Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography

I wrote a paper as an undergrad on the question: "to what degree is Nietzsche's thought relevant toward emancipatory theory (egalitarianism, democracy, socialism, etc)," in 2007, and it's too bad my hard drive crashed and I lost it--  but I will mention this article I referred to while writing it, and I will review some of his works again to find some crucial quotes and ideas which support the view that despite his mostly apolitical approach, his ideas do indeed lend to some dynamite-quality insofar as they support a very radically self-reflexive stance not far from one that is social-democratic in effect. 

My key argument is that, despite popular belief, his intended magnum opus, the "Revaluation of All Values" wasn't finished, and he unfortunately died of brain cancer (not syphilis, which was based on anti-German propaganda) before his thought was finally crystallized into a new kind work based on a new kind of coherency-- and so we have recourse to scatters and remains of his thoughts--his journals, and his body of polemical work to make our own interpretations.   Anyway, here are some quotes from his works that ring out of the abyss for me and in which I have personally found something like a call to conscience from him.  I hope it stirs up thought among anyone who is interested in this as I've been for some time now.

There are two issues in which these ideas arise, his ideas of nobility and his ideas of equality.  I'll quote liberally from the net now from what I can recall.   There are certain things that make a mob, according to him, which make the rabble.  I welcome you to make your own conclusions.

 

From "Zarathustra":

* "For what drove me to the poorest, O Zarathustra? Was it not disgust with our richest? – disgust with those punished by riches, who glean advantage from all kinds of sweepings, with cold eyes, rank thoughts, disgust with this rabble that stinks to heaven, disgust with this guilded, debased mob whose fathers were pick-pockets or carrion-birds or ragmen with compliant, lustful forgetful wives – for they are all of them not far from whores – mob above and mob below! What are the ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ today! I unlearned this distinction – then I fled away, far away and even farther, until I came to these cows."

"But whoever wants to eat with us must also lend a hand, even the kings. For with Zarathustra even a king may be a cook."

...Thus all that is past is abandoned: for one day the rabble might become master and drown all time in shallow waters.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, a new nobility is needed to be the adversary of all rabble and of all that is despotic and to write anew upon new tablets the word "noble."

For many who are noble are needed, and noble men of many kinds, that there may be a nobility.  Or as I once said in a parable: "Precisely this is godlike that there are gods, but no God."

12

O my brothers and sisters, I dedicate and direct you to a new nobility: you shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future -- verily, not to a nobility that you might buy like shopkeepers and with shopkeepers' gold: for whatever has its price has little value.

Not whence you come shall henceforth constitute your honor, but whither you are going!  Your will and your foot which has a will to go over and beyond yourselves--that shall constitute your new honor.

Verily, not that you have served a prince--what do princes matter now?--or that you became a bulwark for what stands that it might stand more firmly.

Not that your tribe has become courtly at court and that you have learned, like a flamingo, to stand for long hours in a colorful costume in shallow ponds--for the ability to stand is meritorious among courtiers; and all courtiers believe that blessedness after death must comprise permission to sit.

Nor that a spirit which they call holy led your ancestors into promised lands, which I do not praise--for where the worst of all trees grew, the cross, that land deserves no praise.  And verily, wherever this "holy Spirit" led his knights, on all such crusades goose aids goat in leading the way, and the contrary and crude sailed foremost.

O my brothers and sisters, your nobility should not look backward but ahead!  Exiles shall you be from all father-and forefather-lands!  Your children's land shall you love: for this love shall be your new nobility--the undiscovered land in the most distant sea.  For that I bid your sails search and search.

In your children you shall make up for being the children of your fathers: thus shall you redeem all that is past.  This new tablet I place over you."

“The thirst for equality can express itself either as a desire to draw everyone down to one's level, or to raise oneself and everyone else up.” -(Daybreak)

(I love this next one...)

'How to have all men against you--If anyone dared to say now, "Whoever is not for me, is against me," (Mat. 12:30; Luke 11:23)  he would immediately have all men against him.--This does our time honor.' (The Wanderer and His Shadow)

 

There is a lot more, but I will leave you for now with this next one, I hope it inspires you as much as it has inspired me.

