Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote:Did you not recognize that when I said things like "übermensch," "will to power," "Judeo-Christian morality," "why I am so wise" and "beyond good and evil," I was already quoting Nietzsche?

Don't be silly, Mr Can. Just using a few words without a context, is not quoting. If it were, I could claim I am quoting you now, as I could easily find each of the words in this sentence somewhere in your posts.

Immanuel Can wrote:But I could do much more of the same.

That is hardly to your credit.

Immanuel Can wrote:Why bother, though, since so much of it is already public record?

Why bother reading anything then?

Immanuel Can wrote:Everything he wrote is online, and it's no secret what he taught. But I'll give you a couple, just to satisfy you.



"... hitherto we have been permitted to seek beauty only in the morally good - a fact which sufficiently accounts for our having found so little of it and having had to seek about for imaginary beauties without backbone! - As surely as the wicked enjoy a hundred kinds of happiness of which the virtuous have no inkling, so too they possess a hundred kinds of beauty; and many of them have not yet been discovered."

"Daybreak," s. 468, R.J. Hollingdale trans.

Yup! Sex and drugs and Rock and Roll.

Immanuel Can wrote:"When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. For the latter is absolutely not self-evident: one must make this point clear again and again, in spite of English shallowpates."
Twilight of the Idols (1888)

How do you think this supports your case, Mr Can? Even you feel the need to argue for christian morality, rather than pointing to its self-evidence.

Immanuel Can wrote:"Morality is herd instinct in the individual"

The Gay Science (1882)

You really need to put this into a context. Do you disagree? Are you advocating "herd instinct"? If not, is there anything objectionable about the remark?

Immanuel Can wrote:"[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will to life."

Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

What makes Nietzsche unsettling is that he makes some uncomfortable observations. Is he wrong about exploitation? The people you work for try to get as much as possible, for as little as possible. People use the name of god to exploit the ignorant, gullible and fearful. We kill to eat.

Immanuel Can wrote:And so on. The old boy was not at all shy about telling us that conventional (Judeo-Christian) morality no longer counted, and the will to power did, evil was really beautiful, and that the exercise of domination and exploitation was a new value. To read him is to know that, of course.

You haven't read him, Mr Can, and you don't know. The fact that you can't admit this, is your own feeble will to power pretending to know what it's talking about.

Immanuel Can wrote:Now, if Hitler believed him and put it into action in a particular way not quite envisioned by Nietzsche, that's still on Nietzsche, for having cleared that ground for him.

Even by your standards this is absurd. With that logic, the authors of all 'holy' books are guilty of every crime committed by everyone who misinterpreted their words.

Immanuel Can wrote:That is, unless we have equivalent quotations that show that Nietzsche's morality was actually more definite, and for some reason, was able to rule out Nazi atrocities and abuses as not being legitimate interpretations of what it means to be "beyond good and evil."

Nietzsche was arguing that morality should not be based on biblical concepts of good and evil. In other words, we have to decide our morality on human interests, rather than the supposed will of some god.

Immanuel Can wrote:That is what I am awaiting, but not seeing.

Dubious has been very busy on that front, if you could just tear your gaze from the mirror, and read what other people write.

Immanuel Can wrote:One has to wonder at the delay -- can it be so hard to show, if it were true that Nietzsche can't be interpreted as advocating such a thing? With almost any other pre-Nietzschean moral theorist, that job would be easy...why is it so hard with Nietzsche?

It isn't. It has been pointed out that Nietzsche was not a nationalist and he certainly wasn't a socialist. Nazi is an abbreviation of Nationalsozialismus, that's national socialism in English.

thedoc wrote: Do you have quotes to support these claims? or are they your interpretations of what he wrote.

I thought you might like this, too.

Further to the point, now that I've honoured your advice and given some direct quotations to make my case, here's another person's interpretation of what Nietzsche means for morality.

In this case, it's a university professor -- a rather well-known one right now -- an agnostic psychologist and expert in propaganda, just saying what he thinks are the implication of Nietzschean ideas for subsequent understandings of morality.

It's also very short. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi9Q9apHGI

Immanuel Can wrote:

thedoc wrote: Do you have quotes to support these claims? or are they your interpretations of what he wrote.

I thought you might like this, too.

Further to the point, now that I've honoured your advice and given some direct quotations to make my case, here's another person's interpretation of what Nietzsche means for morality.

In this case, it's a university professor -- a rather well-known one right now -- an agnostic psychologist and expert in propaganda, just saying what he thinks are the implication of Nietzschean ideas for subsequent understandings of morality.

It's also very short. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi9Q9apHGI

Very interesting, he is saying what you have been saying for some time now. As far as the quotes, you have been asking others to provide quotes to support their position, I thought it only fair that you do the same.

I have said that the internet was originally intended to be an information superhighway, but it has turned into a toll road for some information. And it's not always easy to find what you are looking for, many times I will be looking for particular information and will get everything else, but not the information I want. Phrasing the question correctly is very important, and not everyone can do it well. It's like trying to look up a number in the yellow pages, For example Home Depot is not listed under home improvement as you might expect, but under home center, it makes them a bit hard to find.

