Nietzsche As Biological Visionary?

[Amazoniac]

To start discussing collectivism and overflows we must first acknowledge that there was someone, somewhere around the world, kind enough to collect those passages and share them with us. The person could be watching The Kardashians ep 010 from the 3rd season, but instead decided for whatever reason to spend time compiling them for us. Appreciation exemplifies that principle much better than a lengthy text questioning if something is Peaty and suitable enough for our collectivistic views..

 

[Dopamine]

Thank you for the responses everybody even though of course we can't all agree on everything

I might do another similar post relating Freuds libido theory to Rays work on the sex hormones and metabolism. Also Freuds views of religion coming out of the psychological/physiological state of helplessness. Freuds views of neurosis and how they relate to high serotonin. Finally Ralph Waldo Emersons concept of Self Reliance vs Learned Helplessness. Here are some previews:

"Biologically speaking, religiousness is to be traced back to the small child’s long-drawn out helplessness and need of help; and when at a later date he perceives how truly forlorn and weak he is when confronted with the great forces of life, he feels his condition as he did in childhood, and attempts to deny his own despondency by a regressive revival of the forces which protected his infancy." -Sigmund Freud

"Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

[CaseyL]

Some people posting here seem to believe that Ray holds Nietzsche in contempt, but that isn't quite right. I've asked him about Nietzsche before, and specifically about Nietzsche's criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution (i.e.,that Darwin "forgot intelligence"). This was the relevant portion of his reply:

"Nietzsche got some things right, when he deviated a little from his commitment to Schopenhauer's "world as will and representation." Schopenhauer's Kantian taint is background for Nietzsche. Schopenhauer knew Goethe, and worked with him on color theory, but went in the direction of subjective idealism when he departed from Goethe's understanding of color as objective.
By making Will the ultimate reality, outside of time, they lost the possibilities of a real physiology of knowledge, since time, change, and development through interaction are essential aspects of realism. Aristotle, De la Mettrie, Lamarck and Goethe were framing things in an open way, that I think was generally lost in the mainstream 19th century culture, and subsequently, because of the interaction of the various philosophical idealisms with authoritarianism. (Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians is available free on the internet.) The idea of creation was confused with subjectivism and self assertion, because the Will/Self was hypostatized. Wilhelm Reich and Lenin recovered some of the vital realist attitude, in which the self develops and discovers by observing and participating in the complex involvements of reality. Nietzsche didn't see that biology and culture can interact constructively, expansively, but more by assimilation than by assertion. If the idea "He instinctively gathers his totality from everything he sees, hears, and experiences" had been generalized in different ways, it could have contributed to contemporary culture. The criticism of Darwin was right; Samuel Butler represented the Lamarckian view, that intelligence guides evolution. I think what Nietzsche missed was that assertion, displacing receptive perception, is the recurrent cause of "lowness." " - Ray Peat, Jan 2014

He clearly perceives some portion of Nietzsche's work as insightful and poignant, even if misguided or ill-founded in other aspects. He seems a lot more dissatisfied with Plato, Kant, Berkeley, etc. From the same email:

"Heraclitus, Aristotle, Blake, Lamarck, Goethe, Samuel Butler, Vernadsky, Lenin, Kropotkin, J.C. Bose, Albert Schweitzer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty are people that I think succeeded pretty well in avoiding misrepresentation of reality. Examples of toxic misrepresentation of reality are Plato, Berkeley, Hegel, Kant, and all the varieties of neo-kantians, including most US and European academics in all fields."

Nietzsche also held Heraclitus, Aristotle, and Goethe in high esteem, and plainly disliked Kant and Plato. I think Ray and Nietzsche have some important things in common, even if a superficial reading of their works might suggest otherwise. Labeling Nietzsche a "psychopath" with nothing of value to offer but "might is right" is incredibly ignorant. He was a brilliant man, even if he went off-kilter in his more manic moments.

 

[allblues]

This really is the best forum ever.

