Nietzsche's Antichrist
I started reading The Antichrist. It's Nietzsche's last book and it's an attack on the Christian ethical framework.
From the preface, he describes his reader:
"He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner-to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm. . . . Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self..."
He's similar to Kierkegaard in declaring that only a few people will understand his works.
Was he a revolutionary? Or a lunatic? I'll add comments as I go through it. All comments welcome.
From the preface, he describes his reader:
"He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner-to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm. . . . Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self..."
He's similar to Kierkegaard in declaring that only a few people will understand his works.
Was he a revolutionary? Or a lunatic? I'll add comments as I go through it. All comments welcome.
Comments (80)
Few contemporaneous people I think he meant predominately. People are educated in the culture of their times, and assume that frame as a given for their thinking for the most part. It takes a lot of work and a certain kind of temperament to be able to create a point of view beyond that. If one doesn't have that particular mindset, one probably won't get it.
He was a philosopher. Questioning the mores of their times, re-evaluation of values as he would put it, is what "real" philosophers do according to Nietzsche. And that is what he does, revealing the psychological motives of the cultural and religious ideas of his time... sounding them out with a tuning-hammer, to see what they mean not in terms of truth necessarily, but in terms of motive.
Anyway, it's an interesting read, especially for the psychological insight into Christianity and the archetype of Christ.
So he imagined people at a later time would understand it. I don't think that's true of Kierkegaard (somebody correct me if I'm wrong), although his belief that Christianity is a dead religion might be interpreted as predicting a future without it.
So you have read it and liked it? Cool.
I really can't see how anyone who's actually read Nietzsche can claim he's a "lunatic." I don't think it absurd to say his thinking was revolutionary for his time.
Every time I read the Antichrist, I'm amazed at the brilliance and clarity. One of his most direct attacks on Christianity.
Three or four times, plus once via audiobook. (But that's over the course of 20 years.)
:fire:
Only general comments. I think he nails it, really.
His views on Paul, his analysis of priests, his calling Jesus the leader of a “Buddhistic peace movement,” etc etc. All very different from what you’d hear anywhere else, even today — let alone the 1880s. With such style, to boot.
One of his most polarizing works, I’m sure. But to me one of the most important.
Yeah, I read most of his stuff. What I like about this polemic is that he doesn't waste time on pointless discussions about the truth of Christian doctrine etc, like for instance the new atheist would. He pretty much just assumes it is all myth, and goes straight to the heart of it, questioning the values it promotes.
So we dive right into a scathing condemnation of Christianity for what it's done to mankind.
But... not all of mankind is Christian. Should we expect Buddhists to be unbungled and unbotched by virtue of being free of the influence of Christian nihilists?
Do Hindus enjoy greater buoyancy because their spirits aren't dragged down into the muck by pity?
Are atheists supermen?
I don't recall calling him that.
Quoting frank
I vaguely remember calling him that. I'm not sure why?
Quoting 180 Proof
Ouch! :cry:
What if I were to tell you that what you said is right on the money but there's more to love than just that. True, in love we "...see things most decidedly as they are not" but love isn't about what someone is but about what someone can become. Love isn't about the actual but about the potential. Necessarily then, "love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not."
What sayest thou, o wise one? Sense/Nonsense?
How do you tell if a person is unhinged?
This is N's take on pity:
Suffering is made contagious by pity; under certain circumstances it may lead to a total sacrifice of life and living energy-a loss out of all proportion to the magnitude of the cause (the case of the death of the Nazarene). This is the first view of it; there is, however, a still more important one. If one measures the effects of pity by the gravity of the reactions it sets up, its character as a menace to life appears in a much clearer light. Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. It preserves whatever is ripe for destruction; it fights on the side of those disinherited and condemned by life; by maintaining life in so many of the botched of all kinds, it gives life itself a gloomy and dubious aspect."
Yea. I think one could talk about the problems associated with pity without tossing our brothers and sisters in the nearest dumpster because they have visible challenges.
Pity is problematic if it's part of a rejection of life on it's terms.
That's his take on empathy. This is going to get depressing!
Quoting frank
He was contextualizing human psychology within Darwinism. Nothing wrong with that but...he seems to be forgetting that the mind has its own agenda, the mind is a universe unto itslelf and in my humble opinion doesn't kowtow to evolution. If you ask me, it seems happy where it is and thus the technological frenzy to adapt the world to us instead of the other way round.
