# What would Nietzsche say to Ayn Rand? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002 "2004-05-13T19:38:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/61 "2004-05-19T21:56:52Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Darn, now I’m going to have to read Atlas Shrugged again. 😉 No need to go to extremes, is there? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/62 "2004-05-19T22:00:01Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Or it could simply be a literary device. No, it is very, very, very bad writing. I’ve never read _Atlas Shrugged,_ but I have read _The Fountainhead._ There’s a scene at a party where Toohey instantly recognizes Roark, whom he has never met before and of whom he has heard little, as his mortal enemy, a truly creative genius. Very, very, very bad writing. If Rand’s actual view of the universe was anything like this, she should never have been allowed to run around loose. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/63 "2004-05-19T22:29:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, it is very, very, very bad writing. I’ve never read _Atlas Shrugged,_ but I have read _The Fountainhead._ There’s a scene at a party where Toohey instantly recognizes Roark, whom he has never met before and of whom he has heard little, as his mortal enemy, a truly creative genius. Very, very, very bad writing. If Rand’s actual view of the universe was anything like this, she should never have been allowed to run around loose. But again, this is a method of describing the visual aspects of her ideas. If I am not mistaken, she is talking about the confidence, lack of guilt, and other things which can be shown in one’s personal habits. She is describing the way that these mental states can be accepted very deeply into the subconcious if you will. To the point that they show themselves to people aware enough to look. If you read the quote I posted above, you will notice that she goes to extreme lengths to stress the idea that rationality is a virtue which can be accepted at very deep emotional levels. It is one of the odd characteristics of her philosophy IMHO. In her fiction, she attempted to show this concept with visual language as well as internal dialogues. It is always possible that I am not understanding something she has written. I am distressed that I cannot remember any of the scenes you guys have brought up clearly. I shal surely have to take drastic measures. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/64 "2004-05-20T06:09:59Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Some have interpreted _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ as meaning that a race of Übermenschen is destined to come about as the result of human evolution, but it seems clear enough (insofar as anything in in Nietzsche is clear) that Nietzsche believed individuals could only become Übermensch through their own self-effort. I don’t know if this is practically possible for everyone or not, and Nietzsche was not clear as to whether he believed it was or ever would be. I think he hoped that it was, though. > > \*I think you’ve misunderstood what an Übermensch is meant to be, because this question doesn’t even make sense. An Übermensch is, by definition, independent and self-reliant. > > It’s very, very important not to confuse the Übermensch with what Nietzsche called the “nobles” (members of the “master races”). The latter belonged to the _past_. Nietzsche considered the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of the “master races” preferable to those of the “slave races”, but never advocated regressing to a time before the triumph of “slave morality”. The Übermensch is the man of the _future_, not a throwback. The “masters” might have needed the “slaves”, but the Übermensch can take care of himself and certainly doesn’t need to hang around with inferior people just to boost his ego. As I noted above, I have read little of Nietzsche and know him mainly through the accounts of other philosophers. The following comes from \* A History of Western Philosophy\* (1945) by Bertrand Russell, chapter XXV. Those of you who are better acquainted with Nietzsche’s writings, please tell me whether or not this account misrepresents his system: > [@](#): > > Nietzsche’s criticism of religions and philosophies is dominated entirely by ethical motives. He admires certain qualities which he believes (perhaps rightly) to be only possible for an aristocratic minority; the majority, in his opinion, should be only means to the excellence of the few, and should not be regarded as having any independent claim to happinesss or well-being. He alludes habitually to ordinary human beings as the “bungled and botched,” and sees no objection to their suffering if it is necessary for the production of a great man. . . . > \* \* \* \* > "I abhor [John Stuart Mill’s] vulgarity when he says, ‘What is right for one man is right for another’; ‘Do not to others that which you would not that they should do unto you.’ Such principles would fain establish the whole of human traffic _upon mutual services,_ so that every action would appear to be a cash payment for something done to us. The hypothesis here is ignoble to the last degree: it is taken for granted that there is some sort of _equivalence in value between my actions and thine."