It's Nietzsche, not Nietsche.

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Not really a typo, but it's a very common mistake online.

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Tom,

I always look forward to hearing your thoughts.  Thanks for your kind words.

jsg, inthefold, and Macker:  Happy to read your contributions to the thread.  Be well, gentlemen!

@tchampe said:

I'll write you personally on this topic, Dave, but it will take a bit of thinking and organizing in my head and hunting/pecking/editing at the keyboard to turn those thoughts into intelligible communication. I will have some time this weekend. Just wanted you to know that I saw this and remind you of the inestimable value your music has for me.

No, actually not... People write "Nietsche" as they intend it, they're just mistaken about the name.

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Your misspelling of Nietzsche's name is just a symptom of your ignorance of his work. That's all.

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You're hyping it too much, no judge or jury would buy it. Besides, what I said is clearly true.

Have fun.

@inthefold said:

Hi,

Strictly as a matter of fact, the OP is somewhat outdated... The days of Napster are now past us. As an historical matter, it ignores the fact that throughout History Music has overwhelmingly been composed and performed without having any commercial value attached to it at all.

While the OP may aspire and appear to be critical it seems to me rather to be yet another dull and unwitting expression of Nihilism... The value of Music, and Art in general, lies elsewhere.

All the best, António

Deleted,

@Macker said:

Oh ho ... now someone's dropped the "Nihilism" bomb. Lolol. No, I don't think that's what we're dealing with here.

To paraphrase (in English) Nietzsche's summary of this extremely serious and ultimately psychotic state of outlook:-

"What exists, shouldn't. What should exist, doesn't."

It's best reserved for those who, suffering from and finding no other way out of this all-encompassing impasse, typically seek to destroy themselves - and/or in some cases, as much of the world as they can.

The "should" and "shouldn't" words are of course big giveaways that we're very probably dealing here with the ages old problem for mankind: i.e. ideas (which can endure forever) versus lived, perishable experience. In philosophical literature this bone of contention goes back at least 25 centuries, as epitomised by the Confucius versus Lao Tzu struggle. The human problems of much more recent western modernity still afflicting us today, mostly ain't new at all.

Ok let's get back to here and now.

"Value" has become a very shop-soiled word. I believe we'd benefit from some new word - yet to be coined - meaning "monetary value". Money can be seen as an appallingly crude and unreliable one-dimensional numerical model of the sense of value that humans experience. Human value has no existence whatsoever outside of lived experience. To ask about the value of music is an invitation to enter a horrible quagmire in which nothing can ever be settled, let alone stand up as a firm, clean, clear and lasting conclusion - just like in philosophy and economics. Human life itself versus rude algebraic equations? Oh dear, what a miserable and depressing choice.

So no thanks, I'm not taking up this invitation.

Exactly.  One cannot separate values from personal experience.  Politicians, academics and bullshitters try all the time, but they will never succeed.

You're perfectly welcome to believe that Music and Art have no intrinsic (and objective) value. That's fine, but that entails that your worldview is inextricably nihilistic.

Post Withdrawn.