Will The Real Friedrich Nietzsche Please Stand Up?


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I sure need to know more about this man than I do...

A philosopher perhaps more widely known for his prodigious mustache than for the varieties of his thought, Friedrich Nietzsche often seems to be misread more than read. Even someone like Michel Foucault could gloss over a crucial fact about Nietzsche’s body of work: Foucault remarked in an unpublished interview that Nietzsche’s “wonderful ideas” were “used by the Nazi Party.” But that use, he neglected to mention, came about through a scheme hatched by Nietzsche’s sister, after his mental collapse and death, to edit, change, and otherwise manipulate the thinker’s work in a way The Telegraph deemed “criminal.” Foucault may not have known the full context, but Nietzsche had about as much sympathy for fascism as he did for Christianity–both reasons for his break with composer Richard Wagner.

http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/hear-classical-music-composed-by-friedrich-nietzsche.html

Dark and brooding pieces...

Allegro ... is upbeat...

A...

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The Wikipedia article on Nietzsche backs this up. I wonder why the story isn't better known.

Precisely.

Now I know that I selectively read him and virtually all of my reading never encroached on his personal life. My error.

However, this came as a complete surprise to me.

A...

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Also at Openculture, a fuller quote than the seven words from the 'unpublished' fanzine interview:


I do not think there is such a thing as a conservative philosophy or a revolutionary philosophy. Revolution is a political process; it is an economic process. Revolution is not a philosophical ideology. And that’s important. That’s the reason why something like Hegelian philosophy has been both a revolutionary ideology, a revolutionary method, a revolutionary tool, but also a conservative one. Look at Nietzsche. Nietzsche brought forth wonderful ideas, or tools if you like. He was used by the Nazi Party. Now a lot of Leftist thinkers use him. So we cannot be sure if what we are saying is revolutionary or not.

Edited by william.scherk
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