Nietzsche and Nihilism, Metaphysics

[analrapist]

I don't mean to be obtuse here but how do you reconcile Nietzsche and nihilism with having any kind of spiritual or moral belief? I just don't understand this.

[Eleison]

Nihilism is a process, traditionalism the outcome.

[crow]

I don't mean to be obtuse here but how do you reconcile Nietzsche and nihilism with having any kind of spiritual or moral belief? I just don't understand this.

Me neither. But Conservationist does, so he claims, although his explanations have - so far - left me none the wiser.
I have always understood Nietzsche to be an existentialist, rather than a nihilist, whatever those terms mean, so I share your feelings of not-getting-it.

[Everdarkgreen]

I don't mean to be obtuse here but how do you reconcile Nietzsche and nihilism with having any kind of spiritual or moral belief? I just don't understand this.

I know I'm not the only one to view Nietzsche as something of a spiritualist and a Romantic. He could not have written with such vitriol and disdain for modernity without recognizing what once was and thus could be once again. His writings are in a crucial way, a call to reclaim a sense of purpose greater than ourselves (his views on Art, the Overman, the hammer and the transvaluation of values, seeing the death of god as tragic, etc.) Nietzsche celebrates natural order and beauty, so I'm not really sure how one couldn't reconcile a morality that pertains to traditional ways of life with his works at large. If Nietzsche is ever seen as aspiritual, amoral or deeply pessimistic, it would seem to me that this would be a great misunderstanding on the part of the readers not to recognize the hope-laden ideas inherent to his verses.

Nihilism is a process, traditionalism the outcome.

This, in essence.

[crow]

In an age where words mean anything at all, to anyone at all, meaning has become an endangered species.
Interpretation is the death of things.

[Conservationist]

I know I'm not the only one to view Nietzsche as something of a spiritualist and a Romantic.

Nietzsche said that god is dead, and that we have killed him; that we are in a time of reevaluation of all values; that we have outgrown our old myths, and needed to invent new ones.

The ancients viewed religion as a kind of costume for truth. They did not take it literally; they interpreted it metaphorically. The point was that humankind being of the flesh cannot know more than that with any accuracy, so we use poetic symbolism instead of trying to make literal claims about the unknowable.

Nietzsche never refuted this.

His point was not, "There is nothing beyond the material." It was: our symbols for anything beyond the material (or hell, in the material as well) have become corrupted by liberalism and other modern delusions, so we need to re-invent our symbolism and stop letting other people rule our minds.

http://www.anus.com/zine/db/friedrich_nietzsche/friedrich_nietzsche-on_truth_and_lies_in_a_non-moral_sense/

Really useful link there.

While this site gains its modern footing from Nietzsche, its fundamental viewpoint is Platonic monism. That negates nothing in Nietzsche and in fact enhances it. Traditionalism is the next logical step after Nietzsche; Traditionalism as influenced by Germanic Idealism (Kant, Schopenhauer) and Plato is the next step after that.

The step not yet taken.

[lafindumonde]

Your resources merged with the aether

[BillHopkins]

What is nihilistic about ontological belief in traditionalism?

If nothing exists outside of the forces that created me and you (energy), then how is this compatible with belief in a supernatural principle like traditionalism? Traditionalism must then be a purely pragmatic set of beliefs (along the lines of 'belief in something is better than belief in shopping,)... I mean it can't be chosen for reasons of correspondance, surely, for the view of the world given by physics is the view of reality that is least tainted by anthropomorphic projections obviously.

[Cargést]

I mean it can't be chosen for reasons of correspondance, surely, for the view of the world given by physics is the view of reality that is least tainted by anthropomorphic projections obviously.

Traditionalism and modern physics are hardly at odds with each other.  If anything, the latter seems to be catching up with the former, nowadays.

[Eleison]

What is nihilistic about ontological belief in traditionalism?

If nothing exists outside of the forces that created me and you (energy), then how is this compatible with belief in a supernatural principle like traditionalism? Traditionalism must then be a purely pragmatic set of beliefs (along the lines of 'belief in something is better than belief in shopping,)... I mean it can't be chosen for reasons of correspondance, surely, for the view of the world given by physics is the view of reality that is least tainted by anthropomorphic projections obviously.

Your question is already answered in the first post of this thread.

 

Many people hear the word "Tradition" and they take it to one of two bad places: (1) warmed over white nationalism or (2) spacey New Age doctrine.

It is neither. Tradition is the idea that (a) an informational order of existence comes before matter; (b) idealism and materialism are joined in this primal state; (c) this leads to a condition of what we might call "monism," in which both matter and information influence each other; (d) this creates a spiritual state that obeys rules identical to those of nature; (e) these rules have been long discovered, enshrined in an unvocalized and unsymbolized truth known as Tradition.

[Jim Necroslaughter]

This may not make sense to some people, but when I got done reading all my Nietzsche, I thought he critiqued the negative aspects of religion so elegantly and thoroughly that there was nothing left to say.  Atheism and literal interpretations of the world seem un-challenging even if they are "true."  The thing about it is, I believe that metaphor brings us closer to reality than anything.  There is no such thing as the thing-in-itself, and nothing actually occurs in "real time."  The speed of light is fast, but not infinite.  There's no way to literally figure out what reality "really is."  The crime is never perfect.

[crow]

Reality is exactly what it is.
Not what you 'think it is'.
Remove the thinking, and reality remains.
Can you do that?
When you can, you'll be living in reality.

[crow]

I don't mean to be obtuse here but how do you reconcile Nietzsche and nihilism with having any kind of spiritual or moral belief? I just don't understand this.

Maybe peoples' ideas about what 'spiritual' is, need to undergo a re-evaluation.
I don't see it as religious, or moral. Spirituality is being able to recognize reality, and this being so, to revere it.
Imagine being a young child, long before you 'understood' the world, and became cynical.
And your parents gave you, for your birthday, a whole miniature planet, that was entirely 'yours'.
You could be 'God'. But this toy was so special and so perfect, that you were automatically responsible, in that you didn't want to break it.
You looked after it, and cared for it. Couldn't wait, to get up each day, and lose yourself in it.
You loved it.
That's a bit like spirituality.
Nothing at all to do with the Hollywood version, is it?
 

[Time Curator 23]

I don't mean to be obtuse here but how do you reconcile Nietzsche and nihilism with having any kind of spiritual or moral belief? I just don't understand this.

No problem. When you have the time, temporarily forget all the scholastic and academic interpretations of Nietzsche, and just read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, especially the first half or so.

[BillHopkins]

I don't mean to be obtuse here but how do you reconcile Nietzsche and nihilism with having any kind of spiritual or moral belief? I just don't understand this.

If you read the will to power, nietzsche's ideas on belief, and the positive connection with culture, are rampant in the first section. He never criticises belief, per say (simply the consequences of bad belefes). NIETzSCHE IS NOT CONCERNED WITH THE TRUTH OR FALISTY OF A BELIEF! Our scientist society is, though (ironically a product of chritianity's insitance on the logos/word), and this has led to nihilism. Nietzsche wants to OVERCOME nihilism. If this is dones with spiritual or moral beliefs, so be it.

This quote says it all:

"The "predominance of suffering over pleasure" or the opposite (hedonism): these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism. For in both of these cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or displeasure. But that is how a kind of man speaks that no longer dares to posit a will, a purpose, a meaning: for any healthier kind of man the value of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. And suffering might predominate, and in spite of that a powerful will might exist, a Yes to life, a need for this predominance."