jsyk i am an idiot utter and complete and accidentally deleted all my entries on this book so far, as in the whole page, so i have to gather what i said about it on discord and elsewhere to fill up for the part i read so far again. please forgive me, sometimes one has a girl moment.
book finished on 15.01.2024!
back to the list here
books 1 and 2 out of 5 - which is how much i read before having the girl moment
ok so
book 3 - 17.12.2023
ok, so a lot of this book is about causativity, phenomenology and akin - you can clearly see the influence of schopenhauer; there's also a bit of good old criticism of christianity with a pinch of antisemitism, largely boils down to these theories that christianity may have only originated in a jewish spaces because of gd being a tyrant, and some not closely explained stuff about jewish disgust in nature and natural instincts, allegedly to do with inability to enjoy tragedy as a form of art the way greeks used to - though he did at least compliment the general jewish talent for fine arts here. i very much can enjoy tragedy; but yes, i think he has a point about the jewish culture being more dependent on practical reason, the kind nietzsche harboured a distrust for. aside from that he was just an antisemite and it's not worth much of a talk.
anyways, the beginning of this is writing against anthropomorphisation of the universe and assigning it goals or values in line with the human ones, and basically discussing entropy - to levels quite impressive given the time it was written. he puts certain focus on not only sin, but also wrongdoing, crime or any other form of wrongdoing, or rightdoing, not being a thing on the cosmic scale - and additionally questions the idea that "coincidence" exists in the universe, since "coincidnece" is purely a term based off human reasoning, reasoning of causativity, which is not at all inherent. he says beings that captured the universe in flux and didn't on the level of the very basic mechanics of their brains put arbitrary a priori separations between things or invent categories such as "identical/different", would have probably died off because it's not the most practical way of interacting with surroundings, which is what life evolves towards - the machine of human brain very oriented towards efficiency, more willing to make an assumption and be wrong than to stop and think, to nod than to make unnecessary efforts of questioning, etc, because of the practical goals of these mechanisms. thus "truth" is merely what is the most convenient, the most efficient or the most useful, since the brain will take any input and interpret it according to this principle. he makes an interesting claim that even fully sensory impressions have a potential moral character because the way the consciousness perceives them depends on the "deeper intellect"'s interpretation (nietzsche hates morality but he notes the fact). it's not new to me and in fact beliefs i've held for a long while, so it's not particularly inspiring, but i do fully agree with it and find it somewhat impressive he would figure it out so early. he also wrote in here some criticism of the very ideas of reason/cause and effect/result, as something inherent to the way humans perceive the world because their brains evolved in a way dictacted by efficiency. that's all highly impacted by schopenhauer i think and i mean he does even refer to schopenhauer a few times. i also very much value stating that the current traits in humanity were initially mistakes and just useful in the circumstances, so they were "allowed" to stay. the amount of emphasis he puts on randomness and situational selection for what shaped humanity is something i rather enjoy in nietzsche, because it's an area of focus in my philosophy heavily as well.
ok. the part actually super interesting to me here is that he believes pursuit of knowledge became a value in itself highly because all the "bad" instincts, forbidden by morality, were redirected towards questioning, destroying, creating, rivalry etc concerning ideas, and and thus started working in favour of the intellect as a coordinated thing, and that resulted in science - he also says science doesn't need to be a value because it existed very well before it became glorified as one since it is something human brains will naturally do to occupy themselves when bored. it's interesting, promising in the sense he's probably at least partly right and therefore maybe if people had better living conditions - something he focuses on wrt seasonal depression in germany btw - then there would be a natural drive towards science in the more intelligent ones even without being encouraged. for me, i find that when i don't find my brain something to do it'll start consuming itself, and it very much appreciates having something to do, so, yes. but i mainly paid attention to the first statement given it's very strongly overlapping with freud's ideas. i regularly realise how much of an overlap is there between freud and nietzsche, and it's unsurprising freud got accused of stealing his ideas lmfao. both my beloved babygirls so this is just so enjoyable for my autism, especially since they're my own main influences as well. he also identifies situational laughter as "schadenfreude with a clear conscience" which happens to overlap with freud's takes on comedy.
