Thinking about the END OF HISTORY.

[Arminius]

____________________________________________________

I give you three examples of the Übermensch:

(1) Napoleon (1769-1821);
(2) Hitler (1889-1945);
(3) .... (2009-2069).

If we take this examples seriously for a moment, then we notice that the first Übermensch failed, that the second Übermensch failed, and that the third Übermensch is 5 years old. So we ask: Who and where is the third Übermensch? This reminds us of the time when Jesus was born and Herodes killed all the little children in his country in order to prevent a coming competitor, a coming rival.

Is there anybody who believes in that?

[Historyboy]

Don't worry Humean, the first and foremost condition for women to become equal with men is that the men become nervous.

[James S Saint]

To me, it depends on what you really mean by "Übermensch". If you are talking about the public figure, the lacky puppet (Bush, Obama, Hitler, that sort), then there will certainly be such a person held up for public view. But if you mean a person who on his own managed to bring the world into the order he chose, the "Real Übermensch", that isn't going to happen.

The Real Übermensch is not a single person. As it is said (very largely true), "God has no respect for the individual".

The Real Übermensch is an idea, an "Angel". And that Übermensch certainly is going to happen and in a sense, is already walking the Earth, gathering his armies.

They can and will kill off as many people as they like in an effort to destroy all hope of their competitor, just as before. The first strategy is to weaken all that is not yourself so as to strengthen your relative power - the use of natural entropy, the "Devil". But the glory that is brought from that strategy turns out to be self defeating and thus is inherently "cast into Hell to rule over it" because that is all it really can do, create Hell, Chaos, perpetual discontent. And is eventually un-admired.

The idea that arises after such an event, is based upon doing the opposite, as is always the case as every over balance inspires counter balance. That is what causes the eras of "light and dark", the "Days" (in scriptural terms).

But eventually even that swaying back and forth between eras of enlightenment and abysmal darkness becomes the focus of the imbalance and inspires its counter-balance. It inspires the aspiration for balance known as "The End of Days" because true balance doesn't inspire counter-balance efforts.

So it is really an "Angel", an idea that brings in the final Übermensch. There will no doubt be a person prompted up to represent such an event as its "leader"; a Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Gandhi, Hitler, Napoleon, or whoever.

But that too is well known and thus they must attempt to destroy any potential ideas from coming to Man as a competitor to their lust for power. That constitutes a "War in Heaven" (already underway). And the end result of that war comes in two steps. One step is when it is clear that the war has been won. The second step is when a quiet, never noticed voice speaks up for the first time, "Umm.. guys? Excuse me, guys? What about me?" And in almost a single instant, all of the power gained by all of the lust and warring is shaken and redistributed into the true "End of Days", "end of typical history" and nothing like what they had imagined or designed.

I doubt that there will be a propped up puppet for that last paradigm shift, but perhaps. So I don't know if you want to call that an Übermensch or not.

[Orbie]

The Ubermench can not be avoided. However he can change the outcome by limiting entropy by synthesis of the imbalance into relative balance. He will develop a conscience, and therefore overcome the total reduction by synthesizing rather then incorporating in-assumable, incongruent elements.

The fear of eternal recurrence in the new world especially is s symptom of a dread of stasis=stagnation. One president who was not elected, Jimmy Carter saw this, as the limiting function of capital. Kant never moved from his native town, went on the same nature hikes during all his lifetime. The categorical realization is the sine qua non is the fulfillment of what should and what has to be realized.

The probability of this may very well be 20-80%.

[monad]

The so-called Übermensch in concept or actuality is thoroughly useless if there are not those who follow in his wake. In the entire history of the human race there has never been a "majority" of ONE and for as long as he does not exist everyone's imagination - meaning all those who are not yet Übermenschen - will only yield their own limited description of what that should mean.

[Historyboy]

The majority fully incapable of understanding one single man?

[Orbie]

The majority fully incapable of understanding one single man?

One man not understanding the majority?The burden is on the one man.

[James S Saint]

There are ways for a single person to alter the way a society behaves and to a degree control it. But most, if not all of those ways are based on handed-down authority; "Because I hold the secret ancient ring of Methuselah...." - "Lord of the Rings".

Hitler went to a lot of trouble to find such things for himself, but nothing compared to the efforts made recently.

