Nietzsche's "Slave Morality" (& Vegan Gains): Is Philosophy a Science or Showbusiness?
13 January 2017 [link youtube]
If you want to follow up on the bizarre theory of "the Chandalas" (Tschandala) and their alleged connection to Judaism, the name to google Koenraad Elst: he did exhaustive research on Nietzsche's use (and misuse) of Indian/Sanskrit sources.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
or vegan gains is actually making a much
more intelligent argument that has nothing to do with this vegan gains is arguing that people today many people today try to win an argument by presenting themselves as a victim but presenting themselves as a week with the implicit assumption being if you are a victim you can't be wrong if you're weak you must be right or we must treat you sympathetically such an interesting perspective but the original meaning and purpose of the slave morality argument was racist was anti-semitic was fascist was fascistic in part it's based on taking what's open our eyes to say which is an epic of philosophy of compassion and turning on its head and saying no it's actually the cruelty of the Conqueror the cruelty of the aristocrat that is truly good not the calling for sympathy of you know the conquered it's partly just like HL Mencken like any radio shock jock just a an attempt to get your audience to pay attention to you you know just by saying the most outrageous thing possible and it's partly a way of and this goes way back a guy's like Bruno Bruno Bauer did that's in Germany you could always get attention to Germany by basically criticizing Christianity via anti-semitism by saying okay here's what's wrong with Judaism and then it's even worse than Christianity or it's the fall within Christianity because of course it was culturally safe to criticize Judaism eighty semitism was very popular ideology at the time and then to make it edgy and shocking by say oh no no and this this problem with you more so that's that's kind of the stuff that's going on here hey guys this video is going to talk a little bit about the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche really about the perception of the philosophy freedom you to not about the philosophy itself how we think about philosophy in the modern Western world today and I want to make a cab you hear that i am not an expert on nietzsche not by any search the imagination Nietzsche is really one of those author where every time I read his work whether i read a few pages or a few paragraphs I was underwhelmed to say the least I've never understood the extent to which he's put on a pedestal in the Western imagination and so I did not study Nietzsche too grace Tempest well I avoided study Nietzsche but coeval with this is that I was really very very familiar with two or three of the most important sources of inspiration for Nietzsche I did study extensively in in-depth philosophy Arthur Schopenhauer if you google my name and Chopin I organized should get some results right away from that I did study in depth the philosophy of Max Turner now maybe this is itself an explanation already if you are familiar with guys like Schopenhauer and Max Turner very much direct inspirations to Nietzsche direct antecedents to Nietzsche then right away you're probably going to find Nietzsche a lot less impressive and I was also actually familiar with the work of august strindberg august strindberg is is not considered a philosopher he's just an author but again a lot of the a lot of the swag anisha's work comes out of Stromberg now I want to give one more shirt okay let's stick on disclaimer number one year disclaimer number one is look when you make videos on YouTube you may be tempted to only talk about topics that you're an expert in that obviously you know you have background in you have expertise in where you realize something important to say and you feel one hundred percent confident you've done the research what have you and you know one of the questions I get asked when I meet people face-to-face in real life who know me from YouTube they often kind of asked questions like a.m. you know do you always dominate the conversation in real life the same way you just give these monologues on the internet now the answer is no but it depends on the top of conversation right when if we're okay when I was in Thailand I met people who knew me from YouTube from the internet and they often wanted to talk about the history and politics of Thailand so I know a lot about Santa compared to them compared to the other people in conversation so yeah I would dominate that conversation because we're working within my comfort zone within my area of past expertise past research now flip it around if we're going to talk about the history and politics of Jamaica I'm going to do a lot of listening and I baby asking questions with a really open mind I'm interested I'm quite happy to sit down with you and talk about history and politics of Jamaica but I have no expertise I have no background I'm not gonna be dominating their conversation so here on YouTube you may get into the habit of only talking about those subjects that you are an expert on and on the other hand you may feel tempted to push your limits and come out come out of your own field come out of your own this one coming here in comfort zone challenge yourself to speak on topics where maybe you don't know enough so both of those things pull you and I'm so critical I'm so critical of a book when am I too much into my comfort zone moment coming out what draws me out of my comfort zone to talk about Nietzsche somebody I really don't want to talk about well you know it's it's your boy vegan gains richard AKA vegan gains has really been making hay with this philosophical concept of slave morality and you know I've written to Richard I can't say we talked about it I was a one-sided conversation I said in some facebook messages because I do think it's really interesting we're thinking about and I was not flattering him or bullshitting him I said to Richard said look what you say about slave morality it's actually much more intelligent than what Nietzsche says in the original the original in this case really is the genealogy of morals it's in a few other of Nietzsche's works and I did point out to him you know the actual the original philosophy of slave morality is racist is proto fascist is anti-semitic it's tied into that whole side of Nietzsche's thought now again it's no surprise if you're familiar with nature if you're familiar with so I don't know 19th century philosophy in general em now again my point is not to shame Richard obviously Richard is not racist and it's not anti-semitic and it's not any of those things I think it's I mean one of my catchphrases they use all the time face-to-face with people they say look you've gotta switch from looking at these authors in terms of authority to just looking at them in terms of authorship in terms of the struggle of an author to find an audience we lead a lot of these guys like Nietzsche in their own time and own lives what they were doing was a lot more like show business and less like science we can't think about the history of philosophy in terms of scientific discovery the reality is that a guy like Nietzsche genealogy of morals is 1887 as real late in the day honestly the intellectual background for Nietzsche writing the way he did the single most important figure to know is actually going in for buck for VAR 1841 publishes a book whole reason this Christmas domes and so ravenous Christmas in terms of this as the the essence of Christianity or something this was really