Nietzsche seems to be marvelling at another cultures age of reason amidst the age of reason of his own culture. Classifying the original Indian Buddhism misses the point I think, it’s more like Stoicism or Marxism than Christianity. Buddhism only became really religious when it was taken by other cultures in Asia and mixed in a syncretic fashion into something new.
Comparing like to like religious phenomena would be Hinduism and Western Christianity, rather than the following rationalist movements.
Stoicism can be found in Xtianity's syncretic admixture. Marxism is merely Xtianity with "God" distilled out. I'd not come across these excerpts of Nietzche before that I know of but, and almost word-for-word, I've made the same criticism of socialisms in general and Communism/Marxism in particular. "By their fruits ye shall know them" as yer man who never was is imagined as saying.
Tah for this. I get his drift. You should cut the boiler-plate apologetics though, Xstianity is a big boy now, and if it can't stand the heat should have stayed out of the ruddy kitchen. Read "Paul": Nietzsche was a little too 'on the nose' for the Snowflakes-in-Christ, there is nothing here you'd not read in, or get from, the Big Four Pauline Epistles. Luther gave us 'Sola Scriptura' and said we don't need priests; but only observed these in the breech. Read for itself Xtian "scripture" brings one to more or less the place it brought Nietzsche. One can understand his resentiment in his still priest-addled aeon; now we can say Xtianity is just bloody silly and move on.
Again, fascinating, especially the bit about 'egoism'. This is, of course, generally a dirty word nowadays. How do Buddha and Nietzsche manage to put a positive spin on it? By making it the polar opposite of a bloodless, disinterested, non-human objectivity? Should we all be naval-gazing after all?
I remember reading this stuff on B versus C, I think my translation used 'resentiment' for some reason. Calling it a slave morality still seems strange to me, n truth Christianity is just a government department of the Roman Empire gone rogue and various (except Orthodoxy which slavishly follows its military masters like the old days).
You really ought to look into the first three or four hundred years of Xtianity vis a vis Roman mores. The faith most certainly wasn't and isn't the mos maiorum.
I totally agree it wasn't . I'm suggesting the tendency of all empires to align with the one leader/one folk~religion such that we end up with Augustine's City of God replacing the local city's versions, such that while the regalia and pomp remain the same, faith was invented as a type of obedience to the church which was a sub-department of empire (except the Roman church went rogue and inverted the orthodox hierarchy. The Anglican communion should be called English Orthodox Church (with chiliastic bits).
That fideism is regarded as a heresy is evidence of this elite capture of the Roman world by one type of Christianity which most resembled the hierarchy of an empire seeking to wash differences away that do not align with the power structure. And use the idea of conscience, personal souls & such, to de-form local rites and gods and city based weekly services, and replace that by institutionalising a relationship to a new thing, a church controlled empire wide by the Empire, only using the same clothes, regalia, art and architecture. Christianity came in a government sponsored McDonaldalisation of a newly invented thing called faith.
Fascinating stuff from the old devil. If you’re looking into Greco-Buddhism, you’ll absolutely want to check out the always provocative, interesting, and brilliant Christopher Beckwith’s work on the topic, Greek Buddha, Princeton, 2017.
Very nice review. Yes, Beckwith is a bit of a madman, with a touch of Paul Pelliot and more than a dash of the wild theorizers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But, like you, I can’t shake the feeling that, as far out on limbs as he goes (I once heard him toss off at a conference that perhaps monotheism was a Central Asian export brought to the Near East by the Mitanni and picked up by their Hebraic neighbors), the old boy is on to something—and something rather big at that.
Yes, there are excellent leads to be followed up. Or at least, some reframing to test one's assumptions ( a bit like the aquatic ape theory for evolution -- however it reframed how we think about our nakedness as apes).
Hi SAH, are you familiar with Evola's "Doctrine of Awakening"? I think he had a better gasp of original Buddhism and he confirmed (well, akschually better defined) what Nietzsche says in these passages.
