In an extremely oddly titled article, the news from the Supreme Court is that "that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts."
PLEASE, tell me your opinions.........Is this a win for American democracy or a win for Terrorists? Or, most troubling...A WIN FOR BOTH? When it's a 'win for both', as in this case, CAN America win at all? And, what message does this send?
Much rejoicing at Guantanamo today, I'm guessing.
A tidbit from the article: "The Supreme Court has finally brought an end to one of our nation's most egregious injustices," said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren. "By granting the writ of habeas corpus, the Supreme Court recognizes a rule of law established hundreds of years ago and essential to American jurisprudence since our nation's founding."
What would our founding fathers be thinking today? I'm guessing some, maybe a lot, of you agree with this ruling.
TELL ME! and why? z
UPDATE: Worth reading Thanks, Deaner, for the update
94 comments:
There are several issues: (1) Do constitutional guarantees apply to non-US citizens who have never set foot inside the United States? (2) Do civilian courts have jurisdiction over military installations located on foreign soil? (3) Do clear thinking Americans really want to give terrorists access to our Bill of Rights, even as they themselves seek to destroy democracy, and replace it with Shari’ah Law?
From a practical matter, the United States Constitutions says exactly what the Supreme Court says that it says. In a society that cherishes freedom and guarantees from oppressive government, you will find many who argue that giving terrorists access to our Bill of Rights, even when they are not citizens, elevates us to a higher plane than the terrorists themselves. I suggest that in the process of “elevation,” we become easier targets for religious extremists and that no responsible government (including courts) would even consider such a thing.
I have no sympathy for any inmate at Gitmo. In fact, I think we treat them too humanely, especially when compared to inmates in US and state prisons at home. The alternative, of course, is to pursue a “no prisoners” mindset on the battlefield. And wouldn’t it be a tragic loss if somehow, these miscreants escaped out of the back of a C-141 enroute to Gitmo from the coast of Africa? Tsk tsk. A shame, indeed.
Great, Mustang..thanks so much for your opinion.
"elevates us to a higher plane" is what the Left will be saying tonight all over the news.."how MARVELOUS that our rights are provided to those who want to see us dead" is what the subtitle should be.
Questions/points from the Left are:
(1) If the war lasts for 10 more years, can we hold people without trial for 10 years?
(2) If we show what a democracy truly is, isn't it going to educate nondemocratic countries to thinking "Gee, isn't America great and shouldn't we aspire to that?"
I think both of those points (i'm sure there are more and I'm sure we'll hear them on the news for the weeks to come) are dangerously naive. Yes, we need to hold people (especially because many who've been let go have committed bombings in Iraq)until WE think they're safe and because you have to be a BIG DOPE to think those who really hate us are going to suddenly be impressed by our easy and luxurious treatment of terrorists and decide to emulate us!!. What muslim extremist would give US this chance? Beheading is their solution.
This ruling is setting off joy in extremist countries who see so clearly America hasn't the guts to really compete with terror. The Left is winning...America loses. Again.
But, the leftists in Europe will be SO impressed and that will make our Left SO happy!
Hey, just a thought:
The far left will LOVE this...but will centrists? Independents?
I'm not quite so sure. Aren't MOST people ragging on Gitmo as they're REAL glad those people are there and not here?
Let's hear what McCain has to say. You can only IMAGINE what machinations the two camps are going through at this moment "NOW WHAT DO WE SAY?"
Z's predictions:
Obama: "this is a great day for democracy and a great day for the rule of law. As careful as we must be to protect this GREAT country, most of us knew that Guantanamo was not something we want the world viewing as unfair or cruel. We are a BETTER COUNTRY with this CHANGE today!"
McCain: you know? I'm not really sure WHAT he'll say. I think this just MIGHT be a defining moment in the campaign for us Conservatives....
UHOH. Anybody want to hazard a guess?
Whatever happened to prisoners of war?
The Constitution IS NOT a suicide pact, but the leftistas sure seem to want to make it one...our goose is ash in the wind...
Been nice knowing y'all!
tmw
Actually, I bet there's very little celebrating going on at Club Gitmo. Those rat bastards never had it so good. They don't want to leave for prison. ~ Deaner
Z, They'll tear our mainland justice system a new one the first time one of these guys gets an unwanted gentleman caller ; ) This "judgment" hasn't begun to reap what it will sow. ~ Deaner
probably so, Deaner....the stuff you sent was truly EYE OPENING.
we're asleep behind our own eye lids.
And, boy, what a rude awakening we'll have. All in the name of LIBERALISM.
In my opinion, this decision is a travesty of monumental proportions.
I would like anyone to name one Japanese or German national who was a POW, who had the privilege of being tried under the protections of our Constitution.
Enemy combatants are not technically POW's, but, they are foreign nationals. They are enemies of the United States and were taken prisoner on foreign battlefields, or captured on foreign soil.
The argument that "this elevates us to a higher plane than the terrorists themselves", is an emotional argument which has no place in a court of law, and as far as I know, has no precedent regarding foreign enemy combatants.
It is not the in the interest of jurisprudence to decide that we will create a 'feel good' approach to enemies of the U.S.
Since when can America decide which foreigners on foreign soil are entitled to American Constitutional protections?
Can enemy combatants in any foreign country even if captured by said country demand to be extradicted to America for trial? I'm sure there are American attorneys only too happy to argue that case. After all our own Supreme Court has just ruled they have that right.
Could Saddam Hussein have demanded that right? If not, why not?
This is opening a can of worms we haven't begun to be able to assess.
All I can say is, this is a hell of a way to fight a war!
Pris
"In my opinion, this decision is a travesty of monumental proportions."
Just wait until Mr. Obama is your president; we'll try our own soldiers for shooting at terrorists who are dressed in civilian clothing. Oh, wait. We're already doing that.
Does anybody else here feeling like crying?
BOY, oh BOY oh boy....
America????????? Where ARE YOU???
I'm sorry, but some Supreme Court decisions should require more than a simple majority. This is one of them. Court "activism" in cases like this should have to be at least 7-2.
Z, upon re-reading my post I noticed I misspelled 'extradited'. I could have let it go, but I can't stand it. Humor me please.
Pris
In Germany, we have a saying: "Schluss mit lustig", or in other words "we end the fun right now, and get serious".
This is what we really should be doing:
1. Open the doors of the club, let them flee, and shoot them on the flight.
2. No more prisoners of any sort. Finish the job right there and then, wherever it might be.
The world is angry anyway. This, too, shall pass.
Mr.Z.
I want to add something my husband just pointed out to me. The Supreme Court today, amended the Constitution which is not their charge.
The Executive Branch and the Congress had come into agreement on the rules and framework regarding military commissions. The Supreme Court just wiped that out.
So, the Judicial branch overrode the Executive and Legislative Branches by creating a right that has never existed before.
It's my opinion these five Justices should be impeached. They have abused their authority, and more importantly, they have abused and put into more danger, American citizens.
