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I've reverted these.
The first, 'later called' and comment about not getting a degree in phil - the sentence is already quite long, and N's claim to being a philosopher is to do with his books and the people he influenced.
The N quotes I've removed because they were a typical selection of the strength and master-race bits, edited to distort:
The homogenizing of European man 'is the great process that cannot be obstructed ... blah ... as soon as it is established, it ' requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former which can raise itself to its task only by doing this. Not merely a Master Race whose sole task is to rule, but a Race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of strength 'for beauty, bravery, culture etc etc'...strong enough to have no need of the tyranny of the virtue-imperative.'
— Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sec. 898, trans. Walter Kaufmann'
'If one translates reality into a morality, this' morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions...[several lines omitted] 'I rebel against the transaltion of reality into morality: therefore' I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred.'
— Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sec. 685, trans. Walter Kaufmann
You can't take sentence fragments you like and bung them together with any writer, especially not Nietzsche.
The one about women is not sec. 184
-- Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 08:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind. '
— Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human'
I see nothing implicitly "hateful" with the quote (from sect. 475 of Human, All-Too-Human: he's stating, in an extremely broad context, it is possible that man as nature ("Homo Natura") must be realized as such, and is inherently immoral. Here's how it appears in a fuller context, giving a much more particular vantagepoint, from the selfsame section:
Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only within national states, inasmuch as their energy and higher intelligence, their capital of spirit and will, which accumulated from generation to generation in the long school of their suffering, must predominate to a degree that awakens envy and hatred; and so, in the literature of nearly all present-day nations (and, in fact, in proportion to their renewed nationalistic behavior), there is an increase in the literary misconduct that leads the Jews to the slaughterhouse, as scapegoats for every possible public and private misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations, but rather of producing the strongest possible mixed European race, the Jew becomes as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national quantity. Every nation, every man has disagreeable, even dangerous characteristics; it is cruel to demand that the Jew should be an exception. Those characteristics may even be especially dangerous and frightful in him, and perhaps the youthful Jew of the stock exchange is the most repugnant invention of the whole human race. Nevertheless, I would like to know how much one must excuse in the overall accounting of a people which, not without guilt on all our parts, has had the most sorrowful history of all peoples, and to whom we owe the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world.
(My emphasis.)
In any case, that he is a philosopher, as I said very clearly, is not my "opinion" but the overwhelming view of others. Your additions to the article are intrinsically flawed and attempt to invite views that are skewed toward an ignorance of his writings in their entirety. I've thoroughly read Kaufmann's view, and it is acceptable, but your methods of explicating these views are not permissable, and baselessly supercilious, as I've already stated. I'll repeat the conclusion in my previous post: "In summa, you must present a genuine issue and not misguided, delusional claims, which is one accountable reason among many for the deletion of your edits to the article, which I recently did [again]." — ignis scri pta 03:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I will not, at any time, accede to the garrulousness with which you intend to supplant my previous statements under the pretext I hold a kind of point of view that somehow, although the nature of this you have not conveyed clearly, precludes all negative interpretations of Nietzsche whatever nature they may be. By way of once more compounding the absurd nature of your claims, you yourself seemingly object to any possible view that would show Nietzsche according to his own terms, and this does not at all validate the peculiar behavior you have demonstrated hitherto. For nothing is suggestive of that which you have denominated in tactlessly vilifying terminology, insofar as no one with whom you have discussed holds a particular view over all others apropos Nietzsche, and therefore your various allegations do not serve you well as a crutch against their statements, which have their origin in regulative considerations (such as Wikipedia:NOR and Wikipedia:Cite your sources, which you have also failed to acknowledge; even in terms of simple scholarly methodology, you have employed such ludicrous schemata comparable to the deracination of Nietzsche's texts, destroying the first, genuine implications connected to these texts, thereby inviting any interpretation, usually according to your misguided assumptions, that would be assertained by them—as my exemplification validates four posts hence among others) that are axiomatic, serving a basis you cannot readily disregard. Now that these extrications have been established, the matter appears quite clear: In brief, you must address these guidlines appropriately and in like manner elaborate a contention that may be considered, therewith formulating a means toward the improvement of the article, which does indeed beg for how others have interpreted him (a formulation to which no one objects), and, as I and others have already stated, you have failed to do precisely this.
I will say it once more: the whole host of your premises have no basis at all as thus far indicated—what is more, I have indeed "shown" the absurdities of your snippet-mongering (and not only myself: did you read Kaufmann on this point? many others, Schacht et al., agree with him here)—and these have been and are essentially refuted. And at any rate, keep in mind this place is an encyclopedia, not a playground for your prejudices. — ignis scri pta 20:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
OJERTEP THU25MAY06: Here are the passages Petrejo tastelessly chops whichever way they pleases to distort, presented chronologically and in full; and, like others have pointed out, Petrejo's edits are (obviously) no good. Whenever a writer cites a passage, I might add, that writer realises the entirety of that passage, not to mention the entirety of the work where they come from, is implied by it, hence Petrejo's are distortions (as are Petrejo's claims false), for they interrupt this process. But since Petrejo has no shred of thought or decency, this obviously never came to mind. Play pleople false somewhere else, Petrejo, because no one will buy it; you have not cited even one source for your nonsense, but none exist for the claims you have made, and whatever your pretensions would hope for is beyond me.:
A declaration of [intellectual] war on the masses by higher men is needed! Everywhere the mediocre are combining in order to make themselves master! Everything that makes soft and effeminate, that serves the end of the “people” or the “feminine,” works in favor of suffrage universel, i.e., the domination of the inferior men. But we should take reprisal and bring this whole affair (which in Europe commenced with Christianity) to light and the bar of judgment.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sect. 861 (1884); trans. Walter Kaufmann'
The rights a man arrogates to himself are related to the duties he imposes on himself, to the tasks to which he feels equal. The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men. I do not yet grant the failures [den Missrathenen] the right. There are also peoples that are failures [missrathene Völker].
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 872 (1884)'
I beware of speaking of chemical “laws”: that savors of morality. It is far rather a question of the absolute establishment of power relationships: the stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence—here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for “laws”!
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 630 (1885)'
From now on there will be more favorable preconditions for more comprehensive forms of dominion, whose like has never yet existed. And even this is not the most importan thing; the possibility has been established for the production of the international racial unions whose task it will be to rear a master race, the future “masters of the earth”;—a new, thremendous aristocracy, based on the severest self-legislation, in which the will of philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will be made to endure for millenia—a higher kind of man who, thanks to their superiority in will, knowledge, riches, and influence, employ democratic Europe as their most pliant and supple instrument for getting hold of the destinies of the earth, so as to work as artists upon “man” himself. Enough: the time is coming when politics will have a different meaning.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., section 960 (1885–1886)'
Origin of the beautiful and ugly.—Biological value of the beautiful and the ugly.— That which is instinctively repugnant to us, aesthetically, is proved by mankind's longest experience to be harmful, dangerous, worthy of suspicion: the suddenly vocal aesthetic instinct (e.g., in disgust) contains a judgment. To this extent the beautiful stands within the general category of the biological values of what is useful, beneficient, life-enhancing—but in such a way that a host of stimuli that are only distantly associated with, and remind us only faintly of, useful things and states give us the feeling of the beautiful, i.e., of the increase of the feeling of power (—not merely things, therefore, but also the sensations that accompany such things, or symbols of them).
Thus the beautiful and the ugly are recognized as relative to our most fundamental values of preservation. It is senseless to want to posit anything as beautiful or ugly apart from this. The beautiful exists just as little as the good, or the true. In every case it is a question of the conditions of preservation of a certain type of man: thus the herd man will experience the value feeling of the beautiful in the presence of different things than will the exceptional or over-man.