On the Gift-Giving Virtue:
1

When Zarathustra had said farewell to the town to which his heart was attached, and which was named The Motley Cow, many who called themsleves his disciples followed him and escorted him.  Thus they came to a crossroads; then Zarathustra told them that he now wanted to walk alone, for he liked to walk alone.  His disciples gave him as a farewell present a staff with a golden handle on which a serpent coiled around the sun.  Zarathustra was delighted with the staff and leaned on it; then he spoke thus to his disciples:

Tell me: how did gold attain the highest value?  Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its splendor; it always gives itself.  Only as the image of the highest virtue did gold attain the highest value.  Goldlike gleam of the eyes of the giver.  Golden splendor makes peace between moon and sun.  Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless; it is  gleaming and gentle in its splendor: a gift-giving virtue is the highest virtue.

Verily, I have found you out, my disciples: you strive, as I do, for the gift-giving virtue.  What would you have in common with cats and wolves?  This is your thirst: to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves; and that is why you thirst to pile up all the riches in your soul.  Insatiably your soul strives for treasures and gems, because your virtue is insatiable in wanting to give.  You force all things to and into yourself that they may flow back out of your well as the gifts of your love.  Verily, such a gift-giving love must approach all values as a robber; but whole and holy I call this selfishness.

There is also another selfishness, an all-too-poor and hungry one that always wants to steal--the selfishness of the sick: sick selfishness.  With the eyes of a thief it looks at everything splendid; with the greed of hunger it sizes up those who have much to eat; and always it sneaks around the table of those who give.  Sickness speaks out of such craving and invisible degeneration; the theievish greed of this selfishness speaks of a diseased body.

Tell me, my brothers: what do we consider bad and worst of all?  Is it not degeneration?  And it is degeneration that we always infer where the gift-giving soul is lacking.  Upward goes our way, from genus to overgenus.   But we shudder at the degenerate sense which says, "Everything for me."  Upward flies our sense: thus it is a parable of our body, a parable of elevation.  Parables of such elevations are the names of the virtues.

Thus the body goes through history, becoming and fighting.  And the spirit--what is that to the body?  The heald of its fights and victories, companion and echo.

All names of good and evil are parables: they do not define, they merely hint.  A fool is he who wants knowledge of them!

Watch for every hour, my brothers, in which your spirit wants to speak in parables: there lies the origin of your virtue.  There your body is elevated and resurrected; with its rapture it delights the spirit so that it turns creator and esteemer and lover and benefactor of all things.

When your heart flows broad and full like a river, a blessing and a danger to those living near: there is the origin of your virtue.

When you are above praise and blame, and your will wants to command all things, like a lover's will: there is the origin of your virtue.

When you despise the agreeable and the soft bed and cannot bed yourself far enough from the soft: there is the origin of your virtue.

When you will with a single will and you call this cessation of all need "necessity": there is the origin of your virtue.

Verily, a new good and evil is she.  Verily, a new deep murmur and the voice of a new well!

Power is she, this new virtue; a dominant thought is she, and around her a wise soul: a golden sun, and around it the serpent of knowledge.

2

Here Zarathustra fell silent for a while and looked lovingly at his disciples.  Then he continued to speak thus, and the tone of his voice had changed:

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue.  Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth.  Thus I beg and beseech you.  Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls.  Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away.  Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do--back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.

In a hundred ways, thus far, have spirit as well as virtue flown away and made mistakes.  Alas, all this delusion and all these mistakes still dwell in our body: they have there become body and will.

In a hundred ways, thus far, spirit as well as virtue has tried and erred.  Indeed, an experiment was man.  Alas, much ignorance and error have become body within us.

Not only the reason of millenia, but their madness too, breaks out in us.  It is dangerous to be an heir.  Still we fight step by step with the giant, accident; and over the whole of humanity there has ruled so far only nonsense--no sense.

Let your spirit and your virtue serve the sense of the earth, my brothers; and let the value of all things be posited newly by you.  For that shall you be fighters!  For that shall you be creators!

With knowledge, the body purifies itself; making experiments with knowledge, it elevates itself; in the lover of knowledge all instincts become holy; in the elevated, the soul becomes gay.

Physician, help yourself: thus you help your patient too.  Let this be his best help that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.

There are a thousand paths that have never yet been trodden--a thousand healths and hidden isles of life.  Even now, man and man's' earth are unexhausted and undiscovered.

Wake and listen, that you are lonely!  From the future come winds with secret wing-beats; and good tidings are proclaimed to delicate ears.  You that are lonely today, you that are withdrawing, you shall one day be the people: out of you, who have chosen yourselves, there shall grow a chosen people--and out of them, the overman.  Verily, the earth shall yet become a site of recovery.  And even now a new fragrance surrounds it, bringing salvation--and a new hope.

3

When Zarathustra had said these words he became silent, like one who has not yet said his last word; long he weighed his staff in his hand, doubtfully.  At last he spoke thus, and the tone of his voice had changed.