the first break out German 19th century German book of philosophy that was talked about in all the newspapers that not just academics or scholars read but ordinary housewives were buzzing about there were you know circles book clubs and reader circles of housewives ordinary people who sat down and work this way through the book and in many many ways especially if you can read some German if you look at the style of for vox worth is one big hit book he tried to have other hit books in his later career in every Bruce and success this is I mean this is also a period in which the the technology of the newspaper was changing and which the concept of getting famous by writing opinion pieces you know this was really crazy say the nature of government censorship the extent to which religion controlled public discourse spoken published books and in newspapers all of that was changing in subtle the profound ways and a guy like 4eva he absolutely showed the way for someone like Nietzsche that you could get famous and you wouldn't get famous in philosophy by writing conservative constructive opinions you wouldn't get famous and for us by doing careful detailed research about philology about the history of religion etc etc the way you got famous was writing in this very peculiar edgy style that four of our showed of it sorry it's not worth describing here as for about the text it's it's bubbling with this kind of aimless passion every chapter when you reach for Bach you don't know what direction it's going in and he kind of seems to be taking the argument direction the terms renters the exact opposite you know you'll have a chapter which is saying like oh but really the essence of Christianity is love not fate and he's going to talk about love and take you one direction then turns around says but of course the real meaning of Christianity is the complete antithesis of love it's you know it this isn't like one-pieces like this the whole book is full of these these twists and turns and like I say it was a hit so it 1841 max Turner's big hit next turner is the single most important intellectual influence on philosophy of friedrich nietzsche i would say or look for this way it set the groundwork for niche in another sense is 1844 and against Turner it was a hit it was talked about in newspapers it caused a stir briefly not for a long time Cole Marks has a book called on the video chat visions this is jeff's later some notice on the German ideology is the English translation so I did read German back in they read twice me and Sherman in my misspent youth you see how far a first it away from that now anyway if I could just get one good german girlfriend that get the relationship to laugh I could bring up my ability in speaking and reading German no time flat anyway my misspent youth so 1844 Max Turner has this [ __ ] and most people never heard of sterner but people who are fans of nisha normal in Selma tell them look if you were into nature you should relocate Turner they look at and go yeah now Miss Turner is way more coherent than Nietzsche but again there were elements of it being shocking in a certain way challenging the fundamental assumptions of religion in a certain way and again this is only a couple years after 40 bucks this is very much the same period the same tradition and then finally I don't think I've any much to say about it you guys already know it's very well documented in many ways in nietzsche's early career he was idolizing Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer and then he decided to turn chauvin our upside down and many of the things he says including this specific to Auburn geography of the concept of slave morality is really in principle he's taking an idea from show up an hour and then just turned it upside down and argued the exact opposite so show power system of ethics is huge on pity on compassion compassion is the crux of of ethics you could say more about it could talk for an hour about it but when you look at this kind of childish elements of what Nietzsche is saying and try to say no compassion is bad and evil and weak the higher morality as a you know so-called aristocratic morality charges for it's pretty transparent that this is him taking something from show up an hour and then turning it upside down and then trying to make it kind of edgy and shocking now look I'm going to get into this and just want to read you a primary source here in many ways you have to recognize this is show business this is like a movie director saying oh yeah a couple years ago there was this hit movie with this format so I'm going to make a movie this is not the progress of science this is not even really the progress of literature's about the progress than anything in a lot of ways Nietzsche if you can kind of take off take off the rose-colored glasses of regarding this as an academically respectable work so much of what nietzsche did is a lot like I mean to use a modern example it's like a shock jock on the radio he's saying things just to be shocking but he's also a lot like HL Mencken if you don't have name HL Mencken it's a really good comparison one of the main things people debate about Nietzsche which is a pointless debate have people say well was Nietzsche really racist because sometimes he says racist stuff and sometimes he says he's not racist so nice because anti-semitic stuff and certain see directly says that he's not an anti-semite yo you know a guy like each show Megan HL Mencken was a newspaper columnist basically and you to get attention this example of a real racial theory HL Mencken published I'm sir I forget one this was this is the 1920s or 1930s I'm sorry but this is within the 20 Century HL Mencken put forward the theory that blacks people in the American South the african-americans of the deep south were racially superior to the white people in the deep south because he said the black people were the product of rape by the true aristocrats the truly refined people in the South who had all died in the Civil War would practice the black people carried on that that tradition and that the white people in American South were like genetic trash where degeneres compared the black people there is absolutely no doubt that HL Mencken only wrote that theory to get attention to cause controversy this was the this is the radio shock jock of his day and there is evidence and show me he had black friends he did say things that were racist against black people in that he said things that were racist against white people just to get attention but we know in terms of his private life mr. Lee he was not very select people nature is one of these guys if you can stop regarding this as if philosophy is a science as if philosophy belongs in a totally different bookshelf from pop culture entertainment whatever you realize Misha was a struggle author trying to get attention and in many many cases he's just incoherently seeing the most shocking outrageous thing or he's even making a reasonable point in a shocking outrageous way and it is racist and it is anti-semitic and it's true that he also says he doesn't really mean it only makes it worse ya know so look at that time I've mentioned this name or at a couple times August Strindberg in the 1880s if you own the name August Strindberg was in many ways the absolute height of his power hi Evan implement the height of his fame August Strindberg was a playwright and a novelist and a philosopher in his own way frankly but he's not remembered that way at this time when Nietzsche wrote letters to August Strindberg August rember was one of the most famous and influential