Rare and Valuable

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Let’s talk about rare, valuable individuals—and two of what I take to be their defining characteristics: strength, and courage.

Combining strength and courage in a single person is almost impossible to do. These are qualities that don’t fit, together, well. Someone who is plenty strong for any task rarely needs to summon any courage. And someone who exhibits any courage would only need to if they felt comparatively weak. You should wonder what the acts that make a person rare and valuable look like. But more specifically, how would such a person philosophise? That’s a rhetorical question, (bitches).

Let’s take Satyr as a test case, using his last few posts.

In his last post, he calls out the “sheeple”, picks out a few of them for name-calling and ad hom, and then lists their bonding principles. There’s an argumentative method here—an epistemology, if you will. The strategy is to take a type of person, focus on what ideas they have, and then reject the ideas based on the type of person that they are. That’s obvious from the structure of his post—and there’s often nothing wrong with that general strategy. It’s sometimes called the genetic fallacy, but it’s usually not a fallacy. Similarly, it’s often a perfectly legit manoeuvre to reject an idea based on what kind of person it’s likely to make you. If idea X tends to make you into type of person Y, and Y is disvaluable, then you ought to reject X.

I’m sure that elsewhere he has made the case about why Y is disvaluable. And in any case, just assume that he’s right---since the point is not whether he’s right, but about what kind of person/philosopher his method reveals him as.

There’s a theme. The target is always the simple, pathetic, weak, and such-like. That’s clear from what he says and thinks about the people he’s picked out. And this is required because of his method. (Ideas have real life consequences, and you affirm or reject the ideas based on the value or disvalue of their consequences). How courageous of him, to ward you off of ideas so well-represented in his own mind. It’s as if seeing someone choke to death on a coffee cup wasn’t a good enough argument against trying to eat a coffee cup. And such strength he must have---to face the proponents of these ideas more or less head-on, as they must be choking.

The point isn’t about whether his valuations of any of these ideas are right or wrong, or whether the people who hold to them are weak, pathetic, etc. The point, without any psychologizing, is just about what such a method says of the man. And so it only matters that he thinks these people are weak and pathetic and etcetera.

So, what does the method make its user out to be, then? Well, it strikes me that it is tantamount to philosophizing like one of those bugs that are drawn to piles of shit and rotting corpses for their sustenance. Whereas he attacks the ideas by the character of the person who holds them, I just now tried to shed light on the character by the quality of the ideas he attacks. There's no insult here, to tell someone that they're not very rare. In any case, the method is well-represented in the history of philosophy... which I won't bother expanding on.

And I think the only fitting way to end this post is for us all to sing, “For he’s a jolly good felllloow, for he’s a jolly good feeellowww…”

Mo wrote:

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Let’s talk about rare, valuable individuals—and two of what I take to be their defining characteristics: strength, and courage.

Combining strength and courage in a single person is almost impossible to do. These are qualities that don’t fit, together, well. Someone who is plenty strong for any task rarely needs to summon any courage. And someone who exhibits any courage would only need to if they felt comparatively weak.

Really? Then a man strong enough to start a battle but lacking the courage to persist and fight must count as a rare, valuable individual to you, like a scholar who may be strong enough to handle and organize enormous data but lacking the courage for an intellectual conscience,,, and the man propelled by his own strength to unleash courage must count as common and useless to you . How revealing.

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You should wonder what the acts that make a person rare and valuable look like. But more specifically, how would such a person philosophise? That’s a rhetorical question, (bitches).

Lets wonder about you then. What a Socratic beginning, positing one standard for all herd and rare alike. Like virtues were static abs. givens. Strength. Virtue. - Platonic ideals...

A Platonist philosophizes with lowest common denominators.

Basically you came here to ask, if you have it, why show it?

Flaunting and Egoism is EVIL?
How Xt.

Yawn.

You forgot intelligence as a decisive trait.

If you wish to psychoanalyze, do so.

Factor in a variable you did not mention: environment.
Why is Satyr forced to deal with such individuals when in any other instance they are beneath his contempt and could easily be ignored?

If I attack a person's character it is only in addition to attacking his positions. I do not separate the thinker from the thought.
Christians like to say that "Christianity is good, but the Christian is bad, or in unable to be true to the dogma".
Therefore, Communism is good, but the Marxist fails to live up to the ideals perfection; Nazism is good, and the Nazi fails to live-up to the ideals perfection...etc.

For me, an idiotic idea can only be believed in by an idiot.

Yes, intelligence, and other virtues…

Satyr wrote:

If I attack a person's character it is only in addition to attacking his positions. I do not separate the thinker from the thought.

Neither do I; how an idea shapes a person is a gauge of the idea’s value. And so there’s nothing wrong with directing arrows at a person’s character, to discredit an idea. I hope I didn’t say anything misleading about that.

Anyways, I don’t know why you were forced to deal with such individuals. My guess is that you didn’t mean to say that you were forced.

Lyssa wrote:

Really? Then a man strong enough to start a battle but lacking the courage to persist and fight must count as a rare, valuable individual to you, like a scholar who may be strong enough to handle and organize enormous data but lacking the courage for an intellectual conscience,,,

No, neither of these cases are both strength and courage together. I think you misread me. Perhaps more straightforwardly: strength and courage are often only inversely proportional in people---i.e., you show courage only to the extent that you lack strength in comparison with your target. And you never need courage if you are plenty strong for the task. When these qualities go together, as they go together, you have something rare and valuable.

I do not know what you were responding to when you mentioned egoism and Plato and Xity and everything else. Hopefully I'm clearer now.

Mo wrote:

Yes, intelligence, and other virtues…

Satyr wrote:

If I attack a person's character it is only in addition to attacking his positions. I do not separate the thinker from the thought.

Neither do I; how an idea shapes a person is a gauge of the idea’s value. And so there’s nothing wrong with directing arrows at a person’s character, to discredit an idea. I hope I didn’t say anything misleading about that.

No, it is easy...and womanly.

To argue against the idea, first, before getting to why the individual took to it, is more honest.

Otherwise, you can cast aspersions about anyone, and say nothing against their opinions.
Darwin's theory can be dismissed simply by finding some human failing and exaggerating it.

Mo wrote:

Anyways, I don’t know why you were forced to deal with such individuals. My guess is that you didn’t mean to say that you were forced.

No, I meant to say all of it.It was me adapting to their attacks.
They could not argue against my views, so they started finding creative ways to explain my motives...because for them all opinions must flatter and benefit the one who holds them...immediately and easily.
Therefore, my opinion that beauty is not skin-deep and not superficial, makes me one handsome devil.
You see, for the moron, to believe in something must have direct, and easy, positive consequences.

Thing is, I knew and expected and wanted them to attack me, personally...because it gave the the opportunity to unleash and tell them exactly what I thought, without political-correct reservations.

Isn't it interesting that not even in their Rant House are Satyr's rants tolerated?
The one place in their entire board, dedicated to mediocrity, where they claim all is permitted, and Satyr's opinion are not.

