Friedrich Nietzsche and Nihilism

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Nefastos
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Re: Friedrich Nietzsche and Nihilism

Post by Nefastos »

k1a2r3m4a wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:29 amNietzsche didn't consider himself a "nihilist." He saw nihilism important only as a tool for re-evaluating & destroying one's values, creating room for new ones. He more or less meant it to be used for a transition period, on the path to becoming the overman or whatever you prefer to call it.

I too was a bit surprised that the more pro-Nietzsche writers in the forum, or the ones who know more about him, didn't outright condemn this label. I hadn't thought Nietzsche as a nihilist per se, although there is a connection.

Yesterday I was reading R.I. Evans' interviews of Jung, and naturally once again stumbled upon him. With Goethe, Nietzsche is the author for Jung to reflect his own philosophy for the readers. Id est, there are enough points of deep appreciation and deep disagreement that Jung constantly finds Nietzsche important to mention.

Dr. Evans: So in a sense, as you began to look over Dr. Freud's emphasis on sexual drive, you began to think in terms of other cultures, and it seemed to you that this emphasis was not sufficient universality to be assessed primary importance.

Dr. Jung: Well, you know, I couldn't help seeing it, because I had studied Nietzsche. I knew the work on Nietzsce very well. He had been a professor at Basel University, the air was full of talk about Nietzsche so naturally I had studied his works. And there I saw an entirely different psychology, which was also a psychology – a perfect competent psychology – but all built upon the power drive.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Angolmois

Re: Friedrich Nietzsche and Nihilism

Post by Angolmois »

k1a2r3m4a wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:29 amAlso, an earlier post referred to him as a proto-fascist; can you really make a solid argument for that? Fascism and fascists were definitely influenced by how they interpreted some of Nietzsche's ideas, but if you look at his ideas as a whole then it's difficult for me to get the impression he would've advocated for fascist systems. He was critical of nationalism (he saw it as a form of herd-mentality etc.), and was very much in favour of having one think for oneself, to define one's own values & meaning in life and to break societal norms. While he was something of an elitist, and definitely not a humanist/socialist/what have you, I just don't see him being compatible with fascism.
This is why I called him a proto-fascist and not fascist per sae; what I mean is that it is like he predicted the fascism and some of his ideas - like will to power, so called "aristocratic maxims", joyful acceptance of cruelty and violent, war-like impulses as part of "life", the übermensch ideals - can be seen in the fascist systems.
Wyrmfang
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Re: Friedrich Nietzsche and Nihilism

Post by Wyrmfang »

k1a2r3m4a wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:29 am Maybe this is splitting hairs (and maybe someone already mentioned it in prior posts and I happened to just skip over it), but Nietzsche didn't consider himself a "nihilist." He saw nihilism important only as a tool for re-evaluating & destroying one's values, creating room for new ones. He more or less meant it to be used for a transition period, on the path to becoming the overman or whatever you prefer to call it.

It's been a really long time since I read Nietzsche, but wasn't much of his works actually a lamentation of "the death of God" and the abandonment of - I guess you could call them - "transcendent" values, even if he was very critical of Christianity? Therefore, I don't see how he can be a nihilist in its strict sense of the word.
This is pretty much what I tried to explain earlier in the thread. Even though Nietzsche could be conceived as a nihilist per se in the more technical sense of contemporary analytical ethics: in this sense moral nihilism is a view that there are really no such thing as morality, it is ultimately about emotions or whatever. But this kind of technical nihilists usually use their stance to avoid nihilism in practice.
Rúnatýr wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 4:06 pm
k1a2r3m4a wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:29 amAlso, an earlier post referred to him as a proto-fascist; can you really make a solid argument for that? Fascism and fascists were definitely influenced by how they interpreted some of Nietzsche's ideas, but if you look at his ideas as a whole then it's difficult for me to get the impression he would've advocated for fascist systems. He was critical of nationalism (he saw it as a form of herd-mentality etc.), and was very much in favour of having one think for oneself, to define one's own values & meaning in life and to break societal norms. While he was something of an elitist, and definitely not a humanist/socialist/what have you, I just don't see him being compatible with fascism.
This is why I called him a proto-fascist and not fascist per sae; what I mean is that it is like he predicted the fascism and some of his ideas - like will to power, so called "aristocratic maxims", joyful acceptance of cruelty and violent, war-like impulses as part of "life", the übermensch ideals - can be seen in the fascist systems.
Nietzsche has definitely inspired many fascists and fascist-like people, but much of it is banal misunderstanding. But there is also the issue that Nietzsche´s sister was an actual Nazi and she used/edited Nietzsche´s texts to serve this purpose after Nietzsche´s death (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth ... -Nietzsche). Yet, Nietzsche was a fiery writer, to put it in a positive way, and he said many things which are not always consistent. Some genuine Nietzschean passages share elements with fascist thinkers, and I guess Nietzsche himself can be held responsible for this to some extent. However, will to power is his late conception, and its main function is to serve his argument how to create meaning after we have killed God.

Not that I would agree with Nietzsche in almost anything, but he is one of the most important philosophers in late modernity, so his main ideas should be understood straight.
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