WAR

The Nietzsche Podcast episode #70
On Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0qqv...
Patreon: www.patreon.com/untimelyreflections
We all know that Nietzsche said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger", but it is less often remembered that he began that aphorism with the caveat, "From the military school of life". We find, in fact, that many of Nietzsche's powerful insights on self-knowledge, self-control, and the search for truth come from this same military school of life. Nietzsche celebrates war and warriors throughout his work, most notably in passages of book one of Thus Spoke Zarathustra which often beguile first time readers coming at Nietzsche's work from a humanist or existentialist bent. How could a philosopher of intellectual freedom and independence tell his audience to "die in battle and squander a great soul"? How could he say that a war is not made just by the cause, but the cause made just by the war? Could Nietzsche actually have been pro-war? As a matter of fact, views on war that were on the whole positive were not uncommon in the 19th century, and Nietzsche is no exception to this. Of course, with Nietzsche, it goes deeper, insofar as the influence of Heraclitus and his conception of strife as a creative force inspired Nietzsche. In his view, all the world is war, and every aspect of existence is a manifestation of this unceasing conflict. This war exists on the physical level, on the social level, within our ideas, and within ourselves. Life itself is a bella omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all. With this war as the revealed character of the phenomenal world, Nietzsche argues for accepting war as a fact of life: even as its fundamental character.
Episode art: Nietzsche in his military uniform, circa 1864
#nietzsche #philosophy #philosophypodcast #historyofphilosophy #history

[@whoaitstiger]

"War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god." Judge Holden, Blood Meridian

[@namelessking4146]

“You’re crazy Holden. Crazy at last.”

[@JayTX.]

"It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way"

[@balsarmy]

I never liked game concept

[@stevemustang7102]

[insert WAR NEVER CHANGES quote here]

[@Dylonysus]

David Goggins is a Nietzschean Sage

[@abcrane]

I remember reading Malinowski's Sexual Life of Savages. The Matrilineal Trobriands went on long often dangerous sea voyages, meeting with other tribes to trade Kula shells. These were peaceable trading expositions. More than once they could happen upon a tribe and get eaten by cannibals. Nonetheless, they continued the annual voyages. When meeting friendly tribes, they formed alliances against warring tribes. (*as a defense strategy, or a preventative strategy) With this example, we can see that both war and (peaceable) adventure can "make men strong and courageous and advancing." The Trobriands were not anti-life moralists, the children were not sexually repressed, nor were they abused by authorities. They did not have ressentiment filled hearts. Boys became men and girls became women, they were not infantilized like we see today. It is the anti-life moralists who martyr themselves for the authoritarian state. They do come from and are molded in their obedience by anti-life moral societies. They are the herd-prey fighting for the shepherd-predators. The Trobriands made alliances with other friendly tribes to protect their own "yes to life" way of life. They became "men" to live, not to kill. Females became "women" to remain independent, not to become dependent. Children lived an idyllic life. "Adventuresome" and "courageous" can be applied in both anti-life and yes-to-life contexts. War is merely one expression. Art, craftsmanship, martial arts, permaculture, entrepreneurship, dance, theater, poetry, are also expressions. The dichotomy here, then, is not "war and peace" but rather "peace and complacency."

[@Tehz1359]

You should read the book "War: What is it good for?: The role of conflict in civilization, from primates to robots" by Ian Morris. Talks about this very topic.

[@_7.8.6]

The struggle makes the man

[@hermitage6439]

That's an interesting though, you know; we have wars in the modern world, but they have become more encapsulated, more normative in it's sense of not being perceived as war despite the fact all these different industries and 'entertainment' are just forms of ways to appeal to that inner sense of our nature.

[@FQBeast]

