Don't get me wrong, I've read Nietzsche, I love Nietzsche, but we have to admit that by any standard of Master Morality, Nietzsche was lacking. He never conquered in his lifetime. His tangible achievements more or less crowned at becoming the youngest professor of philology, from which he then lived off disability the rest of his life. Was a lot of this the result of bad luck and disease? Yes, undoubtedly. But equally undoubtedly, the lot of many of the weak, those most Nietzscheans are so willing to throw away as the "superfluous men" from Zarathustra, are the result of bad luck, disease, etc. I don't think I'm being unfair when I call him a loser, he lost.
This is where I think the complication of Master Morality comes in. To defend Nietzsche's life on Nietzsche's own terms, one must reject all tangible evidence of success in favor of talking about forms of success that are totally interior to the individual, that involve a small circle of the also-weak, or that post-date his present day in such a way that they are unknown to his contemporaries. His later reputation, and later published writings, might allow us to judge Nietzsche, but to his contemporaries he was who he was, they had no knowledge that he would be famous in the future. Rejection of all real tangible symbols and signs of worldly success, and the people who hold them, as evil; in favor of a mystical, interior definition of virtue that will pay off after one's death, which is the real definition of the Good. It tracks perfectly to the Christianity that Nietzsche decries as Slave Morality, as the ressentiment of the loser against the beautiful and the strong.
Now, one way to square this circle is to say that Freddy was self aware, that he knew what he was saying, and we're meant to read his work with a certain degree of irony. We're meant to see and to know that the man telling us to honor strength had none, that the man telling us to be suspicious of those who reject the value determinations of the great and the powerful is telling us this while in the act of rejecting the value determinations of the great and the powerful! We're not meant to wholesale adopt the positions he argues so vehemently, but to consider and synthesize them into our worldview. This is my preferred view.
Another is to attempt to categorize Masters in such a way that there is a carve-out for the writer. Masters are the brave and powerful Achilles, plus little ol' me. This strikes me as a kind of mystical cope, exactly the kind of thing that Slave Morality is made out of, a transvaluation of values by which earthly success becomes a sign of future damnation. Just as the Christian peasant says: being rich is bad because the rich are greedy and spoiled and sinful, he ain't making it through the eye of that needle! The Nietzschean loser says: being successful is bad, because it means you're conforming to the Longhouse Ethics and not striking out on your own, I may be a loser today but in the future I'll be remembered and the winners will not.
P.S.: I'll admit to not knowing the term Sigma male? Could you define it for me?
I think the contradictions only arise if you ignore the good things Nietzsche says about slave morality (I’ll have to go digging for quotes but basically it made man "interesting", added depth to his soul and made him more cunning).
Nietzsche spends a lot of time praising master morality because it is the side which needs to be rehabilitated, but the Nietzchean project isn’t about going back to the Vikings. The higher type of aristocratic development he is aiming for is only possible in the man of mixed slave/master heritage, and it’s as much about creative ability and aesthetic sense as anything else – Shakespeare, Goethe and Da Vinci are mentioned as higher men alongside the military geniuses.
I agree! part of it is a rhetorical or philosophical test for the reader! You're meant to read the text and think about the guy talking to you, and examine his extremely persuasive arguments, and say, hey wait let's apply this brilliant analytical framing to his own statements! And that second level of analysis is what frees the reader, takes the reader to the level of someone who can examine the world, rather than one who just accepts what he is told!
I think one should pair Nietzsche with Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground in philosophical study.
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Notes -
Don't get me wrong, I've read Nietzsche, I love Nietzsche, but we have to admit that by any standard of Master Morality, Nietzsche was lacking. He never conquered in his lifetime. His tangible achievements more or less crowned at becoming the youngest professor of philology, from which he then lived off disability the rest of his life. Was a lot of this the result of bad luck and disease? Yes, undoubtedly. But equally undoubtedly, the lot of many of the weak, those most Nietzscheans are so willing to throw away as the "superfluous men" from Zarathustra, are the result of bad luck, disease, etc. I don't think I'm being unfair when I call him a loser, he lost.
This is where I think the complication of Master Morality comes in. To defend Nietzsche's life on Nietzsche's own terms, one must reject all tangible evidence of success in favor of talking about forms of success that are totally interior to the individual, that involve a small circle of the also-weak, or that post-date his present day in such a way that they are unknown to his contemporaries. His later reputation, and later published writings, might allow us to judge Nietzsche, but to his contemporaries he was who he was, they had no knowledge that he would be famous in the future. Rejection of all real tangible symbols and signs of worldly success, and the people who hold them, as evil; in favor of a mystical, interior definition of virtue that will pay off after one's death, which is the real definition of the Good. It tracks perfectly to the Christianity that Nietzsche decries as Slave Morality, as the ressentiment of the loser against the beautiful and the strong.
Now, one way to square this circle is to say that Freddy was self aware, that he knew what he was saying, and we're meant to read his work with a certain degree of irony. We're meant to see and to know that the man telling us to honor strength had none, that the man telling us to be suspicious of those who reject the value determinations of the great and the powerful is telling us this while in the act of rejecting the value determinations of the great and the powerful! We're not meant to wholesale adopt the positions he argues so vehemently, but to consider and synthesize them into our worldview. This is my preferred view.
Another is to attempt to categorize Masters in such a way that there is a carve-out for the writer. Masters are the brave and powerful Achilles, plus little ol' me. This strikes me as a kind of mystical cope, exactly the kind of thing that Slave Morality is made out of, a transvaluation of values by which earthly success becomes a sign of future damnation. Just as the Christian peasant says: being rich is bad because the rich are greedy and spoiled and sinful, he ain't making it through the eye of that needle! The Nietzschean loser says: being successful is bad, because it means you're conforming to the Longhouse Ethics and not striking out on your own, I may be a loser today but in the future I'll be remembered and the winners will not.
P.S.: I'll admit to not knowing the term Sigma male? Could you define it for me?
I think the contradictions only arise if you ignore the good things Nietzsche says about slave morality (I’ll have to go digging for quotes but basically it made man "interesting", added depth to his soul and made him more cunning).
Nietzsche spends a lot of time praising master morality because it is the side which needs to be rehabilitated, but the Nietzchean project isn’t about going back to the Vikings. The higher type of aristocratic development he is aiming for is only possible in the man of mixed slave/master heritage, and it’s as much about creative ability and aesthetic sense as anything else – Shakespeare, Goethe and Da Vinci are mentioned as higher men alongside the military geniuses.
I agree! part of it is a rhetorical or philosophical test for the reader! You're meant to read the text and think about the guy talking to you, and examine his extremely persuasive arguments, and say, hey wait let's apply this brilliant analytical framing to his own statements! And that second level of analysis is what frees the reader, takes the reader to the level of someone who can examine the world, rather than one who just accepts what he is told!
I think one should pair Nietzsche with Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground in philosophical study.
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