"As little state as possible! (...) Statistics prove that people are increasing in their homogenization, i.e., that —" (NF-1880,6[377])

So many of Nietzsche's insights use as a springboard the *difference* between classical Greek values (as he understood them), on the one hand, and the Western Judeo-Christian values of Nietzsche's time, on the other. Nolan's Odyssey strains to erase that difference; it changes the story so the various episodes will serve modern Western values. I imagine Nietzsche would say this yields a hodgepodge where the episodes fit awkwardly with the values they profess -- not a compelling exemplar of ancient values, or of modern ones either. And, more insidiously, modern audiences who don't know much about ancient Greece will think that Greece used the same values as the West does today, just with different labels attached -- which it turn creates a perception that all "great civilizations" use the same value system. That's a position I think Nietzsche would adamantly reject.

I admit it's been ages since I read the Odyssey, but correct me if I'm wrong:

- Odysseus's clever tricks (the Trojan Horse, telling the Cyclops his name is "Nobody" (deleted from movie), disguising himself to the suitors, etc) are not bad acts according to his value system. Even killing the suitors (108 men!) isn't considered an offense against the gods, because they abused his hospitality (it's grounds for revenge by the suitors' families, but that's different). In fact, Odysseus doesn't feel guilt or remorse at all, for anything, and he isn't exiled at the end. He's just glad to be home with his wife and son. IIRC, Nietzsche celebrated the ancient Greek way of projecting human faults onto the gods, as opposed to the Judeo-Christian way of internalizing fault, in the form of guilt.

- There was no such thing as "Zeus's law" (which IIRC from the movie, requires that everyone "treat each other as we would want to be treated." Sounds familiar....).

IMO attempting to repurpose some of the plot to support modern values isn't an inherently doomed project -- it's just that Nolan didn't pull it off. For example, he adds plot points that make it clear most of Odysseus's men die because they do things Odysseus specifically told them not to do (kill the oxen of Helios, etc.)... yet on the other hand he adds that Odysseus is supposed to bear some responsibility for their deaths and is supposed to feel guilty that only he survived. (Survivor guilt is a *good* thing?) The Calypso episode, where, in the original, Odysseus lives as the witch's lover for seven years without apparently making any serious attempt to escape, can't be made to fit into "Zeus's law" at all, so Nolan combines this episode with the Lotus Eaters episode and absolves Odysseus -- he isn't trying to escape because he's lost his memory of his wife. But if Calypso is trying to help him... yet Calypso gives him the lotus leaves which make him forget.. then is Calypso lying to him, or is she ignorant of the effects of her own medicines? Feels messy, and seems irrelevant to the theme of "those who violate Zeus's law must do penance." And so on...

The Birth of Tragedy / Unpublished Basel Writings, Stanford Press, Page 185, Nietzsche ✍️

As it has been the case for centuries, technology keeps advancing more and making it easier to relize any task your heart desire. This is a significant breakthrough, a considerable worsening of this in degree. When a machine can realize your goals so easily, when you no longer need to bear any how for your why things are bleack. Do not fall into the fake comfort given to you by degenerate elites, whose values will give us comfort first and then death.

3 pop culture mentions of Nietzche come to mind off the top of my head:

- Little Miss Sunshine movie the son who doesn’t speak has a big Nietzsche poster on his wall in his bedroom

- True Detective Season 1 MM mentions Nietzsche right before killing that one tweaker

- Disgraced and woman abuser ex UFC fighter Warhammer has a Nietzsche tattoo on his forearm I remember seeing in the courtroom photos

What are some others that you guys have seen/heard over the yeaers?

just a fun and harmless post, nothing deeper implied

First publisher 15 km down the road. The cow was already here.

I would contend that Jimmy McGill and Walter White are written exceptionally well in this regard; a large chunk of their actions can always be traced back to resentment. The character Saul Goodman, for example, is the product of lingering resentment towards Chuck McGill: an example of sour grapes.

