It's Time to Know our Present
The 'world wars' of the 20th century were not conclusive;the tension caused by 1939-1945 had begun to slacken,so that by 1989-1991,the bow string had begun to languish like an idiot's slobbering tongue.
The astounding complacency of liberal democratic establishments in the West was suddenly awoken by the events of September 11th 2001.
However,liberalism is the symptom of a disease which has riddled even our self-defense institutions.This destiny is the doomed cycle of oblivion,our experience is that of non-swimmers trapped on a sinking ship which is ed into the vortex of ocean.
Napoleon was right to see only two nations;the West,and the East;the east as seen in the authoritarian,masculine values of extreme fundamentalist Jihad.
A decadent west faced with such a foe is paralysed.
The will to power of this spearhead of the east [only here do we have Nietzscheans in DEED] is formidible.
And where is our Alexander to synthesise the east and west?
Better look for counter Alexanders,as Nietzsche said;Western men of Strong Will who will need first to defeat the weak Willed Western establishment before it can do anything else.
Only then can East and West co-exist once more in mutual distrust and...respect.
Eternal emptiness;-THAT is how the nihilist perceives the eternal recurrence.
The U.S.A. is only the most powerful Slave-Plantation within living memory.
Those men with 'little' power [presumably you mean the terrorists] displayed a will to power out of ALL PROPORTION to the means at their disposal.The U.S.A.,,on the other hand,displays the same in an inverse ratio.
As Napoleon said,'power is never ridiculous'.
A classic example of ressentiment.
Unable to have a forthright discussion in which differing views are expressed the sufferer goes into a paroxysm of rancour,so typical of the slave.
His resentment towards myself, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, and Nietzsche himself is painfully apparent.
I will not waste my time further with this invalid, for, as Nietzsche says of Christianity-'you cannot refute bad eye-sight'.
As Nietzsche said,'thinking the would to be evil,makes the world evil'.
You are careful to conceal your position,which can be summed up in one word-'Nihilism'.
They actually write with the consideration of what others would think,of those 'honest listeners';You care what the herd thinks!
No one can advance in philosophy,let alone in Nietzsche studies,if he cares what 'honest listeners' think.
Only slaves think that way;slaves or Nihilists!
Yes,they are 'Plebs for Nietzsche'.
Unfortunately for them,Nietzsche was so resolutely aristocratic and elitist that they have no material to work with-hence the poverty of their interpretation.
As for 'Moody' ?-what does he matter!
The deranged sufferer sees 'Moody' everywhere and hallucinates about this spirit day and night.
The invalid supposes that 'Moody' is in every nook and cranny of its twisted perceptions.
It is the Nihilist who says "we are nothing" [and like all nihilists,he insists on saying 'we'-speak for yourself Nay sayer].
I believe that you just said "we are nothing" !
[no-thing]
Alas,I fear that the fireworks which you always promise appear to be damp squibs.
Slavery: odi profanum vulgus et arceo
It stands to reason that in a philosophy who's perspective is Yea-Saying that its doctrines would be affirmative.
Do I really have to spell out that the will to power is affirmative?
That the eternal recurrence is affirmative?
That the superman is ....affirmative?
A victory for me?-that is no matter-
A victory for Nietzsche.
A victory for Free Spirits everywhere.
That's what matters.
How you can still look on my blog after your humiliation shows the very depths of slave depravity..?...They have no shame...
...They have no pride.
blisterfoot
Get off of my blog!
There is no mystery; my blog says who I am.
You regard the evidence of Nietzsche's letters as 'nonsense'?-then we have little else to say to one another.
As to the idea of choosing one's madness [or one's sanity or anything else],I refer you to Nietzsche's doctrine of AMOR FATI.
But then that is probably nonsense to you as well.
You obviously hate Nietzsche and his philosophy,even going so far as to hate his family and friends.
But as I have shown,all this negativity of yours is only a reflection of you and your Nihilism.
Nihilists hate EVERYTHING about Nietzsche.
Show where I have attempted to 'systematise' Nietzsche.
[this will be difficult as Nietzsche is impossible to systematise]
1) Of course 'amor fati' means 'love of one's fate';
2) His 'madness' was part of his fate,therefore he would had loved it.
Where Nietzsche's sanity ends and his madness begins is a moot point;from his first book on he was accused by some of madness.
Like the Black Snake of Nihilism,one must bite off its head...AND SPIT IT OUT.
I HAVE ALWAYS AFFIRMED THE WILL TO POWER - AND IF THAT IS NOT WORKING TOWARDS SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS!
Nietzsche described the 'Eternal Recurrence of the SAME' [to give the doctrine its full title] as;
"The world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself infinitely often".
[Nietzsche,WM 1066]
The world IS Will To Power; how could it NOT will itself, and therefore overcome?
To Nietzsche it is all a matter of STRONG WILL,or weak will.
I work WITH the teachings, you implicitly deny them.
My Will is sometimes an arrow of longing, it is at other times an arrow of victory.
There is much more to this earth than the mortals on it!
When it comes to the universe, mortals are in the tiniest minority; I wouldn't talk of a 'mortal' world!
Of course,in Zarathustra,we are constantly exorted to "Remain true to the Earth";and Nietzsche talks of the 'world' in the context of the eternal recurrence,saying;
"If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of force and as a certain definite number of centres of force...it follows that,in the great dice game of existence,it must pass through a calculable number of combinations.
"In infinite time,every possible combination would be at some time or another realised;more:it would be realised an infinite number of times".
[Nietzsche,WM 1066]
THAT is Nietzsche's doctrine;the recurrence of ALL things would of course include the planets,the stars,the galaxies,and of course the Universe ...
I have always said, try and WILL BEYOND YOURSELVES...
But,of course,the inherently weak and 'challenged' will not be able to Will to the extent that a Caesar could; that's obvious - there is no equality here more than anywhere else.
