philosoraptor42 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
philosoraptor42) wrote2009-09-28 12:50 pm
philosoraptor42) wrote2009-09-28 12:50 pm
Entry tags:
Nietzsche is misrepresented - again...
Once again Nietzsche is entirely misrepresented. No surprise there.
The latest article in The Guardian from Richard Chartres says:
However, Nietzsche did not criticise the focus on compassion, but on pity. This is a very important difference. For Buddhists compassion is an indifferent sentiment generally wishing to help others, but not expressing any wants. The pity Nietzsche criticises is the exact opposite, where the most important thing is to focus on the suffering of others, sometimes to the detriment of their actual recovery. We can see this most shockingly in example of Mother Theresa, who glorified suffering to the point where she did not spend the money donated to her on clean needles and good conditions for her patients.
According to Chartres view of Nietzschean philosophy, Nietzsche should have been requesting his own death. For most of his life Nietzsche was "the infirm" himself relying on the cares of others. One of his major philosophical insights was the concept of "ressentiment". Resentment caused by lack of power. He gained this insight precisely from his own experience of personal weakness. He noted on the one hand that being unable to wield power while experiencing personal suffering can lead to resentment of those who have power over you.
He also noted that those who are lacking in power themselves may relish the small amount of power they have over those weaker than them and that this can sometimes take the form of excessive pity. If you feel powerless, one way to regain a sense of power is to seek out those in a position of weakness and assert yourself over them "for their own good".
A major concept in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is "the 'bestowing' vitue". This is where you gain power by encouraging respect from those around you. Nietzsche believed in having powerful leaders who gather support through inspiring those below them.
On the other hand, Nietzsche was greatly critical of the idea of the weak banding together to overthrow the strong. This was actually his criticism of 'social Darwinism' that said that there was a natural development from weaker to stronger. On the contrary, he argued, there's more often a development of a large mob of the weak who can overcome the strong through sheer number. Nietzsche's criticism of the weak was their tendency to band together to bring the strong down to their level. - Take the anti-immigration sentiment for example. People with decent skills set out to make a better life for themselves and to thrive. They are provided with an opening and they take it. What's the reaction of those where they move? These immigrants are told they have too much power, that they are in the wrong place, that their culture is too self-assured. Their personal strength is seen as a threat and those petty racists around them seek to bring them down.
The latest article in The Guardian from Richard Chartres says:
One of the many virtues of the 19th century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche, the subject of Giles Fraser's PhD studies, was that he hated the Christian faith for what it was – a devotion to the ethics of compassion. He hated the Christian faith for what he saw as its enfeebling solicitude for the weak, the outcast and the infirm. Nietzsche knew that the disappearance of the Christian God would lead to a new set of values.
We have witnessed in the experiments of the political religions of the 20th century, Communism and National Socialism, attempts to explore just what those values might be in practice.
But the serious consequences of atheism are still largely hidden from our contemporaries and indeed we are all caught up in a society shaped by the sovereignty of human willing and choice untrammelled by any higher good.
I'm sure I cannot be the only person who finds this highly disingenuous. If it was a virtue of Nietzsche to hate "devotion to the ethics of compassion" then why does he go on to claim that it was responsible for the horrors of the Nazis and the Soviet Union. Needless to say, Hitler, Lenin and Stalin were not followers of Nietzschean philosophy even from their own perspective. What Chartres wishes to say is that an atheistic stance inevitably leads to bad consequences and that Nietzsche's virtue is honesty in this regard.However, Nietzsche did not criticise the focus on compassion, but on pity. This is a very important difference. For Buddhists compassion is an indifferent sentiment generally wishing to help others, but not expressing any wants. The pity Nietzsche criticises is the exact opposite, where the most important thing is to focus on the suffering of others, sometimes to the detriment of their actual recovery. We can see this most shockingly in example of Mother Theresa, who glorified suffering to the point where she did not spend the money donated to her on clean needles and good conditions for her patients.
According to Chartres view of Nietzschean philosophy, Nietzsche should have been requesting his own death. For most of his life Nietzsche was "the infirm" himself relying on the cares of others. One of his major philosophical insights was the concept of "ressentiment". Resentment caused by lack of power. He gained this insight precisely from his own experience of personal weakness. He noted on the one hand that being unable to wield power while experiencing personal suffering can lead to resentment of those who have power over you.
He also noted that those who are lacking in power themselves may relish the small amount of power they have over those weaker than them and that this can sometimes take the form of excessive pity. If you feel powerless, one way to regain a sense of power is to seek out those in a position of weakness and assert yourself over them "for their own good".
A major concept in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is "the 'bestowing' vitue". This is where you gain power by encouraging respect from those around you. Nietzsche believed in having powerful leaders who gather support through inspiring those below them.
On the other hand, Nietzsche was greatly critical of the idea of the weak banding together to overthrow the strong. This was actually his criticism of 'social Darwinism' that said that there was a natural development from weaker to stronger. On the contrary, he argued, there's more often a development of a large mob of the weak who can overcome the strong through sheer number. Nietzsche's criticism of the weak was their tendency to band together to bring the strong down to their level. - Take the anti-immigration sentiment for example. People with decent skills set out to make a better life for themselves and to thrive. They are provided with an opening and they take it. What's the reaction of those where they move? These immigrants are told they have too much power, that they are in the wrong place, that their culture is too self-assured. Their personal strength is seen as a threat and those petty racists around them seek to bring them down.