Satyr wrote:

To argue against the idea, first, before getting to why the individual took to it, is more honest.

I don’t see what you mean. If you don’t separate the thinker from the thought, then addressing one is the same as addressing the other. An idiot himself is enough of an argument against his ideas, because as you said, he can only believe idiotic ones.

In my view, it’s enough to expose the origin and acceptance of an idea to expose it’s likely falsity---or at least it’s value in thinking true. It’s a common method. Side point: I doubt if Nietzsche has a different argumentative method for anything he says about slave morality, in anything he wrote.

Anyways, I don’t see anything dishonest about psychologizing---only dishonest psychologizing. Bad psychologizing is bad.

Satyr wrote:

Thing is, I knew and expected and wanted them to attack me, personally...because it gave the the opportunity to unleash and tell them exactly what I thought, without political-correct reservations...Isn't it interesting that not even in their Rant House are Satyr's rants tolerated?

It’s a shame you had to provoke an invitation to speak. And no, it's not interesting. Is it interesting to you, given what you think of them?

Mo wrote:

Satyr wrote:

To argue against the idea, first, before getting to why the individual took to it, is more honest.

I don’t see what you mean. If you don’t separate the thinker from the thought, then addressing one is the same as addressing the other. An idiot himself is enough of an argument against his ideas, because as you said, he can only believe idiotic ones.

I'm saying that it is easy to cast aspersions about someone, without touching the issue, or his opinions.
I do the reverse: I begin with the idea at hand, and from there I proceed to the individual behind it....especially if I see resistance not based no reason.
Someone can make a mistake and accept it....

Mo wrote:

Anyways, I don’t see anything dishonest about psychologizing---only dishonest psychologizing. Bad psychologizing is bad.

As with everything, not all are equally talented.
We are all weak (need, dependent) but not equally so; we are all ignorant, but not equally so; we all project, but not with the same precision.

Mo wrote:

It’s a shame you had to provoke an invitation to speak. And no, it's not interesting. Is it interesting to you, given what you think of them?

Not I, Lyssa.
Then she gave me access to her membership to address the morons directly.
It's not for long, as you can see.
They are already amassing the excuses to banish. The Rant House is presumably not for ranting, when it comes from Satyr.
But that's part of the experiment.
You miss the motive.

When I enter, I make myself accessible to those, silent readers, who have no idea what I am about or what I stand for.
Lyssa, on her own, was a good ambassador for what we are about here, but she lacks the temperament to indulge these inditos on their elvel.
She's too academic and soft...though she may insult them.
I know what hurts them and how to get to that soft-spot.
You can see how the same insult "moron", used by Lyssa and I, had a different effect. it's not the oewrod itself, because these retards use it often against each other...it's the context, the position in the phrase, and the argument it is surrounded by.
It's like the tip of a blade.

Did you not see one of them become a member to "put me in my place"?
Mags, the brown cow, came here to free herself from the Carleas rules; the typical modern, politically,-correct, pseudo-intellectualizing, hypocritical rules.
The same ones that create the illusion of parity, by restricting the conversation and the expression of opinions within boundaries of mediocrity.
It would be like having a fight-club where all are forced to fight blind and with one hand tied behind their back, to level the playing field and allow women and children into the group.
The fight, the debate, is but a pretense...there is no debate occurring there.
The common ideals are taken for granted....and the details are discussed.
The debate is over what direction the shared ideals will take...or how to define them, because most have not defined them and have no clue how to do so.
They are nihilsits, liooking for a way to turn their cowardice and self-hate, into somehting good and noble.

She, this cow, wants to speak more freely...and test herself.

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

Really? Then a man strong enough to start a battle but lacking the courage to persist and fight must count as a rare, valuable individual to you, like a scholar who may be strong enough to handle and organize enormous data but lacking the courage for an intellectual conscience,,,

No, neither of these cases are both strength and courage together. I think you misread me. Perhaps more straightforwardly: strength and courage are often only inversely proportional in people---i.e., you show courage only to the extent that you lack strength in comparison with your target. And you never need courage if you are plenty strong for the task. When these qualities go together, as they go together, you have something rare and valuable.

A sadomasochist can possess the strength to face and pelt a wild elephant even when he possesses the courage to let it trample him. Hardly makes him rare and noble or valuable. And what of the Islamic suicide-bomber who has both strength and courage because he's promised a beautiful after-reward. He's valuable no doubt, but rare?

To put about readymade virtues like that, is a Platonism.

In any case, valuable to Whom?
A sovereign virtu permits no one to judge it.
And the effect one has cannot be ascertained in any time horizon; what a rare human being does today could have 'value' to someone only light years from now, and still not reveal the 'value' of such sovereignty. And a rare human being prized today could be utterly disastrous years from now.

To esteem a rare art by the 'valuable' effect it has or produces says nothing, except the one esteeming it that way is a Xt.-like utilitarian.

Lyssa wrote:

A sadomasochist can possess the strength to face and pelt a wild elephant even when he possesses the courage to let it trample him. Hardly makes him rare and noble or valuable. And what of the Islamic suicide-bomber who has both strength and courage because he's promised a beautiful after-reward. He's valuable no doubt, but rare?

Everything you said is wrong...

1. A human being without any tools is not the stronger of the two, relative to an angry elephant. That should be obviously true, to you.
2. There's no courage in letting an elephant trample you... only stupidity, or rashness. Imagine this: You see some idiot pick a fight with an elephant, and get trampled. That's not called courage.
3. Imagine that the suicide bomber actually, truly, believes that he'll go to heaven. Do you think it takes any courage at all to do anything when you honestly believe that the moment you do you'll be in an eternal paradise? Why would you think that? It's fucking cowardly. It'd take more courage to change a tv channel.

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To put about readymade virtues like that, is a Platonism.

You don't know what you're talking about.

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A sovereign virtu permits no one to judge it.
And the effect one has cannot be ascertained in any time horizon; what a rare human being does today could have 'value' to someone only light years from now, and still not reveal the 'value' of such sovereignty. And a rare human being prized today could be utterly disastrous years from now.

To esteem a rare art by the 'valuable' effect it has or produces says nothing, except the one esteeming it that way is a Xt.-like utalitarian.

If I spit on the ground, I could by some strange set of events be causally responsible for saving the lives a hundred good people. Suppose I cause someone to slip, into the road, causing a bus to swerve, out of the way of a drunk driver, saving everyone. Do you think that I should go around spitting on the ground, as much as I can, tomorrow and every day afterwards?

The answer is obvious, right?

Nobody can see far into the future, but you base how you ought to act now on your best judgment of what will maximize what you've judged to be valuable, no matter what that is. Random things happen. Unforeseen things happen. It shouldn't ever change what you judge is valuable, or what you do to bring it about in the world. Not even hindsight does that... and the proof of that, is that you don't think I should go around spitting on the ground tomorrow and everyday afterwards.