It is the perspective of the foreground, which concerns itself only with the immediate consequences, from which the value of the beautiful (also of the good, also of the true) arises.
All insinctive judgments are shortsighted in regard to the chain of consequences: they advise what is to be done immediately. THe understanding is essentially a brake upon immediate reactions on the basis of instinctive judgments: it retards, it considers, it looks further along the chain of consequences.
Judgments concerning beauty and ugliness are shorsighted (—they are always opposed by the understanding—) but persuasive in the highest degree; they appeal to our instincts where they decide most quickly and pronounce their Yes and No before the understanding can speak.
The most habitual affirmations of beauty excite and stimulate each other; once the aesthetic drive is at work, a whole host of other perfections, originating elsewhere, crystallize around “the particular instance of beauty.” It is not possible to remain objective, or to suspend the interpretive, additive, interpolating, poetizing power (—the latter is the forging of the chain of affirmations of beauty). The sight of a “beautiful woman”—
Thus 1. the judgment of beauty is shortsighted, it sees only immediate consequences;
2. it lavishes upon the object that inspires it a magic conditioned by the association of various beauty judgments—that are quite alien to to the nautre of that object. To experience a thing as beautiful means: to experience it necessarily wrongly—(which, incidentally, is why marriage for love is, from the point of view of society, the most unreasonable kind of marriage).
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 804 (Spring-Fall 1887)'
The strong of the future.— That which partly necessity, partly chance has achieved here and there, the conditions for the production of a stronger type, we are now able to comprehend and consciously will: we are able to create the conditions under which such an elevation is possible.
Until now, “education” has had in view the needs of society: not the possible needs of the future, but the needs of the society of the day. One desired to produce “tools” for it. Assuming the wealth of force were greater, one could imagine forces being subtracted, not to serve the needs of society but some future need.
Such a task would have to be posed the more it was grasped to what extent the contemporary form of society was being so powerfully transformed that at some future time it would be unable to exist for its own sake alone, but only as a tool in the hands of a stronger race.
The increasing dwarfing of man is precisely the driving force that brings to midn the breeding of a stronger race—a race that would be excessive preciesly where the dwarfed species was weak and growing weaker (in will, responsibiity, self-assurance, ability to posit goals for oneself).
The means would be thos history teaches: isolation through interests in preservation that are the reverse of those which are average today; habituation to reverse evaluations; distances as pathos [i.e., grand affect]; a free conscience in those things that today are most undervalued and prohibited.
THe homogenizing of European man is the great process that cannot be obstructed: one shoudl even hasten it. The necessity to create a gulf, distance, order of rank, is given eo ipso—not the necessity to retard this process.
As soon as it is established, this homogenizing species requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former and can raise itself to its task only by doing this. Not merely a master race whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its own sphere of life., whith an excess of strenght for beauty, bravery, culture, manners to the highest peak of the spirit; an affirming race that many grant itself every great luxury—strong enough to have no need of the tyrrany of the virtue-imperative, rich enough to have no need of thrift and pedantry, beyond good and evil; a hothouse for strange and choice plants.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 898 (Spring-Fall 1887)'
Anti-Darwin.— What surprises me most when I survey the broad destinies of man is that I always see before me the opposite of that which Darwin and his school see or want to see today: selection in favor of the stronger, better-constituted, and the progress of the species. Precisely the opposite is palpable: the elimination of the lucky strokes, the uselessness of teh more highly developed types, the inevitable dominion of the average, even the sub-average types. If we are not shown why man should be an exception among creatures, I incline to the prejudice that the school of Darwin has been deluded everywhere.
That the will to power in which I recognize the ultimate ground and character of all change provides us with the reason why selection is not in favor of the exceptions and lucky strokes: the strongest and most fortunate are weak when opposed by organized herd instincts, by timidity of the weak, by the vast majority. My general view of the world of values shows that it is not the lucky strokes, the select types, that have the upper hand in the supreme values that are today [March-June 1888] placed over mankind; rather it is the decadent types—perhaps there is nothing in the world more interesting than this unwelcome spectacle—
Strange though it may sound, one always has to defend the strong against the weak; the fortunate against the unfortunate; the healthy against those degenerating and afflicted and hereditary taints. If one translates reality into a morality, this morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions; the decadent forms more than the mediocre; the will to nothingness has the upper hand over the will to life—and the overall aim is, in Christian, Buddhist, Schoperhauerian terms: “better not to be than be.”
I rebel against the translation of reality into morality: therefore I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred, because it created sublime words and gestures to throw over a horrible reality the cloak of justice, virtue, and divinity—
I see all philosophers, I see science kneeling before reality that is the reverse of the struggle for existence as taught by Darwin's school—that is to say, I see on top and surviving everywhere those who compromise life and the value of life.— The error of teh school of Darwin becomes a problem to me: how can one be so blind as to see so badly at this point?
That species represent any progress is the most unreasonable assertion in the world: so far they represent one level. That the higher organisms have evolved from the lower ones has not been demonstrated in a single case. I see how the lower preponderate through their numbbers, their shrewdness, their cunning—I do not see how an accidental variation gives an advantage, at least not for so long a period; why an accidental change should grow so strong would be something else needing explanation.
I find the “cruelty of nature,” of which so much is said, in another place: she is cruel towards her children of fortune, she spares and protects and loves les humbles, just as—
In summa: growth in the power of a species is perhaps guaranteed less by a preponderance of its children of fortune, of strong members, than by a preponderance of average and lower types— The latter possess great fruitfulness and duration; with the former coes an increase in danger, rapid wastage, speedy reduction in numbers.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 685 (March-June 1888), trans. Walter Kaufmann'
The states in which we infuse a transfiguration and a fullness into things and poetize about them until they reflect back our fullness and joy in life: sexuality; intoxication; feasting; spring; victory over an enemy , mockery; bravado; cruelty; the ecstacy of religious feeling. Three elements principally: sexuality, intoxication, cruelty—all belonging to the oldest festal joys of mankind, all also preponderate in the early“artist.”
Conversely, when we encounter things that display this transfiguration and fullness, the animal responds with an excitation of those spheres in which all those pleasurable states are situated—and a blending of these very delicate nuances of animal wellbeing and desires constitutes the aesthetic state. That latter appears only in natures capable of that bestowing and overflowing fullness of bodily vigor; it is this that is always the primum mobile. The sober, the weary, the exhausted, the dried-up (e.g., scholars) can receive absolutely nothing from art, because they do not possess the primary artistic force, teh pressure of abundance: whoever cannot give, also receives nothing.
“Perfection”: in these states (in the case of sexual love especially) there is naively revealed what the deepest instinct recognizes as higher, more desirable, more valuable in general, the upward movement of its type; also toward what status it really aspires. Perfection: that is the extraordinary expansion of its feeling of power, riches, necessary overflowing of all limits.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 801 (March-June 1888)'
Why the weak conquer. In summa: the sick and weak have more sympathy, are “more humane”—: the sick and weak have more spirit, are more changeable, various, entertaining—more malicious: it was the sick who invented malice. (A morbid precociousness is often found in the rickety, crofulous and tubercular—.) Esprit: quality of the late races: Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for possessing “spirit”—and money. Anti-Semites—another name for the “underprivileged.”)
The sick and weak have had fascination on their side: they are more interesting than the healty: the fool and the saint—the two most interesting kinds of man—closely related to them, the “genius.” The great “adventurers and criminals” and all men, especially most healty, are sick at certain periods in their lives:—the great emotions, the passions of power, love, revenge, are accompanied by profound disturbances. And as for decadence, it is represented in almost every sense by every man who does not die too soon:—thus he also knows from experience the instincts that belong to it:—almost every man is decadent for half of his life.
