# Nietzsche or Schopenhauer?



## SiegendesLicht

For those who are acquainted with the work of these two great minds, whose worldview do you prefer? Who of the two speaks more to you, and why?


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## Marschallin Blair

Nietzsche 'or' Schopenhauer?- Who do I prefer?

Are you kidding me?!

No contest: Nietzsche.

Nietzsche's an arch-individualist who says 'YES!' to life no matter what the odds.

Schopenhauer on the other hand believes in resigning himself to quietude and to extinction. . .

Interesting side note to the whole Nietzsche-vs.-Schopenhauer thing: Have you ever read the Joseph Conrad novel _Victory_?

It about a well-educated, Schopenhauerian, expat European and recluse who lives in Indonesia (in order to escape the slings and arrows of the world) and falls in love with a girl.

He falls in love being fully aware of the danger which it posits for himself- but goes ahead with the relationship anyway- come what may.

Tremendous novel.

Hail Zarathustra._ ;D_


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## Dim7

Interesting poll. I confess that my understanding of Schopenhauer is very superficial and largely based on secondary sources.

So Nietzsche was basically the more of a ****** of the two, not that Schopenhauer couldn't be quite a ****** too at times (see for example, this), but overall he was more compassionate of the two. Both realized that this universe ain't a pretty place - Schopenhauer concluded that life sucks, Nietzsche tried desperately to be life-affirming despite this, so if universe is a ***** then let's be ****** ourselves was what he basically thought. I think underneath all he too was quite despairing and miserable, like Schopenhauer.

Nietzsche on the whole is way more cool, entertaining and interesting. Despite his ridiculous 'stache, he manages to look somewhat cool even with it, at least comparison to Schopenhauer with his superlame hairstyle:








My outlook on life is actually probably closer to Schopenhauer, though I try to be more Nietzschean.

Overall I'll vote for Nietzsche. I mean come on, he's Nietzsche. Much more often there is a relevant Nietzche quotation to almost any situation, he's thinking is much more influental, mentally stimulating, interesting, creative etc....


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## SiegendesLicht

No, I haven't read that novel, but I have been reading a bit of both philosophers lately (I cannot say I know their work in its entirety yet). They strike me as a sort of opposites, a kind of two poles: one celebrating the will, the other celebrating denial of the will.


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## Marschallin Blair

"The State is the coldest of all cold monsters. Everything it says is a lie. All it has, it steals."

- Nietzsche, _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_

"If it depended on my choice,
I think it would be great,
To have a place in Paradise, 
Better yet outside the gate."

- Nietzsche, _The Gay Science_

"The last Christian died on the cross."

- Nietzsche, _Twilight of the Idols_

His list of great one-liners just goes on forever.

;D


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## clavichorder

I have not read either, but I own a copy of Victory by Conrad and greatly appreciate your recommendation, Marschallin. It very much reflects my life, in a way, based on how you describe it. Maybe I could learn something.

Also, I have read some Emerson, who to me seems like a happy medium in some ways of what people have been saying about Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. I sense an idealogical alignment perhaps more with Schopenhauer, with an attitude of optimism on top of that.


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## Dim7

clavichorder said:


> I sense an idealogical alignment perhaps more with Schopenhauer, with an attitude of optimism on top of that.


I sense an ideological alignment perhaps more with Ayn Rand, with an attitude of socialism, altruism & collectivism on top of that.


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## Marschallin Blair

Dim7 said:


> I sense an ideological alignment perhaps more with Ayn Rand, with an attitude of socialism, altruism & collectivism on top of that.


How does that statism, tribalism, and self-sacrifice translate to optimism?


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## clavichorder

Dim7 said:


> I sense an ideological alignment perhaps more with Ayn Rand, with an attitude of socialism, altruism & collectivism on top of that.


I haven't read Rand, and probably never will. There have been aspects of Emerson that have confused and frustrated me, but other parts have really struck me with awe. If anything Rand is probably a particularly selfish interpretation of him.


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## Marschallin Blair

clavichorder said:


> I have not read either, but I own a copy of Victory by Conrad and greatly appreciate your recommendation, Marschallin. It very much reflects my life, in a way, based on how you describe it. Maybe I could learn something.
> 
> Also, I have read some Emerson, who to me seems like a happy medium in some ways of what people have been saying about Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. I sense an idealogical alignment perhaps more with Schopenhauer, with an attitude of optimism on top of that.


