On Simian Similies for the Human Animal

Posted by

Jeremy Clarke

February 15, 2004

Of course, we all know what my favorite Dostoevskiesque metaphor for human beings is *ahem, cough cough.*

Just wanted to point out that Nietzsche, similarly awesome, refers to humans in Beyond Good and Evil as The Conceited Ape. (paragraph 222)

Of course, he also says, in all seriousness, that if women were indeed intelligent creatures, they would have learned to be better cooks by now. (paragraph 234)

That darn Nietzsche.

Comments

4 responses to “On Simian Similies for the Human Animal”

February 16, 2004

Magnus (OverTilt)

I guess he can’t be blamed for being a total twat, even though he was brilliant.
February 16, 2004

Stephekay

Didn’t Nietzsche also have a lot of ties to the Nazis?
February 17, 2004

jer

Friedrich Nietzsche: 1844-1900

the nazis had ties the the fredster, not the other way around. he says a lot of stuff about self-empowerment and how the powerful and dynamic individuals among us have to rise up and ignore “common” morality if real progress to occur.

the nazis took that as meaning that they are allowed to do whatever they want because they are so great.

so great.

(nietzshe says some less than admirable things about jewish people, but would have a)represented the very liberal end of the discussion considering his time period and b) never, ever have agreed that killing a race was the answer.)
February 20, 2004

Jason

One of the major reasons Nietzsche was linked to Nazism is because Nietsche’s… sister (I think) actively worked to provide that connection. She was deeply anti-semetic and gave that kind of spin on his writings. The Nazi’s then selectively used Nietzsche to bloster their claims to power.

Nietzsche isn’t so much against Jews (as people), but against Christian morality, which is actually refirbished Jewish morality. He sees the Socratic ethical philosophical project (the denial of Aeschalus’ unfliching tragic insights into existence) and the Jewish moral project (turning nobility on it’s head / good as represented by inferior ‘virtues’) as two major forces of decadence.

And as for women, I don’t know what to say. There are some biographers who suggest Nietzsche was homosexual, so what could he know about women anyway?