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Continuing on Nietzsche's 1888 book. (For Wes Alwan's summary of this book, go here). Is there any ground from which we could judge life as a whole to be good or bad? Is N. more about saying "yes" to life or saying "no" to all the numerous things that piss him off? We also talk Becoming, whether producing great art is more important than being nice to everyone, and whether Nietzsche is ultimately someone we'd want to hang around.
End song: "Oblivion," written for this episode by Tyler Hislop. Listen to Tyler on Nakedly Examined Music #24. Hear the track by itself.
Listen to part 1 first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition.
very good thanks, best shows seem to stick closer to the texts, for more of Nietzsche’s positive agenda I think one needs to take up the The Gay Science.
The question of what do we make of the works of people who do some bad (even terrible things) seems one to hold onto, I think we can condemn the bad acts and still see value in the works, the risks are not unlike those we take in the US with freedom of expression, sometime great things happen sometimes terrible but we embrace (within limits) the highs and lows rather than seek to impose some luke-warm middle and or some Disneyworld like nice sameness.
http://www.cornell.edu/video/the-demand-for-ugliness-picassos-bodies
On the question of calculating abstract universals I think the daily news of biases and other errors in our uses and abuses of algorithms show how much of life (the complexity, diversity, etc) isn’t represented in such efforts and what sorts of injustices they can produce.
If memory serves (less and less) the question came up in the first half of this whether or not FN thought that we were in some deep sense formed by forces beyond our controls/choices and so affirming life is not like Dewey’s more American take but more like the physicists who doubt freewill.
I find Nietzsche more useful for thinking about institutions than interactions between individuals, how they often start with some inspiration and as the means become institutionalized (and staffed) we often fall into a kind of deadening tyranny of the means, this is part of what Deleuze and Guattari picked up from FN. I would like to hear a PEL on Guattari someday as I think he helped to try and emphasize how much we are embedded in (creatures of) wider contexts/environments something which generally gets lost in philosophy and social sciences.
Fantastic episode yet again, guys. I particularly enjoy your discussions of Nietzsche (and Spinoza).
A couple of aspects of Nietzsche’s writing in Twilight (and elsewhere) that the guys bandied about in this and the previous episode are to what extent Nietzsche’s recommendations for how life should be lived should be taken seriously, and to what extent Nietzsche’s life was an example of his own advice. These are both critical aspects of his thought, particularly in regards to the viability of applying his philosophy to real life. This seems of paramount importance to me because no matter how enjoyable to read a philosopher might be, if his or her insights are not actually applicable to real life, I am not sure how valid this philosophy can be.
As discussed by the guys in this and the previous episode, Nietzsche is particularly fun to read, because of his apparent insights, but also for his bombast and pithy turns of phrase. However, if his recommendations are not actually realizable, or produce unwanted outcomes when applied, then he is at best merely entertaining with no real insight. Likewise if Nietzsche himself did not at least to some degree exemplify his own philosophy in his life, there is little reason to take his insights and recommendations seriously.
The guys in their discussion seemed split on these points. While there seemed to be more support for the value of his insights, there also seemed to be more uncertainty about whether Nietzsche himself actually lived or exemplified what he preached, which to that degree weakens the power of his recommendations and his philosophy as a whole.
To that end, I think there is much more reason to give both Nietzsche and his philosophy more credit. While Nietzsche did not emerge as the next Napoleon, and in fact lived a fairly sickly and solitary life, I think a reasonable argument can be made that he did in fact personify his philosophy to the best of his ability and circumstances. On the one hand, as was discussed in this episode, his recommendations are often meant to be inspirational and aspirational. and really only fit for the few who are capable of them. Thus, their full realization is going to be difficult, rare, and probably fleeting. In this sense, even though Nietzsche may not have achieved the renown he often described, I think he still lived his life consistent with the values he described. To wit, given Nietzsche’s current place in Western thought, I would say his sickly, solitary, and somewhat tortured life ultimately had the effects he predicts for those who try to live as he describes, despite the lack of fruition during his own life and his own sad end.
Actually, what really made this stand out for me, and what prompted this comment is that after I listened to this episode I coincidentally watched the movie Factotum, about Charles Bukowski, with Matt Dillon as the Bukowski character. The movie itself is small but excellent, and ends with Dillon/Chinaski/Bukowski drinking his last dollar alone in a bar, not knowing that, after years of subsistence living only to write, one of his stories had finally been accepted for publication in the small magazine he submitted his work to. The movie ends with a voice-over monologue of Bukowski’s “if you’re going to try” (often misattributed to Factotum, but actually a stand-alone poem titled “roll the dice”):
roll the dice
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.
go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.
if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.
do it, do it, do it.
do it.
all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight
there is.
– Charles Bukowski
This sounded very much like the kind of thing Nietzsche would have written, and I found the parallels between their lives (minus the inveterate alcoholism) and their work and their legacies too close to pass without comment.
