/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20508507]

>Be Nietzsche
>Realize early in life that nihilism is going to be the bane of human existence
>Work desperately to show that there can still be a pursuit of meaning despite the collapse of religion
>Write yourself into a philosophy-induced breakdown trying to show that we can overcome nihilism by pursuing passion, art, self-ownership and struggle
>100+ years later
>Faggot teenagers think that you're a nihilist and try to twist your philosophy to justify meaningless hedonistic living

[Anonymous No.20508535]

So you say that Nietzsche isn't a Nihilist. Nietzsche defines Nihilism as such: "That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs-no 'thing-in-itself.' This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind." in The Will to Power.

Where in Nietzsche's work does he actually argue for the opposite, that there is truth, and that there is an absolute state of affairs, and that there are things-in-themselves? If he doesn't actually make this case, and simply accepts that there is no truth, no absolute state of affairs, and no thing-in-itself, then he is, by his own admission and definition, a nihilist.

[Anonymous No.20508536]

>>20508535
No truth != nihilism

[Anonymous No.20508542]

>>20508536

This is a Nietzsche thread. I quoted Nietzsche's definition of Nihilism.

>"That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs-no 'thing-in-itself.' This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind."

[Anonymous No.20508551]

[Anonymous No.20508596]

>>20508507
However, religion has not yet collapsed.

[Anonymous No.20508601]

>>20508596
That's the most retarded thing you could have posted. Well done.

Unless you live in a shithole somewhere in the east, then i can accept this take.

[Anonymous No.20508610]

>>20508542
>That there is no truth.
This contradicts itself, for then the statement itself would not be true. Apparently a gay relativistic take.

[Anonymous No.20508611]

>>20508535
You obviously haven't read The Antichrist. It's literally 200 pages of Neetch throwing shit at christianity for being a nihilistic religion

[Anonymous No.20508626]

>>20508535
He never says there is no truth. There are actually two aspects to his thought at the very least, one I consider "scientific Neech", the other "transvaluer Neech." In order to progress into the second state, it requires the revaluation of the will to truth itself, after one comes to terms with it as the ultimate culmination of passive nihilism. One is so dissatisfied with the emptiness of the highest knowledge that one realizes that will to deception is actually more valuable than knowledge. One then progresses into active nhilism which is transvaluation, even the erection of lies and deception as one no longer considers "the truth" valuable, whatever little remains of it. Whatever truth remains valuable is probably whatever is necessary to ensure ideal physiological health of the best men left around, but it is not valuable as truth per se, it's valuable as truth for higher purposes, purposes which are lies.

[Anonymous No.20508631]

>>20508596
lmao
It collapsed in the 60's

[Anonymous No.20508647]

>>20508626

>One is so dissatisfied with the emptiness of the highest knowledge that one realizes that will to deception is actually more valuable than knowledge.

That all tacitly assumes that this highest knowledge is the true highest knowledge, though, and the entire process itself immediately makes this "highest truth" impossible to discern from falsehood.
Professions of knowledge of a "higher truth" can't be differentiated from the profession of a useful lie that is valued higher than the truth, simply because this useful lie, masquerading as the highest truth, gives one license to do whatever arbitrary nonsense one wants, so long as this arbitrary nonsense is enslaved to the outside conditions of the body, making the "best men" to be complete and utter slaves to material circumstances, and unable to ever be internally free of them by definition, or any possible self-definition. Lies are always empty - and if the "highest truth" is empty, then that's a good sign that it's a lie.

[Anonymous No.20508661]

>>20508601
>>20508631
Say why it has collapsed then.

