Thread: Was Nietzsche crazy or are we?

As most know, Nietzsche was a "colorful" philosopher with somewhat revolutionary ideas. He lived a decent life and would have probably ended it with the love of his life if not for his mortal enemy, his mustache. He was downright brilliant until the day he enlisted in the ranks of the insane. Is it possible that Nietzsche achieved a heightened philosophical awareness at the end of his life, rather than going crazy? Could it just be thAt he appeared insane to the men who carted him off to the insane asylum? ( let's be honest here, due to the Flynn effect those men were idiots by today's standards) was Nietzsche just another misunderstood mind?

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

( let's be honest here, due to the Flynn effect those men were idiots by today's standards) was Nietzsche just another misunderstood mind?

We don't know the intelligence of the man who "carted him off," the population average doesn't necessary translate into any specific subset of the population.

As for asylums, they were pretty common in his day, and probably often for no credible reason at all because it was before the advent of modern psychology.

Nietzsche was, in my opinion, not a great philosopher and his ideas are not ideals worth striving for.
He did not go crazy, he was crazy:

"Exactly the same [personal timidity and vulnerability] may be said of him, with the less reluctance since he has not hesitated to say it of Spinoza. It is obvious that in his day-dreams he is a warrior, not a professor; all the men he admires were military. His opinion of women, like every man's, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. "Forget not thy whip" but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks.

He condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear: I am afraid my neighbor may injure me, and so I assure him that I love him. If I were stronger and bolder, I should openly display the contempt for him which of course I feel. It does not occur to Nietzsche as possible that a man should genuinely feel universal love, obviously because he himself feels almost universal hatred and fear, which he would fain disguise as lordly indifference. His "noble" man who is himself in day-dreams is a being wholly devoid of sympathy, ruthless, cunning, cruel, concerned only with his own power."

Source:
Russell, B. (1947), "History of Western Philosophy and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day", G. Allen & Unwin Ltd. (London), p. 794

I'm afraid I would have to agree there - a strange man indeed. However, he did say one thing I agree with wholeheartedly (even if he didn't mean it himself).......

I found most of his writings to be nothing more than turgid ramblings filled with sesquipedalian rhetoric, at times I felt like I wasn't even reading English but some sort of Nietzsche vernacular which formed its central axiom on the principle of convoluted incoherency. My first reading of Nietzsche was the Birth Of Tragedy, which posited that the pinnacle fusion of Apollonian and Dionysian artforms occurred with Sophocles, and begins its downfall later on. A posit that I would say is wildly inaccurate, and a thoroughly pointless observation that has no pertinence to anthropology/psychology, or even philosophy for that matter. Stating that Socratic rationalism was a detriment to tragedy, and that logic/rationalization didn't belong in works of tragedy. His writings were characterized by numerous other things, such as:
God is dead: Human beings murdered God, that we must "cleanse ourselves with water" over the deed. The statement alone seems to address growing prevalence of science, however, in Nietzsche's time, God wasn't even remotely dead. Still, even today, theists greatly outnumber atheists. Not only that, but the premise of atheism is simple, and only a few points need to be made. Though, Nietzsche again somehow managed to add droves of complexity to the simple premise.
Ubermensch, or "over man": Struck me as nothing more than basic humanism, somehow increasing the complexity of the simple premise that worldly life is pertinent to the point that reading pace crawls to the speed of a paraplegic tortoise.
Will To Power: Could be simplified to simple biological rationalizations, to maximize our ability to reproduce and to progress on the hierarchical ladder. Claim seems to be a bit fraudulent, as many human beings don't have a "will to power" driving them to achieve.
Eternal Return "Eternal Recurrence": Another world like our own, in the infinity of material existence, is bound to occur/exist in an exact copy of the one we inhabit. That the probability of a world EXACTLY like our own is more than 0, paradoxical, as anything "even if it mimicked our world to the very last atom" would still not be our exact world, simply because it would not be our world.

In summary, the several weeks I spent reading most of Nietzsche's writings was a waste of time. I learned relatively nothing, retained my current philosophical outlook on existence, and felt greatly disappointed. Perhaps I misinterpreted his points, but I haven't been able to motivate myself to read a scholar's interpretation of Nietzsche's convoluted word salad.

I called him colorful for a reason. You can't blame him for all of it. He much improved on his predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer who truly had it "wrong". Shlunka, have you read his work on gardening or his texts on the "mountain"? Those are his main imprints on philosophy in general. You may call the rest " ramblings.

