I want to get into Nietzche. Where do I start?

[Colin Ex]

I'm hoping a few DU people are at least slightly versed in the man, and would help me find a starting point.

Thanks!

-C

[rumguy]

1. You start by getting med. insurance

that covers stays in mental wards...

[Colin Ex]

2. Touche, Salesman.

But I was kind of looking for literature. Besides, med insurance isn't exactly cheap. :-)

-C

[southerngirlwriter]

3. Took an entire course on him from a prof who wrote his thesis on him.

Three pieces of advice. :-)

First, learn to spell his name. It's Nietzsche.

Second, learn to pronounce it properly. It's not "Knee-Chee." It's "Knee-cha."

(I'm not implying that you didn't already know the first two. Just being thorough.)

Third, start with a book *about* Nietzsche, perhaps a chapter in a "Philosophy for Dummies" or some such book, just to get some context, and then start with "Beyond Good and Evil."

[Colin Ex]

4. Son of a bitch, I did spell it wrong.

Nietzsche. Damn me.

Thank you very much for your advice!

-C

[jonnyblitz]

12. I have one of those "Nietzsche for beginners" books

with cartoon drawings. I have the same for Marx and Foucault. Those are always good books for beginners.

[Jack Rabbit]

23. But if you pronounce it "knee-chee"

You have the famous remark:

Nietzsche is pietzsche

To which the proper rejoinder is:

Sartre is smartre

(when pronounced with the Parisian "sart" instead of "sar-tra")

[forgethell]

5. Why?

n/t

[Colin Ex]

6. So I can be

a more well-read and educated person.

-C

[cryofan]

7. Why Bother? The best philosophers of all time are living today!

Yeah, he was a very educated and insightful person for his day, but there were only a virtual handful of educated people in the world in his day. Today, however, there are millions of far more educated people.

Neitzche was ignorant compared to the best educated people living today.

You can find great philosophers all over the place on the Net.

[Colin Ex]

10. It can be argued that

to understand what's out there now, you have to understand the foundations it's built upon. Instructions for modifying lights or computers or what have you is pretty much useless if you don't understand basic circuitry, you know what I mean?

-C

[Deesh]

8. Hi, Colin

You're undertaking a great study of a great mind. My hat's off to you.

There are a lot of biographies of Nietzsche out there, and also several reviews of these by good writers. The New York Times archive would be a good source for some of these.

If you already have a general Historyof Philosophy text someplace, look in the bibliography and see if anything there sounds good. Then check a university library and hunt down a copy of the books you want.

If you have some time, why not write a letter to a graduate student of a nearby university's Philosophy Department? The Humanities Office will give you a name. Offer to meet one or two of those folks for a pizza and have them bring a recommended reading list. A reading list in Nietzsche is a bargain for a pizza tab.

Anyway, good luck to you. I admire what you're doing.

[Colin Ex]

11. Thank you very much.

I'll be able to put your advice to good use. The humanities building is the closest to my dorm. :-)

Thanks again, man.

-C

[BiggJawn]

9. Buy him a few drinks...

:evilgrin:

Sorry, my experience with him is limited to "God is Dead" and "That which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger". IOW, "You can't scare me, I had step-kids"

[tkmorris]

13. I hear good things about....

a book called Basic Writings of Nietzsche . Apparently it's a collection of five of his most popular works, including Beyond Good and Evil which I recall liking a lot.

I'm glad you brought him up, it's been awhile. I may go down and check this book out tomorrow :)

[DS1]

14. and the end?

:shrug:

[m-jean03]

15. start with his misogynist, pro-war ramblings

in Zarathustra. You'll have read enough to conclude he is irrelevant.

[Beetwasher]

18. LOL!

Obviously someone who doesn't get it...

[m-jean03]

19. Do you mean me, or him?

I mean, I know he has written lots of beautiful, interesting stuff and had a great, questing intellect.
While maybe I shouldn't have declared his irrelevance, I just can't get enthusiastic about someone who seemed so spiritually out of touch. He was part of another era, I can appreciate him as such, certainly a major force in the evolution of thought, etcetera etcetera. But he doesn't feel timeless to me.
We need more hope in these times anyway.

I'm just a gentle soul. I don't dig Niechtze. He was anti-semitic too, right?

[Beetwasher]

25. No, he was not an anti-semite

This is one of the reasons for the split w/ Wagner...

Indeed, he was not a spiritualist, that's much the point of the Ubermensch and a lot of his writings. God is dead and man can overcome his own failings without the help faith in dieties...N was not a war monger either. N's writings are more misunderstood than just about any other philosopher because the Nazi's propogandized and twisted some of his concepts into the complete opposite of what was intended.

IMO, N is incredibly relevant, but I guess he's an acquired taste...

[UTUSN]

26. Kick, for This Thread Needs a Kick n/t

[JVS]

16. Start with the ancients

work your way up in time

[Beetwasher]

17. Use the Kaufmann Translations

He also has excellent commentary that will help you in the understanding of the works...You're in for a real treat if you're really serious about philosophy! Thus Spoke Zarathustra is one of my all time favorite reads. You could start there or maybe Ecce Homo...It's deep shit no matter where you begin...There's no shallow end of the pool when it comes to N...