Finally: woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant—woman needs strength in order to cleave to it; she needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, and being humble as divine: or better, she makes the strong weak—she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with the types of decadence, the priests, against the “powerful,” the “strong,” the men—. Woman brings the children to the cult of piety, pity, love:—the mother represents altruism convincingly.
Finally: increasing civilization, which necessarily brings with it an increas in the morbid elements, in the neurotic-psychiatric and criminal. An intermediary species arises: the artist, restrained from crime by weakeness of will and social timidity, and not yet ripe for the madhouse, but reaching out inquisitively toward both spheres with his antennae: this specific culture plant, the modern artist, painter, musician, above all novelist, who describes his mode of life with the very inappropriate word “naturalism”— Lunatics, criminals, and “naturalists” are increasing: sign of a growing culture rushing on precipitately—i.e., the refuse, the waste, gain importance—the decline keeps pace.
Finally:the social hodgepodge, consequence of the Revolution, the establishment of equal rights, of the superstition of “equal men.” The bearers of the instincts of decline (of ressentiment, discontent, the drive to destroy, anarchism, and nihilsim), including the slave instincts, the instincts of cowardice, cunning, and canaille in those orders that have long been kept down, mingle with the blood of all classes: two, three geneerations later the race is no longer recognizable—everything has become mob. From this there results a collective instinct against selection, against privilege of all kinds, that is so powerful and self-assured, hard, and cruel in its operation, that the privileged themselves actually soon succumb to it: whoever still wants to retain power flatters the mob, works with the mov, must have the mob on its sid—the “geniuses” above all: they become heralds of those feelings with which one moves the masses—the note of sympathy, even reverence, for all that has lived a life of suffering, lowliness, contemp, persecution, sounds above all other notes (types: Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner).— The rise of the mob signifies once again the ascendancy of the old values.
Such an extreme movement in respect of tempo means as our civilization represents, shifts of men's center of gravity: those men who matter most, who have, as it were, the tast of compensating for the vast danger of such a morbid movement;—they will become procrastinators par excellence, slow to adopt, reluctant to let go, and relatively enduring in the midst of this tremendous change and mixture of elements. In such circumstances, the center of gravity necessarily shifts to the mediocre: against the dominion of the mob and of the eccentric (both are usually united), and mediocrity consolidates itself as the guarantee and bearer of the future. Thus emerges a new opponent for exceptional men—or a new seduction. Provided they do no accommodate themselves to the mob and try to flatter the instincts of the “disinherited,” they will have to be “mediocre” and “solid.” They know: mediocritas [mediocrity] is also aurea [gold]—indeed, it alone disposes of money and gold (—of all that glitters—) —And once more the old virtue, and the entire dated world of the ideal in general, gains a body of gifted advocates.— Result: mediocrity acquires spirit, wit, genius—it becomes entertaining, it seduces.
*
Result.— A high culture can stand only upon a broad base, upon a strong and healthy consolidated mediocrity. Science—and even art—work in its service and are severed by it. Science could not wish for a better situation: it belongs as such to a mediocre kind of man—it is out of place among the exceptional—it has nothing aristocratic, and even less anything anarchistic, in its instinct.
The power of the middle is, further, upheld by trade, above all trade in money: the instinct of great financiers goes against everything extreme—that is why the Jews are at present the most conserving power in our intensely threatened and insecure Europe. They can have no use for revolution, socialism, or militarism: if they desire and employ power, even over the revolutionary party, this is only a consequence of the aforesaid and not a contradiciton. They need occasionally to arouse fear of other extreme tendencies—by demonstrating how much power they have in their hands. But their instinct itself is unswervingly conservative—and “mediocre”— Wherever there is power, they know how to be powerful; but the employment of their power is always in one direction. The honorable term of mediocre is, of course, the word “liberal.”
*
Reflection.— It is absurd to assume that this whole victory of values is antibiological: one must try to explain it in terms of an interest life has in preserving the type “man” even trhough his method of dominance of the weak and the underpriviledged—: otherwise, man would cease to exist?—Problem———
The enhancement of the type fatal for the preservation of the species? Why?
History shows: the strong races decimate one another: through war, thirst for power, adventurousness; the strong affects: wastefulness—(strength is no longer hoarded, spiritual disturbance arises through excessive tension); their existence is costly; in brief—they ruin one another; periods of profound exhaustion and torpor supervene: all great ages are paid for— The strong are subsequently weaker, more devoid of will, more absurd than the weak average.
They are races that squander. “Duration” as such has no value: one might well prefer a shorter bu more vfaluable existence for the species.— It would remain to be proved that, even so, a richer yield of value would be gained than in the case of the shorter existence; i.e., that man as summation of strength acquires a much greater quantum of mastery over things if life is as it is— We stand before a problem of economics———
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sec. 864 (March-June 1888)'
Hi. I just wanted to make a little suggestion concerning the chapters 2 and 3. At the moment they give a view on many different thoughts of Nietzsche, but perhaps they should be merged. An outsider, who reads the text, would have problems to gain a general idea of Niezsche's work. I see two possible solutions, which would make things in my eyes clearer:
-- Kryston 23:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
A quick comment about Nietzsche's lack of training as a Philosopher that I would like to point out, although many of the more knowledgeable people who have already posted may have already made this point. At the time Nietzsche studied works of Philosophy, Philosophy was barely recognized as a subject of serious study in the German Univeristy System due to the politics of that day. I quote Dr. John McCumber's own lectures in this. But it is true. That is why Friedrich Nietzsche became, at the request of his professor, a Swiss Citizen. User:StarShadow 02:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I am referring to the section "A Brief Introduction to the Dark Side of Nietzsche". These are the problems I see with this:
I would argue that same applies to all other quotations peppered throughout the article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
These elicitations aside, Kaufmann's translations are, as broad testimony may validate, such that very few ascertain a comparable level of correspondency to Nietzsche's tropical depth and underlying intent within the English-speaking world (of course, this is not to say others' are "bad" or his are "the best"—simply stated, Kaufmann's are widely considered to be the "standard" ones, e.g., as Schacht articulates in his Nietzsche, in academic terms), and thus they don't compound the issue at hand. I also suggest, Kryston, if you mean to contribute to the English article, reading Kaufmann's translations would be a great facilitation and in your best interest as regards to overall familiarity. — ignis scri pta 13:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Has anyone yet considered keeping Nietzsche quotes where useful, but leaving interpretation to the experts? That is, quotes from Nietzsche are fine, but not when they are intended to lead to a particular interpretation. In these cases, such interpretations should be cited to some author, and Nietzsche quotes within them would again be fine. - Smahoney 15:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
It looks to me as if there has been some tendency from both sides of this debate to lose sight of creating an NPOV article and instead focus on countering the other, which is understandable given the way we all respond, by just becoming more adamant, to heated situations. Since everyone seems to agree that the article needs work, or even a complete rewrite, my next suggestion would be that everyone participating here create a list of points (not quotes or exact text) that they would like to see incorporated into a final article, keeping in mind my first point. - Smahoney 04:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
...This morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions...I rebel against the translation of reality into morality: therefore 'I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred.'
— Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sec. 685, trans. Walter Kaufmann'
That should do for now as an initial bulleted list. I reserve the right to revise and extend my list as the debate ensues. Petrejo 19:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Here is my short list/addition.
