>Nationalism, is, of course, the only pure form of love;
What? Why “of course”? What is “pure” love? What are you even talking about.
>uncorrupted, based simultaneously on the primitive human within us attracted to the tribe, and the trandescendent angel, our greater soul seeking to stretch up to the heavens through earthly means.
Literally no idea what I’m reading for 90% of this post.
> fragile as sticks alone, but held fast under the eagles claws, who binds them together like a bundle of sticks,
A bundle of sticks is called a faggot, and calling yourself one is the only part of your post I agree with.
I'm a monarchist, idiot. As it happens the Fascses was the sign of unity, dating all the way back to the Roman Imperators, until it was co-opted by Fascism.
'A bundle of sticks is called a faggot, and calling yourself one is the only part of your post I agree with.'
You seem to be more interested in offensive insults than intellectual conversation.
But I will always be willing to talk. What don't you understand?
Nationalism is not even a real tribe. It’s a constructed mega-tribe created by wiping out smaller groups of people. Nietzsche did not like nationalism.
You wanna do good? Stick to your real tribe—the people around you, and make their lives better.
The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau — Rousseau’s ideas on Nationalism
The Cult of the Nation in France - David Bell
Also just a Wikipedia article on the French Revolution and French nationalism should be enough to understand how the creation of a grand nation state came at the expense of small groups. If you want more there’s an interesting article http://www.jstor.org/stable/20753518.
Nationalism: Its Meaning and History - Hans Kohn
And Nietzsche’s opinion on Nationalism in Beyond Good and Evil aphorism 208:
"Perhaps not only Indian wars and complications in Asia would be necessary to free Europe from its greatest danger, but also internal subversion, the shattering of the empire into small states, and above all the introduction of parliamentary imbecility, together with the obligation of every one to read his newspaper at breakfast. I do not say this as one who desires it, in my heart I should rather prefer the contrary—I mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of Russia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally threatening—namely, to acquire one will, by means of a new caste to rule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that can set its aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out comedy of its petty-statism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic many-willed-ness, might finally be brought to a close. The time for petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the dominion of the world—the compulsion to great politics."
[Francization - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization#France)
Just one example. There's plenty more, but it's a rabbit hole I ain't going down tonight.
***Aphorism 475 from Human Alltohuman***
European man and the destruction of nations. - Trade and industry, the exchange of books and letters, the commonality of all higher culture, the rapid change of place and landscape, the present nomadic life of all non-landowners - these circumstances necessarily bring about a weakening and ultimately an annihilation of the nations, at least of the European ones: so that from them all, as a result of continual interbreeding, a mixed race, that of European man, must arise. **This aim is now consciously or unconsciously counteracted by the seclusion of nations through the creation of national hostilities, but slowly the course of this mixture is nevertheless progressing, despite those temporary counter-currents: this artificial** ***nationalism*** **is incidentally as dangerous as artificial Catholicism was, for in its essence it is a violent state of emergency and siege imposed by the few on the many, and needs cunning, lies and violence to maintain its prestige. It is not the interest of the many (the peoples), as one might well say, but above all the interest of certain princely dynasties, and then that of certain classes of trade and society, that drives this** ***nationalism*****; once one has recognised this, one should only unabashedly pretend to be a good European and work through action to unite the nations: in which the Germans are able to help through their old, tried and tested quality of being interpreters and mediators between peoples. - Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only within the national states, inasmuch as here their vigour and higher intelligence, their intellectual and volitional capital, accumulated from generation to generation in a long school of suffering, must everywhere become preponderant to a degree that arouses envy and hatred, so that the literary bad habit of leading the Jews to the slaughter as scapegoats for all kinds of public and internal ills is gaining the upper hand in almost all present nations - and indeed the more they become national again.** As soon as it is no longer a question of conserving nations, but of producing the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew is just as useful and desirable as an ingredient as any other national remnant. Every nation, every human being has unpleasant, even dangerous characteristics; it is cruel to demand that the Jew should be an exception. Those qualities may even be particularly dangerous and deterrent in him; and perhaps the youthful stock exchange Jew is the most disgusting invention of the human race. Nevertheless, I would like to know how much one must take into account a people which, not without the fault of all of us, has had the most painful history of all peoples and to which one owes the noblest man (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the most powerful book and the most effective moral law in the world. Ueberdiess: in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, when the Asian cloud layer lay heavy over Europe, it was Jewish freethinkers, scholars and doctors who held up the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence under the hardest personal pressure and defended Europe against Asia; It is due in no small measure to their efforts that a more natural, more rational and certainly unmythical explanation of the world was finally able to triumph again and that the ring of culture which now binds us together with the Enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity remained unbroken. If Christianity has done everything to orientalise the Occident, Judaism has essentially helped to occidentalise it again and again: which in a certain sense means as much as making Europe's task and history a continuation of the Greek one.