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

A sadomasochist can possess the strength to face and pelt a wild elephant even when he possesses the courage to let it trample him. Hardly makes him rare and noble or valuable. And what of the Islamic suicide-bomber who has both strength and courage because he's promised a beautiful after-reward. He's valuable no doubt, but rare?

Everything you said is wrong...

1. A human being without any tools is not the stronger of the two, relative to an angry elephant. That should be obviously true, to you.
2. There's no courage in letting an elephant trample you... only stupidity, or rashness. Imagine this: You see some idiot pick a fight with an elephant, and get trampled. That's not called courage.

Tell that to the Toreros or the picadores, which is celebrated annually.

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3. Imagine that the suicide bomber actually, truly, believes that he'll go to heaven. Do you think it takes any courage at all to do anything when you honestly believe that the moment you do you'll be in an eternal paradise? Why would you think that? It's fucking cowardly. It'd take more courage to change a tv channel.

The afterlife reward is like a cherry, an incentive; they do it because their families are promised money and welfare for the rest of their lives.
There's relief and greed and religious fanaticism as you say.
Still, whatever the motivations, when it comes right down to the moment and the deed, to doing it, blowing yourself up --- or like the Tibetan monks of recent who exhibit their protests against the Chinese by setting themselves alone on gasoline-fire while hurting no one else... such acts of strength and courage does not make one noble - to me anyways.

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To put about readymade virtues like that, is a Platonism.

You don't know what you're talking about.

I can't afford your tuition fees.

Abstract concepts like - 'strength', 'courage', and presenting "virtues" simply in whatever relation cannot be a measure of my kind of nobility.

A sovereign virtu permits no one to judge it.

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And the effect one has cannot be ascertained in any time horizon; what a rare human being does today could have 'value' to someone only light years from now, and still not reveal the 'value' of such sovereignty. And a rare human being prized today could be utterly disastrous years from now.

To esteem a rare art by the 'valuable' effect it has or produces says nothing, except the one esteeming it that way is a Xt.-like utalitarian.

If I spit on the ground, I could by some strange set of events be causally responsible for saving the lives a hundred good people. Suppose I cause someone to slip, into the road, causing a bus to swerve, out of the way of a drunk driver, saving everyone. Do you think that I should go around spitting on the ground, as much as I can, tomorrow and every day afterwards?

The answer is obvious, right?

I was talking of a rare individual and his impact, not of ordinary events of spitting and chain reactions.

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Nobody can see far into the future, but you base how you ought to act now on your best judgment of what will maximize what you've judged to be valuable, no matter what that is.

Exactly. What "you" have judged to be valuable. So if a rare individual were to perform a life-transforming opera or release a new revolutionary technology into the ecology or proclaim war, any of which could be displeasing to say the least to the public, "useless", "purposeless", it still doesn't make him value-less, and vice-versa, just because something may have been of great advantage to the present, added priceless value 'to society', still doesn't render someone rare valuable.
The larger point being, if someone like Satyr demonstrates his courage and strength to the herd, even when there's "no need" to, no usefulness, doesn't make him ignoble.

Lyssa wrote:

Tell that to the Toreros or the picadores, which is celebrated annually.

Since you shouldn’t be sure why you shouldn’t, you can tell them yourself. You keep trying to come up with examples of strength and courage going together. If a bullfighter is strong relative to the bull (e.g., he’s trained, the bull is wounded, and he has a sword), then he likely won’t be displaying any courage. And if the bullfighter is summoning any courage, then it won’t be because he thinks himself strong relative to the bull.

...But I think it's a better example than a masochist picking a fight with an elephant.

Recognize the point: (Conceptually, at least,) when you have relative strength, you don’t need any courage, and if you show courage, it’s because you lack strength. As I’ve said, I think these qualities go together, but I think you’re fishing for the wrong kind of example.

Lyssa wrote:

Still, whatever the motivations, when it comes right down to the moment and the deed, to doing it, blowing yourself up --- or like the Tibetan monks of recent who exhibit their protests against the Chinese by setting themselves alone on gasoline-fire while hurting no one else... such acts of strength and courage does not make one noble - to me anyways

Someone setting themself on fire in protest of an overpowering Chinese government is an act of desperation, a last resort---relative weakness, not strength. --Same goes for the suicide bomber. Also, I don’t think either of those things are courageous, either. But I’m starting to get bored…

Lyssa wrote:

So if a rare individual were to perform a life-transforming opera or release a new revolutionary technology into the ecology or proclaim war, any of which could be displeasing to say the least to the public, "useless", "purposeless", it still doesn't make him value-less, and vice-versa, just because something may have been of great advantage to the present, added priceless value 'to society', still doesn't render someone rare valuable.

If something is valuable, then it’s good for the people to whom it is valuable, whether they recognize it or not, whether they know it or not, whether they agree or not. That’s an analytic truth. If what you’re saying is that popular opinion doesn’t make something valuable, then of course I agree.

Lyssa wrote:

The larger point being, if someone like Satyr demonstrates his courage and strength to the herd, even when there's "no need" to, no usefulness, doesn't make him ignoble.

Satyr doesn’t demonstrate any courage to “the herd”, at ILP, because if he is actually stronger and better than the herd, he doesn’t need courage… the same way you don’t need courage to kick someone in a wheelchair. And given what he says about the people at ILP, that is an appropriate analogy. It doesn’t matter whether he’s actually stronger and better that them, all that matters is that he thinks he is. If he thinks he is, then he won’t think he’s using any courage by engaging with them. Why don't you ask him how much courage he summoned when last he posted there?

Does that make sense, to you?

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

Tell that to the Toreros or the picadores, which is celebrated annually.

Since you shouldn’t be sure why you shouldn’t, you can tell them yourself. You keep trying to come up with examples of strength and courage going together. If a bullfighter is strong relative to the bull (e.g., he’s trained, the bull is wounded, and he has a sword), then he likely won’t be displaying any courage. And if the bullfighter is summoning any courage, then it won’t be because he thinks himself strong relative to the bull.

In the I.E. tradition atleast, the Hunter always saw his prey as his equal; there was Respect. Artemis cult and the boar-worship traditions, etc. have their basis in this Respect.

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...But I think it's a better example than a masochist picking a fight with an elephant.

When there are people who are proud of zoophillia and having bestial sex with horses, any retard or adventure-junkie like the above is possible.

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Recognize the point: (Conceptually, at least,) when you have relative strength, you don’t need any courage, and if you show courage, it’s because you lack strength. As I’ve said, I think these qualities go together, but I think you’re fishing for the wrong kind of example.

But you didn't say just that much; you related all that to Nobility and Rarity and Valuableness.