There are more, but as progression is made these will be in purview. One last note, I will not be able to contribute much this week—only a few sparse things due to work and occurrences outside of this place. I'm not sure when these things will relent, but I will try keep an eye on how things develop here and help when I can. — ignis scri pta 20:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
The reason I changed the end of the paragraph (which you then reverted) was that it didn't make sense. Think about it: Here's the ending you want: ... the crisis faced by Western culture in the wake of the irreparable disturbances to its traditional foundations (i.e., "European morality" and values in Nietzsche's phrase). But Western culture includes morality; and "Western" means European, for Nietzsche. This means the ending you want is: ... the crisis faced by Western culture in the wake of the irreparable disturbances to its traditional foundations (i.e., "Western culture" and values in Nietzsche's phrase). So it sounds like Western culture is disturbed by its foundations, which = Western culture. So Western culture is disturbed by Western culture. Nietzsche has two genealogies dealing with the traditional foundations of Western culture: the one starting with Socrates, and the one starting the Jews and Jesus. (One doesn't need a reference for that!) That's why I made the change I did. Otherwise, the sentence doesn't make sense. Cultural Freedom talk 21:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Originally i entered a snippet in the section regarding his influence and the Dreyfus Affair. I simply stated that French anti-semites casted Jewish and Leftist intellectuals as Nietschean. Someone changed this sentence to imply that this is part of the 'confused reception' of Nietzsche. I consider this a tacit value judgment about 'right wing' content of Nietzsche's philosophy!
You know, I prefer the previous, minimalistic version with just the link to Kierkegaard comparisons under "see also". Is it necessary to have so many "see also" links in this already excessively long article? These are all linked to in the article body. So many articles could be linked to, where does it end? I suspect that this is our Stirner-pushing friend at work again. — goethean ॐ 20:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm inclined to agree on the simple point there are simply too many, and those worth mentioning are already clearly addressed within the article. I'll delete them if there are no objections. — ignis scri pta 20:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
You of course were meaning to link to this version, correct? — ignis scri pta 20:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Just as a bit of info: Any article linked to in the article body should not be linked to in the "see also" section. And the "see also" section should primarily be used as a way to store links until they are eventually incorporated into the article body. - Smahoney 20:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I suggest, to shorten the article, one of three options: either move the political and views on women to a new article called Nietzsche's social and political views, or to move the Reception of Nietzsche section to a new article, or move both sections to new articles. We will leave one paragraph and use Wikipedia:Summary style, as with the other sections. Thoughts? — goethean ॐ 19:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I like your first option, because the "social and political" views are for the oversensitive who like to nitpick against Nietzsche and what he's all about. The rest belongs in this article, wouldn't you think? Non-vandal 20:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Hey, Goethean, I noticed how you replaced the text I deleted (the very bottom paragraph at the influences and reception section) and added another paragraph that had long been deleted. I actually object to the place of both in the article right now, because, as you noticed, I was trying to limit the extent of the section with a subsection "In philosophy". Well, right now, I think we should keep our focus small. There's too much we'd have to include if we just list "Nietzsche influenced, X, Y, Z [the whole alphabet]" without actually explaining how this is so and of what importance it actually carries. I agree I should have discussed, but here I am now. I've removed them, and placed them here for whatever. Non-vandal 01:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
From the article:
Early twentieth-century thinkers influenced by Nietzsche include: philosophers Georg Brandes, Henri Bergson, Martin Buber, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Aleister Crowley, and Muhammad Iqbal; sociologist Max Weber; theologian Paul Tillich; novelists Hermann Hesse, André Malraux, André Gide, and D. H. Lawrence; psychologists Alfred Adler, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May; popular philosopher Ayn Rand; poets Rainer Maria Rilke, James Douglas Morrison, and William Butler Yeats; and playwrights George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill. American writer H.L. Mencken avidly read and translated Nietzsche's works and has gained the soubriquet "the American Nietzsche".
Harold Bloom has described Nietzsche as " Emerson's belated rival". Bloom's theory of the "anxiety of influence" betrays a Nietzschean influence. Others influenced by Nietzsche include "Death of God"-theologian Thomas Altizer, and novelists Nikos Kazantzakis, Mikhail Artsybashev, and Lu Xun. Nietzsche also influenced musician Jim Morrison, and Anton LaVey, the Church of Satan and Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Nietzsche never claims directly that God is dead, so I made a few changes to reflect that. If anyone can find a quote where Nietzsche directly makes this claim, please let us know. Cultural Freedom 10:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I see your point -- but is the current version OK? Cultural Freedom 14:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I know of only Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, section 108. Any others? To Chef aka Pangloss, thanks for the reminder about Section 108; about my claims: they are hardly speculation, but I'll leave them out until I recall something to cite. Best, Cultural Freedom talk 18:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure about using the literal translation, Overman, in place of Übermensch. The German word über is used in a much more general context than the English over, so I think, rather than a literal translation, it should be either left as Übermensch with "Overman or Superman" written in brackets on the first instance, or Superman should be used with the alternative Overman given. Übermensch has become a well accepted term in English in relation to Nietzche, so I am in favour of the former option. In various books, I've seen all three forms (Übermensch, Overman and Superman), but I just think Overman looks a bit silly, because it doesn't really make sense in English, whereas Superman (derived from supercede) makes a bit more sense. Opinions? -- Nathan ( Talk) 01:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Check this out. Things have slowed down here. But I think these guys will get around to it. Eventually. Non-vandal 09:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe the revisions made in the section about the Ubermench need to be coincidered for assimilation,they are varified by Nietzsche scholarship.
Would anyone object to a small section on 'decadence' under Key Concepts? I was thinking something like this (taken from http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cult/CultScot.htm):
"While Nietzsche used the term "decadence" throughout his published writings, in the late works he used it more frequently, and it took on the status of a technical term. Decadence, for Nietzsche, refers to the decay of values, which Nietzsche thought was inevitable because they are basically rationales for existence, and since there is no objective truth they can only be subjectively true-true only for certain people and certain times. When they are no longer true, they decay. Nietzsche claimed that decadence was the problem which "preoccupied [him] more profoundly" than any other because this inevitable decay of values was a threat to the culture, and by extension, the human species. (1) Values or rationales for existence are so important because in order to survive, let alone flourish, human beings require the creation of values. These values provide rationales for why we suffer and aid us in surviving and hopefully flourishing in spite of that suffering. (2) Without them, Nietzsche claimed that we would be in a condition of nihilism which would lead to mass suicide. Since Nietzsche placed value on a culture based on the type of great, flourishing individuals it produces, if its values are in decay, then it will be unable to produce these great individuals and it will be in decay. This then is the paradox of decadence: human beings have to create values, but any values that they will create will eventually decay."
And a section on 'the will to power' (the idea, not the book) should also be included, I think. These should be brief of course, but after deleting these unnecesary quotations they should fit in nicely. Dume7 16:57, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the decadence section will be duly considered, in fact it has my support, but at this point the article still remarkably lacks coherence. Additionally, I think the new topic will have to go after the Christianity section. — ignis scri pta 17:02, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
In the article, it says his name comes from a king or something? You mean, I'm guessing, his parents named him after that king? Could someone rephrase that a tad? Niki Whimbrel 17:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if this all seems a bit anal of me, but in the sidebar, the Apollonian and Dionysian links in Notable ideas go to the same place, and I wonder if making them one link might be easier. Niki Whimbrel 18:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
One more--regarding Salome and his pursuit of her, the article says he pursued her "despite their mutual friend Ree." Was Ree (sorry, I've not yet learned to use accent marks) also interested in Salome? Niki Whimbrel 02:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the huge and becoming-more-political references section. Why: this article needs real references. Non-vandal 07:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
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I've reverted these.