This kind of self-belief [see Nietzsche's chapter headings to 'Ecce Homo' ] is absolutely necessary for a man of strong Will.
Napoleon for example,was blessed with a rock solid self-confidence.
Slaves call this 'arrogance'.
This Undersnake,who betrays the slave like nature of every unconscious Christian who would not dare offend his redeemer by believing in the actuality of the superman, rather longs for his putrid Ideal.
An Idealist = a Nihilist.
I have never credited you with hate,only with resentment.
To call you a 'hater' would provide a compliment that you scant deserve;
You merely demonstrate the bad blood of the slave-that's all.
To try to excuse yourself by suggesting that you were attempting to emulate ME (! -that was a servile rationalisation!) shows that your sole agenda is to try and raise yourself UP to my own level.
But such is impossible,because your blood is 'bad',and mine is Noble.
Hate makes equal; but you look UP when you resent me.I look down when I show my contempt for you.
In this alone is a Nietzschean lesson - Slaven vs. Herren.
The Recurrence
We are beginning to think the recurrence;
And this solar system of ours is merely a speck in the mighty recurrence of the galaxy,and that galaxy a speck within the universe itself.
But for the greater amount of infinite time there was/is/will be no matter.
There are only briefly recurring islets of matter within a vast ocean of matter.
However, one is always imposed upon to correct falsehoods when they are falaciously put in one's mouth.
Their threats are idle.
They need me to move first because they are purely reactive-like all slaves.
I destroyed you before - so I will destroy you again - eternally!
The vanity of he who writes with one eye [and not only an eye!] on what 'listeners' may think,whether they be 'honest' or 'dishonest' [-few know the degree of their 'honesty' because few REALLY know themselves;as Nietzsche said,'even we knowers are unknown to ourselves' ] rebounds at every instance.
BUT NOBODY ELSE IS READING YOU...BUT YOU!
And you even read yourself badly.
How can you tell if you are being listened to?
How can you tell if your listener is 'honest' ?
You say that you "do not read my blog".
So what then is the problem?
Amor Fati is not merely a justification,
IT IS A LIFE PERSPECTIVE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY GIVEN THE PHILOSOPHY OF WILL TO POWER!
Now stop wasting my time.
But then the Nihilist is,in the final-analysis,a self-Negator;-we Yea Sayers merely laugh at his pain!
What merriment he gives us-but we turn away,we have more important things to think about than the gossip-filled
ressentiment of slaves.
When a slave so much as curses a Noble within my earshot,that slave will be WHIPPED!
I am a hard man;I am a lover of harsh things.But even I do have my sensitivities.
I am moved,nay disturbed,for example,by the ungrateful and malicious gossip of splenetic slaves towards their betters.
The virulence of a Malignus,an anti-Nietzschean,towards not only the philosopher and his family,but the actual impugning of the philosopher's friends!...that defies belief,and calls to mind Goethe's saying;
"
That which disturbs your soul you must not suffer".
My soul has been disturbed by these Malefactors,and I shall not suffer their lies any longer.
...That acidity of ressentiment,thrown in the face of Nietzsche's friends,those dear wights,chosen carefully by him to people his existence!-foul deeds by foul swine!Peter Gast in particular has been singled out for their envy;and for that I demand MY kind of justice!
"And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have taken place,and each of these combinations CONDITIONS the entire sequence of combinations in the same series,a CIRCULAR MOVEMENT OF ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL SERIES is thus demonstrated:THE WORLD AS A CIRCULAR MOVEMENT THAT HAS ALREADY REPEATED ITSELF INFINITELY OFTEN AND PLAYS ITS GAME IN FINITUM".
[Friedrich Nietzsche,WM 1066]
If our goal is the realisation of the superman type,them I think that we here in the West have reached ground zero,and only the most extreme measures are thinkable.
The wiil to power which seeks to vanquish our effeminised 'civilisation' is such that acquiescence is not an option for survival,but for certain extinction.
Strong will to power will feed decadents drugs;indeed,it controls the drug trade now.Narcotics are only a way to lessen the pain,just as throwing yourself off the 85th floor is a more blissful way to die than burning alive on the floor itself.
Nietzsche's advice would be;
"The maintenance of the military state is the last means of acquiring or maintaining the great tradition with regard to the supreme type of man,the strong type.And all the concepts that perpetuate enmity and difference in rank between states;for example,Nationalism,protective tariffs,may appear sanctioned in this light".[Nietzsche,WM,729;1887-8]
Examples of strong will - i.e.,such as the invention by [Hebrew] man of the one and only God of the Jews,who is later leased out to the rest of humanity,who would be allowed to believe in Him,provided that they pay the interest of guilt-are not the will to power itself.This 'God' is a mere product of human will,that's all.
A type is very different to an ideal.Nietzsche deals with types,not ideals.A transcendent realm,by its very definition,is beyond our ken-it too is an ideal.
This quote should be put into context.
Zarathustra is talking to his disciples about Priests,while taking his disciples among Priests;his intent is not to allow his disciples to be swayed by the notion that a Saviour is a superman.Indeed,the Saviour is the OPPOSITE of a superman.
Being aware that he wants to avert his disciples from such misunderstandings,he uses the strongest language;
"Sultry heart and cold head;where these meet,there ariseth the blusterer,the 'Saviour'.
"Greater ones,verily,have there been,and higher-born ones,than those whom the people call Saviours,those rapturous blusters!
"And by still greater ones than any of the Saviours must ye be saved,my brethren,if ye would find the way to freedom!
"Never yet hath there been a Superman. have I seen both of them,the greatest man and the smallest man-
"All-too-similar are they still to each other.Verily,even the greatest found I-all-too-human!
"Thus spake Zarathustra".
[TSZ,'The Priests']
He is clearly talking of the lack of sufficient greatness among the Saviours proclaimed by priests to qualify them for the superman type.Remember he is AMONG priests and says of them and their Saviour,'never has there yet been a superman'.This is reinforced by the reference to the ''-the common image of Christ is semi-.
