Thoughts about Friedrich Nietzsche and his work?

General Philosophy
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And yet, everything I mentioned on Eternal Recurrence was in terms of human psychology of the “I”.

Nietzsche’s 341 Heaviest Burden in Gay Science, The Vision and the Enigma in section XLVI Thus Spoke Zarathustra, on Character (That typical experience which always recurs) in 70 Beyond Good and Evil, and on the tyranny of drives that make up the rank order and pathos of distance of the Will to Power which is all throughout Will to Power but you can see it clearly explained in detail in the Theses section of 552.

All of which are detailed via Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence. Lemme put the numbers.

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An important distinction. Do you connect this to what he says about masks? “Everything that is profound loves the mask” (BGE, Part ll, Aphorism 40) In other words, something is hiding within this story of revelation?

Do you mean a febrile vision?

There are a few places where he seems to contradict the claim of an eternal recurrence of the same. For example:

In telling of the riddle and vision he says: the like of which I had never seen before. If all of this has happened before then he has seen it before.

After biting off the head of the snake:

No longer shepherd, no longer human – a transformed, illuminated, laughing being! Never yet on earth had I heard a human being laugh as he laughed!

If all this happened before then he must have heard this laugh before.

He then asks if he has heard the howl of the dog before.

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That’s kind of how you know it’s more of a thought experiment, rather than him taking it seriously that history the beginning of time starts back all over again. The question is, if all this have happened hitherto and all things shall happen heretofore then in the gateway of this moment … is there any action that can be considered a wrong action? Because whatever you choose was already determined. This is how the ancient Greek viewed time, which freed them from developing a bad conscience, but that’s another topic…

The bit about the Shepard … well here’s really what Nietzsche wants to stress:

Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret unto me the vision of the lonesomest one!

For it was a vision and a foresight:—WHAT did I then behold in parable? And WHO is it that must come some day?

WHO is the shepherd into whose throat the serpent thus crawled? WHO is the man into whose throat all the heaviest and blackest will thus crawl?

Which has two correct answers, one answer is in the story which can be found through analysis of the prologue, and another when you’re capable of experiencing Zarathustra in the aesthetic state of the Dithyramb.

No, a Typus is like a typology the Noble type, the Decadent Type, the Superman type. We can see this from Ecce Homo Why I Am So Wise 1-3…

For, apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the reverse of such a creature… This double thread of experiences, this means of access to two worlds that seem so far asunder, finds in every detail its counterpart in my own nature—I am my own complement: I have a “second” sight, as well as a first. And perhaps I also have a third sight. By the very nature of my origin I was allowed an outlook beyond all merely local, merely national and limited horizons; it required no effort on my part to be a “good European.”

Which if you want to clarify even further, thumb/scroll over to “The Friend” in Thus Spoke Zarathusra …

“One, is always too many about me”—thinketh the anchorite. “Always once one—that maketh two in the long run!” I and me are always too earnestly in conversation…

And compare that to this lovely lesser know poem by Nietzsche:

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I forgot something, but the thought will come to me eventually… either way, thank you for the opportunity to express my own thoughts on the matter. The more practice the more adept I become being more effective with what I’m trying to say. :clinking_beer_mugs:

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Thanks for your thoughtful answer. I don’t know what being “great” means and certainly have never worried about it.. I have no talent for philosophy in general, but it interests me what people believe and why.

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Most people don’t until they accidentally stumble into it unwittingly.

Why, on the contrary, that interest already shows an inborn ability with philosophy. That you’re not worried about being substantial with the huffy puffy hocus pocus technicalities and systematized thought and highest vapors of smoke, well, perhaps that merely speaks to your own naturalism?

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68

There is another alternative, and perhaps more. Here as elsewhere there is a play on and inversion of strands of Christianity. Jesus is often called the Shepard. The serpent crawling into his mouth, the opposite of what comes out of his mouth. The logos.

Then there is Nietzsche’s description of what happened to him at Sils-Maria, which has a lot in common with Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.

There is much more in this vein. What do you think he is up to?

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It all plays into Nietzsche’s detailing of the Superman. If you want read WtP 999-1004, though, to be sure, I’d recommend more if we’re to wander that detour…

You’ll see Nietzsche says the Superman is the Lightning, while he details himself as a Herald of the Lightning in TSZ Prologue. And you can see in Ecce Homo he details that revelation is also the Lightning.

And furtherstill we can see that 999 - 1004 details he who is capable of the aesthetic state of communication in signs, and again he references the voice that speaks across millennium, similar to the Sybil and the Oracle. He details this of Jesus Christ too in AC 32 and 33…

From 32.

in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables.

From 33.

In the whole psychology of the “Gospels” the concepts of guilt and punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. “Sin,” which means anything that puts a distance between God and man, is abolished—this is precisely the “glad tidings.” Eternal bliss is not merely promised, nor is it bound up with conditions: it is conceived as the only reality—what remains consists merely of signs useful in speaking of it.

Granted Jesus was more of a Shepherd than a Beast of Prey, still a Free Spirit in his own Virgin Forest. An “Ubermenschlich” if you will.

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A problem for creators:

Every creation of new values become old values to be overcome. This cycle repeats again and again. It is deeply troubling to think that what one holds to be of utmost, absolute, permanent, unchanging value is not.

One solution to this is to abandon the value of permanence. I think that there is another, one that Nietzsche saw: the creation of creators.

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You’re thinking creation in some ex-nihilo fashion. But here’s what Nietzsche details of value creation, from his 260th passage in BGE on noble and slave morality:

The noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: “What is injurious to me is injurious in itself;” he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is a CREATOR OF VALUES. He honours whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality equals self-glorification.

