The Coming of Zarathustra by Elisabeth Nietzsche - new spoken word album by Bill Boethius Osborn

Contra-Peterson [Jack Donovan]

Contra-Peterson

Question: I don't get it

Answer: You need to read the images as well as the Jack Donovan maxim on a number of levels. You also need to get the title's allusion to Jordan Peterson (and know what 'contra' means). You also need to read it non-partisan. You need to know who is in every picture, of course. There is no bluff here. This is a philosophy lesson in one go.

Q: Does it have something to do with Nietzsche spawning Hitler in a sense? Who's the two dudes on top?

A: Writer Jack Donovan (right), and academic Edred Thorsson (aka Stephen Flowers) left. Hitler with the SA, and Nietzsche with his mother. Yes, Nietzsche spawned all of them, except his mother, who spawned him!

Q: I pegged the top left guy as an occultist. Jack Donovan sounds like a psycho. Will to power, these guys really married their inner dragons.

A: That's astute - Edred was active in the Temple of Set. Jack Donovan is very much a modern Nietzschean seeking knowledge in the Body and in the gang. And this is another theme; Masculinity. Something under attack now. Each of these figures are saviours of masculinity, and know that the total triumph of feminism would mean the death of all art and culture.

Q: Is it saying that they were self actualized and actually monsters?

A: Interesting take. My lesson begins with this: Plato's 'know thyself' finds modern expression in Peterson's 'tidy your room'. Essentially he is saying to SJWs and other activists - 'sort yourself out before you try and change your world'. 

But Jack Donovan directly contradicts this, saying there are times of crisis when you need to forget yourself, and change the world. Jack's way of changing the world is largely through the aesthetic and creating values. Of course, Peterson says that we can't create values - another contra point. 

And yet Donovan uses his body to create values, and his viking tattoo is seen on his shoulder. And Edred Thorsson is there with the viking runes - a renaissance of Nordic culture and symbolism so Wagnerian. And Hitler, too, with his svastika symbol, creating change through new values and a New Order. 

And all of these are Nietzscheans, but disagreeing. 

We see Nietzsche with his mother when he was sick. He too needed his tribal mother, and Hitler is with his SA gang. Kith and Kin. In order to change the world we need the family, tribe, gang and army. If we wait to perfect ourselves as supermen, or tidy room-mates, we may never move on and end up losing our minds. But if we launch ourselves, however imperfect, from the thrust of our art, culture, family and nation, we can change the world and create values. And from that try to perfect ourselves once again. 

But Peterson's warning stands - we may fall into the abyss of our unperfected selves.