Thinking about the END OF HISTORY.

Yes, but that doesn’t justify to call his idealism a “pseudo idealism”, does it?

“We should all join together and change the world!” That sentence is a term of those who believe in progress as an eternal process without any return or other direction than straightforward.

The world has been changed enough; it is important to protect it from those who want to change it!

Unfortunately the changing of the world will not stop because they can’t stop even when they believe that they really need to.

Come into the conversation.

And you confirm that I made no statement that would warrant us talking about historians changing history…

Do you think you’re making a Nietzschean statement here about affirming eternal return? Nietzsche thought there was a progression to be made from Christianity to nihilism to the affirmation of eternal return. If you think it is Nietzschean it is ridiculous. Nietzsche affirmed existence as all becoming. You might be more comfortable with the eternal forms.

You admit that you would like history to end:

And I said,

yet you respond as if that was precicely what I asked for.

It seems like you aren’t interested having a straightforward discussion, in which case I’m done here.

No.

Das ist nicht das, was ich meinte.

Do you know German?

No. That sentence is directed against the following sentence of Karl Marx: “Die Menschen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern.”

We should not change the world because the world is changed enough (see also above).

No, but I had reason to believe you do, and if you were going to reread that passage I thought you would enjoy it most in its original language.

Fair enough (a figure of speech, meaning I accept that with all of my Christian humility).

Is it then only from the influence of Marx you would like to protect the world?

I personally think there is reason to desire change in the world from the way it is. I am less concerned with changing the whole world than I am clearing a pathway through which I can move and continue to create (create by acting, being, not representing). I don’t think a world revolving around the production and consumtion of (many) useless objects will continue anyway, why not at least attempt to influence the direction society moves?

I’m sure you could kick my ass in German philosophy (almost the only country worthy of the title (philosophy)). After all, I spent most of my youth crying over The Idiot, and that was only a few years ago.

Yeah. Well done, Thank you.

“Das ist nicht das, was ich meinte” = “That is not that, what I meant”.

No. As I said: it is the influence of all those who believe in progress as an eternal process without any return or other direction than straightforward. I don’t believe in such an eternal progress without any return or other direction than straightforward.

Because of the backlash; the probabilty for the opposite direction is too high. Please tell me what you exactly want to influence?

Thank you.

Crying? Really?

I won’t say that I’m not the one you’re protecting the world against, maybe I am? I accept risk, nothing is without risk.

Ultimately I would like to influence a lot of things, but if I had to narrow it down to one (albiet complex) trend, then it would be the way people are introduced to and conceive one another. As it is, I feel that we introduce ourselves not as we conceive or understand ourselves but most frequently as situationally constructed expectations. My hope is not that we will all love each other, I don’t think that is possible, but at least more realistic. Probably the main quality of our introductions is related to career. “Hello, how are you, this is what I do (ie, this is what I am, or what I am worth)”. Or in a related sense as a list of qualifications “this is what I’ve done (what standard I have lived up to)”.

I think a lot could come of this because it would do much to break down the rigidly formed barriers in our minds (this is how people are, this is how people should be). Ultimately, something similar would remain, people will always have expectations. The reason I want to break those down are because they are socially constructed expectations that maintain designated fields of action and proper conduct. Maybe it’s impossible. I have thought that humans are probably ideologically dogmatic because they are either easily satisfied or else have found the means of their satisfaction, I have no intention of taking that away from anyone, but I still need to continue on my Quixotic endeavour because everyone seeks their means of satisfaction, even if it is unattainable.

I understand what it means to affirm nature and the way things are, I still wouldn’t say I am there. I am thankful of Nietzsche for revealing to me my ressentiment, but I haven’t overcome it.

Yes. I’ve never been “truly Christian”, but still I was enamored by the image of the “saint”. I also cried while reading Insulted and Humiliated. I was even so far gone that when I read Kierkegaard’s “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing” I cursed my heart for being impure… sad but true story.

(How I read The Idiot at the time:

Nastasya had a strong spirit and character because she suffered from a belief that she was bad (I forget why now, but I think it is because she desired life). Myshkin saw that she was a strong spirit and wanted to help her accept herself (affirm herself in the terminology of this post). She wouldn’t and the strength of her spirit was wasted (through the eyes of Myshkin), and it destroyed him. Myshkin wanted to play the saviour to his ideal, but he was not God, he could not make her into something she was not. So the tragedy was doubled, Myshkin could not live up to his own ideal either.)

I understand this idealism (a projected good) that can drag us down. It can even make us mean and nasty when we believe we are the embodiment of all that is good. But this is also why I am always trying to bring philosophy down into myself and deal with it there.

Do you think that having this view from above it all is another idealism?

