Okay, so as you can see from my title, I'm about to talk about someone who's very controversial. Well, I think he is anyway. My judgment might just be clouded by those who are so dogmatic that they love to bash Nietzsche for being a dirty nihilist or whatever. I guess nonreligious people worship him or some crap like that. However, I'm not focusing on his beliefs right now. Well, I am in a sense. I'm just going to try to do it in a relatively thoughtful manner.
Okay, so why do I love this man so? It started with a quote that I have for the longest time loved.
Now, I never knew that the quote was by Nietzche. I just loved it because of how it addressed the hypocrisy of man in dealing with their enemies. Whether through war or just...Internet behavior, really. I can think of countless times in which people who are fighting against a real or perceived injustice have stooped to the level of the people they're supposed to be countering. In a single elegance of two sentences - though to be fair I was a bit more familiar with the first one - Nietzsche perfectly reminds us that we must watch ourselves to not become like those we are fighting against when we perceive the other sides actions as "wrong" or "evil."
Now, I thought "So what else has Nietzsche said, if this quote I adore so was apparently by him?" Well, he has a lot of wonderful quotes, or so it seems. Yes, I realize I'm linking to "The Quotations Page" again and that technically without digging up outside quotes I'm only going off of what they say (I just learned that apparently a censorship quote by Mark Twain is but mere urban legend). However, I'm willing to bet that most of the quotes are accurate (and I could do more research later to check this).
Do I agree with all the quotes? Not necessarily. Can I confidently say that none of the quotes are quote mines that change meaning in a bigger context? Nope. Not unless I find the original work, that is. That's just the thing though. Now that I am aware of the fact that he's said some neat things, I'm willing to find some kind of literature that focuses on him more to learn more about him and his philosophy. After all, he is was a German philosopher. His insights on some issues has piqued my interest.
Now about the controversy bit. Nietzche did say God is dead. I think it's one of his most quoted (or quote mined) - and most attacked - quotes. That's it. Three words with zero context. Now maybe someone could argue that there is no context, but that contradicts the cite note on the page I linked to. If you click, you see that it's from "Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 108." Hell, I'm not even sure what he means about "The Gay Science!" Gay in his time did not have homosexual connotations, so I can't be sure what he meant without getting the source and seeing context. Rather than harp on the quote or trot it out as evidence that "religion is stupid" or whatever, I'd rather learn what he meant. At the very least, I'd like to try to understand what he meant to the best of my mental capacity!
So yeah. He may be controversial. I can accept that. You've heard of the phrase "One man's trash is another man's treasure." though, right? Well for me it's more like "One man's controversial is another man's fascinating."
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