What's Holla Forums's opinion on Nietzsche?

what's Holla Forums's opinion on Nietzsche?
Is he worthy or just reactionary fodder?

I like him. Plenty of Anarchists do to.

It's possible to find a vaguely Nietzschean strain of thought within Trotskyism and Maoism as well, especially when it comes to building the 'New Socialist Man'.

He's basically Stirner for the weak.

Oh boy, yet another low-effort general OP.

Nietzsche, more than any other thinker I know of, has been a great source of inspiration for ideologies all over the place. From liberal atheists to ancaps to Nazis to fucking anarchists, everyone seems to want to claim Nietzsche as one of their own, and none seem to be able to conclusively do so. It is a simple fact that anyone whose studied Nietzsche is aware of, that Nietzsche is constantly contradicting himself. To some degree, you could argue for this being his changing views on things - he never wrote a systematic metaphysical treatise and allowed for an evolving philosophy - but you cannot deny that it's often not clear when he's being ironic and when he's being serious.

This makes such a one-dimensional and simplistic question like, "is he worthy or just reactionary fodder" ill-suited to Nietzsche.

However, I claim Nietzsche as both an anarchist and a nihilist, and I think that this more than any other position makes sense for Nietzsche precisely because anarchism is far more resilient than any other political ideology. Sometimes to a fault (with bullshit like "anarcho"-capitalism and National "Anarchism"), anarchism is broad enough a position that you can extrapolate far beyond the naive socialism of classical anarchists. Some would even argue that it is necessary for someone who subscribes to an ideology of "no gods, no masters" to be willing to be even more radical than anything which is comprehensible to liberal Enlightenment logics - and this is precisely what Nietzsche does.

Nietzsche critiques anarchism more viciously than probably any other political ideology, and he quite rightly does so. Anarchism in his day was limited solely to classical anarchism, and Nietzsche was critical of anarchism as well as socialism for merely being liberalism par excellence. Anarchism was in his mind the greatest offender in that regard (which should also be comforting to someone who considers themselves a classical an-com or syndicalist; Nietzsche has confirmed for you that we do liberalism best). And Nietzsche in general was against anarchism and liberalism because liberalism is a levelling process where all individuals are brought down to the level of the lowest-common-denominator - to the slavish, weak, and pathetic individuals who are too weak to stand on their own and so take refuge in the herd.

For Nietzsche, liberalism punishes rather than rewards greatness. Rather than ruling by the force of their will to power, politicians and the bourgeois and racialists take refuge in something other than themselves - the democratic process, commodity fetishism, geneticist racial "science" - to justify their rule. Those who command under liberalism are weaklings - fat old men and edgy vegetarian art school dropouts who gain their positions of power by reproducing slave morality.

Though it might often seem that Nietzsche is just an even more extreme reactionary, we must not forget that Nietzsche himself says that his project is to go "beyond Good and Evil" (beyond slave morality), not to go "beyond good and bad". The Christians already succeeding in going beyond good and bad; Nietzsche is merely historically aware enough to know that the dialectic must go on, and that he should be upsetting most of all the sensibilities of liberals and socialists.

Nietzsche's alternative is, as Emma Goldman put it, philosophers of the future who are aristocrats in spirit and men of action. People who are strong in will, who actualize their will to power in their actions and who create value by destroying the values of the old should have power - not people who rely on, as Stirner would put it, "spooks" to justify their rule. And this includes anarchists who have traditionally relied on Enlightenment narratives of morality, equality, and "progress" to justify their project, rather than proving in our actions that we're the ones who are better than the bourgeois, politicians, the police, and Nazis. And I think it should be clear to anarchists that we are in fact better than all these people; I don't for a second buy into liberal equality in this regard, because it would put us on the same level as these pieces of human shit.

.pdf related has a bunch of essays by anarchists on this. Anarchists, particularly the post-left tendencies (though also others like Emma Goldman) have always been attracted to Nietzsche and have come to take his critiques of anarchism seriously. As they quite rightly should.

Oh, and before some cheeky faggots chimes in with "durr Nietzsche wasn't a nihilist":

No, it's hardly that simple. Nietzsche was certainly against passive nihilism, but he viewed active nihilism as at the very least being a necessary transitory state of moving beyond the old values towards the new by destroying those old values. It is what one chooses to do with nihilism - whether to submit passively to it or to take it up and use it as a tool for creative destruction and liberation - that sets apart the weaklings from the strong.