To put that question in a very different way, do you think that the ones we call the masters (or the 1%, or 20%, etc.) have acted in all innocence, or have acted out of an idealism, just an idealism that isn’t fooled by a false conception of what others call “good”?

“Jeder Grieche hat einen Zug von Don Quijote, jeder Römer einen von Sancho Pansa - was sie sonst noch waren, tritt dahinter zurück.” (Oswald Spengler, “Der Untergang des Abendlandes”, 1917, S. 50).
Translation:
“Each Greek has a trait of Don Quixote, each Roman has a trait of Sancho Panza - what they were otherwise, recedes behind that.” (Oswald Spengler, “The Decline of the West”, 1917, p. 50).
Who could be a “Don Quixote” today? Who could be a “Sancho Panza” today?

I think, they do exactly that what is typical for humans or for Occidental humans. Have you read the book “Faust” by Johannn Wolfgang (von) Goethe, or “The Decline of the West” by Oswald Spengler? No one could ever describe “Faust” as accurately as Goethe and Spengler. The Occidental humans (and only they) are Faustians, their (and only their) culture is a Faustian culture.

I recommend that two books, first Goethe’s “Faust”, then Spengler’s “Decline of the West”.

Geographically the Occidental culture means the North, West, Central, Southwest, and some Western parts of East Europe. In the following maps you can see the Eastern border of the Occidental culture as a black line in the left map and as a White line in the right map:


[list][list][list][list][list][list][list][list][list]“Grenze des Abendlandes” = “Eastern border of the West (Occident)”.[/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u]
“Abendland” (= “West / Occident)” means the Western part of Europe, especially Germany, England, France, Italy, and the Iberian peninsula. The German word “Abendland” literally means “evening land”.

The author of “The Idiot” was a Russian, and Russia has never been a part of the Western culture. All Orthodox Christians have never been a part of the Western culture. The border (see above) between the Catholic (incl. Protestant) Christians, thus the Westerners, and the Orthodox Christians has been existing as border since the 4th century, or earlier because the Roman Empire had been declining since the 2nd century.

Dostojewski believed in the Orthodox Christianity and didn’t want Russia to copy the Western culture, but Russia had been doing it since tsar Peter (“the Great”). Probably Dostojewski’s books were based on that two aspects. Do you agree?

I read this part of your post last night and I had to take some time to think about it. I did read Faust part one about 8 years ago when I was 16 and admittedly I don’t think I was ready for it, I mean it went over my head, particularly towards the end, I think Faust is confronted by spirits? I actually had the book by I left it in Canada when I moved to Europe last year, I was trying to take with my mainly non-fiction… about two years ago there was a time two years ago which would have been good for me to revisit it because I was becoming really interested in German literature, but I did not take some advice from Seneca not to go flitting around to different authors but instead study the ones you know and I really wanted to read Lenz and Achim von Arnim. It was just another symptom of this madness that always takes over me.

But I still understood what you were getting at with your post. I always realize that I want something that isn’t natural above all so I’ve created an unfillable void and the result is actions like madness. I will keep in mind Faust because one day I will return to collect books, I left a lot of treasures behind, but maybe that thought is still part of the same symptom… seeing it all as “treasures”, almost like I’ve become a gollum-like creature, or thinking that I can use the knowledge alchemically to transform the world (or myself -/- into gold).

That is a difficult question, regarding Dosteovsky. Maybe it’s true. I am inclined to read a bit of what I see as the Faustian into his writings, but that could also just be a result of my own outlook skewing the interpretation.

One of my theories is that focus (what we chose to focus on, or where our focus lands) plays a large role on our thoughts, beliefs and actions. See when I read Brothers Karamazov I did not have a lot of attention for Alyosha, even though Dosteovsky wrote that he was the hero of the book, I was much more focused on Dmitry and Smerdyakov, and to me they are almost Faustian characters… but maybe that was also the point Dosteovsky was trying to make but I was just so allured by them. This is also idealism, when the image you create in your mind means more than what is ultimately there.

I don’t really have any clear and great answers to these last responses of yours. This is really beyond me and where I am at. I appreciate them though.

Right now there is a lot of ideas in the culture about mindfulness, even gratitude (like this “new age spirituality”) I’ve never really been able to attach to any of those things. I’ve even taken offense to them because this ideal I have is so beautiful and alluring, a world of high culture and passion.

I definitely have the western blood in me, with ancestry from Italy and scatterings around the UK and Ireland, so connections to those cultures, and I was brought up in Canada. Never seemed like the people I knew in Canada had that same Faustian drive, I think most people were uncomfortable with it. I’m not very familiar with Spengler’s Decline of the West, but from the wikipedia I am taking his description of the Appolonian to be something like mindfulness and gratitude (if not so shallow). I think that outlook has spread a lot, or maybe it is just something like the resignation of the working classes.

