Okay, Nietzsche. I just want to kind of
correct a few things; you know the last module
we looked,  a couple of exams ago, we
were kind of tracing this different
movement; the movement of truth basically. There have been different responses to it, you know
the Kierkegaardian sense, that truth is always subjective, which means; and this is ,
I've noticed this kind of in online class's exams.
Kierkegaard is not saying that you
can't have ethics, he's not saying that. I
know, I know that can be difficult to tease out. I mean Kierkegaard wrote
a lot, we are just reading little bits and pieces. What Kierkegaard is basically
saying is, whatever ethics you have are
always already humanistic. They're
determined by humans, they're not determined by God or anything else. When it comes to
morality and God, good luck with that.
Because God is not you , and this kind of
echoes the Greeks too in that same sense that if God
wants you to kill your children, then you kill your children. If
the society says it's immoral it's the
society is wrong not God. Does that make sense?
That's what Kierkegaard is saying. That's
why Kierkegaard also thinks that you
really can't be a Christian and live a
society. That's, well, that's
the point he is trying to make. Which he
thinks is an interesting claim,
I think it is too. Basically God cannot be pragmatic. That's about
the best way to put it. There's no pragmatism in God. God does things because God has his
reasons if you will. But his
reasons aren't limited to "reason" and
that's again what Kierkegaard is trying to get us to see. You know then Hume kinda
says--this is not necessarily chronological--Hume says, you know
all we have is ideas and impressions. You don't really know. Truth is what we say it is, but
then Hume sneaks this sneaky thing through the backdoor; sympathy. He says well,
morals are basically an act of sympathy,
because we care for one another because
we look like one another, and that's why we
have Ethics. Which for him is
justification, that make senses.
That justifies it; sympathy justifies
Ethics, you don't need to go beyond that.
The desire to go beyond it Hume thinks
is just a hangover from religion, or the Greeks, or
Plato, or whatever. It's kind of that
sense of how we ground things. That said
Nietzsche sees all this. Nietzsche was
by far the smartest of all of them put
together. I am gonna be very clear he was a
brilliant scholar, he read multiple
languages. He said the guy named Jacob Burckhardt,
who was an historian, he was really the first person to go: hey maybe we should
rethink what we're saying about the
Greeks? And what we looked at in the Genealogy of
Morals, that's Nietzsche saying let's see
how we got here. And his claim is, just
get the long and short of it, is you that in the old world; who
educate all of Athens? [Students: Homer]. Yes, Homer, good good good. This is gonna pop back up
that's why I keep harping on it, because
he's going to show back up. Not by name
but by methodology. How did Homer school all of Athens again? [Student: Through stories right?] Yes exactly, by
telling stories, or through the "mythos". Those stories, or what Nietzsche is
trying to tell us, is those stories were
Noble. That's the turn he likes to use,
the Noble. The aristocrats. It was the rich, it was the powerful, it was
the dominant class; it was the 2%. Take that for what it is or whatever term you want to use there. And
of course we are talking about a warlike
period, where you know you
became great through heroism, you
know heroic acts and battle and things
like that. So strength and courage those
were these key things
that were necessary. And then what
Nietzsche says, and I think he is kinda
onto something here. That said, I mean to understand you have to kind of put your religion aside.
Because Nietzsche is not
attacking, well, he's not attacking any
particular religion, he's attacking any
religion. He hates Buddhism as
much as he does Christianity if not more
so. So it's not, don't think he's
anti-Christian, he's really anti-faith in a weird sort of way. Because what he
sees in it, and it's interesting argument,
again you'd have to tease this stuff out.
We have to move a little slow here, I mean again the ancients believed in the gods, but the
gods were not there to protect you. Or
let me kind of pause,  the gods might
protect you, but the god's might not protect you. So there
was a tedious relationship to the gods.
That's where tragedy comes from, with all
this kind of sense that the Greeks argued as humans we have just
enough knowledge to know the gods exist
but not enough knowledge to understand what the hell
they're talking about. You gotta kinda wrap
your head around that. And then in
the face of that, you had to be strong
and brave and you can start
to see how they see this world. With
Judaism and Christianity, as he talks
about it, that gets inverted on itself.
