Hi Brett, I agree with you about Pascal's wager being spiritual extortion. Do you think Nietzsche himself lived up to his wager, though? He spent the last decade of his life bedridden and insane, allegedly had syphilis, never married (the woman he proposed to rejected him multiple times, and he kept pining for her), no children, posthumous fame, etc. Emil Cioran, who was compared with Nietzsche, said this about him: “What I consider his most authentic work is his letters, because in them he’s truthful, while in his other work he’s prisoner to his vision. In his letters one sees that he’s just a poor guy, that he’s ill, exactly the opposite of everything he claimed….It’s because that whole vision, of the will to power and all that, he imposed that grandiose vision on himself because he was a pitiful invalid. Its whole basis was false, nonexistent. His work is an unspeakable megalomania. When one reads the letters he wrote at the same time, one sees that he’s pathetic, it’s very touching, like a character out of Chekhov. I was attached to him in my youth, but not after. He’s a great writer, though, a great stylist.” And Carl Jung stated that Nietzsche delved into the unconscious without knowing what he was doing, and he was destroyed by what he encountered there - in Memories, Dreams, Reflections he looked at Nietzsche as a cautionary tale.
I would be interested in why you find him to be the end-all-be-all; you have structured all your writings around him. What is it about him that so deeply speaks to you? Personally I find his transvaluation of values arguments in his Genealogy of Morality to be brilliant - tracing Christianity back to Judaism, basically, but a lot of the other stuff doesn't quite hit with me. For me, Jung's perspective resonates more deeply, because he strives for *wholeness* as an end goal rather than ecstatic ruin, and we see this in his life - his marriage, having five children, having a successful clinical practice, his great body of work, etc. - he pulled off the kind of life that I myself aspire to, something actually worthy of "Nietzsche's wager" - he shows what it looks like to live the wager, to carry the burden of the unconscious without disintegration...In other words, if Nietzsche’s wager reveals the abyss, Jung shows what it might mean to survive it.
This whole line of thinking is irrelevant to me. Did Nietzsche have good ideas, or not? The rest is irrelevant.
I build on Nietzsche because I believe he grasped the truth about a number of fundamental issues in Western culture. Whether or not Nietzsche himself lived an enviable life is wholly irrelevant to me.
It is the case that a mind that plays with fundamental ideas like Nietzsche did is also a mind that is necessarily susceptible to rupture. I too have such a mind, and I know the risk. Messing around with fundamental issues is playing with fire. Nietzsche achieved greatness, and lost his mind. He died insane and alone, but his work will have a profound (and positive, IMO) effect on our culture for millennia. That's a tradeoff I'd take any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Miserable greatness over happy mediocrity? That's a no-brainer for me. But to each their own.
Brett, I think the way you’ve framed this - “miserable greatness” versus “happy mediocrity” - leaves out a third orientation.
Most who aim for Nietzsche’s wager don’t get greatness at all; they just get ruin. Collapse is not itself a guarantee of significance. For every Nietzsche, there are thousands whose names are forgotten, whose madness is just madness. That seems like a poor wager to me.
By contrast, aiming for wholeness has value in itself, regardless of whether it produces “greatness.” It can, in some cases, be the soil from which greatness grows - but even if it doesn’t, it yields a life that holds together. To me that’s not mediocrity, but something closer to strength.
So I suppose my question back to you is this: why assume that greatness requires self-destruction, when in fact it’s almost always destruction without greatness?
why assume that greatness requires self-destruction, when in fact it’s almost always destruction without greatness?
--
That wasn't my point at all, and I don't assume that. But I don't feel like engaging further. I just don't care about Nietzsche's problems or the fact that he had them. His work is great regardless.