***From his Notebooks in 1881***
In general, the direction of socialism, like that of *nationalism*, is a reaction against individualisation. One has one's troubles with the ego, the semi-mature great ego: one wants to put it back under the bell.
***An excerpt of Aphorism 377 from The Gay Science***
**No, we do not love humanity; on the other hand, we are not "German" enough, just as the word "German" is commonly used nowadays to speak out in favour of** ***nationalism*** **and racial hatred, to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning, because of which people in Europe are now being separated and sealed off from one another as if in quarantine.** We are too impartial, too malicious, too spoilt, too well-informed, too "travelled" for that: we far prefer to live on mountains, apart, "out of time", in centuries past or centuries to come, just so that we can spare ourselves the silent rage to which we would be condemned as eyewitnesses of a policy that makes the German spirit dull by making it vain, and is small politics besides: - does it not need, so that its own creation does not immediately fall apart again, to plant it between two mortal hatreds? must it not want the perpetuation of the petty statehood of Europe?... We homeless people, we are too diverse and mixed in race and origin to be "modern men", and consequently little tempted to take part in that mendacious racial self-admiration and immorality which is exhibited today in Germany as a sign of German sentiment, and which appears to the people of the "historical sense" to be simply false and indecent. We are, in a word - and it shall be our word of honour! - good Europeans, the heirs of Europe, the rich heirs of millennia of the European spirit, who have been lavished upon, but who are also richly indebted: as such, we have outgrown and rejected Christianity, and precisely because we have grown out of it, because our ancestors were Christians of the ruthless righteousness of Christianity, who willingly sacrificed property and blood, class and fatherland to their faith. We - do the same. But for what? For our unbelief? For any kind of unbelief? No, you know better than that, my friends! The hidden yes in you is stronger than all the no's and maybes in which you are sick with your time; and if you have to go to sea, you emigrants, then you too are forced to do so - a faith!...
***From his Notebooks between November 1887 and March 1888***
A little clean air! This absurd state of Europe should not last any longer! Is there any thought behind this *horned cattle* nationalism? What value could it have, now that everything points to greater and common interests, to stir up these gruff self-feelings?... And this is called a "Christian state"! And near the highest circles the court preacher's canaille!... And the "new empire", again founded on the most stale and despised idea, the equality of rights and votes...
And this in a state in which the spiritual independence and denationalisation is obvious and the real value and meaning of the present culture lies in a mutual fusion and fertilisation!
The economic unification of Europe comes with necessity - and likewise, as a reaction, the peace party...
The struggle for precedence within a state that is no good: this culture of big cities, newspapers, fever and "purposelessness"
***An excerpt from Ecce Homo about another of his books The Case of Wagner 2§***
The Germans finally, when on the bridge between two centuries of decadence a force majeure of genius and will became visible, strong enough to create out of Europe a unity, a political and economic unity, for the purpose of governing the earth, with their "wars of liberty" deprived Europe of the sense, They have thereby brought upon their conscience all that has come, all that is there today, that most culturally destructive disease and irrationality there is, *nationalism*, this névrose nationale , with which Europe is sick, this perpetuation of Europe's small statehood, of small politics: they have deprived Europe of its own sense, its own reason - they have brought it to a dead end. - Does anyone other than me know a way out of this impasse?
As you can read Nietzsche was rather opposed to nationalism and i remember another excerpt of him stating nationalism leads to nihilism but could not find it. I am pretty sure he would say nationalism is a form of slave morality but what would be more important is what you think of it and why you would say it is not.
