HALL 0702
contribution to
« NIETZSCHEANS »
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Scott
Locklin explains: WHO ARE THE NEW NIETZSCHEANS? |
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They are out there! They have a tendency to be silent in their ideas, which are usually extremely unpopular, as they go against the generally accepted dualist thinking. Another reason you do not see them is the simple fact that Nietzscheans are generally unconcerned with social issues; they are busy with their own affairs. I will attempt to catalogue some of the modern Nietzscheans and their influences. |
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(1) Who Are the New Nietzscheans? CYBERPUNKS:
are generally influenced by all the below-mentioned thinkers. The
Cyberpunk exists in cyberspace; virtual reality. While sitting at a
computer terminal may not seem like much of a Nietzschean activity, the
anarchic freedom of cyberspace readily lends itself to a Nietzschean
world-view. ThIs KiNd Of Lettering is a cyberpunk hallmark. SCIENCE
FICTION: many Science Fiction writers, among them R.A. Wilson, Robert
Heinlien, Larry Niven, L. Ron Hubbard and Stanislaw Lem are strongly
influenced by Nietzsche and later Nietzschean thinkers. The readers of
their tales are, of course, influenced by these ideas. INDUSTRIAL
MUSIC: Started in the late 1970's. The music itself is quite Nietzschean/Dionysian;
some aspects of the culture associated with it are even more Nihilistic. ALIESTER
CROWLEY: an early 20th century British occultist, Crowley founded,
directly or indirectly, virtually all of the non-traditional religions
we see today. Among the religions directly influenced by Crowley are the
Neo-Pagan movements, the Wiccans, the "occult fraternities"
such as the O.T.O., Rosicrucianism, Scientology (indirectly, though
Hubbard, who was a student of Crowleys), Satanism and various aspects of
the New Age Movement. Crowley expounded a philosophy that is quite
Nietzschean; "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
He advised discovery of the "True Will" through various occult
techniques. AYN RAND: As stated in the Marxism paper, her book "Atlas Shrugged" is more influential in America than the Bible. It is a manifesto for many conservative and not-so conservative thinkers. Her ideas can be read as quite Nietzschean in a certain sense, but they are very hostile to the relativist left-wing post-structuralism. |
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A
friend of mine is doing a report on Nietzsche where he attempts to
criticize the Nietzschean superman as being "child-like" or
"infantile." Indeed, I heartily agree with this sentiment; the
overman overflows with the child-like vitality that we are endowed with
at birth. This is exactly the point of becoming a superman, to recapture
the vitality that society saps from people in order to make them
enslavable. The overman is selfish, and why not? If one has enough
self-esteem to realize that one deserves all of ones desires, one is
more likely to get what one wants. The elevation of humbleness and
self-effacement as virtues is such an abomination and negation of life
as to make it utterly incomprehensible to me, other than as a tool for
the establishment to keep the masses enslaved by their own moralities.
This is not to say that the Nieztschean should revel in ego-mania;
people should be realistic about their abilities, and should certainly
give appropriate respect to their betters. The important point is that,
despite what religion and government will tell you, you are your own
best friend; if you have no pride, how can anyone else respect you? An
apocryphal cyberpunk quote is appropriate here; "The meek SHALL
inherit the earth, because the strong shall inherit the STARS!" |
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(2) AphorismsThe
following are a few aphorisms I cooked up, in an attempted imitation of
Nietzsche's style. Hopefully I have captured a bit of his spirit as
well... Nietzsche
says he hits with a hammer, perhaps this is why he is so misunderstood;
hammers have a tendency to break fragile objects. Perhaps I should aim
to hit with a rubber chicken; but even a rubber chicken can be a lethal
weapon in the right hands! Down with hammers and rubber chickens! To
fight and lose is a sad thing, but to accept torments without fighting
back, or worse, to do the work for the tormenter and wonder why one is
in pain- that is the mentality of masochistic sheep. Governments
and religions are clever that way; they talk their subjects into
performing self-flagellation. They even manage to talk their subjects
into accepting this flagellation as a virtue; that way the practice
becomes self-perpetuating. The
game of "oppression" can be thought of as a game of
Sadomasochism. The oppressed must realize that it must stop playing the
game if it really wants the game to stop. The herd claims to want happiness for all. By their actions one can see that their real desire is to be anesthetized against strong sensation of any kind. Their happiness is a lack of pain, and a lack of joy. |
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(3) ThE LeFt WiNg ToDaY Marxists?
