Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
That is an interesting concept. However, many great artists were nasty human beings, not to be admired at all, except for thier art. Ex. Miles Davis
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Well a distinction can be made there. Nietzsche loved Wagner's music but hated his anti-semitism. Nietzsche was a great admirer of Wagner at first but they had a break and Nietzsche wrote about it. But he wouldn't subscribe to the simple notion that nice people are to be admired and nasty people are to be frowned upon. The issue is a lot more complicated than that for him, and he can see that so called "evil" men may have helped preserve or advance the human race at times.
Maybe a quote would help illuminate some of his complicated thoughts on morality, on good/evil, on niceness. Obviously this is merely a short sample of his complicated thoughts on those subjects.
From The Gay Science (116)
Herd Instinct - Wherever we encounter a morality, we also encounter valuations and an order of rank of human impulses and actions. These valuations and orders of rank are always expressions of the needs of a community and herd: whatever benefits it most - and second most, and third most - that is also considered the first standard for the value of individuals. Morality trains the individual to be a function of the herd and to ascribe value to himself only as a function. The conditions for the preservation of different communities were very different; hence there were very different moralities. Considering essential changes in the forms of future herds and communities, states and societies, we can prophesy that there will yet be very divergent moralities. Morality is herd instinct in the individual.