Monday 20 December 2010

Adorno on Nietzsche and Amorality

"Amoralism, with which Nietzsche chastised the old untruth, is itself now subject to the verdict of history ... The cause of amorality has been espoused by the same Darwinists whom Nietzsche despised, and who proclaim as their maxim the barbaric struggle for existence with such vehemence just because it is no longer needed ... The amoralist may now at last permit himself to be as kind gentle unegoistic and open-hearted as Nietzsche already was then. As a guarantee of his undiminished resistance, he is still as alone in this as in the days when he turned the mask of evil upon the normal world, to teach the norm to fear its own perversity"

Adorno, Minima Moralia, #60

15 comments:

  1. I don't understand this!

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  2. I took it to be a defence of Nietzsche against those (like some in the racist Industrial & neo-Folk scenes - see the review of Boyd Rice's book, for example) who interpret his 'will to power' and amoralism as a vicious war of all against all. The point that got my attention was where he says they "proclaim as their maxim the barbaric struggle for existence with such vehemence just because it is no longer needed": the racists and fascists become even more shrill the more obvious it becomes that we live in world capable of meeting the population's basic needs (food, health, etc.). Their shrillness hides the fact that the reason people starve is not because of a lack of resources but because those resources are wasted on wars and propping up the world's elite. I suppose I liked it because it defends Nietzsche against the kind of racist morons who try to claim him - against all the evidence - as one of their own.

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  3. great!, thanks for promote those who really understand nietzsche

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  4. Adorno was re-inventing Nietzsche for his own purposes, you oafs. Don't you know anything about Adorno?

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  5. Adorno was interpreting and using Nietzsche in his philosophico-historical setting. The real oaf would be the person who thought that there was an objective, trans-historical 'true' Nietzsche that exists eternally: clearly a deeply un-Nietzschean point of view.

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  6. Would that last but one charming comment be from Pete Carroll, self-styled 'Pontiff of Chaos' and archdeacon of Ian Read's poxy runic correspondence course? Woodwork squeaks and out come the self-delusionists.

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  7. Strelnikov has posted a unintentionally hilarious reply to my comment that doesn't, itself, need commenting on. I wouldn't have expected anything else. As for the comment about Ian Read, that rather sums up the vindictiveness of this website. It's all personal with you lot, isn't it? You're all a wee bit jealous of us successful types.

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  8. I don't know whether to laugh out loud at the idea that you or Read are 'successful' or to focus on the fact that you find 'success' so admirable. I assume that you've read Adorno on The Authoritarian Personality'? If so, you'll know why it's no surprise to anyone here that you should say something as banal as your last comment.

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  9. Ooh – a swish of the cane from the David Starkey of the occult world.

    Where do I sign up for Hogwarts?

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. To paraphrase Paul Daniels – "Now THAT'S majick"!

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  12. You're really enthusiastic about Adorno and the Frankfurter School of kosher sausage-meat? Good Lord, what tripe! The only reason they churned out that old claptrap was to pathologise the perfectly natural social behaviour of gentiles. The Authoritarian Personality is drivel — and only goes to show that websites like this exist because there are a lot of people who really should get out more. Incidentally, to build a successful business and become a millionaire is, I think, a measure of success. And any well-adjusted person would find it admirable.
    Maybe time to go back to your Nietzsche and look up ressentiment. I think you'll learn some uncomfortable truths about yourself. But it'll be character-building, I promise.

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  13. What is it about Adorno's idea that the authoritarian personality is a mish-mash of the banal, the superstitious, fawning toward wealth and power, insecurity and racism, etc., that gets such a strong response from you?

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  14. MALLEUS MALFICARUM20 Apr 2011, 10:28:00

    ...hang on, am I missing something here ? I thought Pete Carroll was against nazis - or was that Phi Hine? I thought they took their distance from Read because he was a loose-mouthed nazi scumbag who wanted to kiss the ass of a goat in Germany - or was the goat some Untermensch called Helmut or Ralph Teigmeier?... actually, who cares? Ian Read a success? in his own head maybe - Ice Magic? oohhh, sooo scary - is Read still the Handmaiden of Douglas Pearce? this and other trivia about how fucking pathetic these snake-oil selling creeps are we REALLY need to know...

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  15. I hate Adorno and Nietzsche.

    Adorno because he's strident and hatefully pious and Nietzsche because, well...read the final chapters of Beyond Good and Evil and tell me that those ideas are in any way compatible with the values of this website.

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Please at least use a pseudonym so it's possible to follow your argument if you make multiple posts

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