What I say to the Marxists is "who benefits?" Everyone they say?
The history of Russia shows that those who gain the most are the
white-collar intellectuals who expound the philosophy. Now- who are the
most vocal proponents of Marxism in America and Europe? Now,
to the movement of those who would make me "Politically Correct"
in speech and action. WHO BENEFITS? It is a good joke they try to play on
me; telling me to efface myself that others may gain? I can appreciate
such jokes, and I will play along with it, using the silence that they
find so intolerable. These
days it is fashionable to identify with the downtrodden in some way.
Everyone seems to have some form of systematic oppression which they are
victimized by. The homosexuals, the rape-survivors, the co-dependency
survivors, the parent/child/sibling of alcohol/drug abusers, the racial
minorities... Perhaps some of these people do have legitimate grievances,
but the manner in which they wear the badge of "oppressed" as if
it were something to be proud of makes me ill. "Oppressed"
people seem to think that their victimization gives them moral superiority
over others; a supremely christian sentiment. It is often amusing to see
various "victims" and survivors compete amongst themselves to
determine who is more downtrodden. There
is a tendency among the left-wing, perhaps largely started by
post-structuralist "thinkers," to redefine terms and give new
terms to replace older "insensitive" terms to suit political
ends. The general tendency is to use a new term with a broader meaning, or
to redefine a term to have a broader meaning. For example, in the 40's and
50's, crippled people were called crippled people. This term had very
specific meaning; the person to whom it was applied had physical
deficiencies great enough to severely limit their abilities in comparison
to other human beings. Later, this harsh-sounding term was changed to
handicapped or disabled. While handicapped and disabled are less harsh
terms, they carry less meaning- these adjectives can be applied to a
larger group of people with a broad spectrum of types and degree of "impairment."
The latest term I have heard is "physically challenged." This
term is apparently clinical-sounding enough to be sufficiently innocuous,
but the information content of this term is almost nil. Example; while I
am fairly proficient at various Karate forms, I am severely physically
challenged in other sports. The
same game can be applied to terms rather than meanings; violence for
example. Violence used to mean a physical act which causes bodily harm to
another person. Now the word violence can be used to mean any number of
abstract injuries, whether psychological, economic, social or even
violence to self-esteem. This method serves to further the ends of the
politicizer through the use of emotion charged language. Unfortunately for
those to whom the original meaning of the term applied, they now share
their misery with new "victims" thus cheapening the impact of
what they have experienced. Worse than this (for me) is the fact that
meaning is blurred and informatic content is reduced tremendously. Other
terms which have "fallen victim to this disease" are: racism;
used to be defined as a form of racial prejudice, now it is broadened to
mean anything which is considered "damaging" to minority groups.
Some have gone so far as to declare that all whites are racist and
minorities can never be racist (by definition, so I am told). Rape;
used to be defined as a non-consensual sexual act, now it is broadened to
include reading pornography, and even (if you listen to Dworkin's ravings)
any male/female sexual act wherin the male has an erection. Sexual-harassment;
used to be defined as the linking of sexual favors to ones job status, now
broadened to include on the job flirtation which is unwelcome by one of
the parties involved. While
some of the new meanings associated with these terms seem unfair by
generally accepted morals, the new meanings associated with the old terms
serve to parasitize the emotional impact of the meanings originally
associated with the terms. To honestly address these issues, new terms
should be invented for these newly-discovered meanings. As demonstrated
with the example of "crippled," this group is quite adept at
inventing new terms to lessen emotional impact. The fact that it must
parasitize terms rather than inventing new ones when it desires to
maximize emotional impact shows a form of cowardice that can only be
associated with the herd's tendency to equate happiness with a lack of
strong sensation. To
me, the true crime of this is not the fact that people seek to anesthetize
language, but that the meaning of the language is distorted and blurred.
