I really tried to read “Thus spoke Zarathustra” and gave up after about 20 pages. Maybe the French translation was bad, but I just wasn’t able to understand what was being truly said, and it was all messy and confusing dialogue.
If I want to understand Nietzsche’s philosophy, I’ll read somebody else’s analysis, tyvm.
For anyone unfamiliar, his sister was a Nazi, and after he died she managed his legacy in the worst possible way.
Nietzche had an interesting relationship to Jews and Judaism, informed over time by his own personal relationships in ways that probably didn’t influence his philosophy for the better. Parts of his work is about what he considers to be strong cultures, at which point he praised Judaism for being a particularly strong culture. Later in life he was less positive.
This of course comes on top of his thinking about religion, which is less one-sided than often portrayed: God is dead, we killed him, but importantly that was in all likelihood a huge mistake.
So the Nazi connotations are partly a result of his sister’s management of his legacy and unfinished/unpublished works after his death, part how Nazis ended up using his works long after his death.
He ended his life living with his sister in a rather fragile state, with his great writings behind him. Judging him by his death bed would be doing him and his work a great injustice. But even then there’s no evidence to indicate he was some sort of proto-Nazi.
I don’t read him as worrying primarily about the immorality. As far as I remember his problem is more that atheism is amoral, if anything. The main concern is the lack of meaning. Humans crave rituals and spirituality. Now that we killed God we have nothing to turn to; how do we bury our dead now that God himself has died.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
It’s hardly one-sided when you consider what Nietzsche had to say about religion. Take Christianity:
Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in “another” or “better” life.
Or more generally:
As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.
His father was a pastor whereas he had a profound distaste for the church. Presenting him as a defender of religion is not accurate at all. I guess it’s easy to misrepresent him because there are a lot of nuances going on, and his writings also don’t always align perfectly.
Nietzsche is good in small doses unless you’re feeling depressed. It’s fun to indulge when that’s the case
I really tried to read “Thus spoke Zarathustra” and gave up after about 20 pages. Maybe the French translation was bad, but I just wasn’t able to understand what was being truly said, and it was all messy and confusing dialogue.
If I want to understand Nietzsche’s philosophy, I’ll read somebody else’s analysis, tyvm.
He’s a mixed bag. Sometimes he said some really cool and intuitive things, other times he was a theocrat and was later co-opted by Nazis.
For anyone unfamiliar, his sister was a Nazi, and after he died she managed his legacy in the worst possible way.
Nietzche had an interesting relationship to Jews and Judaism, informed over time by his own personal relationships in ways that probably didn’t influence his philosophy for the better. Parts of his work is about what he considers to be strong cultures, at which point he praised Judaism for being a particularly strong culture. Later in life he was less positive.
This of course comes on top of his thinking about religion, which is less one-sided than often portrayed: God is dead, we killed him, but importantly that was in all likelihood a huge mistake.
So the Nazi connotations are partly a result of his sister’s management of his legacy and unfinished/unpublished works after his death, part how Nazis ended up using his works long after his death.
He ended his life living with his sister in a rather fragile state, with his great writings behind him. Judging him by his death bed would be doing him and his work a great injustice. But even then there’s no evidence to indicate he was some sort of proto-Nazi.
Nietzsche’s “God is dead” is meant to caution against the supposed “immorality” of atheism, so very much one-sided.
I don’t read him as worrying primarily about the immorality. As far as I remember his problem is more that atheism is amoral, if anything. The main concern is the lack of meaning. Humans crave rituals and spirituality. Now that we killed God we have nothing to turn to; how do we bury our dead now that God himself has died.
It’s hardly one-sided when you consider what Nietzsche had to say about religion. Take Christianity:
Or more generally:
His father was a pastor whereas he had a profound distaste for the church. Presenting him as a defender of religion is not accurate at all. I guess it’s easy to misrepresent him because there are a lot of nuances going on, and his writings also don’t always align perfectly.
All I knew about Ecce Homo was the title, and went away disappointed.
That’s how I feel about Emil Cioran.