Hi Brett, I agree with you about Pascal's wager being spiritual extortion. Do you think Nietzsche himself lived up to his wager, though? He spent the last decade of his life bedridden and insane, allegedly had syphilis, never married (the woman he proposed to rejected him multiple times, and he kept pining for her), no children, posthumous fame, etc. Emil Cioran, who was compared with Nietzsche, said this about him: “What I consider his most authentic work is his letters, because in them he’s truthful, while in his other work he’s prisoner to his vision. In his letters one sees that he’s just a poor guy, that he’s ill, exactly the opposite of everything he claimed….It’s because that whole vision, of the will to power and all that, he imposed that grandiose vision on himself because he was a pitiful invalid. Its whole basis was false, nonexistent. His work is an unspeakable megalomania. When one reads the letters he wrote at the same time, one sees that he’s pathetic, it’s very touching, like a character out of Chekhov. I was attached to him in my youth, but not after. He’s a great writer, though, a great stylist.” And Carl Jung stated that Nietzsche delved into the unconscious without knowing what he was doing, and he was destroyed by what he encountered there - in Memories, Dreams, Reflections he looked at Nietzsche as a cautionary tale.
I would be interested in why you find him to be the end-all-be-all; you have structured all your writings around him. What is it about him that so deeply speaks to you? Personally I find his transvaluation of values arguments in his Genealogy of Morality to be brilliant - tracing Christianity back to Judaism, basically, but a lot of the other stuff doesn't quite hit with me. For me, Jung's perspective resonates more deeply, because he strives for *wholeness* as an end goal rather than ecstatic ruin, and we see this in his life - his marriage, having five children, having a successful clinical practice, his great body of work, etc. - he pulled off the kind of life that I myself aspire to, something actually worthy of "Nietzsche's wager" - he shows what it looks like to live the wager, to carry the burden of the unconscious without disintegration...In other words, if Nietzsche’s wager reveals the abyss, Jung shows what it might mean to survive it.
This whole line of thinking is irrelevant to me. Did Nietzsche have good ideas, or not? The rest is irrelevant.
I build on Nietzsche because I believe he grasped the truth about a number of fundamental issues in Western culture. Whether or not Nietzsche himself lived an enviable life is wholly irrelevant to me.
It is the case that a mind that plays with fundamental ideas like Nietzsche did is also a mind that is necessarily susceptible to rupture. I too have such a mind, and I know the risk. Messing around with fundamental issues is playing with fire. Nietzsche achieved greatness, and lost his mind. He died insane and alone, but his work will have a profound (and positive, IMO) effect on our culture for millennia. That's a tradeoff I'd take any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Miserable greatness over happy mediocrity? That's a no-brainer for me. But to each their own.
Brett, I think the way you’ve framed this - “miserable greatness” versus “happy mediocrity” - leaves out a third orientation.
Most who aim for Nietzsche’s wager don’t get greatness at all; they just get ruin. Collapse is not itself a guarantee of significance. For every Nietzsche, there are thousands whose names are forgotten, whose madness is just madness. That seems like a poor wager to me.
By contrast, aiming for wholeness has value in itself, regardless of whether it produces “greatness.” It can, in some cases, be the soil from which greatness grows - but even if it doesn’t, it yields a life that holds together. To me that’s not mediocrity, but something closer to strength.
So I suppose my question back to you is this: why assume that greatness requires self-destruction, when in fact it’s almost always destruction without greatness?
why assume that greatness requires self-destruction, when in fact it’s almost always destruction without greatness?
--
That wasn't my point at all, and I don't assume that. But I don't feel like engaging further. I just don't care about Nietzsche's problems or the fact that he had them. His work is great regardless.
Excellent. To me, anyway. If I may, perhaps ironically or mischievously, use the words of Jesus here, "He who has ears, let him hear."
Well if there is a message in all the important prophets and the books. Its about not to act out of fear .
Yet so much is defined by fear in our culture, civilization and in ourselves. What a conundrum!
These are the only arguments I’ve ever needed in my debates with theists. No others have been necessary.
https://infidels.org/library/modern/richard-schoenig-no-god/
https://infidels.org/library/modern/horia-plugaru-never-created/