/lit/ - Literature

>>23112743
Damn I worded this terribly but ChatGPT says Leviathan is similar and could shed some light. Should I read that or Genealogy of Morals first? pls respond

>>23112743

>>23112871
literally BAP tier i meant real philosophy

>>23112911
I suppose this means ChatGPT does not consider BAP real philosophy either.

>>23112911
>real philosophy
Don't bother with Nietzsche then.

>>23112743
>>23112743
I rarely related to any of Nietzsche's complex opinions on morality. For example he viewed christian morality as weak because its endorsement of pity, charity and pacifism. I think what he failed to understand is that these aspects are what elevates christian morality above the previous western morality of the time, what makes it more enlightened. These are the aspects of christian morality that eastern teachings align with.

What I love about Nietzsches ideas are his unwavering spirit and his constant determination to strive and not succumb to nihilism, depression and apathy when it is so easy to do so; to stand on your own to feet actually make something of yourself, as he put it to "become human".

If you're asking where to start, penguin sell Twilight of the Idols and the Antichrist in one book; I'd say there.

>>23112951
don't need ChatGPT to know not to read some podcast grifter's merch book but apparently you do

>>23112991
ty

>>23113000
Well in light of your trips I am inclined to say you already have it all figured out and don't need any philosophy of any tier.

>>23113004
really not selling it well

(>1% of the time)

>>23113033
I'm not selling anything. Based on the OP and the first post it sounds like you are the one who is desperate to sell something. Begging as per the post, not even selling really.

>>23112743

Utterly idiotic and, of course, far more ideological than NEETzsche claims Morality itself to be.

>>23112743
You are starting from a place packed with modernist and individualist presuppositions. I would try identifying and questioning those, and Nietzsche, Hume, Marx, Freud, etc. aren't going to help you do this.

The big reads on ethics to understand what the term meant in the West for most of the past millennia would be Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, at least Books I, II and X, Plato's Apology, Crito, Phaedo, and Republic (in that order), and Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy (which hews close to Saint Augustine but is far more concise.) These are not that long and present a very different view of ethics. If you want another perspective which nonetheless is similar to these in many respects, check out the Analects of Confucius.

But more than this, consider reading the Iliad and the older books of the Bible such as Judges and Samuel. Ask yourself, "is the author confused about what it is to be a good man? Do people in this society have an objective standard all can agree to about righteousness?"

The idea that morality is free floating, or the result of "conspiracies," that people just weren't smart enough to figure out until the 19th century is, of course, modern. The ancients and medievals grounded what it meant to be a good man in social structures. The Polis comes before the individual and makes them who they are. Odysseus' great sin against Philoctetes is to leave him "without polis," in Sophocles own words. What it meant to be a good farmer versus a good craftsman, versus a good knight, versus a good friar was different, but everyone has their own role. Standards for what conforms to the various practices in social life aren't mysterious to people, nor do they exist at the individual level. The obsession with individual acts being good or bad and moral rules is a modern one. The ancients and medievals thought in terms of virtue, which was cultivated across an entire life. "Count no man happy/flourishing until he is dead," as Solon says, or "judge no man wise until his departure," the Book of Sirach.

People took these virtues extremely seriously. Socrates died for them. Polycarp met a brutal end on similar principles. Boethius and Origen were tortured to death but did not break, led to this path by their ideas. It was not "idle talk and conspiracies," for them.

Consider also how Nietzsche, Marx, Feuerbach, and Freud can't all be right about "the real reasons," for religion. They each advance implausible reductions of it to "just one thing." This is the hallmark of modernity, the need for reduction, and particularly for "unmasking simplification " when it comes to society.

>>23112743
Herding cats isn't efficient, so you make a few heads roll until they get the picture in prehistory. The drive to live supersedes coombrain xyz ones in underdeveloped subjectivities & presences. Eventually this is made automatic, reducing social transaction costs. The process is recapitulated again and again.

