Well Trained Mind Readers discussion

Starting August 1st! Is anyone else dreading Nietzsche?

I just order a copy. My library system did not have a normal copy. I'm dreading this and Hitler. : P

I'm waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail at the end of this week or the beginning of next week. I'm dreading this but I can't wait for Mein Kampf.

I'm lucky, my library has the penguin edition on Overdrive and it was available. I actually would like to start Mein Kampf because I'm reading an ARC book, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, right now that I would like to have to compare what the author says of Hitler's driving force to what he starts in his manifesto.

I started ecco homo a few days ago. It's torture, but I suppose there's value in having some familiarity with it.

Oooo, that's not good. From the little I've read of Nietzsche, I find his arrogance a little hard to take. But while I'm dreading this book, at least I'm curious.

OK, I guess I'll start trudging through mine. Just got my copy.

I haven't finished Up From Slavery yet. But I just got my copy of Ecce Homo yesterday and it's packed for vacation.

I actually started this, don't fall out of your chair in shock.

Are they sure he waited until after he wrote this to go mad? He seemed to have had a very troubled short life.

It must just be me (perhaps I'm destined to go mad) that didn't have a problem with the phrase "how one becomes what one is". The intro made it clear "what" should be "who" to make any sense. I don't feel that to be true, if you use the definition, to say that someone or something is remarkable for having good or bad qualities. Isn't that what we are talking about? Philosophically speaking, what makes us, what defines us, our actions, we can't be a who until the what's have defined us.

Sorry, Bookworm, I'm just picking myself up from off the ground! ;-)

Great question and it makes me want to beat you over the head for not coming along with us in the other reads to generate more good questions for discussion.

You've whetted my curiosity, so I'm going to try to start this tomorrow. I'm not sure that Nietzsche meant "who". These scientific types seem to think in terms of function instead of humanity. In any case, I'll get back to you.

I know I've been a very bad participant! Somehow I do intend to find time to go back and read all the other books, I did end up purchasing most of them, so they must be read.

I'm might be bad too. I'm not looking forward to the Gertrude Stein one, or Richard Rodriquez (although perhaps that's not fair because I don't know who he is), so I may skip them. But, knowing me, I probably won't.

Okay, if you read, you must post! ;-)

Are they sure he waited until after he wrote this to go mad?

Ha, ha...I thought the same thing after finishing chapter "Why I am so wise."

Has anybody figured out this riddle?

"as my father I have already died, as my mother I still live and grow old"

NO.
Good question.
We have to figure it out.

I wonder if it links up to his "some are born posthumously"?

Cleo wrote: "I wonder if it links up to his "some are born posthumously"?"

Maybe, and I think I get that he was extremely close to or greatly identified with his father. But with his mother, I am not sure, yet.

He was barely 5 when his father died, so I'm not sure how much influence he would have directly received from his father. However, perhaps the young ailing health of his father mimicked his own and helped with his identification to him.

Wrong word. He believed he had a lot of similarities to his father, so he really identified with him; but I don't know that it constitutes a closeness. Maybe he imagined he would have been really close to him had he lived longer.

I am fairly clueless to much of what he has been rambling. A snippet here and there sound coherent, and next thing I know that has vanished into a realm I don't relate with.

I think because he didn't know his father well, he was able to build a fantasy out of him as someone who understood him. I don't think Nietzsche felt anyone could understand him, so this was important. However the people left living, his mother and sister, he had quite a strong contempt for. I'm not sure if it was justified, but I suspect, with his miniscule tolerance for almost all people, not. I don't know much about Nietzsche but based on this book, I think he was pretty much in a dream world of how wonderful he was and how pitifully inadequate everyone else was. I feel rather sad for him but he can be so incredibly annoying, pity sometimes gets drown in annoyance!

My impressions are similar. It's hard believe his humanistic philosophies have had so much influence.

Apparently, the reader is to recognize a light-hearted air in his arrogant claims and take them tongue-in-cheek. The theory is that his uninhibited immodesty is exaggerated to counter the Christian objective of humility. Humility is regarded a baggage that weighs down one from full potential and happiness. This fueled the Nazis as they opposed Christ, regarding him as weak with no value of his meekness.