people in all of Europe and Nietzsche was not Nietzsche was really struggling author trying to get famous writing these ridiculous op-ed pieces you know again look some same philosophy is not a time it can be we meet you have the choice he could have sat down and done real philology or real research of any kind on ancient Greek on Latin on any philosophical or social political topic imagine he chose not to he chose to do this crazy over-the-top histrionic dramatic stuff he was trying to get famous the same way he'd seen other philosophers in Germany get famous most notably you know for ba and Max Turner to in some way Schopenhauer was a positive example isn't some was negative example and above all else a guy like August Strindberg was somebody who was taking shall we say the theater of ideas and really becoming famous so Nietzsche writes a letter to August Strindberg you want to know what kind of guy in each it really is here's this [ __ ] letter ok case you think Nietzsche is in case you think need you at anything other than a Fame [ __ ] in 21st century problem so there's a neat you are writing to strindberg quote dear sir the highly valued note of Monsieur tains which i enclose is my excuse for asking your advice in a matter of great importance to me I am keenly anxious to obtain an audience in France in fact this is for me an absolute necessity being as I am the most independent and perhaps the strongest spirit in our world today one dealing to the fulfillment of a stupendous task it is impossible that I should allow myself to be constrained from greeting the few persons willing to listen to me but the barriers which an abominable dynastic national policy has erected between the people and I gladly acknowledge that above all I see such persons in France I am well acquainted with all the transpires needle extra world of France and I'm told that my manner of writing is really French even though in my zarathustra I have attained a perfection in the German language unequal hitherto by any other German many people simply refer to Nietzsche as insane I'm pausing that the letter continued and many people for the Istrian burgers insane what's going on here is same whoring what's going on here is nisha is writing to someone much more famous and influential himself asking him to open the doors to give him an audio in France to reach an audience in France and if you read the later correspondence it really is the same as as what goes on today Nietzsche is saying to them the later letters oh I have connections at this one theater that can put on your play you should talk to this person not that person we're putting your play on and he's repeatedly asking string Berg to pull strings or do favors so Nietzsche can get famous in France um at one point he used the image of a canal he says this is like opening up the Panama Canal for him he wants to remember to open the Panama Canal for him to access the market in France you know anyway Strindberg his reply you can just interpret actually what's trim berg says as insane but I think Strindberg once you know them as an author he has a peculiar sense of humor i actually think Sternberger is kind of ridiculing nietzsche because nietzsche has written this sternberg to call this megalomaniacal is absurd it's like sitting on your job application that you're the greatest genius in the world zone anyway I continue and again even even Nietzsche's fascism started here quote if I may be permitted to say so my ancestors on my father's side were polish nobleman and my maternal grandmother lived in y Mar in the days of gutkha all of which is sufficient reason for my being in an almost unimaginable degree the lonely that the lowliest of all living Germans today no word of recognition has a fur custom reports remember so this is an unsuccessful author a not famous author Nietzsche writing to an extremely famous and successful author strindberg asking for his help to get some of the spotlight to get put on no word of recognition has ever come to me says it's an exaggeration but it's true I mean Stern you know Friedrich Nietzsche was not such a big hit during his own life not in this period not only of the 1880s um XE no it's hilarious to me because I know how people regard Nietzsche they were garden each as if he made a scientific discovery they regard him as if he invented soul as if he invented Ella as if he discovered electricity as if even and he did nothing he was just a jackass who wrote provocative opinions like some newspaper columnist or radio host to try to get attention and you know rattled away his life this way his philosophy doesn't accomplish anything in terms of problem solving in terms of research anyway alright and here he is you know acting like a famewhore trying to get trying to get put on all right I continue quote no word of recognition has ever come to me and honestly I have never demanded it now I have readers everywhere in Vienna in st. petersburg in Stockholm in New York all the intelligences of the highest order who do me or honor as a tongue twister sorry but such are wanting to me in germany since the time when at the age of 24 i was called to a professorship at the University of Basel I actually don't know sir I'm not sure which university of it is anyway um it has fortunately not been necessary for me to maintain a constant warfare and to waste my energies in a reaction against adverse influences in Basel sir I actually do not know this drunken this translation not sure which city they're translating here I should I should know as I say I'm not really i'm not a big fan of nature anyway i do know the story that he was elevated to this high position at a young age and flunked out of it basically anyway i encountered the honourable and venerable Jacob Burkhart who from the very beginning showed a great interest in me I also enjoyed a most intimate friendship with Richard Wagner these are the tricks of the fame [ __ ] he's been dropping his name dropping people enjoy the most intimate friendship with Richard Wagner and his wife who at that time lived in trip shun near Lucerne a friendship in every way of the utmost value to me he's asking a famous person for help and trying to say he was friends with other famous people this is show business people show business not science I continue quote it is possible that after all I am myself a musician from of old it was illness that forced me to her drama to withdraw myself from these relationships and then pleasure me into a condition of the profoundest introspection such as few men have ever been subject to and since there is in my nature nothing that is either morbid or capricious this loneliness has been to me not in the flexion but rather an invaluable distinction a state of cleanliness no one has ever accused me of wearing a gloomy mean and not even myself that I've become familiar with more evil and more questionable worlds of thoughts than anyone else but only because it lies in my nature to love what lies apart I account the spirit of gaiety as one of the proofs of my philosophy perhaps I may be able to prove this to you in the two books which I send you today yours revered need you alright so why would anyone take this guy seriously among the few people who I guess you could say took them seriously was August Strindberg so obvious member that time one of the most famous people in all of Europe famous and influential authors north Europe wrote back to Nietzsche and Nietzsche noted in his diary or something that this was the first correspondence he had ever received of real historical importance he was thrilled to get a reply