Nietzsche's three metamorphoses

[cafolini]

Nietzsche never saw men as children after they were born. Immediately after birth, they became like a beast of burden, in his words, a camel. Extremely reverent and ready to be loaded. They would say "yes" to anything. But as they were abused they reacted and became lions. They would say "no" to anything. It was only in a third stage that they became children, but through a developed intellect. Then they became a bridge to the future, ready for the game of life, a "yes" or a "no" here and there, and there and here.
What do you think about this?

[Des Essientes]

The three metamorphoses are not about an individual's life stages, but about the stages of a society as a whole. The camel symbolizes the age of "the morality of mores" in which a people conforms to strict moral codes that dictate proper behavior for every aspect of their lives. This makes the people stronger and stronger as they live for generations under this tense burden. Eventually something happens to cause free spirits to emerge and they, as lions, slay the dragon "thou shalt". All the strength garnered by generations of moral servitude is present in these iconoclastic lions. They are the flowering of the society. The Rennaisance was a time of lions for example. The lions spend the energy that the camel accumulated and after their period of fireworks the society, exhausted, begins another camel stage. The third transformation of the spirit, the child, refers to Nietsche's superman, a being with the power to create a whole new system of values and thus a whole new society.

[Theunderground]

I think both of you have very eloquently stated great cases. I personally prefer Cafolinis',but i think Nietzsche would approve of either. I think Friedrich would be overjoyed that people now actually understand 'his zarathustra'. But the true test is has anyone actually become a superman today? And whats infinitley more important, has anyone taken on the 'highest task of mankind','the higher breeding of humanity?'

[cafolini]

I think Des Essientes puts quite a bit of his own into this. I merely paraphrased Nietzsche without changing his own statement. I don't think the superman has anything to do with Nietzsche's child of the intellect.
I agree with Theunderground that he would be overjoyed that a lot of people today grasp a lot more of "his Zarathustra."
Regarding the superman, I view it as Nietzsche's best joke. He was actually mocking the Reich, which he anticipated and predicted for the 20th century: in his own words, "I write the history of the next century." He gave as samples of the superman figures like Jesus, Caesar, Plato, etc. and mockingly said that they had not yet arrived. In his last days he took it one step further saying that if the superman came, he would be the only one to ever understand him. Nietzsche's superman was a prediction of, for example, Hitler or people like Mussolini or Generalissimo Franco. People he deeply despised and found no other way to deal with them but jokingly, because in the final analysis they were all indeed a big joke. They cost us dearly but fortunately, they could never make it to last.
All of Nietzsche is a humorous piece, once you begin to grasp it. And it gets better and better with age.

[Des Essientes]

No cafolini, I did not put "quite a bit of my own" into my post, but rather I put Nietzsche's own philosophy into it. Please read Beyond Good And Evil section 262 and you may begin to understand. You mistakenly believe the three transformations of the spirit is about your own little life rather than the spirit of the times. Your claim that Nietzsche's superman is an anti-Reich joke is also false. You should realize why he chose Zarathustra as his protagonist in the book you misunderstand. Zarathustra's reform of Persian religion was an instance of the spirit becoming a child and creating new values. Zarathustra ended a society that believed in good and bad and created a society that believed in good and evil. Jesus and his promoters effected this re-valuation in Europe, but despite the spirit going through several "lion times", such as the Rennaisance and the revolutions, Christian values have held fast and never been overcome and replaced by new ones. The child will be the superman who does this. Nietzsche is one of the few philosophers that has a sense of humor but his philosophy is no joke. However, your belief that he somehow anticipated Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco and wrote of the superman because he "deeply despised" them and wished to mock them... now that is a joke.