As for the quote on Borgia,for fuller elucidation,see my reply to Ubermark's unnecessarily abusive post,which he calls 'You windbag' [can't think who he was referring to!].I actually quote the German to show that Undermark was bluffing when he said he couldn't find the word 'Ubermensch'.
Parallel Cycles and Eternal Echoes
Zarathustra;some researchers put his flourishing to around 3,500 years ago-long before a bin Laden,a Hitler,a Napoleon,a Cesar Borgia,a Julius Caesar,a Genghis Khan,or an Alexander the Great...
...This great wheel of becoming arcs over the boundless river of time which ebbs and floods.From the depths,a superman type suddenly erupts in glory,glittering like a bright star in an endless expanse of dark matter.
His name becomes legendary,but as his race decays,so Chinese whispers distort his words,and breathless time lessens the impact of his deeds.His imitators become his ultimate detractors;the superman is negated.
For most of time,the many-too-many will deny that the superman type EVER existed,such is the bias of the abyss.
A thousand false starts later,and forlorn prophets will persish under the weight of this negative mass-man prejudice;
'The Superman is not possible'-so speaks the 'utimate man',the 'last man'-the man of the end-game;Mr.T. Eleolgy.
Fog-clouds swag on the deep;the superman feigns blindness in the eyeless land.He will go about as if he were one of the last-men,pulling on a gas mask.
Why,did a superman say that there had never been such a one as he?Did he deny himself?
But then he sought to admonish those of the Herd who clustered around him,who talked up a Messiah,a never-never man.They would not know even where to seek the superman,let alone know WHAT to look for.
The wheel of becoming had reached rockbottom-Negation,Nay-saying,the phase of Nihilism...
...We know this chill nuclear winter with its layers of gray ash,with its howling Fenris Wolf:it is the presage of the most glittering things.
After Ground Zero
There was once a technological society that had built up to the sky;it had also put the superman out of reach on Alpha Centuri.The higher it built in vain,the lower its Faith descended until the whole edifice tottered on an empty abyss.The inhabitant's secret fears hardened into gigantic silver birds who then abruptly escaped and tore down the highest peaks of achievement.A conflagration and a holocaust ensued.
Future societies built on that waste-land;they followed the same path,knowing nothing of the same mistakes that they were doomed to repeat...
...And their biggest mistake was to ignore the superman of the past.
Beyond Good & Evil
BGE 7-9
"When a Stoic and an Epicurean come into an agreement,they enter into a conspiracy to murder Caesar". [Nietzsche,notebooks,1873]
Those philosophical products of late Greek antiquity,Stoicism and Epicureanism,provided a fascinating spectacle for Nietzsche.
Both schools were established around 300 B.C. in an Athens then on the wane.As we shall see,it was quite appropriate for the Stoics to be situated in the central market place,while the Epicureans preferred their Garden retreat.
Nietzsche associates these two important Hellenistic schools in a cluster of aphorisms-BGE,7,8,9-in the first chapter 'On the Prejudices of Philosophers'.
Understanding their basic philosophical standpoints is essential not only for following Nietzsche's own arguments,but for the development of Western Philosophy itself.
"Let us remain hard and harsh,we latest of the Stoics". [Nietzsche,BGE 227]
It was the earlier Stoics who believed in the Cosmic Cycle,in which cosmic fire brings the universe into existence and then destroys it periodically.This can be compared to the claim made a couple of centuries or so earlier by Heraus that;
"There is a great year,whose winter is a great flood and whose summer is a world conflagration.In these alternating periods,the world is now going up in flames,now turning to water.This cycle consists of 10,800 years". [Heraclitus]
This notion,also found in the Pythagoreans,as well as in the ancient Zarathustra,obviously gave rise to Nietzsche's 'the Eternal Recurrence of the Same'.The aspect of destruction,of cycles of destruction,is symbolised in Nietzsche by the Dionysian.Nietzsche calls all of this 'tragic wisdom' ;
"I have looked in vain for signs of such tragic wisdom even among the great Greek philosophers,those of the two centuries BEFORE Socrates.I retained some doubt in the case of Heraus,in whose proximity I feel altogether warmer and better than anywhere else". [Nietzsche,'EH','Birth' 3]
Here,in the last analysis,Nietzsche announces himself as an Heraean:all his other philosophical affinities,whether Schopenhauer,Spinoza or Epicurus,will prove to be transient because they are unable to stand the test of tragic wisdom;
"The affirmation of passing-away AND DESTROYING,which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy;Saying Yes to opposition and war;BECOMONG,along with a radical repudiation of the very concept of BEING--all this is clearly more closely related to me than anything else thought to date" [ib.]
But this Heraean perspective was only found in the EARLY Stoa.As the school developed it distanced itself from the doctrine of eternal return.It was in this divergence that Nietzsche saw the faults of Stoicism;
"The Stoics interpreted Heraus in a shallow manner and misunderstood him". [Nietzsche,notebook,1873]
GOD
God is a [once] useful fiction.
Perspective
Any perspective is multivalent.
I do not 'cling',...I hold my right by the might of my hand.
What it comes down to is this; how rich, how overflowing, how informed, how interesting, how Nietzschean is your perspective(s)?
This blog bristles with the ever living flame of eternal invention; the free spirit of the will to power, the superman and the eternal recurrence.
Read Nietzsche my Brethren; read me also, for we ARE the superman.
Ah now I have you Nihilist!
You proclaim the Linear perspective!
Then you have the audacity to deny it.
Now you blurt it out...you creationist!
The linear perspective is the only one you deserve, slave.
'Once Upon a Time'-that is level of the sub-human 'intellect'.
'In the Beginning'; a fable for the cuturally challenged.
The Last Man,the Linear Belief Man....
...anti-Nietzschean swines, how dare they pretend to even come NEAR our level of understanding.
