I just finised reading, for my existential philosophy class, a book called "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. Camus was a famous existentialist atheist and this is one of his 'great' works. The one thing I like about the Atheist existentialists (probably the only thing I like about them) is their logical consistency / systematic thinking. For them, there really can be no knowledge beyond your own personal experience. Thus for them, God is dead and irrelevant because to some extent reason is dead. Theorizing about the origins of existence are meaningless, indeed for them, life itself is entirely devoid of meaning.
It's disturbing to me because the story is all about a man who believes in nothing. He doesn't really believe in love, he doesn't care about God or anything metaphysical at all really. He doesn't feel anything when his mother dies, when a woman proposes to him, when he kills a man, or finally when he is condemned to death. Complete and utter apathy. In the novel the chaplains and lawyers can't understand how he has no desire for anything else, just life without any meaning or hope.
Now there are many non-Christian and even some atheistic worldviews that DO posit meaning to one's life or at least existence, and with those people a dialogue is possible. If a man loves his wife or even money one can have a discussion about values and meaning, etc. But if a man is utterly apathetic and detached from everything, there is nothing one can do.
I've met some people at Brock this year that have scared me in this way. They have terrible things happen to them, or be heartbroken, but none of this leads them to any questioning. They don't even hate God or life - which I think is preferable to indifference. They just are, they aren't looking for any answers.
It all reminds me of a character I greatly admire, a man who is the complete antithesis to Camus' 'stranger'. Socrates, the gadfly of Athens who asked the great questions about life, justice, goodness, beauty, etc. He ended up dying, but one of my favourite quotes from him is: "the unexamined life is not worth living". I tend to agree with him, and so I am still having difficulty dealing with people not content to even participate in life. People who just subsist. It reminds me that -as people from St. Augustine to Eli Wiesel have said before - that the opposite of love is not hate, it's apathy. Apathy is like Darkness. It's the absence of anything.
cookie-cutter neo-darwinians/Dawkinites, University Buddhists, Drunken Hedonists, and God-Hating Atheists are all normal figures in university life. But Camus has shown me my greatest fear in his novel. If you want to know what life looks like in post-modern atheism, feel free to read the book. I guarentee you'll be looking for meaning anywhere after it.
Showing posts with label Post-Modernism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Post-Modernism. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Invisible, Uncreated world of Being, Makes More Sense than the Material World of Becoming
Plato, Kant, Thomas, Augustine, and Jesus all posited a (post) hellenic worldview whereby behind everything in the physical world, there existed ideas, the non-material, the noumenal, God. Something Other, something not like what we see. From our life experience and our own human being/existence, we know that Being must exist.
Plato posited that there was a realm of the Forms whereby every essence existed in a non-material state. This means that when I use the word "is", the concept is a universal one that people can actually understand. The fact that no one can define "Being" is proof that we use in every language concepts that are beyond our explanation.
Crazily enough one deity is rumored to have said "I am who I am" - interpretted by many as "I am Being", and that for every human being, it is possible to say of this deity "in Him we live and move and breathe and have our being".
If Being (invisible world) is the whiteboard, Becoming (visible material world) is the writing on it. Without Being, Nietzsche rightly said, we can only speak in verbs. There are no nouns. You are not essentially anything, you are an accidental cluster of atoms constantly in flux until you die.... oh, and by the way. You weren't caused.... figure that out.
Accepting that all of existence and your own personal life does not follow logic (because logic necessitates causation which would require an existant non-material 'spiritual' entity to have created time and matter), accepting such a worldview would mean that everything is meaningless, there is no truth, there can be no true emotion between people. There can only be chemistry and biology and physics, and again remember none of those sciences can follow any pattern as this would imply logic or meaning. That is one alternative. It's as I've said objectively illogical (as it would be since logic doesn't exist). It's rather like a paranoid person who says all the world is conspiring against them, and then another person trying to explain to them that this is not true. The more the rational person explains, the more the paranoid person believes they are vindicated. (I stole that one from Chesterton).
For the rest of humanity, that isn't ready to kiss away Love, Meaning, Human Rights, and Reason, there exists another possibility in the invisible world. That's personally why I'd rather be a Platonist, or an Idealist, or an Aristotelian, or a Thomist, or a Jew, or a Deist, or a Muslim, or a Christian, or a Morman, or a worshipper of the Flying Spagetti Monster (provided he was immaterial) than be a materialist.
