I have some criticism to hand out, I’m sorry. I don’t name names(not a narc), but the way the discussion was handled around Nietzsche was too combative and angry for my taste… I like to always remember: Unity, criticism, unity
First off, let’s get one thing clear; Nietzsche was an a55hole, racist, eugenicist, misogynist and overall misanthrope. Beyond redemption, really. However, his deconstruction of Christianity, Platonism, and good/evil morality is correct. If you want to arrive to the same conclusions without the toxic reactionary bs, read eastern philosophy, read Daoism and Legalism.
With that being said, I don’t think it’s right or helpful or a positive thing to berate normal people or comrades who don’t arrive at this conclusion by themselves or are even reticent to do so. We’re firstly communists here, not philosophers. It is intellectually arrogant to assume that all of us would naturally know about Nietzsche’s horrid track record, considering that the information is not readily available/popular and there have been many decades dedicated toward the rebranding and rehabilitating of Nietzsche. Thanks to Losurdo for writing a good book to dismantle Nietzsche, but it’s 1000 pages! Dammit Losurdo, like who is actually going to read that? I would, but I’m weird.
Nietzsche, ugh, like Lemmygrad friends, comrades, let’s make sure we don’t idolize him and work to shed light on the truth of his philosophy as reactionary and bourgeois. We can yet learn from him(know yourself and know your enemy) bc there are many, many people who still idolize him. That cannot be undone by being angry but by carefully dismantling the arguments. We can only do that from a place of understanding and compassion. I for one, believe that most people are misguided or are misunderstanding Nietzsche and his project. The man did not care for being “understood.” He wrote for bourgeois elites after all. I think he’d have a lot less good-faith followers, esp from the left, if he was more openly and more often, taken down. May I suggest a superthread and prolewiki page on the subject?
Anyway, comrades, that is all. Thanks for reading. Please share questions, further reading, concerns, disagreements, corrections below.
All resources in this post are not mine. I did not do the work. Don’t thank me.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1923/winged-eros.htm
https://twitter.com/search?q=nietzsche (from%3Arodericday)&src=typed_query&f=top
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Nietzsche’s pretty good at criticizing old philosophers! But he doesn’t have any new ideas that are good though. Most of his new ideas are adopted by fascists so he’s rightly called a proto fascist. And he certainly wouldn’t like us, here’s what he said about the Paris Commune:
Also another short critique of Nietzsche to add to the list. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/destruction-reason/ch03.htm
Oh fuck me, was he one of those “socialism is an evil Jewish conspiracy” types?
Sort of. He didn’t get along well with most anti-Semites and nationalists (his sister and her husband, for instance), because he thought they were uncultured idiots who couldn’t read Aeschylus in Greek. But he did think socialism was the degenerate final product of a once-noble (but now outdated) idea the ancient Hebrews had come up with.
Eeesh. Thank you
That lukacs work is great
That’s understandable. To be completely honest, I do that kind of stuff all the time, lol.
Yeah, same here. I’ve been feeling pretty ambivalent about Nietzsche for years, until yesterday. I kinda knew he was a douche, but mostly glazed over his nonsense as I’ve grown accustomed to when reading lots of continental philosophers(Descartes, Rousseau, Aristotle, Plato, Kant). But, oh boy, when you connected the dots, it’s pretty bleak for Nietzsche. I feel like he is/was a pretty bleak person.