 

[Dopamine]

Some people posting here seem to believe that Ray holds Nietzsche in contempt, but that isn't quite right. I've asked him about Nietzsche before, and specifically about Nietzsche's criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution (i.e.,that Darwin "forgot intelligence"). This was the relevant portion of his reply:

"Nietzsche got some things right, when he deviated a little from his commitment to Schopenhauer's "world as will and representation." Schopenhauer's Kantian taint is background for Nietzsche. Schopenhauer knew Goethe, and worked with him on color theory, but went in the direction of subjective idealism when he departed from Goethe's understanding of color as objective.
By making Will the ultimate reality, outside of time, they lost the possibilities of a real physiology of knowledge, since time, change, and development through interaction are essential aspects of realism. Aristotle, De la Mettrie, Lamarck and Goethe were framing things in an open way, that I think was generally lost in the mainstream 19th century culture, and subsequently, because of the interaction of the various philosophical idealisms with authoritarianism. (Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians is available free on the internet.) The idea of creation was confused with subjectivism and self assertion, because the Will/Self was hypostatized. Wilhelm Reich and Lenin recovered some of the vital realist attitude, in which the self develops and discovers by observing and participating in the complex involvements of reality. Nietzsche didn't see that biology and culture can interact constructively, expansively, but more by assimilation than by assertion. If the idea "He instinctively gathers his totality from everything he sees, hears, and experiences" had been generalized in different ways, it could have contributed to contemporary culture. The criticism of Darwin was right; Samuel Butler represented the Lamarckian view, that intelligence guides evolution. I think what Nietzsche missed was that assertion, displacing receptive perception, is the recurrent cause of "lowness." " - Ray Peat, Jan 2014

He clearly perceives some portion of Nietzsche's work as insightful and poignant, even if misguided or ill-founded in other aspects. He seems a lot more dissatisfied with Plato, Kant, Berkeley, etc. From the same email:

"Heraclitus, Aristotle, Blake, Lamarck, Goethe, Samuel Butler, Vernadsky, Lenin, Kropotkin, J.C. Bose, Albert Schweitzer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty are people that I think succeeded pretty well in avoiding misrepresentation of reality. Examples of toxic misrepresentation of reality are Plato, Berkeley, Hegel, Kant, and all the varieties of neo-kantians, including most US and European academics in all fields."

Nietzsche also held Heraclitus, Aristotle, and Goethe in high esteem, and plainly disliked Kant and Plato. I think Ray and Nietzsche have some important things in common, even if a superficial reading of their works might suggest otherwise. Labeling Nietzsche a "psychopath" with nothing of value to offer but "might is right" is incredibly ignorant. He was a brilliant man, even if he went off-kilter in his more manic moments.

Interesting. See this is where I think Ray misunderstands Nietzsche- "By making Will the ultimate reality, outside of time, they lost the possibilities of a real physiology of knowledge, since time, change, and development through interaction are essential aspects of realism."

This isn't true. Nietzsches concept of time was more or less completely inherited from Heraclitus. Time, change, and development were essential aspects of Nietzsches philosophy just as they were essential aspects of Heraclitus' philosophy. This lies in Nietzsches concept of "becoming" rather than "being" as ultimate reality.

"I retained some doubt in the case of Heraclitus, in whose proximity I feel warmer and better than anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away and destroying, which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; saying yes to opposition and war; becoming, along with the repudiation of the very concept of being —all this is clearly more closely related to me than anything else thought to date." -Nietzsche (Ecce Homo)

"With the highest respect, I except the name of Heraclitus . When the rest of the philosophic folk rejected the testimony of the senses because they showed multiplicity and change, he rejected their testimony because they showed things as if they had permanence and unity" -Nietzsche (Ecce Homo)

"German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that Heraclitus "will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction".[3] Nietzsche developed the vision of a chaotic world in perpetual change and becoming. The state of becoming does not produce fixed entities, such as being, subject, object, substance, thing. These false concepts are the necessary mistakes which consciousness and language employ in order to interpret the chaos of the state of becoming. The mistake of Greek philosophers was to falsify the testimony of the senses and negate the evidence of the state of becoming. By postulating being as the underlying reality of the world, they constructed a comfortable and reassuring "after-world" where the horror of the process of becoming was forgotten, and the empty abstractions of reason appeared as eternal entities."

Nietzsche also held Heraclitus, Aristotle, and Goethe in high esteem, and plainly disliked Kant and Plato.