since this is nietzsche - quite a lot on the herd and herd instincts, and how morality tends to be rooted in what benefits the community, not the individuals; and different moralities are there because communities live in different conditions and benefit on different things, and conscience is the way the community keeps an individual docile since they become their own police. again something i am aware of. he discusses a bit how historically individualism was considered more of something that makes one miserable than something one should desire, and how he believes certain "maturing" happened within the culture here -
what could be surprising to some, nietzsche states that tyranny is a mark of undeveloped society, since the culturally mature societies like the greek and the roman one at their peaks would not have enough sameness to allow tyranny - which can happen only where there's people with slave mentality to exploit for power. it does not come into conflict with his usual idea about great individuals - he simply believes in a society of very developed individuals, one doesn't surpass them by far enough to be a tyrant, because they will not allow it, only where the great individuals are rare may they in their pursuit of power get to tyranny, and there they exist in hostile conditions, terrorised by the herd and internalised conscience, in that pursuing the rare available road to development may lead to accoummulating large amounts of power in ways a culturally mature society with multiple valuable individuals would not allow. also, he questions the idea of objective health and ideal of health, along with questioning human equality, stating that to know what is healthy for one, they must know their predispositions, potential, experiences etc, and stating that health in one may manifest as what would be deep sickness in another; he concludes that reflection with asking whether sickness itself doesn't at times exist as a challenge allowing to improve towards greater sophistication, and thus in some cases avoiding it isn't a form of cowardice. it's an interesting idea - prone to multiple interpretations, both "leftists" and "rightist", hence why i hate it when people refer to nietzsche in politics. similarly he quotes examples of heroes or otherwise people of great deeds who are irritating, unpleasant and cowardly etc in daily life, suggesting that for some extreme conditions are needed to bring out their actual potential, which otherwise will stagnate. a lot of nietzsche being nietzsche in this chapter, in ways i very much agree with.
on christianity he wrote a lot in this chapter and since i'm not exactly writing a summary i won't bring all of it up, but one interesting take was that among its positives was teaching the western man skepticism towards themselves and their own virtue, also interestingly noting that christianity condemned suicide aside from martyrdom and slow death via ascetism, and he explores a bit what this means. rather interestingly, he believes polytheism was the ground on which real human intellect could be shaped since it allowed for variety and choice to metaphysically justify one's individual impulses and thoughts, and as such "testing polygon" provided ways for intellectual development of humanity that couldn't have been afforded had humanity always been monotheistic. interesting take, however wrong, is also that religious wars prove high development of a civilisation since the masses take interest in ideas and are willing to actively engage with them, and develop an attachment to minutae detail in doctrine, which proves the wider ability to notice the minutae on societal scale. it's interesting but i do think he's wrong because he's not accounting for the real (economic mainly) reasons of these.
a lot of other interesting statements - i.e. that people thought to not be jealous and therefore not be arrogant often have an outstanding arrogance because they want a different, typically so far unachieved/forbidden/"higher" thing, or that there's specific ways in which tyrants ask one's agenda in that it puts people off "agenda" overall, or that the main benefit of victory is ceasing fear of failure since "now one can afford it". as standard, a lot of it thought provoking, although some also insane, like when he suggests that eating too much rice or potatoes makes one more prone to craving for narcotic substances and for the same reason, prone to religious experiences. i think someone should research that.
a thing that really hit me was his take on misanthropy here - which he compares to finding food repulsive because one has eaten too much; misanthropy as a form of sickness of the soul caused by too much uncontrolled hunger for humanity. i can agree with that to a level, as i find a lot of my own misanthropy comes from disappointment, after i fall in love so much with humanity at its best, greatest, etc that i then find it insufferable to deal with whole masses of humans who don't represent any of that. so this is going to make me question a bit, misanthropy as perverted humanism, originating from having too high of expectations/having glorified humanity too much.
that's for today with nietzsche, i suppose, and soon i will start book 4 and last. i'm very irritated i accidentally deleted a more sensible relation on 1-2, but it is what it is.
p.s. because i just remembered that's a thing - also really interesting paragraph on how the human of future may look down on the current specialisation and be able to combine science, art etc into one thing or coordinated system of activities the way our cognitive skills are presently coordinated. surprisingly pro-communist statement lol. indeed also thought provoking, i've been playing with various visions of combining science with art and perhaps also production in my head. erasing the lines written in sand. it sounds very promising. so i guess it's that.
book 4 - 14.01.2024
i've been busy and reading other books, so i've taken long breaks, but of course i've returned to the babygirl. let's say what he has to say this time. ironically he wrote it in january and mentions a new year. some year in the late 19th century, i believe 1882 but i can be wrong; well i hope that new year was good for him as he expected. he called the book "sanctus januarius". as the readers probably already know nietzsche was a bigot and bit of a pos, but his philosophy saved my life, so i shall wish him well. retroactively.