For the philosopher, Materialism is a joke, the phrase "the material world is the only reality" disproves materialism (language implies reason, which implies non-material principles, more "invisible" reality). Similarly a "God's eye view" of the world that claims God doesn't exist is impossible, as it would be a universal statement in a universe without universal truth! (oft repeated but true nonetheless).
Thus one can say "I don't think the (realm of the Forms/God/Noumenal/Ideal) exists" but the statement must be understood as an illogical claim, based on either emotion or unjustified opinion.
Humanities: 1 , Material Sciences: 0
Plato posited that there was a realm of the Forms whereby every essence existed in a non-material state. This means that when I use the word "is", the concept is a universal one that people can actually understand. The fact that no one can define "Being" is proof that we use in every language concepts that are beyond our explanation.
Crazily enough one deity is rumored to have said "I am who I am" - interpretted by many as "I am Being", and that for every human being, it is possible to say of this deity "in Him we live and move and breathe and have our being".
If Being (invisible world) is the whiteboard, Becoming (visible material world) is the writing on it. Without Being, Nietzsche rightly said, we can only speak in verbs. There are no nouns. You are not essentially anything, you are an accidental cluster of atoms constantly in flux until you die.... oh, and by the way. You weren't caused.... figure that out.
Accepting that all of existence and your own personal life does not follow logic (because logic necessitates causation which would require an existant non-material 'spiritual' entity to have created time and matter), accepting such a worldview would mean that everything is meaningless, there is no truth, there can be no true emotion between people. There can only be chemistry and biology and physics, and again remember none of those sciences can follow any pattern as this would imply logic or meaning. That is one alternative. It's as I've said objectively illogical (as it would be since logic doesn't exist). It's rather like a paranoid person who says all the world is conspiring against them, and then another person trying to explain to them that this is not true. The more the rational person explains, the more the paranoid person believes they are vindicated. (I stole that one from Chesterton).
For the rest of humanity, that isn't ready to kiss away Love, Meaning, Human Rights, and Reason, there exists another possibility in the invisible world. That's personally why I'd rather be a Platonist, or an Idealist, or an Aristotelian, or a Thomist, or a Jew, or a Deist, or a Muslim, or a Christian, or a Morman, or a worshipper of the Flying Spagetti Monster (provided he was immaterial) than be a materialist.
For the philosopher, Materialism is a joke, the phrase "the material world is the only reality" disproves materialism (language implies reason, which implies non-material principles, more "invisible" reality). Similarly a "God's eye view" of the world that claims God doesn't exist is impossible, as it would be a universal statement in a universe without universal truth! (oft repeated but true nonetheless).
Thus one can say "I don't think the (realm of the Forms/God/Noumenal/Ideal) exists" but the statement must be understood as an illogical claim, based on either emotion or unjustified opinion.
Humanities: 1 , Material Sciences: 0
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
What Exists? The Senses and Reason? Thomas, Berkeley, Kant
I'm trying to figure out whether I believe the world actually exists because I see it and experience it with my senses (Thomas Aquinas/Aristotle/Realism), or whether I think it exists and so it exists, and that the only real thing I can be sure of is that I think, and so existence can only really be linked to thinking. Thus for universal existence, there must be a mind conceiving of the world all at once (thoughts in the mind of God) (Berkeley/Plato/Exaggerated Realism).
To me exaggerated realism leads to neoplatonic and protestant errors in it's emphasis on the mind, whereas empiricism is kind of baseless (why should we trust the senses) and leads to existentialism and postmodernism (which might not be a bad thing, I'm still figuring this out).
Where this is relevant is kind of funny. I was walking around Brock yesterday and I saw a girl bending over with alot of cleavage and I wondered if that was a thought in the mind of God, or a sensical discovery. I am starting to appreciate the physical world of phenomena and senses more and more (not in the way mentioned above per se), but just trying to sit down and actually experience life. To realize my body is ME and that I'm actually travelling at ridiculous speeds on a rock spinning in the universe. Realizing that this life we live now is so important and beautiful, but at the same time - as Pascal says - "the most fragile thing in the world".