They have defied the sanctity of the basic rights of Americans guaranteed by the Constitution, and weakened the security of the United States, while wresting from the appropriate branches of government their rightful responsibility.
It is not the charge or the responsibility of the Supreme Court to create law. It is not their responsibility to amend the Constitution.
What they have done today, is to take the law into their own hands. Vigilantes in black robes, are still vigilantes.
Pris
Does America still recognize herself when she looks in the mirror? This is a sad time when overstepping justices can dictate and supersede not only law but the safety of our people.
Yeah, I feel like crying too. We aren't going to get anywhere trying to impeach them though that is what we SHOULD do. What can we personally do? Just write letters to our "representatives?" Anybody got the guts to refuse to pay taxes to a nation that has screwed us over? Declare independence from it? It would have to be done en masse, as a movement. Doing it individually would just get us individually punished, with no effect whatever. We'd have to expect to be punished in any case, but we don't want it to be for naught. Or are there any other bright ideas for an activist response?
cj, I like your response and if a million others decided not to pay their taxes in rebellion, i would DEFINITELY do it..Even if 100,000 would do it with me.
This is IT. They are now jeopardizing our safety more than EVER...yet, all we do is sit and type, type, type.. how angry, how amazing, how illegal.......
how sickening am I that I can't do more?
Stop it Z. You're doing a lot. And as typing, typing, typing often doesn't feel like it's very effective, it is legal. No matter, I for one appreciate and value your point of view.
I feel like crying and screaming!
Do you ever find yourself wondering if everyone else has just lost it!!!! The whole planet is crazy and you are all alone????
Beam me up Scotty, No intelligent life forms here.
First, let me say that Mr. Z tells me he feels a little gulity about that post about shooting the Gitmo guys, but he's feeling that upset at this latest decision and so many other things that are going on here and in Europe.
Jungle Mom....I feel exactly like that...I feel like we don't even live in America anymore. We live somewhere where special interests are all that matter...and only liberal special interests at that. Conservative special interests, Judeo Christian special interests, etc., are worse than mocked, they're belittled and insulted.
We're competely off center, completely unhealthy in so many ways.
and, today, we have decided that the rights of people who want us dead trump our right to stay alive.
God bless us all and God bless America....she SURE needs Him back.
It would actually be a violation of the Geneva Conventions to try prisoners-of-war in a civilian court.
And we need to follow the Geneva Conventions to the letter.
These unlawful combatants were captured not wearing an identifying insignia.
In other words, they're spies.
In other words, it's legal to kill them on the battlefield, or later after you interrogate them with a blowtorch.
It would be like the Boston Tea Party to refuse to pay taxes, wouldn't it? I personally think we're at a point where it makes sense. The government is not the government the Founders established, it is committing all kinds of legal and Constitutional violations all the time. "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary . . ."
My main question isn't whether we've reached that point where rebellion is justified based on the violations by the government, it's whether it would be Biblical to act in such a way or not. The original move for independence split Christians into both camps.
This is God's judgment against us, all of this, which suggests He probably wouldn't bless a rebellion against it . . . but I'm not completely convinced of that.
Stunning. Just stunning. Maybe if these cloistered bastards had to live among us "people" they would understand the gravity of what they just did.
I was going to add something "intelligent", but everyone beat me to it! :-)
Z I've been working CRAZY hours in preparation to a business/fun trip to Key Largo, but I haven't forgot my promise. Hey, get a load of this! Laura Ingraham is getting her own show on Fox News, Monday at 5. It's called "Just In" and it should be pretty good.
Morgan
"Is this a win for American democracy or a win for Terrorists?"
It's a win for democrats and terrorists, some would say they're allies...
I remember reading a book a long time ago when i was a kid, a fiction book written by a man who knew Africa, long story short, this Russian fellow was captured by some African savages and they wanted him to work on something for them, but he wasn't too happy with the terms of employment. With no pay, no benefits, no healthcover and no longterm career options you wouldn't be too happy either. Not surprisingly the African savages were playing hardball, but not like your western take-it-or-leave-it hardball, so he whined about his human rights as per the Geneva conventions. To which the African thug said, to the effect, does this look like Geneva to you, Geneva is far away son, this is Africa. At this point they demonstrated to the Russian that they do offer one benefit, free dental work.
The point of my long waffle is that this due process, human rights, respect and prisoner of war and all that is just a western fantasy. The stupid among us don't realise that there is a reason why there are no al-qaeda or taliban prisoner of war camps and it's not because when they catch infidel soldiers they are served with freshly cooked lamb and Arabian virgins. For that matter if you are a spy or something and you get caught in Russia, China, Burma, N. Korea, Vietnam, Africa, South America or in most places on this planet, they can make you disappear. You'll have done well if your corpse is actually buried and still in one piece.
Now i'm not saying we need to do away with human rights and start torturing willy-nilly, just that before you roll out the red carpet for the enemy in the name of setting an example, ask yourself where in the world would you get the same treatment if you were captured. Who has followed your example and kept your soldiers alive and treated them according to the Geneva conventions. We've been treating them mostly fairly for many decades now, now answer honestly who of our enemies has followed our example.
Nietzsche, "Genealogy of Morals"
As it acquires more power, a community no longer considers the crimes of the single individual so serious, because it no longer is entitled to consider him as dangerous and unsettling for the existence of the totality as much as it did before. The wrongdoer is no longer “outlawed” and thrown out, and the common anger is no longer permitted to vent itself on him without restraint to the same extent as earlier — instead the wrongdoer from now on is carefully protected by the community against this anger, especially from that of the immediately injured person, and is taken into protective custody. The compromise with the anger of those particularly affected by the wrong doing, and thus the effort to localize the case and to avert a wider or even a general participation and unrest, the attempts to find equivalents and to settle the whole business (the compositio), above all the desire, appearing with ever-increasing clarity, to consider every crime as, in some sense or other, capable of being paid off, and thus, at least to a certain extent, to separate the criminal and his crime from each other — those are the characteristics stamped more and more clearly on the further development of criminal law.
If the power and the self-confidence of a community keep growing, the criminal law also grows constantly milder. Every weakening and deeper jeopardizing of the community brings its harsher forms of criminal law to light once again. The “creditor” has always became proportionally more humane as he has become richer. Finally the amount of his wealth even becomes measured by how much damage he can sustain without suffering from it. It would not be impossible to imagine a society with a consciousness of its own power which allowed itself the most privileged luxury which it can have — letting its criminals go without punishment. “Why should I really bother about my parasites?” it could then say. “May they live and prosper; for that I am still sufficiently strong!” . . . Justice, which started with “Everything is capable of being paid for; everything must be paid off” ends at that point, by shutting its eyes and letting the person incapable of payment go free — it ends, as every good thing on earth ends, by doing away with itself. This self-negation of justice: we know what a beautiful name it calls itself — mercy. It goes without saying that mercy remains the privilege of the most powerful man, or even better, his beyond the law.
MK, I couldn't agree more. There is a reason there are no Al Qaeda prison camps and that should be the same reason we don't have them, either. But, if WE did anything like that, what would our leftist media say? HELL to pay!
We're being so stupid as if to say "The terrorists are counting on us to tweak laws in their direction, let's not let them down!"
FJ! THAT is the MOST obviously relevant thing that I still understand (!) that you've posted here! WOW. Nietzsche could be explaining what's happening here, couldn't he. I couldn't believe what I was reading.....
Don't tell me all that stuff I haven't been quite able to understand was this relevant, too?! (Smile) Seriously, that is UNBELIEVABLE and I"m going to read it again and send it to friends, I think. Thanks......how prophetic. That guy was genius, wasn't he.
Morgan, NO WORRIES, I know you're busy and I SO don't want to stress you; plus, if you're like me, you've been writing that piece in your brain while you're doing other things, anyway, thinking about it, consciously and subconsciously.......
WOW....I'd read on the Tammy Bruce site that Laura wasn't at the radio station for 'reasons' and thought this might be the case, but they've announced her TV gig?
I hope she does well because we will REALLY miss her on the radio; or do you know if she'll do both like Hannity? Now that she's adopted a little girl, I'm doubting she'd want to do two gigs. I guess she'll be moving to NYC, too, unless they can studio her in VA somehow. I think she's better on radio, and she can DO more good there because she can say whatever she likes...I hope the Murdoch supporting the Dems thing doesn't stifle her; but Laura doesn't stifle.
Did I tell you Mr. and Mrs Z met her and chatted with her for a while? She is FANTASTIC. SO not a 'celeb' !! Thanks for the great news..
Here's the rub: THEY feel this war is illegal; that it's not really a war. SO, for us to say "this is a war and we don't coddle our enemies.." is falling on deaf ears. (and addled brains, too, of course)
cj, I have to go back to something I've said before; I believe this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that this country's been blessed as long as we lived by those principles to the best of our ability (realizing nobody's perfect)..I believe this country's turning from God (no prayer in schools, trying to get anything "God" off public buildings, mocking holidays, threatening Israel's existance by recognizing the Palestinians,etc.) and that turning away can be charted with the downward spiral of our culture, with the obvious threats to our safety from terror, and the very existance of our country. All that to say that, if one is a believer, one knows that God didn't twang his magic twanger to get the Israelites out of trouble in all those war chapters, he USED MEN to do battle for what He seemed to want. He's calling on us today to come back to him and heal this country, but we are not..hence......
Morgan, the sad thing about Laura's new TV show is that we won't see it! That's 2 pm LA time and we don't watch TV during the day much. WHAT a bummer. I'd so rather she was on during the evening HERE. Maybe they'll rerun it at night like they do H&C and O"Reilly.
I hope that means she won't give up her radio show? boo hoo!!
Thanks......how prophetic. That guy was genius, wasn't he.
He said at the time he wasn't writing for the men of his day, but for men with "long ears" who would need to know this info 100 years in the future... today.
My husband tells me Nietzsche's used by the Left a lot..I'm not that familiar, is that true, FJ?
FJ....'long ears'? Did he also prophesize about some weird mutation he thought man would have in 100 years?
Gee, maybe he saw obama in the future!?
Indeed he was. It's a good thing few ever properly understood him. The Kaiser in WWI issued "Zarathustra" to the troops in the trenches. In WWII, Nietzsche's sister became an avid NAZI supporter, which is ironic because Nietzsche was extremely critical of many other NAZI cultural icons, like Wagner.
The link to the Third Reich kept the Marxists of the USSR away from actively pursuing Nietzsche, but many of his ideas entered into the writings of the Marxists of Frankfurt School through the theories of Freud and Adler. Of course, Oswald Spengler was perhaps Nietzsche's greatest disciple.
Nietzsche wrote in Dionysian dithyrambs. His writing are not something easily digested by the skeptical speed readers of our day. Needless to say, I think I've read everything of Nietzsche's that has ever been translated into English...
FJ...I just don't get it. Is it just intellectual curiosity which makes you read him? Or do you admire him? Or do you admire his intellect or do you admire what he's saying?
I'm confused. The Marxists used him?..would he have approved of Marxism? Sorry for sounding dumb, but I know that little about him.
He was a true philosopher. His was a continuation of an argument that has lasted millenia. I'm interested in the history of ideas, and have been ever since my first undergraduate college psycho-history class.
I say this often, but few understand...
Nietzsche:Plato::Zeno:Parmenides
...or Nietzsche was to Plato what Zeno was to Parmenides. Here's a excerpt from Plato's "Parmenides" that hopefully explains what I mean...but only in the "2nd" sense of this argument, a demonstration of the absurdity of the concept of "the none"... or a refutation by affirmation of the concept of nihilism (a belief in "nothing").
I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno would like to be not only one with you in friendship but your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way, and would fain make believe that he is telling us something which is new. For you, in your poems, say The All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he on the other hand says There is no many; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming evidence. You affirm unity, he denies plurality. And so you deceive the world into believing that you are saying different things when really you are saying much the same. This is a strain of art beyond the reach of most of us.
Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. But although you are as keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing the track, you do not fully apprehend the true motive of the composition, which is not really such an artificial work as you imagine; for what you speak of was an accident; there was no pretence of a great purpose; nor any serious intention of deceiving the world. The truth is, that these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who make fun of him and seek to show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation of the one. My answer is addressed to the partisans of the many, whose attack I return with interest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of many, if carried out, appears to be still more ridiculous than the hypothesis of the being of one. Zeal for my master led me to write the book in the days of my youth, but some one stole the copy; and therefore I had no choice whether it should be published or not; the motive, however, of writing, was not the ambition of an elder man, but the pugnacity of a young one. This you do not seem to see, Socrates; though in other respects, as I was saying, your notion is a very just one.
Nietzsche hated all feelings drawn from the well of resentment. Marxism would have been merely another symptom of the degeneration of western civilization in his eyes. He was the opposite of a Marxist. He HATED the "last men" and thougth of their society as one of the weakest sort of "zeroes".
That's my take, anyway.
Nietzsche is also the ONLY philosopher, IMO, who has added to that discussion between Socrates, Zeno and Parmenides begun 2,500 ago. Everything in between has been a re-hashing and rediscovery of the same ideas. And no one has contributed to the discussion since. I doubt it's possible to add anything, as I believe it all to have been covered now.
The conclusion of the dialogue/dialectic had been... "If One is not, then nothing is". Nietzsche described for mankind what it meant for "nothing" to "be".
I think it can be truly said that Plato had only one philosophical equal... and that equal was Nietzsche.
Hence Nietzsche's voice is Dionysian, not Apollonian. Yet he was as skilled as Plato in presenting paradoxes which only thoughtful readers would puzzle over and learn from. His "Birth of tragedy from the spirit of music" hooked me on Nietzsche from the day I read it. It was brilliant...naive, but brilliant.
