Is there something I'm supposed to get out of this book?

[Anonymous No.12541597]

There seems to only be a loosely defined theme, and many times there are unnecessary digressions that add nothing to what is trying to be expressed. Is there a better book to start with? Because I have gotten very little out of this diary.

[Anonymous No.12542468]

Point out foible and folly in the attitude of the day, present your own, and be unafraid to cut ties with anyone who disagrees. Idk I always read it as an individualists manifesto with how it decried the "common good" but people tell me Nietzsche was a collectivist. It presents the problem of democracy more explicitly than Plato's Apology, that it is only as good as the electorate and that it raises up the lowliest of us and destroys the greatest.

I think you want to start with Thus Spake Zarathustra. He called it his Magnum Opus.

[Anonymous No.12542558]

>>12542468
I'll read it again later with that in mind. I thought it was just trivial mocking without much depth, occasionally something interesting presented, but maybe there is something deeper in what was said.

[Anonymous No.12542579]

>>12541597
Genealogy of Morals is a little bit more straightforward and he lays out his ideas more comprehensively. Still lots of mocking but that's the best part

[Anonymous No.12542596]

>>12541597
>Is there a better book to start with?

yes

[Anonymous No.12542650]

>>12542558
It's been a while since I've read it or Nietzsche in general. I got entirely different things out of him than most people. In his works I saw justification for anarchy(anarchocapitalism), while others saw justification for totalitarianism. I saw an impetus to create values to fight nihilism and thought that he hated nihilism, while others thought he was a nihilist. I thought, since he wanted free thinkers, that he is pro free speech. Others say he is against that. I was thinking about going back to it soon myself.

People say he can be a mirror where you can find whatever you are looking for. He himself says that he is hard to understand and that many won't get what he is saying.

[Anonymous No.12542845]

>>12542468
I’ve heard from almost everyone that’s read Nietzsche in his entirety (more or less) to 100% NOT start with thus spoke Zarathustra.

[Anonymous No.12542934]

>>12541597
Sounds like you have autism. I can open up a random page and find a passage that is meaningful to me, and fits the theme of the book. Here goes (Oxford, Marion Faber edition):

>Now that it has become so common to praise 'disinterested people', we must, perhaps not without some danger, be made aware of what the common people are actually interested in, and what really are the things that trouble an ordinary man wholly and deeply: this includes educated people, even scholars and, if we can trust our eyes, maybe even philosophers. What we will discover is that most of what interests and attracts people of more refined and discriminating taste, anyone of a higher nature, seems completely 'uninteresting' to the average person; if he nevertheless notices that some people are devoted to such things, he calls that being 'désintéressé' and marvels how it can be possible to act 'disinterestedly'. There have been some philosophers who (perhaps because their own experience afforded them no familiarity with a higher nature?) were even able to add a seductive and mystical aspect to this popular amazement, instead of stating the naked and downright obvious truth that a 'disinterested' action is a very interesting and interested action, assuming that... 'And what about love?'—What! Even a deed done for love is supposed to be 'unegotistical'? But you fools—! 'And praise for people who make sacrifices?'—But anyone who has truly offered a sacrifice knows that he wanted something for it and got it—perhaps something of himself in return for something of himself—that he gave up something here in order to have more there, perhaps just to be more, or at least to feel as if he were 'more'. But this is a realm of questions and answers where the more fastidious spirit does not like to dwell, for when she is asked for answers about these matters, even truth must suppress her yawns. She is a woman, after all: we should not violate her.

220, under Our Virtues. Do you really not follow the importance of that passage?

[Anonymous No.12542990]

>>12542845
Yeah I know that's what they say, but I was just going off what Nietzsche himself said. It was his most important work, and everything else was just expansion on it or the philosophy behind it. Since he himself says that he is hard to understand and only a few will truly understand, I try to get into his mindset about things.

But you can always listen to the experts.

[Anonymous No.12543061]

>>12541597
You just got NIETZSCHED

[Anonymous No.12543117]

>>12541597
>this bait again

[Anonymous No.12543196]

>>12541597
Yeah I bought this thinking it was going to blow my mind

So far it's just fucking stupid

[Anonymous No.12543226]

>>12543196
>I'm an untermensch
I fixed it for you.
You just don't get it.

[Anonymous No.12543253]

>>12543226
I get it and I just think it's silly. You cannot overcome Nihilism without an existential spiritual truth.

[Anonymous No.12543263]

>>12543253
That's not at all the point

[Anonymous No.12543296]

>>12542650
He says in one of his books (paraphrasing from memory) that “one should appreciate the good will in some subtlety of interpretation”

[Anonymous No.12543318]

>>12542934
Good post. I’ve read that book and listened to the audiobook several times and get something new out of it with each read. He’s made me love the aphoristic style.

[Anonymous No.12543329]

>>12542650
>In his works I saw justification for anarchy


That's because you are a faggot and could see what you want in a blank page of paper

[Anonymous No.12543405]

>>12542934
Yes, there are individual passages that are valuable. But does it make the whole any better? No.

[Anonymous No.12543450]

>>12543405
Of course it makes the whole better. If you think otherwise, you aren't picking up on the theme of the book, and his philosophy as a whole.

Nietzsche's books are powerfully complex and labyrinthian in style, which at first serves the purpose of grasping the attention of the readers he is concerned with, and later serves the purpose of strengthening the philosophy itself. If you don't get it after just one book, chances are it wasn't written for you in mind and you should just walk away.

