/lit/ - Literature

He's a bit like Hegel in the sense that people wrap their opinions around him and try to use his unclear statements like a sock full of rocks.

This book wasn't actually published by him, It was just a bunch of manuscripts revised by his sister, Thus,may believe that is not a 'real' Nietzsche book.

>>4706427
but even in his other novels you find nothing buy inconsistencies

>>4706405
that's what's so frustrating. I find myself constantly filling in blanks with my own guesses since he fails to provide any of his own

Tfw you read Schopenhauer and understand

>>4706394
to reach ultimate power and become god

>>4706441
why though?

>>4706394
power exists and grows, much like animals and people, humans exist as vehicles through which they extenuate their own collective existence. The “point” of the transmission of DNA and the existence of our species IS our existence. We exist merely so that we may ensure that we continue to exist. so too does power exist, to perpetuate itself

>>4706465
become god and you wont need a why, you can make up infinite whys

>continentals
>science

>>4706480
This thread is about Nietzsche's work. Not modern biology, which you've butchered.

This is how I see it

What's not to understand? "[The] world is the will to power—and nothing besides!"

>>4706437
This. Schopenhauer's will is basically Nietzsche's will.

You can also view it as a psychological principal. But I think it's a pretty juvenile theory in that lens -- though no doubt exciting at the time.

>>4706494
>>continentals
>>science

do you even read

>>4706494
I was talking about the nature of power, which is touched on in fagtzsche's work, but dont miss a chance to sound smart and make yourself feel smart

>>4706495
yeah I understand that, but it doesn't provide a proof or explanation or meaning

He doesn't PROVE that everything is driven by power, he just repeats it a ton of times

>>4706513
>"[The] world is the will to power—and nothing besides!"
now prove it

>>4706517
It's rank. Your position in the social hierarchy. I don't think I've ever read a less complex book than Will to Power.

>>4706521
He just felt it. I don't think he was writing for people who don't feel it.

>>4706517
You should be focusing on your ignorance, not considering my motives.

>>4706529
so is this like a tfw kind of thing?
I find it impossible to discuss Nietzsche with other people because of this feel-like nature

>>4706652
He's what's called an armchair philosopher. He wasn't interested in providing empirical evidence, just what he thought or could rationalize out of a premise.

>>4706652
>tfw no wars
>tfw you will never be Muhammad and slaughter your way into being the prophet of one of the world's largest religions

After reading Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy of Morals, I've determined that while Nietzsche has unbelievable ingenuity and validity, to dwell on him for too long is to lose track of what is most important: being an individual and having a free will.

>>4706394
>I obtained as much power as I could, now what?
Are you stupid?

>>4706764
no
>>4706753
>free will.
whole different topic which he doesn't discuss

Is Nietzsche just one big concept?

>>4706764
read the guy's other posts, and then never read anything he posts again

he's literally a retard

>>4706768
Nietzsche's will to nature is free will

>>4706513

>This. Schopenhauer's will is basically Nietzsche's will.

No. It's not.

I don't know how many times I have to shit post this, but you should all be read Deleuze's "Nietzsche and Philosophy" if you want an explanation of the will to power and active/reactive forces that actually makes sense.

Nietzsche put art above everything else. It only makes sense that he never created any actual system of philosophy. Deleuze attempts to create a system out of Nietzsche's thought.

>>4706521

Power for Nietzsche = energy. Everything in the universe is driven by force, either active or reactive. Everything is acting upon and reacting to. I'm a bit hazy on my science, but I think the concept of will to power can be understood in relation to thermodynamics.

The active is the life affirming and the reacting is that which denies life. Applied to an individual, the active individual is the one who creates values. Their life is a work of art. The active individual reacts to excitations, but this reaction is merely what proceeds and mobilizes their acting upon the world (they act their reactions.)

The reactive individual can only criticize. They can only ruminate on their own pain and inadequacies. Apply this to Socrates, who created no actual values/concepts of his own, who could only react out of resentment and criticize.

A common misconception is that these concepts justifies fascism and tyrannical oppression. These types of people are reactive. They feel threatened, weak, and because of this, react to that which threatens them by imposing themselves on others. Nietzsche's whole "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" plays well into this. The active individual embraces the pain, has the capacity to forget and repress the past, and is constantly moving forward, despite the pain. They don't resist it or fight against it.

Nietzsche considered the most active of human activities to be art. This should explain a lot.

>>4706895
Thank you, that makes sense. I recall read about reactive and active in Genealology of morals.

But one thing is still unclear
>So what?
what does it matter if someone is life affirming or life denying? It's not a formula for being happy because Nietzsche thought that happiness was superficial

Is he just stating the will to power as an objective fact of the universe?

>>4706940
Why is everything a fuckin key to happiness for you? Happiness is just an emotion, shitlord

>>4706940
>happiness
looks like someone internalized the lockean-jeffersonian demand

might as well del that trip you moron

>>4706465
It's not really to become god as he also states that it's most likely impossible, but just a simple ideal that we can strive for.

helps if you understand it in german instead of english. "Macht" has a much more general meaning than "power" -- "might" in english but more "ability" ... the desire for the ability to do stuff...

