Nietzsche BTFOs himself, /lit/, and all writers

[Anonymous No.14879433]

>A Homer would not have created an Achilles nor a Goethe a Faust if Homer had been an Achilles or Goethe a Faust. Whoever is completely and wholly an artist is to all eternity separated from the “real,” the actual; on the other hand, one can understand how he may sometimes weary to the point of desperation of the eternal “unreality” and falsity of his innermost existence—and that then he may well attempt what is most forbidden him, to lay hold of actuality, for once actually to be. With what success? That is easy to guess.

[Anonymous No.14879448]

>>14879433
This quote always reminds me of Rimbaud

[Anonymous No.14879459]

>>14879433
A philosopher is not "completely and wholly an artist." Part of his work is scientific, and he's ultimately concerned with the real rather than the actual.

[Anonymous No.14879465]

A philosopher is not "completely and wholly an artist." Part of his work is scientific, and he's ultimately concerned with the real rather than the unreal.

[Anonymous No.14879473]

>>14879465
Zarathustra was what I was thinking of when I said "BTFOs himself". Nietzsche was a genius but he was no Zarathustra. You could easily say, in the vein of the quotation - a Zarathustra would not have created a Zarathustra.

[Anonymous No.14879474]

>>14879433
>implying Goethe's retelling of Faust wasn't semi-autobiographical
He doesn't have any idea, does he?

[Anonymous No.14879487]

>>14879433
This is why gene editing is essential. We need philosophers who can lift at least three tonnes above their heads comfortably.

[Anonymous No.14879488]

>>14879465
PART of his work is scientific. Where does that place him? Dealing with both real and unreal. I have a feeling Nietzsche would tell us that we should not assume that real and unreal are fundamentally opposed.

[Anonymous No.14879504]

>>14879465
>Part of his work is scientific

[Anonymous No.14879670]

>>14879433
>one can understand how he may sometimes weary to the point of desperation of the eternal “unreality” and falsity of his innermost existence
So because Goethe wrote some books he is somehow supposed to have this dread that his life is some sort of "fake"? What the fuck does innermost existence mean? Goethe the man is real even if he's works are not.

>and that then he may well attempt what is most forbidden him, to lay hold of actuality, for once actually to be. With what success? That is easy to guess.
Artists have lives outside of what they create. Goethe had political influence for example.

[Anonymous No.14879759]

>>14879433
How is Goethe not a Faust? Has there ever been a man that was more of a Faust than him?

[Anonymous No.14879779]

True heroes died saving people you don't even know, signing boring papers that helped building a hospital 10 years later.

The best writers in the world, ten times better than Nietzsche, Homer and Goethe combined have written their things in small notebooks that were never published and were tossed aside by someone who didn't care just after they died.

99.9% of the most talented musicians could not afford a proper music education or were not born in the best place to get along with a band and show off their talent.

The greatest IQ people in the world are peasants that never even dreamed of entering labs or libraries.

[Anonymous No.14879834]

>>14879779
This but unironically. People vastly underrate the effect of luck and circumstances on a person's development and then retroactively worship someone who has achieved publicity as a "genius".

[Anonymous No.14879849]

>>14879779
>>14879834
midwit cope

[Anonymous No.14879878]

>>14879779
>>14879834
Of course prosperity and birthplace afford the opportunity to greatness. But greatness is not simply a product of talent and work ethic. Greatness is precisely a historical phenomenon that results from the random distribution of talent and luck over an entire population being acted upon by historical forces. To say that Homer is great because he was lucky--that is a platitude.

[Anonymous No.14879893]

Thus Spake Zarathustra was fucking gay as hell. I really tried to like it, but it’s literally just
>I am enlightened by my own intelligence
the fucking book

[Anonymous No.14879896]

>>14879433
>A Homer would not have created an Achilles nor a Goethe a Faust if Homer had been an Achilles or Goethe a Faust.

Speak for yourself

[Anonymous No.14880152]

>>14879849
it wasn't self-referential, you're projecting your narcissism

[Anonymous No.14880157]

>>14879474
you think you know more about Goethe than Nietzsche?

[Anonymous No.14880251]

>>14880157
Yes.

[Anonymous No.14880588]

>>14880157
Of coursh

[Anonymous No.14880979]

>>14879473
Zarathustra would've created the Ubermensch

[Anonymous No.14881163]

>>14879670
you're right that Goethe lived a life, but what Nietzsche is saying is that they have such a large view of reality to be able to create such all-encompassing arts that they are spectators to the world, too self-aware to really be in it like a fool slaven to emotion such as Werther.

[Anonymous No.14881814]

>>14879433
Where to start with Nietzsche? Genealogy of the morality looks good but I don't really know.

