Bill O'Reilly"s downfall

[Dubious]

Nietzsche wrote the lyrics to all the Beatles songs in a secret code that only Scousers can decipher.

Hah! Quote me a quote that proves it wasn't Ben Jonson.
Quote it now! You can't. So you're wrong. Wrong, wrong! Quoteitquoteitquoteit! I'm still waaaaiiiiting!....

...but please be aware in advance that ANY quotes not approved by my presuppositions, assumptions, theories, opinions and suchlike, will not be accepted as proof...but still willing to debate!

[attofishpi]

I do think moral fibre is depleting the more secularised our society becomes. As more people snigger and think its common sense that there is NO God, the less they feel any burden of guilt as they conspire to rape and murder etc... Ultimately, its them i feel sorry for from what i have been witness to regarding God.

I don't think people are sniggering at the fact that there is no God, I think they are angry at what others do in the name of a God who seems only present in heartfelt interpretations of others, who describe themselves as witnesses. What has God done to prevent death or disaster, that wipes out, not just the guilty, but those innocent of sin?

In all likelihood - saved them to reincarnate in safer pastures. Reality is a convoluted apparition of the Truth. There is a reason for 'God' to leave us with DOUBT.

We are openly witness to corporate and political corruption and left feeling 'why on earth should we be good, if those in power can't?', which opens up the question, 'Why be moral if it doesn't benefit you as an individual and you can get away with not being moral?''

Conscience. Secular or religious, there's conscience. That's all we have... and conscience develops with upbringing.

Yes it does. In a secular upbringing there is only the consequence of man's punishment for ones indiscretions. If everyone had true faith in there being a judgment for their life, they would be less likely to kill an innocent person for financial gain...if they had faith and still committed such a terrible act - well they are the greatest of fools.

[Immanuel Can]

Come now, let's be sensible.

Good point. Fair enough.

It seems there was some envy....

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-e ... 018ff006-c

[Immanuel Can]

...the even greater absurdity of
expecting to find a quote that you would consider acceptable as repudiation of any possible Hitlerian interpretation.

Not at all.

I can find quotations in Locke about the rights of people today. I can find quotations in Kant about whether or not people today should tell lies. I can find quotations in Mill about how many people ought to be discomfited today for the greater happiness of others. Nothing is unusual about that, because ethical systems don't address one situation at a time; they attempt to make universal, normative claims.

Nietzsche made plenty of universal normative claims. He claimed, for example, that "Judeo-Christian" morality was bad, and "will to power" was excellent. He claimed that ubermensch should be amoral. He claimed that women ought to be whipped into line. All that's easy to find.

So my question is not whether or not he knew Hitler's hat size, or whether he knew Nazism as a 20th Century phenomenon. It's whether his moral paradigm gives us anything at all that legitimizes the view that Hitler is not an acceptable interpretation of Nietzsche. For the allegation I have made against Nietzsche is not that he demanded a Hitler, but that his view allows Hitler, and indeed, supplements the stock of basic concepts that emboldened and empowered a Hitler, making him possible.

Now, if Hitler used them "immorally," then that should be quite evident in Nietzsche's morals. And if not, then Nietzscheanism is permissive of Nazism. More than that: if Nietzsche cleared the deck of Judeo-Christian morality, then he was actually nurturant of Nazism, providing the gently-tilled soil in which Naziism was free to spring unimpeded and which nourished its vitality...whether or not Nietzsche knew how stupid and immoral he was actually being in floating his version of morality.

That's the point.

And you have no quotation in defense of Nietzsche. Not one. Nada. Zip. Nil. He's indefensible on this charge.

[Harbal]

Come now, let's be sensible.

Good point. Fair enough.

It seems there was some envy....

Thank you. Remind me to share my critique of Kant's wig with you sometime.

[Skip]

And you have no quotation in defense of Nietzsche. .

Of course not. I never claimed to. I haven't read anything by him since 1963.
The absurdity of your persistent, baseless demand is not vindicated by my failure to produce it.
(Eureka! He was the weapon. He was the weapon of mass destruction.)

That's the point.

[Immanuel Can]

Quote Nietzsche.

...as follows:

Nietzsche heavily criticized his sister and her husband, Bernhard Förster, speaking harshly against the "anti-Semitic canaille:"

Did I mention anti-Semitism? It is evil, but I don't remember doing so. I don't think I accused Nietzsche of that. I did say that he rejected Judeo-Christian morality, and I suppose that that by implication suggests he didn't like Christians and Jews.

But Hitler killed 6 million Jews, and 8 million of his own people...along with Poles, Slavs, the handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals, to say nothing of how many Allied troops and civilians he killed. To pause at Hitler's anti-Semitism is far too easy.

