CapitalistImperialistPig

Morality is herd instinct in the individual............. F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! ........F. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra Nietzsche's penetrating insights go exactly to the heart of the matter. He didn't approve of conventional morality. He probably didn't realize it, since such things weren't known in his time, but he wanted people to be more like Chimpanzees or perhaps Lions. That instinct to punish is one of the key elements of human morality - in particular the instinct to punish free riders and others who would prevent group selection from doing its work. Of course human "groupishness" is far more elaborate than simple herd instincts, and requires multiple adaptations that herding animals lack. Haidt tends to call it our "hive" mind, since our social powers go far beyond herds and packs, and only bees and a few others can be considered equally groupish. If Nietzsche had been...

Nietzsche had a special hatred of the "slave morality" which valued compassion for the poor and oppressed. He attributed it to a sort of conspiracy against the strong, perhaps due to the Jews. He saw the mob rising against the mighty hunter or conqueror. It's a fact that our closest relatives, the Chimpanzees, tend to be very hierarchical, with the Alpha male being not so much a leader as the biggest bully on the block. Human hunter-gatherer societies aren't like that. Instead they are highly egalitarian, without chiefs or subordinates. How did this transition happen? Nobody knows, but there are some clues, including the fact that given the right circumstances humans do form hierarchies rather easily. The biggest clue, though is the way hunter-gatherers deal with those who overstep and bully and dominate. Gossip and shunning is step one. Sometimes the offenders are driven out. Egregious offenders are killed. Haidt discusses the case of a Bushman who was exec...

At least this is shorter than Rand, but her debt to Nietzsche is very clear, even if she just hacked away a few chunks with her axe - the pretentious elitism and the focus on sacrifice. It's very hard for me to like an author proud of his obscurity - obscurity usually conceals nothing interesting.  I can also see the debt of the exponents of literary theory.

Sometimes you go to a party and there is an attractive woman there, effervescent with conversation and life.  You listen to her, but she won't stop talking.  Those cute little mannerism gradually become cloying - those clever remarks become more repetitive and filled with the shallowest of insights. Yes indeed, I did think of that once - was I seventeen, or maybe twelve.  I've never found that thought useful since. So it is with Nietzsche.  How he does yammer on, making fun at the expense of other philosophers, Darwin, Copernicus, physicists in general, bombarding us with verbal tricksiness and shallow refutations. I hope he gets better.

it is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as a value. .............Nietzsche, Friedrich (2010). On the Genealogy of Morals (A Modernized Translation with a New Introduction and Biography) (p. 87). Kindle Edition. Nietzsche's anaysis of punishment and conscience is quite penetrating. He argues convincingly that conscience does not originate in punishment, instead arguing that it is imposed on the populace as a condition of civilization. In his view, the imposer is his magical creative conquerors, but I think that part is his typical romantic nonsense. I am surprised that he does not see its origin in the more primitive notion of shame - a fundamental social instinct far predating civilization, though FN would have been unlikely to have known that. Something like shame actually seems to exist in other social animals such as dogs and chimpanzees. As social animals, it behooves us to have a de...

Prefaces and Essay 1. In essay I, Nietzsche applies his historical and philological method to the meanings of "good" and "evil."  He argues that there original sense was assigned by an aristocratic class of conquerors, and that "good" was synonymous with strength, health, high birth and military vigor, whereas "evil" applied to the conquered - the weak, the ill-born, and the slaves.  Over time, he says, the resentment of the slaves gradually won a victory whereby "good" became associated with the decadent values of the Sermon on the Mount - poverty, humility, weakness, etc. Nietzsche's aristocratic infatuation was great enough that he fabricated a noble ancestry for himself - one utterly unfounded in reality.  That infatuation, combined with his obsession with race, violence and decadence was the source of much of the poison in this book.  For me, almost every intellectual element of Nazism is here: the master race, the Aryan r...

I am now beyond Beyond Good and Evil .  As predicted by Wolfgang , I don't "get" Nietzsche.  Whether those more righty in in orientation would get him I'm not sure.  Hitler was a fan, but it's not clear that he actually read him. Rand read him and borrowed heavily from him but insisted on lying about it. Advice to others inclined to read Nietzsche: don't start with BG&E.  I have dipped into Genealogy of Morals, and it seems much more digestible.  Nietzsche says to start with Ecce Homo and Zarathustra is another pre-req. Among the memorable Nietzsche quotations is one from the latter:  Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip. What he had in mind might be guessed from the famous photo on the cover of my (virtual) copy of Genealogy - a picture of Lou Salome kneeling in a cart, wielding a whip, with Nietzsche and Paul Ree standing in for the donkeys.

Gus is the cat at the theatre door…. ………….. T S Elliot First, another couple of members for my Aspie hall of fame … Michaelangelo and F. Nietzsche. Should there be an afterlife, Nietzsche, at least should find some philosophical company – other philosophs often mentioned for Aspiedom include Socrates, Quine, Wittgenstein, Kant, Spinoza, Russell and Gödel. But how about you? Here is a convenient short test for self administration . Some scores below: An average woman, so they say, gets a 14, while the average man rates 18. Male scientists, and female physicists, come in at 19. 24 is claimed to be the score expected of math contest winners. 32 is supposedly Asperger’s territory. I took the test twice, once as myself, and secondly trying to remember my 14 year-old self. I got a 28 and a 36. I know a few autistic spectrum people, and frankly, I don’t seem much like any of them to me. On the other hand, if you aren’t good at reading people, how can you tell? Scores, anyone?

The time for petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the dominion of the world—the COMPULSION to great politics. …………..Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (2008). Beyond Good and Evil (Optimized for Kindle) (Kindle Locations 1686-1687). A great work of art or thought ought induce some indignation, otherwise how could it challenge or add to your insight. Only if it survives that indignation does it deserve to be paid attention to. Nietzsche at least passes the first test of being profoundly irritating. At least he now makes a little sense. Am I reading a bad translation, or is he really this obscure. I understand him better and like him less. Yes, he saw many things that lesser minds missed. My problem is that I really can’t forgive him his consequences. He liked the old morality where consequences counted for more than intentions – and so he should be judged. I see him brewing so many of the evil spirits that possessed Germany in the twentieth century...

Wolfgang accuses me of not knowing much about Nietzsche or Hitler. Perhaps not, but I know a little, and I can google. In particular, he thinks I misunderstand the Nietzschean superman. Let's review a bit of what he said in Zarathustra: The strong men, the masters, regain the pure conscience of a beast of prey; monsters filled with joy, they can return from a fearful succession of murder, arson, rape, and torture with the same joy in their hearts, the same contentment in their souls as if they had indulged in some student's rag.... When a man is capable of commanding, when he is by nature a "Master," when he is violent in act and gesture, of what importance are treaties to him?... "The Blond Beast" was another Nietzschean epithet idolized by him and borrowed by Hitler. The "Lords of the Earth" was an FN expression that occurs frequently in Mein Kampf. Nietzsche also prefigured Hitler's "final solution." From The Will to Power :...