idea of the will to power.

>>17378138
>fatal to Greek culture
You don't see that as damning?
Your translation is curiously missing this bit:
>for Homer made Greek culture more shallow

>>17378226
>>17378138
The German
Aber zugleich ist es das eigentliche Verhängniss der griechischen Bildunggewesen, denn Homer verflachte, in dem er centralisirte, und löste die ernsteren Instincte der Unabhängigkeit auf.

Your translation is bad.

>>17378174
>Again, why didn't Nietzsche do this?
You mean why did Nietzsche choose to philosophize? But philosophizing itself can be a form of discharging one's strength, especially if one's strength is "untimely" as Nietzsche put it. In the above passage I posted, where he says that Homer became Pan-Hellenic earlier than other Greeks, we could say that Nietzsche became Pan-European earlier than other Europeans, meaning that his type / strength came too soon, and he had no choice but to philosophize, prophesize, and be poetic in the meantime.

>This proves Junger's comment that Nietzsche's gluttony for power is because he had none. Much of it is really just self-resentment for his Christianity.
Disputed in my comment above.

>>17378198
>How so? Your other comment was a clear misreading because he was discussing power as being, not Nietzsche's idea of the will to power.
I already explained how, not to mention you just admitted that Junger was not talking about the idea at all, so how do you suppose he understood it if he's not even talking about it? lol.

>>17378226
>You don't see that as damning?
Not really, because he's saying two things at once. On the one hand, Homer was Pan-Hellenic, achieving the maximum of "all mental and human freedom to which the Greeks attained" before any of them did, able to make both sides of the conflict appear "good" thanks to this great freedom, a truly great artist. On the other hand, it weakened the natural instinct to seek out a good versus a bad among the Greeks, crippling their culture in the long run. It goes back to our talk on the moral center of gravity and how its weakening or total disappearance is what's really damning to life and what Nietzsche is really concerned about.

And this is all besides what should be an obvious point, how is Homer responsible what happened at Troy? This is the same as his cursory dismissal of Socrates, Goethe, or countless other figures.
One can make the argument that he is doing this to make a greater political and philosophical point. But the problem remains that much more is lost than gained. opposed to Odysseus' counting up of coins Nietzsche is reduced to shaving off gold.
It seems his heroism is too big for his stomach.

>>17378296
>But philosophizing itself can be a form of discharging one's strength
Nietzsche was against philosophy and for action. So he refutes himself by repeatedly taking the side of his enemy.
>Disputed
You mean in your misreading of power as something that is an occasion of Nietzsche's will? I don't think you understand what power means. Otherwise, prove this wrong:
>What such an exaggerated will for power achieves is like the work of a bad artist who wants to depict strength. In order to create the impression of extraordinary strength, he exaggerates all muscles and proportions except that basic proportion from which alone the power of a figure can become effortlessly manifest.
>On the contrary, it is deeply significant that our idea of the highest power is one of divine calm, and that we associate the sublime, not with motion, but with a majesty which rules from rest.
There are countless examples of this throughout history. Rather than brute force a king often must step away to give power its course. This is also how Holderlin understands power, the significance of not acting as a divine right.

>>17378296
>you just admitted that Junger was not talking about the idea at all
Not at all what I said. Why do you think making things up will help you here?

>Homer was Pan-Hellenic
What's he going to do? Build a time machine? Simply deny the Trojan war and greatest hero of all time?

I appreciate you taking the time to post here but I have to say you waste most of your effort trying to distort things and deny any of Nietzsche's errors and grave stupidities. Just look at the way you dismissed the significant point that in order for Nietzsche to have his larp he has to coldly dismiss the greatest artist of all time.
There's something to the idea of loss of gravity, but this was already discussed much better in the myths, and in the presocratics/Socrates with the elements. They also did not have to dismiss the greatest artists of all time, they revered them.
The correct reading of Homer is exactly what I have said, rather than a decline to which we moralise against (while pretending we're against enslavement to morality) the Trojan war tells us of the end of the heroes, but also the rebirth through the greatest of heroes. It is a metamorphosis.

The myths are a great reminder that there is something beyond ages. The point is not of decline, but of a whole order through the laws of the world. The elements shift, but their strength remains throughout all ages.
Nietzsche did not understand the mythic thinking of the Greeks, and so he did not understand the Greeks. He only tried to understand himself.

Also, what are your influences besides Nietzsche? You have not read Tocqueville or Junger, so who have you read to get an understanding of democracy and the modern era? And the Greeks?

>>17378399
>Nietzsche was against philosophy and for action. So he refutes himself by repeatedly taking the side of his enemy.
He takes himself and all philosophers to be a type of decadent, yes. However, even in decadence Nietzsche was a healthy specimen; that's why he rejected himself at every turn. From Ecce Homo:

>To look upon healthier concepts and values from the standpoint of the sick, and conversely to look down upon the secret work of the instincts of decadence from the standpoint of him who is laden and self-reliant with the richness of life—this has been my longest exercise, my principal experience. If in anything at all, it was in this that I became a master. To-day my hand knows the trick, I now have the knack of reversing perspectives: the first reason perhaps why a Transvaluation of all Values has been possible to me alone.

This is what makes Nietzsche such a unique thinker. He is a decadent through and through, but he philosophizes in the service of the opposite, without coloring it with his decadence. He suffered for every bit of philosophy he wrote without letting himself be treated as a martyr.

But this is besides my point, which was that Nietzsche can hardly be criticized for not discharging his strength and living according to his own philosophy.

>What such an exaggerated will for power achieves is like the work of a bad artist who wants to depict strength. In order to create the impression of extraordinary strength, he exaggerates all muscles and proportions except that basic proportion from which alone the power of a figure can become effortlessly manifest. On the contrary, it is deeply significant that our idea of the highest power is one of divine calm, and that we associate the sublime, not with motion, but with a majesty which rules from rest.
Nietzsche's idea of the will to power isn't some macho "might is right" fantasy.

>Rather than brute force a king often must step away to give power its course.
When a king steps away to grant power its course, he is still discharging his strength. That's still the will to power. The will to power is immanent — do you follow?

>>17378498
>Not at all what I said.
>he was discussing power as being, not Nietzsche's idea of the will to power
Looks like that's what you said. Power as being has nothing to do with Nietzsche's will to power, so whatever is said about power as being, it's not an address to Nietzsche's ideas. Really, I don't know why I've had to repeat this like 5 times now, since it's such a simple thing to grasp. If you don't talk about an author's ideas, you can't refute them!