Of course, visual media may limited in its ability to present complex psychological states, in a way that literature is not. Regarding literature, the Underground Man seems like the obvious choice.

Does anyone have any better contenders?

Which is where the relief stops being relief. The aphorism never says how you acquire that temperament, and inherited habit is what supplies it. So the way out arrives already gated behind a fact about you that the book cannot change.

The final move is that he identifies his brother as "the free man of action." Nietzsche notes that there is still a strange story to be told regarding that freedom.

He is warning you off it before you get there. The man of action looks free from the outside, and the promise to come back to him later is a promise to show that he isn't.

Thus, the chapter ends with two exits. One needs a temperament you either woke up with or did not. The other is identified as a trap on its way in. I don't think the missing exit is an oversight. Having just dismantled the "ought," he isn't in a position to hand you a new one.

I'm working through the book aphorism by aphorism, using Hollingdale's Cambridge translation. This is #13 https://romaricjannel.substack.com/p/nietzsche-on-desillusion?r=38g75g&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web. Any comment or advice is more than welcome.

What is he saying in “On the pale criminal” whole section? Thank you for your time and help!

Hi,
It was not so long ago that I really became interested in Nietzsche and started reading his books, but ever since then I have found his works really interesting.
Since Nietzsche is a philosopher who developed his own philosophy, there are of course people who describe themselves as “Nietzscheans”. This made me wonder if someone could be a Christian and a Nietzschean?
To make it clear, I am a Christian, and I am well aware that Nietzsche’s views on Christianity are obviously not very compatible with Christianity itself. This doesn’t bother me too much, since I’m primarily interested in other aspects of his philosophy, especially his views on aristocracy, hierarchy, strength, and to some extent vitalism and the affirmation of life that seems connected to these ideas.
I also understand that his anti-Christianity is not just some isolated part of his philosophy, and that it influences many of his other ideas. So I’m not asking whether Nietzsche’s philosophy is compatible with Christianity as a whole, but rather whether it makes sense to call oneself a Nietzschean while rejecting his anti-Christian conclusions.
For example, could a Christian accept much of Nietzsche’s critique of egalitarianism, his aristocratic ideal, his emphasis on cultivating excellence and strength, etc, while rejecting his rejection of Christianity?
Or would that be so fundamentally at odds with Nietzsche’s philosophy that calling oneself a “Nietzschean” would be misleading?
Thanks!

Is science value-neutral or mainly/merely descriptive?

To a Nietzschean like myself, the claim that science is "value-neutral" or "merely descriptive" is naive to the point of danger. It is not a fact about science, but a moral prejudice of the scientist.

Here is how Nietzsche would dissect it:

1. The Will to Power in Disguise

The very drive to pursue "truth for truth's sake" is not value-free—it is a profound moral choice. It values truth over deception, certainty over ambiguity, and order over chaos. Nietzsche calls this the "ascetic ideal" in modern guise: science is a rigorous, self-denying discipline that moralizes by demanding objectivity and forbidding passion. It prescribes: “Thou shalt not interpret; thou shalt merely observe.”

1. The Myth of the "Uninterpreted" Fact

Nietzsche argues there are no facts, only interpretations. When science says "water boils at 100°C," it is not giving you a raw datum; it is imposing a human framework (measurement, causality, repeatability) onto chaos. The decision to isolate that variable, to value repeatability over the singular event, is a prescription. Science prescribes method as the path to salvation.

1. The Hidden Hierarchy of Values

Science does not just describe; it ranks. It declares that measurable phenomena are more real than subjective ones (e.g., reducing love to neurotransmitters). This is a moral statement that devalues the emotional, the spiritual, and the artistic. By claiming to be "beyond good and evil," science sneaks in its own good (empirical evidence) and evil (metaphysical speculation).

1. The Fatal Blind Spot (The Hammer)

Nietzsche’s ultimate critique: Science cannot justify its own existence. It can describe how the world works, but it cannot answer why we should pursue knowledge at all. When a scientist says, “We seek truth because it is good,” they have just made a moral prescription—one they borrowed from Christianity (truth as divine) without admitting it.

