/lit/ - Literature

>>20691520
Letter to Franz Overbeck 5/24/78:
>I gather from your brief allusions that our old friend Nietzsche has been holding himself aloof from you as well. There is no doubt that very striking changes have taken place in him; but anyone who observed him and his psychic spasms years ago could almost be justified in saying that a long-dreaded and not entirely unpredictable catastrophe had now overtaken him. I have retained sufficient friendship for him not to read his book – which I glanced through as I was cutting the pages – and can only wish and hope that he will thank me for it some day.

Letter to Franz Overbeck 10/19/79:
>How could I ever forget this friend of mine [Nietzsche] who was driven from me so forcefully? Although I constantly had the feeling that, at the time of his association with me, Nietzsche’s life was ruled by a mental spasm, and although it was bound to strike me as odd that this spasm could have produced so spiritually radiant and heart-warming a fire as was manifest in him to the astonishment of all, and although, finally, the ultimate decision which he reached in the inner development of his life filled me with the utmost horror when I saw how intolerable a pressure that spasm was finally causing him – I must no doubt also admit that in the case of so powerful a psychic process it is simply not possible to argue along moral lines and that one’s only response can be a shocked silence.

Had some interesting things to say about aesthetics and morality, but any prescriptive statements he made and all of his aphoristic writing are just adolescent nonsense.

>>20691541
Please do tell anon

>>20691520
you can just open up the archive and read pretty much like 50-60% of the threads the past 2 months

>>20691520
Haven't even read his books.
But from what I can tell, he made a great attempt at getting somewhere from nothing.
He's basically the best male-centered self-help guru you can ever find.

>>20691642
Should I read his books?

>>20691689
I guess so.

>>20691689
Good and evil takes 15 minutes to read and 20 years to digest.

>>20691520
The greatest synthesis of Renaissance high culture and Gothic Romanticism out there. Northern Europe's Plato.

>>20691689
Read Birth of Tragedy, Beyond good and Evil, and the Genealogy of Morals. Forget about the rest.

>>20691520
He had some interesting ideas that sadly are often misconstrued.

>>20691775
Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra are his best work

>>20691689
1. Beyond Good and Evil + Genealogy of Morality (meant to be its appendix)
2. Twilight of the Idols + The Antichrist (they are supershort)
3. (optionally, but recommended) Dawn + Gay Science
4. Thus Spoke Zarathustra

skip the rest.

>>20692516
Such are?

>>20691775
GoM is a waste of time. By far his worst book.

>>20691520
Only thinks in terms of individual actions and never what is most beneficial for society as a whole, gives off narrowsighted vibes even if some of his observations make sense.

WWI and WWII probably would not have happened without his philosophy indirectly creating fascism.

>>20693382
why should i care about society

>>20693382
This is a poorly informed take.

>>20691520
>Likewise, Mumford demonstrates at length that the sole conceivable and real finality of "technics'' is the augmentation of power. There is absolutely no other possibility. This brings us back to the problem of the means. Technology is the most powerful means and the greatest ensemble of means. And hence, the only problem of technology is that of the indefinite growth of means, corresponding to man's spirit of power. Nietzsche, exalting this will to power, limited himself to preparing the man predisposed to the technological universe! A tragic contradiction.

>>20691745
>Northern Europe's Plato.
that's Hegel. Nietzsche is Aristotle

i like how he writes. really cool style

did he believe in free will?

>>20693370
GoM is his best work

>>20691745
Or on the other hand -- a histrionic and petulant sophist.

>>20694203
No. Nietzsche's perspective on "free will" boils down to the idea that everything acts according to its nature, and consciousness itself is a trick of language. The strong trample over the weak because they're strong and weak by nature, rather than because they have made any conscious choice in the matter. You will only ever do what you are capable of, and you're only capable of what you do. His thoughts on this topic are covered in Genealogy of Morality and Beyond Good and Evil, and quite early on in both of those books.

>>20691541
So basically everything he ever apart from Tragedy, the Untimelies, Z and Genealogy?

I hate him because I read the first half of Thus Spoke Zarathustra my freshman year in high school and spent the next two years regurgitating ideas and concepts I pretended to understand. I don't think I'll ever be able to get into Nietzsche in earnest because every time I think of him I just cringe thinking of that time in my life.

>>20694473
if thats true how can he say we are not acting at all our potential? he seems to think most of us are neutered by our moral systems of equality/religion etc. and not tapping into our instincts.

>>20691541
most of his aphoristic shit was published by his sister after he croaked.

>>20694473
I cannot accept this. If existence is innocent then the existence of suffering(which exists in a staggeringly large amount), and not "artistic" suffering but the kind of cultureless, base, plebian, stupid suffering of which the world is full, is arbitrary. And if it is that way because it is impossible for it not to be otherwise, then the fault lies with that which controls possibility itself. Why should the weak and sickly exist in such enormous numbers, why should life-denying sickly cultures spring up like cysts across time? If it is all necessary in the march towards the overman, who is to say the period of the overman's existence will be eternal? Will it not be ephemeral, prone to a dying-out like all things?