the first entry is very optimistic and he talks about not wanting to accuse even these who do it to others and just turn his eyes away from things not worthy of his attention and "become the one who says 'yes' to everything". he's being insanely pro-positivity here, although that is the matter of course for nietzsche; he's insanely pro-positivity, it's just also the kind of positivity that celebrates power, danger, adrenaline, experience, passion, strength, living to the fullest, not the "soft" kind of positivity. as the reader may know, i prefer his kind. amor fati!
then entry about illusion of fate and destiny, about people missing their lives in preoccupation with the thought of death, about friendship and how it's meaningful even if it doesn't last forever because it's one little part of eternity where two people collided... he's being very flowery and the more i read this book (he gets more personal and emotional here than in most books he wrote) the more i'm convinced that nietzsche was really gay. my apologies for stereotypising, but as a dyke i talk to multple gay men and no straight man writes like this. then he progresses to architecture and art, again something he doesn't shut up about in this book. he's talking about architecture for contemplation, one that encourages peace of mind and allows to focus attention, i agree with him. we need space to sit and read, write or contemplate. we need spaces that encourage intellectualism, ancient greece style. nietzsche i love you.
then he makes remarks about how people who aren't artistocracy can even be great minds but can't assume certain mannerisms and so can easily be spotted, and uses napoleon as an example of someone who always had the mannerisms of a soldier, not a king, and who mourned his lack of natural gracefulness. interesting. i think such gracefulness characterises the kind of people who feel they're a blessing for the world, they thread lightly, with elegance, because they feel every movement or gesture of theirs is a grace. so indeed aristocracy, but also a specific kind of intellectuals and artists who know they exist for something better than the daily existence - narcissistically including myself. anyways, he compares writers to that, and names so they use contrived sentence constructions and whatnot and attempt to be decoractive, but it's just hiding the fact they can't tread lightly with their thought; they're insecure, they don't write with grace like someone who knows the world ought to hear them.
he's then being optimistic about his hope that people who are capable of achieving power and changing things for the better - these who look for challenge in everything, who challenge themselves, who can give orders but also obey with pride if necessary, those who want to live intensely and dangerously and thus can achieve great and insane things, will come to take the power they "deserve" as their hunger for knowledge will eventually turn into hunger for power [applying that knowledge in practice and dominating the things they've learnt about]. nietzsche believed, in general, that curiosity and hunger for knowledge are manifestations of the will to power; to know something is to have a kind of power over it, it's the first step to control. he believes it'll culminate in them reaching for their fulfilment and taking control. well, it's 21st century and we still haven't.
talking about people who achieve things to convince their internal skeptic of their own worth. yep, that's a thing. "the great self-dissatisfied". he believes it takes a genius, or at least great strength of character, to convince said skeptic and get them out of the way. well, therapy helped a bit for me. then he talks about sacrificing the comfort that religious faith can provide and the sense of guidance and meaning of life, blah blah blah, in order to be able to ascend via looking for alternative in yourself upon loss of that eternal comfort. i know, i know. it honestly bores me to read nietzsche talk about religion; don't get me wrong, it's very good, but for me obvious, and would have amazed me when i was like 12. i know it was groundbreaking back in his times. nowadays any edgy nu atheist tweenager can quote nietzsche on this. i adore nietzsche but there's so many more interesting aspects of his philosophy than the anti-christian bitching. i'm sorry a priest hurt you or something, babygirl.
babygirl is talking about how everyone needs their personal philosophy in order to be independent on praises and criticism of their circles and be able to win autonomy in their actions and responsibility only before themselves, and encourages philosophers to make more philosophies because there's people who can make use of them. he seems to agree with me, although to also have developed that thought less, that everyone has their personal values that result from their personality, their "compatible" philosophies and approaches that they need to achieve their full potential, and a system of beliefs that will encourage one and give them wings will be suffocating to another.
talk about self discipline and the way one, if strong enough, will adjust their nature to their personal taste to the point of achieving integrity and harmony within themselves, no internal conflict, being coherent; he believes that coherence is more important than whether the taste is good and bad - i agree actually! i respect people who are idiots but live by their idiotism in all ways much more than i respect hypocrites, and i agree that also in myself being coherent makes me stronger than ever; as elements that aren't coherent in me tend to be traumagenic or societally imposed against my nature.