The more I read about Immanuel Kant, the more I like the guy, obviously he has some problems, but his theory is that we experience, and then we reason which acts kind of like the final sense (if I've understood him properly). As I watch home movies of me as an infant and realize that I wasn't reasoning yet, I think it shows that Berkeley is out and that it's either Thomas or Kant or someone else I find. Kant said something that I've been thinking about for a while now to see if I agree with it: "to be is to do"
Any Thoughts?
To me exaggerated realism leads to neoplatonic and protestant errors in it's emphasis on the mind, whereas empiricism is kind of baseless (why should we trust the senses) and leads to existentialism and postmodernism (which might not be a bad thing, I'm still figuring this out).
Where this is relevant is kind of funny. I was walking around Brock yesterday and I saw a girl bending over with alot of cleavage and I wondered if that was a thought in the mind of God, or a sensical discovery. I am starting to appreciate the physical world of phenomena and senses more and more (not in the way mentioned above per se), but just trying to sit down and actually experience life. To realize my body is ME and that I'm actually travelling at ridiculous speeds on a rock spinning in the universe. Realizing that this life we live now is so important and beautiful, but at the same time - as Pascal says - "the most fragile thing in the world".
The more I read about Immanuel Kant, the more I like the guy, obviously he has some problems, but his theory is that we experience, and then we reason which acts kind of like the final sense (if I've understood him properly). As I watch home movies of me as an infant and realize that I wasn't reasoning yet, I think it shows that Berkeley is out and that it's either Thomas or Kant or someone else I find. Kant said something that I've been thinking about for a while now to see if I agree with it: "to be is to do"
Any Thoughts?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thoughts Before Work Tonight
“Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.” - Simon Schama (pictured above making cheese soufflet in his home)
I had a fine day today. I went to Tim Hortons, had Chocolate milk, listened to a good lecture by a genius historian (Prof. Sainsbury) and then had an actually good Latin class! craziness. Then I had a great lunch, and when I came home I decided I needed my Simon Schama fix so I lay down on the couch and watched him compare Ireland and India. He even talked about Thomas Babington Macaulay whom I had researched without remembering Schama talked about him.
Now I'm just waiting to go to work. It's been a good day, but it's weird having the fear of work and prospective essays looming over you. Then I realized: this is my life. I'm only viewing it on a daily cycle though. Like why should I relax the day before I work if I just have to work the next day? ANd I'll have to work my entire life, so really this, "just get through it" attitude is really the bane of my existence. What's the point in toughing out your entire life?
When I think about History and Schama and the job of a Historian I constantly think about how many people have gone before me. The Romans had a phrase we translated in Latin the other day. It was "to go to the majority", and it meant 'to die'. They saw the majority as those already dead. Schama said 1 million Irish died in the potato famine of the 1840s and 5 million people starved in India during one famine. 6 million people, dead.
...
What were their lives like? What did they think of God? What did they love and hope for?
I guess we'll never know. And one day I will 'go to the majority'. And people like Simon Schama (and myself) will write essays about me as one of the beleagured multitude. They'll try to place me into a group that all sought one clear goal, that fit somewhere. Whether I'm a proletarian wage slave who died working in a grocery store, or one of the many morbidly obese Canadians of the post-modern period who died from heart faillure due to excess, or one of the 'faithful departed' in a liturgy (better than unfaithful departed).
...
What kind of an account will I give for my life? I can picture it now: "Hi... I'm (name), I was of the (religion) faith, does that mean I'm in? ....Yes that's correct, mhmm glutton, lustful, etc yep. ... Ya I guess I was a Capitalist? is that bad comrade? ...oh I see...well I only shopped at Walmart because it was so cheap, though I guess that doesn't count... alright ... Ya I only did that with one girlfriend ..." and then the questions get even weirder "... well ya, I preferred Charles I to Oliver Cromwell ...but you do remember what he did to Ireland... oh you saw that on my facebook" It's so unimaginable to think of such an epic ending to such a transitory life.
So little of life is epic, so much of it just the drab everyday. So much isn't about Ideals, but rather endless compromise.
...
If I believed in reincarnation, I'd just do whatever the hell I wanted. I know that's kind of against the point, but seriously, it'd be like being invincible. It reminds me of when the Romans had trouble fighting the Germanic tribes because they believed in the immortality of the soul so strongly, they had no fear of death.
