When it comes to good and bad moral absolutes there are 2 cognitively biased starting philosophies.
good is good and bad is bad - the theists starting philosophy for everything.
good is bad and bad is good - the atheists starting philosophy for everything.
good/bad=good/bad is the philosophy that God adopts for everything.
God has separated Light from Darkness.
So everything has meaning.
The output of good/bad=good/bad philosophy is moral absolutes.
‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
In a BBC interview following the album’s release, West implied that his critics would have been more comfortable with the song if he’d described himself as a ‘n—’, a ‘pimp’, or a ‘gangster’. These latter appellations, even if proclaimed with pride, ultimately denote an acceptance of the lowly and limiting identities that WASP society and the market have assigned to black people.
On the other hand, there are black gangsters who seem more than eager to accommodate them. Black men and women who rankled more mainstream blacks like C Dolores Tucker and Spike Lee. And, before tumbling down into disgrace himself, Bill Cosby.
Thug life. And what is this but yet another font some cling to as a way of grounding themselves in a world that seems hell bent on deconstructing all the One True Paths of yesteryear. And the more “society” rejects them the more many are convinced they ought to earn that rejection.
Then the part where some are just “thugs” in the recording studio?
On the other hand, has anyone ever run this by Kanye himself? It reminds me somewhat of the psychobabble leveled my way by the Stooges here. Or is Kanye merely declaring himself to be at the very least one of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch: https://youtu.be/sn1Eh_9j6mI?si=-AKN7Cocj22VpRni
As for what others will make of all this, it still comes down, in my view, to taking out of West what they first put into him…their own moral and political and spiritual prejudices. West is no less the existential embodiment of dasein here. And, as with others of his ilk, it really does not come down to what he believes “in his head” about all this so much as what he is actually able to demonstrate [even to himself] as applicable objectively to all of us.
As for such things as “failure belongs to the finite”, it can mean practically anything you need it to mean in order to sustain the illusion of a Self thought to be bigger and better than those of us who are not Gods at all.
Uh, I think he’s just a narcissist.
Not much more to read into.
‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
Nietzsche’s Post-Human
West’s implication that there is something deficient about mere humanity places him well in the company of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both see themselves as outsiders. Nietzsche felt disconnected from his profession (his work was generally ignored), his nation (he spent much of his life outside of Germany, alternating between Switzerland and Italy) and his epoch (‘a weak age’).
Actually, I don’t know enough about West to either grasp or to grapple with his own particular assessment of this deficiency…of his being an outsider. On the other hand, when Forbes lists his net worth as $400,000,000 and West himself claims it’s more in the neighborhood of $2,700,000,000, what on earth does being an outsider really mean?
Well, whatever you want it to mean? Whatever you insist that it means?
In other words, money doesn’t talk here, it screams. And it screams bloody murder when confronting those who challenge it. West is hardly what Nietzsche would refer to as one of the “last men”, but does he qualify in thinking of himself as one of the Übermensch? And what does it really mean to declare that “I’m the God of me”? He was “born again” as a Christian but it seems he has moved on. To what exactly?
Nietzsche, on the other hand, was clearly an outsider the moment he deconstructed God and religion. And then explored the existential implications of a No God world.
As for his net worth…?
I hear that. Still, unlike those of my ilk, Nietzsche came up with something he believed was as close as mere mortals in a No God universe can ever hope to come to a “God Complex”. Not only that, but the Übermensch may well be able to relive his exalted presence on Earth over and over and over again given eternal recurrence.
Thus…
Blah, blah, blah?
Nietzsche’s been dead now for 125 years. So, you tell me who the Übermensch are among us today. Trump? Putin? Xi? The rich and the powerful around the globe who own and operate the global economy?
No, the exact opposite, who like Christ, or, Christlike, don’t want to change the world, but because t cause why they write such wonderful books, so that the irony of the situation may sink in, that we’re heading to the situation of the last men, unable to live meaningfully, accepting a hopeless, meaningless world at the last days, beyond redemption.
‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
Do you, reader, sympathise with Nietzsche’s wish for a species revolution? Do you see some fundamental defect in humanity? If there were a referendum on human nature, would you vote to leave? How would you even describe human nature? Are there words elastic enough to encompass us all? Is there a common thread? A shared bond?
Of course: Cue all of the moral, political, philosophical and religious objectivists. One by one they will inform you of precisely what has to be done to revolutionize society so that all defects give way to their very own One True Path. To what? To whatever they need it to be, to whatever they insist others must subscribe to in turn.
On the other hand, for some of them, there are folks of the wrong race or the wrong gender or the wrong sexual orientation or the wrong religion or the wrong…whatever. They are excluded because inherently they are just not [and can never be] “one of us”. They simply embrace one or another dogmatic assessment of “biological imperatives”, permitting them [and only them] to determine behaviors deemed either to be Natural or Unnatural.
Then cue all those who insist that is not at all how one should interpret Nietzsche. Yes, there are aspects of moral nihilism which, in a No God universe, can precipitate “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty”. What, perhaps, Kierkegaard called a “sickness unto death”? Then those sociopaths who rationalized any and all behaviors because, in a No God world, everything revolved around me, myself and I.
Of course, something along these lines is going to be professed by those in power who fancy themselves to be among the…Ubermensch? Then things like religion and political collectivism that become the true opiates of the people.