You know the idea that the weak, and I've
talked about this, that the meek shall inherit the earth.
That you know strength and domination
over others is bad, that kind of thing.
Like community and that sort of stuff,  that inverts it. So if the story from Homer and
the Greeks about the Nobles and this
bravery and stuff, it gets inverted--
that's the term we use in philosophy--it gets inverted, turned over on itself. And that which
was considered bad, which was weakness,
sickness, frailty, women, those things get
kind of put back up on the pedestal of
being better--although women kind of
still get kicked to the side. Anyway so he
says our history gets inverted and
slowly what was considered bad becomes
good and was considered good comes bad.
That's all Nietzsche's talking about. Historically he's right. I mean you can
not like what he says, but he is historically
right, that's exactly what happens. And
we're in this kind of second inversion
almost. You almost start to see
this stuff showing back up; bravery,
courage, screw the weak, I mean you
can start to see it right? And no
one should be surprised by this, Nietzsche
predict this to come, this is exactly what Nietzsche said was gonna happen by the way. Though
not for the reasons most people think. I want to get to what he says
here; but does that make, does this move make sense? Everyone sees what Nietzsche's
doing right? Again you can, like people in the online
course argued; well maybe it's just
good to be weak versus strong. That's
fine, but that's just an opinion, and that's
Nietzsche's point. If everything's just a
story. If everything is not just a story,
then there must be something to prove.
But then you think, oh that's what; right--it's mythos versus what? Stories versus
what? [Student: Facts?]
Yeah right, facts; facts [Laughter] And where do facts come from again?
Somebody remind me? The story is the facts exist independent of you. Nietzsche's claim
is, uh, really do the? First of all if they exist
independent of us then our opinion
shouldn't matter, in which case the facts should somehow dominate irrespective of
whether or not we agree with them. Is
that how the world works? [Students: No]
No, of course not, and Nietzsche sees this. And he writes this line here, and I want to make
sure I brought down because it's up
there at the top; I'll just read from here, he
says: "This is the epilogue of a
freethinker, to my speech an honest
animal who's revealed himself well.
In addition he's a Democrat. He lifts
me up to that point, and couldn't bear
to hear my silence. But with me at this point
there's much to be silent about". This is
one of those places were people make a lot of
mistakes about Nietzsche. So people think oh Nietzsche's facts are what
free thinkers do. The free thinkers see
the facts; free thinkers versus the
storytellers. You can start to see that,
except Nietzsche does not think the free
thinkers are all that smart. In fact Nietzsche thinks the free thinkers are just as
dogmatic as Christians are. If not more so. Because what he wants to stay
here, and against this is a fascinating
claim. So he's got this famous line that
I'll go ahead and read to you. This famous line that "God is dead".
You guys have all heard that line right?
It's probably the most famous of all of
Nietzschien lines. It's at the beginning of book three, which always makes it easier to find. So here is how it begins.
Let me back up for a sec. This was Nietzsche's favorite work, he called it his most
personal work. Titled the Gay Science, which is translated from German so it just means
the "happy science". It's an interesting book because he writes three
books, and then he writes "Thus Spake Zarathustra, which he is most famous for, then he writes the
last two books. So it's kind of an interesting piece. It's a bunch of little short
sayings, it's not a book per se. It's a bunch of short little writings that are put together,
but they all hang together; it's very complex
blah blah. Anyway this is what he says at the beginning of book three.
He says: "After Buddha was dead--so right
away you can see that he's already doing
something different, he's not talking
about just Christians, he's
trying to get us to see this bigger
point, he says--After Buddha was dead his
shadow was still shown for centuries
in a cave. A tremendous gruesome shadow.
God is dead. But given the way of
men, there may still be caves for
thousands of years in which is shadow will
be shown. And we, we have still yet to
vanquish his shadow". What he
says here is brilliant, and he goes on to
explain the more stuff. He says look, when
you had this story it was ultimately
secured by the gods. Even for the Greeks.