...
Plato makes a pretty good argument for the immortality of the soul.
...
well I guess I'll get ready for work.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Essays, Sartre, and looking in the Mirror
I have 3 essays due in the next lil while. Today I skipped class to write one so that I could finish it. I have 1 page so far (double spaced)... that was the result of 20 minutes of actually forcing myself to write. Then I went to go see New Moon, and now I'm back.
... The last 2 weeks I've been going crazy because I'm not able to force myself to work. Colbert once said in an interview where he talked about a bunch of his family dying in a plane crash "any threat they could make seemed pretty silly", in regards to his teachers for not finishing his work. He said that all education needs fear to work. I think I'm losing the fear. I'm not going to pretend like I'm independant or anything, I'm definately sure I'll suck it up and finish all these essays. Hell I'll probably get 75-85% on all of them. But I just feel like I'm starting to not care.
I feel like I'm an actor in a play about my life, but that I've got so tired of acting that I'm starting to get out of character, and people around me are starting to get scared/disturbed. I talked to a friend the other day about Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous post-modern atheist. I've only read his wikipedia.
Lance told me his ethics were based on the principle that as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror, you're ok. The only ethics are self-preservation and self-esteem I guess you could say in his model - as opposed to most atheists who stick with Utilitarianism.
I haven't done anything evil really besides the usual.
However, on the drive home today I couldn't look myself in the mirror. I don't really know why. I think it was because I had just seen so many beautiful people around me. It was almost eerie. Like living in a movie. I was grossed out a bit. The other day I was at the Dentist and I kept looking at the pictures they had of all the perfect people with perfect teeth. I started laughing and the hygenist looked a little puzzled. I didn't tell her why I laughed, but it was at the pictures, I didn't belong there. The Dentist told me about how my tooth was dead and I pre-empted him (because he'd told me it 6 months ago with the same severity). He listed a series of surgeries I could get, I told him they could rip it out and I could get the gold tooth I've always wanted.
...silence...
some people have no sense of humor. Anyway, he looked a little worried and said something about getting a second opinion and left. Then I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. I started laughing, thinking about the giant gap in my teeth. Thinking about how it would continue to make me look even weirder. It was a weaker version of the hysterical laugh I had before.
at least I'm not as ugly as Sartre, no wonder he was an advocate of 'free love'.
I read a bit about Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (Jesuit) and his philosophy/theology/phenomenology. He fused Catholicism with Evolution and argued that the world is being drawn towards God the 'Omega Principle' in a constant state of becoming/evolution which will culminate in complete redemption. He was criticized by the Church, but eventually garnered some respect. He's a love-hate person in the Church, much like the Society (Jesuits) itself.
.
I think I'm moving away from the Omega principle. I'm devolving. I'm becoming more and more lost. I read Sartre's idea about being trapped by your own freedom, I kind of feel that way right now.
...
i've just wasted another hour that was supposed to be for my essay. FUCK!
...
I wish I could go drinking with Simon Schama or watch some mythbusters, or get stuck in an elevator with Kari Byron.
... The last 2 weeks I've been going crazy because I'm not able to force myself to work. Colbert once said in an interview where he talked about a bunch of his family dying in a plane crash "any threat they could make seemed pretty silly", in regards to his teachers for not finishing his work. He said that all education needs fear to work. I think I'm losing the fear. I'm not going to pretend like I'm independant or anything, I'm definately sure I'll suck it up and finish all these essays. Hell I'll probably get 75-85% on all of them. But I just feel like I'm starting to not care.
I feel like I'm an actor in a play about my life, but that I've got so tired of acting that I'm starting to get out of character, and people around me are starting to get scared/disturbed. I talked to a friend the other day about Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous post-modern atheist. I've only read his wikipedia.
Lance told me his ethics were based on the principle that as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror, you're ok. The only ethics are self-preservation and self-esteem I guess you could say in his model - as opposed to most atheists who stick with Utilitarianism.
I haven't done anything evil really besides the usual.
