/lit/ - Literature

Section 6:

It is a painful and tragic spectacle that rises before me: I have drawn back the curtain from the rottenness of man. This word, in my mouth, is at least free from one suspicion: that it involves a moral accusation against humanity. It is used—and I wish to emphasize the fact again—without any moral significance: and this is so far true that the rottenness I speak of is most apparent to me precisely in those quarters where there has been most aspiration, hitherto, toward “virtue” and “godliness.” As you probably surmise, I understand rottenness in the sense of décadence: my argument is that all the values on which mankind now fixes its highest aspirations are décadence-values.

I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers, what is injurious to it. A history of the “higher feelings,” the “ideals of humanity”—and it is possible that I’ll have to write it—would almost explain why man is so degenerate. Life itself appears to me as an instinct for growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power: whenever the will to power fails there is disaster. My contention is that all the highest values of humanity have been emptied of this will—that the values of décadence, of nihilism, now prevail under the holiest names.

Section 7 [1/2]:

Christianity is called the religion of pity.—Pity stands in opposition to all the tonic passions that augment the energy of the feeling of aliveness: it is a depressant. A man loses power when he pities. Through pity that drain upon strength which suffering works is multiplied a thousandfold. Suffering is made contagious by pity; under certain circumstances it may lead to a total sacrifice of life and living energy—a loss out of all proportion to the magnitude of the cause (—the case of the death of the Nazarene). This is the first view of it; there is, however, a still more important one. If one measures the effects of pity by the gravity of the reactions it sets up, its character as a menace to life appears in a much clearer light. Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. It preserves whatever is ripe for destruction; it fights on the side of those disinherited and condemned by life; by maintaining life in so many of the botched of all kinds, it gives life itself a gloomy and dubious aspect. Mankind has ventured to call pity a virtue (—in every superior moral system it appears as a weakness—); going still further, it has been called the virtue, the source and foundation of all other virtues—but let us always bear in mind that this was from the standpoint of a philosophy that was nihilistic, and upon whose shield the denial of life was inscribed. Schopenhauer was right in this: that by means of pity life is denied, and made worthy of denial—pity is the technic of nihilism.

Section 7 [2/2]:

Let me repeat: this depressing and contagious instinct stands against all those instincts which work for the preservation and enhancement of life: in the rôle of protector of the miserable, it is a prime agent in the promotion of décadence—pity persuades to extinction.... Of course, one doesn’t say “extinction”: one says “the other world,” or “God,” or “the true life,” or Nirvana, salvation, blessedness.... This innocent rhetoric, from the realm of religious-ethical balderdash, appears a good deal less innocent when one reflects upon the tendency that it conceals beneath sublime words: the tendency to destroy life. Schopenhauer was hostile to life: that is why pity appeared to him as a virtue.... Aristotle, as every one knows, saw in pity a sickly and dangerous state of mind, the remedy for which was an occasional purgative: he regarded tragedy as that purgative. The instinct of life should prompt us to seek some means of puncturing any such pathological and dangerous accumulation of pity as that appearing in Schopenhauer’s case (and also, alack, in that of our whole literary décadence, from St. Petersburg to Paris, from Tolstoi to Wagner), that it may burst and be discharged.... Nothing is more unhealthy, amid all our unhealthy modernism, than Christian pity. To be the doctors here, to be unmerciful here, to wield the knife here—all this is our business, all this is our sort of humanity, by this sign we are philosophers, we Hyperboreans!—

Section 8:

It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our antagonists: theologians and all who have any theological blood in their veins—this is our whole philosophy.... One must have faced that menace at close hand, better still, one must have had experience of it directly and almost succumbed to it, to realize that it is not to be taken lightly (—the alleged free-thinking of our naturalists and physiologists seems to me to be a joke—they have no passion about such things; they have not suffered—). This poisoning goes a great deal further than most people think: I find the arrogant habit of the theologian among all who regard themselves as “idealists”—among all who, by virtue of a higher point of departure, claim a right to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion.... The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty concepts in his hand (—and not only in his hand!); he launches them with benevolent contempt against “understanding,” “the senses,” “honor,” “good living,” “science”; he sees such things as beneath him, as pernicious and seductive forces, on which “the soul” soars as a pure thing-in-itself—as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word, holiness, had not already done much more damage to life than all imaginable horrors and vices.... The pure soul is a pure lie.... So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative....

