Nietzsche & Dialectics

[The Intransigent Faction]

Apologies in advance 'if' this is a bit muddled:

1. I've been getting back into Nietzsche a bit lately after reading "Beyond Good & Evil" almost a year ago, and I'm interested if anyone could share (a link to others' or their own) ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism, but even more specifically of dialectical materialism, and possibly a Marxist critique of a "Nietzschean" (I know, Nietzsche would scoff at that term) approach to that.

2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?

3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)? That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.

I guess this would have been better for the "Dialectical Materialists" group forum, but for some reason I had trouble posting there.

Thanks!

[Michael22]

Apologies in advance 'if' this is a bit muddled:

1. I've been getting back into Nietzsche a bit lately after reading "Beyond Good & Evil" almost a year ago, and I'm interested if anyone could share (a link to others' or their own) ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism, but even more specifically of dialectical materialism, and possibly a Marxist critique of a "Nietzschean" (I know, Nietzsche would scoff at that term) approach to that.

2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?



Friedrich Nietzsche was a meglomaniac psycho with sociopathic tendencies.

He spent a lot of his life very ill and isolated and, as Bertrand Russel said, it is painfully obvious Nietzsche's disdain for human compassion (which according to his warped world view, socialism pandered to to an extent) was because he saw liked to imagine himself in his fantasys as some sort of warrior or alpha male, as opposed to the pathetic state he was in.

I don't know why anyone with a brain would be interested in reading his books. He was insane in my opinion. His views were thoroughly miserable and don't deserve to have air wasted on them.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Apologies in advance 'if' this is a bit muddled:

1. I've been getting back into Nietzsche a bit lately after reading "Beyond Good & Evil" almost a year ago, and I'm interested if anyone could share (a link to others' or their own) ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism, but even more specifically of dialectical materialism, and possibly a Marxist critique of a "Nietzschean" (I know, Nietzsche would scoff at that term) approach to that.

2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?

3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)? That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.

I guess this would have been better for the "Dialectical Materialists" group forum, but for some reason I had trouble posting there.

Thanks!

Nietzsche rejected socialism on the basis that it was "pearls before swine", basically. That's what I took from "The Gay Science", at least (which, in my opinion, is a pretty creative and good book, I like Nietzsche's little random bits and pieces in there. Didn't really like "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" that much). Nietzsche thought that people were unequal and that a "leveling" of the human race via socialism or whatever was basically unnatural. I've heard that he thought this inequality manifested itself in the aristocracy ruling over their subjects, and as such he was an advocate for an aristocratic system of rule, but supposedly the evidence for this is more in his personal correspondence and not in his official works.

Nietzsche's beliefs and my own beliefs are obviously at odds in some respects but I still think he was a pretty good writer, and his observations regarding people's perceptions of God were esp. interesting in "The Gay Science". His thoughts on that and his intentionally inflammatory musings on European nationalities in that book must've caused quite a stir when it was released.

[Michael22]

Nietzsche rejected socialism on the basis that it was "pearls before swine", basically. That's what I took from "The Gay Science", at least (which, in my opinion, is a pretty creative and good book, I like Nietzsche's little random bits and pieces in there. Didn't really like "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" that much).

In "The Will to power" Nietzsche, like an elitist, says the strongest should not bother pandering to the weak. Similiarly, he describes Jesus Christ as a "deceptive Semite".

He was an elitist aristocrat and his philosophy was vile.

His supporters claim he was very good at explaining human nature and psychology. What they ignore is that Nietzsche was a geek loner weirdo with no friends who was ill throughout his life and not only are his views thoroughly uninteresting and vile on an emotional level, they can easily be refuted rationally by anyone who actually knows anything about sociology or has any experience with human beings in real life because his wretched idealization of hierarchy and his psychotic praise of arrogance and pride is just the ramblings of a sick individual who has no experience with real human beings. Human beings don't want to just submit to an elite aristocracy. He advocates an S&M relationship with the aristocracy, where the common mass should just bow and submit to their superiors in a cold, heartless world devoid of love and compassion. It is a wretched view of humanity and it grieves me that he has so many followers.

[Czy]

ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism


Socialism ― or the tyranny of the meanest and the most brainless, ―that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the mummers, brought to its zenith, ―is, as a matter of fact, the logical conclusion of “modern ideas” and their latent anarchy: but in the genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming resolutions or even for coming to an end at all, is paralysed. Men follow―but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on the whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces of present-day socialists―and what wretched and nonsensical feelings does not their style reveal to us! ―and the childish lamblike happiness of their hopes and desires...

Be this as it may, there will always be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything more than an attack of illness: and these people of property are like one man with one faith, “one must possess something in order to be some one.” This, however, is the oldest and most wholesome of all instincts; I should add: “one must desire more than one has in order to become more.” For this is the teaching which life itself preaches to all living things: the morality of Development. To have and to wish to have more, in a word, Growth―that is life itself. In the teaching of socialism “a will to the denial of life” is but poorly concealed: botched men and races they must be who have devised a teaching of this sort. In fact, I even wish a few experiments might be made to show that in socialistic society life denies itself, and itself cuts away its own roots. The earth is big enough and man is still unexhausted enough for a practical lesson of this sort and demonstratio ad absurdum― even if it were accomplished only by a vast expenditure of lives―to seem worth while to me.


2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?


Thus the question “Why science” leads back to the moral problem: Why have morality at all when life, nature, and history are “not moral”? Those who are truthful in the ultimate sense that is presupposed by the faith in science thus affirm another world than the world of life, nature, and history; and insofar as they affirm this “other world” – must they not by that same token negate this world, our world?..
It is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests – even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless anti-metaphysicians still take our fire from the flame that was lit by a faith thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine. – But what if this should become more and more incredible, if nothing should prove to be divine anymore unless it were error, blindness, the lie – if God himself were to prove to be our most enduring lie?

This is the underlying, true justification for science, a moral justification, the idealization of “truth”, which originated in Christian theology. The will to truth means the will to another world. “Will to truth” has the same source as belief in god.

My challenge to you: And now that god is dead, what about will to truth?


3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)? That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.

You need to understand where the position comes from - it is based on an understanding that the contents of mind represent rather than reproduce the contents of the world involves understanding that thoughts of a thing may have different characteristics than the thing itself.

From this it follows that no entity in the world has a unique representation in the mind — individuals may differ in their representations of objects or events in the world, and a single individual may possess multiple representations of particular objects or events, either simultaneously or in succession.

[Os Cangaceiros]

In "The Will to power" Nietzsche, like an elitist, says the strongest should not bother pandering to the weak. Similiarly, he describes Jesus Christ as a "deceptive Semite".

He was an elitist aristocrat and his philosophy was, quite frankly, vile.

His supporters claim he was very good at explaining human nature and psychology. What they ignore is that Nietzsche was a geek loner weirdo with no friends who was ill throughout his life and not only are his views thoroughly uninteresting and vile on an emotional level, they can easily be refuted rationally by anyone who actually knows anything about sociology or has any experience with human beings in real life because his wretched idealization of hierarchy and his psychotic praise of arrogance and pride is just the ramblings of a sick individual who has no experience with real human beings. Human beings don't want to just submit to an elite aristocracy. He advocates an S&M relationship with the aristocracy, where the common mass just bow before their superiors and worship them. It is a completely wretched view of life and it grieves me that he has followers and is taken so seriously.

A lot of the world's most interesting thinkers and writers were "geek loner weirdos". I don't know why his health problems should be a mark against him either.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The problem is that Nietzsche makes himself hard to understand. It's not that he's an unclear writer, but he does want to prod people into thinking for themselves and not just adopting his view wholeheartedly. I don't think Nietzsche is someone we should adopt wholeheartedly, but he is someone whose criticisms of society (and of our own ideology) we should take seriously, and responding to him well would make ourselves better anyhow.


Nietzsche rejected socialism on the basis that it was "pearls before swine", basically. That's what I took from "The Gay Science", at least (which, in my opinion, is a pretty creative and good book, I like Nietzsche's little random bits and pieces in there. Didn't really like "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" that much). Nietzsche thought that people were unequal and that a "leveling" of the human race via socialism or whatever was basically unnatural. I've heard that he thought this inequality manifested itself in the aristocracy ruling over their subjects, and as such he was an advocate for an aristocratic system of rule, but supposedly the evidence for this is more in his personal correspondence and not in his official works.


I don't think he really supported Aristocracy. He saw Aristocrats as having had a certain kind of cultural nobility, and that they did what was sensible in their time, but he also saw them as having a kind of self-defeating bestial side. After all, the Aristocrats failed to preserve their rule. They created the conditions for the priests to arise. Aristocracy itself unwittingly created the problems which Nietzsche derides.

He did criticize Socialism and to a lesser extent Anarchism, but these were new movements when he was writing most of his work. I don't think he thought that bourgeois society was really preferable to these two forms either. He liked to antagonize people and critique their views.

FYI I think he was mostly critical of Duhring more than Marx, which is funny as Duhring was also the whipping boy of Marx and Engels.



Nietzsche's beliefs and my own beliefs are obviously at odds in some respects but I still think he was a pretty good writer, and his observations regarding people's perceptions of God were esp. interesting in "The Gay Science". His thoughts on that and his intentionally inflammatory musings on European nationalities in that book must've caused quite a stir when it was released.Yeah he was a hell of a critic. Despite lobbing a few rhetorical bombs at Jews, he actually had some good criticisms of antisemites at the time too. Basically, he was a really good troll - and he was a troll for what seemed to him to be good reasons - in ways that I think modern readers fail to understand.


Friedrich Nietzsche was a meglomaniac psycho with sociopathic tendencies.

He spent a lot of his life very ill and isolated and, as Bertrand Russel said, it is painfully obvious Nietzsche's disdain for human compassion (which according to his warped world view, socialism pandered to to an extent) was because he saw liked to imagine himself in his fantasys as some sort of warrior or alpha male, as opposed to the pathetic state he was in.

I don't know why anyone with a brain would be interested in reading his books. He was insane in my opinion. His views were thoroughly miserable and don't deserve to have air wasted on them.

Bertrand Russell did not understand Nietzsche. He was operating with a poor translation and there was a lot of suspicion of all German philosophy, especially any thought that Naziism somehow claimed as inspiration.

It's true that he was sick for much of his life but that's not something you can hold against him.

As for compassion, Nietzsche hated the kind of universal compassion which is morally mandated, though as far as compassion is an exhibition of power he didn't despise it. He did not really like moral universals of any kind.


Apologies in advance 'if' this is a bit muddled:

1. I've been getting back into Nietzsche a bit lately after reading "Beyond Good & Evil" almost a year ago, and I'm interested if anyone could share (a link to others' or their own) ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism, but even more specifically of dialectical materialism, and possibly a Marxist critique of a "Nietzschean" (I know, Nietzsche would scoff at that term) approach to that.


He didn't really like what he saw in the socialist movements of his time. Then again, I don't know if he had a good grasp of socialist theory either. He saw it as some kind of attempt to make the herd the rulers of society. He also saw it as rooted in a kind of compassionate and ascetic morality. Of course, for Marx, socialism was a movement to negate the structural bonds of the working class that prevented them from being emancipated. But then again, as I mentioned earlier, his main target in criticizing Socialism (at least the only person he mentions by name that I'm aware of) is Duhring, who was a problematic thinker for a whole variety of reasons.

If there's anything we as socialists can use about his political thought it is - as much as anything else, his criticism of racists and his argument that whatever "truth" the current hegemony posits is deeply problematic.



2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?
Yeah he was critical of the way modern science reduced everything to material terms, and the way it proclaimed objective truth and a material alternative to religious dogma, when in a sense it was using the same notion of truth as the dogma it sought to overcome. Scientists in this view operate as a sort of priestly class, claiming objectivity while their own subjective views sneak in as much as any other person making a truth claim.