[cafolini]

I think you very far off regarding Nietzsche, who was never a philosopher but clearly supported science as stated in the Gay Science (Gay meant Earth). He spoke specifically about beyond good and evil and gave specific examples such as the good of taking a bath vs the bad of not taking one. Beyond Good and Evil was never a religious beyond. It was beyond a time on earth where good and evil was going to be overcome and good and bad established without religion. Which is what happened in the 20th century. "Cheers to Physics."
National Catholicism, National Socialism and fascism were the big, costly jokes of the 20th century. Plus he clearly stated that he considered Christianity a theology of intense resentment. And he praised the Old Testament for its humor.
I think you need to read it. Not make the contexts rationalizations of your own. No point in discussing this with your disinformation. "Convictions are not necessarily true. A note for asses," he said.
And where is that Catholic Church today? It's the most decadent vestige of Western Civilization. It'll never come back with another coronation of Charlemagne, nor crazy Bismark or Adolf. Have fun.

[Des Essientes]

Cafolini, you mistakenly assume I claimed that Nietzsche's superman is going to be a religious figure and you are wrong when you claim Nietzsche believes that science opposes Christianity. On the contrary he sees science as a consequence of the Christian mindset. The Deity is done away with by science, but the Christian value system remains. The 20th Century, far from being the beyond good and evil society the superman will usher in, is mired in the religious attitude. You should be aware that he spoke of his book Beyond Good And Evil as an explanatory companion volume to the prophetic Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Section 262 as I recomended above nicely explains the 3 transformations of the spirit. As for your ridiculous claim that Nietzsche didn't consider himself a philosopher, and your even more ridiculously asinine belief that one cannot be both a philosopher and a scientist, you are wrong on both counts. As for your bringing up Nazism as if any talk of the superman necessarily refers to that political abomination, you are plainly intellectually stunted and your belief that I think the superman would be a new Charlemange or Bismark or Hitler makes you appear idiotic

[cafolini]

We finished with Christianity in the late half of the 20th century. How did we do it? In whatever way, it ended up being thousands of sects with very little of the power it had before that. The only piece that's left of the decadent hard salami and sausage is the Catholic church in lands of wonder, despots, and true believers.
Well, I am not concerned with appearance. And I am idiotic. Don't you know it? It's obvious. Have fun.

[Freudian Monkey]

The three metamorphoses are not about an individual's life stages, but about the stages of a society as a whole. The camel symbolizes the age of "the morality of mores" in which a people conforms to strict moral codes that dictate proper behavior for every aspect of their lives. This makes the people stronger and stronger as they live for generations under this tense burden. Eventually something happens to cause free spirits to emerge and they, as lions, slay the dragon "thou shalt". All the strength garnered by generations of moral servitude is present in these iconoclastic lions. They are the flowering of the society. The Rennaisance was a time of lions for example. The lions spend the energy that the camel accumulated and after their period of fireworks the society, exhausted, begins another camel stage. The third transformation of the spirit, the child, refers to Nietsche's superman, a being with the power to create a whole new system of values and thus a whole new society.

I also understand that in Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche generally speaks about stages of development and the 'mood', 'character' or 'spirit' of an entire generation of europeans rather than just making a mockery of everything. For instance, he speaks about how religious neurosis has swept over Europe and compares it to the spirit present in the ancient Rome (section 47). Nietzsche's texts are full of irony and satire but I doubt that he's entire philosophy is just a tasteless joke.

[Theunderground]

I must take the side of essientes here. Nietzsche without doubt regards his superman as the meaning of mankind,i have never even as a fleeting aferthought regarded freddy as advocating the superman as a premeptive mocking of hitler at al. To be honest i do find that idea bizarre at first glance. 'God' survives through science with the belief in a 'single truth' and christian morality survives as 'democracy' and its mores. I think nietzsches superman is a kind of philosopher king or machiavellian prince in reality,with the aim of preserving a noble brave godless way of life. My one problem with Nietzsches thought is that phrases like the 'higher breeding of humanity' and 'the weak and ill constitiuted shall perish,and we will help them to do so' are so easily misunderstood and made into nazi thuggery. Also,what did nietzsche say different in substance form what machiavelli advocated?