Well, it's pretty fascinating..I read most of the link, the self criticism, and couldn't help wondering what Nietzsche would have thought of Germany in the world wars.....the personality, the music, Hitler, etc.
What it meant for 'nothing' to 'be'....
If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, did it make noise?
FJ..I'm in WAY over my head here......you're brilliant on a subject I'm anything but brilliant on. But, I sure do hope you keep educating me!
My reading of Nietzsche, not a great deal, focused on his hatred of Christianity as a "slave religion" or the religion of weaklings, slaves and women. He despised Christianity. He wrote the Genealogy of Morals mostly to ridicule and scorn the very idea of morals in their supposed source in ignoble human enterprises such as Christianity (or something like that), and He also wrote a piece heralding the Antichrist, who is also the Ubermensch he idolizes, the man of super power and indomitable will, which Hitler and his Nazis found inspiring. Oh, and he also proclaimed the death of God, basically a judgment on the effect of Darwin and other philosophical tendencies of the time which had as good as proved the nonexistence of God, according to them.
I wondered for a while whether Nietzsche was simply being brutally honest about the effect of these philosophical trends, and perhaps even lamented them personally, but it seems pretty clear that although, like many existentialists, he may have felt a small pang for the passing of the old order presided over by the Christian God, he embraced it wholeheartedly in the end as the proper destiny of the human race.
Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this because I'm no Nietzsche scholar, but this is a very strong impression I got when I did read some of his writings years ago.
Nietzsche had prescience, perhaps the way anyone in the thrall of Satan would have prescience.
cj..well, this is certainly not way over YOUR head! Great post.
OKAY, FJ......FIRE AWAY! What was Nietzsche's stance on Christianity? What WAS/IS the GENEOLOGY of Morals if not GOD, my friend?
FJ,
There was only one Nietzschean, and he went insane trying to understand himself.
Indeed he may have beamish. I was once very like him in the insanity department.... but the syphilis pushed him over the edge.
Nietzcshe's father was a Lutheran minister. HIS father had been a Lutheran minister. Nietzsche started out on a path to be one as well.
From his writings, it's very easy to get the impression that Nietzsche "hated" Christianity. Yet of all people, Nietzsche understood how deeply indebted Western Civilization was to it's practice. It put what the ancients call "spannungsbogen" into the western mind and made it stronger. If you could not react to insult or injury immediately, you were forced to become more clever. But what he didn't like about it, was that Christians could not overcome their self-restraints and act "without restraint" AND with "clear conscience" doing so. He lamented that our "warriors" would always become self-damaged with PTSD. They needed to be "liberated" from their repressive SuperEgo's. And this is one of the reasons, I believe, that the Kaiser issued his book "Zarathustra" to his combat troops in the trenches of WWI. Of course the "result" of freeing his "common men" like Corporal Hitler was not very good for Germany. And Nietzsche never intended for his work to be read this way. But I digress.
Anyways, rather than repeat myself on this subject, let me simply point you to an argument that I once had on the subject with a troll, dora (as "me") and let you make up your own mind...and here's a kinda less hostile simple post related post (anonymous).
I can say one thing. Nietzsche did not think highly of the "moral" /Christian philosophers of his day who became "boxed" into moral thinking and were unable to step out of it EVEN IF THE FATE OF THE ENTIRE CIVILIZATION depended upon the ability to do so. If nothing else, he wanted Western Civ to die in battle with its' eyes WIDE open, not with them half-closed, or fully closed on a sacrificial altar dedicated to Allah.
Nietzsche seems to have despised the very core of Christianity, it seems to me, the recognition of inherent human sin since the Fall, and the payment of the sin debt of humanity by God Himself.
The argument at the link also reminded me that his analysis of bad conscience and the superego inspired Freud, then the Cultural Marxists (the Frankfurt School which married Freud to Marx), then the sexual revolution, probably not what Nietzsche had in mind, quite, but the germ of these things was there in his writing.
All in all Nietzsche was one of the most destructive influences on society that ever happened to us.
FJ...what a conversation with Dora...WOW. Nobody can say you're not both REAL SMART (YIKES)
You say you believe in evolution yet you quote Adam and Eve to make a point? Doesn't believing in evolution cause one to think that story IS "silly" and "fictional", as you suggested?
I was going to write here, after reading that exchange with ol' dumb dora (who's anything but dumb, of course, it's just an expression!), that your information must have been written AFTER the Nietzche info she had, but then she reminds that her seemingly ANTI CHRIST stuff was written 6-8 years AFTER yours...
You're making me want to read Nietazche........whoa. It's probably far more interesting to read you defend him, frankly! That point you wrote about war and how he would prefer Christians to 'act without restraint' is a familiar one to me because there are so many Christians against war of any kind, that God's will is being done as we sit and watch and lament.
MY feeling is he used MEN in the O.T. wars as his weapons, as his army...to do His bidding. It's one of the reasons I believe we have to fight in Iraq and, probably, Iran (to protect us AND Israel). He does use us, and so, if I understand you correctly on Nietzshe's stance, I'm with him. Do NOT "roll over and play dead"..be 'good stewards'...
am I on the right page? Help me here.
Indeed you are on the right page. The OT REMAINS a part of the Bible. Many Christian sects have latched onto the New Testament as Gospel (but view it exclusively as "The Ultimate Word" instead of as a continuation of our human compilation of "several aspects" of G_d's Single Word - like the way dimensions are portrayed in a Picasso or other cubist artwork).
And I can argue both for the story of Adam and Eve and Darwin's evolution because I believe the story of the Garden to represent man's perpetual condition... that man is perpetually exiled from creating "perfect worlds" because we are all "by nature" rebellious and can only listen to our own thoughts on anything...(Madison's, "Memorial and Remonstrance" - inalienable rights). There's MORE truth (for purposes of higher thought) in the Bible than ever there was in the Theory of Evolution. We think we can gain knowledge of "Good & evil" in the Garden, and in a sense, we have, but we also consume fruit of the tree of Life. But we can only travel to the garden in our "thoughts" and never "physically".
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a Christian. I believe that the Creator set our universe in motion and had a Purpose in Mind in doing so... but that since He Knew exactly how everything was going to turn out BEFORE He created it, He has no need to intervene in world affairs. He gave us "free will" to serve His Purpose also. But IMO, He had no need to come here and set the record straight. That what nature was for... for us to investigate, discover and pursue His Purpose for us (create more and more perfect thoughts from "nothing"). The universal record was "Designed" and "Created" straight before the universe even began, before time ever "began".
So no, perhaps I don't believe that Adam and Eve were created in precisely the manner described in Genesis. But if it didn't happen that way, it sure makes it easier to understand ourselves if we think that it happened in that way. That is why I am supportive of BOTH "theories" being taught. Besides, if the two theories were ever in agreement, we'd stop thinking about them and FORGET that we're trapped within the human condition that precludes the attainment (without Divine help) of "perfection". And what is the Left's "Critical Theory" but an error and belief that earthly perfection IS achievable, provided we keep tweaking until we serendipitously "get it right"?
