[Buddha-l] Nietzsche was a bachelor (was: Batchelor)

[Richard Hayes]

On May 20, 2010, at 12:24, Barnaby Thieme <bathieme at hotmail.com> wrote:


> It seems to me that Nietzsche meant many things by Will to Power,  
> and sometimes used it to describe the literal overcoming of people  
> through force, though in my overall reading of his work I seem to  
> recall that he held violence to be a base and low expression of Will  
> to Power, which finds its highest expression in acts of true  
> creation and revaluation.

Yes, that is pretty much exactly how I understand it. Will to power is  
a very polysemous expression. There is a noble and magnanimous  
expression of it, a coarse expression of it. The more magnanimous form  
is not much different from noblesse oblige.

> The clearest relationship that I see between Nietzsche and Buddhism  
> is in Nietzsche's rejection of essentialist metaphysical postures,  
> such as we find in "How the Real World Became a Fable" in "Twilight  
> of the Idols", which to my ears closely resemble the arguments of  
> Madhyamikas like Candrakirti.

Yes, I think that is true. Or perhaps I should say that interpretation  
is very much like mine. "There are no truths, only interpretations."  
Or something like that.

Richard