Agree 100%. The very idea of dependence is inimical, I think, to the Superman. Yet Nietzsche himself was able to thrive thanks to the German welfare state and the warm Italian weather. In other words, he needed the nurture of home in order to live. Where do the resources come from? indeed
I think that the attraction of Nietzsche (and mayb…
Agree 100%. The very idea of dependence is inimical, I think, to the Superman. Yet Nietzsche himself was able to thrive thanks to the German welfare state and the warm Italian weather. In other words, he needed the nurture of home in order to live. Where do the resources come from? indeed
I think that the attraction of Nietzsche (and maybe also of Stoicism) lies in the idea that you can save yourself, that you can survive without supports. Because many people actually lack supports.
So I studied philosophy at NYU; at the time, the department was not very keen on the continental tradition -- there was a course on Nietzsche, but he was paired with Hegel and Schopenhauer. Long way of saying, this next bit is purely anecdotal, grounded in the experience of an undergrad in New York City at the turn of the millennium, which is hardly representative
Still, my experience has been quite the opposite, which makes your comment all the more intriguing. In my case, I found that Nietzsche most excited men who had quite a lot of privilege but were more interested in pretending to accomplishment than actually doing what it takes to build anything, maybe because they feared they would be, at best, mid (as the kids like to say these days)
But what's so bad about mid?
Rather than do the hard, rigorous, grinding and superficially modest, deplorable because common (as in, widespread--I don't mean that pejoratively!) work of building a life - getting married, settling down, buying a house, pursuing a career, or contributing to a community, acting one's age, living within means, serving others, dedicating oneself to a cause that demands personal sacrifice, etc., why not dream of ubermensch? To commit would be to admit oneself no different from the vast majority of people, which was intolerable
This absolved many of these so attracted, the not(yet)mensch I guess, of having to make clear, irrevocable choices, living a kind of an endless childhood, where fantasy stands in for reality, where pretending at superiority makes up for ... I wouldn't call it mediocrity, really. I'd call it a species of timidity
Which is why I'd love to know how you've experienced (or witnessed) the attraction to Nietzsche, which once included me. Really who among us has not wanted to be Nietzsche; like, damn, philosophy with a hammer, that's awesome, but also because I didn't know how to use a hammer for anything useful
For me, the spell broke because of the religious spaces I moved in, where I was constantly told to examine the space between what I claimed rhetorically, what I might have stood for ideologically, and who I was existentially and substantively and therefore potentially eternally. That gap is frightening but also motivating: Here is where work has to be done
When I looked more closely at many of the folks I once idolized or was at least intrigued by, I started to become concerned, then repelled. Did I really want to be that kind of person? Was wisdom found in logic, syllogism, argument and expression? Or was it in mastery of self and construction of character? Which brings up another point -- I see Stoicism and Nietzsche as quite different, though I might be wrong (this is just me asking you to correct me, instruct me, and/or point me where else to read/look/etc)
Agree 100%. The very idea of dependence is inimical, I think, to the Superman. Yet Nietzsche himself was able to thrive thanks to the German welfare state and the warm Italian weather. In other words, he needed the nurture of home in order to live. Where do the resources come from? indeed
I think that the attraction of Nietzsche (and maybe also of Stoicism) lies in the idea that you can save yourself, that you can survive without supports. Because many people actually lack supports.
So I studied philosophy at NYU; at the time, the department was not very keen on the continental tradition -- there was a course on Nietzsche, but he was paired with Hegel and Schopenhauer. Long way of saying, this next bit is purely anecdotal, grounded in the experience of an undergrad in New York City at the turn of the millennium, which is hardly representative
Still, my experience has been quite the opposite, which makes your comment all the more intriguing. In my case, I found that Nietzsche most excited men who had quite a lot of privilege but were more interested in pretending to accomplishment than actually doing what it takes to build anything, maybe because they feared they would be, at best, mid (as the kids like to say these days)
But what's so bad about mid?
Rather than do the hard, rigorous, grinding and superficially modest, deplorable because common (as in, widespread--I don't mean that pejoratively!) work of building a life - getting married, settling down, buying a house, pursuing a career, or contributing to a community, acting one's age, living within means, serving others, dedicating oneself to a cause that demands personal sacrifice, etc., why not dream of ubermensch? To commit would be to admit oneself no different from the vast majority of people, which was intolerable
This absolved many of these so attracted, the not(yet)mensch I guess, of having to make clear, irrevocable choices, living a kind of an endless childhood, where fantasy stands in for reality, where pretending at superiority makes up for ... I wouldn't call it mediocrity, really. I'd call it a species of timidity
Which is why I'd love to know how you've experienced (or witnessed) the attraction to Nietzsche, which once included me. Really who among us has not wanted to be Nietzsche; like, damn, philosophy with a hammer, that's awesome, but also because I didn't know how to use a hammer for anything useful
For me, the spell broke because of the religious spaces I moved in, where I was constantly told to examine the space between what I claimed rhetorically, what I might have stood for ideologically, and who I was existentially and substantively and therefore potentially eternally. That gap is frightening but also motivating: Here is where work has to be done
When I looked more closely at many of the folks I once idolized or was at least intrigued by, I started to become concerned, then repelled. Did I really want to be that kind of person? Was wisdom found in logic, syllogism, argument and expression? Or was it in mastery of self and construction of character? Which brings up another point -- I see Stoicism and Nietzsche as quite different, though I might be wrong (this is just me asking you to correct me, instruct me, and/or point me where else to read/look/etc)