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4 ideas
4489 | If faith is lost, people seek other authorities, in order to avoid the risk of willing personal goals [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Having unlearned faith, one still seeks another authority (in conscience, or reason, or social instinct, or history); one wants to get around the will, the willing of a goal, the risk of positing a goal for oneself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §020) | |
A reaction: But what goal should you risk willing, and why? And what limits my goals? What is the hallmark of a healthy goal, or good taste in goals, or whatever it is Nietzsche aspires to? |
9299 | We are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring [Rochefoucauld] |
Full Idea: Almost always we are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring. | |
From: La Rochefoucauld (Maxims [1663], 555) | |
A reaction: An obvious exception would be a celebrity being bored with their fans. Their very excess of interest is precisely what is boring. If two people communicate well, it is unlikely that either of them will ever be bored. |
4513 | Virtuous people are inferior because they are not 'persons', but conform to a fixed pattern [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: A virtuous man is a lower species because he is not a "person" but acquires his value by conforming to a pattern of man that is fixed once and for all. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §319) | |
A reaction: A penetrating critque of virtue theory. If, even now, we are trying to conform to Aristotle's model, that is VERY conservative. The obliteration of individual identity is also a charge against Kant and Bentham. Virtues are more flexible than rules. |
4504 | Morality used to be for preservation, but now we can only experiment, giving ourselves moral goals [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Formerly one employed morality for preservation: but nobody wants to preserve any longer, there is nothing to preserve. Therefore an experimental morality: to give oneself a goal. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §260) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as the essence of Nietzsche, and the relativist position. Exciting and dangerous. Let's kill someone (Gide). Take drugs (Manson). Betray friends (Genet). Be altruistic…? |