00:00 🏛 Nietzsche's politics are influenced by Greek philosophy and history. 01:21 🌍 Nietzsche adopts a realist view of politics, considering it within the context of nature and external forces. 02:42 🏛 Nietzsche favors aristocratic forms of government but doesn't support political revolution himself. 03:36 🤔 Nietzsche rejects utilitarianism and mass action, believing they won't lead to egalitarian social power. 05:39 🏛 Nietzsche values withdrawal from immediate political concerns and emphasizes the role of changing people's beliefs for long-term political impact. 07:17 🗺 Nietzsche's ideal philosopher stands apart from society, focusing on culture, mind, and spirit rather than immediate politics. 09:23 🏛 Nietzsche values Greek society over Rome due to its cultural achievements, asserting that the state's role is to protect the ground for culture. 16:03 🧐 Nietzsche praises non-theoretical men, who exist independently of the age and create culture through the state they establish. 21:36 🌟 Nietzsche observes that the concept of the "Dignity of Labor" is a modern invention and questions its validity. 22:02 🏛 Nietzsche highlights the Greek attitude that life seeks more than self-preservation, valuing something higher than mere existence. 23:12 🎭 The Greeks viewed art as a result of divine inspiration, considering the artist as a servant to the Muse, which was both revered and shamed. 24:33 🖌 Nietzsche acknowledges his own difference from the Greeks as he has no shame about being a servant of Dionysus, embracing his intellectual and creative labor. 30:19 🌟 The Greek goal was to transcend human limitations, freeing individuals from the necessities of work and toil, allowing them to develop their intellect and create values. 33:11 🌍 Nietzsche challenges the idea that everyone can be liberated from labor, arguing that the advancement of one group often comes at the expense of others due to differing capacities. 36:09 💪 Nietzsche contends that the state emerges from an instinctual origin, enforcing an unequal social order that benefits the stronger, and opposing this is seen as opposing culture itself. 39:39 🗝 Nietzsche suggests that the exploitation and hierarchy inherent in culture and power are tied to the nature of human competition, where those at the top draw on the energy produced by those at the bottom. 43:10 🏗 Nietzsche questions the true purpose and power of the state, emphasizing how it constrains the masses and serves the interests of culture's privileged few, contrasting this with the Greek perspective. 43:52 🏛 Nietzsche views the state as a natural outgrowth of human civilization, forged from the primal instincts of power and domination. 44:33 ⚖ The state, initially a tool of instinct and violence, later imposes collective values and restricts individualism, leading to its transformation into an object that may dissolve society. 46:15 🌍 Nietzsche acknowledges the state's ambivalence - violent in origin yet potentially a necessary prerequisite for genius, culture, and societal development. 50:09 🌟 Nietzsche praises the Greek state for fostering an environment of competition, pushing individuals to become stronger and outcompete one another. 51:16 🧐 Nietzsche reflects on the Greek's competitive spirit, considering it a defining characteristic of Greek culture and their approach to statehood. 54:54 🌱 Nietzsche suggests that the state serves as a cramp iron, directing the natural conflict in society into productive competition, allowing culture to flourish. 56:57 🔄 Nietzsche emphasizes the inseparability of human qualities from nature, challenging the notion of a strict distinction between humanity and nature. 59:27 💀 Nietzsche explores the paradox of Greek culture, which was both humane and cruel, showcasing the complex interplay of violence and artistic expression. 01:04:07 😡 Nietzsche explains how the Greeks valued the unrestrained expression of hatred and cruelty, viewing it as a natural response and part of their culture. 01:06:09 🏛 Nietzsche discusses the Greek culture's lack of moral laws compelling the ruling class to show mercy or justice, which led to atrocities during wars among them. 01:07:04 🏆 Greek culture focused on channeling violent energy into the "aegon," a competition for greatness, rather than moral restrictions. 01:07:46 🇩🇪 The German terms "vet comp" (friendly competition) and "vernik tunxconf" (war of extermination) are crucial in understanding Greek culture's approach to competition. 01:09:07 🏛 Greek nobility were educated to emulate traditional values, perform rituals, and become priests, emphasizing continuity and adherence to inherited customs. 01:10:31 🔥 Jealousy was celebrated in Greek culture as a driver of the struggle for greatness, with the belief that competition among geniuses was essential. 01:15:10 🏛 The Greeks had an aversion to autocracy and ostracized individuals who came too close to winning in the competition to ensure the perpetual nature of their contests. 01:19:36 🎭 Nietzsche describes how art in Greek culture served as an arena for competition, highlighting the personal struggle and rivalry among artists. 01:22:08 🏛 Greek civilization's values, as discussed by Nietzsche, were complex, involving elements of shame and glory, labor, and competition. 01:26:56 🧭 Nietzsche's early writings lay the foundation for his philosophical project, where he challenges conceptions of the state based on moral illusions and seeks to oppose them in the realm of ideas.

This orator (teacher) has a very pleasant voice, makes it an easy valuable listen. Great insight into this great philosopher.

" When one speaks of humanity the notion lies at the bottom that humanity is that which separates and distinguishes man from nature but such a distinction does not in reality exist. The natural qualities and the properly called human ones have grown up inseparably together. Man In His Highest and noblest capacities is nature and bears in himself her awful twofold character."

Not on topic really, but the video reminded me of this. There is a subset of people who think Nietzsche is a precursor to wokeness, and even some woke types try to say this. Merely for the fact that he isn't a dogmatist when it comes to tradition. But I think even this video alone showed how it's impossible to reconcile Nietzsche with a woke frame work. Some unironically think that the overman was supposed to mean this transhuman, androgynous being. It may seem too ridiculous to even address, but perhaps you should. This perversion of Nietzsche's thought is simply too heinous to not address.

Wonderful stuff Mr. Keegan 🥰 Thank-you sir.

Random Question: I've read that to Nietzche dance is the ultimate expression of joy. Is that true and if not what is his stance on dancing in general?

love your work !

Fantastic work! Thanks

a very competent summary of N.'s early & often-onward ideas.... skillfully presented...+++++

Thank you!

Y are great. Thanks frim Brasil

After much consideration i needed to make an articulate response to this video but to achieve that was simply beyond my capacity to do so. Having said that after the observation of many of the vapid comments attached to this video there was one quote that stood out for me to encapsulate the spirit that I felt needed to be shared. The quote was from the movie "A fish called Wanda" and it went something like. "Apes don't read Nietzsche... Yes they do Otto, They just don't understand it".

Good introduction and discussion. It is truly impossible to study and understand Nietzsche's views on the ancients without a good amount of historical familiarity with ancient Rome and Greece, culturally and linguistically. The very superficial, subjective and often one dimensional view most current historians present is often the opposite of what the ancients actually lived and believed themselves. Theognis and Heraclitus had their views of Athenian democracy but Kimon, Perikles and Alkibiades had rather different views. Nietzsche's only real shortcoming in his political views was the somewhat disgraceful mania about "democracy". Not that he wasn't correct in seeing the dangers and shortcomings but that he didn't see the ability for the truly exceptional and superior to dominate a "democracy". The case of Athens was rather unique and I always found his silence on Kimon, arguably the most exemplary Athenian, somewhat puzzling since Kimon had no trouble being the most influential man during a democratic era. As much talk as there is about "equality", it only really applies to the most basic ideas and practices.( I personally think the American Founders beginning with the Jefferson and the DOI, actually meant something closer to Cleisthenes "Isonomia", "equality of political rights".) The gradation of talent and ability will always hold the greater, deciding balance of reality, even in so-called "communist" states. The Roman Res Publica struck a very strong but delicate balance between the masses, an elite and the even more extraordinary Individual but because of the requirements and ethos of the entire culture, and the world at large, it collapse under the weight of the Extraordinary Individual. But as he mentioned once or twice, the conditions are absolutely in place for the extraordinary and elite to obtain and wield power AND to enrich the lives of the masses. These two possibilities are not opposites as perhaps they were, or at least appeared to be, in the ancient and medieval worlds.

Although, Hellenistic, don’t forget about Pyrrhonism. “No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations” Nietzsche’s intellectual development of Radical Perspectivism comes from his studying of ancient Pyrrhonism. In Pyrrhonism it is called the 8th Mode of Aenesidemus: All perceptions are relative and interact one upon another.

So good

Ty

31:10 I will object to this. Religion per se does not seek to reject the material world, it just so happens that this rejection of the material is something of a trend in our history. The unification of the physical and metaphysical is completely coherent in a religious context. Such as Hermeticism to give just one example

The Samurai class are perfect example of taking immediate action / revenge, right on the spot baby, but crazy thing is they too often even after victory committed harakiri...

What is this painting?

1:04:00

34:00

Do you know if Nietzsche liked Alcibiades? Seems like the type of person who he would like based on his persona and what he said in Plato’s writings.

Is someone being exploited if they go out and hunt for food or build shelter?

“The strong do what they can the weak so what they must” is just a fact.

Have you ever read the work of Spengler?

