Kelly Kobold Gavin
I met 16-2-1 female MMA fighter Kelly Kobold at a movie screening. She said, "I'm Kelly Kobold, I ground and pound."
My friend Graeme's brother Aaron and his wife Nadia, are moving to Vietnam for a year, to teach English. They will give this blog monthly reports.
Over at Sonia's blog, I'm personally blamed by a psycho, for every evil in history. Read what happens when asked for documentation.
Interesting post attacking Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism," at Socialism With A Human Face.
Obama Machiavellian? Will he run you over with a truck to succeed? End of Reaganism?
I highly recommend the documentary Young at Heart. It is about a choir, whose average age is 80, sing classic rock & roll. They have to learn 3 new songs for a big concert in a few weeks. Will they remember the lines? Will they live that long to perform?
My blog is accused of dumbed down Marxism.
RENEGADE EYE
61 comments:
end of Reganism? and there at Daniel's you say religious fundamentalists in the US are small and shrinking!! What is happening with you lately Renegade? have you crossed over and completely lost touch with reality? :)
no seriously, do you think fundies are shrinking and that the eclipse of reganism is eminent? how? make me happy, tell me if this is really true.
///Over at Sonia's blog, I'm personally blamed by a psycho, for every evil in history. Read what happens when asked for documentation.///
I read the comments. Oh man, life's too short and I suspect that some people on the blogs either slurp the bottle or do drugs :)
Ren, Beak's comments towards you are horrifying in their flagrant rejection of logical reasoning. I am sure my advice is nothing new, but I would err on the side of ignoring his comments entirely. Bloggers like Beak are more or less trolls and the only means of beating them is to starve them to death. He's not worth your time.
When you stick your nose out with the truth, asshats swarm out of fear.
Fear not friend.
I am so sorry friend...I don't know what happened over there..but it is now labled by Blogger as a problem...I am also sorry if anyone mistreated you, talked WRONG about you, or got in your face...that is WRONG....you can always come hang at my place- you know that ...you have friends at watergatesummer...always...( and we got your back- just yell at me....okay? we are a community)....
namaste...
Muslims4Europe: Thank you for visiting.
Reaganism is dead. Bush/Rove killed it. Their tactics were not as brilliant as they thought. They gained power because the Democrats retreated, rather than fighting them.
The demographics of this country are changing.
Many immigrants are culturally conservative, but don't like family business brought into politics.
Young people are turned off by appeals to gay hatred and racism.
The war in Iraq is lost. The policy of Bush of no negotiation, will go into the dustbin of history. Iran and Syria will have to be talked to unconditionally, to get US out of Iraq.
Fundamentalist Christians are not all Jerry Falwell fans. Many have progressive ideas.
The GOP is dead. The Democratic Party is the graveyard of social movements.
Politiques: I know you are correct.
Dave: Welcome to the blog.
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill: You've had a few trolls yourself.
Enigma: Read Sonia's blog, at the latest post. I come to your blog under both good and bad situations.
Namaste? by enigma4ever: hey that's hindu language.
I just came back from Sonia's blog, and I can't stop laughing. You people are taking things so seriously :) I don't know what to think from a psycho-analytical point of view, is there like a prize to win or is it all about pride?
Humm I'm going back to work on Wed, I just finalized the papers earlier today. Not that I'm being lazy but I don't really see an interest anymore in working.
@ Ren Eye: you asked me a question earlier on my blog. What does "Uruknet" mean? Uruk is an old mesapotemian/babylonian city. Uruk is situated in Iraq. And Google does not index anymore Uruknet after some complains, because the editor backs up the sunni insurgents (at least we got real news from Iraq).
You can visit their website @ www.uruknet.info
The editor (Paolo Pisi) from Uruknet lives in Milan Italy.
Why do you engage with trolls and the irrational? Nothing positive, productive or even entertaining comes out of it. Just a time sink and provocation to hypertension.
Love, C.
PS: for the font problem on Ren Eye blog, you have two options:
1) Changing the screen resolution
2) Or with your mouse, if you are on Firefox or IE, press down the CTRL key and roll down/up your mouse wheel to adjust the size of the fonts.
Problem solved.
Ren one thing for sure, your linking to the Poor Mouth over 2 years ago was a huge boost when I had a tiny readership.
We would have to agree to differ on a lot of things but anyone who can have Maryam Namazie on the team is doing something very right!
We're packing and in the internetless grasslands of rural ND, but thanks for the shoutout.
Jams: I always liked your blog. I still think the Labor Party is where progressive people belong in the UK. My biggest loyalty is to the old gang.
I'm arranging for Maryam to be interviewed by an unlikely blogger.
Foxessa: As much as I disagree with Sonia, are blogs are connected. Her blog is where a lefty can argue with a rightist, and mine is the reverse.
Since I like Sonia's blog, to return it to being the place where issues can be discussed, some combat is needed.
Politiques: I can use bold font.
Now I know what "Uruknet" means.
Ren, you are truly a gentleman blogger, which is a very precious commodity in this cyber world of venom and rage. Though we disagree on nearly every political issue, I respect your intellect and enjoy our discussions and disagreements.
That being said, I am growing rather bored with my JZ persona and may be resuming my MZ self again soon. My batteries seem to be growing recharged from the much needed hiatus. I'll keep you posted.
Awesome, I look forward to the updates.
Ren,
My blog is accused of dumbed down Marxism.
The article you link doesn't accuse you of anything. It doesn't even mention you. What is it all about ?
Enigma,
I don't know what happened over there
Where ? What ?
My blog is accused of dumbed down Marxism.
He linked Ren in the dumbed down section.
And I'll simply state that vulgar Marxism constitutes an improvement upon the original.
Anybody who talks about the problem of capitalism not charging "full value" under Marxism ought to read Xenophon's Oeconomicus and then foreswear Marxism forever.