The first, 'later called' and comment about not getting a degree in phil - the sentence is already quite long, and N's claim to being a philosopher is to do with his books and the people he influenced.
The N quotes I've removed because they were a typical selection of the strength and master-race bits, edited to distort:
The homogenizing of European man 'is the great process that cannot be obstructed ... blah ... as soon as it is established, it ' requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former which can raise itself to its task only by doing this. Not merely a Master Race whose sole task is to rule, but a Race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of strength 'for beauty, bravery, culture etc etc'...strong enough to have no need of the tyranny of the virtue-imperative.'
— Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sec. 898, trans. Walter Kaufmann'
'If one translates reality into a morality, this' morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions...[several lines omitted] 'I rebel against the transaltion of reality into morality: therefore' I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred.'
— Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sec. 685, trans. Walter Kaufmann
You can't take sentence fragments you like and bung them together with any writer, especially not Nietzsche.
The one about women is not sec. 184
-- Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 08:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind. '
— Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human'
I see nothing implicitly "hateful" with the quote (from sect. 475 of Human, All-Too-Human: he's stating, in an extremely broad context, it is possible that man as nature ("Homo Natura") must be realized as such, and is inherently immoral. Here's how it appears in a fuller context, giving a much more particular vantagepoint, from the selfsame section:
Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only within national states, inasmuch as their energy and higher intelligence, their capital of spirit and will, which accumulated from generation to generation in the long school of their suffering, must predominate to a degree that awakens envy and hatred; and so, in the literature of nearly all present-day nations (and, in fact, in proportion to their renewed nationalistic behavior), there is an increase in the literary misconduct that leads the Jews to the slaughterhouse, as scapegoats for every possible public and private misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations, but rather of producing the strongest possible mixed European race, the Jew becomes as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national quantity. Every nation, every man has disagreeable, even dangerous characteristics; it is cruel to demand that the Jew should be an exception. Those characteristics may even be especially dangerous and frightful in him, and perhaps the youthful Jew of the stock exchange is the most repugnant invention of the whole human race. Nevertheless, I would like to know how much one must excuse in the overall accounting of a people which, not without guilt on all our parts, has had the most sorrowful history of all peoples, and to whom we owe the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world.
(My emphasis.)
In any case, that he is a philosopher, as I said very clearly, is not my "opinion" but the overwhelming view of others. Your additions to the article are intrinsically flawed and attempt to invite views that are skewed toward an ignorance of his writings in their entirety. I've thoroughly read Kaufmann's view, and it is acceptable, but your methods of explicating these views are not permissable, and baselessly supercilious, as I've already stated. I'll repeat the conclusion in my previous post: "In summa, you must present a genuine issue and not misguided, delusional claims, which is one accountable reason among many for the deletion of your edits to the article, which I recently did [again]." — ignis scri pta 03:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I will not, at any time, accede to the garrulousness with which you intend to supplant my previous statements under the pretext I hold a kind of point of view that somehow, although the nature of this you have not conveyed clearly, precludes all negative interpretations of Nietzsche whatever nature they may be. By way of once more compounding the absurd nature of your claims, you yourself seemingly object to any possible view that would show Nietzsche according to his own terms, and this does not at all validate the peculiar behavior you have demonstrated hitherto. For nothing is suggestive of that which you have denominated in tactlessly vilifying terminology, insofar as no one with whom you have discussed holds a particular view over all others apropos Nietzsche, and therefore your various allegations do not serve you well as a crutch against their statements, which have their origin in regulative considerations (such as Wikipedia:NOR and Wikipedia:Cite your sources, which you have also failed to acknowledge; even in terms of simple scholarly methodology, you have employed such ludicrous schemata comparable to the deracination of Nietzsche's texts, destroying the first, genuine implications connected to these texts, thereby inviting any interpretation, usually according to your misguided assumptions, that would be assertained by them—as my exemplification validates four posts hence among others) that are axiomatic, serving a basis you cannot readily disregard. Now that these extrications have been established, the matter appears quite clear: In brief, you must address these guidlines appropriately and in like manner elaborate a contention that may be considered, therewith formulating a means toward the improvement of the article, which does indeed beg for how others have interpreted him (a formulation to which no one objects), and, as I and others have already stated, you have failed to do precisely this.
I will say it once more: the whole host of your premises have no basis at all as thus far indicated—what is more, I have indeed "shown" the absurdities of your snippet-mongering (and not only myself: did you read Kaufmann on this point? many others, Schacht et al., agree with him here)—and these have been and are essentially refuted. And at any rate, keep in mind this place is an encyclopedia, not a playground for your prejudices. — ignis scri pta 20:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
OJERTEP THU25MAY06: Here are the passages Petrejo tastelessly chops whichever way they pleases to distort, presented chronologically and in full; and, like others have pointed out, Petrejo's edits are (obviously) no good. Whenever a writer cites a passage, I might add, that writer realises the entirety of that passage, not to mention the entirety of the work where they come from, is implied by it, hence Petrejo's are distortions (as are Petrejo's claims false), for they interrupt this process. But since Petrejo has no shred of thought or decency, this obviously never came to mind. Play pleople false somewhere else, Petrejo, because no one will buy it; you have not cited even one source for your nonsense, but none exist for the claims you have made, and whatever your pretensions would hope for is beyond me.:
A declaration of [intellectual] war on the masses by higher men is needed! Everywhere the mediocre are combining in order to make themselves master! Everything that makes soft and effeminate, that serves the end of the “people” or the “feminine,” works in favor of suffrage universel, i.e., the domination of the inferior men. But we should take reprisal and bring this whole affair (which in Europe commenced with Christianity) to light and the bar of judgment.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sect. 861 (1884); trans. Walter Kaufmann'
The rights a man arrogates to himself are related to the duties he imposes on himself, to the tasks to which he feels equal. The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men. I do not yet grant the failures [den Missrathenen] the right. There are also peoples that are failures [missrathene Völker].
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 872 (1884)'
I beware of speaking of chemical “laws”: that savors of morality. It is far rather a question of the absolute establishment of power relationships: the stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence—here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for “laws”!
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 630 (1885)'
From now on there will be more favorable preconditions for more comprehensive forms of dominion, whose like has never yet existed. And even this is not the most importan thing; the possibility has been established for the production of the international racial unions whose task it will be to rear a master race, the future “masters of the earth”;—a new, thremendous aristocracy, based on the severest self-legislation, in which the will of philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will be made to endure for millenia—a higher kind of man who, thanks to their superiority in will, knowledge, riches, and influence, employ democratic Europe as their most pliant and supple instrument for getting hold of the destinies of the earth, so as to work as artists upon “man” himself. Enough: the time is coming when politics will have a different meaning.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., section 960 (1885–1886)'
Origin of the beautiful and ugly.—Biological value of the beautiful and the ugly.— That which is instinctively repugnant to us, aesthetically, is proved by mankind's longest experience to be harmful, dangerous, worthy of suspicion: the suddenly vocal aesthetic instinct (e.g., in disgust) contains a judgment. To this extent the beautiful stands within the general category of the biological values of what is useful, beneficient, life-enhancing—but in such a way that a host of stimuli that are only distantly associated with, and remind us only faintly of, useful things and states give us the feeling of the beautiful, i.e., of the increase of the feeling of power (—not merely things, therefore, but also the sensations that accompany such things, or symbols of them).
Thus the beautiful and the ugly are recognized as relative to our most fundamental values of preservation. It is senseless to want to posit anything as beautiful or ugly apart from this. The beautiful exists just as little as the good, or the true. In every case it is a question of the conditions of preservation of a certain type of man: thus the herd man will experience the value feeling of the beautiful in the presence of different things than will the exceptional or over-man.