from strindberg and in the further course was going a few more letters he is trying to get put on and he is trying to offer favors he's trying to say oh look I can line up for you that your play will get perform at the theater at this theater you should talk to this person not that person it's show business a showbiz is probably the most literal sense of a show being put on on stage it's a play and it's also showing the disc the reality of what we call philosophy when the author is alive really is just show business why did Nietzsche end up getting famous and not a thousand other talented people I mean you know one of the most common things I encounter when I was in academia just as a student myself you meet all these people making excuses for the racism of someone like Nietzsche or someone like Hagel claiming although they didn't know better no they could have known better at that time 1887 there was much more brilliant original research being done on India China all of Asia than there is today you know the first big break through publications Europeans you know racing to translate books of Buddhist philosophy that was all flowering unfolding in 1887 exciting new breakthroughs understand the history of India and China and what have you and people like Nietzsche and hey ignored it so the actual philosophy the original philosophy of slave morality you can look this up it is anti-semitic in principle and that is because Nietzsche red one really poorly written source I mean he cherry-picked in fact he ignored an avalanche of great new research at that time that was exciting a public excitement was tremendous at that time great new research on the history of India and he constructed a theory or he selected pieces he creates I can't he created the theory but wherever he cobbled together the theory that the lowest caste people in India the most oppressed people in their social hierarchy the Chon Dula as he calls them again there are many many different words you could take from Sanskrit other language in India he decided that the Chan dollas were the Jews there's already anti-semitic and just stupid there's absolutely no evidence for is completely false and again even at that time you could you could be otherwise so he wanted to believe that the Jews of Europe came from India and were the most oppressed and despised and lowest social class nity okay so this is already in 82 make theory and that is why so called slave morality is referred to George's work also as Chon Dula morality all right now he wasn't interested in doing research he wasn't interested in learning Sanskrit thousands of people at that time there was an explosion of interest Nietzsche could have learned Sanskrit he could have become a scholar who was really addressed minister of Asia he could have learned colleague he could have study Hinduism or Buddhism or giantism or the history of it he could have expressed interests any of those things that wasn't what he wanted Nietzsche was a Fame war Nietzsche wasn't interested in the truth Nietzsche like a chaw HL Mencken before HL Mencken wasn't really trying to understand the politics or genealogy of the American South he just wanted to come up with a shocking edgy new theory that would get newspaper readers paying attention right Nietzsche was not interested in understanding the history of Judaism or the history of India or anything else he just thought he'd come up with something edgy and shocking now what did he do at this theory that's also significant it is true that even though this was an anti-semitic theory the theory of slave morality Chando immorality his purpose with it was not to attack the Jews his purpose was to attack Christianity to claim that Christianity was corrupting Europe by basically saying that Christianity was how this so-called slave morality or chandel immorality was taken into European culture and how it was corroding the you know the aristocratic morality the morality of cruelty now what is that again so somebody like making gains I think he doesn't know any this background totally understandable vegan gains is actually making a much more intelligent argument that has nothing to do with this vegan gains was arguing that people today many people today try to win an argument by presenting themselves as a victim but presenting themselves as a week with the implicit assumption being if you are a victim you can't be wrong if you're weak you must be right or we must treat you sympathetically such an interesting perspective um and I don't think that has any single author that seems to be currently fashionable thing for 80 social justice warriors to invoke here on the internet em but the original meaning and purpose of the slave morality argument was racist was anti-semitic was fascist was fistic in part it's based on taking what Schopenhauer is to say which is an ethic of philosophy of compassion and turning on its head and saying no it's actually the cruelty of the Conqueror the cruelty of the aristocrat that is truly good not the calling for sympathy of you know the conquered it's partly just like HL Mencken like any radio shock jock just a an attempt to get your audience to pay attention to you you know just by saying the most outrageous thing possible and it's partly a way of and this goes way back guys like Bruno Bruno power did this in Germany you could always get attention germany by basically criticizing christianity via anti-semitism by saying okay here's what's wrong with judaism and then it's even worse than christianity or it's the it's the fall within Christianity because of course it was culturally safe to criticize Judaism 80 Semitism was very popular ideology at the time and then to make it edgy and shocking by say oh no no and and this this problem with you more so that's that's kind of the stuff that's going on here but I mean you know the bottom line is just I mean who today remembers the philosophy of any of the radio personalities that 20 years ago there's a sense in which that you love plus the dispensed in which a radio personality or newspaper columnist has to wake up every day and find something sensational to say find something shocking and edgy and new and that's basically what you see neat you're doing here Nietzsche doesn't care about history of India doesn't care what is your Judaism he really a you don't not research it's just not I mean it's obviously it's not academic philosophy or something let me know just one cry for attention after another and when you look back on it I mean to me it's not surprising even though many of the radio personalities 20 years ago had an audience of millions they got a lot of attention some of them got a duration some of them got hatred some and got both hatred in adoration the memory of that feeds fast because the truth is this is not the progress of science the truth is this is not even a progress of problem solving does not even the progress of politics it's just [ __ ] and I've always been mystified I've never been able to understand why so many people can't see past the academic veneer the basically just comes from the shelf that we put Nietzsche on because what Nietzsche is doing in these books like genealogy of morals is no different from an op-ed column in the newspaper it's no different from a shark job of personality and again yeah I think that almost at random not randomly but arbitrarily out of all the imitators who tried to do what four of us did what max Turner did what Schopenhauer only managed to do really after his death the people who came out and wanted to get in that spotlight who wanted to use philosophy to achieve fame Nietzsche is as part of the half dozen who for whatever mix of reasons he got lucky and I I don't know why people have so much difficulty looking back on this and seeing it for the semi-improvised [ __ ] that it really is