As a Nietzschean, I'm forever revaluing MY values. Talk about your "perfect naivete".
That's why I can't stand Marcuse. He's always talking about "surplus" repression as if man's psychological states can be treated like some Marxist "surplus value theory". Surplus repression? How much EXACTLY is "surplus/too much"? LOL!
Nietzsche, "Gay Science"
The Four Errors. Man has been reared by his errors: firstly, he saw himself always imperfect; secondly, he attributed to himself imaginary qualities; thirdly, he felt himself in a false position in relation to the animals and nature; fourthly, he always devised new tables of values, and accepted them for a time as eternal and unconditioned, so that at one time this, and at another time that human impulse or state stood first, and was ennobled in consequence. When one has deducted the effect of these four errors, one has also deducted humanity, humaneness, and "human dignity."
I mean, Marxism is one of many very very noble MORAL enterprises, but it's also COMPLETELY FALSE. It's like Marx didn't even try and understand Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason".
JZ: It takes awhile to adopt a web identity. I picked my name because the good names were taken. Mad Zionist is who people know.
I enjoy finding out about something happening in Israel, than looking for MZ's take.
Aaron: You better like Pho.
Sonia: My blog is linked to in the paragraph, about "dumbed down Marxism."
FJ: I'll write more later.
I'm not big on Marcuse. I prefer Marx to his interpretors.
Graeme: Aaron and Nadia's big vacation reports, coming soon.
Announced today Kelly Kobold will fight July 26, 2008 on CBS in primetime, for Elite XC, to determine who gets a championship bout.
FJ: Last night I read Engels "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific." He was fond of Kant.
Marcuse is a remnant of the "New Left." I think in practice, his ideas are alive, wherever there's identity politics. I think he's unimportant.
The precise definition of "vulgar Marxism," is believing the economic situation automatically determines events. Marx learned quickly that when capitalism adjusts through recession etc. doesn't mean it will dissolve. The adjustments are just that. Today they call it crisis theory.
I don't think what you quoted from Nietzsche applies. See dialectical materialism.
I hate to say this, Ren, but Engels (like Marx) was wrong.
The Greeks INVENTED dialectics out of metaphysical reasoning. What Engels is trying to say is that there can be no "false reasoning" that creates a "false outcome"... which is an absurd statement on its' face (if I've the 'will' to create something based upon a mistake, I can still create it). Yes, man may behave "economically" but he certainly doesn't "have to". He can always just come kill you and take your stuff... not because he needs it, not because you're part of another "class", but just because you are ugly, or he likes the view from your house (or any arbitrary reason) or maybe he just wants to bang your Mrs. The "reasons" may be quite "immaterial" and definitley not "economically related" in any way, shape or form.
But now idealism was driven from its last refuge, the philosophy of history; now a materialistic treatment of history was propounded, and a method found of explaining man's "knowing" by his "being", instead of, as heretofore, his "being" by his "knowing".
Yes, epistemology and ontology are related in ANY systemic philosophy but it is PRECISELY this kind of "causality" that Nietzsche ridicules, for BOTH statements (know to be and be to know) are equally true AND false. We can only "know" at all through fundamental but consistent falsifications. So Engels is simply being foolish when he claims
"being through knowing" as 'being' is in Heraclitian flux just as is knowing. Mankind is always in the process of "becoming". And "just what" he "wants to become" is a metaphysical question, not a materialistic on "out of the past". Engles is simply "inverting the metaphysicists error" and not finding the "mean between the two extremes" of his dialectic, but a polemic opposite "end" (rather than means) instead.
Nietzsche, "Gay Science"
112
Cause and Effect. We say it is "explanation "; but it is only in "description" that we are in advance of the older stages of knowledge and science. We describe better, we explain just as little as our predecessors. We have discovered a manifold succession where the naive man and investigator of older cultures saw only two things, "cause" and "effect,"as it was said; we have perfected the conception of becoming, but have not got a knowledge of what is above and behind the conception. The series of "causes" stands before us much more complete in every case; we conclude that this and that must first precede in order that that other may follow - but we have not grasped anything thereby. The peculiarity, for example, in every chemical process seems a "miracle," the same as before, just like all locomotion; nobody has "explained" impulse. How could we ever explain? We operate only with things which do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible times, divisible spaces - how can explanation ever be possible when we first make everything a conception, our conception? It is sufficient to regard science as the exactest humanizing of things that is possible; we always learn to describe ourselves more accurately by describing things and their successions. Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum before us, from which we isolate a few portions - just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us. An intellect which could see cause and effect as a continuum, which could see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception, as things arbitrarily separated and broken - would throw aside the conception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.
There is no cause and effect, JUST as there is no effect and cause.
Both are FUNDAMENTAL FALSIFICATIONS.
Nietzsche, WtP
Falsity.--Every sovereign instinct has the others for its tools, retainers, flatterers: it never lets itself be called by its ugly name: and it countenances no praise in which it is not also praised indirectly. All praise and blame in general crystallizes around every sovereign instinct to form a rigorous order and etiquette. This is one of the causes of falsity. Every instinct that struggles for mastery but finds itself under a yoke requires for itself, as strengthening and as support for its self-esteem, all the beautiful names and recognized values: so, as a rule, it ventures forth under the name of the "master" it is combatting and from whom it wants to get free (e.g., the fleshly desires or the desires for power under the dominion of Christian values).-- This is the other cause of falsity. Perfect naïveté reigns in both cases: the falsity does not become conscious. It is a sign of a broken instinct when man sees the driving force and its "expression" ("the mask") as separate things--a sign of self-contradiction, and victorious far less often. Absolute innocence in bearing, word, affect, a "good conscience" in falsity, the certainty with which one grasps the greatest and most splendid words and postures--all this is necessary for victory.
In the other case: when one has extreme clear-sightedness one needs the genius of the actor and tremendous training in self-control if one is to achieve victory. That is why priests are the most skillful conscious hypocrites; then princes, whom rank and ancestry have endowed with a kind of acting ability. Thirdly, men of society, diplomats. Fourthly, women.