[Anonymous No.14881857]

>>14881814
"Ecce Homo". It's short and a sort of autobiography, and from it you should be able to navigate further.

[Anonymous No.14881871]

>>14879433
Retroactively refuted so sublimely by Goethe the man himself:

"A poet must live entirely for himself and in his beloved subjects! Endowed by heaven with a fund of inner riches, he must labor to increase this by living, happy and undisturbed, with his own treasure. No man can acquire such happiness by the mere amassing of riches. Just look at how men rush after fortune and pleasure, driven on restlessly by money, effort and desire, but to what end? To the same state that the poet has received by nature: to enjoyment of the world, the sense of being apart of a community, harmonious coexistence with many different things that often seem irreconcilable with each other.
What troubles most people is that they are unable to reconcile their ideas with reality, pleasure evades them, wishes are fulfilled too late, and what they do achieve does not give them the pleasure they had expected in anticipation. Fate has placed the poet above all this—like a god. He sees the whirlpool of passions, the fruitless activity of families and nations, the serious problems born of misunderstandings,fraught with dangerous consequences, that a single word could often dispel. He experiences in himself all the joys and sorrows of human existence. And whereas men of the world either consume their time in melancholy brooding over losses, or embrace their fate with unbridled joy, the poet with his receptive and fluid mind moves likethe sun from night to day, tuning his harp with gentle transitions from joy to pain. The flower of wisdom grows naturally out of the soil of his heart, and whereas others, when they dream in waking life, are frightened by the images that arise from their senses, the poet lives out the dream of life in constant wakefulness, and integrates even the most extraordinary occurrence into both past and future. The poet is teacher, prophet, friend of gods and men. How can you expect him to lower himself to some miserable trade or occupation? Built like a bird to soar above the earth, nest in high trees, nourish himself from buds and fruits, moving easily from branch to branch—how can he at the same time be an ox pulling a plough, a hound trained to follow ascent, or a watchdog on a chain in a farmyard, barking to ward off intruders?”

[Anonymous No.14881906]

>>14881871
>The poet is teacher, prophet, friend of gods and men.
Notice how Achilles or Faust weren't prophets and teachers. Not refuted. Don't just use a wall of stylized text to present more credible.

[Anonymous No.14881926]

>>14881906
>Fate has placed the poet above all this—like a god.
He doesn't need to be a prophet or teacher.

[Anonymous No.14881943]

>>14881926
>Whoever is completely and wholly an artist is to all eternity separated from the “real,” the actual;
Cheers.

[Anonymous No.14882714]

>>14881814
Find the lit chart or go for chronological order. Ecce homo is a horrible starting point since N wasn't exactly at his peak sanity writing it.

[Anonymous No.14882869]

>There you have that "thief of energies," as he so obtusely called Christ who sought to wed nihilism with the struggle for existence, and he talks to you about courage. His heart craved the eternal all while his head convinced him of nothingness, and, desperate and mad to defend himself from himself, he cursed that which he most loved. Because he could not be Christ, he blasphemed against Christ. Bursting with his own self, he wished himself unending and dreamed his theory of eternal recurrence, a sorry counterfeit of immortality, and, full of pity for himself, he abominated all pity. And there are some who say that his is the philosophy of strong men! No, it is not. My health and my strength urge me to perpetuate myself. His is the doctrine of weaklings who aspire to be strong, but not of the strong who are strong. Only the feeble resign themselves to final death and substitute some other desire for the longing for personal immortality. In the strong the zeal for perpetuity overrides the doubt of realizing it, and their superabundance of life overflows upon the other side of death.

[Anonymous No.14883414]

>>14879433
I'm retarded so forgive me
So he's basically saying
>To write these great fictitious works of art u gotta be so fuckin smart that ur above it all, and actually u just write these characters so u can live vicariously thru them in a world they're a part of unlike how u r, above it all and a faggot
If so, gay

[Anonymous No.14883609]

>>14879433
>hoever is completely and wholly an artist is to all eternity separated from the “real,” the actual; on the other hand, one can understand how he may sometimes weary to the point of desperation
Totally false, he's projecting the consequences of his own totally cloistered and squandered life lived in books on the great artists of all time. I was reading him the other night and it struck me how lifeless and hallow his books are, despite all the attempts to dress them up with figurs of speech, exclamation points, etc, his work suffers from a major absence of life.

Compare to Tolstoy, perhaps the greatest writer of that century, who lived the things in his books. There isn't a lifeless moment in a Tolstoy book.

[Anonymous No.14883645]

>>14879433
>dude fictional characters are more real than reality
How is this man considered a genius? Oh yeah because he's a fucking edgelord.

[Anonymous No.14883662]

>>14879433
Maybe true for the philosophers/writers of Nietzsche's time and ours but many of the Greeks certainly was able to balance the two.

Bring back the warrior poets.