[Anonymous No.20508680]

>>20508647
By "highest knowledge", I am using it in the sense of "broadest", "most complete", not a metaphysical truth. In other words, our scientific understanding of reality. As scientific understanding progresses, as the boundaries of knowledge of our environment fill out, we come to realize the vacuity of that knowledge. The "whither?", "for what purpose?" As we know more, we value knowing less. It destroys itself as a value, and we realize the value of the lie, that we have been deceived all along as to the true value of things and that the scientific engine was the highest distillation of the Christian will, stripped of its dross, God and the like, and reduced to its purest and most unadulterated form. Strictly speaking, there probably is no "highest truth" in the metaphysical sense (how would we know?), but it doesn't actually matter to the point he was making.
>Lies are always empty - and if the "highest truth" is empty, then that's a good sign that it's a lie.
It's all empty, in the end it's just words, and then conquering of nature via arbitrary mental concepts to enhance our position in the world (science). This statement does not actually have any meaning though. In another sense truth is empty of meaning, lies are full of meaning. Anything which supposes a substance to truth is metaphysics and we, those of us with an intellectual conscience at least, have no reason to assume such a thing is worth considering.

[Anonymous No.20508695]

>>20508680

>It's all empty, in the end it's just words, and then conquering of nature via arbitrary mental concepts to enhance our position in the world (science). This statement does not actually have any meaning though. In another sense truth is empty of meaning, lies are full of meaning. Anything which supposes a substance to truth is metaphysics and we, those of us with an intellectual conscience at least, have no reason to assume such a thing is worth considering.

I was going to respond to some of what was above this, but if you're just committed to saying that nothing has any meaning, then there's no point in having any kind of conversation. Congratulations, you've locked inside the fantasies of your own mind by these beliefs that every mass media outlet has been forcefully programming people to believe for decades. You believe in what every other NPC has conformed to believe, except in slightly more detail.

[Anonymous No.20508738]

>>20508661
not going to waste time spoonfeeding you

[Anonymous No.20508747]

>>20508661
The Catholic Church aren't king makers anymore, and monarchies have largely been replaced with secular democracies.

[Anonymous No.20508774]

I'm not proud of recognizing the pasta.

[Anonymous No.20508780]

>>20508695
>but if you're just committed to saying that nothing has any meaning
I'm saying that if meaning exists, it is not in truth. That is not equivalent to saying meaning does not exist. History is sufficient proof of this fact.

[Anonymous No.20508786]

>>20508507
Shut the fuck up retard. Americans need to stop talking about philosophy

[Anonymous No.20509120]

>>20508747
Oh, I think that when they spoke of "collapsing religion" it was that it did not predominate in the majority of people's ideology. My mistake, I better stop talking without context.

[Anonymous No.20509141]

>>20508535
People get into this endless debate over whether Nietzsche was or wasn't a nihilist because they can't distinguish between the TRUTH of nihilism and RESPONSES TO the truth of nihilism.
Nietzsche did not believe in objective morality or objective values. Life for him was ultimately meaningless and valueless FROM AN OBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW. If this is your definition of nihilism then he was a nihilist, there's no denying it.
What he actually meant when he said to "reject nihilism" was that you don't have to be a depressed faggot just because life is objectively meaningless. You're free to do what you want and create your own values. This is what he advocated. In this sense he wasn't a nihilist, because he didn't want people to just sit there and go "I'm a nihilist nothing matters guess I'll just sit here and masturbate and do nothing". The TRUTH of nihilism says nothing about what your RESPONSE to nihilism has to be.

[Anonymous No.20509196]

>>20509141

My point was, that, that by Nietzsche's own definition, he is a Nihilist. Like you said, no question there.

I thought the idea that "Nihilism = depressed faggotry" was just a pop misunderstanding of Nihilism. But, being a depressed faggot isn't a philosophical position - it's an ethical and practical commitment. One could be a committed Christian and still be a depressed faggot about it, but that still has nothing to do with the foundations of the position that one is committed to, except for how your given confession of what you believe an objective point of view is, bounds your modes of expression. Nihilist depressed faggotry operates in different modes to Christian depressed faggotry.

If Nietzsche's core insight is that the factual recognition of an objective truth isn't necessarily connected to your actions from the base of recognizing that objective truth, then this idea isn't a Nietzsche original. [James 2:19-20] "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?"

[Anonymous No.20509432]

>>20508626
>>20508680
Good posts, anon. We should also remember how even in purely metaphysical and theosophical inquiries the Void, Non-Being, Nothingness becomes a metaphor for God, which means also that God, in the end, is a metaphor for nothingness. I still think though that metaphysics, mysticism can play an active role in one’s life, since faith is also a kind of a force for the individual (truly the individual’s will imposed on reality, so to speak). Even though it has its perils and harms against life itself too.