I just discovered your channel. Thank you for this edifying presentation. I think that when we try to judge and evaluate the value that war in the literal sense (so not always in the ways in which Nietzsche talked about as described) and compare that with other aspects of life which individuals and society have an effect on (and which in turn, affects them), we should separate two psychological and moral frameworks which I would identify as self-overcoming and self-annihilating. The former, self-overcoming, can be described roughly by the maxim referenced, "what does not kill me makes me stronger." That is, that struggle itself (in most forms, though the value of a particular "struggle" can be debated) is a process that is central to identity formation, self-worth, and in turn, being. That being is inseparable from becoming and in fact subordinate to it, that is, that being can only be understood through the process of becoming. We are all engaged in the process of becoming everyday, as cells die and new, perhaps less effective ones take their place. But this is a largely involuntary process of becoming, one in which we have (broadly speaking) little control over its direction which is towards a particular and fixed end (death). This may be contrasted with the form of becoming which is voluntary and self-directed, in which the subject recognizes within itself aspects of itself which it regards as defects that can imperil its essential existence, and thereby seeks to overcome it. In the modern individual subject, this can be most readily identifying through self-imposed challenging activities such as studious behavior or physical fitness, both of which I would regard as ennobling. In modern society as subject, this can take on many different forms at different levels, but the instance of interstate warfare may be regarded as the most intense manifestation of the process of voluntary becoming, for all wars can in a sense be described as voluntary (that is, that there are almost always normative commitments of some type for both the "aggressor" and the "defender" and why they fight, even if the Manichean presentation of absolute good against absolute evil is the one which we feel most spiritually strengthened by). Through it, all the resources of society: political, economic, material, psychological, and spiritual, are harnessed, converted, and channeled (all of which is to say, processed) into overcoming the enemy, who is engaged in just the same all-absorbing process if he wants to win. Yet, even if the individual shrinks into a microscopic atom in the cosmic background of this general carnage, through it he or she invariably becomes the "All-American Fighting Man" or the "Rosie the Riveter"; that is, made into something new, if all goes well, stronger, smarter, tougher, better. War seen in this sense has both a societal and individual effect, its extremes push those toward their limits, where they discover whether they will rise to overcome and become something worthy of themselves, or fall into failure, to become a failure. But I personally would not regard war as the most ennobling societal form of overcoming. Indeed, any society worth living in is overcoming itself each and every day, generation after generation. It is overcoming its constant need for energy through the invention and utilization of new scientific and industrial techniques, which involves the discipline of countless engineers in the self-mastery of their vocation, for the good of themselves and of society. It is overcoming its constant need for health through the devotion with which those who pursue the medicine out of a genuine love of others discipline themselves with the daunting education required to carry out their complex tasks. There is something of a meme image which shows above ground, families picnicking carelessly in a pristine park surrounded by immaculate skyscrapers, yet in fact this is all being held up from below by dead soldiers sacrificed from generations past. If this image has any truth to it, it should be broadened out to include not only the dead soldiers, but the scientists, the doctors, the engineers, the farmers, and yes even the artists and philosophers, who make such an Elysian domain remotely possible. I would like to return to contrast the above with the aforementioned self-annihilating tendency, but after writing all of this in the span of 20 minutes, legally I think I am incapable of operating heavy machinery and that I should now take a break and come back before continuing on.

[@AGamer1177]

I've noticed that Nietzsche is an Axiological Anti-Realist about morality and value (which is to say that morality is a mental construct or "herd instinct" in his terms), but he is Ontological Realist. To put it simply: the values that adhere to the reality of the world as it is will be able to survive and forward Man to new heights and overcome new challenges.

[@lonelycubicle]

Isn’t perspectivism at odds with being an Ontological Realist? I don’t understand how a perspectivist makes assertions.

[@AGamer1177]

@@lonelycubicle Nietzsche's espistimology is grounded in Perspectivism. Nobody has a god's eye view of the world and a single person can't know everything that there is to know about the world.

[@lonelycubicle]

@@AGamer1177 I audited a Nietzsche seminar where the instructor’s opinion was that Nietzsche wasn’t very thorough about giving philosophical justifications for his views and it just seems to be true which is frustrating when coming from a perspectivist. So when you said Nietzsche is an Ontological Realist, it seems like an example of him adopting a standpoint which a perspectivist like himself shouldn’t believe in (I.e., “world as it is” sounds like a fact.)

[@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060]

​@@lonelycubicle Nietzsche's perspectivism is based off of us all having a unique view of the material universe but was still "grounded" in naturalism. Depending on where you look at a mountain for example can greatly change how it appears.

[@lonelycubicle]

@@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 Agree it’s “grounded” in naturalism (will to power per Nietzsche), but wish he was more rigorous about explaining why that “is” should be an “ought”. There seems to be growing evidence that cooperation got humans on top of animal kingdom and seems more likely to get us through this risky period of climate change and nuclear weapons, IMHO.

[@Jabranalibabry]

Khalid bin Waleed said, 'you are fighting against men who love death more than you love life' And it was to the Romans/Byzantine at Yarmuk, if I'm not wrong.

[@amorfati4096]

And What Nietzsche said about War lord Muhammad? In his Anti Christ book?

