/lit/ - Literature

>He doesn't see or want to admit that the unanimity always prevailing in the myths has to be based on mimetic contagion, which possesses the participants and which they don't recognize, whereas the Gospels recognize and denounce the violent contagion, as do the story of Joseph and the other great biblical texts. Nietzsche, to discredit the Jewish-Christian revelation, tries to show that the commitment to the side of the victims stems from a paltry, miserable resentment. Observing that the earliest Christians belonged primarily to the lower classes, he accuses them of sympathizing with victims so as to satisfy their resentment of the pagan aristocrats. This is the famous "slave morality."

>So this is how Nietzsche understand the "genealogy" of Christianity! He opposes, so he believes, the crowd mentality, but he does not recognize his Dionysian stance as the supreme expression of the mob in its most brutal and its most stupid tendencies. Christianity does not yield to ulterior motives of resentment in its concern to rehabilitate victims. It is not seduced by a contaminated charity of resentment. What it does is to rectify the illusion of myths; it exposes the lie of the "satanic accusation." Since Nietzsche is blind to mimetic rivalry and its contagion, he doesn't see that the Gospel stance toward victims does not come from prejudice in favor of the weak against the strong but is heroic resistance to violent contagion. Indeed, the Gospels embody the discernment of a small minority that dares to oppose the monstrous mimetic contagion of a Dionysian lynching.

>Nietzsche had to trick himself to avoid clearly seeing this. To escape the consequences of his own discovery and persist in a desperate negation of the biblical truth of the victim, Nietzsche resorts to an evasion so gross, so unworthy of his best thing, that his mind could not hold out against it. For it is not by accident, in my view, that the explicit discovery of what Dionysos and the Crucified have in common and what separates them occurs so shortly before his final breakdown. Nietzsche's devotees try to empty his insanity of all meaning. We can understand perfectly why. The nonsense of madness plays a protective role in their thought just as madness itself functions for Nietzsche. Nietzsche the philosopher was unable to sit back comfortably in the monstrosities into which the need to minimize his discovery was driving him. And so he took refuge in madness.

I think he's missing large parts of Nietzsche's work because a lot of a what he says isn't addressed by Nietzsche is directly addressed by Nietzsche, in uncharacteristically plain prose for Nietzsche, and much of what he's saying about slave morality and charity is definitely inaccurate. I can't tell if this is coping or ignorance.

>>20963863
Come back when you're not thinking out loud.

>>20963887
Kek did you think not being in charge of your feels gave you retcon powers? >>>/co/

>>20963906
Say something meaningful, not "Uhhhh I think like Nietzsche refuted this if you read him duhhhhhhh"

>>20963863
and in typical fashion, anything substantive about Nietzsche is immediately followed by the holy matrimony of 'you didn't read Nietzsche' and 'you didn't understand Nietzsche'.
eerily similar to the worst aspects of protestant theology where everyone gets their own special interpretation to accuse other sects of mistranslations and exegetical inaccuracy

The more I think about it, the more it seems Nietzsche was an even bigger retard than Hegel.

>>20963834
>the injustice of the violence
There isn't any. This dude didn't understand amor fati.

>>20963926
>>20963941
If you don't want to read all of Nietzsche, you could Google the keywords. Though if you need someone to spoon-feed you that advice, it's probably a sign you don't want to know. Some people like fanfiction that goes OOC, so it's your choice if you do.

>>20963965
>its not my job to educate you sweaty
if you knew what you were talking about you could give the most brief and general of descriptions, or point to a chapter or book even. but instead you are just handwaving and acting pretentious when others don't buy it

How exactly did Jews defend the victim of Jesus?

>>20963996
If you think it is my job, pay me.

>>20964023
advice worth its weight in gold: if you don't have a clue what you're talking about, everyone will think you're a stupid faggot

>>20964044
>Broke and ignorant
How's that working out for you?

>>20963999
Wrote multiple books about how he was a good boy who dindu noffin.

>>20963834
>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.

>>20963837
>Since Nietzsche is blind to mimetic rivalry and its contagion, he doesn't see that the Gospel stance toward victims does not come from prejudice in favor of the weak against the strong but is heroic resistance to violent contagion.

Where is this from? Girard is one of the great victimologists.

>>20964061
The Jews demanded his crucifixion and even today refuse the Gospel.

>>20964147
>demanded his crucifixion
According to the Jew books.

>>20964130
>favour of weak against the strong
>heroic resistance to violent contagion

both sound reactive to me. isn't being a victim the root of all evil? why would you affirm it?

>>20964310
Why would being a victim of evil make you the root of all evil?

>>20964152
According to all sources. Why would anti-christian Jews, Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles of the first centuries all say this, if it was wrong?

Girard's critique of Nietzsche is pretty scathing. Especially when you see Nietzsche's behaviour at the end of his life and how he basically admitted to submitting to Jesus.

You see the same sort of conversion with Heidegger, who went back to Catholicism after making a career out of trying to deepen Nietzsche's anti-Christian relativism.

