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You can find a similar case against Nietzsche near the end of Enlightenment Now. The key point being that Nietzsche believed that superior people should rule o
by btilly 8y ago
You can find a similar case against Nietzsche near the end of Enlightenment Now.
The key point being that Nietzsche believed that superior people should rule over inferior people, and should achieve that rule through violence and war. Which are uplifting activities for those who engage in it. And once it is established who is superior, what is done to the inferior doesn't matter.
This was an inspiration to the Nazis who, of course, decided that Germans were superior, should establish this through war, and inferior people should be killed or enslaved as the Germans saw fit.
- armitron 8y agoThat book contains so many outright falsehoods and misrepresentations that it belongs in a garbage bin. Even the guardian [1] thrashed it not to mention titans like John Gray [2]. It doesn't surprise me to learn that Pinker also manages to misrepresent and malign Nietzsche. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/enlightenment-now-steven-pinker-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/enlightenment-... [2] https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-new-book-feeble-sermon https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlight...
- keiferski 8y agoI used to see Pinker’s name and ideas around and thought he had something interesting to say, so I picked up this book. What a complete waste of time. It feels like his knowledge of intellectual history comes from skimming Wikipedia articles.