GuitarsRgreat OP t1_j10f04g wrote on December 20, 2022 at 7:31 PM

Reply to comment by VersaceEauFraiche in Nietzsche: The Overhyped Philosopher of the Masses by GuitarsRgreat

That's right on the money. It's unfortunate that so many people today seem to be drawn to Nietzsche's work without fully comprehending the depth and nuance of his ideas. Rather than cherry-picking and adapting Nietzsche's ideas to suit our own purposes, we should engage with his philosophy in its entirety. To fully understand Nietzsche's ideas, we must go beyond his own philosophy, just as he encouraged us to do.

ConfusedObserver0 t1_j119tow wrote on December 20, 2022 at 10:55 PM

Got a link to a single read that does that? Not everyone is a PHD on the guy or has the time to read all of his work, but I get your point…

The more I learn about him the more I see how he can be taken out of context (partisan sometimes). Even he was worried with how his ideas would land.

Nietzsche and the Nazi’s was an interesting look into the ideas of his were the formative inspiration of the 3rd Reich and many intellectuals of the time; whether the actual “death of an artist” would had matter or not, who knows. So times ideas take on a life of their own outside the hands of their maker.

VersaceEauFraiche t1_j13ps2b wrote on December 21, 2022 at 1:19 PM

Not that I have a single citation on hand but, Nietzsche is all about the creation of new values. The Overman is so, not because he has monstrous strength, but because he is the creator of his own values. He bounds over the sclerotic values contemporary to himself that seek to chain him. It sounds paradoxical, but in order to fully imbibe Nietzsche's philosophy on vitality, value creation, Overman, etc, you will eventually come to the point of having to overcome Nietzsche as well. Its been about 140 years since his writings and many philosophers have built upon, expanded, written in reference/contrast to Nietzsche. The most Nietzschean thing to do is to break free from the crystallized form that the discourse has taken.

ConfusedObserver0 t1_j168hif wrote on December 21, 2022 at 11:34 PM

I like it… I’ve dabbled just a touch and want to reread Zarathustra and get to beyond good and evil.

I won’t go on too long explanatory excursion here but I will say I think that this is what many of us are doing, or are at least attempting to do in our own right.

The idea that adhering to any deontology such as Christ cult comes with the implicit exception to free will (let’s not get bogged down in a physics lesson in free will - just say agency and volition). By following someone else’s code, esp dogmatically, you sort of diminish your own potentials and possibilities in exploring and expanding yourself, the world around and the people you interact with. Sure it’s “safe” but nothing worth doing is safe. And people conservative minded (afraid of change) old farts will shriek at the redefining and side effect at every corner.

I believe modern society, esp in the day and age of social media, grants us even further reach to push back and explore these tensions, to refine our views. Because you don’t know what you think until you run them on trial in the real. Without at least writing them down, you don’t even know what you think yourself most often.

Sure we haven’t came up with objectivity (since it doesn’t exist), but we relativistically refine our iterations as we progress for fitnesss. Anyone familiar with David Deutsche’s concepts form “the beginning of infinity” would catch my drift.

And it’s not perfect and we have the potential for steps back at any moment. But the Uber mench must be brave enough and strong enough to burden truths not meant for every shoulder to bear.

On the fear of Nihilism… I see more of a fear of existential nihilism than a disrespect for life. If condition decrease or are bleak for the future, this is when people react without conditions for a future they don’t see existing or being very dark. So imho Nitsche got this wrong, as we supplement our need for spirituality and community elsewhere

BillyTheKid_69420 t1_j1197g7 wrote on December 20, 2022 at 10:50 PM

Yes - Nietzsche calls out what the masses were doing at his time. He generally states it's a bad way to live, but masses today just here that what they're doing was called out by a philosopher.