tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post34999185230549223..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: HavenStephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-86874762031532920012015-06-11T20:32:13.801-07:002015-06-11T20:32:13.801-07:00Anonymous: Thank you for the different perspectiv...Anonymous: Thank you for the different perspective. I've never known what to make of Nietzsche, partly because I can never tell whether he was lucid or mad when he wrote a particular passage. He certainly seems to be in a state of mania in this passage, with all the capitalized words and over-the-top rhetoric (which makes it wearying to read). It ends up seeming defensive. Well, I suppose that more than a few have opined that Nietzsche is himself an "extraordinary stage-player and self-deluder." Who knows?<br /><br />Thanks again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-80292744795039091722015-06-11T10:12:43.491-07:002015-06-11T10:12:43.491-07:00If we live, as Louis MacNeice says (see his poem &...<br /><br />If we live, as Louis MacNeice says (see his poem "Snow"), in an "incorrigibly plural world," then nothing has more plurality than interpretations of this plural world. For example, here is Nietzsche on Stoics (yes, he does "philosophize with a hammer"):<br /><br />You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.<br />(From "Beyond Good and Evil" chapter one, part nine)<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-16210714259996287732015-06-10T21:24:51.964-07:002015-06-10T21:24:51.964-07:00Mr Floyd: Thank you very much for your thoughts. ...Mr Floyd: Thank you very much for your thoughts. I agree that the world and the times press upon us, and are hard to ignore. I'm not sure that Marcus Aurelius (and Stoicism, Taoism, Buddhism) are suggesting that we can (or ought to) ignore the world or, on a smaller scale, what goes on in our own lives. I'm no expert with respect to any of these philosophies, but I do sense that the goal is letting go, non-attachment: keeping it all in perspective by recognizing that we can only inhabit the present moment. <br /><br />Are we sacrificing what it means to be human by doing so? Are we sacrificing "self-consciousness" by doing so? I think not. But that's only my opinion. And I appreciate a common criticism of these philosophies: that their "quietism" amounts to a suppression of human emotion and empathy. I understand that view, and I can see that it has some possible validity. <br /><br />And thank you for the poem by Dickinson, which presents the conundrum well. I don't claim to fully understand the poem (which is often the case for me when it comes to her poetry), but I'm not sure about "How have I peace/Except by subjugating/Consciousness." For instance, I think that the Stoics, Taoists, and Buddhists would say that finding peace is not a matter of "subjugating consciousness" (and thus surrendering what it means to be human), but rather is a matter of making proper use of our consciousness (and not, for example, driving ourselves to distraction with fruitless and futile thinking). One can be self-conscious without thinking oneself to death. But I am on very shaky ground when it comes to my understanding of this topic: i.e., The Meaning Of Life! I am not qualified to issue pronouncements. What do I know? Nothing. But those lines do trouble me. (And it is entirely possible that I am completely misreading them!)<br /><br />As always, it is a pleasure to receive your thought-provoking comments. Thank you for stopping by again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-4828415779484672852015-06-10T10:35:53.914-07:002015-06-10T10:35:53.914-07:00No doubt the stoical Roman emperor is right: we do...No doubt the stoical Roman emperor is right: we don't need to change the world so much as we need to change our opinion of the world. <br /><br />I don't know for sure--the older I get the more ignorant I find myself, full of saucy doubts, if not at times utter confusion--but it might be that the "ghost in the machine" of humankind is self-consciousness. <br /><br />The human predicament, vexing and anxiety-provoking, comprises, among other things, overthinking, which, to put it simply, is at bottom an inability to accept the world as it is: a place not designed for a self-conscious creature. The world ignores this creature, but we can't ignore the world. As Frost says we want the universe to cry out its love for us. The heavens are silent, skies stitched.<br /><br />The below poem by Dickinson seems to suggest that as much as we'd like to make ourselves immune to heartache and all the ills "that flesh is heir to," we cannot banish ourselves from ourselves, except through madness.<br /><br />I admire Marcus Aurelius, long to emulate him, but he is beyond my scope and ken. I have not yet learned to escape from being a child of our times, infected with all its woes and chaos.<br /><br />Me from Myself -- to banish --<br />Had I Art --<br />Impregnable my Fortress<br />Unto All Heart --<br /><br />But since Myself -- assault Me --<br />How have I peace<br />Except by subjugating<br />Consciousness?<br /><br />And since We're mutual Monarch<br />How this be<br />Except by Abdication --<br />Me -- of Me?<br /> <br /><br />Bruce Floydnoreply@blogger.com