/lit/ - Literature

>>14339900
Name some of these Marxists.

I read a book last night that explores the Far Left's relationship with Nietzsche (it's called Anti-Nietzsche and the author is a philosopher of aesthetics named Malcolm Bull). To begin with, Nietzsche's intent as a philosopher and artist needs clearing up: because his putative (and only) ideal was "aesthetic" -- life interpreted and affirmed only as art, or as the space in which art happens -- he is on the whole not a dogmatic social philosopher, and certainly not a prescriptive one. He provides the heuristics and justifications through which other thinkers may devise and codify their particular [aesthetic?] value systems.

Basically, if Nazi Germany or other far right movements can give animus to their political ideology by lionizing Nietzsche, the far left believes it can do the same thing -- almost as a sort of "internal revolution against Nietzschean principles through Nietzschean methods." Certain anarchist presses have tried to win an ideological victory for their side by 'reclaiming' Nietzsche from his cult status as an illiberal thinker, interpreting him instead as radically liberal and egalitarian. Of course, Bull also points out the laughable incompatibility of these thought lines (historically, politically), and notes that almost every attempt by the radical Left to co-opt Nietzsche creates a schizophrenic mess that nobody likes.

>>14339981
>Only by 'reading like a loser', and failing to live up to his ideals can we move beyond Nietzsche to a nihilism still more destructive of our values.This opens the way to a philistinism and subhumanism that expand the boundaries of society, gradually undermining culture - and even language - until we are left with nothing in common. Social nihilism is, Bull argues, the one alternative to the logic of fascism in which the boundaries of a society contract to preserve and enhance its culture. Anti-Nietzsche is a subtle and subversive engagement with Nietzsche and his interpreters. Written with economy and clarity, it shows how a politics of failure might be a species-changing practice.
yikes

>>14339998
Yeah, I really didn't like it. I picked it up from my university library's 'philosophy of art' section because the title caught my attention.

The only redeeming feature of the book is that it's got good bibliography, and its first few chapters have some interesting stuff about the more subtle history of Nietzschean thought in radical politics. As soon as I got to the sections on philistinism and semantic jargon, I got bored (sick is probably more the right word) and quit

>>14339900
The left hates him for being anti egalitarianism and hating women. What are you smoking op? Don't tell me that you saw a youtube video which called marxists nihilists and you believed ti?

>>14339900
>clinging to Nietzsche
Never heard of anything more pathetic than this, thanks OP.

>>14339900
His eyes looked fucked, like he's scared or retarded

>>14339900
You do realize Marx was explicitly anti-egalitarian, right?

yeah this is just a bunch of gobbledygook, i was really into leftism for a long while and literally never heard anyone praise Nietzsche, they think he’s an example of the prevailing cultural narcissism

>>14340272
He was probably blind at this point, you couldn't ask him though because his mental faculties were gone.

Why do Nazis cling to Nietzsche when they needed his sister to ruin his legacy in order for his views to appear similar to theirs?

>>14340660
God was smiting his blasphemous soul

>>14340769
Who's the Nazi here you retard?
and this part
>sister to ruin his legacy in order for his views to appear similar to theirs
is a myth. a liberal cope.

>>14340813
I didn't call anyone here a Nazi, so I don't have to answer that. I'm also not a liberal. Oh, and I agree with OP.

>>14339900
>Why do Marxists cling to Nietzsche?
Which Marxists?
>anti-egalitarian
So were Marx and Engels.
>anti-socialist
So were Marx and Engels, if we understand socialism in the way Nietzsche did, i.e. as the moralist utopian socialism (Proudhon etc.).
>anti-feminist
So were Marx and Engels, depending on what you mean by that. Possibly not in the way Nietzsche was, but I don't know much his stance here.

>>14339900
Marxists aren't egalitarians and it isn't required for them to be feminists

>>14339900
Because marxists are retarded faggots.

>>14339906
Ever been on a forum/discord server/reddit thingy with commies?
They're atheist and think nietzsche was one.

Because he has one of the most scathing critiques of bourgeois society, gives a visceral history of morality and its paradoxes, and isn't actually interested in putting forth a single ideology. His work is largely about putting forth a method and breaking down systematic, ahuman thinking. He wants people to do the same.

>>14341464
Great contribution to the discussiob

>>14341532
Thanks m8, great way to put it.

>>14339900
Marx explicitly refutes egalitarianism and nietzsche's understanding of socialism is dependent upon an egalitarian underpinning that is divorced from a proper and sophisticated marxism

>>14339900
>Why do Marxists cling to Nietzsche?
Why would you care? Marxists do not even exist, there is no coherent definition to be a Marxists, they themselves are unable to characterize themselves in any way which at least half of the self proclaimed Marxists deeply disagree with.
It's just an intellectual buzzword to signal " I am WITH these intellectuals" and not some right wing retard who clings to things like reality.

A Marxist can be anyone, therefore it is highly probable that some Marxists read Nietzsche.

Hey guys. It has become clear that I don’t even understand Marx, as I didn’t know he was not an egalitarian. Books where he discusses egalitarianism? Thnx

>>14342424
>"But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal."
- Critique of the Gotha Programme

>>14339906
lenin's fav author next to maupassant and marx

>>14339900
>anti-feminist
In 1882 the Russian-born psychoanalyst and author Lou Andreas-Salomé invited the German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Paul Rée to live with her, both of whom were in love with her. She kept her relationship with the two men celibate.

