Is that dismissal based on an serious engagement with his work?
I'd be interested in seeing an argument why one should not let N be a guide. It would be nice (and unexpected) if that argument was informed by an actual reading of N's main works.
(disclaimer: didn't/couldn't read article) Well, that's a rather snooty, snarky comment.
Do you really want Nietzsche to be your guide in this subject? Of course not, geez. I didn't think the GP 'suggested a dismissal' of N, but of him as a one's guide to Better Living, which sounded very reasonable to me. And anyone familiar with N's writing can hopefully imagine many reasons why one might think that. It's sheer bluff to sound as if it's an unexpected or unreasonable question.
(I had written a page in answer, e.g. starting 'Did he ever even have a girlfriend?', and started rounding up amusing and acute quotes from Chesterton and Santayana[0], but decided against including any of that. I'm a huge Nietzsche fan so answering properly would take a while; I decided your remark wasn't worth it. Sorry.)
[0] Chesterton's Heretics and Orthodoxy contain good (and funny) critiques of Nietzsche, as do many of his other works, e.g. Varied/Twelve Types and GBS. Santayana's wonderful Egotism in German Philosophy has chapters on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
Nietzsche is one of the great poeple of history. Such people often live short or troubled lives. Ie, Alexander, Joan of Arc, Mdm Curie or Van Gogh.
Often, the tragedy and the greatness are deeply connected.
This is, I think, the motivation behind formulating the idea of the Will to Power.
The question, if you can chose: What is better, to be a great person, one that makes a lasting (hopefully positive) mark on the world, or to be a happy nobody, instantly forgotten when you die?
Everyone is entitled to their own answer to that question.
My fates long since by Thetis were disclosed,
And each alternate, life or fame, proposed:
Here if I stay, before the Trojan town,
Short is my date, but deathless my renown;
If I return, I quit immortal praise
For years on years, and long-extended days.
Convinced, though late, I find my fond mistake,
And warn the Greeks the wiser choice to make;
To quit these shores, their native seats enjoy,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy.
I think of Elon more as a modern Nocola Tesla. (As does, it seems, Elon himself.)
The closest current analogy to Nietzsche would be Jordan Peterson, I think. Their problem definitions are very similar (ie to fight nihilsm), but it seems to me that Nietzsche's proposed path is more heroic, but also harder.
I agree completely on Elon; that’s probably the same fate other tech greats will be granted as well.
While Peterson’s most basic premise to “fight against nihilism”, is respectable I don’t think he is philosophically well-equipped enough to have the same lasting effect as Nietzsche—if you listen to his arguments it’s clear that he’s quite ignorant of a whole swath of philosophical developments that have occurred in the past few decades. His arguments are not sophisticated. Someone with a basic education in the humanities can craft them just as easily. His whining about the death of individuality is also shallow—he doesn’t even realize the very shape of the concept of induiviudality itself has changed over time. He’s praying for the ressurection if old concepts, which is a method the ignores the particularités and needs of our own historical situation. Part of this could be a result of his trying to reach a wide audience, part of it could be his lack of capability, idk. At any rate, even though Nietzsche has an aphorism about writing for your readers it’s clear he himself didn’t do so, and his reknown partly stems from the uniqueness of his style, which is impeccable. In this regard Peterson doesn’t hold a candle to Nietzsche. Of course he may still be remembered, given he’s speaking for a different era, but idk, lacking argumentative or stylistic ingenuity typically doesn’t net you a spot in the hall of fame.
It sounds like you know more of this than me. Do you have any specifics in mind about the change in the concept of individuality?
That said, I also see Peterson as clearly adding much less than Nietzsche (if anything at all) on pure philosophy. He is a psychologist, first and foremost, that happens to draw on some concepts from philosophy and biology (developed by others) for the purpose of providing a path for people (mostly young men) that have lost the sense of purpose.
In this confrontation with the inner emptiness, he seems to grapple with the same problem as Nietzsche, but with a more practical approach.
Indeed, as a clinical psychologist, his task is precisely to formulate it in a way that can reach people.
For those who have never had any serious struggles with the problem (nihilism, lack of purpose), he probably looks like a quack.
In that case, Tesla would have lived and died happier if he'd had a Musk around to help him find a way to scalably and sustainably bring what he invented to the world.
I disagree that Nietzsche is one of the great people of history. I believe he's currently fashionable at the moment because of the West's love affair with narcissistic self-imagining, but the obsession will pass when we grow up and get over it.
Jane Austen made greater contributions to the Western dialectic but we tend to dismiss her as a 'mere' novelist. I submit that we'll have grown up as a society when we start to recognize that Austen, with her emotional maturity and capacity to give her characters real, palpable depth, was the far greater figure.
He's been one of the most influential philosophers in the 20th century, both through Heidegger's influence -- especially in France, and through neo-Marxist (Frankfurt school) engagement with him. Finally there's Freud and his school of psychoanalysis, who took a lot of inspiration from N.
The parts of Freudian psychoanalysis that have not passed the test of time (e.g. Oedipus complex, sexual differentiation, theory of homosexuality) clearly don't come via Nietzsche, whereas Freud's approach to memory and its malleability by our desires and hopes, which is most clearly from N, is not only alive and kicking, but as far as I can tell, now (in suitably modernised form) the dominant understanding of memory in contemporary psychology.
> whereas Freud's approach to memory and its malleability by our desires and hopes, which is most clearly from N, is not only alive and kicking, but as far as I can tell, now (in suitably modernised form) the dominant understanding of memory in contemporary psychology.
It's like saying that homeopathy principles are sound because vaccines are also based on `things that make you sick`.
I'd rather suggest you try to get a copy of `the black book of psychoanalysis` as I completely subscribe to the views developed in it and it'd be more on the point than any tldr; I might give you. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/25/books.france
I don't understand what you are trying to say. I merely pointed to the undisputed popularity of psychoanalysis in much of the 20th century, and Nietzsche's undisputed influence on it, especially the conception of memory. This is orthogonal to questions of whether psychoanalysis is right or wrong. The
Guardian article adds nothing to my claims about popularity and influence.
I'm not sure what you mean. My position on N, memory and influence on P.A. has been consistent and clear, as far as I can see.
I'm not terribly interested in reading about P.A.: it's dead branch of psychology, and has been dead for a long time. There are plenty of books / articles describing the shortcomings of P.A. some of which I've read.
You're saying that because he's respected by some academics, he is objectively worthy of respect. But that's contingent on those very same academics being worthy of respect. And I'm not sure that they are, personally.
This is a major problem in academia and other areas. The academics end up being judged by fellow academics, and any claim to merit becomes completely circular. That's how you end up with things like Brutalist architecture -- it's because the architects are seeking approval from fellow architects; and not the people who have to live in, and around, what they build.
Even worse, those academics who "suck up" to other academics end up having the favour returned to them. He scratches your back, you scratch his, then he scratches yours again... You end up with citation rings.
The person you're responding to never made a claim to objectivity. The fact that someone is one of the most influential figures in the history of twentieth century thought and culture is, in my view, a very good reason to engage with them. If you care about our common world, and its history, then you may well want to understand Nietzsche.
