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Leiter tends to take Nietzsche very literally. Yes, Nietzsche grasped quite clearly that exceedingly few people have the courage to endure the world "in itself

by dnomad 8y ago

Leiter tends to take Nietzsche very literally. Yes, Nietzsche grasped quite clearly that exceedingly few people have the courage to endure the world "in itself." Most people persist their whole lives trapped in elaborate fantasies. This is something that, Nietszche suspects, has been true since the dawn of time and recognizes it as an essential human characteristic (herd instinct). Science causes a kind of crisis. ("God is dead.") After millenia of extreme devotion to all manner nonsense (think of the religious wars that plagued Europe) science starts asking some very uncomfortable and very pointed questions. But people will not abandon their fantasies, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Instead they will cling to their fantasies that much harder often with full knowledge that what they "believe" are lies. This metastasizes into fascism [1]. When Trump says climate change is a Chinese hoax he knows he's lying, and you know he's lying, and accusing him of lying would be pointless and that's the point. Nietzsche foresaw quite clearly that this would be the crisis of the 20th century and beyong: in the face of science people would become more willing to deceive themselves. What Nietzsche proposes against this isn't some tired paean to "human excellence." Leiter here gets very literal and selective here. Nietzsche does not think that art or philosophy or dance can stand against the ever rising tide of fascism. It is what motivates these things -- the will to power -- that is the only defense against self-deception. All fantasies are born of fear, a fear of change and growth and death. But there also exists in some men a desire for change and growth and death. (Indeed Nietzsche will come to believe that the will to power is a kind of cosmic necessity.) The only hope that societies have against falling to fascism is cultivating precisely this opposing force which Nietzsche understands not as some mere "will to truth" or "will to excellence" but a far more primal "will to power" that motivates men to plunge into the unknown and confront their own mortality. [1] "In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

coldtea 8y ago
>Science causes a kind of crisis. ("God is dead.") After millenia of extreme devotion to all manner nonsense (think of the religious wars that plagued Europe) science starts asking some very uncomfortable and very pointed questions. There was no nonsense. Or far fewer of it than one imagines. When the "religious wars" weren't using religious directly as a thin pretext for "let's grab their land", they were about ways to live. Religion in those days was what lifestyle (or national preferences) are today, and it was used a proxy for that and for defining a national/cultural group (the role that later was played by nations), not for mere theological differences.
- 101km 8y ago
  I think a distinction is in order between elites who pretended to be pious and the true believers they ruled over.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    The population wasn't much more "true believers", in letting religion dictate such things, than the average person today. It was just part of their culture. The role of the elites is also over-emphasized - such "religious" wars responded to great group enmities and desires for plundering among the peoples, not just some elites manipulating them throu piousness. In fact tons of similar wars happened in the ancient world between within Greek city states, or between Greece, Persia and other states of the time, where no religion difference was used to justify them (or could be used, as city states had the same religion). There, in Thucydides for example, the arguments for war are written bare (control of trade routes, plundering, defending their territories, not willing to submit to another ruler, defending their way of life, etc), without needing to resort to any religious causes. The same things are masked in the lingo of each era -- in late 18-19th centuries it was all about the "glory of the nation", in the 20th century it was all about "promoting communism" or "defending the free world", now it's all about "protecting human rights" etc.
yonoataraxia 8y ago
This is a great analysis of Nietzsche. It's rare to find people who really understand what he's trying to say. Many people interpret him in inaccurate ways. Essentially, Nietzsche is a person who touches very sensitive parts of being human after he analyzed society. He is a person who asked uncomfortable questions about existence in his quest to describe nihilism. Nihilism is the consequence of the loss of morality and the total annihilation of ones values and belief system - and the loss of morality stems from the "death of god" which means that we got to the point (in science) where there were exceedingly small areas of unknowns. Many questions - also about right and wrong - were suddenly more informed due to increasing knowledge. What makes Nietzsche great is his ability to foresee what this leads to. It's like he knew what will happen in the future. And he tried to give us a solution using "will to power". I'm not necessarily a fan of his solution, but I appreciate it. He's a man who had a positive attitude towards people and society. He wanted to help society. This deep empathy based on insane levels of self-awareness and profundity is what I like about him. Unfortunately, his ideas were not understood properly and used by fascists (the "master race" of the Nazis is built on the definition of ubermensch a.k.a. superman). Which is the reason I really appreciate your comment. I think that "will to power" is one of many possible solutions. But everyone has to find a solution for the big deep hole of emptiness in their existence. Failing to find a solution leads to nihilism which is a very painful and unpleasant place to be (although it has the advantage that you don't have to take responsibilities - for some people this can feel better than dealing with their emptiness). If we as a society fail to help to give people different solutions for this emptiness, it will lead to a society full of unhappy people who are in quiet despair. We can see that this is already happening. So Nietzsche talked about a question that hit us hard 100 years after his death. Sometimes we acknowledge when sci-fi authors were able to predict the future. I would like to acknowledge that Nietzsche was able to anticipate our reality based on his knowledge of human nature. In the same realm I would like to thank Sigmund Freud - both shared similar thoughts about the human nature which shows that Nietzsche was also a type of psychologist (before it was a distinct research field). Sigmund Freud once articulated his admiration for Nietzsches work and said that Nietzsches thoughts were amazing in that they captured many thoughts that Freud thought to be true due to his works in psychoanalysis.