Yo, I've got a question. Obviously, anti-state capitalism isn't anarchism as is very obvious but why not national anarchism. Nationalism is a stupidity, yes. But it would be socialist, wouldn't it? I'm just wondering why you discount it precisely.

It's fucked up that the text will be so prone to an interpretation which justifies a brutality towards life.

Or that it will be used as an ideological strut.


Spell your thoughts out a bit more clearly

Nietzsche's texts*

Well, although it is stupid, why don't some anarchist consider the so-called national anarchism as anarchism? Is it for the same reason that socialists (including anarchists) don't regard Not Socialism (strasserism) socialism? I mean, if the workers have control over their own workplace. have their industries collectivized. etc. is it not socialism?

smh lad, this is what happens when you let yourself believe in naive materialism

No, nationalism cannot be socialist because socialism is supposed to liberate the working class - that is, all workers irrespective of nationality. Restricting socialism or anarchy to muh nation and muh tribe can only lead to a situation where the hegemony creates valid categories of worker and excludes others, and thus allows for these invalid categories to be exploited by imperialism. This is how power distribution works.

Basically, racism has no place in socialism to begin with. Though limiting our project to a classical socialist narrative of the liberation of the working class is already in-itself volatile and prone to be turned into fascism. Which is why anarchism is superior in this regard, because it always contains within it a disavowal of hierarchy.

Which is why nationalism has no place in anarchism. Anarchy cannot permit hierarchy, and nationalism creates rigid hierarchy.


p much. It's antithetical to Nietzsche to argue such a reading considering how thoroughly life-affirming Nietzsche is.

Disavowing equality in favor of strength doesn't imply "might makes right" for Nietzsche. Which is why I chose the figure of Zarathustra over the pit to make my point: The philosophers of the future, the Nietzschean anarchists, should seek to empower others by being inspiring to them and challenging them to meet us somewhere beyond Good and Evil.

Oh I see, That was pretty stupid of me. Forgot about it really meaning nation-based hierarchy. It seems more complex than that though. Anarchism just doesn't seem like a simple philosophy at all in the real world.

I thought socialism was about abolishing the working class.

Communism is abolishing all classes.

Classical socialism IMO reproduces bourgeois ideology in that respect - especially work ethic. The Situationists and those influenced by their anti-work ethic argue on the contrary, that what we ultimately should seek to do is indeed abolish work itself in favor of free, productive, creative labor.


holy shit that image is gold. Saved

No Nietzsche wasn't a nihilist in the sense that people speak about nihilism - I have no values etc. For Nietzsche nihilism is the state of society in modern times.

The philistine view of nihilism is similar to what he speaks about as being either disinterested, having your values anchored externally to you, or turning your negativity inwards. In that sense Nietzsche was not a nihilist, these were all things he railed against and hoped the truly excellent people would overcome.

Nietzsche says somewhere, I'm paraphrasing, I'm not an immoralist because I think there are no moral facts rather it's because I disagree about what the moral facts are. So you can't even say he's a moral nihilist.

To further make my point Nietzsche says that there is more wisdom in our bodies than our greatest philosophies. This position isn't nihilism, it's vitalism.

Thinking Nietzsche is a nihilist is really really low brow, it not only shows you don't understand the man or the traditions he follows(Aristotlean ethics if you didn't realise) but also that you simply don't know what nihilism is or can't differentiate it from dark and brooding.

Addendum: that he analyses an active nihilism doesn't mean he himself is a nihilist, remember nihilism is the word he uses for our modern condition which is not equatable with the concept of nihilism as a position of negativity or void how we use it in philosophy. The one who analyses and describes our situation as nihilism doesn't necessarily have no values, moral compass or metaphysics.

Nietzsche is a great thinker and I personally love his thought, but politically he's a reactionary. It's nice to see how the other side thinks though.

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Mickey still hasn't answered what Donald actually is saying in that.

the first ironic memer

Mickey isn't disagreeing. His point is that because everything is absurd, and there is no seeming intrinsic universe, even the absurdity is absurd. In the end, it all comes down to the will to power.

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As said Marx, this was nothing new to the situationist - what they critiqued was the ML narrative that idolized factory labour.

It's pretty clear that our nihilist comrade knows nothing about Marxism.

