
Nietzsche’s Eternal Return - apollinaire
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/nietzsches-eternal-return
======
zarro
I've always found his concept of "live life in such a way, that at the end,
you could say once more!"

Just imagine, how different would life be if people tried to live it in such a
way, that if there was eternal re-occurrence, they would be content to relive
it indefinitely.

The funny part really is, for all you know this isn't the first time where
having this conversation.

~~~
brookhaven_dude
> live life in such a way, that at the end, you could say once more

This is in stark contrast with Hinduism and Yoga - there the goal is to never
come back!

~~~
a_tschantz
In a sense, the idea of eternal recurrence (and much of Nietzsche's
philosophy) was a direct attempt to reject Eastern (or Buddhist) conclusions.

Schopenhauer had a metaphysics & morality that was fairly consistent with (and
maybe informed by) Buddhism - i.e. existence is suffering/dukhka, this arises
from will/trishna, and its cessation can be achieved through something that
looks like the dissolution of the self.

Nietzsche, who was an avid reader of Schopenhauer, ran with the idea that life
was fundamentally a process of will/craving, but spent his career trying to
reject the conclusion that this is something to be overcome.

I find Nietzsche's philosophy makes a lot more sense when motivated in this
manner.

------
zachguo
These two excerpts probably explain what 'Eternal Return' is referring to.

> To the opponents of democracy, Nietzsche says, in essence: Just wait.
> Liberal democracy will devour itself, creating conditions for authoritarian
> rule. Disorder and instability will sow distrust in politics itself. “Step
> by step, private companies will absorb the functions of the state,”
> Nietzsche writes. “Even the most tenacious remnants of the old work of
> governing (the activity, for example, that is supposed to protect private
> persons from one another) will finally be taken care of by private
> entrepreneurs.” The distinction between public and private spheres will
> disappear. The state will give way to the “liberation of the private person
> (I take care not to say: of the individual).”

> The entrepreneur Peter Thiel, an avid reader of Nietzsche, says things like
> “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” ... For
> tech billionaires, national and racial hatreds are inconveniences; their
> authoritarianism wears a cosmopolitan face, promising frictionless commerce
> for all.

~~~
chairmanmow
That's not what the eternal return refers to. It refers to physics - that the
Universe will expand from and collapse to singularity and then do it again.
His argument that if matter is finite, and time is infinite - therefore if we
are composed of matter and given an infinite amount of time he thinks it is
inevitable that matter/oneself will return to the exact same state over and
over again.

It is an interesting thought experiment and I don't believe he's 100% correct
with it, although I'll spare my interpretation.

It's not that the things you're saying don't have some relation to Nietzsche,
but it has more to do with his thoughts on morality and so you're lumping
things together in a categorical error. It's more important to think about it
than to think Peter Thiel did all the heavy lifting for you already.

~~~
MadcapJake
That's not it either. Eternal return is a actually a mental model to prepare
yourself for all decision making: make the choice that you would be willing to
live with choosing again and again for eternity. It's about removing yourself
from cultural and political expectations and struggling through the only path
that is uniquely you, because any less would be to lose yourself.

Someone suggested in another comment that you wouldn't know which life this is
currently. This is also missing the point. Neitzchean eternal return is more
like a Hell: relieving all your mistakes over and over for all time. Destined
to make the same choices while woke to their failings.