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Lyssa wrote:

Still, whatever the motivations, when it comes right down to the moment and the deed, to doing it, blowing yourself up --- or like the Tibetan monks of recent who exhibit their protests against the Chinese by setting themselves alone on gasoline-fire while hurting no one else... such acts of strength and courage does not make one noble - to me anyways

Someone setting themself on fire in protest of an overpowering Chinese government is an act of desperation, a last resort---relative weakness, not strength. --Same goes for the suicide bomber. Also, I don’t think either of those things are courageous, either. But I’m starting to get bored…

Bored or whatever is your problem; I am not here to entertain you. I too have no time.
Its not what "you" would call courageous, and that's why I say your posts are full of redundant platonisms.
For me, at the least, courage is capacity for an uninterrupted continuity, a straight line between word, thought and deed. Doesn't matter what inebriation those people took to go through with it, but as long as they real - ize a straight line, they can be said to possess courage. Yet this doesn't make them noble for all the valuebleness they give to their cause.

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If something is valuable, then it’s good for the people to whom it is valuable, whether they recognize it or not, whether they know it or not, whether they agree or not.

I think you have that backwards. Its because something Was recognized and known and agreed it was good for them, it was regarded valuable by the popular.

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Lyssa wrote:

The larger point being, if someone like Satyr demonstrates his courage and strength to the herd, even when there's "no need" to, no usefulness, doesn't make him ignoble.

Satyr doesn’t demonstrate any courage to “the herd”, at ILP, because if he is actually stronger and better than the herd, he doesn’t need courage… the same way you don’t need courage to kick someone in a wheelchair. And given what he says about the people at ILP, that is an appropriate analogy. It doesn’t matter whether he’s actually stronger and better that them, all that matters is that he thinks he is. If he thinks he is, then he won’t think he’s using any courage by engaging with them. Why don't you ask him how much courage he summoned when last he posted there?

Does that make sense, to you?

It takes strength to stand up for what you believe and so it takes courage to be humble enough to acknowledge and open yourself to criticism even from the weak to the meek. Such humility in someone who is a monster of pride flaunting his ego is incredible.
I don't expect you to understand.

Lyssa wrote:

Mo wrote:

If something is valuable, then it’s good for the people to whom it is valuable, whether they recognize it or not, whether they know it or not, whether they agree or not.

I think you have that backwards. Its because something Was recognized and known and agreed it was good for them, it was regarded valuable by the popular.

I was talking about what IS valuable, not what people think is valuable, or what some majority of people thinks is valuable. Those are often different things. Are you a relativist?

My view: If X is valuable to you, then it is valuable to you no matter what your opinion is, or whether you recognize it or not, or what other people say. The value of X is grounded in the kind of creature that you are---no, not some Platonic abstraction, just your physiology.

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For me, at the least, courage is capacity for an uninterrupted continuity, a straight line between word, thought and deed.

I don’t know what you mean by a ‘straight line’. Do you mean consistency across words/thoughts/deeds? If so, I can imagine some dumbass who says dumb things, and has dumb thoughts and dumb deeds to follow. That’s consistency.

Or are you trying to play on what Nietzsche says about happiness, (“A yes, a no, a straight line, and a goal”, from Twilight (I think)). In that sense, a “straight line” is just a metaphor for some way/path to bring about what you value/disvalue (your yes’s and your no’s).

As it is, what you’ve said is content-less, formal, and empty. If that was all you had to say on the matter, then read that I piss in an uninterrupted continuity, and also in a straight line---and call me courageous for it.

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In the I.E. tradition atleast, the Hunter always saw his prey as his equal; there was Respect. Artemis cult and the boar-worship traditions, etc. have their basis in this Respect

Nice. Yes, I think strength and courage could fit together amongst equals. --A competition where you can’t say either is stronger than the other, but both are strong relative to everyone else. Something like this might be right.

Mo wrote:

I was talking about what IS valuable, not what people think is valuable, or what some majority of people thinks is valuable. Those are often different things. Are you a relativist?

No, I'm a Nietzschean perspectivist. I do not believe what IS valuable in-itself can be known objectively. What we deem valuable, our interpretations only reflect our degree of health.

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My view: If X is valuable to you, then it is valuable to you no matter what your opinion is, or whether you recognize it or not, or what other people say. The value of X is grounded in the kind of creature that you are---no, not some Platonic abstraction, just your physiology.

What you deem valuable to you is grounded in your physiology, yes; but, your body/vigour/health/genetics is not static, and this reflects on opinion and so what is valuable is what is constantly adjusted [pushed back, brought forward, on, off] whether consciously or unconsciously.

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For me, at the least, courage is capacity for an uninterrupted continuity, a straight line between word, thought and deed.

I don’t know what you mean by a ‘straight line’. Do you mean consistency across words/thoughts/deeds? If so, I can imagine some dumbass who says dumb things, and has dumb thoughts and dumb deeds to follow. That’s consistency.

No, consistency is being in agreement with something, and so you could have Xts. inventing things like messianism 'to be consistent with' their beliefs and then proselytizing through martyrdom to be consistent in their deeds. This is not courage. Xt. as a delay of its inherent nihilism contradicts what it is at its heart.
That's why I said 'at the least', continuity, uninterrupted,, as in, you Are your Thought and your Thought Is your Word Is your Action Is your Target Is your... A line. The capacity to manifest yourself as you Are (as all the repercussions), to what degree one can be a line, truly oneself, one's core, as against true-to-oneself.
The Islamic jihadi blowing up in duty/vengeance to announce his hatred is a continuous manifestation of his ressentiment which IS his core. He shows himself for who he is.

Lyssa wrote:

No, I'm a Nietzschean perspectivist. I do not believe what IS valuable in-itself can be known objectively.

Nothing can be known “in-itself”. --That’s something that Kant said, along with every other Christian thinker, and which Nietzsche just echoed. The whole of reality is trimmed, simplified, filtered, falsified. We do not have access to noumenal realms. If that’s the extent of your perspectivism, then you ought to call yourself a Kantian. The only difference between them was that Kant lamented this, and Nietzsche didn’t care.

Fortunately, the loss of something you wouldn’t even want in the first place doesn’t jeopardize the objectivity of value, even slightly. When value is grounded in your physiology, objectivity becomes skin deep, so to speak. Ohh, did that liquid poison you were whitening your morning coffee with affect you badly? Well, then it’s disvaluable to you---even if you think it wasn’t.

When you’re not locating value, or morality, in some noumenal realm outside of yourself, (and any possible experience)---then the criteria for how you ought to act, and what you ought to value, gets lowered to this world, which is often easy to gauge, (by experience). Morality becomes the same thing as prudence. Value becomes the same thing as 'life-enhancing'.

To say that something is objective is just to say that its truth or falsity is not a matter of your opinion. What’s valuable in this world, to the kind of creature that you are, is not a matter of your opinion.

The only thing lost when nothing can be known “in-itself” is “absolute certainty” about anything. But that’s no real loss.

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

No, I'm a Nietzschean perspectivist. I do not believe what IS valuable in-itself can be known objectively.

Nothing can be known “in-itself”. --That’s something that Kant said, along with every other Christian thinker, and which Nietzsche just echoed. The whole of reality is trimmed, simplified, filtered, falsified. We do not have access to noumenal realms. If that’s the extent of your perspectivism, then you ought to call yourself a Kantian. The only difference between them was that Kant lamented this, and Nietzsche didn’t care.