>>20963941
>the worst aspects of protestant theology
all of it? -sincere anon that converted to Catholicism

>>20964452
Lol Heidegger did not go back to Catholicism. Cope.

>>20966136
Not anon but IIRC he did request the catholic rites on his deathbed.

>>20966190
This is not ideological, it could have been nostalgia/homage/etc.

I’m a Christian btw. Not an edgy atheist trying to claim him for myself.

Flavio Insinna

>>20964452
>and how he basically admitted to submitting to Jesus
Dionysus VERSUS the Crucified, faggot.

>>20963834
This seems very plausible, at least in parts, he does go overboard when he speculates about Nietzsche's madness.

The point about the eternal recurrence is a strong one, Nietzsche's did spent a lot of his energy and efforts on trying to transform this most horrible idea something we can receive with joy, he only succeeded partially, by hypothesizing the ubermansch.

Other than that I think his points about Christianity and the Dionysian are wrong and misleading. Girard's fail to acknowledge the interplay between the Dyonisian and Apolinean, which is a theme in Nietszche's work but is not even brought up here, I admit my knowledge is limited as to know if he equates apolinean with Christianity or if its altogether a different thing, but Nietzsche emphasis on the dyonisian is much more a reaction to its absence than a unconditional pledge to its supreme reign.

Worse, by identifying the Dyonisian lynch with a memetic contagion, but not Christianity he fails to see that despite its best intentions and wishes it never succeeds in defeating it. The same violence of the dyonisian is present in christianity and it burst out in the most subtly cruel forms as we can see throughout history.

The formula of the Dyonisian is this: to identify oneself not only with the pleasure of the persecutor, but also with that of the martyr, only through that can eternal recurrence be joyful, while Christianity is its opposite.

>>20963837
>. Christianity does not yield to ulterior motives of resentment in its concern to rehabilitate victims. It is not seduced by a contaminated charity of resentment.
This is a bizarre way to try to refute Nietzsche, though perhaps I'm missing something the Protestants do.
Catholics certainly wouldn't have a problem with Nietzsche's description of charity, because having a problem with his description of the causes would be a kind of prideful heresy where humans were not broken, where concern for others was not based in the knowledge of our own imperfection and our natural curiosity, and where charity cannot be corrupted by delusions of perfection. You'd have to throw out Genesis and Corinthians to get to that, along with invincible ignorance and a lot of dogma. It's genuinely bizarre, and I don't see how he could arrive at this description, especially as most of the Catholic foundation for the idea is in books shared with most Protestant denominations. It's weird to try to mount a defense of Christianity on that basis. It's like defending Jews because anyone who eats pork chops must be okay: it's so off base that I don't know how he came up with it.

>>20966922
>it's so off base that I don't know how he came up with it.
That's how I feel about it too. It's why I never feel like bothering to refute Girard when I see these threads. It just doesn't seem worth it. Too much work for too little payoff.

>>20964371
victims allow evil to pass. evil amplifies into more evil, concentrating it through the body or corpse of the victim. you could say docility is the source of evil. unless you claim that this 'violent contagion' is evil but what is wrong with a virulent force?

Any good authors inspired by Girard? I know there's a journal (Contagion), a series through Michigan Uni Press (iirc), an Australian Girardian society that publishes widely, and some mentions in unlikely places. But it's often difficult to piece together the threads yourself.

I've read almost everything he's put out and yet I feel like I'm just scraping the surface. I was surprised that so many engineers - Paul Dumouchel and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, being the best - take his work seriously. I don't have a background in A.I but some here would probably appreciate mimetic theory being applied there.

If anybody is reading this, I'd highly recommend Humbert's Violence in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock. If you're familiar with Zizek's takes on Hitchcock you're in for a treat - all those thorny Lacanian weeds are trimmed, cut down, and you're left with a clearer picture of Hitchcock that's perfect if you're just getting into mimetic theory. Once you see it in action once it becomes a part of you

>>20963999
Not Jesus specifically but in that the Jewish law and ten commandments condemned mimetic conflict and in the stories concerning the innocence of the victim in the Old Testament and Psalms
>>20964310
>isn't being a victim the root of all evil?
Surely senseless violence precedes victimhood, even just logically?
>>20966854
>it burst out in the most subtly cruel forms as we can see throughout history.
Girard considers this due to humanity's fallen nature. I don't think this explanation is any worse than yours presented here

>>20967656
>Surely senseless violence precedes victimhood, even just logically?
I don't see how this follows. Plenty of what could be considered victims are born that way or otherwise not victims of violence. Further, plenty of people who are given the same circumstances externally are divided about whether that made them a victim or not.

>>20967699
>what could be considered
This is the problem. It's not what could be considered victims, they are a real category, because violence is real

>>20963834
>>20963837
That degenerate Catholic Girard has Nothing to contribute.

>>20966288
I agree, it doesn't necessarily mean much, but I do think the influence of catholicism on Heidegger is underestimated. Probably in large part by way of his theologian brother.