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>It’s easy to see why Nietzsche sociopathic ravings would have inspired so many repugnant movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including fasci

>It’s easy to see why Nietzsche sociopathic ravings would have inspired so many repugnant movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including fascism, Nazism, Bolshevism, the Ayn Randian fringe of libertarianism, and the American alt-Right and neo-Nazi movements today I can't square that with the Nietzsche I read, the one who hated anti-semitism and who was against nationalism and for a unified Europe. See this random point in 475: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hQ6FDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=the+european+man+and+the+destruction+of+nations&source=bl&ots=oaaubgHwma&sig=eRToVDITL3XCgXxh8vqViQaDd6s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGhNi8z7TZAhXHpJQKHa7hABYQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&&f=false https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hQ6FDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA96&lp... But that's what makes Nietzsche so interesting I guess, you can find contradictory positions everywhere.

gadders 9y ago
>>It’s easy to see why Nietzsche sociopathic ravings would have inspired so many repugnant movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including fascism, Nazism, Bolshevism, the Ayn Randian fringe of libertarianism, and the American alt-Right and neo-Nazi movements today One of those things is not like the others.
- rusk 9y ago
  Presumaby you mean Bolshevism but that really depends on your parameters for evaluation. Presumably the author in this case wasn’t talking about economic principles ...
  - gadders 9y ago
    Actually, I was trying to defend Ayn Rand-style libertarianism, but it just goes to show how people's perspective differs.
    - edpazu 9y ago
      One should never miss an opportunity to paint libertarians and Nazis with the same brush. /s
      - Letmesleep69 9y ago
        I feel like these comments are not very productive. Bit too strawman for my taste. and if you paint them as inspired by Nietzsche you're not wrong.
        edpazu 9y ago
        Libertarians are not Nazis. Full Stop.
        rusk 9y ago
        No, but like Nazis they are, shall we say prone to a certain class of delusion borne of over-rationalisation to the point that their expectations of what's best for the world and what is (more empirically, and thus harder) actually best for the world diverge dramatically. In all cases there's a certain kind of lazy theology at play, in that all you need is a simple kernal of an idea and the details will look after themselves, to whit: - Libertarianism: Everyone look after themselves and we'll be okay. - Naziism: Lets just look after ourselves and we'll be okay. - Fascism: Lets put the weak in their place and we'll be okay. - Bolshevism: Let's just make sure everyone has the same stuff and we'll be okay. Each and every one notwithstanding the fact that reality is always for more nuanced.
    - optimuspaul 9y ago
      that is one that I occasionally struggle with. I am fairly liberal but I find the absolutist attitudes that many libertarians have to be naive and often repugnant. I don't think it's a stretch at all to place them in the same bucket as those other groups. They all have taken simple defensible ideas to extremes and tend to offer no compromises.
      - gadders 9y ago
        Well, you could order those groups by death toll? I'm not aware of Ayn Rand-style Libertarianism killing people.
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        Opposition to building codes? vaccination? pretty much any organized effort to make society safer (or avoid societal catastrophe)? Libertarianism is pretty much "the tragedy of the commons" as a political ideal.
        AndrewDucker 9y ago
        The US healthcare system definitely leads to more death than other developed nations, and the arguments against fixing it are generally Randian in nature.
      - interfixus 9y ago
        As St. Randall of Munroe has put it: I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone'.
rusk 9y ago
I’ve seen this touched on elsewhere and I think the conclusion is that, though Nietzsche himself would never have countenanced these movements, nor his philosophy taken as total, that there are fragments of his writings that very much speak to this mindset.
dEnigma 9y ago
It's not just what Nietzsche actually wrote and published, but to some effect the forgeries by his sister, who had control over his manuscripts after his mental breakdown. She twisted fragments of his writing, sometimes to say the contrary of what her brother actually intended to express. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power_(manuscript) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power_(manuscript)
whistlerbrk 9y ago
Seriously, I like Steven Pinker, but I find this view naive. Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti9zdpLlXf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti9zdpLlXf0 called "How Hollywood Gets Nietzsche Wrong". I haven't read the source texts yet (Twilight of the Idols e.g.) but my understanding is that his main goal was to ask people to not-systematize and live the lives of others or wholly subscribe to someone else's philosophy but to live life as a self-creative act in which we are the authors of what gives our lives meaning and purpose. I don't see anything offensive about that.
- youalreadyknow 9y ago
  This is the milquetoast interpretation of Nietzsche to make him digestible for the mainstream.
  - nwah1 9y ago
    Yea, he wished suffering on his friends, to forge them into beings worthy of respect. Etc. He did have an aggressive and elitist perspective. Ayn Rand's views are a decent comparison.
- dEnigma 9y ago
  Yes, one can certainly find a lot of material in Nietzsche's work supporting this interpretation. But there is so much more to it. Giorgio Colli wrote that "Nietzsche has said everything, and the opposite of everything." Depending on how you pick and choose, you can construe it to mean pretty much anything you want. Which is also what enabled his sister to use her brother's work for her own nationalistic, antisemitic goals.
hackme1234 9y ago
No one actually reads Nietzsche. He is just used as a boogeyman for anything bad.
maldusiecle 9y ago
It's an effort to smear Nietzsche by association more than anything else. His influence was wide throughout the twentieth century; most of the people who read and drew from his ideas weren't fascists or communists. But I wouldn't expect Pinker to be able to engage with any modern philosopher with any depth.
- csallen 9y ago
  Why wouldn't Steven Pinker be capable of engaging with any modern philosopher? He is certainly in the top 1% of rational and intelligent human beings on Earth. If he doesn't stand a chance, what does that say about the rest of us? Sounds more like an indictment of modern philosophy than anything else.
woodandsteel 9y ago
No, he wasn't a Nazi. But he rejected the idea of objective truth, and thought societies were established through violence and myth. If you try to make that into a political philosophy for today, you end up with something rather like fascism, and certainly not marxism or liberalism.
- owlmirror 9y ago
  Where do you have this interpretation from that "societies are established through violence and myth" and how is that idea contrary to Marxist political philosophy?
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    I said this because I not a Marxist, but I have studied it. According to Marx, human beings are social creatures who have always lived in societies, and governmental violence against citizens came later when humans moved from foraging to agriculture. Liberalism has a similar view, and science has confirmed that this view is correct and the Nietzschean one is mistaken.