Fortunately, the loss of something you wouldn’t even want in the first place doesn’t jeopardize the objectivity of value, even slightly. When value is grounded in your physiology, objectivity becomes skin deep, so to speak. Ohh, did that liquid poison you were whitening your morning coffee with affect you badly? Well, then it’s disvaluable to you---even if you think it wasn’t.

When you’re not locating value, or morality, in some noumenal realm outside of yourself, (and any possible experience)---then the criteria for how you ought to act, and what you ought to value, gets lowered to this world, which is often easy to gauge, (by experience). Morality becomes the same thing as prudence. Value becomes the same thing as 'life-enhancing'.

To say that something is objective is just to say that its truth or falsity is not a matter of your opinion. What’s valuable in this world, to the kind of creature that you are, is not a matter of your opinion.

The only thing lost when nothing can be known “in-itself” is “absolute certainty” about anything. But that’s no real loss.

1. You said, "If something is valuable, then it’s good for the people to whom it is valuable, whether they recognize it or not, whether they know it or not, whether they agree or not."

I said, "Its because something Was recognized and known and agreed it was good for them, it was regarded valuable by the popular. What we deem valuable, our interpretations only reflect our degree of health."

That you think I'm some kind of Kantian is funny, when its what I suspect you of and your attempt to impose "thou shalts" and moralize such dragon standards, and hence stopped with just saying the above. You sound like a Jamesian too. You seem to be suggesting, if solitude is valuable, then it is good for the people to whom solitude is valuable, whether they know it or not. This "impersonality" is what N. was criticizing Kant for:

"A word now against Kant as a moralist. A virtue must be our invention; it must spring out of our personal need and defense. In every other case it is a source of danger. That which does not belong to our life menaces it; a virtue which has its roots in mere respect for the concept of “virtue,” as Kant would have it, is pernicious. “Virtue,” “duty,” “good for its own sake,” goodness grounded upon impersonality or a notion of universal validity — these are all chimeras, and in them one finds only an expression of the decay, the last collapse of life, the Chinese spirit of Konigsberg. Quite the contrary is demanded by the most profound laws of self-preservation and of growth: to wit, that every man find his own virtue, his own categorical imperative. A nation goes to pieces when it confounds its duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing works a more complete and penetrating disaster than every “impersonal” duty, every sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction. — To think that no one has thought of Kant’s categorical imperative as dangerous to life! …

“Duty”… impersonal and universal – phantom expressions of decline, of the final exhaustion of life… each one of us should devise his own virtue, his own categorical imperative… Kant’s categorical imperative should have been felt as mortally dangerous… What destroys more quickly that to work, to think, to feel without inner necessity, without a deep personal choice… as an automaton of duty? It is a recipe for decadence, even for idiocy… Kant became an idiot.” [AC, 11]


What we deem valuable is what we *recognize* and *must* recognize as 'good' *for us*.
You are saying, if Medicine is valuable, then it is good to the sick, irrespective of whether it regards this good or not.
I am saying, Medicine is good to the sick, because it is deemed valuable, life-preserving, power-enhancing by it.

What you say borders close to J.-Xt. saying if Porn is valuable, then it is good to the repressed, irrespective of whether they regard it good or not!
Porn is good because there are repressed people to whom it provides value, valuable relief or atleast after training them to think that way;
i.e., as long as such a section exists, then Porn is good for them.

IF God is valuable, then God is good to idiots, as there are idiots to whom God is valuable, provides valuable relief.

By your way of thinking, then every mundane thing justified by the preference of some scum on earth, automatically justifies itself from some static eye, instead of I justifying things, as an invention of my own personal need and bio-aesthetic.
I say, Porn is considered good only by those who deem it self-preserving, feel empowered by it - which only goes to show and reflect the degree of 'health' of such creatures.

You start off with a hypothesis, an impersonal valuability, almost a Kantian model of a human being free from value inclinations and are interested in moral systems; while N.'s perspectivism is an exploration into the semiotics of morality;

Perspectivism:
"...the theory of hierarchical relationships among which the phenomenon 'life' has its origins". [BGE 19]

"...how far the perspective character of existence extends, or indeed whether it has any other character; whether an existence without interpretation, without 'sense', doesn't become 'nonsense'..." [JW, 374]

"At bottom, all our actions are incomparably and utterly personal, unique, and boundlessly individual, there is no doubt; but as soon as we translate them into consciousness, they no longer seem to be ... This is what I consider to be true phenomenalism and Perspectivism:
that due to the nature of animal consciousness, the world of which we can become conscious is merely a surface - and sign-world, a world turned into generalities and thereby debased to its lowest common denominator, - that everything which enters consciousness thereby *becomes* shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, a sign, a herd-mark; that all becoming conscious involves a vast and thorough corruption, falsification, superficialisation, and generalisation ..." [JW, 354]

A great, rare man is one who vulgarizes himself the least, because of his incommunicability, and not because of the effect or consequence he produces, no matter how tremendous.
Language is what makes common;
"We no longer estimate ourselves sufficiently, when we communicate ourselves. Our true experiences are not loquacious. They could not
communicate themselves, even if they wished. The reason is that they have no language. We have already got beyond what we can express in
words. In all speaking there is an inkling of contempt. Language, it seems, has only been invented for the average, the middling, and the
communicative. With speech the speaker has already vulgarised himself..." [TOI, Skirmishes, 26]

"The ultimate noblemindedness... the feeling of heat in things that feel cold to everybody else; the discovery of values for which no scales have been invented yet..." [JW, 55]

So again, what we deem valuable only reflects our degree of health, i.e. how incommunicable we are...
Prudence, pragmatism, etc.... all these concern themselves only with immediate effects, only with the near-at-hand, the proximate horizon; while Nietzschean Perspectivism is the capacity for a protracted eye, a larger, richer view of how something is bound to play out to its logical consequence... it is the capacity to *care for* /possess curiosity, for a more complex economy. Not prudence, but ruthlessness;

"To attain a height and bird's eye view, so one grasps how everything actually happens as it ought to happen; how every kind of "imperfection" and the suffering to which it gives rise are part of the highest desirability." [WTP, 1004]




2. Nietzschean Perspectivism is not postmodern Relativism, although one could say he opened the way for it. He himself was an *ancient*;

"Fundamental question: whether the *Perspectival* is part of the *essence*, and not just a form of regarding, a relation between various beings?" [Nachlass, 5.12, 1886-87]

As a *starter*, Carol Diethe, in the Historical Dictionary of Nietzscheanism very briefly introduces his Perspectivism as;
“Perspectivism: This mirror image of the eye [represents] our poetic-logical power to ascertain the perspectives to all things by means of which we keep ourselves alive” (KSA, 9, 15 [9]). The point is not that we see correctly but that what we think we see is life-promoting. Several years later, in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche declares, “There would be no life at all if not on the basis of perspective evaluations and appearances” (BGE, II: 34)."

