more to nietzche.

nietzsche.md

@@ -1,16 +1,18 @@
-# Why Nietzsche is terrible
+# Why Nietzsche is a terrible role model for the left
 
 Instead of writing up a longer, meandering argument against Nietzsche's philosophy, I found that his quotations themselves make the strongest argument for why he makes a terrible role model for the left. 
 
-The core concepts of his philosophy, Masculine virtue, the Superman, Will to Power, Anti-democracy, Anti-Socialism, Reverence for hereditary Aristocracy (whether Teutonic, or Roman), Warrior heroes,  Anti-feminism, Anti-Christianity / Buddism, are shown through his quotes. 
+The core concepts of his philosophy, Masculine virtue and elitism, the Superman, Will to Power, worship of warrior heroes and militarism, Anti-democracy, Anti-Socialism, Reverence for hereditary Aristocracy (whether Teutonic, or Roman), Anti-feminism, Anti-Christianity / Buddism, Biological determinism, are shown through his quotes. After getting past his love of contradictory statements, and his propensity to try to gain hipster cred through the shock-value of anti-moralism, we're left with a system of thought that's as aristocratic and supportive of the status quo as has ever existed.
 
-It shouldn't be surprising that this proto-incel, lover of masculinity and war, who decried democracy, socialism, and feminism, who revered the Teutonic and Roman conquerors, would make fertile material to be used by the Nazis, even if he wasn't anti-semitic himself.
+It shouldn't be surprising that this proto-incel, lover of masculinity and war, who decried democracy, socialism, and feminism, who revered the Teutonic and Roman conquerors, would produce fertile material to be used by the Nazis, even if he wasn't anti-semitic himself.
 
 ## Great man / Aristocracy
 
-> Will this aristocracy be a caste, and their power hereditary? For the most part yes, with occasional openings to let in new blood. But nothing can so contaminate and weaken an aristocracy rich vulgarians, after the habit of the English aristocracy; As it was such intermarriage that ruined the greatest governing body the world has ever seen: the aristocratic Roman senate.
+> There is only nobility of birth, only nobility of blood. When one speaks of "aristocrats of the spirit," reasons are usually not lacking for concealing something. As is well known, it is a favorite term among ambitious Jews. For spirit alone does not make noble. Rather, there must be something to ennoble the spirit. What then is required? Blood. 
 
-> Not Mankind, but Superman is the goal.
+> The possibility has been established for the production of...a master race, the future "masters of the earth"...made to endure for millennia — a higher kind of men who...employ democratic Europe as their most pliant and supple instrument for getting hold of the destinies of the earth. 
+
+> Will this aristocracy be a caste, and their power hereditary? For the most part yes, with occasional openings to let in new blood. But nothing can so contaminate and weaken an aristocracy rich vulgarians, after the habit of the English aristocracy; As it was such intermarriage that ruined the greatest governing body the world has ever seen: the aristocratic Roman senate.
 
 > The European man nowadays [...] glorifies his qualities, such as public spirit, kindness, deference, industry, temperance, modesty, indulgence, sympathy, by virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and useful to the herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. 
 >
@@ -18,12 +20,14 @@ It shouldn't be surprising that this proto-incel, lover of masculinity and war,
 
 > The Superman can survive only by human selection, by eugenic foresight and an ennobling education.
 
-> Intellect alone does not ennoble; on the contrary, something is always needed to ennoble intellect. What then is needed? Blood [referring to hereditary aristocracy].
+> The homogenizing of European man … requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former which can raise itself to its task only by doing this. Not merely a master race whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of strength … strong enough to have no need of the tyranny of the virtue-imperative. 
 
-> Those races that cannot bear this philosophy are doomed; and those that regard it as the greatest blessing are destined to be the masters of the world.
+> Not Mankind, but Superman is the goal.
 
 ## Anti-feminism
 
+> God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment — but many other things ceased as well! Woman was God's second mistake. 
+
 > Women are considered profound. Why? Because we never fathom their depths. But women aren't even shallow.
 
 > From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty.
@@ -32,8 +36,7 @@ It shouldn't be surprising that this proto-incel, lover of masculinity and war,
 
 > Woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant... she needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, and being humble as divine: or better, she makes the strong weak--she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong... Woman has always conspired with the types of decadence, the priests, against the 'powerful', the 'strong', the men.
 
-On Wagner:
-> [I've grown] tired with disgust of all that is feminism and undisciplined rhapsody in that romanticism, that idealistic lying, that softening of the human conscience, which had conquered here one of the bravest souls.
+> [I've grown] tired with disgust of all that is feminism and undisciplined rhapsody in that romanticism, that idealistic lying, that softening of the human conscience, which had conquered here one of the bravest souls [referring to Wagner].
 
