Reddit reviews The Will to Power
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Reddit reviews The Will to PowerWe found 5 Reddit comments about The Will to Power. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
From Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, edited by Christopher Middleton:
Page 260-261: Letter to Franz Overbeck, February 23, 1887 about a French translation of Notes from the Underground ("L’Esprit souterrain"):
> The instinct of affinity (or what shall I call it?) spoke to me instantaneously -- my joy was beyond bounds; not since my first encounter with Stendhal's Rouge et Noir have I known such joy. (The book consists of two novellas, the first really a piece of music, very foreign, very un-German music; the second a stroke of psychological genius, a sort of self-ridicule of the XX XX.) Incidentally, these Greeks have a great deal on their conscience -- falsification was their real trade; the whole of European psychology is sick with Greek superficialities, and without the modicum of Judaism, and so on, and so on.
It doesn't say XX XX in the text, it says two words in Greek which I can't bother to find out how to write...
Page 317: Letter to Georg Brandes, October 20, 1888:
> I quite believe it when you say that "in Russia one can come to life again"; any Russian book -- above all, Dostoevski (translated into French, for heaven's sake not German!!) -- I count among my greatest moments of pleasurable relief.
Page 327: Letter to Georg Brandes, November 20, 1888:
> I completely believe what you say about Dostoevski; I prize his work, on the other hand, as the most valuable psychological material known to me -- I am grateful to him in a remarkable way, however much he goes against my deepest instincts. Roughly as in my relation to Pascal, whom I almost love because he has taught me such an infinite amount -- the only logical Christian.
From Will to Power, edited by Walter Kaufmann:
Page 389-390:
> 735: There are delicate and sickly inclined natures, so-called idealists, who cannot achieve anything better than a crime, cru, vert: (98) it is the great justification of their little, pale existences, a payment for a protracted cowardice and mendaciousness, a moment at least of strength: afterwards they perish of it. (99)
> 736: In our civilized world, we learn to know almost only the wretched criminal, crushed by the curse and the contempt of society, mistrutful of himself, often belittling and slandering his deed, a miscarried type of criminal; and we resist the idea that all great human beings have been criminals (only in the grand and not in a miserable style), that crime belongs to greatness (-- or that is the experience og those who have tried the reins and of all who have descended deepest into great souls---). To be "free as a bird" from tradition, the conscience of duty --- every great human being knows this danger. But he also desires it: he desires a great goal and therefore also the means to it. (100)
The notes are of course Kaufmann's:
> (98) raw, green
> (99) Possibly a comment on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. See also the next footnote and section 740 below.
> (100) Cf. Twilight [of the Idols], "Skrimishes," section 45, which deals at greater length with "The criminal and what is related to him" and says: "The testimony of Dostoevsky is relevant... -- Dostoevsky, the only psychologist, incidentally, from whom I had something to learn..." (Portable Nietzsche, pp. 549-51). Cf. also section 740 below. Se also the Appendix, below
Also, If you search for "dosto" here, you'll find more references to Dostoevsky.
Pages 391-393:
> 740: Crime belongs to the concept "revolt against the social order." One does not "punish" a rebel; one suppresses him. A rebel can be a miserable and contemptible man; but there is nothing contemptible in a revolt as such-and to be a rebel in view of contemporary society does not in itself lower the value of a man. There are even cases in which one might have to honor a rebel, because he finds something in our society against which war ought to be waged --he awakens us from our slumber.
> If a criminal perpetrates an individual act against an individual this does not demonstrate that his whole instinct is not in a state of war with the whole order: his deed as a mere symptom.
> One should reduce the concept "punishment" to the concept: suppression of a revolt, security measures against the suppressed (total or partial imprisonment). But one should not express contempt through punishment: a criminal is in any case a man who risks his life, his honor, his freedom-a man of courage. Neither should one take punishment to be a penance; or as a payment, as if an exchange relationship existed between guilt and punishment --punishment does not purify, for crime does not sully.
> One should not deprive the criminal of the possibility of making his peace with society; provided he does not belong to the
race of criminals. In that case one should make war on him even before he has committed any hostile act (first operation as soon as one has him in one's power: his castration).