We’ve definitely moved away from the End of History discussion, although I’m sure it is related if only vaguely. I probably projected this Faustian desire onto my image of history — never satisfied.

Is this tragic? (I saw that The Decline of the West said that the Faustian spirit is ultimately tragic.) I was thinking before that since Romanticism brought tragedy into the realm of beauty, and many people look at romanticism as being ridiculous or immature, that the new tragedy is riculousness, or maybe I was just seeing it through the mirror and it’s just that tragedy has become ridiculous.

Do you think Nietzsche was beyond the Faustian? It seems like ultimately he still saw the actor as continuing this progress, just with more acceptance and strength and less naivety.

He does say to find out what is alterable and lay the focus on that, and in that sense it is not Faustian in the sense of unobtainable… but does the alteration have an ultimate goal that is acheivable? Accepting the world as it is — is this a way beyond the Faustian?

“Tolstoi ist das vergangene, Dostojewski das kommende Rußland.” (Oswald Spengler, “Der Untergang des Abendlandes”, 1917-1922, S. 792).
Translation:
“Tolstoi is the past, Dostojewski the coming Russia.” (Oswald Spengler, “The Decline of the West”, 1917-1922, p. 792).

“Tolstoi ist mit seinem ganzen Innern dem Westen verbunden. Er ist der große Wortführer des Petrinismus, auch wenn er ihn verneint. Es ist stets eine westliche Verneinung. … Der echte Russe ist ein Jünger Dostojewskis, obwohl er ihn nicht liest, obwohl und weil er überhaupt nicht lesen kann. Er ist selbst ein Stück Dostojewski. … Das Christentum Tolstois war ein Mißverständnis. Er sprach von Christus und meinte Marx. Dem Christentum Dostojewskis gehört das nächste Jahrtausend.” (Oswald Spengler, “Der Untergang des Abendlandes”, 1917-1922, S. 792, 794).
Translation:
“Tolstoy with his whole inside is connected to the West. He is the great spokesman of Petrinism, although he denies it. It is always a Western denial. … The real Russian is a disciple of Dostoevsky, though he does not read it, though, and because he can not read. He himself is a piece of Dostoevsky. … The Christianity of Tolstoy was a misunderstanding. He spoke of Christ and meant Marx. The next millennium belongs to the christianity of Dostoevsky.” (Oswald Spengler, “The Decline of the West”, 1917-1922, p. 792, 794).

 Some have, though, by his( Leibniz) referencing  Spinoza's ideal. (Irish Journal of Philosophy), so it's not my coining of the term.
 Arminius, it is intriguing to explore the notion which Dostoevsky's 'Double' plays into this thema, a pivotal piece, very much relevant to the-transitional phase, of creating a direct line of relevance.  The idea of eternal recurrance is related to repetition, and the difference is explored by post modern philosophers, as not at all linear.  This is where Leibniz becomes relevant, as an agent of concepts, bypassing Kant, making him far more relevant. So You were correct, and incorrect at the same time.  Leibnitz's postmodern relevance, is primary, though, but not sustained by such thinkers as Marcuse and Chomsky.

Spengler’s main influences were Nietzsche and Goethe, and it is very interesting to note, that Goethe’s main influence was Leibniz, yet partly unbeknown to himself.These breaks of succeeding thoughts are very much relevant to Dostoevsky’s ‘Double’ , and accounted for by the difference between a simple double (mirroring) and a complex double, where reflections cause other reflections .

In part, here, i am trying to pull together thoughts which i have missed out on in relation to the ongoing study about the end of history, and am introducing them as mirroring Your correspondence with The Artful Pauper as he described his early attempt to organize a reading list. So , please, pick and choose relevance here, and bypass what is not, and for give the possible redundancy

.

Yes, that’s right.

“Zum Schlusse drängt es mich, noch einmal die Namen zu nennen, denen ich so gut wie alles verdanke: Goethe und Nietzsche. Von Goethe habe ich die Methode, von Nietzsche die Fragestellungen, und wenn ich mein Verhältnis zu diesem in eine Formel bringen soll, so darf ich sagen: ich habe aus seinem Augenblick einen Überblick gemacht. Goethe aber war in seiner ganzen Denkweise, ohne es zu wissen, ein Schüler von Leibniz gewesen.” (Oswald Spengler, “Der Untergang des Abendlandes”, 1917, S. IX).
Translation:
“Finally, it urges me to once again mention the names, I owe almost everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. From Goethe I have the method, from Nietzsche the questions, and if I should bring my relationship with this in a formula so I can say I have made ​​of his moment an overview. But Goethe had been in his whole way of thinking, without knowing it, a disciple of Leibniz.” (Oswald Spengler, “The Decline of the West”, 1917, p. IX).

Have you read Spengler’s “Decline of the West”, Obe?

