/edu/ - Education

a friend of mine is a big fan of Nietzsche. the way I understand Nietzsche's philosophy, based solely on what he told me, is that you can't rely on written doctrines to design your code of ethics because relying on others to have one is what results in slave morality and self-subjugation. so the goal is to create values by contrasting them with the will to power (which includes self-control and the ability to attain personal desires).
I think this is a train of thought that gets taken for granted in the 21st century, so it's too easy to say he wrote "nothing insightful". you could argue that a lot of what the great philosophers wrote are "nothing insightful" to the average secular human of the 21st century, so of course it seems superfluous.
Additionally I think the reason his followers are "so radically different" is because there is both a left wing and right wing interpretation, where the left wing one is that the master-slave dynamic has to be eradicated from society entirely by subverting the master-slave binary (GWF Hegel, Jacques Derrida), and the right wing one is that a certain caste of individuals in society are entitled to primitive domination because they they reject slave morality (Ayn Rand, Adolf Hitler). I think Trotsky's points about Nietzsche are inevitably going to happen with any philosopher or philosophy.

But most importantly I think it's important to reject the idea that the left wing interpretation supports the ideas of utopian anarchist horizontalism, as I've seen with a lot of Anarchist postmodernists. Hegel's theory of history and sublation does not support the idea of "undoing hierarchies" in the traditional anarchist sense, but rather that hierarchies themselves reconfigure in such a way to make room for new hierarchies which counteract exploitation, abuse and struggle. It seems a lot of strains of postmodern Derridians and Foucauldians don't understand this and choose to preach the pseudo-dialectic towards radical horizontalism.

Nietzsche is above all a skilled writer of insults and epigrams, but the entirety of his positive project is built around a rejection of metaphysical objectivity and social equality, so trying to get anything systematic out of it results in stupidity and evil.

Nietzsche is good to read - reading the enemy is a crucial part of any radical education, he can help you think of something in a new way, above all he's FUN - but only within that context. Frankly attempts to be "Nietzschean from the left" always end up taking what could be a sensible Marxist critique of ideology ("official truth always reflects power" or whatever) and taking it in an excessive direction that undermines the goal of searching, however imperfectly, for the real truth underneath.

Jordan Peterson is by contrast just… a lot less interesting. Nobody's going to remember Peterson in ten years, let alone a century; they barely remember him today. A better comparison for Peterson is someone like Duhring, a flash in the pan only remembered because more durable writers like Nietzsche and Engels made fun of him.

>>1622
Tolstoy was Nietzsche's contemporary though, and he was pretty well-read too (he names several philosophers in his criticism of Nietzsche).

Even Trotsky argues that Nietzsche was not original at all, or rather that the only originality stems from him being a complex character. Trotsky says that humanity has reevaluated and adjusted ethics since the dawn of philosophy, and furthermore Trotsky writes that even Nietzsche's will to power isn't original because it is derived from a common thread Nietzsche observed studying morality throughout history, the slave morality and the master morality. The following quote in particular reminded me of a critique of Jordan Peterson I read:
"One of the least critical critics of Nietzsche recognizes that “if we remove from his ideas the paradoxical and poetic form in which they are incarnated in his writings they are often much less novel than they appear on first sight.” (Lichtenberg, Die Philosophie F. Nietzsche). And on top of all that Trotsky with such anatomical precision describes the type of people who are "Nietzschean" by circumstances, parasites who want to watch the world burn. Sound familiar? Sounds like the stereotypical 4channer/8channer. Trotsky was really on point.

> Trotsky wrote that the reason why Nietzsche's followers can be so radically different from each other is because they take what they want from Nietzsche
That's so true. I've been guilty of it too.

>>1621
I read one of his books and the retard was just dissing other philosophers with no further argument something like:
>aristotle was a faggot and Im super smard
and thats it no further explanation, he might still be smarter than someone like Camust but he is one of those meme philosophers who are just a waste of time.

>>1658
I haven't read Nietzsche but I doubt your summary is accurate if he's such an esteemed philosopher

>>1665
he's acting retarded on purpose to prove a point about the validity of argumentation and ad hominems later in the book. at least that's what I've heard, haven't read it myself.