All in all Nietzsche was one of the most destructive influences on society that ever happened to us.
That may be true, but I might also suggest that to be a "value judgment". F9or by the time Nietzsche came along, Christianity in Europe was already in serious decline, and Nietzsche believed that it would not be possible to "save it" by looking backwards (Orpheus and Eurydice). The "skeptics" had already done their work. Nietzsche also understood that w/o G_d there would be a rush towards embracing "nihilism", which is a belief in essentially "nothing" ie - the "Ethics of Authenticity, " by Charles Taylor, and that the perils to society from this occurring were EVEN MORE DANGEROUS than "spilling the beans" in the late 1800's and announcing to the world that "G_d was dead" (after all, so few would understand the message or messenger).
And so he embarked upon an effort to describe the perils of nihilism, the inevitable birth of the anti-Christ and a complete inversion of moral values. And then he set about trying to find a "cure" for nihilism. He needed three metamorphosis of thought to occur. Camel-Lion-Child (Zarathustra). Nihilism is the "middle/ transitory step" towards the "overman" (new law). And believe me when I tell you, the "next step" (to Child) is really the hardest. I'd like to think I could take those steps (or can if I need to). To become Diamond-hard, able to kill w/o mercy or 2nd thought and even take great pleasure and experience great regret in doing so. To create ends you select for man and mankind, not because you should or its the "old" right thing to do, but because you want to. To take pleasure in my own suffering and die doing it, but not for the pleasure of it, but because I want to (what does not kill me makes me stronger) as a test of my own power.
So you can see, it means actually becoming an anti-Christ of sorts, and moving beyond the anti-Christ by not becoming corrupted through the savoring of the instinctual pleasures that have been released and are now socially permissible that you've been repressing all along, by remaining in "control" of yourself and moving the state of human society/ civilization "through" the danger period of unleashed instincts (create "Islands of the Blessed"). IMO, the only people so capable in the past have been the "ascetics", but any future step may have to be approached differently.
The New Left has already embraced a path of unleashing Eros and the instincts. In the 60's, the USA embarked upon this path. The path lies "ahead of us", and not behind us. I, for one, no longer am tempted to look back for Eurydice (Christianity), just ahead towards the challenge. And right now, I want as many "allies" as I can find. Because the "children" on the Left have NO idea what they are doing. But that doesn't stop them "hammering" away at the old idols. It gives them "pleasure". They are unleashing" the old instincts who's repression allowed our civilization to develop (polyamorous sex and personal use of force). Freud, "Totem and Taboo"
FJ..before I say too much more, what is YOUR definition of "perfection" in this context?
and have you read Flavius Josephus' words about the 'man' he called Jesus? Just yesterday, TMW and I talked about this, he said he hesitated to use the word 'man' because this 'man' Jesus had done such miraculous things (I paraphrase).
It's mostly the Lefty Christians who ignore the O.T. because it's "violent"...also JUDGMENTAL. When one grasps the importance of BOTH books, it's been my experience that the O.T. is even more satisfying than the New...so much foreshadowing... but, I guess you don't look at the O.T. as foreshadowing...One can't if one doesn't believe in the Gospel, or am I wrong on that!?
Thanks for this conversation...I'm really enjoying it and look forward to your responses.
So as much as people like Dora might want to think that Nietzsche hated Christianity and that he supported the coming of the anti-Christ because he wrote about these subjects, he did so, IMO not out of a motivation of "hatred"... but because he realized that Ixion's Wheel was already "spinning" in THAT direction, and that the path ahead had to pass THROUGH it to "the other side". And so, I personally THANK Nietzsche for the "guidebook". We now know what to expect and can think of ways to protect ourselves in the "dangerous passage" to the other side. ie- the "Pillars of Hercules," between Charybdis and Scylla, between a rock and a hard place like a modern Jason or Odysseus (Man of Pain). The "Birth" of a new civilization is at stake... hopefully one that will NOT be "stillborn".
FJ..before I say too much more, what is YOUR definition of "perfection" in this context?
Blech. Too hard. To describe that which cannot be adequately described is often labeled "idolatry". But here's some "idolatry" to think about...
Well, perfection in the physical universe is nature as represented by G_d's creation and Absolute Perfection "outside" (but throughout) of the universe is The Creator Himself.
Only the "shadows" of Perfection are visible in this "mixed" world, the physical by eyesight/senses and the non-physical mental images of absolutes, finite and infinite representations of His Word in this world and seen as the "empty" forms/figures of word and number connected through language (spoken and mathematics).
Since this is a "mixed" universe, there is "generation from opposites" where the example of His creation (nature) generates shadows in the human mind, some "close" to His Word, but more often, gross deformities.
...I know, what gibberish. If you want a "real" idea of Perfection, the closest I've seen is Plato's "Parmenides"... a dialectic of absolutes, logically x1,000 more accurate and "pure" than mathematics.
Flavius Josephus'...
I've never had the pleasure of reading his accounts.
In a Nietzschean sense, perfection is more the eternal interplay of forces and powers, constructive and destructive and the will to participate in the process of life. The emergence of a "dancing god" who participates in our lives and is not absent from it would have made Nietzsche extremely happy. In a sense, I think Nietzsche took the trancendentalist Emerson's address to the Harvard Divinity School rather to heart... it lamented the Christian tendency which downplayed the "Doctrine of the Soul" in favor of teaching religion "historically". Nietzsche actually admired Emerson greatly. The same could NOT be said about Schopenhaeur or Kant.
well, it was you who said "the attainment of perfection" and I wondered what that would mean for you in a human being.
It stunned me to read that you, too, believe the Left is in search of PERFECTION so often; it's something I've believed very strongly more and more....we can't have ONE person hurt without doing all we can to prevent it (warnings of HOT COFFEE!, etc. By the way, the Boy Scouts who tragically died at camp due to storms were in cabins 'not built for tornadoes' or something like that...my first thought was "now they'll have to build ever single cabin in America with torando-preparedness, right?).....well, we all know examples of this perfection the left wants for life...so unrealistic, even inhuman, but they will strive for all to have equality..if that equality is nothingness.
SO, perfection ...like whom? God? Buddha? Christ? Dalai Lama?
I'm curious! And Plato won't do it for me ... I want to know what YOU think!!
Have you heard of Josephus?
I didn't see the Harvard link post until after I'd posted my comment..will check that out. thanks.
My sister, with whom I've had more than a few discussions on the subject, is a devout born again Christian. She finds Emerson rather "pagan" and a kind of "nature worshipper". So please feel free to speak your criticisms. I've heard them all before.
Perfection in a human being? Christ. Please don't be offended.
#2 - Socrates.
