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/lit/ - Literature

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15466235 No.15466235 [Reply] [Original]

Cioran on Nietzsche

>To a student who wanted to know my position about the author of Zarathustra, I answered that it has been a lot of time since I stopped frequenting him. Why? He asked me. Because I find him naive. I blame his infatuations and his fervors too. He pulled down idols only to replace them with other ones. A false iconoclast with adolescent traits and I don’t know what kind of virginity, what innocence related to his career of lone man. He observed men only from the distance. If he’d observed them closely he never could have conceived and celebrate the Ubermensch: a rummy vision, a laughable, if not grotesque, chimera or caprice that could only spring from the mind of someone who didn't have the time to live, to age, to know the real detachment and the long serene disgust. Marcus Aurelius is much more close to me. There’s no hesitation in me between the absolute lyricism of frenzy and the prose of acceptance. I find more comfort, and even more hope too, in a tired imperator than in a thunderstruck prophet.

>Man is an abyss, if you want. In essence. More bad than good. That, I do believe. Nietzsche thought so as well. But Nietzsche was a pure kind of man, like every solitary man. This is why I feel much closer to La Rochefoucauld, to the French moralists. In my opinion, they are the ones who perceived man, because they have lived in society. Myself, I haven't lived in society, but I have known many men. I have a great experience of human beings, even if that's so. Nietzsche didn't have it. He was pure like all solitary men. But he didn't know of all the conflicts that exist between beings, the hidden side; all this, precisely because he has lived alone. He guessed, naturally; he thought a lot about this. But the real experience of man, we find it in Chamfort, or La Rochefoucald. Undoubtedly, if Nietzsche had lived in society, he would have seen things approximately like them, and not bookishly. He just didn't live as such.

>> No.15466245

>Were you reading Nietzsche then?
>CIORAN: When I was studying philosophy I wasn’t reading Nietzsche. I read “serious” philosophers. It’s when I finished studying it, at the point when I stopped believing in philosophy, that I began to read Nietzsche. Well, I realized that he wasn’t a philosopher, he was more: a temperament. So, I read him but never systematically. Now and then I’d read things by him, but really I don’t read him anymore. What I consider his most authentic work is his letters, because in them he’s truthful, while in his other work he’s prisoner to his vision. In his letters one sees that he’s just a poor guy, that he’s ill, exactly the opposite of everything he claimed.
>You write in The Trouble with Being Born that you stopped reading him because you found him “too naïve.”
>CIORAN:That’s a bit excessive, yes. It’s because that whole vision, of the will to power and all that, he imposed that grandiose vision on himself because he was a pitiful invalid. Its whole basis was false, nonexistent. His work is an unspeakable megalomania. When one reads the letters he wrote at the same time, one sees that he’s pathetic, it’s very touching, like a character out of Chekhov. I was attached to him in my youth, but not after. He’s a great writer, though, a great stylist.

>> No.15466272

>>15466245
He's right

>> No.15466286

>>15466235
>>15466245
based eraserhead

>> No.15466287

>>15466235
>>15466245
Thanks OP, truly one of the all-time copes and I'm glad we have a record of it.

>> No.15466302

Also, just a reminder that Nietzsche had roommates, lived in society, was a teacher in his 20s, even died of literally an STD.

>> No.15466328

>>15466302
he was a limp wristed nerd keep coping

>> No.15466360

>>15466328
4 facts vs. 1 faggot

>> No.15466401
File: 240 KB, 320x320, 1503175913102.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15466401

Does this mean that as society becomes increasingly alienating, solitary, and atomized Nietzsche's philosophy becomes "more correct" or something? Hmmmm

>> No.15466403

>>15466245
this kind of describes my feelings about jordan peterson

>> No.15466474

>>15466302
starting off with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, fucking off to a remote shithole, being a failed lover and fucking some filthy whores here and there doesn't make you a "normal" social person.

>> No.15466478

>>15466235
>Man is an abyss
Um sweetie, man is a rope stretched across an abyss.

>> No.15466483

>>15466474
incel nonprofessor says what?

>> No.15466513

>>15466245
Nice analysis desu.

>> No.15466638

>>15466302
Not sure his death was actually due to syphilis.

>> No.15466644

>>15466235
>>15466245
I love Neechee but this cuts to the bone

>> No.15466657

>>15466644
Do you love the parts of Nietzsche where he talks about his own illnesses? Cioran seems to think it was some kind of hidden aspect, surely you know better?

