Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

[heydaralon]

This thread I thought could be about existentialism and maybe concentrating on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. I do love me Soren over that dreary fellow with the handlebar stash. Nietzsche seems to lack humility and seems more defeatist really.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”


https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes ... ierkegaard

GoG:
Schopenhauer is where its at imo. I am not well versed in Kierkegaard, but I think that this is another example where the master is better than the apprentice. Nietzsche got a lot of his ideas from Schopenhauer. The rest it seems he copied from Christianity. This reminds me of the Jung/Freud conversation we had. I think Freud is more interesting, but you are more of a Jung Guy. Weirdly enough, I just started re-reading Zarathustra recently. I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I really understand all the weird shit Nietzsche had in his head.

[heydaralon]

I think Nietzsche is kind of like Ayn Rand. If you read them when you are young, they will have an insanely strong influence on you. I read the fountainhead when I was around 17, and going through an identity crisis and that book made me want to not give a fuck, just like Howard Roarke. Eventually, I started reading about Rand and I got disillusioned with the whole thing, but when you are in your teens, there is this huge hole in your identity. Many things can fill that hole. The media understands this well, as do makers of clothing and cellphones. If you aren't really into consumer shit or sports, usually you will read books. That is what I did. This sounds dumb, but I was looking for something to give me an identity, and Rand worked in that way. I found out about Nietzsche years later, and when I read some of his aphorisms and his stuff like eternal resurgence, I got the same feeling I did with Rand. I don't know if teenagers and young adults were his target audience, but I can't really see it any other way. Making your own value system is not something most people with families, careers, and stakes in our current system do. At that point, they are attempting to instill the values they think are important into their children to get them to grow into good human beings. Most people on here are in their 30's if not older, and I think that makes them outside Nietzsche's reach. But I know I'd feel differently about him if I read him 3 or 4 years sooner. He might have become my favorite thinker.

[GloryofGreece]

This thread I thought could be about existentialism and maybe concentrating on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. I do love me Soren over that dreary fellow with the handlebar stash. Nietzsche seems to lack humility and seems more defeatist really.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”


https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes ... ierkegaard

GoG:
Schopenhauer is where its at imo. I am not well versed in Kierkegaard, but I think that this is another example where the master is better than the apprentice. Nietzsche got a lot of his ideas from Schopenhauer. The rest it seems he copied from Christianity. This reminds me of the Jung/Freud conversation we had. I think Freud is more interesting, but you are more of a Jung Guy. Weirdly enough, I just started re-reading Zarathustra recently. I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I really understand all the weird shit Nietzsche had in his head.

Schopenhauer was a bit of sellout to Nietzsche, correct? I know yes he got many things from him but wasn't he disillusioned with him over something fundamental...do you know what it was?

Why the hell are you rereading Zarathustra?

Read this instead...
https://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Bernar ... 0061578908
or this
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian- ... n+paradise

[heydaralon]

This thread I thought could be about existentialism and maybe concentrating on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. I do love me Soren over that dreary fellow with the handlebar stash. Nietzsche seems to lack humility and seems more defeatist really.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”


https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes ... ierkegaard

GoG:
Schopenhauer is where its at imo. I am not well versed in Kierkegaard, but I think that this is another example where the master is better than the apprentice. Nietzsche got a lot of his ideas from Schopenhauer. The rest it seems he copied from Christianity. This reminds me of the Jung/Freud conversation we had. I think Freud is more interesting, but you are more of a Jung Guy. Weirdly enough, I just started re-reading Zarathustra recently. I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I really understand all the weird shit Nietzsche had in his head.

Schopenhauer was a bit of sellout to Nietzsche, correct? I know yes he got many things from him but wasn't he disillusioned with him over something fundamental...do you know what it was?

Why the hell are you rereading Zarathustra?