gadders 9y ago

>>It’s easy to see why Nietzsche sociopathic ravings would have inspired so many repugnant movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including fascism, Nazism, Bolshevism, the Ayn Randian fringe of libertarianism, and the American alt-Right and neo-Nazi movements today One of those things is not like the others.

rusk 9y ago
Presumaby you mean Bolshevism but that really depends on your parameters for evaluation. Presumably the author in this case wasn’t talking about economic principles ...
- gadders 9y ago
  Actually, I was trying to defend Ayn Rand-style libertarianism, but it just goes to show how people's perspective differs.
  - edpazu 9y ago
    One should never miss an opportunity to paint libertarians and Nazis with the same brush. /s
    - Letmesleep69 9y ago
      I feel like these comments are not very productive. Bit too strawman for my taste. and if you paint them as inspired by Nietzsche you're not wrong.
      - edpazu 9y ago
        Libertarians are not Nazis. Full Stop.
        rusk 9y ago
        No, but like Nazis they are, shall we say prone to a certain class of delusion borne of over-rationalisation to the point that their expectations of what's best for the world and what is (more empirically, and thus harder) actually best for the world diverge dramatically. In all cases there's a certain kind of lazy theology at play, in that all you need is a simple kernal of an idea and the details will look after themselves, to whit: - Libertarianism: Everyone look after themselves and we'll be okay. - Naziism: Lets just look after ourselves and we'll be okay. - Fascism: Lets put the weak in their place and we'll be okay. - Bolshevism: Let's just make sure everyone has the same stuff and we'll be okay. Each and every one notwithstanding the fact that reality is always for more nuanced.
  - optimuspaul 9y ago
    that is one that I occasionally struggle with. I am fairly liberal but I find the absolutist attitudes that many libertarians have to be naive and often repugnant. I don't think it's a stretch at all to place them in the same bucket as those other groups. They all have taken simple defensible ideas to extremes and tend to offer no compromises.
    - gadders 9y ago
      Well, you could order those groups by death toll? I'm not aware of Ayn Rand-style Libertarianism killing people.
      - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        Opposition to building codes? vaccination? pretty much any organized effort to make society safer (or avoid societal catastrophe)? Libertarianism is pretty much "the tragedy of the commons" as a political ideal.
      - AndrewDucker 9y ago
        The US healthcare system definitely leads to more death than other developed nations, and the arguments against fixing it are generally Randian in nature.
    - interfixus 9y ago
      As St. Randall of Munroe has put it: I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone'.