Maybe you should re-read my post before you jump on your soapbox to proclaim how much more well-read you are than me for rattling off about how Nietzsche wasn't a nihilist - almost exactly like what I predicted, but at least in the process demonstrating that you've at least read the Stanford article on Nietzsche instead of the Wikipedia one.

Seriously, I didn't even claim in the post you responded to that Nietzsche is a nihilist. What I did do is clarify my previous claim on the matter, actually, to say that it isn't as simple for Nietzsche that he was outright against all nihilism full-stop - or that he was definitely a nihilist either. He did in fact view active nihilism as at least necessary for the possibility of value-creation, and his project oftentimes engages in active nihilism by basically lambasting everything that Europe stands for. Like I said, Nietzsche would view nihilism more as a transitory phase than a goal in-itself; it is rather the activity of the strong and noble to create value after having destroyed the old values. In this respect I can consider him at times to engage in active nihilism, even if he thinks he is able to already move beyond nihilism when all he has done is critique the ideas of bourgeois modernity without actualizing this critique.

Nevertheless what you're referring to is passive nihilism - which you're conflating with nihilism in general, and to boot are also - entirely without cause - saying that I don't know what nihilism is or that I think it's being "dark and brooding" despite the complete lack of evidence in my posts that this is my view on the matter.

To further clarify: My reasons for choosing to be a nihilist and not a "value-creator" of some sort are because I think Nietzsche is wrong to believe that we can just create our own values within the shell of the old values. It is my position as an anarchist that trying to do so would only reproduce their logic. But this isn't directly related to the discussion.

I appreciate that you at least had the dignity to put in some effort in your post, but I'm not going to waste my time on someone who can't be arsed to look past their own self-assured self-righteousness and actually read what they're responding to.

Did I say that Marx wasn't in favor of such a thing? No, I said that classical socialism - the most notable proponets of which were Leninists and ML's - reproduced bourgeois work ethic by idolizing the laborer.

I wouldn't claim to know more about Marxism than a Marxist who actually reads shit, but I most certainly know more about Marxism than the majority of Holla Forums. Which is pretty sad considering that I'm an anarchist of the most viciously "anarkiddie" sort as far as Holla Forums is concerned, and don't give a fuck about Marx.

smh I don't have time to deal with this shit, I have to go to work.

mickey is committing the genetic fallacy.

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i like his methods but not his conclusions

Daily reminder Nietzsche's amor fati "love all the good with all the bad" is reactionary af.

Here, I got something for that.

What? If capitalism hadn't happened communism wouldn't be possible. Nietzsche's point is that we should be grateful for our enemies that made possible our struggle for a higher level of existence, instead of poisoning ourselves with resentment and wishing our enemies didn't come about at all. In fact, it is clearly the latter that is reactionary, by definition.
The overman must affirm the historical appearance of the human instead of simply despising it, the latter would mean implicitly wishing to return back to the state of the animal.

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Sorry for misreading. Good posts.

It's not reactionary, it's a thoroughly hegelian move. To see the necessity in contingency, it's probably the most progressive position and Marx himself understood this.

Vulgar marxists need to die to be quite honest.

Christ interpreted in the best light propounded it as well but in a false way letting resentment seep in and cloak itself in the image of something higher, which is what Nietzsche rails against.

Love all the good with all the bad without being a disinterested and effete homosexual is the message but when you write in aphorism form it's difficult to say exactly what you are and are not addressing.

Jesus christ kill yourself

Derrida was hegelian.

Socrates was hegelian.

What about heraclitus and spinoza? They too were hegelian…


What's funny about this is that both Hegel and Nietzsche know it's naive to think of truth as constituted in opposition, both see constant change as the essence of things and attempt to transcend metaphysics. But Nietzsche isn't Hegel so you can denounce any similarities by saying that Nietzsche wasn't Hegelian? You know how much affinity they had for the same figures in the history of philosophy right?

The dionysian wisdom on suffering and the dialectical development of history and science stated metaphorically as the bud disappearing in the burst-forth of the blossom have strong parallels even if you don't consider the heraclitean influence. I get the feeling that you think that Hegel uses teleology as a foundation for his work and so they differ fundamentally but if you pay close attention you'll see that it's precisely the other way around, any vectors of history are only uncovered after the dialectic has been worked out without presupposition.

God was hegelian.

ftfy

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Holy shit just stop throwing terms around that you obviously don't know the meaning of, you're embarrassing yourself.