by spitthedog » Wed Apr 03, 2024 9:00 pm
The Untouched Key by the psychoanalyst Alice Miller, was good...if you like that sort of thing.
Her theory is that if a child has a witness to their severe trauma then they could become more well adjusted, and artists like Picasso etc.
Whereas Hitler and Stalin allegedly had no such witnesses and basically sought out destruction on their fellow man, (and possibly themselves).
She analysed Hitler, Stalin, Nietzsche, and Picasso, and other artists.
Obviously Hitler was an artist...before he went mad and killed all the Jews.
Alot of the book looks at Nietzsche and his dislike of Christianity and women, which she claims isn't against society or culture, but more about his sister and Mother who brought him up as strict Christians who hated independent thought, which must have been a isolating for someone with his high intellect and important opinions.
No disrespect to Nietzche's work, but Bertrand Russell came to a similar theory about Nietzsche's dislike of Christianity and women in : A History of Western Philosophy ;
"There is a great deal in Nietzsche that must be dismissed as merely megalomaniac… It is obvious that in his day-dreams he is a warrior, not a professor; all the men he admires were military. His opinion of women, like every man’s, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. “Forget not thy whip”–but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks.
He condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear… It does not occur to Nietzsche as possible that a man should genuinely feel universal love, obviously because he himself feels almost universal hatred and fear, which he would fain disguise as lordly indifference. His “noble” man–who is himself in day-dreams–is a being wholly devoid of sympathy, ruthless, cunning, concerned only with his own power. King Lear, on the verge of madness, says: “I will do such things–what they are yet I know not–but they shall be the terror of the earth.” This is Nietzsche’s philosophy in a nutshell.
It never occurred to Nietzsche that the lust for power, with which he endows his superman, is itself an outcome of fear. Those who do not fear their neighbours see no necessity to tyrannize over them… I will not deny that, partly as a result of his teaching, the real world has become very like his nightmare, but that does not make it any the less horrible.
We can now state Nietzsche’s ethic. I think what follows is a fair analysis of it: Victors in war, and their descendants, are usually biologically superior to the vanquished. It is therefore desirable that they should hold all the power, and should manage affairs exclusively in their own interests"
The Untouched Key by the psychoanalyst Alice Miller, was good...if you like that sort of thing.
Her theory is that if a child has a witness to their severe trauma then they could become more well adjusted, and artists like Picasso etc.
Whereas Hitler and Stalin allegedly had no such witnesses and basically sought out destruction on their fellow man, (and possibly themselves).
She analysed Hitler, Stalin, Nietzsche, and Picasso, and other artists.
Obviously Hitler was an artist...before he went mad and killed all the Jews.
Alot of the book looks at Nietzsche and his dislike of Christianity and women, which she claims isn't against society or culture, but more about his sister and Mother who brought him up as strict Christians who hated independent thought, which must have been a isolating for someone with his high intellect and important opinions.
No disrespect to Nietzche's work, but Bertrand Russell came to a similar theory about Nietzsche's dislike of Christianity and women in : A History of Western Philosophy ;
"There is a great deal in Nietzsche that must be dismissed as merely megalomaniac… It is obvious that in his day-dreams he is a warrior, not a professor; all the men he admires were military. His opinion of women, like every man’s, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. “Forget not thy whip”–but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks.
He condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear… It does not occur to Nietzsche as possible that a man should genuinely feel universal love, obviously because he himself feels almost universal hatred and fear, which he would fain disguise as lordly indifference. His “noble” man–who is himself in day-dreams–is a being wholly devoid of sympathy, ruthless, cunning, concerned only with his own power. King Lear, on the verge of madness, says: “I will do such things–what they are yet I know not–but they shall be the terror of the earth.” This is Nietzsche’s philosophy in a nutshell.
It never occurred to Nietzsche that the lust for power, with which he endows his superman, is itself an outcome of fear. Those who do not fear their neighbours see no necessity to tyrannize over them… I will not deny that, partly as a result of his teaching, the real world has become very like his nightmare, but that does not make it any the less horrible.
We can now state Nietzsche’s ethic. I think what follows is a fair analysis of it: Victors in war, and their descendants, are usually biologically superior to the vanquished. It is therefore desirable that they should hold all the power, and should manage affairs exclusively in their own interests"