>>20508695
>>20508647
Everything is always empty, but especially signs (language), which are filled with meaning by will. How do you think language originated among men? What did the awareness of a deity represent for those first men? It’s all a matter of power, anon. Your fixation (in its different connotations here) is likewise. Nihilism is something very few can escape from, but acknowledging nihilism is decisive to the quality of the individual’s will, he will either succumb to it or surmount it.

[Anonymous No.20509450]

>>20509432

I recommend this.

>It's all a matter of power, anon

Stop shaktiposting, you metaphysical simp.

[Anonymous No.20509541]

>>20509450
What are you on about? What I meant was what Nietzsche meant by power/will to power. There is indeed a metaphysical implication in this, which could be expressed even in heraclitean terms with his Logos, a kind of Boehmian and Schopenharian Wille, where there is no resolution for the non-rational primordial Will. I’m not very informed about shaktism but it seems it is always tied to idealistic metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.20509619]

>>20508507
Nietzsche is a pure product of the secular humanism, like the subhumans Hegel, Kant, Heidegger, Adorno, Habermas, Arendt, Husserl, Popper, Strauss, Weisse, Carnap, Engels, marx,Feuerbach, Frege, Fitche, [all germans, weird huh? germans can't think, they suck at wars so they fell back on ''''''''''philosophy'''''' who travestied the greek philosophy which was lived, and they turned it into mental masturbation in sterile universities, in order to get a cushy life like a generic girl gets one from her orbiters]. Germans thinkers are vaginas who think they think.
. He is your typical atheist that you find on every street corner nowadays. Those people are torn apart by nihilism and delusion of grandeur where they view themselves as a benevolent despot leading humanity towards a higher life.
Nietzsche is:
-an atheist [there is no god]
-an anti-christian [like any marxist] [Dude dont think long term like the life-denier christians, only the here and now matters OKAY!!]
-a nihilist [there is no truth, only interpretation, FACT!!!]
-an hedonist [Only this life matters!!1 live in the present moment to coom like my dancing vitalist idol, the great dyonisus!! teehee]
-a narcissist [look how I analysed the totally non-judeo-christian-made concept of ''''''human nature''''' , Humanity is will to power!!! LE HECKIN INSIGHT]
-a jew glorifier ["The Jews, however, are beyond any doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race now living in Europe."]
-a postmodernist [values don't exist but reality doesn't matter bro!!! Just become le heckin uberman, sink further into delusion, create your own values and fight for them until you die!!]

[Anonymous No.20509626]

>>20508535
No absolutes including the absolute statement that there are no absolutes.
The confusion comes from the fact that humans can never grasp anything absolutely, only within a given context. Absolutes still necessarily exist they're just not accessible in full to the human mind.
You can always dig deeper on any subject, there's no final answer you have access to. For Nietzsche this means the established answers taught by culture are limiting us from reaching our potential.

There are educated Christians in history that say the same thing but frame the impossible struggle of approaching the absolute as the process of approaching God. The struggle itself as divine purpose is a heroic response to the problem unlike the hedonism of the last man or Nietzsche's descent into abstract madness. The hero Nietzsche is trying to call to action wouldn't agree with his conclusions, the next man isn't supposed to be someone like Nietzsche and Nietzsche knew that.

[Anonymous No.20509628]

What are some comfy easy to read books to get to know about Nietzsche?

[Anonymous No.20509643]

>>20509628
non, fuck off.

[Anonymous No.20509654]

>>20508596
Kek

[Anonymous No.20509659]

>>20509626
I think Wittgenstein expressed this no abaolute including the very statement thereof in a very eloquent way, but I forgot it. Concerning Nietzsche’s madness I guess this descent into madness is also a tragic madness, no? Some tragic heroes descent into madness, Orestes, Hercules. If I recall well Oedipus, despite experimenting this madness momentarily, ends his life in a rather sober way, accepting his fate, no? Anyway this is interesting.

[Anonymous No.20509662]

>>20508507
This is a pretty old one. Nice digging, anon.