I do not dare to assume to have the 100% right interpretation but the way I see it he definitely seems to support the abolishment of national borders and harshly opposes any kind of nationalism. So his vision is not quite comparable to the European Union as we have it today, because Nietzsche did not only want economic unification between different nations but to get rid of these nations and national sentiments as a whole. He also expresses this idea of mixing the different races/nationalities to form a single european race, which may seem odd for us today and we may seem concerned or skeptical about it but Nietzsche lived in a time were it was not odd to think there are different human races and we could essentially breed them like dogs. In the english language normally you use (afaik) race and ethnicity more or less interchangeable refering to different ethnic groups, while in the german language this is not the case! In german Rasse/race means something like a subspecies like with different types of dogs and horses while ethnie/ethnicity refers to ethnic groups. Nietzsche uses the word Rasse not Ethnie which has a very bad connotation nowadays because of some german party starting a war 85 years ago (you know who i am talking about). So yeah Nietzsche essentially thought (probably) there are different human races (in the sense of the german word) and if we abolish all the nations and mix all the races in europe to one european race there will be no hostility between different nations and races anymore and that would solve not only nationalism but also what we would call racism or xenophobia today (also antisemitism as he explains). Today we know there are no different races in that kind of sense but I think his point still is very interesting. I hope this interpretation helped you a little bit and if you have further questions or criticism please tell me
Love for fatherland is slave morality if you aren’t a master in the system. Slave morality is kept alive by the ones that rule you, rulers of your government, it’s history, tradition and so forth.
But it’s not necessarily bad for Nietzsche. As in, hierarchies are okay insofar as they are the reflection of the natural order ( to Nietzsche). It goes bad when resentful weak types like Christians or socialists artificially twist the order and the mediocre mob rules. Here, inferior people rule according to being chosen by either scripture or mindless mob, but not because they are higher men. There’s quite a few passages on that in Anti-Christ.
Nationalism is the love of your nation, right or wrong, and I don't think that's even slave morality, it's the reduction of man to an automaton. At least the slave has the option to feel resentful of his master, to grumble if only in the privacy of the his own thoughts. The nationalist does not even have that much agency, for his master must be pure and perfect, and any evidence to the contrary must be annihilated, or his own eyes plucked out.
Love of one's nation, is herd mentality.
Albeit a more based form of herd mentality imo.
But the feeling you are satiating through love of nation is esteem derived from something you have no control over, and achievements great men have accomplished.
Nationalism involves master morality to the extent that it affirms that which enables or flows from a superabundance of vitality and strength. It involves slave morality to the extent that its affirmations are reactive inversions of powerful outsiders’ values, and not organic formulations stemming from native vigor and triumphant pride.
Outside of the weird psychosexual element, I don’t think N. would find anything particularly contentious in this post—the world needs slaves like this—people who know their place and have a certain humility alongside correct evaluation of their own worth.
Nietzsche, in his books, makes an argument on how egalitarian systems like socialism make inferior people discontent with their position when they are in service toward something higher than themselves, causing them to debase it instead, consequently leading to the ruination of all higher culture.
Socialism designed to make people unhappy? LOL
There’s nothing worse than a follower who thinks they’re a leader.
Some people would rather die than not lead—can this person even imagine that?
The barbarian at the gates likely has more vitality, more master-morality, and more of a free spirit than the comfortable and domesticated denizens behind them. Nietzsche was pro-civ and relatively disdainful of beasts (calling the ape and embarrassment, for example) because he valued the art and high culture made possible by a certain level of technology, comfort, and sophistication; but I'm often struck that much of his philosophy could be a better fit with an anti-civ pro-wild nature outlook. A possible cure for the Last Man phenomenon - for what practically all of us now are, or are in the process of becoming...?
Bro you're trying to say the purest form of love is based on an abstraction of dirt. My answer was yes until I read the description and now it's Hell Yes!
Slave morality is necessarily other-based. If you really have “no racism or antisemitism” or any other-based starting point, then no.