I'd have to review his criticism of scientism to see how a Marxist might respond, but I think one way is to learn from his criticism and drop some of the positivist assumptions in how we view the utility of science (i.e that science is some kind of objectively progressive institution, and that it really gets at objectivity independently of a subject's viewpoint). Another is to argue how Marxist "Science" is more nuanced than the institutional science he was criticizing. A self-critical Marxist (at least in theory) would try to uncover any institutional biases shading his view, and understand the historical contingencies framing and limiting that viewpoint. They would at least be more careful when claiming some kind of objective knowledge of the world.



3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)? That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.
Nietzsche is suspicious of any metaphysical claim of an absolute truth which we can represent in thought. He saw that different people have different perspectives on "truth" and that there's no need to posit that our truth somehow objectively represents some kind of reality.

[Michael22]

A lot of the world's most interesting thinkers and writers were "geek loner weirdos". I don't know why his health problems should be a mark against him either.

Nietzsche feared women and had little experience with them. He was also racist and anti-semitic. His whole philosophy is based on fear and hatred.

As Bertrand Russell said, there is a great deal in Nietzsche that should just be dismissed as meglomaniac.

I disagree that most good thinkers are loner weirdo's. Marx had many children and was very sociable. Nietzsche was a weird little aryan man who spent a lot of his life alone consumed with hatred and fear, imagining himself as some sort of warrior or king aristocrat. He may have been homosexual and his idealisation of the compassionless, alpha warrior aristocrat may have had a homoerotic element to it.

(To generalise, it is often the case that the most psychotic and sociopathic elitists may be small pathetic men. For example, lots of extreme libertarians are geeky spotty boys or short, overweight men. It can often be the case that strong men with strong relationships, who are not consumed with fear and hatred, are more communitarian and paternalistic.)

[Os Cangaceiros]

Nietzsche feared women and had little experience with them. He was also racist and anti-semitic. His whole philosophy is based on fear and hatred.

Again, I don't really see how his neurosis or fear of women or whatever is a good reason to discount his work. He wasn't really anti-Semitic, either. There are numerous threads on this website which disprove that myth regarding Nietzsche, whatever his other faults may be.


I disagree that most good thinkers are loner weirdo's. Marx had many children and was very sociable. Nietzsche was a weird little aryan man who spent a lot of his life alone consumed with hatred and fear, imagining himself as some sort of warrior or king aristocrat. He may have been homosexual and his idealisation of the compassionless, alpha warrior aristocrat may have had a homoerotic element to it.

The list of writers who had serious "issues" is numerous...Kant, Proust, Kafka, Poe, etc etc. the list goes on.

And oh, he may have also been a closeted homosexual! How horrible!


(To generalise, it is often the case that the most psychotic and sociopathic elitists may be small pathetic men. For example, lots of extreme libertarians are geeky spotty boys or short, overweight men. It can often be the case that strong men with strong relationships, who are not consumed with fear and hatred, are more communitarian and paternalistic.)

Man, you're so judgmental. *sigh*

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Nietzsche feared women and had little experience with them. He was also racist and anti-semitic. His whole philosophy is based on fear and hatred.


He was very critical of anti-semites on many occasions, as well as German nationalism. He was critical of biologism and scientism (as the original post indicates), yet modern racism is basically a pseudo-scientific claim on the nature of certain races. Nietzsche would not have endorsed that.

Also the vast majority of intellectuals were racist in the 1800s. Marx and Bakunin famously made some idiotic racial comments. As did most liberal thinkers. Really, it's hard to say Nietzsche is that much worse on that front - he even opened many feminists to appropriate his work for their own ends.



As Bertrand Russell said, there is a great deal in Nietzsche that should just be dismissed as meglomaniac.


The problem isn't with the megalomaniac, it's with the people who sheepishly follow them. At least the megalomaniac is bold enough to challenge dead ideas in favor of their own.



I disagree that most good thinkers are loner weirdo's. Marx had many children and was very sociable.


Marx was not some moral angel either - he probably had an affair with his housekeeper. Passing moral judgements on the life of a thinker says little of the quality of their thought, even if it says something about the motivations or biases they might have had. What you're doing is a blatant case of ad hominem - I think Bertrand Russell would be horrified that you are using him so liberally alongside attacks on character.


Nietzsche was a weird little aryan man who spent a lot of his life alone consumed with hatred and fear, imagining himself as some sort of warrior or king aristocrat. He may have been homosexual and his idealisation of the compassionless, alpha warrior aristocrat may have had a homoerotic element to it.

As I said earlier, the idea that Nietzsche supported Aristocracy is a naive oversimplification of the praise which he gives it. That's like saying Marx is a Capitalist because he spoke of Capitalism having a "progressive" element. Nietzsche thought Aristocrats realized something about the human potential, however he still saw them as blind, dumb and driven by unchained animal desires.

Also he couldn't have been a homosexual as he had a failed romance. Even if he was, who cares?



(To generalise, it is often the case that the most psychotic and sociopathic elitists may be small pathetic men. For example, lots of extreme libertarians are geeky spotty boys or short, overweight men. It can often be the case that strong men with strong relationships, who are not consumed with fear and hatred, are more communitarian and paternalistic.)

This is an interesting and moralistic criticism of Nietzsche. It's accurate to say that a lot of libertarians are arrogant and mediocre strivers but I don't see why you have to pick on their weight and physical appearance. Geeky spotty boys and short overweight men have done great things.

[Michael22]

It's true that he was sick for much of his life but that's not something you can hold against him.

As for compassion, Nietzsche hated the kind of universal compassion which is morally mandated, though as far as compassion is an exhibition of power he didn't despise it. He did not really like moral universals of any kind.



The relationship between compassion and power is an uninteresting observation of human behaviour. Generosity of spirit is universally a good thing.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The relationship between compassion and power is an uninteresting observation of human behaviour. Generosity of spirit is universally a good thing.

Generosity of spirit in the hearts of the ignorant and those lacking self awareness has historically been abused on more occasions than it is worth counting.

[Michael22]

Generosity of spirit in the hearts of the ignorant and those lacking self awareness has historically been abused on more occasions than it is worth counting.

Yes and those who abuse them are scum. Nietzsche argued that socialism would deny life itself in practice. Similarly, he disdained Christianity for being a slave morality. He argued that humans greed and desire for development was what "life" was or should be. What he failed to see is that humans desire to become rich is itself based on fear and hatred.

Those who take part least in the system and who have the smallest stake yet have a generosity of spirit are more interesting than those with a big stake in the capitalist system, who have "made it". Nietzsche's ideology makes everyone into children, where no one can develop into an adult and be there own person unless they are part of the ubermensch. Most heinously of all he denies amelioration and his hatred of universal love and compassion is sociopathic.

[Michael22]

This is an interesting and moralistic criticism of Nietzsche. It's accurate to say that a lot of libertarians are arrogant and mediocre strivers but I don't see why you have to pick on their weight and physical appearance. Geeky spotty boys and short overweight men have done great things.

Yes, sorry you are right. Mentioning a persons height or weight was a dumb statement but it is accurate that a lot of libertarians are mediocre strivers.

[blake 3:17]

1) Dialectical Materialism is Stalinism? Many Marxists say awful things about Nietzsche without saying anything clearly. I admire many Nietzschean thinkers and writers, so...

2) Dude was an anti-socialist & a skeptic about science

3) ?? How do you mean ??



Apologies in advance 'if' this is a bit muddled:

1. I've been getting back into Nietzsche a bit lately after reading "Beyond Good & Evil" almost a year ago, and I'm interested if anyone could share (a link to others' or their own) ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism, but even more specifically of dialectical materialism, and possibly a Marxist critique of a "Nietzschean" (I know, Nietzsche would scoff at that term) approach to that.

2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?

3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)? That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.

I guess this would have been better for the "Dialectical Materialists" group forum, but for some reason I had trouble posting there.

Thanks!

[Decolonize The Left]

Yes and those who abuse them are scum. Nietzsche argued that socialism would deny life itself in practice. Similarly, he disdained Christianity for being a slave morality. He argued that humans greed and desire for development was what "life" was or should be. What he failed to see is that humans desire to become rich is itself based on fear and hatred.

Those who take part least in the system and who have the smallest stake yet have a generosity of spirit are more interesting than those with a big stake in the capitalist system, who have "made it". Nietzsche's ideology makes everyone into children, where no one can develop into an adult and be there own person unless they are part of the ubermensch. Most heinously of all he denies amelioration and his hatred of universal love and compassion is sociopathic.

I see that you are new to this forum - welcome. That said, it appears as though you have a very rudamentary understanding of Nietzsche and his thought. You grasp the basics of what he said but very little of how these things work together with bigger ideas, i.e. what he meant.

Without driving this thread off-topic, a simple example would be your claim that he viewed christianity as slave morality. This is absolutely correct, he did, and he was correct in this view when you consider what he meant by slave and master morality. It appears as though you are reacting to the use of the word 'slave' and believing it to be derogatory. It could be construed as such, but Nietzsche's use of it had to do with the fact that slave moralities are bound by a master-slave relationship: one of ultimate submission. I suggest you read deeper into his work before you insult him inappropriately.



1. I've been getting back into Nietzsche a bit lately after reading "Beyond Good & Evil" almost a year ago, and I'm interested if anyone could share (a link to others' or their own) ideas of what Nietzsche would think of socialism, but even more specifically of dialectical materialism, and possibly a Marxist critique of a "Nietzschean" (I know, Nietzsche would scoff at that term) approach to that.

Nietzsche would reject dialectical materialism off the bat as dialectics is philosophical nonsense with no material foundation. He would accept materialism in-so-far as it is a descriptive and not a normative argument. He would reject socialism as an ideology (see the quote some posts up).



2. Nietzsche would reject "scientism" and on even that basis alone would reject Marxism (read scientific socialism), but how might a scientific socialist respond to this?

Nietzsche would reject Marxism as it is prescriptive: workers ought to rise up and take back what is theirs. That said, he advocated many things in a prescriptive form. The difference is that he advocates them on an individual level while Marxism advocates on a class level. This distinction is rather meaningless in the big picture but would lead to many a disagreement in discussion. Marxists, in my understanding, do not want people to blindly follow someone or some ideology. We want workers to understand our situation as workers within capitalism and act upon that. This is not in contradiction with Nietzschean philosophy however the notion of 'following' an ideology is.


3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)? That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.

Nietzsche rejects the 'appearance-reality distinction' because that is itself metaphysical idealism (i.e. it posits reality = truth).

[Sabot Cat]

The problem with all of Nietzsche's philosophy is that he's an irrationalist. It is impossible to provide completely valid theories if you don't even accept logic as a means to evaluate your propositions, and it's certainly beyond anyone to reason with someone who rejects reason.

[Michael22]

I see that you are new to this forum - welcome. That said, it appears as though you have a very rudamentary understanding of Nietzsche and his thought. You grasp the basics of what he said but very little of how these things work together with bigger ideas, i.e. what he meant.


Having read The Will to Power I understand what Nietzsche meant. He was recommending elitism.

Following his arguments to the logical conclusion, for those of us not achieving the level of intellect or "greatness" all they can look forward to is that favoured phrase from the Third Reich "arbecht mach frei." He was a disgrace to humanity.

[Michael22]

The problem with all of Nietzsche's philosophy is that he's an irrationalist. It is impossible to provide completely valid theories if you don't even accept logic as a means to evaluate your propositions, and it's certainly beyond anyone to reason with someone who rejects reason.

I would argue Nietzsche's philosophy is evil of the highest order.

It is a call to arms. It provokes a strong emotional response in people because it is elitism with a sadistic twist.

[Czy]

The problem with all of Nietzsche's philosophy is that he's an irrationalist. It is impossible to provide completely valid theories if you don't even accept logic as a means to evaluate your propositions, and it's certainly beyond anyone to reason with someone who rejects reason.

I suggest you read God is dead. You need to understand why he rejects universal truths.

[Sabot Cat]

I suggest you read God is dead. You need to understand why he rejects universal truths.