>What's he going to do? Build a time machine? Simply deny the Trojan war and greatest hero of all time?
What the hell are you talking about?

Also useful pointing out one of Xenophon's introductions, how power even escapes most kings. This would be in agreement, or at least it is related to, Tocqueville's comment on the providential and men responding to its order and force.
Nietzsche likely never even read this, or at least he refused to understand it, partly out of his resentment for Socrates. And perhaps more importantly, his refusal of the providential and great laws limits the extent of his understanding of power; which we see play out in his frequent returns to surface arguments and banalities.

-----

Also worth mentioning the humanism here. To assign divine right to the author is part of a limited discourse, and through this limitation the appearance of violence opposition takes hold. This is, again, a necessity of the democratic process - an increase of forces, if in limited regions, which coincide with leveling.

>>17378566
>Nietzsche was a healthy specimen
Okay, let's step away for a moment.

>>17352651
nietzsche was a bit chunky

>>17378590
He was healthy in that he had sufficient power to remain focused on his own personal task despite the fact that it placed him among decadents in his respective time period. I forget where, but somewhere he likens the philosopher to a comet in an age where the culture doesn't know what to do with philosophers. In such an age, a philosopher seems like a madman, flying by violently and suddenly. Decadence, as it were, is relative, and being that he had mastery over the idea of relativity, he was able to retain the healthiest values despise being a decadent in the present era.

I agree that I waste most of my effort here, but it's because everything I explain to you escapes you. You don't seem ready for grasping Nietzsche's philosophy.

>>17378742
You don't seem ready for philosophy. You drank the kool-aid.
Nietzsche, at least in terms of his thought, would have preferred a ruthless attack, not a bunch of simps turning him into an idol for their dogmas. A more generous reading is certainly possible, but it is pointless when people have lost sight of what philosophy is, turning a 'master morality' into academic slavery.
You're such a lowly worker in your efforts that you don't even know what logic is, just a petty slave to a master who humiliates you.

>>17378073
>drive towards absolute power and infinite perfection
where do you get 'infinite perfection' from? the text from your excerpt says 'man in general is endowed with the indefinite faculty of perfecting himself.' the original french also says 'Les autres améliorent son sort, et il en conclut que l’homme en général est doué de la faculté indéfinie de perfectionner' and tocqueville titles the chapter 'COMMENT L'ÉGALITÉ SUGGÈRE AUX AMÉRICAINS L'IDÉE DE LA PERFECTIBILITÉ INDÉFINIE DE L'HOMME.' he doesn't write 'infinite' anywhere in this section, only 'indefinite'.

>>17378812
>Nietzsche, at least in terms of his thought, would have preferred a ruthless attack, not a bunch of simps turning him into an idol for their dogmas.
I fully agree.

>You're such a lowly worker in your efforts that you don't even know what logic is, just a petty slave to a master who humiliates you.
I don't know what efforts you think I'm making or not making. I'm posting in your thread where you misunderstand Nietzsche's ideas and my explanations post after post, because (at one point) I thought you were ready for them. That's all that's visible to you.

>>17378862
Let's go back to your original commentary >>17365198
I was generous in spite of your obvious youtube education. After this your rude responses, disingenuous takes, and complete lack of logic began to wear on the quality of the thread, which is why I suggest stepping back for a bit.
Again, you're unable to distinguish between critique and dialectic, attacks on diffuse arguments and raising the discourse to metaphysical laws rather than the doctrine of the individual.
This is clear in your ability to read Junger's very straightforward arguments. So you should go back and deal with what I said honestly. How is his comment on power as "divine calm" incorrect? And how is the comment about the 'bad artist who lacks proportion' not an exact criticism of Nietzsche's idea of power? In this you have to keep in mind the separation of the dialectic and the critique.
Prove you can do this if you want to raise the level of discussion rather than dragging it down. That is what an aristocratic and healthy soul would do.

>>17378849
The title of the chapter is infinite in my version, the Goldhammer translation. Unfortunately cannot find a digital version for easy copying.
In any case, infinite is implied in his arguments (not just the single section posted).

>>17378849
Indefinite is just another word for infinite.

>>17355608
Democracy is going to crash the world dumbass, look at India and the decline of the US for recent examples.

Nietzsche is obviously correct. Stop with the literary references and acknowledge these facts: a natural hierarchy exists and people are not all equal, and do not all deserve the franchise.

>>17379067
>t. another person who hasn't read Tocqueville

>>17378938
>Again, you're unable to distinguish between critique and dialectic, attacks on diffuse arguments and raising the discourse to metaphysical laws rather than the doctrine of the individual.
I'm not "unable" to do these things. I simply don't need to, because I'm here trying to clarify Nietzsche for you and nothing more. There are no metaphysical laws within his philosophy. Talking about such laws would only obscure him, and if you're trying to understand him through such laws, you'll always fail.

>How is his comment on power as "divine calm" incorrect?
It isn't. Nietzsche wrote, "Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness—that means cynically and with innocence." Cynically and with innocence here means the same thing as divine calm. It is not a comment on power that is contrary to Nietzsche's power.

>And how is the comment about the 'bad artist who lacks proportion' not an exact criticism of Nietzsche's idea of power?
Because you are projecting a false conception of Nietzsche's power onto him. The Overman is sublime. He's a configuration of the will to power by chance. The will to power is all of us and at the same time not exactly us. It's a name for something that can't have a name, like nature or universe. Can you point to nature or the universe (not parts of them, but they in their totality)? No. But you know what the words refer to, you understand their totality through thought.

Another word for power, in the Nietzschean sense, is growth. Will to growth is the same as will to power in his philosophy. The individual of "divine calm," or who speaks "cynically and with innocence," is one who has grown successfully and who is the most capable of growing further. Violence, tension, neurosis, and so on, are not the ideal; they are perhaps intermediary states that can lead to the leveling of the self and/or the world which is necessary for increasing the chance of that configuration of the will to power called the Overman to come into existence, but they don't portray the Overman himself. The Overman is a sublime figure.

>>17379102
>discuss the metaphysical laws Junger is referring to
>There are no metaphysical laws within Nietzsche's philosophy.
Way to out yourself as a fucking retard yet again. Go back to your youtube videos.

>>17379126
Keep reading, because next I said:

>Talking about such laws would only obscure him, and if you're trying to understand him through such laws, you'll always fail.

Are you interested in talking about Nietzsche, or Junger? Didn't you bring Junger into this in order to argue against Nietzsche? Well, Junger's argument against Nietzsche doesn't work. I don't care about what Junger thinks, only that what he thinks about Nietzsche is false.

