Existentialism Philosophy
Nietzsche: America’s Gnostic Superman
The superman is not a person, it’s a malicious culture. The propaganda of equality is founded upon a cross of arrogance. The symbol of universal hope has been stolen and replaced with a certainty of despair. Just look at the company that the American Nietzsche keeps. The progressive borrows from the communist, while never admitting they are an admirer. The fascist condemns the Marxist, when they compete for the most perfect despotic government. Each evolution and method of control are medals of achievement for the collectivists. Purging the body politick from obstinate resistance to the replacement society is the prime objective. Equality has come to mean compliance.
Nietzsche is no different than any other tyrant who sought to replace the almighty. From Science, Politics and Gnosticism by Eric Voegelin this account is offered:
“Creating a new world requires destruction of both the "givenness" of the order of being and of its transcendent origin. Divine being is explained as human invention. Examples from Nietzsche.
The first golem legend. Parallel to Marx's speculations. The tension between the first and second realities is the tension between the order of God and magic. First reality = truth, second reality = death.
The second golem legend. "God is truth" becomes "God is dead". The hubris of a human creator will turn him against God.
Analysis of Nietzsche's story "The Madman". Like the golem story but the moral is not accepted. The murder of God requires a new god: the superman. In reality, having cut themselves off from God, the gnostics begin murdering men.”
Contrast Nietzsche with Kierkegaard. “For Kierkegaard, life is a movement from an essential to an existential condition. Man's essential condition is being related to God. On the other hand, the existential condition arises from his alienation from God. This alienation creates anxiety which in turn creates the desire to once again be in an essential condition. To achieve this means to be related to God, "since this is 'a far higher thing than to be related to' anything else" (qtd. in Stumpf 448).
So for Kierkegaard life is a series of stages. Each person must decide for himself how to approach these levels, but the goal, at least for Kierkegaard, is to achieve the third stage, the religious stage. This consists of not only choosing for oneself, but "in being infinitely interested in the reality of another" (CUP 288).”
Now consider the mindset of Nietzsche: “For Nietzsche, the Ubermensch or Superman is an ideal . . . Rather than turn inward to find subjectivity and God, Nietzsche says that man should strive to realize his nature manifested in the will to power . . . For most people, values are created for them. These people, whom Nietzsche called the herd, see values as something which should apply equally to all. For Nietzsche, this morality is fine for "paltry people" (qtd. in Stumpf 51). However, for those who have the will to create values for themselves this is a life-denying view . . . The first step for man, then, is to overcome this herd view of values created for the herd by the priests. Nietzsche calls them the "other worldly," the "despisers of the body" and says they "are not bridges to the Superman"”
But who are the real priests in modern society? Surely, they are no longer the orthodox clergyman on institutional religion. The role of cleric has been seized by the new gatekeepers of the Gnostic religion. Their will to attain power is not based upon a need or desire to fulfill themselves - to become all you can become - but on a drive to achieve a superman deity, and omnipresence over their fellow man. The psychoanalysis of Freud acts as a co-enabler for the rationalization of these fake elite supermen and an apology for the culture that tolerates their deceit. Equality for all means superiority of the select.
Nietzsche’s value as an Existentialist is not in his triumph of nihilism or that he buried God, but in his originality for confronting the failures of an earlier age. His influence upon Objectivism and impact upon Ayn Rand is cited by Leonard Peikoff: “Rand quotes Nietzschean sayings, she is inspired by Nietzschean visions of joy, and she expresses an intellectual elitism that one associates with Nietzsche.” However, the arrogance in one’s own ability to supplant the substance of human nature with an apparition of what you will it to be, is the basic failure of a world that denies God.
