#nietzsche — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #nietzsche, aggregated by home.social.
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cf aspirations artistiques ratées d'Hitler.
cf niveau de pratique artistique de Donald/P.utin./Netanyahu ...
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cf aspirations artistiques ratées d'Hitler.
cf niveau de pratique artistique de Donald/P.utin./Netanyahu ...
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cf aspirations artistiques ratées d'Hitler.
cf niveau de pratique artistique de Donald/P.utin./Netanyahu ...
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cf aspirations artistiques ratées d'Hitler.
cf niveau de pratique artistique de Donald/P.utin./Netanyahu ...
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cf aspirations artistiques ratées d'Hitler.
cf niveau de pratique artistique de Donald/P.utin./Netanyahu ...
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#Nietzsche global: Eine furiose Reise in die weltweite Wirkung von Nietzsches #Gedanken
https://www.l-iz.de/bildung/buecher/2026/05/nietzsche-global-furiose-reise-weltweite-wirkung-nietzsches-gedanken-655822
#Rezensionen #Bücher #Philosophie -
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
"Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies."
Beyond Good and Evil (1886) by Friedrich NietzscheMy thoughts on this short quote- compassion and openess are not acceptance. Principles need to be the foundation of conviction. Without them conviction can become dogma.
#nietzsche #principled action, #compassion -
"Aquesta relació contractual entre el deutor i el creditor... és tan vella com l'existència de 'subjectes jurídics' i ens remet a les formes fonamentals de compra, venda, canvi i comerç."
Nietzsche, La genealogia de la moral.
8/8
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Nietzsche ens diu que l'home és l'únic animal capaç de fer promeses (deutes). Però el preu d'aquesta capacitat ha estat la creació d'una superestructura moral que utilitza la por i el deute per domesticar la voluntat de poder de les societats.
7/8
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L'Estat utilitza el concepte de "deute" per moralitzar la submissió. Es diu al poble: "Hem viscut per sobre de les nostres possibilitats" (creant culpa col·lectiva) per justificar que la classe dominant retalli drets socials.
Varoufakis intentava parlar de "deute" com un error matemàtic o un desajust del sistema. Però es va trobar amb un mur (Schäuble/Bundesbank) que parlava de "culpa" en el sentit nietzscheà: algú ha de patir perquè el deute s'ha contret.
6/8
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* L'ascesi de l'austeritat: L'austeritat imposada a la perifèria europea no era només una mesura econòmica; era una penitència. El càstig (les retallades) servia per "netejar" la culpa de la mala gestió anterior.
5/8
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La crisi de l'Euro i el Bundesbank
L'ordoliberalisme alemany està profundament impregnat d'aquesta visió:
* El deute com a pecat: Quan Alemanya parlava del deute grec, no ho feia només com un problema de balanços comptables, sinó com un defecte moral. Si tens "schuld" (deute), ets un "schuldiger" (culpable).
4/8
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La "mala consciència"
Segons Nietzsche, Estat i societat forcen l'individu a viure en pau, la qual cosa impedeix que els nostres instints agressius surtin a l'exterior. Què passa llavors?
L'home es torna contra si mateix. La "mala consciència" és l'instint de crueltat que, en no poder descarregar-se sobre altres, es regira. L'individu es deu a la comunitat (o avantpassats, o Déu) i, com que mai pot pagar aquest "deute" infinit, viu en un estat permanent de culpa.
3/8
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Origen del càstig (deutor i creditor)
Nietzsche sosté que el concepte moral de "culpa" no prové d'una idea abstracta de pecat, sinó de la relació contractual més primitiva: deutor i creditor.
Originàriament, si un deutor no podia pagar, el creditor tenia dret a infligir-li dany físic com a compensació. El plaer de fer patir servia de "repagament". La consciència moral i el sentiment de "culpa" neixen quan aquesta violència es gira cap a l'interior de l'individu.
2/8
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Friedrich Nietzsche, a la "La genealogia de la moral" (1887), fa una de les anàlisis etimològiques i psicològiques més potents de la història de la filosofia sobre el terme "schuld".
