Thinking about the END OF HISTORY.

[kk23wong]

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.

[The Artful Pauper]

"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).

In Russia, Spengler sees a young, undeveloped culture laboring under the Faustian (Petrine) form. Peter the Great distorted the tsarism of Russia to the dynastic form of Western Europe. The burning of Moscow, as Napoleon was set to invade, he sees as a primitive expression of hatred toward the foreigner. This was soon followed by the entry of Alexander I into Paris, the Holy Alliance and the Concert of Europe. Here Russia was forced into an artificial history before its Culture was ready or capable of understanding its burden. This would result in a hatred toward Europe, a hatred which Spengler argues poisoned the womb of emerging new culture in Russia. While he does not name the culture, he claims that Tolstoy is its past and Dostoyevsky is its future.

"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).

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

.

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.)

[Orbie]

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.

[Orbie]

I think the answer to Your question is again impenetrable, because literally, Narcissus state of mind occupies a central position, one of reflection, the meaning of it in his mind being described as double---One is a physical reflection of his self image the other, reflection as thought. Does his thought (about himself) coincide with his self as an image? Is this a kind of an early onset of the pathology of dualism? Reversely, in a Hermeneutic bubble most seem to project their image, it is difficult or even impossible to regain the Paradise. It is lost some would say, others, that it is possible to re-gain it. The question is how? To look fill in all the variables which Leibnitz would seem to suggest? Or as Marx would, or even as Hegel, ? These are just words, shells cast out upon a cruel world, and yet the theatre of cruelty plays a large part in our life as mere entertainment.

[Arminius]

History ends with every individual live. It doesn't matter what is going to happen when you died in next minute.

The "end of history" does not mean the "end of if one's life", the "end of human evolution", or even the "end of universal development (change)", the "end of time".

According to Ernst Nolte there are especially the following „historical existentials“, which are translated by me ( or ):

• Religion (God/Gods, a.s.o);
• Rule (leadership, a.s.o.);
• Nobleness (nobility, a.s.o.);
• Classes;
• State;
• Great War;
• City and country as contrast;
• Education, especially in schools and universities;
• Science;
• Order of sexulality / demographics, economics;
• Historiography / awareness of history!

Ernst Nolte wrote (ibid, p. 10):

„Es wird also für möglich gehalten, daß bestimmte grundlegende Kennzeichen - oder Kategorien oder »Existenzialien« - der historischen Existenz tatsächlich nur für das sechstausendjährige »Zwischenspiel« der »eigentlichen Geschichte« bestimmend waren und heute als solche verschwinden oder bereits verschwunden sind, während andere weiterhin in Geltung bleiben, obwohl auch sie einer tiefgreifenden Wandlung unterliegen. Die Analyse solcher Existenzialien im Rahmen eines »Schemas der historischen Existenz« ist das Hauptziel dieses Buches.“
My translation:
„Thus, it is thought to be possible that certain fundamental characteristic - or categories or »existentials« - of the historical existence have been decisively only for the six thousand years lasting »interlude« of the »actual history« and now are disappearing as such or have already disappeared, while others continued to remain in validity, although they are also subjected to a profound transformation. The analysis of such existentials within the framework of a »scheme of historical existence«is the main goal of this book.

|=> #

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).

Do you believe in times when humans were without history - this time is also called "Stone Age". Humans don't need history in order to survive. I think they can even better survive without history. Nevertheless: I' do not plaed for or against the "end of history". But I think that if humans have already history (and they do have!) and do not die out, then they have no other possibility than playing the history game until its end, and after the end of history there is something like a "Stone Age" again.

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.

Humans have no "free will", but merely a relative free will.

I'm a little lost here.

You are not lost here. Philosophy has many facets and aspects. And you don't have to have read any book in order to be a philosopher. Having read books can be an advantage, but also a disadvantage; in any case it is not necessarily important in order to become or be a philosopher. I merely asked you Iabout the knowledge of Goethe's book "Faust" and Spengler's book "The Decline of the West" because of rational or economical reasons: we would perhaps have saved some time and abbreviated some texts. But also that it is not necessarily important for philosophising.

