As coronavirus shows no signs of going away any time soon, that means that the restrictions of Covid World will remain part of our lives for the foreseeable future.
I much appreciated your advice to begin with Nietzche’s two essays, On the Uses and Abuses of History and Schopenhauer as Educator. I made the mistake of diving into Thus Spake Zarathustra, which proved enormously difficult, mainly because there are so many metaphors and double rhetoric to hold in mind as Nietzsche makes his point. I've come to understand Nietzsche’s eternal return as analogous to an afterlife. Nietzsche appears to be giving his alternative to the Christian afterlife, which is enormously passive. But to transcend this life knowing well that there is no other side except an eternal recurrence of themes and one’s response to that set of circumstances. Poe said sleep resembles a little death. So, rising and awakening over and over is the closest we get to an afterlife.
Nietzsche sometimes denigrates dialectics, but his claim that the death of God implies that we ourselves must become gods is the most dialectical conclusion you could reach
Yes. Absolutely. Nietzsche is against dialectics in the way that Socrates used it, because Socrates used it kind of all the time and in a common, basic way. Plebeian, rabble. But I think Nietzsche is smart enough to admit that dialectic is a fundamental part of thought and existence, and so he advocates using it in the most grand, noble way imaginable, such as the existential dialectic of the death of God, but also in the dialectic of counterenlightenment (and counterrevolution) that he basically initiated at the end of the 19th century against the Dialectic of Enlightenment from the end of the 18 century, and of course against the French Revolution, above all
Yes, but he is very different from other people belonging to that stream, reactionary thinkers like de Maistre. His relation with the enlightenment is complex. His view of Voltaire is really positive, and he has many positive things to say about progress (but also negative things too) and science. I think he is very dialectical in this, also, because he essentially reframes "enlightenment" as something good (progress in knowledge) but also extremely dangerous and destructive. He embraces this destructiveness, where as Enlightenment thinkers tend to be more optimistic about progress, and reactionaries just outright deny it. He is a "tragic progressive" of sorts imo
Yes, very well said, and I agree. But I think if you’re reading Nietzsche politically (which you don’t necessarily have to) any progressivism in Nietzsche is rooted in aristocratic virtue, which is rooted necessarily in feudalistic political economy and social order.
I much appreciated your advice to begin with Nietzche’s two essays, On the Uses and Abuses of History and Schopenhauer as Educator. I made the mistake of diving into Thus Spake Zarathustra, which proved enormously difficult, mainly because there are so many metaphors and double rhetoric to hold in mind as Nietzsche makes his point. I've come to understand Nietzsche’s eternal return as analogous to an afterlife. Nietzsche appears to be giving his alternative to the Christian afterlife, which is enormously passive. But to transcend this life knowing well that there is no other side except an eternal recurrence of themes and one’s response to that set of circumstances. Poe said sleep resembles a little death. So, rising and awakening over and over is the closest we get to an afterlife.
That is very well said and I agree with your analysis. Thank you for reading.
Nietzsche sometimes denigrates dialectics, but his claim that the death of God implies that we ourselves must become gods is the most dialectical conclusion you could reach
Yes. Absolutely. Nietzsche is against dialectics in the way that Socrates used it, because Socrates used it kind of all the time and in a common, basic way. Plebeian, rabble. But I think Nietzsche is smart enough to admit that dialectic is a fundamental part of thought and existence, and so he advocates using it in the most grand, noble way imaginable, such as the existential dialectic of the death of God, but also in the dialectic of counterenlightenment (and counterrevolution) that he basically initiated at the end of the 19th century against the Dialectic of Enlightenment from the end of the 18 century, and of course against the French Revolution, above all
The dialectic of counterrevolutionary nobility
Yes, but he is very different from other people belonging to that stream, reactionary thinkers like de Maistre. His relation with the enlightenment is complex. His view of Voltaire is really positive, and he has many positive things to say about progress (but also negative things too) and science. I think he is very dialectical in this, also, because he essentially reframes "enlightenment" as something good (progress in knowledge) but also extremely dangerous and destructive. He embraces this destructiveness, where as Enlightenment thinkers tend to be more optimistic about progress, and reactionaries just outright deny it. He is a "tragic progressive" of sorts imo
Yes, very well said, and I agree. But I think if you’re reading Nietzsche politically (which you don’t necessarily have to) any progressivism in Nietzsche is rooted in aristocratic virtue, which is rooted necessarily in feudalistic political economy and social order.
I'm only part way through the article, but I just had to chime in and say that blood sausage is fucking delicious