Yes and Nietzsche was also a fan of Lamarck and disliked Hegel I believe. Literally every philosopher Ray listed as having an accurate view of reality- Nietzsche was in agreement with... the ones who existed in/before Nietzsches time anyway.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

So how does Ray as an Aristotlean come to know reality without assertiveness? It seems to me that a scientist needs willpower and assertiveness as a prerequisite to study reality... I wonder what Ray's opinion is of Ayn Rand, I couldn't find anything he said about her. If anyone has anything, please post.

 

[Regina]

One thing you have to understand about Nietzsche is that he didn't believe in an absolute Truth. When he says something like "peace is a means to more war," he is not trying to posit a universal truth, but he is wearing a hat so to speak. His intention is to provoke thought. The peace/war quote is not a great example, but often this process has a way of making the reader realize that he/she thinks like this deep down or is inseparably embedded in a society that operates like this.

His real goal was transcendence of "master and slave morality" or dualistic thinking imposed on human life. Being "being good and evil" didn't mean just being evil.

Yes. Pointless. This is also my understanding of Nietzsche's conjectures. I like your hat switching analogy. That's what I picture when reading him directly (not secondary sources). He's quite funny about it and really jams his tongue in his cheek. But BGandE really reads like a dude talking to himself: an introvert with a vast interior network of intellects to bounce ideas off each other.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Nietzsche realized all knowledge is subjective just like all morality is subjective- these things don't lie outside of us waiting to be discovered rather they are things we project onto the world. There is no universal right and wrong/good and bad- these are things we project onto the world.

How peatish

 

[Regina]

Definitely


Yep this is one of the main problems with communism and one of the benefits of capitalism.






That is a difficult question.

This reminds me of a quote by Heraclitus who Nietzsche was a big fan of: “To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is outstanding.”

I don't think Nietzsche was a very healthy person physically but I would consider him outstanding. I think it can be hard to define between healthy and sick people... Some sick people have no desire to improve and have given up or just don't recognize their own sickness (descending course of mankind) these people tend to bring others down. Some sick people are well aware how sick they are and have massive desire to get better (ascending course of mankind) they will bring others up with them.

I don't think providing abundance to a healthy person would reinforce their health it would make them lazy and passive and they would deteriorate. Same thing with a sick person maybe. I guess it is a question of an abundance of what? This goes into Hans Selyes concept of stress vs distress maybe. How much stress is stimulating for someone- how much is too much? And then how much should people be helped based on this?

I think these are not fixed calibrations. (Like Amazoniac, I enjoy reading more than discussing these issues). But also, it gets off point. Nietzsche made no commentary regarding 'who stays; who goes.' Though, you know what they say in the airplane. "Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others."
Nietzsche was attracted to the Upanishads and was moving toward a daoist and alchemical view. Or even Zen. Zen is often called an Inexhaustible Lamp meaning look at the entire whole of each situation with free and unrestricted sight and vision. Answers are not found always in dogma and authoritarianism.
As a way of life, Nietzsche recommended an Epicurean ideal of liesure time and relaxation with friends.

 

[Regina]

Interesting. See this is where I think Ray misunderstands Nietzsche- "By making Will the ultimate reality, outside of time, they lost the possibilities of a real physiology of knowledge, since time, change, and development through interaction are essential aspects of realism."

This isn't true. Nietzsches concept of time was more or less completely inherited from Heraclitus. Time, change, and development were essential aspects of Nietzsches philosophy just as they were essential aspects of Heraclitus' philosophy. This lies in Nietzsches concept of "becoming" rather than "being" as ultimate reality.

"I retained some doubt in the case of Heraclitus, in whose proximity I feel warmer and better than anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away and destroying, which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; saying yes to opposition and war; becoming, along with the repudiation of the very concept of being —all this is clearly more closely related to me than anything else thought to date." -Nietzsche (Ecce Homo)

"With the highest respect, I except the name of Heraclitus . When the rest of the philosophic folk rejected the testimony of the senses because they showed multiplicity and change, he rejected their testimony because they showed things as if they had permanence and unity" -Nietzsche (Ecce Homo)

"German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that Heraclitus "will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction".[3] Nietzsche developed the vision of a chaotic world in perpetual change and becoming. The state of becoming does not produce fixed entities, such as being, subject, object, substance, thing. These false concepts are the necessary mistakes which consciousness and language employ in order to interpret the chaos of the state of becoming. The mistake of Greek philosophers was to falsify the testimony of the senses and negate the evidence of the state of becoming. By postulating being as the underlying reality of the world, they constructed a comfortable and reassuring "after-world" where the horror of the process of becoming was forgotten, and the empty abstractions of reason appeared as eternal entities."