Heidegger presents N.'s Perspectivism as follows:

"The need for a schema already looks for what stabilises and thus limits. In Greek, what limits is called ... 'horizon'...
"The horizon pertaining to the essnece of living beings is not only translucent, it is somehow also always measured and 'seen through', in a broad sense of 'seeing and looking'.
As an occurrence in life, praxis moves in such seeing-through, in 'perspectives'.
The horizon always stands within a perspective, a seeing-through to something possible that can arise out of what becomes, and only out
of it, hence out of chaos.
The perspective is a way of looking through, cleared in advance, in which a horizon is formed. The character of looking-through and
looking ahead, together with the formation of a horizon, belongs to the essence of life..." [Heidegger, Nietzsche, III.1.13]

Diethe/Heidegger stop there, but Nietzsche says and did more than what you remark that: "The only difference between them was that Kant lamented this [lack of abs. certainty], and Nietzsche didn’t care."
He didn't, and that's why you have Perspectivism as an expression of one's will-to-power;

"That every increase in strength and expansion of power opens up new Perspectives and demands a belief in new horizons - this runs through my writings". [Nachlass, 2.77, 1885-86]

Which means, as "objective standard":
"...how far we can affirm what is nature in us - how much or how little we need to have recourse to morality..." [WTP, 916]

"..."objectivity" -- the latter understood not as "contemplation without interest" (which is a nonsensical absurdity), but as the ability to control one's Pro and Con and to dispose of them, so that one knows how to employ a variety of perspectives and affective interpretations in the service of knowledge.
There is only a perspective seeing,only a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be. But to eliminate the will altogether, to suspend each and every affect, supposing we were capable of this -- what would that mean but to castrate the intellect?" [GM, 3, 12]

To a Nietzschean Perspectivist, Objectivity is the degree of strength and courage to which one can *afford* to relinquish self-preservation as a value, affirm destruction/self-destruction as a prelude to creativity, and as such it is the opposite of certainty: the need for that perspective which is the least changing;
If Objectivists say, "how much certainty is possible?" [because change/flux is interpreted as suffering],
the Nietzschean Perspectivist/Objectivist says, "how much uncertainty can you endure?"

"Thus knowledge became a piece of life itself, and hence a continually growing power... A thinker is now that being in whom the impulse for truth [uncertainty] and those life-preserving errors [certainty] clash for their first fight, after the impulse for truth has proved to be also a life-preserving power. Compared to the significance of this fight, everything else is a matter of indifference: the ultimate question about the conditions of life has been posed here, and we confront the first attempt to answer this question by experiment. To what extent can truth endure incorporation? That is the question; that is the experiment." [JW, 110]

Our certainties are only "our irrefutable errors" (because they are life-preserving), and hence he remarks in Zarathustra, had Jesus lived long enough, he too might have recanted his own doctrines.

If you are interested in how this 'experiment' of Nietzschean Objectvism played out in realtime, I suggest you read the fantastic work Satyr recommended a year back to me;
Mitchel Heisman's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]




3. To be clear, N. is not *advocating* Perspectivism in the sense of the Relativists, to whom every perspective *must be* equally valid and equally meaningful and good; N. is simply stating Perspectivism as in, "Starting from each of our fundamental drives there is a different Perspectival appraisal of everything that happens and is experienced" [Nachlass, 1.58, 1885-86], might be the essential condition of our life, our reality, a consequence of our multiple selves at bottom that only gives a semblance of unity, of 'a' subject.

He says herd values must be appraised from the perspective of the herd, and the solitary's from the solitary. And the greatest human being would be one who does not admit all as equal, but dominates the pluraity of perspectives, controlling the on/off as a means to his own will-to-power, by noting the *difference* in Perspective;
"The ability to have the pros and cons in one's power and to switch them on and off, so as to get to know how to utilise, for the advancement of knowledge, the difference in the Perspective ..." [GM, 3.12]
To this end, and not as a *rule*, N. approves of the Assassin's nihilism inducing motto "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." [GM, 12],

The advancement of knowledge, of Mastery is a function of *the capacity for a pathos of distance* - opening up Ranks, Rank-differences, which the Relativists want to collapse as plural proliferations [rhizomes, de-central an-archy] instead of letting nuances, sensitivity for nuances, and thus new scales of undiscovered values, emerge through the linked chasms of hierarchies, to lift off as a whole;

"Learning to see - accustoming the eye to rest, to patience, to letting things come to it; learning to defer judgement, to encircle and encompass the individual case on all sides". [TOI, Lack, 6]

""I want this or that"; "I wish this or that were thus"; "I know that this or that is thus" - the degrees of strength: the man of will, the man of desire, the man of faith." [WTP, 920]

"Value is the highest quantum of power a man is *able* to incorporate." [WTP, 713]

"The wisest man is the one richest in contradictions but who has these drives in balance." [WTP]

Nietzsche was no Relativist; neither is Perspectivism relativism.


I have no time to keep this up.
I think I have presented N.'s Perspectivism in maximum clarity as I could; the 'corrections'/justifications/defences/clarifications you wish to make, I'll leave to you.

Quote :

You seem to be suggesting, if solitude is valuable, then it is good for the people to whom solitude is valuable, whether they know it or not.

Exactly right. But nothing I’ve said is impersonal---how could it be? --Morality is grounded in the kind of creature that you are. How more personal would you like it?

Quote :

What we deem valuable is what we *recognize* and *must* recognize as 'good' *for us*.
You are saying, if Medicine is valuable, then it is good to the sick, irrespective of whether it regards this good or not.
I am saying, Medicine is good to the sick, because it is deemed valuable, life-preserving, power-enhancing by it.

EXACTLY RIGHT, again…

Even if somebody thinks that vitamin C is always bad for him, vitamin C is not always bad for him. His opinion makes no fucking difference. His preference makes no fucking difference. I AM NOT A RELATIVIST, ARE YOU? You seem to be. You think that value is only value because “it is deemed so”. ---That’s relativism, just so you know.

Quote :

What you say borders close to J.-Xt. saying if Porn is valuable, then it is good to the repressed, irrespective of whether they regard it good or not!
Porn is good because there are repressed people to whom it provides value, valuable relief or atleast after training them to think that way;
i.e., as long as such a section exists, then Porn is good for them.

IF God is valuable, then God is good to idiots, as there are idiots to whom God is valuable, provides valuable relief.

Yup, I’m saying that. So did Nietzsche, by the way---if you’re proud to be a “Nietzschean” (an oxymoron if there ever was one). Nietzsche thought that slave morality was good for the slavish. Herd morality was good for the herd. God is good for the weak. (But I’ve never really heard a Christian say that porn was good because people like it. Excuse me for finding that funny).

Quote :

By your way of thinking, then every mundane thing justified by the preference of some scum on earth, automatically justifies itself from some static eye, instead of I justifying things, as an invention of my own personal need and bio-aesthetic.

Nothing is ever justified simply by preference.
Nothing is ever justified simply by opinion.
Nothing is ever justified simply by someone “deeming it so”, as you say.
Get it?




