How can anyone admire such a twisted, warped, self aggrandizing misanthrope? Really? Even his philosophical ramblings are nonsensical. Can someone explain what the hype is about this guy? From all I've read, he's just gross and pathetic and totally riding the wave of others' ideas, but with an evil-loving, people-hating flavor added in. .
Is that so? If anyone here is very much familiar with his works, I'm also interested in hearing from them about this. I haven't read Nietzsche.
He's easy enough to google. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche He was certainly a complex figure, with many admirers and detractors. Saying he was a "twisted and warped" philospher is like saying Edgar Allan Poe was a "twisted and warped" writer.
No..not really. I'm speaking of his philosophy as lived in his life. He was screwed up. Poe wrote poetry and fiction and did not pretend to "truth." Your comparison is false.
Of his works I have only read Zarathustra, so perhaps my opinion of him is off the mark a little. I found the style of writing to be over-wrought but otherwise of good quality, and as a result as a story it was fairly mediocre. As to the philosophical messages within, while I could agree with the concepts behind some of them, the execution and direction always felt a bit depressing, and unfortunately some of them are forever tainted by later interpretations of them.
Ppl can always find an 'audience." Look at the recent mass killer Dormer--he has his 'audience." Reminds me of the 60's when everything anti-the-man was considered 'cool,' and gave license to many to run amuck (drugs, sex, etc.). Ppl; look for the reasons & excuses to sate their own lusts..and it sounds like he hit a home run in his short deviant life. What does scripture say, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions," as well as "Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction and many there be that follow; but narrow is the gate and straight is the path that leads to eternal life and few there be that find it." And just like Che who was but a plain murderer and has been made an anarchist's 'saint;, Nietzsche will have his 'worshipers.' Are the T-shirts out yet?! I.e., ppl like him are "a dime/dozen."
He wrote "Thus Spake Zarathustra" after he healed from a long illness where he thought he was going to die, and he absolutely doubled down on the garbage he had spewed before his illness. He's simply not even original. He takes snippets from all sorts of sources without crediting them, and also criticizes those very sources he plunders--he also over-simplifes the positions he criticizes, so in a sense, he flails at straw men. Absolutely--how can compensating ego of that magnitude be anything but "overwrought? It had "potential" shall we say--if he had matured his thoughts before (*)(*)(*)(*)ting them on the public. Most critics of the time agreed. (and by that I mean all). I don't know to what you refer when you say, "tainted by later interpretations." Could you elaborate? His life is a testimony to the quality of his philosophy. His end proves his thought process flawed, IMHO. - - - Updated - - -
At the risk of Godwinning the thread, the reputation and much of the impressions of Neitzsche are influenced by the fact that terrible dictators selectively utilised parts of his philosophy, some going so far as to use deliberately warped renditions of Neitzsche's work created by his own sister. Its hard not to have that bear on your analysis of an author to some degree.
I don't see how that's Godwinning. If his philosophy advocates perspectives that, when taken to their logical end, result in heinous atrocities like the Holocaust, then... it is right to discuss the aspects that advocate such ideals. I do not believe that there was any "deliberate warping" of Neitzsche's perspectives. I think it is very consistant with Neitzsche's perspectives. Can you provide evidence otherwise?
Most philosophy is not original. Many concept found in the bible are based on other religions. For example, the concept of Hell is taken from the Norse Goddess of torture, who lived in a domain of fire and torment. The first recorded teachings about Hell in Christianity came about when the Catholic Church was trying to convert Norse Pagans. Hell was created as we know it to frighten the Norse.
That's not quite what I said. His sister produced a version of his work that was heavily edited, with some things taken out, some things added that he had not written, some things re-arranged, and so on. Many of the core elements were still there but the volume itself was definitely distorted to some extent, such that it had a slightly different focus.
I think he's just very much a mish-mash of others ideas and very little original thought. Maybe it's original how he mashed it all together, and the hubris and misanthropy is his own, but there is very little of original merit that I don't understand how he is considered seminal in the area of philosophy.
No, not at all. Just that his reputation and the discussion around him is inevitably coloured by those things.
I don't think it has to be. To be honest, I hadn't actually made the connection. I thought it sounded a lot like ideas that would lead to such atrocities, but I didn't connect that it actually was used to justify such things. I didn't know that his sister was so involved with the Nazis until I looked her up after you mentioned her. Still--one should be able to discuss his writings on their own merit, don't you think?
Everything from his persecuting Christians to his weird alleged spiritual experience and his views of marriage (he argued that men should remain completely abstinent if they could bear it).
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. Friedrich Nietzsche After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands. Friedrich Nietzsche Absolutely Brilliant!!! Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/friedrich_nietzsche.html#M6v7sPmXqMD2lUov.99 Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/friedrich_nietzsche.html#M6v7sPmXqMD2lUov.99
i still liked the gopher post, that was deleted................. There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all. Friedrich Nietzsche That one meant that the OP poster, should not open threads! Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/friedrich_nietzsche.html#M6v7sPmXqMD2lUov.99