i read ecce homo years ago, but i never read will to power. i've probably read about half of nietzsche's books, as well as various secondary material about him. one of the best books i read about nietzsche that deals with him in a comparative context is called Break-out from the Crystal Palace, The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky. Stirner is considered a forerunner of Nietzsche in some ways and nietzsche said dostoyevsky was the only psychologist he ever learned anything from. good book.
Who are your favorite philosophers?
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i read ecce homo years ago, but i never read will to power. i've probably read about half of nietzsche's books, as well as various secondary material about him. one of the best books i read about nietzsche that deals with him in a comparative context is called Break-out from the Crystal Palace, The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky. Stirner is considered a forerunner of Nietzsche in some ways and nietzsche said dostoyevsky was the only psychologist he ever learned anything from. good book.
yeah, I haven't read all of will to power, only about 1/4. it's not his most accessible book. I've never read anything by dostoyevsky. he wrote the brothers karamazov, right? I think i've read a couple books or essays about his works. Hermann Hesse (not a philosopher in the classic sense either, but probably my favorite author) wrote a little bit about him. I'll check out that book, sounds interesting.
yeah, i've read a few parts of it that were in an anthology on existentialism, but never the whole thing. Notes From Underground is my favorite Dostoyevsky book.
I'm not sure what "philosophy" Dostoyevsky imparted in "Crime and Punishment"..I remember the main character, Raskolnikov, discussing a belief that society should make exceptions for "special humans," (people who are capable of extraordinary acts) if those special humans happen to commit a crime...in Raskolnikov's case, murdering his landlord and her niece. I could barely get through "C&P," mostly because the translation I read was simply awful. I guess I could call Dosty a crappy writer, style-wise, or certain translators of his work, crappy writers...
For me:
Karl Marx
Niccolo Machiavelli
Foucault
Noam Chomsky
Montaigne
Voltaire
Jeremy Bentham
Socrates
Shakespeare (yes)
Are all a group of "great thinkers" with broad ideas that I throw into the philosophy pool...
For me:
Karl Marx
Niccolo Machiavelli
Foucault
Noam Chomsky
Montaigne
Voltaire
Jeremy Bentham
Socrates
Shakespeare (yes)
Are all a group of "great thinkers" with broad ideas that I throw into the philosophy pool...
S
sputnikgirl
Guest
Love Chomsky and Machiavelli. :thumbsup:
i like thoreau. his thoughts on civil disobediance are inspiring, unfortunately most people don't want to have anything to do with stepping outside the law to "set things aright." as for rousseau, Discourse on Inequality is great while i feel The Social Contract is rubbish in the same vain as Locke and Hobbes attempt to justify government. As for Plato and Socrates, well, i'm in agreement with Nietzsche that they are key reasons for the fucked upness of the world. Don't know much about Buber.
i liked Discipline and Punish. Very important book for an understanding of how control works in society.
Marx, that bastard! Bakunin told that old fool decades before the Russian Revolution communism would be a dictatorship not worth spit.
Fuck Descartes. What a piece of shit. I rank him with Plato/Socrates in terms of screwing up the world.
the marquis seemed pretty cool from what i know, but hobbes was a tool. pro-monarchy + totally wacked out perspective of the state of nature=douchebag. ayn rand, propagandist for capitalism and "progress." shit and double shit.
The Rebel was a pretty good book, but his conclusion from what i remember was a pretty weak liberal reformism ala scandinavian countries like Sweeden. I prefer Sartre, at least in the sense that Sartre was unabashedly pro-decolonization whereas Camus felt because there was a potential that decolonization would result in the shit situation it has for most third world countries blood should not be shed for independence. while i agree with camus' analysis of third world conditions post-decolonization, i agree with sartre that violence is necessary to achieve certain gains even if the future is unpredictable.
machiavelli was a jerkoff. totally pro-manipulation of people for the gains of the state. chomsky has his ups and downs, however, i find him pretty weak overall. his pro-democratic party position in elections is an embarrasment to anarchism which chomsky ostensibly espouses. foucault pretty much destroyed chomsky in the 70's by critiquing chomsky's over reliance on concepts of western rationality and his ridiculous pro-workers control of industry bullshit that keeps industry chugging along with a few hiccups of change. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbUYsQR3Mes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBfOxfmSDw
ok, now i'm going to critique the philosophers i mentioned since no one mentioned anything about them except nietzsche.
Baudrillard: Oh shut up you pessimistic nihilist. The world isn't that fucked up. Grab some milk duds and a soft drink and enjoy the simulacrum.
Nietzsche: What are you babbling about madman? Revaluation of all values. Obviously everything is right the way it is now. God, school, government, business, etc. tell me so.
Diogenes: Go back to your tub you bum. (Inside joke for those who even know who Diogenes is.)
Zhuangzi: Fly away butterfly. (Inside joke for those who even know who zhuangzi is.) No one wants to hear your nonsense about how people's spontaneous actions could harmoniously sustain human society. We obviously need people telling us what to do. And don't give me that shit about not yearning for material possessions and following the Dao of nature. Fuck frogs, trees and all that useless shit. I want a cell phone.
Zerzan: You fucknut. Don't you realize that there are 6.5 billion people. They obviously all couldn't live as hunter-gatherers. Stop calling for genocide. And don't tell me about how anarcho-primitivism is not intrinsically tied to genocide because there are voluntary ways to abandon civilization. I will just stick my fingers in my ears to cast off your devilish temptations of paleolithic life.
are you entertained by my ramblings? i didn't want to let you down since you got popcorn. i felt the thread needed a good kick in the ass.
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