[The Artful Pauper]

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.

I think the answer to Your question is again impenetrable, because literally, Narcissus state of mind occupies a central position, one of reflection, the meaning of it in his mind being described as double---One is a physical reflection of his self image the other, reflection as thought. Does his thought (about himself) coincide with his self as an image? Is this a kind of an early onset of the pathology of dualism? Reversely, in a Hermeneutic bubble most seem to project their image, it is difficult or even impossible to regain the Paradise. It is lost some would say, others, that it is possible to re-gain it. The question is how? To look fill in all the variables which Leibnitz would seem to suggest? Or as Marx would, or even as Hegel, ? These are just words, shells cast out upon a cruel world, and yet the theatre of cruelty plays a large part in our life as mere entertainment.

What I take from Narcissus is a tale of someone their object of true longing and when he does it is forever unobtainable. That the object is himself is significant, it is really in a way the exact opposite of Dostoevsky's Double (as I see it), yet from the opposite experience these two meet a similar fate. Narcissus loves himself (?) — but we see that even though he possesses the ultimate closeness to the object of his affection he is unsatisfied (how much closer could you be to your love object than inhabiting the same being?). That is why to me this is the ultimate tragedy. I have been an idealist so often, even when I know with all of my soul (or brain matter...) that this will bring me despair, because I long for the unobtainable, but yet, I am Narcissus, but with a new myth fashioned. I look through the mirror and no longer see myself, only an ideal I have created (I have shifted the signified) so that the disjunction of my feeling makes sense. It has meaning to me, even if this meaning is completely senseless (why do this to myself? Because it is nature — the unapproachable).

So what is the answer of this narcissist to the rehabilitation of philosophy? It is to bring it down to the market place. Socrates injunction was "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I think the recent scholar Leo Strauss has tried to bring about this rehabilitation, but he does it by a focus on the esoteric philosophy — the philosophy that can only be guessed at, interpreted (the ever shifting signifier). Leo Strauss has said (paraphrasing) we cannot assume that the dialogues have any significance in their order of being written, because we have no way of knowing whether Plato had all of the dialogues in mind before he wrote each one... and he also says, Socrates wanted to teach people exoterically to love the gods.

But then there is the dialogue Euthyphro, which takes place just before Socrates trial (so Socrates had time to learn from his encounters and discussions). He was being accused of not believing in the gods and corrupting the youth. But what does Socrates do right before the courthouse? He questions a young man about piousness and fills him with confusion and doubt that he knows what piousness is. Is it because Socrates did not agree with the reason that young man had come to the court house, or because he believed that an unexamined life is not worth living?

I have respect for many philosophers, even the ones I hate, I am probably also envious of — ok.

I want philosophy to move to the marketplace — not because then we will have breakthrough of new theories and theories compiling theories, but to fulfill Socrates original injunction.

I see people walking around completely oblivious about life. I would like to see philosophy taking place there not so that we could design more rules for the cities (The Laws), but for the sake of life and living.

Maybe I'm wrong and philosophy was always a quest to understand the signified and the signifier, but it just seems to me that whether we find them or not life will go on and we will spend the duration of our lives wandering the earth.

That is why I wanted change — to carve out room for movement and creative action, and why I was upset at the end of history even though it was an insane emotion, it is also why I have admiration for existential philosophy — it seemed like it was almost there but yet it took off in pure theory and praxis was forgotten again. That is also why I signify myself, even though I cannot even bear to see my own reflection and instead replace it with an ideal.''