Christians,whether they know it or no...
Spengler described Nietzsche and Goethe as his two main teachers.
There are some tantalising references in some of Nietzsche's letters of his interest in 'world history' which came about in discussions with his friend and colleague,the great historian Burckhardt.I suspect that a full expression of this from the perspective of the philosophy of Will to Power,was deliberately left by Nietzsche to subsequent 'philosophical labourers'.
Spengler's patient work in that regard undoubtedly does justice to the Nietzschean project.In his massive two volume tome [my own copy is an old battered one,although I also have a single volume abridgement],Spengler sounds a warning [written around the time of WWI] to the decaying Western world,just as Nietzsche had done a generation or more before.Of course,Spengler wasn't alone;there were his contemporaries in America such as Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant,offering a similar analysis.Unfortunately though,Spengler was read,but not understood;he was seen as an erudite Jeremiad who liked to wallow in pessimism.
I think the book is therefore even more relevant today and have read it recently myself.For those who may be daunted by its size,there is a short essay/booklet called 'Man and Technics' which Spengler wrote as an introduction to his main work,'The Decline of the West'.This in itself contains many fruitful ideas.
I would add though,that the cyclic view,as in Spengler and the Dionysian,is not identical with [although of course it is compatible with] Nietzsche's CIRCULAR view of Time in the 'Eternal Recurrence of the Same'.
Spengler's 'Decline of the West' is of course one of the great books of the twentieth century.
One could argue that Spengler tries vainly to repudiate the perspectivism of Nietzsche.Spengler wrote;
"Consider the historical horizon of Nietzsche.His conceptions of decadence,militarism,the transvaluation of all values,the will to power,lie deep in the essence of Western civilisation...But he never once moved outside the scheme,nor did any other thinker of his time". [Spengler,Decline]
Clearly,Spengler intends to go beyond the achievement of Nietzsche on the subject of 'world historical philosophy' by somehow adopting a bird's eye view of the world.But Nietzsche showed that this is not possible,because the viewer is NOT APART from the whole.So Spengler can be praised for his courage,and for his Yea-Saying attitude [particularly as many post-moderns have taken the impossibility of philosophical omnipotence as an excuse for nihilism].It is not even that this is all new,after all Shakespeare wrote that 'the eye cannot see itself'.
So Spengler is important for attempting the heroic task,which should be the doomed task of all philosophers,to create the 'bigger picture'.
That this is so sorely lacking today can be heard in our Western politicians who tell us that the present crisis is 'not a clash of civilisations' (!)--Spengler knew better,and so do we Nietzscheans.
Spengler says that systematic and ethical philosophy have been exhausted,and he regards "the history of philosophy as,in the last resort,philosophy's gravest theme...for we are led to renounce absolute standpoints by comprehension of that past as an organism". [ib.]
Here Spengler follows Nietzsche's advice to take a Hypothesis as far as it will go,even to the point of absurdity.The hypothesis of culture as an organism [seen for example in Herder,Goethe and Nietzsche] is taken to extreme lengths by Spengler;-in that journey he makes many discoveries,but we must always retain the realisation that this,like all philosophising,is only a hypothesis.
Spengler's categories are generally sound,and the way he delineates certain culture souls through their art,science politics etc. is breathtaking.
There is one eccentricity that strikes one immediately,and that is Spengler's drawing a marked line between the Classical soul,and the Western,'Faustian' ,soul.
The quality of Will,is not found in the Classical,he claims,and that Classical antiquity is a completely different culture to the Western European that we see after the fall of Rome.While we may disagree here,and see a thread connecting the ancient Greeks to the European Renaissance etc.,Spengler's perspective does allow for him to make many useful distinctions which can only help us to sharpen our notions of what is the cultural task of European man.
I ragard the Decline as essential reading,if only for it's enlightening treatment of the arts and philosophy from a hiostorical standpoint.It is a thorough education as well as being essential weaponry for we who do not want to be prey to modern 'frog perspectives',and the ahistorical barbarism of today's political lemmings.
Yes,Spengler's work is hard to get hold of in English particularly.
The politically correct machinery went into work fairly quickly, with Toynbee writing his own liberal version of a cyclic world-history to corner the market.
The links that I've tried on him give only thumb sketches, which for a monumentalist writer like Spengler,are fairly unhelpful.
My own copies of 'The Decline' were picked up from scouring second-hand bookshops.
Another 'banned' writer,the American R.P.Oliver,has some interesting perspectives on Catiline [I mention him,as he was also a 'Spenglerian'],where he takes the side of Cicero rather than [as does Sallust] Caesar;
"Caesar was undoubtedly a very great man,if greatness is measured by a man's ability to impose his Will on the world.Only Alexander and Napoleon can be compared to him,and his achievement was,in some respects,greater than theirs.."
"..At the time that Cicero exposed the Catilinarian Conspiracy,some of Rome's most prominent conservatives at once suspected Caesar of complicity,urged Cicero to arrest him,and later blamed him bitterly for not having done so".
Oliver suspects that Caesar hoped that the success of the conspiracy would help clear the decks for Caesar's eventual ascent to power.He claims that one is either a 'Ciceronian',or a 'Caesarian',in all this.
He refers to F.P. Yockey,who under the pseudonym of Ulick Varange wrote a Spengler influenced magnum opus called 'Imperium' ;
"Yockey,following the renowned historian Mommsen [who called Caesar 'the most complete human being'],describes Cicero and the younger Cato as 'culture retarding weaklings'.Yockey must have been a little influenced by Mommsen's prestige,but he is thinking primarily in terms of his own historical reasoning,viz. that the triumph of Caesar was not merely inevitable,but RIGHT, because it was historically necessary for the preservation and expansion of Rome". [Oliver,'Education of a Conservative']
I think Nietzsche's position would be aligned not with Oliver,but with Yockey; yes we are with Caesar!