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

I called him colorful for a reason. You can't blame him for all of it. He much improved on his predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer who truly had it "wrong". Shlunka, have you read his work on gardening or his texts on the "mountain"? Those are his main imprints on philosophy in general. You may call the rest " ramblings.

A few interesting snippits and quotations, then again, that's all I've ever gotten from any philosopher.

As someone who is currently ploughing through some German existentialist philosophers for my phenomenological research study, I have to say that some of it has some important things to say and some of it is overly complicated dross. Its a bit like opera - you have to put up with a lot of drivel til you get to a good bit.

Originally Posted by shlunka

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

I called him colorful for a reason. You can't blame him for all of it. He much improved on his predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer who truly had it "wrong". Shlunka, have you read his work on gardening or his texts on the "mountain"? Those are his main imprints on philosophy in general. You may call the rest " ramblings.

A few interesting snippits and quotations, then again, that's all I've ever gotten from any philosopher.

As a general note I think philosophy is one of those things that feels like it doesn't have much bearing on us as individuals but in fact has a huge impact. For example, the Victorian philosophy (or view) of children was that they were little adults and therefore could do just what adults did. So they were treated like adults and worked like adults until the ontological definitions of children were altered through philosophical writings. It has through history provided new ways of seeing things that have changed the course of our social worlds immensely and you could argue has played a part in the civilising process.

Philosophy is no different to any other science or profession, there are good and bad practitioners and good and bad communicators of ideas. A lot of what is churned out will be bog standard rehashes of what has gone before but occasionally a star will burn bright and turn our whole thinking upside down again. Such is the way of all things or not?

Originally Posted by shlunka

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

I called him colorful for a reason. You can't blame him for all of it. He much improved on his predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer who truly had it "wrong". Shlunka, have you read his work on gardening or his texts on the "mountain"? Those are his main imprints on philosophy in general. You may call the rest " ramblings.

A few interesting snippits and quotations, then again, that's all I've ever gotten from any philosopher.

As a general note I think philosophy is one of those things that feels like it doesn't have much bearing on us as individuals but in fact has a huge impact. For example, the Victorian philosophy (or view) of children was that they were little adults and therefore could do just what adults did. So they were treated like adults and worked like adults until the ontological definitions of children were altered through philosophical writings. It has through history provided new ways of seeing things that have changed the course of our social worlds immensely and you could argue has played a part in the civilising process.

Philosophy is no different to any other science or profession, there are good and bad practitioners and good and bad communicators of ideas. A lot of what is churned out will be bog standard rehashes of what has gone before but occasionally a star will burn bright and turn our whole thinking upside down again. Such is the way of all things or not?

Originally Posted by LuciDreaming

Originally Posted by shlunka

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

I called him colorful for a reason. You can't blame him for all of it. He much improved on his predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer who truly had it "wrong". Shlunka, have you read his work on gardening or his texts on the "mountain"? Those are his main imprints on philosophy in general. You may call the rest " ramblings.

A few interesting snippits and quotations, then again, that's all I've ever gotten from any philosopher.

As a general note I think philosophy is one of those things that feels like it doesn't have much bearing on us as individuals but in fact has a huge impact. For example, the Victorian philosophy (or view) of children was that they were little adults and therefore could do just what adults did. So they were treated like adults and worked like adults until the ontological definitions of children were altered through philosophical writings. It has through history provided new ways of seeing things that have changed the course of our social worlds immensely and you could argue has played a part in the civilising process.

Philosophy is no different to any other science or profession, there are good and bad practitioners and good and bad communicators of ideas. A lot of what is churned out will be bog standard rehashes of what has gone before but occasionally a star will burn bright and turn our whole thinking upside down again. Such is the way of all things or not?

Perhaps, but I honestly don't see philosophy offering a lot in the technological age.

Originally Posted by Cogito Ergo Sum

Russell, B. (1947), "History of Western Philosophy and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day", G. Allen & Unwin Ltd. (London), p. 794

Russell was trying to sell books and remain popular and often strayed well out of his actual knowledge base riding on coat tails of earlier successes. If anything Nietzsche had a much more accurate view of religion than Russell ever did.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by Cogito Ergo Sum

Russell, B. (1947), "History of Western Philosophy and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day", G. Allen & Unwin Ltd. (London), p. 794

Russell was trying to sell books and remain popular and often strayed well out of his actual knowledge base riding on coat tails of earlier successes. If anything Nietzsche had a much more accurate view of religion than Russell ever did.

