Tricky question:

If a person derives more personal pleasure from a life of fantasy and escapism than from a life of engagement, is it noble for him to take the path that offers him less pleasure?

Of course the word "pleasure" is by no means simple. We trade sensual pleasures for the pleasure of self-regard all the time. For instance, by not stealing or by eating with moderation.

This is coming from a true fan of Nietzsche, for whom Nietzsche is easily one of the most important, if not most important, philosopher. Did not Nietzsche himself live the life of a dreamer, writing books that fewer and fewer people read? He began to describe himself as being born posthumously. He's such a strange strange case.

I agree that the affirmation of particular values is a central question. And this is why rhetoric is more of the essence than logic, words being the tools we use in the pursuit of values -- which are manifested themselves in words. Truth is indeed a mobile army of metaphors.

Will a humanity that does not believe in afterlife accept a common goal? Or does the lack of an afterlife make us hedonist, trading our finite time for as much pleasure as possible. Shaw tackles this in Back to Methuselah. Our short life spans plus a rejection of the afterlife gives many of us a every-man-for-himself attitude.

respectfully
recon

I, not having much experience with life at all, am humble even through saying this: I believe that an enjoyable life amongst "real" friends is more satisfying then a dreamworld alone. No matter what you dream, and how you dream it, you will come across real-world problems. First that comes to mind would be my family's dissapointment in my not 'making something worthy of myself.' It takes a strong mind not to ponder on outside thoughts, especially if they concern you in a negative way.

Some other things that will inevitably hit you: Means of comfort, employment, bills, loneliness, hygiene, survival (etc...). Basically, I think we're here so that we can interact with eachother to form new things. Whether it be architects forming new buildings and designs; Philosopher forming new ideas; or Chefs forming new delicacies. One who stays in isolation, attempting to escape the world, can only observe and build upon what is with himself.

But here's another interesting thing, that sort of just hit me. When you attempt to go to sleep at night, you start thinking of the world differently then you do when you're awake and around friends. For example, if your dog died, and everybody had witnessed him die, you would try to be tough around your friends. You might cry to show that you're in pain. Then you do whatever it is you do when a dog dies, like bury him.

However, when you're alone and in bed: The lights are turned off, your friends are gone. It's just you and your mind. Your thoughts are the only thing that can keep you occupied, so you begin thinking more predominately then when you were awake, and able to see things. You start thinking about all the good times you had with your dog, and how he began showing signs of dying. This is when you really become sad, when you're by yourself. When noone else is around to share mourning with.

I believe that this is why Nietzsche is such a great thinker. He didn't have very much to occupy himself, accept for his mind. The same way we are the moments before we fall to sleep.

Right, and therefore the metaphor "dreamer" is appropriate, although one may indeed dream about reality, about the reality beneath reality.

Personally, being happily married, I would never deny the value of a life of interaction. Of course it should be noted that Nietzsche was extremely cultured. His spent his life in the company of both living and dead brilliant minds/hearts (to include the musical element and those whose value to us is not so much their concept as their emotional disposition..)

Well, I think this is where the doctrine of the eternal recurrence comes into play. The individual seeks joy in the affirming the moment in eternity. Thus, the affirmation becomes the hardest idea because it doesn't just involve affirming the moment, but everything that occurs before, and everything that will occur after.



What you have is a genius that the could see into the psyche of modern times struggling with this idea of an infinite life and the idea of the eternal life--they thought that we only have one and in the grand scope of things, do not really matter.


Values cannot be voiced in logic. Because of the way logic works, life denying values can also be affirmed as a set of propositions leads to a conclusion.



I think Nietzsche would say yes, but for all the wrong reasons. He believed in Lamarckism, the idea that intelligence, character, reason, and the such, were passed down the genetic line. Since this is not really true, there would need to be a revaluation of the idea of a genetic line. Without that sort of value, I wonder what other purpose there would be (a genetic line could also be the transformation of valuations over time).

I too noticed his Lamarckism. I think he over-estimated the truth of "blood tells." I completely agree that values cannot be voiced in logic. Instead we use rhetoric/logic in defense of these non-logical values.

What I love about Nietzsche is how well he examined motive in relation to theory. He suggested that we look to the ethic of a philosopher in order to understand the rest of him. Just as Marx might say "follow the money." Nietzsche perhaps would say "follow the sense of power."

Nietzsche's conception of truth is so radical that I think not everyone gets it. It's dynamic and ironic down to its bones. Would you agree? Or that's how I interpret it....

"Joy in the herd is older than joy in the "I": and as long as the good conscience is identified with the herd, only the bad conscience says: "I"."

As long as herd values, one of the strengths of which is their ancient origin so as to become almost natural, are allowed to dominate, they will tend to suppress any kind of heroic individualism that dares to struggle to find itself.
One of the more subtle ways the herd defends its way of life is to define psychological health in such a way that a questioning individual questions himself and his questioning. In conjunction with this passage, one should remember N's aphorisim: "He who thinketh differently, goeth voluntarily to the madhouse."

For someone that was rather unpolitical, N stumbled on some great truisms for the relationships of power. His interpretation of the psyche and its relationship to power.



I agree totally. He denies an absolute objective truth, but seems to suggest a sort of objective truth. It reminds me of Heraclitus and the idea that you cannot step in the same river twice. While there is no absolute objective truth, there is an objective truth that is fluid and changes as its components rearrange.

One of N's insights was to attempt to explain everything as Will to Power (and not just in a political sense). To be consistent he explained philosophy and different philosophies as examples, including his own.
This view would seem to imply that there is a group WTP as well as an individual WTP, and that both manifest themselves in many different ways when viewed from many different perspectives, and that these strivings often found themselves in conflict.

It seems that N praises the herd when it acts in unison for some goal higher than itself. But N also shows strong disdain for the pettiness and and unnecessary competitiveness within the herd. Then there is also the flipside of that as well that the conformity and laziness of individuals is criticized--although they are needed to an extent to form herds in the first place.

What N exceeded at is finding these contradictions between the self and the herd in the actions and decisions of both, and then exploring the psychology of the conflict.