The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as it relates to drug use

[Hyperreal]

Just wondering if anyone else here is interested in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Anyone read Thus Spake Zarathustra?


I particularly like the idea that "God is dead and we have killed him". It seems to me that all use of psychedelics and mind-expansion through drugs or other means -the whole psychedelic project - can only really take off since God died. Now is an exciting time to be alive, for now man is free to be and to mean and to do anything he wishes in the universe.


Anyone?

[Inferno13]

I think that the idea wasn't so much that he was dead. I think
that was incidental. I think the main idea was to say that we
don't need god to be in charge of what we do or to tell us what to
do. We are free to think as we please without having to worry
about what a religion says a god thinks about our actions. My
idea of a deity would be more along the lines of Buddha. Sort of
a role model to work towards. A deity that suggests a way to get
to a heightened state of being but doesn't force you like other more
conventional and orthodox deities.

[sunyata]

Nietzsche was a good philosopher, one of my favourites. You might want to check out Max Stirner, too. He was a germananarchist philosopher who eveloved some of Nietzsches ideas further. He died in misery too, it seems like there are few rewards in this life for pursuing the path of freedom and truth. The ideal of the Superman should be taken seriously, I think it's the only thing that might "save" the world. We just have to be careful so we don't end up like Nazi's.


Rudolph Steiner was also very inspired by both Nietzsche and Stirner. Anthroposophy, which is based on Steiners Teachings, has sadly degraded and become a lot more rigid and mainstream than what was intended. They have good schools, though.

[Hyperreal]

Originally Posted by Inferno13

I think that the idea wasn't so much that he was dead. I think that was incidental. I think the main idea was to say that we don't need god to be in charge of what we do or to tell us what to do. We are free to think as we please without having to worry about what a religion says a god thinks about our actions.

Agreed. That's what Nietzsche meant, but that's only because God died. In the Middle Ages, for example, people were not free to live without worrying about God. Man is only free from God since the nineteenth century.

Sort of a role model to work towards. A deity that suggests a way to get to a heightened state of being but doesn't force you like other more conventional and orthodox deities.

That's basically what Nietzsche advocated: replacing God with the Ubermensch.

[William_Again]

I have read some Nietzsche and numerous other existential philosophers.
Its all worth reading, but I find existentialism to be rather sad in
theroy, others find it liberating.

[Hyperreal]

I definitely find existentialism liberating. I mean, liberation is what it's all about, the idea that we're totally, absolutely, spectacularly free in the universe.I also find it sits very well with psychedelic drug use. It surprises me how little existentialism has influenced the psychedelic movement so far.

[Stingray_313]

"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to
exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable:
intoxication"

--Friedrich Nietzsche



I absolutely love that quote. So true and put into words we cannot explain. And they say drugs dont bring creativity. Ha!

[mariecurie]

My favorite thing about Nietzsche is that he makes so much sense about
everything except his blatant misogynism. I can't read his quote about
how any woman who seeks knowledge must have a malfunctioning sexual
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[Hyperreal]

My favorite thing about Nietzsche is that he makes so much sense about everything except his blatant misogynism.

Ha ha. Well said. That's very true. I always think, whenever I come across one of his thoughts that 'make no sense' amidst all the wise ones, that you have to cut him a bit of slack for being so insane.


Here's a nice misogynistic one: "Men should be trained for war and women for the recreation of the warrior."


And a drug one: "A little poison now and then:
that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death."

[mariecurie]

Hah I'd never read those quotes before. I'm very familiar with his
aphorisms but not so much so with his actual texts. Where would you
recommend I start reading because I have a compilation of his texts.



Nietzsche is one of the most quotable men ever.

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[Hyperreal]

Where would you recommend I start reading because I have a compilation of his texts.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, definitely.

[mariecurie]

Thanks, I'll have to private message you sometime once I get into it. What other philosophy are you into?



I love Sartre and the existentialist school personally. I also like TImothy Leary's philosophy because it makes me laugh

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[Hyperreal]

I love Sartre, too, and the rest of the existentialists. I consider Nietzsche an existentialist.


Leary is great, but of the 'heads', I respect Aldous Huxley the most. His thought was always clear and imaginative, and the extent of his learning and understanding of both Western and Eastern cultures was staggering.


