I thought this would make for an interesting topic.

We all know that Nietzsche is one the greatly misunderstood philosophers of our time; but some of us have seen through the veil of his works and the common misconceptions behind his writing and have truly appreciated the man for his ways of thinking and influence on how some of us live our lives.

Personally, Nietzsche is one of the only philosophers I like; I'm not saying that to sound like some hard-ass elitist, but when I first started reading his works and compared with what other philosophy I had read at the time, I was like, "Holy shit, this is what I've been trying to explain to people all along about how I live and feel." I find books like Beyond Good & Evil and especially Thus Spake Zarathustra incredibly empowering and optimistic, and they have certainly helped refresh my mind in some personal dirges.

So, this is the Nietzsche thread. You can discuss what you like or dislike about Nietzsche's works, which works are your personal favorites, how those works affected you after reading them, etc... and anything else Nietzsche-related.

I was waiting for a Nietzsche thread.

My personal favorite work by Nietzsche is to this day, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It brings about some interesting concepts and further expands upon concepts which he had brought up in previous works. Also, it is a very innovative, influential piece of writing.

What I do not get, is why so many people associate Nietzsche with Nihilism. For fuck's sake he was against it, stating that in order to become the ubermensch one must overcome all nihility faced in ones life, which would lead to depression and apathy towards life. This would, obviously, be a detriment in further improving yourself and ever achieving that level.

Also, I personally feel he is one of the most misunderstood philosophers out there, what with people assuming wrongly about many of the concepts he has made and misinterpreting almost all of his works.

I've only read Human, All too Human as well as segments from other works. The book is largely composed of aphorisms (catchy-sounding, but not particularly universal), but includes several dozen longer pieces as well, musings on various topics. Nietzsche is very effective at penetrating the psychology of the 19th century European, and to some degree, all people. I found myself cringing when he unclothed various psychological flaws I've discovered in myself. It was in a way an enlightening experience, as well as amusing one. There was quite a bit that seemed totally inapplicable to today's society, though.

I've only read The Will to Power. I was practising his concept of 'the will to power' prior to reading it, the power to be the master of my own destiny. I agree somewhat with Nietsche's idea that the most important, innate driving force of a person, animal or any living thing is expressed in its desire to control outside forces exerting its effects on it.

It's always refreshing to find other people who find Nietzsche empowering and optimistic rather than overwhealming and ultimately depressing. I have a few methods for filtering out people who are worth my time, and I suppose this is one of them.

People see nihilism in Nietzsche because of his insistence on acknowledging the void and lack of inherent meaning in life, but seem to miss his even greater insistence on the necessity of building something out of that void yourself. Life is a battle against nihilism.

He occasionally made some very interesting observations of human behaviour, but all things considered I get the impression that he didn't have a higher agenda than seeing how many people he could offend. Basically, he was the Howard Stern of philosophy.

He's one of the only philosophers I could ever relate to or particularly enjoy.

One of my favourite quotes, albeit a bit overused:

"He who fights with monsters should take care that he himself does not become a monster. Gaze deeply enough into the abyss, and the abyss shall also gaze into you."

Very thought provoking and scarily enough rings true over a broader life spectrum than I'm sure a lot of us would like to admit.

He despised nihilists, as well as socialists, AND nationalists. Some artists or bands credit Nietzsche as a major influence, though I have a vague impression that they don't understand shit about his ideas. Nietzsche was indeed obsessed with life and its beauty, not with hate, scorn, destruction or discrimination, and his writings deserve some credit for their original ideas. However, I find him, not necessarily as a philosopher, flawed, considering that he was the one to point towards the "nitimur in vetitum" of past philosophers, but he was a victim of this too. He was a sensitive, vulnerable, fable person, and his ideal was the ideal of the proud, uncompromising, and strong human being.
In short, his writings should be read and understood more in these days. He marked a crucial point in the history and conception on Philosophy.

Totally agree. It seems like the majority of bands, metal or otherwise, take the idea of God's death way too far, and some have probably perverted the idea of the Ubermensch as well.

...and weirdly enough, Nietzsche says something in one of his works about those types of people being the worst: the ones who take a small thing and exploit it, or who take things out of context. (He may have meant this in a literary sense, where a reader should take a full text for what it is, not just bits and pieces.)

Hence why Slough Feg's Traveller presents a storyline that Nietzsche, or at least the Nietzsche wannabes that constitute the majority of the self-styled "metal intelligentsia" would be completely unable to explain.

Too bad that much like G. W. F. Hegel, Dadaism and Videodrome very few outside the creative process seem to have got its point at all, but hey - at least it's there...

He's my favorite. I also am an avid Huxley fan.

I love THE GAY SCIENCE. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL and THE ANTICHRIST. Some of the best more thought provoking stuff written. I also like THUS SPAKE ZARATHRUSTRA.

I guess the thing I relate most to about Nietszsche is how he basically rejected the whole Judeo/Christian doctrines. His whole view on morality and Judeo/Christian guilt built into modern day society used for control is so dead on IMO, and that whole control is not freeing and is stifling. I completely agree.

I'm not someone that doesn't appreciate what Jesus stood for (not saying Nietzsche was against him at all) or what his teachings were...I'm against the abomination of the organized religions that rose him up in the name of the almighty dollar and forsaked all their gods before them in fear. I'm against the whole pompous chosen ones mentality as well. And I'm a born jew. I think one needs to be humbled in order to be enlightened, and that doesn't necessarily come from doing 100 hail marys or thinking that your "way" is the only "way".

I try to keep my mind open, try to keep grabbing and sponging from here and there and everywhere to keep sharpening my views, because although they have a strong foundation, they seem to progress as I get older.