The phrase occurs in The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but he didn't have a work or even a section of his work with that title. Furthermore, he doesn't just reject universal truths, he rejects logic, and one cannot have a compelling argument against logic that doesn't itself utilize logic, so his whole philosophical enterprise is self-defeating and incoherent.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The phrase occurs in The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but he didn't have a work or even a section of his work with that title. Furthermore, he doesn't just reject universal truths, he rejects logic, and one cannot have a compelling argument against logic that doesn't itself utilize logic, so his whole philosophical enterprise is self-defeating and incoherent.

You're right on the origin of the phrase "God is Dead" (and we killed him!) but I think Nietzsche's views on logic is a little more nuanced. He rejected the pretensions of people who had certainty because of some kind of supposed base of absolute certainty like "logic" and "science". There's actually nothing really that Nietzsche accepts wholeheartedly except the eternal return and a handful of others. That's why I was saying that he's like the perfect intellectual troll, and again, for all the right reasons.

[GerrardWinstanley]

He was very critical of anti-semites on many occasions, as well as German nationalism. He was critical of biologism and scientism (as the original post indicates), yet modern racism is basically a pseudo-scientific claim on the nature of certain races. Nietzsche would not have endorsed that.He was critical of Wagner's anti-semitism after breaking off his friendship with him and of German anti-Semitism in general (a vulgar national chauvinism that reached its apotheosis in 20th Century Nazism). That doesn't mean he was immune to this prejudice himself.
By contrast the Jews were a priestly nation of ressentiment par excellence, possessing an unparalleled genius for popular morality: compare peoples with similar talents, such as the Chinese or Germans [Nietzsche's bête noire], with the Jews, and you will realise who are first rate and who are fifth. Which of them has prevailed for the time being, Rome or Judea? But there is no trace of doubt: just consider to whom you bow down in Rome itself, today, as though to the embodiment of the highest values--and not just in Rome, but over nearly half the earth, everywhere where man has become tame or wants to become tame, to three Jews, as we know, and one Jewess (to Jesus of Nazareth, Peter the Fisherman, Paul the Carpet-Weaver and the mother of Jesus mentioned first, whose name was Mary).On the Genealogy of Morality - First Essay p. 32-33Nietzsche disliked Wagner's anti-Semitism. But as the quotation illustrates (from a work written and published in his later years), he didn't mind employing it for less populist ends. As for pseudo-scientific theories of race, Nietzsche was a known admirer of Arthur de Gobineau; "the only
European spirit I should care to converse with," in his words.
Also the vast majority of intellectuals were racist in the 1800s. Marx and Bakunin famously made some idiotic racial comments. As did most liberal thinkers. Really, it's hard to say Nietzsche is that much worse on that front - he even opened many feminists to appropriate his work for their own ends.I'm aware of Bakunin's anti-Semitism, but no ignorant racist comment Marx or Engels might have made about blacks, Egyptians, Jews or Mexicans went so far as the kernel of everything degenerate in modern Western civilization.
As I said earlier, the idea that Nietzsche supported Aristocracy is a naive oversimplification of the praise which he gives it. That's like saying Marx is a Capitalist because he spoke of Capitalism having a "progressive" element. Nietzsche thought Aristocrats realized something about the human potential, however he still saw them as blind, dumb and driven by unchained animal desires.I don't think the analogy holds. Historical materialism sees history as a continual dialectical process, resolving material contradictions as it advances from one mode of production to the next, changes which are a necessary and unavoidable. Nietzsche is a cultural pessimist who sees humankind in a state of spiritual decline, never having fully recovered its former greatness of classical Greece (despite coming close with Renaissance Italy and Spain under the Moors).

Nietzsche's persuasion was classical, masculine, martial, noble, radically inegalitarian and contemptuous of any kind of sympathy for the lower orders and wretched. Maybe 'aristocratic' doesn't quite sum it up...

[Sabot Cat]

You're right on the origin of the phrase "God is Dead" (and we killed him!) but I think Nietzsche's views on logic is a little more nuanced. He rejected the pretensions of people who had certainty because of some kind of supposed base of absolute certainty like "logic" and "science".

But how can he reject the certainty of rationally organized empirical evidence, which although fallible in certain aspects, are the foundation of any argument or proposition? He cannot relate coherent concepts without utilizing observational precepts, he cannot provide a valid argument that is devoid of reason, and he cannot reject certainty with any certainty. He is nothing more than a sophist.


That's why I was saying that he's like the perfect intellectual troll, and again, for all the right reasons.

Nietzsche was a reactionary who hungered for an (illusionary) time where we did not value others as much and had less compassion for them, so as to better his infectious ideology of self-aggrandizement. His ethics are as poor as his epistemology.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I apologize for starting up a thread and disappearing. I got side-tracked by life and then later on had some trouble signing in (sometimes I log in and it just takes me back to the same screen as though I never logged in at all :confused:).


You need to understand where the position comes from - it is based on an understanding that the contents of mind represent rather than reproduce the contents of the world involves understanding that thoughts of a thing may have different characteristics than the thing itself.

Thanks. This helped refresh my grasp of his epistemological thinking a little more.

Anyway, despite what some say he certainly wasn't an anti-Semite or blind sycophant for aristocrats who argued, nor is it as simple as "might makes right", if that might comes from a dogmatist who upholds some sort of "God" (read: absolute, or blindly followed idea). The will to power is more of a tendency toward eclecticism as opposition to dogmatism and nihilism than any sort of endorsement of aristocracy as it existed.

The "will to truth" stuff, however, is just a precursor to postmodernist sophistry. Science is amoral (not in use but as an epistemological method) and we value it for amoral reasons. We perceive the sky as blue because we observe air particles reflecting blue light, not because we make some "moral decision" that "justifies" that perception. Same goes for "matter in motion" in general. Any time someone talks about "faith" in the scientific method, nonsense alarms go off. Science is by definition not a matter a faith.

[Michael22]

I
Anyway, despite what some say he certainly wasn't an anti-Semite or blind sycophant for aristocrats who argued, nor is it as simple as "might makes right", if that might comes from a dogmatist who upholds some sort of "God" (read: absolute, or blindly followed idea). The will to power is more of a tendency toward eclecticism as opposition to dogmatism and nihilism than any sort of endorsement of aristocracy as it existed.


The Will to power is a collection of vile rants from an animal.

I don't know why people are supposed to "try and understand" Nietzsche. He is propounding extremist, elitist views in The Will to Power which paved the way for fascism and the extreme arrogance, misery and meanness of spirit condemns it out of hand.

Perhaps Nietzsche articulates the philosophy of certain secular aristocrats but it is worse than that. It is more like Genghis Khan, or just megalomania.

[Decolonize The Left]

Having read The Will to Power I understand what Nietzsche meant. He was recommending elitism.

Following his arguments to the logical conclusion, for those of us not achieving the level of intellect or "greatness" all they can look forward to is that favoured phrase from the Third Reich "arbecht mach frei." He was a disgrace to humanity.

So you've read one book and you feel as though that entitles you to slander a philosopher? Please stop trolling.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Gerrard - I'm not arguing that Nietzsche's views aren't problematic. He certainly made bigoted statements on numerous occasions.

As for that quote in the Genealogy, I think there's the sense in which he's pointing to the irony of the fact that Europe sees itself as better than the orient when it adopts wholeheartedly when Western civilization itself is grounded in views from "the orient".

Also, I don't think he really supports the aristocrats - he does not equate aristocrats as "overmen" even if he sees some overlapping qualities. I agree that he was inegalitarian and his thought is problematic in that respect, but I don't agree with the way people are reducing his thought in a fairly simplistic manner. I would say any liberated humanity would have some of the qualities of the overman (for instance, a creative passion unbounded by conventions of bourgeois morality) although probably with more compassion and collective interest than Nietzsche would want to admit



The "will to truth" stuff, however, is just a precursor to postmodernist sophistry. Science is amoral (not in use but as an epistemological method) and we value it for amoral reasons. We perceive the sky as blue because we observe air particles reflecting blue light, not because we make some "moral decision" that "justifies" that perception. Same goes for "matter in motion" in general. Any time someone talks about "faith" in the scientific method, nonsense alarms go off. Science is by definition not a matter a faith.

For Nietzsche, science isn't amoral, it gives moral preference to "objective" truth. He has a broader concept of morality as any presupposed and intrinsic value judgement. When we do science, we value certain things which make our science "justified" or "unjustified". This does make sense, as the scientific method arose in a certain cultural context which valued certain kinds of truth claim over others. Science is great for discovering things in the world, but that doesn't mean that we can wholly negate the subjective element in it. Maybe Nietzsche is wrong but your response to his view is just begging the question.


But how can he reject the certainty of rationally organized empirical evidence, which although fallible in certain aspects, are the foundation of any argument or proposition? He cannot relate coherent concepts without utilizing observational precepts, he cannot provide a valid argument that is devoid of reason, and he cannot reject certainty with any certainty. He is nothing more than a sophist.


I think what irritated Nietzsche (among other things) was the fact that the Western pretensions of certainty were taken to be ahistorical and universal, when in fact they had arisen historically. Any claim of certainty is based on a bunch of pre-existing assumptions. Maybe those assumptions are good and useful but they are still assumptions.



Nietzsche was a reactionary who hungered for an (illusionary) time where we did not value others as much and had less compassion for them, so as to better his infectious ideology of self-aggrandizement. His ethics are as poor as his epistemology.I don't think he really wanted a return to the time of aristocracy. Aristocrats had a kind of freedom I think he was nostalgic about, but he also saw them as lacking the kind of freedom of the overman.

I'm not endorsing his philosophy, but I think it's more nuanced.

[JPSartre12]

I suggest you read God is dead. You need to understand why he rejects universal truths.

For what it is worth, the phrase "God is dead" was originally said by Hegel in reference to his "ultimate spirit" dialectic while he was still a professor in Berlin, and Nietzsche quoted it. He did not come up with the idea himself.

[Sabot Cat]

I think what irritated Nietzsche (among other things) was the fact that the Western pretensions of certainty were taken to be ahistorical and universal, when in fact they had arisen historically. Any claim of certainty is based on a bunch of pre-existing assumptions. Maybe those assumptions are good and useful but they are still assumptions. I don't think he really wanted a return to the time of aristocracy. Aristocrats had a kind of freedom I think he was nostalgic about, but he also saw them as lacking the kind of freedom of the overman.


I didn't mean he was a proponent of aristocracy, just that he has a clear nostalgia for the Dionysian pathos of classical or prehistoric man, who he believed to be uninhibited by "Christian slave morality". There's a lot to be said for how well Conan the Barbarian meshes with his aesthetics, not least for the fact that Nietzsche referred to his nascent fandom as Hyperboreans.


I'm not endorsing his philosophy, but I think it's more nuanced.

I appreciate the literary merit of his work, as a sort of exercise in mythopoeia, what with the prophet character of Zarathustra, the vignettes written like Biblical stories, and a fascinating cosmology with the eternal recurrence. That's why I think Thus Spoke Zarathustra is his best work, because it's a philosophical novel, and even if you don't buy into the concepts being presented, the way the narratives are presented is fascinating. I also take refuge in the fact that there are more breaks and diversity in the presentation of the text through being a compilation of multiple stories.

Works like The Gay Science and The Antichrist are worse books because there is a monistic, non-fictional framework to the thing: Nietzsche the Philosopher. And Nietzsche the Philosopher has an irrational ideology and a reactionary core; although he is very dramatic, and it's very entertaining to go from paragraph to paragraph as he presents his points with a revelationary flourish, I wish he produced more things with the metatextual complexity of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

[Michael22]

So you've read one book and you feel as though that entitles you to slander a philosopher? Please stop trolling.

I was not trolling. I think his philosophy is reactionary and I don't know why any leftist would subscribe to it.

His deliberate critique of Christianity is individualist and egoist, not from a humanist point of view. He does not attack the judgmental God of the Old Testament. He attacks the emotion of faith and the justice that Christ preached in the New Testament.

