"He who attains his ideal by that very fact transcends it." This is one of a few different translations from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil Part Four - Aphorisms and Interludes. 1.) What do you think is the most accureate translation and why? 2.) What do you think Nietzsche meant by the statement?
An ideal is never attained. It is strived for, or worked towards. He means you need a new ideal. My opinion anyway. My German is not too good. Couldn't tell you the best translation. Do you mean in general? Walter Kaufmann is considered the best. I know a poor one: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." I've heard that one so many ways - hard to tell what is the correct translation. It's one of my faves too. Can't seem to find the original quote in german here on the net...must be a poor searcher... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, isn't it one or the other? If you attain your ideal, you have transcended them - therefore become greater than your ideal. If such is the case, your ideal was not an ideal, after-all it was rather an attainable goal, because by the very definition and nature of an ideal, one can not be greater than one's own ideal. That was first interpretation that hit me, but I was unsure because I am unsure of the meaning of "ideal" in German and it very well could have meant that once you have attained your ideal, you have grown as a person and it is now time to define a new ideal. This is why I think the translation is crucial - especially because there is no context to view the quote in. So, the question then, boils down to whether or not Nietzsche felt that ideals were attainable.
hmmm perhaps he thinks they are useless? A waste of time to make them up and strive for, might as well call them really long term goals? Anyway he was pretty sure *we* are not the end product of evolution. The guy liked to think really big, perhaps he thought we very well could achive something in the future that is impossible now(the greek ideal or whatever).
Kind of... Ideal is perfect, and if you can achieve something within your lifetime, it is not the best you could do. Thus, it is not ideal. If you worked for, and progressed in some skill, and achieved an "ideal" level of proficiency, and you are still alive by the time you do this, it is imaginable that you could, if given the same amount of time as before, progress further in it. Hence, this modern level of skill is not ideal, after all. Ideals are perfect. In theory, they are achievable. In reality, ideals are not "best as I could do" but "the best". An Ideal Man would be godlike. An ideal society would be untouchable. It is so far beyond us that in reality anything we CAN attain is not the summit of what can be attained. (note, I've read two whole pages of Nietzche; I don't claim to know what HE meant..)
If one doesn't think they have the right interpretation, make values, but ones that actually work in the real world and not lofty ideals...something in between Realism and Romanticism.
Actually, it was from a lecture on philosophy that I was introduced to his antisemitism. One of the top professors of philosophy in the United States did a series of lectures for The Teaching Company, which is an outstanding company with an incredible reputation. I assumed he knew what he was talking about. And I don't read Nazi rubbish, thank you very much. I only read the Nazi classics. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Swivel: Nietzsche wasn't an anti-Jew. Neither was he pro-Jew. He rarely makes topics on specific races.
He makes hundreds of topics on specific races. He has plenty negative to say about women, about Christianity, about Germans, about Jews. He was a very negative dude. I can't believe that people in modern times still respect the fucker.
He was a realist. Something the modern world needs a heavy dose of. If anything he marvelled at how the Jews were able to survive, despite all their losing... If a respected professor of philosophy is spewing such ignorance, it is small wonder post-modern philosophy sucks so much. What was his name? I wouldn't mind reading up on him. "Every nation, every man has disagreeable, even dangerous characteristics; it is cruel to demand that the Jew should be an exception... I would like to know how much one must excuse in the overall accounting of a people which, not without guilt on all our parts, has had the most sorrowful history of all peoples, and to whom we owe the noblest of all human beings (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world." Human, All Too Human, 'The European man and the destruction of nations' Here we see Nietzsche pro-Christ AND indifferent to Jews(even decrying anti-semitism - RAMPANT in his day). pro-Christ yet very very anti christian. "Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation through a long schooling in suffering, must become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred. In almost all contemporary nations, therefore—in direct proportion to the degree to which they act up nationalistically—the literary obscenity is spreading of leading the Jews to slaughter as scapegoats of every conceivable public and internal misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations, but of producing the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew is just as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnant. Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind. In spite of that I should like to know how much one must forgive a people in a total accounting when they have had the most painful history of all peoples, not without the fault of all of us, and when one owes to them the noblest man (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the most powerful book, and the most effective moral law in the world. Moreover, in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, when the Asiatic cloud masses had gathered heavily over Europe, it was Jewish free-thinkers, scholars, and physicians who clung to the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence in the face of the harshest personal pressures and defended Europe against Asia. We owe it to their exertions, not least of all, that a more natural, more rational, and certainly unmythical explanation of the world was eventually able to triumph again, and that the bond of culture which now links us with the enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity remained unbroken. If Christianity has done everything to orientalize the Occident, Judaism has helped significantly to occidentalize it again and again: in a certain sense this means as much as making Europe's task and history a continuation of the Greek. " Human all to Human. Here we see how he could easily be cherry-pick misquoted as people love to do nowdays. Usually journalists and politicians - not PROFESSORS! Good fuckinggod can't your prof do a fugging google search? I could go on and on ad nauseum(for you!). Even in the Anti-christ he only attempts to explain WHY Jews ARE hated. In essence I feel Nietzsche admires how they never give up, refuse to die and pull together morally(at least for themselves from everyone else's perspective). Why I think if Nietzsche had his way, we would ALL act like the Jews.
Thanks for the explanation. Another friend has told me that his antisemitism was his sister's contribution to his philosophy when he was going bonkers. I guess I'll just despise the dude for his philosophical nonsense, and not his racism. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, please print this page out and forward it to your old professor. You can do more for the development of justified rational thought in ten minutes doing that, than in a hundred pages of posting on the internet. Neitzsche - from portable neitszche page 456-457 "LETTER TO HIS SISTER Christmas 1887 . . . You have committed one of the greatest stupidities-for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life which fills me again and again with ire or melancholy. . . . It is a matter of honor with me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal in relation to anti-Semitism, namely, opposed to it, as I am in my writings. I have recently been persecuted with letters and Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheets. My disgust with this party (which would like the benefit of my name only' too well!) is as pronouncecd as possible, but the relation to Forster1, as well as the afteraffects of my former publisher, the anti-Semitic Schmeitzner, always brings the adherents of this disagreeable party back to the idea, that I must belong to them after all. . . . It arouses mistrust against my character, as if publicly I condemned something which I favored secretly-and that I am unable to do anything against it, that the name of Zarathustra is used in every Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheet, has almost made me sick several times. . . . P.S. if you can't grasp the value in something because you haven't looked into it, or just can't wrap your mind around it - that doesn't make it foolish.
Yes his sister was an ardent Nazi. Her influence in papers published after his death , so obveous, easy to remove. I think most people hate him because he is so hard to "pin down". He has been called worse than antisemite. He even awknowledges the possibility "God" exhists. Nor does he say otherworlds, other places might be awaiting us after death. However since we do not know such things exhist, he basically proposed a morality that would work not based on faith. A morality of THIS world, would work. A morality for the "good" and for the "evil" the same. Morality from the internal and not external. A morality because it was in the best interest for each person, one they would WANT to pursue. Not just working a certain way because they want to "get to heaven", but to gain power for the individual and the group(humanity).
Yes, he said, as many people on this forum have said too, that "morality" is not morality if it consists of jumping through hoops to get some prize at the end. On a utilitarian level it is just as functional either way, but on a philosophical or spiritual level, it is empty.