Human All Too Human, Aph. 29

Vom Dufte der Blüten berauscht. – Das Schiff der Menschheit, meint man, hat einen immer stärkeren Tiefgang, je mehr es belastet wird; man glaubt, je tiefer der Mensch denkt, je zarter er fühlt, je höher er sich[468] schätzt, je weiter seine Entfernung von den anderen Tieren wird – je mehr er als das Genie unter den Tieren erscheint –, um so näher werde er dem wirklichen Wesen der Welt und deren Erkenntnis kommen: dies tut er auch wirklich durch die Wissenschaft, aber er meint dies noch mehr durch seine Religionen und Künste zu tun. Diese sind zwar eine Blüte der Welt, aber durchaus nicht der Wurzel der Welt näher, als der Stengel ist: man kann aus ihnen das Wesen der Dinge gerade gar nicht besser verstehen, obschon dies fast jedermann glaubt. Der Irrtum hat den Menschen so tief, zart, erfinderisch gemacht, eine solche Blüte, wie Religionen und Künste, herauszutreiben. Das reine Erkennen wäre dazu außerstande gewesen. Wer uns das Wesen der Welt enthüllte, würde uns allen die unangenehmste Enttäuschung machen. Nicht die Welt als Ding an sich, sondern die Welt als Vorstellung (als Irrtum) ist so bedeutungsreich, tief, wundervoll, Glück und Unglück im Schoße tragend. Dies Resultat führt zu einer Philosophie der logischen Weltverneinung: welche übrigens sich mit einer praktischen Weltbejahung ebensogut wie mit deren Gegenteile vereinigen läßt.

Not My Translation — trans. Helen Zimmern:

INTOXICATED BY THE SCENT OF THE BLOSSOMS.—It is supposed that the ship of humanity has always a deeper draught, the heavier it is laden ; it is believed that the deeper a man thinks, the more delicately he feels, the higher he values himself, the greater his distance from the other animals,—the more he appears as a genius amongst the animals,—all the nearer will he approach the real essence of the world and its knowledge; this he actually does too, through science, but he means to do so still more through his religions and arts. These certainly are blossoms of the world, but by no means any nearer to the root of the world than the stalk ; it is not possible to understand the nature of things better through them, although almost every one believes he can. Error has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not have been capable of it. Whoever were to unveil for us the essence of the world would give us all the most disagreeable disillusionment. Not the world as thing-in-itself, but the world as representation (as error) is so full of meaning, so deep, so wonderful, bearing happiness and unhappiness in its bosom. This result leads to a philosophy of the logical denial of the world, which, however, can be combined with a practical world-affirming just as well as with its opposite.

[Orbie]

You are right, that Narcissus loves himself, but he is beset with the confusion You referred to in the young man talking to Socrates, just before his trial. However, this confusion is different in kind, (Narcissus's rather than in the Double (Dostoevski) , because it is a confusion over a complex, undifferentiated state of the brain matter, it's idealism is perforated by the nagging doubt, primarily not over imperfection of an imminent state, but a transcendental doubt arising from this very split between Narcissus' lack of acknowledgement of a difference between the reflection qua projection of the image of himself, from that of different from himself.

The primary reflection is pre-verbal, it cannot be akin to the Double, because, here, the difference is defined as two. Narcissus' has no luxury for transcendence, the reflection is all he has to secure his place, not as as an evolved ideal or it's re-presentation.but literally having no idea, of what the ideal is, because he only sees himself. There is no ideal in this world, and this is why, tragedy has to wear a mask, the ideal has no role other than a presentation of the self, as the other. Narcissus does not know it is himself, and that is implicit in the question mark placed by You, after describing his affect.

At such a state of undifferentiated knowledge, identity is protected, and the ideas springing up, such as 'is this me, or is this the other' have no basis yet for understanding. The i and the other must be simply a non pre occupation, and the question of reflection it's self is a non sequitur. This is not at all the Socratic confusion You talk about, this is our confusion about Narcissus.

He must resolve it, and it is our tragedy, not his that he is not as yet capable. For him , there is no expression of tragedy, it only occurs when he has to remove his mask, but a mask he cannot remove, because he doesn't even know what that mask is.

