Why is Nietzsche so lauded?

[cpayne]

Not to be cantankerous, but—If Christianity is responsible for the [Crusades, witch trials, etc.], why isn’t Nietzsche responsible for those claiming him [e.g., Nazis]?

Or, to put it a different way—If Nietzsche was misinterpreted, there surely never has been a philosopher who made it so easy to misinterpret him.

 

[Mirdath]

Not to be cantankerous, but—If Christianity is responsible for the [Crusades, witch trials, etc.], why isn’t Nietzsche responsible for those claiming him [e.g., Nazis]?

Or, to put it a different way—If Nietzsche was misinterpreted, there surely never has been a philosopher who made it so easy to misinterpret him.

There has never been a philosopher whose Nazi sister has made it so easy to interpret him. If you read what he actually wrote Nietzsche’s hate list had nationalism and anti-Semitism near the top. Elizabeth cherrypicked and, ah, creatively edited, his stuff into one compilation that was used by the Nazis – the rest was discarded.

The Crusaders and Inquisitors, however, acted in the name of the Church with its blessing.

Completely different.

 

[missal]

Because like the rest of the media the colleges textbooks and professors are bias!!

 

[Mirdath]

There has never been a philosopher whose Nazi sister has made it so easy to interpret him. If you read what he actually wrote Nietzsche’s hate list had nationalism and anti-Semitism near the top. Elizabeth cherrypicked and, ah, creatively edited, his stuff into one compilation that was used by the Nazis – the rest was discarded.

The Crusaders and Inquisitors, however, acted in the name of the Church with its blessing.

Completely different.

Argh, read ‘misinterpret’ in the first sentence… I didn’t notice it until now

 

[cpayne]

I actually tend to agree that Nietzsche was misinterpreted. However, due to the numerous defects in his personality (IMHO), he seemingly couldn’t resist the controversial phrase. Master morality, slave morality, the Blond Beast, the Overman, the Will to Power—no matter how he despised nationalism and exalted individualism, these phrases tend toward elevating the “chosen” over all the despised “slaves” (i.e., the rest of us).

 

[cpayne]

Another way of saying it: There is no such thing as Master morality, slave morality, Blond Beast, or Overman, but there definitely is a Will to Power, and those other phrases can be used to play into that will.

“Triumph of the Will,” remember?

 

[Mirdath]

I actually tend to agree that Nietzsche was misinterpreted. However, due to the numerous defects in his personality (IMHO), he seemingly couldn’t resist the controversial phrase. Master morality, slave morality, the Blond Beast, the Overman, the Will to Power—no matter how he despised nationalism and exalted individualism, these phrases tend toward elevating the “chosen” over all the despised “slaves” (i.e., the rest of us).

There’s no arguing that he liked playing the enfant terrible, but then there’s a place for that, and I would argue that a position from which one assails both nihilists and reactionaries is just such a place.

Also, I read the entire concept of the overman as something to which humanity as a whole should strive – the next step of human progress, not an aristocracy of any sort.

And from your last post, let’s leave Riefenstahl out of this – her (brilliantly executed) Nazi propaganda has no genuine relation to Nietzsche’s philosophy and you know it :tsktsk:

 

[Danny_OC]

I just got done reading a book one of my college nephews gave me. It’s a book containing the biographies of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Socrates, and about a dozen other famous philosophers in history, as well as an extensive overview of their respective philosophies. (It’s actually his textbook for his class, but I’ll read almost anything once…almost, and only once for most, and quite a few I never intend to even finish…) Anyway, to the point; after reading about Nietzsche and his philosophy I can only conclude that he was an idiot. Why do so many people think he was so great? I mean, look at the man. “By his fruits you shall know him.” And man, what a fruit he was. They say he only lost his mind towards the end of his life, but it seems to me he was losing his mind all along.

I’m serious, why is Nietzsche considered to be so great? Am I missing something?

"Nietzsche cried a call to arms
Joan of Arc did not praise fighting, but fought.
We know she was not afraid of an army.
For all we know, Nietzsche may have feared a cow"

That is one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes (I paraphrased it). It illustrates the appeal to some of Nietzsche, but shows how laughable he is when compared to a Catholic Saint.

 

[Contarini]

Well, it’s true I never read any of Nietzsche’s actual works, but based on what I have read (see first posting), I really don’t want to.