Agreed, Russell should have stuck with mathematics/logic/linguistics.

Originally Posted by shlunka

Perhaps, but I honestly don't see philosophy offering a lot in the technological age.

Whatever technology we have, we are still humans and ultimately navel-gazers and we are just fascinated by ourselves. Philosophy wont go out of fashion because of technology, it might be improved by it but I doubt we will ever lose that urge to understand and examine ourselves. That you don't see it offering a lot in the future is not a surprise cos you don't think it has contributed much in the past but it makes its contribution by altering the way we talk and ultimately perceive things - hopefully for the better but I guess that depends what you do with the philosophy you follow.

Originally Posted by LuciDreaming

Originally Posted by shlunka

Perhaps, but I honestly don't see philosophy offering a lot in the technological age.

Whatever technology we have, we are still humans and ultimately navel-gazers and we are just fascinated by ourselves. Philosophy wont go out of fashion because of technology, it might be improved by it but I doubt we will ever lose that urge to understand and examine ourselves. That you don't see it offering a lot in the future is not a surprise cos you don't think it has contributed much in the past but it makes its contribution by altering the way we talk and ultimately perceive things - hopefully for the better but I guess that depends what you do with the philosophy you follow.

philosophy answers not only that but how are we to use the technology of our age? (Notice I didn't call it the technological age) Just about every new generation always thinks that they're the "technological age". I'm certain the early enlightenment thinkers and even the original renaissance men thought they were in the technological age. The little boy watching the black and white television set during the Apollo missions thought he was in the "technological age".

If a man is discussed on a Science forum a hundred plus years after death,.....then he made a huge impact on History. Could a completely crazy man do that today?

Originally Posted by sampson

If a man is discussed on a Science forum a hundred plus years after death,.....then he made a huge impact on History. Could a completely crazy man do that today?

sampson, that's an admiral effort and I support your cause but that is a horrible analogy. I can name at least fifty two crazy men off my head. There's ,khan, Augustus, Nero, Caligula, Columbus, Nostradamus, founder of Scientology...............

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

Originally Posted by sampson

If a man is discussed on a Science forum a hundred plus years after death,.....then he made a huge impact on History. Could a completely crazy man do that today?

sampson, that's an admiral effort and I support your cause but that is a horrible analogy. I can name at least fifty two crazy men off my head. There's ,khan, Augustus, Nero, Caligula, Columbus, Nostradamus, founder of Scientology...............

You missed Mark Twain. I can name a few too, in fact can make a case that everyone that thinks a god is real on hearsay evidence must be crazy. I assume the OP meant legally crazy when the notoriety was accomplished.

He condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear: I am afraid my neighbor may injure me, and so I assure him that I love him. If I were stronger and bolder, I should openly display the contempt for him which of course I feel. It does not occur to Nietzsche as possible that a man should genuinely feel universal love, obviously because he himself feels almost universal hatred and fear, which he would fain disguise as lordly indifference. His "noble" man who is himself in day-dreams is a being wholly devoid of sympathy, ruthless, cunning, cruel, concerned only with his own power."

I don't see what the problem is. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

As soon as I can spell his name correct on the first try 5 times in a row I may take up actually reading about this guy. He seems pretty cool if this was an accurate claim about him.

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

sampson, that's an admiral effort

Large naval exercise?

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

sampson, that's an admiral effort

Large naval exercise?

I see you attended the school of irony. I'm sorry to say all they have are bs degrees.

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

sampson, that's an admiral effort

Large naval exercise?

I see you attended the school of irony. I'm sorry to say all they have are bs degrees.

School of irony?
Maybe it's simply that I can spell admirable.
Who has "BS degrees"?

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

sampson, that's an admiral effort

Large naval exercise?

I see you attended the school of irony. I'm sorry to say all they have are bs degrees.

School of irony?Maybe it's simply that I can spell admirable.Who has "BS degrees"?

I choose to blame apple. Spell check mixup...

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Originally Posted by Dreamraider

sampson, that's an admiral effort

Large naval exercise?

I see you attended the school of irony. I'm sorry to say all they have are bs degrees.

School of irony?
Maybe it's simply that I can spell admirable.
Who has "BS degrees"?

Jesus T Christy.... and I thought he was complimenting me. Turns out he misspelled the compliment. Could be word play, u know......make me feel good, then yank the rug. Then again I see Georgia in his line up, that may be the problem. Not Thomasville, is it?

OP...can't the answer be "both"?