[@duongnghia1611]

Jünger did not harbour any illusions about the changes technology had wrought on the battlefield, rendering traditional chivalric and heroic conceptions of the warrior unsustainable. Skill and courage were no guarantee of glory or survival when the vast military machines pitted against each other mercilessly consumed the human matériel that was fed to them, reducing men to ‘a kind of charcoal, which is hurled under the glowing cauldron of war so as to keep the work going.’[4] Furthermore, the duration and intensity of the conflict, the increasing mobilisation of all the resources of the societies involved, and the general subjugation of all social life to its pursuit meant that the war appeared to acquire an autonomous and self-perpetuating life of its own, over and above the goals and values it purported to serve. And yet if Jünger readily acknowledged that the industrialisation and mechanisation of warfare threatened to dwarf man and render combat meaningless, he remained determined to continue asserting the warrior’s centrality and enduring ability to imbue conflict with purpose: The battle of the machines is so colossal that man almost completely disappears before it. Often already, caught in the force fields of the modern battlefield, it seemed to me strange and scarcely believable that I was witnessing world-historical events. Combat took on the form of a gigantic, lifeless mechanism and swept an icy, impersonal wave across the ground. It was like the cratered landscape of a dead star, lifeless and radiating heat. And yet: behind all this is man. Only he gives the machines their direction and meaning. It is he that spits from their mouths bullets, explosives and poison. He that elevates himself in them like birds of prey above the enemy. He that sits in their stomach as they stalk the battlefield spewing fire. It is he, the most dangerous, bloodthirsty, and purposeful being that the Earth has to carry.[5] This is not to say that Jünger did not display some ambivalence as to whether technology had in fact come to entirely dominate its creator or if man retained the ability to give to machines their purpose and meaning. Indeed, this appears to be one of the key tensions that Jünger grappled with.

[@plintdillion286]

The conditions of War have changed since Nietzsches time. The glory is no more as it is citizens with the soldiers become the victims. Of course this has happened in time in memorial but I suspect Nietzsche leans to a glory created in battles between soldiers. Great work.

[@ForbiddenCatBelly]

The razing of villages and cities in war has always been a facet of war, nothing new

[@stilljaywalking4957]

My only context: picture of Nietzche, "WAR", hour and 20 min long, low viewership.... hell yeah, *clicks*

[@andreasauke5724]

This was incredibly enjoyable! Thank you!

[@andreasauke5724]

"You put your fatih in Christianity, I put mine in artillery" - Exodous (from the song "War is my sheperd")

[@singh3100]

Napoleon said something like this front of the cannon every man is equal. Artillery always works better though

[@h80096]

Absolutely amazing channel thanks. Brings me so much delight, it’s life changing lol

[@lalaboards]

What a practical logical realistic dissertation .Well done .

[@fortunatomartino9797]

I appreciate your selection of photographs of Nietzsche I'm used to seeing the demented Nietzsche Are there any pictures of Nietzsche smiling?

[@aimenelhabry6178]

I don't think he ever smiled 😂

[@vladvlog9677]

Excellent analysis.

[@Jaredskoll]

Very interesting topic. You can almost think of war and conflict like a pathogen that keeps the immune system strong. If it's too weak, you either die from insidious, less detectable diseases or you get overwhelmed by something truly dangerous and succumb. Of course, there are auto-immune disorders that have the body attacking itself, too, and I could see that being an analogy for extreme militarism.

[@fortunatomartino9797]

Always excellent

[@spencerwinston4334]

Gautama Buddha, Nietzsche and the "pathos of distance discovered" roaming like a "laughing lion" high up in the purified air of the Swiss Alps: free from the hollow men and maddening crowd. " A man may conquer a million men in battle but one who conquers himself is, indeed, the greatest of conquerors."

[@lonelycubicle]

The "live at war with your peers and yourselves" portion of what you quoted at 1:17:00: ".. for believe me the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is to live dangerously build your cities in the slopes of Vesuvius send your ships into Uncharted Seas live at war with your peers and yourselves be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors you Seekers of knowledge …” Reminded me of the New Testament verse, Luke 14:26: "If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." (King James version since assuming Nietzsche would have read that version.)

[@paulrowe4409]

Haven't even watched it yet, had to pay for Spotify to listen to the untimely reflections, I think those would do rather well on KZbin.

[@paulrowe4409]

Culture is the structure which the state uses to justify society. I will be the Ape of Keagan or just a clown, fr ready to elect a philosopher king, post reflection #12 for sure.