No, no. I accuse Nietzsche of cooperating in the whole package...all the evil that a despot like Hitler can do, because Nietzscheanism clears all morality away, and privileges the "will to power," so that the despot can justify doing whatever he does...all of it.

So you need to show not that Nietzsche did not share Hitler's antipathy to Jews, but that his moral framework says something against a Hitler. You need to show why Hitler is NOT a reasonable interpretation of Nietzschean morality...or you've really solved nothing.

Then Hitler is still a legitimate child of Nietzsche, and not at all his illegitimate progeny.

[Greta]

But the metamessage is clear: there is no way to clear Nietzsche of allowing Hitler, and of supplying him with the sorts of concepts he needed to justify his actions.

You have contradicted yourself here. If we judge Nietzsche for inspiring Hitler then we must judge Paul McCartney for inspiring Charles Manson - each is thoroughly illogical.

Incorrect. We can judge Paul McCartney as a guilty contributor to Manson's actions if "Helter Skelter" were a conversion narrative that explicitly advocates or prepares excuses for mass murder. It doesn't, so we can't.

Stick to the point.

Manson was primarily inspired by Blackbird. There is no way that any kind of sane mind could interpret this song as meaning it's time to kill innocent rich people:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

McCartney has no blame, and neither should Nietzsche. It was not his responsibility than the profoundly insane Adolph Hitler interpreted his words to suit himself.

[Skip]

McCartney has no blame, and neither should Nietzsche. It was not his responsibility than the profoundly insane Adolph Hitler interpreted his words to suit himself.

But Bill O'Reilly was inspired by Bill Clinton, therefore, Hillary Clinton is responsible for O'Reilly's actions -
alleged actions -

Right?
Or have I lost the chain of logical connection somewhere between the fourth and sixth time I failed to quote Nietzsche ?

[Dubious]

So you need to show not that Nietzsche did not share Hitler's antipathy to Jews, but that his moral framework says something against a Hitler. You need to show why Hitler is NOT a reasonable interpretation of Nietzschean morality...or you've really solved nothing.

Then Hitler is still a legitimate child of Nietzsche, and not at all his illegitimate progeny.

...and who are YOU whom we must prove this to when so many critical thinkers proclaim the opposite according to historical research, written data not to mention simple logic? How much of that have you done or to any extent tried to do? Everyone of your surface opinions immediately coalesce into certainty as if all truth floats in the puddle of a two minute rain storm endorsed by nothing more than verbal subterfuge and its constant stupid demands for proof! You offer nothing but opinion but from everyone else you demand proof! What hypocrisy! ...and this from someone who believes Jesus is his Savior who died for our sins based only on a few pages in the bible!

As a member of a "minority" group up against established evidence, it is up to you to prove what you state as truth. You've been reminded of this so often. The fact that you never have "proves" that you never could, the only option, default to uninformed opinion. Occasionally, it offers a revelation to the establishment but more often it's complete bunk. Prove that your statements and views on Nietzsche as a proto-nazi are indeed correct and disprove even the Jewish scholars who have decided otherwise.

If Nietzsche's toes were cut off by the Nazis with the help of his sister "to make the shoe fit" then it's more then repugnant to judge N guilty of being a proto-nazi as most will agree...except those with agendas.

Knowing how you feel about all atheists, your real resentment of Nietzsche begins in what he so rightfully proclaimed in that famous/infamous phrase that "god is dead"...meaning the Christian god as a version of a Jewish preacher...a perverse collusion that should never have happened as the Jews themselves very well know having suffered its consequences long enough!

BTW, what's to prevent Kant from being considered a proto-nazi since they also used their distortion methodologies on him?

A more normal, commonsense view, which does not require any special wisdom to acknowledge, is this:

Rocco, like other fascists, vehemently opposed the liberal doctrine of individual rights and a limited government, and he correctly identified Kant as a major champion in that tradition. This doesn’t mean, of course, that some aspects of Kant’s philosophy, as reinterpreted and altered by later Kantians, did not find their way into fascist and Nazi philosophy.

But here we need to consider the crucial question: To what extent should a philosopher be held responsible for how later thinkers used his ideas, especially when those later interpretations differ radically from how the original philosopher understood his own system?

In truth, the philosophy of fascism and National Socialism was a patchwork, a stitching together of disparate ideas taken, frequently out of context, from whatever sources would lend credibility to their quest to justify a totalitarian state. With the possible exception of Martin Heidegger, who joined the Nazi Party in 1933, no philosophy written by a fascist was worth the paper it was written on. We should therefore exercise extreme caution before condemning Kant or any other philosopher as a forerunner of fascism and Nazism.