Quoting frank
Let me play by Nietzsche's rules. Microsoft Windows comes to mind. I'm not an Apple fan, sorry if that's offensive. Anyway, there's an icon on the desktop, a picture of a dustbin. Into it goes all files you delete. Why is it there?
That part is bullshit. It's an acknowledgement of the ideas of the time.
Quoting TheMadFool
Because by virtue of a time warp you're in 1994?
Look again!
Quoting frank
There is this exuberance for the anti-christian which is similar to the point of view being criticized.
The text reads differently if one assumes the author is aware of that or not.
I thought we both thought it was bullshit. Pity doesn't interfere with nature selection, does it?
Well, if it's all bullshit, why fret!
Quoting frank
You're asking the wrong question. The right question: how does pity contribute to evolution?
Google!
:up: Get a pixelbook. There's no dustbin.
"Quite the contrary is demanded by the most profound laws of self-preservation and of growth: to wit, that every man find his own virtue, his own categorical imperative. A nation goes to pieces when it confounds its duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing works a more complete and penetrating disaster than every "impersonal" duty, every sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction."
This is in keeping with a liberal outlook. Life needs to be 'every man for himself', otherwise disaster.
This quote always stood out to me from The Anti-Christ:
Yep. It's the opposite of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Jews who left the robbed man to die were right according to N.
Nonsense. There's no indication that the "robbed man" was any more "ill-constituted and weak" than the cruelly whipped horse which, sobbing, N threw his arms around on that fateful winter day in Turin (his heart-mind completely broken).
He had syphilis, which is neurologically devastating.
I loved GOM, but I think The Antichrist is a little nutty. But I'm not through with it yet.
Yes, I do think he had an organic disease. His use of methal hydrate might have been an abuse for him though which could have weakened his mind. He might not have known he got syphillis and might have thought it was a consequence of his actions. He was either insane, saintly, or evil because what he said was unusually blunt yet profound at the same time
Yes
Nietzsche explains that an ascendant people have a bloodthirsty god, full of anger, revenge, and violence.
Only when they lose hope of ever becoming free do they embrace a loving god.
Interesting idea, but it's not historical.
The new thinking is that he had a slow growing brain tumor.
“ A study of medical records has found that, far from suffering a sexually transmitted disease that drove him mad, Nietzsche almost certainly died of brain cancer.
The doctor who carried out the study claims that the universally accepted story of Nietzsche having caught syphilis from prostitutes was concocted after World War II by Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, an academic who was one of Nietzsche's most vociferous critics. It was then adopted as fact by intellectuals who were keen to demolish the reputation of Nietzsche, whose idea of a "superman" was used to underpin Nazism.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/nietzsche-died-of-brain-cancer-20030506-gdgprc.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
I keep a slice of Nietzsche’s brain in my wallet, and it looks tumory to me.
If you roll it up into a ball, you'll find that it bounces (if you've kept it chloral hydrated).
Quoting frank
I gave it to the kid at the 7-11 by mistake instead of my debit card. He asked me why I was giving him Nietzsche’s brain. I apologized profusely. Fortunately it turns out they honor it there. I even got a free Slurpee.
Which flavor?
As it turns out, the disintegration of a people turns their god into a cosmopolitan.
"...just what is the significance of such a metamorphosis? what does such a reduction of the godhead imply?-To be sure, the "kingdom of God" has thus grown larger. Formerly he had only his own people, his "chosen" people. But since then he has gone wandering, like his people themselves, into foreign parts; he has given up settling down quietly anywhere; finally he has come to feel at home everywhere, and is the great cosmopolitan-until now he has the "great majority" on his side, and half the earth. But this god of the "great majority," this democrat among gods, has not become a proud heathen god: on the contrary, he remains a Jew, he remains a god in a corner, a god of all the dark nooks and crevices, of all the noisesome quarters of the world! . . . His earthly kingdom, now as always, is a kingdom of the underworld, a [subterranean] kingdom, a ghetto kingdom.... And he himself is so pale, so weak, so decadent.... "
This god is homeless, so has no nationalism at all.