>>4706438
>novels
wat

>>4706394
>not seeing the "proof" in between the lines of everything he writes
You're not on an intellectually and philosophically mature enough level to be reading Nietzsche then. You're only scratching the surface of what he says, and not intuitively matching it all together for yourself. It's true that Nietzsche spent almost no time explaining his conclusions, but if you're perceptive enough you'll be able to find the explanations on your own.

>>4707082
Not OP. I agree with what you say about the perceptive, but it's mean to tell people who can't perceive that shit that it's because they're philosophically retarded. I think some people just feel shit and put two and two together a bit more easily.

>>4707059
This. Machen means "to do".

>>4706940

I think the point is that there is ONLY life. For Sisyphus, there is ONLY the boulder and the hill. If he refuses to roll it up the hill, if he denies life, then there is nothing for him to do.

Whether or not anything matters is predicated on whether or not life itself matters. For Nietzsche, all we have is life. To live reactively, to deny life, is to deny the only thing we have.

I don't think Nietzsche thought happiness was superficial. Rather, I think all he noted was that happiness (and pain) is fleeting. That one leads into the other and that we affirm life in spite of whatever state we are in (you're happy? Good. Continue living life but know you'll be unhappy eventually. You're unhappy? Good. Continue living life but know you'll be happy eventually.)

So you can't reduce the active life to being a mere means to happiness. Rather, the active life is the only way to actually live life. The moment you become reactive (passively reactive) is the moment you stop living life.

You become, like the Buddhist, completely passive and you reject life. You are Sisyphus sitting down and refusing to budge.

Also, it's hard to understand if Nietzsche meant this as an objective fact about the universe. For one, he disregarded "facts", saying that all "facts" are mere interpretations (I could be wrong about this.)

Sounds like he's full of shit. What is "self mastery" and what constitutes "subordination of all entities I come across?"

Was this guy living in fantasy land?

>>4707984

Nietzsche was a perspectivist and didn't really believe in purely objective facts - any truth-claim is rooted, for him, in the individual from which is stems and the society from which the individual stems. Which is not to say that he rejected truth-claims as a rule, but that he interpreted them in context.

>>4706895
But isn't art reactive? No artwork is completely original.

>>4707995

>subordination of all entities I come across

That's just some dumb shit misinterpretation of Nietzsche that Randians/Nazis latch onto.

Not like NIetzsche wasn't asking for it. He purposely made his work unsystematic/open for interpretation.

>>4708002

Yes. But reactive forces can be acted. It's when we stop acting our reactions that we become wholly reactive.

Think of it this way - there is an external excitation that entails a reaction. This reaction proceeds and leads into an action. The artist is reacting to some sort of sensation and is lead into action by the creative process. "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." Life is painful, but the active man reacts to this pain and THEN affirms themselves in SPITE of it.

The reactive man is different. The power of the excitation cripples them. They get caught up with dwelling on their pain and suffering. They lack the ability to forget. The racist dwells on their own inadequacies and their own negative experiences. They can only ever react. They are slaves to their own pain and thus spite the rest of the world. Socrates/Plato could only ever react. The unfairness of life hurt him/them too much, so he/they sought to negate - to contradict, to break down, to undermine the creative, affirmative authority of the society that he/they detested.

tl;dr

>Active man gets stabbed with a spear

HAHAHA NICE SPEAR, FAGGOT. I'M GONNA GO OVER HERE AND ENJOY LIFE ANYWAYS AND LET YOU DO YOU.

>Reactive man gets stabbed with a spear

FUCK YOU FUUUCK GODAMMIT I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU FUCKER! GODAMMIT IT HURTS! PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY!

>>4706480
goddammit saladman

>>4708019
Ok, I get it now.

I would go onto to say that this philosophy is bunk in the context of modern psychology and neuroscience, but that would be anachronistic and missing the point, I suppose.

>>4708040

A lot of old philosophy is bunk. Doesn't mean you can't extract good ideas out of it and disregard the rest.

Funny you mention psychology/neuroscience though, because Nietzsche was one of the major catalysts for psychology. Freud came after and was majorly influenced by Nietzsche.

>>4708048
I agree. Nietzsche's idea of aesthetic morality still works today, to a degree, because it has not been completely dismantled by techno-science.

>will to power
the noumenous drive to hierarchy

>>4706768
Nietzsche disproves free will at least a few times and in different ways.

>>4708048
"Everything is bunk, all bunk is permitted."

>>4707059
The will to action?
The will to become?

>>4706405

Hegel relies on Kant

Nietzsche is just an idiot

>>4708159
The will to make.

As I understand it, he didn't really come up with that many ideas of his own, he mostly made observations and critiques of other peoples ideas. One such person was Darwin, and Nietzsche was one of the first philosophers to implement the theory of evolution into his philosophy. So "the will to power" is not necessarily a positive or meaningful idea per se, it's more of an observation of human nature, the way things are whether you like them or not.

>>4708199
Nietzsche was all up on Lamarck's dick moreso than Darwin.

But yeah, der wille zur macht is like dat primo Heraklitean flux -- everliving fire.

>>4708040

Why would you say that?

I'd hazard to say you don't know much about modern psychology and/or neuroscience.

>>4708851
Soft sciences are cray. There's people talking Hegelian psychoanalysis and Presocratic metaphysics as metapsychology. I'm sure Nietzsche can be interpreted by Deleuze toward a schizoanalytical theory but I'm not sure that's the original intent of the author.