User talk:Glyphonhart

Neitzsche

Hi there. I put that bit about romanticism at the top of the Nietzsche article as an experiment. I thought there seemed to be some link between the two but I couldn't percieve it. By putting forth a bold hypothesis (Nietzsche was a romantic) I felt that I would soon see if my assertion was falsified at the hands of my more knowledgeable wikipedia editors.

In any case can I ask you what the link between Nietasche and romanticism is, Wagner for example is described as romantic, and in which works (the later ones, or throughout?) he critiques the romantic ideals. Cheers, Leonig Mig 4 July 2005 11:41 (UTC)

Walter Kaufmann

You are of course correct that a respected opinion is not for that reason accurate. Indeed, unless a given interpretation commands the majority' support, everyone with a view on the subject will think that most people have gotten Nietzsche wrong. That a view is disrespected, however, and by people holding such diverse stances, is usually a good indication that something is amiss.

Kaufmann is recognized for having made the study of Nietzsche respectable again among English speakers, but he did so at a price: he made Nietzsche himself respectable. His correction was an over-correction. So, for example, Nietzsche did not believe that the Germans were the master race — far from it — but he was a eugenicist. He would have opposed the destruction of European Jewry, but he in the same breath joked about expelling all the anti-Semites from Germany, and frequently justified the extinction of massive numbers of people for the advancement of the humanity. The blondeness of the beast may not refer to the Aryan mane, but the image is no less bloody for it. He may not have meant all those anti-Semitic things he said, but this simply causes us to wonder why he appealed to an anti-Semitic prejudice which he did not share and whether he didn't underestimate — of all things, for him — the violently explosive potential that lurked beneath the surface of a decaying Europe. Or, if he was aware of it, we must conclude that he just didn't care, and so assign him some bit of responsibility for how his rhetoric was later (mis-)used. More importantly, a Nietzsche who did not follow through on the consequences of his critique of modernity would be significantly less interesting — indeed, hardly worthy of our study. Such is Kaufmann's Nietzsche.

The above is clearly my criticism of his interpretation; those who hold other views of Nietzsche will say that Kaufmann has misread him in different ways. For the most part, however, he is relegated to some discussion in the footnotes, more often than not focusing on his translation of a certain passage (for which he is largely respected). He has become something of an intellectual whipping boy, someone to be mentioned when one's own interpretation could be strengthened by touting its superiority to someone else's.

I apologize if this is a bit acerbic. The Nietzsche article does need to be cleaned up — a lot — and I'm happy that someone's stepped forward to do it. If nothing else, the view it takes regarding interpretation has to be more balanced, lest subsequent editors return, "correct" it, and restore it to the semi-discussion-board format it currently enjoys.

Incidentally, you may want to post your reply (above) to Leonig Mig's talk page: s/he might not see it if you post it on your own.

Regards, RJC ^Talk 7 July 2005 23:14 (UTC)

Thank you for directly my attentiont to that article. Pickus would have been better served, however, had he looked to Kaufmann's introductory material. The charge that Kaufmann defangs Nietzsche in order to make him respectable again comes mostly from what he considers important when summarizing for an audience first approaching Nietzsche's books.

So let's look at On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Against what misinterpretation should we guard, according to Kaufmann? That a brutal and senseless murder would prove Loeb and Leopold masters. Or, even better, that many academic interpretations are marred by similar misunderstandings. Leaving aside the fact that he here invites people who have never read Nietzsche before to have a superior contempt for interpretations of Nietzsche other than Kaufmann's, why is this the error that Kaufmann singles out?

A few pages later, Kaufmann explains why Nietzsche uses the French word ressentiment. One, there was no German equivalent, nor would he craft some technical neologism to fill this need. Two, is was a reaction against Wagner's hatred of the French. "He hates nationalism as much as he hates saying approximately, at great length, what can be said precisely, in one word." But why do we need to know that Nietzsche hated nationalism here? What does it add to the discussion? This is especially poignant as Nietzsche does not himself draw attention to the word's French origins when he first uses it; this bit about nationalism is Kaufmann's addition. He may be correct, but what is more important is that he thinks that it must be said in this context. Again, he never misses an opportunity to say how much Nietzsche hated nationalism: this is probative regarding his intentions.