Well, that’s your prerogative. But naturally your opinions about whether Nietzsche was intelligent or not are not going to have much weight, and we might respectfully wonder why you are so sure on the matter.

After all, you don’t have to read Nietzsche or disparage him. You could just leave him alone.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Not to be cantankerous, but—If Christianity is responsible for the [Crusades, witch trials, etc.], why isn’t Nietzsche responsible for those claiming him [e.g., Nazis]?

Because Christianity isn’t a writer. It’s a religion. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Most non-Christians don’t blame Jesus for the Crusaders. But if there were a Nietzchean Church which had actually supported the Nazis, then that Church would be rightly blamed for its actions.

Edwin

 

[Scholastic17]

I’m serious, why is Nietzsche considered to be so great? Am I missing something?

Two reasons:

1. Most people are in philosophy to reaffirm their own faith. For me, I am in philosophy to attain a greater understanding of God…and a greater understanding of intelligible reality through that understanding of God. For this reason, I tend to prefer philosophers like Plato, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Bonaventure, etc. Oddly enough, I’m not particularly a fan of St. Thomas Aquinas.

That said…I’m in the minority. The “faith” of most people in philosophy tends to be atheism or something like that. Whereas someone like me tends to be interested primarily in the “discovering,” creating, etc. of systems…well, most people (atheists) who are in philosophy tend to find more solace in the destructive powers of philosophy. This is to say, disproof and whatnot, or at least the raising of doubts.

In Nietzsche we find precisely this sort of destructive, critical way of philosophizing. Nietzsche criticizes the entirety of the history of philosophy, denies that there is any “objective” truth, and ultimately affirms this world at the expense of “the next world.” Nietzsche is ultimately the philosopher of the atheists.

1. Nietzsche is actually pretty good on a few issues. For example, he has the doctrine of Eternal Reccurence. This is basically the doctrine:

Suppose there’s a limited number of possibilities that can occur in the world, and an infinite amount of time. Then everything that can happen has already happened, is happening, and will happen an infinite number of times over…in exactly the same way.

Obviously, the doctrine is bull. Nietzsche thought so (since everything for Nietzsche is perspectival, and there is no truth in Nietzsche’s thought). I think it can be demonstrated (from the impossibility of traversing an infinity) that it is bull.

That said, here’s where it becomes ethical:

If everything happens exactly the same way again and again for all eternity, is your life worth living over and over again? Does your life have even a single moment of joy so wonderful that you’d be willing to go through all the pain, the suffering, the bull, the boredom…etc…all over again? If you can answer in the affirmative, then it puts everything in perspective for you, and brings you to a better appreciation of life. If you can’t, then it renews your drive to seize the day, and live life.

So whereas the doctrine is made as a parody and a counterexample of previous metaphysical systems…well…even if you disagree with it as a metaphysical doctrine (Nietzsche himself did), it’s still really good as an ethical imperative.

Not to mention his views about music are as agreeable as any.

 

[diane_mcnally]

I don’t think Friedrich Nietzsche is as big of an influence against the Catholic Church as people try to make it sound. I would rate Hegel’s writing as having a much bigger impact (bad in my opinion) on Christians.

I read Nietzsche when I was young. Beyond Good and Evil sounded interesting as a title.

I would not stop anybody from reading anything by Nietzsche. Friedrich was passionate and intelligent and is worth reading. I was also intrigued by the relationship between Friedrich and Richard Wagner. That’s much more interesting than whether Friedrich influenced the Nazis or not. Teutonic Christianity and Nazis - now your talking!

 

[SimpleGift]

I am Catholic and go to a secular university, where I am majoring in an interdisciplinary field in which I have the opportunity to take philosophy courses. So, I’ve read a fair amount of philosophy for someone my age, I suppose.

Why read Nietzsche? Why is he lauded?

Take a look at “Beyond Good and Evil,” which is a good example. If you have read Plato/Socrates, you can see the critique that Nietzsche makes on Socratic Platonism. It is important to recognize that Christian morality looks remarkably like morality that Plato teaches: striving for the Good/God. Nietzsche teaches that all Western thought as we know it came from the foundation in Platonism. Yes, he does critique Christianity; he knows that “God is dead” in today’s society–look around you; in a way, he is right; for many people, God IS dead. Also, Nietzsche does not like the “herd”, which is reasonable and interestingly enough seen in organized Christianity. People go through their lives not questioning what they believe; would Christianity advocate this?

