Comments for Nietzsche: An American Icon? at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 14 out of 14 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Thu, 23 May 2013 12:25:57 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10309 I'll stick to the two sources I made reference to earlier: Max Scheler's "Ressentiment" and Christos Yannaras'"On the Abscence and Unknowability of God." In former we find Scheler defending Christianity against Nietzsche's litany of assaults in "Geneology of Morals," with particular attention to N.'s notion of ressentiment. Scheler's core rebuttal to N. is simple, but true: N. does not understand Christian caritas. (I actually think that elsewhere we might find a defense for N. on this, but not in "Geneology of Morals.") In the latter we find Yannaras using N.'s famous and misunderstood declaration "God is dead" in "The Gay Science" as a way to situate and understand the modern condition and the need for an apophatic approach to theology. In both short books I think we see engagement with N. that is fruitful, critical, but done in a spirit that avoids all this popularized nonsense from the virulent atheists and the pious theists. In other words the total rejection of N. here is kin to the total acceptance of him by atheists who do not read him but like what they think he is saying. (N. would HATE so-called "New Atheists," by the way.) N. is worth reading by people who want to understand HIM and his world, first and foremost, and from there might begin to see beyond. Any other reading is another form of willy-nilly postmodernism. For one, N. is a beautiful writer with a serious concern for the role of beauty in the life of the person. As someone concerned with both aesthetics and education, I find his work useful for my own attempts to advocate for the Catholic imagination in the public square. (I am giving a talk titled "Life, Death, and the Catholic Imagination" this month at Franciscan University of Steubenville, my alma mater.) The way N. writes about reading, for example, is deeply Catholic, eucharistic even. N. is also a big advocate for a particular form of classical education. My main point is that using N. in these predictable, ongoing culture wars is getting old and bespeaks a tremendous lack of imagination from the most imaginative intellectuals I know: Catholics. Let Mr. Bloom keep the anti-N. diatribe (in "The Closing of the American Mind") and let's look to something more in the line of Mr. Macintyre's treatment in "After Virtue" and the (shorter) books I've mentioned above. I could even share a short response piece I've published on the matter (on reading, that uses and is critical of N.). Otherwise, this whole popularized affair becomes something, ironically, verging on the relativistic. We surely don't want that now do we? - Sam Rocha Fri, 09 Mar 2012 07:16:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10296 Sorry for the many typos, ladies and gentlemen. My point to Mr. Rocha is that Nietzsche's view of the world and of the origin and nature of morality has to lead first to relativism, because a universe devoid of intent is devoid of meaning, and that relativism then many sliding into nihilism. One simply cannot arrive at any moral absolutes if one imagines that the universe exists by itself and that morality, as Nietzsche argues in the Geneology of Morals, grew out of soical and biollgical necessities, as so many modern people imagine. Whether Nietzsche intended for his writings to have the horrible conquences that they did we cannot know. In reesponse to Carl I would like to suggest that is is hardly only Americans who are so in love with the morally diseased writers that have dominated the literary and philosophical landscapes since the dawn of the Romantic era, the very era when men began to make gods of themselves. - Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:36:24 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10282 Markrite, Typos aside, Mr. Coleman has a good point, at least in his first sentence. Morality as a covert assertion of will to power and assertion of will as the only morality simply is relativism and narcissism, despite Mr. Rocha's attempt to claim otherwise. And those positions are clearly stated by Nietzche. The very title of one of his books is Beyond Good and Evil. I'd like to see more detailed and specific support for his thesis from Nietzche's work from Mr. Rocha. - Fred Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:51:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10281 Why are American intellectuals always in love with writers who are mentally defective and who see the world through the most depressed and base values? - Carl Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:38:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10280 If Thos. C. Coleman jr. would slow down when he's entering his thoughts into his computer we'd probably all know what the pith of his thought is.But his last post is inexcusable. What exactly were you tying to say, Thomas? In any case I doubt that EWTN had it wrong when they allegedly stated that Nietzsche "intentionally infected himself with syphilis"? Isn't that the sort of thing that those who, like Nietzsche, believe in living life "on the cutting edge" do? Kind of similar to the Hollywood actor who bragged that at celebrity gatherings he enjoyed the public though surreptitious doing of lines of coke, getting off on the thrill of doing such under the noses of everyone? I don't see much contradiction there, especially when the author of the piece on Nietzsche avers that he loved living in some kind of a daring "superman" mode? Interesting post by Mr. Marlin - markrite Wed, 07 Mar 2012 05:24:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10272 @Sam rocha: Nietasche correctly concluded that if the cosmos does not exist by an act of the Will of a Creator there cannot be either absolute evil or absolute good. That is what we call relativism, shich is a kind of brach one grsaps at deparately before falling into outright nihilism. What else was Hietzsche writing about in his letter to Franz Overbeck, "My life is now lived that someone will show me that my own truths are incredible." How simple it would have been to have gotten on his knees and sought foregivenss rather than cast himsefl as "Dionysius versus the Crucified"? So old Fritz had some insights into resentment, and he even wrote some very readable tings about music. But in the end must we not ask if the horors of the 20th Century, including some being perpetrated now have come into being without his utter rejction of Christ, something about which he lied. Yes, remember that although his contemporaries recall him as quite pious when he was young he later denied being an atheist on the grounds that it had never occurred to him that God did exist. It is still not