24
N has something to say about Jews:
"The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, for when they were confronted with the question, to be or not to be, they chose, with perfectly unearthly deliberation, to be at any price: this, price involved a radical falsification of all nature, of all naturalness, of all reality, of the whole inner world, as well as of the outer. They put themselves against all those conditions under which, hitherto, a people had been able to live, or had even been permitted to live; out of themselves they evolved an idea which stood in direct opposition to natural conditions-one by one they distorted religion, civilization, morality, history and psychology until each became a contradiction of its natural significance."
And then:
"Precisely for this reason the Jews are the most fateful people in the history of the world: their influence has so falsified the reasoning of mankind in this matter that today the Christian can cherish anti-Semitism without realizing that it is no more than the final consequence ofJudaism."
So why is this? N explains, basically, that Jews demonstrated great vitality in becoming the great teachers of a brand of nihilism.
Therefore they contradict the very teaching they offer. In other words, they didn't lay down and die 2000 years ago.
So anti-semitism is a consequence of Judaism.
N says that the early on, the Hebrews had a relatively easy relationship with nature when their god was an image of victory and justice.
When they fell into a long run of bad luck, their prophets reenvisioned their relationship with YHWH. They were now out of favor with God. This explained their unfortunate circumstances. This put them at odds with the world around them and even at odds with themselves. The angst of the sinner was upon them. They were screw-ups. They were bungled, and botched.
N sees in this rupture a seismic shift that will ultimately turn a civilization inside out, or rather outside in.
Genius.
This sounds like Emerson and Thoreau. Whitman talked of having the right person to tell his secrets to. Could Nietszche be asking us to become something else? to change us, rather than simply tell us something? To have us stop giving our self away for nothing?
Quoting frank -quoting Nietszche
Some prefer to see Nietszche as a continental philosopher, commenting about the state of his world (and Christianity). I read him as an analytical philosopher, reacting to Kant and Plato. His example is religion but his target is deontological morality. If you 'aspire' to a specific idea of what it is to be virtuous, you are abdicating the opportunity and responsibility to be a better you. Also a moral moment may be lost on you if you feel you are a good person because you have done what has been decided beforehand by others long ago.
Quoting frank - again, quoting Nietszche.
But he has written the history of our desire for ideals. His work is an examination by strawman of the forces at work in us to replace our human failing with righteous reasoned imperatives and forms. He is trying to get us to see the historicity of moral philosophy.
However, some misconstrue the impassioned fever of his entreaties, even hatred, as that he is against rules at all and that it is every person for themselves. Emerson is thought of this way as well--withholding charity to others (giving ourselves over). But to follow my whim (will) may be to help others, be a good citizen, go along with everyone else; my duty need not be our downfall, nor different than yours or anyone's. But Nietszche doesn't see any desperation in the quietness of our voice, so he is desperate for us, controversial, shameless, hated--a god-killer--a hyperbolic example, for us. We are the weak and ill-constituted. We pity ourselves (being "moral") rather than being our self.
I think of it as a mythical analogy (prejudiced hopefully more by the trope than in belief) written in code, where "God" is Plato's form and our weakness is our desire to relinquish our responsibility over our self to a moral theory.
So you're saying that living out someone else's morality is easy, it provides an easy Good buzz.
How would you explain the alternative? That embracing authenticity comes at a price?
Nietszche talks of needing strength, courage, indifference, and, at least elsewhere, joy. If there is a desire in us for certainty and universality and the surety of a fixed morality knowledge, then we must resist a part of ourselves, turn away from our culture, towards our attraction. Our will is not us forcing something, but allowing our instinct and interests to guide us.
In 2 of the Antichrist, he defines good and evil this way:
"What is good?
Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.
What is evil?
Whatever springs from weaknes."
So he doesn't think of morality in terms of fixed rules.
This sounds consistent with the moral perspectives of Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and Levinas (and Caputo, Critchley and Sheehan) , because it still makes the idea of
god coherent. I read Nietzsche as deconstructing this thinking.
But what I was saying is that he uncovered the desire for them, our weakness for an answer that doesn't involve us, our failings. But also, if you read early work like Human, all too Human, he is simply breaking down our moral framework to build it back with an eye on history and context, and acknowledging our part in our moral judgments, though later he will seemingly be simply railing on an
about the individual.
In Antichrist, hes not focusing on building morality back. He's just saying that when self condemnation becomes the prevailing vibe (as in Christianity), it's a deathly force.