Like another poster stated, Nietzsche fashions his eternal return, a new religion. This religion has the morality of the new nobility–and a very tempting morality at that! But, obviously this new religion is false; thus, there is no reason to follow an ungrounded morality. Through the religion, though, he brings a new, (good) morality to the people who obviously are questioning and are not a part of the herd. And, for others, he abolishes all religion and begs them to return to pre-Socraticism… where they can ground their morals in logic and, at least for some time, get away from the almost blinding, at times, Socratic morality.

These are all VERY interesting teachings! Nothing that a Christian shouldn’t look at. We all wish to ground religion in logic/philosophy. It is a constant struggle that should be faced. Read the atheists so you can better understand your Christian faith!

Also, Kant definitely should be read, as well. His Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals establishes a moral system that, remarkably, resembles–but not totally and with nuances–a very Christian teaching: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

 

[Dan86]

Nietzsche is popular because he’s completely insane and irrational. People love that. That’s why they like to watch movies with psycho killers.

 

[AmorFati]

Being acquainted with Nietzsche via secondary literature is comparable to being acquainted with Catholic mysticism via reading and not living it out yourself - laughable, at best.

Nietzsche is not as “crazy” and “insane” as people make him out to be - which is complete b.s. anyways. I don’t think many people can truly grasp the significance of the duo of Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger and their role in The End of Metaphysics.

I used to be on the same bandwagon initially that thought: “Man, this dude is wild as hell!” But then you mature intellectually and learn to look at things from an unbiased Catholic perspective and you start to make-out what he is REALLY saying.

If anything, Catholics should really read what Heidegger and Nietzsche have to say regarding philosophy and how it bled over into religion - that is problem with Protestantism and their reliance on the “popular” philosophy of the time. Catholics follow a similar method by the incorporation of Platonic and Aristotelean metaphysics into its Catholic theology. Such a move, in my earnest opinion, waters down what it means to LIVE the Christian life and causes division amongst the Church (See argument between St. Gregory Palamas and Catholic’s; also, see the argument that occurred within the Catholic Church between Thomists vs. Augustinians [which are really Neo-Platonist/Christian hybrids] vs. traditional no-need-for-philosophy-only-faith Catholics).

P.S. Whoever said that Aquinas was a genius should proceed to cancel their account, call their ISP and cancel their service and proceed to drive to the library and read! Yeah, sure Aquinas is a great, what’s there NOT to be great in a Christianized Aristotle!? How stupid for Catholic’s to be so blind of the fact that theologians in the church are using Greek philosophy to make faith “reasonable!” What’s even more sad is that Plato and Aristotle have been known to be at odds with each other so naturally that disagreeability has, without a doubt, seeped through and manifested itself in Catholic theology (Idealist Plato and Empiricist Aristotle don’t seem to go together well.)

I don’t know about you guys but I would much rather have a philosophy-free religion than one that is wholly reliant on it - especially when all you’re doing is STEALING.

 

[Reprobus]

Nietzsche noticed the modern loss of faith. His parable of the madman is what makes him the “God is dead” guy, but the description is inaccurate. The parable is from a book called The Gay Science, written in 1882. This parable describes the problem which he grappled with his whole life. The “God is dead” tag is one of many popular calumnies directed against him.

Thus Spake Zarathustra was written in four parts between 1883 and 1885. It is considered his greatest work. He is harshly critical of neo-platonic morality as it was adopted by the Church. He despised Luther.

Nietzsche first read Dostoevsky in 1887 and described him as a kinsman. Whether his reading of Dostoevsky had anything to do with the revelation he spoke of in Ecce Homo I don’t know, but I have an idea that his fondness for Dostoevsky was related to his descent into madness. Legend has it that he encountered a man beating a horse. He ran to the horse and threw his arms around its neck to protect it. Soon after he collapsed. He was moved to an asylum and never recovered. The horse (if I understand it correctly) is symbolic of the Church in Dostoevsky’s work.

I have heard Nietzsche described as a God junkie of the first order. The description seems to me to be accurate.