Joseph Campbell wrote of a thousand masks, in this regard, and his archetypical descriptions consist of the pre lingual representations which made the Hero's journey one, where, even in this state, he can over come this lack of differentiation between the symbol and it's object, the designate and the designator, the sign and the symbol. This overcoming extends, through to modern thought to Nietzsche, and then with Deleuze it becomes the tragedy of the pain of this regression unto the field of immanence, a transposition of the transcendental ego on a field of immanence.This is what is tragic, and the only exit from this state is masochism, and a sadism against the self, an aesthetic of cruelty , a fleur de mal.Pleasure through pain, the pain of, and You rightly suggest likewise, of never being able to realize the ideal, only through another super imposition, and that is of what the double comes up with, Reality. This reality if not again transposed, will result in total subject-object fracture, and hence it's sustenance is a necessary defensive posture at this level. The identity HAS to confirm within the cave of bonding with aspects of the self, which adhere to changes within the cave. The discernment of changes are approximate to variable lighting, aesthetic distance to the object. The identity is dependent on these variables. The identity as it's own ideal, if not realized at some point, with the object, the objective-purpose as 'projected' as a defense, will no longer be able to negotiate with the designated symbols.

This underlies the compulsion implicit between the pleasure-pain and it's double, reality. Reality bites, reality cuts up the original continuum, into non sequential bits, existentially reduced, and suspended into non negotiable relationships between reality and the fantasy world of the ideal.

Oh sure , that these internal cut up transactions do not adhere to aesthetic rules, is obvious, and can be exercised indiscriminately, however, such lack of discernment must result in underlying insecurity .This insecurity perhaps, was , which was what sent Socrates to his death.

[The Artful Pauper]

He must resolve it, and it is our tragedy, not his that he is not as yet capable. For him , there is no expression of tragedy, it only occurs when he has to remove his mask, but a mask he cannot remove, because he doesn't even know what that mask is.

It is our tragedy because we are still waiting (us busy little bees) for the resolution. I suppose we are in a more privaleged position because we have easier access to that "luxury for transcendence", living in a scientific era and having teachers like Nietzsche... but still as you say,

This is what is tragic, and the only exit from this state is masochism, and a sadism against the self, an aesthetic of cruelty , a fleur de mal.Pleasure through pain, the pain of, and You rightly suggest likewise, of never being able to realize the ideal, only through another super imposition, and that is of what the double comes up with, Reality.

I understand this whole ordeal and dilemma well. Nietzsche talks often about strength and nobility — do you think these are just inborn characteristics of certain people? In earlier messages Arminius and I were mentioning free will and inclining more towards determinism. I believe Nietzsche's stance is complicated because he would rather call it weak wills and strong wills, but I suppose the question still remains in this sense — I have been weak willed (though maybe other times I have been strong willed, but I am speaking mainly of my idealism in context), will that be it?

This underlies the compulsion implicit between the pleasure-pain and it's double, reality. Reality bites, reality cuts up the original continuum, into non sequential bits, existentially reduced, and suspended into non negotiable relationships between reality and the fantasy world of the ideal.

Oh sure , that these internal cut up transactions do not adhere to aesthetic rules, is obvious, and can be exercised indiscriminately, however, such lack of discernment must result in underlying insecurity .This insecurity perhaps, was , which was what sent Socrates to his death.

I have two questions (for being, as it were...) that are imminently connected to what I had just asked above.

You wrote that Joseph Campbell came to the conclusion through his studies that the subject-object differentiation could be overcome (as we see in Nietzsche). I was going to ask, do you think this overcoming is something to do with our historical period? But then on the other hand it seems (and I think this is in great part what Nietzsche was getting at) that the ancient Greeks had no real problem with this (At least not the nobility. We know very little, I believe, about the slaves mentality of that time). This would seem to point to an inherent nature of certain egos.

Isn't it odd that there came periods of slave revolt, but yet the slaves (at least in this Nietzschean narrative) did not seem to learn from the experience, or is it because it was all ressentiment rather than true nobility? Hegel would imply that the slave learns from his work and it educates him to become more than he was before, to recognize his work in the world and acheive true self-consciousness (although I think the reality in our present age of consumerism and mass culture is more along the lines that we identify with our work and lose ourself in it, without really gaining a connection with being or possessing the distance to learn from it). Is this partly where Nietzsche rejected Hegel?