By comparison, your overt prejudice would gladly condemn any philosopher who has the temerity to state that GOD IS DEAD!

Nietzsche's writings with their psychological power, force one to reflect on the human condition, knowing that "reflection" by its very nature, does not impose agreement. Insights derived or seriously considered, are infinitely more valuable than a Last Judgement summary of human behavior or worse, a gratuitous forgiveness of sins by one who was crucified. These are obscenities forged into dogma. Along with your own ability to totally distort you have much in common with its totalitarian counterpart.

...having said all that - because I wanted to - think and believe what you like. The Western World is in process of reexamining its own long history and reinterpreting some of its main philosophers, writers and artists...making much of what was once assumed less acceptable or no longer true. In short, a revaluation of values due to happen between long intervals.

[Immanuel Can]

McCartney has no blame, and neither should Nietzsche. It was not his responsibility than the profoundly insane Adolph Hitler interpreted his words to suit himself.

I agree with you entirely on the former, but not at all on the latter. What you've overlooked is that McCartney's production was quite different from Nietzsche's.

So far as I know, beyond his brief dalliance with drugs and Eastern mysticism, Paul McCartney has no philosophy to espouse. His songs are not manuals of action, and no moral system is named "McCartneyism." That is as it should be, and exonerates McCartney.

Not so Nietzsche. He not only had a very explicit antisocial philosophy, but pushed it with the kind of rhetorical flourishes unmatched by pulpit thumpers anywhere. He moralized without compunction, and self-recommended shamelessly. He denigrated goodness, mercy, women, the vulnerable and the "inferior," and exalted force. His destructiveness was polemical, deliberate and gleeful. And he left in his wake a very expansive philosophy of life in which "will to power" was justified as the highest good, and the restraining influence of any morality -- and explicitly, of "Judeo-Christian morality" was denied. If, later, somebody took him at his word, how is he not to blame for that?

In short, to compare McCartney to Nietzsche is rather like comparing Mickey Mouse to the Marquis de Sade. You could try, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to buy the argument.

[Immanuel Can]

...and who are YOU whom we must prove this to when so many critical thinkers proclaim the opposite according to historical research, written data not to mention simple logic?

I deny that this is what you supply, but let's grant you that, just for argument's sake. I'll tell you exactly what I'm asking. I'm asking what every academic always asks: quotation from the primary source...Nietzsche himself.

That's what "evidence" actually is. The rest is "interpretation" or "gloss" at best, at worst, merely "propaganda" or "spin." And the only way anyone can tell the difference is with reference to the primary source. If Nietzsche said it, he said it; if he did not, he did not. Simple.

I have asked you to show your evidence from the primary source. You have ranted and screamed, but not provided one iota.

The defense rests.

[Greta]

McCartney has no blame, and neither should Nietzsche. It was not his responsibility than the profoundly insane Adolph Hitler interpreted his words to suit himself.

I agree with you entirely on the former, but not at all on the latter. What you've overlooked is that McCartney's production was quite different from Nietzsche's.

That is completely irrelevant. Numerous passages in the texts of Christianity and Islam unambiguously demand followers to perform atrocities in yet only a minority of adherents to those religions choose to perform those atrocities. By contrast, Nietzsche provided ideas that were ambiguous enough to be misinterpreted as problematic, but are largely just his honest observations of the human condition.

As said before, I don't even care for Nietzsche and don't have much motivation to defend him - but I dislike misrepresentation and that's what you are doing here.

[uwot]

...I'll tell you exactly what I'm asking. I'm asking what every academic always asks: quotation from the primary source...Nietzsche himself.

Which is exactly what you have failed to provide. You have given us the title of one book and one concept; the first you clearly haven't read; the second, you clearly don't understand.

That's what "evidence" actually is. The rest is "interpretation" or "gloss" at best, at worst, merely "propaganda" or "spin."

Well indeed, Mr Can, but that is all you have presented.

And the only way anyone can tell the difference is with reference to the primary source. If Nietzsche said it, he said it; if he did not, he did not. Simple.

Exactly. So what did Nietzsche say that makes him responsible for Nazism?

I have asked you to show your evidence from the primary source. You have ranted and screamed, but not provided one iota.

Mr Can, sometimes you are your own best parody.

The defense rests.

You are the prosecution, you fool. What is your case against Nietzsche other than your own " "interpretation" or "gloss" at best, at worst, merely "propaganda" or "spin." " ?

[Skip]

Don't forget the ranting and screaming.