Nietzsche’s work is deeply rooted in the thought of eternal recurrence. But what is it that is happening again? Hegel’s monstrous theology perfected modern idolatry just as Plato’s did the classical sort. Nietzsche described himself as a destroyer of idols, but he also said several times that he came too soon. He did grudgingly admit that only Christ could overcome him. He described Christ as his only worthy opponent, a statement which may seem strange given his hostility to what the Church had become in his own day. This from the man who said that a good friend is also, by definition, a worthy opponent. I have a theory that Nietzsche is the modern Manichee. I can’t make heads nor tails of him in any other context.

 

[Reprobus]

Howard Bloom was asked “Did the philosophy of Nietzsche have any influence on your thought? How so?”

Here is his reply:

A tremendous influence. When I was a young and impressionable sixteen year old I was sent off by my high school to take a course in philosophy at State University of NY, Buffalo. The two main texts we studied were Aristotle’s Nicomachaean Ethics and Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Aristotle spoke in practical terms to my brain. He was Apollonian. Nietzsche found the fire in my heart. He was Dionysian. Nietzsche’s concept of the ubermensch, so horribly corrupted by the Nazis, showed its radiance and power when read without a thought to the horrors of the Second World War. It challenged the reader to soar above the sunshine of mountain tops when others chose the shadowed safety of the valleys. Like Thoreau’s “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” and T.S. Eliots’s “Hollow men, heads filled with straw” or Elliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock who “measured out his life with coffee spoons” because he never had the courage to attempt the deeds of which he dreamed, Nietzsche warned me not to fall into the pathways dictated by convention, to never be caught in the doctrines of a creedbound group, but to be a Steppenwolf, a loner, drawing the best substance from each subculture he could sample, but opposing each subculture’s dark side, the part that would freeze the soul in sterile ritual, outworn thought, or outright hatred. Nietzsche, Elliott, Thoreau, and Edna St. Vincent Millay threw down a gauntlet. They said dare to take the challenge. Dare to do the dangerous, the outrageous, dare to be shunned, dare to stare destruction in the face, dare to stare down evil, even when its strength seems infinite and yours seems minuscule, look into the eyes of divinity though it is said that such a vision blinds, craft your own religion, find your own gods, seek forbidden, unspoken, and unknown truths, and undergo the pain or exhilaration of every human passion until you can feel with empathy the horror and the joys of millions, no matter where they be. Dare always to do the impossible. Dare to find the heart of authenticity. Dare to guard a hard-and-fast integrity based on what is right, what is just, what is most fervent in the human heart. Dare to be ecstatic when others are merely happy. Avoid the snares of the ordinary and bring Promethean fire from the realms of darkness to light the dark caves of humanity. The prose I’ve used is overblown, but so was Nietzsche’s, and frankly, it roused the soul through the its sheer audacity.

 

[AmorFati]

Nietzsche noticed the modern loss of faith. His parable of the madman is what makes him the “God is dead” guy, but the description is inaccurate. The parable is from a book called The Gay Science, written in 1882. This parable describes the problem which he grappled with his whole life. The “God is dead” tag is one of many popular calumnies directed against him.

Thus Spake Zarathustra was written in four parts between 1883 and 1885. It is considered his greatest work. He is harshly critical of neo-platonic morality as it was adopted by the Church. He despised Luther.

Nietzsche first read Dostoevsky in 1887 and described him as a kinsman. Whether his reading of Dostoevsky had anything to do with the revelation he spoke of in Ecce Homo I don’t know, but I have an idea that his fondness for Dostoevsky was related to his descent into madness. Legend has it that he encountered a man beating a horse. He ran to the horse and threw his arms around its neck to protect it. Soon after he collapsed. He was moved to an asylum and never recovered. The horse (if I understand it correctly) is symbolic of the Church in Dostoevsky’s work.

I have heard Nietzsche described as a God junkie of the first order. The description seems to me to be accurate.

Nietzsche’s work is deeply rooted in the thought of eternal recurrence. But what is it that is happening again? Hegel’s monstrous theology perfected modern idolatry just as Plato’s did the classical sort. Nietzsche described himself as a destroyer of idols, but he also said several times that he came too soon. He did grudgingly admit that only Christ could overcome him. He described Christ as his only worthy opponent, a statement which may seem strange given his hostility to what the Church had become in his own day. This from the man who said that a good friend is also, by definition, a worthy opponent. I have a theory that Nietzsche is the modern Manichee. I can’t make heads nor tails of him in any other context.