The Strong, Beautiful, and Good don't require this technology, being good natured-- but their lessers with eyes too big for their stomachs resent that fact. One is free. One is not free. Those embodying Aretḗ aren't naturally doubtful or second guessing. But their lessers - and their ingrained yolks and bridles - oblige them to in insidious ways, social pathological ways that can metastize and even become objectified in law, custom, personality styles.

What it comes down to: secularized versions and efforts of Christian proselytization are bound to fail, and Westerns oughtn't be wasting energy making them what they are not and cannot be anymore than Coco the Gorilla was a scholar after a lifetime of training-- rather, order the world in such a way that its Thinking part is not overtaken by the unthinking body of lumpenprole biomassive Humanity, and that that lesser part is and remains yolked to the great design of the conquest of space -- and expeditiously so, so that we are not reset by a random asteroid strike (or Carrington level solar flare, or some shithole still communist backwater EMPing satellites in a way that makes low earth orbit unusable indefinitely ...)

>>23112743
“God is dead,” a key idea for interpretation here. I’ve only read the gay science, just got the pocket Nietzsche or something by Kaufman, excited to dig into some more of his shit. The idea I got was not any trickery, more that the way we insist on helping others in the modern world hurts the helped, for not being able to solve their problems on their own and build strength, and the helper does it in order to avoid building the courage to address their own problems. Nietzsche actually allows for helping other people somewhere, saying something like “well it makes sense you’d wanna help someone who’s a lot like you, just not that you’d wanna help everyone.” He has some lines that indicate he’s in favor of evil too; hard times build HARD muscular men who are so strong and cool and have big biceps. Hitler supporters interpret this as saying we need more evil in the world. I think this is untrue and undesirable even on a nietzschean view due to the current tools of surveillance and control availed to the state. I think the task for nietzscheans is kinda funny, and contrasts interestingly against Mircea eliade’s thoughts on religion. For eliade, you can’t fully grind religion out of the mind; you’ll just form “secular” structures that mimic religious ones. Nietzsche thinks you can be so individualistic as to build yourself your own worldview and life alien from god and shit. I’m more towards nietzsche’s side than eliade’s, but eliade makes a useful point. I’m weary of writing this banal comment and want to turn to my coffee and my notebook, so I’m gonna close it off after one final note: Slavery, torture, rape are not good things from the point of view of any sane person. If you are reading that into Nietzsche’s work, you’re misreading him, and you probably need to get a life. Conquer danger, build meaningful friendships, find love. You can do this with or without god, but either way, you need to get your shit together.

>>23113829
>ingrained yolks

>>23113829
>>23113844
I think you guys are missing the "unconscious" part of the OP, the implication is that this is the state of things despite anyones' opinions or intentions (even though many people are consciously this way). POSIWID.

>>23113814
>The idea that morality is free floating, or the result of "conspiracies," that people just weren't smart enough to figure out until the 19th century is, of course, modern

???

otherwise good post

Nichomachean ethics?

>>23113814
Picrel is a great book, got me interested in ethics

>>23113814
Good post, thanks anon

>>23115297
Not really since it's completely wrong about many supposed presumptions.


>The idea that morality is free floating, or the result of "conspiracies," that people just weren't smart enough to figure out until the 19th century is, of course, modern.


Nothing in the OP implies this. The mechanism is largely unconscious: they drink their own Kool-Aid but only in tiny amounts relative to the population. But they do not live moral lives, they systematically rape civilization and break laws and hurt people because they do not genuinely respect either. Hence the "absurd" so many people blather about. Life for many is absurd because they schizophrenically confuse a small part of themselves (the aesthetics and emotions tied to morality) with the whole. Again, POSIWID.

And of course many more people than normies want to accept are just actively malicious and consciously sadistic.

>>23112991
lovely

Has aesthetics always been prior to ethics or no?

>>23117284
yes. the first man-apes didn't think of virtues, they only knew what they saw and liked or disliked.

>>23113792
what's ideological about it? i tried to present it neutrally but suspect it may come off as moralizing/inflammatory anyway.