However, on the drive home today I couldn't look myself in the mirror. I don't really know why. I think it was because I had just seen so many beautiful people around me. It was almost eerie. Like living in a movie. I was grossed out a bit. The other day I was at the Dentist and I kept looking at the pictures they had of all the perfect people with perfect teeth. I started laughing and the hygenist looked a little puzzled. I didn't tell her why I laughed, but it was at the pictures, I didn't belong there. The Dentist told me about how my tooth was dead and I pre-empted him (because he'd told me it 6 months ago with the same severity). He listed a series of surgeries I could get, I told him they could rip it out and I could get the gold tooth I've always wanted.
...silence...
some people have no sense of humor. Anyway, he looked a little worried and said something about getting a second opinion and left. Then I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. I started laughing, thinking about the giant gap in my teeth. Thinking about how it would continue to make me look even weirder. It was a weaker version of the hysterical laugh I had before.
at least I'm not as ugly as Sartre, no wonder he was an advocate of 'free love'.
I read a bit about Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (Jesuit) and his philosophy/theology/phenomenology. He fused Catholicism with Evolution and argued that the world is being drawn towards God the 'Omega Principle' in a constant state of becoming/evolution which will culminate in complete redemption. He was criticized by the Church, but eventually garnered some respect. He's a love-hate person in the Church, much like the Society (Jesuits) itself.
.
I think I'm moving away from the Omega principle. I'm devolving. I'm becoming more and more lost. I read Sartre's idea about being trapped by your own freedom, I kind of feel that way right now.
...
i've just wasted another hour that was supposed to be for my essay. FUCK!
...
I wish I could go drinking with Simon Schama or watch some mythbusters, or get stuck in an elevator with Kari Byron.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A Cold Walk, Twilight/New Moon, Wikihow, and Unfinished Homework
I was home alone tonight and I sat down to watch Top Gear with some Butterscotch ice cream. When I looked down at myself. I was feeling particularly obese, so I threw my ice cream out...all of it. I went through the act in my mind to evaluate it ethically. It was objectively a bad action (wasting food) but the motive (moderation) was good and the situation was good (I'm already morbidly obese). So I figured it was ok to do.
I've been reading Twilight and now am half way through New Moon. This officially makes me gay, I know, but I think it's just because the books are about love and beautiful girls and stuff, and I'm desperately lonely (in the words of SNL jeopardy's Martha Stewart). But they've been making me think I really need to find a girlfriend again. It's been a year and 2 months since I last kissed a girl and that's far too long.
In my sudden bout of self-hatred I did 2 stupid things. I went to my bathroom to try to throw up (I could never be bulimic if I don't even have the willpower to diet don't worry). And then I decided that instead I should try and exercise (so that I could get a Bella of my own). I put on my rosary, and went for a walk in the freezing cold. I prayed a pseudo-St. Michael Chaplet "O God make Speed to Save me, O Lord Make Haste To Help Me, Glory be...etc." x ? , as well as some of my usual painfully honest and blunt prayers which contain far too much Anglo-Saxon.
I finally got home and my legs were tingling from the friction and yet freezing from the weather. I read some more New Moon - a terribly depressing book , which isn't helping my recently returned Depression.
So then for some reason I looked and saw that I had twice as much Latin homework as I had thought. So I just decided to put it off, and looked on WikiHow for how to find a girlfriend.
One thing I think was hillarious, they kept saying "be confident" and "be yourself". What if your personality is self-deprecating and unconfident. Eh?! riddle me that !
Anyway, I think it was a waste of time as I already know how to talk to girls, and I think I'm pretty charismatic, it's just that if I was about 100 pounds lighter, wasn't Catholic / dogmatic, and cared about meaningless pop-culture stuff, i'd be fine. But I am all those things, so it doesn't seem like anythings going to happen for a while. I should probably get up and do my Latin.
Oh but 4 good things happened (so that it's not all depressing)..
1. I had an amazing talk with my philosophy prof about St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotelian Metaphysics, and Post-Modernism (the fact that those things excite me are a perfect example of my aforementioned unpopular interests).
2. I openly disagreed with a girl on Religion in the American Revolution and argued it was a Presbyterian revolt against the CofE and she actually said she respected my opinion and was glad I challenged her. A kindred spirit! (I bet she has a boyfriend).