"In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that He would give His blessing to our work, and that He may ever give us the courage to do the right. I am convinced that men who are created by God should live in accordance with the will of the Almighty. No man can fashion world history unless upon his purpose and his powers there rests the blessings of this Providence." A. Hitler.

So much for Nietzsche and Adolf.

With regards to the rather well known university professors video - he appears to be puzzled why it would be rational to co-operate rather than not and can think of no self-interested reason to do so. This amazed me as surely a rational person might just think that she might not want to live in a world where everyone is trying to kill or use them just for their own interest? Or how about that computational game-theory for extended prisoner dilemmas in groups points to the best outcome for an individual is reciprocal co-operation, i.e. defect with the defectors but co-operate with the co-operators gives you more or the best chance of getting the best outcome. I'm surprised a psychologist hasn't heard about this.
p.s.
We seem to be a long way away from Fux News and how the godbotherers there behaved badly towards women. But that's not much of a surprise as women are lesser compared to men in the eyes of the Christian.

thedoc wrote: Very interesting, he is saying what you have been saying for some time now. As far as the quotes, you have been asking others to provide quotes to support their position, I thought it only fair that you do the same.

I took it like that. No problem.

Arising_uk wrote: We seem to be a long way away from Fux News and how the godbotherers there behaved badly towards women. But that's not much of a surprise as women are lesser compared to men in the eyes of the Christian.

I am not sure who you are associating with or who you know about, but the Christians that I know certainly don't feel that way about women. The Christian men that I know treat women with respect and as equals. I think 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was added later by men who were afraid that women would get more power than they had in the church. The church I attend, certainly does not follow that particular verse, nor does the Lutheran church in general.

thedoc wrote:I am not sure who you are associating with or who you know about, but the Christians that I know certainly don't feel that way about women. The Christian men that I know treat women with respect and as equals. I think 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was added later by men who were afraid that women would get more power than they had in the church. The church I attend, certainly does not follow that particular verse, nor does the Lutheran church in general.

My apologies, I take it back, must have had a bad day.

Arising_uk wrote:My apologies, I take it back, must have had a bad day.

Not a problem, I have 3 children, a son and 2 daughters and I would never deny any of them the opportunity to pursue whatever dream they choose. I am certainly not anti-woman.

Although O'Reilly does claim to be a Christian and appears to have little respect for women.

Arising_uk wrote:Although O'Reilly does claim to be a Christian and appears to have little respect for women.

Many people claim to be Christian that I do not believe follow Christian principles. The KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church are 2 examples I can think of right now.

thedoc wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:Although O'Reilly does claim to be a Christian and appears to have little respect for women.

Many people claim to be Christian that I do not believe follow Christian principles. The KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church are 2 examples I can think of right now.

Indeed. And why should that surprise anyone? After all, is every Atheist a Stalin or a Mao? A few are, sure; but aren't some decent, civil people? I think the answer to that's pretty obvious. Yet Theism is a far, far bigger group than Atheism...so should the idea that they are a homogeneous mass be assumed? It's hard to see why.

To say "Bill O'Reilly" is against women (assuming it's true -- I wouldn't know, as I haven't been following the story, and my impression is that there hasn't been a trial) then Bill O'Reilly is a great example of...Bill O'Reilly. There's no reason to attach him to any particular group and blame his antipathy to women on them.

Immanuel Can wrote:... so should the idea that they are a homogeneous mass be assumed? It's hard to see why. ...

Er! One 'God'?

To say "Bill O'Reilly" is against women (assuming it's true -- I wouldn't know, as I haven't been following the story, and my impression is that there hasn't been a trial) then Bill O'Reilly is a great example of...Bill O'Reilly. ...

Five lawsuits and $13,000,000 dollars seems to hint something's up.

There's no reason to attach him to any particular group and blame his antipathy to women on them.

But just maybe that the CEO was also up to such shenanigans led him to think that the corporate culture would not censure him and apparently he was proved right until the profit margin started to get hit.

Arising_uk wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote:... so should the idea that they are a homogeneous mass be assumed? It's hard to see why. ...

Er! One 'God'?

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim to follow "one God" yet they are all very different, they even have many different flavors of the "same" religion. Do you really still claim that all who believe in one God are a homogeneous mass of people? Do Anglicans, Lutherans and Quakers all believe the same thing?

It seems that AK is up to VT's tricks, picking a fight, and then trying to blame it on the other person. Perhaps they are just socks, one for the other.

thedoc wrote:It seems that AK is up to VT's tricks, picking a fight, and then trying to blame it on the other person. Perhaps they are just socks, one for the other.

No problem.

Remember the nacreous spheroids?

Well, I choose to ignore A-UK permanently. He's already exhibited a suicidal tendency to insult God. I'm sure he doesn't think that there's any Judgment to come, and I'm sure he imagines that he has no soul to lose; but as a Christian, of course I do. I made a decision some time ago not to make his situation worse for him. He may not care, but I actually do.

So don't worry; we're not going to be communicating with each other at all.