The idea was to assert a non-humility and non-christian model of morality (a
morality of self-realization)

~~~
chairmanmow
Your last sentence is correct more or less, but I will say it can be both
things at once, Nietzsche was taking a big gulp with that exercise and physics
is part of it based on how he thought about it in relation to reality and his
timeframe, not abstract unprovable concepts - a philosopher's job isn't to
take you in one direction, so that's all that matters, although I will say
Nietzsche was so close, but at the same time suffered from his own fatal flaw
- dogma. Though he criticized Socrates exploitation of tragedy to convolute
philosophy over the years, he seemed to see in his own self as some sort of
tragic figure with people using morality as a way to shortcut. His longing for
the 'ubermensch' is his own kinda distorted way of longing for a Christ like
figure who knows that reason should prevail over morals - he maybe shouldn't
have written off psychology and the Bible so hastily.

Where Nietzsche failed to connect the dots as a result of his logical error
(righteous dogma/indulging in tragedy as a moral device with his longing for a
savior figure) is that he is essentially arguing that the only sin is original
sin. Before I get into how his argument fits into that, let me restate his
argument in a logical manner so you can tell I understand it somewhat.
Morality is a problematic logical argument because it means different things
to different people depending on their intrinsic motivations (which are
somehwat animalistic, unless one trains one mind to think logically, and even
then still one must always learn to recognize the beast) - therefore it is
subjective, and non-quantifiable and therefore useless to an intellectual
argument - this creates false equivalence, this creates conflicts when people
insert morality into their reasoning - it is a logical shortcut.

Back to original sin - "Eating from the tree of KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL" \-
the Bible is a liar's paradox and if you start to look at it that way it's
logical masterpiece and you bet whoever wrote it understood human nature and
physics big time. Nietzsche believed whenever you thought you had knowledge of
something, you had probably made some logical error in pursuit of a truth you
wanted to believe was fixed. He is probably right - God is not divine justice
and if it were we've all probably manipulated it to our subjective whims.
Jesus isn't magic. But perhaps they are useful analogs : God is Truth, and
unknowable - Jesus/Nietzsche/Ubermensch represents logic coupled with
mankind's initial logical fallacy (pride of knowledge/divine b.s.) thus
becoming a pariah (crucified/madness/misappropriated), just believing they
could say something was good or evil without providing rationale as backed by
a societal construct that was made to keep some kind of order (such as saying
there is no relationship between physics and philosophy and religion and
space/time) - but that's neither here nor there for me to speak of, I'd rather
someone else pick up the hypothesis, but I may chime in if someone goes too
far off course with this.

------
platz
'On the Genealogy of Morals' was the most coherent, accessible, and IMHO
relevant text to out times, that Nietzsche ever produced.

~~~
steveklabnik
This book changed my life, and sparked my interest in philosophy generally.
Highly recommended.

------
Errancer
Just go and read Deleuze's essays on Nietzsche. They're short and extremely
insightful

~~~
pmoriarty
You'd be much better advised to just go straight to the source and read
Nietzsche, especially as he's one of the most readable, entertaining, and
interesting philosophers ever.

You'd do yourself a disservice by looking at him through someone else's
inevitably distorting glasses.

~~~
posterboy
do you have to learn german just to read nietzsche?

~~~
mitchty
As someone that has learnt German for other reasons, it definitely helps.
There is a lot of word play in German in his writings that I feel translation
loses. As well as emphasis in word choices stemming from German as a language
that tends to either get glossed over or overlooked.

But in the end, no you don't, but it helps in the nuances of what is trying to
be conveyed.

------
mikelyons

      Nietzsche is dead

------
keiferski
This article, as to be expected by the New Yorker, is fairly underwhelming,
lacks a point and is outright wrong in a few places. For one, trying to apply
Nietzsche’s thought to modern politics is to completely misunderstand the man.
His work has nothing to do with the supposedly ‘new’ phenomenon of news and
media lying about the truth. It is far deeper and profound than the Trump-
buzzword article of the day.

It’s probably fair to say that Nietzsche, if he were around today, would
almost certainly have no interest in the petty squabbles of democratic
politics. To assign him a political viewpoint is to misunderstand that he is
fundamentally interested in the individual human being as a self-contained
phenomenon. His philosophy is not accurately characterized as “individualism”
but it is absolutely not political in nature.

In any case, the title refers to an interesting idea which oddly enough isn’t
even mentioned in the article itself:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return#Friedrich_Nietz...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return#Friedrich_Nietzsche)

~~~
samirillian
I agree with everything you said but this part:

> the individual human being as a self-contained phenomenon

He was absolutely an existentialist, but I think his rebuke of the Cartesian
_cogito_ undermines that self-contained concept.

~~~
keiferski
I was trying to avoid delving into his whole idea of the will and explicit
anti-‘selfhood’ as it seemed a bit too much for a HN comment. But yeah, I was
trying to say that N. isn’t really a political thinker. He is better described
as interested in fundamental forces that are far deeper than (what he
perceives as) the petty mob values of democratic politics or a simple concept
of individualism.

------
PavlovsCat
> Scholars still debate what Nietzsche had in mind. A physically stronger
> being? [..] A kind of cyborg?

Nevermind scholar, what person who actually read Nietzsche seriously considers
either of those? I would really like to see a source for this other than pop
culture. Even "spiritual aristocrat" is weird, "spiritual athlete" would make
more sense to me (even though it still wouldn't really _say_ anything).

Consider the opposite of the Übermensch, the "last man":
[http://thelastmanonearth.blogspot.com/2009/03/nietzsche-
and-...](http://thelastmanonearth.blogspot.com/2009/03/nietzsche-and-last-
man.html)

Or this:

> _Anyone who doesn 't want to belong to the masses need only cease to go easy
> on themselves; let them follow their conscience, which cries out to them "Be
> yourself! You are none of those things that you now do, think, and desire."
> Every young soul hears this call night and day and trembles, for when it
> thinks of its true liberation, it has an inkling of the measure of happiness
> for which it is destined from eternity. As long as it is shackled by the
> chains of opinion and fear, nothing can help it attain this happiness. And
> how bleak and senseless this life can become without this liberation!_

\-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't know what the Übermensch is, I always read Nietzsche like a poetry
collection anyway, rather than a coherent model, and I haven't read Nietzsche
in ages -- but I am pretty sure being one's own person (which of course is
different for everybody) is part of it.

~~~
Jeema101
The most consistent interpretation IMO is 'person who engages in self-mastery
to overcome obstacles'.

I think that interpretation also jives with why he was so critical of pity and
humanism: because he genuinely believed that some suffering is needed because
overcoming obstacles through exertion of the will is the only way for humanity
to live a satisfying existence.

That's my $0.02 anyway...

~~~
8bitsrule
The concept of self-mastery suggests that the outcome of the ancient dictum
'Temet nosce' (know thyself) is part of a (once well-known?) psychological
process, of a liberation from ignorance.

I see an echo of that in Jung's 'individuation'. I see other echoes in
Gurdjieff & Ouspensky's writings, in the efforts of the (non-materialist)
alchemists, in Maslow's 'self-actualization', in Bucke's 'cosmic
consciousness', etc ... and that's just in the West.

Huxley displays a somewhat more universal (but abstracted) outline of this
constellation of efforts in his 1946 _The Perennial Philosophy_.

Long ago I waded (not very deeply) into N., but as I recall, he explored a lot
more than this one idea. Maybe he's become most identified with it because its
other numerous threads are too esoteric ... or concealed.

NB: One Jung take on Nietzsche (1936): [https://www.philosopher.eu/others-
writings/essay-on-wotan-w-...](https://www.philosopher.eu/others-
writings/essay-on-wotan-w-nietzsche-c-g-jung/)

------
molteanu
The article goes on and on but says nothing insightful. Just Wikipedia-like
facts, strung together for the purpose of who knows. Be warned or be content
that you're not the only one with that feeling.

~~~
coldtea
> _The article goes on and on but says nothing insightful._

It's not supposed to.

A better title would be "A general introduction to Nietzsche's life to people
who have only heard his name" \-- rather than the more promising "Nietzsche’s
Eternal Return" which only concerns half a hastily written paragraph in TFA.

That said, it's quite poorly informed in the philosophical aspects (didn't
bother to check the biographical ones):

" _Scholars still debate what Nietzsche had in mind. A physically stronger
being? A spiritual aristocrat? A kind of cyborg?_ "

Scholars might still debate "what Nietzsche had in mind" with Ubermench, but
they don't consider any of the above options (except perhaps "a spiritual
aristocrat", and that's still extremely vague).

~~~
yasp
Why do current scholars consider meaningful a philosopher who left poorly
specified one of the core idea about which he wrote?