Read this instead...
https://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Bernar ... 0061578908
or this
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian- ... n+paradise

Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche, but imo Nietzsche found him too submissive to the Will. Schopenhauer knew we were influenced far more by irrational emotional forces than we were by logic, and he resigned himself to that fact. Nietzsche wanted to transcend that fatalism through an act of sheer human will, forging a new superman value system. As a result, he was hugely influential in the third world in the past. Chinese, Turks, Indians, Arabs, South Americans all living in hopeless poverty and inferiority to percieved Western dominance took to Nietzsche like a moth to a flame. Nietzsche wrote a cryptic line: "If the crusaders understood what they were fighting, they would have knelt in the sand before it." This made him extremely popular among Muslim modernizers too. Its the same appeal that self help books have today. Its the idea that you aren't a victim to circumstance at all, and that you can make your own destiny if you are smart and determined enough. It is a powerful message, and probably a good one. But Nietzsche is a mess philosophically. I'm not an expert on his life at all, but he is a fascinating figure. Dude was just so damn weird. His brain was rotting literally.


I am going to check out your links. I see one of them is on the 100 years war. I know next to nothing about that conflict.

[GloryofGreece]

GoG:
Schopenhauer is where its at imo. I am not well versed in Kierkegaard, but I think that this is another example where the master is better than the apprentice. Nietzsche got a lot of his ideas from Schopenhauer. The rest it seems he copied from Christianity. This reminds me of the Jung/Freud conversation we had. I think Freud is more interesting, but you are more of a Jung Guy. Weirdly enough, I just started re-reading Zarathustra recently. I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I really understand all the weird shit Nietzsche had in his head.

Schopenhauer was a bit of sellout to Nietzsche, correct? I know yes he got many things from him but wasn't he disillusioned with him over something fundamental...do you know what it was?

Why the hell are you rereading Zarathustra?

Read this instead...
https://www.amazon.com/Agincourt-Bernar ... 0061578908
or this
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian- ... n+paradise

Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche, but imo Nietzsche found him too submissive to the Will. Schopenhauer knew we were influenced far more by irrational emotional forces than we were by logic, and he resigned himself to that fact. Nietzsche wanted to transcend that fatalism through an act of sheer human will, forging a new superman value system. As a result, he was hugely influential in the third world in the past. Chinese, Turks, Indians, Arabs, South Americans all living in hopeless poverty and inferiority to percieved Western dominance took to Nietzsche like a moth to a flame. Nietzsche wrote a cryptic line: "If the crusaders understood what they were fighting, they would have knelt in the sand before it." This made him extremely popular among Muslim modernizers too. Its the same appeal that self help books have today. Its the idea that you aren't a victim to circumstance at all, and that you can make your own destiny if you are smart and determined enough. It is a powerful message, and probably a good one. But Nietzsche is a mess philosophically. I'm not an expert on his life at all, but he is a fascinating figure. Dude was just so damn weird. His brain was rotting literally.


I am going to check out your links. I see one of them is on the 100 years war. I know next to nothing about that conflict.

The one about the 100 years War is actually a novel and reads fast. Its a well told tale. The other is a non-fictional account of the misinformation out there through history and journalism on Muslim Spain.

[heydaralon]

Looks like this Cornwell guy writes historical fiction about King Arthur and the Duke of Wellington. Does he incorporate real historical figures in his books? I used to read historical fiction on rome. There was an author who did a series on Gladiators. Its not the Colleen McCollough person. Its another guy. Simon something.

[Speaker to Animals]

I read his novels set in Arthurian Britain and his Saxon novels. Oh, also the Grail novels set during the Hundred Years War.

He writes good action scenes. You'd want to read him more for the fighting than anything else.

[heydaralon]

The best historical fiction I've ever read is a book called Augustus by John Williams. I liked it more than I Claudius. It's not so much about the battles, as it is the behind the scenes scheming and machinations of Marc Antony, Lepidus, Marcus Agrippa, and Caesar's assassins.It shows the life of the young emperor and it is told through a series of letters. Augustus himself doesn't speak until the final third of the book when he is an old man. It is oddly moving. The novel paints him as a person who cannot express their identity because of his position and has to exile his own family members when their actions become dangerous to Rome. Its a page turner though. I read it in a single sitting.

[GloryofGreece]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky/Quotes


-If there is no God, everything is permitted.
-To live without Hope is to Cease to live.
-The soul is healed by being with children.

Leo Tolstoy/Quotes


-Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
-The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
-All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
-Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.

[GloryofGreece]

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I