Basic idea: falsity seems so profound, so omnisided, the will so clearly opposed to direct self-knowledge and the calling of things by their right names, that it is very highly probable that truth, will to truth is really something else and only a disguise. (The need for faith is the greatest brake-shoe on truthfulness.)
493 (1885)
Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.
Economics is important for life, but so is the need to live a "good" life created by a "noble lie".
Arguing with people about communism is like pissing into the wind. I won't indulge it anymore, because the discussion is led by people who see history as a body count, except, of course, when it comes to the pile of corpses capitalism and its running buddy fundamentalist religion pile up, and then it's as if none of that respective mayhem ever occurred at all. Why waste your breath?
Michael Hureaux: Thank you for visiting this blog.
At Michael's blog was a heart wrenching story about an injured hummingbird.
Some whom you disagree with, are more valuable than others to argue with. You lose sharpness, if you don't test your ideas.
FJ: I'll respond later. I'm wondering if you getting different conclusions from Nietzsche than I'am?
Quite possibly. Nietzsche wasn't a halt-foot rope-dancer like most modern logicians... he was a dialectician who walked on mountain tops. "Zarathustra"
Then, however, something happened which made every mouth mute and every eye fixed. In the meantime, of course, the rope-dancer had commenced his performance: he had come out at a little door, and was going along the rope which was stretched between two towers, so that it hung above the market-place and the people. When he was just midway across, the little door opened once more, and a gaudily-dressed fellow like a buffoon sprang out, and went rapidly after the first one. "Go on, halt-foot," cried his frightful voice, "go on, lazy-bones, interloper, sallow-face!- lest I tickle thee with my heel! What dost thou here between the towers? In the tower is the place for thee, thou shouldst be locked up; to one better than thyself thou blockest the way!"- And with every word he came nearer and nearer the first one. When, however, he was but a step behind, there happened the frightful thing which made every mouth mute and every eye fixed- he uttered a yell like a devil, and jumped over the other who was in his way. The latter, however, when he thus saw his rival triumph, lost at the same time his head and his footing on the rope; he threw his pole away, and shot downward faster than it, like an eddy of arms and legs, into the depth. The market-place and the people were like the sea when the storm cometh on: they all flew apart and in disorder, especially where the body was about to fall.
Nietzsche isn't all that peachy. This article is an incredible attack on Nietzsche's bourgeoise sympathies, and acknowledges his positive contributions to philosophy.
Ren... how can you take a philosopher seriously who says things like this...
It seemed that when it came to opposing the class enemy, no holds were barred and all intellectual morality vanished.
Excuse me? Philsophers ceased being "politically correct" in a reaction to Marxism? LOL!
He goes on to complain that Neitzsche spent his whole career attacking Marxism, but never spent ten minutes learning about what it was...
Well... Duh! Nietzsche hated ALL "moral philosophies". They were ALL simply "religions" w/o named gods. And god was dead, even the god of the workers, Marx.
Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals #1
— These English psychologists whom we have to thank for the only attempts up to this point to produce a history of the origins of morality — in themselves they serve up to us no small riddle. By way of a living riddle, they even offer, I confess, something substantially more than their books — they are interesting in themselves! These English psychologists — what do they really want? We find them, willingly or unwillingly, always at the same work, that is, hauling the partie honteuse [shameful part] of our inner world into the foreground, in order to look right there for the truly effective and operative factor which has determined our development, the very place where man’s intellectual pride least wishes to find it (for example, in the vis inertiae [force of intertia] of habit or in forgetfulness or in a blind, contingent, mechanical joining of ideas or in something else purely passive, automatic, reflex, molecular, and fundamentally stupid) — what is it that really drives these psychologists always in this particular direction?
Is it a secret, malicious, common instinct, perhaps one which cannot be acknowledged even to itself, for belittling humanity? Or something like a pessimistic suspicion, the mistrust of idealists who’ve become disappointed, gloomy, venomous, and green? Or a small underground hostility and rancour towards Christianity (and Plato), which perhaps has never once managed to cross the threshold of consciousness? Or even a lecherous taste for what is odd or painfully paradoxical, for what in existence is questionable and ridiculous? Or finally — a bit of all of these: a little vulgarity, a little gloominess, a little hostility to Christianity, a little thrill, and a need for pepper? . . .
But I’m told that these men are simply old, cold, boring frogs, who creep and hop around and into people as if they were in their own proper element, that is, in a swamp. I resist that idea when I hear it. What’s more, I don’t believe it. And if one is permitted to hope where one cannot know, then I hope from my heart that the situation with these men might be reversed, that these investigators and the ones peering at the soul through their microscopes may be thoroughly brave, generous, and proud animals, who know how to control their hearts and their pain and who at the same time have educated themselves to sacrifice everything desirable for the sake of the truth, for the sake of every truth, even the simple, bitter, hateful, repellent, unchristian, immoral truth. . . . For there are such truths. —
Attacking Nietzsche's "motives" instead of the arguments themselves is absurd.
It's like calling someone a racist or a right-wing zealot... as if THAT is sufficient in itself a refutation.
This shows you just how clueless Lukacs is...
Nietzsche’s rejection of systems arose out of the relativistic, agnosticizing tendencies of his age. The point that he was the first and most influential thinker with whom this agnosticism turned into the sphere of myth we shall investigate later. To this outlook his aphoristic mode of expression is no doubt intimately related.
Lukacs assumes that when Nietzsche rants and rails against "systems" that Nietzsche has abandoned all system. One need only read Plato's "Parmenides" to understand the "SYSTEM" Nietzsche is using. Nietzsche plays Zeno to Plato's Parmenides (Nietzsche:Plato :: Zeno:Parmenides). Such an approach REQUIRED him to take a "materialist/ Dionysian" approach to Plato's "spiritual/Apollonian" theory of "forms". Plato was ortho-doxa. Nietzsche was polemical hetero-doxa thereby allowing the reader to experience "para-doxa" the "missing element" required for resoolution and achievement of understanding under any TRUE philosophical dialectic.
