Search This Blog

Friday 27 January 2006

In the 'melting pot', only the pot melts ...

Political thinking is very different to personal/individualist thinking. As Nietzsche recognised, politics takes place beyond morality; the reason one cannot free oneself from morality is because one views everything individually/personally.
Actually, Nietzsche took this insight straight from Schopenhauer;
"Governments loudly protest their reluctance to appeal to arms except for purposes of self-defense. Instead of trying to excuse themselves by telling public and official lies, which are almost more revolting than war itself, they should take their stand, as bold as brass, on Machiavelli's doctrine.The gist of it may be stated to be this: that whereas between one individual and another, and so far as concerns the law and morality of their relations, the principle, 'DON'T DO TO OTHERS WHAT YOU WOULDN'T LIKE DONE TO YOURSELF', certainly applies, it is the converse of this principle which is appropriate in the case of Nations and in politics: 'WHAT YOU WOULDN'T LIKE DONE TO YOURSELF, DO TO OTHERS' ".[Schopenhauer, 'Government']

Harmony of all kinds occurs on the individual level; the mistake (typical of liberals) is in extrapolating from that to the political arena. that mistake is a DEADLY one.War is NOT a modern phenomena, and far predates Hegel! The earliest Greek philosophers knew the necessity of war - did not Heraclitus say that "war is the father of all things"?

We war because we are Heraclitean, and therefore Nietzschean - no doubt it was War which helped to evolve from ape to man, and it will be War which will help us to evolve from man to superman.I am led to believe that it is possible to terraform the atmospheres of other planets to make them habitable in the future; I am sure that this will happen.

Man gets sick of harmony very quickly, but he loves conflict forever.

P.S. The term 'melting pot' comes from a 1908 play by Israel Zangwill, an English born Zionist. [info. from P.Brimelow's book 'Alien Nation']

No comments: