Patreon: / cuck Twitter: / philosophycuck The background music consists of compositions by Nietzsche: Eine Sylvesternacth Hymnus an das Leben Klavierstück
I can relate to this. My first 20 years of life were an unmitigated hell. My mother was a psychopath and my suffering made her happy. I was starved, neglected and abused to a ridiculous degree. I stole to buy food to keep myself and my sister from starving to death. Pets got murdered and gaslighting was just how she communicated. I learned what shower gel was or how often one washes hair or what the difference was between shampoo and conditioner from a romantic partner at age 25, I usually wore the same clothes for 6 months on end without them getting washed. same for things like bedding. CPS got involved a few times but never did anything. The next 20 years I lived on my own and all my chronic illnesses started surfacing. I was used to just sucking it up and ignoring it, so having invisible illnesses was not great, with doctors telling me it was in my head. That there was actual stuff that was in my head, such as PTSD, autism and dissociation was also unhelpful. Eventually my actual physical illnesses got serious enough that the doctors started looking in earnest again and I got Diagnosed with a genetic connective tissue disorder at age 35, and with about another dozen other rare diseases. I spent the next 5 years in court rooms suing everyone from the city to my insurance company to get the stuff i needed to survive and live on my own. Now I'm 41. I'm wheelchair bound, in constant and debilitating chronic pain (I take morphine so I don't go into shock) and chronic fatigue keeps me bedridden most of the day for most days. Sometimes my digestive system quits on me and then I can't eat for 2-8 weeks. And yet, this is the best period of my life. I have never been more happy than I am now. I write books, and study stuff online. I live with my service dog and have meaningful relationships with people. I am mentally, the most healthy I have ever been, and even if my physical health is at it's lowest point and likely to only decline from here, at least it's getting acknowledged and I get access to care and medication. I'm honestly doing great in a set of circumstances that would drive most people to suicide. I know it's weird but I think Nietzsche was right that relief attained in the face of suffering is happiness. It unburdens the soul.
I've been chronically ill since age 11 and the notion that health means nothing to people who don't get sick is a better articulation of how systemic ableism works than I've seen in a lot of contemporary social justice literature.
@@algirdongas1 I'm fairly certain you misunderstood Alexander. You have also completely overlooked the part about "systemic ableism", and instead conflated the term with a microaggression between two individuals. The original statement of "health means nothing to people who don't get sick", of course refers to the quote: "For a person who never gets sick, health is an irrelevant concept, because such a person does not have to overcome themselves in order to attain health. Only the person who gets sick and then overcomes it really understands what health is." This relates to systemic ableism, by pointing out that because our governments are lead by people who are able bodied (in the sense that they are able to fully take care of themselves without any outside assistance - their quality of life is not significantly diminished on a regular basis), means that the powers that be are fundamentally unequipped to meaningfully aid their disabled citizens. The policymakers literally lack the experience and perspective required to write up effective legislation. That's if there's any wish to do so in the first place, as the able bodied are interested in the issues that plague the able bodied, majorities are interested in the issues that plague majorities. Saying that "being ill sucks" is, in fact, completely irrelevant to ableism in general, because being disabled is not "being ill". Being ill is exactly that - a temporary illness, a light damper on an otherwise hospital-free life, while being disabled is in a league of its own when it comes to disempowering and debilitating an individual. You are not ableist for stating that "being ill sucks". You would be ableist if you doubted that systemic ableism exists, even after being made aware of it.
@@arctomoldiness9312 If I aknowledge that it is better to be healthy then I am ableist, am I not? Nietzsche wrote a lot about the preconditions for ill health, namely things like Christianity, which is anti-health and anti-life at it's core. I think wanting to abolish "systemic ableism" is very Christian of you... I don't think the ruling elites suffer from being too able bodied, I think they are ill, too ill, just like the rest of us. They suffer from the same "bad air" and poisons (chemical and spiritual) that are so prevalent, which is why they cannot make decisions conducive to good health. They only address symptoms rather than the core cause. For example there's breakdown of traditional social structure, we are atomised and apart from our kin, so there's nobody to care for our old, sick and crippled. We have sick-care rather than healthcare. I think Nietzsche had the right idea about actual healthcare: fresh air and vigorous exercise.
I have struggled through most of Nietzche's works even though I have never been able to read them without crying. I have a hard time explaining why they affect me so viscerally. But this articulates some part of it. I spent a lot of my early years violently ill due to undiagnosed celiac disease, and this (along with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse during childhood) led me to develop OCD and severe body related phobias. I still fantasize about having no body, and I have almost starved several times because of the fear of eating. I want to see the value in what I have gone through. I want to live in the present, in that modest, divine gratitude that I see in Nietzche's work and that I occasionally experience when the fog of terror lifts and leaves mania in its wake. But the fear of my own body is still too overwhelming most of the time. I still have panic attacks and dissociation. I still can't read Nietzche without envying his "health" in terms of how he regards suffering (an ironic response to an author who has taught me so much about the follies of ressentiment). I will keep trying to learn this beautiful lesson. Maybe the learning is just never finished.
This was a great video, and explained something very fundamental to Nietzsche’s entire project clearly. Nietzsche’s insight that the mind and its values are an extension of the body is what has drawn me to heavily to his work, and you conveyed this idea well. Cheers
As someone who lives with a chronic health condition. I've often look to Nietzsche as someone to help me through my dark days when pondering what life will be in the near future. The biography by Julian Young is fantastic.
This is really encouraging. I suffer from ever-present severe chronic back pain, which has somewhat derailed the academic track i foresaw for myself; I’m 24 and have had it for about 6 years. This video came out the same week I visited with the fourth physical therapist I’ve been to, and the treatment has already made a much bigger dent in my pain than anything I’ve tried hereto, and I’ve felt a real joy in living as a result, likely appreciating things more deeply than I would otherwise.
No one really knows that health is the most importamt thing that EXISTS.everyone takes it for granted.physical and mental disabiliti is literally HELL. When i can be normal again .man i cant imagine the heaven life will be
Just writing up an Essay on Nietzsche, and was literally checking back on the Berserk vid a couple of hours ago and wondering when your next video would come out! Looks like my essay writing can wait a little longer! :D :)
I'm going through a really hard time right now, just got diagnosed with clinical depression, I admitted to having feelings for one of my best friends and she recently cut me out of her life because of it. But this video helped, thank you.
Solidarity, friend. I genuinely hope you find some relief. Through a combination of therapy and medication I was lucky enough to find a semblance of normalcy, so I wish you the best on your journey. Though life may never become ideal, it can get better.
I'm currently writing my MA thesis on Deleuze's concept of the body (primarily through his reading of Spinoza), and I was wondering how I should approach the Nietzschean influence. This video has opened up a clear path on how I can do some justice to the topic, especially since Deleuze also suffered from some debilitating illnesses at times. Thank you!
I loved the vid and it's style! Last week I was sick because of a nasty infection and I had quite a good time using that feeling to reflect on life. It was quite nice being able to apply some stoic mindset to embrace the pain without feeling broken. I also love the focus on having a more meaningful life instead of a less "painful" and more "pleasurable" one
I have terrible daily chronic pain. I've been having a bought of health since moving to a dryer climate. I heavily relate to Nietzsche here. God he describes it so well.
Love it, love your stuff. You manage to make it so compelling and in depth while making it so moving as well. Without the usual pyrotechnics and over-simplifying hooks that accompany typical philosophy videos for the layman. Also, went to an indie book shop in Hackney in London the other week and your book was there, was happy to see it! I was going to buy it but figured it'd go way over my head and should probably actually read a bit more Marx and Nietzsche first. Keep it up man..!
jsyk libertarianism is not coherent with leninism.. And Nietzsche is not coherent with Marx. Choose the former in both cases, choose the individual. For he is the fundamental unit of society.
@@mouwersor bro read his book. Nietzsche and Marx bring out the best in each other. Marx was concerned with the full and free development of every individual, and Nietzsche only disliked socialism because he associated it with christian monasticism, but that's not the socialism that Marx proposes. the argument that Marx is a collectivist and that Nietzsche is an individualist, is really reductionist, really common, and ceika unpacks it in his book
@@lettersfromanihilist9092 I'm not going to buy and read a whole book for that.. Why do you think Nietzsche is not best characterized as an individualist and Marx not as a collectivist? If anything is clear in Nietzsches philosophy is that he despises 'the herd' and his 'ultimate form of morality' is the one which the individual creates himself. Marx his ideas on the other hand also clearly put the collective (but only the proletariat) above all else. And the outcomes of his ideas are absolutely to the detriment of the happiness/freedom of the individual (see Ludwig von Mises his breakdown of socialism for more specific reasons why, or just look at the real-life experiments).
@@lettersfromanihilist9092 Nietzsche detested socialism not simply becuase it was Christian, but becuase of what Christianity, in his understanding, was a symptom of. That is, weak people, people who hate life, who needed to create and believe in a "beyond" to gain power over the here and now.Nieztsche was far more in support of castes than he ever could be made to be of socialism, anarchism, or even democracy. How is it possible to believe that Marx brings out the best in Nietzsche? Marx was a myopic humanist, blinded by the hope of amelioration, who wanted to destroy this world in hopes of another, one can imagine neitzsche saying. How does Marx avoid the priestly psychological disposition? To me it seems he merely secularized it in a liberal hegelian manner.
Keep up the good work on Nietzsche! I picked up ''Marx, Nietzsche and Modernity'' recently after watching your old book recommendation videos. I gotta say, the Nietzsche parts are the hardest. Amazing book nonetheless, so everything that you do on the man helps me understand him!
Nietzsche has stood out to me since I first learned the barest about him and the more I learn the more strongly I feel this. There really is no joy or wonder or peace equal to that of feeling okay after a bad flare. Conciousness isn't guaranteed by life... you can live without the ability to have directionality or intentionality, but merely exist moment to moment, waiting, hoping that if you wait long enough you will be allowed to live again. While being thankful for these conditions is a stretch (to me), I am thankful for the appreciation for life that comes from it.
15:51 I love this video, but do not feel that you need to produce more videos more frequently. all your videos are really insightful and we do not mind waiting for the high quality.
One again, amazing video ! You should read "the normal and the pathological" from the french philosopher Georges Canguilhem (friend of Foucault and so on). He is a nietzschean philosopher specialized in health and psychology.
"Only someone who is continually suffering could invent such happiness" - Nietzsche "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" - Camus I wonder if there is a connection.
Andrew's connection is a more surface one, of how Nietzche's eternal recurrence is analagous to Sisyphus' eternal damnation, but I think the original comment here makes a novel connection, at least one I hadn't seen or thought of before. There absolutely is a connection there, and its interesting.
Surprised no one in the comments made a link between how Schoepenhauer remarked how a person doesn't feel the health of his whole body as an example of his pessimistic view of existence, with Nietzche, who actually *COULD* feel the whole health of his body, having a more affirming view on life and health.
hey, this was great. i would really love to have the sources for the quotes tho, that'd be really neat. you just made me think of how i could possibly incoprate nietzsche into my thesis, i love him so much. i didn't realise he so explicitly wrote about the body. thanks much for researching.
I'd argue that Giambattista Vico, before Nietzsche and even Spinoza, was also a thinker of the body. Edward Said has a great essay on this specific topic, which I think is a worthwhile read.
I have to say discovering “the gay science” really made me feel validated on my feelings about science class when I stumbled upon it when I was 11. I never read it but I still loved it
Your new video essay comes at a peculiarly pointed time for me, as I am just in the middle of (re)reading the Stefan Zweig book "Der Kampf mit dem Dämon: Hölderlin, Kleist, Nietzsche"(apparently the Nietzsche section was also released as its own book) and I am right on the chapter where he looks at him and his philosophy through the lens of his sicknesses and sufferings of the body, how it informed his philosophy and essentially probably brought forth some of his biggest concepts, especially during the final years of his "sane life". So I was wondering if you read that book or if your researches were seemingly independent from this Zweig book (which is sort of a romanticized biography on him) and you both arrived at essentially the same conclusion.
Thanks for this video, I had heard about Nietzsche’s health a while ago but hadn’t gotten around to looking into the topic myself. Also wanna say as someone who has struggled with mental health and now being trans, I am immensely glad to have reached a mindset similar to his and to now be studying him. The more I read, the more I find in common, and that which I don’t eventually clicks into place later.
The adjective "fröhlich" in the German title "die fröhliche Wissenschaft" is actually cognate with the English word "frolic", so in this way we can understand it to mean something like 'frolicsome wisdom' or 'joyful science'. ("Wissenschaft" has a distant etymological relation to "wisdom" in English, but it's better translated more figuratively as "science" or "scholarly discipline") The German title is itself though a translation of a Provençal expression "gaia scienza" used to describe the art of poetry, which Nietzsche himself interpreted as "that unity of singer, knight, and free spirit."
I remember Adam Darski, the singer of the band Behemoth said that getting and recovering from blood cancer was one of the best things to happen to him.
totally missed this one :O Luckily it showed up after watching the last Carefree Wandering just now. ooh, this highlighting of the body reminds me of embodiment from Graham Jones's Red Enlightenment. Any chance of us getting to hear you two talk philosophy?
Extra data. Though Plato was jacked (there is a theory that Plato was nickname for his powerful omoplatus cause he participated in throwing disk), the modern dualists Descartes and Malebranche were sickly as fuck. Descartes was always seen as sick and pale and part of his main objective and reason of why he studied biology so much was to see if he could extend his own life; he even followed diets and shit. With Malebranche its worse: the guy had been born with a weird spine disease that gave him constant pain and sometimes bound him to his bed. I would say that it seems to be that they had different reactions to the same pain but in reality I think they lived in different contexts with differents of the body and mind/soul.
mental health sufferring since i can remember. naturally the mind and body are connected. thanks for this. hang in there the best you can to all who suffer
This is very interesting and each person will interpret their own suffering accordingly. I do however take issue with the broad ableist takeaways that suffering creates a heightened appreciation of not-suffering, and this having been extrapolated by culture to basically mean suffering affirms life, and that great art and great expression comes causally from suffering. Having been sick from birth I do not have a great appreciation of the times when I am not sick (perhaps that too is part of my sickness), and I spend a considerable amount of time wondering what my life would be like, and what the size and complexity of my creative output would be were I free from my multiple disabilities and conditions. I understand that the period after an intense hangover, or migraine, when even the simplest things can bring you the pleasure of being free from pain can make one wonder about how wonderful things are, but perhaps for the chronically ill, who simply await the next flare up of their condition, they don't quite feel this revelation so sharply, and just pass the time until things will be difficult again. At least, that is my experience.
I think what is interesting to point out is that there is no fundamentally universal disabled experience. For some that relief does make life worth living. For others it's unquestionable that there's a strong air of hopelessness. Even among the chronically ill the opinions of this are extremely wide and varying. Every experience is unique here. I think disability as a subject is always in conflict with itself as a result of important nuances like this force us to analyze disability from a perspective that reconsiders the idea of a disabled subject altogether and recognizing it emerges from a complex interaction between society, the body and labor. Either way I don't think analyzing a specific case study is necessarily ableist in of itself. It is a description of one person's experience. The problem I think stems more from how an overarching perspective of disability could be formed from a particular perspective, erasing nuance.
Ok , i mean no ableism , and no ill intentions : But would you take your life ? If not why ? Your illness is sadly and largely outside your control , Such there is little use in wondering what it could have been , There is only use in wondering what it could be , Why is your illness bearable ? Pain =/= enlightment or anything good most of the times , Recovery on the other hand , even temporary one , even the lightening of pain , that is the good stuff , And yeah i get it if you can't experience it fully , What i can say is are there some things that at least make you forget about your chronic illness at least for a short while ? Cause those things are the things that i guess you should do , But yeah i am a stranger on the internet i don't know you and i don't have chronic illness so i am terribly sorry if i was offensive , Have a nice day man
It would be interesting to see if people who are in chronic pain think differently of utilitarianism than people who haven't experienced much suffering. I have some back pain but nothing serious and I would consider myself a utilitarian, I wonder if experiencing large amounts of pain would make me more utilitarian or less. I could imagine, experiencing something really bad makes me more focused on suffering, more focused on making people happy or it might make me appreciate the positive sides of suffering and make me doubt utilitarianism.
I can't know where I fall, as it's really hard to actually compare inner worlds, but as someone who has suffered a lot mentally while generally being fine physically, I understand where Nietzsche is coming from, but it ultimately feels like a form of cope, because the opposite of it, which is what I believe, is that the suffering is and was both meaningless and unnecessary, which is kind of existentially horrifying. It's the universe dumping on you for no good reason and telling you to just hold the L. I just try to move forward with that reality, as I see it, in mind so as to make sure others experience this existential horror as little as possible.
Most people with some sort of disability who are aware of it despise utilitarian thought because it tends to be dismissive of their experiences. Not to mention how some utilitarians (like Singer) write about the disabled. I think something to be critical of with utilitarianism in regards to illness is that the measure of "pleasure" is a completely arbitrary selection of value, and the way we measure the value of people with longterm illness is based more on social expectation and interpretation of that illness rather than the lived experience. People with illness also have a lot of ideas on improving their own lives that is often lost on the assumption that their lives are not worth living because they're not pleasurable - you can see how this is a self affirming situation that could be changed by listening to the perspective of the ill
My father basically ruined his spine. In his advanced age, basically one of the disks in his back is now like chalk. He is waiting to die at this point. All he ever had to tell me was to work smart, not hard, because he ruined his body. If his experience was in any way meaningful to him, it was too late to extrapolate any meaning from it. He told me on a number of occasions that he wished he could go back and do it over again. So he certainly didn't find any utility in being in constant pain and having to be on opiates for it.
Thank you for your video ! I wonder if you ever heard of the marxist philosopher György Lukács and especially his very interesting writings on Nietzsche : Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (The Destruction of reason) I don’t know if they are available in English, I’ve partly read them in French but hopefully they are also available in other languages that you might be able to read because I would really like to know what you think about it and maybe they could even be a source of inspiration for you !