Yeah, what you say is true! I hear a priest deliver a misguided homily on the “God is dead” - otherwise known as the the parable of the Madman- and it was severely butchered! He framed Nietzsche to be a sort anarchist that was hellbent on destroying the Christian faith when, in that particular context, he should have correctly quoted him in saying: “God is dead and WE have killed him…” Nietzsche’s philosophy seems to be pretty congruent with my idea that Catholic theology is riddled with Platonic and Aristotelean philosophical undertones - something the church does not hide. If you read his works carefully you see that he is always downing Christians for not living up to the Christian ideal and never attacking Jesus Christ personally - on the contrary, he was quoted in saying: “The last true Christian died on the cross…” OUCH!

I think to truly understand Nietzsche’s philosophical thought one has to be intimately acquainted with not only ancient Greek metaphysics - pre-Socratic period, to be specific- but also the psychological and philosophical works of Soren Kierkegaard to be able to extrapolate Nietzsche’s philosophy. The apophthegmatic nature of his writings coupled with his dense and convoluted style are, without a doubt, the main factor that causes much discordance over WHAT he really meant!

Nietzsche’s early philosophy - from Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks to Ecce Homo - are nothing but philosophical preludes that Nietzsche undertook for self-interest and not because they would embody his “mature” philosophy, no, not at all. As a matter of fact, one has to read Martin Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche in which he quotes Nietzsche in saying something along the lines of: “I don’t expect many people to understand Thus Spoke Zarathurstra, since it was mostly written for my self-satisfaction.” What does constitute the main philosophy was a work that was published posthumously from a series of notes under the heading of The Will to Power.

If you want to understand what he was truly about, read the Will to Power with Martin Heidegger’s four-volume lectures as an aid to understanding the man whose profundity and philosophical visionary “consumed” metaphysics.

 

[Reprobus]

I haven’t read Heidegger, but I have read St. Augustine and also the Avesta.

The Avesta was discovered and translated in India, where it had been preserved by Zoroastrians who fled Persia when the Mohammedans invaded. I expect it would have been a work of interest to philologists even in Nietzsche’s day as the translation of it was quite difficult and a matter of some controversy a few decades earlier. The Avesta was one of the first works to benefit from ‘comparative grammar’, a technique developed in the translation of the Avesta itself.

Zarathustra, and Zoroastrianism, were the greatest influence on Mani, who also adopted some aspects of Christian and perhaps even Buddhist thought. It’s hard to tell, as I have not heard of any surviving works of the Manichees and I know of them only from St. Augustine. I have long thought that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was more Manichee than Zoroastrian.

If you consider the philosophical and theological development of the ancient and classical worlds, from Zarathustra (aka Zoroaster) to St. Augustine, and also St. Augustine’s own personal journey through the various doctrines, then I think it makes sense (in light of eternal recurrence) to describe Nietzsche as the modern Manichee. Nietzsche’s more obvious (deliberate?) theological errors and personal style are described in St. Augustine’s Confessions as the errors of the Manichees. I had a lot of trouble with Nietzsche at first. This understanding made his work seem quite sensible – even forgivable. We had clearly strayed from the path by Luther’s time, and Hegel clinches it. If we wish a general return to God and Christianity, then we must overcome Nietzsche. That was his task, which he often spoke of, and it is the reason why his works are so important today.

As a young man I was warned by a professor, who was also a priest, not to read Nietzsche until I was at least 30 and had read St. Augustine. It is a warning that I will pass on here. I still think it was good advice.

 

[Nooj]

These philosophers and others (like Marx and Sarte) set the groundwork for some of the most influential --and destructive --ideologies of the past century (Marx, Communism and Nietzsche, Nazism) the repucussions of which we still live with today.

Sartre set the groundwork for destructive ideologies? How?

Anyone linking Nietzche with nazism has obviously not read his books at all.

Nietzche " The Christian God is Dead" in the Gay Science, them repeated in Also sprach Zarathuster is not a simple atheist expresion. To be Dead one should be Alive first. The passage is one of his most beautiful ones estates that as a general reference and foundation to modern western culture the Christian God is Dead and was not longer the anchor and compass that guides western culture. Even many christians would agee with that. He also saw that situation as a moment of great danger and oportunity. The next century proved him right about the dangers.

Indeed - the same sentiment ‘God is Dead’ could be stated by a deist (or even a theist who believes we’ve abandoned God/vice-versa). It’s not necessarily an atheistic statement.