No, that is not “in other words”. “Nietzsche’s philosophy was the antithesis of Americanism” does not mean the same thing as “Nietzsche would in general be against American attitudes.”
If you want to ask a different question then you are free to do so, but don’t try to tell me that the title and first post of this thread say something that they do not.
So what? “Nietzsche’s philosophy was the antithesis of Americanism as a philosophy” still does not mean the same thing as “Nietzsche would in general be against Americanism as a philosophy.” That’s not what “antithesis” means.
I suppose we could have a long, drawn-out semantic argument on this point, but I don’t care to do so. What I find more interesting is that this is the only part of my post that Curtis disagreed with. He quoted but did not address my suggestion that he is not interested in a serious discussion about Nietzsche and is simply looking for a reason to dismiss Nietzsche’s work. I guess he saw nothing to argue with there.
I think that would be an interesting thread too, but I also think the OP would just cherry-pick the statements that support what he’s already decided is true. I’m uncomfortable playing along with that game. I wouldn’t want something I posted here to be twisted around and used against someone else later: “That sounds like something Nietzsche would say, and as we all know Nietzsche was anti-American. Why do you hate America?”
I do. In one of my recent debates one of the sources I cited was a book. Also I gained my information about Nietschze from a late 1950s Encyclopaedia Brittanica not Wikipedia.
Quite intelligent and reasoned-usual SDMB quality.
That most men are stuck in a “herd” or “slave” mentality which currently dominates the world but the superior ideal is the morality of the “aristocrats” who have the will to power and for humanity to be truly great the herd mentality must be overthrown and be replaced by the ubermensch morality of the will to power.
I would say mostly he is against the general principles of what can be called “Americanism”.
I do want a serious debate about Nietschze.
Thomas Jefferson actually did want abolition in Virginia but that effort was prevented due to slave revolts.
Surely that is no reason to mean he should have his own slaves? That someone personally has slaves but wishes for abolition in general doesn’t strike me as someone who’s doing so out of a moral standpoint.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm You mean this Thomas Jefferson who saw religion as a problem and a threat to freedom and freedom of thought? He was no idealist.
It has been said of Jefferson that his life was a constant struggle between his principles and his appetites. He owned slaves because a Virginia gentleman of his time had to have domestic servants and farm laborers, and practically no free ones were available (and, of course, if you could find any you did not have a legal right to fuck them). He did not free his slaves in his will because he was not a good manager of his money, and got in debt, and would rather see his slaves sold off at an estate sale than screw his creditors and his heirs.
Honestly, this still doesn’t sell me on him being even an acceptable person. If the choice is between owning slaves and being bankrupt or in great debt, then the latter is the unfortunate but only moral choice. Not wanting to screw creditors and heirs, while laudable, is not so when the means of getting out of it is profiting from slave labour and then selling them off.
There’s plenty of evil or cruel acts which could be mitigated by circumstances. Stealing medicine you can’t otherwise afford to save a life, is the usual example. But owning slaves and taking considerable advantage of them is too far beyond the pale for any kind of real-life mitigating circumstances. Which is why i’m asking the question of Curtis, who seems to feel that they are, at the least, mitigating, and at the most, absolving.
I’ve never read Russell’s book but the wiki makes it sounds very interesting. My philosophy background is rather unbalanced (mostly existentialism, Eastern philosophy and a handful of 17/18th Century philosophers), so an overview like that might be educational for me. Would you mind summarizing Russell’s perspective?
There was was a great deal of trade between America and Europe in the 19th century. Wealthy Americans vacationed in Europe and wealthy Europeans vacationed in America. 19th century Germans would have probably had friends or relatives who had emigrated to America. I don’t much about German literature specifically, but 19th century English literature has plenty of references to America. There are lots of American characters in Sherlock Holmes, an American with a Bowie knife stabs Dracula, and I think an American shoots and wounds the Invisible Man. I think that as a well educated man, Nietzsche probably knew a few things about America.