I suspect that we disagree on many things … but I’ve never not learned when I’ve listen to you, I’ve even encouraged my children to learn from you and even cite your work in their own basic academic endeavours. So for this I thank you. One can also never discount the amusement gained from listening to the effort put into the names of your supporters :)
@@thomaspynchon8400 yes it's got the right attitude to morality also the ending is a celebration of one of deleuze and guattari's best ideas (the solution to the problem of the real)
Could we say that Schopenhauer was also one of Nietzsche's predecessors who put his main focus on the body, in a somewhat similar fashion as Spinoza ? Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation repudiates the kantian notion of transcendental ego and removes the value on transcendental concepts; all concepts for him are practical in nature, they only relate to a living body inseparable from the world, as a part of it, and representing itself the world under general categories so that it can navigate the diversity of what can be sensed. Any notion that eludes the representing and represented body are categorical mistakes and don't actually denote anything, making the body, its senses, and its drives to survive the starting point and finish line of any metaphysical inquiry.
I don't like the idea that health can only be obtained through suffering. I believe it is good to have an ideal conception of health we aspire to that doesn't require suffering.
Do you say that as one who faces illness or no? I don't wish suffering on others and believe one can be happy and fufilled without great pain, but, there is a beauty and aliveness that really is only accessable with these kinds of experiences. There is no appreciation for the simplicity of being alive nor of the smallest of joys as is possible after regaining the ability to enjoy and actually exist. One can take that to romanticize or desire suffering, but it can also be taken as an affirmation of life and as a signal to those who don't live with illness to stop pitying us and honor our existence and perspective.
It’s more like the only way to attain a sincere appreciation for what it means to be healthy is by overcoming whatever comes to ail you, which something inevitably will regardless of your regimen. As such, you can become a “yes-sayer” for life, as N. Used to put it.
Working out require some level of suffering, so that we can grow our bodies, the avoidance of suffering is the denial of the nature of life. This suffering is part of what makes life beautiful
@@thetruth4654 all suffering is not the same. I actually enjoy the feeling of doms. There are forms of sore and pain that can register as good. The suffering of illness that brings the joy spoken of in this video is the kind that swallows you in it. That you are not but holding on, each moment to the next, waiting in hope that it will eventually end and you will be allowed to live again.
It’s interesting to consider health in this way. Many of us for example take our metabolisms for granted and easily judge those who are obese. Never have we had to try to overcome or own biology in that way to lose weight. On top of this something like less than 10% of weight loss from dieting sticks long term. Nonetheless we tout healthy living as if that’ll even work
Heath is participation in Purusha( Pure Form) by the human compound either by the quelling of disharmony or by accord to a predetermined ratio with respect to the subject of health. As in Ayurveda proper, the three qualities are derived from the combination of the five elements: vette from ether and air, pitha from fire and water, and kapha from water and earth. It is the participation of product Prakriti ( pure matter) which leads to health. In modern Greek the word for health is still "harmonikos"( or something) and disease ( stenaharmonikos or whatever). This arises from the Oder behind nature.
Happy birthday Marx! Also, very interesting video. I am currently reading the untimely meditiations again. They are such good works. As a history student I particularly like On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, but then again who doesn't?
there's no way you'll be able to dig any joy out of this topic without the help of deleuze (nietzsche's "great health" as life at a perpetually overwhelming intensity)
So maybe the reason why I can't enjoy the simplest things in life is I don't suffer enough, and this lack of suffering is hindering my appreciation of life, and this ungrateful outlook is causing me pain, making me suffer, which in turn is good, cuz long periods of suffering would make for a great recovery afterwards and allow me to experience happiness, so I just have to focus on how great the recovery is gonna feel when it happens and wait for it. I'm looking forward to it. I hope I can hold on to and make the most out of it when it comes. I hope it comes.
I can relate to this. My first 20 years of life were an unmitigated hell. My mother was a psychopath and my suffering made her happy. I was starved, neglected and abused to a ridiculous degree. I stole to buy food to keep myself and my sister from starving to death. Pets got murdered and gaslighting was just how she communicated. I learned what shower gel was or how often one washes hair or what the difference was between shampoo and conditioner from a romantic partner at age 25, I usually wore the same clothes for 6 months on end without them getting washed. same for things like bedding. CPS got involved a few times but never did anything.
The next 20 years I lived on my own and all my chronic illnesses started surfacing. I was used to just sucking it up and ignoring it, so having invisible illnesses was not great, with doctors telling me it was in my head. That there was actual stuff that was in my head, such as PTSD, autism and dissociation was also unhelpful. Eventually my actual physical illnesses got serious enough that the doctors started looking in earnest again and I got Diagnosed with a genetic connective tissue disorder at age 35, and with about another dozen other rare diseases. I spent the next 5 years in court rooms suing everyone from the city to my insurance company to get the stuff i needed to survive and live on my own.
Now I'm 41. I'm wheelchair bound, in constant and debilitating chronic pain (I take morphine so I don't go into shock) and chronic fatigue keeps me bedridden most of the day for most days. Sometimes my digestive system quits on me and then I can't eat for 2-8 weeks. And yet, this is the best period of my life. I have never been more happy than I am now. I write books, and study stuff online. I live with my service dog and have meaningful relationships with people. I am mentally, the most healthy I have ever been, and even if my physical health is at it's lowest point and likely to only decline from here, at least it's getting acknowledged and I get access to care and medication. I'm honestly doing great in a set of circumstances that would drive most people to suicide. I know it's weird but I think Nietzsche was right that relief attained in the face of suffering is happiness. It unburdens the soul.
Your perspective and bravery has helped you prevail through great tribulation. Best of luck to you in all your endeavors!
Holy fucking shit dude, you've really been through it. Its a good thing you're better now mentally
I wish you nothing but the best in life man
My dude, you're a trooper.
Sorry to hear it. Hold on!
I've been chronically ill since age 11 and the notion that health means nothing to people who don't get sick is a better articulation of how systemic ableism works than I've seen in a lot of contemporary social justice literature.
damn, that sucks dude. If stating that being ill sucks is ableist, then I am ableist.
Hope you get better my dude, in both body and mind.
@@algirdongas1 I'm fairly certain you misunderstood Alexander. You have also completely overlooked the part about "systemic ableism", and instead conflated the term with a microaggression between two individuals.