I know a few Nietschze followers and I find it interesting that the articles they share often on FB have this spoofy quality too. In fact, satire is their favored rhetoric. Now, satire has its place in rhetoric, but it is overused among the Nietschze philosophers, as the primary method of making their points. Occasionally, I'd like to have a rational and straightforward conversation with them.
I have communicated frequently with one of these people and I found it easy to pin him with logics. I think that when he is pinned, he hides behind these riddles claiming I can't grasp them because he is a superior, more intelligent person.

...Oh yeah, does it surprise you that both of my Nietzsche friends are arrogant too? This is why I don't understand people commonly denying Nietzche was an arrogant person. If he wasn't arrogant, he should have a least aspired to be. According to his philosophy, arrogance if the main ingredient in what he thinks is the key to happiness and success. So, unless I'm missing something, why wouldn't we expect him to at least try to be genuinely arrogant?

This guy makes me nautious, just because of his surpising and dangerous influence.

Nauseous. ;)

It's hard believe his humanistic philosophies have had so much influence."

Agree, Misty. I am stumped why his ideas caught anyone's attention. But I guess he wrote so many "excellent books," and Ecce Homo is only the tip of the iceberg.

A Bookworm Reading wrote: "I am fairly clueless to much of what he has been rambling. A snippet here and there sound coherent, and next thing I know that has vanished into a realm I don't relate with."

OK, I am not the only one going through this. One passage I think I am following, and the next he loses me.

Misty wrote: "Apparently, the reader is to recognize a light-hearted air in his arrogant claims and take them tongue-in-cheek. The theory is that his uninhibited immodesty is exaggerated to counter the Christia..."

Fascinating!!!

Cleo wrote: "I think because he didn't know his father well, he was able to build a fantasy out of him as someone who understood him. "

OK, this makes sense.

And how easy to make a fantasy out of his father, when he did not know him very well at all.

Yes, very interesting thoughts, Misty. It certainly sheds some more light on the matter. I would like some proof from these experts that his arrogance is meant to be light-hearted. He doesn't just decorate his writings with this arrogance ----- then I might be open to believing that it's light-hearted ----- he builds his arguments with this arrogance and without it, some of them could fall like a house of cards. I would probably need to read some of his other works for comparison (oh, joy!)

Because of Nietzsche's hatred for Christianity, he seems to simply like to take the opposite of whatever Christian tenet he can find, and promote it, without really have a good reason. I can sometimes find myself agreeing with some of his generalizations, but his explanations either make a start and don't finish, or they make no sense.

Honestly I think people admire him because he hates the status quo, can use lots of big words, is philosophical adept at explaining himself, and he doesn't make sense. I can see how that might be attractive artistically, but logically he suffers. I was reading thoughts on him from a Goodreads group which has quite a few scholarly members: they tend to think there are moments of brilliance with Nietzsche but they are bogged down in all the other "mess".

I am interested in his work because I think he is part of the history of German thought and it would be useful to read him to understand others (or vice versa) such as Thomas Mann, Goethe, etc. But I certainly am not reading him from the joy of it! :-Z

Here's a great review of Beyond Good and Evil which illustrates some of the problems with Nietzsche: https://booksontrial.wordpress.com/20...

Thanks, Cleo. I usually do not like to read someone else's interpretation about an author ahead of finishing a book b/c it will influence my opinion of him/her; however, Nietzsche is an exception.

I like Books on Trial, and the article provided clarity necessary for me to continue.

Ressentiment is the forbidden in itself lot the invalid –his evil: unfortunately also his most natural inclination. – This was grasped by that profound physiologist Buddha. His ‘religion’, which one would do better to call a system of hygiene so as not to mix it up with such pitiable things as Christianity, makes its effect dependent on victory over ressentiment: to free the soul of that – first step to recovery.

Wonder what Buddha would think of his system of hygiene remark.

A Bookworm Reading wrote: "Wonder what Buddha would think of his system of hygiene remark...."

I'm not sure. I know so little of Buddhism, but doesn't it have a component of cleansing the mind and body, so would the word "hygiene" then fit in? You're right though, in that Nietzsche makes it sound very mechanical and impersonal.