[Historyboy]

The burden is on the ignorant. Nobody wanted to talk to Nietzsche live. They sacrifice the best.

[Arminius]

____________________________________________________

According to Christianity there are three roles of the Übermensch possible:

(1) Übermensch acts the role of the Antichrist;
(2) Übermensch acts the role of the Katechon;
(3) Übermensch acts any other role.

The Katechon is the antagonist of the Antichrist. Any other role may also mean the synthetic role of the Antichrist and the Katechon.

[Arminius]

With reference to the three examples of the Übermensch one can say that the third Übermensch - we may call him "SONAH" (Synthesis of Napoleon and Hitler) - will as fail as the first and the second Übermensch. But which role he acts is as unknown as his identity.

[Arminius]

The Ubermench can not be avoided.

Why can the Übermensch not be avoided, Obe?

[James S Saint]

(2) Übermensch acts the role of the Katechon

Well, that brought back some memories.

Very long ago, I saw that someone was trying to force the return of Christ. And I thought, "Are they really that insane?" Long after that, I have come to realize that sure enough, they really are ("We live on The Planet of the Apes"). It also became very apparent long ago, that the effort to destroy the current "statue of Man" in order to form a newer "bigger" (but not really better) model of Man was under way (an underlying theme in the new released film Captain America). My only issue was that it wasn't being designed to be better, merely bigger and thus all of the misery being created was pointless. In the film, Captain America saves the world from the man bent on destroying the old world for sake of his new world order. So obviously the Katechon is Captain America.

Trying to save Man by destroying the old order is easy, except for that "saving" bit after the destruction. The effort these days to destroy Man is basically the same as that to destroy all life on Earth, rebooting all life, not merely Man. Even I could reboot life given no other life around (except my own). But what would really be the point?

It seems that they are thinking, "Man cannot be saved until Man is utterly destroyed" (the Antichrist/Destroyer released). So maybe what I see as the inexplicable weakness of the Catholic Church is starting to make sense, "We need to turn the Devil loose so as to allow Jesus to return". That does seem to fit their recent behavior.

And this gets back to Man vs Machine. Life is very, very tenacious and doesn't really care if Man is a part of it or not, thus as far as Life is concerned, machines are just fine, perhaps better. All organic life might well be destroyed in Man's insanity, but Life will continue regardless.

There seems no end to the insanity of Man.

[Historyboy]

I think your name could be HB or SD. The first has a large encyclopedia online full of such theories, but mostly based on Spengler. And he is unique in the web - there is nobody who has spent so much time on Spengler like him.

[James S Saint]

I think your name could be HB or SD. The first has a large encyclopedia online full of such theories, but mostly based on Spengler. And he is unique in the web - there is nobody who has spent so much time on Spengler like him.

Are we supposed to know what "HB" and "SD" mean (and who you were talking to)?

[monad]

The majority fully incapable of understanding one single man?

The majority usually have the burden of catching up if they haven't already been left too far behind. Übermensch has never really been a good subject to discuss for the great unwashed in the first place without turning into caricature.

[Arminius]

So obviously the Katechon is Captain America.

It s an old concept.

The katechon (from Greek: τὸ κατέχον, "that what withholds", or ὁ κατέχων, "the one who withholds") is a biblical concept which has subsequently developed into a notion of political philosophy.

The term is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 in an eschatological context: Christians must not behave as if the Day of the Lord would happen tomorrow, since the Son of Perdition (the Antichrist of 1 and 2 John ) must be revealed before. Paul then adds that the revelation of the Antichrist is conditional upon the removal of "something/someone that restrains him" and prevents him being fully manifested. Verse 6 uses the neuter gender, τὸ κατέχον; and verse 7 the masculine, ὁ κατέχων.

The interpretation of this passage has raised many problems, since Paul does not speak clearly."

Since then many Christian theologians and philsophers have been thinking and writing about the Katechon.

In Nomos of the Earth, German political thinker Carl Schmitt suggests the historical importance within traditional Christianity of the idea of the katechontic "restrainer" that allows for a Rome-centered Christianity, and that "meant the historical power to restrain the appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the present eon." The katechon represents, for Schmitt, the intellectualization of the ancient Christianum Imperium, with all its police and military powers to enforce orthodox ethics (see Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, G.L. Ulmen, trs., (New York: Telos, 2003), pp. 59–60.) In his posthumously published diary the entry from December 19, 1947 reads: "I believe in the katechon: it is for me the only possible way to understand Christian history and to find it meaningful" (Glossarium, p. 63). And Schmitt adds: "One must be able to name the katechon for every epoch of the last 1,948 years. The place has never been empty, or else we would no longer exist."