The original statement of "health means nothing to people who don't get sick", of course refers to the quote: "For a person who never gets sick, health is an irrelevant concept, because such a person does not have to overcome themselves in order to attain health. Only the person who gets sick and then overcomes it really understands what health is."
This relates to systemic ableism, by pointing out that because our governments are lead by people who are able bodied (in the sense that they are able to fully take care of themselves without any outside assistance - their quality of life is not significantly diminished on a regular basis), means that the powers that be are fundamentally unequipped to meaningfully aid their disabled citizens. The policymakers literally lack the experience and perspective required to write up effective legislation.
That's if there's any wish to do so in the first place, as the able bodied are interested in the issues that plague the able bodied, majorities are interested in the issues that plague majorities. Saying that "being ill sucks" is, in fact, completely irrelevant to ableism in general, because being disabled is not "being ill". Being ill is exactly that - a temporary illness, a light damper on an otherwise hospital-free life, while being disabled is in a league of its own when it comes to disempowering and debilitating an individual.
You are not ableist for stating that "being ill sucks". You would be ableist if you doubted that systemic ableism exists, even after being made aware of it.
@@arctomoldiness9312 If I aknowledge that it is better to be healthy then I am ableist, am I not? Nietzsche wrote a lot about the preconditions for ill health, namely things like Christianity, which is anti-health and anti-life at it's core. I think wanting to abolish "systemic ableism" is very Christian of you... I don't think the ruling elites suffer from being too able bodied, I think they are ill, too ill, just like the rest of us. They suffer from the same "bad air" and poisons (chemical and spiritual) that are so prevalent, which is why they cannot make decisions conducive to good health. They only address symptoms rather than the core cause. For example there's breakdown of traditional social structure, we are atomised and apart from our kin, so there's nobody to care for our old, sick and crippled. We have sick-care rather than healthcare. I think Nietzsche had the right idea about actual healthcare: fresh air and vigorous exercise.
A Syrian friend told me there's a saying in Arabic that's roughly “Health is a crown only the sick can see”.
Ive been disabled since i was 11 and have a migraine right now; this hit me in all the feels
I have struggled through most of Nietzche's works even though I have never been able to read them without crying. I have a hard time explaining why they affect me so viscerally. But this articulates some part of it. I spent a lot of my early years violently ill due to undiagnosed celiac disease, and this (along with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse during childhood) led me to develop OCD and severe body related phobias. I still fantasize about having no body, and I have almost starved several times because of the fear of eating. I want to see the value in what I have gone through. I want to live in the present, in that modest, divine gratitude that I see in Nietzche's work and that I occasionally experience when the fog of terror lifts and leaves mania in its wake. But the fear of my own body is still too overwhelming most of the time. I still have panic attacks and dissociation. I still can't read Nietzche without envying his "health" in terms of how he regards suffering (an ironic response to an author who has taught me so much about the follies of ressentiment). I will keep trying to learn this beautiful lesson. Maybe the learning is just never finished.
All plants are toxic
1:34 as someone with chronic pain, who is constantly experiencing suffering, nausea, and many more things this really hits home.
This was a great video, and explained something very fundamental to Nietzsche’s entire project clearly. Nietzsche’s insight that the mind and its values are an extension of the body is what has drawn me to heavily to his work, and you conveyed this idea well. Cheers
"Virescit Vulnere Virtus" - Strength growths with each wound
"A diet based on rice leads to buddism"
He should have come to Brasil
A diet based on rice and beans leads to humilhar a Argentina no futebol
As someone who lives with a chronic health condition. I've often look to Nietzsche as someone to help me through my dark days when pondering what life will be in the near future. The biography by Julian Young is fantastic.
This is really encouraging. I suffer from ever-present severe chronic back pain, which has somewhat derailed the academic track i foresaw for myself; I’m 24 and have had it for about 6 years. This video came out the same week I visited with the fourth physical therapist I’ve been to, and the treatment has already made a much bigger dent in my pain than anything I’ve tried hereto, and I’ve felt a real joy in living as a result, likely appreciating things more deeply than I would otherwise.
No one really knows that health is the most importamt thing that EXISTS.everyone takes it for granted.physical and mental disabiliti is literally HELL. When i can be normal again .man i cant imagine the heaven life will be
Just writing up an Essay on Nietzsche, and was literally checking back on the Berserk vid a couple of hours ago and wondering when your next video would come out! Looks like my essay writing can wait a little longer! :D :)
This is the best interpretation of Nietzsche I've come across.
I'm going through a really hard time right now, just got diagnosed with clinical depression, I admitted to having feelings for one of my best friends and she recently cut me out of her life because of it. But this video helped, thank you.
There is no such thing as reliably effective mental health treatment.
that's fucked :(
don't worry theres a lot of fish in the sea
There is more to this story, sorry.
Someone doesn't fully cut you out unless you're doing something egregious.
Solidarity, friend. I genuinely hope you find some relief. Through a combination of therapy and medication I was lucky enough to find a semblance of normalcy, so I wish you the best on your journey. Though life may never become ideal, it can get better.
I check this channel about every three weeks waiting for a new video, thank you!
A video from Jonas feels like a gift. You never know when it will come. But when it does arrive, it's brilliant. Awesome video!
I'm currently writing my MA thesis on Deleuze's concept of the body (primarily through his reading of Spinoza), and I was wondering how I should approach the Nietzschean influence. This video has opened up a clear path on how I can do some justice to the topic, especially since Deleuze also suffered from some debilitating illnesses at times. Thank you!
Read Sarah Kofman!
Really needed this at this crossroads in my life. Thanks, Jonas.
I loved the vid and it's style!
Last week I was sick because of a nasty infection and I had quite a good time using that feeling to reflect on life. It was quite nice being able to apply some stoic mindset to embrace the pain without feeling broken.
I also love the focus on having a more meaningful life instead of a less "painful" and more "pleasurable" one
I have terrible daily chronic pain. I've been having a bought of health since moving to a dryer climate. I heavily relate to Nietzsche here. God he describes it so well.