You don’t need to pillage Nietzsche’s texts to quote him, to me. And if you want to attribute something to him, I’ll know whether he said it or not, and where. Quoting Heidegger trying to explain Nietzsche is second-hand, twice over. In an nutshell, I'll never ask you to tell me what Nietzsche wrote. I know what is positions are. Don't use walls of someone else's text like a barrier. One repays a teacher badly if one always remains only a pupil. (TSZ, "Of the bestowing virtue")

Mo wrote:

Exactly right. But nothing I’ve said is impersonal---how could it be? --Morality is grounded in the kind of creature that you are. How more personal would you like it?
EXACTLY RIGHT, again…
Even if somebody thinks that vitamin C is always bad for him, vitamin C is not always bad for him. His opinion makes no fucking difference. His preference makes no fucking difference. I AM NOT A RELATIVIST, ARE YOU? You seem to be. You think that value is only value because “it is deemed so”. ---That’s relativism, just so you know.

What is good is what is beneficial. -vs. What is good is what is deemed beneficial.

Teleological ethics: Flat:
Results must determine good/bad for me.
Medicine alleviates distress; medicine is good.
Objectivity: How much can be ascertained?

Perspectivist ethics: Play:
My good/bad must determine results for me.
Distress is good; how much can I forego medicine?
Objectivity: How much uncertainty can I endure?

Quote :

Quote :

IF God is valuable, then God is good to idiots, as there are idiots to whom God is valuable, provides valuable relief.

Yup, I’m saying that. So did Nietzsche, by the way---if you’re proud to be a “Nietzschean” (an oxymoron if there ever was one).

It is a poor and coarse soul that has no, and does not delight in contradictions.

Quote :

Nietzsche thought that slave morality was good for the slavish. Herd morality was good for the herd. God is good for the weak.

He said God is good to the slave, because it is deemed valuable, life-preserving by it. The slave values self-preservation, hence it posits God as its good.

Quote :

(But I’ve never really heard a Christian say that porn was good because people like it. Excuse me for finding that funny).

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Quote :

Quote :

By your way of thinking, then every mundane thing justified by the preference of some scum on earth, automatically justifies itself from some static eye, instead of I justifying things, as an invention of my own personal need and bio-aesthetic.

Nothing is ever justified simply by preference.
Nothing is ever justified simply by opinion.
Nothing is ever justified simply by someone “deeming it so”, as you say.
Get it?

Then you have no inkling of what it is to be a Master.
There are other moralities than yours, who affirm themselves as those who confer value on things first.
What I deem good and is good to me, is good in itself. They need no one's approval.

Quote :

You don’t need to pillage Nietzsche’s texts to quote him, to me. And if you want to attribute something to him, I’ll know whether he said it or not, and where. Quoting Heidegger trying to explain Nietzsche is second-hand, twice over. In an nutshell, I'll never ask you to tell me what Nietzsche wrote. I know what is positions are. Don't use walls of someone else's text like a barrier. [i

Yes, not to you. You are a means, a useful angle, a kairos I exploit for my purpose. I am always and only concerned with myself.
Who I wish to common-icate my individuality to, is upto me. A citation-bot, a coward, dull, dim, mindless, boring, etc. etc. you are welcome to such labels.

Quote :

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains only a pupil. (TSZ, "Of the bestowing virtue")[/i]

"By doing we forego." [JW, 304]

Lyssa wrote:

Teleological ethics: Flat:
Results must determine good/bad for me.
Medicine alleviates distress; medicine is good.
Objectivity: How much can be ascertained?

Perspectivist ethics: Play:
My good/bad must determine results for me.
Distress is good; how much can I forego medicine?
Objectivity: How much uncertainty can I endure?

Do you like whatever you like simply because you like it? Or do you like what you like because it furthers you becoming who you are? ---Because it is good for you, given the kind of creature that you are? And why would you suppose that distress and uncertainty, and such-like, are bad for the kind of creature that you are?

Quote :

What I deem good and is good to me, is good in itself. They need no one's approval.

I can't really argue with someone trying to have it both ways. I'll simply say that I deem good what is good for me, just because it is good for me---because I'm perceptive, calibrated, and tuned into the world and what I am. Before you make a dumb snark about wrapping myself in a blanket and hiding in a box, ask yourself whether you think that that'd be good for the kind of creature that you are. Would you fulfill your potentialities by doing that?

Quote :

I am always and only concerned with myself.

It wouldn't be your first mistake.

Does 'Hierarchy' have any value to you?

Which one?

1. Perspectivism is Not Subjectivism. It is to enable one Out of their subjectivism by opening other vantages.

2. Perspectivism enabling to turn vantages on and off is Not for one's advantage, Not so that one keeps shifting positions in order to stand victorious any which way like a hedonistic degenerate,  but the passionate advance of the impersonal domain of Knowledge.

3. Perspectivism taken to its logical end is the edge where one comes face to face with what has been one's own perspectival truth so far, and the truth of indifferent reality. In other words, it is through Perspectivism, one is able to discern and discriminate subject-dependent truths from larger-than-subject truths. It is the passionate drive to take it to the end, that reveals the edge of one's self, the weight of one's fate.
It is a tool with which one is meant to attain clarity on the pathos between self and world.

Nietzsche wrote:

"Because the ascetic ideal has so far been master over all philosophy, because truth was set as being, as God, as the highest authority itself, because truth was not allowed to be a problem. … From the very moment that faith in the God of the ascetic ideal is denied, there is a new problem as well: that of the value of truth. – The will to truth needs a critique – let us define our own task with this -, the value of truth is tentatively to be called into question…" [GM: III.24]

Nietzsche wrote:

"From now on, my philosophical colleagues, let us be more wary of the dangerous old conceptual fairy-tale which has set up a ‘pure, will-less, painless, timeless, subject of knowledge’, let us be more wary of the tentacles of such contradictory concepts as ‘pure reason’, ‘absolute spirituality’, ‘knowledge as such’: - here we are asked to think an eye which cannot be thought at all, an eye turned in no direction at all, an eye where the active and interpretive powers are to be suppressed, absent, but through which seeing still becomes seeing-something, so it is an absurdity and non-concept of eye that is demanded.  There is only perspective seeing, only a perspective ‘knowing’; the more affects we allow to speak about a thing, the more eyes, various eyes we are able to use for the same thing, the more complete will our ‘concept’ of the thing, our ‘objectivity’.  But to eliminate the will completely and turn off all the emotions without exception, assuming we could: well? Would that not mean to castrate the intellect?…" [GM: III.12]

Quote :

"Whereas truth perspectivism questioned the trans-framework existence of facts, in a metaphysical sense, value perspectivism denies neither the existence nor objectivity of facts but instead questions the value of those truths.  Nietzsche’s repeated suspicion of the “faith” in truth is not to be taken as a dismissal of there being truths, although this is a possible reading of the questioning of faith as one might when doubting religious faith, but should, under value perspectivism, be more fruitfully understood as the idea that the will to truth is one among many competing values.  “The faith in truth is an unquestioning commitment to truth, an unquestioning acceptance that truth is more important than anything else, for example, happiness, life, love, power.” (Clark 1990a: 184)  In other words, truth is not, and no longer should be deemed, intrinsically valuable, and there are other aims, interests, or values that one may pursue as his primary concern.