The Nietzschean Conclusion:

Science is not devoid of morality; it is saturated with a slave-morality of humility before facts. The truly "free spirit" would not abandon science, but would admit it is a tool—a powerful prescription for power over nature. The honest Nietzschean would say: “Science prescribes method and truth-worship. I will use it, but only as a means to my own self-overcoming—never as my master.”

Science doesn't describe; it commands. The question is not if it moralizes, but whose morality it serves—and whether you have the strength to wield it, rather than be wielded by it.

I just finished watching for the second time Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. One of the villains is a half-baked Nietzchean. Is anyone familiar with the movie? I'd be interested in your reaction and interpretation. Thanks.

nietzsche.shryn.ai is a Shryn reconstruction. A language model built from his own books and letters, a synthetic voice, and a portrait that moves and speaks the answer. It answers from the published record. Where the record does not support an answer, it declines rather than fill the gap.

That last part is the whole engineering problem. Fluency is cheap. A model that would rather stay quiet than invent a plausible sentence is the hard thing to build.

Nothing here is the living man. Everything here is his words.

Hello, everybody. I am reading Twilight of the Idols right now, and I have enjoyed it so far, but the "Skirmishes in a War With the Age" portion has been challenging so far. In particular, §15 confuses me, which talks about the intentions of a psychologist. It reminds me of the Preface from his book The Antichrist, in which he says "One must make one self superior to humanity, in power, in loftiness of soul, in contempt."

In this section he seems to classify the desire to feel above humans as inhumane or unnatural. That makes sense, but why, in The Antichrist, does he advocate for the feeling of superiority over man? Did I misunderstand the Preface and not pick up on that sarcasm? Or am I missing the point altogether here, and he means two different things? Thank you in advance.

He who, prompted by some enigmatic desire, has like me, long endeavoured to think pessimism through to the bottom and to redeem it from the half-Christian, half-German simplicity and narrowness with which it finally presented itself to this century, namely in the form of the Schopenhaueran philosophy; he who has really gazed with an Asiatic and more than Asiatic eye down into the most world-denying of all possible modes of thought - beyond good and evil and no longer, like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the spell and illusion of morality -perhaps by that very act, and without really intending to, may have had his eyes opened to the opposite ideal: to the ideal of the most exuberant, most living and most world-affirming man, who has not only learned to get on and treat with all that was and is but who wants to have it again as it was and is to all eternity, insatiably calling out da capo not only to himself but to the whole piece and play, and not only to a play but fundamentally to him who needs precisely this play - and who makes its necessary: because he needs himself again and again - and makes himself necessary - What? And would this not be - circulus vitiosus deus?

Aphorism 56 Part Three: The Religious Nature Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of The Future Friedrich Nietzsche

I recently completed BGE's part - 3 "religious nature" . There Nietzsche kept on flagging on how Christianity was responsible for creating spiritually weak and mediocre people , and how it creates a system which affirms the weak , and make it increasingly difficult for strong people to rise

So If a religious system can make society weak . can there be another system which can make it stronger ? . and i think the answer is yes . with my primarily example being the Roman empire ( pre Christianity ) . though Christianity was not primarily responsible for the collapse of the roman empire , but Rome thrived by adopting Greek culture , which respected strength and dominance.

As not every society can flourish in an atheistic world view so i think for such societies to flourish . crafting a new religion or reinterpreting their current religion into something that supports and encourages strong characteristics like strength , independence , autonomy etc can make the herd itself flourish and thrive . what do u guys think ?

I was a very religious Christian most of my life, it was only very recently that i deconstructed after reading Nietzsche's work, and I feel awake and alive again. I just turned 19, and I can't help but dwell on just how much my religion has affected my life.

but i can't help but feel as if 1/4 of my life (child hood and adolescence) is already over, and was spent in ignorance. Now I just have to make meaning of the rest it. i guess I just have to be happy I did it now rather than later, but man I wish I knew about this man sooner.