So wonderful to hear that you have the novel, clavichorder. I hope you love it as much as I did. . .

I do like Schopenhauer though- but a as a critic- especially of Hegel; whom he witheringly eviscerates.


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## Dim7

Marschallin Blair said:


> How does that statism, tribalism, and self-sacrifice translate to optimism?


The point was that Schopenhauer + optimism was a bit like Rand + collectivism/socialism/altruism! As in, about as contradictory.


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## Marschallin Blair

clavichorder said:


> I haven't read Rand, and probably never will. There have been aspects of Emerson that have confused and frustrated me, but other parts have really struck me with awe. If anything Rand is probably a particularly selfish interpretation of him.


Ayn Rand once said that Niezsche was basically her sense of life- but expressed in emotional and not intellectual terms.

I fully subscribe to that analysis.

Ayn Rand believes in individual liberty.

Nietzsche believes in individual license.

- Totally different things.


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## clavichorder

I have heard from a knowledgable source that Schopenhauer, being off in his own realm with it's pluses and minuses, has an almost unwitting connection to eastern styles of philosophy and religion.


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## Marschallin Blair

Dim7 said:


> The point was that Schopenhauer + optimism was a bit like Rand + collectivism/socialism/altruism! As in, about as contradictory.


Sorry, Dim- like your namesake- it just went over this blonde's head.


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## SiegendesLicht

clavichorder said:


> I have heard from a knowledgable source that Schopenhauer, being off in his own realm with it's pluses and minuses, has an almost unwitting connection to eastern styles of philosophy and religion.


In _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ he does bring up Buddhism and Hinduism and admits these philosophies had influenced his own views.


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## Guest

Schopenhauer strikes me as being a bit pretentious. I guess today he would be called goth or emo. "The will is always restless and looking beyond itself but since nothing can exist beyond itself, it must feed off itself only to learn that it is empty and its ultimate goals unreachable!" I mean, really, loosen up. Learn an instrument or something.

Nietzsche taught and urges us to live life and enjoy it. After all, tomorrow we die.

"What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?"

"And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it!"


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## Strange Magic

Schopenhauer on the death of Ayn Rand: "Obit anus, abit onus!" Then his head exploded.


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## Guest

Never made it all the through "Atlas Shrugged." When John Galt finally shows up, he talks nonstop for 60 pages! I made it through about 20 and decided that was enough.


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## Dim7

Looks even so far. I thought Nietzsche would have pwned Schopenhauer completely.


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## Vronsky

_Degere vitam, vita defungi._

Schopenhauer, of course.


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## Marschallin Blair

Strange Magic said:


> Schopenhauer on the death of Ayn Rand: "Obit anus, abit onus!" Then his head exploded.


The anadiplosis of "anus" was of course referring to Rosa Luxemburg.


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## SiegendesLicht

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Arthur Schopenhauer

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Edit: The first quote sounds very nice in the original German.


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## Dim7

SiegendesLicht said:


> He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
> 
> Friedrich Nietzsche


This explains why I am occasionally a Pokémon.


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## Marschallin Blair

Victor Redseal said:


> Never made it all the through "Atlas Shrugged." When John Galt finally shows up, he talks nonstop for 60 pages! I made it through about 20 and decided that was enough.


Yeah, think of how 'I' felt after reading the hefty pseudo-scientific tomes of _Das Kapital_ Volumes I, II, and III and the _German Ideology_ to boot- knowing 'beforehand' that what I was reading was complete charlatanry- and that Jean Baptiste Say and Max Stirner already refuted everything Marx said beforehand.


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## Blancrocher

SiegendesLicht said:


> A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.


Did he say this before or after he shoved that woman down a flight of stairs?


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## Vronsky

SiegendesLicht said:


> A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
> 
> Arthur Schopenhauer
> 
> He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
> 
> Friedrich Nietzsche
> 
> Edit: The first quote sounds very nice in the original German.


The first quote is from Parerga and Paralipomena, right?


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## SiegendesLicht

Vronsky said:


> The first quote is from Parerga and Paralipomena, right?


Yes, you are right.


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## Morimur

Romans 1:22-25

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.


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## SiegendesLicht

Sorry, man, that whole guilt trip does not work on me any more. So which of the two philosophers do you like better?


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## Marschallin Blair

Morimur said:


> Romans 1:22-25
> 
> 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
> 
> 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.