more intelligent argument that has nothing to do with this vegan gains is arguing that people today many people today try to win an argument by presenting themselves as a victim but presenting themselves as a week with the implicit assumption being if you are a victim you can't be wrong if you're weak you must be right or we must treat you sympathetically such an interesting perspective but the original meaning and purpose of the slave morality argument was racist was anti-semitic was fascist was fascistic in part it's based on taking what's open our eyes to say which is an epic of philosophy of compassion and turning on its head and saying no it's actually the cruelty of the Conqueror the cruelty of the aristocrat that is truly good not the calling for sympathy of you know the conquered it's partly just like HL Mencken like any radio shock jock just a an attempt to get your audience to pay attention to you you know just by saying the most outrageous thing possible and it's partly a way of and this goes way back a guy's like Bruno Bruno Bauer did that's in Germany you could always get attention to Germany by basically criticizing Christianity via anti-semitism by saying okay here's what's wrong with Judaism and then it's even worse than Christianity or it's the fall within Christianity because of course it was culturally safe to criticize Judaism eighty semitism was very popular ideology at the time and then to make it edgy and shocking by say oh no no and this this problem with you more so that's that's kind of the stuff that's going on here hey guys this video is going to talk a little bit about the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche really about the perception of the philosophy freedom you to not about the philosophy itself how we think about philosophy in the modern Western world today and I want to make a cab you hear that i am not an expert on nietzsche not by any search the imagination Nietzsche is really one of those author where every time I read his work whether i read a few pages or a few paragraphs I was underwhelmed to say the least I've never understood the extent to which he's put on a pedestal in the Western imagination and so I did not study Nietzsche too grace Tempest well I avoided study Nietzsche but coeval with this is that I was really very very familiar with two or three of the most important sources of inspiration for Nietzsche I did study extensively in in-depth philosophy Arthur Schopenhauer if you google my name and Chopin I organized should get some results right away from that I did study in depth the philosophy of Max Turner now maybe this is itself an explanation already if you are familiar with guys like Schopenhauer and Max Turner very much direct inspirations to Nietzsche direct antecedents to Nietzsche then right away you're probably going to find Nietzsche a lot less impressive and I was also actually familiar with the work of august strindberg august strindberg is is not considered a philosopher he's just an author but again a lot of the a lot of the swag anisha's work comes out of Stromberg now I want to give one more shirt okay let's stick on disclaimer number one year disclaimer number one is look when you make videos on YouTube you may be tempted to only talk about topics that you're an expert in that obviously you know you have background in you have expertise in where you realize something important to say and you feel one hundred percent confident you've done the research what have you and you know one of the questions I get asked when I meet people face-to-face in real life who know me from YouTube they often kind of asked questions like a.m. you know do you always dominate the conversation in real life the same way you just give these monologues on the internet now the answer is no but it depends on the top of conversation right when if we're okay when I was in Thailand I met people who knew me from YouTube from the internet and they often wanted to talk about the history and politics of Thailand so I know a lot about Santa compared to them compared to the other people in conversation so yeah I would dominate that conversation because we're working within my comfort zone within my area of past expertise past research now flip it around if we're going to talk about the history and politics of Jamaica I'm going to do a lot of listening and I baby asking questions with a really open mind I'm interested I'm quite happy to sit down with you and talk about history and politics of Jamaica but I have no expertise I have no background I'm not gonna be dominating their conversation so here on YouTube you may get into the habit of only talking about those subjects that you are an expert on and on the other hand you may feel tempted to push your limits and come out come out of your own field come out of your own this one coming here in comfort zone challenge yourself to speak on topics where maybe you don't know enough so both of those things pull you and I'm so critical I'm so critical of a book when am I too much into my comfort zone moment coming out what draws me out of my comfort zone to talk about Nietzsche somebody I really don't want to talk about well you know it's it's your boy vegan gains richard AKA vegan gains has really been making hay with this philosophical concept of slave morality and you know I've written to Richard I can't say we talked about it I was a one-sided conversation I said in some facebook messages because I do think it's really interesting we're thinking about and I was not flattering him or bullshitting him I said to Richard said look what you say about slave morality it's actually much more intelligent than what Nietzsche says in the original the original in this case really is the genealogy of morals it's in a few other of Nietzsche's works and I did point out to him you know the actual the original philosophy of slave morality is racist is proto fascist is anti-semitic it's tied into that whole side of Nietzsche's thought now again it's no surprise if you're familiar with nature if you're familiar with so I don't know 19th century philosophy in general em now again my point is not to shame Richard obviously Richard is not racist and it's not anti-semitic and it's not any of those things I think it's I mean one of my catchphrases they use all the time face-to-face with people they say look you've gotta switch from looking at these authors in terms of authority to just looking at them in terms of authorship in terms of the struggle of an author to find an audience we lead a lot of these guys like Nietzsche in their own time and own lives what they were doing was a lot more like show business and less like science we can't think about the history of philosophy in terms of scientific discovery the reality is that a guy like Nietzsche genealogy of morals is 1887 as real late in the day honestly the intellectual background for Nietzsche writing the way he did the single most important figure to know is actually going in for buck for VAR 1841 publishes a book whole reason this Christmas domes and so ravenous Christmas in terms of this as the the essence of Christianity or something this was really the first break out German 19th century German book of philosophy that was talked about in all the newspapers that not just academics or scholars read but ordinary housewives were buzzing about there were you know circles book