Nietzsche seems to be marvelling at another cultures age of reason amidst the age of reason of his own culture. Classifying the original Indian Buddhism misses the point I think, it’s more like Stoicism or Marxism than Christianity. Buddhism only became really religious when it was taken by other cultures in Asia and mixed in a syncretic fashion into something new.
Comparing like to like religious phenomena would be Hinduism and Western Christianity, rather than the following rationalist movements.
Stoicism can be found in Xtianity's syncretic admixture. Marxism is merely Xtianity with "God" distilled out. I'd not come across these excerpts of Nietzche before that I know of but, and almost word-for-word, I've made the same criticism of socialisms in general and Communism/Marxism in particular. "By their fruits ye shall know them" as yer man who never was is imagined as saying.
Tah for this. I get his drift. You should cut the boiler-plate apologetics though, Xstianity is a big boy now, and if it can't stand the heat should have stayed out of the ruddy kitchen. Read "Paul": Nietzsche was a little too 'on the nose' for the Snowflakes-in-Christ, there is nothing here you'd not read in, or get from, the Big Four Pauline Epistles. Luther gave us 'Sola Scriptura' and said we don't need priests; but only observed these in the breech. Read for itself Xtian "scripture" brings one to more or less the place it brought Nietzsche. One can understand his resentiment in his still priest-addled aeon; now we can say Xtianity is just bloody silly and move on.
Again, fascinating, especially the bit about 'egoism'. This is, of course, generally a dirty word nowadays. How do Buddha and Nietzsche manage to put a positive spin on it? By making it the polar opposite of a bloodless, disinterested, non-human objectivity? Should we all be naval-gazing after all?
What did Nietzsche think of Hinduism compared to Buddhism?
I remember reading this stuff on B versus C, I think my translation used 'resentiment' for some reason. Calling it a slave morality still seems strange to me, n truth Christianity is just a government department of the Roman Empire gone rogue and various (except Orthodoxy which slavishly follows its military masters like the old days).
You really ought to look into the first three or four hundred years of Xtianity vis a vis Roman mores. The faith most certainly wasn't and isn't the mos maiorum.
I totally agree it wasn't . I'm suggesting the tendency of all empires to align with the one leader/one folk~religion such that we end up with Augustine's City of God replacing the local city's versions, such that while the regalia and pomp remain the same, faith was invented as a type of obedience to the church which was a sub-department of empire (except the Roman church went rogue and inverted the orthodox hierarchy. The Anglican communion should be called English Orthodox Church (with chiliastic bits).
That fideism is regarded as a heresy is evidence of this elite capture of the Roman world by one type of Christianity which most resembled the hierarchy of an empire seeking to wash differences away that do not align with the power structure. And use the idea of conscience, personal souls & such, to de-form local rites and gods and city based weekly services, and replace that by institutionalising a relationship to a new thing, a church controlled empire wide by the Empire, only using the same clothes, regalia, art and architecture. Christianity came in a government sponsored McDonaldalisation of a newly invented thing called faith.
https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/to-build-a-better-world-we-should
https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/sister-wendy-on-love-as-an-obedient
Fascinating stuff from the old devil. If you’re looking into Greco-Buddhism, you’ll absolutely want to check out the always provocative, interesting, and brilliant Christopher Beckwith’s work on the topic, Greek Buddha, Princeton, 2017.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691176321/greek-buddha
And his later work on the Eurasian context, my review cheekily added here... https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/christopher-i-beckwiths-the-scythian
Very nice review. Yes, Beckwith is a bit of a madman, with a touch of Paul Pelliot and more than a dash of the wild theorizers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But, like you, I can’t shake the feeling that, as far out on limbs as he goes (I once heard him toss off at a conference that perhaps monotheism was a Central Asian export brought to the Near East by the Mitanni and picked up by their Hebraic neighbors), the old boy is on to something—and something rather big at that.
Yes, there are excellent leads to be followed up. Or at least, some reframing to test one's assumptions ( a bit like the aquatic ape theory for evolution -- however it reframed how we think about our nakedness as apes).
Hi SAH, are you familiar with Evola's "Doctrine of Awakening"? I think he had a better gasp of original Buddhism and he confirmed (well, akschually better defined) what Nietzsche says in these passages.