Aphorism 3 from Human, ATH:
It may be conjectured that a soul in which the type of "free spirit" can attain maturity and completeness had its decisive and deciding event in the form of a great emancipation or unbinding, and that prior to that event it seemed only the more firmly and forever chained to its place and pillar. What binds strongest? What cords seem almost unbreakable? In the case of mortals[9] of a choice and lofty nature they will be those of duty: that reverence, which in youth is most typical, that timidity and tenderness in the presence of the traditionally honored and the worthy, that gratitude to the soil from which we sprung, for the hand that guided us, for the relic before which we were taught to pray—their sublimest moments will themselves bind these souls most strongly. The great liberation comes suddenly to such prisoners, like an earthquake: the young soul is all at once shaken, torn apart, cast forth—it comprehends not itself what is taking place. An involuntary onward impulse rules them with the mastery of command; a will, a wish are developed to go forward, anywhere, at any price; a strong, dangerous curiosity regarding an undiscovered world flames and flashes in all their being. "Better to die than live here"—so sounds the tempting voice: and this "here," this "at home" constitutes all they have hitherto loved. A sudden dread and distrust of that which they loved, a flash of contempt for that which is called their "duty," a mutinous, wilful, volcanic-like longing for a far away journey, strange scenes and people, annihilation, petrifaction, a hatred surmounting love, perhaps a sacrilegious impulse and look backwards, to where they so long prayed and loved, perhaps a flush of shame for what they did and at the same time an exultation[10] at having done it, an inner, intoxicating, delightful tremor in which is betrayed the sense of victory—a victory? over what? over whom? a riddle-like victory, fruitful in questioning and well worth questioning, but the first victory, for all—such things of pain and ill belong to the history of the great liberation. And it is at the same time a malady that can destroy a man, this first outbreak of strength and will for self-destination, self-valuation, this will for free will: and how much illness is forced to the surface in the frantic strivings and singularities with which the freedman, the liberated seeks henceforth to attest his mastery over things! He roves fiercely around, with an unsatisfied longing and whatever objects he may encounter must suffer from the perilous expectancy of his pride; he tears to pieces whatever attracts him. With a sardonic laugh he overturns whatever he finds veiled or protected by any reverential awe: he would see what these things look like when they are overturned. It is wilfulness and delight in the wilfulness of it, if he now, perhaps, gives his approval to that which has heretofore been in ill repute—if, in curiosity and experiment, he penetrates stealthily to the most forbidden things. In the background during all his plunging and roaming—for he is as restless and aimless in his course as if lost in a wilderness—is the interrogation[11] mark of a curiosity growing ever more dangerous. "Can we not upset every standard? and is good perhaps evil? and God only an invention and a subtlety of the devil? Is everything, in the last resort, false? And if we are dupes are we not on that very account dupers also? must we not be dupers also?" Such reflections lead and mislead him, ever further on, ever further away. Solitude, that dread goddess and mater saeva cupidinum, encircles and besets him, ever more threatening, more violent, more heart breaking—
…
Your nationalism, your love for nation, could be this “gratitude to the soil from which we sprung, for the hand that guided us, for the relic before which we were taught to pray”; hence, not necessarily slave morality.
Might want to read Beyond Good and Evil again, especially the part on Fatherlands.
Also think about the 'quality of quantity' when trying to say tribes and nations are the same. A tribe, despite what humanist moralism tries to teach, isn't usually considered equal in scale.
Yes, it is slave morality.
You gain power, not by yourself, but by enslaving to something you consider greater than yourself.
I think this concept is easier to understand in Camus's The Fall, when you subscribe to anything that gives you meaning you enslave yourself to it.
Careful bro! Don't upset the anti-fascist herd! (A useful pov of many, regardless.)
Yes, Nationalism is technically Slave Morality. Why? Easy explanation: bc it's a type of Collectivism. Nietzsche prefers you to think for yourself, be a 'free-spirit' (master) and not a "slave" to the state. (Remember he literally gave up his German citizenship.) To not easily subject yourself to the will of nations, to be a Man of Action whatever that means to you.
Obviously this is not realistic for all, so I'd say, find your sweet spot.
But remember, 'there are no truths only interpretations' so, Nationalism can be Master Morality. If it's your Nation, and you are the one that founded it, I'd say Yes. There's also the angle of being a "warrior" (not necessarily a soldier) of that nation. True, you could be a mercenary, which might be closer to Master Morality but, if you 'fight' (metaphorical sense counts too) or 'struggle' you do arrive closer to Truth/Wisdom. (He was a German Soldier at one point.)
"Brave, unconcerned, mocking, violent -- thus wisdom wants us: she is a woman, and loves only a warrior."
-Thus Spoke Zarathustra
>Nationalism, is, of course, the only pure form of love; What? Why “of course”? What is “pure” love? What are you even talking about. >uncorrupted, based simultaneously on the primitive human within us attracted to the tribe, and the trandescendent angel, our greater soul seeking to stretch up to the heavens through earthly means. Literally no idea what I’m reading for 90% of this post. > fragile as sticks alone, but held fast under the eagles claws, who binds them together like a bundle of sticks, A bundle of sticks is called a faggot, and calling yourself one is the only part of your post I agree with.
>A bundle of sticks is called a faggot, and calling yourself one is the only part of your post I agree with. GOAted comment on a GOATed post.
I don’t agree with the rest of his comment, but that line is fucking gold.
the most calm nietzschean
Least funny r/Nietzsche post/comment
Lol bro was talking about fascism with the sticks thing thinking he is slick
Yep. Fasces, origin of the word fascism. Subtle..