>> No.15466691

If Nietzsche "lived in a society" and was socialized like la Rochefoucauld, he would be just another boring moralist, who would have been forgotten by everyone like Cioran was. He is just trying to drag N down to his level just to cope "look he was a grandiose philosopher, but only a weak lonely man in his personal life". Thats literally what women do.

>> No.15466701

>>15466235
>>15466245
Cioran is basically right here, but still Nietzsche is richer and more interesting to read.

>> No.15466819

>>15466691
cope for what?

>> No.15466850

>>15466691
>"look he was a grandiose philosopher, but only a weak lonely man in his personal life"
Oddly enough that is a very Neetchean reading of Neetchuh
>Thats literally what women do.
Women must know better then, retard.

>> No.15466852

>>15466235
Nietzsche does talk about his illness in his work. There are whole chapters of the gay science about the need for the philosopher to be ill, or something along those lines. I think the reason he saw the nature of weakness and strengh so well is because he knew both on a physiological level.

>> No.15466871

>>15466691
Lmao it's what Nietzsche does to everyone else. Cioran is right, Nietzsche's adolescent infatuation with conquerors and great souls never quite left him, he never achieved the quotidian detachment and clarity of a sage

>> No.15466914

>>15466474
Name six "normal" people

>> No.15466936

>>15466871
Presupposing some kind of idea of what a sage is and what is appropriate to age levels lol. You just werent cut out for him mate

>> No.15466973

>>15466936
You just don't like what Nietzsche does to everyone else done to you pussy lol

>> No.15466984

>>15466914
One of them has to be me, right? So, uhm, it’s me, my mother, now, my father and little brother, I wouldn’t exactly call them normal, so that’s two. My grandpa was normal but he died last year.

>> No.15467012

>>15466973
Are you a woman? I noticed you used 'lol' after i used 'lol.' You like being dominated with language?

>> No.15467018 [DELETED] 

>>15466914
Kyle, Tylor, Stacy, Nick, Vinny, and Kieth from your high school

>> No.15467028 [DELETED] 

>>15466914
Kyle, Tylor, Stacy, Nick, Vinny, and Kieth from your high school

>> No.15467041

>>15466235
>>15466245
404: Argument not found.

>> No.15467042

>>15466914
Kyle, Tylor, Stacy, Nick, Vinny, and Keith from your high school

>> No.15467074

>>15466914
name a woman

>> No.15467090

>>15466235
I love Cioran but this we live in a society bullshit is cringe.

>> No.15467112

>>15466235
>>15466245
Strength is the morality of the man who stands apart from the rest, and it was Nietzsche's.

>> No.15467182

>>15467090
coping shut in. get out of your mom's basement.

>> No.15467183

>>15467012
You like worshipping a fool?

>> No.15467220

>>15467012
>>15467183

the sexual tension is rising

>> No.15467229

>>15467220
Four months into quarantine Im very comfortable with it

>> No.15467235

>>15466984
rip

>> No.15467257

>>15466936
>umm thats a social construct

>> No.15467297

Cioran is based

>> No.15467575

>>15466657
From Ecco Homo, "Why I am so Wise":
>the first condition of success in such an undertaking, as every physiologist will admit, is that at bottom a man should be sound. An intrinsically morbid nature cannot become healthy. On the other hand, to an intrinsically sound nature, illness may even constitute a powerful stimulus to life, to a surplus of life. It is in this light that I now regard the long period of illness that I endured: it seemed as if I had discovered life afresh, my own self included. I tasted all good things and even trifles in a way in which it was not easy for others to taste them—out of my Will to Health and to Life I made my philosophy.... For this should be thoroughly understood; it was during those years in which my vitality reached its lowest point that I ceased from being a pessimist: the instinct of self-recovery forbade my holding to a philosophy of poverty and desperation. Now, by what signs are Nature's lucky strokes recognised among men? They are recognised by the fact that any such lucky stroke gladdens our senses; that he is carved from one integral block, which is hard, sweet, and fragrant as well. He enjoys that only which is good for him; his pleasure, his desire, ceases when the limits of that which is good for him are overstepped. He divines remedies for injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage; that which does not kill him makes him stronger. He instinctively gathers his material from all he sees, hears, and experiences. He is a selective principle; he rejects much. He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with natural scenery; he honours the things he chooses, the things he acknowledges, the things he trusts. He reacts slowly to all kinds of stimuli, with that tardiness which long caution and deliberate pride have bred in him—he tests the approaching stimulus; he would not dream of meeting it half-way. He believes neither in "ill-luck" nor "guilt"; he can digest himself and others; he knows how to forget—he is strong enough to make everything turn to his own advantage.
He also writes about it extensively in The Gay Science, which he referred to as his convalescent book, but it is from a more impersonal angle there.