Carl Schmitt lived from 1888 until 1985.

[Orbie]

The Ubermench can not be avoided.

Why can the Übermensch not be avoided, Obe?

For pretty much the same reason as the mechanization of man is by Your own admission a matter of an 80% certainty. The Übermensch is reactive to the nihilism of the new order vs the ancien regime. It is this authority which may present the blockage against this process. In either case, the Übermensch will not be easily discoverable, since he will be apprehended as a synthesis, and as such he will be expert at playing the political antithetical field. In fact he will be a synthetic centrist, a being of apparent skills at resolution, this appearance very easily attainable by p.r. opportunities. He will be not real, but a figurehead, a patently virtual image, playing adversaries off of each other. It's almost a foregone conclusion since the entropy stopping at this categorical suspension, will need support. Otherwise, the abysmal total regression into the unthinkable, the unthinkable total regression into the abyss. No one at that point would dare to call him the emperor without clothes. The idea of tacit knowledge thus, is supported by required need.The end of history will be followed, by a re-writing of it, in appropriate ways, so as to give the impression that it is merely a continuation.The burden is on the one to make it palatable for consumption.

[Arminius]

To me, it depends on what you really mean by "Übermensch". If you are talking about the public figure, the lacky puppet (Bush, Obama, Hitler, that sort), then there will certainly be such a person held up for public view. But if you mean a person who on his own managed to bring the world into the order he chose, the "Real Übermensch", that isn't going to happen.

Mainly I was refering to this post:

Being a hard determinist, I think the end of history will either happen or not. My "may be" is the expression of my knowledge of my ignorance in this regard. All I know is that it has not (yet) come about. I know this because I know I myself and others don't want it to come about, and as long as there is dissent it has not come about. I also know what philosophers are capable of. I understand why the end of history is theoretically possible--namely, due to the fact that nature has become a problem--, and I know the mechanism by which the problem is to be solved. In fact, my current signature quote is all about this.

Sauwelios' current signature:

"The superman's Dionysian will to overpower would save the past from drowning in democracy's shallow waters by willing the eternal return of past inequalities.
The superman's willing of this eternal return is possible only if his will can emancipate itself from hatred of its past, a hatred responsible for modern egalitarian demands to be liberated from that past. [...] Modern thinkers culminating in Nietzsche made men aware that human creativity or technology was not limited by anything. Nietzsche feared that contemporary egalitarians would employ this unlimited power to create a world of universal peace and equality. He yearned for a superman whose will to overpower nihilism and egalitarianism would use modernity's immense power to create the eternal return of the past's inequality and wars. Then there would be no wars to end all wars." (Harry Neumann, _Liberalism_, pp. 164-66.)

The Übermensch should overpower the nihilism, especially the egalitarianism, and create the past's inequality, especially wars. The themes "nihism" and "end of history" were not new at that time because they started already about the end of the 18th century, like I said.

And I was asking whether we can or should take Nietzsche always seriously (cp.: "If we take this examples seriously for a moment .... Is there anybody who believes in that?").

The Ubermench can not be avoided.

Why can the Übermensch not be avoided, Obe?

For pretty much the same reason as the mechanization of man is by Your own admission a matter of an 80% certainty.

Interesting.

[James S Saint]

Well, I think that I have actually learned something from this thread.

Rational things, sanity, are much easier for me to figure out than irrational things, insanity. So when it comes to exactly what thoughts were driving people throughout history, I tend to remain fussy. It too often seems to me that if they could understand "those things", then surely they also understood "these things". And that thought has kept me confused as to why Man keeps dong the obviously wrong things.

What we think of as "History" is the changing and swaying of order and chaos as Man makes a variety of attempts to get his act straight and identify his actual needs. And even though I have known for a long time that the dichotomy between order and chaos has been an issue, my little brain has had a hard time seeing how much of an issue it has been in Man's "History". He can't find the balance.

1) Absolute Control (Forced Order)
2) Absolute Freedom (Forced Chaos)
3) Other

Not being able to clearly see the third option and thus pursuing a typical false dichotomy, religions and governments keep swaying too far toward options 1 or 2. And what we are calling the "End of History" can be noted as the time when Man finally discovers that exact balance. Once Man settles on the exact balance, the occurrences that we associate with "history", no longer happen. Life continues and a new type of history emerges.

I can see that Man actually knows the exact balance, he just doesn't know that he knows it. When he finally discovers that he knows what, in a sense, he has always known without confidence, Man will settle. My question is still one of whether human's will still be around at that time.

Hmmm.. what can be done about that?
How can a man precisely measure whether he has too much or too little of a true need?

[Orbie]

I don't think they will be able to precisely measure it, but when that era approaches, the other, the more instinctive knowledge may compensate for that lack of precision. Approximating on that basis, they may get a pretty good idea.

[James S Saint]

I don't think they will be able to precisely measure it, but when that era approaches, the other, the more instinctive knowledge may compensate for that lack of precision. Approximating on that basis, they may get a pretty good idea.

Realize that "instinct" is what has been used since day one. Precise measure is the only improvement Man can make. Precise measure, definition and mathematics, is the only thing that improved Man's understanding of material existence, Science (and he still hasn't gotten that one right).

The needs of Man must be precisely defined and then precisely measured moment by moment in order to keep improving. His aim must be directly at the improvement of being aware of his needs at every moment in order to quickly respond toward balance. The slower he responds to his needs, the more swaying to extremes he will do, taking generations to make corrections. As long as Man is going to extremes, people will be sacrificed in misery due to such needless extremes (which is what makes typical "History" what it has been).

[Orbie]

I don't think they will be able to precisely measure it, but when that era approaches, the other, the more instinctive knowledge may compensate for that lack of precision. Approximating on that basis, they may get a pretty good idea.

Realize that "instinct" is what has been used since day one. Precise measure is the only improvement Man can make. Precise measure, definition and mathematics, is the only thing that improved Man's understanding of material existence, Science (and he still hasn't gotten that one right).

The needs of Man must be precisely defined and then precisely measured moment by moment in order to keep improving. His aim must be directly at the improvement of being aware of his needs at every moment in order to quickly respond toward balance. The slower he responds to his needs, the more swaying to extremes he will do, taking generations to make corrections. As long as Man is going to extremes, people will be sacrificed in misery due to such needless extremes (which is what makes typical "History" what it has been).

Yes, i agree, but the end of history is hypothetical, a far as a precise measurement is concerned, whereas it is unknown, when this will take place. Until this can mor e successfully predicted, basic intuition works on a general framework. The specifics unfold within an unfolding of events, not necessarily sequential , nor within a perceivable model of predictability. Not the least of which the confusion caused by resistive efforts to devise a continuing fictional history by adding virtual, pseudo revisions of historical fill-ins. It is even now difficult to separate fact from fiction and drama instantly created by the addition of ad hoc mythology.

[James S Saint]

Yes, i agree, but the end of history is hypothetical, a far as a precise measurement is concerned, whereas it is unknown, when this will take place. Until this can mor e successfully predicted, basic intuition works on a general framework. The specifics unfold within an unfolding of events, not necessarily sequential , nor within a perceivable model of predictability. Not the least of which the confusion caused by resistive efforts to devise a continuing fictional history by adding virtual, pseudo revisions of historical fill-ins. It is even now difficult to separate fact from fiction and drama instantly created by the addition of ad hoc mythology.

I wasn't referring to a precise prediction of the timing of anything. I was referring to a more precise means to measure "too much" from "too little" of each of the needs of Man.

And fundamentally, that would mean precisely measuring every individuals effort to;
Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic Harmony.

If you want to improve on something, first learn to measure it.
By what means could you measure that particular harmony?

How could you measure the degree of clarity concerning your Perception of Hopes and Threats?
How could you measure the degree of verification of your Perception of Hopes and Threats?
How could you measure the degree of instillment of your Perception of Hopes and Threats?
How could you measure the degree of reinforcement of your Perception of Hopes and Threats?
..all relative to your individual anentropic harmony.

[Arminius]

Obe, do you believe in "instinctive knowledge"?