[Kamika]

20. Watch " A fish named Wanda"

lots of nietzche material

[Selwynn]

21. Some recommendations from a philosopher:

Hi there Colin Ex!

This recommendation is by no means authoritative. But I have spent a lot of time studying the existentialists, and I would include Nietzsche in that group.

I would recommend the following:

First you would really thank yourself for getting a book which gives some overview/biographical information on his life. It will really help you a lot. I can highly recommend the book, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy by William Barret. It is a stellar book, and in addition to its study of existentialism in general, it also pay specific attention to Nietzsche in particular. It also happens to be a very accessible read.

Then, I would start with some primary sources. Personally, I want to recommend reading Beyond Good and Evil before reading Thus Spake Zarathustra. I feel BGE is more accessible. But I admit to a personal bias - I found the chapter on the "Free Spirit" in BGE to be Nietzsche at his finest.

Finally, you pretty much have to read Thus Spake Zarathustra, as it is the most famous of Nietzsche's work, as well as being the heart of his philosophy. "I will teach you the Uberman: Man is something to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him?"

Just remember that Nietzsche went insane... ;)

PS - if after all that you still find yourself longing for more Nietzsche, there is always The Nietzsche Reader" in the Viking Library Series - selections from most of his works with a small amount of commentary.

[WillyBrandt]

28. Thanks!

What an excellent post. I'm actually going to change my reading plans because of your post...

The rec for Irrational Man--which I had never heard of--seem perfect. Onwards to Amazon

[UTUSN]

22. Do: 1) the Ancients, 2) a Good History of Ideas, 3) KAUFMANN

As usual, brilliant DU-ers have given the valuable leads here. And NIETZSCHE is one of a group who are often portrayed as strange, impenetrable, and on some weird and original tangent all their own, when the secret that binds ALL of these seeming mavericks ---NIETZSCHE, STRAUSS, PAGLIA, and Victor Davis HANSON (CHEENEE's guru)--- is the CLASSICS Department, the pre-Christian values they are INDIVIDUALLY steeped in ---and wanted to be a part of, literally.

It's not that NIETZSCHE "influenced" the ones after him, it's that EACH of these WENT BACK individually to the Ancients. They want to live by the "strong" pre-Christian values of STRENGH, physical force/domination, PRIDE ("gloating") as opposed to the "weak" values of humility, mercy, turning the other cheek.

And it's NOT that NIEZCHE was a proto-Nazi. Richard WAGNER *was* one and NIETZSCHE broke with him. After he went into his mental helplessness his unintellectual sister took control of his body and dressed him as a prophet, literally, with people visiting to pay obeissance, which would have REPELLED him, and herself courted the proto-Nazis according to her own small understanding of him, or just for her self-interest.

CHEENEE did a little dance right before the Iraq attack, presenting Victor Davis HANSON to the media as his guru. This dude has been laying out the PNAC working plans for public consumption, the two-pronged thing of active war (preemptive/proactive) plus "noble goals" (forcing democracy on others). His role has been to dig up historical examples as precedents for what the PNAC-ers want to do anyway.

Here's a whimsical, but prescient, capturing of what goes on with the Classics types:

******QUOTE*****

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Music: Stephen Sondheim Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim Book: Larry Gelbart + Burt Shevelove Film: 1966

"Bring Me My Bride" (I, Miles Gloriosus)
http://libretto.musicals.ru/text.php?textid=5&language=1

....Let haste be made,
I cannot be delayed!
There are lands to conquer,
Cities to loot
And people to degrade!

SOLDIERS
Look at those arms!
Look at that chest!
Look at them!

MILES
Not to mention the rest!
Even I am impressed. ....

SOLDIERS
Look at that foot!
Look at that heel!
Mark the magnificent muscles of steel!

MILES
I am my ideal! ....

MILES
COURTESANS
I, Miles Gloriosus,
I, Paragon of virtues,
Him, Miles Gloriosus
Him, Paragon of virtues,

SOLDIERS
A man among men!
With sword and with pen!

MILES
I, in war the most admired,
In wit the most inspired,
In love the most desired,
In dress the best displayed,
I am a parade! ....

*****UNQUOTE****

Here's HANSON giving marching orders for the Iraq attack:

********QUOTE*******

Full HANSON archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

Nat'l Cathedral: (History or Hysteria?) http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson032803.asp
.... In disgust at the hysteria, I took a drive to Washington to the National Cathedral on Sunday. Big mistake. All except one of the entrances were closed due to security concerns. I walked in under the wonderful sculptures of Frederick Hart, an authentic American genius who almost single-handedly restored classical realism to American sculpture. A small statue of a kneeling Lincoln, who sent thousands into battle to eradicate slavery, was in the corner. A plaque of quotations from Churchill, about the need for sacrifice in war, was on the wall. So I was feeling somewhat good again — until I heard the pious sermon on “shock and awe.” In pompous tones the minister was deprecating the war effort, calling down calumnies upon the administration, and alleging the immoral nature of our nation at war.