Section 9:

Upon this theological instinct I make war: I find the tracks of it everywhere. Whoever has theological blood in his veins is shifty and dishonourable in all things. The pathetic thing that grows out of this condition is called faith: in other words, closing one’s eyes upon one’s self once for all, to avoid suffering the sight of incurable falsehood. People erect a concept of morality, of virtue, of holiness upon this false view of all things; they ground good conscience upon faulty vision; they argue that no other sort of vision has value any more, once they have made theirs sacrosanct with the names of “God,” “salvation” and “eternity.” I unearth this theological instinct in all directions: it is the most widespread and the most subterranean form of falsehood to be found on earth. Whatever a theologian regards as true must be false: there you have almost a criterion of truth. His profound instinct of self-preservation stands against truth ever coming into honour in any way, or even getting stated. Wherever the in fluence of theologians is felt there is a transvaluation of values, and the concepts “true” and “false” are forced to change places: whatever is most damaging to life is there called “true,” and whatever exalts it, intensifies it, approves it, justifies it and makes it triumphant is there called “false.”... When theologians, working through the “consciences” of princes (or of peoples—), stretch out their hands for power, there is never any doubt as to the fundamental issue: the will to make an end, the nihilistic will exerts that power....

Section 10:

Among Germans I am immediately understood when I say that theological blood is the ruin of philosophy. The Protestant pastor is the grandfather of German philosophy; Protestantism itself is its peccatum originale. Definition of Protestantism: hemiplegic paralysis of Christianity—and of reason.... One need only utter the words “Tübingen School” to get an understanding of what German philosophy is at bottom—a very artful form of theology.... The Suabians are the best liars in Germany; they lie innocently.... Why all the rejoicing over the appearance of Kant that went through the learned world of Germany, three-fourths of which is made up of the sons of preachers and teachers—why the German conviction still echoing, that with Kant came a change for the better? The theological instinct of German scholars made them see clearly just what had become possible again.... A backstairs leading to the old ideal stood open; the concept of the “true world,” the concept of morality as the essence of the world (—the two most vicious errors that ever existed!), were once more, thanks to a subtle and wily scepticism, if not actually demonstrable, then at least no longer refutable.... Reason, the prerogative of reason, does not go so far.... Out of reality there had been made “appearance”; an absolutely false world, that of being, had been turned into reality.... The success of Kant is merely a theological success; he was, like Luther and Leibnitz, but one more impediment to German integrity, already far from steady.—

>>20273353
Want to bump for life, but to stir some convo, I guess, what're your thoughts so far OP? Have you read any Nietzsche before these threads? What were you expecting, and how does that match so far?

>>20273353
I'm actually surprised you're sticking to it

>>20273364
>the feeling of aliveness
Nietzsche breaks when you realize his idea of life or aliveness is meaningless.

>>20274696
I think his objection to that would be that "the feeling of aliveness" is not necessarily intellectual the way "thinking about the idea of aliveness" is. That's part of his seeming arguments against science and philosophy sometimes, that intellectualism lends itself to an unnatural contempt for life.

(It might well be the case though that he wouldn't deny the truth of your claim, and that his cure uses tricks and falsehoods to work on people.)

>>20273385
>The Protestant pastor is the grandfather of German philosophy
this is why Germans are cringe at their core

>>20273364
Why is being nice to people so offensive to Nietzsche? It seems self evident to me that the man who takes pity on others and stirs him to action is morally superior to the man who feels no pity at all.

>>20274957
I mean obviously that's ridiculous because the very creation of an argument as such is intellectualism. Nietzsche is just time-delay contradiction to create faith in narcissism.

Bump

>>20274667
>>20274208
Phoneposting so no trip rn, but I was expecting for the first 5 sections to get a lot of replies. They each got like 100, as there is a huge amount of controversy surrounding what he says in those. Looking at other sections of the book, I see that they are dryer, so for this thread to archive with only 20 or so replies isn't surprising. In fact, most of the threads will probably be like this one, but we'll see. This actually isn't the first time I've tried this. I've done it before, but only with one section at a time, which if you look through the archives you should be able to find a few of them. I used the same OP image and a similar trip. I eventually gave up on it but I'm trying again. I switched over to 5 sections a thread, because last time it took too long, and there wasnt as much to discuss with only 1 section so the threads died too quick. Even if no-one joins, I dont mind. It's more so that if anyone on here wants to read through the book, then I am happy to make the threads.

