We also have habits and instincts, yes. And many perfectly reasonable decisions that we don't dwell on, simply because they're obviously the correct response to a situation. Reason can't have been invented in response to being challenged: that's the wrong way around. Who was there to challenge an action prior to the concept of rational thought? — Vera Mont

No, but what I'm saying is that "reasons" are not necessarily the result of conscious rational deliberation either. Instincts are obviously prior to all of that, and instincts are to some extend already reasonable. Instincts are the original 'reasons'... then great apes evolved language as a tool of communication as social group animals, then we develloped rationalisation or justification, i.e. delineating and expressing in language, after the fact, the reasons already inherent in behaviour guided by the instincts (or perhaps expressing reasons that weren't even there in case of dissimilation). And then eventually, socrates put forwards the notion that we should have conscious rational deliberation prior to the act as the golden standard.... rational thinking instead of instinct.

You act as if a mind or a self is a thing. A brain is a physical thing, a mind is merely a kind of metaphor for what the brain does. Strictly speaking we do no 'have' a mind, we have thoughts following eachother. That's why I don't think any of this matters a lot, 'en matière'... one mind/two minds, a mind is just a kind container concept to point at the amalgam of thoughts the brain produces. One forest, two forests, a bunch of trees together, to some extend its arbitrary where you want to draw the lines for the concepts you are using.

I prefer to be carefull not to reïfy things, because usually that muddles more than it clarifies... So I'm happy leaving it at "I have conflicting thoughts and drives" without any talk of minds, selfs or wills.

Didn't people have a reason for their actions until somebody forced them to explain? — Vera Mont

I dunno, that is the question right? And that question in turn depends on what you would consider "a reason". Does a chicken have a reason the scratch the ground when looking for food? As I alluded to in a previous post, the chicken also seems to be scratching the floor when it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. So a lot of that behaviour seems to be instinctual. I do think there's a reason, or a 'rationale' to a lot of these instincts, but I also think those are not the result of some conscious rational deliberation... what one would consider "rational thinking".

I think a lot of what we humans do is more or less the same, we do seem to do a lot of things without conscious rational deliberation, out of instinct. Most of these behaviours are probably "reasonable" in that they do serve a purpose or goal, without necessarily having a reason in mind. And so no, often it's only afterwards, when asked, that we consciously think of "reasons".

It seems to me that part of resolving tensions in what you want is resolving what you can or could do. — Harry Hindu

I don't know, I don't get it I think, the tension is in what you want... and then you maybe refrain from doing certain things to resolve the tension in what you want.

Maybe an example can help. Let's say I want two things that compete with eachother. I want to be healthy, and I also want to smoke (because I'm addicted). The one (smoking) has an adverse effect on the the other. To resolve the tension in favour of health, I should try to reduce my addiction, my wanting of nicotine, otherwise I will keep having to deal with these two conflicting wants. The way to do that is to try and refrain from smoking. The first couple of weeks after I quit, I'm probably still addicted to nicotine, I still want sigarettes. But then this addiction gradually wanes the longer you stop with it, until you don't want it anymore. At that point, it's not that you have to limit yourself, you just don't want it anymore.

You speak as if everyone has split personality disorder where multiple personalities, or wills (subconscious and conscious) battle to control the decision-making process. There is one will that has many options at any given moment. I enjoy chocolate but I also like to be healthy. I have a decision to make. It doesn't necessarily have to be a black and white issue. I can eat chocolate in moderation thereby achieving both eating chocolate and being healthy. Notice how I was able to explain it using just one will - I. — Harry Hindu

One thing with many aspects, or many things that combine and "fight" to result in one outcome at a particular time seem philosophically the same to me. I'm not sure how one would differentiate between to two empirically?

So it seems like maybe this is just quibling over how we would want to name and frame the same underlying thing.

And ultimately I think my kind of framing is closer to how I experience it. I really do sometimes seem to be torn between two minds. One simple example is, I want to stay fit as a longer term goal, but then I also like eating food that isn't the best for reaching that longer term goal. Is that one will with two aspects, or two wills that battle with eachother? Does it really matter how we frame it ultimately?

I'm going to answer in a somewhat longwinded way, but this is a philosophy forum so...

Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

I'd say instincts are to some extend rational, if by rational we mean doing things that furthers attaining desired ends. A chicken for instance will instinctually scratch the ground periodically while eating. In doing so there's a chance that they reveal all kinds of tasty stuff like worms or grains that where previously not visible. So the instinctual behaviour of scratching the surface could be said to be rational behaviour if we assume the goal they want to attain is getting food.