[Anonymous No.20509732]

>>20508610
I had that same view once. You should read the introduction to Jean Grondin's 'Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics'. After about 13 pages he touches upon the argument you're making, and how one should not reduce it so quickly to a simple formal contradiction. Take care and be open to learn, Anon. Just know that your position might be reductive and counter-productive.

[Anonymous No.20509786]

>>20509659
It's not a tragedy if through his quest to the underworld where he gave his eye to the well of knowledge he succeeds in summoning superman or whatever. The story isn't over.

[Anonymous No.20509899]

>>20509626
>Absolutes still necessarily exist
>necessarily for what?
For coherence like the kind needed to make statements or build things or do logic.
You can always go deeper though, is coherence an "objective" or "absolute" property of reality? Is it fundamental to reality somehow? It's defined based on our subjective utilitarian perspective not any objective absolute truth we can access.
Coherence, logic and everything we take for granted as true can be ultimately arbitrary. Despite all that things can still be objectively true within a given context. Logic is still a thing, if it's fundamental to reality somehow isn't really that important in the end.

[Anonymous No.20510081]

>>20509786
I meant in his case specifically, which is all the more pertinent for Nietzsche had the sense for tragedy, revolved around it. I'm not sure if Nietzsche, deep inside, expected an ubermensch to really rise and I'm sure he didn't expect him to ''resolve'' anything. The struggle implicated here is all I believe Nietzsche intended to express, and this is also essentially tragic.

[Anonymous No.20510095]

>>20508786
Nope.

[Anonymous No.20510249]

>>20508596
Indeed.

[Anonymous No.20510288]

>>20508507
stop remaking threads from r/4chan faggot

[Anonymous No.20510311]

>>20510081
Sure but a struggle implies progress is possible. I don't think you can motivate yourself to write like he did if you have no hope of accomplishing something even if you're not invested in what that specifically is. Nobody finishes the game but his contributions helping us getting to the next level means his struggle bears fruit instead of ending in death like a tragedy. The meaning of his life will mirror the meaning of human existence, it ends in pointless mad death or a coherent eternal heroic story. I state this as a binary either or thing but don't mean it like that. It's the pressure of these kinds of contradictions that gives reason to do anything, like write or even read a tragedy about a mad philosopher.

[Anonymous No.20510471]

>>20509628
I am Dynamite

[Anonymous No.20510485]

>>20510311
Progress? Perhaphs, but not necessarily (would you give up everything if you knew other people wasn't and will never be fit for it?). Accomplishment? Never, absolutely. Nietzsche makes this clear all the time: eternal return, Dionysus (for instance, what he says in Twilight of the Idols about this never ending repetitive cycle), the very idea of power is totally deprived of conclusion, resolution, ''accomplishment''.
>Nobody finishes the game but his contributions helping us getting to the next level means his struggle bears fruit instead of ending in death like a tragedy
I don't think Nietzsche would have changed, he knew things, thus I find it even irrelevant whether he thought people could change and attain something great in large scale or simply could never reach it. In any case the destruction of it is inevitable, as is evident in what I said above, especially Dionysus, and this we can know he did indeed acknowledge and still struggled and created things. The tragedy is affirmative.

[Anonymous No.20510519]

>>20508551
wtf I love Nietzsche now

[Anonymous No.20510650]

It's impossible for modern man to create his own meaning, if ge deviates from the truth and meaning of society he's simply labeled mentally ill and medicated or ostracized.

[Anonymous No.20510664]

>>20510650
>he's simply labeled mentally ill and medicated or ostracized
No one said creating your own meaning was going to be easy.

[Anonymous No.20510837]

>>20508507
"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."
— Jean Cocteau

[Anonymous No.20510980]

>>20510485
There is no tragedy without hope. Binary again. The bipolar mapping with an imagined resolution allows us to engage with things in language, narrative form. I think according to Nietzsche logic itself is basically just a narrative device. Arbitrary story telling device.
I don't have to be invested in the outcome of explaining my perspective to you in full but maybe it will spark something in you that leads to some "progress". If there was no possibility of something "good" I wouldn't say anything. My ideas of the outcome and what is "good" are just ideas and what tends to happen in reality is some completely different mechanism than you expect but the made up conceptual framework is still what made it happen. The act of writing the post should be self-contained, something I want to do whatever the specific outcome but I wouldn't get anything out of it if there were no possible outcomes at all or if I couldn't conceptualize any examples of what they could be. The vaguest but kind of the most useful conceptualization is that something "good" might happen.