>>20694498
Judaic/Christian morality heavily informed the structure of western society, which Nietzsche identifies as creating weak people. This is covered in depth in the first two parts of Genealogy of Morality.

To be clear, when I say "nature" I don't mean that he argues it's instinctual from birth to behave a certain way. Rather, Nietzsche argues our behavior is driven without us being conscious of it. The most we can do is form post-hoc rationalizations for why we unconsciously chose to do something.

>>20694507
>who is to say the period of the overman's existence will be eternal? Will it not be ephemeral, prone to a dying-out like all things?
I don't disagree with you. There's not really any interpretation of the Übermensch coming to fruition which doesn't involve mankind as we know it being wiped out.

>>20694541
We don't try to wipe out gorillas. A single gorilla can rip a man in half.

>>20691520

he was the first man to realize that European educated elites weren't Christian anymore (that is what he meant by God is dead, it's a tragedy, a problem) that Darwin changed everything, and that without the Christian god, every European institution or tradition would eventually collapse. I his days those institutions still existed because of inertia, because the french revolution and Darwin were recent things, but in our age we are seeing the glacier of western civilization melt and fall like a landslide. Gay marriage is as example of that, it's something that was unthinkable for the characters of Seinfeld in the 1990s.
If you don't have a god that tells you "you can't marry your cousin or your half sister because I say so" eventually, legally, you will be able to do it, because the principle that goes "consenting adults can do whatever they want as long as they don't harm someone else" allows it
the same applies to marriage, we already allow gay marriage, and surely we will eventually allow polygamy since muslims want it, and polyamorous open relationship leftists would support it. And without god saying you can't do this, there is no way to stop it.

Nietzsche was the first man who understood europeans needed something new to replace god, or society would self destruct.

His proposals for solutions I don't have a lot of respect for. I also don't have much respect for his slave morality concept. It's a contradiction. If the weak, organized, are stronger than the aristocrats, then the weak are the strong, not the weak. He is complaining at the underclass not being defenseless retards, in the same way that communists complain when their victims don't let themselves get killed and fight back.

>>20691520
>"power is everything that is good"
>christianity conquers the earth and brings the mightiest to heel
>"NOOOOOOO NOT LIKE THAAAAAAAT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
He's cringe tbqh.

>>20694685
Zarathustra is the most powerful wizard in the world but is that reason enough to submit to him? Will you ever surpass him if you accept that submissive role?

>>20691689
Yes, you should. At the risk of sounding like I pseud I would watch some videos about Nietzsche and some other philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Kant, and Utilitarianism to have a basic grasp of what he’s criticizing and to have a layman understanding to make it easier to interpret.

>>20694675
>Nietzsche was the first man who understood europeans needed something new to replace god, or society would self destruct.

so the fastest we replace christianity with a new religion the better?

>>20694774

That is what he tried to do. He obviously failed and his proposal may have been bad.
And isms from Communism to Ecologism may be attempts at replacing Christinity, secular religions (not an oxymoron, Confucianism has always been that)

I'm a Catholic btw. I don't recommend abandoning Christianity.
But if you drop Christianity, become Atheist, and don't adopt any ism, you end up with people thinking they only have 1 life on earth, nothing else, and therefore want to enjoy their life as much as possible, even if it is in ways that damage society or posterity. You need an ism to keep society from selfdestroying by the proliferation of that kind of people. And if it's not christianity it has to be something else.

>>20694903
i´m atheist and my reason to live is to achieve my true will, religion and ideologies are mindviruses to self-perpetuate in order to achieved longevity throughout the centuries

>>20694903
The coming horror is indescribable. People that think things are bad now or the experiments in the last century were the peak of evil lack imagination.

The problem is none of us will be the next wizard king. You plebs won't even notice what's happening until a dragon pecks out your eyes and then what you blind cucks?

>>20694903
I don't think thats the case at all. Of course the death of god leads to nihilism and decadence and Nietzsche adresses and kind of laments this but I also think he sees this as a chance to find something new. And I don't think it's just about finding a substitute or a new -ism. Because all these -isms aren't true to earth and by creating some overarching morality hinder a spontaneous natural evolution of the will to power. Remember he was very much influenced by Darwin and saw that not the strong survive but the meek and the many and they do it by inventing a moral law to opress the strong.

>>20695092
This. Even if Christianity is wrong about a literal eternal hell, life on Earth is going to be a finite approximation of it.

>>20695243
>aren't true to earth
he still believes in truth

>>20695257
True in the sense of devotely, loyaly or faithful. I don't know what the exact words used in the english translations are for "Bleibt der Erde treu"