What was Nietszche saying???

Question

What was he meaning to convey when he says : " The Jews are the most remarkable people in the world, becasuse when they were confronted with the question of Being or non-Being, with simply uncanny deliberateness, they preferred Being at any price : This price was the fundamental falsification of Nature, "...pg. 30 2nd paragraph of Antichrist.

Please feel free to be subjective and elaborate on what you believe about the Antichrist, Nietszche and also what he meant by " Being, non-Being "

Answer 1

Compare Hamlet: "To be, or not to be, that is the question".

To survive or to perish, as a people -- that is, to persist, to remain united as a people, or to be disintegrated into separate individuals, each one only concerned with his own salvation.

As for what I think of Nietzsche, re. The Antichrist:

"Whoever begins at this point, like my readers, to reflect and pursue his train of thought will not soon come to the end of it—reason enough for me to come to an end, assuming it has long since been abundantly clear what my *aim* is [in German: >>was ich will<<, literally "what I will"], what the aim of that dangerous slogan is that is inscribed at the head of my last book: *"Beyond Good and Evil"*... At least this does *not* mean "Beyond Good and Bad." —"

[Toward the Genealogy of Morals, first treatise, section 17.]

"The two *opposing* values "good and bad," "good and evil" have been engaged in a fearful struggle on earth for thousands of years; and though the latter value has certainly been on top for a long time, there are still places where the struggle is as yet undecided. [...] The symbol of this struggle, inscribed in letters legible across all human history, is "Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome": —there has hitherto been no greater event than *this* struggle, *this* question, *this* deadly contradiction. Rome felt the Jew to be something like anti-nature itself, its antipodal monstrosity as it were: in Rome the Jew stood "*convicted* of hatred for the whole human race"; and rightly, provided one has a right to link the salvation and future of the human race with the unconditional dominance of aristocratic values, Roman values."

[ibid., section 16.]

As Nietzsche implies, his philosophy is beyond good and evil, but not beyond good and bad. He thus takes the side of "Rome" in the struggle between "Rome" and "Judea". What Nietzsche wills is the unconditional dominance of aristocratic values, Roman values.

"The nobility of instinct, the taste, the methodical research, the genius of organization and administration, the faith in, the *will* to, man's future, the great Yes to all things, become visible in the imperium Romanum [Roman Empire], visible for all the senses, the grand style no longer mere art but become reality, truth, *life*..."

[The Antichrist, section 59.]

"The problem I thus pose is [...] what type of man shall be *bred*, shall be *willed*, for being higher in value, worthier of life, more certain of a future."

[ibid., section 3.]

"It is here and nowhere else that one must make a start to comprehend what Zarathustra *wants* [in German: >>was Zarathustra *will*<<]: this type of man that he conceives, conceives reality *as it is*: it is strong enough for it—, it is not estranged or removed from it, it is *reality itself* and exemplifies all that is terrible and questionable in it, *only in that way can man attain greatness*..."

[Ecce Homo, Why I Am a Destiny, section 5.]

"The Jews are the strangest people in world history because, confronted with the question whether to be or not to be, they chose, with a perfectly uncanny deliberateness, to be at *any price*: this price was the radical *falsification* of all nature, all naturalness, all reality, of the whole inner world as well as the outer."

[AC 24.]

Pro Roma, contra Judea! Pro Caesar, anti Christ! Dionysus versus the "Crucified"!

Answer 2

The "fundy falsification of Nature" is ignorant kvetching insofar as FN begged the question by ignoring the temporal quale of matter.

I.e., logically and in physics, nothing ever comes of nothing.  As matter disintegrates, Some Thing has always Been--pure Being.

The notion of Pure Being is for the Jewish experience reinforced by the miraculous intelligible gesture--this type of miracle is also recorded e.g. by sceptics at Garabandal, Spain, early 1960s, as predicted Host of Light coalescing in thin air.

Beyond the miraculous Physis, is the Jewish "I-Thou"ness of Presence:  "I and my Father are One," similar in import to Plotinus' "One Mind Soul-individuation and -realization."

