Before and After Freud: the Case of Nietzsche

Instead of succumbing to the anti-semitism of Schopenhauer, Wagner and his own sister and brother-in-law, Nietzsche regarded individual human beings who happened to be Jewish, and praised Spinoza as his great predecessor and brother-spirit, and Heine along with himself as the two greatest German poets. 

Instead of joining in in the great chorus of German nationalism with followed the unification of 1871, Nietzsche chose to live south of Germany, was an early advocate of a united Europe, and was much more meticulously critical of his native Germany than of any other land. 

When it came to sexism and militarism, however, Nietzsche did not free himself of the destructive prejudices of his time. 

 

Living just a little bit too early to benefit from the insights of Sigmund Freud, he projected his own life, where his father died when he was a young boy, leaving him dominated by his mother and older sister, into a senseless critique, in his philosophical writings, of the entire female gender, and in particular steadfastly denying that women had any place either in the ruling of a state, or in the creation of serious literature or philosophy. Making the mistake he had avoided when it came to ethnic groups, regarding people -- well, men, at least -- as individuals, he always writes of women as an homogeneous group, with no brilliant individuals worthy of his detailed attention. He does mention George Sand, but only long enough to insult her.

If you've read his books first, his letters come as a complete surprise: he's quite mild-mannered, and as polite to numerous female correspondents as can be. No hint of the sexist contempt in his books.

And when it comes to war, Nietzsche, who was too frail to be accepted as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and saw it only as an orderly in the military hospitals, is as jingoistic as only those can be who have never fought. As with his sexist projection, the overcompensation of his glorification of war is as clear as can be to us, who have had the benefit of Freudian insights. I think Nietzsche may make a good Exhibit A if one ever debates against those who minimize the effect Freud has had on the world's collective consciousness. 

Stupidity Is The Same Wherever You Go

It's so ironic: nationalists always talk about what is supposedly so unique about their own nation, but whatever really is unique about it is generally hated by the nationalists, while what the nationalists like, along with the nationalists themselves -- and what the nationalists like is usually just themselves and nothing and no-one else -- is exactly the same in every nation. So much so that in order for me to give perfectly clear and recognizable examples, there will be no need whatsoever for me to name any nations.

For example: the nationalist's nation has been caught doing something bad in another part of the world. The nationalist says:

-- that the bad behavior which was discovered and exposed to the world was not actually so bad;

-- that the local journalists reporting on it are rubbing their hands with glee as they grotesquely exaggerate the affair, because they want nothing so much as to see their own nation destroyed;

-- that if people from the foreign nation the nationalist hates the most (if all of the other nations in the world aren't tied for that privilege) had done something comparable in the nationalist's nation, no-one would've complained (but the nationalist IS complaining, and it hasn't even happened);

-- that people from other nations actually have been doing the same, and much worse;

and yada yada yada and so forth and so on.

You know the drill. you know it well, no matter what part of the world you live in. Because these idiots are everywhere.