Materialism>idealism

I’m not trying to get into a whole debate, it’s just interesting to me the way some people cling to these idealist philosophers. Same w the stoics imo. As a guy who used to read all of them… they’re useless to actually understanding life. Like it can be helpful to read them in order to understand how the Western worldview evolved, but they really shouldn’t be taken as some sort of handbook - which many seem to do. (reactionaries). People who read Nietzsche or Plato and think they have some sort of secret insight is my biggest red flag irt pseudo-intellectual who is just going to waste your time… same with Dostoevsky btw.

Confucius is based af though.

Edit: Also, yes these kinds of people exist- my former mentor/boss who spent decades at a white shoe DC law firm would accept any idea if you found a quote by Plato to justify it lmao.

  • Muad'Dibber
    4•2 years ago

    I definitely recommend reading this if you have any positive thoughts about Nietzches philosophy. Its completely anti-feminist, anti-socialist, pro-war, orientalist, and a lot more.

    • Oatsteak
      6•2 years ago

      Thanks for sharing this. He’s so much worse than I initially thought. I have a very hard imagining any context that could make him even remotely redeemable after reading that.

      • Muad'Dibber
        5•2 years ago

        No probs! We have yet to see any Nietzche defender post a single quote.

        • Seanchaí (she/her)
          7•2 years ago

          It’s almost like he only said really troubling things, and the people who like him are projecting their own views of what he actually meant. But he’s dead, so we can’t ask him, we can but read the things he published (and be pissed about how terrible they are)

          • SpaceCowboyOP
            5•2 years ago

            I recommend Domenico Losurdo’s book on Nietzsche, this review on midwestern marx gives a decent snapshot of it, and directly addresses how Kaufman rehabilitated Nietzsche. Losurdo essentially follows Nietzsche’s life from beginning to end and situates every piece he wrote in that timeline to contextualize it.

            • Seanchaí (she/her)
              5•2 years ago

              Thank you! I’ll give it a read. I find it incredibly telling that the Nietzcshe defenders are largely relying on “no you’re not smart enough to get it” instead of like…actual writings that would lend some support to their arguments.

              Doesn’t strike me as a particularly Marxist way to examine something, but hey, love to be told by some man on the Internet that he’s smarter than me because I didn’t arrive at the same conclusions as him.

              • SpaceCowboyOP
                6•2 years ago

                Agreed. One thing I have noticed on all fronts not just philosophy is that people have a hard time internalizing just how distorting the works of the bourgeois intelligentsia are. Like I studied economics in college and to make money in the world I literally had to throw out everything they taught me. The entire role of like 90% of academia is to obfuscate the truth - whether they even realize it or not.

      • Muad'Dibber
        2•2 years ago

        I don’t think you read the right link, that’s a compilation of Nietzche’s own quotes, not a full analysis.

          • Muad'Dibber
            5•2 years ago

            Yup I don’t get it. Nietzche says shit like “only men of intellect should hold property”, “all women do is lie, and their only role should be to sexually please warriors”, “socialism is for the weak and inequality is great”, and “blond beasts of prey need to hellenize the world”… and ppl act like he’s some profound thinker and not some incel from the 1800s.

            • SpaceCowboyOP
              4•2 years ago

              Oh but you’re taking him out of context bruh.

              I apologize for being so discourteous in this thread but this is really riling me up because it is so blatantly a repeat of the Foucault-era tactics in obscuring actual discussion about the power of ideas and thinkers like Nietzsche

          • Muad'Dibber
            6•2 years ago

            This is a historically standard reactionary trend, to say extremely heinous shit, then their defenders say “context!!!”. You even see it a lot today with ppl like vaush, jordan peterson, ben shapiro, etc.

          • SpaceCowboyOP
            3•2 years ago

            stupid lmao.

            You read a whole book and certain lines jump out at you. You share the quotes which encapsulate the authors perspective. If you shut off the ability to share quotes then you shut off the ability to critique.