he said only weak personalities hate limitations and requirements of a coherent style, and feel them as a humiliation and violation, because they hate serving [even themselves], since they can't do it without being slaves. he said these people - and he made sure to remark they can be very intelligent - make the point to be unlimited, wild and abstract, to nonsensical, but it's the second best thing, almost as good as having a style in these who are capable of it, because at least it makes them happy about themselves and satisfied, and a person who's happy with themself "presents decently". he says witnessing ugly things makes one bitter and mean. i have a homophobic slur to say.
talk about builders who want to "own" a city by becoming part of it via their will being immortalised in its plan. plus bitching about moralists again, this time he notes - pretty obvious but still worth nothing - that there's no better way to sour values to people than to bother them with it and scream about it all the time and expose them unwillingly to said values, and that the best move for the moralists would be to treat morality as a forbidden fruit because then they would win the hearts of these they should want in their ranks - conqurers, who love challenges and love to disobey, since only these can achieve anything. hm. i suppose i agree. no simp for authority ever achieved much, or if so, not in a worthy way that wouldn't be at best good craft, and never artistry.
talk about science. notes that the rules of science are unforgiving, cold, technical and demanding, and criticism is common, while praise and reward rare and only for the elites, perfect work is the norm, and mistakes are seen negatively - he says it's scary to outsiders, but who has ever gotten inside would not want to change this "fresh", clear, crystalised air to anything else, especially anything more foggy and soft, as rough, pure and demanding enviornment is one where a talented person can breathe and grow to their best self. he's right. he also calls that atmosphere masculine, though, in a positive way. i mean, perhaps, but nietzsche definitely wasn't masculine. i love him but he writes like he had insanely limp wrists, noah fence. sorry for the casual homophobia, but i'm a lesbian so i'm going to let myself hatecrime nietzsche a little as a treat.
he's talking about having "phases" on people, music, art, things, theories etc which come and pass and he's fully satisfied after weeks or months of obsessing over something. interesting, but i will not armchair diagnose him, though the temptation is strong. also talks about how the society always praised having a stable situation because then it could use the person as a specialised tool. once again, an interesting take on that. now he talks about objection and how a great individual can take opposition and even provokes it on purpose in order to let others point out to them the mistakes in their reasoning so they could improve it, and also how knowing how to oppose and refuse with class - with no self hate, to attack the taboo and the sacrum with a clear conscience, is a mark of even greater culture. note - i always say "them", though i am sure nietzsche would mean "him"; but i, a female nietzschean, will not follow his assumption that anyone who could be his hypothetical person is a man, lmao.
"i captured this observation in first, random words that came to my head, just to catch it before it flies away; and so it died in this tight cage of insuffucient, restrictive words, and is decaying among them, unable to move its wings, and i don't understand how i could've been so happy that i've caught this little bird" - well, excuse the slang, but rel.
talking about romanticising life. learning from artists to see the beauty and art sleeping within everyday things, but not stop at art, but apply it to everything in life, and becoming a "poet of life". i'm with you babygirl. interesting reflection about how alchemy, magic et cetera were probably necessary for science to develop since the hunger for forbidden knowledge and power had to be awakened in humans first, and more had to be promised than was possible for them to start desiring it; he's speculating religion might have a similar role and end up being a preludium to humans discovering their own godhood and possessing the autonomy and power of god, and maybe religion had to awaken their hunger for spiritual fulfilment. nietzsche... nietzsche save me... save me nietzsche...
he's saying a characteristic trait of the higher kind of humans is their ability to see appeal in more things as in that they provoke curiosity, inspiration or otherwise capture them, but also find annoyance or a reason to be sad in more things, just in general a more aware kind of listening and seeing, experiencing world in a conscious, reflective way which causes it so there's more temptations and more negativity both, while simpler kinds don't see all the appealing things but also aren't bothered by all the negative. he says these people believe themselves to be contemplative, but they're actually creators, while "practical", down to earth and plain natures live in a world of values created by these, and that we (he means himself and his readers) don't appreciate in ourselves the fact that our contemplation creates. sometimes i feel tempted to armchair diagnose nietzsche with npd, but i bite my tongue. i anyway agree mostly, he's just one hell of a narcissist. but he's not wrong. he says we aren't as happy as we could be if we could create more for ourselves. well, he's right, i'm certainly not presently, but i hope to create for myself more and be happier.
talk about how for these who are great and capable of cherishing life, and used the the highest intellectual and spiritual stimulation as their daily "food", are at risk of being sensitive to small things, especially failure in small things. this sounds narcissistic and i relate to it deeply. refers to homer being miserable because he couldn't solve a children's puzzle. felt.
