--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > I don't think that Marx was totally worthless. His work on alienation
>is > valuable, IMHO. But, I have profound disagreements with basic
>assumptions > of his (and Nietchzie too). I think they reflect a low point
>in German > philosophy that foreshadows some of the horrors of the 20th
>century.
>
>Out of curiosity, what's your take on Nietzsche?
I liked his early work on the Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.
His moral philosophy, IMHO, is evil.
>It seems to me that he and Marx have virtually nothing in common,
I'd differ. They have a strong sense of German nationalism in common. This
sense is much different than American nationalism in so far as it is the
nationalism of a race, not a conceptual nationalism.
>and IMO he represents a (not the, but a) pinnacle of philosophy
I'd rate Kant head and shoulders above him.
>--it wasn't his fault that the anti-Semites and Nazis twisted >everything
>he wrote backwards.
Well, lets look at some of what he wrote. In the Genealogy of Morals, Essay
1, section VIII, we read:
"You find that difficult to understand. You have no eyes for something that
took two millennia to prevail?....From the tree trunk of Jewish vengeance
and hatred-the deepest and sublimest hatred in human history, since it gave
birth to ideals and a new set of values--grew a branch that was equally
unique: a new love, the deepest and sublimest of loves. From what other
trunk could this branch have sprung. But let no one surmise that this love
represented a denial of the thirst for vengeance, that it contravened the
Jewish hatred. Exactly the opposite is true. Love grew out of hatred as
the tree's crown, spreading triumphantly in the purest sunlight, yet having,
in its high and sunny realm, the same aims--victory, aggrandizement,
temptation--which hatred pursued by digging its roots ever deeper into all
that was profound and evil. Jesus of Nazareth, the gospel of love made
flesh, the "redeemer, who brought blessing and victory to the poor, the
sick, the sinners--what was he but temptation in its most sinister and
irresistible form..."
and so forth....my hands got tired there.
This certainly sounds anti-Semitic to me. I realize that Nietzsche was
reported to write a letter to his sister condemning anti-Semitism, but one
has to weigh public writings like this one a little heavier than private
letters, IMHO.
Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge.
Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up
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