The difference with humans is they can't seem to adjust these instincts very much to fit changing circumstances. If you give them a bowl of grains for instance, they will still tend to scratch the surface eventhough in that instance it does very little as they have enough food in the bowl. Humans have an extra capacity to reflect on and reason about certain behaviour, which enables them to adjust more to changing circumstances.

Is it rational to believe illnesses are caused by the gods? Is it rational to believe a god created man from mud? — Athena

I think in this case something similar is going on as with instinctual behaviour of animals. We are social animals, and tend to create religious/mythological superstructures that promote certain values and social cohesion that benefits the group overall if you would compare it to a group that doesn't have members adhering to their superstructure. Piety, i.e. believing in and adhering to the traditions of your group, promotes social cohesion (Asabiyyah), and can from that point of view probably be considered "rational" in that social cohesion improves overall survivability of the group (which can be considered as the desired end). The flip-side is that like animal instincts it isn't very granular and adjustable to specific circumstances... it's rational only viewed in the context of the longer historical and evolutionary arc.

Socrates (and Plato) thought we could do better than that and started questioning the Gods and turned to rational thinking instead. We will have to see (although we probably won't be there anymore :-)) if that turns out to be a better strategy long-term.

There is probably a continuum of strong and weak wills. This is likely based on the degree of strength which a person has learned. Also, it is possible to be weak in some areas but strong in other aspects. For example, a person may be strong in resisting violent impulses, but be weak in bingeing on chocolate. — Jack Cummins

It certainly is a continuum. And yes the idea is that you give up on/sublimate some desires or values that are contradictory with others that you do want to pursue more.

But some self-control I would presume would typically be part of that process, and that probably would include resisting both bingeing and violent impulses.

Does not "resolving its own inner tensions" involve limiting the amount of choices one has going forward vs being "consumed by contradictions" which would be having more choices, some of which are contradictory but are still options one could choose? Most people are equating freedom with choices. So the more choices, contradictory or not, is really just more freeom you can jave. Should I buy a new computer or not buy a new computer? I can't do both but both are options I can choose. By limiting contradictory options are you not limiting your options, and therefore your freedom? — Harry Hindu

You are resolving tensions in what you want, not in what you can or could do. So you still have the choices, you just don't want it anymore... so I would say no it doesn't limit your choices, it just give you a more clear idea of what you really want so you don't get pulled in all direction getting nowhere ultimately.

Maybe this is not what you're looking for, but I would suggest one can maybe better and more clearly speak of what you are pointing to in terms of weak and strong wills, instead of in terms of free and unfree will.

As I think truely 'free will' is a logical impossibility as it leads to a kind of infinite regress (previous posts), what we really are pointing to is a will that isn't overly constrained by outside social forces, and/or a will that resolved some of its own inner tensions (strong will) and a will that is more influenced by outside social forces, and/or weakened or consumed by its own contradictions (weak will).

And in that quest, for a more unified unconstrained will, philosophy definitely can play a role I would say in resolving some of conflicts in values, and in inoculating oneself from social manipulation/propaganda/plain bad ideas that are floating around.

Exactly.

This is an interesting way of looking at it, but I think many would say if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will. You've defined the problem away, but are we automatic programmed machines or aren't we? — T Clark

I don't think there is a real problem, I think there's a problem with the language/concpets we use, i.e. free will. At some level we probably are like "programmed machines", just very very complex ones, and also very different from the machines we build in that we are organic and they are not.

I dunno, it's not because we have a concept for something that that thing necessarily exists.

I don't know what you mean by saying the concept is incoherent. On the other hand, I think the whole free will vs. determinism controversy much ado about nothing. — T Clark

It's incoherent like a square circle is incoherent.... a logical impossibility. If it's will it's not free, and if it's free it's not will.... we have a will, that is all. Construed that way the free will vs. determinism controversy just goes away, because will by itself is not contradictory with determinism.

This is not true at all, but it's outside the scope of this discussion, so let's leave it at that. — T Clark

It's Nietzsche 101, just to be clear where I'm getting it from.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The question of free will usually arises when we talk about determinism - if everything is determined by the motion of particles and energy that can (theoretically) be predicted by the laws of physics, where is there room for us to truly act freely. — T Clark

I explain what I mean with this the rest of my post(s). Since we are our will, and that is the agency part of us, it doesn't make sense to expect that part also to be determined by us, by itself. We are free to act on our will, not to choose it.