> One should not hold against the criminal his bad manners or the low level of his intelligence. Nothing is more common than
that he should misunderstand himself (for often his rebellious instinct, the rancor of the déclassé, has not reached consciousness, faute le lecture), (102) that he should slander and dishonor his deed under the influence of fear and failure-quite apart from those cases in which, psychologically speaking, the criminal surrenders to an uncomprehended drive and by some subsidiary action ascribes a false motive to his deed (perhaps by a robbery when what he wanted was blood). (103)
> One should beware of assessing the value of a man according to a single deed. Napoleon warned against this. For our haut-relief deeds are quite especially insignificant. If men like us have no crime, e,g., murder, on our conscience-why is it? Because a few opportune circumstances were lacking. And if we did it, what would that indicate about our value? In a way one would despise us if one thought we had not the strength to kill a man under certain circumstances. In almost all crimes some qualities also find expression which ought not to be lacking in a man. It was not without justification that Dostoevsky said of the inmates of his Siberian prisons that they formed the strongest and most valuable part of the Russian people.''' (104) If with us the criminal is an illnourished and stunted plant, this is to the dishonor of our social relationships; in the age of the Renaissance the criminal throve and acquired for himself his own kind of virtue --virtue in the Renaissance style, to be sure, virtù, moraline-free virtue.
> One can enhance only those men whom one does not treat with contempt; moral contempt causes greater indignity and harm than any crime.
> (102) For lack of reading.
> (103) Cf.. Zarathustra I. "On the Pale Criminal" (Portable Nietzsche, p. 149ff), and Crime and Punishment; but when Nietzsche wrote Zarathustra, he had not even heard of Dostoevsky. For the details concerning his reading of Dostoevsky, see my notes on Genealogy, essay III, sections 15 and 24.
> (104) Cf. Twilight, "Skirmishes," section 45 (Portable Nietzsche, pp. 549-51), and section 736 above.
Page 417:
> 788: To restore a good conscience to the evil man -- has this been my unconscious endeavour? I mean, to the evil man in so far as he is the strong man? (Dostoevsky's judgment on the criminals in prison should be cited here.)
You can also search for "dosto" here and find more references.
Honestly, the hardest part of him is where to start. Ask five people and you'll get six answers.
But as a general recommendation, stick primarily to Walter Kaufmann's books, and you can't go wrong. He was one of the leading scholars on the school of his thought, and I find his translations of Nietzsche to capture the dramatic emphasis of his prose the best.
For a brief introduction I'd start with his Biography by Kaufmann, this is useful for understanding the time in which he lived, the philosophical climate, and debunking myths about him, followed by Basic Writings, and then The Portable Nietzsche which contains his more complex works, Twilight and Zarathustra. Each of these contain complete texts, as well as discussion and expositions to give them more context, and are extremely helpful in understanding the work.
Also, If you're a materialist already, an Atheist or an agnostic, start with The Antichrist and you'll fall in love with him in the first pages. Its a summary of his view on Christian morality, and it doesn't hold back at all, a quick read at about a hundred or so pages. If you want an appetizer, peruse The Will To Power, his book of aphorisms, to whet your palate (this is also where most of the romance quotes live). These were my introductions, and I never looked back.
> Would you recommend Heidegger's lecture over Kaufmann?
Yes and no, but let me see if I can make that more clear. Kaufmann is great if you're just getting into Nietzsche and trying to get an overall understanding of Nietzsche. It's definitely better as a beginners guide. As I said, there are some potential problems with this, but it's still a good entry level text. Heidegger, as I said, has a much more narrow agenda; as a friend put it, he really just used Nietzsche to say what he wanted to say. In many ways, his lectures are better for studying Heidegger than Nietzsche, but I would still say that his reading of Nietzsche isn't wrong or disingenuous, but he reads Nietzsche mainly as a social critic, to the detriment of everything else Nietzsche was (which was pretty much everything). Hope that's clear.
>I'm mainly interested in ideas such as the ubermensch and nihilism
For the ubermensch, I'd recommend you get Zarathustra and join /r/philosophybookclub, who are just starting that together. I know I said that's a rough starting place, but it shouldn't be insurmountable with the assistance of others. For nihilism, The Will to Power is probably going to have the most content, and this happens to be one of the main areas of focus of some of Heidegger's lectures, so bearing what I said above, that would be a good combo.
Hope this is helpful!
Recommending Far Cry 2. Dude is quoting Friedrich Nietzsche, here's the book.
