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This makes me think somewhat of my current reading... The Ethics of Ambiguity, by Simone de Beauvoir. Although she's talking about our relationships with other
by beat 8y ago
This makes me think somewhat of my current reading... The Ethics of Ambiguity, by Simone de Beauvoir. Although she's talking about our relationships with other people and the world, rather than our relationship with our future selves, there is significant overlap.
She talks about freedom in an existentialist sense. As her partner Sartre noted, we are all free, but freedom is terrifying, so we do all sorts of things to retreat or hide from it. She follows through on the implications of that freedom. One common interpretation of existentialist freedom is that we need only care about ourselves, not others (Nietzsche was a major proponent of this). She points out that this interpretation of freedom can lead to authoritarian, oppressive rule (she was writing in the immediate wake of WWII). So she argues that in order to exercise our freedom, we must use it to defend and exercise the freedom of others as well. To stand by when others are oppressed and lose their freedom (whether from external or internal cause) diminishes our own freedom, and puts our freedom at real risk. Our internal carelessness about the freedom of others leads directly to external risk to our own freedom.
It's a fascinating book. Extremely dense, but beautifully written and motivating. I find myself reading sentences again out loud, just to enjoy them.
I can see her argument easily extended to our relationship with our future selves - decisions we make with our freedom now can have negative impact on our future freedom. ie eat that cake now, still be fat tomorrow.
- edavison1 8y agoJust wanted to jump in here to say (with the imperfect authority of an undergrad philosophy major) that your characterization of Nietzsche is very wrong. A quick google search provided a slightly more nuanced but still absurdly basic view of Nietzsche's view on selfishness from the man himself: "Self-interest is worth as much as the person who has it: it can be worth a great deal, and it can be unworthy and contemptible."
- beat 8y agoI'd say my characterization lacks nuance. Yes, Nietzsche is greatly caricatured (and this interpretation falls within that), but Simone de Beauvoir's critique of his philosophy and its dangers to freedom are much, much better than this. Nietzsche is a lot better than he's usually given credit for, but there are nonetheless some pretty big gaps in applying his ideas to society. To be really odd here, I quit reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra to read Simone de Beauvoir instead, and it was a good decision, but I'll get back to all that Superman stuff eventually.
- kentrado 8y agoYou haven't adequately criticized Nietzsche for the record. So we can't know if this Simone person is up to something.
- beat 8y agoFor the record, I'm not criticizing Nietzsche. I'm saying Simone de Beauvoir criticized Nietzsche in a manner I found interesting enough to remark upon. "This Simone person" pretty much invented second wave feminism with her book "The Second Sex", and is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Her work changed the course of history. So yes, she's definitely up to something.
- kentrado 8y agoYou started off by misrepresenting Nietzsche's views and now you say that she effectively criticized him but dare not mention what that criticism was. I was trying to extract some substance from you, but now I see that will not be possible.
- CompelTechnic 8y agoI think the charitable way to interpret your counterparty is that Simone's criticisms of Nietzsche are long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize, and that Nietzsche himself is long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize. It is not worth the effort to do so for either case, especially considering that a partial or failed effort lacks depth and invites criticism (as already demonstrated, but unfairly).
- kentrado 8y agoFair enough.
- beat 8y agoActually, her criticism of Nietzsche (and most other post-Hegelian philosophers) is brief and relatively easy to summarize, but it is nuanced and deep. It's kind of like Yoda that way. Nietzsche is also practically breezy to read by philosophy standards, but it's still deep and nuanced. Part of the pleasure of both Nietzsche and Simone de Beauvoir is that they're both so darn readable, especially compared to something like Hegel or Heidegger, who were very influential but are incredibly difficult to read.