Determinism is looking at things from a different perspective. It doesn't preclude the emergence of biological life with wills that determine how they act. Truly metaphysical free will would be impossible under determinism, but that shouldn't really concern us as that particular concept of free will is incoherent to begin with.

No. It's metaphysics, although it might have moral implications. — T Clark

Well the one doesn't preclude the other, in fact I think most metaphysics are inspired by morality and religion. As meta-physics is by definition not constrained by anything physical/empirical, it usually ends up being shaped by our moral/religious beliefs, which is typically what we are really after.

My thoughts (and feelings, memories, perceptions, and a bunch of other stuff) are me. — T Clark

Yes that is what I meant, there is no I (as a separate agent) doing the thinking, we are our thinking.

I would agree they tend to fail because they are to superficial. Maybe they require a change at a deeper level, like adjusting ones values (our will), but often more important or just as important I think, is change in lifestyle/circumstances because change of our core values is not allways that easy.

Addictions are usually a result of other underlying problems, they typically serve a function, like alcohol may be self-medication because one is too stressed. If one were to merely stop drinking, but doesn't find other ways to deal with stress, or change the circumstances that cause stress... at some point the chances of starting drinking again are probably rather great.

The idea of 'self' as 'pre-exists' may be problematic because it would mean that no change or modification is possible — Jack Cummins

Change is possible if one thinks the will is not some unified thing, but rather something compound, or a result of many underlying competing drives. Then some change in circumstance may prompt one part of the will to subdue another part of the will that maybe isn't as appropriate for the changing circumstance for instance.

It seems to me that a self as a central organising process doesn't solve the issue of what and why the self would choose to edit if it is supposed to be a process that is seperate from the will. And if it is not seperate from the will (so that it can have some preference to choose something over another thing) then that part of the will that is (part of) the central organising self is something that pre-exists and not something we choose ourselves.... and then we again arrive at free will being incoherent.

I don't think that "I" generate thought myself in the sense that there is some agent consciously deciding what to think before I have the thought.

Don't be fooled by language, it not because there is an "I" in "I think" that there is some consious agent behind the thinking.

In fact, when you get right down to brass taxes, who's doing much rational thinking at all that leads to anything concrete? We do plenty of post hoc rationalizing to make us feel good about our irrational behaviour though. — Baden

Post-hoc rationalisation probably was the original form of 'rational thinking', as social group-animals it was pretty important to justify/rationalize our actions.

So you know, it seems that Plato/Socrates (contra the Sophists) got us on the wrong track with this weird ideosyncratic notion of rational thinking to arrive at the truth.

I don't think its usefull because free-will doesn't even make sense conceptually.

We are free to act on our will, but not free to choose our will.... We are our will, who would be the "we" apart from our will that wants to change the will.

We can reflect, but without some pre-existing volitional component why would we want to change our will after that reflection. If we would change something, it is just a part of the will (some drive) acting on antother part of our will (another drive).

Free will is a moral/religious concept.

It should try to be less reliant on the US for its defence by building up one itself, try to establish more of a foreign policy agenda of its own to weigh on its periphery in the first place, and protect its internal market effectively as protectionism is threatening to replace globalism.

All of this means - if it actually wants to make progress on these issues - that it should seek to integrate the EU even more into a real federal entity instead of the half-baked thing it is now.

Should it succeed in these directions the US might even come to value Europe more as an ally, and then Trumps antics maybe won't matter as much.

Failing that, it doesn't look to good for Europe, even without Trump. Trump makes things worse probably, but ultimately it's just a small part of the challenges it faces.

Well, if we learn, we tend to learn from adversity... so maybe we can find something positive somewhere on the way down.

But specifically to the 'worst' imaginable part, we used to just move to some other part of the globe when faced with ecological problems... the problems we are facing now are global and from a human perspective almost eternal. There is no escape... it's almost metaphysical what we are facing.

What, like glaciers and islands disappearing, 50C heat and widespread extinction, while Putin waves his nuclear missiles around like an angry baby with its rattle? — Vera Mont

Yes, something like that :-) ... fire-apes with weapons of mass-destruction on an overheating globe is definitely a concern I would say.