~~~
wayoutthere
Nietzsche also put an end to a century of increasingly technical and
analytical philosophy by dropping a lot of truth bombs that exposed the
futility of a century of German philosophy. He’s kind of an edgelord by 19th
century standards, but he wasn’t wrong that German philosophy had been
intellectual masturbation with no meaning for quite a while.

His wordplay is an intentional reaction to blowhards like Kant and
Schopenhauer — who attempted to be so precise they were almost certain to be
proven wrong given enough time. He is intentionally vague, because he’s
allowing for the fact that definitions and sentiments change arbitrarily over
time. But he is intentionally evasive in his prose to distance him from a
specific German philosophical tradition.

------
kashyapc
While I don't agree with everything Pinker says, I must say, Pinker's point on
"Drop the Nietsche" in his book, Enlightenment Now, did influence me:

 _Keep some perspective. Not every problem is a Crisis, Plague, Epidemic, or
Existential Threat, and not every change is the End of This, the Death of
That, or the Dawn of a Post-Something Era. Don 't confuse pessimism with
profundity: problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable, and diagnosing
every setback as a symptom of a sick society is a cheap grab for gravitas.
Finally, drop the Nietzsche. His ideas may seem edgy, authentic, baad, while
humanism seems sappy, unhip, uncool. But what's so funny about peace, love,
and understanding?_

Edit: "I agree" \--> "influenced me". Maybe reading more of Nietsche might
open up my mind more on his work. :-)

~~~
keiferski
Pinker is perhaps the single most uninformed public “intellectual” in society
today. His ideas are slightly above Gladwell yet somehow he commands respect.
I really don’t understand it.

~~~
freddie_mercury
Ad hominem attacks don't really improve the level of discussions on HN.

~~~
keiferski
I don’t consider it an ad-hominem attack. The man has consistently shown that
he is vastly undereducated on things he has public opinions on. The quote
linked to above is a perfect example - it reads as if from someone who skimmed
the Wikipedia article on Nietzsche and spent zero time attempting to
understand his thought.

For anyone who has even a passing knowledge of Nietzsche’s ideas, Pinker’s
quote is just hilariously, woefully ignorant. Nietzsche was not a pessimist -
if anything he was an optimist. It’s only in the (uninformed) public
imagination that he is some kind of nihilist pessimist. Judging from Pinker’s
quote, his knowledge of Nietzsche doesn’t go deeper than public hearsay.

Considering that nearly all of Pinker’s works suffer from this same flaw, I
have no problem dismissing him.

------
voidhorse
_yawn_ I’m tired of Nietzsche. Just as the world needed a new prophet,
Zarathustra, we need a new misunderstood, brooding, wishes-he-were-a-poet
grimbad philosopher. Nietzsche is great, but the motions of the ages are even
startig to catch up to him, too. _Ecce Homo_ is still interesting and somewhat
relevant, but all of his other works are full of ideas that hae been
sufficiently adopted or misappropriated by society at large as to be faux pas
or bland. His war against Christian society and morals, for instance, while
stylistically interesting, is almost entirely irrelevant at this stage in
history. He’s become idolized and his message has become diluted, just like
everyone else.

That said, he’s still a delight to read. Some of the aphorisms are also still
glittering gems. I just find the major concepts in his thinking are somewhat
musty at this point.

~~~
sysbin
Nietzsche never truly had a war with Christianity. He was an optimist often
mistaken as an nihilist. I’m skeptical why he never went into how free will is
an illusion and otherwise his writing illustrates he thought people could make
themselves have a good destiny or not. His eternal reoccurrence theory even is
more understandable when thinking from a hard determinist mindset.

~~~
97b683f8
> I’m skeptical why he never went into how free will is an illusion

> Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty –
> could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered
> as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within
> the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was
> made the principle of psychology itself).

Source: Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche

