Nietzsche

[Lamb]

Fredrich Nietzsche is certainly one of my favorite thinkers and I think his diagnosis of liberalism and socialism go a long way in keeping one from convincing oneself of things too easily. At the moment I'm looking for a specific quote and I'm hoping someone will be able to help out. Perhaps this is some kind of false memory but I remember reading an aphorism or passage in which he says something along the lines of (putting it in my own basic language here): the best way to undermine an enemy's position is to argue their side with poor reasons. I've searched google for variations of this, trying different words and such, trying and leaving out quotations but I can't seem to find anything. Perhaps it'll ring a bell for someone, it might've been in The Gay Science. Cheers.

[Decolonize The Left]

You could check out this site (http://www.davemckay.co.uk/philosophy/nietzsche/), which has a large portion of his work online. Speaking as someone who has read most of Nietzsche's writings, I can't recall off hand the amorphism you're referring to. :confused:

- August

[Amphictyonis]

‘..... what they sing – ‘equal rights’, ‘free society’, ‘no more masters and no
more servants’ – has no allure for us. We hold it absolutely undesirable that a
realm of justice and concord should be established on earth (because it would
certainly be the realm of the most profound levelling down to mediocrity and
chinoiserie); we are delighted by all who love, as we do, danger, war, and
adventure; who refuse to compromise, to be captured, to reconcile, to be
castrated; we consider ourselves conquerors [...]’ Nietzsche, Gay Science 377

Not the quote you were looking for but seeing we're [email protected]#!

[¿Que?]

‘..... what they sing – ‘equal rights’, ‘free society’, ‘no more masters and no
more servants’ – has no allure for us. We hold it absolutely undesirable that a
realm of justice and concord should be established on earth (because it would
certainly be the realm of the most profound levelling down to mediocrity and
chinoiserie); we are delighted by all who love, as we do, danger, war, and
adventure; who refuse to compromise, to be captured, to reconcile, to be
castrated; we consider ourselves conquerors [...]’ Nietzsche, Gay Science 377

Not the quote you were looking for but seeing we're [email protected]#!
Yeah, it's shit like this that turned me off of Nietzsche.

[Amphictyonis]

Yeah, it's shit like this that turned me off of Nietzsche.

The only thing he said even remotely in favor of socialism was something like 'if the workers are the strongest then socialism will prevail'. I cant remember the exact quote. It was years ago when I read it. Stirner, if one must read that sort, should be taken more seriously by socialists over Nietzsche. It's rumored Nietzsche was somehow influenced by him. I don't put much on Stirner, anarchists might with his egoism and all. He had a few, and I mean one or two, valid criticisms of Marx.

[¿Que?]

The only thing he said even remotely in favor of socialism was something like 'if the workers are the strongest then socialism will prevail'. I cant remember the exact quote. It was years ago when I read it. Stirner, if one must read that sort, should be taken more seriously by socialists over Nietzsche. It's rumored Nietzsche was somehow influenced by him. I don't put much on Stirner, anarchists might with his egoism and all. He had a few, and I mean one or two, valid criticisms of Marx.
Didn't he also take a crack at Feurerbach?

[Chaz]

Didn't he also take a crack at Feurerbach?

He had a very thorough dissection of every form of liberal/socialist thought in existence at the time, and the subtle predictions he made through it were extremely accurate.


Stirner, if one must read that sort, should be taken more seriously by socialists over Nietzsche. It's rumored Nietzsche was somehow influenced by him. I don't put much on Stirner, anarchists might with his egoism and all. He had a few, and I mean one or two, valid criticisms of Marx.

He only had one or two criticisms of Marx, and they were both on the money. Marx (as well as most every other philosopher) was too holed up in ideologies based on trying to convert man-made systems into forces just as oppressive as what he was fighting against, in order to define a universal 'good' and force all of humanity under it. You can layer on all the philosophy and morality and ideas you want on top of it but you still have a completely theoretical outlook on how one person thinks things 'should be' based on an entirely speculative analysis of his subjective reaction to how things are.