His core philosophy is diametrically opposed to justice itself and the rule of law. As Bertrand Russel said, its anarchy for the aristocracy, which means slavery for everyone else, reminding me of that phrase "abercht macht frei."

[Decolonize The Left]

I was not trolling. I think his philosophy is reactionary and I don't know why any leftist would subscribe to it.

I'll take your word on it, but you should know that your posting style in this thread is very toll-esque. You have made grand and controversial statements without any justification and merely repeated them ad nauseum for a couple pages. I'm not sure how much experience you have with discussion boards, I assure you I have a lot, but that generally doesn't bring dialogue along in a productive manner.


His deliberate critique of Christianity is individualist and egoist, not from a humanist point of view.

Well, Nietzsche wasn't a humanist so bemoaning the fact that he doesn't make humanist arguments from a humanist perspective is rather silly, don't you think?

But also, I found his critique of Christianity to be incredibly humanizing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's the best critique of Christianity I've ever read. No other critique looks at the way the human relates to the ideas and morals of the religious system and how those morals and ideas react upon the human animal. No other critique offers so cold a critique and cold critiques are the most valuable.


He does not attack the judgmental God of the Old Testament. He attacks the emotion of faith and the justice that Christ preached in the New Testament.

He does indeed attack the god of the OT, he attacks god pretty consistently throughout his writing. What he does, and what I believe you are misunderstanding, is parallel the notions of Christian morality and Jewish morality. He isn't advocating Jewish morality at all, merely noting how Christian morality usurped the power of the other and (to use a Marxist phrase) turned it on its head.


His core philosophy is diametrically opposed to justice itself and the rule of law. As Bertrand Russel said, its anarchy for the aristocracy, which means slavery for everyone else, reminding me of that phrase "abercht macht frei."

What is justice and rule of law? Why should I trust you - someone I've never met - to be an arbiter of either of these things? Why should I believe what you say: that these are good things?

[Michael22]

But also, I found his critique of Christianity to be incredibly humanizing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's the best critique of Christianity I've ever read. No other critique looks at the way the human relates to the ideas and morals of the religious system and how those morals and ideas react upon the human animal. No other critique offers so cold a critique and cold critiques are the most valuable.

He does indeed attack the god of the OT, he attacks god pretty consistently throughout his writing. What he does, and what I believe you are misunderstanding, is parallel the notions of Christian morality and Jewish morality. He isn't advocating Jewish morality at all, merely noting how Christian morality usurped the power of the other and (to use a Marxist phrase) turned it on its head.



I agree that a cold critique can be the most valuable however I am much more interested in Enlightenment philosophers criticism of religion.

Nietzsche describes the apostles as cowards and dislikes Jesus because he died on a cross. These are people who bravely put their lives on the line and died for a cause they believed in. (Far more brave and inspiring than anything a German philosopher consumed with hatred writing in solitude in a cottage in the Alps ever achieved in his life.)

Nietzsche's criticism of Christian compassion is based on the way pity and altruism are ways of the "weak" to take power over the "strong", which is a warped and unenlightened view of human behaviour based on hatred. Followed to its logical conclusion for those not keeping up, they have nothing to look forward to in life and no purpose other than to serve the "strong."

[Hit The North]

Nietzsche rejects the 'appearance-reality distinction' because that is itself metaphysical idealism (i.e. it posits reality = truth).

It is also a proposition at the heart of scientific realism and important to Marx's critique of capitalism: The labour-capital relation does not appear to those so related as it really is, but takes on ideological disguise. What's metaphysically idealist about that proposition - apart from the possibility that it might be "true" or "real"?

[The Intransigent Faction]

For Nietzsche, science isn't amoral, it gives moral preference to "objective" truth. He has a broader concept of morality as any presupposed and intrinsic value judgement. When we do science, we value certain things which make our science "justified" or "unjustified". This does make sense, as the scientific method arose in a certain cultural context which valued certain kinds of truth claim over others. Science is great for discovering things in the world, but that doesn't mean that we can wholly negate the subjective element in it. Maybe Nietzsche is wrong but your response to his view is just begging the question.

I'm well aware of his perspective about so-called "scientism" but I don't see where, or how, I was "begging the question".

[The Intransigent Faction]

For Nietzsche, science isn't amoral, it gives moral preference to "objective" truth. He has a broader concept of morality as any presupposed and intrinsic value judgement. When we do science, we value certain things which make our science "justified" or "unjustified". This does make sense, as the scientific method arose in a certain cultural context which valued certain kinds of truth claim over others. Science is great for discovering things in the world, but that doesn't mean that we can wholly negate the subjective element in it. Maybe Nietzsche is wrong but your response to his view is just begging the question.

This pretty much just restates what was already established here about Nietzsche and "scientism", but it doesn't really say much of anything. The scientific method arose in a certain cultural context---okay, great, so did the realization that 2+2=4.

Again: Science is by definition not a matter a faith. I even gave an example to establish that.

There's a difference between pointing out that something is true by definition and "begging the question".

[The Intransigent Faction]

Nietzsche would reject dialectical materialism off the bat as dialectics is philosophical nonsense with no material foundation.

I'm aware he would reject socialism. I was more concerned about how he'd react to dialectics itself. If this is a fair portrayal of him then of course he must have been off in an asylum somewhere while others were writing an exhaustive connection of dialectics with historical materialism.

[TiberiusGracchus]

3. One last thing: Does Nietzsche really reject the "appearance-reality distinction" (i.e. does he say that the 'lightning' does not 'flash' but rather the so-called lightning is just the flash)?



In "On the genealogy of morals" Nietzsche puts it like this:


"A quantum force is equivalent to a quantum of drive, will, effect-more, it is nothing other than precisely this very driving, willing, effecting, and only owing to the seduction of language (and of the fundamental errors of reason that are petrified in it) which conceives and misconceives all effects as conditioned by something that causes effects, by a "subject", can it appear otherwise. For just as the popular mind separates the lightning from its flash and takes the latter for an action, for the operation of a subject called lightning, so popular morality also separates strenght from expression of strenght, as if there were a neutral substratum behind the strong man, which was free to express strenght or not to do so. But there is no such substratum; there is no "being" behind doing, effecting, becoming; "the doer" is merely a fiction added to the deed-the deed is everything. The popular mind in fact doubles the deed; when it sees the lightning flash, it is the deed of a deed: it posits the same event first as cause and then a second time as its effect. Scientists do no better when they say "force moves", "force causes" and the like - its coolness, its freedom from emotion notwithstanding, our entire science still lies under the misleading influence of language and has not disposed of that little changeling, the "subject" (the atom, for example, is such a changeling...)."



First, a word is perhaps required about Nietzsche's rejection of "that little changeling, the subject". This is not just a denial that there is any such thing as the self, after the manner of Hume's, Wittgenstein's, Sartre's or Lacan's denial of the self. It is a denial that there are "powerful particulars" - beings, whether people, beasts, comets, Venus fly-traps or atoms which have the power, by virtue of their various internal structures, to bring about various kinds of events.

What are we to make of this passage? In the example Nietzsche gives it is of course true that lightning does not first exist and then exercise its power to flash - has the "popular mind" really ever thought otherwise? But this is of no great ontological purport. No event or action exists before it occurs or is done, but its agent and/or patient always does. A battle does not first exist and then be fought, but the armies do first exist and then fight. As Roy Bhaskar notes, while it is true that "let there be light" does not mean "let something shine", there is in fact light only when something does shine.

Further, as to the case for which lightning is an analogy, the strong individual is certainly not always exercising his or her strenght, nor is human desire a drive existing only in its satisfaction. Stuart Hampshire is nearer the truth, in his interesting paper "Disposition and Memory", in claiming that thought, and the distinctively human character of our desires, originates in the manner in which we learn to restrain immediate satisfaction and express the desire in language. Perhaps this is just what Nietzsche dislikes, and contrasts with a de-sublimated superman. But Nietzsche's preference for such a superman is no argument for his existence, let alone for the non-existence of unexercised powers right across the ontological board. And indeed, he would not be much of a superman: he would not even be out of nappies.

Unexercised powers are in no way mysterious, as empiricists have sometimes thought, nor are they a mere shadow cast by language, as Nietzsche suggests. Wine cheereth the heart of God and man, according to the Good Book - but not as long as it remains tightly corked in its bottle. This is an unexercised power. I suspect that the empiricist notion that there is something mysterious about powers, which must be exorcised from a down-to-earth world-view, stems from the lack of obvious connection, in English, between the noun "power" and the verb "to be able". To say that there are unexercised powers is only to say that "can" does not equal "does".

Yet this elementary distinction, whereby language does not cast its shadow on the world, but registers a widespread feature of the world, is laden by consequences. Politics provide a striking example. If history is just "one damned thing after another", then all the politics we need is a resolve to do better damned things than were done before. If, on the other hand, societies and their institutions have inner structures which generate and by the same token constrain their powers, then we can ask, first of all, what sort of thing can be done given existing structures and what cannot; second, what different sort of things could be done given different structures; and third, how one sort of structures can be transformed into another.



That sounds like it would mean "things are only what they seem"...which has profoundly backward political implications.

Indeed. The "shallow realism", or actualism of Nietzsche is not realist enough in that it either denies the transphenomenality of the object of knowledge, or reduces it to the relatively trivial case of the unbeheld tree in the quad, denying the reality of inner structures and consequent latent powers. This usually means that counterphenomenality is also denied. For to make sense of, for example, Marx's claim that the exchange of labour-power at its value is exploitation of the worker, one must agree that there is a deep structure to capitalist economic relations, which is exploitive, and which explains the surface-structure of the labour-market within which the labour contract appears as fair. However it should be noted that there can be philosophical positions which deny transphenomenality while accepting counter-phenomenality. Some such view seems to be the case of Heidegger:


"Behind" the phenomena of phenomenology there is essentially nothing else; on the other hand, what is to become a phenomenon can be hidden. And just because the phenomena are in the first place and for the most part not given, there is need for phenomenology. Covered-up-ness is the counter-concept to "phenomenon". (Sein und Zeit)

Whereas many kinds of knowledge can be to some degree empowering - and here I may say that I would like to see the slogan "knowledge is power" restored to its optimistic place on the banners of trade unions, far from the sinister connotations it has acquired in the covens of poststructuralism. Knowledge is here contrasted not with innocent ignorance but with false and enslaving appearances. And the false appearances here are not isolated or accidental mistakes, but the motivated false apearances which, at the social level, Marx has called "ideology", and, at the personal level, Freud has called "defence-mechanisms". If the domains of knowledge opened up by Marx and Freud are liberating ones, that is because of the enslaving nature of these appearances, and the counter-phenomenal nature of these knowledges.

[Michael22]

What is justice and rule of law? Why should I trust you - someone I've never met - to be an arbiter of either of these things? Why should I believe what you say: that these are good things?

Justice is based on moral rightness and ethics, the things that Nietzsche rejects in The Will to Power.

In Nietzsche's world no one would ever be at peace. His writing is glorifying military men and warriors. If his philosophy was ever carried out it would lead to permanent warfare and conflict.

Nietzsche's ideal of the uncaring strong means everyone else not up to the standard can only look forward to abecht mach frei. Not only that, there is a disturbing element of sadism to his writing and a power fetish.

[Decolonize The Left]

Justice is based on moral rightness and ethics, the things that Nietzsche rejects in The Will to Power.

What is moral righteousness? Are all accounts of it the same? Who's is correct, and why?


In Nietzsche's world no one would ever be at peace. His writing is glorifying military men and warriors. If his philosophy was ever carried out it would lead to permanent warfare and conflict.

Nietzsche's ideal of the uncaring strong means everyone else not up to the standard can only look forward to abecht mach frei. Not only that, there is a disturbing element of sadism to his writing and a power fetish.