To answer the other question, I've read alot of Nietzsche. This book, I've read multiple times. I chose it specifically for a variety of different reasons. As you may know, Nietzsche died while writing his magnum opus, and wasnt able to complete it. I forget the title that the completed work was supposed to take, but I think it was: The Will to Power. This book, The Antichrist, was meant to be the first volume of this magnum opus, out of I think 4.

Another reason, is that it is fairly short, which makes it perfect for the anons on here who dont read, or have a short attention span. It also allows me to fit the reading into a few posts at the start of the threads. Due to his illness, Nietzsche couldn't write for very long periods at a time. He tried to put alot of effort into his writings, to convey the greatest meaning in the fewest words. I think alot of people are turned away from philosophy, because they pick up something like Sartre, which just ends up feeling like endless meandering that never gets to the point. Nietzsche is the exact opposite. And this book is one of his easier works to read. This makes it the perfect place to start in my opinion.

Finally, the book had a large influence on my own journey, so I wanted to share it with the other anons on here. The ideas that I encountered in his works changed how I viewed the world. I think that even if you disagree with everything he says, reading his work is a unique experience.

Nietzsche was correct but his only mistake was mistakenly ascribing slave morality to Christianity when he was more accurately describing the secular left (not that he could've known that at the time though). Every single fault he finds in Christian morality is more acutely aimed towards leftism which relies on sentimentality and "empathy" as it's core principles for discerning right from wrong.

I doubt anyone living in the modern age could seriously argue that Christians display more ressentiment than trannies, socialist and other members of the utopian left, who despise themselves, their culture and their race.

https://youtu.be/KbA9ALOrHaA

>>20276160
Nietzsche's entire point is that Christianity is causative of Enlightenment attitudes that eventually become secular but maintain Christian morality.

Hicks (and Peterson) aren't any better than Bertrand Russell when it comes to Nietzsche.

>>20276160
Early Christianity was remarkably similar to all of those things you described.

>>20276217
That doesn't make any sense in a world where the biggest bloc against progressive leftism is conservative Christianity. If the secular left are displaying "real" Christian slave morality than what are the actual Christians who oppose them displaying?

>>20276223
>That doesn't make any sense
"Finally, what was still left to sacrifice? Didn’t people finally have to sacrifice everything comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all belief in a hidden harmony, in future blessedness and justice? Didn’t people have to sacrifice God himself and, out of cruelty against themselves, worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, and nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness—this paradoxical mystery of the last act of cruelty is saved for the generation which is coming along right now. We all already know something about this." (Beyond Good and Evil, #55)

Conservicucks are a crude obsolete version of christcucks; secular left are christcucks 2.0.

>If the secular left are displaying "real" Christian slave morality
In BGE #194, Nietzsche also analyzes how the degree of sophistication of a holding the very same value, drastically changes the whole picture.
For example, one desires to fuck a woman, and, desiring merely that woman's body, is satisfied with raping her.
Another (being scared of thought-crimes she might still have) now desires her soul, and thus desires her to love him (i.e. attempts to mindfuck her).
The third one, dislikes wearing a 'mask', and thus mindfucks her even further, into changing her values into liking the 'real' him.
The first case is bad, because it is too crude already for modern tastes. The latter ones are considered normal interaction ('love'), despite being a strengthened version of an 'evil' drive.

>>20276343
>Two diametrically opposite and contradictory political philosophies are both Christianity
This makes no sense. So Marxism is Christianity? Fascism is Christianity? Either you're misinterpreting Nietzsche or he's made en error and accidentally conflated two completely different and unreconcilable positions and put them under the same umbrella. This is childish nonsense, not every political ideology you dislike can be traced back to Christianity.

>>20276343
This is why Nietzsche missed the mark. You can't ascribe everything you dislike about modernity to Christianity and claim it was a specifically Christian ethos that causes degeneracy. China is a hive of materialistic bugmen more degenerated than any Christian nation and they were never touched with the Christian ideology.

>>20276361
>So Marxism is Christianity? Fascism is Christianity?
So Homo Sapiens is Australopithecus?