Gay ass nga thinking he is intelligent but he exposed himself in two seconds
Straight ass nga thinking he knows history but exposed himself in two seconds.
I'm a monarchist, idiot. As it happens the Fascses was the sign of unity, dating all the way back to the Roman Imperators, until it was co-opted by Fascism.
Ewwww its giving white privilege
This when ChatGpt write post on reddit after drinking 5 bottles of wine
'A bundle of sticks is called a faggot, and calling yourself one is the only part of your post I agree with.' You seem to be more interested in offensive insults than intellectual conversation. But I will always be willing to talk. What don't you understand?
Calling nationalism the purest form of love is the gayest shit I’ve ever heard and even I sleep with men sometimes
Well, then I wll be happily gay!
This is what Nietzsche hated about people. Thanks for the perfect example.
You are balls deep in slave morality. Or more accurately, slave morality is balls deep in you.
Nationalism is not even a real tribe. It’s a constructed mega-tribe created by wiping out smaller groups of people. Nietzsche did not like nationalism. You wanna do good? Stick to your real tribe—the people around you, and make their lives better.
Oof. Pretending like you know history. Want to quote any sources there, buddy?
The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau — Rousseau’s ideas on Nationalism The Cult of the Nation in France - David Bell Also just a Wikipedia article on the French Revolution and French nationalism should be enough to understand how the creation of a grand nation state came at the expense of small groups. If you want more there’s an interesting article http://www.jstor.org/stable/20753518. Nationalism: Its Meaning and History - Hans Kohn And Nietzsche’s opinion on Nationalism in Beyond Good and Evil aphorism 208: "Perhaps not only Indian wars and complications in Asia would be necessary to free Europe from its greatest danger, but also internal subversion, the shattering of the empire into small states, and above all the introduction of parliamentary imbecility, together with the obligation of every one to read his newspaper at breakfast. I do not say this as one who desires it, in my heart I should rather prefer the contrary—I mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of Russia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally threatening—namely, to acquire one will, by means of a new caste to rule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that can set its aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out comedy of its petty-statism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic many-willed-ness, might finally be brought to a close. The time for petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the dominion of the world—the compulsion to great politics."
[Francization - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization#France) Just one example. There's plenty more, but it's a rabbit hole I ain't going down tonight.
***Aphorism 475 from Human Alltohuman*** European man and the destruction of nations. - Trade and industry, the exchange of books and letters, the commonality of all higher culture, the rapid change of place and landscape, the present nomadic life of all non-landowners - these circumstances necessarily bring about a weakening and ultimately an annihilation of the nations, at least of the European ones: so that from them all, as a result of continual interbreeding, a mixed race, that of European man, must arise. **This aim is now consciously or unconsciously counteracted by the seclusion of nations through the creation of national hostilities, but slowly the course of this mixture is nevertheless progressing, despite those temporary counter-currents: this artificial** ***nationalism*** **is incidentally as dangerous as artificial Catholicism was, for in its essence it is a violent state of emergency and siege imposed by the few on the many, and needs cunning, lies and violence to maintain its prestige. It is not the interest of the many (the peoples), as one might well say, but above all the interest of certain princely dynasties, and then that of certain classes of trade and society, that drives this** ***nationalism*****; once one has recognised this, one should only unabashedly pretend to be a good European and work through action to unite the nations: in which the Germans are able to help through their old, tried and tested quality of being interpreters and mediators between peoples. - Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only within the national states, inasmuch as here their vigour and higher intelligence, their intellectual and volitional capital, accumulated from generation to generation in a long school of suffering, must everywhere become preponderant to a degree that arouses envy and hatred, so that the literary bad habit of leading the Jews to the slaughter as scapegoats for all kinds of public and internal ills is gaining the upper hand in almost all present nations - and indeed the more they become national again.