The other question (for being) was (and maybe this is due to my own misunderstanding of 'the cave' as a result of my ideal fixation), when we nagivate the world today there is a very thick barrier between us and nature, we have constructed a conventional world so complex that it begins to have its own nature. Buildings have become a new breed of unsurpassable mountains, and the beasts in the wilds are us. But there is a very vital difference, whereas primitive beings saw this wild and untamed world with new eyes, we are brought up in convention (some people call this indoctrination (ressentiment or no?)). Our lessons in convention tell us how we can navigate this "untamed-hyperconventional world", the rest we fill in through intuition and experience. If we accept the conventions we can acheive success. If we deny them we acheive failure.

So, for me, convention is idealism (a historic idealism). Conventions must be understood ideally. We can see buildings, for example, and people in suits, but we don't necessarily have to see "business". Instead, we learn "business", and hold the ideal concept and use it as our new given tool in the hyperconventional wilderness. I think it is because of this realization of the conventionality that the mind inclined towards philosophical thought desires to make changes — we see that this is convention. We don't even need to acheive utopia anymore, but we see that life is playing with the images projected on the cave wall. It is alluring, we feel like children playing with these fantasy images ("we" are idealists).

Maybe I am wrong with my idealism —/— the hyperconventional world separates us from nature so that we deal with convention and understand conventionally, we don't understand nature. Many of us "decadents" would die in the woods. My goal is not to create "this" (a strict designated, McDonalds for example, a building with designated behaviours, those working, those being customers, a layout to the store and behaviours designated throughout the store, stand and order here, sit here, throw trash here, go to the washroom in here, etc.) My desire is to create avenues, places of undesignation where we can reacquaint ourselves with the blankness which is our minds first meeting with nature.

Maybe I also have that desire because where I came from (and many places I've gone) even the wilderness cannot be touched. Where I came from you must pay to go for walks in the forest, and you must stick to the paths, and there are signs set up, don't touch, don't do this, don't, don't (designation...)

So we said,

This is what is tragic, and the only exit from this state is masochism, and a sadism against the self, an aesthetic of cruelty , a fleur de mal.Pleasure through pain, the pain of, and You rightly suggest likewise, of never being able to realize the ideal, only through another super imposition, and that is of what the double comes up with, Reality. This reality if not again transposed, will result in total subject-object fracture, and hence it's sustenance is a necessary defensive posture at this level. The identity HAS to confirm within the cave of bonding with aspects of the self, which adhere to changes within the cave. The discernment of changes are approximate to variable lighting, aesthetic distance to the object. The identity is dependent on these variables. The identity as it's own ideal, if not realized at some point, with the object, the objective-purpose as 'projected' as a defense, will no longer be able to negotiate with the designated symbols.

but it feels like Nietzsche is not really the way out of the labyrinth. He took the Greeks for his model, but the Greeks lived very close to nature, but we live in hyperconventionalism. We return from our ideals into a hyperconstructed world of ideal (designations).

And so here I repose the question I asked before, is it that certain minds are naturally strong? The elite today accept reality (the reality which is now designations even designations with "loopholes") and they exploit it, become bankers and business executives and politicians, play by the rules and maybe sometimes cheat-by-the-rules... whereas I ("we", the ideal "we") resent the rules, we play by the rules but we don't really want to, and we spend our time dreaming of different rules, maybe even dreaming of nature to which we cannot return (because we have lost touch, or because there are signs telling us don't, or both).

The identity HAS to confirm within the cave of bonding with aspects of the self, which adhere to changes within the cave. The discernment of changes are approximate to variable lighting, aesthetic distance to the object. The identity is dependent on these variables. The identity as it's own ideal, if not realized at some point, with the object, the objective-purpose as 'projected' as a defense, will no longer be able to negotiate with the designated symbols.

Maybe I'm reading this line wrong, but it seems like you're implying that the projections on the wall of the cave are ultimately those of each individual — and I am here taking these projections not as the ideals in my mind but the conventions of society, which seems to me something like a Hegelian Zeitgeist concept. If that is so, I don't really think I see it that way.