Ubermensch
'Over' from the Teutonic,and 'super' from the Latin are both cognates from Indo-European [Aryan] language.
No single word can capture the whole flavour,so the myriad Ueber/over/beyond/super/higher-ascending etc. represent an ineffable kalaidoscope of Becoming in the Heraclitean sense.
The words are only a tool to the understanding which goes deeper.
Try and apply yourself.
--------------
He dared to assert himself!
You should be castigated for that; hasn't 1500 years of Christianity in England taught you to hold yourself as a little worm;how can we subjugate the blond beast if he starts to BELIEVE IN HIMSELF!
'Do you want total war?-throw away Christ and bring back Thor'.
No,we cannot allow that,we must castrate the writings of Nietzsche.
As Nietzsche himself wrote,'how could I believe in gods without being a god myself';likewise,how could I believe in supermen without being a superman myself!
I affirm everything absolutely;
I am the best,I TOWER over insectoids!
I Will MY Will...eternally.
As to the continued misunderstanding of the eternal recurrence,it is TIME that is infinite,NOT states of affairs.Infinity would have already been reached.
Nietzsche says;
"And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have taken place,and each of these combinations CONDITIONS the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a
CIRCULAR MOVEMENT OF ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL SERIES is thus demonstrated" [Nietzsche,WM 1066]
Nietzsche thought that his ideals were worth 'damn all',and sought his whole thinking life to rid himself of them;he called ideals 'idols' [hence the title of his work 'Twilight of the Idols'].
It is only sub-Christian underlings that CLING to ideals.
Strong Will,supermanhood,Dionysian,Zarathustrian...that is ALL grist to MY mill;I do not make any Catholic distinctions between what is in the final analysis ASCENDING LIFE.
Go ahead-believe in nothing-be a Nihilist!
But do not be so deluded to think that one word of your whining abuse will dent my immense
PRIDE AND ARROGANCE.
And when you,Underlingam,have produced any thing on this forum to compare with my BGE book studies,then you might have something to shout about.
Until then,pop off back to your own pitiful web-site,which has to be the worst Nietzsche quote-site on the internet--slobbering slug!
I AM! I WILL !
Gast
Nietzsche Chose his Friends and his Madness.
Peter Gast [real name Heinrich Koselitz]
The whole MEAT of the question is to bring out the import of AMOR FATI
AMOR FATI is not an ideal; it is the very OPPOSITE of an ideal.
As Nietzsche said,the idealist is doomed to see ideals lurking everywhere.
1) Of course 'amor fati' means 'love of one's fate';
2) His 'madness' was part of his fate,therefore he would had loved it.
Where Nietzsche's sanity ends and his madness begins is a moot point;from his first book on he was accused by some of madness.
1) Of course,Nietzsche's philosophy was the will to power;
2) This meant among other things,'willing one's fate'.
3) Any illnesses Nietzsche may have had [and there is no CONCLUSIVE proof that he had siphyllus],he saw as TESTS for his will;he said 'what does not kill me,makes me stronger'.
"This flash of illumination came to me when I strolled beyond the asylum grounds with Peter Gast who told me that I have made a remarkable recovery,and at the same time hinted that I was perhaps shamming madness on the Bauderlarian thesis that the only way to keep sane is to escape a bourgeois civilisation and lock yourself up in a madhouse".
[Nietzsche,'My Sister and I',chapter IX,11-Jena Insane Asylum,1889-90]
From the horse's mouth so to speak!
The whole question of whether Nietzsche was actually ever SANE raises its head here.His earliest experiences as a boy which led to his loss of faith shocked his family;his precocious genius,when genius always borders close to madness,-his first book,'The Birth of Tragedy',was almost incomprehensible to his contemporaries;Nietzsche was seen by his detractors even then as beyond the pale.There is a certain evolution toward madness in Nietzsche's work;from the more sobre writings of 'Human all too Human',to the strident last works such as 'Ecce Homo' and 'The Anti-Christ';Max Nordau was not alone in thinking the last named the product of insanity.
Indeed,it seems that Nietzsche was working towards a progressively insane style.
The philosopher M.Foucault wrote;
"Nietzsche's madness--that is,the dissolution of his thought--is that by which his thought opens out onto the modern world". [Foucault,'Madness and Civilisation']
All this raises the question of who is really sane?-are madmen like Nietzsche,van Gogh,Strindberg,Blake,et al. the sane ones? Perhaps those who spend their lives in conformity,consuming 'pop culture',are the insane ones.
To quote that disputed book by Nietzsche again;
"The doctors here think I am mad because I pound the table and shout for more women,more wine and more song,with a Dionysian frenzy which they mistake for satyriasis and erotomania....How wrong they are--these culture philistines,these savages in white uniforms,who cast their death pallor on the world of the beautiful--the Dionysian world of radiant energy and thundering joy! Their efforts in the mental hospital are devoted to monkey-like imitation of the mad world,outside these walls;they have not yet undergone the process of deintellectualisation which Rousseau saw as the first requirement for the sane mind which seeks to escape the insanity of so-called civilisation.
"Those learned horses with their common horse-sense do not realise that I am trying to LIVE MY KNOWLEDGE,and like Diogenes the Cynic am demonstrating by my wild horse-play my new gospel of ACTING MY BELIEFS..."
[Nietzsche,'My Sister and I',ib.,6]
But even if one were to dismiss 'My Sister and I' as a forgery [and i am inclined to], one would have to admit that if Nietzsche actually practised what he preached,then his madness would have been subject to his will and amor fati.
To quote from his authenticated works;
"My formula for greatness in a human being is AMOR FATI:that one wants nothing other than it is,not in the future,not in the past,not in all eternity.Not merely to endure that which happens of necessity,still less to dissemble it-all idealism is untruthfulness in the face of necessity-but to LOVE it". [Nietzsche,'Ecce Homo','Clever',10]
Note here it says 'past','FUTURE' and 'eternity';Nietzsche's madness will recur eternally! How could he not love it! How could he not will it!