Indeed. But we do seem to live in an era which is consistently selling the idea that this is the amongst worst eras imaginable and that deep state or secularism, liberalism, the Left or the lizard people are to blame. It seems we need to return to a golden era - for Trumpists it's the MAGA fantasy, for some philosophers it seems to be Platonism or God. — Tom Storm

Yes, and for socialists it's a workers utopia, for enviromentalists it's a pre-agrarian garden of eden...

I do think the idea that we are living in the worst possible eras imaginable sells itself to some extend because of certain ecological and social issues we have.

Ok, thank you for your efforts to make your points more clear.

During any age, there is always an ethos, an ethic by which that age develops its political character and social personality. While certain ages had more prevalent and identifiable characters, ours is one that hides its nature, and maintains its values in a sub-active manner, that is meant to say without a title, or a movement, or party representation. In fact, the greatest and most powerful attribute of this age’s ethic is its invisibility. — EdwardC

I think I agree with this by and large, but I probably come at it from an opposite angle. If our culture has an ethos, it's a secularized protestant Christianity pushed to its furthest extend in its concern for individual victimhood above all other values.

This is basically the thesis of philosophers/historians like Nietzsche, Tom Holland, John Gray that I'm reiterating here. Since the dawn of civilization until Christ you basically had strength/power as the highest value. This was understood and made very explicit by, among other things, monumental architecture that served to emphasize the strength of the ruler in various ways.

Romans initially hung criminals and defeated opponents on the cross to signal debasement and humiliation... to signal the worst of the worst. Christianity took this symbol of utter humiliation as the central symbol of their movement, and inverted the valuations that came before by turning good/noble into evil, and bad/base into good... the meek shall inherit the earth, the last shall be the first etc etc. As the Roman empire was degenerating further and further, Christianity took hold of the empire and became the state religion.

Fast-forward a good millennium after Christianity had consolidated itself and basically had become synonymous with European culture, you get the renaissance and a couple of heresies developing out of that, like Protestantism which put even more emphasis on the individual and his personal relation to God. This eventually turned into the enlightenment and secularism, which did away with God but still kept this basic value of elevation and emancipation of the individual above everything else. Those heresies focused more on the individual became dominant especially in the Anglo-Saxon world (unlike most of continental Europe), which later became the dominant empires spreading its ideologies all over the world.

Out of this also came the currently dominant political ideologies like liberalism, socialism and communism (all of them concerned with the emancipation of the individual), which are not in opposition to religion (as it is typically construed), but a secular continuation of the valuations of a very particular religion that arose in the middle East out of Judaism, and further developed in Western Europe.

So the circle back to your point, if every age has an ethos, than I would say our current ethos is something like secular liberalism/Protestantism which is the implicit religion of the current hegemon in a globalized world, the US. You could easily make the link to Wokism/identity-politics and the like as the pinnacle of this elevation of victimhood, but I don't really want to open that particular can of worms here.

But yes, it is invisible insofar people don't even see it as an ideology, as a faith of a particular group in some value, among possible others, but as universal objective morality itself... morality construed as the avoidance of all suffering as its only goal.

What Tom Holland for instance observes is that we in the West periodically have these religious revolutionary emancipatory movements because of this Christian inversion of values that is inherently unstable and self-undermining. This is how we presumably could arrive at this secular hyper-individualist ideology, because it continuously has the tendency to erode its own institutions that seek to propagate their powerbase.

So to circle back to another point you made, I don't think these private actors deliberately seek to undermine traditional values or inject a sense of "hypersexuality" or tribalism into the collective conscious, as much as they just opportunistically make use of tendencies already present in current culture or make use of the void that has been left by a religion that has eroded its own institutions over the millennia. Bread and circuses... appealing to the "baser demons of our nature" is always a good bet to sell something.

I don’t know. I think there is a deliberate character to an age. You’re right that it’s often something about the weak vs. the powerful, but other than that, I’m not sure how much of this you related to… — EdwardC

Yeah, I've read your post several times to figure out what exactly you were pointing to. And I'm still not sure. While I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you said, I seems very specific to me... as if you are abstracting and generalising from a concrete local history that really happened.

What stood out to me was a sense of decadence/corruption in general as I alluded to.

But aside from that I don't think I agree with an age having a 'deliberate' character in the sense that there is some cabal consciously and consistently channeling culture in certain ways to benefit from it... I think these things happen far more opportunistically and by accident than as the result of conscious deliberation.

I think you are reading to much into this, most civilisations tend to suffer from entropy over time and slide into decadence.