Plato's "Parmenides" was an example of a complete dialectic of absolutes. To respond to Plato's argument, Nietzsche provided the "inverse/ materialistic Zeno argument" of Plato's Parmenides conclusion...
"If one is not, then nothing is"...
What it meant to argue FOR the "then nothing is..." part. To uncover the implications of "nihilism"... to find a "cure" for nihilism.
The resulting metaphysics of "nothing is" is "Eternal Recurrence"... something as absurd as the idea of a "Created" universe that almost every philosopher before Darwin had always argued for.
Contrary to Lukacs claims, Nietzsche didn't give a sh*t about contemporary events in Germany. His was the "untimely meditation" of a classical philologist to Plato... an address to future philosophers, and not an attack on Marx or his contemporaries.
Lukacs is arguing against a strawman.
I'll reply this weekend. Minneapolis has giant gay pride events (concerts, march, theater, etc) and a jazz festival with a young Neville performing.
I just grateful that I now know who to blame every evil in history on.
"My blog is accused of dumbed down Marxism."
I wouldn´t be too concerned about the blogger who posted that assertion - he is the leader of a nutty New Zealand orthodox trotskyist sect which after 25 years of existence still has less than half a dozen members, but despite this believes he is in a "military bloc" with everyone from the Taliban to Hamas and that Hugo Chávez is the principal obstacle to worldwide socialist revolution!
Tonight I saw Charmaine Neville in concert at the Minnesota Jazz Festival. One of the Neville Bros is her father.
socialistdemocracy: Thank you for visiting.
Hugo Chavez isn't a Marxist, but he atleast talks about socialism, and allows socialists to have a voice. The so called revolutionary groups like FARC, have no program and are hostile to socialism. No amount of agrarian reform can help them, without the urban working class.
That group is clueless as how to build anything. The working class when in motion, they always join organizations they are familiar with, as the British Labor Party, the PPP in Pakistan etc. In Venezuela it's the PSUV. That is a cardinal law.
K: You pointed to the guy.
FJ: I'll reply soon.
FJ: This from the New York Times will drive you nuts.
This the first of three parts, I haven't read yet.
Speaking of Nietzsche, I highly recommend Alain Badiou's article "Who is Nietzsche?":
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/philosophy/pli_journal/pdfs/Vol_11/11_1_Badiou.pdf
Nothing that the NY Times prints could ever drive me nuts, Ren. If the Times is printing it, it's got to be something "modern" and "common".
You should read mehmet's posted link. At least Badiou saw Nietzsche in a greater philosophical context.
Overcoming Nietzsche lies with Freud/Plato and viewing one's life (and society in a one-to-many sense) and philosophy as an "evolutionary" process (camel to lion to child/ or faith to nihilism to self moved) and NOT as a "static entity" as Marcuse did.
Plato, "Republic"
What do you mean? he said.
I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State.
How many?
There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said.
What are they?
The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many.
True, he replied.
But I regard the two names as describing one form only; for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained.
That is true, he replied.
Nietzsche, WtP 585 (Spring-Fall 1887; rev. Spring-Fall 1888)
Tremendous self-examination: becoming conscious of oneself, not as individuals but as mankind. Let us reflect, let us think back; let us follow the highways and byways!
( A )
Man seeks "the truth": a world that is not self-contradictory, not deceptive, does not change, a true world--a world in which one does not suffer; contradiction, deception, change--causes of suffering! He does not doubt that a world as it ought to be exists; he would like to seek out the road to it. (Indian critique: e.g. the "ego" as apparent, as not real.)
Whence does man here derive the concept reality--Why is it that he derives suffering from change, deception, contradiction? and why not rather his happiness?--
Contempt, hatred for all that perishes, changes, varies-- whence comes this valuation of that which remains constant? Obviously, the will to truth is here merely the desire for a world of the constant.
The senses deceive, reason corrects the errors; consequently, one concluded, reason is the road to the constant; the least sensual ideas must be closest to the "true world."--It is from the senses that most misfortunes come--they are deceivers, deluders, destroyers.--
Happiness can be guaranteed only by being; change and happiness exclude one another. The highest desire therefore contemplates unity with what has being. This is the formula for: the road to the highest happiness.
In summa: the world as it ought to be exists; this world, in which we live, is an error--this world of ours ought not to exist.
Belief in what has being is only a consequence: the real primum mobile is disbelief in becoming, mistrust of becoming, the low valuation of all that becomes--
What kind of man reflects in this way? An unproductive, suffering kind, a kind weary of life. If we imagine the opposite kind of man, he would not need to believe in what has being; more, he would despise it as dead, tedious, indifferent--
The belief that the world as it ought to be is, really exists, is a belief of the unproductive who do not desire to create a world as it ought to be. They posit it as already available, they seek ways and means of reaching it. "Will to truth"--as the impotence of the will to create.
To know that something is thus and thus:
To act so that something becomes thus and thus:
Antagonism in the degree of power in different natures.
The fiction of a world that corresponds to our desires: psychological trick and interpretation with the aim of associating everything we honor and find pleasant with this true world.
"Will to truth" at this stage is essentially an art of interpretation: which at least requires the power to interpret.
This same species of man, grown one stage poorer, no longer possessing the strength to interpret, to create fictions, produces nihilists. A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of "in vain" is the nihilists' pathos--at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.
Whoever is incapable of laying his will into things, lacking will and strength, at least lays some meaning into them, i.e., the faith that there is a will in them already.
It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do without meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless world because one organizes a small portion of it oneself.