When the ethos of a culture accepts their own domination as an artificial means for self realization, the only equality that remains is the subjugation of the "paltry people". Admittedly people have never been coequal, but that does not mean the negation of universal human dignity, because of a variance in ability or resolve. America has become a gnostic society believing in a destructive altruism, because it no longer accepts faith in our divinely created being. Nietzsche made tolerable the replacement of the pastor with worldly high priests of a demented secular society. Supermen we are not, humble beings we all are meant to be, and knowing the lines between the two is our responsibility. The real Existentialist will challenge this maxim without creating a false dialectic. Our duty is to search for the balance that promotes a just society, while respecting individuality. Nihilism is a path of doom, what road will you walk?
SARTRE - September 26, 2003
posted by SARTRE at 9/25/2003 | (0) comments
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posted by SARTRE at 9/20/2003 | (0) comments
Meaningfulness presupposes knowledge of supra-meaning. When a person recognizes his ultimate meaning in life, or supra-meaning, then he can make things meaningful, worthwhile. Nietzsche said that anyone who knows the 'why' can endure any 'how'. A person who knows the supra-meaning of life tries to move forward to it. For example, a person who knows that the supra-meaning is to be happy and that happiness can only be achieved in heaven will try to do things to conform to God's laws. Everytime he does things which conform to God will be meaningful to him. If God's law was "Love your neighbor", a person who makes a charitable act to another will make his actions meaningful.
Will to meaning is a will to good. A person who tries to find meaning in everyday situations tries to find what they can do which makes it "worthwhile". To make something "worthwhile" is to try to make a good of the situation. Since when did a person say, "Make your suffering worthwhile" and not mean "Make something good from your suffering"? I believe that everyone tries to make their present day situations worthwhile. They will to do good at least for themselves. They try to make something better than what they have. Even a person who commits suicide believes it is the best thing for him to do so.
Supra-meaningfulness is when we attain the supra-meaning. It is when we achieve what we were all made for. Supra-meaningfulness is when we achieve the par excellence. It is when we do not will anymore for meaningfulness because we already achieved the "most" or the "best" or the "greatest".
posted by Ap at 9/18/2003 | (0) comments
Man searches for meaning. He tries to find meaning in life and in everyday situations. He tries to search for meaning in things such as suffering, love, free time, and life itself. '
'How' presupposes the knowledge of 'why.' It is only when man knows "why" he exists can he know "how" to do something. "Why" can be substituted with "what is the reason for." When a person asks, "Why should I play football?", he is asking the same question as "For what reason should I play football?" When a person knows the "why" or the "reason for," he can apply the answer to the present situation. "How" something is done is the application of the knowledge of the "whyness." By this I mean that when a person knows "why" something has to be done, he can know or try to do the "how." If a person knows that the reason for (why) playing a game is to win, he will try to score or do that which will reach that goal (how). For example, if the reason for playing football is to win, the person will try to score. How? By scoring a touchdown. We can know that "how" presupposes the knowledge of a "why".The traditional term for 'why" is the "end" and the traditional term for "how" is the means. In other words, doing the means presupposes the knowledge of the end. Or, one must know the end so that he can do the means.
I think most people will agree with me when I say that man tries to make his life worthwhile. He tries to make his life, every moment of his life, meaningful. He continuously asks himself how can make the present moment worthwhile. If he does not, he will become discontent. And to be discontent is contrary to human nature. By this I mean that man always wills a good and to be "not good" is to go contrary to what he wills, which derives from his nature. Even the person who tries to commit suicide believes that "it is the best for himself" to do so. Everything man wills is for the good, at least the good for himself. Even those who believe that life is ultimately meaningless and we simply have to go through evils and sufferings try to make those situations worthwhile and meaningful. How does one act towards an evil like September 11? There is a desire to make it worthwhile and try to see the meaning of all these. There is a desire to help, to do good to others. What is the least can I do but try to help the other?
Hope from Suffering
Man is an "activistic" being. He does not simply receive life, but lives, he wants to live. Man is a being which lives for something. He is a being which looks forward to something. This is what we call hope. What I am about to say is to some, an approach to God's existence, which is a recollection of my experience.