>>17379126
>>17379145
And what's interesting about that passage from Junger is that he describes something very similar to the Overman, while simultaneously acting as if his idea is original. He distances himself from Nietzsche in writing while not actually doing so philosophically.

>>17361466
He doesn't, higher culture requires slavery

>>17379145
Why should I read anything you have written when you keep demonstrating stupidities and a complete lack of logic.
The Junger comment, AGAIN, is not attempting to subscribe to Nietzsche's doctrine, it is describing power as it is. It is not anything one with power ever obsesses over, rather it is other laws which give rise to power.
Your Nietzsche comment, picked not for truth but as a m,eans of defense, is not about one with power, but how it is viewed. Again, it is one who is without power. In this case it is passive, but there are countless examples which would discredit this, as in Nietzsche's character which is in no way divine calm, but one who lacks power, cannot move to action, and attempts to topple great men with words.

Junger's comment is about power as action, not an aesthetic of one without power. Pretty basic logical differences if you had ever read someone besides Nietzsche.

The problem here is that you are not able to see the essence of what is said, you simply want to defend your perspective of what is right (Nietzsche). This causes all aspects of the discourse to come back to critique, and defense of your human idol.
In a word, leveling. You are concerned with free opinion and making an idol for identity, nothing more.

>>17379227
>The Junger comment, AGAIN, is not attempting to subscribe to Nietzsche's doctrine, it is describing power as it is.
And that's why Junger's conception of Nietzsche is false and why his argument is a non-argument against him. I already understood this.

>In this case it is passive, but there are countless examples which would discredit this, as in Nietzsche's character which is in no way divine calm, but one who lacks power, cannot move to action, and attempts to topple great men with words.
Nietzsche is not the Overman and never regarded himself as such. This is another non-argument against him.

>Junger's comment is about power as action, not an aesthetic of one without power.
And yet Junger's divine calm is equal to Nietzsche's innocent cynicism. The distinction you're making here doesn't even really exist.

>The problem here is that you are not able to see the essence of what is said, you simply want to defend your perspective of what is right (Nietzsche).
Essence is tied to a perspective. Unless you approach essence that way, you're talking in an echo chamber, not at Nietzsche.

>>17379160
Earlier you said we have to contend with the will to power, now it is the Overman. Just shifting things as you need to.
You seem to be very confused about ideas and philosophy. One can come to similar ideas on the surface while disagreeing in essence.

The question here may be understood if we reformulate the old, 'man as man to another man' (homo homini homo). Let us take power as man to another man, or man as power to another man. There is a clear differentiation in this, the line of sight, the cosmology of man is shifted. And it is precisely the difference between aristocratic man and democratic man that Tocqueville describes.

>>17379285
Nietzsche seems to be only concerned with man as power to another man.
To clarify this, one can look at the highest, Goethe's noble as noble to another noble. Achilles wrath is precisely due to the fall of one of these areas, noble as tyrant to a man. His revolt is entirely justified as nattle against the beginning of an ignoble order.
But is this not precisely how Nietzsche sees things? Man as power to another man? And the aristocrat as tyrant to another man? Or perhaps more accurately, Man as power to the aesthetic.
Here we have a weakening, clearly set out in the language of the ancient world. It becomes undeniable on which side Nietzsche stands.
But no doubt you will still try.

>>17379258
>Junger describing power in terms that are not Nietzsche's means that he doesn't understand Nietzsche even though he understands power
>he has to unwillingly accept Nietzsche as truth if he is going to critique him, which is impossible
Do you really not see how stupid your argument is?

>>17379258
>Nietzsche being inconsistent and not following his philosophy is irrelevant to his philosophy because elsewhere he was also inconsitent

>>17379285
You have to contend with both, since the ideas are philosophically connected.

>>17379319
>Nietzsche seems to be only concerned with man as power to another man.
>But is this not precisely how Nietzsche sees things? Man as power to another man? And the aristocrat as tyrant to another man?
Yes. You're getting warmer now.

>Here we have a weakening, clearly set out in the language of the ancient world. It becomes undeniable on which side Nietzsche stands.
With his will to power as new moral center of gravity and Overman as the ultimate configuration of that will to power, yes, it is undeniable on which side Nietzsche stands. He stands on the side of the new aristocracy, one that emerges out of democracy but which also opposes it and its expression, which is the mob.

>>17379258
>only the surface matters, so Nietzsche being a hypocrite and not actually moving to action is irrelevant because there is only surface, which is power

>>17379340
>he has to unwillingly accept Nietzsche as truth if he is going to critique him
Not true. You just have to have an understanding of Nietzsche's ideas. It doesn't appear to me that Junger has a very good understanding of them.

>>17379258
>Essence is tied to a perspective
Dumbest shit ever
>>17379355
But it was wrong to connect the will to power to its origin in the dionysian, because that clearly weakened it.
All you're doing is proving how shitty Nietzsche's philosophy is, and how entrenched it is in the doctrines of free speech and scientism. (It is good no matter what, even the critique only strengthens it)

>>17379365
But you haven't read Junger, just like you haven't read Tocqueville.
What have you read? You seem worried in answering.

>>17379383
>Dumbest shit ever
What's dumber is thinking you're capable of grasping any other kind of essence.

>But it was wrong to connect the will to power to its origin in the dionysian, because that clearly weakened it.
How so? It apparently obscured it for you and other scholarly types who can't think without referring to established, academically-approved terminology, but that's all. Not much of a blunder all things considered.

>>17379391
I've read Nietzsche, who you haven't read. You made a thread about a philosopher you haven't read. The real fraud here is you. But I'm not interested in playing this game because I'm not petty enough for it. Explaining how your arguments fail to make a meaningful impact is good enough for me.

>>17379355
>You're getting warmer now.
There we go. The power of ancient thinking over the democratic.
Thank you for finally acknowledging that I'm right. Now we can set Nietzsche aside and talk about power as a mere result rather than a center.
It is what is grounded, not what grounds.

>>17379408
>But I'm not interested in playing this game
Damn, you've spent a lot of time here against your will...

>>17379400
>How so?
You said we had to leave it aside, that it could not be brought up next to the will to power.
Fucking no memory either.

So now that we're done with that, let's go back to the topic.

>>17379414
>There we go. The power of ancient thinking over the democratic.
You are a legit schizo.

