Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

sacheie t1_j44xyos wrote

I could never read Nietzsche. I can't tolerate his attitude. He's so pointedly bombastic, and even deliberately boorish at times. It just comes off as nasty and crude. I know that his sister distorted him; I understand that the right-wingers misunderstand him. But still, the aggression that repels me just emanates from his writing itself, constantly, even in good translations like Kaufmann's.

That said, I figure there must be some substance there, since so many postmodern figures took such interest in him. I'm interested to sometime read the Nietzsche interpretations from Heidegger, Derrida, and Foucault.

−1

Embarrassed_Honey606 t1_j4ibj68 wrote

So much of his writing is ironic and a lot of it is playful exaggeration. His books (as a German reader) are easily some of the greatest pieces of writing in the German language. Countless philosophers, artists and writers concur. Thomas Mann would be an example. I‘m sorry but describing his writing as „deliberately boorish“ or „nasty/crude“ is irritating, if not plain wrong.

1