WHY you should read Nietzsche (most people can't) | Jordan Peterson

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[adamw-m]

When I read This Spoke Zarathustra I was going through an interesting and challenging time in my life. I felt as though it had been written for me in a weird way. As far as I’m concerned my education doesn’t support reading that type of philosophy or maybe any philosophy. But I absolutely fell in love with Nietzsche’s writings. “The higher we soar the farther away we appear to those who cannot fly. “

[spencerwinston]

Jung revealed the distinguishing skill that catapulted Nietzsche into the league of Plato beyond perhaps even Schopenhauer, and Emerson. Nietzsche was highly trained as a classical philologist immersed in the original sources of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Hence, Nietzsche gained a profound knowledge of the greatest minds of antiquity and could read the source material in a direct first hand way and not rely on second hand accounts. Imagine being able to understand all the nuances of source material from the Bible in Hebrew or Plato in Greek to appreciate the nuances and meanings of texts directly rather than to accept second hand some other scholars interpretation of the passage. Nietzsche's devastating critique of the intellectual edifice of the times originated because he knew how the professors of the time masked the truth to push an agenda, protect an intellectual moat, or just hide the truth from themselves or others for either lack of courage, intellectual depth, or other sinister reasons. Nietzsche lived and breathed for the truth.

Just as a world class poker player has to live, breathe and sleep poker to be a world champion, a philosopher on the Olympian level of Nietzsche has to breathe the mountain air of truth every day in a way not possible for a man involved in a daily business or practice such as Jung. Sure, the business can keep the man "grounded", but to reach Nietzsche's Olympian level and full spectrum dominance philosophical level you need the foundational basics of classical philology combined with a passion and instinct for truth based off actual reading of ancient wisdom in the original. As German philosopher Schopenhauer observed, unless a man can read Latin and Greek in the original, there will always be a hole in the scholar's education that undermines the depth of his intellectual thought. This observation is a bitter pill for us all in a vapid age of mass media and hollow men. Nietzsche was just such an intellectual tour de force that we will probably never able to appreciate his greatness or sublime gifts to humanity. Greek and Latin are not emphasized in today's propaganda mills of liberal arts universities or even at the time of Jung when studying Latin and Greek required hard work most were not willing to endure.

Nietzsche was a sublime gift to humanity, and in fact his Navy Seal like attack on the soft, descendent Western philosophers and clergy of the time came with devastating force and mountain lightning speed. Ultimately though, Nietzsche's attack came out of a deep love for man and his no limit potential. Once the blinders came off and courageous, disciplined men were made aware of what the actual classical and Biblical texts meant free of some political or mercenary agenda, Nietzsche allows us all to share in the love for the search for truth. In this sense, Nietzsche, in exposing the agendas of many "translations" and university moat protecting "degrees" brings us all back to ourselves and our higher man potential once we breathe the mountain air of truth, and discover how the truth makes us all free from the agendas and deception of the establishment.

[adamw-m]

I like Jordan a lot but I don’t need him to tell me how to understand Nietzsche. Create your own personal relationship with Nietzsche and his philosophy. Don’t cling to any gurus and there opinions of what you should do.

[surplusstock]

Social media proves Nietzsche's slave morality perfectly, 95% of people riddled with anxiety for the sake of acceptance from others who couldn't care if they lived or died.Its nearly funny.

[venkateshk]

The first ten seconds mahn, I thought my phone had some problem. Nice video though!!

[Tehz]

Wow. Some people in this comment section have demonstrated to me that they either read Nietzsche with many preconceived notions that warped their view of him, or they didn't read him at all, and just read his wiki page. And the people who don't like him, seem to be personally offended, which is funny. Like many philosophers, Nietzsche not only needs to be read, but studied. Put into his historical context, and all of his views need to be put into the context of all his work. I think the visceral reaction that is prompted by Nietzsche is due to his very unorthodox(from the point of view of western modernity at least). And also because I think Nietzsche is actually more comparable to Eastern philosophy than most western philosophy. Most, frankly, immature readers of Nietzsche will call him a nihilist, a postmodernist, and so on. But he is precisely the opposite. If we had to ascribe to Nietzsche some grand goal with his philosophy, it would be an antidote to nihilism.

What Nietzsche identified a few main causes of modern nihilism.
1. The deterioration of Christianity and other major religions, which were ultimately self-defeating doctrines. Not only did Christianity's commitment to rationalism bring about it's demise, but the moral framework which Christianity sought to impose on everyone was life-denying. And hence, actually laid the groundwork for Nihilism to come about. It tells people to retreat form the real world and into another world.

