Beyond Good and Evil: Nietzsche and the Great War (2019)

(historytoday.com)

23 points | by samizdis 2 hours ago

5 comments

  • asgasG 10 minutes ago
    Nietzsche is one of the least popular or influential philosophers in post war Germany. You can say it is for the same reasons that Dix finally abandoned him.

    I don't think he is very deep. He is popular now among the alt-right because he thought Christianity was perverted because it glorified the weak instead of the strong.

    Hegseth though is hiding on a military base instead of being at the front, so I guess he is weak ...

    No one reads "Also sprach Zarathustra" in Germany. It is only famous because of Richard Staruss' symphonic poem, which ties into the point that others made: Nietzsche had various influences, but should not be used for policy decisions. Which is probably the reason this Dix article was published during the first Trump years.

  • TheExaltd4 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • mykowebhn 2 hours ago
    Before I really started studying philosophy, I was still interested in philosophy, but as a novice. During this time, Nietzsche was my favorite philosopher and I read several of his books. I also read a lot of literature, and Nietzsche figured in a lot of the literary texts I enjoyed.

    Now that I've read a lot more philosophical texts, I realize that both of the big philosophical camps--Anglo-American Analytic Philosophy and Continental Philosophy--rarely mention Nietzsche. Nietzsche seems to be the philosopher that non-philosophers turn to and often cite.

    • keiferski 2 hours ago
      Nietzsche is referenced constantly:

      https://philpapers.org/asearch.pl?strict=1&searchStr=Nietzsc...

      Also, some pretty substantial continental philosophers wrote about Nietzsche. Heidegger wrote a ton about him. Foucault used his genealogical method. Deleuze, Derrida, etc. all wrote a lot.

      Heck, half of the big Continental names wrote books on Nietzsche:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche_and_Philosophy

      https://sunypress.edu/Books/O/On-Nietzsche

      https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo276199...

      Analytic philosophy indeed didn't write much about Nietzsche, but I don't know why they would have. Very different subject matter and style.

    • mikert89 1 hour ago
      I had a similar experience, but I think a lot of other modern philosophy is really pedantic and builds upon a thousand years of writings. So its very hard to follow without proper academic study or understanding what its in response to.

      Nietzsche has paragraphs that could be studied and independently thought about without even reading the rest of the book/chapter. You can crack open beyond good and evil and just start reading a random page.

      I still would argue his thought is far more groundbreaking than any contemporaries

      • pglevy 51 minutes ago
        > paragraphs that could be studied and independently

        Yes, but after reading BGE, I felt like I had to read all his other books to really understand what he was saying (and others too, Kant, Spinoza, etc). And then re-read BGE.

        Also Walter Kauffman's on him is very good. Working through that now.

    • chermi 1 hour ago
      1) not true 2) guilt by association? A lot of non-physicists talk about Einstein. I still take his work very seriously.
    • junior44660 1 hour ago
      But Nietzsche has more impact on minds of people. In 100 years I am sure Bronze Age Pervert will be seen as more influential than some random philosophist from random university.
      • phainopepla2 1 hour ago
        I think he's probably seen as more influential now, given that it's widely believed that he's been read by nearly all of the young staffers in the Trump admin.

        (Hate to have to add this caveat and acquiesce to the Reddit-ification of HN, but: caveat lector, the above statement is not an endorsement)

      • chermi 1 hour ago
        I'm not sure I understand your point? Are you trying to equate the two without saying it directly?
        • junior44660 56 minutes ago
          He will be seen more like Evola than Nietzsche. So not an exact parallel.
    • cmrdporcupine 2 hours ago
      I mean, when I studied continental philosophy in the 90s, there was plenty of Nietzsche discussed. But I'd say, perhaps, more in his influence elsewhere than as primary text. E.g. I did a term studying Heidegger and Nietzsche played into that. Same prof had a 4th year class purely about Nietzsche. (What a great prof, too, my daughter is going to the same school starting next week and I really wish he hadn't retired...)

      I do think that maybe more recent work in continental schools (perhaps rightly) de-emphasize him as part of a larger turn away from the "postmodern" more broadly vs what was trendy in the 90s.

      • senderista 16 minutes ago
        I think Nietszche's anti-egalitarianism makes many otherwise sympathetic modern readers deeply uncomfortable.