"When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in “the beyond”—in nothingness—then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether. The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all natural instinct—henceforth, everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is a cause of suspicion. So to live that life no longer has any meaning: this is now the “meaning” of life.... Why be public-spirited? Why take any pride in descent and forefathers? Why labour together, trust one another, or concern one’s self about the common welfare, and try to serve it?... Merely so many “temptations,” so many strayings from the “straight path.”—“One thing only is necessary”.... That every man, because he has an “immortal soul,” is as good as every other man; that in an infinite universe of things the “salvation” of every individual may lay claim to eternal importance; that insignificant bigots and the three-fourths insane may assume that the laws of nature are constantly suspended in their behalf—it is impossible to lavish too much contempt upon such a magnification of every sort of selfishness to infinity, to insolence. And yet Christianity has to thank precisely this miserable flattery of personal vanity for its triumph—it was thus that it lured all the botched, the dissatisfied, the fallen upon evil days, the whole refuse and off-scouring of humanity to its side. The “salvation of the soul”—in plain English: “the world revolves around *me*.”... The poisonous doctrine, “equal rights for all,” has been propagated as a Christian principle" (Antichrist, #43)

>>20276379
Nietzsche wants to regress to an animal and eschew the transcendent. Plotinus would be disgusted and Plotinus is the foundation for all true philosophy.

>>20276223
It's two movements that use slave morality trying to dictate values by shouting they're being oppressed, whether apparently or actually. What's hard to get about it?

>>20276414
What modern day non-christian political movements AREN'T based on slave morality then?

Atheists are more degenerate than anyone, 99% of pagans are Odin cum slurpers and the remainder are untermensch who couldn't organize a BBQ let alone a political movement, Islam is worse in every way.

What is the solution? The only people close to Nietzsches version of the uberman are the Christian right.

>>20276361
No wonder you don't get Nietzsche, you can't even read anon's comment without stuffing shit you imagine into his mouth.

>>20276437
Probably *none*; cope.

Modern Christians aren't anywhere near being Nietzsche's supermen. Nietzsche gives a shit about philosophers and doesn't care if everyone else lived as slaves as long as philosophy and the human type "philosopher" were still possible.

>>20276400
Lol okay

>>20276447
Nietzsche was a poor philosopher, his works are pure polemic with very little logical backing. I see no reason why I'd want to live in Nietzsches cuck paradise, he provides no compelling reasons to disregard the Nicomachean Ethics or Plotinus neither of which owe anything to Christian thought and entirely refute him.

>>20276459
Nietzsche *doesn't* try to refute Aristotle, in the first place. In the second place, as far as logic and reasoning goes, Nietzsche saves it for his journals and publishes the rhetorically shaped results *just as Plato, Parmenides, Heraclitus all did*. In the third place, it's hilarious to prop up Plotinus as a model of logic and reason given the grounds for his thought are in reading Plato's myths.

>>20276025
>This book, I've read multiple times
ouch

>>20276502
Plotinus was correct in his readings of Plato and dismissing the dialogues as myth means you're a modernity addled bugman and Christianity is the least of your problems.

>Read hsitory through the lens of enlightenment retards
>Deny the value of the transcendent and the return to the One
>"wtf why is everything so degenerate!? It must be the christcucks!"
Sad. Read the Corpus Hermeticum instead.

>>20276565
Lol Plotinus couldn't read Plato without slathering cope all over the pages. "This myth that contradicts all the others must be LITERALLY true!"

>>20276502
>given the grounds for his thought are in reading Plato's myths.
You haven't even read him.

Poor Nietzsche. Imagine trying to explain the pathology of modernity while having your philosophy exemplify that very pathology. Denial of his intellectual heritage, denial of the good being something to be desired in its own right, just pure "return to monke" primalist BS about having the will to power.

In his heart of hearts Nietzsche desired to be a nigger.

>>20276594
Lol I have, I had to for college; and I actually like him, but that doesn't change that he's a poor reader of Plato, who generates astounding ideas out of shit readings of the Phaedrus and Symposium.

>>20276370
>they were never touched with the Christian ideology.
This is simply not true. 1. They adopted communism (same root), and 2. Look up the Taiping Rebellion

Why does every Nietzsche thread fill up with seething Pachamama worshipers?

>>20276370
Dude, the causality is so simple. Picking up Lenin and Marx, who have their roots in Enlightenment thought, hell, who are firmly Enlightenment thinkers unable to throw off the yoke of the Enlightenment's presuppositions, which itself keeps and maintains Christian morality and initially defended itself as the legitimate study of God's creation (look at how Bacon and Galileo defend their respective projects). It's no great stretch.

>>20270491
>>20270482
>>20270504
cont. from the previous thread.