Love it, love your stuff. You manage to make it so compelling and in depth while making it so moving as well. Without the usual pyrotechnics and over-simplifying hooks that accompany typical philosophy videos for the layman. Also, went to an indie book shop in Hackney in London the other week and your book was there, was happy to see it! I was going to buy it but figured it'd go way over my head and should probably actually read a bit more Marx and Nietzsche first. Keep it up man..!
Thank you so much for sharing this type of content with all of us :)
Ever since I've read your book on Nietzsche and Marx, I have become more and more interested in Nietzsche
jsyk libertarianism is not coherent with leninism.. And Nietzsche is not coherent with Marx. Choose the former in both cases, choose the individual. For he is the fundamental unit of society.
@@mouwersor bro read his book. Nietzsche and Marx bring out the best in each other. Marx was concerned with the full and free development of every individual, and Nietzsche only disliked socialism because he associated it with christian monasticism, but that's not the socialism that Marx proposes. the argument that Marx is a collectivist and that Nietzsche is an individualist, is really reductionist, really common, and ceika unpacks it in his book
@@lettersfromanihilist9092 I'm not going to buy and read a whole book for that.. Why do you think Nietzsche is not best characterized as an individualist and Marx not as a collectivist? If anything is clear in Nietzsches philosophy is that he despises 'the herd' and his 'ultimate form of morality' is the one which the individual creates himself. Marx his ideas on the other hand also clearly put the collective (but only the proletariat) above all else. And the outcomes of his ideas are absolutely to the detriment of the happiness/freedom of the individual (see Ludwig von Mises his breakdown of socialism for more specific reasons why, or just look at the real-life experiments).
@@mouwersor just read the fucking book... maybe you can learn something for once?
@@lettersfromanihilist9092 Nietzsche detested socialism not simply becuase it was Christian, but becuase of what Christianity, in his understanding, was a symptom of. That is, weak people, people who hate life, who needed to create and believe in a "beyond" to gain power over the here and now.Nieztsche was far more in support of castes than he ever could be made to be of socialism, anarchism, or even democracy. How is it possible to believe that Marx brings out the best in Nietzsche? Marx was a myopic humanist, blinded by the hope of amelioration, who wanted to destroy this world in hopes of another, one can imagine neitzsche saying. How does Marx avoid the priestly psychological disposition? To me it seems he merely secularized it in a liberal hegelian manner.
Keep up the good work on Nietzsche! I picked up ''Marx, Nietzsche and Modernity'' recently after watching your old book recommendation videos. I gotta say, the Nietzsche parts are the hardest. Amazing book nonetheless, so everything that you do on the man helps me understand him!
Great video. I've been reading more Nietzsche since finishing reading your book, been a pretty rewarding experience.
Cheers,
Melody
Nietzsche has stood out to me since I first learned the barest about him and the more I learn the more strongly I feel this. There really is no joy or wonder or peace equal to that of feeling okay after a bad flare. Conciousness isn't guaranteed by life... you can live without the ability to have directionality or intentionality, but merely exist moment to moment, waiting, hoping that if you wait long enough you will be allowed to live again. While being thankful for these conditions is a stretch (to me), I am thankful for the appreciation for life that comes from it.
Another very interesting video, will definitely pick some of Nietzsche's works to read inspired by these thoughts
15:51 I love this video, but do not feel that you need to produce more videos more frequently. all your videos are really insightful and we do not mind waiting for the high quality.
Brought your book as a long term reader of Nietzsche and I really loved it.
Loved it. Thank you!
Beautiful as always. I love the one you did on Hellraiser, Bataille and the Limit Experience.
Maybe look at Yogic Philosophy. The body is cherished.
One again, amazing video ! You should read "the normal and the pathological" from the french philosopher Georges Canguilhem (friend of Foucault and so on). He is a nietzschean philosopher specialized in health and psychology.
Great video as always 👍
Keep up the great work man
Good to see that tendies123 is still going strong
this video is one of my favorites of yours
Whatever you make and however long it takes to make if at all: it's all good. Thank you for your work and have a good one.
Thank you for the video!!
Loving the shorter videos in between the longer projects.
I love this video and your channel :-D
Beautiful video, thank you
not only did i like it, it was exactly what i needed to be reminded of. thank you :)
"Only someone who is continually suffering could invent such happiness" - Nietzsche
"One must imagine Sisyphus happy" - Camus
I wonder if there is a connection.
I think a better connection is a certain interpretation of Nietzsche's parable of the Eternal Return of the Same or the Eternal Recurrence.
Andrew's connection is a more surface one, of how Nietzche's eternal recurrence is analagous to Sisyphus' eternal damnation, but I think the original comment here makes a novel connection, at least one I hadn't seen or thought of before. There absolutely is a connection there, and its interesting.
The gods gave sisyphus one task to do for the rest of eternity, and its a fucking lift. One must imagine Sisyphus is fucking shredded with those gains
there absolutely is, camus openly quotes nietzsche, and admits that his way of thinking is very close to the german philosopher's
@@leonardorestrepo5196 Best comment
Surprised no one in the comments made a link between how Schoepenhauer remarked how a person doesn't feel the health of his whole body as an example of his pessimistic view of existence, with Nietzche, who actually *COULD* feel the whole health of his body, having a more affirming view on life and health.
Thank you for this video :)
great video, as expected
hey, this was great. i would really love to have the sources for the quotes tho, that'd be really neat. you just made me think of how i could possibly incoprate nietzsche into my thesis, i love him so much. i didn't realise he so explicitly wrote about the body. thanks much for researching.
Your analyses of Nietzsche are really refreshing.
Love this channel
Great video
Thanks for the video essay.
Short videos good
Easier to digest
Thank you
Another great summation
I'd argue that Giambattista Vico, before Nietzsche and even Spinoza, was also a thinker of the body. Edward Said has a great essay on this specific topic, which I think is a worthwhile read.
Yes !! Nietzsche mentions him often.
Michael Foucault took his interest of bodies to its absolution with 10yearold boys in Tunisia.
I have to say discovering “the gay science” really made me feel validated on my feelings about science class when I stumbled upon it when I was 11. I never read it but I still loved it
Great video.