Such a strange man at such a strange time, I thought. His entire congregation, by its own admission, is in danger from foreign terrorists (why else bar the gates?). His church is itself a monument to the utility of force for moral purposes. His own existence as a free-speaking, freely worshiping man of God is possible only thanks to the United States military — whose present mission he was openly deriding at the country’s national shrine. ....
*************UNQUOTE********

And here's an example of how NIETZSCHE was distorted by the Nazis, with HANSON giving his views on Mexican immigration, "Mexifornia", (not "racist" despite whether we agree or disagree), with wingnut racists taking over his word for their own purposes:

**********QUOTE********
Mexifornia: http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_2_do_we_want.html
Thousands arrive illegally from Mexico into California each year—and the state is now home to fully 40 percent of America’s immigrants, legal and illegal. They come in such numbers because a tacit alliance of Right and Left has created an open-borders policy, aimed at keeping wage labor cheap and social problems ever fresh, so that the ministrations of Chicano studies professors, La Raza activists, and all the other self-appointed defenders of group causes will never be unneeded. ....

And while the Democrats think the illegals will eventually turn into liberal voters, the actual Hispanic vote so far remains just a small fraction of the eligible Mexican-American pool: of the 14,173 residents of the central California town of Hanford who identified themselves as Latino (34 percent of the town’s population), for example, only 770 are registered to vote.

My sleepy hometown of Selma, California, is in the dead center of all this. ....It is a schizophrenic existence, living at illegal immigration’s intersection. Each week I pick up trash, dirty diapers, even sofas and old beds dumped in our orchard by illegal aliens—only to call a Mexican-American sheriff who empathizes when I show him the evidence of Spanish names and addresses on bills and letters scattered among the trash. ....

Yet I also walk through vineyards at 7 AM in the fog and see whole families from Mexico, hard at work in the cold—while the native-born unemployed of all races will not—and cannot—prune a single vine. By natural selection, we are getting some of the most intelligent and industrious people in the world, people who have the courage to cross the border, the tenacity to stay—and, if not assimilated, the potential to cost the state far, far more than they can contribute. ....

Our elites do not understand just how rare consensual government is in the history of civilization, and therefore they wrongly think that they can instill confidence by praising the other, less successful, cultures that aliens are escaping from rather than explaining the dynamism and morality of the civilization that they have voted for with their feet. ....
*****UNQUOTE****

The racists:
from this website: http://www.bustamanteno.com/Lawlessness.html comes this:

[Wulfian]

24. The Anti-Christ(ian) the rest will fall into place

[durutti]

27. Don't.

Nietzsche = right-wing pseudointellectual's wet dream.

Read Hegel instead.

[WillyBrandt]

29. You mean Hegel, the precursor to both Hitler and Marx?

Please. It's worthless to analyze any of these folks in terms of contemporary political positions. Nietzsche has a lot--both bad and brilliant--to say. He's worth a read, especially since he's a brilliant writer.

Hegel... whoa.. good luck getting through that.

[Doc_Technical]

31. Taken out of context....

"You are going to women? Don't forget your whip.

[WillyBrandt]

32. Did you ever read Bertrand Russell's take on that quote

... don't have it on hand, but it's in his History of W. Philosophy... it was hilarious

[smirkymonkey]

30. Agreed...

except it wouldn't hurt to have a cursory knowledge of Nietzsche just for some perspective. There is a pretty good introductory book on the history of Philosophy from the ancient Greeks to present day - published by Dorring Kindersley (DK) - variety of contributors. Don't have the exact title, but it's a great overview - more in depth and intelligent that the "Dummies" book.

Start with a discipline that appeals to you, read intro versions of those philosophers and work from there. Usually, there are a number of previous philosophers who have influenced those who have come later, and it helps to work up from the earliest influence.

You could really spend a lifetime on this, but it is great that you are getting started. I have found it to be very mind expanding and even comforting at times (having your own confused ideas put into words), but keep in mind that you should make your own judgements and allow it to inspire you rather than parrot what the scholars say just to impress someone. Free your mind and have fun!

[tishaLA]

33. I'd start with

Genealogy of Morals and Birth of Tragedy, if it were me, but it depends what you want to "get" from Nietzsche. My field is literature, so "Bith of Tragedy" makes sense to me, whereas "Beyond Good and Evil" makes sense to others. Any of his works is more entertaining than, say, Hegelian dialectics.

People try to demean Nietzsche because of the expurgation his sister did to his works after his death (and which the Nazis used to promote anti-Semitism); don't worry abou that. Nobody can be hald accountable for how people understood wildly edited versions of one's works. In fact, two of the most radical, progressive philosophers of the 20th century, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, wrote lovingly about Nietzsche's "philosophy with a hammer" and, in Foucault's case, his entire career can be seen as a footnote to Nietzsche. Deleuze, BTW, wrote what many Nietzsche scholars consider THE indispensible book on Nietzsche, so you might want to check that out.