On the latter point he says;
" 'WILL A SELF' --Active,successful natures act,not according to the dictum 'know thyself',but as if there hovered before them the commandment:WILL a self and thou shalt BECOME a self". [Nietzsche,AOM 366]
So,given all this,and your own lack of argument ['nonsense' is not an argument],it seems that I can confidently reiterate;
'Nietzsche chose his madness...eternally.' [Moody Lawless]
How much we can learn from this relationship between Nietzsche and Gast;how instrumental Gast was in preserving Nietzsche's heritage,and yet Nietzsche called Gast his maestro!
The generosity of Nietzsche's spirit is astounding;but always remember that this was inter pares,among equals.And yet sub-humans have tried to besmirch Gast's name!-And they wonder why I attack them;they are anti-Nietzscheans who adopt a luke-warm pro-Nietzsche position in order to conceal the heat of their resentment towards him. They are Chandala one and all;and I have dared them all to present their lies under the cold s of my Hammer.
Then this blog will be my solitude,just as Nietzsche had his solitude.
But there was at least one true friend,and that was Gast.
Look how Nietzsche helped his friend;
"Dr. Widmann of Der Bund has written me an enthusiastic letter,also concerning Brahms,with whom he is keeping company [the latter 'most interested in Beyond Good and Evil'].Could I do anything in this direction for your Opera 'The Lion of Venice'? ". [Nietzsche,letter to Gast,July 18th 1887]
Six years earlier,Nietzsche had written Gast;-"Consider again whether you will not sell to me and two of my friends the score of your 'Matrimonio'.I offer you 6,000 francs payable in quarterly installments of 1,500 francs...";-Here Nietzsche made this offer to help Gast out financially.
Listen to me you dogs of envy;if you have any self-respect [which I doubt],then offer up your apologies to Gast's memory.Otherwise be prepared to repeat your debasement eternally.
VAE VICTIS
A reading of Nietzsche's letters shows that he suffered a crisis of confidence around the time of writing Zarathustra,uncertain as to its value.It was a dark period for him generally,when he even contemplated suicide.
But we see that a positive letter from his friend Peter Gast on the merits of his Zarathustra lifted him out of this slough of despond.
From then on we notice a magnificent self-confidence which culminated in the amor fati of his Ecce Homo,where he could write such chapter headings as 'why I am so clever',and 'why I write such good books',as well as extol his Zarathustra (in praise reminiscent of Gast's) as the greatest gift to mankind.
This is an example of self-overcoming.
Gast was a musician and so had a spiritual bond with the very musicianly Nietzsche.
Gast was NOT a 'lickspittle',Nietzsche would not have endured him if he had been such.
In fact Gast offered Nietzsche useful criticsm which Nietzsche listened to.The most well known example would be Gast's advising Nietzsche that the book he was about to send to the printers called 'The Idle Hours of a Psychologist' deserved a 'grander' title.Nietzsche then changed it to 'The Twilight of the Idols;or How One Philosophises with a Hammer'.
In Nietzsche and Gast we can see the revival of a classical type of friendship.
The Epicurean view of friendship,which I will touch on,will be seen as similar to Nietzsche's view of the 'Free Spirits'.
This has some of the quality of a warrior elite,and so does not flinch at the cut and thrust of criticism inter pares.Nietzsche gave his self and work over to harsh criticism;
"I confess that it gave me a real fright to realise HOW closely I am AKIN to Wagner.Later I shall not conceal this curious fact from you,and you shall be the ultimate court of appeal on the matter". [Nietzsche,letter to Gast,July 25th 1882]
Nietzsche highly respected Gast as a critic of his philosophy;
"For your other suggestions [re. 'Human All Too Human'] as to gaps in my thinking,I am also grateful". [Niet. to Gast,Oct. 5th 1879]
So Gast is there right through Nietzsche's mature period,from 'Human' to 'Ecce Homo';always held in the acme of appreciation;
"Once more sincerely:I believe you to be better and more gifted than I am".[ib.]
"To my maestro Pietro.Sing me a new song:the world is transfigured and all the heavens rejoice-The Crucified". [Nietzsche,letter to Peter Gast,Oct.18th 1888]
Peter Gast was one of the few who stuck with Nietzsche through thick and thin.As we all know,Nietzsche was necessarily solitudinous,and carefully selected the few around him who he could treat as equals;
Gast was one of those.
Others included Paul Ree,and Lou von Salome.
Nietzsche wrote;
"
As for Gast,he is my second marvel of this year.Whereas Lou is uniquely ready for the until now almost undisclosed part of my philosophy,Gast is the musical justification of my whole new praxis and rebirth--to put it altogether egoistically.Here in Gast is a new Mozart...I already want to hear no other music than his..." [Nietzsche,letter Oct. 1882]
Nietzsche did not suffer fools gladly,and he certainly valued the highest talent when he came into contact with it.We can see that in Nietzsche's relationship with Wagner.When the latter began to jar on Nietzsche's sensibilities,he cut him off...Nietzsche the unknown philologist did that to the famous Wagner!
Nietzsche,like his philosophy,is typified by a brutal honesty.
Writing to Peter Gast,Nietzsche says;
"We two belong once and for all to the knightly brotherhood 'of the gaya scienza' and take deep comfort from this good year,which has shaken your Opera 'The Lion of Venice' and my 'Zarathustra' from one and the same tree.I am nursing the hope that a small,extremely GOOD society of this faith in the 'gaya scienza' will take shape in Nice,and in my thoughts I have already dubbed you as the first knight,by way of consecrating that Order.." [Nietzsche,letter Sept. 2nd 1884]
The
'gaya scienza' referred to the warrior poets of Provence in the early Renaissance,and was used as the title for his book which Preceded Zarathustra,called in English,'The Joyful Wisdom'.