Your new video essay comes at a peculiarly pointed time for me, as I am just in the middle of (re)reading the Stefan Zweig book "Der Kampf mit dem Dämon: Hölderlin, Kleist, Nietzsche"(apparently the Nietzsche section was also released as its own book) and I am right on the chapter where he looks at him and his philosophy through the lens of his sicknesses and sufferings of the body, how it informed his philosophy and essentially probably brought forth some of his biggest concepts, especially during the final years of his "sane life".
So I was wondering if you read that book or if your researches were seemingly independent from this Zweig book (which is sort of a romanticized biography on him) and you both arrived at essentially the same conclusion.
Thanks for this video, I had heard about Nietzsche’s health a while ago but hadn’t gotten around to looking into the topic myself. Also wanna say as someone who has struggled with mental health and now being trans, I am immensely glad to have reached a mindset similar to his and to now be studying him. The more I read, the more I find in common, and that which I don’t eventually clicks into place later.
6:34 just a self note, ignore :)
in beauty there is pain and in pain there is beauty
I like that he wrote a book called “The Gay Science”.
He was german, it also translates to "Joyful science"
it was awesome how he wrote it in english and used it to mean homosexuality
Pretty epic move ngl
The adjective "fröhlich" in the German title "die fröhliche Wissenschaft" is actually cognate with the English word "frolic", so in this way we can understand it to mean something like 'frolicsome wisdom' or 'joyful science'. ("Wissenschaft" has a distant etymological relation to "wisdom" in English, but it's better translated more figuratively as "science" or "scholarly discipline")
The German title is itself though a translation of a Provençal expression "gaia scienza" used to describe the art of poetry, which Nietzsche himself interpreted as "that unity of singer, knight, and free spirit."
@@deino1121 me too, that’s my favorite part about it xD
Foucault said that the soul was the prison of the body. cool quote
the way he prioritises the body over the mind or soul should be spoken about more often by everyone
I remember Adam Darski, the singer of the band Behemoth said that getting and recovering from blood cancer was one of the best things to happen to him.
Very interesting! Can't say I agree with everything Nietzsche has to say on the topic but still glad to learn about it.
That was a beautiful quote.
Not exercising or moving enough does lead to digestion issues, so he was right on that.
great vid
even stoics talked about the body; seneca in his letters highlights the importance of cold baths; thank you for your videos
totally missed this one :O Luckily it showed up after watching the last Carefree Wandering just now.
ooh, this highlighting of the body reminds me of embodiment from Graham Jones's Red Enlightenment. Any chance of us getting to hear you two talk philosophy?
based
Nietzschean Scholar Ken Gemes also had a talk regarding Nietzsche on Health. The video could be found at Philosophy Overdose
I enjoyed it!
I understand his love for hours and hours of hiking so much.
Extra data. Though Plato was jacked (there is a theory that Plato was nickname for his powerful omoplatus cause he participated in throwing disk), the modern dualists Descartes and Malebranche were sickly as fuck. Descartes was always seen as sick and pale and part of his main objective and reason of why he studied biology so much was to see if he could extend his own life; he even followed diets and shit. With Malebranche its worse: the guy had been born with a weird spine disease that gave him constant pain and sometimes bound him to his bed. I would say that it seems to be that they had different reactions to the same pain but in reality I think they lived in different contexts with differents of the body and mind/soul.
Thank you
mental health sufferring since i can remember. naturally the mind and body are connected. thanks for this. hang in there the best you can to all who suffer
We all just have to keep fighting no matter what. It doesn't matter how difficult things are, we always have the capacity to overcome
This is very interesting and each person will interpret their own suffering accordingly. I do however take issue with the broad ableist takeaways that suffering creates a heightened appreciation of not-suffering, and this having been extrapolated by culture to basically mean suffering affirms life, and that great art and great expression comes causally from suffering. Having been sick from birth I do not have a great appreciation of the times when I am not sick (perhaps that too is part of my sickness), and I spend a considerable amount of time wondering what my life would be like, and what the size and complexity of my creative output would be were I free from my multiple disabilities and conditions. I understand that the period after an intense hangover, or migraine, when even the simplest things can bring you the pleasure of being free from pain can make one wonder about how wonderful things are, but perhaps for the chronically ill, who simply await the next flare up of their condition, they don't quite feel this revelation so sharply, and just pass the time until things will be difficult again. At least, that is my experience.
I think what is interesting to point out is that there is no fundamentally universal disabled experience. For some that relief does make life worth living. For others it's unquestionable that there's a strong air of hopelessness. Even among the chronically ill the opinions of this are extremely wide and varying. Every experience is unique here.
I think disability as a subject is always in conflict with itself as a result of important nuances like this force us to analyze disability from a perspective that reconsiders the idea of a disabled subject altogether and recognizing it emerges from a complex interaction between society, the body and labor.
Either way I don't think analyzing a specific case study is necessarily ableist in of itself. It is a description of one person's experience. The problem I think stems more from how an overarching perspective of disability could be formed from a particular perspective, erasing nuance.
Ok , i mean no ableism , and no ill intentions :
But would you take your life ?
If not why ?
Your illness is sadly and largely outside your control ,
Such there is little use in wondering what it could have been ,
There is only use in wondering what it could be ,
Why is your illness bearable ?
Pain =/= enlightment or anything good most of the times ,
Recovery on the other hand , even temporary one , even the lightening of pain , that is the good stuff ,
And yeah i get it if you can't experience it fully ,
What i can say is are there some things that at least make you forget about your chronic illness at least for a short while ?
Cause those things are the things that i guess you should do ,
But yeah i am a stranger on the internet i don't know you and i don't have chronic illness so i am terribly sorry if i was offensive ,
Have a nice day man
It would be interesting to see if people who are in chronic pain think differently of utilitarianism than people who haven't experienced much suffering. I have some back pain but nothing serious and I would consider myself a utilitarian, I wonder if experiencing large amounts of pain would make me more utilitarian or less. I could imagine, experiencing something really bad makes me more focused on suffering, more focused on making people happy or it might make me appreciate the positive sides of suffering and make me doubt utilitarianism.
