GeneralEmployer
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2020
- Messages
- 1,722
- Reaction score
- 1,205
STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.
Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.
Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!
Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.
Now that's a song I haven't thought about in 20 years..He's a stranger on a bus just trying to make his way home.
For even though in Nietzsche God' death is a fait accompli, there is the nagging question of whether or not this is a good thing. We need to go back and see WHY WE KILLED GOD. Would we do it again if we had the chance?
This is not quite right. The more fundamental question for any understanding of Nietzsche is not why people “killed” God, but rather: what sort of person are you and how does the non-existence of God matter to you specifically?
The most basic error in reading Nietzche is to assume he is addressing everyone. He is not. He is addressing “higher” men, for the most part. For them, the death of God is a relief and opportunity—and why he is dead is not particularly interesting.
Yes, I happen to agree here, and I'm glad I was at least somewhat wrong about the decline of your mental faculties. In truth, I was trying to set up a joke that I wound up aborting because nobody likes my jokes except people who are banned.
I will point out that in a broader sense, especially in his earlier work, Nietzsche does express concern of what the death of God, and by extension Christianity, means for civilization. He feels most people cannot handle the truth, and that this is may be a problem. Nietzsche is not exclusively focused upon the higher man until he reaches a certain point in his work. While he may be addressing a certain audience throughout his oeuvre, and he's excited at what the death of God means for this audience, he does express serious concern that stupid people will not be able to share his personal boundless optimism.
My thoughts are based off of hazy recollections, and we'll need to pull multiple quotes to get to the bottom of this. I'm not opposed if seriously pisses everyone off and completely derails this threak.
Do you still have your thesis? May you regale us with a choice passage?
...My college thesis was about Nietzschean political theory. It argued that Nietsche’s philosophy would favor an individual rights-maximizing political system as the lesser of evils, as autocracies and monarchies enforce artificial and rigid caste systems that hinder “higher”-type individualists.
This is the complete script of a skit from our college Midnight Theatre “talent night”.
It was called “Humanities Seminar”.
Picture 6 people seated in a circle speaking in turn:
“Me”
“Me”
“Me”
“Me”
“Me”
“Me, and Nietzsche”.
* Humanities Seminar was a core curriculum requirement for everyone so we all got the joke
TBF, Nietzsche doesn't really have a political theory: “Only where the state ends, there begins the human being who is not superfluous” (Thus Spoke Zarathrusta I:11). Seems like a very challenging thesis because you'd have to comb all of his work for scraps. Then, you'd need to speculate to a large degree. Also, even basic claim like Nietzsche would favor "an individual rights-maximizing political system" is problematical: Nietzsche didn't care a fig for people's right to be stupid or wrong. The right to be stupid or wrong is a big part of a rights-maximizing system.
However, one “scrap” that was particularly helpful is his cutting assault on caste systems. Unlike his other political musings, he very clearly argued for why the “higher” type of human being cannot thrive in such a social structure, as the very fundamental nature of such individuals is that we cannot predict who they will be.
You're making it weird, man.*snip*
So, is not fitting then, that my all ALL TIME SF HERO has done the same?