Nietzsche didn't hide his chronic illnesses, but he also downplayed them considering how much of his life was devoted to sickness and recovery. Nietzsche's response to Cioran and others might be that he is not the Ubermensch and never claimed to be such, his mission in writing being to inspire the Ubermensch to arise. Whether or not this is a cope is up to you.

>> No.15467777

>>15467575
Cioran never claimed that he claimed he was an ubermench

>> No.15467860

>>15466235
I literally couldn't care less about Cioran's opinion on anything. His books are just posturing and telling how he feels so much more intensely than everybody else.

>> No.15467881

>>15467860
>I literally couldn't care less
Yet you cared enough to make this post

>> No.15467917

>>15467881
and this is contradictory because?

>> No.15467980

>>15466235
>caring about what mr. Whine thinks
Not even once

>> No.15468194
File: 79 KB, 751x770, yes.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15468194

>>15466478

>> No.15468562

>>15466691
>Thats literally what women do.

That's literally what Nietzsche does too. Have you read how he "refutes" Kant, Pessimism or christianity?

>> No.15468593

>>15466235
>>15466287
it's a roundabout way of discrediting nietzsche because it makes him uncomfortable and confused.

>> No.15468602

>>15466245
>>15466235
Spot-on, this is why I like Celine so much too...

>>15466701
And agreed, Nietzsche is still incredibly enjoyable, and I think Nietzsche would agree with Cioran. He talks about becoming young/naive again in Zarathustra, so maybe Cioran never fully read him.

>> No.15468617

cioran has some nice one liners but most of what he wrote is embarrassing and philosophically irrelevant

meanwhile nietzsche conditioned every single important 20th century philosopher, and reading his work is a profound and revitalizing experience

>> No.15468649

>>15468617
Yeah upon deeper thought, I think Cioran completely misrepresents Nietzsche's thought and didn't actually understand Zarathustra or becoming young again... Also, Marcus Aurelius' is great, but hardly lyrical or compelling. He tries to fit life to a single narrative and deny all his vices, and ultimately couldn't accept death and couldn't be honest about it... The thing is Marcus Aurelius struggled to accept life was ephemeral, so he tried to rationalize it, but it's hardly compelling to live like that.

>> No.15468715

>>15468593
cope

>> No.15468779

>>15466235
>>15466245
These quotes are exactly my thoughts on Nietzsche, expressed with perfect clarity. He was just another lonely man who jerks off to mythical superheroes. Incredibly gifted when it comes to prose and metaphor, though.

>> No.15468791

>>15468617
>irrelevant
Cioran would have no problem with this criticism, he knew that "real and relevant" philosophy was a compete folly.

>>15468649
>couldn't accept death and couldn't be honest about it
Don't forget that you're defending the man who invented the concept of eternal recurrence.

>> No.15468799

>>15468779
>He was just another lonely man who jerks off to mythical superheroes.
You have never read Nietzsche.

>> No.15468809

>>15468799
I have, and the entire concept of an ubermensch is naive

>> No.15468896

>>15466235
>Marcus Aurelius is much more close to me
Any number of statements from FN on stoics, Aurelius, and Epictetus in particular (characterizing it as the slavish cargo cult cope of the appearance of noble forebearanc, e.g. "The Camel" in TSZ)

>>15467575
The amount of travel of foot he undertook probably had him in comparatively good fitness compared to us itt, apart from his intense symptom bouts and latest years

>> No.15468915

>>15468809
And the entire concept of an ubermensch isn't even close to being his major contribution to philosophy.
And it's not naive at all, it's just grossly misunderstood. Just as a lot of people believe he is a nihilist or whatnot, they overestimate the importance and the range of that concept.

