[Buddha-l] Nietzsche was a bachelor (was: Batchelor)

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard wrote:
"Although it is well known that Nietzsche knew little about Buddhism, I 
think if he had known about Buddhism what scholars today know of it, he 
would have hated it even more than the wimpy, life-fearing Buddhism he 
imagined on the basis of the scanty evidence available to Europeans of his 
day."

If Nietzsche's actual philosophy did indeed resemble that caricature of 
sadism unbridled, then perhaps, but the Ubermensch is also an ironic ideal. 
He does, for instance, practice restraint, but because of an overflow of his 
power (why bother with triflings), rather than fear of reprisal or 
self-inflicted moral reciprocities. For Nietzsche, the hug between two 
boxers after a hard-fought bout would be a more authentic expression of 
mutual admiration and respect than 1000 shopkeeper pleasantries. Nor do we 
have to imagine for him what he might have thought of Jesus, since in his 
essay _The Anti-Christ_ he spells that out for us. Jesus is an idiot-savant, 
whose power, as with all power, comes from effecting a major reversal in the 
way people think. While it's true that Jesus is one of those at the hub of a 
major reversal from master morality to slave morality (that was already 
taking place in India and elsewhere, according to Nietzsche), he doesn't 
find the master morality variety any more attractive than the slave kind. 
Its only therapeutic value is its history and potential for additional 
reversals. It is too strong, too insensitive, even for Nietzsche. Slave 
morality is a reaction, a repression of that -- and it can't be repressed.

Why?

The urge to overcome is a simple and basic fact of physics for Nietzsche. 
Any morality that extols self-crippling out of a superstitious fear that not 
doing so will fail to force others to not reciprocate, is doomed to breed 
unhappy, resentful slaves. That's why Richard is compelled to include snide 
remarks directed at me in messages that have nothing whatsoever to do with 
me at all. And why he resents Republicans (I just disagree with them).

Dan