02-21-2009, 12:22 AM
That's one heck of a mustache.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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02-21-2009, 12:22 AM
That's one heck of a mustache.
02-21-2009, 01:59 AM
I think I agree with McNider here. I can only take Nietzsche in small doses... too much and I start feeling panicky. He is brutally honest though, and he can shed a lot of light on the thought patterns of contemporary people. I think understanding him is worthwhile, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everyone.
And you know, even if he was wrong on a number of counts, you have to admire his intellectual courage. His smashing of the idols had to have left him in this weird position of intellectual flux and suspicion of everything. It's very difficult to live with that, and to live with it and furthermore attempt to forge out your own meaning takes some serious guts. I definitely admire that about him, despite disagreements that I have with various aspects of his thought.
02-21-2009, 09:09 AM
Man, that was one pretencious guy.
02-21-2009, 09:58 AM
Quote:Actually, there is some credible refutation of the syphilis thing (I used to be a Humanities major). I definitely can't go into the reading I've done, but his father suffered from some sort of neurological state that was similar -- it also seemed that Nietzche was too much of a misogynist (sp?) to visit prostitutes. There are several theories. The one thing that always bothered me about the syphilis theory is that he allegedly was infected in the ONE time he went to a prostitute? That's awfully (in)convenient. I don't really use the syphilis theory to impugn him, primarily because that never works. Modern liberals simply do not accept the premise that sin makes one stupid, in fact they are vehemently opposed to it. In his later years, despite the rhetoric in his books, he lived like a monk. Quote:I think I agree with McNider here. I can only take Nietzsche in small doses... too much and I start feeling panicky. He is brutally honest though, and he can shed a lot of light on the thought patterns of contemporary people. I think understanding him is worthwhile, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everyone. I enjoy reading him occasionally for some of the same reasons. I think it was Peter Kreeft who remarked he was a genius because he asked questions no one had ever asked before. For instance instead of the tired old "what is truth?", he ask "Why seek truth, why not the comfortable lie?" There's no answer to that question really. It's too basic to the philosophical enterprise. I always keep in mind too, often what Nietzsche is attacking, with regard to Christianity, is late 19th century Victorian era protestantism and sadly many of his critiques about it being "soft" and more than a little ridiculous could be applied to the bulk of NO Catholicism today.
02-21-2009, 11:46 AM
Quote:always keep in mind too, often what Nietzsche is attacking, with regard to Christianity, is late 19th century Victorian era protestantism and sadly many of his critiques about it being "soft" and more than a little ridiculous could be applied to the bulk of NO Catholicism today. Very true. They've quoted him in that article describing the churches as "sepulchers" and "tombs of God." He's actually describing a present reality, as churches and monasteries are being closed, looted, and desacralized. I've been stunned in driving through Paris, for instance, and seeing numerous churches desacralized and turned into museums. How perverse and telling... The challenge inherent in mounting a Catholic refutation of Nietzsche is that some of his arguments are true, because he's tracing the trajectory of nihilist/revolutionary thought and taking it to its ultimate conclusion (ie: man is God/ Satan's "I will not serve"). We also forget that Nietzsche wasn't the first to articulate the "superman" philosophies, just the best known (didn't it actually begin with some obscure Russians?). We have to be careful that acknowledging the truths in what he's observed doesn't appear to amount to supporting his moral degeneracy.
02-21-2009, 11:58 AM
Happyandgrateful Wrote:I've been stunned in driving through Paris, for instance, and seeing numerous churches desacralized and turned into museums. Or worse yet, pubs or condos.
02-21-2009, 01:11 PM
Happyandgrateful Wrote:Quote:always keep in mind too, often what Nietzsche is attacking, with regard to Christianity, is late 19th century Victorian era protestantism and sadly many of his critiques about it being "soft" and more than a little ridiculous could be applied to the bulk of NO Catholicism today. Well certainly he accurately traces the collapse of Christendom into a dry, rationalism and effeminate sentimentalism. The danger is he espouses a pagan ethic which has, in part, been smuggled back into Christianity since the Renaissance and which, compared to the above two camps, is very attractive. He plays on (or perhaps was played by) archetypal themes, particularly in Zarathustra, that resonate with people and which Christianity has, in large part, lost touch with. Jung's seminar in Zarathustra is very insightful on this point. Quote:They've quoted him in that article describing the churches as "sepulchers" and "tombs of God." He's actually describing a present reality, as churches and monasteries are being closed, looted, and desacralized. I've been stunned in driving through Paris, for instance, and seeing numerous churches desacralized and turned into museums. How perverse and telling... Perhaps just as telling are the number that have been turned into mosques. Nietzsche was very appreciative of Mohammedanism because it saw it as a very virile and "masculine" religion. It retained what he admired about the Old Testament. In the absence of a balanced Christianity, post-Christians don't simply turn into liberal marshmallows. They often turn into virulent and aggressive pagans (Nazism for instance) or turn to something like Islam which affirms their aggressive and masculine impulses towards "the other". In Nietzsche's discussions on power for instance, don't forget that he (unlike his heirs such as Foucult) was not advocating for those in the "slave" class but rather he gloried in "master" status. He had no use for "the herd". In the prologue, after he attempts to teach people the overman and they don't understand he instead teaches them the "last man", which sounds an awful lot like the modern man who has no virtue (as Nietzsche defined it, i.e. in the original pagan sense of "strength") [Thomas Common's trans. which is not my favorite but it's online, Kaufmann's is bettter] Friedrich Nietzsche Wrote:Lo! I show you THE LAST MAN.
02-21-2009, 01:26 PM
Credo Wrote:Happyandgrateful Wrote:I've been stunned in driving through Paris, for instance, and seeing numerous churches desacralized and turned into museums. Really, a pub?! ![]()
02-21-2009, 07:00 PM
Happyandgrateful Wrote:Really, a pub?! Properly speaking, it tends to be worse. The word "pub" tends to conjure something a lot more mundane than the reality in most cases. Clubs or, my favorite, skanky dive bars, would be a better description. Doing a quick Google search did not result in any church-to-bar photos, though I've seen such examples on television. Here's are some examples of church-to-condo renovation: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
02-22-2009, 01:13 AM
Quote: Well certainly he accurately traces the collapse of Christendom into a dry, rationalism and effeminate sentimentalism. |
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