The philosophical objective outlook can therefore be a sign that will and strength are small. For strength organizes what is close and closest; "men of knowledge," who desire only to ascertain what is, are those who cannot fix anything as it ought to be.
Artists, an intermediary species: they at least fix an image of that which ought to be; they are productive, to the extent that they actualy alter and transform; unlike men of knowledge, who leave everything as it is.
Connection between philosophers and the pessimistic religions: the same species of man (--they ascribe the highest degree of reality to the most highly valued things--).
Connection between philosophers and moral men and their evaluations (--the moral interpretation of the world as meaning: after the decline of the religious meaning--).
Overcoming of philosophers through the destruction of the world of being: intermediary period of nihilism: before there is yet present the strength to reverse values and to deïfy becoming and the apparent world as the only world, and to call them good.
( B )
Nihilism as a normal phenomenon can be a symptom of increasing strength or of increasing weakness:
partly, because the strength to create, to will, has so increased that it no longer requires these total interpretations and introductions of meaning ("present tasks," the state, etc.);
partly because even the creative strength to create meaning has declined and disappointment becomes the dominant condition.
The incapability of believing in a "meaning," "unbelief."
What does science mean in regard to both possibilities?
1. As a sign of strength and self-control, as being able to do without healing, comforting worlds of illusion;
2. as undermining, dissecting, disappointing, weakening.
( C )
Belief in truth, the need to have a hold on something believed true, psychological reduction apart from all previous value feelings. Fear, laziness. The same way, unbelief: reduction. To what extent it acquires a new value if a true world does not exist (--thus the value feelings that hitherto have been squandered on the world of being, are again set free).
FJ: Speaking of the dialect, Nietzsche is both political and not political at the same time. That the beauty of the dialectic.
Socialists at the turn of the century in Europe, weren't necessarily revolutionary. Revolutionary socialism is the product of Lenin and Trotsky. The early socialists like Nietzsche because they believed advanced capitalism was the highest form, and supported nationalism.
Nietschze is the inspiration behind postmodernism. In addition he is used by Eurocommunists and the Frankfurt School caught between Stalinism and fascism during WWII.
Even without Nietschze's sister, there are foundations of fascism in his writings. He was admired by Hitler and Mussolini.
There were even Nietschzian anarchists and vegetarians.
Why in the world dig liberalism and socialism ever get intertwined? Seems to me that they are no more related than conservatism and socialism.
As a conservative, I am also a capitalist and a nationalist, but conservatism can mean different things depending on the culture. A conservative socialist would be one who was more strict or "orthodox" in seeing the most strict adherence to traditional socialist values.
Meanwhile, a liberal socialist would likely be open to looser interpretations and a more relaxed, flexible adherence to socialist orthodoxy.
I don't associate modern liberalism with revolutionary socialism.
I would associate social democracy with liberalism. They believe socialism can come slowly through parlimentary procedure. They are the proponents of "mixed economy."
At Sonia's blog, I caused confusion, because of what I take for granted that people understand. I classified Stalinism as a form of conservatism.
Stalinism is conservativism:
Homosexuality and prostitution was criminalized.
Divorce became harder.
Growth of nationalism.
Suppressing revolution in Greece, China (27) etc.
Two stage theory of socialism
The word conservative is relative. I was wrong to think I would be understood, at such a conservative blog.
The problem with looser definitions of socialism, is you end up like Allende.
In Venezuela many are influenced by a guy named Heinz Dieterich. He invented "21st Century Socialism." To him everything will change peacefully and through parliment. He is a big influence on Chavez. In the future I will post polemics about him.
I wouldn't suggest that Stalin was more conservative, rather he was more Autocratical. I don't believe his fomenting of nationalism and preservation of power through wanton murder is part of the traditional socialist tenet.
MZ: Thank you for your comment. Language can be so relative.
Two more points:
1) Stalin appointed people who opposed the 1917 Russian Revolution into powerful positions. The leadership after Lenin included Zinoviev and Kamenov who opposed the Russian Revolution and Stalin who didn't take a position, until he assessed which faction was strongest.
2) Stalin murdered every Bolshevik who was on the Central Committee at the time of the revolution.
That's using the word conservative in a relative way. I would call it a counterrevolution.
Stalin was a true Nietzschean...
Stalin appointed people who opposed the 1917 Russian Revolution into powerful positions. The leadership after Lenin included Zinoviev and Kamenov who opposed the Russian Revolution and Stalin who didn't take a position, until he assessed which faction was strongest.
WtP 1067
...do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?-- This world is the will to power--and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power--and nothing besides!
"What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!"
Obama's the same... just go to one of his rally's.
Wanna know why the Marxists will never form a proper "revolutionary vanguard"? Too many zeroes.
Like I've said before, vulgar Marxism is an improvement upon the original...
FJ; Vulgar Marxism is called that, for a reason. It used to be called economism.
The whole beauty of the dialectic, is that something can be two things at once. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby, is class conscious and racist at the same time. If it's read by a black nationalist, it's seen differently than by an English literature teacher. Nietzsche is political and philosophical at the same time.
Liberals believe in irony, and Marxists in contradiction.
I only endorse what my comrades do. I support politics that is targeted, based on our strengths and the opponents weakness. If you underestimate Marxism, you can be figuratively run over by a truck.
I don't like Obama, but don't underestimate him. If you think he's a naive liberal idealist, you are woefully wrong.
Hi Ren its Dave Brown here.
Ive posted a comment on Petras who I consider to be a dumbed down Marxist. Would be interested in your view.
http://livingmarxism.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/petras-wrong-on-the-resurgent-right-in-latin-america/
Nietzsche clearly disliked socialism - he considered it too 'Christian' - but he never encountered anything like Marxism. It isn't hard to imagine that he would have admired the likes of Lenin or Ho Chi Minh, even putting aside all political considerations in so doing.
