Nietzsche and Christianity - Metaphysical Idealist Critique

[SanteriSatama]

I know you provided a link, which I may check out later, but can also provide a synopsis of "new animism" tenets? TiA!

Seems to be already a big discussion, digesting slowly. Viveiro de Castro is the origin of central concep(s) perspectival multinaturalism. Which at least rhyme well with Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics.

My discussion of Finnish animism by the method of linguistic archeology, backed by some degree of empirism, is in the same tune.

[JustinG]

Beyond that, I really don't think Nietszche's disdain for the Marxist framework could get any more clear than it does in Zarathustra;

Nietzsche was also a racist, misogynist and proto-fascist so I certainly don't agree with everything he writes. Great thinkers can be wrong about many things. Same goes for the nazi Heidegger.

[AshvinP]

Beyond that, I really don't think Nietszche's disdain for the Marxist framework could get any more clear than it does in Zarathustra;

Nietzsche was also a racist, misogynist and proto-fascist so I certainly don't agree with everything he writes. Great thinkers can be wrong about many things. Same goes for the nazi Heidegger.

Now that you know Nietzsche lays Marxism to waste he is the worst human being to have ever walked the face of the Earth, huh?

We can't solve all our problems by cancelling everyone we disagree with... sometimes we actually have to think and come up with these things called "arguments". That's what Nietzsche and Heidegger did, so it's only fair to ask the same of their critics.

[JustinG]

Beyond that, I really don't think Nietszche's disdain for the Marxist framework could get any more clear than it does in Zarathustra;

Nietzsche was also a racist, misogynist and proto-fascist so I certainly don't agree with everything he writes. Great thinkers can be wrong about many things. Same goes for the nazi Heidegger.

Now that you know Nietzsche lays Marxism to waste he is the worst human being to have ever walked the face of the Earth, huh?

We can't solve all our problems by cancelling everyone we disagree with... sometimes we actually have to think and come up with these things called "arguments". That's what Nietzsche and Heidegger did, so it's only fair to ask the same of their critics.

Well actually I have read Nietzsche before so I did already know this. It is possible to appreciate a lot of what he says whilst also condeming sentiments such as this:

"The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.

What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity...."

But in terms of "arguments", I'm yet to see an argument from you as to why your faith in Nietzschean heroic individualism should not be regarded, like other 'truths', as a product of social and historical circumstances.

[Eugene I]

But in terms of "arguments", I'm yet to see an argument from you as to why your faith in Nietzschean heroic individualism should not be regarded, like other 'truths', as a product of social and historical circumstances.

One of the most profound critique of the Nietzschean heroic individualism was Dostoevsky's "Crime and punishment" where Raskolnikov was a believer in the Nietzschean individualism and committed his crime primarily for the reason to prove to himself that he is the 'Übermensch', a superhuman who is above the law, as it was described by Nietzsche. Dostoevsky clearly disagreed with Nietzsche, but instead of giving philosophical arguments, he showed from the subjective and practical perspective how would it feel to be such a superhuman and how such superhuman would behave and what he would/could do to other people.

[AshvinP]

Nietzsche was also a racist, misogynist and proto-fascist so I certainly don't agree with everything he writes. Great thinkers can be wrong about many things. Same goes for the nazi Heidegger.

Now that you know Nietzsche lays Marxism to waste he is the worst human being to have ever walked the face of the Earth, huh?

We can't solve all our problems by cancelling everyone we disagree with... sometimes we actually have to think and come up with these things called "arguments". That's what Nietzsche and Heidegger did, so it's only fair to ask the same of their critics.

Well actually I have read Nietzsche before so I did already know this. It is possible to appreciate a lot of what he says whilst also condeming sentiments such as this:

"The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.

What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity...."

But in terms of "arguments", I'm yet to see an argument from you as to why your faith in Nietzschean heroic individualism should not be regarded, like other 'truths', as a product of social and historical circumstances.

