Jeffrey Fisher
well, like i said, i think the former betrays the latter (a la hegel). we tend to throw around the labels and people who haven't done the work just pick up the label. it misses so much of the point. and anyway i think the label is wrong. :)
^^^^ CB: Well, I can go with that honesty. I kind of suspected that. The thing to do might be to make an argument why he is not "petit bourgeois". Although I guess you don't think of class analysis as important as I do.
My reply on this is that N. does deal with classes centrally in the master , slave topics. So, he is subject to critique based on class analysis, historical class analysis.
There's a sort of reflexivity alert here ( a la Ian). Basically N.'s fans are saying that N. discovers and deals with important issues that are "beyond" class analysis. Marxist are like me are saying we don't see where N. pronounces any issues that are as he and his fans claim they are.
I think it's best to discuss specific concepts, like the thread had on
> ressentiment.
i would actually go further and say we ought to discuss specific passages, but that will be awfully hard to do.
^^^^^ CB: Yes, I agree specific passages. I think we should try , because, N. will always keep coming up. Might as well deal with him "awfully".
^^^^
What specifically is "beyond good and evil" about _beyond
> good and evil_ ?
>
who knows?
as i say, i was really thinking of _genealogy of morals_, but i guess i've always read it as a critique of bourgeois morals. my point is that if we don't read it dialectically, we're missing the point. he's progressive, not reactionary. his critique of christianity, afaict, is not meant to promote an aristocratic ethics of power. i don't know, maybe my reading is all idiosyncratic or something (which wouldn't make it wrong :-), and i'm certainly no nietzsche expert, although i've spent some time with him, but it struck me how important a word "cruel"/"cruelty" is in GM. and it's not a good thing. the morals of kant, he says, are steeped in blood. again, not good. he rails against christianity as hypocritical, etc. etc., but he hates cruelty more than anything else. maybe the concept of cruelty would be a good one to discuss? alas, most of my books are in boxes at the moment, but i can fix that, i think.
^^^^^^ CB; Ok cruelty it is.
^^^^
and of course zarathustra is a novel (of sorts) about transformation, about self-transcendence.
again, afaict.
so, to come back to your question above, i'm just not sure that difficulty in articulating a morality beyond morality (which has a utopian flavor to it) indicates flaws in his analysis. indeed, it seems to me to indicate honesty -- that is, it's hard to envision those things when you haven't seen them, and to find words for those things when you haven't spoken those things.
j