he talks about disliking negative virtues, focused on sacrifice and opposition, and prefers positive ones focused on goal, achievemenet and fulfillment. this is what i love in you! i have to say nietzsche is one of the best antidepressants ever invented, though my current episode is so bad that i don't even know what do want to say yes to. but that will be resolved when i get myself together.
talks about self control and about how it's valuable but one has to, once in a while, get lost in something alien to them so that they can learn from things that aren't them. says intellectuals and artists should surround themselves with things of the highest quality to protect their sensitivity to stimuli. talks about mistakes and how we should keep in mind we may have needed these things in the past when we were another version of ourselves in order to achieve the current level of development where we don't need them, and thus they were not necessarily mistakes but rather the decisions we had to make to turn into the current selves which can see their absurdity. i like this approach. however, a paragraph later - "ask yourself what is the history of your average day like, your habits, your routine (...) what does it consist of, multiple little acts of lazyness and cowardice, or courage and creativity? both can bring you the same approaval with people and the same praise... " but it may only satisfy us when we knew we deserve it. i half agree with that.
compares himself and people akin to him to hungry, voracious waves that come to flood everything to seek what they're looking for. encourages readers to scream to high heavens with excitement and with anger, and be "beautiful monsters". did i say this book is really convincing me to that gossip about nietzsche, who allegedly died a virgin, sleeping with male prostitutes? i'm pretty sure i did mention that.
now talks about not being able to be affected by people who mock him because he has so little in common with him that he sees it as only logical and also knows he's not needed, but believes these who have enough courage don't need to be needed. talks about imagining his pain/depression as a dog which is "as loyal, as shameless, as smart as any other dog, and i can act out on him like others do on their real dogs and wives" thus nietzsche discovers techniques recommended in 2020s in therapy on his own....
now he's considering if he should commit suicide before he burns out. babygirl going through it evidently. also talks about wanting to be his own experiment and his own lab rat to observe and discover. felt... i have to say nietzsche evidently wasn't in a good place while writing this. i have to inform here that nietzsche had pretty serious bipolar affective disorder, with suicide attempts in depressive phases, hospitalisations and whatever else; he would write his wonderful optimistic philosophy in mania and try to kill himself in hotel rooms in depression. rest in peace babygirl...
"it's the greatest blessing from fate to fight alongside our opponents for sometimes... then we're meant for a great victory" what did he mean by this...
talks about dropping the idea of punishments and changing individuals and focusing on having impact on future. agreed. talks about how defeating life gives you a new ability to laugh and cherish every moment and then progresses to how a great one must have the ability to hurt, because enduring pain is something even the slaves can achieve mastery in, but to not hesitate and not let one's hand slip when hurting another is a sign of greatness and integrity... while on the other hand, any violent man can hurt without shaking even in the slightest, so this is honestly at very least badly phrased, i actually know what he means; not for the purposes of sadism, but sometimes it's necessary to hurt, and sometimes it's deserved, for our own revenge, or for revenge for someone close, or in the name of our values; may our hands not slip... i kind of know mine wouldn't, but i have a diagnosis.
reflection about life isn't actually that painful in nature since in extreme pain people lose consciousness immediately and in milder pain there's so many kinds of natural "anesthetics", such as delirium, dissociation, various kinds of escapism... as if nature wanted to give us so many tools to allievate any pain that to talk of life as constant pain is exaggerating, yes, nietzsche, i too like to believe that. i admire your optimism. very interesting remark on how the average person only engages intellect and complex, analytical thought to "serious matters" and thus it's like a neglected, rarely used, heavy machine, that they're lacking the light, careless, cheerful, mischievous nature of an intellect that thinks, analyses and creates for fun or out of boredom, with light, playful approach. he's 100000000000% right, in myself i love this kind of light, non-serious and even somewhat insane intellect, it's sharper than any knife i could ever point at "society" and reality, and works better than any kind of seriousness; this mischievous, rebellious intellect which questions everything just out of curiosity, it's capable of finding so many things worthy of excitement for me.
interesting idea that in the pre-christian world people blamed stupidity and conformism for misery, not egoism - and that the idea that being an egoist makes one unhappy is a christian invention, while in the ancient world the dominant idea was that misery comes from lack of wisdom. well, i don't have much of a stake in it since i'm not sure if he's right of not about that being something the christians invented, and i have no idea if stupidity really makes people miserable, but i can say with all conviction possible that being stupid is much worse than being an egoist, and makes one much more of a horsefly.