[Arminius]

Nietzsche also said that humans have no free will.

Humans have no "free will", but merely a relative free will.

[The Artful Pauper]

Ah, okay, so then we may be led on by fate and the universe into strength of will. What a hopeful thought.

[Arminius]

Ah, okay, so then we may be led on by fate and the universe into strength of will. What a hopeful thought.

"Fate"? That is a very relatively free interpretation. Relatively free will does not mean "fate" or even "amor fati" (cp. again: Friedrich W. Nietzsche).

"What a hopeful thought"? That is either rhetoric or angst. Anxiety for fate, for defeat, for pessimism, for what?

Would you mind telling me where which problem is?

[The Artful Pauper]

It was a rhetorical response to your own crooked answers. You definitely sidestepped my entire previous comment (the one before you answered about relative free will, which was irrelevant in the context) so I answered rhetorically. I did not see the point of putting much effort into the response.

[Arminius]

There were no "crooked answers". And I definitely did not sidestepped my entire previous comment. I don't have to response to any stupid statement.

[Fixed Cross]

The Narcissus myth is one of the most compelling... as all are self-valuing, but not all is integer, and the greatest values are beauty and integrity, as mathematicians will say. In school I was simply moved by a primal recognition. I am very much Narcissist, as I think this is the best attitude within the nihilistic void. I do not mind the tragedy, I encourage the fascination. Perhaps this is evil, or thoughtless at least. But not nihilist -- it is rather the first impulse out of the zero-sum game that nihilism represents. Game theory is the formula of nihilism, of linear determinism, and of slavery. the Circle: Psyche represents the truth encompassing the passions rather than the differentiated passions of which each is a 'sin unto death' - the truth that satisfaction of the self of its beauty lies in becoming, in encountering, in the moon-land where the girl waits, who is attached to her sun, the ego who now is fatally caught, as all suns are essentially. The satisfaction of Narcissus with his own compelled-ness is is more interesting to me than the tragic loss of self - after all Narcissus is valuing something, a phenomenon, and he perishes of valuing. This is the best myth to explain that to value is not to gain. What one gains is usually different from what one values. For specific fruits of value to appear, the whole environment of these fruits and all its historic requirements must be fulfilled. Much like children were never the intention of sex, so the world is not the intention of its creator. The creator is after all never the intention of himself -- even though all magic is means to falsify that statement. Creation is necessity and not intention - intention is in recognition, valuing in terms of self, more specifically the will to dominate and incorporate. I think Dostoyevsky was a ruthless experimentalist, and Tolstoy a robust kind of patriarchal zen master, whose characters have also seemed wax-like to me, except for the small Christian fables, where the roles of the characters were so short as to be affectively elemental, and somehow moving.

[Arminius]

History has not ended yet, although it seems to sink, to go down, to decline, to shrink.

History can't have ended yet because the „historical existentials“ haven't ended.

According to Ernst Nolte there are especially the following „historical existentials“, which are translated by me ( or ):

• Religion (God/Gods, a.s.o);
• Rule (leadership, a.s.o.);
• Nobleness (nobility, a.s.o.);
• Classes;
• State;
• Great War;
• City and country as contrast;
• Education, especially in schools and universities;
• Science;
• Order of sexulality / demographics, economics;
• Historiography / awareness of history!

There is no doubt that some of those examples of historical existentials have been shrinking, while other historical existentials have been expanding.

Since the beginning of the Western modern times:
1. Religion has been becoming a more secular, more powerful religion, a modern religion, thus an ideology; so religion has been expanding.
2. Rule (leadership, a.s.o.) has been becoming a more hidden, secret, esoteric, more powerful one; so rule has been expanding.
3. Nobleness (nobility, a.s.o.) has also been becoming a more hidden, secret, esoteric, more powerful one; so nobleness has been expanding.
4. Classes have been changing: a richer becoming upper class, a shrinking middle class, an increasing lower class; so classes have been changing badly.
5. State has been becoming a more and more powerless Institution; so the state has been shrinking, and probably it will disappear. => #
6. Great war has been becoming smaller but much more wars and threatening; so we still can't say much about the end of this historical existential.
7. City and country as contrast have been changing by expanding cities and shrinking countries; so the contrast will perhaps disappear.
8. Education, especially in schools and universities, has been becoming a catastrophic issue; so education has been changing very badly.
9. Science has been becoming a new religion for the most part; so science has been changing very badly.
10. Order of sexulality / demographics, economics has been becoming a catastrophic issue too; so this order has been becoming a disorder.
11. Historiography / awareness of history has been getting under ideological (modern religious) control; so historography has been changing badly.