What I like about Nietzsche is that he dissects, but as I read him to be is not really a nihilist when it comes down to it; he's just more of a devil's advocate and in many ways made me see certain things that related to my life in a different light.

How I understand it is that it's not about physical death at all...it's about being reborn into a new mentality and how to overcome...and how the death of god is really about the death of how god is perceived, how god no longer able to mainstain moral codes/and or god mindstate.

I have Thus Spoke Zarathustra but I can never get far in it because whenever I try to read it something distracts me from it and I never go back to it. I really need to pick it up again because from what I read from it, it is a great book.

I'm a big fan of Nietzsche's, although I haven't really read enough of his work. I intend to take a class or two on him here at college in order to catch up on his work. The only work I've read in sufficient depth is Beyond Good and Evil.

However, I also greatly admire Kant's work which many people see as incompatible with Nietzsche. I disagree with that; rather, I think that Nietzsche, wherever he does criticize "Kantian" ideas, intends to criticize Kantian and neo-Kantian philosophers in Germany at the time. I think that they had misinterpreted Kant's writings and that Nietzsche, to some extent, realized this. I'm very interested in reconciling Kant's ideas with Nietzsche's.

Anyway, I'll write more on this once I have revisited and examined Nietzsche in more detail. I would be interested, though, in anyone else's opinion on the relationship between Nietzsche and Kant.

My favorite philosopher by a mile. I relate to alot of things he says and especially for the time peroid he wrote in, its pretty breath taking stuff I think. The only con for me is that sometimes he tends to ramble but for the most part, I really love his ideas and writing style.

Nietzsche just needed to get laid.

Maybe this explains his position on women.

But seriously, there were definitely some misogynistic overtones in his writings, without a doubt; but that wasn't uncommon for the times.

Getting turned down by the two women you propose to in your life, and being the equivalent of the 40 Year Old Virgin living in your mom's basement, will do that to you.

I guess his philosophy on women was an EPIC FAIL

When I read Why I Am So Wise, it put into place why Nietzsche was such a cynical asshole and I'm not saying this in a bad way at all. It just helped me understand how interesting he was.

Yeah... it was only later in his life that he acquired his now legendary raging misogyny. Earlier he was actually one of the first university professors in Germany to educate women at all.

I'd always been wary of studying Nietzsche due to the magnitude of pseudo-intellectual interpretations and adulations seen in the past 20 years (for example all the cherrypicking done by metal bands and political movements), but some of his concepts seem to be exceptionally relevant so I may find myself giving his stuff a proper read. I attempted it in A-level Philosophy but had trouble grappling with his prose. Can't remember which book I was reading.

He was never exceptionally misogynistic for his society, was he? We can can find similar comments in Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, et al.

I believe he actually saw himself that way, or at least making some comments about how women had too much power on traditionally masculine venues.

The man's emergent distaste for women seems unlikely to have been purely the product of some inborn psychological issue he had with the feminine character, or merely the product of his own less than ideal romantic life. The emphasis that he comes to place on his misogyny likely has an aspect of calculation, as well--the conception of feminine virtue at the time was characterized by traits such as humility, meekness, dependence, piety, and so forth--exactly the kinds of values that he saw a need to move away from. Perhaps in a sense, females, or the image of femininity, were for him symbolic of modern humanity's self-imposed malaise. Further, perhaps because of the aforementioned popular conception of women as moral compasses, they represented a prime target in his assault on many of the sensibilities of his time--a soft spot, if you will. Nietzsche was seldom one to abstain from theatrics if he believed they would help to reveal or underline his point. How much of his apparent hatred for women is really genuine is difficult to say, as with so many other things pertaining to the man...it may well be the case that he was not truly abnormally misogynistic for his time in his daily/personal life.

I've never read any of Nietzsche's writings, regretfully so.

I've inquired about his work with a few acquaintances around this here, but since this area is the heart of the American bible belt, the returning responses are usually negative grunts chastizing his assocation with nihilism and how those ideals "build the pathway to Hell". I've never known where to start with Nietzsche, and with the bible thumpers nagging about his themes, I was put off due to sheer annoyance. Though I believe I shall try to get into Thus Spoke Zarathustra at some point, for the odd reason that I've heard a symphony piece of the same name.

That has definitely crossed my thoughts a lot, and makes some sense... but perhaps his view of women as weak could have been intensified by being rejected by them? After all, he did say that all philosophy is veiled autobiography so it's not like he was not asking for interpretations like mine.

Philosophy does nothing to teach us of the world, it does teach us of the people that wrote it. Some people just like to give these people more credit than their worth, or like to try and sound highly intelligent. Both sets of people are worthless.

Are you serious? I've read about his incredible attachment to Wagner and his passion for Wagner's wife, Cosima. The man was far away from an unfucked moustache wielder demanding attention to his philosophical delirium. He was shy and out of his world and that's why he preferred to dive into a madness-provoking romance and write poems to a woman who despised him instead of simply blowing his load into a hole.

I also remember reading on rotten.com's library section that Nietzsche lost his virginity at the age of 15 to a 30-year old woman. Apparently he was a Cake Eater.

Philosophy will teach you logic and how to assess complicated arguments. Most people are severely lacking in these skills. In my opinion, philosophers tend to be the best analytical writers of all. They're great at writing that is intended to convey technical information. IIRC, philosophy students score highest on the writing section of the GRE(verbal, too, and they are respectable quantitatively, as well).

You've completely missed the point of philosophy. Philosophy can't actually describe the world because nothing can. Anything that we think we know of the world is only processed through the conditions of our perception. Thus, the only thing that can be described with even the hope of universality are the basic principles of human behavior and how to better understand and guide them. Good philosophy helps the reader structure his "soul" in the most beneficial way and explains why it is beneficial.

Says a lot about a person when they need other people to help them form their own beliefs and inner-structures.