This is a subtle variation on one of the fundamental errors of logic that
the sophists were so fond of using. Perhaps the great success of
post-structuralist "thinking" in the various humanities can be
attributed to the ability of the post-structuralist to change definitions
and redefine terms at will. The post-structuralist is not actually "discovering"
anything and rarely gives any new meanings, s/he is merely playing an
elaborate trick with language. This coupled with a tendency to value all
things equally is what makes po-struc style so popular; it is a mask for
incompetent scholarship. Indeed,
the sloppiness of spoken language in general has been the downfall of
philosophy through the ages. The most successful of the sciences have been
those that use mathematics as their language; mathematics is the most
rigorous language possible. (note: By success I mean ability of said
science to accurately describe the world; the accuracy is measured by
observation). Concluding
my rant on post-structuralism, it seems that Nietzsche's attack on
metaphysics and morality has been distorted into something quite unlike
what was intended. It seems to me that the original idea of both Nietzsche
and some of the post-structuralists, such as Foucault, was to be rid of
all encumbering metaphysical nonsense in order to strike out in new
directions of scholarship and thought. What it has turned into is a refuge
for incompetent scholars and political whiners. I think both men are
rolling in their graves... Derrida
thinks binary thinking is a result of phallocentrism. Derrida was a
homosexual; I think it more likely that Derrida thinking is a result of
phallocentrism. Being a mathematician, I am of the opinion that binary
thinking is a result of the minimal principle; since binary thinking is
the simplest kind of thinking, lazy people will adopt it. Then again,
perhaps Locklin thinking is the result of techno-centrism. The test of
which idea is more correct comes in the observation of the predicted
consequences of each theory. |
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(4) Current eVeNtS Rumblings
on current events; the former Yugoslavia. The question in America seems
to be "what are we going to do to fix this situation?" We
point accusatory fingers at the Europeans, who seem unwilling to remedy
the situation, which we assume is more their problem than ours. Perhaps
the Europeans realize what the solution to the problem is; isolate it
and leave it alone. We Americans have an amusing tendency to think we
can remedy any situation via our intervention. Here
is a perfect example of idiot interventionism; the Waco incident. What
was the justification for the attack on the Branch-Davidian compound in
the first place? There were (unsubstantiated) rumors of child abuse.
Guess what? They are now all DEAD! Better a live allegedly abused child
than a charred corpse to my morality. What
about the "War on Drugs?" Perhaps a "War on Liberty"
is more accurate. Do people really think we will somehow be better off
when everyone ceases use of drugs? The only problem I see with drugs use
is the lack of unadulterated drugs and the fact that large men with
firearms will hurt you if they think you take them. WHO
BENEFITS? The "law-enforcement" industry are the obvious
beneficiaries. Through the strengthening of law-enforcement, all those
in power will benefit. One
of the more amusing and ironic aspects of this movement is the fact that
the right-wing, those who are supposed to be staunchest supporters of
individual freedom, use Marxist arguments such as stamping out drugs for
the "common good." The
pod-people think the war on drugs is important; it provides valuable
entertainment. The
great danger of drug use is the danger to those in power. People who
take certain drugs tend to see politicians for what they are; monkeys
posturing. A quote from Atlas Shrugged: "Did you really think we wanted those laws to be observed? We WANT them to be broken... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power a government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, if there are not enough criminals, one makes them... You create a nation of law-breakers---and then you cash in on guilt." |
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(5) LeFt AnD rIgHt? I
am not "left-wing" or "right-wing," if one must have
wings, I will use them and be "up-wing." The
left wing wants a government that acts like an overprotective mother.