There have been plenty of people who have attempted a rapprochement between Marx and Nietzsche, so I think it a little simplistic these days to consider them as some binarist opposition. Nietzsche, for all his bourgeois-baiting 'aristocratic' rebellion, did occaisonally express some sympathies with workers and peasants (in BGE he describes the latter as more 'noble' than the decaying aristocracy) but he generall placed himself above political considerations.
All the same, I don't see how one can conflate N's notion of 'values' (that need constant re-valuating) and the Marxist notion of surplus-value. In fact (and I don't know German) I have a gut feeling the 2 philosophers use different terms for each word.
Finally, N's dislike of socialism and christianity is ultimately an aesthetic position rather than a logical one, even if (especially if!) for Nietzsche, aesthetic questions take on a visceral importance.
Nietzsche clearly disliked socialism...
Yes, Nietzsche disliked "herd" values. He saw the human species more as predator than prey, and all civilizations as being "founded" by a "predatory" aristocracy. In that sense, he found the values of "predators" more "useful" and "flexible", instinctually "honest" and less "repressively limiting" than that of prey (the herd). I think his "Genealogy of Morals" Essay "Good and Evil, Good and Bad" sums up the differences pretty well.
So in Nietzsche's world, exploiting the labor of "zeroes" is a "good" thing. It's good for the predator, it's good for the prey. It's win-win. Otherwise, if left to his own devises, the prey would "starve" to death due to lack of "purpose for existance".
...but it would be a mistake to say that Nietzsche "favoured" the aristocrats and/or oligarch's. As the conclusion of his "Zarathustra" indicates, one must "overcome" his own admiration for the "higher men"... and concentrate on "unchaining" individual men's minds from Plato's Cave (Republic).
IN THE morning, however, after this night, Zarathustra jumped up from his couch, and, having girded his loins, he came out of his cave glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains.
"Thou great star," spake he, as he had spoken once before, "thou deep eye of happiness, what would be all thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!
And if they remained in their chambers whilst thou art already awake, and comest and bestowest and distributest, how would thy proud modesty upbraid for it!
Well! they still sleep, these higher men, whilst I am awake: they are not my proper companions! Not for them do I wait here in my mountains.
At my work I want to be, at my day: but they understand not what are the signs of my morning, my step- is not for them the awakening-call.
They still sleep in my cave; their dream still drinketh at my drunken songs. The audient ear for me- the obedient ear, is yet lacking in their limbs."
-This had Zarathustra spoken to his heart when the sun arose: then looked he inquiringly aloft, for he heard above him the sharp call of his eagle. "Well!" called he upwards, "thus is it pleasing and proper to me. Mine animals are awake, for I am awake.
Mine eagle is awake, and like me honoureth the sun. With eagle-talons doth it grasp at the new light. Ye are my proper animals; I love you.
But still do I lack my proper men!"-
Thus spake Zarathustra; then, however, it happened that all on a sudden he became aware that he was flocked around and fluttered around, as if by innumerable birds,- the whizzing of so many wings, however, and the crowding around his head was so great that he shut his eyes. And verily, there came down upon him as it were a cloud, like a cloud of arrows which poureth upon a new enemy. But behold, here it was a cloud of love, and showered upon a new friend.
"What happeneth unto me?" thought Zarathustra in his astonished heart, and slowly seated himself on the big stone which lay close to the exit from his cave. But while he grasped about with his hands, around him, above him and below him, and repelled the tender birds, behold, there then happened to him something still stranger: for he grasped thereby unawares into a mass of thick, warm, shaggy hair; at the same time, however, there sounded before him a roar,- a long, soft lion-roar.
"The sign cometh," said Zarathustra, and a change came over his heart. And in truth, when it turned clear before him, there lay a yellow, powerful animal at his feet, resting its head on his knee,- unwilling to leave him out of love, and doing like a dog which again findeth its old master. The doves, however, were no less eager with their love than the lion; and whenever a dove whisked over its nose, the lion shook its head and wondered and laughed.
When all this went on Zarathustra spake only a word: "My children are nigh, my children"-, then he became quite mute. His heart, however, was loosed, and from his eyes there dropped down tears and fell upon his hands. And he took no further notice of anything, but sat there motionless, without repelling the animals further. Then flew the doves to and fro, and perched on his shoulder, and caressed his white hair, and did not tire of their tenderness and joyousness. The strong lion, however, licked always the tears that fell on Zarathustra's hands, and roared and growled shyly. Thus did these animals do.-
All this went on for a long time, or a short time: for properly speaking, there is no time on earth for such things-. Meanwhile, however, the higher men had awakened in Zarathustra's cave, and marshalled themselves for a procession to go to meet Zarathustra, and give him their morning greeting: for they had found when they awakened that he no longer tarried with them. When, however, they reached the door of the cave and the noise of their steps had preceded them, the lion started violently; it turned away all at once from Zarathustra, and roaring wildly, sprang towards the cave. The higher men, however, when they heard the lion roaring, cried all aloud as with one voice, fled back and vanished in an instant.
Zarathustra himself, however, stunned and strange, rose from his seat, looked around him, stood there astonished, inquired of his heart, bethought himself, and remained alone. "What did I hear?" said he at last, slowly, "what happened unto me just now?"
But soon there came to him his recollection, and he took in at a glance all that had taken place between yesterday and today. "Here is indeed the stone," said he, and stroked his beard, "on it sat I yester-morn; and here came the soothsayer unto me, and here heard I first the cry which I heard just now, the great cry of distress.
O ye higher men, your distress was it that the old soothsayer foretold to me yester-morn,-
-Unto your distress did he want to seduce and tempt me: 'O Zarathustra,' said he to me, 'I come to seduce thee to thy last sin.'
To my last sin?" cried Zarathustra, and laughed angrily at his own words: "what hath been reserved for me as my last sin?"
-And once more Zarathustra became absorbed in himself, and sat
down again on the big stone and meditated. Suddenly he sprang up,-
"Fellow-suffering! Fellow-suffering with the higher men!" he cried out, and his countenance changed into brass. "Well! That- hath had its time!