clubs and reader circles of housewives ordinary people who sat down and work this way through the book and in many many ways especially if you can read some German if you look at the style of for vox worth is one big hit book he tried to have other hit books in his later career in every Bruce and success this is I mean this is also a period in which the the technology of the newspaper was changing and which the concept of getting famous by writing opinion pieces you know this was really crazy say the nature of government censorship the extent to which religion controlled public discourse spoken published books and in newspapers all of that was changing in subtle the profound ways and a guy like 4eva he absolutely showed the way for someone like Nietzsche that you could get famous and you wouldn't get famous in philosophy by writing conservative constructive opinions you wouldn't get famous and for us by doing careful detailed research about philology about the history of religion etc etc the way you got famous was writing in this very peculiar edgy style that four of our showed of it sorry it's not worth describing here as for about the text it's it's bubbling with this kind of aimless passion every chapter when you reach for Bach you don't know what direction it's going in and he kind of seems to be taking the argument direction the terms renters the exact opposite you know you'll have a chapter which is saying like oh but really the essence of Christianity is love not fate and he's going to talk about love and take you one direction then turns around says but of course the real meaning of Christianity is the complete antithesis of love it's you know it this isn't like one-pieces like this the whole book is full of these these twists and turns and like I say it was a hit so it 1841 max Turner's big hit next turner is the single most important intellectual influence on philosophy of friedrich nietzsche i would say or look for this way it set the groundwork for niche in another sense is 1844 and against Turner it was a hit it was talked about in newspapers it caused a stir briefly not for a long time Cole Marks has a book called on the video chat visions this is jeff's later some notice on the German ideology is the English translation so I did read German back in they read twice me and Sherman in my misspent youth you see how far a first it away from that now anyway if I could just get one good german girlfriend that get the relationship to laugh I could bring up my ability in speaking and reading German no time flat anyway my misspent youth so 1844 Max Turner has this [ __ ] and most people never heard of sterner but people who are fans of nisha normal in Selma tell them look if you were into nature you should relocate Turner they look at and go yeah now Miss Turner is way more coherent than Nietzsche but again there were elements of it being shocking in a certain way challenging the fundamental assumptions of religion in a certain way and again this is only a couple years after 40 bucks this is very much the same period the same tradition and then finally I don't think I've any much to say about it you guys already know it's very well documented in many ways in nietzsche's early career he was idolizing Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer and then he decided to turn chauvin our upside down and many of the things he says including this specific to Auburn geography of the concept of slave morality is really in principle he's taking an idea from show up an hour and then just turned it upside down and argued the exact opposite so show power system of ethics is huge on pity on compassion compassion is the crux of of ethics you could say more about it could talk for an hour about it but when you look at this kind of childish elements of what Nietzsche is saying and try to say no compassion is bad and evil and weak the higher morality as a you know so-called aristocratic morality charges for it's pretty transparent that this is him taking something from show up an hour and then turning it upside down and then trying to make it kind of edgy and shocking now look I'm going to get into this and just want to read you a primary source here in many ways you have to recognize this is show business this is like a movie director saying oh yeah a couple years ago there was this hit movie with this format so I'm going to make a movie this is not the progress of science this is not even really the progress of literature's about the progress than anything in a lot of ways Nietzsche if you can kind of take off take off the rose-colored glasses of regarding this as an academically respectable work so much of what nietzsche did is a lot like I mean to use a modern example it's like a shock jock on the radio he's saying things just to be shocking but he's also a lot like HL Mencken if you don't have name HL Mencken it's a really good comparison one of the main things people debate about Nietzsche which is a pointless debate have people say well was Nietzsche really racist because sometimes he says racist stuff and sometimes he says he's not racist so nice because anti-semitic stuff and certain see directly says that he's not an anti-semite yo you know a guy like each show Megan HL Mencken was a newspaper columnist basically and you to get attention this example of a real racial theory HL Mencken published I'm sir I forget one this was this is the 1920s or 1930s I'm sorry but this is within the 20 Century HL Mencken put forward the theory that blacks people in the American South the african-americans of the deep south were racially superior to the white people in the deep south because he said the black people were the product of rape by the true aristocrats the truly refined people in the South who had all died in the Civil War would practice the black people carried on that that tradition and that the white people in American South were like genetic trash where degeneres compared the black people there is absolutely no doubt that HL Mencken only wrote that theory to get attention to cause controversy this was the this is the radio shock jock of his day and there is evidence and show me he had black friends he did say things that were racist against black people in that he said things that were racist against white people just to get attention but we know in terms of his private life mr. Lee he was not very select people nature is one of these guys if you can stop regarding this as if philosophy is a science as if philosophy belongs in a totally different bookshelf from pop culture entertainment whatever you realize Misha was a struggle author trying to get attention and in many many cases he's just incoherently seeing the most shocking outrageous thing or he's even making a reasonable point in a shocking outrageous way and it is racist and it is anti-semitic and it's true that he also says he doesn't really mean it only makes it worse ya know so look at that time I've mentioned this name or at a couple times August Strindberg in the 1880s if you own the name August Strindberg was in many ways the absolute height of his power hi Evan implement the height of his fame August Strindberg was a playwright and a novelist and a philosopher in his own way frankly but he's not remembered that way at this time when Nietzsche wrote letters to August Strindberg August rember was one of the most famous and influential people in all of Europe and Nietzsche was not Nietzsche was really struggling author trying to get famous writing these ridiculous op-ed pieces you know again look some same philosophy is not a time it can be we meet you have