>>17379435
>You said we had to leave it aside, that it could not be brought up next to the will to power.
And you jump to way too many conclusions. I guess it comes with your low capacity for understanding meaning through context. The reason why he dropped the Dionysian as the primary identifier of his idea is because he realized that using it as the primary identifier only served to obscure the idea for many of his readers. His reading of the Dionysian in Greek tragedy was correct, but his idea goes beyond the Greeks.

>>17379030
is this true?

>>17379510
>his idea goes beyond the Greeks
Jesus. The level of simping is unbelievable.

>>17379575
His idea of the will to power is what I meant there. That's why he switched over to that term from the Dionysian. Learn to read.

>>17379523
>>17375767
Can't really comment on the exact French (don't know it). But look at the context.
>Others improve his lot, and he concludes from this that man in general is endowed with the indefinite faculty of perfecting himself. His reverses make him see that no one can flatter himself with having discovered the absolute good; his successes inflame him to pursue it without respite. Thus, always seeking, falling, righting himself, often disappointed, never discouraged, he tends ceaselessly toward the immense greatness that he glimpses confusedly at the end of the long course that humanity must still traverse.

The meaning is very similar, although indefinite is likely a better translation for a deep reading. (It distinguishes more clearly as a duality as well, between the aristocrate which is definite becoming and the democratic which is indefinite (infinite but also shifting, and perhaps limited in reality, weaking in certain areas while greatly empowering in others).
That section is also pretty much word for word Nietzsche's will to power.

>>17379285
>>17379319
>'man as man to another man' (homo homini homo). Let us take power as man to another man, or man as power to another man.
This is a really interesting way to put it and probably the best criticism I've seen of Nietzsche. Is this in Tocqueville's book? Any more readings on this?

>>17379067
You're retarded.

>>17380005
Not him, but what makes that a criticism?

>>17378566
>not understanding metaphors

>227 replies
>0 images
>15 posters
this is the kind of autism I come to /lit/ for. I will consume this thread when it archives. delightful show, gentlemen.

>>17379618
hmm... what does nietzsche mean by 'will to power'?

>>17379102
How is cynicism the same as divine calm?

>>17380524
Innocent cynicism. The innocence implies a clean conscience (divine), while the cynicism implies prudence when dealing with others (calm).

>>17380664
Nietzsche didn't believe in divinity though. And it's innocence and cynicism not innocent cynicsm.

>>17380688
>Nietzsche didn't believe in divinity though.
But what's meant by divine calm other than that?

>And it's innocence and cynicism not innocent cynicsm.
Same shit.

>>17380524
>>17380664
>>17380688
You'll never get an honest answer out of him. He just makes shit up as he goes along.

>>17380507
Good question. Our Nietzsche expert should answer that since every other possibility is wrong.
I would say this is evidence for it being entirely negative. A positive definition would be nice to see. But I'll give a non-nietzschean answer later.

>>17380005
I'm not aware of Tocqueville saying this, it's my own formulation based on Schmitt's "man as a man to man." There are others throughout history, as in man as man to god, or man as man to beasts.
What Schmitt's formulation implies, and this is much like Zeno's forms, is that the power of the age is already set within the nomos. It cannot be increased, and rather than a will to power than can only be reordering and neutralisation to the law. Rather than power what is needed is a strong politics to ensure that man as man to man reaches its highest level.
We cannot achieve the power of the Greeks or Romans, however, in law the highest character of man can be established for our era.

Nietzsche is like someone who denies nature and the passing of the seasons. As if one can eternally fight and consume power. Hence the unnatural state and tortured character of much of his thinking. It's an exhaustive striving to go beyond without knowing what that really entails.

>>17381200
There are other formulations possible here as well. Man as man to land. Man as man to sea. Man as man to worker, and so on.
I think it is good because it gives a sense of direction and hierarchy to form. Or in other words sets the form within dominion.
For instance, if we reverse it to god as man to man, we have the theological state of euhemerism. This is a weakening of the gods to the order of man, much in the same way as a cosmology shifts with the imagined center of the universe.
In Homer and Hesiod, and much of myth, one may see man as god to the gods, or man as god to the laws. This is essentially what heroism means. Placing Nietzsche's heroic idealism within such a framework would give us a sense of power, or dominion.
Man as hero to aesthetics seems the most correct to me. The limits of this should be fairly obvious.

>>17380507
>>17381158
The best explanation I gave was in this post >>17379102

>The will to power is all of us and at the same time not exactly us. It's a name for something that can't have a name, like nature or universe. Can you point to nature or the universe (not parts of them, but they in their totality)? No. But you know what the words refer to, you understand their totality through thought.

>Another word for power, in the Nietzschean sense, is growth. Will to growth is the same as will to power in his philosophy.

It's a Schopenhauerian will, as in something synonymous with nature and the cosmos. As Schopenhauer wrote:

>He will recognize that same will not only in those phenomena that are quite similar to his own, in men and animals, as their innermost nature, but continued reflection will lead him to recognize the force that shoots and vegetates in the plant, indeed the force by which the crystal is formed, the force that turns the magnet to the North Pole, the force whose shock he encounters from the contact of metals of different kinds, the force that appears in the elective affinities of matter as repulsion and attraction, separation and union, and finally even gravitation [and now the strong force and the weak force which both operate at subatomic levels], which acts so powerfully in all matter, pulling the stone to the earth and the earth to the sun; all these he will recognize as different only in the phenomenon, but the same according to their inner nature. He will recognize them all as that which is immediately known to him so intimately and better than everything else, and where it appears most distinctly is called will. It is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man, and the great difference between the two concerns only the degree of the manifestation, not the inner nature of what is manifested.

Nietzsche's sense of the will was learned from Schopenhauer.

>>17380507
>>17381306
There. A fairly straightforward answer.
I think it's important to keep in mind the unknowable quality, the will as replacement for the thing in itself. In this sense, we have a void, or vis inertiae rising up against the dualism of mind and body. As we see with it, the world of the intellect is not necessarily lowered, but that of the elemental body raised to a higher point.
Will for power may be a better phrasing for English given the connotations of the will as decision of the intellect, and freedom as opposed to determinism.

To give a non-Nietzschean reading of it, one can look to Xenophon's Cyropaedia. In the introduction he points out how power is lost not only to servants but the highest kings. If power were an inertia of the will, in the sense of being, this would not happen. But it is almost always that people fall short of power, even in these so-called 'healthier' times as Nietzsche put it. If anything, power should have been greater in those times, and like a map in the head of a dog would guide him home, even as he grew old and blind.
The Nietzschean response would of course be that this is not a failure of power, but a contest, that others were taking where one is losing. This would occur much like the web-like patterns of the Kantian intellect. The proximity with Kant is another sign of the poor quality of Nietzsche's philosophy. It is really a weakening of the elemental in man, and the will acts as a desperate consumption of the elements of power, not knowing their value or meaning This is something below Plato's tyranny and the lowest elemental men.