Now I go alone, my disciples.  You too go now, alone.  Thus I want it.  Verily, I counsel you: go away from me and resist Zarathustra!  And even better: be ashamed of him!  Perhaps he deceived you.

The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends.

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil  And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath?

You revere me; but what if your revence tumbles one day?  Beware lest a statue slay you.

You say you believe in Zarathustra?  But what matters Zarathustra?   You are my believers--but what matter all believers?  You had not yet sought yourselves: and you found me.  Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little.

Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.

Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you.

And once again you shall become my friends and the children of a single hope--and then shall I be with you the third time, that I may celebrate the great noon with you.

And that is the great noon when man stands in the middle of his way between beast and overman and celebrates his way to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the way to a new morning.

Then will he who goes under bless himself for being the one who goes over and beyond; and the sun of his knowledge will stand at high noon for him.

"Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live"--on that great noon, let this be our last will.

Thus spoke Zarathustra

just one final note for the moment, on Nietzsche's supposed "disgust" at the "herd."---

contempt is a major theme in Nietzsche's work, and it is important to note that the feeling of contempt "takes wing" through love.  love, which, as he might say elsewhere, is "beyond good and evil."

the following is a wonderful passage on this topic.  I hope it helps people to understand what he means by contempt (disgust), and I hope you notice here we're dealing with Zarathustra's Ape, an imposter who Zarathustra says will make it difficult to know who Zarathustra is.

LI. ON PASSING-BY. (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

Thus slowly wandering through many peoples and divers cities, did Zarathustra return by round-about roads to his mountains and his cave. And behold, thereby came he unawares also to the gate of the GREAT CITY. Here, however, a foaming fool, with extended hands, sprang forward to him and stood in his way. It was the same fool whom the people called "the ape of Zarathustra:" for he had learned from him something of the expression and modulation of language, and perhaps liked also to borrow from the store of his wisdom. And the fool talked thus to Zarathustra:

O Zarathustra, here is the great city: here hast thou nothing to seek and everything to lose.

Why wouldst thou wade through this mire? Have pity upon thy foot! Spit rather on the gate of the city, and—turn back!

Here is the hell for anchorites' thoughts: here are great thoughts seethed alive and boiled small.

Here do all great sentiments decay: here may only rattle-boned sensations rattle!

Smellest thou not already the shambles and cookshops of the spirit? Steameth not this city with the fumes of slaughtered spirit?

Seest thou not the souls hanging like limp dirty rags?—And they make newspapers also out of these rags!

Hearest thou not how spirit hath here become a verbal game? Loathsome verbal swill doth it vomit forth!—And they make newspapers also out of this verbal swill.

They hound one another, and know not whither! They inflame one another, and know not why! They tinkle with their pinchbeck, they jingle with their gold.

They are cold, and seek warmth from distilled waters: they are inflamed, and seek coolness from frozen spirits; they are all sick and sore through public opinion.

All lusts and vices are here at home; but here there are also the virtuous; there is much appointable appointed virtue:—

Much appointable virtue with scribe-fingers, and hardy sitting-flesh and waiting-flesh, blessed with small breast-stars, and padded, haunchless daughters.

There is here also much piety, and much faithful spittle-licking and spittle-backing, before the God of Hosts.

"From on high," drippeth the star, and the gracious spittle; for the high, longeth every starless bosom.

The moon hath its court, and the court hath its moon-calves: unto all, however, that cometh from the court do the mendicant people pray, and all appointable mendicant virtues.

"I serve, thou servest, we serve"—so prayeth all appointable virtue to the prince: that the merited star may at last stick on the slender breast!

But the moon still revolveth around all that is earthly: so revolveth also the prince around what is earthliest of all—that, however, is the gold of the shopman.

The God of the Hosts of war is not the God of the golden bar; the prince proposeth, but the shopman—disposeth!

By all that is luminous and strong and good in thee, O Zarathustra! Spit on this city of shopmen and return back!

Here floweth all blood putridly and tepidly and frothily through all veins: spit on the great city, which is the great slum where all the scum frotheth together!

Spit on the city of compressed souls and slender breasts, of pointed eyes and sticky fingers—

—On the city of the obtrusive, the brazen-faced, the pen-demagogues and tongue-demagogues, the overheated ambitious:—

Where everything maimed, ill-famed, lustful, untrustful, over-mellow, sickly-yellow and seditious, festereth pernicious:—

—Spit on the great city and turn back!—

Here, however, did Zarathustra interrupt the foaming fool, and shut his mouth.—

Stop this at once! called out Zarathustra, long have thy speech and thy species disgusted me!