FN, deprived suddenly of his revered Pastor Father, was bereft of this beneficial insightful influence.  Hence, he continued to search for and be influenced by father-figures (Schopenhauer, Wagner, Zarathustra), until, weeping over abused horses, he meekly followed his mother around their home, dressed in white linen robes.  For FN, the search for Father was the search for self-actualization, overmanness, escape from the meekly accepting herd.

The Jewish "I and my Father are One" is what Nietzsche lacked, not because of his brilliant insight, but because he lost his own Father.  In turn he developed an early type of Abraham Maslowian overcoming, using Zarathustrian tough love, Wagnerian self-actualization, and Schopenhauerian meaning via art.

A worthwhile text:  "The Path of Christ or Antichrist," Mark Prophet (his real name, btw ;)

Answer 3

i don't have a clue but i don't think you'll get many answers. so.... the question of being in this sense i understand as do humans exist in some space or is this the illusion of the heaven world. where heaven is real and this is nothing, a fleeting illusion.

No, perhaps I mean to say instead is; the question of being is do we exist or is life a dream. The jews then said what i said above, the jews said heaven is real and this here now is fake. funny really. the falsification of nature. And this was the foundation for christians and islam. Now is fake/ dead is more important. rather anti- humanist if you ask me

Further still, in an attempt to understand our place in the world. This path (of nietszches or human thinkers tradition) is heading for the idea that the world is a creation of our head, back to sqaure one it seems or am i just tired. The being of our conscious state. it falsely creates or artificially creates a sense of existance. Which blow my mind is not "real" I'm not talking about the matrix anymore or the dali Llama chi blast. Physically and scientifically, consiousness is an artificial creation, in ways it doesn't exist. The very concept of self is an illusion created by electrical impulses and tissue interactions i don't fully understand.

This is our false being, false nature much beyond what the jews were concerned about. Being and non being. Not that i am and will one day not be. But am I really now? Certainly I'm something. Descartes said i think so i am. something is thinking and existing. But the consciousness, (will it be clearer if i rave some more?) is it real? is it being?

Answer 4

hmm. i'm not a big philosopher or anything but it sounds to me like he was saying that they would keep living and doing what they wanted to do at any price, including the price of nature. but idk my teacher says i shouldnt' get into nietszche because it will mess with mind (not in a good way)

♥♪

Answer 5

Jewish or Christian or whatever.  All religions are a falsification of nature.  The nature is in the stars, the falsification are the religious stories made up to learn those astral details & events.  Nearly every religion has the same story at its root.  It is that story from which the falsification stems.

Answer 6

Five.

Answer 7

Well, I'm no expert on Nietszche but the Jews did have a remarkable perspective on the state of "being" and "non-being."  In the old testament Moses confronted the burning bush and was commanded to remove his sandals as he was on holy ground.  Moses asked who was speaking to him.....God's reply was "I am who am."  This God was a contradiction....an enigma....God's very identity was "consciousness and the knowledge of one's being."  

God is "the present"  "eternal-having no beginning or end" the total and perpetual state of being.  Since we were made in "HIS" own likeness than we too can claim this state of "Being" this knowledge that "I am one with He who is"  We can not have this knowlege unless He who IS the state of Being deems it to be so.  In answering Abraham's question therefore, God defines himself and us.

I am not sure what Nietszche implies when stating that the price the Jews paid for preferring "being" was the fundamental falsification of nature....but I'll take a stab at it.  The concept of "being" and "consciousness" although explored by the Greeks.....was not firmly established as a characterization of a single Diety.  I believe God's response to Moses's question of "Who are you?" (I Am Who Am) moves spirituality out of the realm of nature and into the purely metaphysical.

That's my take on it.....

Answer 8

He is driving home the point that the Abrahamistic religious philosophy that indoctrinates its members with an ideology of submissiveness is a denial of humanities very nature.

The being and non-being would be human vs slave or sub-human, and his criticism is that this tradition teaches its members that assuming sub-human behavior/playing the role of victim, is a virtue.

Instead of assuming the role of a human being, and the freewill and the responsibility that comes that comes with that state of being a human instead of a victim.