I'm also into structuralism and postmodernism, like Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jean-Francois Lyotard and especially Jean Baudrillard (from whom the notion of the 'hyperreal' comes). Another very interesting postmodern thinker, though few would call him a philosopher, is Andy Warhol. Oscar Wilde has also had a massive influence on me.Edited by: Hyperreal

[sauvage]

I got into Nietzsche through biodynamics which is a very practical offshoot of anthroposopy. I find the guy very entertaining, about 90% nonsense and 10% brilliance.

I don't consider to be such a thing as free will, try willing yourself to stop breathing and see how long you will last.

[Lightbulb-breaking]

Swim's been thinking about the corrolation between drug use and existentialism. The basis of existentialism is all about freedom, liberation and how being free is being able to make a choice while not being affected by outside factors but only by ones self. So looking at that you gotta ask, if someone uses drugs and becomes an addict does he compromise his freedom? Because at that point there is no way of knowing if certain decisions wern't made if he/she didn't have a sort of dedication to the drug. Either way we have no way of really knowing. I guess that's what Nietzsche meant by inauthenticity, outer entrapments prevent one from expressing the fullest potential of their freedom. What are everyone elses thoughts on this?

[dyingtomorrow]

SWIM was very influenced by Nietzsche when he was a young teenager. It is not a happy way to go through life though. SWIM has given up trying to have one philosophy dominate another in his mind, rather, his goal is to understand each (self coherent and fundamentally irrefutable within it's own constructs) philosophical system as fully as possible, and be able to switch points of view within himself. Kind of like having multiple personality disorder.

Ecstasy helped SWIM get over a lot of the depressing fundamental truths of much of what Nietzsche spoke.

[Expat98]

I have changed the title of this thread to, "The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as it relates to drug use." Please make sure that discussion in this thread stays on this topic (as opposed to Nietzsche's philosophy in general). The last 2 posts in January '09 are good examples of how Nietzsche's philosophy and existentialism can be discussed within the context of drug use.

[Joe-(5-HTP)]

The drug of the "slaves": alcohol, allows them to forget their painful hypocritical and disgusting existence.

The drugs of the "masters": psychedelics and so on, allow the exploration of the reality within and outside.

If the average "slave" attempted to use psychedelics like the masters do, it would probably drag up all the painful emotions they try to suppress with alcohol and they would go mad...

People who used drugs and then stopped, and decided to go around preaching to the herd about how they managed to stop taking "evil" drugs is the modern day equivalent of Nietzsche's saint or the fallen free spirit.

Originally Posted by dyingtomorrow

SWIM was very influenced by Nietzsche when he was a young teenager. It is not a happy way to go through life though. SWIM has given up trying to have one philosophy dominate another in his mind, rather, his goal is to understand each (self coherent and fundamentally irrefutable within it's own constructs) philosophical system as fully as possible, and be able to switch points of view within himself. Kind of like having multiple personality disorder.

Ecstasy helped SWIM get over a lot of the depressing fundamental truths of much of what Nietzsche spoke.

I am very influenced by Nietzsche's work, but i personally don't find it depressing at all... I think my ego is just so happy at feeling that it is right and everyone else it wrong that the subject matter just isn't really important lol...

Although, i am equally influenced by many other philosophers including Wittgenstein, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida so it's not like i am obsessed with just Nietzsche... but generally i agree with what Nietzche termed "painfull truths"

The way i dealt with it was thus: with the realisation that the only reason i believed in the existence of "purpose" was due to social influences, came the realisation that the only reason i would feel depressed at that realisation was also social influences...

When i had that realisation, i began choosing for myself what i felt. Reason > emotion

[Politicalchalk]

Swim's stuied "Fritz" (as his friends and fam called him) extensively and is a philosophy major. Swim used to have this routine where he'd ride his bike over to grandma's to grab some muffins or something, and take opiates and nietzche's works with him to the park. At the risk of sounding arrogant, Swim almost feels as an authority on Fritz.

Firstly, "God is dead" -- it doesn't mean that God has literally died, or that Jesus (who, according to Xians, IS god) died on the cross. Zarathustra was written in a highly metaphorical sense. Here, he is trying to say the notion of believing in God is no longer valid -- god here represents the old way of thinking, whereas Zarathustra, coming down from the mountain, comes to usher in a new age where people strive, not to be in god's image, but to create an image for themseleves.