But the man would differ depending upon the circumstances into which he were thrust.
I believe Ecclesiastes #3 sums up where I'm coming from. For everything and every man, there is a season. Jesus conquered Rome. He was "perfect" for the job. He may be the right man again when the time comes to fight the anti-Christ. But for now... Socrates certainly isn't a "bad" man.
...after all, Socrates 1st principle was that "it was better to suffer and injustice than commit one." But now is probably more the time for Plato's "Athenian Stranger".
FJ, how do you think this 'nothing' carpenter did what he did and why do you think people still worship him these many, many years later?
I'm going to read the whole Emerson piece and get back to you...I've rarely read such excellent English in my life...I have other things going here, however, and it'll take me a bit... thanks SO much; I had never even heard of this gorgeous speech. The first paragraph is one in which I want to sit. does that make sense? I just want to SIT in it.
well, FJ..it's so long I'm printing it and reading it later or tomorrow...but, let me just tell you...one of the reasons I'm befuddled by some of the things you print is that I have a terrible habit of scanning when I read lately. I honestly think this sound byte world we live in has affected me, I fear (honestly), and I can't read like I used to.
THIS piece by Emerson might be what brings me back...tho I have to admit I HAVE slowed down to really read your Plato, etc., too. A little. I found myself wanting to scan and then thinking "I can't miss a word, a phrase, a sentence here.."
How utterly beautiful is "..in Plalestine, where it reached its perfect expression!"
The 'religious sentiment' paragraph is gorgeous....
here is the crux of the piece, tho I have only read about 1/5 yet..
"Whilst a man seks good ends, he is strong by the whole strength of nature". I really do believe that.
Then he says Jesus's history is PLOUGHED into our history..wow.
Thanks so much. This is QUITE something.
I think I sense something different than your sister senses; in nature is JESUS everywhere..in everything he mentions there's God behind it. Like the quote above about ploughing......seems to ME that, so far, he's saying "Without God there can BE no good".......
It's odd if N's critique was against what had become of Christianity that he attacked so violently its foundation in the teachings of Christ about meekness and turning the other cheek, and its appeal to the downtrodden and the underdog and so on. True Christianity is not anything N admired: "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called" (1 Cor 1:26).
What me/dora quoted from the Antichrist is clearly an attack on Christianity itself.
I remember trying myself to read Nietzsche as simply telling it like it is rather than welcoming it. In the end I couldn't.
Z: That passage in Josephus is SO challenged as a fraud I don't think anyone can build a case on it any more, and there's no way to prove it genuine that I know of. You have to ask yourself whether a Pharisee like Josephus would have said such a thing about Jesus, and if he had wouldn't he have become a Christian himself?
Section 62 is what you refer to. It concludes the entire work. Here's the whole thing.
With this I am at the end and I pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity. I raise against the Christian church the most terrible of all accusations that any accuser ever uttered. It is to me the highest of all conceivable corruptions. It has had the will to the last corruption that is even possible. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its corruption; it has turned every value into an un-value, every truth into a lie, every integrity into a vileness of the soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! To abolish any distress ran counter to its deepest advantages: it lived on distress, it created distress to eternalize itself.
The worm of sin, for example: with this distress the church first enriched mankind. The "equality of souls before God," this falsehood, this pretext for the rancor of all the base-minded, this explosive of a concept which eventually became revolution, modern idea, and the principle of decline of the whole order of society—is Christian dynamite. "Humanitarian" blessings of Christianity! To breed out of humanitas a self-contradiction, an art of self-violation, a will to lie at any price, a repugnance, a contempt for all good and honest instincts. Those are some of the blessings of Christianity!
Parasitism as the only practice of the church, with its ideal of anemia, of "holiness," draining all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the mark of recognition for the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed—against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, spirit, graciousness of the soul, against life itself.
This eternal indictment of Christianity I will write on all walls, wherever there are walls—I have letters to make even the blind see.
I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great innermost corruption, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, stealthy, subterranean, small enough—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind.
And time is reckoned from the dies nefastus with which this calamity began—after the first day of Christianity! Why not rather after its last day? After today? Revaluation of all values!
but I would also point you to the preface...
This book belongs to the very few. Perhaps not one of them is even living yet. Maybe they will be the readers who understand my Zarathustra: how could I mistake myself for one of those for whom there are ears even now? Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.
The conditions under which I am understood, and then of necessity—I know them only too well. One must be honest in matters of the spirit to the point of hardness before one can even endure my seriousness and my passion. One must be skilled in living on mountains—seeing the wretched ephemeral babble of politics and national self-seeking beneath oneself. One must have become indifferent; one must never ask if the truth is useful or if it may prove our undoing. The predilection of strength for questions for which no one today has the courage; the courage for the forbidden; the predestination to the labyrinth. An experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have so far remained mute. And the will to the economy of the great style: keeping our strength, our enthusiasm in harness. Reverence for oneself; love of oneself; unconditional freedom before oneself.
Well then! Such men alone are my readers, my right readers, my predestined readers: what matter the rest? The rest—that is merely mankind. One must be above mankind in strength, in loftiness of soul—in contempt.
Do you believe yourselves to be the readers Nietzsche is talking about, who understand the context in which this text is written... one chapter in a much larger ouvre? And is Nietzsche condemning Christ in the above, or the Church? He does condemn both... BUT... the ubermensch must suffer AND experience a "down-going", which is the very essence of what Christ's life was about.
Nietzsche also wrote Ecce Homo (behold, the man).
It "strangely" omits "Anti-Christ" from list of "subjects" written upon.
But that's probably got little to do with Leo Strauss and the art of writing "between the lines?"
What might Nietzsche have to hide, as his writing is "heterodox" to a fault? Perhaps something he did not wish casual readers to understand.
btw - For the Romans Dies nefasti were days on which no judgment could be pronounced.
Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me.... when "time begins to be counted anew"... on the "other side" of the anti-Christ... and good judgement returns.
FJ, how do you think this 'nothing' carpenter did what he did and why do you think people still worship him these many, many years later?
Because he did not serve his own personal ambition AND he was the "most common of men". He was a shepherd NOT suckled by a wolf (Romulus & Remus). He was a king without the disadvantage of having to use force or fight wars. His was the beginning of the "modern era" in human values. For what most benefits the "average" man benefits all of mankind.
Instead of the world revolving around the deeds of royals and other so-called great men, it would revolve around common men and their simple family values.
I have no idea what Nietzsche is talking about most of the time, really, all I know is that it adds up to a diatribe against Christianity. There is certainly a false church, but there has also always been a true church, true to Jesus Christ, and there's no way to know which N is talking about, and I doubt he knows the difference himself. He usually just sounds like a raging self-glorifying blowhard to me, well demonstrated in his broadcasting that he writes for the elite few capable of understanding him.
cj....a little from Josephs commentary...re: the paragraph about "jesus the man"...