The ignoring of facts in the derivation of a conclusion is an epistemic consequence of value perspectivism and not a metaphysical one.  Facts do not change with revaluations but what counts as a fact may differ with different aims, interests, or values.  False beliefs, therefore, may be beneficial and rational to accept if truth is no longer intrinsically valuable.  Nietzsche hints at this view in the various places where he discusses life preservation: “The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; in this respect our new language may sound strangest.  The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species cultivating.”  (BGE: §4)  Nietzsche is not giving up the idea that there are objective truths about the world but is instead highlighting the fact that beliefs may be held for various reasons, not all of which must involve veracity.
Moreover, Nietzsche appears to be calling for a new investigation into the limits of the value of truth opened up by the loosening of intellectual constraints.  It cannot be assumed a priori that truth is no longer valuable but must be established after careful examination of the evidence.  The important point to note about this endeavor is that it would be impossible to conduct without taking some things to be objectively true.  “Only if we assume that some beliefs are true can we possibly perform experiments to see how valuable truth is, that is, how valuable it is to have true beliefs.” (Clark 1990a: 183)  Rather than being intrinsically valuable, truth is now instrumentally valuable in that it is an indispensable part of whatever overall goal one is attempting to achieve.  Nietzsche’s own project of the revaluation of all values would be difficult to carry out if he did not appeal to certain truths, e.g., the real historical emergence of Christian morality.  These truths are not intrinsically valuable but important for Nietzsche in that they aid in the liberation of certain types of people from the tyranny of herd morality.  If purported moral truths and universal principles turn out to be the contingent practices of a particular class of people and, therefore, have no claim to being necessarily applicable to all agents, then those who suffer by judging themselves according to this standard, thereby stunting their artistic and intellectual flourishing, have reason to reject that conception of morality and adopt a new one that is more conducive to their natural interests.  The only way to establish the antecedent of this conditional is to appeal to matters of fact, e.g. that Christian morality is not an objective truth.  So not only is value perspectivism consistent with there being objective truths, but it also involves the valuing of truth, albeit instrumentally rather than intrinsically.  Insofar as metaphysical realism requires there to be ways the world is that are mind-independent, i.e., objective truths taken in a metaphysical sense, then value perspectivism is consistent with realism and may even demand it.

Nietzsche believes that part of what it means to question the value of truth is to allow that some false beliefs may be beneficial.  In particular, the extent to which beliefs preserve and affirm life may not be co-extensive with those that are true.  However, if only those ideas and beliefs that are true are deemed valuable, then one may have to accept facts or norms that hinder the flourishing of life.  Therefore, an unconditional will to truth partakes in the ascetic ideal, which compels subjects to go against the very processes of life.  

what value perspectivism permits is counting different beliefs, ideas, or theories as true given a particular set of interests and not their actual truth-value.  Value perspectivism then is, in part, an epistemic thesis and not a metaphysical one.  As Leiter (2002: 270) notes, the doctrine of perspectivism is explicitly about knowledge and not truth, a distinction that is often overlooked and is a primary cause of idealist readings of Nietzsche.  

Indeed, Nietzsche goes further and claims that there would be no knowledge without values or interests.  “Strictly speaking, there is no ‘presuppositionless’ knowledge, the thought of such a thing is unthinkable, paralogical: a philosophy, a ‘faith’ always has to be there first, for knowledge to win from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist.” (GM: III.24)  Holding a particular value or pursuing some interest is constitutive of the knowledge gathering process.  Without a motive to achieve some end, even if that end is to possess the truth, then investigations, whether a priori (if there is such a thing) or a posteriori, would never be initiated in the first place.  Again, this is fully compatible with the acquisition of objective knowledge so the mere fact of our epistemic practices requiring values and interests to achieve any outcome is not sufficient to rule out the possibility of arriving at the truth.  

If possessing values and interests is a condition of knowledge, which it seems it is for Nietzsche, then a skeptical conclusion cannot follow from the admittance of the necessity of satisfying those conditions.  What a skeptic says, in effect, is for a state of knowledge to be realized, its conditions must be met that relate to a subject, whatever they may be (in this instance, having interests), and therefore one cannot have objective knowledge.  However, the fact that knowledge must meet its conditions to be knowledge is little more than a tautology from which nothing contingent and substantive follows.  The skeptical conclusion is something substantial and very interesting, in the sense that it is not just a triviality, and so cannot follow from the tautologous premise; some extra premise is needed in order to block objective knowledge.  The background belief that tends to precipitate these skeptical views is that objective knowledge is only possible without presuppositions or values.  This, no doubt, is partially the result of ‘disinterested’ being a synonym for ‘objective’.  This is similar to the familiar argument against metaphysical realism that rules out its possibility because all truth is perspectival and there is no God’s Eye point of view. Realism does not require such a point of view outside of all perspectives.  Likewise, the pursuit of objective knowledge need not feel embarrassed by the necessity of holding values and interests.

According to Leiter (1994), what separates the values that Nietzsche himself appeals to in his evaluations of, for instance, Christian morality is that they do not distort our access to the nature of some object.  Anyone who has found themselves wearing a pair of ‘beer goggles’ can understand the extent to which being intoxicated deforms one’s ability to perceive and knows that there are views with respect to optics that are less distorting than others.  Similarly, there are interests that make one unable to ‘perceive’ the true, sometimes painful, nature of an object or phenomenon.  “The mark or criterion of a non-distorting interest, for Nietzsche, is that it is adequate to the ‘terrible truth’ about the world.”  (Ibid.: 347)  In other words, certain values and interests are less objective than others in that they distort or misrepresent reality.  In this way, we can make sense of Nietzsche’s project in On the Genealogy of Morals without having to save him from self-referential subversion or attribute to him a feeble set of appraising categories based upon aesthetic sensibility.
Moreover, this is consistent with his admirable opinions on the methods of the sciences.
All the presuppositions for a scholarly culture, all the scientific methods were already there [in the time of Greeks and Romans], the great, incomparable art of reading well had already been established – this presupposition for the tradition of culture, for the unity of science; natural science was on the very best path, together with mathematics and mechanics, - the factual sense, the last and most valuable of all the senses had schools and traditions that were already centuries old!  Do you understand?  Everything essential had been found so that work could be started:  - the methods, it should be said ten times over, are the essential thing, as well as the most difficult thing, as well as the thing that can be blocked by habit and laziness for a very long time. (A: §59)

The emphasis Nietzsche placed on ‘methods’ is important because this still entitles him to criticizing some of its results, i.e., mechanistic materialism.  This healthy respect for scientific methods gives reason for caution when interpreting his remarks about the ubiquity of interpretation and its supposed consequence of equalizing perspectives." [Richard Sebold]

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