I suppose this makes me want to compare Christian cultures to non-Christian ones. His critique doesn't seem to bear much on the reality.
"If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this: that he regarded only subjective realities as realities, as "truths" -that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables. The concept of "the Son of God" does not connote a concrete person in history, an isolated and definite individual, but an "eternal" fact, a psychological symbol set free from the concept of time."
Another interesting observation, true or not, is the weak want to be powerful and the powerful don't want to be weak. In either case, weakness is a viewed as a problem to be solved instead of an asset that needs nurture. In one sense, the weak are, in a roundabout way, condemning their own existence which fits like a glove with Nietzsche's beliefs.
Then there's the matter of how Nietzsche seems to view life as a competition or a war. A soccer team manager will pick and choose his side has the crème de la crème. The military will only accept the healthiest of applicants. Nietzsche's views make sense in this context. No competitive enterprise can afford weakness.
Continuing with the military analogy, if life is war, imagine a band of commandos on a mission. If the mission is in progress and one of the commandos gets badly hurt, it's time for fae to say, "it's too late for me, save yourselves." These words are meant to be uttered by the weak. However, if the war is over, the mission accomplished, the commandos, exhausted or injured, would be looked after. They did have a big role to play in the success of the mission. Quite possibly, Christianity, by virtue of its emphasis on the weak, reflects the general sentiment among the people, elaborated by few people like Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, that our "military" objectives have been completed and we can now, without any danger of jeopardizing our well-being, tend to the weak.
Cool post, thanks.
In the Antichrist, N treats a god as a sign of how people see themselves.
The issue about the weak is like:. two kids are playing in a playground, being watched by parents.
Both kids fall and stub their knees. One mom doesn't respond, so the kid gets up after crying for a while and moves on. The other mom exclaims and runs over to comfort her child.
N would say the second child has become the victim of pity. Instead of seeing injury and pain as part of life, he picks up on his mother's angst and comes to fear and condemn injury.
I'm not sure this is such a black-n-white fight. I don't think my descriptions of Nietzsche's critiques of deontology "still makes the idea of god coherent"? Is this to say that Nietzche's aim was to make deontology incoherent? when his work is a description of how it functions? I think it's too simplistic to say Nietszche is doing away with it or replacing it; he finds there is no "human" history or recognition of our part in the creation or our misuse of morals to judge people. If he is taking it apart, it is to see our part in it.
And without Nietszche you don't have Wittgenstein; the idea of looking at a fictitious history as a case to learn the ins-and-outs of something; the idea of the ordinariness of our concepts, that they come from a place in our lives; that our concepts are not precise and fixed...
I'll grant you that Neitszche gets a little one note as he progresses, but It is easy to take from him simply a critique of morality and a description/judgment of attitudes (weak, pity, power, are about our thinking, say, they are in context to our self). I offer that there is more, if you look deeper--what is he trying to get us to see about how it is, in philosophy, that we condemn ourselves ("the human") with our thinking, the creation of our morality?
Quoting frank
It may seem like a sociological critique, but it is analytical. He is not doing history, he's fashioning an example to show a dynamic. You could call it mythical, or fantastical. Wittgenstein will do the same (even creating surreal worlds) to contrast with the logic of our ordinary mechanisms. Plato has his parables of chariots and caves. Nietszche's contribution is in and to this history of moral philosophy, and it is not a stick of dynamite nor simply a social commentary.
Oh yes, I get why people say N is food for thought. Definitely.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The Antichrist comes across as psychology. Proto-Jungian. He wants to analyze the Savior type. He's not psychoanalyzing Jesus, but a type of idealism. He's explaining how idealism emerges out of human life.
That actually is fascinating.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I certainly agree with this , but I think Nietzsche went where Wittgenstein was unable to go. Witt remainded a deeply moralistic person his whole life, not in a traditional religious sense, but in a Kierkegaardian sense.
Quoting Antony Nickles
If you substitute ‘grounding moral values’ for truth in the passages below, you arrive at my interpretation of Nietzsche’s deconstruction of morality.
“The world with which we are concerned is false, i.e., is not fact but fable and approximation on the basis of a meager sum of observations; it is "in flux," as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing but never getting near the truth: for--there is no "truth" (Nietzsche 1901/1967 Will to Power)
“…the origin of the emergence of a thing and its ultimate usefulness, its practical application and incorporation into a system of ends, are toto coelo separate; that anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose by a power superior to it; that everything that occurs in the organic world consists of overpowering, dominating, and in their turn overpowering and dominating consist of re-interpretation, adjustment, in the process of which their former ‘meaning' [Sinn] and ‘purpose' must necessarily be obscured or completely obliterated.