nietzsche regretting that the pursuit of greed and money killed convention, politeness and class, due to lack of time for it, and being kinda classist, but that happens - he stated a roman would be ashamed to work, and a slave who had to work knew he was doing something humiliating. this can be interestingly reinterpreted, but was probably somewhat bigoted in the intended form. also talks about music and learning to love - about how first needs to learn to tolerate a new melody, get used to it and with time only starts seeing all the complex beauty in it, and such is the case for all things in life. probably not wrong.
bashing kant for breaking out of the christian logic trap and then chasing himself back to it via the categorical imperative; is right. talking about how whatever people find good or right, and their morality in general, tends to be based in their life experiences and their copes, which word of course he didn't use, but that's basically what he meant - once again, is right, though that's not very inspiring in itself; i've known people are coping in their values for a long time. then also talks about how we - him and his readers - want to "become who we are", that is the new kind of humans who create their own values and their own laws and don't obey anyone else unless that's what we want; rest assured babygirl that's what i'm trying to do here!
talks about the bliss that must be awaking knowing you're the last heir of the old aristocracy and the first of the new masters of the earth, possessing capability the world hasn't seen before... he's being insane, but i felt it, sometimes i felt like i'm one of the last thinkers of the old type like nietzsche here and simultaneously one of the first ones of the new type who will deconstruct everything like it should be deconstructed and lead to the end of - no, reset of history; a new chapter. that's probably my own npd, while we're at this. so far i'm writing this at 03 (3 am) on neocities. but everyone begins somewhere!
talks about how we should develop the joy equivalent of empathy for our friends, help them as we know would be best for them, and not care about strangers because it'll always be help from someone who doesn't understand the context of suffering enough to give the help actually needed, and will veer towards the religion of sympathy, which keeps people from their chances to improve through their suffering. i mostly agree with that, although i do see the point of helping strangers sometimes and i think he's kind of having a stupid moment by not considering capitalism here, but that's typical of nietzsche; not even that he was actively a capitalist or right wing, but he didn't care about politics, and that made him a capitalism supporter passively. it's alright, his philosophy isn't very suitable for politics - though i'm sure i would be able to combine it with political theory sufficiently, especially in my weird neo-nietzscheanism version, once i feel myself competent enough in political theory and confident enough in my own competence; and that will be in a few months, if i soon get to that.
so here ends the fourth book - and second last; there'll be one more and this book will be over; not the best i've read of nietzsche's so far, but better than his worst, and certainly very good in general.
book 5 - 15.01.2024
chapter 5, the last of this book! i've enjoyed it quite a lot, though i'm ranking it in the middle as far as nietzsche goes, not as good as will to power and genealogy of morals for one, but better than beyond good and evil. in general enjoyable.
in book 5 he speaks in plural form, for all nowadays called "amoralists", back then called "immoralists". immorality provokes associations with celebrating what is considered immoral in the local culture rather than rejecting morality altogether; granted, i could also align with that to a level, as would know these who read sociopath rights activist, but my philosophy leans towards rejection of morality as useless in favour of rules that would be practical and protect people from each other's destructive instincts rather than shame these instincts and encourage repression. morality is just the voice of the father (superego) in your head - freud also roughly agrees with this statement. otoh, i often feel inclined to use the term immoralism in honour of nietzsche, and because it was more philosophically accepted earlier, as the name of that attitude. i find myself embracing it more nowadays. in the end i tend to use both names, amoralism and immoralism, interachangeably. anyways, back to nietzsche.
standard religion criticisms. interesting stance on protestantism - he states that the catholic church was notably an expression of greco-roman thought based on skepticism and examining the human nature, which with all its flaws pursued creating higher kinds of humans, and that the reformation was destroying an ideal luther couldn't reach, under the excuse of healing that ideal from pathologies; that introducing everyone to the holy books caused birth of these who studied them to find flaws, that allowing the priests to have sex took most of the respect they had with the average peasant off them because the source of that respect would be significantly in being seen as "above nature", thus had to get rid of confession, which was something the church was needed for - psychological relief - causing it so it wasn't needed anymore, and overall that his principles of everyone being their own priest deconstructed the old, orderly structure and allowed for it to be fully consumed by these pathologies. very interesting take, and one i agree with upon consideration, although my experiences of catholicism and protestantism are vastly different to this; i've lived a in a predominantly catholic environment most of my childhood and the catholics around me were thoughtless followers of tradition and rituals, knowing very little about what they believed, and more doing it all passively, by default, by ceremonial, just because they never had a real reason to question it. i was also raised catholic, as my family converted to catholicism during ww2 - i am jewish by ancestry. anyways, when i met the protestants i was very surprised to see people who actually read their books, knew what was written in them, and believed with real effort and awareness. i have to say this is an isolated situation, though, and - as a close friend for whom christian history and theology is a special interest stated when i showed him that part of nietzsche - the catholic thoughtlessness is also a result of reformation, the mystery being taken away and washed out of the structure left a lifeless skeletal construction the current catholic church is.