[Des Essientes]

Nietzsche and Machiavelli agree about discarding morality for better ends. In the case of the latter he wrote a manual for a prince, Cesare Borgia, to wrest political power for himself and unite Italy under his rule, for Machiavelli believed that would be far better than the warring dukedoms, princedoms and republics Italy had at the time. Nietzsche's scope is far more vast. In addition to a Machiavellian immoralism Nietzsche was a philosophy of history, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and more.

[cafolini]

Nietzsche and Machiavelli agree about discarding morality for better ends. In the case of the latter he wrote a manual for a prince, Cesare Borgia, to wrest political power for himself and unite Italy under his rule, for Machiavelli believed that would be far better than the warring dukedoms, princedoms and republics Italy had at the time. Nietzsche's scope is far more vast. In addition to a Machiavellian immoralism Nietzsche was a philosophy of history, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and more.

Utterly false. Nietzsche declared himself a moralist several times. For him, immoralism was not only impossible but a product of false values. He predicted the nihilism of false values in the early twentieth century and how they would be overcome as he did overcome his being the first complete European nihilist in that context. Values and life didn't make any sense. They would have to be overcome. But how? He did it by appealing to scientific thought, i.e., sense. He clearly asked "if the false values had not been imposed, would life lack the sense it lacked at that point of the 19th century?" The answer was clearly NO. They had to be disregarded. But every nation was behind in the task. So he saw it happening in the 20th century. And so it did rotundly. You are still seeing the tail end of it, which gained impetus in the last quarter of the 20th.

There is no philosophy in Nietzsche. On the contrary, he predicted its death and burial. He cheered science. The philosophers were the overripe figs that were falling to the ground in his Zarathustra. And did they? Boy did they in the 20th century.

[Cunninglinguist]

Nietzsche and Machiavelli agree about discarding morality for better ends. In the case of the latter he wrote a manual for a prince, Cesare Borgia, to wrest political power for himself and unite Italy under his rule, for Machiavelli believed that would be far better than the warring dukedoms, princedoms and republics Italy had at the time.

I wouldn't call it discarding morality, but rather redefining the terms of morality (to say that discarding morality is "better" is to say that having morality itself is to some extent immoral, which is a contradiction). One can think about morality in terms of principles and rules, and can judge an action by how well it accords with a certain collection of rules, in other words a moral law. Or, one can think about the morality of an action or a belief in terms of its superseding consequences and the good it actualizes. The former is deontic, the latter consequentialist. So, what was really "discarded" was not morality per se, but a certain definition of it.

[Des Essientes]

Nietzche was an immoralist meaning he rejected the dominant morality of the last 2000 years. He wished to replace it with a new system of values based on aesthetics rather than good and evil. Science cannot make judgements about aesthetic values and Canaloni's ridiculous suggestion that Nietzsche was not a philosopher, when Nietzsche clearly said that he wrote books for "philosophers of the future" is "rotundly" wrong.

[cafolini]

Nietzche was an immoralist meaning he rejected the dominant morality of the last 2000 years. He wished to replace it with a new system of values based on aesthetics rather than good and evil. Science cannot make judgements about aesthetic values and Canaloni's ridiculous suggestion that Nietzsche was not a philosopher, when Nietzsche clearly said that he wrote books for "philosophers of the future" is "rotundly" wrong.

Science made and makes lots of judgments on asthetics. Obesity kills for example, and science knows better how to get rid of obesity than philosophical quack-quacks of thousands of years. Health is beauty, the highest posible demonstration of aesthetic judgement. Nietzsche couldn't possibly be considered and immoralist. Relative to what? The obvious and recalcitrant immorality of those 2000 years of poisonous gases and tortures you are talking about? I think you have your wires crossed about what happened in the history of Western civilization. I think you are deeply religious and that's no bother, except when you get into something you are not capable of grasping because it's not a subject for religious thought.