It is the perspective of the foreground, which concerns itself only with the immediate consequences, from which the value of the beautiful (also of the good, also of the true) arises.
All insinctive judgments are shortsighted in regard to the chain of consequences: they advise what is to be done immediately. THe understanding is essentially a brake upon immediate reactions on the basis of instinctive judgments: it retards, it considers, it looks further along the chain of consequences.
Judgments concerning beauty and ugliness are shorsighted (—they are always opposed by the understanding—) but persuasive in the highest degree; they appeal to our instincts where they decide most quickly and pronounce their Yes and No before the understanding can speak.
The most habitual affirmations of beauty excite and stimulate each other; once the aesthetic drive is at work, a whole host of other perfections, originating elsewhere, crystallize around “the particular instance of beauty.” It is not possible to remain objective, or to suspend the interpretive, additive, interpolating, poetizing power (—the latter is the forging of the chain of affirmations of beauty). The sight of a “beautiful woman”—
Thus 1. the judgment of beauty is shortsighted, it sees only immediate consequences;
2. it lavishes upon the object that inspires it a magic conditioned by the association of various beauty judgments—that are quite alien to to the nautre of that object. To experience a thing as beautiful means: to experience it necessarily wrongly—(which, incidentally, is why marriage for love is, from the point of view of society, the most unreasonable kind of marriage).
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 804 (Spring-Fall 1887)'
The strong of the future.— That which partly necessity, partly chance has achieved here and there, the conditions for the production of a stronger type, we are now able to comprehend and consciously will: we are able to create the conditions under which such an elevation is possible.
Until now, “education” has had in view the needs of society: not the possible needs of the future, but the needs of the society of the day. One desired to produce “tools” for it. Assuming the wealth of force were greater, one could imagine forces being subtracted, not to serve the needs of society but some future need.
Such a task would have to be posed the more it was grasped to what extent the contemporary form of society was being so powerfully transformed that at some future time it would be unable to exist for its own sake alone, but only as a tool in the hands of a stronger race.
The increasing dwarfing of man is precisely the driving force that brings to midn the breeding of a stronger race—a race that would be excessive preciesly where the dwarfed species was weak and growing weaker (in will, responsibiity, self-assurance, ability to posit goals for oneself).
The means would be thos history teaches: isolation through interests in preservation that are the reverse of those which are average today; habituation to reverse evaluations; distances as pathos [i.e., grand affect]; a free conscience in those things that today are most undervalued and prohibited.
THe homogenizing of European man is the great process that cannot be obstructed: one shoudl even hasten it. The necessity to create a gulf, distance, order of rank, is given eo ipso—not the necessity to retard this process.
As soon as it is established, this homogenizing species requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former and can raise itself to its task only by doing this. Not merely a master race whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its own sphere of life., whith an excess of strenght for beauty, bravery, culture, manners to the highest peak of the spirit; an affirming race that many grant itself every great luxury—strong enough to have no need of the tyrrany of the virtue-imperative, rich enough to have no need of thrift and pedantry, beyond good and evil; a hothouse for strange and choice plants.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 898 (Spring-Fall 1887)'
Anti-Darwin.— What surprises me most when I survey the broad destinies of man is that I always see before me the opposite of that which Darwin and his school see or want to see today: selection in favor of the stronger, better-constituted, and the progress of the species. Precisely the opposite is palpable: the elimination of the lucky strokes, the uselessness of teh more highly developed types, the inevitable dominion of the average, even the sub-average types. If we are not shown why man should be an exception among creatures, I incline to the prejudice that the school of Darwin has been deluded everywhere.
That the will to power in which I recognize the ultimate ground and character of all change provides us with the reason why selection is not in favor of the exceptions and lucky strokes: the strongest and most fortunate are weak when opposed by organized herd instincts, by timidity of the weak, by the vast majority. My general view of the world of values shows that it is not the lucky strokes, the select types, that have the upper hand in the supreme values that are today [March-June 1888] placed over mankind; rather it is the decadent types—perhaps there is nothing in the world more interesting than this unwelcome spectacle—
Strange though it may sound, one always has to defend the strong against the weak; the fortunate against the unfortunate; the healthy against those degenerating and afflicted and hereditary taints. If one translates reality into a morality, this morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions; the decadent forms more than the mediocre; the will to nothingness has the upper hand over the will to life—and the overall aim is, in Christian, Buddhist, Schoperhauerian terms: “better not to be than be.”
I rebel against the translation of reality into morality: therefore I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred, because it created sublime words and gestures to throw over a horrible reality the cloak of justice, virtue, and divinity—
I see all philosophers, I see science kneeling before reality that is the reverse of the struggle for existence as taught by Darwin's school—that is to say, I see on top and surviving everywhere those who compromise life and the value of life.— The error of teh school of Darwin becomes a problem to me: how can one be so blind as to see so badly at this point?
That species represent any progress is the most unreasonable assertion in the world: so far they represent one level. That the higher organisms have evolved from the lower ones has not been demonstrated in a single case. I see how the lower preponderate through their numbbers, their shrewdness, their cunning—I do not see how an accidental variation gives an advantage, at least not for so long a period; why an accidental change should grow so strong would be something else needing explanation.
I find the “cruelty of nature,” of which so much is said, in another place: she is cruel towards her children of fortune, she spares and protects and loves les humbles, just as—
In summa: growth in the power of a species is perhaps guaranteed less by a preponderance of its children of fortune, of strong members, than by a preponderance of average and lower types— The latter possess great fruitfulness and duration; with the former coes an increase in danger, rapid wastage, speedy reduction in numbers.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 685 (March-June 1888), trans. Walter Kaufmann'
The states in which we infuse a transfiguration and a fullness into things and poetize about them until they reflect back our fullness and joy in life: sexuality; intoxication; feasting; spring; victory over an enemy , mockery; bravado; cruelty; the ecstacy of religious feeling. Three elements principally: sexuality, intoxication, cruelty—all belonging to the oldest festal joys of mankind, all also preponderate in the early“artist.”
Conversely, when we encounter things that display this transfiguration and fullness, the animal responds with an excitation of those spheres in which all those pleasurable states are situated—and a blending of these very delicate nuances of animal wellbeing and desires constitutes the aesthetic state. That latter appears only in natures capable of that bestowing and overflowing fullness of bodily vigor; it is this that is always the primum mobile. The sober, the weary, the exhausted, the dried-up (e.g., scholars) can receive absolutely nothing from art, because they do not possess the primary artistic force, teh pressure of abundance: whoever cannot give, also receives nothing.
“Perfection”: in these states (in the case of sexual love especially) there is naively revealed what the deepest instinct recognizes as higher, more desirable, more valuable in general, the upward movement of its type; also toward what status it really aspires. Perfection: that is the extraordinary expansion of its feeling of power, riches, necessary overflowing of all limits.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sect. 801 (March-June 1888)'
Why the weak conquer. In summa: the sick and weak have more sympathy, are “more humane”—: the sick and weak have more spirit, are more changeable, various, entertaining—more malicious: it was the sick who invented malice. (A morbid precociousness is often found in the rickety, crofulous and tubercular—.) Esprit: quality of the late races: Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for possessing “spirit”—and money. Anti-Semites—another name for the “underprivileged.”)
The sick and weak have had fascination on their side: they are more interesting than the healty: the fool and the saint—the two most interesting kinds of man—closely related to them, the “genius.” The great “adventurers and criminals” and all men, especially most healty, are sick at certain periods in their lives:—the great emotions, the passions of power, love, revenge, are accompanied by profound disturbances. And as for decadence, it is represented in almost every sense by every man who does not die too soon:—thus he also knows from experience the instincts that belong to it:—almost every man is decadent for half of his life.