So the historical existentials state (=> 5.), city and country as contrast (=> 7.), education, especially in schools and universities (=> 8.), science (=> 9.), order of sexulality / demographics, economics (=> 10.), and last but not least historiography / awareness of history (=> 11.) will probably disappear during the next future, provided that humans will be alive then. But we still don't know whether the historical existentials religion (=> 1.), rule (=> 2.), nobleness (=> 3.), classes (=> 4.), graet war (=> 6.) will end as long as humans are alive.

[James S Saint]

All of those are indicators of the "New Moon" rising to guide Man through the night and worshiped in Islam. They are the effects of instituting a new religion over an old one, "new wine in an old wine skin" ("Secular"). Islam increasingly publishes numerous videos associating Science and the Quran in order to maintain itself with the new order and religion of the new night and its false Sun, "Moon".

[Arminius]

All of those are indicators of the "New Moon" rising to guide Man through the night and worshiped in Islam. They are the effects of instituting a new religion over an old one, "new wine in an old wine skin" ("Secular"). Islam increasingly publishes numerous videos associating Science and the Quran in order to maintain itself with the new order and religion of the new night and its false Sun, "Moon".

Maybe that that is the case in the Magic/Arabian/Islamic culture. Do you think that the Occidental culture intends to use this for own interests, for example in order to "cement" their "global society", thus their "society of the last men"?

[James S Saint]

All of those are indicators of the "New Moon" rising to guide Man through the night and worshiped in Islam. They are the effects of instituting a new religion over an old one, "new wine in an old wine skin" ("Secular"). Islam increasingly publishes numerous videos associating Science and the Quran in order to maintain itself with the new order and religion of the new night and its false Sun, "Moon".

Maybe that that is the case in the Magic/Arabian/Islamic culture. Do you think that the Occidental culture intends to use this for own interests, for example in order to "cement" their "global society", thus their "society of the last men"?

It is only a difference in words and names. The concepts are the same. The "new Moon" as far as the West is concerned is "Scientism" or "Human Secularism". They can no longer see the Logic so they revert to being guided by blind Passion (egotism, lust for power (WtP), hedonism). And are being governed by the Destroyer of all humanity, aka "The Devil" or "Shiva", the "Deceiver and Divider".

"Man" refers to the order or organization of people, of "hu-mans". The "Last Man" refers to the last/final Order of Man, never to have to change again and is built upon SAM. But until then, the blind passions blindly presume that last Man to be a huge glob, Globalism - a single huge "particle" formed of the chaos of passions (including fear).

I am showing the Logic that they cannot see (and often do not want you to see). Blind Passion will prevent you from seeing it too (much like FC), if you do not resist it.

[Arminius]

It is only a difference in words and names.

Are you a friend of the motto or principle "NULLIUS IN VERBA"?

[James S Saint]

It is only a difference in words and names.

Are you a freind of the motto or principle "NULLIUS IN VERBA"?

You're kidding me, right?

Are you a friend of the German language?

[Arminius]

You're kidding me, right?

No.

Are you a friend of the German language?

Yes.

[James S Saint]

Are you a friend of the German language?

Yes.

Just in case you don't understand English sarcasm;
The same answer equally applies to the question that you asked.

[Arminius]

Just in case you don't understand English sarcasm;
The same answer equally applies to the question that you asked.

That's not only "English sarcasm", James.

[James S Saint]

..just making certain (verifying ).

[Arminius]

..just making certain (verifying ).

What's your point?