takes on science. nietzsche, a classical philologist, himself admits to not being educated in natural sciences and blames himself for "ignorance", as he phrased it. very well. his initial take is that the scientific conscience - the one oriented towards objectivity and truth at all costs - is an evolution of the christian conscience, and in fact resulted from it when people shaped by christian skepticism towards nature, themselves, their instincts and their senses finally saw, with these skills evolved by and for christianity, that christianity itself was redundant and a great lie, and thus turned to science in pursuit of the greater truth they were taught to pursuit. this is not a bad take, honestly would make sense, but it's very western-centric, and overlooks the formation of the scientific ethic in these who don't come from the christian background. fun fact: nietzsche also states that the jews are the best writers and lecturers, as they are disbelieved due to their ethnicity and had to develop a system of rhetoric, logic on their side, to force admission to error even in these biased against them, who didn't want to believe them. nietzsche seems ambivalent towards logic itself; he clearly both notices its role in putting the human thought in order and notes that it was created for this purpose, and seems distrustful towards it since it is a creation of biased human mind and a "lie" in itself in that it doesn't reflect things as they are but purely the ways humans conceptualise them. nietzsche will later mature and - in "will to power" - develop a more sensible version of this skepticism, one that considers logic and perception constructs, but constructs made for pragmatic usage of conquering the environment, tools for the brain to achieve power over the surroundings. these takes will also reflect going back to schopenhauer, who influenced him a lot in his youth and from whom he kinda developed, but also rejected his thought for its pessismism, nihilism and fatalism. but that will happen later, not in this book, so let's leave it now and go back to the babygirl as he was when writing "la gaya scienza".
on consciousness - very! important observation that consciousness and the conscious is something that results from interaction with other people and would probably not develop in someone who never met another human since there would be no need for it - that the "awareness of self" is based in relation to others and seeing the separation between self and other individuals. i do agree with this fully and consider consciousness an "interface" for interaction; freud also very much seconds this - i do love when the babygirls agree with each other, as i keep stating. according to freud, ego develops as a protective and perceptive layer of the id upon encountering and having to process external stimuli and take a position in relation to them, and even more importantly, it also processes the internal stimuli; i doubt freud would say it can develop without external ones, though. otoh, humans are a social species, as growing up in solitute is "unnatural" for them; again something i brought up in a reflection before. anyway, nietzsche notes that consciousness forms by interaction with other people and having to make a divide between them and the internal. these reflections on consciousness in both nietzsche and freud result from being inspired by, once again, schopenhauer, who started to explore ideas associated with the unconscious. stan copenshower!
nietzsche notes that the pursuit of truth is a form of drive towards death since life itself is in a significant part an illusion, that is, a limited and biased perception of things, based on the functioning of the human brain which processes stimuli according to its reasoning, and limited access to information. again, in context of science. surprisingly, i do see a point here - natural sciences significantly seek to know what is behind these illusions, what is the world that we can't see, that we haven't evolved to see. our confusion with what is beyond-illusions is well portrayed by initial reception of quantum mechanics and the discomfort it still provokes in people. is it a drive towards death? it might be a drive towards something more than life and have to do with disappointment in it, yes, but it also is a drive to conquer and grow. nietzsche himself notes the role of curiosity and knowledge as sources of power. is this stuff a result of nietzsche's insecurity surrounding not knowing much about natural sciences? yes, probably! although i have to say here that when nietzsche discusses the nervous system in his writing - not in this book but it does happen - it's good, fairly accurate, i think he did his research when he wanted to write something he found himself incompetent in, which i consider a "virtue" of sorts - knowing one's incompetence and making effort to either make up for it or give voice to someone more competent; competence in general is one of greatest values for me personally. thus i can respect that.