And the reason for this cycle is pretty straightforward. At the start of their ascend a people generally have strict norms and values, and high social cohesion because they find themselves in a precarious situation being surrounded by older and bigger neighbours... that is the only way to survive essentially.

Then as they become more powerfull, and as generations get replaced with new ones, the pressing need for these strict norms and social cohesion disappears because they don't have to fear their neighbours so much anymore, and they generally have more than enough wealth... and so they tend to erode over time. It's hard to keep simulating a need when it isn't there.

I think we are just seeing the latest example of an empire running on fumes. But, there are a lot of fumes, and some kind of temporary re-invigoration isn't impossible, so it could take a while.

Are you asking if that is what Plato said, what his view on it was. Or if what Plato said is true in reality, in how things play out?
— ChatteringMonkey

Well, I was only asking about your opinion about whether you think Plato was not accounting for the needs of the individual in Plato's Republic. — Shawn

In the sense that the individual doesn't get a say in where or what he has to contribute to society? Yes I would say that his political philosophy is indeed a bit totalitarian and leaves little room for the individual to develop himself in more organic ways.

But this wouldn't be my main problem with his views, as I do think that liberalism for instance has gone to far in making society cater to the individual, rather than the other way arround. Insofar as he values the collective above the individual, I would agree with him on that point because individuals are ultimately a product of society. And so if everybody only looks to what he wants as an individual and nobody takes care of the whole, or no sacrifice can be asked from individuals for the whole, then you get a bad functioning society... and as a consequence also badly formed individuals.

My main problem with Plato's political views would be that they seem very theoretical and idealist to me. You almost never actually get to draw up a society from scratch, but have to work from existing societies and try to improve on those with all the real-world limits and restrictions that come with that.

Do you think this is true? — Shawn

Are you asking if that is what Plato said, what his view on it was. Or if what Plato said is true in reality, in how things play out?

I don't think I really understand what you are getting at.

Interesting way to put it. Plato really couldn't fit into his picture Thrasymachus' portrayed psychopathy or sociopathy that pervades humanity instead of being guided by man's intelligence (nous) and strivings for eudaimonia. — Shawn

This is how Plato would frame things perhaps ;-).

Thrasymachus or any realist would say that Plato is essentially doing the same thing, i.e. vying for (political) power with his philosphy, he just isn't as aware of it as they are. Or if he was and his whole philosophy was a conscious ploy for power than he was even more devious than any sophist.

Positive. as I believe, with Nietzsche, that this is essentially where philosophy took a wrong turn, in siding with Plato's idealism (as all of western philosophy is a footnote to it afterall) over Thrasymachus realism.

Insofar as philosophers have been idealists, of course they didn't esteem him, they cannot, because it flies in the face of all of their basic assumptions.

Justice is the advantage of the stronger, might makes right, is a description of how things work, not a declaration of how we want things to be.

Something changed in him deeply after some revelation involving Amor Fati, and it mirrors quite a bit of that which he says of Jesus' Glad Tidings in his much later works. — Vaskane

You could also view Amor Fati as a classic Tragic formula, i.e. the tragic hero who aims high and knows he will fail in the end, but still loves and affirms it all anyway.

I think this is the difference with "Good tidings"/"Euangelion", in tragedy there is no good news ultimately, the only justification is life itself.

The kingdom of heaven it seems to me is a kind of psychological trick where the world gets shut out to attain inner peace. The 'heros' aim in this case is not going under, spending himself in attaining some wordly goal, the aim is inner directed... feeling good.

In the whole psychology of the “Gospels” the concepts of guilt and punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. “Sin,” which means anything that puts a distance between God and man, is abolished — Nietzsche, Antichrist 33

I agree that Nietzsche probably saw this as an improvement upon the moralising relgions, but Jesus way is not the only way to attain that. It was absent in Greek culture too, before Socrates in Homeric Greece at least... there was no sin the Gods didn't commit themselves.

Anyway I got to go, I enjoyed the discussion.

Yes I get that you don't want to claim that he wants to promote Chirstian values, but that he was inspired by Jesus specifically. I guess I just have gotten another sense from reading his work. I seems to me he got most of his inspiration for re-evaluation from the pre-socrates Greeks. That was his first intellectual love so to speak, and it seems to have stuck with him. But I could be wrong offcourse.

a man who asserts appearance is more valuable than truth — Vaskane

And what do you mean with appearance in opposition to truth, there is only appearance ;-).