[Anonymous No.20511040]

>>20508507
religion has not yet collapsed

[Anonymous No.20511540]

>>20508507
Listen, there's a good reason why a man as smart and prescient as Nietzche died of insanity. His philosophy is incompatible with what it means to be human

[Anonymous No.20511654]

>>20510980
What kind of hope? What do you hope to come from your posts? To persuade me? Is this the good you speak of, in this case here now? Hope can destitute tragedy of itself. What hope there is in the Dionysian symbolique? In amor fati? It is not because hope fails to work in the absolute that it also fails in the relative, we ''hope'' to accomplish our minor, daily things, I hope to become stronger, more learned, but the ''good'' outcome of all these hopes of mine are merely the feeling of power being felt.

[Anonymous No.20511732]

Problem is, he was wrong.

The Nietzschean imperative is not realistically possible and he offered no true solution.

[Anonymous No.20511750]

>>20508661
First world countries just replaced religion with hedonism and don't want to admit it.

[Anonymous No.20511756]

>>20511654
>What kind of hope? What do you hope to come from your posts? To persuade me?
I went into it in excruciating detail and explicitly talked about the futility of trying to persuade you.
In short hope is a narrative device like tragedy and the tension between the two.

The will to power is the motivation behind life, the premise that makes things like logic and narratives useful and relevant. Only within that context can I have power, I can predict what will happen to some degree and use that predictability to serve what I want instead of being purely a subject to the incoherent chaos that is reality without abstractions.

[Anonymous No.20511796]

>>20509619
this would be so much better if you werent annoying

[Anonymous No.20511824]

>>20508542
Nietzsche did not dedicate a huge chunk of his work to fighting against the nihilistic idea that there is 'no truth' (he actually often affirmed a version of this) but rather pessimistic sentiment.

[Anonymous No.20511836]

>>20509732
>>20508610
Rorty also shits on that argument (rather convincingly) in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.

[Anonymous No.20511840]

>>20508507
nice reddit copypasta faggot

[Anonymous No.20511856]

>>20511824

Then are people just being pseuds when they equate "nihilism" with pessimistic sentiment?

Nihilism is the foundational problem and you can't sentiment your way out of it.

Pic related for a work covering the unfolding of nihilism into every corner of modern life.

>But if "apology" is far from our intention in these pages, neither is our aim mere diatribe. It is not sufficient, for example, to condemn Nazism or Bolshevism for their "barbarism," "gangsterism," or "anti-intellectualism," and the artistic or literary avant-garde for their
"pessimism" or "exhibitionism"; nor is it enough to defend the "democracies" in the name of "civilization," "progress," or "humanism," or for their advocacy of "private property" or "civil liberties." Such arguments, while some of them possess a certain justice, are really quite beside the point; the blows of Nihilism strike too deep, its program is far too radical, to be effectively countered by them. Nihilism has error for its root, and error can be conquered only by Truth. Most of the criticism of Nihilism is not directed to this root at all, and the reason for this--as we shall see--is that Nihilism has become, in our time, so widespread and pervasive, has entered so thoroughly and so deeply into the minds and hearts of all men living today, that there is no longer any "front" on which it may be fought; and those who think they are fighting it are most often using its own weapons, which they in effect turn against themselves.

[Anonymous No.20511929]

>>20511856
>Then are people just being pseuds when they equate "nihilism" with pessimistic sentiment?
>Nihilism is the foundational problem and you can't sentiment your way out of it.

That is why Nietzsche espouses the Will to Power rather than the Will to Live arguing that we must will the frustration and resistance inherent in existence in order to overcome it and fulfill our deepest desire. This produces a state of existence that is worth affirming thus conquering the staunchly pessimistic view of life that non-existence is preferable.