I am fascinated and overwhelmed by the amount of contradictions in Nietzsche's worldview. I hardly think Rome was "receptive" or "feminine" in the way he is describing when Rome was responsible for exporting its legal system, language, alphabet, writing, buildings, infrastructure, etc. throughout all the lands it administered. He even admits that the "walled garden" of art, religion, and philosophy are not possible without a non-theoretical man performing statecraft, and the Roman state was much more successful in this endeavor. It seems to me that the highest forms of culture have no value if there are no people with the material security to appreciate these works of culture except some philosophers who are very distant from society. It is difficult for any philosopher to influence society in the ways that you mentioned in the start of the video if they are so detached.

Do you think that Nietzsche and Ernst Jüngers concept of the "Waldgänger" would be compatible?

Is might right? How right is might?

No one is immune to hypocrisy, or I suppose more charitably embodying their own contradictions. nietzsche, for as much as he can talk in philosophize is not truly capable, in personal sentiment, of embodying the absolute conclusion of his own suggestions. For a man too, on the one hand, recognize that the Mind Body split is illusory, we are determined and directed by our drives and our nature, and that we are inextricably linked to our context, both present and historical but also to assert that the highest form of philosopher is essentially that which is alienated from its context, which is the same thing as being alienated from the struggle of daily life, is clearly an inherent contradiction. That is, he's actually talking about an abstract ideal, despite frequently railing against abstract ideals, and a kind of verified Ivory Tower thinking. he may take issue with that, and it certainly more sophisticated, but in its essential form that's what he is aiming for. If we are to take him seriously, and if he was to take himself seriously he would have no choice but to assert that such philosophers of the future in order to fully realize the highest intellectual and artistic Heights must separate themselves from the mass of the daily struggle, it is true, but only by overcoming it. that is, they can really only earn the right to be such philosophers, send it to their own level, if they have one all the games below them. it is not that they can ignore politics, and economics, and everything else, but they must prove themselves to have been the best in all of those arenas, to have truly been the greatest men in every attribute and then to retire from that kind of life. not because it is weary or draining to them but because they have already surpassed it. Of course to a certain extent that isn't unattainable ideal, but that is also the entire point. If we understand Nietzsche's philosophy not as a series of goals to be hit or a rigid structure, but an ultimately testing and self-annihilating in the service of growth process, then it is only by being subjected to the extreme pressures of all competition, and overcoming them, that one can truly become worthy as a Herald of the ubermensch. In short, the true philosophers of the future, already contained within Nietzsche's fragments if he does not align them together, must be both those incredibly abstract intellectual minds and those entirely non-theoretical men of action, wedded into a single soul.

1:03:56 guh

Order needs chaos

People are not equal.

12:17 a brief note, your terminology is backwards. The age of Alexander/Macedonian successor Empires WAS the _Hellenistic_ age - the term specifically referring to the mixing of the Greek with the Persian, the Egyptian, the Central Asian, etc to create a myriad of multicultural synthesis, in short the globalism of the classical Mediterranean. The preceding age when the Greeks were essentially confined to the Greek peninsula (i.e. Hellas)/Western regions of modern Turkey was the _Hellenic_ age. Very similar words but completely opposite meanings. TL;DR _Hellenic_ = Greek _Hellenistic_ = "Greekified"

Я не понимаю такого преклонения перед авторитетом, чтобы любить безумца. Ницше не сошел с ума в 89. Он сделал это гораздо раньше. Он писал книги будучи в бреду. Ницше ругает государство много раз, и при этом говорит, что великие строители государства - лучшие люди. А это Цезарь. А это Борджиа. Но тут Ницше противоречит сам себе. Ницше говорит в заратустре, что сверх-человека ещё не было. А потом что он был много раз. Он снова противоречит сам себе. То он говорит создай сам себе мораль, то он говорит какая мораль должна быть здоровой. То он говорит, что нужно слушать только здоровых телом. А сам был глубоко больным телом! Он снова противоречит себе. Это философ опроверг сам себя. И особенно под конец жизни. Когда много раз писал, что больной зависимый от лекарств, паразит общества. И что лучший его выход уйти из жизни самому. Он не сделал этого! Ницше это история безумия одного человека. И все.

Yin and yang is ambivalent

Corrupted power is evil

38:00 a... quote.

Need to be very careful with liberating us from labor. Just look what is happening now in the usa especially i.e. obesity, meaninglessness, senseless violence etc. Labor may be more important than you think. True should a high IQ person be digging ditches for a living? No. He or She should pursue other labors more suited to them but labors non-the-less.

I would love for future generations of schoolchildren to learn Greco-Roman Philosophy rather than be influenced by the Bible and garbage culture, but that would 'corrupt the youth" with 'false ideas'.