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Reply #51: There is a difference between Nietzsche and the Nazis [View All]

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slack Donating Member (250 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-24-03 07:56 PM
Response to Reply #30
51. There is a difference between Nietzsche and the Nazis
Nietzsche died 1900. His philosophy was transformed into something else. Here a text from Alan Taylor, from the University of Texas at Arlington which explain some differences:
http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/fritz/anietzschenazi.html

Something about the meaning of "Übermensch":
The famous Nietzsche's metaphors, - "God is Dead!", "Wille zur Macht", "Übermensch" - appearing for the first time in Nietzsche's "Thus spoke Zarathustra" (1884) have been presented by the philosopher is a certain sequence: "God is Dead!" refers to the past, "Wille zur Macht" refers to the present, and "Übermensch" is associated with the future, though their temporal significance is carefully veiled by the literally and paradoxically 'timeless' concept of Eternal Recurrence.
<...>
"Übermensch" is a metaphor par excellence, though it can be rather intelligently interpreted in a literal way (as Robert Musil did in a circumspect fashion in "The Man of No Qualities", for The Man is oriented towards future and a somewhat wistful longing for Messiah, which is highly reminiscent of Nietzsche's Übermensch). But such is the paradoxical nature of all Nietzsche's doctrines - that whether they are read linearly or functionally - they still produce a dynamitic impact; it is, in fact, the subtlety characteristic of any work of genius. Übermensch with all his strength, and valor, and evil, and power is, therefore, not merely 'a puppet in the clouds', though at the same time it is - metaphorically, a puppet as all gods and all truths are in Nietzsche's world - Übermensch is an embodiment of Hope and individual hope, an earthly Goal as a substitute for belief in the afterworlds, a noble antithesis to the effeminate and degrading positivism, or, in short, a dream about a sublimation of the masses into few Individuals. Real and unreal, the posit has the ability to ignite and to blast, to ennoble, to strengthen, and so cannot be treated 'simply' as either/or, since as soon as its relation to reality becomes fixed, i.e. reduced to being unipolar, it, unlike magnets, looses the ability to cause an impact and therefore stops to be Nietschean.
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/gsandss/slavic/papers/metaphors.html

And a text from Charles M. Yablon, Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. "Nietzsche and the Nazis: The impact of National Socialism on the philosophy of Nietzsche."
http://www.google.de/search?q=cache:6WdCeZbexwQJ:www.cardozo.yu.edu/cardlrev/v24n2/Yablon%2520Final%2520Version.pdf+National+Socialism+nietzsche&hl=de&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8


Btw, I don't think Schwarzenegger believes in the philosophy of Nietzsche, which was transformed by the Nazis. Yes, he often talks of leadership, but I think he means to take responsibility. To act, not to philosophize. He got a hard childhood with beatings and severity. He early left his parents. He breaks with his father and he even didn't visit his grave. I think he was minted by America and his private american dream.

Kellanved brings another imho importend point: "he was one of the VIPs who opposed the Austrian coalition with Neo-Nazi Haider."
There are many european politicians who don't. Like Stoiber or Berlusconi.

I don't like him, because I think he simplify matters, he's a buddy-type and showman, but politic needs complex answers. I could never imagine to vote for him, but I don't think his childhood puts some Nazi-ideology into his thinking. I've more concern about the "normal" similarities to Nazi-ideology which I identify in the republican party.
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