Nietzsche the out of context "Whip" quote

Thomas Seay entheogens at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 6 01:08:21 PST 2002



> his appalling misogyny ("When you go to the
> woman--remember your whip!"
> - --One wonders what Lou Andreas-Salome thought of
that.)

You might want to check the lines that you quote and not take them out of context. While it is true that Nietzche was not a feminist, I really think you are not doing justice to Nietzche by quoting out of context the line: "You go to women. Dont forget the whip".

Now I dont even have a copy of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" in front of me, but I do remember that the statement is first uttered by an OLD WOMAN who approaches Zarathustra! So it is not even clear that this is Zarathustra's view, let alone Nietzche's. The woman is a counterpart to Diotima, the priestess from whom Socrates supposedly learned about love. As I recall, he (Zarathustra) does heed her advice and takes his whip along when he meets the woman Life...but he soon forgets about the whip.

I think the line about the whip might be a bit more complex than you would like to indicate. It might be EASY to quote a philosopher out of context and dismiss her/him, but it's not very fair, is it?

Thomas

===== "The tradition of all the dead generations

weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"

-Karl Marx

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