The Left is Now the Right: We laughed at the Republican busybody who couldn't joke, declared war on dirty paintings, and peered through your bedroom window. Now that person has switched sides, and nobody's laughing

submitted by quipu from taibbi.substack.com

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[–]mekelraptor 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Nietzsche's point is that Christianity was a rock upon which entire Western thought and ethics was built. To discard Christianity is, in fact, to discard West. One cannot remove foundation and expect the building to stand. The deepest philosophical problem is that atheistic modernity understands the need for God but, at the same time, has become to critical and skeptical to be able to believe in one. Marxists deeply desire Paradise but because they cannot believe in God they try to force their vision of paradise upon material world.

[–]VirgilGriff 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

To discard Christianity is, in fact, to discard West.

That wasn't his point. He says it right there. "Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?" The entirety of Thus Spake Zarathustra is about the overman. I.e., that when man takes it upon himself to kill God, the only choices left are to become like a God (capable of creating a system to replace religion that is even better) or to die.

[–]mekelraptor 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There is a theory that Nietzsche knew - consciously or not - that overman was a unreal concept. In a sense he knew that his solution to the question of meaning of life was wrong. This gradually drove him anxious up to his nervous collapse. Also overman is a concept from early and middle stage of his writing. Late Nietzsche is far more pessimistic - take for instance "European nihilism" from Will to Power.

[–]quipu[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This gradually drove him anxious up to his nervous collapse.

Well, that and syphilis. But otherwise I agree.