"I look in this world and find that there are sufferings. I see people losing family members and friends. I also see the poor and how they have little food and no place to live in. At the same time, I experience a sort of "lowering down". I feel depressed and sorry because they do not have what I have. They are lacking something. It seems like depression takes away something from them, something which is at the very root of existence. At the same time, I hope that things get better, than they don't become so depressed; it points to something "higher", that they gain what they are missing. In other words, I hope goodness for them because there is some kind of experience which tells me that this is not how it is supposed to be or that there is some kind of injustice. At the same time, this injustice points something higher which cannot be explained. I hope that things just get better and this hope erases all the sufferings or at least, this hope makes me concentrate on a Good without something lacking. It seems that when we hope, we don't "see" anything but good of the person. That things truly get better."
This goodness is something which lacks evil or suffering. It is complete and perfect. And this seems to be the object of hope. When we hope, we hope for things to get better than our current condition, but we never hope for things to get worse, at least, for ourselves. It also seems that our hope is aimed at a trascendent.Can we really have a realistic hope if there is no God, no life after? And if there is no real hope, can life be worth living? Is not life only worth living when we have hope for something? Hope for for the better? Something which we can live forward to? How can we think "everything will be alright" when it will not really be alright? when we know that there is nothing after this life? A person with hope however, can see through the evil and suffering. He can see that the outcome will be good and that it will be actualized.
posted by Ap at 9/15/2003 | (0) comments
Atheism, Morality, and Meaning
Father Dan: "The problem with outstanding books like this one is that rarely will anyone except non-theists read them. Very few theists want to test the strength of the safety bubble they live in. I challenge you to broaden your intellectual horizons and pick up a copy of Atheism, Morality, and Meaning
"Morality has played an important role in both religion and theism throughout human history. So deeply intertwined have the two been that most people today sincerely believe that morality isn't possible outside of religion or, at the very least, without belief in God. As a consequence, atheists are commonly thought of as being immoral and lacking any purpose or meaning to their lives. But what if this common prejudice is without foundation? What if neither morality nor meaning depend upon either religion or theism?
Martin's task is very broad in scope: to show that morality is possible absent any assumption of the existence of any gods, to show that human life can have meaning and purpose absent those same assumptions, and to show moreover that traditional theistic beliefs actually don't do a good job at grounding morality, meaning, or purpose - just what believers claim to be true about atheism. Martin is very much the man for the job, however, tackling the issues systematically and carefully over his book's four sections and laying out his case in as clear and unambiguous a manner as possible."
About.com has a full review of the book. Despite the clarity and skill with which Martin writes, quite a lot of what he has to say may still prove difficult for most lay readers. A person with little or no background in philosophy and ethics will probably struggle with some of the arguments. That isn't Martin's fault: it is unlikely that very much of what he writes could be made any simpler. On the other hand, a person does not need to be a philosophy student or expert in order to understand and learn quite a lot in this volume. It really does belong on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in discussions about naturalism, atheism, theism, and morality."
posted by SARTRE at 9/13/2003 | (0) comments
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson
No doubt you will recognize the popular wisdom of Thomas Jefferson regarding Liberty, but are you familiar with what he said in a letter to John Adams, late in his life? "To attain all this (universal republicanism), however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of desolation." - September 4, 1823
The history of the American Revolution is usually portrayed as a struggle for independence. The hidden story is that the brief experiment with a Republic, was crushed before it ever had a chance to succeed. Autonomy from the Crown, didn’t guarantee Liberty for citizens. When Jefferson penned the decisive essential declaration, “he drew heavily on the doctrines concerning the general principles of liberty and the rights of man which Locke set forth in his work; Of Civil Government. In particular, in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson copied Locke's words, "Life, liberty and property" which were subsequently changed to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" ”. While property has a very narrow meaning in modern society; back then, it intended a profound significance and limiting factor on government.