Power in Ancient Greece was really attained through the strength of laws, the nomos basileus. This is clear in Diomedes who had no interest in power, his power was a natural consequence of the strength of law within him. He was even willless, showing nothing but humility where he fought with the gods. This is closer to Schopenhauer's sense of the will than Nietzsche's, although such comparisons are dangerous given that the Greeks did not think in these terms.

>>17381698
Also interesting is that the closest thing to the will may be Plato's daemon. The mythological connection is lost however, and instead of man as daemon to the gods we have man as will to power. The indistinct, indefinite nature of this should speak for itself, although one can also say that the inner light of the Christians becomes an inner darkness. The willless aspect of Nietzsche clear in his inability to step away from Christianity, he remained determined by it, his resentment only brought him closer to its laws.

In this there is also secularisation, values become unspeakable, profaned into the abstraction of power. The noumena becomes a center rather than transcendental object of humility before ideas. Destructive power is the natural result of this.

One may understand this better through a sense of movement. Holderlin speaks of truth, the great power it holds over the will. This may lead us away from truth towards the coarse lie. What this implies is that our essence may not be our own, our will may be taken, destroyed by subterranean forces. Our will then becomes entirely entirely against our essence or fate. This would be against the will to power, and something more like the will of power. Or more accurately the will against fate which characterises the modern period. Man as the power of fate; or man as the power against fate. Nietzsche's death reveals where he stood.

Achilles, again, may be the highest example. In him fate was definite, and he stood between the law of his nation and the law of time. There was no striving for power in him, there does not have to be when one has a higher wealth of values than what can be attained through power. Instead, he was willing to give his own power away, even that of his nation's. He fought instead for fate and the metamorphosis of laws in time. He was raised to the highest heroism because of this.

In this we have the hero as god to time. A will for power would have destroyed Achilles and his nation. Thersites is the image of the will for power in the ancient world.

>>17381698
>>17381705
One should also keep in mind here that Nietzsche's overall philosophy is of power, the dionysian, the Overman - or growth as the other anon put it. There is a lot of disagreement on it because Nietzsche was noit clear himself, and often contradicted himself from one paragraph to the next.
The best course is to attempt consistency. The will to power, as it relates to metaphysics rather than Nietzsche himself, is thus negative. It is a filling of the void, which is pulled as much as it is willed. One who is dragged along by fate (even if on the surface Nietzsche says he is for fate).
In the same way that the eternal return is not a mythical or theological idea (it is a thought experiment) the will to power must be read against theology and the mythical world. It is thus psychological in its form, or primarily an aesthetic, which would explain why Nietzsche never attempted to move towards action. It was not really part of his will, or essence, only a consequence of critique. Or even the very form of it.

>>17380702
That makes no sense.

>>17381705
Both Achilles and Thersites are images of the will to power. It doesn't make sense to call only one an image of it.

To briefly elaborate on >>17382065

To make it a bit clearer, change out "will to power" with "will to growth" as I mentioned before. Power is growth.

Achilles is like Zarathustra in that the next step in his growth is to go down the mountain and create new laws with his fire. His growth isn't done, but it has become a going under / going down.

The will to power is only positive. There is no negative expression of the will to power. The grasping at power and the giving away of power are both positive expressions of the will to power.

A "positive" expression just means a possible configuration of the will to power. There can't be a "negative" expression of it, much like how zero can't exist.

Nihilism is also a positive expression of the will to power. It is the will to power of a will that rejects power as value. In the grasping at power or the giving away of power, it rejects power as value.

A "healthy" will to power is one that accepts power as value. Whether it is grasping at power or giving away power, the will to power that accepts power as value is "healthy." Whether it is grasping at power or giving away power, the will to power that rejects power as value is "sick." In this sense, both Achilles and Thersites are "healthy" expressions of the will to power.

Basically, Nietzsche supports all expressions of the will to power (i.e., all configurations of it) so long as they do not reject power as value. This is why he seems "contradictory."

Bump

It is interesting how Nietzsche identifies Goethe, Wagner, and romanticism as nihilism. Aside from owing a great debt to them, they represent the highest values of the age. Particularly in Goethe and Holderlin there is an equivalent wealth and truth to that of the Greeks.
If we take the most critical stance on romanticism - that it is subjectified occasionalism - we are still left with an incredible force of being, of holding onto values even to the point that the world is strengthened by one's wandering. There is a Midas quality, even if only in the mind, and as Schmitt rightly points out Nietzssche is of these values but falls far short of the private priesthood.
At the highest, particularly in Holderlin's romanticism, we see the salvation of Germany, Man, and trhe entire era. The whole of life is perfected in becoming. It anticipated Nietzsche's philosophy, but in wealth, and without resentment and the devastated form of modern becoming. Its nihilism is defeated through the vine, and without need of a "why?".

>>17384368
Tocqueville's commentary on democratic art is wholly applicable to Nietzsche and his dead romanticism:
"I have often remarked that Americans, who generally treat affairs in a clear and dry language deprived of every ornament, whose extreme simplicity is often vulgar, willingly run to bombast when they want to enter into poetic style. Then they show themselves relentlessly pompous from one end of the speech to the other, and to see them thus squander images at every turn one would believe that they have never said anything simply."

>>17384437
"We have seen, moreover, that in democratic peoples the sources of poetry are beautiful but not abundant. In the end one soon exhausts them. Not finding more material for the ideal in the real and true, poets leave them entirely and create monsters."

>>17384450
"In democratic societies each citizen is habitually occupied in contemplating a very small object, which is himself. If he comes to raise his eyes higher, he then perceives only the immense image of society or the still greater figure of the human race. He has only very particular and very clear ideas, or very general and very vague notions; the intermediate space is empty.

When he has been drawn out of himself, he therefore always expects that he is going to be offered some enormous object to look at, and it is only at this price that he consents to tear himself for a moment from the small, complicated cares that agitate and charm his life.

This appears to me to explain well enough why men of democracies, who generally have such slight affairs, demand from their poets conceptions so vast and depictions so excessive."

>>17384368
Nietzsche's attack on 'Goethe's pantheism' is also curious given his admiration for Heine. He misses the subtlety in Heine's writing on pantheism, Goethe escapes the attack. And this is the correct reading as Goethe is a Midas figure rather than a pantheist.
Central in Nietzsche is always the human: himself. Rather than pantheism we see in him a permanent state of heretical indifferentism.