A l'alemany, la paraula "schuld" té un doble significat: "deute" (econòmic) i "culpa" (moral).
1/8
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The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries … For a long time now our whole civilisation has been driving, with a tortured intensity growing from decade to decade, as if towards a catastrophe: restlessly, violently, tempestuously, like a mighty river desiring the end of its journey, without pausing to reflect, indeed fearful of reflection … Where we live, soon nobody will be able to exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Preface of the Will To Powerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6AZ5MngfAo
#collapse #Nietzsche #nihilism -
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries … For a long time now our whole civilisation has been driving, with a tortured intensity growing from decade to decade, as if towards a catastrophe: restlessly, violently, tempestuously, like a mighty river desiring the end of its journey, without pausing to reflect, indeed fearful of reflection … Where we live, soon nobody will be able to exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Preface of the Will To Powerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6AZ5MngfAo
#collapse #Nietzsche #nihilism -
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries … For a long time now our whole civilisation has been driving, with a tortured intensity growing from decade to decade, as if towards a catastrophe: restlessly, violently, tempestuously, like a mighty river desiring the end of its journey, without pausing to reflect, indeed fearful of reflection … Where we live, soon nobody will be able to exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Preface of the Will To Powerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6AZ5MngfAo
#collapse #Nietzsche #nihilism -
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries
The story I have to tell is the history of the next two centuries … For a long time now our whole civilisation has been driving, with a tortured intensity growing from decade to decade, as if towards a catastrophe: restlessly, violently, tempestuously, like a mighty river desiring the end of its journey, without pausing to reflect, indeed fearful of reflection … Where we live, soon nobody will be able to exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Preface of the Will To Powerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6AZ5MngfAo
#collapse #Nietzsche #nihilism -
We like to be out in nature so much because it has no opinion about us.
-- Nietzsche -
Les 10 plus belles randonnées autour de Nice – Itinéraires & Guides 2026 – Sports Infos – Ski
📏 14 à 30 km ⬆️ D+ 500 – 1 200 m 🔴 Difficile ⏱ 5h – 2…
#Nice #FR #France #Actu #News #Europe #EU #3143m #actu #Actualités #Baou #Cians #Corniche #europe #Ferrat #Gélas #Gorges #grande #infos #lacs #Mercantour #merveilles #nice #Nietzsche #Provence-Alpes-Côted'Azur #Républiquefrançaise #SaintJeannet #sentier #Sports #Turini #vallée #Vens #Vésubie
https://www.europesays.com/fr/873567/ -
https://www.europesays.com/fr/873567/ Les 10 plus belles randonnées autour de Nice – Itinéraires & Guides 2026 – Sports Infos – Ski #3143m #actu #Actualités #Baou #Cians #Corniche #EU #europe #Ferrat #FR #France #Gélas #Gorges #grande #infos #lacs #Mercantour #merveilles #News #nice #Nietzsche #ProvenceAlpesCôteD'Azur #RépubliqueFrançaise #SaintJeannet #sentier #Sports #Turini #vallée #Vens #Vésubie
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“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
Grandpa Simpson raising a fist and yelling at clouds. I attended an online close-reading™ of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, and let's just say, I came away disappointed, and so I wrote about it.
#philosophy #community #reading #writing #reviewing #scholarship #integrity #interpretation #blog #podcast #meaing #critique #books #nietzsche #livestream #streaming
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Ja, genau so ist es. Ich überlege nun ernsthaft, ob ich in den kommenden Monaten öfter mal kurze Originaltexte von Philosophinnen und Philosophen lese und auf meinem Wissenschaftsblog zu Lektüre und Dialog einlade.
Das Interesse scheint eindeutig da zu sein...
#Popper #Hersch #Blumenberg #Nietzsche #Philosophie https://scilogs.spektrum.de/natur-des-glaubens/begeistert-von-jeanne-hersch-und-damit-alleine/
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Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
-- Nietzsche -
SIGUE ⬇️
También tuvo una vida emocional complicada.