Stirner's like the Lao-Tzu of Western Philosophy; you stop brainfucking existence, kill your ideologies and presuppositions, and just be. All that matters is what you allow to matter. If you don't automatically carry a bias towards him because of his tact (he tends to use words- especially ego- in ways that are almost the opposite of how they're used today) his philosophy becomes surprisingly Tao/Buddhist. But yes, Nietzsche obsessively pored over one of the few books that discussed Egoism in an unbiased light, and I haven't gotten anything substantial from him that I didn't get a better explanation of from Stirner.

[Amphictyonis]

He had a very thorough dissection of every form of liberal/socialist thought in existence at the time, and the subtle predictions he made through it were extremely accurate.



He only had one or two criticisms of Marx, and they were both on the money. Marx (as well as most every other philosopher) was too holed up in ideologies based on trying to convert man-made systems into forces just as oppressive as what he was fighting against, in order to define a universal 'good' and force all of humanity under it. You can layer on all the philosophy and morality and ideas you want on top of it but you still have a completely theoretical outlook on how one person thinks things 'should be' based on an entirely speculative analysis of his subjective reaction to how things are.

Stirner's like the Lao-Tzu of Western Philosophy; you stop brainfucking existence, kill your ideologies and presuppositions, and just be. All that matters is what you allow to matter. If you don't automatically carry a bias towards him because of his tact (he tends to use words- especially ego- in ways that are almost the opposite of how they're used today) his philosophy becomes surprisingly Tao/Buddhist. But yes, Nietzsche obsessively pored over one of the few books that discussed Egoism in an unbiased light, and I haven't gotten anything substantial from him that I didn't get a better explanation of from Stirner.

I don't agree with you. Sorry. Not as far as Marx wanting an authoritarian system. Marx was one of if not the first to want to change society rather than contemplate it. I don't get any authoritarian messages from Marx when I read him. Perhaps you can point out the authoritarian streak? Expropriation is obviously an act of agression and to do this state power is needed. The socialist phase of communism isn't the be all end all point of Marx's vision.

(Hijacking thread?)

[Chaz]

I don't agree with you. Sorry. Not as far as Marx wanting an authoritarian system. Marx was one of if not the first to want to change society rather than contemplate it. I don't get any authoritarian messages from Marx when I read him. Perhaps you can point out the authoritarian streak? Expropriation is obviously an act of agression and to do this state power is needed. The socialist phase of communism isn't the be all end all point of Marx's vision.

(Hijacking thread?)

I'm not saying Marx had an authoritative system, I'm agreeing with Stirner that the liberals didn't take Hegel's dialectic far enough. Marx is still led on by the presuppositions that wealth and social status inherently mean anything, just like everyone else, and is so controlled by them that he bases his entire philosophical system on it. Stirner went far enough to say it's all bullshit- I mean property? Who the hell thinks it's actually possible for someone to physically own something? That's silly, you just think you own it because you acquired it and you're able to maintain your power over it when someone tries to take it and you use it as you see fit, and the idea of revolution proves that. I kinda take the opposite stance of Communism in that regard, instead of 'everyone owns everything equally' I say 'nobody really owns anything'.

In those regards it's still authoritative, because you have to take up his presuppositions in order to agree with it (and he spends a lot of time defining things that Stirner only had to relate to himself briefly in order to dismiss as arbitrary) and he spends a lot of time giving you moral dogmas that you're expected to enthusiastically endorse. These aren't physical acts of persuasive aggression but it's still control. And when the transition between revolution and Communism (Socialism etc) occurs, what's going to happen to the people who are against it? What would the Communists do when they have their revolution and make it through Socialism and are met with rational opposition right at the doorstop?

All in all when it comes to the aftermath I'm all good with Communism, cause it's a stateless society to which you voluntarily contribute. I'd be very willing to volunteer my not contributing unless it benefits me, which I consider more healthy than feeling obligated to sacrifice out of dedication to an ideology.