Fredrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was by all means an ass, but I like and admire him. He saw women as nothing more than objects and Christ as nothing more than a good salesman. He attacked everything from the classics of Plato and Socrates to writers to religious leaders and philosophers. He challenged all of my fundamental beliefs right to the core. Everything about him makes me want to hate him, everything from his egotistical disregard for another person’s feelings to his lost of sanity and lonely death. Yet, even with all this bleak and obscure view of the world there was something to be admired about him. What made Nietzsche so great was that he wasn’t afraid to call BS on someone. He wasn’t afraid to challenge the most popular and conventional thinking of the times. He was his own man regardless of what people thought.

To Nietzsche there was no such thing as philosophy. Philosophy was more not a way to rationalize the world (the world is indifferent), but rather to rationalize or justify a man’s views upon an indifferent world. According to Nietzsche a man’s philosophy reveals more about that man then it does about the natural order of the world. Nietzsche criticized the Utilitarians for overplaying the importance of happiness. Happiness was not the end all and be all it. In fact, its through pain in which all of man’s advances has come. Utilitarians seek to elevate their self-worth and their low status by claiming that their sacrifices so how are for the good of man. He saw the Stoics as train-wrecks lost in an emotional limbo too depressed to live, but yet to cowardly to die. Not being able to withstand their inadequacies they take solace by imagining an indifferent world. All philosophies are just tools to rationalize the existence of not all men but the particular men of that philosophy. Religion too is a tool, it is necessary to ease the fear and fill the void brought out by death. Nietzsche called Judaism and Christianity a kind of slave-morality. He contrasts that with the master-morality the original morality that highlighted strength, courage, and power like the heroes form the stories by Homer. Slave-morality dealing with piety, and charity was just a way for slaves to overthrow the masters-morality and take power for themselves.

What this is all leading up to is an imposition of wills. With all these different philosophies contradicting each other it is necessary for man’s psyche to reaffirm his beliefs. He does this by convincing others that his way of thinking is most right. He does this by trying to impose his will on others. This is what Nietzsche refers to as a will of power. It affects everything we do. The way you talk, the way you dress, your language that you use and even your posture reflects your desire to impose your will on people. This passage is an attempt to impose my will (albeit in a very clear and charming way). The greater the man the better he is at imposing his view on others. To Nietzsche Jesus and Plato were great men, not because of their ideas, but because they manage to impose their will on so many people, changing the course of history.

What I am getting at here is be weary…

Be weary of the smooth talkers, the sharp dressers, and the giftedly eloquent. Be weary of the suit and tie guys, and the gentlemen so refined in etiquette. Be weary of the people that will look you straight in the eye and tell you how great and happy their life is. Know full well that such a combination is rarely if every achieved. Nothing great has every come in a pool of satisfaction, nothing great has ever been achieved without a driving force.

Be weary of those that speak in quotes

Because “all generalization, even this one, are dangerous.” Take caution of quotes that are left alone. Differentiate between a quote designed to sum up a thought for brevity purposes or one that resembles the thin lining of a balloon, only there to cover up a bunch of hot air. Be weary of rhetoric; be weary of my rhetoric. Be weary of loaded words like brevity and rhetoric for they usually are there to cosmetically substantiate a weak claim.

Be weary of those all too happy to give out advice, for advice that is not asked for is just an opinion.