_ [Russell’s footnote: “In all quotations from Nietzsche, the italics are in the original.”] > > True virtue, as opposed to the conventional sort, is not for all, but should remain the characteristic of an aristocratic minority. It is not profitable or prudent; it isolates the possessor from other men; it is hostile to order, and does harm to inferiors. It is necessary for higher men to make war upon the masses, and resist the democratic tendencies of the age, for in all directions the people are joining hands to make themselves masters. “Everything that pampers, that softens, and that brings the ‘people’ or ‘woman’ to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage – that is to say, the dominion of ‘inferior’ men.” The seducer was Rousseau, who made woman interesting; then came Harriet Beecher Stowe and the slaves; then the Socialists with their championship of workmen and the poor. All these are to be combated. > > Nietzsche’s ethic is not one of self-indulgence in any ordinary sense; he believes in Spartan discipline and the capacity to endure as well as inflict pain for important ends. "I test the _power_ of a _will,"_ he says, “according to the amount of resistance it can offer and the amount of pain and torture it can endure and know how to turn to its own advantage; I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day become more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.” He regards compassion as a weakness to be combated. “The object is to attain that enormous _energy of greatness_ which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which yet can avoid _going to ruin_ at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before.” He prophesied with a certain glee an era of great wars; one wonders whether he would have been happy if he had lived to see the fulfilment of his prophecy. So. Is this analysis (pretty thoroughly supported by direct quotations, which so far as I know are perfectly accurate quotations) an unfair representation of Nietzsche’s thought? On a lighter note: I remember a classic cartoon by Gahan Wilson. A professor-type is sitting in a bar. Next to him is a huge android robot. The professor says to the bartender: “He’s programmed to take me home the moment I start quoting Nietzsche.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/65 "2004-05-20T07:18:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > As I noted above, I have read little of Nietzsche and know him mainly through the accounts of other philosophers. Ah, then you don’t know him at all. I don’t mean for that to sound condescending, it’s just that Nietzsche has been the victim of so much misinterpretation and outright lies that it’s more important than usual to go to the primary texts. And even then Nietzsche himself said that he didn’t expect anyone to understand his work unless they read each of his books carefully and in order. Which may be too much to ask, so it is arguably his own fault that so many readers misunderstood his meaning. > [@](#): > > - > > The following comes from \* A History of Western Philosophy\* (1945) by Bertrand Russell, chapter XXV. \*A great and important book, but it’s worth mentioning up front that Russell despised Nietzsche. If you look through the section he wrote on Nietzsche you’ll see that he even admits his argument against Nietzsche is based “not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to emotions”. > [@](#): > > - > > So. Is this analysis (pretty thoroughly supported by direct quotations, which so far as I know are perfectly accurate quotations) an unfair representation of Nietzsche’s thought? \*Yes. It’s completely unfair. I don’t recognize all of his Nietzsche quotations, but those that I do are taken out of context and I do not believe his summaries reflect Nietzsche’s intent at all. Nietzsche’s eccentric writing style and his abovementioned expectation that his books be read completely and in order make him particularly vulnerable to out-of-context quotes. Russell has also made the common and understandable but nonetheless major mistake of confusing Nietzsche’s descriptions of the past with what he wanted for the future. Again, the “nobles” or “master races” of history are _not_ the same as the Übermensch, “liberated spirits”, or “philosophers of the future”. I cannot stress this enough. The former might be a kind of Alexander the Great type, but the real-life person who came closest to embodying Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch was Goethe. He even credited Goethe with inventing an idea of the ideal human essentially the same as his own “liberated spirit”. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/66 "2004-05-20T17:48:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is this analysis (pretty thoroughly supported by direct quotations, which so far as I know are perfectly accurate quotations) an unfair representation of Nietzsche’s thought? I think it’s very important to keep in mind that “bungled and botched” for FN would certainly include all the future NSDAP cadre from top to bottom. He denounced German nationalists (future Nazis), _even suggesting replacing them with Jews for the good of the Germany_\*\*. FN might have expressed contempt for common masses frequently, in large part as rhetorical device, I believe. He never expressed anything but disgust regarding any political movement, especially one driven by mob ideology. He was an extreme individualist, I think. \*\* [Section 251 from “Beyond Good and Evil”](http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil8.htm) is particularly telling in that respect, I think. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/67 "2004-05-20T22:51:26Z")
Russell also says, in the same chapter: > [@](#): > > [Nietzsche] had a passionate admiration for Wagner, but quarrelled with him, nominally over _Parsifal,_ which he thought too Christian and too full of renunciation. After the quarrel he criticized Wagner savagely, and even went so far as to accuse him of being a Jew. His general outlook, however, remained very similar to that of Wagner in the _Ring;_ Nietzsche’s Superman is very like Siegfried, except that he knows Greek. Is it true Nietzsche accused Wagner of being a Jew, and meant it as an insult? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/68 "2004-05-21T02:47:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is it true Nietzsche accused Wagner of being a Jew, and meant it as an insult? I do not remember hearing from any reliable source that Nietzsche ever attempted to insult Wagner by calling him a Jew, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. However, as I have already explained, Wagner was notoriously anti-Semitic and Nietzsche was notoriously anti anti-Semitic. This was one of the primary factors in the breakdown of their once-close friendship. If you wanted to insult a former friend who held anti-Semitic beliefs you found loathsome, what better way to do so than to suggest that he was actually Jewish himself and thus not only a racist but a huge hypocrite? (It’s not beyond possibility that this was even true; some historians suspect that Wagner actually did have some Jewish heritage that he wished to hide.) I don’t think this would make Nietzsche an anti-Semite himself though, which I believe was what you were trying to suggest, isn’t it? But really, I don’t have the time or energy to sit around debunking every line Russell ever wrote about Nietzsche. If you want to believe everything Russell said then go right ahead, but if you want to make any serious criticism of Nietzsche you’ve got to look at what the man actually said, not what Russell said he said or what Russel said he _meant_. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/69 "2004-05-21T07:23:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The following comes from \* A History of Western Philosophy\* (1945) by Bertrand Russell, chapter XXV. I didn’t read any philosophical works of Russell, but the quote you provided seems to be extremely biased. One has to walk a very narrow line here not to be accused of being a **fascist** , but I’ll try nevertheless. Let’s consider it very carefully. > [@](#): > > “The object is to attain that enormous energy of greatness which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which yet can avoid going to ruin at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before.” He prophesied with a certain glee an era of great wars; one wonders whether he would have been happy if he had lived to see the fulfillment of his prophecy. First, the term “_certain glee_” is extremely subjective, pulled out of thin air, followed immediately by insinuation that FN “_would have been happy if he had lived to see the fulfillment of his prophecy_”. Let’s consider then, what “prophesy” was that? Apparently, “_annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, …the like of which has never been seen before_”, another words “_an era of great wars_” of XX century. Now, predicting the future is the best possible qualification of great thinker; besides, FN was not unique in his predictions; few more of XIX century thinkers were full of gloomy forebodings about Germany’s and Europe’s future, notably Heine. Why is BR trying to smear FN with feeling “certain glee” and being “happy” about his predictions? I didn’t notice any sense of “glee” and “happiness” in FN own words on the subject. Second, who are those “bungled and botched” that FN foresees as being “annihilated”? Certainly not ethnic minorities of Europe, for FN never ever advocated that, as we established already. OTOH, they most certainly include “the Socialists with their championship of workmen and the poor”, as Russell himself quotes. Which means they include: [ol] [li]RSDRP(b) = Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (bolshevik faction)[/li][li]NSDAP = National Socialist German Workers Party[/li][/ol] If so, weren’t those exactly the two entities ultimately responsible for the most killing and dying in the wars of XX-th century? Couldn’t have Russell, purportedly one of the greatest minds of the XX-th century, made a connection, if he only wanted to? Finally, who is that “_man of the future_” whose “_object is to attain that enormous energy of greatness… by means of discipline and also by means of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which yet can avoid going to ruin at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before._”? That’s right, it’s Us. We are at that position now. It’s Us who inherited the world after “annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched”. It’s Us who “yet can avoid going to ruin at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before”. It’s Us who can “attain that enormous energy of greatness”. FN is talking to Us, over the decades, over the wars, over all the pain and suffering of billions of people… ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002/70 "2004-05-21T07:38:53Z")
Oh, I should have clarified this point earlier, but at the time Russell wrote _A History of Western Philosophy_, scholars had yet to undo the damage done to Nietzsche’s body of work by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. She had control of his writings during the period when he was alive but incapacitated, and for many years after his death until she herself died in 1935. She re-edited and re-wrote things and encouraged interpretations far different from what her brother intended in order to advance her own position. This is especially true of _The Will to Power_, which existed only as notes at the time of Nietzsche’s mental breakdown. The book as it first appeared in print was what Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche’s had cherry-picked from the notes, often taking things entirely out of context and even using lines Nietzsche had crossed out or corrected himself. Much of what Russell says about Nietzsche’s work may actually be a fair description of what Russell _read_, but that’s something far removed from what Nietzsche really _wrote_. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche left her brother’s work “safe” in the hands of the Nazis when she died. (Hitler attended her funeral in person, and the Nazi Party built a monument for Nietzsche just a few years later.) It wasn’t until well after WWII that scholars were willing and able to uncover the original versions of his writings. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-nietzsche-say-to-ayn-rand/245002.md?page=3)