Notice how he equates Gast's music with his philosophy,and meant what he said when he talked about assembling a group of Free Spirits.
We recall that in 1882 Nietzsche called his friends Peter Gast and Lou Salome his two 'marvels'.He had found gifted young people who actually understood his philosophy!
The rareness of such spirits caused him to 'grapple them to him with hoops of steel'.Nietzsche,well aware of the urgency of his mission,would not waste his time with 'hangers on' or anyone else not up to his own high standards.Therefore his circle of associates was small,but of a tremendously high quality.
This is why I say that Nietzsche
'chose his friends';and why I reject the foul and scurrilous notion suggested by some scribbling slaves that he surrounded himself with 'lickspittles'.The material I have quoted from his letters in this thread proves my point up to the hilt,and stands as a testimony to Nietzsche's inherent Nobility of character.
I say that Nietzsche
'chose his madness' firmly in this connexion.
Lou Salome,who had an intimate intellectual relationship with Nietzsche,wrote the first monograph on the philosopher shortly after his breakdown,and therefore before his death.
The book was called 'Friedrich Nietzsche Through His Works',and makes the suggestion that the philosopher's madness was actually self-willed,i.e.,that it was the consummation of his heart-felt desire to withdraw from the decadence of modern life.
Now,this is still a contentious suggestion;but Salome knew Nietzsche better than most:she was a woman drawn to men of genius as shown by her later relationships with the poet Rilke,and the psychologist Freud.But the more one thinks about it,the more we can sympathise with this idea--Nietzsche willed his own with-drawal from life:he searched for a cave like that of Zarathustra's,and found it in his own insanity.
Yes,Nietzsche CHOSE his madness!
There is another good reason for taking up this beautiful suggestion of the lovely Lou--and that is in the Nietzschean perspective of AMOR FATI.
Nietzsche wrote of this philosophical doctrine;'How could I not be grateful to my whole life?' .
Those who know what 'amor fati' REALLY entails [i.e., the unconditional acceptance of one's whole life as something WILLED],can only think of Nietzsche's madness as the result of his superhuman will:
'Thus I Willed it',says Nietzsche.
And so,from the perspective of amor fati we can say,along with Lou,that Nietzsche CHOSE HIS MADNESS.
Let the mediocre truckle over supposed siphilis and other lewd imaginings;they are all Chandala who seek to denigrate Nietzsche,his philosophy,his family and his friends.They will find no solace in MY writing! That they disagree with me is a mere bagatelle.
Here I present Amor Fati as a challenging reality.I have done the same elsewhere with the Eternal Recurrence of the Same,the Will To Power,and the Superman.
I make these doctrines absolutely necessary-I make them unavoidable.By my way of doing philosophy one cannot merely 'sign up' to Nietzsche's doctrines as 'alternative mentalities',as 'mind games',as 'daring postures',or as 'life styles' (Pah!!)-; NO-you have to absorb them lock stock and barrel.
I say that the will to power IS life;and I say that the superman is not only 'possible',but has ACTUALLY existed,exists now,and will exist in the future;just as time is a circle and life is fundamentally will to power.
Given all that,the superman type cannot believe in anything else but Amor Fati.....
...Am I mad?,saith Dionysos....But thus I willed it so--Eternally!
Yea Yea Yea Yea ...ad infinitum.
This shows how important Gast was to Nietzsche.
Gast was the only contemporary that actually UNDERSTOOD 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' [Nietzsche says that Burckhardt didn't for instance].
It was that response of Gast's to Zarathustra,as I pointed out above,that lifted Nietzsche out of his slough of despond;it was Gast's devotion that kept Nietzsche going in the face of an otherwise negative and hostile world.
That relationship,that friendship,WAS real life,and a full understanding of Nietzsche must bear such things in mind.
Those who try to treat Nietzsche's life as some kind of joke will recieve no quarter from me.
Open letter to those who continue to ridicule Gast:
I have provided evidence;you have provided winsome speculation based on nothing.Until you can provide reasons why we shouldn't accept the evidence of Nietzsche's letters as evidence,the issue remains certain;Nietzsche regarded Gast as more than an equal,and most certainly NOT as a 'bootlick'.There is NO EVIDENCE for that latter position.
And if I may speculate myself,it always strikes me that a naturally devious and unscrupulous mind would want to find insincerity and subterfuge everywhere-even where it patently doesn't exist!
All the quotes were contextualised by me;the dates were given of the letters so that those who want to,can look them up.I did not quote letters in their entirety simply for reasons of brevity.Anyone can avail themselves of the letters and a chronology of Nietzsche's life and times to fully contextualise them;but that goes beyond my remit-I simply show what Nietzsche thought of Gast,speaking both to Gast and to others-what more can I do?
To say that the quotes were out of context is in itself absurd,and as usual,you have provided no evidence of such supposed deliberate decontextualising I am alledged to have used to further my argument [and at least I have one of those].
Nietzsche may have changed his mind about certain people,but my whole thesis was that over the long period of their friendship,NIETZSCHE REMAINED UTTERLY DEVOTED to Gast.Again,evidence is lacking from you that Nietzsche ever repudiated Gast [because he rejected Wagner,for example, is no reason to believe that he rejected Gast-that would be strange logic,completely without basis].
Nietzsche always used polite forms-it was part of the aristocratic style he gave to him-self.
To say that Nietzsche was 'a romantic pure and simple' is false.He was if anything an anti-romantic; that was why he broke with Wagner, who Nietzsche saw as being a romantic. Nietzsche turned his back on idealism,which is the very essence of romanticism.
When Nietzsche looked back on his life he said he would change nothing and choose it again and again,eternally. As time is circular he saw amor fati as working in both directions; so therefore he would have chose his future.
That is the point.
