Alizia wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2019 3:44 pm
My impression is that you wish to make an absolute case
against Nietzsche
No, not at all. I'm just saying what he said.
I can't be faulted if his philosophy puts people "beyond good and evil." That's his claim, and he was proud of it.
...and you do this by reducing his philosophy to its worst aspect.
It's not "reduced to" amorality -- it IS amorality. That's the thing Nietzsche himself wanted us to understand.
Look at how
courageous he thinks the "übermensch" has to be. He has to be willing to disregard Judea-Christian morality entirely; to despise it, in fact, and to free himself from "slave morality's" (his words) constraints. Nietzsche admired this. He was not ashamed of it.
It's only us, when we try to reconcile Nietzsche to our own values received from Judeo-Christian morality, that could presume Nietzsche was "bad," or "in a bad aspect" (to paraphrase your word choice) if he was advocating his philosophy. To be "beyond good and evil" is literally
to have no such categories: to distain being told one is "good" or "evil," and to insist only on "the will to power" as one might happen to choose to exercise it.
One must face Nietzsche in all the bald harshness of what he said. He would have wanted it no other way. One can't invent apologies for him by trying to reconcile him with traditional moralities. He wouldn't go there.
I do not say that I think this is unfair nor inspired by bad-faith or something. I just want to note that Ronald Beiner in Dangerous Minds makes largely the same case.
Well, is it possible Beiner is being nothing but truthful there? You might suspect me of some 'spin' motive, I suppose, if you want: do you suspect him of the same? And what about the majority of Nietzsche's later commenters: do you think they are likewise tainted by a desire to portray him "in the worst light"?
Or maybe we're all just saying the truth.
Nietzsche has become a sort of a favorite of the Left, says Beiner, but if you examine what he actually says you can discern that he is not in any sense a 'progressive' but a
reactionary. I would say that I think this is a strong argument.
Beiner writes:
Hopefully no reader of my book will draw from it the unfortunate conclusion that we should just walk away from Nietzsche and Heidegger --that is, stop reading them. On the contrary, I think we need to read them in ways that make us more conscious of, more reflective about, and more self-critical of the limits of the liberal view of life and hence what defines that view of life. That's something that we should certainly do, and if we fail to do it, it will be at our own peril. But if one is handling intellectually radioactive materials, one has to be much less naive about what one is dealing with. We must read these thinkers with our eyes fully open to the aspects of their thought that express revulsion for and a despising of the liberal (and liberal-democratic) view of life, for those aspects of their thought are unquestionably a part -- indeed, a central part-of their thought. We need to open our eyes, at once intellectually, morally, and politically, to just how dangerous they are.
Obviously, I agree with Beiner. But I am also inclined to see him as an 'apologist' for the present Liberal order, and I mean that to some degree as a
régime which it seems to be becoming.
That might be right. Beiner might hold that Nietzsche can be "redeemed" in some sense, and used to support Leftism. I doubt it, but I'd like to know why he says that, if indeed he does.
What is it the Left likes about Nietzsche? My suggestion of the answer to that is not that the Left finds sympathy with Nietzsche's actual morality. In fact, many leftists are knee-jerk "bleeding heart" types, who loudly declaim they are on the side of the "oppressed." (Nietzsche himself would have despised that. Weakness, particularly moralizing sympathy of that kind, was another "Judeo-Christian" falsehood, he thought.) So Leftism doesn't get much out of Nietzschean morality, for sure.
But what they like is this: that Nietzsche says all history is the history of "the will to power." This implies that all moralities, and all attempts to get authority, are really nothing more than the illegitimate attempt of one power-group to obtain control over another. It's all propaganda, all strategy. For the Leftists, this means that they are free to challenge any tradition, any morality, any authority -- and to do so by any necessary means. Shout louder, rile up the crowd better, proclaim yourself more moral, gain control of the government and the means of power, and your grab for power is just as legit as the grip the current authorities have. Nobody has any right to call the Leftist bluff. There's no moral standard by which they can be judged and condemned. Everything is just a power game.
And that's very freeing, for the Left. It validates their personal desire to seize control and to shape society toward their own aims. It silences all possibility of criticism -- even from their own consciences. So go "punch a Nazi" -- and a "Nazi" is anybody who disagrees with your agenda.