[Anonymous No.12543468]

>tfw friedrice itchyknee plagarizes all your ideas

>>12543329
>tfw you assume anarcho-communism is the only form of anarchism
>tfw you're so fucking retarded you think communism and anarchism are the same thing
>tfw you read all that itchyknee but pick up none of his institutional critiques

>>12542650
>tfw you do literally all of itchyknee's heavy lifting, pour your soul into your magnum opus, and die impoverished and alone
>tfw some edgy /lit/ faggot cherrypicks your plagiarist to support "free markets"
>tfw both you and your plagiarist were smart enough to hate capitalism
>tfw anon will read this as lefty faggotry
>tfw anon is too fucking retarded to understand stirner or his plagiarist

[Anonymous No.12543486]

>>12543468
Nietzsche didn't plagiarize Stirner, he just read his works and realized all the ideas in his were his own property.

[Anonymous No.12543502]

>>12543450
You are being incredibly vague. 'Powerfully complex' in what way? Is it a sophisticated complexity, or a forced one? What kind of readers is he concerned with? Those who enjoy passages valuable when read separately, or as a whole? Perhaps you can explain his philosophy in brief.

[Anonymous No.12543668]

>>12542596
liberalism is moral syphilis and I'm stepping over it

[Anonymous No.12543784]

>>12543502
>Is it a sophisticated complexity, or a forced one?
Highly sophisticated. Nietzsche was an esteemed philologist; he read all the classics in the original Latin. And he was recognized across Europe as one of the youngest achieving professors. There is no philosopher with a better understanding of the Greeks than him.

>What kind of readers is he concerned with?
The hyperborean kind. His passages are valuable both on their own and as a whole.

>Perhaps you can explain his philosophy in brief.
I can't, because it's not brief. You're gonna have to put the effort in and read him yourself.

[Anonymous No.12543801]

>>12543784
>Greeks
>original Latin

[Anonymous No.12543807]

>>12543801
He could read both the Greek and Roman classics in the original, he was also fluent in Italian and French

[Anonymous No.12543812]

>>12543807
>Greek and Roman classics
>Italian and French
no one can be this stupid, the French didn't even exist 2000 years ago

[Anonymous No.12543830]

>>12543801
You know what I meant.

[Anonymous No.12544107]

>>12542650
>People say he can be a mirror where you can find whatever you are looking for. He himself says that he is hard to understand and that many won't get what he is saying.
In other words, he completely failed to convey his ideas.
Why do people say Nietzsche is good again?

[Anonymous No.12544156]

>>12544107
>Why do people say Nietzsche is good again?
Because those people found what they were looking for. The subtitle to TSZ is "A Book for All and None" for a reason.

[Anonymous No.12544270]

>>12543486
serious question here fellas
how can stirnerfags possibly refute this?

[Anonymous No.12545310]

>>12543226
Untermensch isn't from Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.12545347]

>>12543329
When I read passages like this I start to understand why people think Nietzsche is proto-fascistic.

His criticism of specific kinds of morality as weakness and his insistence that it is only the will to see values be manifest in the world, and not the content of those values that matters, really makes it feel like he wants politics to be all about aesthetics. Which is precisely how Nazis and Fascists argue as well, they only care about the spectacle and how everything needs to submit to it.

[Anonymous No.12545726]

>>12541597
The best introductions to Nietzsche's works that are his own are Human, All Too Human, Twilight of the Idols (which is meant to be a kind of summary of his work), or Ecce Homo, wherein he discusses the purposes of his books.

Per the latter book, Beyond Good and Evil is his "No-saying" work, compared to his "Yes-saying" Zarathustra book. There's a much tighter argument going on between the aphorisms than it appears. Pay attention to his occasional references to esotericism, and, with that subject in mind, think about the meaning of his only two references to Dionysus in the whole book. Perhaps the main thread, if it helps, is an argument over what should rule in political life, philosophy or religion.

[Anonymous No.12545814]

>>12543329
In a state of anarchy, everyone is free to act out their will to power, faggot.

[Anonymous No.12546179]

>>12544107
I think>>12544156 is mostly right.

Because of how he writes, you can cherry pick stuff at any point to support what you want.

Beyond that, however, he also predicted a few of the moral ills which would appear a century after his death. He also had ideas which were new and interesting.

[Anonymous No.12546187]

>>12545310
I know I was just being a dick

[Anonymous No.12546307]

Just read Stirner, Nietzsche is to Stirner what engineering is to math.

[Anonymous No.12547975]

>>12546307
Why do people propagate this?

Having actually read Stirner, he has none of the depth and refinement and education and poetry and humor of Nietzsche. Stirner is reddit

[Anonymous No.12547982]

>>12546307
All of you: read The Ego and Its Own and see how pedestrian it is, in both language and the truth it conveys

[Anonymous No.12548284]

>>12542650
>I saw an impetus to create values to fight nihilism and thought that he hated nihilism, while others thought he was a nihilist.
These aren't contradictory.

[Anonymous No.12548379]

>>12548284
Seconding.

Nihilism, for Nietzsche, isn't just dangerous to life, it's also an exciting opportunity, and an occasion to put philosophy through its paces.

[Anonymous No.12549201]

>>12548284
They aren't, but only members of the Abrahamic faith would refer to him as a nihilist. Meanwhile, he referred to such people as nihilists. He spent a great deal of effort wrestling philosophy and language away from these people, which he considered to have dominated these things for the last two millennia or so.

[Anonymous No.12549225]

>>12541597
I found BG&E to be one of N's more difficult works, idk how it got this reputation as a good intro. best to read him chronologically imo.

[Anonymous No.12550377]

>>12548284
I suppose they're not, given that some atheists want to believe but can't bring themselves to.

My point was, people tend to have very varied interpretations of him.


>>12549225
I started with Beyond Good and Evil just because it was the first book by him that I came across. Then I went chronologically.

[Anonymous No.12550398]

>>12547975
Literally what I said. Stirner is math, simple, exact. Nietzsche just adds garbage words to show how sexually aroused he was at the mention of Stirner