Yes and Nietzsche was also a fan of Lamarck and disliked Hegel I believe. Literally every philosopher Ray listed as having an accurate view of reality- Nietzsche was in agreement with... the ones who existed in/before Nietzsches time anyway.

Yes Dopamine -
this is what Nietzsche said. I think he included the famous Heraclitus quote (paraphrased): 'No man steps in the same river twice. For it is a different river and he is a different man.' in BGandE. And he also didn't like Descartes or Socrates.

 

[Regina]

Thank you for the responses everybody even though of course we can't all agree on everything

I might do another similar post relating Freuds libido theory to Rays work on the sex hormones and metabolism. Also Freuds views of religion coming out of the psychological/physiological state of helplessness. Freuds views of neurosis and how they relate to high serotonin. Finally Ralph Waldo Emersons concept of Self Reliance vs Learned Helplessness. Here are some previews:

"Biologically speaking, religiousness is to be traced back to the small child’s long-drawn out helplessness and need of help; and when at a later date he perceives how truly forlorn and weak he is when confronted with the great forces of life, he feels his condition as he did in childhood, and attempts to deny his own despondency by a regressive revival of the forces which protected his infancy." -Sigmund Freud

"Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

And Emerson starts it out with:

Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat;
Wintered with the hawk and fox,
Power and speed be hands and feet.

It's rather terrifying. I have to prefer the Tennyson Flower in a Crannied Wall so I don't get night sweats.

 

[Tarmander]

Some people posting here seem to believe that Ray holds Nietzsche in contempt, but that isn't quite right. I've asked him about Nietzsche before, and specifically about Nietzsche's criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution (i.e.,that Darwin "forgot intelligence"). This was the relevant portion of his reply:

"Nietzsche got some things right, when he deviated a little from his commitment to Schopenhauer's "world as will and representation." Schopenhauer's Kantian taint is background for Nietzsche. Schopenhauer knew Goethe, and worked with him on color theory, but went in the direction of subjective idealism when he departed from Goethe's understanding of color as objective.
By making Will the ultimate reality, outside of time, they lost the possibilities of a real physiology of knowledge, since time, change, and development through interaction are essential aspects of realism. Aristotle, De la Mettrie, Lamarck and Goethe were framing things in an open way, that I think was generally lost in the mainstream 19th century culture, and subsequently, because of the interaction of the various philosophical idealisms with authoritarianism. (Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians is available free on the internet.) The idea of creation was confused with subjectivism and self assertion, because the Will/Self was hypostatized. Wilhelm Reich and Lenin recovered some of the vital realist attitude, in which the self develops and discovers by observing and participating in the complex involvements of reality. Nietzsche didn't see that biology and culture can interact constructively, expansively, but more by assimilation than by assertion. If the idea "He instinctively gathers his totality from everything he sees, hears, and experiences" had been generalized in different ways, it could have contributed to contemporary culture. The criticism of Darwin was right; Samuel Butler represented the Lamarckian view, that intelligence guides evolution. I think what Nietzsche missed was that assertion, displacing receptive perception, is the recurrent cause of "lowness." " - Ray Peat, Jan 2014

He clearly perceives some portion of Nietzsche's work as insightful and poignant, even if misguided or ill-founded in other aspects. He seems a lot more dissatisfied with Plato, Kant, Berkeley, etc. From the same email:

"Heraclitus, Aristotle, Blake, Lamarck, Goethe, Samuel Butler, Vernadsky, Lenin, Kropotkin, J.C. Bose, Albert Schweitzer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty are people that I think succeeded pretty well in avoiding misrepresentation of reality. Examples of toxic misrepresentation of reality are Plato, Berkeley, Hegel, Kant, and all the varieties of neo-kantians, including most US and European academics in all fields."