My suffering and my fellow-suffering- what matter about them! Do I then strive after happiness? I strive after my work!
Well! The lion hath come, my children are nigh, Zarathustra hath
grown ripe, mine hour hath come:-
This is my morning, my day beginneth: arise now, arise, thou great noontide!"- -
Thus spake Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains.
Here's where things get tricky, fj. I think that there are many readings of Nietzsche, and they often reveal his philosophy to be more subtle and/or contradictory than your reading would have us believe. Nietzsche's thought had various strands, so it is mistaken to try and boil it down to either a political program or some glorified self-help guide, masquerading as philosophy.
In reference to your points - surely it is the 'barbarians' who found a civilisation, and who subsequently become the aristocracy. This distinction is important, because it is really only a fairly limited form of aristocracy that N seems to admire (i.e. that of the Greeks, or Vikings, not Victorian England, etc).
I don't think it's so clear-cut at all that N thinks exploitating the zeroes is a 'good' thing in any straightforward sense. For starters, 'good' always has at least 2 definite meanings in N's work, if not several more. Secondly, N never reckoned with a body of thought or political phenomenon such as Marxism or Leninism. I'm not convinced N would have relegated these guys to 'herd' status - if anything, he might well have considered them the barbarians, founding a new society.
One of N's main objections to socialism (and christianity, and Kant's categorical imperative, and all the rest) are the implications of universality and equality implied in these systems. Nonetheless, the socialist 'equality' to which N would have been exposed would have likely been fuzzy, French, romantic, and distinctly non-Marxist. Marxist-inspired socialism is not, as I understand it, about providing any equality other than a basic material sort. Marx ddidn't claim that a socialist revolution, correctly carried out, would lead to people becoming equally 'good', smart, beautiful, or whatever, but rather that they would be able have better living conditions.
I don't see how one can conflate N's notion of 'values' (that need constant re-valuating) and the Marxist notion of surplus-value.
The problem with ALL values lies in the fact that they are mostly "relative" (Plato, "Philebus") and largely INCOMMENSURABLE (Isaiah Berlin). And so when Marx cries out against Adam Smith assigning the "so-called" surplus value of labor derived from the division of labor to the capitalist, and demands it be transferred back to the laborer (through ownership of the means of production and elimination of the capitalist function) one has to question his motives... for surely the education and intelligence it took to divide the labor and integrate labor elements is certainly "worth" something. Modern Marxists would assign these responsibilities to government bureaucrats... but the failure of "centralized planning" in replacing the "greedy capitalist" has been well established, as government bureaucrats are "slothful" by their very nature (as drones to the hive).
And so Marxist labors demands are simply the cry of the weak and ignorant herd for a piece of the pie... an expression of their "will to power" which if granted, would lead to their own demise (are a mans hands worth more than his brains?). Why would our society want to "encourage" and engrain into law any such proposition? It would be suicidal for any society. The "herd" must in this case be resisted, for to them everyone is a mere cog (or set of hands) and everyone must become a mindless "zero" so the real zeroes don't "feel bad" about themselves. Screw them! Brains are just as essential to a society as a gazillion hands. And the more "brains" there are, the better (as in early colonial America before the corporate collectivism was able to monopolize capital).
And the "vanguard" elements simply want to do the "central planning" that the capitalists once did like one big centralized brain, a task for which they are grossly inexperienced, unqualified and most certainly likely to "botch". A brain needs to match the every set of two-hands else we upset the "harmony" of the individual. That means perhaps less 'surplus value through division of labor' through perhaps less (but a more efficient and intelligent) "division of labor".
The only time that any society should require "centralized/ socialized" surplus value" is when that country is at war, and must sacrifice billions of tons of manufactured war-materiel at a single pop. During peacetime, socialized/ centralized surplus value is a pure and unnecessary power grab.
I'm not convinced N would have relegated these guys to 'herd' status
No he had a different word for them... the last men.
Zarathustra...
With the new morning, however, there came unto me a new truth: then did I learn to say: "Of what account to me are market-place and populace and populace-noise and long populace-cars!"
Ye higher men, learn this from me: On the market-place no one believeth in higher men. But if ye will speak there, very well! The populace, however, blinketh: "We are all equal."
"Ye higher men,"- so blinketh the populace- "there are no higher men, we are all equal; man is man, before God- we are all equal!"
Before God!- Now, however, this God hath died. Before the populace, however, we will not be equal. Ye higher men, away from the market-place!
You understand the "blinks" in Zarathustra's speach above as a "closing of eyes to the truth"... and then a statement of truth... that the hoi kokoi lie about the coming "equality of men", for THEY all desire "drone-dom" and to drink honey they will neither collect or supply from the hive's storehouses.
Marx ddidn't claim that a socialist revolution, correctly carried out, would lead to people becoming equally 'good', smart, beautiful, or whatever, but rather that they would be able have better living conditions.
That is an over-simplification as well. What does "better" mean? Less need to work? More sanitary and healthful? More "spiritually rewarding"? Marx must have been VERY familiar with the work of Thomas Malthus and his "Essay on the Principles of Population". There is only ONE check on the human population... and that is MISERY/ VICE. Any attempt to simply "improve the workingman's living conditions" removes population constraints AND the need to shepherd one's resources carefully (increased DEMAND).
I'm not sure why you keep citing slabs of Zarathustra in defence of your points. This is perhaps the last of N's work I'd cite in any argument.
Some objections:
Modern Marxists would assign these responsibilities to government bureaucrats... but the failure of "centralized planning" in replacing the "greedy capitalist" has been well established, as government bureaucrats are "slothful" by their very nature (as drones to the hive).
Modern Marxists often think in more variable and decentralised terms than you might imagine. Besides, if your contention were correct, we would expect Govt-heavy, bureacratic societies to be 'failures' relative to 'purer' capitalist societies. If anything, the reverse is true.