>>1621
>Does this strike anyone else as eerily similar to Jordan Peterson and his rabid followers?
Come on, making grand statements out of superficial similarities like this is for dilettantes. Nietzsche had his problems and I'd be skeptical of anyone who claims to be a follower of him, but he was no empty self-help peddler like Peterson.
Let's be clear about this, Nietzsche is a respected philosopher widely agreed to be of enormous importance, he introduced many ideas which are still discussed to this day, and influenced a LOT of later philosophy. This isn't to say he was right about everything or even most things, but he cannot be dismissed as a charlatan.

What did he say that wasn't plagiarized from Stirner?

>>1658
What's wrong with Camus

>>1676
He did not know Stirner and Nietzsche's "will to power" is not exactly the same as Stirner's egoism. I think it's not wrong to say that Nietzsche helped at great deal to spawn existentialism. He influenced Heidegger too who then influenced a lot of important 20th century philosophers.

>>1748
interesting read. I didn’t know that Stirner is what inspired the Thoery of the Unconscious that influenced Freud and Lacan. small world.

>>1739
he just asks a bunch of basic bitch questions without any formal solutions.

>>1746
Heidegger never gave a shit about Nietzsche until N*zi G*rman subhumans started thumping Heidegger about how Being and Time doesn’t account for “aesthetics”

>>1621
> a) you're misinterpreting him! or b) his personal views are not reflective of his philosophy! o
Isn't that exactly what people on this site do with Marx?

>>1622
>Additionally I think the reason his followers are "so radically different" is because there is both a left wing and right wing interpretation, where the left wing one is that the master-slave dynamic has to be eradicated from society entirely by subverting the master-slave binary (GWF Hegel, Jacques Derrida), and the right wing one is that a certain caste of individuals in society are entitled to primitive domination because they they reject slave morality (Ayn Rand, Adolf Hitler).
Is it possible to recognize the relative truth of the master-slave morality dichotomy, at least in feudal, imperial, and capitalist societies, yet still not want to be master nor slave?


>>1621
Does anyone know if the concept of bourgeois reality was based on his master morality?

>>2254
Marx doesn’t strawman nearly as much as Nietzsche does.
he does do it in German Ideology for example but Capital is pretty straight forward with zero sarcastic remarks. Nietzsche on the other hand is just 90% exaggerations and insults.

>>2255
ubermench is being above the master and slave

>>2268
That's partially the point though. Nietzsche was the OG philosopher badboy, whose entire thought was intended to shakeup an already stuffy academic environment. If you take him completely seriously he didn't even want ideological followers, but instead people who truly really thought on their own. I think people are partially right to see Nietzsche more as establishing a method than an actual philosophy.

>>1621
I’m reading on the Genealogy of morals right now, I have some questions.
>Nietzsche says he’s against egalitarianism that reduces men to common, and power = good because it started this way in history and they establish themselves as good solely through themselves. the weak have slave morality in that identifies its oppressors as evil then subsequently themselves as good.

What in the goddamn bootlicking bullshit is this? I somewhat looked fondly of Nietzsche before I actually read him. And the way he talks about race lmao
It really does explain the modern far right-incel mentality though. Should I keep reading or find something better?

>>3566
What’s your contextual history with the rest of the western cannon? The dude can seem really strange and extreme if you don’t understand the systems and theories his entire philosophy is railing against. Just like most philosophers, he has interesting points and is a product of his time. If you aren’t enjoying it or really getting it, then I’d set him aside for a while.

>>3566
>the weak have slave morality in that identifies its oppressors as evil then subsequently themselves as good
slave morality is a real thing and Marxists ought to oppose it. examples include christianity and pacifism

Has anyone read that critique by G. Lukacs?

>>3568
ik, it‘s just that out of the three masters of suspicions, his work is the most disappointing. More so o as I used to like him the most before I read any of them.
>>3575
>Who can guarantee that modern democracy, still more modern anarchy, and indeed that tendency to the "Commune," the most primitive form of society, which is now common to all the Socialists in Europe, does not in its real essence signify a monstrous reversion—and that the conquering and master race—the Aryan race, is not also becoming inferior physiologically?)
> Let us submit to the facts; that the people have triumphed—or the slaves, or the populace, or the herd, or whatever name you care to give them—if this has happened through the Jews, so be it! In that case no nation ever had a greater mission in the world's history. The 'masters' have been done away with; the morality of the vulgar man has triumphed. This triumph may also be called a blood-poisoning (it has mutually fused the races)—I do not dispute it; but there is no doubt but that this intoxication has succeeded.

Feels like a bunch of morality of power and nazi-babble. Also I feel like Marx already formulated his ideas but better with his theory on ideology & religion..