No matter how perfectly you have understood the usefulness of any physiological organ (or legal institution, social custom, political usage, art form or religious rite), you have not yet thereby grasped how it emerged: uncomfortable and unpleasant as this may sound to more elderly ears,– for people down the ages have believed that the obvious purpose of a thing, its utility, form and shape, are its reason for existence, the eye is made to see, the hand to grasp. So people think punishment has evolved for the purpose of punishing. But every purpose and use is just a sign that the will to power has achieved mastery over something less powerful, and has impressed upon it its own idea [Sinn] of a use function; and the whole history of a ‘thing', an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretations and adaptations, the causes of which need not be connected even amongst themselves, but rather sometimes just follow and replace one another at random.” (Genealogy of Morality)
What is left of the coherence of the concept of god , the good, or morality if such values are mere contingent and relative moments in a genealogical history utterly without ultimate propose or aim , whose successive phases and eras ‘just follow and replace one another at random’?
Quoting Antony Nickles
I agree with this too. I’m just declaring my support for post structuralist readings of Nietzsche ( Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida) as opposed to existential interpretations.
This was discussed a bit earlier in the thread.
Quoting Joshs
Migraine is a vascular problem, not cancer.
Point is, he went nuts.
But this is philosophy, just maybe not a form (of argument?) we are used to seeing. Why must it take the form it does? If we can agree that he is analyzing idealism (whose? what form?), than what is it that goes wrong with this "emergence"?
The whole idealistic spectrum, I think: subjective and objective. He's saying idealism is part of a large scale turn away from reality.
Quoting Antony Nickles
He's saying it becomes a sort of cultural suicidal state.
This type being a malevolent duplicitous class whose aim
Is political power over the masses. By using general morality and law as a cover for their machievellian statecraft.
His best books are twilight of the idols,beyond good and evil and the genealogy of morality.
His will to power notes are also very good,but seem to be unedited or not fully completed for publication.
In the anti christ are many good insights,but his reading of Christianity,buddhism, and jesus are nonsense.
He gets way too shrill and distorts his good work.
Some bits of the antichrist are hilarious.
Nietzeche was an aristocratic Elitist who wanted some kind of new rule by purposely breed ubermensch.
Did he not know that this has always been the case anyway and royalty even now rules politics?
Nietzsche for all his great psychological insights and insight into language is very naive and idealistic.
We could simply take away, 'there is no truth', but then why are 'we concerned'? maybe this is not a dismissal, but an observation and critique. If our guidance is changing, in flux, and becoming, then we are getting near and approximating; bettering, perfecting. Maybe this time with a greater attention to observation, and with this knowledge that we will never be perfect and timeless.
Quoting Joshs
And if we must 'interpret' again, there is no place outside of standing for a conclusion or description, though 'adjusted' and 'transformed'. So it can be a +/- determination about grounding moral values, but I only urge that is the first, not the last, of him. Yes, he is hammering away at the fixed, certain nature of Kant and Plato, but is that the conclusion?
Quoting Joshs
And I know, 'at random' jumps out here, but before that is a restructuring of classical epistimology. A thing's rationality ('utility, form and shape') tells us it's 'purpose' (essence). And we take this as 'obvious' because we want everything to be certain and timeless and predetermined. So we skip over, as Wittgenstein notes as well, looking closely to investigate what the actual logic of a thing is, what sense does it make apart from our desires (which Heidegger picks up on). So, again, is pulling out the carpet really the point?
So are we left without 'forms' or 'things'? without morals, rules, words? No. But Nietszche shows us their history, their perspective, that they are used as much as essential. He does what another philosopher suggested, turn and see yourself reflected in the thing. But the clarion call is not kill God, but, do better! less seriously (seeking reason) and more joyously.
We die by our own hand. Our desire for the ideal, kills us. We set aside the thing-in-itself because we can not have it on our terms. In our weakness we destroy our world because we can't know it with certainty, and give ourselves the pity of our own reason. It is the humanization of epistimology.
