Nietzsche and Freud - Please Join discussion

My first Nietzsche text was The Birth of Tragedy. I loved how he blamed Socrates for the death of tragedy, which I found especially arrogant and completely funny. He even accuses Socrates of hypocrisy when, in the story of Socrates's imprisonment, he requests a musical instrument - to dabble in the Dionysian! - in contradiction to the ideal of rationalism! Question: What was your first experience reading Nietzsche or Freud?

Marianne wrote: "My first Nietzsche text was The Birth of Tragedy. I loved how he blamed Socrates for the death of tragedy, which I found especially arrogant and completely funny. He even accuses Socrates of hypocrisy when, in the story of Socrates's imprisonment, he requests a musical instrument - to dabble in the Dionysian! - in contradiction to the ideal of rationalism! Question: What was your first experience reading Nietzsche or Freud?"

I read Freud's Interpretation of Dreams for a college course in the fall of 1964. I found it interesting, though somewhat bizarre. "Interpretation" is certainly the operative word, as none of what Freud wrote in this work could be verified scientifically. One just had to take his word for it. Even at age eighteen, I took what he said with a grain of skepticism. There may be some truth to it, but how do we know that?

I don't recall reading anything else by Freud.

I read a fair amount of Nietzsche in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found Beyond Good and Evil to be quite interesting and full of insightful gems (at least as I understood them at the time). I disliked The Birth of Tragedy, which was so popular with the 1960s counterculture, intensely: see my 1967 essay "Hippies and Pioneers" here and my master's essay "The Teaching of Plato's Seventh Letter" here. I also disliked Zarathustra. I have always taken the side of reason (Socrates) against Dionysos (the god and Nietzsche). I've also read portions of Nietzsche's other writings, including some of The Genealogy of Morals, but not recently.

All in all, considering the many insights that Nietzsche had as against his irrationalist and fascist teachings, I have always said (since I first read him many decades ago) that "Nietzsche was absolutely right half the time and absolutely wrong the other half." As with Hillary and her "basket of deplorables," the percentages may need adjustment, but I still adhere to that basic dictum.

Following up on another of your comments, I will post something about free will later this afternoon.