Your point where N considers Plato to be Dionysian, and considers himself the same, thereby sharing that mutual affinity, is vacuously true, and just misses the bigger picture.

In your BGE quote (7.) N points out: "What Epicurus meant by Dionysian was "bootlicker"", and N expands by taking a more literal reading of Dionysian by saying that he was really calling them "disingenuous actors".

On your reading, N is saying that him and Plato are both disingenuous actors, masking their true intentions with their fanciful writing, and thereby they are both sharing an affinity with Dionysus.

N himself obviously shares a very strong affinity with Dionysus- but this is only insofar "philosophy" has been hitherto mostly "Apollonian" in his eyes. To some degree, he seeks to rebalance that- but only by bringing in the "Dionysian" elements into philosophy, to once again, re-evaluate what it means to perform philosophy. N would consider Plato(more precisely Socrates, but Plato as a student of Socrates too) an origin point of "apollonian focus" in philosophy - specifically his relation towards art and poetry(Dionysian) as needing to be subservient to rational dialectic (apollonian).

BoT:
>"Euripides undertook the task (which Plato also took on) to show the world the opposite of the “irrational” poet. His basic aesthetic principle, “everything must be conscious in order to be beautiful,” is, as I have said, the corollary to the Socratic saying, “Everything must be conscious in order to be good.”

He wouldn't say that plato lacked Dionysian elements, he believed the greeks as a whole employed them much more often than his own time (which is why you're right when you say he's closer to the Greeks than people of his own time). However, he sees Plato as a clear Apollonian turn-, with his own activity being a Dionysian turn away from what plato and his successors has accomplished.

BoT again:
>Now philosophical ideas grew up around art and forced it to cling to the trunk of dialectic. Apollonian tendencies metamorphosed into logical systematizing, something corresponding to what we noticed with Euripides, as well as a translation of the Dionysian into naturalistic effects. Socrates, the dialectical hero in Platonic drama, reminds us of the changed nature of the Euripidean hero, who has to defend his actions with reasons and counter−reasons and thus frequently runs the risk of losing our tragic sympathy. For who can fail to recognize the optimistic element in the heart of dialectic, which celebrates a jubilee with every conclusion and can breathe only in a cool conscious brightness, that optimistic element, which, once pushed into tragedy, gradually overruns its Dionysian regions and necessarily drives them to self−destruction, right to their death leap into middle−class drama.

>>20277270


The point about Nietzsche making himself difficult to understand isn't a point of dionysian or -literary- similarity with Plato. Plato is explicitly anti-rhetoric and anti-sophistry. Plato explicitly aims to restrict the use of poetry to serve state-ends. His socratic dialectics seems literary to US NOW because we have much more formal ways of writing. However, when compared to the greeks of his time, it's a way of being much more rational than his contemporaries, of "laying it bare" through simplicity(conversation). Even consider the symposium- plato opens with the common informal and poetic accounts as a way of showing how they are inferior to the final socratic "rational" account of rationally perceiving the form of the beauty (and further to the form of the good). As Nietzsche sees it: Eros in Plato is to be finally grasped through rational perception, once the soul has been cleansed of its false appearances, passions. This is not to say that Plato was not dramatic at all, but rather that plato's *aim* was fully not dramatic and that he just happened to be situated in a dionysian culture.

Finally, Plato's appreciation of falsehoods for those of weaker constitutions is also to say that he believed philosophical truth could not be obtained by pursuing those falsehoods. Falsehoods were for the lower people, and truth was for the strong philosopher.

Nietzsche on the other hand, explicitly draws upon half-truths, falsehoods, poetry, rhetoric, to do philosophy itself. Whereas Plato aims to show how, when viewed rationally, his opponent's position is empty, Nietzsche calls his opponents rationniggers. He seeks to draw attention to himself too, sure, but he sees this as part of his general project of re-evaluating values, including values in philosophy. He generally also believes what philosophers are capable of is making and breaking new values. His similarity to Plato lies there. Also, his value of Plato as an opponent is something Nietzsche considers to be a very high honor, and something that does genuinely reflect on who he is.

But, importantly he sees Plato(and other philosophers) as pursuing a re-evaluation of values without realizing that this is what they're doing. In this way, Nietzsche stands beyond Plato's activities, in that he's able to account more generally for what a philosopher performs.

>>20277270
>>20277284
There's much that you say and point to that's good; nonetheless I still disagree, but it'll be then on me to persuade.