That means, our esteemed Buddhist brothers and...er...sisters have got the wrong end of the stick for the past 2 millennia. That means, not only did someone 2000 years ago get it wrong, that someone's son, grandson, great grandson,...,present descendants who are Buddhists have all been living a lie. Someone should tell them!
On a more serious note, speaking for myself that is, Nietzsche's views seem rather computerish it feels too rational.
In other words, a top of the line AI would've said the same thing Nietzsche said almost a century or so ago. I'm not certain though it sure feels that way.
I may be off-topic here but revisiting Buddhism - Nietzsche, I heard had a bone to pick with the deceased Gautama Buddha. Nothing unusual since the Buddha was, I fear, obsessing over suffering. Your tale of the mother, child, and pain fits like a glove with Siddhartha's own life if Buddhist history is even half-true. The mother's role though was played by the father, Suddhodhana if memory serves. In Nietzsche's eyes then Gautama Buddha was a sad figure - he was indeed truly suffering but not because, as he thought, life is suffering but simply due to the fact that his father was a Nietzschean fool who induced allodynia & hyperalgesia in the young impressionable prince. A case of the blind leading the blind! "Cura te ipsum" is probably the phrase Nietzsche would've chosen for The Enlightened One.
That said, I still feel Nietzsche is just a tad bit too similar to a machine than a human. We might have to, intriguingly, consider him a rogue AI like V.I.K.I in the movie I, Robot. Odd that! The AI takeover of the world seems to be well in progress instead of being, as believed, some time in the coming centuries. Just saying. Grain of sodium chloride recommended. I'm not sure anyway. G'day!
In this book he explain Artists can be of two types.
Those who create from resentiment and those who create
From an excess of Joy.
Now this is a phenomenol and true insight.
But herr Nietzsche himself is writing from resentiment,so he fucks that one up.!
His division of noble and slave morality is also bogus and idealistic. What he called noble morality is still based on resentiment and lack.
Are you talking about perfection as the thing in itself , as an asymptotic ideal? The thing about notions of progress and approximation toward a telos is that , while we may never ‘be’ perfect’ , the reality of the perfect and the timeless is presupposed. Perfecting, approximating, developing, evolving all imply a telos or center that defines the movement. There must always be a basis on which the evolution unfolds , a basis which stands outside of the contingent and relative history that is organized around the basis. The unfolding moments of the progress are variations of a theme, and the theme (the good, god, the divine, the moral) is protected in its sense from contamination and alteration. Thus, the notion of progress and the divine are indissociable.
Nietzsche and writers like Heidegger, Deleuze and Derrida asked how the good, the perfect, the telos of a progress , are able to reside outside time and history. Their conclusion was that nothing can reside outside time and history, and that the belief in the stability of the telos of perfecting is the result of an idealizing tendency in human thought.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The point isnt pulling out the carpet. Post -structuralism , deconstruction and Will to Power don’t eliminate structures, they reveal the movement within and between structures that prevents the justification of the basis of a progress. There is always a carpet ( value posturing) underneath, which emerges non-deductively and non-causally from a previous carpet. It provides the temporary and relative stability of cultural, ethical and scientific norms, as well as the sense of a progress according to the normative values it lays down. It is then succeeded by a new carpet , with new and different moral values, and this process is endless, an eternal return of the same contingent, relative carpet in a new guise. If there is a moral impetus here , it is in the celebration of the movement itself , the imperative not to let oneself fall prey to any particular value system or notion of ‘perfection’ but to delight-suffer in the process of endless carpet installation. As Derrida says, ther is always an other heading, installed in and intrinsic the the present heading. This is an absolute other , beyond calculation and beyond all thought of perfection.
When our desire is for the ideal , even when we set aside aside the thing-in-itself we are still presupposing it. It is our belief in the ideal that kills us. As Nietzsche argued , the ascetic ideal, which motivates scientific truth as well as moral values as striving toward the good and the perfect, is a kind of death in that it is a desire for sameness , changelessness ,perfect self-presence.