I fail to see the "peace" in the world today. So I'm not sure that your portrayal of what a Nietzschean world would look like is any more or less violent than our already absurdly violent world - a world whereby your precious notion of "justice" is enforced regularly at the end of a gun.

[Decolonize The Left]

I agree that a cold critique can be the most valuable however I am much more interested in Enlightenment philosophers criticism of religion.

Nietzsche describes the apostles as cowards and dislikes Jesus because he died on a cross. These are people who bravely put their lives on the line and died for a cause they believed in. (Far more brave and inspiring than anything a German philosopher consumed with hatred writing in solitude in a cottage in the Alps ever achieved in his life.)

Nietzsche's criticism of Christian compassion is based on the way pity and altruism are ways of the "weak" to take power over the "strong", which is a warped and unenlightened view of human behaviour based on hatred. Followed to its logical conclusion for those not keeping up, they have nothing to look forward to in life and no purpose other than to serve the "strong."

I'm fairly confident that you don't understand Nietzsche's critique of Christianity beyond a very shallow reading of a single book. In short, the issue isn't with Christianity, it's with slave morality (for which Christianity is the most obvious example). I suggest you check out some wikipedia pages on the topic, or even on the broader topic of Nietzsche's philosophy, before you continue with your portrayal of his ideas.

[Decolonize The Left]

It is also a proposition at the heart of scientific realism and important to Marx's critique of capitalism: The labour-capital relation does not appear to those so related as it really is, but takes on ideological disguise. What's metaphysically idealist about that proposition - apart from the possibility that it might be "true" or "real"?

I disagree. I think that Marx's critique of capitalism is right in line with Nietzsche (this isn't even to speak of their respective critiques of the state). Marx does away with ideological impositions and looks at things as they are: workers working for someone who does not work and having their labor taken from them in the form of profit. Marxism functions perfectly well on this level without abstractions like "scientific realism." One need not say that "the labor-capital relation is ideologically disguised." One need only say that 'the folks who take your labor lie to you about it.'

We don't need "truth" in order to combat capitalism - we only need ourselves and our lives. Our lives are truth. That is Nietzsche's point.

[Decolonize The Left]

I'm aware he would reject socialism. I was more concerned about how he'd react to dialectics itself. If this is a fair portrayal of him then of course he must have been off in an asylum somewhere while others were writing an exhaustive connection of dialectics with historical materialism.

To borrow from TiberiusGracchus's post:

In "On the genealogy of morals" Nietzsche puts it like this:
"A quantum force is equivalent to a quantum of drive, will, effect-more, it is nothing other than precisely this very driving, willing, effecting, and only owing to the seduction of language (and of the fundamental errors of reason that are petrified in it) which conceives and misconceives all effects as conditioned by something that causes effects, by a "subject", can it appear otherwise. For just as the popular mind separates the lightning from its flash and takes the latter for an action, for the operation of a subject called lightning, so popular morality also separates strenght from expression of strenght, as if there were a neutral substratum behind the strong man, which was free to express strenght or not to do so. But there is no such substratum; there is no "being" behind doing, effecting, becoming; "the doer" is merely a fiction added to the deed-the deed is everything. The popular mind in fact doubles the deed; when it sees the lightning flash, it is the deed of a deed: it posits the same event first as cause and then a second time as its effect. Scientists do no better when they say "force moves", "force causes" and the like - its coolness, its freedom from emotion notwithstanding, our entire science still lies under the misleading influence of language and has not disposed of that little changeling, the "subject" (the atom, for example, is such a changeling...)."

Your answer is right there. From Nietzsche's perspective, dialectics is based upon a faulty subject-object (causal) assumption. There is no event-cause-next event-cause-event in play. There is only happening and hence there can be no dialectic movement as this movement fundamentally separates this existence into a conceptual framework.

For myself, I reject dialectics so I apologize if I came off like everyone already adopted my perspective.

[Michael22]

I'm fairly confident that you don't understand Nietzsche's critique of Christianity beyond a very shallow reading of a single book. In short, the issue isn't with Christianity, it's with slave morality (for which Christianity is the most obvious example). I suggest you check out some wikipedia pages on the topic, or even on the broader topic of Nietzsche's philosophy, before you continue with your portrayal of his ideas.

Well, according to wikipedia some famous philosophers and academics have speculated whether Nietzsche was insane since birth.

His idea of "slave morality" is based on a view devoid of universal love and compassion and his warped view that arrogant/proud = strong and compassionate = weak.

What you are trying to do is try and say that the fundamentally nasty and sick elitist ideas of Nietzsche are "above" me and on a different level to my understanding. Nietzsche recommends elitism in The Will to Power. His sick fetish of the strong devoid of compassion is psychotic and his philosophy completely uninteresting and unenlightening because it fails to account for the fact that emotion and compassion makes humans feel greater.

Him and all his followers are a disgrace to humanity.

[Hit The North]

I disagree. I think that Marx's critique of capitalism is right in line with Nietzsche (this isn't even to speak of their respective critiques of the state). Marx does away with ideological impositions and looks at things as they are: workers working for someone who does not work and having their labor taken from them in the form of profit. Marxism functions perfectly well on this level without abstractions like "scientific realism."


Marx may "[do] away with ideological impositions and looks at things as they are" but this does not mean that he does not see ideology as a function of this relationship - that the actors themselves are in thrall to ideological mystification.


One need not say that "the labor-capital relation is ideologically disguised." One need only say that 'the folks who take your labor lie to you about it.' Except that the latter is a gross simplification of what is happening. It assumes that the capitalist is aware of the reality and falsifies it consciously to the worker. It assumes that the capitalist exists in a state of knowledge and the proletariat are gullible and ignorant and easily and continually fooled by a cunning conspiracy.


We don't need "truth" in order to combat capitalism - we only need ourselves and our lives. Our lives are truth. That is Nietzsche's point.
We need an accurate analysis of how capitalism works, not conspiracy theories, and we need to win workers over to our view. Whatever Nietzche's point was it is no substitute for the conscious class struggle.




From Nietzsche's perspective, dialectics is based upon a faulty subject-object (causal) assumption. There is no event-cause-next event-cause-event in play. There is only happening and hence there can be no dialectic movement as this movement fundamentally separates this existence into a conceptual framework.


Which is why Nietzsche's position is incoherent. 'Things' don't just happen. Capitalism doesn't just happen out of the blue; it is reproduced on the basis of the maintenance of particular social relations of production - according, that is, to a dialectic.


For myself, I reject dialectics so I apologize if I came off like everyone already adopted my perspective.So you reject the idea that events have their origin in previous events; that history can be made intelligible on the basis of uncovering fundamental laws of social development?

If so, what makes you call yourself a Marxist?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Well, according to wikipedia some famous philosophers and academics have speculated whether Nietzsche was insane since birth.


Ad hominem ... sometimes the most important truths are only recognized by those deemed "insane" by some hegemonic ideology.



His idea of "slave morality" is based on a view devoid of universal love and compassion and his warped view that arrogant/proud = strong and compassionate = weak.
His view of "slave morality" is problematic but its more nuanced than you think. "Slave morality" doesn't liberate the slave, it keeps the slave in his chains while seeking to moderate his suffering out of naive compassion. All it adds is that the ruling class and creative elites are as much "chained" as the people they are oppressing. Nietzsche dislikes the fact that slave morality seeks to bring down the elites to the level of the lower masses. His critique clearly has a liberatory potential (even if Nietzsche himself did not see it) - the slaves cannot merely laud their slavery, they must seek to negate it and become free themselves.



What you are trying to do is try and say that the fundamentally nasty and sick elitist ideas of Nietzsche are "above" me and on a different level to my understanding. Nietzsche recommends elitism in The Will to Power. His sick fetish of the strong devoid of compassion is psychotic and his philosophy completely uninteresting and unenlightening because it fails to account for the fact that emotion and compassion makes humans feel greater.
Yeah except you're begging the question. You're saying "Nietzsche is bad to criticize compassion because compassion is good." Yeah, compassion makes people feel better, but if it doesn't liberate them from their ideological chains it has done nothing to free them. I love compassion, but I think it's good to take a critical eye at what is most commonly viewed as "compassionate" behavior.



Him and all his followers are a disgrace to humanity.Anyone who "follows" Nietzsche doesn't get Nietzsche's philosophy. People have done important things with Nietzsche's genealogical method however - look at the critiques by Foucault on any number of social institutions.


Marx may "[do] away with ideological impositions and looks at things as they are" but this does not mean that he does not see ideology as a function of this relationship - that the actors themselves are in thrall to ideological mystification.

Except that the latter is a gross simplification of what is happening. It assumes that the capitalist is aware of the reality and falsifies it consciously to the worker. It assumes that the capitalist exists in a state of knowledge and the proletariat are gullible and ignorant and easily and continually fooled by a cunning conspiracy.


That is true - many Capitalists do genuinely think they are "moral", and are as much mystified by the ideological structure of our society as the working class. I agree that it's a mistake to think that the Capitalists self-consciously create the moral order which empowers them.


Which is why Nietzsche's position is incoherent. 'Things' don't just happen. Capitalism doesn't just happen out of the blue; it is reproduced on the basis of the maintenance of particular social relations of production - according, that is, to a dialectic.I don't agree with the whole "anti dialectics" thing but I think this is a gross oversimplification of the critique. Nietzsche did historical genealogy, he was aware that things emerge based on their historical conditions. The whole genealogy of morality is about that. He just disagreed with Hegel's picture of how that occurred.

[Michael22]

His view of "slave morality" is problematic but its more nuanced than you think. "Slave morality" doesn't liberate the slave, it keeps the slave in his chains while seeking to moderate his suffering out of naive compassion. All it adds is that the ruling class and creative elites are as much "chained" as the people they are oppressing. Nietzsche dislikes the fact that slave morality seeks to bring down the elites to the level of the lower masses. His critique clearly has a liberatory potential (even if Nietzsche himself did not see it) - the slaves cannot merely laud their slavery, they must seek to negate it and become free themselves.

"Slave morality" does not "bring down" anyone because Nietzsche's description of who is "strong" and "weak" is wrong.

Compassion has nothing to do with keeping people "in slavery." The thing that is keeping them poor is exploitation. There is nothing liberatory about feeling undignified about being on the receiving end of compassion and generosity. What is liberating is giving all your money to the poor and taking part least in the system of exploitation, therefore becoming like the poor.


Yeah except you're begging the question. You're saying "Nietzsche is bad to criticize compassion because compassion is good." Yeah, compassion makes people feel better, but if it doesn't liberate them from their ideological chains it has done nothing to free them. I love compassion, but I think it's good to take a critical eye at what is most commonly viewed as "compassionate" behavior.

So you are talking about religious types or philanthropic businessman who donate publicly. The problem with them is that they perhaps have exploited people and have too much wealth. And they should give more than they do.

I don't think its constructive to be cynical about rich people being generous. The root of a lot of injustice in the world is people's love of money, hoarding it for themselves and the belief that the poor are deserving.

It is also rational and intelligent to be large, generous and benevolent. Not only is it good for mental health, most people who have wealth acquired it through a combination of luck and work, and it won't make them happy, so in a short life span it is intelligent and rational to share and pool resources. Those who find it harder to do so are worldly, inferior and slaves to their own greed.

[Hit The North]

I don't agree with the whole "anti dialectics" thing but I think this is a gross oversimplification of the critique. Nietzsche did historical genealogy, he was aware that things emerge based on their historical conditions. The whole genealogy of morality is about that.

I was responding to Mdmr's depiction of Nietzsche's position but I'm happy to be contradicted :).


He just disagreed with Hegel's picture of how that occurred. As did Marx. How does Nietzsche conceptualize historical movement? As far as I remember, in The Geneology of Morals, beneath the facades of morality exists merely a will to power. What role do events play in these abstractions?

[blake 3:17]

I'm aware he would reject socialism. I was more concerned about how he'd react to dialectics itself. If this is a fair portrayal of him then of course he must have been off in an asylum somewhere while others were writing an exhaustive connection of dialectics with historical materialism.

Wise guy!

I'm not aware of his specific responses to Hegel. Two books that might be helpful are Sinnerbrink's Understanding Hegelianism and Love's Marx, Nietszche and Modernity.

The chapter on Deleuze in Understanding Hegelianism is pretty interesting on this front.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

"Slave morality" does not "bring down" anyone because Nietzsche's description of who is "strong" and "weak" is wrong.

Compassion has nothing to do with keeping people "in slavery." The thing that is keeping them poor is exploitation. There is nothing liberatory about feeling undignified about being on the receiving end of compassion and generosity. What is liberating is giving all your money to the poor and taking part least in the system of exploitation, therefore becoming like the poor.


The thing that is keeping them poor is their lack of positive control and freedom over the means of production. Exploitation is merely a consequence of that lack of power and the method for maintaining it. "Compassion" as done in bourgeois society as well as the feudal society which proceeded it is a way of minimizing the harm of that power dichotomy without actually addressing its structural causes.

I'm all for compassion, but, to use an old cliche, I'd rather teach a man to fish than give him fish.



So you are talking about religious types or philanthropic businessman who donate publicly. The problem with them is that they perhaps have exploited people and have too much wealth. And they should give more than they do.

I don't think its constructive to be cynical about rich people being generous. The root of a lot of injustice in the world is people's love of money, hoarding it for themselves and the belief that the poor are deserving.
I think it is - not in the sense of accusing the rich of conspiring to preserve their wealth, but of the structures that make those wealthy people powerful and the sense in which they are motivated by guilt.

Again, I don't endorse Nietzsche's philosophy in its entirety, but I do see value in the manner in which he criticized common moral assumptions and norms as an expression of power.



It is also rational and intelligent to be large, generous and benevolent. Not only is it good for mental health, most people who have wealth acquired it through a combination of luck and work, and it won't make them happy, so in a short life span it is intelligent and rational to share and pool resources. Those who find it harder to do so are worldly, inferior and slaves to their own greed.I doubt Nietzsche would disagree with criticizing people who are slaves to their greed. He didn't believe in accumulation for accumulation's sake, although he obviously did believe in creative, powerful individuals expressing themselves. I don't agree with all aspects of his philosophy but I think you're oversimplifying it.


I was responding to Mdmr's depiction of Nietzsche's position but I'm happy to be contradicted :).


Fair enough



As did Marx. How does Nietzsche conceptualize historical movement? As far as I remember, in The Geneology of Morals, beneath the facades of morality exists merely a will to power. What role do events play in these abstractions?I think for Nietzsche these events are caused by people's desire to express themselves in relation to the power they have. So the priests create the slave morality as an expression of ideological power in response to their own lack of material power.

[Decolonize The Left]

Well, according to wikipedia some famous philosophers and academics have speculated whether Nietzsche was insane since birth.

Wow. According to anyone, anyone else can be insane from birth too, especially when you're speculating. What a good argument.


His idea of "slave morality" is based on a view devoid of universal love and compassion and his warped view that arrogant/proud = strong and compassionate = weak.

Universal love is a ridiculous idealism. Compassion is an animal trait which Nietzsche did not fight against at all. In fact, compassion is very much a part of Nietzsche's philosophy; merely not the compassion espoused by Christiantiy - i.e. a compassion of pity. Arrogant and proud people are strong until they run into someone stronger. This isn't rocket science, it's common sense.


What you are trying to do is try and say that the fundamentally nasty and sick elitist ideas of Nietzsche are "above" me and on a different level to my understanding. Nietzsche recommends elitism in The Will to Power. His sick fetish of the strong devoid of compassion is psychotic and his philosophy completely uninteresting and unenlightening because it fails to account for the fact that emotion and compassion makes humans feel greater.

Nietzsche's entire philosophy is about humans feeling greater. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about and have zoned in on several talking points which you defecate upon this discussion over and over again. We get that you don't like Nietzsche or his ideas. That's fine, no one is demanding that you read him or love him or anything. What I'm taking you to task on is the fact that you have read very little of him and hence are not prepared to lambaste his complex philosophy from your narrow point of view.


Him and all his followers are a disgrace to humanity.

That's hilarious.

[Decolonize The Left]

Marx may "[do] away with ideological impositions and looks at things as they are" but this does not mean that he does not see ideology as a function of this relationship - that the actors themselves are in thrall to ideological mystification.

Indeed. But it was Marx's objective to rid these actors of this ideological mystification, rooting them in a materialism which stemmed from the everyday actions of their lives. This is exactly what Nietzsche was demanding, only his advocacy had nothing to do with class consciousness.


Except that the latter is a gross simplification of what is happening. It assumes that the capitalist is aware of the reality and falsifies it consciously to the worker. It assumes that the capitalist exists in a state of knowledge and the proletariat are gullible and ignorant and easily and continually fooled by a cunning conspiracy.

I encourage you to take a step back and look at the critique of the claim "the latter is a gross simplification of what is happening." Nietzsche would say that, quite the contrary, scientism is a gross complication of something which is relatively unknowable in an epistemological sense.

But that aside, who cares if the capitalist is aware of their theft or not? I surely don't. What I care about is the theft itself - is my life, and the life of my fellow workers. I don't care what they "understand" or don't about the mechanisms of capitalism and, quite frankly, I don't think you should either. As to the proletariat, my statement doesn't assume ignorance or gullibility at all. It merely states the facts: our labor is stolen from us and we are lied to about it. I fail to see where the judgement lies in that.


We need an accurate analysis of how capitalism works, not conspiracy theories, and we need to win workers over to our view. Whatever Nietzche's point was it is no substitute for the conscious class struggle.

We have an accurate analysis of how capitalism works. Marx's Capital covers it in great depth. And we don't need to "win workers over to our view." That is, in my opinion, misguided and out of date. Our view is nothing other than our interests as a class. It ought not be anything more than that. There is no "winning over", there is only struggle. I.e. when I advocate "my view," I am not doing so. I'm struggling for my interests as a worker, interests shared by all other workers, and so our struggle continues. The notion of "winning over" is fruitless and plays into the hands of our enemy who controls the game and all functions of winning and losing.

But yes, I agree entirely that Nietzsche is not, and cannot be, a substitute for class struggle. I never intended to advocate that. What I am advocating is that Nietzsche is incredibly valuable on an individual level, a level upon which we all reside at some point, and ought not be discarded simply because he had no interest in class consciousness.


Which is why Nietzsche's position is incoherent. 'Things' don't just happen. Capitalism doesn't just happen out of the blue; it is reproduced on the basis of the maintenance of particular social relations of production - according, that is, to a dialectic.

As I attempted to point out in my previous post (I think), Nietzsche's critique of cause-effect is not applicable to Marxism. His critique goes far and beyond Marxism and exists in an entirely different realm of philosophy. According to Marxism, yes, capitalism is reproduced on the basis of etc... But Nietzsche is not concerned with Marxism, or capitalism, or socialism, or monarchy, or whatever. Nietzsche is concerned with one thing only: you.


So you reject the idea that events have their origin in previous events; that history can be made intelligible on the basis of uncovering fundamental laws of social development?

I do not have the time or effort to engage in a dialectics argument with you. I can only provide you with someone who has more than enough time and energy for that very argument: Rosa's page on anti-dialectics (http://www.************************/). Suffice to say that I consider dialectics to be a metanarrative and one which I reject.


If so, what makes you call yourself a Marxist?

Please. Not all Marxists are dialectitians. Dialectical materialism is not synonymous with historical materialism. And dialectics is not necessary for Marxism in any sense. Should your perspective be that dialectics is necessary, then I believe that you are holding a counter-productive, elitist, nonsensical, and alienating politic which is a terrible strategy.

The real truth is that dialectics isn't necessary for worker's struggle; materialism isn't necessary for worker's struggle; none of our philosophy is necessary for worker's struggle. All that's necessary is an understanding of one's exploitation and a desire to change that with one's fellow workers.

[Michael22]

The thing that is keeping them poor is their lack of positive control and freedom over the means of production. Exploitation is merely a consequence of that lack of power and the method for maintaining it. "Compassion" as done in bourgeois society as well as the feudal society which proceeded it is a way of minimizing the harm of that power dichotomy without actually addressing its structural causes.

What is also keeping them poor and the rich rich is bourgeoisie ideology of the super structure, for example that you have to be attached to your possessions, wealth and land.

All you are describing is a short termist power grab on behalf of the working class. You are describing the working class becoming like the rich to alleviate themselves. This is accepting the lie (put forward by Nietzsche) that the rich are the "strong" and the poor are the "weak." and therefore the poor must become like the the strong to stop being poor.

One of the obstacles to achieving Communism is people being attached to their possessions, wealth, property and land. Compassion, generosity and a general gentle anarchy with regard to possessions is a small step in this direction towards amelioration. Nietzsche's ideas are backward and individualist. They are motivated by fear and hatred. The fucking vile human being that he was.


I'm all for compassion, but, to use an old cliche, I'd rather teach a man to fish than give him fish.

You have to feel compassion first to want to be able to teach a man to fish.


Again, I don't endorse Nietzsche's philosophy in its entirety, but I do see value in the manner in which he criticized common moral assumptions and norms as an expression of power.

No Nietzsche was a mad man with nothing interesting to say.

[Hit The North]

I think for Nietzsche these events are caused by people's desire to express themselves in relation to the power they have. So the priests create the slave morality as an expression of ideological power in response to their own lack of material power.

Well I don't see how this would find much contradiction from Marxists, but merely appealing to some innate 'will to power' in human relations as the motive force, if this is what Nietzsche does, strikes me as a fundamentally ahistorical appeal to human nature. So I'd prefer an analysis grounded in historical materialism. How does Nietzche explain why a slave ideology comes to dominate over a society to the extent that it is adopted by the ruling classes who must, in turn, abandon the master-ideology more appropriate to their station. Also, how does he explain why a priesthood, looking to exercise their ideological power in the absence of material power, would adopt a slave ideology rather than one that appeals to those who do have material power?

[Hit The North]

I encourage you to take a step back and look at the critique of the claim "the latter is a gross simplification of what is happening." Nietzsche would say that, quite the contrary, scientism is a gross complication of something which is relatively unknowable in an epistemological sense.


Sorry, I'm not following. Are you arguing that Nietzsche believed human history and society was unknowable? Also, what does "relatively" mean in the context of relatively unknowable? Also, what is scientism?


Please. Not all Marxists are dialectitians. Dialectical materialism is not synonymous with historical materialism. And dialectics is not necessary for Marxism in any sense. Should your perspective be that dialectics is necessary, then I believe that you are holding a counter-productive, elitist, nonsensical, and alienating politic which is a terrible strategy.No, but I'm not arguing for DM. But historical materialism is the embodiment of the dialectic that Marx argues determines the movement of human history. So rather than dialectics being unnecessary for "Marxism in any sense", it is the only way to make sense of Marxism.

Btw, it's a chuckle to be accused of elitism when you seem happy to defend it in Nietzsche.


As I attempted to point out in my previous post (I think), Nietzsche's critique of cause-effect is not applicable to Marxism. His critique goes far and beyond Marxism and exists in an entirely different realm of philosophy. According to Marxism, yes, capitalism is reproduced on the basis of etc... But Nietzsche is not concerned with Marxism, or capitalism, or socialism, or monarchy, or whatever. Nietzsche is concerned with one thing only: you.
Well, I'm sorry if I can't reciprocate. The mere fact that he has nothing to say about actually existing society means I have no use for him. Besides, I prefer the Marxist notion that it's only through changing the world that we change ourselves ;)


The real truth is that dialectics isn't necessary for worker's struggle; materialism isn't necessary for worker's struggle; none of our philosophy is necessary for worker's struggle. [emphasis added] So now you're making an appeal to "real truth"! A few posts ago you were denying such a thing was knowable. But you miss the point. No, dialectics is not necessary for worker's struggle if you mean that workers need to apply some esoteric theory to their actions. But it is the material dialectic (the real movement) at the heart of the capitalist system that makes class struggle constantly necessary.