by dnomad 8y ago

coldtea 8y ago

>Science causes a kind of crisis. ("God is dead.") After millenia of extreme devotion to all manner nonsense (think of the religious wars that plagued Europe) science starts asking some very uncomfortable and very pointed questions. There was no nonsense. Or far fewer of it than one imagines. When the "religious wars" weren't using religious directly as a thin pretext for "let's grab their land", they were about ways to live. Religion in those days was what lifestyle (or national preferences) are today, and it was used a proxy for that and for defining a national/cultural group (the role that later was played by nations), not for mere theological differences.

101km 8y ago
I think a distinction is in order between elites who pretended to be pious and the true believers they ruled over.
- coldtea 8y ago
  The population wasn't much more "true believers", in letting religion dictate such things, than the average person today. It was just part of their culture. The role of the elites is also over-emphasized - such "religious" wars responded to great group enmities and desires for plundering among the peoples, not just some elites manipulating them throu piousness. In fact tons of similar wars happened in the ancient world between within Greek city states, or between Greece, Persia and other states of the time, where no religion difference was used to justify them (or could be used, as city states had the same religion). There, in Thucydides for example, the arguments for war are written bare (control of trade routes, plundering, defending their territories, not willing to submit to another ruler, defending their way of life, etc), without needing to resort to any religious causes. The same things are masked in the lingo of each era -- in late 18-19th centuries it was all about the "glory of the nation", in the 20th century it was all about "promoting communism" or "defending the free world", now it's all about "protecting human rights" etc.

yonoataraxia 8y ago

This is a great analysis of Nietzsche. It's rare to find people who really understand what he's trying to say. Many people interpret him in inaccurate ways. Essentially, Nietzsche is a person who touches very sensitive parts of being human after he analyzed society. He is a person who asked uncomfortable questions about existence in his quest to describe nihilism. Nihilism is the consequence of the loss of morality and the total annihilation of ones values and belief system - and the loss of morality stems from the "death of god" which means that we got to the point (in science) where there were exceedingly small areas of unknowns. Many questions - also about right and wrong - were suddenly more informed due to increasing knowledge. What makes Nietzsche great is his ability to foresee what this leads to. It's like he knew what will happen in the future. And he tried to give us a solution using "will to power". I'm not necessarily a fan of his solution, but I appreciate it. He's a man who had a positive attitude towards people and society. He wanted to help society. This deep empathy based on insane levels of self-awareness and profundity is what I like about him. Unfortunately, his ideas were not understood properly and used by fascists (the "master race" of the Nazis is built on the definition of ubermensch a.k.a. superman). Which is the reason I really appreciate your comment. I think that "will to power" is one of many possible solutions. But everyone has to find a solution for the big deep hole of emptiness in their existence. Failing to find a solution leads to nihilism which is a very painful and unpleasant place to be (although it has the advantage that you don't have to take responsibilities - for some people this can feel better than dealing with their emptiness). If we as a society fail to help to give people different solutions for this emptiness, it will lead to a society full of unhappy people who are in quiet despair. We can see that this is already happening. So Nietzsche talked about a question that hit us hard 100 years after his death. Sometimes we acknowledge when sci-fi authors were able to predict the future. I would like to acknowledge that Nietzsche was able to anticipate our reality based on his knowledge of human nature. In the same realm I would like to thank Sigmund Freud - both shared similar thoughts about the human nature which shows that Nietzsche was also a type of psychologist (before it was a distinct research field). Sigmund Freud once articulated his admiration for Nietzsches work and said that Nietzsches thoughts were amazing in that they captured many thoughts that Freud thought to be true due to his works in psychoanalysis.