rusk 9y ago

I’ve seen this touched on elsewhere and I think the conclusion is that, though Nietzsche himself would never have countenanced these movements, nor his philosophy taken as total, that there are fragments of his writings that very much speak to this mindset.

dEnigma 9y ago

It's not just what Nietzsche actually wrote and published, but to some effect the forgeries by his sister, who had control over his manuscripts after his mental breakdown. She twisted fragments of his writing, sometimes to say the contrary of what her brother actually intended to express. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power_(manuscript) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power_(manuscript)

whistlerbrk 9y ago

Seriously, I like Steven Pinker, but I find this view naive. Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti9zdpLlXf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti9zdpLlXf0 called "How Hollywood Gets Nietzsche Wrong". I haven't read the source texts yet (Twilight of the Idols e.g.) but my understanding is that his main goal was to ask people to not-systematize and live the lives of others or wholly subscribe to someone else's philosophy but to live life as a self-creative act in which we are the authors of what gives our lives meaning and purpose. I don't see anything offensive about that.

youalreadyknow 9y ago
This is the milquetoast interpretation of Nietzsche to make him digestible for the mainstream.
- nwah1 9y ago
  Yea, he wished suffering on his friends, to forge them into beings worthy of respect. Etc. He did have an aggressive and elitist perspective. Ayn Rand's views are a decent comparison.
dEnigma 9y ago
Yes, one can certainly find a lot of material in Nietzsche's work supporting this interpretation. But there is so much more to it. Giorgio Colli wrote that "Nietzsche has said everything, and the opposite of everything." Depending on how you pick and choose, you can construe it to mean pretty much anything you want. Which is also what enabled his sister to use her brother's work for her own nationalistic, antisemitic goals.

hackme1234 9y ago

No one actually reads Nietzsche. He is just used as a boogeyman for anything bad.

maldusiecle 9y ago

It's an effort to smear Nietzsche by association more than anything else. His influence was wide throughout the twentieth century; most of the people who read and drew from his ideas weren't fascists or communists. But I wouldn't expect Pinker to be able to engage with any modern philosopher with any depth.

csallen 9y ago
Why wouldn't Steven Pinker be capable of engaging with any modern philosopher? He is certainly in the top 1% of rational and intelligent human beings on Earth. If he doesn't stand a chance, what does that say about the rest of us? Sounds more like an indictment of modern philosophy than anything else.

woodandsteel 9y ago

No, he wasn't a Nazi. But he rejected the idea of objective truth, and thought societies were established through violence and myth. If you try to make that into a political philosophy for today, you end up with something rather like fascism, and certainly not marxism or liberalism.

owlmirror 9y ago
Where do you have this interpretation from that "societies are established through violence and myth" and how is that idea contrary to Marxist political philosophy?
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  I said this because I not a Marxist, but I have studied it. According to Marx, human beings are social creatures who have always lived in societies, and governmental violence against citizens came later when humans moved from foraging to agriculture. Liberalism has a similar view, and science has confirmed that this view is correct and the Nietzschean one is mistaken.