>>17384368
where does nietzsche say goethe is a nihilist/nihilism?

>>17384522
He is an occasion of the world as if it had already been defeated. The future birth of creation is perpetual, but as a lone man.

>>17384524
Will to Power

>>17384570
can you post the quote?

>>17384538
>>17384368
This should read "with nihilism."
Romanticism is the preparation for nihilism, the gloom before it.

>>17384581
"7. The nihilistic consequences of historiography and of the Unpractical historians," i.e., the romantics. The position of art: its position in the modern world absolutely lacking in originality. Its decline into gloom. Goethe's aIlegedly Olympian stance.
8. Art and the preparation of nihilism: romanticism (the conclusion of Wagner's Nibelungen)."

>>17384368
In another sense, this is a result of historical time. nietzsche loses sight of the natural course of the seasons, the mythic power of winter as the greatest giver of wealth. Strange for one enlivened by pain.
His teleology of the aging of civilisations and art prefigures Spengler's pessimism of the winter. But one must see a second spring before appreciating Schubert's WInterreise.

>>17384596
i see. i ended up searching for goethe + olympian in nietzsche's notebooks from 1886-1888 and didn't find any instances of the excerpt from will to power. all i found was

>"Die „Reinigung des Geschmacks“ kann nur die Folge einer Verstärkung des Typus sein. Unsere Gesellschaft von heute repräsentirt nur die Bildung; der Gebildete fehlt. Der große synthetische Mensch fehlt: in dem die verschiedenen Kräfte zu Einem Ziele unbedenklich in’s Joch gespannt sind. Was wir haben, ist der vielfache Mensch, das interessanteste Chaos, das es vielleicht bisher gegeben hat: aber nicht das Chaos vor der Schöpfung der Welt, sondern hinter ihr, der vielfache Mensch. — Goethe als schönster Ausdruck des Typus (— ganz und gar kein Olympier!)"

i can't read german, so forgive me for relying on bad translations. it comes out to "The "purification of taste" can only be the consequence of a strengthening of the type. Our society of today represents only education; the educated man is missing. The great synthetic man is missing: in whom the various forces are unhesitatingly yoked to one goal. What we have is the multiple man, the most interesting chaos that has perhaps existed so far: but not the chaos before the creation of the world, but behind it, the multiple man. - Goethe as the most beautiful expression of the type (- not at all an Olympian!)" or "The “purification of taste” can only be the result of a strengthening of the type. Our society today represents only education; the educated is missing. The great synthetic human being is missing: in which the various forces are unhesitatingly clamped in the yoke towards one goal. What we have is the multiple human being, the most interesting chaos that may have existed so far: but not the chaos in front of the creation of the world, but behind it, the multiple human being. - Goethe as the most beautiful expression of the type (- by no means an Olympian!)". in any case, it seems to me that the will to power quote (at least no. 7) doesn't have any basis in what nietzsche actually wrote. we should always remember that the book 'will to power' was never published by nietzsche himself, but instead was a hackjob compilation by his sister.

>>17384761
That's because it's from 85-86. But that's good since it shows how even when attempting to praise he couldn't escape making a passive-aggressive remark.

7. die nihilistischen Consequenzen der Historie und derJo „ p r a k t i s c h e n Historiker" d. h. der Romantiker. DieStellung der Kunst: absolute U11 Originalität ihrer Stellung in der modernen Welt. Ihre Verdüsterung. Goethesangebliches Olympier-thum.
8. Die Kunst und die Vorbereitung des Nihilismus. Romanis tik (Wagners Nibelungen-Schluß)

>>17384761
>>17384976
And in any case, it would still work logically given Nietzsche's definition of nihilism and his remarks on Goethe's pantheism and idyllism.

>>17384976
ah ok. now i see that you're correct and that it is indeed a genuine quote. (i'm a bit wary of the will to power since i recall reading heidegger's essay on nietzsche and found that one of the aphorisms he referenced from the WTP was apparently the result of either 3 separate pieces spliced together or the inverse). the question i have now is what exactly did nietzsche mean by 'goethe's olympianism?' it's a very strange remark to me since (as far as i know) goethe was seen as a great man by nietzsche.

B

>>17379319
>>Nietzsche seems to be only concerned with man as power to another man.
like any atheist. This is why to this day those assholes keeps throwing the word empowering left and right lol

>>17384596
It makes more sense if you consider nihilism as defined here >>17382327

>>17385045
Yes, if there are multiple edits like that it could cause problems in research.
I think "olympian" is a reference to Apollo perhaps, or his good qualities in general. His other comments disparage Goethe's knowledge of the Greeks, so it may be saying that he did not really have Olympic striving.

>>17386276
Are you trying to suggest this is a positive comment? It isn't, as it's part of an overview of nihilism and clearly linked to what he says of art completely lacking in originality
When you read the purpose should not be to defend the author at all costs while shutting everything else out.

>>17386574
>Are you trying to suggest this is a positive comment?
No. I'm saying that that definition of nihilism helps clarify his statement about romanticism.

>>17382327
Yes it's becoming in the broadest sense, everyone gets that. There's nothing deep in that.
But there's no need for becoming with Achilles,as he already possesses being in the highest sense. Power is not a concern for him because he is beyond it.
You're also stepping away from the overlapping of the growth of power,yet again, to try and include all things in the will to power. But this is pointless, it adds nothing to the discussion, it's simply an empty dogma. Nothing else is revealed by saying Achilles has will to power. In fact, it's an impoverishment.

>>17386603
But your comment is simply that there are only positive expressions of the will to power, nihilism being one of them.
The section in question has nothing positive about it. It is a negative expression of nihilism.
The definition of nihilism as Christianity is better in this case.

>>17386619
>Power is not a concern for him because he is beyond it.
Will to power doesn't only operate within conscious action. Achilles is still becoming, and the next phase in the cycle for him is the giving away of his power in the form of laws.

A "perfect being" who no longer needs to become and be part of the cycle is an impossible state. It's just wishful thinking.

>>17386652
Cringe.
Stop shitting up the thread with this Nietzsche is God bullshit.

>>17386651
What is a "negative expression of nihilism"? I'm not sure what you mean by negative here. I wasn't saying that Nietzsche was paying Goethe a compliment, if that's what you thought. Romanticism prepares us for nihilism by teaching us to reject power as the fundamental value of life, since that's what nihilism is for Nietzsche.