_"We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised."_

- 1Corinthians 4:10

Well, St. Paul said it better than 'I' ever could.

No wonder Paul said that the Greek skeptics mocked him and called him a babbler.


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## Morimur

SiegendesLicht said:


> Sorry, man, that whole guilt trip does not work on me any more. So which of the two philosophers do you like better?


Guilt's got the least to do with it.

As for the two philosophers-two blind men. Neither.


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## Marschallin Blair

Blancrocher said:


> Did he say this before or after he shoved that woman down a flight of stairs?


I think he did it after Marx stopped beating his wife. . . and of course getting his servants pregnant.


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## Huilunsoittaja

I'm enjoying the comments and compliments and diatribes of all you here.

Nietzsche was nihilist. Schopenhauer had Buddhist influences. Let's analyze.

*desire to be snarky rises up*

Nietzsche is for optimists, Schopenhauer is for pessimists.

Nietzsche is for people who have the fortune to _already _match his qualifications for a worthy human being. Schopenhauer is for the drug addicts, alcoholics, and gutter scum of our society that have already given up on life.

But both will not accept the reality of irrationality. #UndergroundManFTW


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## Marschallin Blair

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I'm enjoying the comments and compliments and diatribes of all you here.
> 
> Nietzsche was nihilist. Schopenhauer had Buddhist influences. Let's analyze.
> 
> *desire to be snarky rises up*
> 
> Nietzsche is for optimists, Schopenhauer is for pessimists.
> Nietzsche is for people who have the fortune to _already _match his qualifications for a worthy human being. Schopenhauer is for the drug addicts, alcoholics, and gutter scum of our society that have already given up on life.
> 
> But both will not accept the reality of irrationality. #UndergroundManFTW


Well of course Nietzsche was a mixed bag- he believed in slavery, after all; but then, so did Karl Marx.

I love Nietzsche primarily as a psychologist and as a social critic- and of course as a destroyer of charlatans.

He called Kant (who tried to secularize Christian altruism) "a catastrophic spider"- and he called Plato (who retreated to his imaginary world of Forms) "a coward before reality."

Pure comedy.


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## Vronsky

What do you think about Max Stirner? He wrote some excellent stuff.


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## Marschallin Blair

Vronsky said:


> What do you think about Max Stirner? He wrote some excellent stuff.


I think he eviscerates Marx and Hegel in _Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_ (_The Ego and Its Own_)- which is all to the good- since Stirner is championing the individual and not reifications like Hegel's "Geist" or Marx's benevolent dictatorship.

But then at the same time- Stirner's a sort of proto-nihilist, proto-Existentialist like Nietzsche, in that he seems to have no compunctions about an individual doing 'whatever' he wants (good 'or' bad).

So Stirner's a mixed bag to me.

In so far as he critiques power structures though he's awesome.

- And he has great one liners too:

"If it is right to me, it is right."

"Individually free is he who is responsible to no man."

"Freedom cannot be granted, it must be taken."

"The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise."

There's others- but that's what I can remember off the top of my head.


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## SiegendesLicht

I've just realized I missed the "c" in Arthur's last name in the poll... *facepalm*


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## tdc

I haven't found anything really of interest to me personally in the readings of either one.

From what I have read, this kind of material really seems much ado about nothing and a whole lot of uninspired claptrap.

Another neither vote here.

A world view I prefer is that of Karl Jung.


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## Blancrocher

I wouldn't want to judge between these two geniuses on philosophical grounds, but I'd say that Nietzsche was at least marginally better as a composer ... maybe.


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## clavichorder

Morimur said:


> Guilt's got the least to do with it.
> 
> As for the two philosophers-two blind men. Neither.


I doubt you are any more seeing than them.


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## Marschallin Blair

tdc said:


> I haven't found anything really of interest to me personally in the readings of either one.
> 
> From what I have read, this kind of material really seems much ado about nothing and a whole lot of uninspired claptrap.
> 
> Another neither vote here.
> 
> A world view I prefer is that of Karl Jung.


The Collective Unconscious and the Solar Phallus Man?

http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2009/09/collective-unconscious/

- I'd rather talk to my plants.