But, of course, when human beings act they do not do it without seizing upon reasons for doing so and this is where ideology comes into it and where the weight of bourgeois tradition and the limiting ideology of reformism come into play. You say that we do not need to win workers over to revolutionary ideas but then that leaves the field open to non-revolutionary and even reactionary ideas. In fact, it is precisely at those moments when workers are discovering their mutual self-interest that the enemies of socialist revolution are most visible and vocal among the workers. So rather than abandoning the concept of ideology to the rubbish bin of history, as you seem to be arguing, we need to acknowledge that the ideological becomes an increasing site of class struggle when the material struggle reaches its periodic heights.


All that's necessary is an understanding of one's exploitation and a desire to change that with one's fellow workers.Necessary but not sufficient - as we can all attest to.

[Decolonize The Left]

Sorry, I'm not following. Are you arguing that Nietzsche believed human history and society was unknowable? Also, what does "relatively" mean in the context of relatively unknowable? Also, what is scientism?

Hmm.. no, we are running into a wall which I am attempting to give words to. As I see it, there is a huge difference between the two critiques, a difference which, when not seen, will distort both critiques to the point of making them meaningless.

In short and as you well know, Marx argues that humans are a product of their material conditions and labor relations. I believe that this is true (truth!). I believe this because it seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation of what's going on in my life and in the lives of the people I know. So let us begin with this: for Marx, labor and material reality are formative for the human subject. From this we get class relations, class analysis, and eventually class war.

But for Nietzsche, humans are not formed by any one system or another. For him, the notion of reducing human experience into a system is despicable and childish. Humans are not "things" to be analyzed - we are not even "we". We are, at base perhaps, willing animals. In his poetic verse he would call us manifestations/expressions of the will to power. From this we get slave/mastery morality, we get his critique of religion, the state, science, etc..., we get the overman, and we eventually get eternal recurrence (which is the ultimate expression of the will to power).

They begin from fundamentally different points and are not interchangeable. They are, in my mind, however, both immensely valuable to human beings and our perspectives upon the world and ourselves.


No, but I'm not arguing for DM. But historical materialism is the embodiment of the dialectic that Marx argues determines the movement of human history. So rather than dialectics being unnecessary for "Marxism in any sense", it is the only way to make sense of Marxism.

I fail to see how that is the case. How is dialectics necessary to Marxism in any sense? I don't even need to know what a dialectic is to understand that I'm being exploited and that that sucks. Nor do I need to know what a dialectic is to understand that other workers are in the same situation as me, hence we share a common interest, this interest is antagonistic to that of our employers, and that eventually we will have to right this problem by taking back what is ours. No dialectics needed.
Furthermore, it begs the question to state that "historical materialism is the embodiment of the dialectic..." I'm saying that the "dialectic" is meaningless nonsense.


Btw, it's a chuckle to be accused of elitism when you seem happy to defend it in Nietzsche.

Well, I'm sorry if I can't reciprocate. The mere fact that he has nothing to say about actually existing society means I have no use for him. Besides, I prefer the Marxist notion that it's only through changing the world that we change ourselves ;)

Isn't it though? :) I hope that after the first part of my post here you see how I don't think that Marx and Nietzsche are equivalent in their philosophies in any sense. I do, however, think they both ought be employed.


So now you're making an appeal to "real truth"! A few posts ago you were denying such a thing was knowable. But you miss the point. No, dialectics is not necessary for worker's struggle if you mean that workers need to apply some esoteric theory to their actions. But it is the material dialectic (the real movement) at the heart of the capitalist system that makes class struggle constantly necessary.

I use the word truth in a common sense way: when I say: "I'm hungry, it's the truth," one need not question the epistemological value of that claim. It is self-referential. Likewise, when I say "the true meaning of the word struggle," I'm not appealing to abstract claims of truth, I'm simply saying that I believe that struggle means X.

And no, I disagree with your final claim here. What makes class struggle necessary is our lives, not "material dialectic," whatever that means. This is precisely the problem with dialectics and all abstract theory. What is at the heart of the capitalist system is not a material dialect, which is an abstract concept, but exploitation, exploitation of us, workers. That's what is really happening and what matters. We take power away from ourselves and our interests - and hence our struggle - when we abstract out of this reality.


But, of course, when human beings act they do not do it without seizing upon reasons for doing so and this is where ideology comes into it and where the weight of bourgeois tradition and the limiting ideology of reformism come into play. You say that we do not need to win workers over to revolutionary ideas but then that leaves the field open to non-revolutionary and even reactionary ideas. In fact, it is precisely at those moments when workers are discovering their mutual self-interest that the enemies of socialist revolution are most visible and vocal among the workers. So rather than abandoning the concept of ideology to the rubbish bin of history, as you seem to be arguing, we need to acknowledge that the ideological becomes an increasing site of class struggle when the material struggle reaches its periodic heights.

I do not think that ideology need be canned, so to speak. Quite the contrary, I am very much in support of ideology, as is - in fact, I don't think we'll ever be 'rid' of it. What I'm suggesting we get rid of is abstract, convoluted, and largely useless ideologies which are foist upon us. A true revolutionary ideology (truth!) will emerge from revolutionary context and will be brought about by those active and becoming within this context. It will not be applied beforehand and used to explain what is to come in the future.


Necessary but not sufficient - as we can all attest to.

Necessity is sufficiency. Our interests are necessary and this alone is sufficient. Everything else is weakness and will be exploited by our enemy at every opportunity (theory can be contradicted, history can be rewritten, philosophy can be argued, facts can be whitewashed). History will attest that revolutions don't come about because of abstract theory but because of physical need. No one gives a shit about the dialectics of materialism when they're hungry, exploited, and being kicked in the face by the 50.

[Rafiq]

Because of the mystifying nature of the ideology of the ruling class, throughout the entire existence of class society, "equality" is seen as unnatural, and rightfully so! At the sight of egalitarian justice, from the peasants war to the French revolution, the horror bestowed upon the ideologues of the ruling classes is extraordinary. We do seek to do away with the "natural", the laws of nature set forth by the propertied classes! And let them shriek in terror and fear at the sight of our wrath, the sight of their entire world being put on it's head, this is a revolution, it is an imposition upon the natural balance, it is a divine catastrophe. But remember that it was this catastrophe that brought France from a nation in rubble to the gates of Vienna. Through a revolution does any legitimacy live on, and only through a revolution. This horrifying terror and madness, only through it can the world know peace. For peace within the parameters of class society benefits only the masters, those who enslave and exploit. We will redefine the laws of nature in a way that will unleash the most terrible chaos and natural imbalance from which will we attain a higher historical legitimacy. Nietzsche was no fool, and his ignorance with regard to social change does not discredit him as a whole. The supermen of Nietzsche, that's what we must be.

[Michael22]

Nietzsche's entire philosophy is about humans feeling greater. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about and have zoned in on several talking points which you defecate upon this discussion over and over again. We get that you don't like Nietzsche or his ideas. That's fine, no one is demanding that you read him or love him or anything. What I'm taking you to task on is the fact that you have read very little of him and hence are not prepared to lambaste his complex philosophy from your narrow point of view.


Nietzsche's philosophy, as outlined in The Will to Power, is about humans at their absolute worst: Short termist, arrogant, power mad, proud, violent, full of hatred and fear. The spirit with which Nietzsche denounces Christianity and his impatience with morals and being "good" shows Nietzsche for what he is. He is quite an unpleasant degenerate, who thinks man is at his greatest when being criminal and untamed. Similar to his fascist admirers and libertarian sociopathic followers, its basically the philosophy of being a thug (The Nazi's were basically thugs, and those libertarians and neo-liberal New Right types who believe might is right and believe in survival of the fittest are essentially thugs.)

To those Nietzsche admirers who say "you believe in Christian slave morality" or "you are a do gooder, plebian democrat" I say fuck you, yes I do believe in "slave morality" and I do believe in democracy because I am actually a mature adult who takes my responsibilities seriously and I'm not some juevenile, criminal glorifying short termist twat. I actually find it liberating to be with the poorest in society and find the poor far more interesting than some elitist, aloof ****. There is an element of pathetic, child like excitement at the bad behavior of a man and glee in the misfortune of others, like they get a BDSM kick out of being the weaker ones, or like they weirdly like to imagine themselves as the child of the warrior or the submissive, sexually aroused female partner of the big bad warrior looking on in awe at their big strong father or husband. Its a philosophy of little nerds and geeks turned on by a "big bad degenerate man" fighting all the others. The pathetic reveling in degeneracy is advocating abdicating responsibility, weirdly reducing everyone not keeping up to the status of children and submissive females in patriarchy, who cannot look forward to growing up and taking responsibility, but just have to let let the most psychotic, manipulative and violent males run riot like some sort of sick fetish.

Nietzsche's rejection of socialism isn't just a rejection of Karl Marx and Engels. Back in the 14th century the reverend John Ball said at the time of the peasants revolt "things will not go well in England until all things shall be in common". Nietzsche's philosophy is a far more sinister, elitist politics that is not traditional at all and is actually radical (similar to national socialism and fascism). I understand there is something attractive about Nietzsche's philosophy with the way it is a kind of punk rock rejection of everything but I think people who say they admire Nietzsche and are inspired by his philosophy are playing with fire. You are admiring the same person admired by sociopathic finance guys who also admire Ayn Rand, might is right bourgeosie types, off the wall aristocrats and fascist sympathisers.

[Decolonize The Left]

Nietzsche's philosophy, as outlined in The Will to Power, is about humans at their absolute worst: Short termist, arrogant, power mad, proud, violent, full of hatred and fear.

Value judgement on your behalf. You think that that's humans at their worst - you, one person. So you are projecting your values as absolutely correct and vilifying all others. Mighty "compassionate" of you.


The spirit with which Nietzsche denounces Christianity and his impatience with morals and being "good" shows Nietzsche for what he is. He is quite an unpleasant degenerate, who thinks man is at his greatest when being criminal and untamed.

We are all at our greatest when untamed and the fact that you advocate criminalization is disturbing.



To those Nietzsche admirers who say "you believe in Christian slave morality" or "you are a do gooder, plebian democrat" I say fuck you, yes I do believe in "slave morality" and I do believe in democracy because I am actually a mature adult who takes my responsibilities seriously and I'm not some juevenile, criminal glorifying short termist twat.

So you're a Christian who believes in democracy? What about the market? What are your thoughts on that?


I actually find it liberating to be with the poorest in society and find the poor far more interesting than some elitist, aloof ****.

I can see that you're very into being in a certain lifestyle and lauding that as a success of sorts. I'll just say that "the poorest in society" have no need for your arrogant attitude and pathetic pity.



Nietzsche's philosophy is a far more sinister, elitist politics that is not traditional at all and is actually radical (similar to national socialism and fascism).

Ahem... What, exactly, are you doing on this forum? In this post you've just stated that you're not a radical, believe in the criminal justice system, believe in democracy (i.e. the state), and support traditional Christianity.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth (something which you are more than happy to do it seems), but you don't sound like much of a leftist to me.

[Michael22]

I can see that you're very into being in a certain lifestyle and lauding that as a success of sorts. I'll just say that "the poorest in society" have no need for your arrogant attitude and pathetic pity.

You are the one saying the poor should be pitied, not me, because unlike you I think those who take part least in the system are much more interesting and human than those who consider themselves to be "made."


Ahem... What, exactly, are you doing on this forum? In this post you've just stated that you're not a radical, believe in the criminal justice system, believe in democracy (i.e. the state), and support traditional Christianity.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth (something which you are more than happy to do it seems), but you don't sound like much of a leftist to me.

I believe justice is worth pursuing. I believe in the ethical Christianity recommended by the anarchist Leo Tolstoy as well as being a Marxist and think that the justice Jesus preached in the new testament is enlightening. (His preaching has since been misrepresented by the anti-semitic established Church).