The right wing wants a government that acts like a stern and vengeful
father. The "up-wing" wants to be adult with no parental
government. It
is amusing the way the left deals with the "All men are created
equal" paradigm. The left wing shouts this paradigm the loudest but
finds it necessary to pass laws which enforce this paradigm, implying
that they do not really believe it to be true. It
is also amusing the way that the right-wing gives lip-service to
personal freedom unless the person exerting their right to personal
freedom is exerting it in a way that is different from the mainstream. The
right wing is entertaining in that few scholars take it seriously; the
reason I harp on the left wing is because, somehow, it has been taken
seriously. I
have observed that there arethree basic styles of feminism; the type
that attempts to force masculine qualities on women, the type that
attempts to force feminine qualities on men and the type that does
neither. The first type was popular in the 60-70's, the second type
popular in the 80's and early 90's, and the latter type has never been
popular; perhaps in the future... (the
next 8 aphorisms taken from "The Abolition of Work and other
Essays" by Bob Black) The
right? Wrong! The left? Left behind! Libertarianism? All the freedom
money can buy! Marxism? The highest form of capitalism! Feminism?
Equality with men; a paltry ambition! Liberals? Conservatives with a
guilty conscience! Police? Terrorists with the right credentials!
Religion? Deifying your defects! |
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(6) HuMaNiTy? The
great absurdity of humanity is the refusal to acknowledge the fact that
we are a mammal; a form of ape. The strongest refusal of this fact comes
from those who have the most to lose by admitting this. People
wonder why humans seem so psychologically screwed up. Consider this;
when other mammals give birth, the mother finds a dark and cozy place to
have this private, intimate experience. In our industrialized societies
the mother is assaulted with all manner of indignities and the newborn
is greeted by harsh lights and monstrous, sterile, masked demons who cut
the cord and beat the newborn until it breathes. No
wonder some men are naturally violent; after they are welcomed into the
world with a beating, they are harnessed into plastic chairs and their
genitals are cut. Altruism
is touted by the cattle-men as the highest form of human action.
Unfortunately for the high-minded altruist, whenever one analyses
altruistic behaviors sufficiently close enough, one always finds that
altruism has its roots in selfishness and greed. |
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(7) TeChNoLoGy Religion?
Mass media has largely replaced the roles of organized religion in our
social structure; many of the truly religious realize this in some shadowy
way. Where do people commune together to share common emotional
experiences in our age? In front of the television! What do people talk
about when they are not in front of the television? They speak of what
they saw on the television! Where
do we get our values? Elders? Parents? Teachers? None of these could get
me to bathe regularly as a child. It was television advertising, taking
advantage of my psycho-sexual insecurities at puberty, that made me
believe that I stink... Polls
(ye gods, the polls) show that most people would not give up the
television for a year even if paid one million dollars. When the need to
be pacified replaces good old human greed and avarice, I fear for the
future of humanity. I suppose it is similar to the martyr who would rather
die than give up his religious safety blanket, even in thought... When
given a choice between the television and their fathers, most children
choose the television. The end of the patriarchy? Or the beginning of the
reign of the machine... (factoids from the Society for Eradication of
Television) The
ancient Hebrews and Pagans would ritually slaughter their beasts in temple
before using them as food, to ease the wrath of the gods. It was a
symbolism, an appeasement of the personified forces of the natural world;
the temples were microcosms of the natural world (and often situated in
breathtaking natural surroundings). Today we build great engines of death
for our slaughterhouses and symbolical temples. What angry machine gods
are we trying to satiate? When
peopleare shown the machine-god they become frightened; they run away from
all machines. They refuse to eat the meat from the animals sacrificed to
the machine god, saying it is a terrible blasphemy. Instead they eat
granola and vegetables. They forget how the granola and vegetables are
produced; the great machine tears furrows in the earth with its claws and
fills the soil with its venoms. Some
see the furrows and the venom, and insist on food grown in little
scratches in the soil, fed on shit. The machine charges extra for these
antiquated extravagances. The
pod-people cannot see the machine. Jonah could not see the whale. The
god-machine hides behind a forest of televisions; these are machine
camouflage. Old
hacker maxim; "If you cannot understand and control a technology, it
will control you." Make the Machine your ally; you cannot hide from it, and you cannot kill it without killing yourself; learn how it works and you can change it and use it to your benefit. |
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(8) WhAt NiEtZsChe MeAnS tO mE The
writings of Nietzsche have much appeal to me, both as a budding scientist