"My formula for greatness in a human being is AMOR FATI:that one wants nothing other than it is,not in the future,not in the past,not in all eternity.Not merely to endure that which happens of necessity,still less to dissemble it - all idealism is untruthfulness in the face of necessity - but to LOVE it.." [Nietzsche,EH,'Clever',10]
To read properly, every word must be weighed; nothing glid over.
Look at the use of 'necessity' - there are no
what-ifs, only necessity.
Nietzsche 'went mad';he LOVED that!
To The Order.
"I applaud the brave and innocent music of my pupil and friend Peter Gast,an AUTHENTIC musician". [Nietzsche,letter March 13th 1885]
That Nietzsche reciprocated philosophical teaching for musical with Gast is clear.We should be grateful for this,because after Nietzsche's death,Gast worked on the unfinished magnum opus which was later published as 'The Will To Power'.Gast knew what Nietzsche was working towards here and was able to put it into the sort of shape that Nietzsche would have approved of.
"Gast's letters breathe the best state of mind one could wish for on earth". [Nietzsche,letter Oct.18th 1888]
In recognition of this largesse,Nietzsche pushed Gast's music to all who would listen;
"Herr von Holten had studied a composition by the only present-day musician who has for me any significance,my friend Peter Gast,and he played it to me 'privatissime' six times,from MEMORY,enchanted by 'the charming and intelligent work' ". [Nietzsche,letter Oct. 18th 1888]
Nietzsche's respect for his friend cannot be any clearer,and puts to shame the lies of those twisters and distortors who have even ventured to call Gast a 'lickspittle'!-such slags either know nothing,or else they are out to deceive...whatever,curse them with these truths of mine which will bury them once and for all.
Let them so much as DARE to resurface on this blog!
Hang your heads in shame,ye Nay-Sayers!
To only think of suicide as a sad and lonely act - this is a Christianised perspective; to the noble Roman Stoic or to the Samurai warrior,suicide marked an act of manly affirmation.
To Nietzsche,'to die at the right time' shows absolute sovereignty of Will.
The writings found of Mo Atta on the conduct he and the other suicide hijackers were to follow had something Nietzschean about them.
They included a check list which said something like 'make sure you have clean shoes,your knives,and your WILL'.
Madness
You say 'madness' chose Nietzsche, thereby personifying madness.
No;Nietzsche chose his own madness;his madness was he.
He chose to withdraw and spend his last eleven (11) years in complete Pythagorean silence and contemplation - his last heroic years when he wrote nothing.
I am the man of strongest Will here; right is in the might of my hand.
Nietzsche's philosophy is too multifarious and PERSONAL to be reduced to a formula.
Nietzsche's philosophical approach was multivalent,going from the shortest aphorisms [everyone knows 'what does not kill me makes me stronger']-and it is these that you confuse with formulas,to long connected essays.
However,the trajectory of Nietzsche's approach aimed towards saying things with as much brevity as possible.The best example of this is 'The Twilight of the Idols',which has such pithy lines as;'Formula of my happiness-a Yes a No,a straight line and a goal'.
I do quote Nietzsche, but always contextualising him.
You are right to percieve the long haul nature of my project.
Like you I feel that something new begins with the 'Wanderer and His Shadow'.After the ploughshare of 'Human',the seeds for the philosophy of the future are sown in the 'Wanderer';they come to an intial ripeness in Daybreak,and then blossom into the mighty vegetation of the 'Joyful Wisdom' and 'Zarathustra'.
However,Beyond Good and Evil is a CENTRAL text,and it is here,at this altar, that we explorers must offer ourselves up as a sacrifice.Through that book will we know if our blood is noble enough to ride the cycles of recurrence taking us back to the Wanderer,and forward to Der Antichrist.
Also we will give ourselves the Grail-like task of putting together the great unfinished text of 'The Will To Power'.
We will be philosophers then,and only then.
On 'Nysos'
It's worth remembering that Dionysos does not figure predominantly in Greek heroic epic;as Burkert points out,the most influential portrayal does not come until the end of the 5th century with the 'Bacchae' of Euripides.Dionysos is an invader from the east,symbolising the tension between the West and the East,or the Apollonian and the Dionysian,that IS Hellenic culture.
I will give a fuller quote from Burkert regarding the mask,which should make his position clearer;
"Dionysian ecstasy is not something achieved by an individual on his own;it is a mass phenomenon and spreads almost infectiously.This is expressed in mythological terms by the fact that the god is always surrounded by the swarm of his frenzied male and female votaries.Everyone who surrenders to this god must risk abandoning his everyday identity and becoming mad;this is both divine and wholesome.An outward symbol and instrument of the transformation brought by the god is the mask.The merging of god and votary which occurs in this metamorphosis is without parallel in the rest of Greek religion.." [Walter Burkert,'Greek Religion',page 62]
Nietzsche does expressly condone the elimination of undesirable off-spring [see 'The Will To Power',Book 3-section on 'society'];he also recommends that the ability to carry out 'cruel acts' WITHOUT FLINCHING is a sign of nobility.
One could view many ancient pagan practices in this light.
The symbol of the 'child' is not of course to be taken literally [Nietzsche himself didn't have any children,nor did he want them];it represents rather,the 'innocence of becoming'.The view that one's life is not the result of original sin,that one is not in fact to blame for ANYTHING.That is a rather more radical doctrine than any kind of mawkish sentimentality over sweet little kiddies!
That is one the most ungracious admissions of defeat..ever!
I am always dismissive when someone uses a pop music reference in a philosophical debate-it shows a complete lack of culture. The sentimentality of a Pop Utopian like John Lennon [imagine there's no country etc.] has contributed to the liberalism of the West.The increased decadence,led by pop culture in general,has made the West contemptible in the eyes of stronger,more masculine cultures.They see how easy it is to infiltrate an 'Open Society',and commit outrages with little or no comeback.
The West is ripe for collapse...remember how Lennon died.
Only by a resurgence of the cruel Viking spirit will the West survive.
My memory works on a principle of selection.
Long Live Death!
Posts
