Perhaps not if we were talking about some other German, but as I said, Nietzsche was no anti-Semite. He was, however, pretty anti-German, and spent as much of his time in Italy as possible.
Very true. It is a crying shame that a great thinker who highly extolled the Judaic values from Old Testament and even advocated more Jews to settle in Germany while extraditing the nationalists out of Germany (somewhere in ‘Beyond Good and Evil’), has a reputation of Anti-Semite among the un-informed masses.
The only time FN said anything bad about any Jews was when he would rage against Christianity, which was his major gripe. The Jews he’d target would be the early Christian sect and thus not even real Jews, properly speaking. FN never said a single bad word against traditional, orthodox Jews.
FN was clearly not a lover of German race, always proudly pointing out that his ancestry is not German but from Polish (Slavic) aristocracy.
Ayn Rand was not any thinker or philosopher, but an example of that despicable XX-century brood of ideologues. No conversation would be possible there.
Just out of curiosity, how do you you define those three terms? Especially as it pertains to the difference. If an ideologue advocates some ideology, doesn’t she have to develop one first? In which case isn’t she a philosopher? Or do you have some other criteria for philosopher.
A bit off-topic, but on reading the thread title I was reminded of the (probably apochryphal) story of the diminutive Harlan Ellison meeting a statuesque lady at a con, and asking her “What would you say to a little fuck?”. The lady looked scornfully down at Harlan and said “I’d say, ‘Hello, little fuck’.”
A bit off-topic? Hell, nowhere near the topic…
It is a shame, and a goodly portion of my thesis was devoted to this very topic, but I wouldn’t be too hard on those who are confused on the issue. A lot of people (not least of all the Big H himself) put a lot of effort into portraying Nietzsche as an anti-Semite, German nationalist, and proto-Nazi. So it’s no surprise that he has an undeserved reputation as such. Still, it is sadly ironic…I doubt he had many peers who were more anti anti-Semitic.
*I’m inclined to agree, although I may merely be projecting my prejudice against Rand onto Nietzsche when I say that I don’t think he’d have wanted to sit down for a long intellectual discussion with her. But given what I know of his beliefs and character, neither her sex nor her ethnic background would have been a barrier to such a discussion.
I don’t really distinguish between thinker or philosopher. ‘Love of wisdom’ is a noble definition. The only wisdom can be obtained in a spirit of free inquiry: constantly questioning own assumptions and never dictating ideas to others. Dictating ideas is what ideologues do. To develop an ideology free thought is not desired. Sooner or later an ideologue stops taking input from life and starts telling others how life must be and how they must live. I’d never equate ideologue with a true thinker or philosopher.
AR just managed to be convincing in her political and social essays and really exposed herself as a closed mind ideologue in her attempts at fiction, populated not with a single living human soul but only with progammed robots, spouting endlessly how “free” everyone should be. One of the most telling fiascos was her attempt to create a character of a priest in ‘Atlas Shrugged’. She struggled with it and failed. So she announced to her faithful that there can be no such thing as a “true” priest: it’s all an aberration, a sham, like all religion.
I can agree with this. As long as you are not taking it too far. The old advice about having an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out comes to mind.
Ok, but what exactly do you mean by dictating? Are you including the concept that being a proponent of your ideas over those of other constitutes dictating? Or is some form of force necessary. It seems to me that Nietzsche was quite opinionated about his own ideas. How exactly does this not constitute being an ideologue?
I had not heard this story either. Can you tell me where you heard it?
Yes, in particular his animosity to Christianity comes to mind. Yet you can find many of his thoughts on positive influence of Church in European intellectual development. That’s what I call an open mind, the capacity to see many sides of the issue. I read FN and I’m stimulated to think, I feel the greatest mental excitement. I read AR and it’s either to swallow the whole thing or to reject it completely; it’s so narrow minded and doesn’t stimulate any desire to think or to explore, only to repeat the same thing again and again.
Priest character story I read in some writings of AR followers, Peikoff most likely, maybe it was a preface to “Atlas”, that’s all I remember. It was a list of human types she wanted to base the novel on: an industrialist (good but lacking guidance), an intellectual (very bad), a free spirit (very good), a bitch (goddess, really), a priest (which cannot be)…
I’ve read, can’t find a cite, that later generations misinterpreted Nietzsche in part because after his death, his sister revised one of his unpublished books before releasing it, changing it to suit her own prejudices. But, for whatever reason, it is certain that Nietzsche’s will-to-power philosophy and conception of the “superman” did have some intellectual influence, direct or indirect, on 20th-Century European fascists – who might not have really understood what Nietzsche was talking about. Furthermore, Nietzsche is usually classified as belonging to the Romantic intellectual tradition that began with Rousseau – that tradition that, as Bertrand Russell described it, substituted esthetic for practical considerations in philosophical judgments, and placed highest value on things that were exciting, emotional, bizarre, or remote – e.g., Romantics preferred majestic mountainscapes or turbulent waterfalls to dull, productive fields and pastures. In Nietzsche’s case, this meant that he despised “vulgarity” – the ways of the common folk; he despised Christianity as a religion made for slaves; and he admired “heroes” – that is, courageous, arrogant, aristocratic bullies, like Achilles. And it’s not a far stretch from that attitude to Hitler’s and Himmler’s, even if Nietzsche himself would have been utterly astonished by them. And if you hate Christianity, it’s really easy, even logical to a degree, to blame the Jews for it. I sometimes do, when I’m in a bad mood. Blame them for Islam, too. Did Abraham have any idea what he was starting?
She did worse than that. Elisabeth (who really was an anti-Semite and proto-Nazi) took control of Nietzsche’s body of work while he was alive but incapacitated and “edited” it to better conform to her own opinions. Luckily the original versions survived, but it was many years before scholars sorted out the mess. Elisabeth is also the one who invited Hitler to swing by the Nietzsche Archiv for the famous photo-op with a bust of her by-then dead and surely rolling-in-his-grave brother.
All I can say is one only has to read a little FN to understand that Nazi connection is practically unthinkable. Of course, when people form their judgement based strictly on catchphrases like “will-to-power”, “superman”, “blond beast” and so on… well, he did pen those phrases, but he also said a whole lot more besides. And no, not everything he said was rational; he did lose his mind eventually…
I’m curious how you would characterize his “will to power” concept. As it pertains to individual humans, that is. The Wikipedia article seemed to indicate that he thought that the seeking of power over others was identical to the seeking of success for oneself. Did they (or I) get it wrong?
I just read the article (this one, right?), and I don’t think that’s what they meant. I’m sure it’s not what Nietzsche meant. He encouraged seeking power over oneself, and striving to make your life and character like a great work of art.
To answer the question you posed to New Iskander I would characterize the “Will to Power” as it pertains to indvidual humans as being the force that causes them to act to bring about the things that they desire. This could be anything from “I’m hungry, I want some food, so I will see what’s in the fridge” to “There are many things in this world that I don’t understand, I want to understand them better, so I will attempt to educate myself and improve my mind and especially read every Straight Dope column ever published.”
Let me pose this question: In Nietzsche’s system, is it practically possible, given sufficient Will, for everybody to become a Superman? Or is this a path open only to an elite few, because they depend necessarily on a non-elite mass to minister to their needs (and also to point up the Supermen’s greatness by providing contrast)?
Related question: In Ayn Rand’s system, is it possible for everybody to become a Rational Man?
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.
I’m afraid I don’t know enough about the whole body of FN work to answer that. Maybe Lamia, BG or someone else can do it better. In relation to XX-century fascistic movement, they were using heavily on XIX century terminology and made it sound evil for us by association. Before that people didn’t consider it evil at all. Jack London was forever writing about something similar to “will to power”. The best I can understand it was a common term to describe commendable things, such as striving and persevering, and, yes, coming up on top, with strong Darwinian undertones. Nazis made it sound particularly evil, along with many other things they claimed for themselves. For example, ‘Sieg Heil’ salute; I’ve seen photos of early XX century US schoolchildren reciting Pledge of Allegiance while making the same salute; it was not considered evil then, but just try to do it now.
BrainGlutton,
I think FN clearly envisioned the split of human race into mere men and Supermen, with latter being far less numerous and absolutely high order of beings. I think it was a speculation strongly influenced by Evolution theory. I don’t notice exploitation and abuse factor, simply the future emergence and separation of a new species. I usually start losing track when he gets going about it at length.
I think AR theories are egalitarian, with possibility of becoming Rational theoretically open to all. However, her fiction heroes are clearly intended to be seen as special and worshipped by simple people.
Essentially, the main difference in the way man becomes “improved” is the way “improvement” is disseminated?
In other words:
FN=elitism…only the fortunate few are capable of such a level
whereas
AR=populism…advancement for the masses
?
But the point is that they are to be admired for the qualities which allowed them to achieve certain things. Worshipped is the wrong word.
Certainly. Being a Rational man is not a state. It does not require passing a test or achieving a particular level of knowledge.
Living as a rational man means simply living rationally as in
Her speech Objectivist Ethics published in The Virtue of Selfishness. Bolding mine.
No. There is a qualitative difference in what the two writers meant by improvement. I’m not sure yet that I understand the idea of “Will to Power”, but it seems qualitatively different from Rationality as Rand defined it.
Also, judging from Lamia’s post below this is not the case.
I disagree. There is a brazen passage in “Atlas” where Dagney is compared to a Greek goddess, standing high on a train above admiring mass of railroad workers. There is another one when mere physical presence of Rearden makes jail guards unable to function. There are many more when the superiority of main heroes is recognized on sight by complete strangers. Might be just poor writing, of course…
Here’s reference to the priest, btw.
Or it could simply be a literary device. I’m not sure about Rearden making guards inactive, I don’t remember that scene clearly. But if I remember the scene involving Dagney is one where she just opened the new train line (or something like that). The reference to greek goddesses seemed more a visual representation of the way that producers are the movers of the world. The admiration that the workers felt for Dagney was not simply one of her physical form. It was more for her achievment.
I don’t remember the details of that scene either, but I think I remember the context of it.
The scene I do remember had to do with some odd mention of the astonishment felt by people that Dagny and Rearden passed due to his confident driving style or something like that.
Darn, now I’m going to have to read Atlas Shrugged again. 
Thanks for that reference.