"From those two sentences it seems that the TF (cj: the TF is Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus..his book) is too strong to be from a non-Christian source, and too short and weak to be from a Christian. However, remember that Josephus often reported what he heard and read from his sources without fully believing the story himself. The phrase �if it be lawful to call him a man� sounds a bit like a thoughtful micro-commentary on what he is reporting. Likewise the idea �He was Christ� is expressed later in 20.9.1(200) as �Jesus, who was called Christ�. The Agapian (Arabic) version contains further support for the view that the TF is not a full-fledged confession of faith by Josephus himself, but is instead a report; the phrase "Accordingly they [Jesus' disciples] believed that he was the Messiah" appears at the end of the Agapian passage (discovered and translated by Shlomo Pines in 1971)."
We've been out and I'm too tired to get into this now but I look forward to discussing it tomorrow, tho I don't know too much past this.
So, FJ...why would Jesus have behaved like this? WHERE did he get this utter goodness and wisdom? Why didn't he say, from the cross.."HEY, hey, HEyyy...I was JUST kidding! You can take me down now..this is NUTS! Hey..it was a joke!?"
Why would Peter ask to be hung on the cross upside down so's not to even have the honor of dying like his Master had?
Why did all but John die martyr's deaths if they hadn't really believed/seen?
I know we're not going to solve that question here, but it's fascinating to discuss..at least for me.
I don't know any more than I said about it, Z. Yes, it's a report, it's certainly not a confession of faith, but it's so heavily disputed that without external corroboration there's no way to use it as apologetic support. Of course I'd like to believe it myself.
So, FJ...why would Jesus have behaved like this? WHERE did he get this utter goodness and wisdom? Why didn't he say, from the cross.."HEY, hey, HEyyy...I was JUST kidding! You can take me down now..this is NUTS! Hey..it was a joke!?"
He was a revolutionary pacifist... like Gandhi. I doubt Gandhi would have denounced his cause under torture or upon threat of execution either. He was, as Nietzsche would say, committed to "down-going".
Zarathustra
When Zarathustra had thus spoken, one of the people called out: "We have now heard enough of the rope-dancer; it is time now for us to see him!" And all the people laughed at Zarathustra. But the rope-dancer, who thought the words applied to him, began his performance.
Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman- a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.
I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Superman may hereafter arrive.
I love him who liveth in order to know, and seeketh to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live. Thus seeketh he his own down-going.
I love him who laboureth and inventeth, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeketh he his own down-going.
I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.
I love him whose soul is lavish, who wanteth no thanks and doth not give back: for he always bestoweth, and desireth not to keep for himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour, and who then asketh: "Am I a dishonest player?"- for he is willing to succumb.
I love him who scattereth golden words in advance of his deeds, and always doeth more than he promiseth: for he seeketh his own down-going.
I love him who justifieth the future ones, and redeemeth the past ones: for he is willing to succumb through the present ones.
I love him who chasteneth his God, because he loveth his God: for he must succumb through the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goeth he willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgetteth himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down-going.
I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causeth his down-going.
I love all who are like heavy drops falling one by one out of the dark cloud that lowereth over man: they herald the coming of the lightning, and succumb as heralds.
Lo, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop out of the cloud: the lightning, however, is the Superman.-
When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he again looked at the people, and was silent. "There they stand," said he to his heart; "there they laugh: they understand me not; I am not the mouth for these ears.
I believe Nietzsche is above proclaiming a love for everything Christ did in his life. I do NOT believe Nietzsche "hated" Christ.
And cj, Nietzsche is making an appeal to elitists and elitism. Hatred of both is a value we're all taught. "Humility" is what one must always demonstrate. But what if you're right, or think you are right? As Plato says in his "Charmides" (on "Temperance")
And can that be good which does not make men good?
Certainly not.
And you would infer that temperance is not only noble, but also good?
That is my opinion.
Well, I said; but surely you would agree with Homer when he says,
'Modesty is not good for a needy man'?
Yes, he said; I agree.
Then I suppose that modesty is and is not good?
Clearly.
But temperance, whose presence makes men only good, and not bad, is always good?
That appears to me to be as you say.
And the inference is that temperance cannot be modesty--if temperance is a good, and if modesty is as much an evil as a good?
All that, Socrates, appears to me to be true;...
The post-modern age of human values is now upon us. This comes in the form of new concepts of justice, aka-"social justice" and the teachings of John Rawles. No longer is the "average man" and the self-sufficient "carpenter" to be "idolized". Now they wish to worship and measure the worth of society (and its' values) by the opportunities for achievement afforded societies "lowest" man. It's drunks, it's drug addicts, it's prostitutes, It's criminals, etc. Hence, societies "victims" are now its' "heroes".
Today an "elitist" is one who promotes "middle-class values".
Gandhi's cause was for the underdog, feeding the poor, etc etc..
Jesus's cause was bringing people to belief in Him so they could enter the gates of Heaven.
It would be more evident, more obvious somehow, for someone to not give in to torture for something people can touch and feel. It's very valiant and very caring on the Gandhi types, isn't it!? I don't at all mean to diminish from that. Though I don't see many actually giving up their lives for it. Giving up COMFORT, yes. Maybe that's just a function of the fact we don't kill for those beliefs~!! They're so altruistic, who's going to DIE for a cause of bringing food to people, though we know Gandhi was persecuted by some.
To stand up for Jesus and his message and die for it seems more amazing to me and probably not a clearcut and obvious comparison.
These people died for a total unseeable concept...a totally unfeelable, unsmellable, unapparent concept. Believe in Him.
Seems unbelievable. To me,anyway.
Hm, well, I don't think "humility" as you are presenting it is the opposite of being a blowhard. Jesus was far from "humble" in the sense you are talking about.
He knew he was right and said he was right -- and he was never wrong, about anything. He said He was the only way to God. In fact He claimed to BE God -- when He said "Before Abraham was, I am," and "if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins," and concerning His healing of a paralytic, "Which is easier, to say 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or 'Arise and walk?'" Even in calling God His Father He was making that claim rather than the ordinary claim to be part of His creation or His chosen people: He spoke of God as "MY Father" not "our Father." It is also written that he always "spoke with authority." He also said "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Not a humble statement in the sense you are using the word.
But then all that is true because Jesus IS God as well as man. Gandhi was no Jesus Christ, and to get out of the accounts of Jesus only what Gandhi got is to miss the whole point.
Jesus was not humble as you are using the word, but he also is the opposite of an elitist since He called all to follow Him. Of course He also indicated that not all WOULD follow Him, in fact "only a few" would find the narrow way, implying that many would not understand.
But now I've lost track of what I even meant about Nietzsche. Hm. Something like this maybe: He rarely says anything anyone can understand and then he moans about how nobody understands him. I really don't understand 90% of what you quoted of him. Is it that he fails to provide a context, a historical context perhaps, so that someone could follow him more easily? His words end up sounding to me like so much puff. I think I get the main themes of his writing, the ressentiment he finds in Christianity, his answer in the ubermensch, but he has long long passages that make no sense whatever to me. And maybe he's right, only a very few will understand him, but he sets them up for a wierd sort of pride in that. I no longer know what I'm talking about either, so I think I'm burned out on the subject. Interesting, though.