the choice he could have sat down and done real philology or real research of any kind on ancient Greek on Latin on any philosophical or social political topic imagine he chose not to he chose to do this crazy over-the-top histrionic dramatic stuff he was trying to get famous the same way he'd seen other philosophers in Germany get famous most notably you know for ba and Max Turner to in some way Schopenhauer was a positive example isn't some was negative example and above all else a guy like August Strindberg was somebody who was taking shall we say the theater of ideas and really becoming famous so Nietzsche writes a letter to August Strindberg you want to know what kind of guy in each it really is here's this [ __ ] letter ok case you think Nietzsche is in case you think need you at anything other than a Fame [ __ ] in 21st century problem so there's a neat you are writing to strindberg quote dear sir the highly valued note of Monsieur tains which i enclose is my excuse for asking your advice in a matter of great importance to me I am keenly anxious to obtain an audience in France in fact this is for me an absolute necessity being as I am the most independent and perhaps the strongest spirit in our world today one dealing to the fulfillment of a stupendous task it is impossible that I should allow myself to be constrained from greeting the few persons willing to listen to me but the barriers which an abominable dynastic national policy has erected between the people and I gladly acknowledge that above all I see such persons in France I am well acquainted with all the transpires needle extra world of France and I'm told that my manner of writing is really French even though in my zarathustra I have attained a perfection in the German language unequal hitherto by any other German many people simply refer to Nietzsche as insane I'm pausing that the letter continued and many people for the Istrian burgers insane what's going on here is same whoring what's going on here is nisha is writing to someone much more famous and influential himself asking him to open the doors to give him an audio in France to reach an audience in France and if you read the later correspondence it really is the same as as what goes on today Nietzsche is saying to them the later letters oh I have connections at this one theater that can put on your play you should talk to this person not that person we're putting your play on and he's repeatedly asking string Berg to pull strings or do favors so Nietzsche can get famous in France um at one point he used the image of a canal he says this is like opening up the Panama Canal for him he wants to remember to open the Panama Canal for him to access the market in France you know anyway Strindberg his reply you can just interpret actually what's trim berg says as insane but I think Strindberg once you know them as an author he has a peculiar sense of humor i actually think Sternberger is kind of ridiculing nietzsche because nietzsche has written this sternberg to call this megalomaniacal is absurd it's like sitting on your job application that you're the greatest genius in the world zone anyway I continue and again even even Nietzsche's fascism started here quote if I may be permitted to say so my ancestors on my father's side were polish nobleman and my maternal grandmother lived in y Mar in the days of gutkha all of which is sufficient reason for my being in an almost unimaginable degree the lonely that the lowliest of all living Germans today no word of recognition has a fur custom reports remember so this is an unsuccessful author a not famous author Nietzsche writing to an extremely famous and successful author strindberg asking for his help to get some of the spotlight to get put on no word of recognition has ever come to me says it's an exaggeration but it's true I mean Stern you know Friedrich Nietzsche was not such a big hit during his own life not in this period not only of the 1880s um XE no it's hilarious to me because I know how people regard Nietzsche they were garden each as if he made a scientific discovery they regard him as if he invented soul as if he invented Ella as if he discovered electricity as if even and he did nothing he was just a jackass who wrote provocative opinions like some newspaper columnist or radio host to try to get attention and you know rattled away his life this way his philosophy doesn't accomplish anything in terms of problem solving in terms of research anyway alright and here he is you know acting like a famewhore trying to get trying to get put on all right I continue quote no word of recognition has ever come to me and honestly I have never demanded it now I have readers everywhere in Vienna in st. petersburg in Stockholm in New York all the intelligences of the highest order who do me or honor as a tongue twister sorry but such are wanting to me in germany since the time when at the age of 24 i was called to a professorship at the University of Basel I actually don't know sir I'm not sure which university of it is anyway um it has fortunately not been necessary for me to maintain a constant warfare and to waste my energies in a reaction against adverse influences in Basel sir I actually do not know this drunken this translation not sure which city they're translating here I should I should know as I say I'm not really i'm not a big fan of nature anyway i do know the story that he was elevated to this high position at a young age and flunked out of it basically anyway i encountered the honourable and venerable Jacob Burkhart who from the very beginning showed a great interest in me I also enjoyed a most intimate friendship with Richard Wagner these are the tricks of the fame [ __ ] he's been dropping his name dropping people enjoy the most intimate friendship with Richard Wagner and his wife who at that time lived in trip shun near Lucerne a friendship in every way of the utmost value to me he's asking a famous person for help and trying to say he was friends with other famous people this is show business people show business not science I continue quote it is possible that after all I am myself a musician from of old it was illness that forced me to her drama to withdraw myself from these relationships and then pleasure me into a condition of the profoundest introspection such as few men have ever been subject to and since there is in my nature nothing that is either morbid or capricious this loneliness has been to me not in the flexion but rather an invaluable distinction a state of cleanliness no one has ever accused me of wearing a gloomy mean and not even myself that I've become familiar with more evil and more questionable worlds of thoughts than anyone else but only because it lies in my nature to love what lies apart I account the spirit of gaiety as one of the proofs of my philosophy perhaps I may be able to prove this to you in the two books which I send you today yours revered need you alright so why would anyone take this guy seriously among the few people who I guess you could say took them seriously was August Strindberg so obvious member that time one of the most famous people in all of Europe famous and influential authors north Europe wrote back to Nietzsche and Nietzsche noted in his diary or something that this was the first correspondence he had ever received of real historical importance he was thrilled to get a reply from strindberg and in the further course was going a few more letters he is trying to get put on and he is trying to offer favors he's trying to say oh look I can line up for you that your play will get perform at the theater