With respect to what N. says in BOT, there can be no contradiction; he plainly sees Plato and Socrates there as you say. Where I depart is in how N. subsequently writes about Plato. It would be silly of me not to acknowledge "The Problem of Socrates" and the vitrioloic way N. writes of both Plato and Socrates there in TotI, but his notebooks of that same period are also the very ones where he makes his comment about Plato not actually believing in the immortal soul but wanting others to believe it. (An aside that would take some time to work out---does Eternal Return occupy a similar place in N.'s thought? He certainly tried to privately work out metaphysical and physical proofs for it in his notebooks, seemingly coming to the conclusion it couldn't be strictly proven...)

Those later notebooks, while still criticizing the results of Plato, also make much more of Plato's use of falsehoods, seemingly approvingly.

Now, I also (as I thought, maybe unsuccessfully, I was trying to do in the other thread) don't want to overstate the commonality between N. and Plato; their differences are real. Nonetheless, N. says in his notebooks of 1885-1886:

>34[84]
NB. What Plato and at bottom all post-Socratics did: that was a certain legislation of concepts: - they firmly established for themselves and their disciples "this and that should be thought and sensed with this word": - therewith they freed themselves most definitively from their time and environment. This is one of the kinds of subtle disgust with which superior, more demanding natures rise up against the obscure crowd and their conceptual chaos:
(The colon doesn't seem to lead to anything else)

(Cont.)

>>20277483
And he says in BGE 211:

>...But all these are only preliminary conditions for his task; this task itself demands something else--it requires him TO CREATE VALUES. The philosophical workers, after the excellent pattern of Kant and Hegel, have to fix and formalize some great existing body of valuations--that is to say, former DETERMINATIONS OF VALUE, creations of value, which have become prevalent, and are for a time called "truths"--whether in the domain of the LOGICAL, the POLITICAL (moral), or the ARTISTIC. It is for these investigators to make whatever has happened and been esteemed hitherto, conspicuous, conceivable, intelligible, and manageable, to shorten everything long, even "time" itself, and to SUBJUGATE the entire past: an immense and wonderful task, in the carrying out of which all refined pride, all tenacious will, can surely find satisfaction. THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!" They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is--WILL TO POWER. --Are there at present such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST there not be such philosophers some day? . . .

This likely doesn't exhaust what philosophy means to N., but it still points to what I'm convinced is a definite point of agreement that N. thinks he has with Plato. I take it that his description of Dionysus as a philosopher in BGE may be relevant here.

(Cont.)

>>20277488
As for Plato's dialogue style, I can only point to prior figures he was already familiar with who wrote straightforward treatises; Anaxagoras, Thrasymachus, various rhetoricians who wrote manuals, etc., and that writing dialogues in which he's never a speaker is just as much a way of dissembling whether one believes what's been written. Now, since we're talking about N.'s interpretation of Plato, I can point to Protagoras' first speech in the dialogue of that name, where he claims all poets and wise men before him concealed their true thoughts to avoid opprobrium, a point Socrates never contradicts him on; and N. knew this dialogue well, having lectured on it in the 1870s. N. in his notebooks also points to the Seventh Letter approvingly, the text where Plato claims there is no philosophy under his name he's written. (Whether one N. is wrong in taking the letter to be legitimate might be a different matter.)

As for the anti-rhetorical and anti-poetical content of the dialogues, N. sees through them (rightly, I think) with his comment in BGE about Plato concealing himself, "in the front Plato, in the back Plato, in the middle Chimera."

N. certainly seems to waver back and forth on how to understand what Plato was doing, but he does seem to think by the 1880s (rightly or wrongly) that Plato was more of a dissembler than people take him to be, and was not above using poetry and rhetoric to dismiss his poetic and rhetorical rivals.