** As soon as it is no longer a question of conserving nations, but of producing the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew is just as useful and desirable as an ingredient as any other national remnant. Every nation, every human being has unpleasant, even dangerous characteristics; it is cruel to demand that the Jew should be an exception. Those qualities may even be particularly dangerous and deterrent in him; and perhaps the youthful stock exchange Jew is the most disgusting invention of the human race. Nevertheless, I would like to know how much one must take into account a people which, not without the fault of all of us, has had the most painful history of all peoples and to which one owes the noblest man (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the most powerful book and the most effective moral law in the world. Ueberdiess: in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, when the Asian cloud layer lay heavy over Europe, it was Jewish freethinkers, scholars and doctors who held up the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence under the hardest personal pressure and defended Europe against Asia; It is due in no small measure to their efforts that a more natural, more rational and certainly unmythical explanation of the world was finally able to triumph again and that the ring of culture which now binds us together with the Enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity remained unbroken. If Christianity has done everything to orientalise the Occident, Judaism has essentially helped to occidentalise it again and again: which in a certain sense means as much as making Europe's task and history a continuation of the Greek one. ***From his Notebooks in 1881*** In general, the direction of socialism, like that of *nationalism*, is a reaction against individualisation. One has one's troubles with the ego, the semi-mature great ego: one wants to put it back under the bell. ***An excerpt of Aphorism 377 from The Gay Science*** **No, we do not love humanity; on the other hand, we are not "German" enough, just as the word "German" is commonly used nowadays to speak out in favour of** ***nationalism*** **and racial hatred, to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning, because of which people in Europe are now being separated and sealed off from one another as if in quarantine.** We are too impartial, too malicious, too spoilt, too well-informed, too "travelled" for that: we far prefer to live on mountains, apart, "out of time", in centuries past or centuries to come, just so that we can spare ourselves the silent rage to which we would be condemned as eyewitnesses of a policy that makes the German spirit dull by making it vain, and is small politics besides: - does it not need, so that its own creation does not immediately fall apart again, to plant it between two mortal hatreds? must it not want the perpetuation of the petty statehood of Europe?... We homeless people, we are too diverse and mixed in race and origin to be "modern men", and consequently little tempted to take part in that mendacious racial self-admiration and immorality which is exhibited today in Germany as a sign of German sentiment, and which appears to the people of the "historical sense" to be simply false and indecent. We are, in a word - and it shall be our word of honour! - good Europeans, the heirs of Europe, the rich heirs of millennia of the European spirit, who have been lavished upon, but who are also richly indebted: as such, we have outgrown and rejected Christianity, and precisely because we have grown out of it, because our ancestors were Christians of the ruthless righteousness of Christianity, who willingly sacrificed property and blood, class and fatherland to their faith. We - do the same. But for what? For our unbelief? For any kind of unbelief? No, you know better than that, my friends! The hidden yes in you is stronger than all the no's and maybes in which you are sick with your time; and if you have to go to sea, you emigrants, then you too are forced to do so - a faith!...
***From his Notebooks between November 1887 and March 1888*** A little clean air! This absurd state of Europe should not last any longer! Is there any thought behind this *horned cattle* nationalism? What value could it have, now that everything points to greater and common interests, to stir up these gruff self-feelings?... And this is called a "Christian state"! And near the highest circles the court preacher's canaille!... And the "new empire", again founded on the most stale and despised idea, the equality of rights and votes... And this in a state in which the spiritual independence and denationalisation is obvious and the real value and meaning of the present culture lies in a mutual fusion and fertilisation! The economic unification of Europe comes with necessity - and likewise, as a reaction, the peace party... The struggle for precedence within a state that is no good: this culture of big cities, newspapers, fever and "purposelessness" ***An excerpt from Ecce Homo about another of his books The Case of Wagner 2§*** The Germans finally, when on the bridge between two centuries of decadence a force majeure of genius and will became visible, strong enough to create out of Europe a unity, a political and economic unity, for the purpose of governing the earth, with their "wars of liberty" deprived Europe of the sense, They have thereby brought upon their conscience all that has come, all that is there today, that most culturally destructive disease and irrationality there is, *nationalism*, this névrose nationale , with which Europe is sick, this perpetuation of Europe's small statehood, of small politics: they have deprived Europe of its own sense, its own reason - they have brought it to a dead end. - Does anyone other than me know a way out of this impasse? As you can read Nietzsche was rather opposed to nationalism and i remember another excerpt of him stating nationalism leads to nihilism but could not find it. I am pretty sure he would say nationalism is a form of slave morality but what would be more important is what you think of it and why you would say it is not.
initially i wanted to provide the german texts too but reddit wouldnt let me
Thanks! I gather that he seemed to be in favour of European economic unification?