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## SiegendesLicht

What's wrong with the Collective Unconscious? I admit to knowing very little about Jung's views, but didn't he explain the power great myths and stories have over humanity? The archetypes and all that. Sounds quite interesting.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

I agree with dim7 that nietszhe's look is far superior to Schopenhauer's, who doesn't even seem to be trying - he could've taken off about 10 years if he had added a little color, volumized the top and trimmed the sides. The pomade/ slicked-back look works pretty well for nietszhe and provides an appealing contrast to the walrus-mustache.


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## Abraham Lincoln

Nietzsche because mustache


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## Chordalrock

Nietzsche was more talented, had unusual and interesting ideas, and wrote much better prose (I mean outside the melodramatic mess of allusions and try-hard poetry that is Zarathustra).

The choice should be easy - Nietzsche was a brilliant genius, on the whole, and Schopenhauer rather a bore.

However, you asked about their worldviews, and there Nietzsche went off the deep end into juvenile satanism that is typically found in privileged narcissists whose reason is unable to operate properly due to some sort of brain-damage caused by adaptive mutations. The end result is that instead of becoming moral universalists, they end up as moral solipsists, which you have to agree is an irresponsible position and deeply nuts. Anyone who thinks empathy is a bad thing doesn't understand how horrifying the universe can get without empathy.

I don't think Schopenhauer quite understood either, and that's a reason why you could see him as being more a whiny pessimist than a genuine sage. But I can't deny his grasp of the basics - something which Nietzsche seems to have lacked when he wrote that the masses should suffer so that the elites could thrive. Schopenhauer was 100% right writing that suffering is generally more significant than joy, and "you need only to compare the pleasure of eating with the displeasure of being eaten to understand this." There is such a thing as intolerable suffering (and even such a thing as crazy intolerable suffering), while there is no similar category of pleasure or happiness. This alone tells you that suffering weighs more in the balance than pleasure, joy, or happiness. Nietzsche ignores this fact of the universe entirely, and he ignores extreme horrors that this universe is capable of like the victory of sadistic psychos in the Darwinian game and the creation of virtual reality hells - he ignores everything truly serious, writing his light-weight feel-good tracts to be read by light-weight feel-good people.

So I have to go with Schopenhauer. His philosophy is less likely to end up with 99% of humanity in hell than Nietzsche's adolescent solipsism.


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## Dim7

Vronsky said:


> What do you think about Max Stirner? He wrote some excellent stuff.


He basically wrote a 370 page book on the subject of "I can do whatever I want, **** everyone else".


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## Xaltotun

I think Nietzsche was brilliant with _The Birth of Tragedy_ but it all went downhill from that point on. I still like him a lot and consider him a superb writer, and I even agree with him on many points, but on some questions we are polar opposites and there can be no reconciliation.

So I'll go with Schopenhauer, whose attitude and ethics I can respect better.

But I'm really in the camp with Plato, Kant, Hegel and Marx to be honest.


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## dieter

My Father always talked about Nietzsche's power of the 'will' and sense of personal responsibility. My father was a wide reader - he read Patrick White, for example - but he left school at 14 to become an apprentice fitter and turner in Leipzig. I'm not all that sure that my father really understood Nietzsche...


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## Pugg

dieter said:


> My Father always talked about Nietzsche's power of the 'will' and sense of personal responsibility. My father was a wide reader - he read Patrick White, for example - but he left school at 14 to become an apprentice fitter and turner in Leipzig. I'm not all that sure that my father really understood Nietzsche...


I thinks a very few people really understand Nietzche


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## Guest

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Nietzsche because mustache


It is most excellent.


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## Morimur

I am more partial to Jesus of Nazareth.


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## SiegendesLicht

_Lieber im Eise leben, als unter modernen Tugenden... _ - Better to live in the ice, than amidst modern values. F. Nietzsche.

The more I learn about these modern values, the more I tend to the same sentiment.


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## Blancrocher

Xaltotun said:


> I still like him a lot and consider him a superb writer, and I even agree with him on many points, but on some questions we are polar opposites and there can be no reconciliation.


If it makes you feel any better, I think that Nietzsche himself felt the same way about his work.


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## Ukko

If the question were 'Nietzsche or Spinoza', I would have had more difficulty choosing.


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## Antiquarian

I did not vote on this poll, because both of these were men. It's like looking at the world through cracked lenses, some parts of it look fine, but others look distorted. Only a mind unfettered by mortality will be able to propound a true philosophical theory, all else is continual wrangling. That's my philosophy. Oh, wait.. :devil:


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