Pan-Europeanism, even chauvinistic white identitarianism: these are things I admit to be interested in (as is my circle of friends). I am attempting to study these issues in detail, and to do this does in fact mean reading the material of people who are now resoundingly vilified. In the book Thinkers Against Modernity, he reviews the thinking of just this group of intellects: Nietzsche, Schmitt, Alain de Benoist, Julius Evola and others. Why are these thinkers being read now? Why are their ideas being considered? Well, that is the essential question, isn't it?
I think the answer is just because of what I was suggesting: the "Europe" idea is a glossing over of profound differences in language, politics, agenda, culture, religion, and so on. And it's inevitable that when you force together people of vastly different agendas, talk is going to break out about which culture, morality, economics, language and agenda are going to rule the others.
Chauvinistic white-identitarianism now has a new face: the face of the Western Leftists. That is, the idea of multicultural unification, created and promoted by the white Western Left itself, in the image of its own post-Judeo-Christian moral values, is to be imposed on the other cultures through political arrangement and propaganda. But because it's all performed in the name of "acceptance," "equality," "fairness," and "integration," these cultures (some of which strongly reject Western values altogether) are to find their voices suppressed and their dissent refused, all in the name of the Grand Unification Project. They're invited to come in, but on specifically Leftist assumptions and values.
I suppose the question that I would ask if I were reading my own posts here is: What is it exactly that you are up to? I think I may have begun this thread just to force myself to come to conclusions about things I have been thinking. I admit to not having them well organized and thought through. But, I am trying to connect whatever philosophical and spiritual view I have to the present rise of a movement that takes issue with certain liberal excesses of the present we live in.
I desire to have a well-grounded and defensible perspective that is Christian -- because that is what I think Europe is and what has moulded it most strongly...
Oh, I see. Now I get it.
Well, try separating a couple of things you've probably never thought to separate before. It might seem like a kind of heresy, but give it a try if you can feel able. That is, separate "Christianity" from "Christendom," -- in other words, consider Christianity not as a political enterprise, but as strictly a moral and spiritual one.
And try to separate "Christian ethics" from "Catholic authorities" -- that is, try to reconceive the role of such "authorities" to reflect the properties of genuine Christian ethics as found in the Bible, so that they may end up doing better or worse at that. If you were to just conflate "Catholic authoritative pronouncements" with "Christian ethics," the danger is that you might come to think the former IS the latter, without doing a fair investigation to find out where it really is, and where it might not be.
Finally, separate the "Europe" idea from "Christendom." I'm pretty sure you can see that they aren't, and can't be, co-extensive ideas. If they were, then "Europe" would have to include South and North America, for sure, along with parts of Australia, the Philippines, and so on, because Catholics are known to live in all of these places.
When you look at it this way, the fate of Europe is not tied to the fate of Catholicism, or the fate of Christianity in general. Europe becomes merely one option in a number of ways things could work out. And then maybe we're in a position to ask, "Is 'Europe' a good idea -- is it better than a cooperative of nations?"
-- but I am also of the opinion that to think about the idea of European Renovation, and to think about an opposition to what is depleting Europe. I am aware, too, that others who share political and social concerns and are said to be in the same 'movement', are not Christians and also oppose Christianity. So, there is that to take into consideration: competing visions of what is right, proper and good, and how this will be achieved.
Well, yeah...that's right.
Europe is an iron-and-clay composite: it has insufficient natural integrity. It's a forced alliance of disparate cultures. In all such forced alliances, somebody wins and somebody loses, on every point. So it's inherently unstable, breeding resentment from all those who find themselves on the losing side of any question. And since there are
many such questions, that means that all members of the co-operative end up miffed -- and only the propaganda of the "European Unification" ideal keeps them from storming off or fighting again. That's not a very durable basis for unity.
It seems to me obvious -- and I refer to the quote a few posts up -- that clearly the nations of Europe made incredibly destructive choices in the 20th century. The origin of our present situation arises from that.
Well, yeah...the whole history of the last century is really about particular nations that tried to "unify" Europe, with a single culture and ideology ruling the lot. And see how that worked out? To say, "Not well" would be the understatement of the year.
Since Pan-Europeanism was such an awful idea in the first place, why are we even considering trying it again? It makes no sense.