at this theater you should talk to this person not that person it's show business a showbiz is probably the most literal sense of a show being put on on stage it's a play and it's also showing the disc the reality of what we call philosophy when the author is alive really is just show business why did Nietzsche end up getting famous and not a thousand other talented people I mean you know one of the most common things I encounter when I was in academia just as a student myself you meet all these people making excuses for the racism of someone like Nietzsche or someone like Hagel claiming although they didn't know better no they could have known better at that time 1887 there was much more brilliant original research being done on India China all of Asia than there is today you know the first big break through publications Europeans you know racing to translate books of Buddhist philosophy that was all flowering unfolding in 1887 exciting new breakthroughs understand the history of India and China and what have you and people like Nietzsche and hey ignored it so the actual philosophy the original philosophy of slave morality you can look this up it is anti-semitic in principle and that is because Nietzsche red one really poorly written source I mean he cherry-picked in fact he ignored an avalanche of great new research at that time that was exciting a public excitement was tremendous at that time great new research on the history of India and he constructed a theory or he selected pieces he creates I can't he created the theory but wherever he cobbled together the theory that the lowest caste people in India the most oppressed people in their social hierarchy the Chon Dula as he calls them again there are many many different words you could take from Sanskrit other language in India he decided that the Chan dollas were the Jews there's already anti-semitic and just stupid there's absolutely no evidence for is completely false and again even at that time you could you could be otherwise so he wanted to believe that the Jews of Europe came from India and were the most oppressed and despised and lowest social class nity okay so this is already in 82 make theory and that is why so called slave morality is referred to George's work also as Chon Dula morality all right now he wasn't interested in doing research he wasn't interested in learning Sanskrit thousands of people at that time there was an explosion of interest Nietzsche could have learned Sanskrit he could have become a scholar who was really addressed minister of Asia he could have learned colleague he could have study Hinduism or Buddhism or giantism or the history of it he could have expressed interests any of those things that wasn't what he wanted Nietzsche was a Fame war Nietzsche wasn't interested in the truth Nietzsche like a chaw HL Mencken before HL Mencken wasn't really trying to understand the politics or genealogy of the American South he just wanted to come up with a shocking edgy new theory that would get newspaper readers paying attention right Nietzsche was not interested in understanding the history of Judaism or the history of India or anything else he just thought he'd come up with something edgy and shocking now what did he do at this theory that's also significant it is true that even though this was an anti-semitic theory the theory of slave morality Chando immorality his purpose with it was not to attack the Jews his purpose was to attack Christianity to claim that Christianity was corrupting Europe by basically saying that Christianity was how this so-called slave morality or chandel immorality was taken into European culture and how it was corroding the you know the aristocratic morality the morality of cruelty now what is that again so somebody like making gains I think he doesn't know any this background totally understandable vegan gains is actually making a much more intelligent argument that has nothing to do with this vegan gains was arguing that people today many people today try to win an argument by presenting themselves as a victim but presenting themselves as a week with the implicit assumption being if you are a victim you can't be wrong if you're weak you must be right or we must treat you sympathetically such an interesting perspective um and I don't think that has any single author that seems to be currently fashionable thing for 80 social justice warriors to invoke here on the internet em but the original meaning and purpose of the slave morality argument was racist was anti-semitic was fascist was fistic in part it's based on taking what Schopenhauer is to say which is an ethic of philosophy of compassion and turning on its head and saying no it's actually the cruelty of the Conqueror the cruelty of the aristocrat that is truly good not the calling for sympathy of you know the conquered it's partly just like HL Mencken like any radio shock jock just a an attempt to get your audience to pay attention to you you know just by saying the most outrageous thing possible and it's partly a way of and this goes way back guys like Bruno Bruno power did this in Germany you could always get attention germany by basically criticizing christianity via anti-semitism by saying okay here's what's wrong with judaism and then it's even worse than christianity or it's the it's the fall within Christianity because of course it was culturally safe to criticize Judaism 80 Semitism was very popular ideology at the time and then to make it edgy and shocking by say oh no no and and this this problem with you more so that's that's kind of the stuff that's going on here but I mean you know the bottom line is just I mean who today remembers the philosophy of any of the radio personalities that 20 years ago there's a sense in which that you love plus the dispensed in which a radio personality or newspaper columnist has to wake up every day and find something sensational to say find something shocking and edgy and new and that's basically what you see neat you're doing here Nietzsche doesn't care about history of India doesn't care what is your Judaism he really a you don't not research it's just not I mean it's obviously it's not academic philosophy or something let me know just one cry for attention after another and when you look back on it I mean to me it's not surprising even though many of the radio personalities 20 years ago had an audience of millions they got a lot of attention some of them got a duration some of them got hatred some and got both hatred in adoration the memory of that feeds fast because the truth is this is not the progress of science the truth is this is not even a progress of problem solving does not even the progress of politics it's just [ __ ] and I've always been mystified I've never been able to understand why so many people can't see past the academic veneer the basically just comes from the shelf that we put Nietzsche on because what Nietzsche is doing in these books like genealogy of morals is no different from an op-ed column in the newspaper it's no different from a shark job of personality and again yeah I think that almost at random not randomly but arbitrarily out of all the imitators who tried to do what four of us did what max Turner did what Schopenhauer only managed to do really after his death the people who came out and wanted to get in that spotlight who wanted to use philosophy to achieve fame Nietzsche is as part of the half dozen who for whatever mix of reasons he got lucky and I I don't know why people have so much difficulty looking back on this and seeing it for the semi-improvised [ __ ] that it really is