If you haven't watched The Thing, you should.
I've been listening to this a lot lately.
Not entering
So... I'm writing up another post in notepad with a lot of Reddit comment formatting code and whatnot as a starter for creating quality stickies. Here's what I'm working with currently. There will be more to come. Feedback is welcome:
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Link to previous Q&A sticky: Sticky 1, Sticky 2
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FAQ:
Note: This FAQ is written by moderator of /r/Satanism and member of the Church of Satan, /u/modern_quill. I am trying to remain unbiased and fact-based in these Q&A responses, so if you feel that I have somehow misrepresented your organization or philosophy, please let me know and we can work together to make the appropriate corrections.
Q: What is Satanism?
A: This is a simple question, but it has a complex answer because it depends on who you ask. Satanism as a philosophy and religion was first codified by Anton Szandor LaVey in his 1969 publication of The Satanic Bible. Some people refer to this secular Satanism as "LaVeyan Satanism" as a nod to Anton LaVey. The Satanic Bible borrows from the works of Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard, Ayn Rand's Objectivism, and Frederich Nietzche's Der Wille zur Macht. This is the most widely practiced form of Satanism and is championed by the Church of Satan (CoS) to this day. At its most basic definition, "LaVeyan Satanism" is about living the best life that you want to live, and bending the world around you to your will to achieve that goal. A Satanist sees themselves as their own God. There is, of course, much more to Satanism than that very basic definition, but we expect people to do their own research as well. Most LaVeyan Satanists will simply call it Satanism, as there is only one form of Satanism from the Church of Satan's perspective. Members of the recently formed secular organization called The Satanic Temple (TST), by comparison, see Satanism as political activism. The Satanic Temple often makes news headlines with their efforts to establish a separation of church and state and do not include The Satanic Bible as part of their organization's canon, but rather The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France. There are also theistic Satanists, some believe in a literal Satan and some do not. Ask a theist like /u/Ave_Melchom what they believe and they'll likely share their thoughts with you, but you probably won't find very many theists that share the same philosophy. There are also more esoteric organizations such as the Temple of Set (ToS), which was formed by former Church of Satan member Michael Aquino after infighting within the organization in 1975 caused many theistic members to split away and become Setians. /u/Three_Scarabs and /u/CodeReaper moderate /r/Setianism subreddit and are a wealth of information on the subject. There are also organizations that fall into a more neo-nazi ideology such as the now defunct Order of Nine Angles (ONA or O9A) and self-stylized "Spiritual Satanists" of the Joy of Satan (JoS), which are often not tolerated by other members of this subreddit. The words, "Fuck off, Nazi!" have become somewhat of a meme on /r/Satanism.
Q: If Satanists don't believe in Satan, why call it Satanism at all? Why not Humanism?
LaVeyan A: Modern secular Satanists see humans as just another animal within the greater animal kingdom, no better than our avian, reptilian, or mammalian friends. Our technology and our intellectual advancements may have placed us at the top of the food chain, but it has merely encouraged humans to be the most vicious animals of all. To us, Satan is a metaphor that represents our strength, our pride, our intellect, our carnality, and all of the so-called sins as they lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification. The Hebrew word Satan simply means adversary, and Satanists take that adversarial stance to a great many things in their lives; the way we approach an issue, the way we tackle a problem, the way we overcome an obstacle. While Humanists may try to live like Bill & Ted and be excellent to eachother, a Satanist recognizes that emotions like anger, even hate are natural to the human animal and we shouldn't feel guilty for such natural inclinations. While Christians may turn the other cheek when wronged, you can be sure that a Satanist will have their revenge, with interest.
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Q: Do you sacrifice or molest children/animals? Do you drink blood?*
LaVeyan A: No. Sacrifice is a Christian concept that was projected on to innocent Satanists during the "Satanic Panic" of the 80's and early 90's by charlatan law enforcement "consultants" and Christian religious "experts". One trait common to Satanists is their love of life as Satanists view life as the greatest of indulgences; children and animals represent the purest forms of life and imagination that there are. In fact, the abuse of children and animals is forbidden by the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth. Also, why would we want to drink blood? Christians* are the ones that (symbolically) eat the flesh and drink the blood of their savior. I'd rather enjoy a nice scotch.
Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth
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