I don't think it is possible, actually. That sentiment you quoted runs through his entire philosophy. None of it is PC language, that's for sure, but his "heroic individualism" is internally consistent and metaphysically sound. It's not just him, of course, but a vast array of 19th-20th century thinkers across a vast number of philosophical, psychological and empirical approaches. We were discussing the developmental psychologist Piaget on the other thread, who demonstrated that non-compulsory games will always out-compete compulsory ones in terms of participation and stable outcomes, all else being equal.

There is no form of national or global scale Marxism which does not rely on extreme levels of compulsion. It is no coincidence that every country which attempts to instantiate it fails and fails miserably. And as I explained before, Nietzsche is not an advocate for metaphysical or moral relativism. So my Nietzschean arguments for ethical individualism are not self-defeating, if that's what you are trying to claim. He is advocating the pragmatic standard of truth, which is only "relative" in so far as it requires continual adaptation to changing circumstances, just as life as we know it requires the same.

[AshvinP]

But in terms of "arguments", I'm yet to see an argument from you as to why your faith in Nietzschean heroic individualism should not be regarded, like other 'truths', as a product of social and historical circumstances.

One of the most profound critique of the Nietzschean heroic individualism was Dostoevsky's "Crime and punishment" where Raskolnikov was a believer in the Nietzschean individualism and committed his crime primarily for the reason to prove to himself that he is the 'Übermensch', a superhuman who is above the law, as it was described by Nietzsche. Dostoevsky clearly disagreed with Nietzsche, but instead of giving philosophical arguments, he showed from the subjective and practical perspective how would it feel to be such a superhuman and how such superhuman would behave and what he would/could do to other people.

That is totally wrong. It's really a shame that some people today still fail to understand Nietzsche as a metaphysical thinker, which he clearly is. They are looking for nice, neat strawman on which to base a political critique against individual-oriented systems of thought and a philosophical critique against any worldview which implies a telos. Nietzsche's 'superman' was a metaphysical concept, not unlike that which we find in every esoteric Western spiritual tradition which recognizes the evolutionary development of spirit. In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects of Nietzsche's work is the direct inspiration he drew from Dostoevsky at the end his life.

https://www.academia.edu/17612234/Nietz ... f_Nihilism

In a chapter dedicated to Dostoevsky, Brandes applied Nietzsche’s categories to the novelist, interpreting him as a particular example of the man of ressentiment while his morality was precisely the same slave morality described by Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morality. Besides this brief comparison, however, there is little doubt that the first to draw attention to the relationship between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky were Russian intellectuals. The peculiarity of this first reception was the identification between Nietzsche’s overman with some of the main nihilistic characters (such as Raskolnikov, Kirillov or Ivan Karamazov) in the great Dostoevsky novels. This “mythopoem”, touse Grillaert’s expression (2008: 41), was generally accepted and turned into a sort of unquestioned dogma, enduring throughout the years.

It is precisely in this early period that Merezhkovsky’s L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (1901) appeared. Merezhkovsky’s work was particularly important for his approach, which undoubtedly wielded a strong influence over several later studies. In his view, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky were the mouthpieces of two different and opposite cultures: the Western, which was atheist and preached the arrival of the man-god, and the Eastern, which defended the orthodoxy and stood for the God-man, that is, Christ. In this way, the relation between Nietzsche and Dosteovsky was conceived as irreconcilable opposition. Merezhkovsky’s study was also very significant because it consolidated a reading that later became a sort of cliché in Nietzsche-Dostoevsky studies...

A significant divide in what we may call “Nietzsche-Dostoevsky studies” came undoubtedly in the 1970s with the three papers published by Miller (1973, 1975 and 1978) in Nietzsche Studies. Among others, Miller had the following merits: first, he proposed a precise reconstruction of Nietzsche’s discovery and engagement with Dostoevsky, establishing a reliable chronology of both; second, his analysis relied on a strict methodology based, for instance, on the reference to the original French translations read by Nietzsche; third, given his deep knowledge of the works of both the philosopher and the novelist, he was able to propose a fine interpretative reading of Nietzsche’s understanding and evaluation of Dostoevsky. Following Miller’s example, scholars have continued over the years to investigate the different aspects of the relation between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky...