Nietzsche also held Heraclitus, Aristotle, and Goethe in high esteem, and plainly disliked Kant and Plato. I think Ray and Nietzsche have some important things in common, even if a superficial reading of their works might suggest otherwise. Labeling Nietzsche a "psychopath" with nothing of value to offer but "might is right" is incredibly ignorant. He was a brilliant man, even if he went off-kilter in his more manic moments.

Fantastic post. Thank you.

I find it funny how often philosophy eventually comes down to Aristotle vs Plato. Perhaps Plato can be forgiven for his views given how his teacher was treated.

To really live a satisfactory life, you must embrace Aristotle, and reject mysticism, spirituality, or any form of deity. Do not tolerate these in your mind because they cannot live there and bring any good to anyone.

Historians had this saying that empire goes up the stairs in wooden shoes and down in silk slippers. Said differently, empire is born with Aristotle and dies with Plato.

 

[Dopamine]

Yes Dopamine -
this is what Nietzsche said. I think he included the famous Heraclitus quote (paraphrased): 'No man steps in the same river twice. For it is a different river and he is a different man.' in BGandE. And he also didn't like Descartes or Socrates.

Ah yes I really like that quote!

And Emerson starts it out with:

Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat;
Wintered with the hawk and fox,
Power and speed be hands and feet.

It's rather terrifying. I have to prefer the Tennyson Flower in a Crannied Wall so I don't get night sweats.

Ya some of his work loses me too :p The essay is a short read though and it has some really great/more straight-forward parts.

 

[Drareg]

The op and fellow nietzsche fanatics have lost sight that nietzsche has no original concepts that have not been discussed in the past,he rehashed concepts in a different language,he is no genius,just well read and articulate for the times he lived.
His biological quotes are not original.

I think it's always good to view Nietzsche as a male who could not attract his desired sexual partners ,his outlook is driven by this imo.

Nietzsche is often used by those who are not satisfied sexually with their ideal partner in the physical,the mental is not enough,you need both, Nietzsche is used here as a projection tool of surpressed rage imo,Not everyone of course but Nietzsche does attract those who wish to express pathologies behind "long winded verbosity" of cherry picked philopshical concepts,the cherry picking as done by nietszche for his long winded rehashing.

The following aspect of Nietzsche is worth discussing as it involves biology,was he a mediocre looking male who went into a rage because of sexual partner rejection,the ideal physical partner not just a fellow average partner.
Was his whole body of work driven by this?

We see similarities and many examples today with mainly males who are rejected by females they project as the ideal physical specimen,I would argue a large part of mass shootings are driven by such men,same with many members of Isis,the latter believing they can just take the infidel women once they rule the world.

Attractive females rejecting unattractive males does severe damage to the male psyche,it's an elephant in the room for centuries imo.

 

[Drareg]

What does that even mean? Have you even read any of his books? He is very easy to misunderstand when his quotes are taken out of context. The context of my post was addressing some of his statements relating to biology... did you even look at them?

This secondary literature is terrible by the way and is obviously the product of a butthurt christian that found Nietzsches work too offensive for his sensitive ears... I have read both Freud and Nietzsche pretty extensively and they are both brilliant and complementary intellects.

I know Rays views on Nietzsche and I disagree with him. He is too heavily influenced by Russian socialist/communist bullcrap in my opinion.

What you may look at as the worst aspects of man and society... the ugliest parts... Nietzsche would look at as the tension necessary for greatness, striving, and growth. If people were perfect there would be no reason to change and the world would become boring and stagnant. This is why Nietzsche loves the dark and ugly parts of man. The parts with the greatest capacity to stimulate change and development in the world. Every heroic story needs a villain to stir up trouble otherwise the story would not be worth listening to. Every man needs his dark side. Some people just can't bear to look at it. Nietzsche didn't just look at the dark and chaotic parts of man though- he also looked at the compassionate/social parts and saw value in both.

"I know Rays views on Nietzsche and I disagree with him. He is too heavily influenced by Russian socialist/communist bullcrap in my opinion".

