As a precursor to both existentialism and postmodernism, Friedrich Nietzsche, like many of the most well-regarded thinkers, prided himself in his unorthodoxy. As an agitator and a radical, a hallmark of his life and philosophy was a systematic defiance of all that was conventional. His disdain for any sort of system, coupled with his poetic prose writing style, often led readers of his works to incoherency and paradox; continues an ongoing quest to accurately interpret and represent Nietzsche’s set of philosophical ideals. Another one of Nietzsche’s nonconformist concepts, “life-affirmation,” considers it necessary to question all of our most basic assumptions regardless of how socially prevalent they may or may not be.
“Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in ‘another’ or ‘better’ life.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Continuing this trend of eccentricity in his renowned On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche bashes Christianity and Catholicism as a corrupter of virtue and a creator of “moral prejudices.” In another often-cited moment in his The Gay Science, Nietzsche proclaims that in an increasingly secularized Europe, “God is dead.” He goes on to explain that Christianity claims objective knowledge and truth in an entirely subjective world, all in an effort to safeguard against the possibility of a meaningless universe. Nietzsche posits that we must instead accept perspectivism (objectivity is impossible) and nihilism (an essentially meaningless universe), a couple of Nietzsche’s most vital contributions to philosophy.
Additional Nietzsche Readings:
More information about his life: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A collection of his quotes: The Perspectives of Nietzsche
Summarizing his On the Genealogy of Morals: UNC’s Megan Wallace
Perspectivism and truth in his philosophy: St. Olaf College’s Nate Olson
An explanation of nihilism: Philosophy Talk
You have the overall draw of why it’s interesting to start reading Nietzsche, but you might want to read more about Nietzsche, especially a biography. Nietzsche was not any kind of agitator, and really was a quite sick man throughout out his life and most of his colleagues thought of him as a modest, timid man. He spent most of his life moving around trying to a find a climate that he could actually live in. His writings were never well popularized and only rose to popularity by the horrible editions made by his Sister while he was disabled for the last ten years of his life, and then made popular by Jaspers when he defined Existentialism as what Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were both independently writing. For Nietzsche it’s really important to read the biography, there are so many editions and re-releases you need the footnotes of Walter Kaufman translations. Kaufman was the first major Nietzsche Scholar and the only translation you should bother with at this point. I recommend though above all you need to read his early philological work “The Birth of Tragedy” in some form. It’s the original idea he had that defines his overall problem with what modern sensibilities.
He didn’t promote nihilism or was against the concept of a system, he argued against how much of a dominance the Apollonian nature of the Greeks had overtaken the world. We lost the exuberance of life and art in a search for this formalized anti-hedonistic lifestyle that denies our basic human nature. He saw Platonism and the Christianity that spawned out of Neo-Platonism, as a denial of life that treated all life itself as a disease. He was trying to create a new life affirming morality.
I appreciate your advice, and surely will look into reading more of Nietzsche’s works and perhaps a biography, though I am slightly confused about Nietzsche’s stance on morals. In his Daybreak, Nietzsche writes, “morality is a hindrance to the development of new and better customs: it makes stupid.” So he seems to bash morality as being out of date, but at the same time, you say, he’s affirming morality?
You seem very well informed about the topic, darkadvice, do you happen to be a grad student in philosophy or something of that sort?
Yeah, I have a degree in Continental Philosophy. Mostly French Post-War and Classical Philosophy were my studies though. What I would say to that quote is two things. Nietzsche always wanted us to be in a state of overcoming, if you read the Kaufman Translation of Zarathustra, there is this constant phrase Zarathustra was going under. It’s a poetic usage of the German word Untergehen, which has connotations of destruction and building up again. If we are so sure in who we are and what is right and wrong, we never think about it and never struggle to become better people with new customs and abilities. We are just lazy slaves of past traditions and end up being dissatisfied with our static life. Next Nietzsche hates the concepts of Good and Evil, we should do whatever we can to become great epic figures. Anything that limits our expression and affirmation of life, of our becoming greater is the only harmful thing.
I liked “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” but I did not include the poetic aspect of it along with the many philosophical poems in my book. I just did not care all that much for the feel of the poetry of it… plus it was a bit long. Of course, something might have gotten lost in the translation. I’m appreciative of Nietzsche’s insights regarding the eternal return… but I am not appreciative of his oblivious essence in regard to immeasurable, holistic timelessness. The poor chap, from what one has read, had no clue!
from the book I edited, plarty because I am the editor and plarty because it is hard to choose. The Wallace essay is elegant and intelligent, though it becomes unhinged from the texts in certainly ways. Hurka’s essay seems an appealing choice because of its interst for philosophers beyond those working in Nietzsche studies. Hussain’s essay is similar in that regard.
The idea that the human race has outgrown Christianity seems to be true, and with nothing to replace it humans assume that the universe has no meaning. What’s funny is that the whole concept of ‘meaning’ is just value in human eyes. For nihilists, yeah, the universe has no meaning, just because they say it doesn’t. If you don’t value something, it has no meaning. A lot of philosophers find it really easy to knock down the old philosophies, but they don’t have a legitamite comeback. I agree that religions are largely accepted because of tradition, but it’s kind of stupid to say life has no meaning in the abscence of faith. All that results from no afterlife, no gods, no dictators in the sky dealing out judgement is that death has no meaning. Life stands on its own.
Hello,
I think that might be interesting for you. I am a professional creator and developer of user accounts on Twitter.
Would you like to extend the reach? Would you like to promote your products and services directly to a target audience?
At the moment, interaction between the companies and their potential and existing customers is carried out through social media.
I offer two types of services:
1) Creation and promotion of the Twitter-channel for your website theteenphilosopher.com: addendum of active followers (friends) in an amount not less than 1500, who will retweet(display in their Twitters) almost all of your tweets(messages), giving the channel a status of “Top”.
What gives the status “Top”? All your tweets will have an advantage in the search upon requests on the topic of your website and will be shown in the status of “Top”, and not in the general search which has the status “All” as occurs with ordinary channels. Your twitter will be recommended to add as friend to other users of twitter system with similar interests including those from your region.
Since the format of Twitter implies just short messages with further obtaining of complete information after the following of links – this is a great opportunity of attraction a new audience to your website and new customers.
Cost of the service – $ 70.
2) Placement of links of your website on 500 high quality twitter accounts. Placing will positively impact on the position of your site in Google. Here are a few of words about it – specialists from “SEOMoz magazine” analyzed more than 10.217 different search queries in Google search system and were able to identify the dependence in the preference of those sites whose accounts have links from social media!
Also there were conducted a dozens of experiments which revealed a positive effect of links from social media and in particular positive effect of Twitter to the position of the site, which is supported by a statement of technical engineer Matt Cuts about the fact that Google takes into account the links from social media like Twitter and Facebook in determining of the site positions in search.
So, if you want your site to be on the top in a search, it is necessary to have quality links from Twitter and other social media.
Cost of the service – $ 50.
If you have any questions – please send them. I will try to answer them in the very nearest time.
I work without prepayment. Payment goes after all the work is done and the report is sent. If you order multiple services – I will make a discount!
If you are not interested in this letter I’m sorry to bother you! Have a good day!
Sincerely,
Nick Grey