Even for Homer, it's still the gods. Granted it's not the Christian,
it's not the Judaeo-Christian God in any way shape or form, but it's still the gods are
what determines things. Because the
gods are great the gods are strong,
that's this reflection. Here these get
replaced by, I'll just say science, in the
broadest sense of the term. And
what Nietzsche is saying here is okay you got
rid of the gods. And that's what we were doing, we were exploring that
movement. We're exploring how you
know the Scholastics talked about it,
and how we respond to it. And how Kierkegaard responds to it. It's kind of this sense of struggling
with this what is gonna mean if God is
no longer there? And I can't stress
enough, you know back during the Scholastic period, the Scholastics had it easy because
everybody believed in God. There's this God, everyone agrees on it, it's really easy to have
a nice solid logic, which is why their
logic is so sound. Because they have a nice
Monism and everything follows. And
then people go mmm, uh,
do I really need God for this? I mean can
we just use 2+2=4 and they can
suck it? Oh yeah we can God can suck it. And then Hume says not only can God suck
it, but God was always just a complex
idea anyway, and it was never really real in
the first place, blah blah blah. So
what Nietzsche says is that you kill the gods
and now you have replaced it with this. Except that's not like God.
Why is science not like God?
The table is a great example, right? I
observe the table as hard and solid, but
what does physics tell me it really is? Yeah [Student: Empty space] Correct.
So my observation is clearly not right.
That's Hume, that's Hume's point,
the senses are gonna screw
you every time. All you can get is this
kind of, sympathy. He says I can
understand why think it's hard, it's just
not. But what Nietzsche says here is
these new free thinkers, these free
thinkers that a lot of people think, yeah
that's what I'm, a free thinker. You don't
want to be a free thinker. That's
almost worse than being a Christian. At
least the Christians ground their faith
in something. What does a free thinker
ground their faith in? What does a free
thinker ground their faith in? Yeah [Student: Their observations]. Yeah right,
their ego. They're their own private existence, which is
again a slight misunderstanding of Nietzsche. The "ubermench"--that's the term "ubermench"
This is how it looks. This gets
translated as Superman, one of the worst
translations ever. Nietzsche would have
rolled over, I'm sure you did roll over
his grave when they were like superman.
The ubermench is two terms. "Uber" what do you
think uber means? And it's not the car that's coming to pick you up. Well, what is "mench"? [Student: men] Correct, men.
All right so uber, just guess what uber would be. [Student: Great? Super?]
Well it's not super, that's exactly what it is not. Though I can
see that from the translation of Superman. Uber just means to overcome; to overcome.
Wonder if uber knew that when they named
their business? Anyway, so yeah, uber just means
to overcome. So what this means is the ubermench is the "being that overcomes". Overcomes
what? [Student: Inaudible] Overcomes being-human, yeah. Nietzsche has
a book called "Human All Too Human". all
He argues the problem with humans are they are too damn human. That's the problem. Humans
need to stop being so damn human.
And Nietzsche thinks that's possible.
Nietzsche thinks, his argument is, that
there will come a time when humanity
will transcend humanity; will become a
new animal, a new beast. The blond beasts,
as it is sometimes called, and you can hear how that gets tied into Hitler. Anyway the ubermench is just when humans start
to overcome being human. Being human for Nietzsche
means having to ground your belief in
something. That's what it means to be
human for Nietzsche. That we can't believe something unless
it's grounded in something. So you know
the religious people ground it in the
scripture, ground it in belief, ground in
faith whatever. But these people are just
as bad because they grounded it in, well you all said facts, but that just begs the
question where do facts come from? [Student: Observation] So they
ground it in observation, but they still must ground it in
something. They still need something, does that make sense? They can't just freely be.
So a free thinkers really not free,and that is just Nietzsche's point. It's not clear, a free
thinker, if you can be a free thinker,
it's the ubermench. But guess what
Nietzsche never ever describes; the
ubermensch. He just says it's a
possibility. Hopefully a possibility. He
actually hopes it's a possibility, because if it's not
a possibility, we're done. That's kind of Nietzsche's claim. If we can't overcome our
humanness, we're screwed. This is as good as it gets, and that kind of makes sense. There's
no such thing as, better, humans are never going to live peacefully together. He
says look at history if you don't, if you
don't believe this, look at history.