Your stuck in the past with your Nietzsche dogma,he suits your current projections which are fuelled on hubris,an example is your above quote.
In the past many who make this claim against Peat have been asked to conclusively to prove it,it's a loose/weak attempt at discrediting Peat,you tried this in your many other fanatical Nietzsche threads.

I think Ray Peats views on sexuality and the importance of it are getting under the skin of many young males who may be currently getting rejected sexually and are using intellectual reductionism as a method of expressing energy,the energy is frustration with society not giving them what they want,Nietzsche perfect for sounding smart while expressing rage while slowly tip toeing to psychopathology.

Is this Nietzsches fault? Possibly not as I believe he was mocking people with the will to power as a pointed out in the other thread on this concept which is not his in origin,he wanted a different system to Christianity which was getting power over everything at the time based on faith, nierzsches will to power has you take him with faith.
It's probably similar with many other of his writing,perhaps keeping satire at the back of your mind when reading him might be better.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

"long winded verbosity"

...

 

[Drareg]

...

"RP's SCIENTIFIC articles are awesome, but when he starts getting all philosophical and flowery, its a big turnoff. WTF does that ^ even mean? Whether you agree with Nietzsche or not, at least nietzsche is offering something digestable".

Going by your above quote and posts in this thread I think you have comprehension issues with anything that does not suit your current paradigm,your paradigm deciding what is digestible,it's like bringing somebody who loves pufa laden fast food to a gourmet restaurant where they tend to use more saturated fat and said obese fast food lover claiming the gourmet food is not digestible therefore it's pretentious and crap and Ronald McDonald is the real culinary genius.

 

[DaveFoster]

Religion (and politics) is mostly a system of the very strong policing the somewhat less strong through the use of the weak. Very darwinist and meritocratic under an amoral viewpoint.

If you're going to go the way of "might is right", there's no need for mental masturbation about it; you already know your philosophy, which is that you have the moral right to do whatever you are physically capable of doing.

I romanticize Nietzsche as a religion for the middle-man, the entrepreneur, the self-made, and the independent. Neither the stratified dogmatism of the wealthy nor chaotic, destructive consumption of the lower rungs care for Nietzsche.

As for "might is right," I wouldn't subscribe to it per se. Altruism has benefits, but they're majorly apparent in a system of reciprocation.

 

[Dopamine]

"I think Ray Peats views on sexuality and the importance of it are getting under the skin of many young males who may be currently getting rejected sexually and are using intellectual reductionism as a method of expressing energy,the energy is frustration with society not giving them what they want,Nietzsche perfect for sounding smart while expressing rage while slowly tip toeing to psychopathology.

What views on sexuality from Ray are you referring too? Ray isn't telling people to go out and have lots of sex as far as I'm aware.

Is this Nietzsches fault? Possibly not as I believe he was mocking people with the will to power as a pointed out in the other thread on this concept which is not his in origin,he wanted a different system to Christianity which was getting power over everything at the time based on faith, nierzsches will to power has you take him with faith.
It's probably similar with many other of his writing,perhaps keeping satire at the back of your mind when reading him might be better.

Faith implies that there is no objective evidence... Power as a primary motivator is quite objectively observable and scientifically quantifiable. I think Nietzsches will to power can be quantified through Freuds libido theory. Power is perhaps our psychological experience of libido increasing.

Freud saw libido as the creative capacity of man (also destructive capacity of man as creation implies destruction)- libido can be spent on direct sexual relations or sublimated into cultural achievements.

Serotonin decreases libido through sexual frustration. Testosterone and sex hormones in the brain tends to decrease as serotonin increases. Dopamine increases libido as we conquer goals, overcome resistance etc... We experience increases of dopamine psychologically as an increase in pleasure. increases of pleasure increase our psychological sense of power as libido rises.

“Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.” -Nietzsche
Here Nietzsche is acknowledging that happiness stems from psychologically the experience of increased power ie: dopamine release in response to overcoming obstacles/obtaining rewards raising libido which is experienced as power.

Anyways it is not about faith and his work isn't satirical rather an intuitive understanding of psychology and life.

 

[DaveFoster]

@Drareg
What do you mean "getting rejected sexually" in that context? Are you saying it's fallacious to value the nuclear family over a single-parent household?