[@BillJones-fn8pt]

A cool video would be one on the criticism about Nietzsche and any rebuttals to such criticisms .

[@hermitage6439]

1:00:00, the quote, well---it sounds like Nietzch is proclaiming his own obituary, rather poetic too.

[@danieljohnson1924]

I'm a Muslim, and I very much appreciate your balanced discussion of Jihad at 1:19. Thank you, and may God bless you.

[@danieljohnson1924]

@D Heyman I don't know enough about what that means to say yes or no. I try to live with my mind switched on, and act in a deliberate, considered manner.

[@actaeonpress]

Moltke is perhaps closer to Schmitt, which would make a connection to romanticism difficult (the romantics were also a reaction against Prussianism). Moltke on international law and moral education: "Every law requires an authority who watches and regulates its execution; but this power is lacking in the observance of international agreements. Acknowledgment of established rules does not secure adherence to these rules. By the same token, no paragraph learned by heart will convince the soldier that he must see a lawful enemy in the unorganized populace which resorts to force of arms on its own initiative and from which his life is not secure for a moment, day or night. Thus, not much weight should be attached to international agreements. What third power will resort to arms solely because one or the other of two belligerents has violated the laws of warfare? There is no earthly tribunal. Success is to be expected from the religious and moral education of the individual. It also stems from the sense of honor and justice of the leaders. They lay down the law and act accordingly as far as possible under the abnormal conditions of war, where everything must be considered individually." ~ Helmuth von Moltke

[@VVeltanschauung187]

Glad to see somebody here citing Moltke the Elder

[@danyel80be40]

I m from Biology but I read a lot of German books from XIX to my master, I think that German passion for war, at that time, is linked to natural evolution and the survival of the fittest, not so much with a romantic fantasy. Nature, for Haeckel and others, is a state of permanent war among different individuals and species. War gives birth to the best and eliminates the weak. From what I have been reading from Nietzsche, it shares this perspective as well. Also, there is a dominant idea at that time: the humankind is degenerating. We don't read anything about idiots, fat, ugly and crazy people in the ancient Greeks and Romans. Their stories don't talk about love, intimacy, romance, psychology and introspection. Something is wrong with Europe and it needs a kind of "purification", so it needs war, a series of wars. So, loving Life, Earth and destiny, is to be in love with war and its consequences. Will to power == will to war. I don't quite agree with it, but its a bit poetic vision of the world and life. Very good lecture, btw, thank you so much.

[@Tehz1359]

I think the beauty of it is that it's not something you need to necessarily agree with. But Nietzsche thought that embracing it in a way would be beneficial. Because to him, this is how the world really works.

[@garrycraigpowell]

Brilliant and inspiring. I will be making war on my peers - and myself - in my new Substack, Write Dangerously.

[@pocketbomb8081]

59:00 I believe Jordan Peterson was grasping at a Christianized version of Nietzsche's utilitarian definition of truth in his first Sam Harris debate. But the idea is inherently amoral so trying to tack it on to Christianity didn't make much sense, and SH ripped him apart for it pretty thoroughly.

[@dannyteal1020]

Isn’t 15:56 there a controlling morality behind the statement of having to eat each other when it is quite natural and designed not to be a sympathetic resistance to a natural course of life? Hold back those tears!

[@sudhirpatel7620]

Nature goes on forever for everyone and everything to return as everyone and everything an infinite number of times through evolutionary processes. 🌌

[@bloodsonnet]

based.

[@charliem5254]

Second. First infantryman to comment though.

[@Bilboswaggins2077]

1:14:29

[@edwardm.1067]

42:52

[@Gayathri-qt1bn]

Great topic selection🎉❤

[@amorfati4096]

18:52 but there’s Neurobiological Evolutionary basis of morality.

[@emZee1994]

*Conan! What is best in life?*

[@thugnifecent14]

Uh h😢y😢y

[@destruction1928]

Since the Roman empire war was fought by the poor, to save the skin of the powerful, makes no sense to be a soldier, in modern times it's literally for the interest of the powerful, we can see that in the Ukrainian conflict clearly.

[@belovedstrummer6140]

First

[@trevormilliner8121]

Nah, I'm glad we don't like war these days. Most of the time people writing about war back in the day didn't fight or weren't on the frontlines. Or they lived 400 years ago from the event. So please don't glorify massive killing. Plenty of others ways to develope virtue and courage.

