I know old Nietzsche coined the ‘God is dead’ phrase and that it’s a poke at the Atkin’s Diet ™, but can someone supply me with the Cliff notes to this article from The Onion?
I would prefer the ‘big picture book with small words’ version - my grasp of elementary philosophy is nonexistant.
I don’t think a Cliff’s Notes version is possible. The article kinda grabs every catchphrase and idea in Man and Superman and adapts them to salds and such. You really have to have read Neitzsche to get the full value of this. But don’t worry…it’s funnt, but not that funny. Just nod to the laughing college Philosophy majors and keep walking. 
Heh. That’s a pretty funny article.
I’ll take a stab at it. By saying “God is dead,” Nietzsche is referring to the passing of the Judeo-Christian paradigm of morality, or indeed of any traditional ideas of morality. However, in the absence of these traditional ways of thinking, it takes an extraordinarily strong individual to forge a new kind of morality. Very few people are able to do this–most are weak or afraid, preferring to depend upon someone else to define their system of thought. For N, this new order of things will take someone who’s able to overcome himself–i.e., the ubermensch or “overman” (also translated as “superman”)–and his society. The overman will have to be someone who’s not afraid of death or the absence of God, someone who’s able to find strength and even joy in the painful realities of life.
The Onion article packs in lots of different aspects of N’s philosophy. In addition to the basic idea of the overman versus slave morality, you’ve got “as you stare into the lettuce, the lettuce stares also into you”–a reference to Nietzsche’s famous aphorism: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you” (146, from “Epigrams and Interludes,” Beyond Good and Evil). “The Eternal Recurrence of cyclic ‘Yo-Yo’ Weight Loss and Weight Gain” is a reference to Nietzsche’s idea of the “Eternal Recurrence,” that this life will be repeated over and over again ad infinitum (one of N’s more difficult concepts).
For a brief summary of Nietzsche’s philosophy, look here: http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5v.htm
For a more extended look at his life and works, go here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
By the way, so far as philosophers go, Nietzsche is actually fairly easy to read. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is probably his most famous work, but I’d recommend starting with something like Beyond Good and Evil. It helps to know a little something about Schopenhauer and Kant, but it’s not absolutely mandatory–N. makes his points pretty clearly and concisely.
What I believe is happening here involves Ray 's theory that today’s NFL players are carrying too much weight to be truely effective players. While the fit and trim Nietzsche could play for 190 career games and still live to the ripe old age of 68, today’s 350 pound players have an increased risk of heart problems that will strike down far too great a percentage of them in their prime.
-lv
Skopo- Nietzche’s easy to read compared to Shopenhauer and Kirkegaard, but I wouldn’t really call him a Beginner’s Philosopher. Sartre’s easy.
I haven’t read any N in about 3 years, but I do remember having to take a lot of notes to understand what he was saying. Filled up notebooks.
If one isn’t used to reading philosophy, and usually read fiction and suchness, N is hard. I found that out my Junior year of HS when I picked up Beyond Good and Evil. It did get easier as I got used to his use of language, tho.
Huh. I don’t feel very overman-y. 
[python]
There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya
'bout the raising of the wrist…
Socrates himself was permanently pissed…
John Stuart Mill of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
&c
[/python]
…wanders off singing…
Interesting, I found Nietzsche easier to read than Sartre. But maybe I’m thinking more of the style of writing than the concepts–by contrast, Sartre’s style could be quite obfuscatory, even when the concepts weren’t all that earth-shattering. In other words, maybe Nietzsche sounds like he’s being clear, but when you stop to think about what he’s really saying, it’s not that clear after all. I could never wrap my head around his idea of the Eternal Recurrence.
Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard are immensely difficult to read. And then there’s Hegel. Yikes.
I imagine a lot of it depends upon the translator, though–I’ve never attempted to read Nietzsche in his original German. I wouldn’t even dream of reading Schopenhauer or Hegel in German!
Back to the article… I took this is a neat reference to the recent controversy over Atkin’s condition at death: “Stearns said it was worth noting that Nietzsche died depressed, delirious, and overweight in Zurich after 10 years of near-catatoni” (this is pretty much true regarding N’s ultimate fate).
Vell, look…Nietzsche’s just zis guy…you know?
I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I was trying to say, hehe.
But who reads philosophy without thinking about what the philosopher is saying? Isn’t that the POINT of it? IMO, anyway.
Well… I got up to silenus’s comment “I don’t think a Cliff’s Notes version is possible.”, but then I got lost. I’ll try to pick it up again in the weekend.
Thanks for the replies.
Thanks for posting that link; I did my thesis on Nietzsche, so I thought it was pretty funny.
Nietzsche is probably one of the easiest and most entertaining philosophers to read, but one of the most difficult to understand. He expected that his readers would read all of his books, in order, and think carefully about them. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not going to have an easy time of things. Heck, even if you are willing to do that it’s not that easy. This is probably why Nietzsche has been so badly misinterpreted so often.
That is part of the humor of the article – interpreting Nietzsche as a diet guru is actually less wacky than some stuff that’s really been published about him.
Nietzsche is pietzsche, but Sartre is smartre.
As opposed to most other philosophers of the last 200 years, who are awesomely vague and hard to understand, but quite shallow.
The following graffiti were seen on a philosophy department wall:
God is Dead – Nietzsche
Nietzsche is Dead – God
The Hell I am – Nietzsche
You havn’t heard the last of this! – God
Oh brother, you think you’re joking there. . .I wouldn’t say most, but there have been more than a few!
With Nietzsche I’m still not sure if I’ve got him figured out correctly, although I think I am safe in saying that he’s one of the only philosophers ever to include a musical number in one of his major works.