MaroonBlog

it's very bizarre to me that someone with the religious and political beliefs of this blog's moderators would quote from nietzsche, but i presume its because this quote is from a list of quotes or some other secondary source and not the original material. this is the same philosopher who wrote that there is no such thing as meaningful "progress" in society or elsewhere since the universe will eventually collapse, that god is dead, etc.
be careful what you write in your attempts to make yourself sound wise, as it may have the exactly opposite effect.
 

A pity you didn't leave an e-mail address (faceless criticism is always easier), since I think it's unlikely that you'll see my reply. However, I'll proceed for fun anyway.

I'm quite aware that much of what Nietzsche wrote was quite off the wall, especially from a Christian perspective. However, that doesn't mean that everything he wrote is pronouncing 'God is Dead', etc. I've read a bit of Nietzsche (_On the Geneology of Morals_ and _Beyond Good and Evil_, as well as a smattering of aphorisms from his other works and bits of _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_); while I may have extracted the quote that provoked your comment from a quote site (quotationspage), I wasn't posting an author that I wasn't familiar with in a vane attempt to sound smart.

I think you're being unfair to Nietzsche (and to me, by asuming I hadn't read Nietzsche and was merely trying to 'look wise'--I merely post quotes that I find interesting/entertaining/provocative for fun, not in an attempt to look or sound wise) when you say that he said the Universe would eventually collapse, and that there is no possibility of progress. It sounds like you're the one that's regurgitating lines you heard that 'sound' wise.

Nietzsche cared greatly about that state of mankind, and tried with his writings to direct man away from his eventual fall into mediocrity. Nietzsche's mistake was turning away from God instead of towards God. It seems that a lack of understanding on his part as to what God and Christianity are lead him to conclude the world was headed towards nihilism (which he then tried to save the world from). A lot of what he wrote was very insightful and wise, both in specific quotes and aphorisms and in some of his general ideas. I wrote a short paper on this my first year in college that went through Nietsche's care for mankind; I'm not just making it up. It's a pity that Nietsche turned away from God and never found him again, because his calls for people to overcome and continually improve. Nietzsche is unhappy with God's lack of humanity, but much of what he advocates (self-improvement, etc) is really similar to Chrisian values. The fact that you try to sum of Nietzsche by quoting "God is Dead" seems to show that you don't understand much about Nietzsche.

In fact, the other day when I was talking to my girlfriend (an agnostic, for now at least...;) about Christianity I broke out _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_ in *defense* of Christianity. Yeah, that's right, Nietzsche in defense of Christianity (I think the idea is deliciously ironic). Just because Nietzsche might not have approved doesn't mean there isn't brilliance/wisdom in the quote that I extracted for my girlfriend or the one above.

I'll post the bit that I read to her to make things more clear (from the Kaufmann translation):

..."Behold, I show you the last man.

" 'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and he blinks.

" 'The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle; the last man lives longest.

" 'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth.

"Becoming sick and harboring suspicion are sinful to them: one proceeds carefully. A fool, whoever still stumbles over stones or human beings! A little poison now and then: that makes for agreeable dreams. And much poison in the end, for an agreeable death.

"One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.

"No sheperd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into the madhouse.

" 'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink.

"One is clever and knows everything that has ever happened: so there is no end of derision. One still quarrels, but one is soon reconciled--else it might spoil the digestion.

"One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.

" 'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink."

My argument was that without Christianity one is like the last man: directionless, ambitionless, tumbling into an abyss of meaninglessness.

Now, of course, Nietzsche would argue that self-actualization is the solution to such mediocrity.

I think what's really interesting is that the effect of Christianity on people (specifically the evangelical kind) seems to do much of the same thing to someone as trying to 'actualize the self' without all of the meaningless jargon and greater chance of falling into nihilism that one faces with Nietzsche's views.

Again, like I said, too bad he never found God in the end.

Hope that clears things up for you, 'anonymous'. Or you could just blink...