2. Lack of suffering in the world. Meaning resistance for humans to overcome. Nietzsche identifies human nature with the will to power. The will to power is a much more broad concept than many would like to admit. Will to power will manifest itself in different ways for different people. And it can also be called, the will to overcome resistance. Man has this need to feel powerful. And the most common way for people to do this was to overcome some sort of challenge, most of the time physical, but it can be intellectual or mental as well. And when people do this, they feel satisfied. And since our lives are easier to live then ever now, we don't experience as much suffering as we used to. We don't have to worry about having to find food and shelter every day anymore. on top of this, we have this notion that in order to be happy we have to minimize suffering and to maximize pleasure, Nietzsche heavily disagrees. In fact, this is the opposite of what we should be doing. People need to be challenged. And if not with survival, then we need to find other means of doing this. Nietzsche talks about how the pre-Socratic Greeks were able to do this and they acknowledged this about human nature. The Greeks satisfied people's will to power through violent festivals, and public executions(which was common place in human history across virtually every culture for the vast majority of human history, up until very recently at least). Nietzsche saw these as less refined expressions of the will to power. But expressions none the less.

Another way Nietzsche saw human nature is through the lens of Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo representing rationality and order, Dionysus representing irrational, and instinctually driven behavior, and chaos. We are capable of both rational thought, and animal like irrationality. And another reason Nihilism and the crisis of values is upon us, is because we have gone too far to one side, namely Apollo. He demonstrates this by showing that humans have been trying to explain moral inclinations and behavior through the scope of rationality and logic. Which Nietzsche saw as futile. And that this was a sign that we have lost our way. So his proposition was a reevaluation of all values and of morality itself. Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe Nietzsche was a moral nihilist, because he stated explicitly in one of his works that he wasn't.

" It goes without saying that I do not deny unless I am a fool that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently."
Nietzsche, Aphorism 103, Daybreak

He didn't oppose the idea of right and wrong, but he opposes the popular conception of right and wrong, or Good and Evil. Humans don't come to our conclusions on what's right and wrong through logic. And I think the best argument for this, is that all of the hypothetical ethical systems that we have came up with, come to about 70-80% of the same conclusions, but in different ways. Why is this? Nietzsche's answer would be that it can't be justified rationally, but it can be justified instinctually, and intuitively. While all of these ethical systems have different ways of justifying their conclusions, they still end up agreeing most of the time, on most things. More often than not, we don't actually ever disagree on the goal with these systems, which is broadly human flourishing. The disagreements come about, typically due to disagreements on material facts.

what Nietzsche wants, is for us to find a healthy balance of Apollo and Dionysus, or rationality, and instincts. We need to acknowledge that we have an animal instinct, we need to say YES to them, instead of fully repressing them. We make right and wrong part of who we are individually, we must value these things not because society or God tells us that they are valuable, but because we instinctively think they are valuable. And to off set the beast with in us, or the will to power, we need to channel that animal energy into higher goals, such as facing challenges and conquering them. And in doing this, will produce a healthy society, and the effects will be and abundance of what we would call virtue. Nietzsche thought that it wasn't lack of morals or virtue that caused nihilism or decadence, but it was nihilism and decadence that caused a lack of morals or virtue. This is profound to me. If this is true, we have been confusing the effect for the cause for a few thousand years at this point. And this is exactly what Nietzsche argues in Twilight of Idols.

[adamw-m]

Jiddu Krishnamurti reminds me of Nietzsche big time. Both speak of the abyss. “When one fights monsters, they should see to it that in the process they do not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” If you like Nietzsche read Krishnamurti also.

[baskets]

If Nietzsche lives today not sure how he would feel about the fact all his prophecies/concerns regarding the "death of God" have literally come true...

[edwinwise]

Casual fridays, mixed with philosophic troupes, life does have meaning

[thebowlzack]

Please change your intro, my neck hairs are standing up

[adamw-m]

Any of Nietzsche’s books is a winner. Read any of them and all of them.

[josephl]

"Mutual reciprocated dance between the group". I love how he uses his own terminology to describe what's well known as a "feedback loop" within the field. What other scientists, educators, and philosophers can do in 10 words, Peterson gladly does triple that. Far from a master of the concise... more like, the father of obscurity and redundancy.

[thesumeriangod]

Religion is a turnaround lane to send you back.

[greedfox]

"Woman learns to hate, just as she forgets how to charm" ...yo, mah boi. >;3

[hanskung]

I know Jordon Peterson is smart by the way he sits, the certain posture of the leg crossing.

[preciousamaechi]

Haha I thought my phone was experiencing a glitch

[adityaadapa]

Hi dr peterson, how are you?

-well' it depends on what you mean by hi and what you mean by how..

[wonka_my_willy]

I have beyond good and evil and I’m 15 but I’ve always been into philosophy although I never knew the word Philosophy or what philosophy was when I realized I would think so much when I was a little kid but hopefully I can even read the first page on the book

[MayurKoitiya]

Audio couldn't be worse !! Anyway good content

[jonquilcat]

This is not a difficult book. Those who find it difficult are not ready for it yet. Put it down, work on yourself and try again later. If you truly work on your inner world, if you truly and closely observe the outer, Nietzsche becomes as natural as a breath.