Humans can't live together because
humans, in so far as they have to ground
their beliefs in something, will never be
able to ground their beliefs in something
everyone agrees on. Does that make sense? And as long as that's the point,
then humans will never, there's no help,
humans are done. Whoever's the most
powerful, whoever has got the power, is
gonna rule. And Nietzsche sees that, I mean,
right, that's kind of Nietzsche's main claim.
The church took over Europe because
they inverted the hierarchical structure
of ethics, and they made being weak good
and that kind of stuff. Even the modern world is just
another story. The media is bad. That's the exact kind of idea,
these are just stories we tell to get
people to do what we want them to do. And Nietzsche just
called  that the "will to power". It has nothing to do with faith, it has nothing to do with reason. It's just
pure will to power. Does that make sense? It's not so much we have to get
Nietzsche as such, I'm not interested in
really in-depth
senses of Nietzsche. I just want to make
sure that you know if you're asked about
him, you can see that his claim is
really that there's no difference
between the ancient Greek world and the
modern world.
Because humans, not the ubermench but humans, still needs to ground their belief in
something. Be it a story. Be it facts, be it
something. That humans can't just go with
the flow so to speak. And he thinks that means there's something wrong with us. And what's
interesting he looks to phusis, and
goes I looked at phusis, and you know what the wolf
doesn't do? Give a flying rat's ass about
facts or stories. And yet it it lives, and it
flourishes, and blah blah blah. So
one of Nietzsche favorite examples
to explain this is the eagle. So I live,
down where I live down in snow hell
right now, is bald eagle central. I live along the
Mississippi River, and there are tons of bald
eagles, they are thick right now. They all hang
out, since this is their favorite time of the
year because the ice is getting thin
and they can stand on the ice and catch fish; it's pretty fun to watch actually. Anyway, Nietzsche loved the
eagles. He says look, eagles love the
lambs, and here you can see you know
the story of the lamb and Christianity, right?
He says the eagles love the lambs, they're
gonna protect the lambs and make sure the lambs flourish. Why? [Student: So there's more of them to eat?] Right! Because there's more of
them to eat, that's right. So the eagles love the lambs.
And don't think your government
doesn't love you, they need you there to
pay taxes. So they're gonna say whatever
you want to make you feel good about
yourself. But it's not for you, you're just another stupid lamb that happens to pay tax. It's
still human. It's still this kind of
human desire, so now it's, you know we're
playing this game right now. With
facts and truth, and alternative facts.
I still, when she said that I was just
like did that mean? Was it funny?
Because I, even when that happened, I was
like oh that's Nietzsche.
That's what Nietzsche was predicting
right there, that's what's coming down
the pipe. But don't get yourself
wrong, I'm not going to get too much into it, but he
explains this also; we will become a very
warlike people and basically it'll be a
battle, you know the kind of World War III
battle of kill all, and those who are
left standing will dominate. And
it's not gonna matter what you believe,
in terms of science and facts; is gonna be
pure will to power.
So this is kind of the background of Nietzsche, any questions? We at least got this
part out of the way, because he's not;
I think Nietzsche is often
misunderstood, because I think some
people think he's arguing for the free
thinkers, which he's not; he's just not. That said he was not anti-science. Nietzsche
liked science, science is great. In a sense
religion is great, but it has nothing to do
with truth, or reality, or being. That's
what he is trying to say. It's
just another story. The fact that you can observe these stories
differently the other stories doesn't
change the fact that's still a story. And
we he says that, he says it's because there's no necessity to it. That's what he's trying
to get us to see. There's no necessity to
the story, which is to say it doesn't
matter if we're telling the gods story or the
science story, what it means to be human
doesn't change. Does that make sense?
Because I think it's an interesting claim. Being a human
doesn't change whether we're living in
the Scholastic world under God, or in the
modern world under facts; nothing's
changed about humans. I mean you can
argue about the technology changes and
blah blah blah changing, but have humans
changed? [Student: No, because they are still acting the same] Correct, I mean they're still, that's kind
of the claim. They're still just human.
Now we try to say, well it's a fact.
It was a fact for Homer too, that's what
he's trying to get us to see. It was a
fact for the Greeks. Bravery was just a
fact. Now we say it's a fact that 2+2=4, but what does that tell me
about anything? It really doesn't, and we're off and running.
And is the strange sense of being human that Nietzsche leaves us with.