When Swim was 13, he was exactly what The Gap wanted him to be and had to original thinking. It wasn't until Swim started experimenting with LSD that he began to think for himself, and became intrinsically fascinated with philosophy. By 15, Swim had started "A Commucratic Republic" with his friends which was largely based on psychedelic rituals (and stoner hilarity!). It was around this time Swim discovered existentialism (whose fathers, btw, are fritz and kierkeggard). Swim was going to a Jesuit-run Catholic school and had been forced to take things like bible and theology classes...an interesting specimen of mind for those Swimmers who no longer believed in god and would regularly take LSD before school.

To some it may seem irresponsible, but ingesting LSD before going to learn actually improved Swim's mind. He found himself with an incredibly accelerated thought process and was able to process information in incredible, new ways. At 13, Swim took the Tim Leary approach and would use LSD as a sacrament, much as the Xians around ate wafer-cookies as a sacrament ("the body of christ" -- cannibalism if you ask me!). So the process went as such. In a world-religions class, he studied the monotheistic religions, than the polytheistic Hinduism, and culminating in Buddhism, where you can believe almost anything, but ideas like "god" and "soul" are simply not necessary and seen as merely getting in the way (though, there's no such thing as "pure buddhism," so that's why it's possible to still maintain long held beleifs and still be a buddhist). Swim immediately found his local Buddhists and began to practice with them.

Buddhism is obviously an Eastern religion. Schopenhaur and Nietszche were among the first philosopher's to have access to the translated eastern works, and Swim found Buddhism encapsulated in Fritz's work. Eventually he read 'Twilight of the Idols' -- the greatest example of a complete summation of his mature philosophy and it changed his life. There was a passage on how one of the 'Great errors of mankind' was confusing cause and effect. That specific passage started a new way of thinking for Swim -- and had an amazingly similar to those days of LSD > Trig > Hamlet > Buddhism > Lunch.

So, to end this post, Swim sits here today with a high degree of cognitive liberty. He thinks and acts for himself, not following a Religion, Philosopher, or Legislature for his own morality and ethics. That's not to say he's un-influenced by them, but feels, thanks to Shakyamuni Buddha, Nietszche, and LSD, he's able to actually use his mind instead of...well, let's put it this way: YOU tell your brain what to do, not the other way around! (sans neurobiology)

It is also of interesting note that Nietszche was not opposed to drug use. Like many of the prominant thinkers (and even laymen) of his time, new, fascinating chemicals like ether and chloroform were readily available. Fritz had some miserable health problems and has read from more than one source that he was known to have extensively used Chloral Hydrate.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent post. Psychedelics have been known to kindle an interest an philosophy. ;)

[insomnizombie]

i find nietzsche's work to be both depressing and liberating. i don't agree with some of it and i don't understand even more of it but even still having read most all he wrote i have never learned so much from any other single person. i liked how he adressed the matter of his sometimes overly complicated writing by saying he doesn't nessisarily wish to be understood by all and he purposfully wrote in a way that only those he wished to communicate to would be able to desifer.

but no one man is god or has all the answers so don't be to put off by his more depressing thoughts as they are ultimately just his personal beliefs, they don't have to be yours. and i don't buy into his views of women. although it is funny and makes me laugh he does seem to have a pregidous against females and i don't think he gives them nearly enough credit. even though not all he says about them are negative it seems he feels of the two male and female genders, females are the inferior and i would strongly dissagree. its no wonder he never had a girlfriend and probably died a virgin lol.

what i like about him is even when you put all his work aside he is just a genuinely interesting person and as you read through his pearls of wisdom you also get to know him in a very personal way. i found myself wanting to read more and more of his writings because not only was it eye opening and full of knowledge but i was genuinely curious to know how this person saw things and his opinions and how he felt about this or that regardless of whether or not i agreed with it.

i think existentialism is very condusive to drug use. its all about there is no point to your life except the meaning you give to it and there is no such thing as god or sin so live exactly the way you wish to cause when your gone your gone and thats it. therefore personal freedome is the most valuable thing you can ever have. in my opinion being addicted to a drug is still having personal freedome because there is proof that if a person really wants to they can quit using any drug and i don't think that anyone is the exception. if you're trapt mentally there is no one but you who could have possibly built the walls around you meaning maybe for whatever reason you wish to be trapt on some level. when you really desire to be free you will tear the walls around you down... but sometimes its nice and cozy behind those protective walls and a person is quite comfortable to be safely tucked away in there little barrackade they made.