And so Marxist labors demands are simply the cry of the weak and ignorant herd for a piece of the pie... an expression of their "will to power" which if granted, would lead to their own demise
Au contraire, the demands of the labour movement have almost never lead to the movement's 'own demise' and, even if it did, wouldn't this be the Nietzschean move par excellence? cf N's comments on Shakespeare, Macbeth, Julius Ceasar, etc.
And the "vanguard" elements simply want to do the "central planning" that the capitalists once did like one big centralized brain, a task for which they are grossly inexperienced, unqualified and most certainly likely to "botch".
You may be right here, and this is why Lenin's 'vanguardism' is probably the point on which he is most criticised, first and foremost by other Marxists.
means perhaps less 'surplus value through division of labor' through perhaps less (but a more efficient and intelligent) "division of labor".
But in your concepts of 'intelligent' and 'efficient' you are already parading utilatarian, values-laden concepts as faux-objectivity.
attempt to simply "improve the workingman's living conditions" removes population constraints AND the need to shepherd one's resources carefully (increased DEMAND).
The notion of demand also fits the capitalist imperative of economic growth. In any case, if we are good Nietzscheans, why should we baulk the task of 'sheperding resources carefully', if this is our prerogative?
Besides, if your contention were correct, we would expect Govt-heavy, bureacratic societies to be 'failures' relative to 'purer' capitalist societies. If anything, the reverse is true
Really??? Compare American GDP growth rates to Europe. We kick their asses! You say that the "reverse is true"? Prove it.
Au contraire, the demands of the labour movement have almost never lead to the movement's 'own demise' and, even if it did, wouldn't this be the Nietzschean move par excellence? Nietzsche wrote to discourage "nihilism"... he wasn't an advocate for it (except as a step beyond mere "faith") . The point is to move "beyond" the "down-going" of nihilism in rope-walking (take a risk) in order to succeed (reach the other side), NOT fall/fail/die.
But in your concepts of 'intelligent' and 'efficient' you are already parading utilatarian, values-laden concepts as faux-objectivity. Good point. In my own personal viewpoint, limited markets and small privately owned businesses constitute my "ideal". I'm against merchantilism and "world markets" and am for "limitting the lives" of immortal corporations and require them to "die" (as a human would).
To have "no values" would render speech "meaningless".
if we are good Nietzscheans, why should we baulk the task of 'sheperding resources carefully', if this is our prerogative? Because as Malthus stated, population expands exponentially and food supplies linearly. You make periodic famines and die-offs inevitable.... not that a Nietzschean should care.
We're living in an "energy bubble" at the moment which threatens either "global warming" or an extremely long-term nuclear waste management problem. Unless of course, you favour a return to agriculture ala Amish horse-power, and if that IS the case, a huge population die-off in Asia and Africa (and possibly S. America).
When this energy bubble pops, that's when the "real misery" is going to start.
MMA? I'm afraid that's a strong indicator of what a freakin' pathetic people we are becoming.
Malthus, malthus, malthus. You make me so tired, Farmer.
Contraception exists. Population has been controlled in many nations. We do know that fertility declines when the first child survives and that naturally occurs with improved access to a variety of things.
Malthus only predicted the outcome of a specific behavior. It's not inevitable in a democratic socialist system that the population is so out of control.
mr ducky,
As we both know, democratic socialist systems are economically unsustainable without large influxes of immigrants. And with those influxes will "eventually" come an abandonment of democratic socialist structures and adoption of "less liberal" and exploitative government "forms".
And also, with all due respect, the current decline in fertility of "western" women has very little to do with the availability of "birth control" and "abortion" and has everything to do with transforming women from "mothers" into "workers-of-choice" and up-scale consumers of material "luxuries", all made possible by the exploitation of fossil fuels and the industrial revolution. Because birth control and abortion existed LONG before Roe vs Wade. Just ask Rome's Augustus... circa 20 BC and have him tell you about Rome's female fertility "problem."
Now global sweat-shops are not my idea of a utopia worth mentioning, but if transforming every pleasingly plump farm girl into a hairy wart-lipped industrial "prole" hoping to garner an ever declining pension from the State to buy more vodka and cigarettes is your vision of human "happiness", then have at it.
btw - that "work-of-choice" that will eventually have to be done in the future without an unlimited supply of "energy" is going to soon more and more resemble actual physical "labor" (much less "appealing a prospect to women than motherhood), and so we can expect that there'll be much less female sitting around the office building a secretaries spread typing letters for the circular file and much more lifting, squatting and nineteenth century factory-type up-down "labour".
And so you have a choice, mr ducky. Either give women "pleasant" work and "independence" from family responsibilities OR give them kids and dependence upon families for their support. It's unlikely you'll be able to achieve a balance between both.
The high birth rate areas of the world are currently where the children and families first model hasn't completely died yet. And believe me, our non-reproductive "culture" will NOT be able to withstand immigration from the burgeoning third world populations. They're multiplication rates are "exponential", just as Malthus stated. Have you seen the world fertility graphs? Wowzers!
btw - As Nietzsche said, "For the
woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
Remember that DuChamp? Take those "bachelors" (note they're "virginal" like Apollo/Artemis not fertile like Ceres) off their trike and they'll be pumping out "babies" instead of dross-ful fancies...
Reproduction is the "essence" of human creation ducky. Look at the "centers" of the square and circles on the vitruvian man.
You can't escape human/ mother nature. AT least, not "for long". Cause pretty soon, the "energy runs out".
The mind is no match for passion and the heart. Eros and Thanatos, ducky. And Marcuse's EXPLICIT aim was to kill Thanatos and "unleash" Eros. THAT was the 60's "New Left". But w/o all the ready availability of lots of silly and useless trinkets AND "easy" work, women will eventually get back to doing what they LOVE do best... pumping out and raising young 'uns.
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