He wasn't married to it insofar it conflicts with life-affirmation. Some fictions are necessary for life,... some, not that many, truth is still important. He did choose Zarathustra for that reason.

"Nietzsche does not demur of Jesus, conceding that he was the only one true Christian.[28] He presents a Christ whose own inner life consisted of "wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the inability to be an enemy".[29]

Nietzsche heavily criticizes the organized institution of Christianity and its class of priests. Christ's evangelism consisted of the good news that the 'kingdom of God' is within you:[30][29] "What is the meaning of 'Glad Tidings'?—The true life, the life eternal has been found—it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in you; it is the life that lies in love free from all retreats and exclusions", whereby sin is abolished and away from "all keeping of distances" between man and God.[29]

"What the 'glad tidings' tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children".[31] - WiKi on AntiChrist — Corvus

What is I think important to realise here is that, while most of these discriptions of Jesus may sound positive to "our modern ears", Nietzsche probably wouldn't have evaluated these all that positively. "Peace", "Free from all exclusions" "away from keeping all distances", "no contradictions" etc etc... all of these things don't contribute to overcoming, but to a kind of sterile unproductive happiness. On the contrary Nietzsche might say, for overcoming you need struggle, pain, difference, hierarchies... the pathos of distance,

So in short, whileNietzsche probably descriptively agrees with all of this, his evaluation of these things is just totally different.

Thank you for the reference.

The Redeemer type
Nietzsche criticizes Ernest Renan's attribution of the concepts genius and hero to Jesus. Nietzsche thinks that the word idiot best describes Jesus. — Wiki

Yes, this was the idea I got from reading the Anti-Christ, that he though him to be a bit of an idiot... but an idiot can be likeable I suppose.

Also interesting that he may have gotten that description from Dostoevsky's novel the Idiot. That would make a lot of sense actually, and also explains Nietzsches ambivalence towards such a figure.

The way I would make sense of it, is that Jesus is only a yea-sayer in the sense that he affirms his inner world of sensations, because he has become incapable of taking up the world as it is.... that is affirmation out of ignorance. Nietzsche would want us to affirm the world as it is right?

With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth.
— ChatteringMonkey

Perfectly inline with the prior parts of the section even on Nietzsche's ideas of destruction:

"Negation and annihilation are inseparable from a yea-saying attitude towards life." — Vaskane

Notice the quotation marks arround free spirit though. He's saying it tongue in cheek, 'technically' he's a free spirit... because nothing gets to him anymore, that is he's not a free spirit for the same reasons other free spirits are free.

And because nothing gets to him (but his inner sensations), he doesn't even negate anymore. If negation is inseperable from yea-saying, then where does that leave us?

What is that to the third stage of the three Metamorphoses? — Vaskane

Degeneration? ;-)

The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration. — ChatteringMonkey

Childishness is not the same as childlike. In any case in context it seems clear to me that he doesn't mean it as a positive in this particular instance.

But alright, I will grant you that there seems to be some aspects of the dionysian in Jesus. It is speculated that Jesus was inspired by the figure of dionysus, which does make some sense to me, in the dissolution of bounderies and emphasis on love.

I also vaguely remember Nietzsche saying something along the lines of the Ubermensch being a Ceasar with the heart of Christ.

Still in context of his whole philosophy, what Nietzsche valued and so on, something seems off to me with the idea that Zarathustra is essentially the same as Jesus. Like the way he talks about Jesus in the anti-Christ seems to paint a picture of Jesus as this weak figure, oversensitive to pain and unable to deal with reality. How would one reconcile that with what Nietzsches seems to value and his positive valuation of figures like Ceasar or Napoleon... they seem nothing like Jesus.

So yeah, I still think maybe he liked some particular things about Jesus, but disliked most of the rest.

Well it seems to me it's not only their pessimism that got them fired, but especially their activism.

I think maybe there is a case to be made that a scientist shouldn't be trying to be an activitist or politician, because these two activities don't allways go together all that well for obvious reasons.

In an ideal world, a scientist describes the world as best as he can, and then politicians and activists take up the task of changing the world informed by the picture scientists have painted. Mixing the two doesn't seem ideal, if not for reasons of potential conflicts of interest, then for reasons of credibility.

But given the scope, severity and urgency of the problem, and the fact that politics doesn't seem to work as it should, I can definately understand more scientists going in that direction.