and as a human being trying to find an appealing way to live my life. To
deal with the first issue; in discussion, there was much to-do about
Nietzsche's supposed criticism of science. I am of the opinion that the
points raised are non-issues in the writings of Nietzsche (at least the
ones we studied, and the ones I have read thus far). There was no mention
of science in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and only a brief section
in "Beyond Good and Evil" which dealt with the issue of some
physicists making the standard error of 'confusing map with territory' in
physical law. Nietzsche certainly points out that the fundamental
assumptions, such as the validity of sensory input, can be brought into
question; but logical reduction along these lines eventually leads to
absurdity, and is not particularly useful. I am of the opinion that the
criticism of rigorous physical science is more post-structuralist than
Nietzschean, and probably doomed to failure. It seems difficult and
pointless to try to argue with physics or chemistry as we (as physical and
chemical objects) are subject to the laws of these sciences. What
is useful is the stripping away of the sacred cows in science; remove the
human prejudices and you will be free to discover new and wonderful things. Relativity,
for example, came about largely through removing human prejudices from
science. If we had been smart enough (or unprejudiced enough), we may have
been able to figure out relativity at the time of Newton. The basic
Newtonian error that relativity corrected was the idea of a privileged
co-ordinate system; i.e. what makes one person's set of measurements more
valid than another persons. Relativity tells us that one cannot make a
distinction between the coordinate systems of uniformly moving observers;
there is no universal space/time axis which we can measure them with,
therefore the observations of a person in one frame of reference are as
valid as those of a person in any other frame of reference. (a bit of
thought may lead one to the conclusion that a privileged reference system
somewhat implies the existence of a god). Relativity gives the exact
relationship by which one can transform the observations taken in one
coordinate system to find out what the observations from another
coordinate system would be. A shame that there is not yet a relativity
theory for the social sciences where one may observe through the eyes of a
person with a different "coordinate system." Quantum
mechanics is even worse; it was added into theory as a mathematical
convenence to account for certain observations about the spectrum of
radiation from hot objects. When observations were made of other systems,
it was realized, much to the chagrin of the scientists, that this "convenience"
seemed to be needed to account for many observations; in fact it had to be
expanded to even greater absurdities (absurd to human minds) to account
for observation. Even though quantum theory is probably the most useful
tool available to physicists and chemists, to this day, people are still
trying to make it less absurd (without a mutual knowledge of partial
differential equations it would be difficult for me to explain why it is
absurd; verbal communication is insufficient to communicate these ideas.) As
I see it, a Nietzschean outlook gives one a superior "bullshit meter"
(the most important tool of the physicist); a "Nietzschean razor"
if you will. The "Nietzsche's Razor" might be; "One's human
prejudices should be removed as much as possible when thinking about a
problem in science." That is not to say that physical principles that
have proved useful should be carelessly tossed aside, but one should field
crazy ideas and question basic assumptions; a new discovery may be made in
that way. Since social sciences are generally "softer" in rigor
(to say the least), it would seem that this form of scholarship is most
easily criticized using my "Nietzsche's Razor." One
of my favorite new sciences is Sociobiology. It may turn out to be a
useless concept (though I doubt it), but I have great admiration for the
manner in which its thinkers ruthlessly followed the evolutionary paradigm
while giving no truck to their humanist prejudices. Indeed, I find it
useful to look into anything that raises the ire of those with strong
prejudice of some kind (in the case of sociobiology, it is the humanist
set who cluck the loudest); these people are my "miner's canaries"
in my search for useful ideas. When they feel threatened by a new paradigm,
they become agitated and make much noise (as Shakespeare said, "Methinks
thou protesteth too much") with little logical content. Nietzsche's world-view is profoundly disturbing to most. Perhaps the reason for this is that most are raised on metaphysical delusions; popular lies. These popular lies are instilled in people to alleviate fear and psychological discomfort, but in many ways these lies are the source of the fear; a self-perpetuating system. When Nietzschean ideas and philosophy are presented, people react in one of several predictable manners. Most often, people simply refuse to get the message; the ideas are simply too foreign to register. Then there is the group who realize exactly what Nietzsche is saying and are horrified by it, calling it blasphemy (which is an accurate adjective in my opinion). Then there is the group who find valuable ideas in the writings of Nietzsche... |
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