more criticism of religion. nietzsche expresess annoyance that both natural sciences and philosophy focus around darwinism as "struggle for survival", ignoring that struggle for survival only happens in critical situations and usually the organism, when their life is not directly threatened, struggles for power, expansion, reproduction etc. i agree!! i do notice the simplification he points to, and observed it before - hence why diminished role of sexual selection in literature in favour of survival focused narratives, especially in humans. yes, survival is crucial, but also the bottom of maslov's pyramid, and in daily life, when one isn't under direct threat, things that exist beyond take priority. good observation for someone self admittedly "ignorant" about natural sciences and ashamed of it; although grounded in his theories on will to power.
relatively a lot of theory on will to power right here, along with more observations on morality and religion that i've now known for ages; these new to nietzsche may find them inspiring, though. complaining about specialisation and the way people who practice a profession learn to play a role until it becomes their second nature; that can be interpreted in an interesting marxist way. simultaneously he expresses approval for these who master a field of knowledge and notes that they will inevitably also become skewed and damaged by that field; he values it more than surface level knowledge of many things, however. complaining about germans and german philosophy. a lot of complaining about germans. once again, truly, if i were german i would also complain, so i get my babygirl here. he seems to believe heglism paved the way for darwinism in people's heads by helping them understand life as a process, but also criticises hegel for his morality and conservatism, and then goes on about schopenhauer, whom - with his atheism and nihilism - he considers to be above the german collective; i would agree with that, schopenhauer wasn't very stereotypically german in his reasoning, though his antisemitism was honestly very german for these times.
a lot of subtweeting of german contemporaries. not to the level schopenhauer himself tends to subtweet, but enough. some racism, some justification of imperialism - i dislike both and definitely condemn the racism; a lot of misogyny - nietzsche managed to shut up about hating women for most of this book, but clearly couldn't keep his mouth shut until it was finished. shame! i like hearing nietzsche but i dislike reading that. mainly, his perception of women is that they're shallow, unintellectual, instinct-driven and the only faith or conviction they may have is to give themselves to the man of choice. it's nauseating. nietzsche's misogyny is one of the most negative things and the most difficult to understand for me given he was in general very intelligent and his reasoning typically nuanced. after reading this book i'm more convinced he may have been homosexual, repressed and self hating, which could justify - well, honestly not justify, it can't be justified, but explain- his hatred of women. he allegedly died a virgin, but gossip had it he would visit male prostitutes - never confirmed nor disproven. in this book he expresses a sentiment that nude men look better than nude women, which basically convinces me he was gay; i don't think anyone attracted to women would say that. i would much rather he was gay for the reason of his misogyny - i respect him a lot and men who hate women but want them make me shiver. i would not opt for a hypothesis solely because it suits me, though. in this case i'm pretty authentically convinced, until i see something that changes my mind.
interesting observation on psychology - i.e. that it's lacking in comparison to natural sciences because learning something is only possible when it's unknown, so the only way to explore psychology is to focus on the unknown (freud would love this), on causativity in humans - that there's instinct which has to act or not, and the way, circumstances and direction it acts are highly coincidential - again, something freud would agree with, in his theory of eros and libido and its "cathexis". i think nietzsche should've become a psychologist, he would be good at that. i wouldn't let him have sessions with women, though.
blaming napoleon for wars - written before both ww1 and ww2, but identifies napoleon to be the impulse that caused growth of european nationalisms - he considers war a positive however, one of the things i disagree with him on, since he believes it channels destructive human instincts so that they don't direct them towards their own community or themselves, but rather towards outsiders; i think there's better ways of channeling, ones that don't go with pointless destruction of human potential and infrastructure, and in the modern times which he didn't know weapons of mass destruction render war useless as a way to achieve catharsis for an individual anyways. i have to say in fairness nietzsche hated nationalism.
finally, more reflections about art and how it can express both great power and a withering health of the artist, how it can be conservative and seek to preserve or innovative and seek to separate from the standard and create something new and how both can result from both kinds of circumstances, about how very creative artists who produce a lot of works of art tend to lack reflections on this art since they do not stop and think on it in depth enough but rather act externally, get outgrown by their own work and say stupid things about it (...) and akin, some ok, some inspiring, some kind of out of the left field but still sensible of the level; reflections on how he seeks to be understood only by these akin to him - i guess that includes me, and i'm a woman, woops, i wonder how could he explain that - and trying to encourage his fans, other immoralists, to let go of the desire for certainty and "dance on the line above the abyss". once again being flowery and personal. ends with several poems, good, but not outstanding. keep in mind they're translated, however.
thus i've finished this book, which i'm very happy about! the misogyny by the end ruined it for me a little. i have to say, though, nietzsche serves as an antidepressant for me even with that aspect. i now shall progress to other things i want to read. stay tuned!