Why didst thou live so long by the swamp, that thou thyself hadst to become a frog and a toad?

Floweth there not a tainted, frothy, swamp-blood in thine own veins, when thou hast thus learned to croak and revile?

Why wentest thou not into the forest? Or why didst thou not till the ground? Is the sea not full of green islands?

I despise thy contempt; and when thou warnedst me—why didst thou not warn thyself?

Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; but not out of the swamp!—

They call thee mine ape, thou foaming fool: but I call thee my grunting-pig,—by thy grunting, thou spoilest even my praise of folly.

What was it that first made thee grunt? Because no one sufficiently FLATTERED thee:—therefore didst thou seat thyself beside this filth, that thou mightest have cause for much grunting,—

—That thou mightest have cause for much VENGEANCE! For vengeance, thou vain fool, is all thy foaming; I have divined thee well!

But thy fools'-word injureth ME, even when thou art right! And even if Zarathustra's word WERE a hundred times justified, thou wouldst ever—DO wrong with my word!

Thus spake Zarathustra. Then did he look on the great city and sighed, and was long silent. At last he spake thus:

I loathe also this great city, and not only this fool. Here and there— there is nothing to better, nothing to worsen.

Woe to this great city!—And I would that I already saw the pillar of fire in which it will be consumed!

For such pillars of fire must precede the great noontide. But this hath its time and its own fate.—

This precept, however, give I unto thee, in parting, thou fool: Where one can no longer love, there should one—PASS BY!—

Thus spake Zarathustra, and passed by the fool and the great city.

 

good points; I just scrolled quickly through the political stuff at the top of the thread, useless for understanding a thinker of this depth and acuity;

sadly, it was only late in life that Nietzsche read Dostoyevsky, I would have loved to read more of the former on the latter.

however, babble still not ready for a Heidegger thread, I think;

 his Sein und Zeit was photocopied by Sartre for his Being and Nothingness, and the basic dasein postulate informs that whole school; but public discussions of MH's thinking (as opposed to his awful politics)  degenerate quickly, for obvious reasons

(Sartre popularized Heidegger and Husserl, introducing H&H to the mass reading public, through what B. Russell termed "a mix of French pornography and German metaphysics")

now back to our regularly programmed  Nietzsche thread ...

 

 

yes there is,

but a writer like Ezra Pound was an unrepentant Fascist, and his poetry has nothing to do with that political choice; 2 different things...

well, after being jailed by the GIs, he hummed and hawed and backtracked?, no free will involved there...

as for his poetry, tell us more

Google knows everything?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110213135304AAu9mSV

 

 

With all my blather on Pound and fascism I neglected to welcome skepsis to babble! skepsis! Welcome! To babble!

And thanks for that interesting stuff on Nietzsche, and for bumping this old thread. I've downloaded that article you linked to and put it in a public dropbox folder. You can find it here if you want to get a copy:

Prospects for a Democratic Agon: Why We Can Still Be Nietzscheans -- Lawrence J. Hatab, Journal of Nietzschean Studies 24 (2002)

I took a course in phenomenology at the U of T, and we read some Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre, among others-- and I have to say I was fairly spell-bound by Heidegger's Being and Time--  and yet, his treatment of Husserl, even recommending to the government that he be deprived of his post because he's Jewish-- all when "authenticity" was such a big issue for him, this makes it very hard to take him seriously afterwards for me.  Also, note Jaspers' mention of him, who studied under him for example, when he says that studying with him was like being initiated into a kind of religion (I couldn't find the reference, Lawrence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche, I hope I haven't lost this amazing book..)  In any event, I welcome a thread on Heidegger, whenever that may be.   I should brush up on him, really.

 

 

But would it really be so bad?   Given it were possible, and an alternative was given.

 

It could be. The problem always seems to begin with establishing new standards, and then a few more, followed eventually in our careless and frenzied moments by extrajudical provisions for special cases. Maybe if we could start off by just using felt on our whips.

Wesen ist was Gewesen ist: Hegel

yes, let's have a Heidegger thread some day, although it is sure to be bogged down in non-philosophy at some point; maybe by introdcuing MH through his great pupil/publicist Sartre,  whose Marxist credentials are impeccable, we could avoid obvious political fallacies

btw, if you were at UofT, do you know if Emile Fackenheim taught Heideggger?: a great Jewish scholar and also student of German phenomenology, so it can be done ...