>>20273358
i think he overexplains here, though he's ultimately right. As food rots it loses its quality of being appetising and colorful, human mind rots under nihilism the same way: it loses its distinctive qualities. To keep up with the metaphor, human mind gives up its appetibiility; that could be its creativity, its inventiveness; and its color; that could be its liveness or its experience, knowlodge and understanding seeking

>>20276025
the last thread people discussed more about nietzsche himself than the five sections you posted, i hope in this one people focus more on the book

>>20276379
>When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in “the beyond”—in nothingness—then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether.
Nietzsche is criticizing the way people practice Christianity. When he argues that Jesus was misunderstood as someone who "believed" rather than someone who "did" he clearly indicates that there is a purpose to Christianity that serves life in the present rather than a hypothetical "afterworld". The center of gravity for a Christian should be their connection to the Holy Spirit which is in no way hypothetical; not only can one directly experience this connection but it is also possible to tell if a person is not connected to it given that you have the experience and wisdom to distinguish.
>The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all natural instinct—henceforth, everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is a cause of suspicion.
>So to live that life no longer has any meaning: this is now the “meaning” of life.... Why be public-spirited? Why take any pride in descent and forefathers? Why labour together, trust one another, or concern one’s self about the common welfare, and try to serve it?... Merely so many “temptations,” so many strayings from the “straight path.”—“One thing only is necessary”....
Again, this is clearly a criticism of how Christians tend to live and practice their faith as its obviously not impossible to believe in an afterlife without sacrificing any pragmatism; many or perhaps most Christians are easily prone to having an underdeveloped drive towards practicality and action but that doesn't mean by believing in an afterlife you de facto sacrifice pragmatism, it just means that you'll be content without pragmatism which is actually a strength though it can make you somewhat lazy in a compassionate way.

>>20278421
>That every man, because he has an “immortal soul,” is as good as every other man; that in an infinite universe of things the “salvation” of every individual may lay claim to eternal importance; that insignificant bigots and the three-fourths insane may assume that the laws of nature are constantly suspended in their behalf—it is impossible to lavish too much contempt upon such a magnification of every sort of selfishness to infinity, to insolence.
>And yet Christianity has to thank precisely this miserable flattery of personal vanity for its triumph—it was thus that it lured all the botched, the dissatisfied, the fallen upon evil days, the whole refuse and off-scouring of humanity to its side. The “salvation of the soul”—in plain English: “the world revolves around *me*.”... The poisonous doctrine, “equal rights for all,” has been propagated as a Christian principle"
>And yet Christianity has to thank precisely this miserable flattery of personal vanity for its triumph
Again, just because the notion of an immortal soul and that every individual is equally significant can very easily tempt people towards an egalitarian form of vanity does not mean that the notions themselves are vain. It is analogous to the way freedom of speech allows people with bad ideas to feel entitled to their ignorance; it does this but its still the idiot's fault, not the principle's.

>>20278421
>When he argues that Jesus was misunderstood
In 'Zarathustra' and BGE#164 he also argues that Jesus would have forsaken his own teaching, had he lived long enough.

"Verily, too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death honour: and to many hath it proved a calamity that he died too early.
As yet had he known only tears, and the melancholy of the Hebrews, together with the hatred of the good and just—the Hebrew Jesus: then was he seized with the longing for death.
Had he but remained in the wilderness, and far from the good and just! Then, perhaps, would he have learned to live, and love the earth—and laughter also!
Believe it, my brethren! He died too early; he himself would have disavowed his doctrine had he attained to my age! Noble enough was he to disavow!
But he was still immature. Immaturely loveth the youth, and immaturely also hateth he man and earth. Confined and awkward are still his soul and the wings of his spirit."

"Jesus said to his Jews: “The law was for slaves—love god as I love him, as his son! What do we sons of God have to do with morality!”’"

>he clearly indicates that there is a purpose to Christianity
He indicates there was potential in *Jesus*. *Not* his teachings. And he also saw the potential in Napoleon and Cesare Borgia.


>>20278441
>It is analogous to the way freedom of speech
>its still the idiot's fault, not the principle's.
"The order of castes, the highest, the dominating law, is merely the ratification of an order of nature, of a natural law of the first rank, over which no arbitrary fiat, no “modern idea,” can exert any influence. In every healthy society there are three physiological types, gravitating toward differentiation but mutually conditioning one another, and each of these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special mastery and feeling of perfection."

"I am unable to determine what was the target of the insurrection said to have been led (whether rightly or wrongly) by Jesus, if it was not the Jewish church—“church” being here used in exactly the same sense that the word has today. It was an insurrection against the “good and just,” against the “prophets of Israel,” against the whole hierarchy of society—not against corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, formalism. It was unbelief in “superior men,” a Nay flung at everything that priests and theologians stood for."

>>20276538
And?

>>20273353
The chad anti-christ Übermensch vs The virgin satanist hedonistic whinelord

>>20278715
It's sad you'd waste your soul on lies.