 > Man shall be educated for war, and women for the recreation of the warrior; everything else is folly.
 
@@ -45,17 +48,24 @@ On Wagner:
 
 ## Anti-Socialism
 
+> Socialism--as the logical conclusion of the tyranny of the least and the dumbest, i.e., those who are superficial, envious, and three-quarters actors--is indeed entailed by "modern ideas" and their latent anarchism; but in the tepid air of democratic well-being the capacity to reach conclusions, or to finish, weakens. One follows--but one no longer sees what follows. Therefore socialism is on the whole a hopeless and sour affair; and nothing offers a more amusing spectacle than the contrast between the poisonous and desperate faces cut by today's socialists--and to what wretched and pinched feelings their style bears witness!--and the harmless lambs' happiness of their hopes and desiderata.
+>
+> [...] In any case, even as a restless mole under the soil of a society that wallows in stupidity, socialism will be able to be something useful and therapeutic: it delays "peace on earth" and the total mollification of the democratic herd animal; it forces the Europeans to regain spirit, namely cunning and cautious care, not to abjure manly and warlike virtues altogether, and to retain some remnant of spirit, of clarity, sobriety, and coldness of the spirit--it protects Europe for the time being from the marasmus femininus that threatens it.
+
+> Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today? The socialist rabble, the chandala apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker’s sense of satisfaction with his small existence–who make him envious, who teach him revenge. The source of wrong is never unequal rights but the claim of “equal” rights.
+
 > With feminism come socialism and anarchism; all of them the litter of democracy; if equal political power is just, why not equal economic power? There are some that preach my doctrine of life but at the same time are preachers of equality. ... I do not wish to be confounded with these preachers of equality. For within me justice saieth: "Men are not equal", "We wish to possess nothing in common".
 
+> Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word “justice” into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason… and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.
+
+> The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice
+
 > How can the superman arise in such a soil [democracy]? And how can a nation become great when its greatest men lie unused, discouraged, perhaps unknown? Such a society loses character; imitation is horizontal instead of vertical; not the superior man but the majority man becomes the ideal and the model; everybody comes to resemble everybody else; even the sexes approximate - the men become women and the women become men.
 
-> A high civilization is a pyramid; it can stand only upon a broad base; its prerequisite is a strongly and soundly
-consolidated mediocrity.
+> A high civilization is a pyramid; it can stand only upon a broad base; its prerequisite is a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity.
 
 > Europe is threatened with a new Buddhism. [...] The whole of the morality of Europe is based upon the values which are useful to the herd.
 
-> Socialism is envy: They want something which we have.
-
 > Only a man of intellect should hold property.
 
 Railing against the Collectivism of Eastern philosophies:
@@ -64,13 +74,24 @@ Railing against the Collectivism of Eastern philosophies:
 
 ## Pro-war
 
+> Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of "pleasure." The human being who has become free — and how much more the spirit who has become free — spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior.
+
+> A declaration of war on the masses by higher men is needed! … Everything that makes soft and effeminate, that serves the end of the people or the feminine, works in favor of universal suffrage, i.e. the domination of the inferior men. But we should take reprisal and bring this whole affair to light and the bar of judgment. 
+
 > A good war halloweth any cause.
 
 > I felt for the first time that the strongest, highest Will to Life does not find expression in a miserable struggle for existence, but in a Will to War, a Will to Power, a Will to Over-Power!
 
-> What is good? To be brave is good, [and] All that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is bad? All that comes from weakness.
+> What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome. 
 
 > A herd of blond beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters, with military organizations, with the power to organize, unscrupulously placing their fearful paws upon a population perhaps vastly superior in numbers, ... this herd founded the State. The dream is dispelled which made the State begin with a contract. What has he to do with contracts who can command, who is master by nature, who comes on the scene with violence.
 
 > Does anybody at last understand, will anybody understand what the Renaissance was? The transvaluation of Christian values, the attempt undertaken with all means, all instincts and all genius to make the *opposite* values, the *noble* values triumph. [...] Caesar Borgia as Pope. ... Do you understand me?
 
+## Racism
+
+> What follows, then? That one had better put on gloves before reading the New Testament. The presence of so much filth makes it very advisable. One would as little choose early Christians for companions as Polish Jews: not that one need seek out an objection to them — neither has a pleasant smell. 
+
+> Do I still have to add that in the entire New Testament there is only one solitary figure one is obliged to respect? Pilate, the Roman governor. To take a Jewish affair seriously — he cannot persuade himself to do that. One Jew more or less — what does it matter ?
+
+> Those races that cannot bear this philosophy are doomed; and those that regard it as the greatest blessing are destined to be the masters of the world.