Saturday Morning Nietzsche Bits

"How to have all men against you. -- If anyone dared to say now, "Whoever is not for me, is against me," He would immediately have all men against him.-- This does our time honor."

--The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880)

Gee, that sounds familiar, no?

FYI: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters." -Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23

... Good to know where these witty little bits come from.

I'm still working on some Nietzsche related posts. This man is intriguing and, from what I understand, many white-supremacist delusional types have interpreted much of his work to support their twisted ideologies. So before I get into talking about Mr. Nietzsche, I wanted to make a claim of personal interpretation that Nietzsche, had he been alive, would have regarded such types as the furthest thing from Ubermensch - a dangerous obstacle in the path to 'enlightenment'. In other words, they misunderstood him, and I am profoundly dissapointed to see his works referenced in the name of any Nazi movement. Blunt, yes. Sociopath, I don't think so.

"... a serious word would like to be heard; it appeals to the most serious. Take care, philosophers and friends, of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering "for the truth's sake"! Even of defending yourselves! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against objections and red rags; it stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes whien in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even worse consequences of hostility, you have to pose as protectors of truth upon earth-- as though "the truth" were such an innocuous and incompetent creature as to require protectors!"

--Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

Update:

You have committed one of the greatest stupidities – for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life which fills me again and again with ire or melancholy. … It is a matter of honour with me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal in relation to anti-Semitism, namely, opposed to it, as I am in my writings. I have recently been persecuted with letters and Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheets. My disgust with this party (which would like the benefit of my name only too well) is as pronounced as possible. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Letter to His Sister, Christmas 1887

Last quote via here