Defenders of this reading usually tend to identify Nietzsche’s philosophy with the theories of the main nihilistic characters of Dostoevsky’s great novels. So, for instance, the maxim “nothing is true, everything is permitted”, which appears both in Nietzsche’s oeuvre and posthumous fragments, is interpreted as analogous to Ivan Karamazov’s idea, according to which if there is no God and no immortality of the soul, everything is permitted. Before this analogy can be accepted as valid, the following basic questions, which are generally overlooked, need to be answered: is Nietzsche really affirming that nothing is true and, therefore, everything permitted? If so, in what sense? And, on a more general level, can Nietzsche’s moral position be identified with that of Ivan? As will be shown, a deeper analysis of Nietzsche’s use of the maxim shows that the analogy is deceptive on several levels...

[JustinG]

I don't think it is possible, actually.

If you accept that ethical individualism is a product of social and historical circumstances, then your also obliged to accept that a change in social and historical circumstances could produce a different type of individualism.

This could be a form of individualism that is not based on a quid pro quo "I did this, therefore I deserve that" market mentality, but the self-fulfilling individualism of Zarathustra's child at play; "The child is innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelling wheel, a first motion, a sacred Yes.”

This does not entail a mindless collectivism or repeating the disasters of the past. In technologically advanced societies, the process could be started by a universal basic income and all work being voluntary and unpaid (except, initially at least, for work no-one volunteers to do).

[AshvinP]

I don't think it is possible, actually.

If you accept that ethical individualism is a product of social and historical circumstances, then your also obliged to accept that a change in social and historical circumstances could produce a different type of individualism.

This could be a form of individualism that is not based on a quid pro quo "I did this, therefore I deserve that" market mentality, but the self-fulfilling individualism of Zarathustra's child at play; "The child is innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelling wheel, a first motion, a sacred Yes.”

This does not entail a mindless collectivism or repeating the disasters of the past. In technologically advanced societies, the process could be started by a universal basic income and all work being voluntary and unpaid (except, initially at least, for work no-one volunteers to do).

Yes, of course it will continue to grow. But a) the social and historical circumstances have not changed so much since the beginning of the 20th century; and b) an evolution of individualism does not entail a regression to it's complete antithesis. The essence of technologically has not changed during that time period. It will not make deeply rooted psychological i.e. metaphysical realities between humans suddenly disappear, a fact which Dostoevsky knew very well and comments on at length in Notes from the Underground, since he was brought up. Which is why your proposal of UBI combined with "voluntary work" would be an epic disaster...

Humans are not cogs in an exhaustively rational machine; we do not behave in the utterly predictable ways the Utopian thinkers insist. The voluntary adoption of responsibility is a huge source of meaning, as everyone who has ever adopted responsibility for anything can attest, but so many of us still avoid it like the plague. That aspect of human experience will never change through collective policies or material allocation of resources, only through a deep understanding of ourselves and a free desire to live up to higher standards, to become who we are.

[JustinG]

..deeply rooted psychological i.e. metaphysical realities..

These 'metaphysical realities' sound like more 'truths', which are actually the product of social and historical circumstances.

Also, sorry, I think I misread your response before the last one.

I can see now that when you said "I don't think it is possible, actually. That sentiment you quoted runs through his entire philosophy", you meant that it is not possible to appreciate a lot of what Nietzsche said whilst also condemning some of his sentiments. So it seems that your position is that Nietzsche's philosophy must be accepted or rejected in its entirety.

Are you therefore agreeing with Nietzsche that the weak and the botched should perish?