>>17386683
>Romanticism prepares us for nihilism by teaching us to reject power as the fundamental value of life, since that's what nihilism is for Nietzsche
So all things must be defined as Nietzsche would see them.
You already posted that a hundred times.

>>17386682
>explaining what quotes mean is the same as calling the author a god
I don't understand you.

>>17386705
It's an explanation. I'm not saying you have to agree with it. You can't agree or disagree with it if you don't understand it, though.

>>17386710
Obviously. That's what happens when you're YouTube educated.

>>17386728
If I'm YouTube educated, why am I the one explaining the quotes to you?

>>17386719
>will to power
>passive aggressive faggot

>>17386747
That wasn't an insult. You are an insecure little bitch, though, clearly.

>>17386682
Also, it's like you didn't read the passage by Schopenhauer here >>17381306

Nietzsche read will to power into Schopenhauer's writings. You can take that passage as if Nietzsche wrote it. Will to power clearly was not conceived as being confined to conscious action. It also operates at the level of the unconscious, and it's meant to describe everything in the universe, not just human affairs.

And no, this is not the same as saying that Nietzsche is God. I'm trying to clarify his ideas for you, because you're making errors in judgment that are obvious to me. Your criticisms on Nietzsche are falling short because of these mistakes.

>>17386841
>>17381698
Literally how I started the comment. You're just a Succubus, trying to take life out of the thread.
That's all you've done the whole time. But it's actually great since it proves my point that the will to power is only a negative, a secular theology for democracy and those with bad character.

>I think it's important to keep in mind the unknowable quality, the will as replacement for the thing in itself. In this sense, we have a void, or vis inertiae rising up

>>17386927
>Literally how I started the comment.
But then you go ahead and say "there's no need for becoming with Achilles" later on. Why is that? Did you forget what the will to power is?

Thesis: Universal suffrage is a consequence of the powerful will to equality
Antithesis: Universal suffrage disrupts the natural order of hierarchies
Synthesis: Suffrage only for those who demonstrate a firm position in the hierarchy

We can all agree then that only white men that own land should be allowed to vote, as all the Enlightenment republicans / Founding Fathers intended

>>17386949
The extent of willanon's thinking when everything isn't just a reduction to power.
>>17365198
>>17365303

>>17352651
>Tocqueville's understanding that democracy rises in hand with centralising power?
?

I thought Tocqueville claimed the exact opposite, perceiving centralizing power to be a threat to liberty. He thought democracy was the only way to keep centralizing powers in check.

>>17387070
Voting can only work as a short-term exception, as in a crisis where a king has died. There would have to be a clause for its end.
The longer democracy goes on the greater the void of power, everything returns to indefinite values.

Tocqueville saw either the complete separation of whites and blacks, or complete integration. So in America I think the big question would be to what extent white-only voting increased hostility, while perhaps not having a strong enough response.
Slavery can only work where there is a stong patriarchal law, and democracy may actually increase the conflict between races. (I think this is obvious at this point, since nations have essentially fallen and whites have nothing but the right to vote against themselves.)

>>17387121
He is describing the process rather than claiming what ought to be, at least in the argument here.
How to describe this? He says that the American is blind to the autocracy of the state while demanding similar powers in his community. This may be seen as an indefinite form of leveling, but also one towards a centralising power of law - as in the surveillance powers or right to eternal law.
Centralisation to the providential qualities of democracy while the individual becomes concerned with ever smaller matters.

>>17387184
>>17387121
"I have also had occasion to show how the growing love of well-being and the mobile nature of property make democratic peoples dread material disorder. Love of public tranquillity is often the sole political passion that these peoples preserve, and it becomes more active and powerful in them as all the others are weakened and die; this naturally disposes citizens constantly to give the central power new rights, or to allow it to take them; it alone seems to them to have the interest and the means to defend them from anarchy by defending itself."

>>17387087
It's not a reduction unless you take an anthropomorphic understanding of power to be what will to power is designed around.

>>17387234
"As in centuries of equality no one is obliged to lend his force to those like him and no one has the right to expect great support from those like him, each is at once independent and weak. These two states, which must neither be viewed separately nor confused, give the citizen of democracies very contrary instincts. His independence fills him with confidence and pride among his equals, and his debility makes him feel, from time to time, the need of the outside help that he cannot expect from any of them, since they are all impotent and cold. In this extremity, he naturally turns his regard to the immense being that rises alone in the midst of universal debasement. His needs and above all his desires constantly lead him back toward it, and in the end he views it as the unique and necessary support for individual weakness."

>>17387236
>referring to reasoning method/fallacy
>still thinks it's a reference to Nietzsche's doctrines
Even after pointing this out multiple times you still don't get it. You're obsessed.
Have you read Plato?

>>17387302
>le will to power is so dumb bros because [makes criticism based on personal definition of power that bears no relation to the idea] ha ha did you even do [unrelated thing] you pseud ???

>>17387275
"This serves to make understandable what often happens in democratic peoples, where one sees men who so uneasily tolerate superiors patiently suffer a master, and show themselves proud and servile at the same time.The hatred that men bear for privilege is increased as privileges become rarer and less great, so that one would say that democratic passions are more inflamed in the very times in which they find the least nourishment. I have already given the reason for this phenomenon.

When all conditions are unequal, there is no inequality great enough to offend the eye, whereas the smallest dissimilarity appears shocking in the midst of general uniformity; the sight of it becomes more intolerable as uniformity is more complete. It is therefore natural that the love of equality grow constantly with equality itself; in satisfying it, one develops it.

This immortal hatred, more and more afire, which animates democratic peoples against the slightest privileges, particularly favors the gradual concentration of all political rights in the hands of the sole representative of the state. The sovereign, being necessarily above all citizens and uncontested, does not excite the envy of any of them, and each believes he deprives his equals of all the prerogatives he concedes to it.

Man in democratic centuries obeys his neighbor, who is his equal, only with extreme repugnance; he refuses to recognize in him any enlightenment superior to his own; he distrusts his justice and looks on his power with jealousy; he fears and scorns him; he loves to make him feel at each instant the common dependence of them both on the same master."

>>17387234
>>17387275
>>17387344
This passage reveals that Tocqueville had explained the 'will to power' well before Nietzsche, while also revealing what lies behind it. Nietzsche bad character can also be seen in most of the statements, the immortal hatred of one's neighbours and the increased necessity for violence where difference is weakened.
With the will to power everyone is equal before abstract power. This absolves one in attacking great men, while increasing the frequency of these false and willless contests. But power in this sense is only a negative, it is the destruction of all value in the face of negative power - wholly in keeping with the transitional period and the elimination of the sacred. It is not for anything, and is thus nihilistic.