>> No.15468932

>>15468915
I forget the exact quote, but Nietzsche himself thought Thus Spake Zarathustra was his best or most powerful work. And the entire book is a pseudo religious glorification of the ubermensch. The concept is of central importance in Nietzsche’s work, and it is directly related to almost every idea he is known for.

>> No.15469045

>>15468932
I'm other anon. But why do you think the ubermensch is naive? If anything I see it as a Darwinian prophecy

>> No.15469112

>>15468932
>but Nietzsche himself thought Thus Spake Zarathustra was his best or most powerful work.
I mean, he definitely thought it was. And it has some great sections too, but it definitely is not my favorite work of his.
Criticism of his works belongs to us too.
>And the entire book is a pseudo religious glorification of the ubermensch.
Again, that's just not true. The book is much more than that, anon.
When you read an author, you try to get as much as possible from him. Don't just synthetize and disregard.
You can make new conclusions out of his thoughts too.

>> No.15469189

>>15468791
>Don't forget that you're defending the man who invented the concept of eternal recurrence.
So you clearly have no conception of nietzsches actual philosophy or philosophical history

>> No.15469424

>>15466235
We live in a society?

>> No.15469462

>>15469189
Yeah

>> No.15470165

>>15467777
This

Also, Cioran was an infamous contrarian. He writes in Nietzchean aphorisms ffs. His whole 'system' is built on dismantling his own system. A contrarian par faggot but purely Nietzchean himself.

>> No.15470291

>>15467917
Because you could in fact care less you stupid dipshit

>> No.15470357

>>15469424
History repeats itself once again

>> No.15470496

>>15467041
do you even to appeal to arguments to show how idiotic someone like nietzsche, who literally never appealed to any argument, was?

>> No.15470901

>>15470165
>He writes in Nietzchean aphorisms ffs.
Aphorisms were a thing before Nietzsche retard

>> No.15471218
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15471218

>>15466871
>Nietzsche's adolescent infatuation with conquerors and great souls never quite left him, he never achieved the quotidian detachment and clarity of a sage
Talk about coping. He was raging against Schopenhauerian and Christian "otherworldism" and depending on how you interpret "will to power", he was a staunch ontological materialist. His "adolescent infatuation" was completely in line with his overarching thought and ideas. Besides, it seems to me only unsuccessful men ever "achieve the quotidian detachment" -- you think Napoleon was an "infatuated adolescent" too? Maybe that's why you're Anon and Napoleon was Napoleon.
Saying you're "totally above being ambitious and securing a chapter in the history books and fucking women and chasing riches and attaining power bro" is the biggest cope there is. It's the entire basis of the slave morality Nietzsche criticizes. In fact, by saying Nietzsche never "attained the clarity of the sage" you're just putting the cart before the horse: Nietzsche is precisely claiming that being a sage is a bullshit cope.

>> No.15471265

>>15471218
> it seems to me only unsuccessful men ever "achieve the quotidian detachment"
But by Nietzsche's standards didn't the Buddha and Jesus both achieve far more than Napoleon ever did?

>> No.15471306

>>15471265
Nietzsche, for all his vitriolic writings on Christianity, is actually pretty cool with Jesus the person. In any case, it's obvious these big religious figures did their own thing and paved their own path, which is what the Übermensch is all about (creating your own values). That's why he also claimed Goethe came close to the Übermensch ideal, together with Napoleon. Both very different personalities indeed.

>> No.15471364

>>15471306
>Well, I realized that he wasn’t a philosopher, he was more: a temperament.
Seems like Cioran is right then. Übermensch meant pretty much anything Nietzsche wanted it to mean.

>> No.15471409

>>15471364
Not entirely true but it's common knowledge Nietzsche intended to write a full systematical account of his philosophy which didn't come to fruition because of his mental health

>> No.15471825

>>15471218
>Saying you're "totally above being ambitious and securing a chapter in the history books and fucking women and chasing riches and attaining power bro" is the biggest cope there is.

americans think the ubermensch is some parody of masculinity they saw in a teen movie once. sex, drugs, and rock n' roll ontologized.

absolute disgrace.

>> No.15472618

>>15466691
>Thats literally what women do
>SUPPOSING TRUTH IS A WOMAN...

>> No.15473714
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15473714

>>15466235
This just reads like a guy who met his hero and came away grumbling and disappointed. His "criticisms" of Nietzsche being naive, or not as rigorous as a philosopher, are what a lot of people find compelling about Fred. I don't even think Nietzsche saw himself as a philosopher so much as a writer with a philosophical temperament.