>>14339900
If anything, N brought me out of Marx. Not sure how anyone could cling to him after the repackaging work done by D+G and Land.

>>14342642
Lenin had the disadvantage of history. He was a scholar above all else and lacked the breadth of scholarship that makes us all better readers of N now.

>>14339900
>anti-feminist
A lot of his early disciples were women though, he had a pretty big influence on femenist movements. Neitz conception of self dovetailed really nicely with their anti-essentialist views.
The nice thing about philosophy is that you can use and develop the theory without wanting to hang out with the author on a personal basis.

>>14342424
He very rarely discusses it directly. But he criticizes it every time he criticizes idealism and utopianism and affirms materialism and critical-scientific communism -- every time he affirms genuine understanding derived from critical examination of society considered as historical product of society, in the face of wishful thinking based on metaphysical, ahistorical ideas like "justice" or "equality". And that's practically all he deals with in his work. A good place to start is the first chapter of "The German Ideology" and Engels' "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific".

>>14339900
He provides plenty of ammo against cringe idealisms, materialism or rather anti-idealism is the very core of Marxist epistemology.

>>14339981
Good post. Pretty interesting

>>14339900
You can't really reduce Nietzsche to anti-feminist

>anticipated the feminist idea that women act the ways they do because of social conditioning

>the best woman is better than the best man

>"What inspires respect for woman, and often enough even fear, is her nature, which is more “natural” than man’s, the genuine, cunning suppleness of a beast of prey, the tiger’s claw under the glove, the naiveté of her egoism, her uneducability and inner wildness, the incomprehensibility, scope, and movement of her desires and virtues."

>>14342698
>Lenin had the disadvantage of history. He was a scholar above all else and lacked the breadth of scholarship that makes us all better readers of N now.
If you need scholarship to understand Nietzsche's platitudes you're probably a fucking idiot

>>14340769
>Why do Nazis cling to Nietzsche when they needed his sister to ruin his legacy i
Did they? They could simply lift all of his ideas besides the "philosemitism" (which he really wasn't) and they would stay in tact. You think they can't work with eugenics, anti-equality, anti-theism, aristocratic social order, license to conquer and command?

>>14340881
>So were Marx and Engels, if we understand socialism in the way Nietzsche did, i.e. as the moralist utopian socialism (Proudhon etc.).
Nietzsche understood socialism as extreme tyranny since the result would required an extremely powerful state

>>14342460
How does he suppose this isn't going to create a situation where one portion of the population decides to just live off the work of the other? How do you differentiate between inability and apathy?

>>14343866
Yes, and he also called them stupid cows, said they were not even shallow because that would imply a modicum of depth, and advocated oriental views of women as property.

>>14343866
>>"What inspires respect for woman, and often enough even fear, is her nature, which is more “natural” than man’s, the genuine, cunning suppleness of a beast of prey, the tiger’s claw under the glove, the naiveté of her egoism, her uneducability and inner wildness, the incomprehensibility, scope, and movement of her desires and virtues."
I dont think you would have very much fun telling feminists that this is how you see women kek. It sounds like a redpill analysis

>>14340881
>>14341421
I agree that Marx and Engels were anti-egalitarian and Marxists don't have to be feminists but I'm not sure how they were anti-socialist in the sense that Nietzsche was

>>14339900
Only ones I've heard liking Nietzsche a lot are individualist/insurrectionists anarchists. People who idolise Stirner and Novatore. It makes sense though

>>14343886
Sounds like you fit the bill, pleb
>muh platitudes

>>14342460
What? Egalitarianism doesn't mean everyone has exactly equal natural abilities, what the hell kind of strawman is this? Calling Marx anti-egalitarian seems to be a massive stretch.

>>14339906
butterfly

>>14339900
They misinterpret his denial of herd morality and his criticism of Western civilization to be in support of a barbarian caste system, which is essentially what Marx wanted and what the communist world leaders always tried to implement. They are mistaken about Nietzsche's stance though.

>>14339906
The "New Left" of the 1960s generation worship Nietzsche. No, they are not Marxists, but the closest thing to it in the West.

>>14340769
Marxists have to unironically pretend the Will to Power never existed in order to cope

>>>14340272
>>14340781
He had a brain tumor.

>>14340781
>when the demiurge gets btfo so bad that he smites you
yep i'm thinking the ot was right about everything

>>14344435
>which is essentially what Marx wanted
peasant shit =/= based barbarians

died with a brain infection due to an untreated case of syphillis

>>14344965
literal antifa smear

>>14340025
>>14339998
>>>/leftypol/

>>14339900
>anti-egalitarian
so was Marx
>anti-socialist
Marx's idea of socialism is considered anti-socialist today
>anti-feminist
so was Marx

I really think they are just incompetent and posit it as some incomprehensible super smart philosophy they can pretend teach with glee to undergrads to flex about how progressive they are. I had a professor who went on such a tangent, about how everyone thinks they are crazy for teaching Nietzsche to lowly undergrads. it had nothing to do with Nietzsche and everything to do with marketing and stroking their own ego. Keep in mind this was for some mandatory "foundations" course everyone was supposed to take in their first semester.

>>14339981
>>14339900
Nietzsche said that their is no facts, only interpretation, which is nihilism and bourgeois are nihilist