I can't know where I fall, as it's really hard to actually compare inner worlds, but as someone who has suffered a lot mentally while generally being fine physically, I understand where Nietzsche is coming from, but it ultimately feels like a form of cope, because the opposite of it, which is what I believe, is that the suffering is and was both meaningless and unnecessary, which is kind of existentially horrifying. It's the universe dumping on you for no good reason and telling you to just hold the L. I just try to move forward with that reality, as I see it, in mind so as to make sure others experience this existential horror as little as possible.
Most people with some sort of disability who are aware of it despise utilitarian thought because it tends to be dismissive of their experiences. Not to mention how some utilitarians (like Singer) write about the disabled.
I think something to be critical of with utilitarianism in regards to illness is that the measure of "pleasure" is a completely arbitrary selection of value, and the way we measure the value of people with longterm illness is based more on social expectation and interpretation of that illness rather than the lived experience. People with illness also have a lot of ideas on improving their own lives that is often lost on the assumption that their lives are not worth living because they're not pleasurable - you can see how this is a self affirming situation that could be changed by listening to the perspective of the ill
My father basically ruined his spine. In his advanced age, basically one of the disks in his back is now like chalk. He is waiting to die at this point. All he ever had to tell me was to work smart, not hard, because he ruined his body. If his experience was in any way meaningful to him, it was too late to extrapolate any meaning from it. He told me on a number of occasions that he wished he could go back and do it over again. So he certainly didn't find any utility in being in constant pain and having to be on opiates for it.
Thank you for your video !
I wonder if you ever heard of the marxist philosopher György Lukács and especially his very interesting writings on Nietzsche : Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (The Destruction of reason)
I don’t know if they are available in English, I’ve partly read them in French but hopefully they are also available in other languages that you might be able to read because I would really like to know what you think about it and maybe they could even be a source of inspiration for you !
a lot to think about
Walt Whitman is the poetic counterpart of Nietzsche's view of the body.
Lets go
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I suspect that we disagree on many things … but I’ve never not learned when I’ve listen to you, I’ve even encouraged my children to learn from you and even cite your work in their own basic academic endeavours. So for this I thank you. One can also never discount the amusement gained from listening to the effort put into the names of your supporters :)
I'd love to hear your take on the anime called "ergo proxy", it's truly an underrated gem.
Is it Nietzschean in anyway?
@@thomaspynchon8400 yes
it's got the right attitude to morality
also the ending is a celebration of one of deleuze and guattari's best ideas (the solution to the problem of the real)
I liked the video
Could we say that Schopenhauer was also one of Nietzsche's predecessors who put his main focus on the body, in a somewhat similar fashion as Spinoza ? Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation repudiates the kantian notion of transcendental ego and removes the value on transcendental concepts; all concepts for him are practical in nature, they only relate to a living body inseparable from the world, as a part of it, and representing itself the world under general categories so that it can navigate the diversity of what can be sensed. Any notion that eludes the representing and represented body are categorical mistakes and don't actually denote anything, making the body, its senses, and its drives to survive the starting point and finish line of any metaphysical inquiry.
He most likely had irritable bowel syndrome, tried many experimental diets but that only made his indigestion worse
All plants are toxic
Love u
I don't like the idea that health can only be obtained through suffering.
I believe it is good to have an ideal conception of health we aspire to that doesn't require suffering.
Do you say that as one who faces illness or no? I don't wish suffering on others and believe one can be happy and fufilled without great pain, but, there is a beauty and aliveness that really is only accessable with these kinds of experiences. There is no appreciation for the simplicity of being alive nor of the smallest of joys as is possible after regaining the ability to enjoy and actually exist.
One can take that to romanticize or desire suffering, but it can also be taken as an affirmation of life and as a signal to those who don't live with illness to stop pitying us and honor our existence and perspective.
Your idealism will only lead you to suffering
It’s more like the only way to attain a sincere appreciation for what it means to be healthy is by overcoming whatever comes to ail you, which something inevitably will regardless of your regimen. As such, you can become a “yes-sayer” for life, as N. Used to put it.
Working out require some level of suffering, so that we can grow our bodies, the avoidance of suffering is the denial of the nature of life. This suffering is part of what makes life beautiful
@@thetruth4654 all suffering is not the same. I actually enjoy the feeling of doms. There are forms of sore and pain that can register as good. The suffering of illness that brings the joy spoken of in this video is the kind that swallows you in it. That you are not but holding on, each moment to the next, waiting in hope that it will eventually end and you will be allowed to live again.
It’s interesting to consider health in this way. Many of us for example take our metabolisms for granted and easily judge those who are obese. Never have we had to try to overcome or own biology in that way to lose weight. On top of this something like less than 10% of weight loss from dieting sticks long term. Nonetheless we tout healthy living as if that’ll even work
Heath is participation in Purusha( Pure Form) by the human compound either by the quelling of disharmony or by accord to a predetermined ratio with respect to the subject of health. As in Ayurveda proper, the three qualities are derived from the combination of the five elements: vette from ether and air, pitha from fire and water, and kapha from water and earth. It is the participation of product Prakriti ( pure matter) which leads to health. In modern Greek the word for health is still "harmonikos"( or something) and disease ( stenaharmonikos or whatever). This arises from the Oder behind nature.
lol, the part I really zeroed in on here was the patreon supporter Max Bendick. fuckin whew. made my day
Happy birthday Marx!
Also, very interesting video. I am currently reading the untimely meditiations again. They are such good works. As a history student I particularly like On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, but then again who doesn't?
there's no way you'll be able to dig any joy out of this topic without the help of deleuze (nietzsche's "great health" as life at a perpetually overwhelming intensity)
So maybe the reason why I can't enjoy the simplest things in life is I don't suffer enough, and this lack of suffering is hindering my appreciation of life, and this ungrateful outlook is causing me pain, making me suffer, which in turn is good, cuz long periods of suffering would make for a great recovery afterwards and allow me to experience happiness, so I just have to focus on how great the recovery is gonna feel when it happens and wait for it.
I'm looking forward to it. I hope I can hold on to and make the most out of it when it comes. I hope it comes.
i guess peter wessel zapffe would say that’s 2 out of 4 of the defensive mechanisms humans use isolation and sublimation
Sounds very much like Nietzsche had Chron's disease.