I think this also pertains to the discussion about the connections, if any, between being a ‘good’ person and living according to Nietzsche’s recommendations, as I don’t think many people would consider Bukowski a good prospect for a roommate, or would want to live the kind of life he did. For what it is worth, from what I know of Nietzsche, as exemplified in the letter of reference quoted in this episode, he seems a much more enjoyable and convivial companion than Bukowski….if that matters. In the end, I think that all this goes to show that Nietzsche’s recommendations should be taken more seriously than as merely aspirational, which also means that such a path would by definition not be common or easy, and also that there are not any necessary connections between being a ‘good’ person and living life as one’s own work of art, as recommended by Nietzsche.
I am curious if people agree or disagree with this, or if it prompts any additional thoughts..
It’s worth noting that FN didn’t claim to be the fulfillment of his theorizing, worth also keeping the futural (be-coming as the fellows noted) gestures of his work in mind I think, and also would be a real loss to reduce his work (against the work itself) to a kind of self-improvement project, he wasn’t a conservative character like Wittgenstein:
https://www.academia.edu/13570221/Wisdom_Humility_Courage_and_Strength_Later_Wittgenstein_on_the_Difficulties_of_Philosophy_and_the_Philosophical_Virtues
Bukowski as servant of his writing seems roughly Nietzschean, Bukowski as depressed angry drunk not so much,
is there more of a modern poet of resentment than CB?
The more interesting (because challenging) example for me is Whitman, there’s a test for FN’s moody vitalism…
Thanks for the reply.
I can agree that N. did not portray himself as the culmination of his philosophy, which would be the Ubermensch for which individuals of contemporary generations were merely the bridge or rope. That said, I do think he actively tried to live his philosophy, and that he philosophized with the intent to help the few who could implement his recommendations shake off the shackles and strive to achieve great things against the almost overwhelming tide of mediocrity. In this way, I think that his project was self-realization (primarily for these few who would be capable of doing the difficult things against the grain), in contrast to ‘self-improvement’ of the self-help book/guru variety.
This difference is what prompted the comparisons with Bukowski for me, as there is precious little about Bukowski or his life that might be considered self-improvement, or even worthy of emulation, apart from his dedication to his writing. However, that even this dedication to his craft was realized to the detriment of his reputation and so many of his relationships and even his health again makes even this characteristic seem not particularly desirable by any sane or reasonable person–but still this is the route through which he achieved the unique viewpoint, voice, and recognition he now has, at the cost of almost everything most of us squares hold most dear. This is what I think gives his words in “roll the dice” so much force, because he embodied those sentiments, and declared the juice to be worth the squeeze, in contradistinction to the prevailing values of contemporary society. This is also what I think gives N’s words their force as he also embodied or attempted to embody his philosophy, at the cost of so much, just as he describes in his work.
Again, this tension between what people like Bukowski and N. describe as ‘good’ qua life-affirming versus what contemporary society describes as the ingredients for success points to the difficulties in assessing the validity of N’s insights discussed in this and previous episodes, because the two recommendations seem so at odds. Thus, the difficulty in squaring the ‘art’ of a person with their personality or behavior in other domains. The prevailing assumption seems to be that greatness in one domain must come as a package with greatness in all domains, including interpersonal relationships. The kinds of people N. describes as attempting to realize greatness do not, will not, and seemingly cannot also conform to conventional norms and expectations. As a result, they will be called ‘devils’ by the majority of people in a society. Being willing and able to bear this stigma to realize some project emanating not from well-balanced rational deliberation but from some instinctual will to power is what N. recommends as the path to glory as the affirmation of life, practically regardless of duration or success, does not also seem like a recipe for making and keeping friends or winning the approval of society in general.
(Re: Whitman, my take is that early Whitman exemplified N’s philosophy regarding valuation in his work and in his life, but that after his service as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War Whitman somewhat lost the thread as he was overwhelmed by the tides of his times. Ultimately, it seems to me that such people–including N.–are to one degree or another imperfect realizations, inconsistently in fits and bursts, of what N. describes and recommends, and this almost necessarily so.)
FN was trying to put us back into the context of life (and the rest of existence) and so not really taken with selves per say, in this way was much like Emerson and all, Branka Arsic has a really good book along these lines if folks have library access called On Leaving.
SR you might be interested in:
Two ideas that are central to my own use of Nietzsche’s work (and which I felt inclined to point out to the participants while listening to the podcast):
1) Like the teachings of Casteneda’s Don Juan, Nietzsche offers a completely separate way to see life. Clearly he set out not only to critique the shortcomings of what seemed (and still seem) to be the universal truths of good and evil, but to let the reader experience an opposite interpretation. The goal, which I think was fairly met, was to create a viable alternative system of values. In this way the critique runs beyond “those values make you small” to “there are no moral facts.”
2) Nietzsche offers the Overman as an elegant solution to the problem of post-theistic morality. How should one think about and organize values? By cultivating a dream of greatness. To the extent that man is a brute, he needs a morality that restrains him. To the extent that man is not a brute, his morality should be a plan of action toward his dreams of greatness.