Finally: woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant—woman needs strength in order to cleave to it; she needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, and being humble as divine: or better, she makes the strong weak—she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with the types of decadence, the priests, against the “powerful,” the “strong,” the men—. Woman brings the children to the cult of piety, pity, love:—the mother represents altruism convincingly.
Finally: increasing civilization, which necessarily brings with it an increas in the morbid elements, in the neurotic-psychiatric and criminal. An intermediary species arises: the artist, restrained from crime by weakeness of will and social timidity, and not yet ripe for the madhouse, but reaching out inquisitively toward both spheres with his antennae: this specific culture plant, the modern artist, painter, musician, above all novelist, who describes his mode of life with the very inappropriate word “naturalism”— Lunatics, criminals, and “naturalists” are increasing: sign of a growing culture rushing on precipitately—i.e., the refuse, the waste, gain importance—the decline keeps pace.
Finally:the social hodgepodge, consequence of the Revolution, the establishment of equal rights, of the superstition of “equal men.” The bearers of the instincts of decline (of ressentiment, discontent, the drive to destroy, anarchism, and nihilsim), including the slave instincts, the instincts of cowardice, cunning, and canaille in those orders that have long been kept down, mingle with the blood of all classes: two, three geneerations later the race is no longer recognizable—everything has become mob. From this there results a collective instinct against selection, against privilege of all kinds, that is so powerful and self-assured, hard, and cruel in its operation, that the privileged themselves actually soon succumb to it: whoever still wants to retain power flatters the mob, works with the mov, must have the mob on its sid—the “geniuses” above all: they become heralds of those feelings with which one moves the masses—the note of sympathy, even reverence, for all that has lived a life of suffering, lowliness, contemp, persecution, sounds above all other notes (types: Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner).— The rise of the mob signifies once again the ascendancy of the old values.
Such an extreme movement in respect of tempo means as our civilization represents, shifts of men's center of gravity: those men who matter most, who have, as it were, the tast of compensating for the vast danger of such a morbid movement;—they will become procrastinators par excellence, slow to adopt, reluctant to let go, and relatively enduring in the midst of this tremendous change and mixture of elements. In such circumstances, the center of gravity necessarily shifts to the mediocre: against the dominion of the mob and of the eccentric (both are usually united), and mediocrity consolidates itself as the guarantee and bearer of the future. Thus emerges a new opponent for exceptional men—or a new seduction. Provided they do no accommodate themselves to the mob and try to flatter the instincts of the “disinherited,” they will have to be “mediocre” and “solid.” They know: mediocritas [mediocrity] is also aurea [gold]—indeed, it alone disposes of money and gold (—of all that glitters—) —And once more the old virtue, and the entire dated world of the ideal in general, gains a body of gifted advocates.— Result: mediocrity acquires spirit, wit, genius—it becomes entertaining, it seduces.
*
Result.— A high culture can stand only upon a broad base, upon a strong and healthy consolidated mediocrity. Science—and even art—work in its service and are severed by it. Science could not wish for a better situation: it belongs as such to a mediocre kind of man—it is out of place among the exceptional—it has nothing aristocratic, and even less anything anarchistic, in its instinct.
The power of the middle is, further, upheld by trade, above all trade in money: the instinct of great financiers goes against everything extreme—that is why the Jews are at present the most conserving power in our intensely threatened and insecure Europe. They can have no use for revolution, socialism, or militarism: if they desire and employ power, even over the revolutionary party, this is only a consequence of the aforesaid and not a contradiciton. They need occasionally to arouse fear of other extreme tendencies—by demonstrating how much power they have in their hands. But their instinct itself is unswervingly conservative—and “mediocre”— Wherever there is power, they know how to be powerful; but the employment of their power is always in one direction. The honorable term of mediocre is, of course, the word “liberal.”
*
Reflection.— It is absurd to assume that this whole victory of values is antibiological: one must try to explain it in terms of an interest life has in preserving the type “man” even trhough his method of dominance of the weak and the underpriviledged—: otherwise, man would cease to exist?—Problem———
The enhancement of the type fatal for the preservation of the species? Why?
History shows: the strong races decimate one another: through war, thirst for power, adventurousness; the strong affects: wastefulness—(strength is no longer hoarded, spiritual disturbance arises through excessive tension); their existence is costly; in brief—they ruin one another; periods of profound exhaustion and torpor supervene: all great ages are paid for— The strong are subsequently weaker, more devoid of will, more absurd than the weak average.
They are races that squander. “Duration” as such has no value: one might well prefer a shorter bu more vfaluable existence for the species.— It would remain to be proved that, even so, a richer yield of value would be gained than in the case of the shorter existence; i.e., that man as summation of strength acquires a much greater quantum of mastery over things if life is as it is— We stand before a problem of economics———
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibid., sec. 864 (March-June 1888)'
Hi. I just wanted to make a little suggestion concerning the chapters 2 and 3. At the moment they give a view on many different thoughts of Nietzsche, but perhaps they should be merged. An outsider, who reads the text, would have problems to gain a general idea of Niezsche's work. I see two possible solutions, which would make things in my eyes clearer:
-- Kryston 23:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
A quick comment about Nietzsche's lack of training as a Philosopher that I would like to point out, although many of the more knowledgeable people who have already posted may have already made this point. At the time Nietzsche studied works of Philosophy, Philosophy was barely recognized as a subject of serious study in the German Univeristy System due to the politics of that day. I quote Dr. John McCumber's own lectures in this. But it is true. That is why Friedrich Nietzsche became, at the request of his professor, a Swiss Citizen. User:StarShadow 02:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I am referring to the section "A Brief Introduction to the Dark Side of Nietzsche". These are the problems I see with this:
I would argue that same applies to all other quotations peppered throughout the article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
These elicitations aside, Kaufmann's translations are, as broad testimony may validate, such that very few ascertain a comparable level of correspondency to Nietzsche's tropical depth and underlying intent within the English-speaking world (of course, this is not to say others' are "bad" or his are "the best"—simply stated, Kaufmann's are widely considered to be the "standard" ones, e.g., as Schacht articulates in his Nietzsche, in academic terms), and thus they don't compound the issue at hand. I also suggest, Kryston, if you mean to contribute to the English article, reading Kaufmann's translations would be a great facilitation and in your best interest as regards to overall familiarity. — ignis scri pta 13:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Has anyone yet considered keeping Nietzsche quotes where useful, but leaving interpretation to the experts? That is, quotes from Nietzsche are fine, but not when they are intended to lead to a particular interpretation. In these cases, such interpretations should be cited to some author, and Nietzsche quotes within them would again be fine. - Smahoney 15:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
It looks to me as if there has been some tendency from both sides of this debate to lose sight of creating an NPOV article and instead focus on countering the other, which is understandable given the way we all respond, by just becoming more adamant, to heated situations. Since everyone seems to agree that the article needs work, or even a complete rewrite, my next suggestion would be that everyone participating here create a list of points (not quotes or exact text) that they would like to see incorporated into a final article, keeping in mind my first point. - Smahoney 04:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
...This morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions...I rebel against the translation of reality into morality: therefore 'I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred.'
— Nietzsche, The Will to Power, sec. 685, trans. Walter Kaufmann'
That should do for now as an initial bulleted list. I reserve the right to revise and extend my list as the debate ensues. Petrejo 19:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Here is my short list/addition.