I am not interested in the childish elitism recommended by Nietzsche in The Will to Power.

[blake 3:17]

@Michael22 -- Nietzsche shouldn't be written off by The Will To Power -- it's a dog's breakfast.


The Will to Power (German: Der Wille zur Macht) is a book of notes drawn from the literary remains (or Nachlass) of Friedrich Nietzsche by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Heinrich Köselitz ("Peter Gast"). The Will to Power is also the title of a work that Nietzsche himself had considered writing. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power_(manuscript)

[Decolonize The Left]

You are the one saying the poor should be pitied, not me, because unlike you I think those who take part least in the system are much more interesting and human than those who consider themselves to be "made."

I have no idea where I recommended pitying anyone, let alone poor people. I'm poor... please stop putting words in my mouth.


I believe justice is worth pursuing.

What is justice, according to you? Who would/should enforce it? And how?


I believe in the ethical Christianity recommended by the anarchist Leo Tolstoy

Have you ever lied? Stolen? Hurt someone physically? Tolstoy believed that Jesus' teachings ought to have been taken literally (Read his The Kingdom of God is Within You if you don't believe me). That means no money, no possessions, no nothing. Just living a life of ascetic faith. Do you live this life? You seem to have a computer and access to literature. Perhaps you're at a public library?

If you don't live this life then you ought to reconsider what you understand about "ethical Christianity." For what it's worth, I don't adopt Tolstoy's perspective but I respect it. It is, at least, philosophically coherent.


as well as being a Marxist and think that the justice Jesus preached in the new testament is enlightening. (His preaching has since been misrepresented by the anti-semitic established Church).

Jesus didn't write a word of the Bible. If you think that the church misrepresents his teachings, how can you trust a book written by that very instititution?!?


I am not interested in the childish elitism recommended by Nietzsche in The Will to Power.

I never recommended it. All I was doing was defending a thinker's philosophy against the absurd and ignorant charges of a person on the internet.

[Michael22]

What is justice, according to you? Who would/should enforce it? And how?

I'm not going to outline an entire theory of justice. I know that elitism is not justice and that democracy and equality are more just.

[Decolonize The Left]

I'm not going to outline an entire theory of justice. I know that elitism is not justice and that democracy and equality are more just.

So let me get this straight: after making wide and aggressive accusations against a thinker from whom you have read a single book, and a single book which is controversial as it was edited by his Nazi sister, you are going to simple back out of any sort of dialogue over your ideas?

For some reason this behavior doesn't seem to lend you much credence in regards to being seen as 'just,' or 'compassionate,' or anything really other than someone who wants to shout when they're mad and not be challenged on their ideas.

:rolleyes:

[Michael22]

So let me get this straight: after making wide and aggressive accusations against a thinker from whom you have read a single book, and a single book which is controversial as it was edited by his Nazi sister, you are going to simple back out of any sort of dialogue over your ideas?

For some reason this behavior doesn't seem to lend you much credence in regards to being seen as 'just,' or 'compassionate,' or anything really other than someone who wants to shout when they're mad and not be challenged on their ideas.

:rolleyes:

I think that those who claim to adhere to Nietzsche's philosophy are playing with fire.

Nietzsche was elitist and anti-democratic. Some of his ideas are extremist and dangerous. Similarly, Tea party libertarians and neo-liberal, New Right careerists who claim to be inspired by the book "Might is Right" and the speech made by the fictional villain Gordon Gekko in the film Money Never Sleeps are a disgrace to humanity and have no idea how dangerous the fascistic forces they are bringing up are.

[ChrisK]

I think that those who claim to adhere to Nietzsche's philosophy are playing with fire.

Nietzsche was elitist and anti-democratic. Some of his ideas are extremist and dangerous. Similarly, Tea party libertarians and neo-liberal, New Right careerists who claim to be inspired by the book "Might is Right" and the speech made by the fictional villain Gordon Gekko in the film Money Never Sleeps are a disgrace to humanity and have no idea how dangerous the fascistic forces they are bringing up are.

You really aren't helping your case here. He said you won't engage on your own ideas and only want to attack Nietzsche. Your responding by attacking Nietzsche only makes you look worse.

[Michael22]

You really aren't helping your case here. He said you won't engage on your own ideas and only want to attack Nietzsche. Your responding by attacking Nietzsche only makes you look worse.

The users understanding of Nietzsche here is that of a "slave morality" that could be applied to the protagonists in the films Lord of the Rings, Robin Hood, and the film Groundhog Day.

What sort of cold, miserable, wretched excuse of a human being wants to go through life with an attitude like that?

[Decolonize The Left]

The users understanding of Nietzsche here is that of a "slave morality" that could be applied to the protagonists in the films Lord of the Rings, Robin Hood, and the film Groundhog Day.

What sort of cold, miserable, wretched excuse of a human being wants to go through life with an attitude like that?

What about the protagonists in those films reflects slave morality to you?

[Rafiq]

Nietzsche's concept of slave morality is something which takes a Marxist to understand. When Nietzsche claims that things like humility, kindness and so on are forms of slave morality, he does not mean that humility and kindness are in themselves universally forms of slave morality, but that their specific context within capitalist social relations makes it so. If we understand Nietzsche in this way, it would seem the mold for a class analysis exists in this concept. So what do I mean by this? What Nietzsche calls slave morality, I call the dialectically negative form anti capitalism takes. What does it mean? Charities, moral criticisms of corrupt capitalists, identity politics, some strands of anarchism and most especially, religion. In bourgeois society, religion can only ever take the form of slave morality. Almost like the ravings of a rebellious teenager (which only supplement his parents grasp). Dialectically negative anti-capitalism ideologically supplements bourgeois ideology in the same way (edgy) Satanism supplements Christianity, it pre-supposes (or To Nietzsche, re evaluates) the values and ideological foundations of the bourgeoisie (the master) and from there forms a negative reaction. In contrast, the morality of the master are the dialectically affirmative form of bourgoeis ideology, or their active struggle to reaffirm the existing social order.

What is the aim of the revolutionary proletariat? To create it's own master-morality, in other words, to create an ideology, language, moral framework, whatever that is separate from the hegemonic one. It is funny that Nietzsche formulated the concept of affirmative dialectics... More than a hundred years before Alan Badoiu could. Nietzsche's understanding of master-slave morality is absolutely essential to an understanding of the current state of class struggle and ideology, it is more vital to Marxism than most of the dribble Marxists have espoused in the past decades. It's a completely brilliant understanding of the dynamics of ideology.

[Rafiq]

Despite Nietzsche's politics, his works should be valued. The concept of a will to power is in itself not only valid, it is from the perspective of a revolutionary nothing short of beautiful.

Nietzsche's works can take a social-darwinist by those who fail to understand them, but their true essence can never be realized from without interpreting them from the perspective of a radical.

[RedMaterialist]

Nietzsche's concept of slave morality is something which takes a Marxist to understand. When Nietzsche claims that things like humility, kindness and so on are forms of slave morality, he does not mean that humility and kindness are in themselves universally forms of slave morality, but that their specific context within capitalist social relations makes it so.

I seem to recall that Neitzche's slave morality was based specifically on the actual culture of slavery. The original Greek "masters" were strong, honest, noble, powerful, etc. because they were, in fact, the strongest members of the community; the slaves developed the opposite traits (I suppose dialectically) because of their status as weak, ruled people.

It's been a while since I've read The Geneology of Morals, but isn't that his basic point, that slave morality is the morality of slaves? I don't remember any connection with capitalist social relations.

[Decolonize The Left]

I seem to recall that Neitzche's slave morality was based specifically on the actual culture of slavery. The original Greek "masters" were strong, honest, noble, powerful, etc. because they were, in fact, the strongest members of the community; the slaves developed the opposite traits (I suppose dialectically) because of their status as weak, ruled people.

It's been a while since I've read The Geneology of Morals, but isn't that his basic point, that slave morality is the morality of slaves? I don't remember any connection with capitalist social relations.

Well, recall that slave morality originates as a result of master morality. There is no slave morality until Christianity - slaves didn't have a set morality before then as they adhered to master morality. It wasn't until Christianity that the qualities of slaves were put forth as morally righteous: pity, servitude, turning the other cheek, meekness, acceptance, docility, etc...

For Nietzsche, everything is rooted within (and cannot escape) material context - a point which I think Rafiq was attempting to drive home in relating it to capitalism.

So, to follow through on what I interpreted him as saying, Nietzsche's critique of morality is applicable and valuable within a capitalist context. In another sense, only a radical can appreciate this critique as it is fundamentally radical: it is a radical non-acceptance of slave morality, a morality which has been dominant for some time (Marx: the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class).

It is worth adding that Nietzsche was not a fan of master morality either, he merely thought it superior to slave morality. In the framework of his larger philosophy, both master and slave morality are fundamentally weak as they do not emerge from the individual (Zarathustra hangs his own laws above his head) but are put forth by society according to the norms which wield the most power at the time.

Nietzsche would have us establish a morality which was befitting of a higher level of humanity - a morality which emerges from our personal context and is prescribed by ourselves alone. He really couldn't care what the content of the morality is; for him, everything is about form.

[ChrisK]

The users understanding of Nietzsche here is that of a "slave morality" that could be applied to the protagonists in the films Lord of the Rings, Robin Hood, and the film Groundhog Day.

What sort of cold, miserable, wretched excuse of a human being wants to go through life with an attitude like that?

So you won't answer his question. Got it.

[Michael22]

Nietzsche's concept of slave morality is something which takes a Marxist to understand. When Nietzsche claims that things like humility, kindness and so on are forms of slave morality, he does not mean that humility and kindness are in themselves universally forms of slave morality, but that their specific context within capitalist social relations makes it so. If we understand Nietzsche in this way, it would seem the mold for a class analysis exists in this concept. So what do I mean by this? What Nietzsche calls slave morality, I call the dialectically negative form anti capitalism takes. What does it mean? Charities, moral criticisms of corrupt capitalists, identity politics, some strands of anarchism and most especially, religion. In bourgeois society, religion can only ever take the form of slave morality. Almost like the ravings of a rebellious teenager (which only supplement his parents grasp). Dialectically negative anti-capitalism ideologically supplements bourgeois ideology in the same way (edgy) Satanism supplements Christianity, it pre-supposes (or To Nietzsche, re evaluates) the values and ideological foundations of the bourgeoisie (the master) and from there forms a negative reaction. In contrast, the morality of the master are the dialectically affirmative form of bourgoeis ideology, or their active struggle to reaffirm the existing social order.


So if democracy and social justice "supplement bourgeois ideology" they are not worth fighting for? Why are you so dismissive of proletarian culture? The poor, the mild and the vulnerable are superior to the rich, regardless of material conditions. Anything else is just vulgar Marxism. Do you not believe in workerism and glorifying proletarian culture? Working class people are more free, they are better people. Stop saying compassion and generosity supplements bourgeois ideology. When I see a working class man help up a homeless person and give him money that man is a better person than the rich. He is more intelligent, more emotionally mature, more mature in character - he is objectively a superior and better person. The End.

Religious morality, like democracy, has only ever been an organic thing to bourgeoisie ideology. For example, Christianity is supposed to be a religion of the people and Jesus said sell all your possessions and give them to the poor. Christianity, even already strayed from Jesus original preaching, only ever provided a justification in theory for the small capitalist, not big business. The ideology of big business is liberal individualism. It was Christians who set up trade unions, abolished slavery and started the original labour movement. The enlightenment and Communist ideas also happened in a Christian Europe that was civilized because of Christianity, and a lot of the indignation that comes from workers being exploited is based on a Judeo-Christian ethic.

The dominant idea today is the ideology of liberal individualism. It is anti-democratic, elitist, fascistic and nihilistic. Nietzsche's individualistic ideas have a lot in common with the sociopathic, narcassistic neo liberal rationality.