Nunca se casó ni tuvo hijos.
Su gran desengaño sentimental fue la intelectual rusa Lou Andreas-Salomé, de quien se enamoró profundamente y a quien propuso matrimonio dos veces.
Ella lo rechazó.
Aquella ruptura lo afectó mucho y reforzó su tendencia al aislamiento.Su amistad con el compositor Richard Wagner también terminó de forma amarga.
Nietzsche había admirado profundamente a Wagner, pero acabó distanciándose por el antisemitismo del músico, su nacionalismo y su regreso al cristianismo.Los últimos años del filósofo fueron tristes.
Vivía bajo el cuidado de su madre primero y después de su hermana.
En sus últimos días apenas hablaba, tenía el cuerpo parcialmente paralizado y sufría frecuentes derrames cerebrales.Finalmente murió el 25 de agosto de 1900 en Weimar, a los 55 años.
La causa oficial fue una neumonía, agravada por un derrame cerebral final.Fue enterrado en su pueblo natal, Röcken, junto a la tumba de sus padres.
Y hay algo casi irónico en ese final: el hombre que había escrito “Dios ha muerto” recibió un funeral cristiano tradicional.Nietzsche murió sin saber que, décadas después, se convertiría en uno de los filósofos más influyentes del siglo XX.
Su mente se apagó mucho antes de que el mundo entendiera realmente el alcance de sus ideas.▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣
#nietzsche #filosofia #historia #historiadelafilosofia #sigloxix #pensadores #curiosidadeshistoricas #ecosdelpasado
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LOL!
1. the term " #Ubermensch" was coopted by the #Nazis, don't use it
2. Still today, the stereotypical #Nietzsche fan is a pathetic #rightWing " #alphaMale" turd shallowly servicing their male insecurities to *conform*
3. But the original idea: a self-mastering individual creating their own values
4. #AlysaLiu quit #figureSkating because it was toxic. Then she returned on her own terms, for her own joy, fuck the world
You don't have to like Nietzsche, it's a sly roast of #MAGA losers
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Some quotes from Nietzsche, more on https://www.lost-quotes.com/
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RIP to the big bearded guy 😭
https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1950390/rip-to-the-big-bearded-guy
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"If a person has their ' #Why ?' of #life, they can #endure almost any ' #How ?'" #spirituality #Nietzsche, #maxim , #Frankl , #Yes , #logotherapy , #meaning , #concentrationcamp, #truth , #freedom
https://omdaruliterature.blogspot.com/2026/03/if-person-has-their-why-of-life-they.html -
"If a person has their ' #Why ?' of #life, they can #endure almost any ' #How ?'" #spirituality #Nietzsche, #maxim , #Frankl , #Yes , #logotherapy , #meaning , #concentrationcamp, #truth , #freedom
https://omdaruliterature.blogspot.com/2026/03/if-person-has-their-why-of-life-they.html -
"If a person has their ' #Why ?' of #life, they can #endure almost any ' #How ?'" #spirituality #Nietzsche, #maxim , #Frankl , #Yes , #logotherapy , #meaning , #concentrationcamp, #truth , #freedom
https://omdaruliterature.blogspot.com/2026/03/if-person-has-their-why-of-life-they.html -
"If a person has their ' #Why ?' of #life, they can #endure almost any ' #How ?'" #spirituality #Nietzsche, #maxim , #Frankl , #Yes , #logotherapy , #meaning , #concentrationcamp, #truth , #freedom
https://omdaruliterature.blogspot.com/2026/03/if-person-has-their-why-of-life-they.html -
"If a person has their ' #Why ?' of #life, they can #endure almost any ' #How ?'" #spirituality #Nietzsche, #maxim , #Frankl , #Yes , #logotherapy , #meaning , #concentrationcamp, #truth , #freedom
https://omdaruliterature.blogspot.com/2026/03/if-person-has-their-why-of-life-they.html