And you see, there’s something here that I want to point out, that so many many fail to see with Nietzsche, because they’re obsessed with the Platonic Ideal still so they want to be the “Higher-Type” so they fashion themselves in the manner of the noble MORALITY…

But we can find in Ecce Homo why that is such a bit of a blunder:

For, apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the reverse of such a creature (Ecce Homo Wise 2)…This double thread of experiences, this means of access to two worlds that seem so far asunder, finds in every detail its counterpart in my own nature—I am my own complement: I have a “second” sight, as well as a first. And perhaps I also have a third sight. By the very nature of my origin I was allowed an outlook beyond all merely local, merely national and limited horizons; it required no effort on my part to be a “good European.” (Ecce Homo Wise 3)

The ideal is the falsification of reality (mMultiplicity and Becoming) into “Unity”&“Being”’ and it’s this conception that prevents reconciliation between the Types…because all morality imposes an OUGHT.

Incorrigible blockheads and clowns of “modern ideas” that they are, I feel much more profoundly at variance with them than with any one of their adversaries. They also wish to “improve” mankind, after their own fashion—that is to say, in their own image; against that which I stand for and desire, they would wage an implacable war, if only they understood it; the whole gang of them still believe in an “ideal.” … I am the first Immoralist. (Ecce Homo, Thoughts 2)

We can see above that Nietzsche’s an Immoralist, that is one the most important keys to understanding Nietzsche. And we can follow that bit from Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo in Fatality 3 to deepen the weight of Nietzsche’s immoralism:

People have never asked me as they should have done, what the name of Zarathustra precisely meant in my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist; for that which distinguishes this Persian from all others in the past is the very fact that he was the exact reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra created this most portentous of all errors,—morality; therefore he must be the first to expose it.

And no that doesn’t mean kill’em all but Ideals come in the manner of the antithesis of values… hence Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil 2 & 24.

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No. Quite the opposite. Creating creators is about self-overcoming, the revaluation of values, the movement through the three metamorphoses of the spirit, the Übermensch.

Nothing comes from nothing. Only a few can become creators.

Zarathustra says: “I teach you the Overman (Übermensch).” (prologue)

In the chapter on the Higher Man he addresses creators:

Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one’s own child. (11)

Ye higher men, the worst thing in you is that ye have none of you learned to dance as ye ought to dance—to dance beyond yourselves! What doth it matter that ye have failed!

How many things are still possible! So LEARN to laugh beyond yourselves! Lift up your hearts, ye good dancers, high! higher! And do not forget the good laughter!

This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown: to you my brethren do I cast this crown! Laughing have I consecrated; ye higher men, LEARN, I pray you—to laugh! (20)

Note on translation. I am away from my books and using online translations.

Added: Kaufmann online translation.

11: You creators, you higher men! One is pregnant only with one’s own child.

20: You higher men, the worst about you is that all of you have not learned to dance as one must dance-dancing away over yourselves! What does it matter that you are failures? How much is still possible! So learn to laugh away over yourselves! Lift up your hearts, you good dancers, high, higher! And do not forget good laughter. This crown of him who laughs, this rose-wreath crown: to you, my brothers, I throw this crown. Laughter I have pronounced holy; you higher men, learn to laugh!

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Ah, so then like a moving goal post? “Creators were they who created a faith and hung it over a people to serve life.”

Always needing some new perspective to serve life. Like one has to overcome the dragon to even consider the superman properly, but even Zarathustra mentions the Superman will have his superdragons to overcome.

Even Nietzsche’s will be obsolete in time.

Apologies for the confusion, which lead to an assumption.

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Friedrich Nietzsche was not merely a figure who spoke about mythology and told stories; he was an early deep thinker who tried to analyze the human self, common psychological structure, and existential crises through myth, tragedy, contradiction, and morality. Even though his language often appears intuitive, fragmented, and unsystematic, many of his observations about how human beings function remain strikingly precise. Especially his ideas on drives, repression, guilt, ressentiment, the will to power, herd psychology, and the creation of values seem like precursors to many theories that would later emerge in psychology.

Although Sigmund Freud claimed he was not directly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, there are serious parallels between them regarding civilization, repression, the redirection of instincts, the formation of conscience, and the hidden motivations behind human behavior. It is difficult to say that such parallels are purely accidental. Nietzsche seems to have intuitively opened the path to many problems that Freud later organized into a more clinical and theoretical framework.

A similar case can be made for Carl Jung. In matters such as myth, archetypes, tragedy, and the divided nature of the human psyche, Nietzsche’s influence may not always be direct, but it is strongly felt. Especially the idea that human beings are not purely rational creatures, but are shaped by symbols and deep inner conflicts, resonates with Jung’s perspective.

With Jacques Lacan, one can also notice traces of Nietzsche in themes such as the subject not being fully transparent to itself, desire being structured through the Other, and the mind being formed within a symbolic order. Lacan’s system is of course built on different sources, yet Nietzsche played a major role in preparing the intellectual ground for thinking about the modern individual as fragmented and internally conflicted.

For this reason, Nietzsche’s true greatness lies in the fact that he did not try to explain morality through abstract principles. Instead, he interpreted morality as a product of human psychology, drives, fears, and struggles for power. Without experimental data, clinical observation, or the tools of modern psychology, the inductive conclusions he reached from limited knowledge remain impressive. He was one of the philosophers who did not place psychology beneath morality, but morality within psychology.