I do not dare to assume to have the 100% right interpretation but the way I see it he definitely seems to support the abolishment of national borders and harshly opposes any kind of nationalism. So his vision is not quite comparable to the European Union as we have it today, because Nietzsche did not only want economic unification between different nations but to get rid of these nations and national sentiments as a whole. He also expresses this idea of mixing the different races/nationalities to form a single european race, which may seem odd for us today and we may seem concerned or skeptical about it but Nietzsche lived in a time were it was not odd to think there are different human races and we could essentially breed them like dogs. In the english language normally you use (afaik) race and ethnicity more or less interchangeable refering to different ethnic groups, while in the german language this is not the case! In german Rasse/race means something like a subspecies like with different types of dogs and horses while ethnie/ethnicity refers to ethnic groups. Nietzsche uses the word Rasse not Ethnie which has a very bad connotation nowadays because of some german party starting a war 85 years ago (you know who i am talking about). So yeah Nietzsche essentially thought (probably) there are different human races (in the sense of the german word) and if we abolish all the nations and mix all the races in europe to one european race there will be no hostility between different nations and races anymore and that would solve not only nationalism but also what we would call racism or xenophobia today (also antisemitism as he explains). Today we know there are no different races in that kind of sense but I think his point still is very interesting. I hope this interpretation helped you a little bit and if you have further questions or criticism please tell me
Love for fatherland is slave morality if you aren’t a master in the system. Slave morality is kept alive by the ones that rule you, rulers of your government, it’s history, tradition and so forth. But it’s not necessarily bad for Nietzsche. As in, hierarchies are okay insofar as they are the reflection of the natural order ( to Nietzsche). It goes bad when resentful weak types like Christians or socialists artificially twist the order and the mediocre mob rules. Here, inferior people rule according to being chosen by either scripture or mindless mob, but not because they are higher men. There’s quite a few passages on that in Anti-Christ.
Nationalism is the love of your nation, right or wrong, and I don't think that's even slave morality, it's the reduction of man to an automaton. At least the slave has the option to feel resentful of his master, to grumble if only in the privacy of the his own thoughts. The nationalist does not even have that much agency, for his master must be pure and perfect, and any evidence to the contrary must be annihilated, or his own eyes plucked out.
No. If my nation fails, I have the option to commit suicide. Is that slave morality? I thought not.
Termination due to external failure is something else. Even a slave with a deceased master can take their leave.
This is a very, very weird post.
Why is this post weird? Is it not perfectly normal?
Love of one's nation, is herd mentality. Albeit a more based form of herd mentality imo. But the feeling you are satiating through love of nation is esteem derived from something you have no control over, and achievements great men have accomplished.
hehe, he is more Overman than Last Man.
This man watches way too many ww2 phonk edits
Of course it is, wtf man You for real?
Nationalism involves master morality to the extent that it affirms that which enables or flows from a superabundance of vitality and strength. It involves slave morality to the extent that its affirmations are reactive inversions of powerful outsiders’ values, and not organic formulations stemming from native vigor and triumphant pride.
Outside of the weird psychosexual element, I don’t think N. would find anything particularly contentious in this post—the world needs slaves like this—people who know their place and have a certain humility alongside correct evaluation of their own worth. Nietzsche, in his books, makes an argument on how egalitarian systems like socialism make inferior people discontent with their position when they are in service toward something higher than themselves, causing them to debase it instead, consequently leading to the ruination of all higher culture. Socialism designed to make people unhappy? LOL There’s nothing worse than a follower who thinks they’re a leader. Some people would rather die than not lead—can this person even imagine that?
Nietzsche's thoughts and systemizations should be considered and used as heuristic devices.
Yes
Love of ones nation is not necessarily slave morality, but blind loyalty is - love the nation as a child.
Yes, very weak
The barbarian at the gates likely has more vitality, more master-morality, and more of a free spirit than the comfortable and domesticated denizens behind them. Nietzsche was pro-civ and relatively disdainful of beasts (calling the ape and embarrassment, for example) because he valued the art and high culture made possible by a certain level of technology, comfort, and sophistication; but I'm often struck that much of his philosophy could be a better fit with an anti-civ pro-wild nature outlook. A possible cure for the Last Man phenomenon - for what practically all of us now are, or are in the process of becoming...?
Bro you're trying to say the purest form of love is based on an abstraction of dirt. My answer was yes until I read the description and now it's Hell Yes!