In response to your view that Truth is at the heart of Nihilism or Pessimism, Nietzsche argues against the inherent value of truth and advocates for art and illusion in order to mitigate the deleterious and unbearable impact of the Will to Truth which will inevitably result in disappointment as we discover we are limited by our human faculties in our pursuit of Truth.

Lastly, Nietzsche would view the Christianity of Seraphim Rose as a form of life-denial or pessimism as it espouses the denial of earthly life due to its sinful nature and thus rejects it as nihilistic.

[Anonymous No.20511958]

>>20511756
>I went into it in excruciating detail and explicitly talked about the futility of trying to persuade you
Yes, that was rhetorical of my part. But you expressed you wanted to ''spark'' something in me, anyway.
>In short hope is a narrative device like tragedy and the tension between the two.
It will lead nowhere if we keep if this, no hope in convicing the other. This is the rule everywhere, how tragic!

Anyway, for the sake of it, we were talking previously about accomplishing something (ubermensch) and then the need of having hope. This hope is useless because there will never be any accomplishment, any resolution, for, as forces clash each other constantly, it will inevitably fall, in case it is somehow accomplished. Not that we should do nothing, this has nothing to do with tragedy, this would be only passive nihilism. But this tragic struggle, this is in Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.20511974]

>>20511929
The first part of you sentence was very well put, but here: ''fulfill our deepest desire'', you slipped. There is no fulfillment of power, because power is something always ''moving'', power can only feed itself with more power. This recognition of nature of power on the one side, pessimistic, on the other, it is affirmative for delivering man from the Will to Truth, and putting him in the womb of life.

[Anonymous No.20511977]

>>20508507
I'm just so tired of seeing his face

[Anonymous No.20511998]

>>20511974
Thank you for correcting me professor :), I only just started reading Nietzsche so sometimes I slip up or misinterpret but you're absolutely correct here.

[Anonymous No.20512230]

>>20511958
There was never any hope of convincing you of anything. I told you that twice.
>as forces clash each other constantly, it will inevitably fall
This is why you don't get any of it. Forces clashing is the source of everything including creation and hope, there's no negative connotation to the world being made of contradictions. That's from Heraclitus which is just about the only philosopher Nietzsche actually talks positively about.
My contradictions are deliberate, your contradictions are confused. The tragedy is he wrote all that shit only for mostly plebians like you incapable of greatness ending up reading and perverting it.

[Anonymous No.20512317]

>>20512230
You are the one failing to grasp something so clear and basic and which I have repeated already and will repeat again. The tragic is affirmative precisely because it is aware of the rule of contradictions, of the clashes of forces, of eternal movement and war. It is not something negative as I have also said. Now, hope is not intimately tragic. Can you answer to me where is hope in amor fati, Dionysus, and Heraclitus?
> The tragedy is he wrote all that shit only for mostly plebians like you incapable of greatness ending up reading and perverting it.
Sure the plebeian is not someone thinking hope and tragedy are together. You are sensitive and weak willed, that's why something as the tragic consciousness gives makes you so overwhelmingly affected.

[Anonymous No.20512409]

>>20512317
>where is hope in amor fati
You're describing it as tragic, that inherently implies hope. Where's the tragedy in exactly the thing everyone always knew would happen happening? A submission to fate exists as a response to hopes about your fate. One implies the other. Neither exists without the other.
A strung bow is capable of firing, that is exerting power through building up opposing tension. The words hot and cold, opposites are measuring the same thing.

[Anonymous No.20512428]

>>20512317
The actual reason it's impossible to persuade you, to introduce anything truly new is physical. It's not just you, if the goal was exclusively to persuade you on any subject and the idea or perspective is completely new to you, physically the best I can hope for is a temporary glimpse of what I mean with an associated emotional reaction. If it makes enough of an impact it will enter your dreams and rattle around in your head in the background for at least two weeks until you have a slight revelation you don't attribute to this thread at all.
The original glimpse of meaning are neurons firing through already established paths, expressing the meaning sort of metaphorically using paths originally reinforced for other purposes. The revelation comes when you think about the subject formally again after it has been reinforced enough through dreams etc to have small dedicated physical neural paths to represent it.