I have, but it was with conjunction with research done on this thread, so my memory of detail was subliminal.

And my translation is okay for you, Obe?

Arminius, what should i say NOT? I recall taking tutoring from a “Frau Mendel” when around 5-7 years old and lived and worked at casual labor in Linz, in the sixties, but not to presuppose any authority on the subject.

But i did read Spengler way back, so the reading i have done, in all fairness, is a refresher.

History ends with every individual live. It doesn’t matter what is going to happen when you died in next minute. The end of human history is obviously not the end of the God. The God is eternal and only she should be. We are all motals. Stories of heaven and hell were created by both our ancestors and the God. Human beings always fear death and wonder about the past. Legends were created out of necesscities (of human mentality).

I hear the voice of the God. She is speaking to me.
She treats me like child and pretend to be a ghost.
The God did not treat us seriously.
When I talked about the African people and their unfortune, she keeps silent.
Silence is not a word. Silence is a sound.
The God allow us to have free will. The price are “evils”.

History ends in silence.

I’m a little lost here. I have been a shamelessly prejudiced reader most of my life. Unfortunately I am something of a philosophical thief, and on top of that I speak backwards. It’s probably a result of being an uneducated bumpkin.

I am afraid I am unfamiliar with the philosophy of Liebniz. And the work of Goethe I am most familiar with is Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (it was the one I read most recently). Even Tolstoy: I tried to read Anna Karenina a few years ago and I couldn’t do it, it seemed to me he wrote about a world populated by mummies and other artifacts that belong in the museum, no longer for living use. I read the Kruetzer Sonata with more success. I liked Lermontov, Turgenev, Gogol, and even Goncharov better.

But see, I keep seeing Dosteovsky as a westerner (I see him as I am -/- a westerner). To me it seemed like The Double was about Golyadkin’s isolation. He knows what must be done to be a successful man, but to be a successful man means being something that horrifies him, and he knows the successful man is someone who despises what he really is. At first the Golyadkins are friendly but that is because (the real) Golyadkin has a good heart and the double will be anyone’s friend to put on a show, but when it is not advantageous there is no more use for it, especially when the other is the brunt of a joke among superiors.

The doppleganger I believe was a motif in folklore that signified the impending death of the one who sees it. Perhaps this is because as the ego faces the “reality” (in this case what is expected of one vs. what one is), one must either grow or be crushed under the weight of the realization. See it’s curious that Dostoevsky used the theme insanity a few times. Though he should be concerned with the fate of the individual after death (as might be expected from a Christian writer), his work seems to weigh on the consequences in this life. It’s actually a little more than curious now that I think of it, from what I recall he never really indicates what he feels is the relation of the mind gone mad with God.

I am a little foggy about parts of the end. I know he was out in the rain waiting to do something I think related to a woman, I’m not sure if he meant to do something out of character, but ultimately it seems he breaks under the pressure.

Because I am less familiar with Tolstoy it is hard for me to say for sure, but maybe what brings Dosteovsky closer to the east is the way his writing is often about the individual coming to self knowledge relational to society, whereas what little I remember from Tolstoy he deals with the characters relationships with themselves (or maybe I am wrong there and haven’t read enough), that doesn’t seem to agree with Spengler’s comment about Tolstoy communicating Marx.

Do you think that we read ourselves into all our interpretations, or is that just narcissists? Narcissus always was my favorite Greek myth. Is that a bad sign?

(Just in case you are wondering, maybe you’re not, writing about myself as “philosophy” is something I am trying out, it’s not an obssession. It is because I feel like philosophy must enter the marketplace again, and it seems like it must be done in human form and not as a disembodied head. That is also why I try to keep my language the language of the marketplace when I can. For the most part I think I am unsuccessful and find myself in a strage unpopulated middle ground.)

Hello, it is always more difficult to reverse the course, and from a post modern point of view, fill in from a blank slate, which originally started with Socratic Dialogue, such as the Meno, where knowledge had it’s genesis in the soul, but this reversal is as problematic for those, who have never learned, as is for those, who have. Leibniz can be thought of as a formal continuum, in this march forward, but he seemed to have jumped like the last man directly into post modernism. It’s exciting and yet tedious for whom this reverse knowledge, where all along the way the them changes qualitatively, and doesn’t merely steal, but beg for fill ins.

The double , which in the present case is this type of person, generally, understands the limits which Leibniz placed on the implications and the interpretations, therefore specific connections with the Idiot, are again are conjectural, but in reality, there are indications that he may have read Dostoevsky.

Nevertheless, learning can be done various ways, none of which should impinge on good will, or any other irregularity of the process of thought it’s self.

The rehabilitation of philosophy, therefore is a worthy project, as yet, it has not come to any real breakthrough which may signal that it’s at hand.