>>17387184
>right to eternal war
>>17387399
More clearly. Nietzsche's constant attacks on the greats are a means to eliminate difference, to force an equality with their power where he has none. Equality before power serves this purpose.

>>17387344
"Every central power that follows these natural instincts loves equality and favors it; for equality singularly facilitates the action of such a power, extends it, and secures it.

It can also be said that every central government adores uniformity; uniformity spares it the examination of an infinity of details with which it would have to occupy itself if it were necessary to make a rule for men, instead of making all men pass indiscriminately under the same rule. Thus the government loves what citizens love, and it naturally hates what they hate. This community of sentiments which, in democratic nations, continuously unites each individual and the sovereign in the same thought, establishes a secret and permanent sympathy between them. The government is pardoned for its faults for the sake of its tastes, public confidence abandons it only with difficulty in the midst of its excesses or errors, and it returns to it when it is recalled. Democratic peoples often hate the depositories of the central power; but they always love this power itself.

Thus I have come by two diverse paths to the same goal. I have shown that equality suggests to men the thought of a lone, uniform, and strong government. I have just brought out that it gives them the taste for it; the nations of our day tend therefore toward a government of this kind. The natural inclination of their minds and hearts leads them to it, and it is enough that they not be held back for them to arrive at it.

I think that in the democratic centuries that are going to open up, individual independence and local liberties will always be the product of art. Centralization will be the natural government."

>>17387338
Seethe all you want, but this thread confirms my position. Tocqueville, the greatest theorist of democracy, confirms the speculations I had from the beginning. >>17353697

>>17387399
>With the will to power everyone is equal before abstract power.
The idea isn't Christian like this. With will to power, no one is equal except in one sense: that they are the will to power. It does not at all subscribe an equal amount of power to everyone, nor does it demand reducing everything to a single substance. Will to power is not a substance like that. It is a force.

>>17387538
prescribe*

>>17387427
>Nietzsche's constant attacks on the greats are a means to eliminate difference, to force an equality with their power where he has none.
It's the opposite. Nietzsche attacks whatever and wherever he suspects nihilism, which is the will to power that rejects power as value, which is the foundation for Christianity, the religion of pity that is the true source of the notion of equality. Equality emerges out of a rejection of power as value.

>>17387538
>The conclusion from Nietzsche to the possible is not valid.

>>17387558
When you read Nietzsche, don't forget the whip.

>>17387582
When you read Nietzsche, don't forget to be a Christian and get everything wrong.*

>>17387573
>>17387582
Kek

>>17387573
>>17387582
Pic related. He's talking about you.

>>17386841
if will to power is a modified schopenhauerian will, then how does nietzsche get to that will in the first place considering his anti-metaphysical tendencies in other parts of his work? for example, the section 'how the true world became a fable' in twilight of the idols demonstrates what nietzsche thinks is the progression of metaphysics, from plato to the present day. we see that nietzsche thinks that the very idea of a thing-in-itself becomes inconsequential. since schopenhauer's will itself is derived from kant's thing-in-itself, wouldn't this mean that nietzsche thinks the idea of this will would also be inconsequential? nietzsche concludes by saying that 'the true world has become a fable', which consequently also gets rid of the apparent world too. how can nietzsche get to a metaphysics of the will if he's anti-metaphysical?

>>17363266
If you're tired, how can you discern the mistakes in the first place?

>>17387617
>>17387708
But I'm not Christian.

>>17387738
Because Nietzsche didn't know what he was talking about. He just did things based on feeling.
Schopenhauer's philosophy is stronger, and aims at something. Nietzsche is basically just creating a blind system out of the mechanics and reacting aggressively because Schop devastated him with what appears as deep pessimism.

>>17352702
>it is deeply significant that our idea of the highest power is one of divine calm, and that we associate the sublime, not with motion, but with a majesty which rules from rest. The will to power, in contrast, strives for power, because it doesn't have it
fucking poetry

>>17387738
Good questions. I want to give your post a serious answer but can't right now. Hopefully later.

>>17387978
Nice that someone recognised this.

>>17387738
Nietcheanism is Kanteanism made sick.
The world of the intellect must be sacrificed to the will.
The end result is Deleuzianism and other variants of objectified occasionalism.

>>17388284
>Vigo has a special method of cross cutting the past - that is going nonchronologically. His is not so much the hunter's eye as the gardener's or botanist's. This he views our kinship with the plants as deeper than that with the animals, and feels that at night we return to the woods, indeed all the way to algae in the ocean.
>Among the animals, he says, the bees have rediscovered this kinship. Their mating with the flowers is neither a forward nor a backward step in evolution, it is a kind of supernova, a flashing of cosmological eros in a favorable conjunction. Even the boldest thinking has not yet hit on that, he says; the only things that are real are those that cannot be invented.
>Does he expect something similar in the human realm?
Didn't know that FG was such a great writer, too bad he gets overshadowed the thr big guy, I'd love to see more of his works in translation. Text above is from Eumeswil, just to give appreciation to this family of gifted voices.

>>17388306
>The world of the intellect must be sacrificed to the will.
This is akin to saying that consciousness must be sacrificed to the autoproductive unconscious, but that's not Nietzsche's moral purpose.

>>17388421
Holy fuck you dumb rat.

>>17388632
Seethe, kid.

>>17387558
Christianity doesn't reject power as a value, it rejects the idea that superficial power is truly a power; it doesn't relegate all of its values to the "beyond," as the weakness of the "powerful" that Christianity criticizes can be immediately seen, in this very world

>religion of pity
Strawman


>equality emerges out of...
Is "everyone has the same amount of power" and "everyone has the same importance to God" the same thing?

>>17387708
An injunction to be straight rather than an incisive attack on anything. Nice pseudo-Biblical text, it is.

>he will never dance the tarantella

How is the will to power both the will to growth and the expenditure of your power, yet also not definable (except through negation)?

>>17388798
An expenditure of power can only occur if we assume that one unit of time is causally related to the next (i.e., it occurs at a local level of reality which experiences time), but the will to power is a cosmic force and as such does not need time to operate (since the universe does not experience time).

In other words, power is neither expended nor accumulated at the level of the universe, it is constant there; this exchange only occurs at a local level of reality which experiences time. What this means is that each configuration of the will to power exists unrelated to any other. The will to power is the only constant throughout all of them, and it can also be called the will to growth at this level because each configuration produces many locals which seek their own development within the cosmic arrangement of power.