There are more, but as progression is made these will be in purview. One last note, I will not be able to contribute much this week—only a few sparse things due to work and occurrences outside of this place. I'm not sure when these things will relent, but I will try keep an eye on how things develop here and help when I can. — ignis scri pta 20:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
The reason I changed the end of the paragraph (which you then reverted) was that it didn't make sense. Think about it: Here's the ending you want: ... the crisis faced by Western culture in the wake of the irreparable disturbances to its traditional foundations (i.e., "European morality" and values in Nietzsche's phrase). But Western culture includes morality; and "Western" means European, for Nietzsche. This means the ending you want is: ... the crisis faced by Western culture in the wake of the irreparable disturbances to its traditional foundations (i.e., "Western culture" and values in Nietzsche's phrase). So it sounds like Western culture is disturbed by its foundations, which = Western culture. So Western culture is disturbed by Western culture. Nietzsche has two genealogies dealing with the traditional foundations of Western culture: the one starting with Socrates, and the one starting the Jews and Jesus. (One doesn't need a reference for that!) That's why I made the change I did. Otherwise, the sentence doesn't make sense. Cultural Freedom talk 21:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Originally i entered a snippet in the section regarding his influence and the Dreyfus Affair. I simply stated that French anti-semites casted Jewish and Leftist intellectuals as Nietschean. Someone changed this sentence to imply that this is part of the 'confused reception' of Nietzsche. I consider this a tacit value judgment about 'right wing' content of Nietzsche's philosophy!
You know, I prefer the previous, minimalistic version with just the link to Kierkegaard comparisons under "see also". Is it necessary to have so many "see also" links in this already excessively long article? These are all linked to in the article body. So many articles could be linked to, where does it end? I suspect that this is our Stirner-pushing friend at work again. — goethean ॐ 20:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm inclined to agree on the simple point there are simply too many, and those worth mentioning are already clearly addressed within the article. I'll delete them if there are no objections. — ignis scri pta 20:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
You of course were meaning to link to this version, correct? — ignis scri pta 20:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Just as a bit of info: Any article linked to in the article body should not be linked to in the "see also" section. And the "see also" section should primarily be used as a way to store links until they are eventually incorporated into the article body. - Smahoney 20:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I suggest, to shorten the article, one of three options: either move the political and views on women to a new article called Nietzsche's social and political views, or to move the Reception of Nietzsche section to a new article, or move both sections to new articles. We will leave one paragraph and use Wikipedia:Summary style, as with the other sections. Thoughts? — goethean ॐ 19:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I like your first option, because the "social and political" views are for the oversensitive who like to nitpick against Nietzsche and what he's all about. The rest belongs in this article, wouldn't you think? Non-vandal 20:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Hey, Goethean, I noticed how you replaced the text I deleted (the very bottom paragraph at the influences and reception section) and added another paragraph that had long been deleted. I actually object to the place of both in the article right now, because, as you noticed, I was trying to limit the extent of the section with a subsection "In philosophy". Well, right now, I think we should keep our focus small. There's too much we'd have to include if we just list "Nietzsche influenced, X, Y, Z [the whole alphabet]" without actually explaining how this is so and of what importance it actually carries. I agree I should have discussed, but here I am now. I've removed them, and placed them here for whatever. Non-vandal 01:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
From the article:
Early twentieth-century thinkers influenced by Nietzsche include: philosophers Georg Brandes, Henri Bergson, Martin Buber, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Aleister Crowley, and Muhammad Iqbal; sociologist Max Weber; theologian Paul Tillich; novelists Hermann Hesse, André Malraux, André Gide, and D. H. Lawrence; psychologists Alfred Adler, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May; popular philosopher Ayn Rand; poets Rainer Maria Rilke, James Douglas Morrison, and William Butler Yeats; and playwrights George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill. American writer H.L. Mencken avidly read and translated Nietzsche's works and has gained the soubriquet "the American Nietzsche".
Harold Bloom has described Nietzsche as " Emerson's belated rival". Bloom's theory of the "anxiety of influence" betrays a Nietzschean influence. Others influenced by Nietzsche include "Death of God"-theologian Thomas Altizer, and novelists Nikos Kazantzakis, Mikhail Artsybashev, and Lu Xun. Nietzsche also influenced musician Jim Morrison, and Anton LaVey, the Church of Satan and Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Nietzsche never claims directly that God is dead, so I made a few changes to reflect that. If anyone can find a quote where Nietzsche directly makes this claim, please let us know. Cultural Freedom 10:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I see your point -- but is the current version OK? Cultural Freedom 14:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I know of only Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, section 108. Any others? To Chef aka Pangloss, thanks for the reminder about Section 108; about my claims: they are hardly speculation, but I'll leave them out until I recall something to cite. Best, Cultural Freedom talk 18:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure about using the literal translation, Overman, in place of Übermensch. The German word über is used in a much more general context than the English over, so I think, rather than a literal translation, it should be either left as Übermensch with "Overman or Superman" written in brackets on the first instance, or Superman should be used with the alternative Overman given. Übermensch has become a well accepted term in English in relation to Nietzche, so I am in favour of the former option. In various books, I've seen all three forms (Übermensch, Overman and Superman), but I just think Overman looks a bit silly, because it doesn't really make sense in English, whereas Superman (derived from supercede) makes a bit more sense. Opinions? -- Nathan ( Talk) 01:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Check this out. Things have slowed down here. But I think these guys will get around to it. Eventually. Non-vandal 09:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe the revisions made in the section about the Ubermench need to be coincidered for assimilation,they are varified by Nietzsche scholarship.
Would anyone object to a small section on 'decadence' under Key Concepts? I was thinking something like this (taken from http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cult/CultScot.htm):
"While Nietzsche used the term "decadence" throughout his published writings, in the late works he used it more frequently, and it took on the status of a technical term. Decadence, for Nietzsche, refers to the decay of values, which Nietzsche thought was inevitable because they are basically rationales for existence, and since there is no objective truth they can only be subjectively true-true only for certain people and certain times. When they are no longer true, they decay. Nietzsche claimed that decadence was the problem which "preoccupied [him] more profoundly" than any other because this inevitable decay of values was a threat to the culture, and by extension, the human species. (1) Values or rationales for existence are so important because in order to survive, let alone flourish, human beings require the creation of values. These values provide rationales for why we suffer and aid us in surviving and hopefully flourishing in spite of that suffering. (2) Without them, Nietzsche claimed that we would be in a condition of nihilism which would lead to mass suicide. Since Nietzsche placed value on a culture based on the type of great, flourishing individuals it produces, if its values are in decay, then it will be unable to produce these great individuals and it will be in decay. This then is the paradox of decadence: human beings have to create values, but any values that they will create will eventually decay."
And a section on 'the will to power' (the idea, not the book) should also be included, I think. These should be brief of course, but after deleting these unnecesary quotations they should fit in nicely. Dume7 16:57, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the decadence section will be duly considered, in fact it has my support, but at this point the article still remarkably lacks coherence. Additionally, I think the new topic will have to go after the Christianity section. — ignis scri pta 17:02, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
In the article, it says his name comes from a king or something? You mean, I'm guessing, his parents named him after that king? Could someone rephrase that a tad? Niki Whimbrel 17:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if this all seems a bit anal of me, but in the sidebar, the Apollonian and Dionysian links in Notable ideas go to the same place, and I wonder if making them one link might be easier. Niki Whimbrel 18:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
One more--regarding Salome and his pursuit of her, the article says he pursued her "despite their mutual friend Ree." Was Ree (sorry, I've not yet learned to use accent marks) also interested in Salome? Niki Whimbrel 02:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the huge and becoming-more-political references section. Why: this article needs real references. Non-vandal 07:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)