Where does Kaufmann's discussion of ressentiment lead? To a blithe attack on all other scholarship.

The write about Nietzsche "scholars" with the lack of inhibition with which they have written about Nietzsche, mixing moralistic denunciations with attempts at psychiatric explanations, would be utterly unthinkable. [...] Nietzsche wrote too well and was too superior. That removed him for the immunity of our community, quite as much as the commission of a crime. But where the transgression has been spiritual or intellectual, and those offended are the intellectual community, the revenge, too, is intellectual. The pent-up resentment against fellow members of the community — sloppy scholars and writers as well as those who excite envy — all this rancor that cannot be vented against living colleagues, at least not in print, may be poured out against a few great scapegoats.

Which is a great explanation of ressentiment, demonstrating it by accusing others of it in their treatment of its discoverer. But again, the charge from which Nietzsche is defended (for these scholars could hardly be resentful if they accuse correctly) is that Nietzsche was responsible for World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, and Germany in general.

Indeed, the entire introduction to On the Genealogy of Morals is rescuing Nietzsche from one misinterpretation after another. The same is true of his other introductions. So Pickus's inability to see how anyone could think that Kaufmann saw his role primarily as that of rehabilitating Nietzsche, and consequently that there must be a "Kaufmann myth," speaks more about him than about Nietzsche scholars. From Kaufmann, one gets the impression that almost everyone — even those who study Nietzsche professionally — equates Nietzsche with nationalism, with the Nazis, and with a sort of brutal thuggery, and that it is the responsibility of anyone who publishes a translation of his works to ensure that even the most vapid reader understands this to be false. To read Kaufmann's other works with this in mind is not, as Pickus claims, presumptuous, but necessary, and it is for this reason that his interpretations are accorded little respect.

Regards,

RJC ^Talk 9 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)

Kundalini Nietzsche

The kundalini reference in Nietzsche seems peculiar. Do you know anything about this? --Macrakis 21:12, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry just nosing. What a fascinating combination of concepts! I wonder if there is any mention of it in his writings. Leonig Mig 19:49, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Nietzsche and Anti-Semitism

The sections of psycho-babble to which you point me do nothing to absolve Nietzsche of the charge that he used anti-Semitism as a weapon, for they do not explain offer a coherent account. I think we can both agree that it is best to approach Nietzsche through Nietzsche, not through the lens of some derivative thinker with a "system."

In Ecce Homo, in the section on Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche states that all works subsequent to Thus Spoke Zarathustra were intended as fishing hooks, to win people over to his way of looking at the world. On the Geneaology of Morals, being a supplement to BGE according to the reverse of its title page (Kaufmann notes this in his introduction, but omits it from his actual transation), certainly falls into this category of fishing-hooks. And it is there that he makes his remarks about how the Jews precipitated the slave revolt in morals. In the Antichrist, also written after Zarathustra and so also a fishing-hook, he again says nary a kind word about the Jews, even going so far as to silently rename the early Christians "Jews" so as to enlist anti-Semitism against Christianity.

So, Nietzsche himself may not have been an anti-Semite, but he employed his readers' prejudices for rhetorical purposes. This means he thought this employment would serve his purposes. Instead, it was used to justify a regime that was the opposite of everything he desired in terms of a renewal of philosophy (Nazis are just last men who shout loudly because they think they know what pride is). Saying that this makes Nietzsche a 6 instead of a 5 on someone's scale of personalities does not justify — on Nietzsche's or anyone else's premises — this procedure; it doesn't even explain it.

Now, I don't intend this to be a refutation of Nietzsche. The context in which I pointed this out was that Kaufmann, in arguing so vociferously against the charge of anti-Semitism, encourages his readers to explain away such passages rather than confront them. His ressurrection of Nietzsche from the ashes of infamy does not provoke a study of Nietzsche, but rather obscures him.

-- RJC ^Talk 14:06, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Zarathustra.gif

Hello Glyphonhart, I have uploaded your Image:Zarathustra.gif to Wikimedia Commons with new title Also_sprach_Zarathustra.GIF. By the way, any suggestion to the German Nietzsche article is appreciated; I think there should be much more collaboration between the Nietzsche articles, simply because, as I have seen, similar discussions are taking place in the different wikis. --80.144.117.30 19:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC) (de:Benutzer:Chef)

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