It honestly sounds like Cioran wanted Nietzsche to be something different than what he was, and when he realized Nietzsche wasn't what he thought, instead of accepting the difference between expectation and reality, regressed to an immature kind of, "Hmph well it wasn't what I WANTED so it must be WRONG."

Reminds me of the limp-wristed and bitter liberal arts professors who plague modern universities. They can't reconcile what they want with what exists, and if what they want isn't provided, they don't produce it, just demand that what already exists changes to fit their needs. Weak.

>> No.15474251

>>15471364
The guy you're responding to explained the key to the Übermensch concept:
>In any case, it's obvious these big religious figures did their own thing and paved their own path, which is what the Übermensch is all about (creating your own values)
>(creating your own values)

>> No.15474719

>>15474251
So asceticism is bad and weak unless you can convince lots of other people to copy your asceticism in which case you’re actually a strong Übermensch but the people copying you are bad and weak because they're just copying?

>> No.15474853

>>15474719
No, you absolute troglodyte. Nietzsche did not believe in such things as "right" and "wrong." The people he derided were not "bad" or "weak."
The point is that the man who creates his own values and follows only his own internal moral system is the Übermensch. What he derides is subordinating oneself to the value systems created by others simply on the basis of their authority. Because no genuine moral authorities exist, each man must create his own values for himself.

>> No.15476503

>>15470901
Your point? Are you saying Cioran got his style elsewhere?

>> No.15477287

>>15466235
>>15466245
Having read neither Cioran or Nietzsche, this just comes off as one very elegantly worded adhom.

>> No.15477441 [DELETED] 

>>15474853
> What he derides is subordinating oneself to the value systems created by others simply on the basis of their authority.
Yeah and he says to do otherwise would be bad and weak.

>> No.15477449

>>15474853
> What he derides is subordinating oneself to the value systems created by others simply on the basis of their authority.
Yeah and he says to do this would be bad and weak.

>> No.15477471
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15477471

>>15466235
>we live in a society

>> No.15477994

>>15477471
Unnironically this. If NEETzche's didn't live in his basement maybe he wouldn't have been such a resentful edgy megalomaniac. Just look at nazi larps on /pol/, they all spout Nietzsche's shit but all of them are a bunch of coping awkward anime nerds that are too afraid to engage with society.

>> No.15478059

>>15466245
Well Nietzsche is and will always be infinitely better than Cioran.
This is basically the equivalent of left-wing people saying that you're right wing because you didn't have enough sex yet.
>he was physically weak therefore his philosophy is invalid
Yeah that's not really an argument.

>> No.15478065

>>15466302
>even died of literally an STD.
No he didn't...

>> No.15478476

>>15466235
This is an unusually dull and dimwitted take from Cioran, who I generally respect. It basically amounts to
>the ubermensche is not realistic because it isn't indicative of the average person
That's precisely the point of the ubermensche, it's in the god damn name, he is fundamentally unlike men as we know them. The furthest thing from a refutation...only half baked intellectuals eat this sort of thing up and then regurgitate it for others out of arbitrary (and stupid) glee at hearing Nietzsche called naive by someone with a big name. OP is almost Freudian in his patheticness.

>> No.15478489
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15478489

>>15477994
Why do double digit IQs like yourself constantly confuse causation with correlation? Do you think Nietzsche was born in a basement and forbidden to ever leave it? He wasn't a "resentful edgy megalomaniac" because he lived apart from other people, he lived apart from other people because he was a "resentful edgy megalomaniac".

>> No.15478495

>>15466235
>If he’d observed them closely he never could have conceived and celebrate the Ubermensch
What does the average tavern patron have to do with the Ubermensch exactly?

>> No.15478520

>>15478489
>He wasn't a "resentful edgy megalomaniac" because he lived apart from other people, he lived apart from other people because he was a "resentful edgy megalomaniac".
Based retard

>> No.15478526

Distance is a virtue, haven't you heard?

>> No.15479236

>>15466302
He didn't. His migraines and later insanity were probably due to brain tumor, not syphilis ffs.

>> No.15479244

>>15478526
uber is a man of society

>> No.15479666

Bump

>> No.15479667

>>15478059
t. solitary man with no experience of society

>> No.15479681

>>15477449
No he does not. You do not understand Nietzsche.