The desolation that Jefferson referenced, is a recognition of a prevailing annihilation that natural man has towards a state of rule. The STATE is government administered by coercion. Inborn rights are intrinsic within one’s nature. Independence of Englishmen from England, was a reluctant alternative for many colonists. When the revolution was won, the war for the entente began. The Federalist Papers are viewed by most Americans as constitutive arguments to justify a new constitution. The erroneous case that the Articles of Confederation failed, is a study in the road to surrender.
Few truly understand the nature of the 1776 Revolution. Concealed from memory is that Jefferson did not attend the convention nor was he a contributor to the U.S Constitution, primarily drafted and guided to ratification (who’s legality is still suspect) by James Madison. In private writings to Jefferson, Madison tips his hand and admits a shortcoming to the new constitution - Congress was not given a negative (veto) over state laws.
From James Madison Explains the Constitution to Thomas Jefferson, we get the rational of Madison.
“It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of Sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent and guilty, the necessity of a military force, both obnoxious and dangerous, and, in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war than the administration of a regular Government.
Hence was embraced the alternative of a Government which, instead of operating on the States, should operate without their intervention on the individuals composing them; and hence the change in the principle and proportion of representation.
This ground-work being laid, the great objects which presented themselves were:
1. To unite a proper energy in the Executive, and a proper stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential characters of Republican Government.
2. To draw a line of demarkation which would give to the General Government every power requisite for general purposes, and leave to the States every power which might be most beneficially administered by them.
3. To provide for the different interests of different parts of the Union.
4. To adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small States. Each of these objects was pregnant with difficulties. The whole of them together formed a task more difficult than can be well conceived by those who were not concerned in the execution of it. Adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.”
Devastation of Sovereign States was a stated goal in the formation of this new union. The Bill of Rights, especially the ninth and ten amendments, were mere window dressing to sooth the normal and healthy suspicions of sane citizens. Tyranny is the standard rule for rulers, and constitutional provisions intended to consolidate control, is not a formula for independence.
Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Jefferson’s sympathy for the French Revolution marked a shape contrast with the Alexander Hamilton faction of the Federalists. The wisdom within a non interventionist foreign policy of a John Adams, in the tradition of George Washington, did not fit the despotic vision of Hamilton. The irony is that during a Jefferson administration a naval flotilla was sent to subdue Barbary pirates and the Louisiana Territory was acquired. Such examples fostered a strong centralized government. However, Jefferson did slash Army and Navy expenditures, cut the federal budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. When Hamilton bargained with Jefferson for the trade-off that allowed for the central government to assume the revolutionary war debt, the fate of the independent States was ceded on the slippery slope of federal seduction.
The liberty of each individual is diminished proportionately with every increase in the range, scope and power of government. The promise of the American Revolution was the ability to limit government, so it could be controlled. Today there is a disconnect from that reality. Rational society knew that repression was the inevitable result from the concentration of civic functions under the auspices of expanding government. The men at Concord Bridge, understood this fact of nature. Now, that insight is lost to most and represents basic evidence for the mastery of the U.S. Constitution as a delusional substitute for genuine individual liberty.
The property of the citizen has become a claim of the federal government. The Sovereign States that Madison resented, have become feudal fiefdoms of an imperial empire. The happiness which is one of those “certain unalienable Rights”, has been lost and replaced with a personal isolation in search of individual dignity and social justice. The masses have been transformed into Hamiltonian Federalists, as the principles of Jefferson are ignored, forgotten and betrayed.
Jefferson’s passion for a restrained central government was a core principle foreseen as a primary reason for separation from England. His concept of an independent and self reliant society was abandoned with the rush to regiment a flawed national identity. The pivotal question is why bondage is accepted with such ease, and so few are willing to be true to the revolution and risk - Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. Heed well, the tradition and sagacity of the “Man from Monticello”. "As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1803. FE 8:256
Where are you when circumstance demands that a new revolution is justified to save the purpose of the original nation?
SARTRE - September 5, 2003
posted by SARTRE at 9/04/2003 | (0) comments
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