Nietzsche's method lay in the presentation of paradoxes that require the reader to think. It was the identical method employed by Plato and Zeno to get one to move epistemologically beyond the realm of "opinion" and into that of "knowledge".
Plato, "Republic"
that, then, is the nature of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither?' Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can be no revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in the previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am confident. For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and opinions; and the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of true being, and never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the upper world, with the help of the sciences which we have been describing--sciences, as they are often termed, although they require some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and this in our previous sketch was understanding. And so we get four names--two for intellect, and two for opinion, --reason or mind, understanding, faith, perception of shadows--which make a proportion-- being:becoming::intellect:opinion --and science:belief::understanding: perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a sleepy dream; and many a man is in his grave before his is well waked up. And would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings, or stupid as posts? 'Certainly not the latter.' Then you must train them in dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the coping-stone of the sciences.
Jesus was humble in his attire, in his living conditions, in his gentleness, his lack of pride/ego. In that way, Gandhi probably liked to think of himself as Jesus-like and so would many of his followers. They miss the biggest message, most of them, of course; and that same humility of Jesus is something which has caused Jews for thousands of years not to accept his message because he didn't come on as a King, like David or Solomon......Not on a white horse, etc.
It's all very interesting....
As for the Nietzsche...well....tough stuff to grasp, for sure!
I recommend the Emerson speech FJ linked that he gave to a divinity school. It's beautiful and I'm eager to finish it, cj.
z
I guess the implication is that I don't think, since obviously I have no patience with Nietzsche's use of dialectic, right? I dunno, dialectic, schmialetic, I still think he writes long passages of puff.
Yes, I guess I should have said that of course Jesus was humble in every OTHER way than by being right about everything, but FJ had set up the definition as being about being right and knowing you are right. Actually, I think you can be right and know you are right and that not in any way be unhumble.
So what I was saying about Nietzsche being a blowhard wasn't about whether he was right or not.
I see your point, CJ, about humility and I agree 100%. If you're right, you're right!
No, I'm not saying that you don't think. I'm saying that Nietzsche deliberately made himself difficult to understand AND TELLS EVERYONE THIS, much like "Revelations" is difficult to understand. A "skeptic" can ridicule Revelations to pieces, just as easily as they can ridicule Nietzsche. In order to understand, you must temporarily suspend belief and read closely to resolve paradoxical textual juxtaspositions. The message will be revealed only to those who seek it earnestly and are willing to invest a substantial amount of time entertaining the plausibility of the conclusions which the logic inherent in the text implies.
Many authors use this technique. Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll and Charles Dodgeson were others...
Before I read Nietzsche, I thought that he must have been the devil incarnate. Having read him, my opinion of him was changed. I'll leave it at that. I will never change anyone's opinion, especially so long as they retain a modicum of hope that they may be correct. And I will never attempt to shatter that hope in someone who already possesses "right opinion" about the essentials.
You have a rather cryptic way of writing, FJ. Whose modicum of hope that he/she may be right about what? Attempt to shatter what hope? Do you have that opportunity? Whose hope? And what "right opinion?" And am I even asking the right questions?
I didn't mean to imply anything. I'm just stating a fact about "what it takes to alter someone's pre-exisitng opinion" on a subject as described from Plato's, "Meno". And I'll leave it at that. I wouldn't want to loosen or remove any fasteners from your image of Daedelus. I wish it to remain firmly in place.
Nietzsche wrote cryptically so as to seduce his readers into delving ever more deeply into the subject matter.
I just laid out some bait. Will you follow it?
One might call it a lesson in Socratic method... or a treatise on the question as to whether or not virtue can be taught.
I'm too old and impatient and haven't the time any more to spend much of it exploring the thoughts of mere men who don't know Christ, but thanks for confirming that you WERE being cryptic, apparently intentionally.
I do prefer it when people say exactly what they mean, though, instead of trying to lure me into something in which I have no particular reason to be very interested, even perhaps subtly implying that there's something wrong with my intellect if I don't take the "bait." In other words, FJ, I'd be interested in reading a translation of your cryptic message into straightforward English, but I ain't gonna knock myself out getting to it otherwise. My it's hot today, fan fan fan, wish them flies would stay away.
Suit yourself. I'm not in the free translation business. I'm not Aristotle, Plato's untalented student.
you are definitely NOT anybody's 'untalented' anything, fj!
Thanks, z. Thought you might enjoy this piece... I guess now we know where the ADD is coming from. ;-)
Plato, "Phaedrus"
SOCRATES: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country.
SOCRATES: There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first gave prophetic utterances. The men of old, unlike in their simplicity to young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from 'oak or rock,' it was enough for them; whereas you seem to consider not whether a thing is or is not true, but who the speaker is and from what country the tale comes.
PHAEDRUS: I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke; and I think that the Theban is right in his view about letters.
Giving Non-constitutional Killers
Constitutional.
Rights that are reserved for Americans Its our constitution only and only an America right.
Due Prossess my ass Thy Want to kill us hell Thy are killing us.
Do What thy would do without batting an eye thy cut off our heads and drag us through the streets.
Thy will use what ever thy have access to put an end to us, and without batting an eye soon thy may have more than just supplies for road side bombs from Iran, So do we buy Iran lunch or become lunch wnen thy give sute case size plotoneum to our de-capotators?.
2. Why Race is a factor and its all thanks to Mr Obamas actions His personal behavor and setting standards for our children.
Protect Us from Terrorist Try Protecting Ones own children from hate Within
Are we protecting our children from hate mongores and home grown Terrorist within our own boarders? Child protection starts with Protecting Ones own children from hate Within our own homes and and communties.
Why these Double Standards Show Me Mr Obama Dont tell me!
Mr Obama said More of the same I heard "Don't do as I do but do as I say"
Bad Bad Bad Dads Obama said on Sunday in yet just another grate speach, but should one not start with ones own child or children when it comes to bad parenting?
If a man takes his own children repetely to a place be it a kkk get to geather or a church or a black panthers party any where "Any Where" where radical hatred speach is spewed out about race any race other than the childs race is that not subjecting ones own child to mental indangerment? and if so , can He this parent be trusted to advise other Men on there parenting abilitys?
Can a man not trusted to protect his own child in the past, be trusted to protect all American children from harms way?.
PS. Did Mr Obama with His actions not words say DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO
It reminds me of yet another grate speach Mr Obama gave on race about grandma and why she said things that made Him crenge,
"IT IS BRANDED IN ONES MIND" She cant help it, but can He help it by not alowing the branding of future minds of children soon to become adults and yes grandmothers that say hatfull things.
http://www.hillaryscomeback.blogspot.com
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