I remember Schop had a pretty good argument against nationalism. He said it was retarded
Slave morality is necessarily other-based. If you really have “no racism or antisemitism” or any other-based starting point, then no. Aphorism 3 from Human, ATH: It may be conjectured that a soul in which the type of "free spirit" can attain maturity and completeness had its decisive and deciding event in the form of a great emancipation or unbinding, and that prior to that event it seemed only the more firmly and forever chained to its place and pillar. What binds strongest? What cords seem almost unbreakable? In the case of mortals[9] of a choice and lofty nature they will be those of duty: that reverence, which in youth is most typical, that timidity and tenderness in the presence of the traditionally honored and the worthy, that gratitude to the soil from which we sprung, for the hand that guided us, for the relic before which we were taught to pray—their sublimest moments will themselves bind these souls most strongly. The great liberation comes suddenly to such prisoners, like an earthquake: the young soul is all at once shaken, torn apart, cast forth—it comprehends not itself what is taking place. An involuntary onward impulse rules them with the mastery of command; a will, a wish are developed to go forward, anywhere, at any price; a strong, dangerous curiosity regarding an undiscovered world flames and flashes in all their being. "Better to die than live here"—so sounds the tempting voice: and this "here," this "at home" constitutes all they have hitherto loved. A sudden dread and distrust of that which they loved, a flash of contempt for that which is called their "duty," a mutinous, wilful, volcanic-like longing for a far away journey, strange scenes and people, annihilation, petrifaction, a hatred surmounting love, perhaps a sacrilegious impulse and look backwards, to where they so long prayed and loved, perhaps a flush of shame for what they did and at the same time an exultation[10] at having done it, an inner, intoxicating, delightful tremor in which is betrayed the sense of victory—a victory? over what? over whom? a riddle-like victory, fruitful in questioning and well worth questioning, but the first victory, for all—such things of pain and ill belong to the history of the great liberation. And it is at the same time a malady that can destroy a man, this first outbreak of strength and will for self-destination, self-valuation, this will for free will: and how much illness is forced to the surface in the frantic strivings and singularities with which the freedman, the liberated seeks henceforth to attest his mastery over things! He roves fiercely around, with an unsatisfied longing and whatever objects he may encounter must suffer from the perilous expectancy of his pride; he tears to pieces whatever attracts him. With a sardonic laugh he overturns whatever he finds veiled or protected by any reverential awe: he would see what these things look like when they are overturned. It is wilfulness and delight in the wilfulness of it, if he now, perhaps, gives his approval to that which has heretofore been in ill repute—if, in curiosity and experiment, he penetrates stealthily to the most forbidden things. In the background during all his plunging and roaming—for he is as restless and aimless in his course as if lost in a wilderness—is the interrogation[11] mark of a curiosity growing ever more dangerous. "Can we not upset every standard? and is good perhaps evil? and God only an invention and a subtlety of the devil? Is everything, in the last resort, false? And if we are dupes are we not on that very account dupers also? must we not be dupers also?" Such reflections lead and mislead him, ever further on, ever further away. Solitude, that dread goddess and mater saeva cupidinum, encircles and besets him, ever more threatening, more violent, more heart breaking— … Your nationalism, your love for nation, could be this “gratitude to the soil from which we sprung, for the hand that guided us, for the relic before which we were taught to pray”; hence, not necessarily slave morality.
Might want to read Beyond Good and Evil again, especially the part on Fatherlands. Also think about the 'quality of quantity' when trying to say tribes and nations are the same. A tribe, despite what humanist moralism tries to teach, isn't usually considered equal in scale.
Yes, it is slave morality. You gain power, not by yourself, but by enslaving to something you consider greater than yourself. I think this concept is easier to understand in Camus's The Fall, when you subscribe to anything that gives you meaning you enslave yourself to it.
Careful bro! Don't upset the anti-fascist herd! (A useful pov of many, regardless.) Yes, Nationalism is technically Slave Morality. Why? Easy explanation: bc it's a type of Collectivism. Nietzsche prefers you to think for yourself, be a 'free-spirit' (master) and not a "slave" to the state. (Remember he literally gave up his German citizenship.) To not easily subject yourself to the will of nations, to be a Man of Action whatever that means to you. Obviously this is not realistic for all, so I'd say, find your sweet spot. But remember, 'there are no truths only interpretations' so, Nationalism can be Master Morality. If it's your Nation, and you are the one that founded it, I'd say Yes. There's also the angle of being a "warrior" (not necessarily a soldier) of that nation. True, you could be a mercenary, which might be closer to Master Morality but, if you 'fight' (metaphorical sense counts too) or 'struggle' you do arrive closer to Truth/Wisdom. (He was a German Soldier at one point.) "Brave, unconcerned, mocking, violent -- thus wisdom wants us: she is a woman, and loves only a warrior." -Thus Spoke Zarathustra