3. I got to have lunch with my best friend today.
4. I got to have a good meeting with the Roman Catholic asst. chaplain and we discussed the faith and what I was learning from the Newman Club, and he treated me like a person/end rather than means to something.
Well. Another week chasing Eudaimonia via women, weightloss, and wishy-washy teen literature, as well as western philosophy
I've been reading Twilight and now am half way through New Moon. This officially makes me gay, I know, but I think it's just because the books are about love and beautiful girls and stuff, and I'm desperately lonely (in the words of SNL jeopardy's Martha Stewart). But they've been making me think I really need to find a girlfriend again. It's been a year and 2 months since I last kissed a girl and that's far too long.
In my sudden bout of self-hatred I did 2 stupid things. I went to my bathroom to try to throw up (I could never be bulimic if I don't even have the willpower to diet don't worry). And then I decided that instead I should try and exercise (so that I could get a Bella of my own). I put on my rosary, and went for a walk in the freezing cold. I prayed a pseudo-St. Michael Chaplet "O God make Speed to Save me, O Lord Make Haste To Help Me, Glory be...etc." x ? , as well as some of my usual painfully honest and blunt prayers which contain far too much Anglo-Saxon.
I finally got home and my legs were tingling from the friction and yet freezing from the weather. I read some more New Moon - a terribly depressing book , which isn't helping my recently returned Depression.
So then for some reason I looked and saw that I had twice as much Latin homework as I had thought. So I just decided to put it off, and looked on WikiHow for how to find a girlfriend.
One thing I think was hillarious, they kept saying "be confident" and "be yourself". What if your personality is self-deprecating and unconfident. Eh?! riddle me that !
Anyway, I think it was a waste of time as I already know how to talk to girls, and I think I'm pretty charismatic, it's just that if I was about 100 pounds lighter, wasn't Catholic / dogmatic, and cared about meaningless pop-culture stuff, i'd be fine. But I am all those things, so it doesn't seem like anythings going to happen for a while. I should probably get up and do my Latin.
Oh but 4 good things happened (so that it's not all depressing)..
1. I had an amazing talk with my philosophy prof about St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotelian Metaphysics, and Post-Modernism (the fact that those things excite me are a perfect example of my aforementioned unpopular interests).
2. I openly disagreed with a girl on Religion in the American Revolution and argued it was a Presbyterian revolt against the CofE and she actually said she respected my opinion and was glad I challenged her. A kindred spirit! (I bet she has a boyfriend).
3. I got to have lunch with my best friend today.
4. I got to have a good meeting with the Roman Catholic asst. chaplain and we discussed the faith and what I was learning from the Newman Club, and he treated me like a person/end rather than means to something.
Well. Another week chasing Eudaimonia via women, weightloss, and wishy-washy teen literature, as well as western philosophy
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Goodbye Nietzsche
The above pictured man is the kind hearted, G.K. Chesterton, Genius Extraordinaire, Defender of Christian Orthodoxy.
This is the super-fucked up Friedrich Nietzsche - The Hero of the Nazis, and all around Douchebag, scum of the earth.I was reading "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton today and it is AMAZING. He completely refutes the ideas of Nietzsche. I only wish someone would've told me about him sooner. I've been trying to come up with these arguments myself because I didn't think anyone else out-thought him in print at least. Wow, good freakin job G.K.
"Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being “higher,” do not know either." - Chesterton in Orthodoxy
He is destroying Nietzsche's claim that he is himself beyond this Christian view of good and evil, when Nietzche is really only establishing his own system of good and evil which he likes more. Every value he advances has no inherent value. Lust, violence, and the will to power are Nietzsche's ideal characteristics. But Why? Nietzsche isn't offering us anything new about humanity he's just trying to shock us. Amen Chesterton. Did I mention Chesterton was a Catholic? Booyah!
"Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being “higher,” do not know either." - Chesterton in Orthodoxy
He is destroying Nietzsche's claim that he is himself beyond this Christian view of good and evil, when Nietzche is really only establishing his own system of good and evil which he likes more. Every value he advances has no inherent value. Lust, violence, and the will to power are Nietzsche's ideal characteristics. But Why? Nietzsche isn't offering us anything new about humanity he's just trying to shock us. Amen Chesterton. Did I mention Chesterton was a Catholic? Booyah!
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