[@untimelyreflections]

Sounds like you were born at exactly the right time and place. I hope for your sake that the long peace lasts.

[@Tehz1359]

This is a luxury mindset that will need to be immediately dropped in times of crisis. Peace is never permanent. And often times it's just a small intermission between conflicts.

[@plintdillion286]

​@@Tehz1359What type of War? 😂

[@jeffreyvega7260]

There are still wars to be fought independent of bloodshed and massive armies.

[@ahobimo732]

If nature and morality are fundamentally in opposition to each other, which does Nietzsche endorse? If the answer is nature, then he was, in my opinion, unequivocally a myopic fool. Nature follows the rule pf entropy, and to act in harmony with entropy is to embrace nihilism in the most absurd, empty, worthless sense of that word.

[@Rabbi-Jill-kews]

agreed, as a muslim i can see where he went wrong. Became an atheist and rejected God just because christianity is corrupted. He went down the wrong path though right about a lot. He wrote how he hated christians for destroying the wonders the moors had created. Humans can have morals but only by The law of God. Any human moral code will be inherintly imperfect.

[@ahobimo732]

@@Rabbi-Jill-kews I understand why Nietzsche wanted to attack what he called "slave morality". Cowardice is a vice, not a virtue. Any morality that is inspired by fear is false morality. But as far as I know, Nietzsche never considered the possibility of true selflessness. He never imagined that a person might willingly choose to sacrifice their own wants and needs for another, not out of a sense of duty, or in expectation of some reward, but out of a true sense of love and empathy. There's an old saying: "do not mistake kindness for weakness". Nietzsche assumed that all kindness was ultimately just weakness in disguise. It's a pitifully impoverished view of human nature.

[@BJ52091]

@@ahobimo732 Nietzsche hated moralists and saw them as the proto-cultists that the left has become today. Morality should be accepting the inherent meaninglessness of the universe and the finiteness of your life, accepting the responsibility of defining your own meaning to your life, and then doing your very best to strengthen yourself both mind and body in pursuit of being great, becoming noble, producing beautiful works, attaining power, etc. As far as self-sacrifice is concerned, there is a sound scientific reason for that behavior. If one's own chances of survival and reproduction look bleak than it makes all the more evolutionary sense to give up one's own life if doing so can increase the odds of survival and reproductive success of one's close kin. That's not selflessness; that's a means of selfishly propagating the genes of those whom the self-sacrificing individual is sacificing for, in an indirect way. Such behavior, when viewed through this perspective, does not necessarily contradict Nietzsche's view of the Will to Power animating and motivating organisms' activities.

[@ahobimo732]

@@BJ52091 If Nietzsche genuinely had no respect for selflessness, then how do we explain the event surrounding his mental collapse? Why did he give a shit about that horse? It wasn't contributing to the glorification of his personal will. Why not let the carriage driver whip it to death?

[@BJ52091]

@@ahobimo732Just saw your reply, thanks for your question, assuming it was asked in good faith. Based on the available evidence surrounding Nietzsche’s stated values, biography, and reported personality traits, his mental collapse in the face of observing a horse being whipped half to death by its rider was most likely caused by a confluence of mental, biological, and philosophical factors. Firstly, Nietzsche had suffered from poor physical health for most of his life, which would have been exacerbated by syphilis, age, and life stresses such as poverty and intellectual isolation from his peers. Nietzsche also suffered from an overabundance of empathy from a very early age, which (assuming he truly believed what he said he believed) would have been overwhelmed from the horse being whipped by its rider. A horse has always been a symbol of power and strength, and seeing it lashed and leashed by a less powerful individual (figuratively and literally speaking) was likely too much for Nietzsche to bear. Considering his stressful miserable life, the sight of this and what it symbolized to Nietzsche’s mind was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I can understand why he just finally collapsed under the weight of his own empathy; he loved this earth and the best of human individuals so much that he could not stand to live in any other kind of world. It’s an understandable reaction to seeing the symbol of one’s values being denigrated and enslaved for the needs of others. A healthy man would have been able to take it in and utilize that suffering to become even more determined to overcome life’s challenges; Nietzsche, a healthy man made unhealthy by a short lifetime of suffering, finally broke. It’s not that he hypocritically betrayed his values, but that he courageously upheld his values for too long. He believed in greatness, in excellence, in the ability for the individual man to achieve great things; he thought he had failed, but that we’re talking about him today as one of humanity’s greatest thinkers proves him wrong at least on that point.