What does Nietzsche mean when he says 'deep'? He'll say something like:
>"Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood."
but then there's:
>"Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.”
What does he mean by this?
>>7515950
He means people who think in a very deliberate, careful, or extensive manner.
e.g., Socrates or Plato could be considered "deep thinkers" due to the extensive critical thought and analysis of their own ideas and sounding them out through extended dialog.
>"Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood."
Not sure, but if I had to guess I'd say it has to do with the conclusions of that sort of thought aren't always palatable to others.
The second one seems pretty obvious on its own. I'm not sure how it ties together with the first one though, sorry. Maybe someone else will.
All his quotes "go with" other quotes of his. That way you have to read him more.
Your first goes with "That which is explained ceases to concern us" which is really a condensing of what Schope says in more words somewhere.
The second one goes with his stuff about women, "Women are not deep, they are not even shallow." He is just referring to the psychological depth of knowledge/anguish/self-awareness and nuance of behaviour/will more prevalent in men and great men. He also goes on to say that he himself doesn't really wish to be understood presumably because of the quote I wrote above, i.e. he wants to be read.
an idea should be easy to absorb but difficult to assimilate. so if the writer cant come up with something original, he will choose obfuscation.
>>7515950
Look at that second quote again; what does he say is "deep"? It's the thinker. Fine, okay, but what *doesn't* he say? He doesn't say that the thinker's writings or discourses are deep, just the thinker.
What does this mean? Well, what are our options? A deep thinker writes with clarity, a deep thinker does not write with clarity, a shallow thinker does not write with clarity, a shallow thinker writes with clarity.
Nietzsche's obscuring on purpose--he can be a deep thinker, *and not tell you quite what he's thinking*. The trick is to think alongside him, and only then will the clarity of his thought be discovered.
We also have another possibility that gets ignored when it comes to fans of Nietzsche discussing these passages: is it not possible that someone can be deep *and* want to appear deep to the crowd? Note that the crowd isn't even going to investigate it *anyway*; they're afraid of water, how in the hell would they know the difference between deep water and shallow water if they're afraid of it anyway?
Who are the people who read Nietzsche? Is it the crowd? No, the crowd dismisses him outright; he's anti-Christian, he's a philosopher, he's a Nazi, whatever--they were never going to read him, and will continue not to read him, and he himself is fine with that and it's part of the intention of his bombastic style (In the Nachlass of 1885-1886 he says that "it is today necessary to speak temporarily in a coarse manner and to act coarsely. What is fine and concealed is no longer understood, not even by those who are related to us. That of which one does not speak loudly and cry out, is not there." and in the Nachlass of 1882 he says that "to speak much of oneself is also a way of hiding oneself.").
Look what else the passage says--the crowd is afraid of whoever wants to appear deep to them.
He's doing something else here. You ever wonder why a man as timid and as kind as Nietzsche would write so violently? He *knows* it's an appearance; look at how he discusses masks and acting in BGE.
"He hates Plato," but he doesn't, and the only two passages about Dionysus in BGE link them together. That "Nietzscheans" are convinced he hates Plato means the mask was a success. What's he aiming for?
>>7517389
>You ever wonder why a man as timid and as kind as Nietzsche would write so violently?
from his writing tips:
4. Since the writer lacks many of the speaker’s means, he must in general have for his model a very expressive kind of presentation of necessity, the written copy will appear much paler.
8. The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.
9. Strategy on the part of the good writer of prose consists of choosing his means for stepping close to poetry but never stepping into it.
>he was secretely the total opposite of what he wrote, my dogmatic exegesis proves it
ZZzzzz
>>7517890
Have you ever read his letters? Really sentimental stuff. Kinda cute. His books? Meaner than he was in life; if you think that's irrelevant, you've missed the point. It's interesting that of the ten suggestions for writing you've quoted (from a letter to a woman he was clearly interested in and wanted to impress, remember), that you've suppressed any that might have something to do with considering your audience. Like:
2. Style should be suited to the specific person with whom you wish to communicate. (The law of mutual relation.)
3. First, one must determine precisely “what-and-what do I wish to say and present,” before you may write. Writing must be mimicry.
10. It is not good manners or clever to deprive one’s reader of the most obvious objections. It is very good manners and very clever to leave it to one’s reader alone to pronounce the ultimate quintessence of our wisdom.
All well and good! Also not the sum of his "art of writing"! Let me quote again:
"It is today necessary to speak temporarily in a coarse manner and to act coarsely. What is fine and concealed is no longer understood, not even by those who are related to us. That of which one does not speak loudly and cry out, is not there."
and
"To speak much of oneself is also a way of hiding oneself."
Or do you think that he just told Salome *everything* he thought? Like he didn't hide or conceal things from her as well?
>>7515950
Remember that quote where he said something like
>Every philosophy presented is not the actual beliefs of the author but simply a mask, what we see as their stopping point is only their starting point
Someone else find the exact phrasing, I think it was in BGE. I think this qualifies what seems like a direct contradiction between those two quotes you presented.
The deep thinkers not wanting to be understood thing I just take as his pessimism peaking through, he thinks the truth frightens people and ones strength can be measured by how much truth one can endure(the last part of that can be quoted). Nietzsche changes his views over time though, if you read his works you see an organic progression, and he might not stand by what he has said in the past so keep that in mind when interpreting different fragments.
>Clarity and Obscurity
He sees idealists as obscure, talking about things that they simply made up and are difficult to understand. This ties into how idealisms lead the crowd and he's saying it's a rhetorical tool to do so.
Anyway, make more of an effort to pay attention to literally everything he says. I believe you are doing what Nietzsche considers reading badly, plundering the text for tidbits to take up and forgetting the rest which would explain why when something in the whole might not be so contradictory(that is within the context of his thought properly understood) you are disturbed by a superficial contrariness.
>>7515984
>"That which is explained ceases to concern us"
>i.e. he wants to be read.
lol i completely forgot this
>>7517890
>>he was secretely the total opposite of what he wrote, my dogmatic exegesis proves it
Not necessarily dogmatic it's just that his remark about Plato with Arisophanes under his pillow and that one must have chaos within them to give birth to a dancing star, he was at least conflicted about Plato and for good reason - personally I think the dialogues were exclusively pedagogical tools.
>"Women are considered deep – why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow." -Frederich Nietzsche
>>7520157
Haven't heard any words that rang more bloody true than these.