My point was, similar to when you say that "nothing can reside outside time and history", that we can not reside outside institutions, rules, words (our culture). But, with Nietszche, our culture as it stands needs to be transfigured (not abandoned). That is not teleological (you seem to see an inevitable tipping point here, "Perfecting, approximating, developing, evolving all imply a telos or center that defines the movement.") I frame it as perfectionism only as change and progress. The imagery (of the sun, of moving upward) and the enthusiasm he advises is not to a certain goal (Emerson would say we should live fuzzy in front). We join or re-write the social contract; we aspire to our (next) better self. I only wanted to try to show that he is not doing social commentary of our culture (except as an example); that he is writing in analytical contrast to Kant and Plato. He is humanizing that morality by introducing the context of the history of our interests and desires. The example is our desire for rationality to remove our responsibility, but he is showing us that we do (together/each) have interests and desires. In seeing that now (reflected in our moralism), I/we aim to do/be better. This is beyond the argument of grounded or not grounded; absolute or relative; goals, utility, ought.
Quoting Joshs
Well there are a lot of people who take Nietszche to propose an individual (seen as selfish--"pitiless"--"dominating", "powerful") who is beyond morals (not just beyond good and evil); to imply that my instinct matters even if that means a zero-sum game. That a "new human" stands apart from (above) culture. I believe the interpretation comes from a desire to not be subject to society and the need to feel special, important (an excuse to hold their (internal) experience paramount).
Quoting Joshs
I agree, that was my initial point. I would only say that this shows the importance of Wittgenstein's realization that in looking at everything individually on its own terms, in each case--not AN essence (universally)--we can recapture what we want from the thing-in-itself: what is important to us about something, how it matters, which we see in looking at its regular ordinary criteria (not abstracted or imposed). He could been seen as continuing this from Nietszche unearthing our unexamined purpose/desire in the creation and use of our morals.
Maybe you could elaborate what doing or being better means in the context of the contingency of values. What is an aim to do better outside of goals, utility, ought? What is an interest or desire if not normative , goal-oriented , anticipatory? Aren’t interests and desires the very essence of normativity? Is there
anything that thwarts our interests and desires? Could it be that time and history themselves thwart our desires and interests by transforming the basis of what we find interesting and desirable? In other words , isnt it presupposed in the very structure of interest and desire that we inevitably desire other than what we desire? That we aim for other than what we aim for? And how does this transform the meaning of ‘better’? Doesn’t betterment become otherwise than better?
Well this is a necessary demand for clarification, so thank you; these are the questions. If we do not give in to the weakness of abdicating our desire to the desire for certainty--a predetermined, timeless, universal; if we don't sublimate our attraction to the essence of a thing to a fixed, external explanation, then what are our interests, our desires?
It should be noted it is no small thing that Nietszche gets us to this point; and our anxiety to jump to an answer is what requires courage and joy to overcome. If we are now turned and see our reflection in our world, we can then consider our real need, what interests us (draws us, Heidegger will say). So our goal could be put as knowledge of ourselves, in the life we are a part of (Wittgenstein will call it Grammar). We could say: the difference between a value, and what we value; between what is the meaning, and what is meaningful. This is not a goal as an end or answer, it is a reoccurring question (for each type of thing) for which we are answerable--there is what is normal, and what we are prepared to stand apart for (even if seen as mad). Nietszche makes us see our part in our bankrupt morals and rallies us to revitalize them, fill them with us, rather than with our lack (pity) of what we wish we were.
I like that interpretation.
Being is becoming... overcoming... over man. Joy is the feeling of 'increase' in power, not the feeling of power itself. The point of the continually changing, non-fixed contingent values and goals, is the overcoming... or put in another, maybe somewhat cliche, way, it's the journey not the destination that matters.
For Freud, the goal is better functionality. We aren't trying to cure the psyche into a perfected state. There is no innocent angel down in there waiting to come out.
It's just the suicidal gorilla who needs to learn to accept what she is.
So was there a benefit to the Christian phase? Or was it just pointless?
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
There are certainly plenty of Nietzsche interpreters who give it this existential spin. I prefer the poststructutalist readings. From that vantage , the increase in power belongs to the period within a particular value system, but Will to power as self-overcoming means that the basis of any ‘increase in power’ as defined by a particular value system must be overcome along with that value system. Put differently , life isnt an endless increase in power, it is power constantly overcoming its basis and therefore power starting anew with every shift in value system. So the journey isn’t the unfolding of variations on a theme , or an endless increasing of something, but an endless return of the ‘same’ unrepeatable values, goals , basis of power).
What one seems desirable changes along with changing values, so no criterion of power or its increase survives this becoming.