The New Idol

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not where we live, my brothers: here there are states. State? What is that? Well then, open your ears to me, for now I shall speak to you about the death of peoples.

State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies too; and this lie crawls out of its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." That is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.

"On earth there is nothing greater than I: the ordering finger of God am I"--thus roars the monster. And it is not only the long-eared and shortsighted who sink to their knees. Alas, to you too, you great souls, it whispers its dark lies. Alas, it detects the rich hearts which like to squander themselves. Indeed, it detects you too, you vanquishers of the old god. You have grown weary with fighting, and now your weariness still serves the new idol. With heroes and honorable men it would surround itself, the new idol! It likes to bask in the sunshine of good consciences--the cold monster.

Behold the superfluous! They are always sick; they vomit their gall and call it a newspaper. They devour each other and cannot even digest themselves.
Behold the superfluous! They gather riches and become poorer with them. They want power and first the lever of power, much money--the impotent paupers!

The earth is free even now for great souls. There are still many empty seats for the lonesome and the twosome, fanned by the fragrance of silent seas.
A free life is still free for great souls. Verily, whoever possesses little is possessed that much less: praised be a little poverty! -full text

More than 100 years ago such insight was had; and today we have not newspapers with which to devour each other [well we have them, but what a dying art they are!], but instead in our 21st century, we possess the almighty twitter; twitter, that most idiotic of "news" sources which CNN, a once respectable network, now decides is a useful "reporting" tool.

I'd ask you to focus in on "I, the state, am the people" and how it is a lie; surely back when this was written there was far less democracy in the world; but not even that would change the authors mind, it seems. For it is was creators who created peoples--and democracy is mob-rule; it is not the system for creators and annihilators of the old god. But so, I ask, with this excerpt in mind, and whatever else you know of this author, what political system do you think he was endorsing with this essay/in general?

Comments

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Anarchy, apparently, is the only reasonable solution against the possibility of a totalitarian state. One thing about Nietzsche is that he hates to be subjected to the morality of the herd, or to be coerced into obeying self-imposed authority.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes.....that's why the Anarchist Army in Ukraine defeated the Red Army? Anarchism was defeated by Leninism every time the two fought. Nietzsche's egotistical ideas saw their finest expression in Hitlerism and Leninism and their cults of perfecting humanity by human ends. It's hostile to religion so one will never see a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu Niezschean thought rise to the fore though one may see it in Buddhism.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I doubt who army beat what army has a large standing on effective philosophy. You should look at China.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

You're right about the efficiency of Anarchism as a social movement. Two sidenotes on what you wrote. First, Nietzsche would have never in a million years degraded the individual to the extent that Hitler and Lenin did, although he does praise other somewhat similar types such as Cesare Borgia. Nietzsche's ubermensch was a transcendent type over humanity, not its enslaver, that is not an egotism. His ideas may have been misinterpreted and co-opted by those professional revolutionaries, only way out of their original context. Second, as far as religions go, Buddhism might be OK but it was rejected by Nietzsche as a pessimistic world-view which tends towards nihilism.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Frankly it's a hoot to quote the words of a nutcase who died of syphilis as any kind of Gospel.

Nietzsche became the philosophical underpinning of Nazism not from any distortion of his works but from their literal application with a mixture of Plato's Philosopher-King as well. Zarathrustra led into Sieg Heil as surely as the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions led to the US Civil War.

Nietzsche lived in an era when entire ethnicities were rising out of whole cloth, when European and Japanese and US statesmen saw genocide as simply a very ruthless means to make the "lesser races" bow the knee, when the United States saw massive state terror and repression aimed at a particular ethnic group, and when the Tsars and Kaisers were the worst possible repression of a more innocent time.

In that context what he said applied very much to Otto von Bismarck, or Count Cavour of Piedmont-Savoy, or of the Oligarchs who rallied behind Emperor Meiji. In a modern context all that bringing this back would lead to is a new age of totalitarianisms.

I disagree...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The Nazis weren't inspired by Nietzsche as much as they were inspired by their own idea of Nietzsche. It's like Christians who always point to a few verses in the Bible to justify beastly behavior. I found Nietzsche to be too subtle a writer to be genuinely appreciated by the Nazi knuckle-dragger.

Re: I disagree...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Oh, bullshit. The Nazis and Soviets just applied the whole Ubermensch ideal very much literally. Just like Torquemada and the Military Orders applied the Gospels and the Bible very literally to Pagans, Heathens, and Heretics.

Re: I disagree...

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

It's also important to note the large role his sister played in turning Nietzsche into an acceptable figure for the Nazis.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Nietzsche became the philosophical underpinning of Nazism not from any distortion of his works but from their literal application "

EPIC FAILURE

Nietzsche was as rabidly anti anti-semite as possible.
Nietzsche's sister was responsible for him becoming a underpinning of Nazism

YOU FAIL AT UNDERSTANDING NIETZSCHE

congragulations, you just joined the masses!

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

congragulations, you just joined the masses!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, he was opposed to Anti-Semitism. Y'see, I already knew that. I did not refer to his being responsible for that. I simply noted that the difference between his ideal of the Ubermensch as a person who overcomes the burdens of morality in society leads very easily and naturally to the New Soviet Man and the Nazi ideal of the Superman.

Nietzsche wasn't the only one...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

In his autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt recounts how his friends counseled him to avoid politics. They didn't think he was enough of a low-life to run for office. Nietzsche isn't so much endorsing a system as he is lamenting one.

Re: Nietzsche wasn't the only one...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nah, it just wasn't usual for a rich fat cat from a whole family of same to actually be *in* office. Those families preferred to be the Man Behind the Man as opposed to the Man.

Re: Nietzsche wasn't the only one...

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. His works were really more a critique of the world he lived in and less a direction people should go about life. Yet, people took the fictional characters and response he created for his critique and assumed he was saying that's the way life needed to be done.

Re: Nietzsche wasn't the only one...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He was dying of a wasting brain disease. That says it all.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

But so, I ask, with this excerpt in mind, and whatever else you know of this author, what political system do you think he was endorsing with this essay/in general?

I think Nietzche was a fucking nutbar, and I deeply regret the hours of my life I wasted reading his bouts of ammoral mental diarhhea that masqueraded as philosophy.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Well, you should spend more hours reading his works, then maybe you'll actually get what he was talking about; since as it stands, you clearly failed in understanding him.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'm guessing you didn't get The Portable Nietzsche when you did read his works.

Cause if you did you may have come across:

"...She[Lou Salome] told me herself that she had no morality--and I thought she had, like myself, a more sever morality than anybody..."

Twas in a letter he wrote to Paul Ree in 1882

So you may wanna stop thinking of him as ammoral

[telemann.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the theme music to 2001: A Space Odyssey rocks.

[jblaque.livejournal.com]

Have you heard Deodato's jazzed version? It was recorded back in the days when the Moog was still brand new. Quite good, really.

http://tinyurl.com/2fopovr

Bah

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Give me theology over philosophy any day, better yet, give me another Harry Potter type shipping debate, at least the end of the world won't be decided.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

given how important the philosophy of John Locke is[and dozens of others I could name]...I respectfully inform you that "Bah, philosophy." is a pretty unsophisticated response

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Trying to ignore philosophy is like telling a man 'don't think about sex!'