too late to pray for his torutred soul. Has anyone else ever seen an eerie similairty to that famous piciture of N. and his mother with the Pieta? - Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:21:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10271 Nietzsche's brittle and unpleasant American admirers show what happens when a legitimate admiration for the aristocratic is divorced from the revelation that all men are made in the image and likeness of God. For a very nice literary rejoinder, I'd recommend Francois Mauriac's novella, "A Kiss for the Leper." - Tony Esolen Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:28:34 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10270 @Sam Rocha: Mr. Marlin may not have encapsulated Nietzsche as expertly as you might. But there is a big difference between what some say, and what others take them to mean. That is true with Nietszche. While he may have meant what you say he meant (and I'm not going to attempt to argue with you on that point), those in the public sphere who admire him have taken his words and his thoughts to mean something much more akin to what Mr. Marlin has stated in this article. And that is dangerous for a society that is premised on the belief that "all men are created equal and have been endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." - JB Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:09:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10269 You, sir, have a very poor understanding of Nietzsche. I suggest you read a short primer by Christos Yannaras, "On the Abscence and Unknowability of God," to see a better vision of his apophatic thought. Nietzsche's philosophy, like Emerson's, is neither narcissistic nor is it relativistic. More importantly, he frames the modern condition in a prophetic way that cannot, I think, be ignored. During his Catholic period, Max Scheler wrote a wonderful critique of Neitzsche's theory of "ressentiment" in a book by the same title. He does not reject Nietzsche outright, and he actually shows the fecundity of his thought, and the limits of the his religious imagination. This is a much better way to engage Nietzsche, I think. - Sam Rocha Tue, 06 Mar 2012 08:11:34 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10268 I forgt to point out that the name of none other than Theodore Roosevelt belongs on the list of prominnet Americans who found inpsiration in Nietzsche's writings. - Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. Tue, 06 Mar 2012 07:43:15 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10267 Nietzsche did not exactly spend "the reaminder of his life in an insane asylum" after his 1899 breaksown. He had times of relative sanity during which he was cared for at home by his sister and entertained his friends with his imporvisations at the piano. (At least you did not repeat the story that he had intentionally infected himself with syphilis! Yes I hard that one on EWTN.) His poison continuoues to flow into our national bloodstream preciselty becuase of its rejection of Christ. I have written here before of an active duty US Navy chaplain (Protestant) who uses N's The Anti-Christ as a text for a class he teaches to military officers. This young minister in uniform used that book not as a way that Chrstians should NOT think but as model of ehtical thiking. The same man calles himself a neo-Marxist! At first glannce it might seem that the ideas of the one who most loudly denounced egaliitarianism could not mix with those of a Marxist, but the both have in common a hatred of God. That is what "liberation theology" is really all about. To say it again, the seeds of the errors spread by both Marx and Nietzsche were sown long before either man was born, but it wan't until the late nineteenth century that those ideas were linked with political structutres that could give them muscle. Now they rule. Thank you, Geroge Marlin, for shining your light on this today. - Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. Tue, 06 Mar 2012 07:32:51 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10264 Thank you, Mr. Marlin, for this particularly timely article. Hopefully, people will have "eyes to see" and "ears to hear" what is happening in our country today. Your last line regarding human beings as made in the image of God is reflected today in the words of Michael Cook over at Mercator Net. His intro to today's articles talks about Christian churches being the ultimate democracy: young and old, strong and infirm, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, etc. - all equal in the sight of God. Hopefully, people will be able to see through today's "power politics" to understand that "survival of the fittest" would do away with the weak, the vulnerable, and anyone considered by the few to be less than worthy. What a difference between God's world of love and that of Nietzsche's ilk. - Sherry M. Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:53:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10262 Some embrace Nietzsche because they see him as a logical successor to Emerson. Some embrace him simply because they love power and lawlessness: they see in him a justification for understanding freedom as "I get what I want because I want it and I'm strong enough to take it." Sadly enough this is the view of freedom that is running rampant in our society, with all its ill effects. It lies at the heart of the widespread admiration for those who "get away with it." t lies at the heart of the conflict between races and ethnic groups. It lies at the heart of the conflicts between men and women, too, as the understanding that marriage is mutual self-surrender out of love for and in benefit to the opposite and that courtship is a testing and preparation for this mutual self-surrender falls ever by the wayside. Were we to rid our society of this pestilential view of things, life here would become much calmer, more orderly, and more peaceful. The price is surrender not only of one's rights, in some cases, but, more importantly, of one's wants, for everything that one wants is not necessarily good, and the life of virtue is meant to help us measure things correctly, give others what they are due, persist in the good whatever the cost, and forego those things that distort our measure of reality and our performance within it. - Dave Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:39:24 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/nietzsche-an-american-icon.html#comment-10260 Son of a Lutheran minister eh? Well this might make some sense. I know I know, this might seem "close to the edge" but being an ex-Lutheran, Missouri Synod (Teutonic flavor of Lutheranism), I think I understand Nietzsche’s beliefs might be a possible rebellion to his Father. - Frank Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:24:27 +0100