Book Review: Domenico Losurdo -Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance-Sheet. Reviewed By: Rory Jeffs
www.midwesternmarx.com
What is most remarkable about Nietzsche’s post-war ascendancy in the philosophico-cultural field is that it emerges out of a prior history of his philosophy’s use in legitimating the Nazi and...

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

https://redsails.org/nietzsche-the-chinese-workers-friend/

  • @v12riceburner
    10•2 years ago

    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:

    Hope is possible again! Our German mission isn’t over yet! I’m in better spirit than ever, for not yet everything has capitulated to Franco-Jewish levelling and ‘elegance’, and to the greedy instincts of Jetztzeit (‘now-time’). There is still bravery, and it’s a German bravery that has something else to it than the élan of our lamentable neighbours. Over and above the war between nations, that international hydra which suddenly raised its fearsome heads has alarmed us by heralding quite different battles to come.[9]

    Also another short critique of Nietzsche to add to the list. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/destruction-reason/ch03.htm

    • @Shrike502
      6•2 years ago

      Franco-Jewish levelling

      Oh fuck me, was he one of those “socialism is an evil Jewish conspiracy” types?

      • JucheBot1988
        5•2 years ago

        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.

    • @whoami
      3•2 years ago

      That lukacs work is great