That is one way to think about it. But there are plenty of other ways as well. From my own frame of mind “here and now”, amoral nihilism revolves largely around the global capitalists for whom almost everything eventually comes back around to “show me the money”. And while there was once a time when socialism appeared to be challenging all this, that all collapsed in both the Soviet Union and China. Now, it appears, state capitalism is challenging crony capitalism to “run the world”.
A self described nihilist is this and that until they’re thrown into a world of chaos and actual lawlessness where after being robbed by others along with being chased around to the point of certain death in very short duration they’ll cry out for justice whether its moral concept is real or not.
‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
To overcome this eventuality [that “the strong and vital will always be defeated by the weak and envious”], Nietzsche proposed we overcome humanity. Humanity is not an endpoint, but a transition – a rope between the beasts and the Übermensch.
The part where, in my view, Nietzsche blinked. But that’s no less a philosophical assumption – prejudice – on my part. God is dead. And for most mere mortals God is the font for meaning, morality and metaphysics.
Once He is out of the picture, then what? Who among mere mortals is qualified to be the…shot callers?
Then the extent to which Übermensch became just another rendition of God. In other words, those Übermensch who come to assume that yes is the answer, but only their own assessment of it. Some then appending their own rendition of “or else” here historically and culturally.
Yes that is said to revolve more around right makes might, rather than might makes right.
In fact, fiercely conflicting yeses [and noes] prevail even to this day regarding any number of value judgments.
There’s no getting around this frame of mind for any number of us right here. And, once again, arguments can be made that embrace the Übermensch enthusiastically, while other arguments are just as fierce in rejecting it.
Uh, no shit?
The extent to which moral nihilists choose to interact with others socially, politically and economically, is the extent to which their behaviors will be judged in any particular community. So, sure, existentially any number of them [including me] fall back on existential leaps and wagers derived historically and culturally from dasein.
Or, admittedly, my own understanding of this “here and now”.
On the other hand, all those amoral nihilists who own and operate the global economy…? The Übermensch among us who are in it just for the money…?
Or else.
And their cries for justice often revolve around sets of moral, political and philosophical assumptions they are unable to demonstrate to others much beyond what they believe in their heads.
‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
Über as in “right makes might” more so than “might makes right”, let’s say. And for some, no doubt, considerably more so than for others.
They are in power because they deserve to be. And they deserve to be because they are simply superior men. In other words, they weren’t like those who accumulated their wealth and power by inheriting it from Mom and Dad. Or just fortuitously by being in the right place at the right time when money was to be made.
Again, however, who among us gets to say what this actually means…given what set of assumptions, resulting existentially in what particular assessments precipitating what particular prescriptions and proscriptions politically?
On the other hand, with Nietzsche, given eternal recurrence, you have all of eternity to grapple with it.
And neither our shepherd nor our slave master. Instead, for many, he becomes whoever and whatever they need him to be in order to sustain their own assessment of reality.
In other words, if they believe X or Y or Z about Nietzsche, to what extent does that impact on the actual behaviors that they choose? Thus those who insist that, as with a God, the God, my God, there is an Übermensch, the Übermensch, my Übermensch.
Same for…godot.
‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
On the other hand, they are both mere mortals trying to situate themselves out in a world where those who are able to, come up with a narrative [philosophical or otherwise] that allows them to at least convince themselves they are several cuts above “the masses”.
But, in my view, there is no way West comes even close to Nietzsche in the dynamite department. Nietzsche and his ilk yanked God out from under us. And the rest [philosophically or otherwise] is history. How does Kanye West compare to that? Is there something about him and his own pop culture agenda that I am missing?
Or shall we run this by Taylor Swift to get the lowdown? 8)
Or, so they tell themselves? Otherwise, the Übermensch themselves no doubt will be squabbling over, say, the best of all possible Übermensch? Their own assessment of what it means to soar in a No God world?
Okay, any Übermensch here? Tell us about it. Describe for us all the painful and wretched experiences you have been confronted with yourself. And how you dealt with them as an Übermensch.
And the cross I bear “here and now” revolves around around this:
"1] that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] that human morality in a No God world revolves largely around a fractured and fragmented assessment of right and wrong rooted existentially in dasein.
3] that oblivion is awaiting all of us when we die "
And in my view, ultimately, moral, political and spiritual philosophies abound that “somehow” enable the True Believers among us to insist that their own [and only their own] convictions make all that grim stuff go away.
So much for “the unbearable lightness of being” then? Though, sure, if there are Übermensch among us who are in fact able to act in this world as it is described philosophically above, more power to them? I’d just appreciate more detail regarding how that has unfolded given their own interactions with others in the is/ought world.
my interpretation is this.
a “god” is someone who modifies the world in a significant way. Neitzche was more of a “god” than a “man.”
a “human” modifies the world, but in an insignificant, normie way.
a “man” is a cishet normie, who, is both a victim of hypergamy and also contributes to hypergamy. a “man” is similar to a slave, or beast of burden.
an “animal” is something which is both ignorant to the true nature of the world and does not modify the world using their free-will. For example, bees modify the word by building hives, but not of their free-will.
Nihilism is a belief that existence and non existence has no meaning.
It’s got nothing to do with life.
There are no supermen, this is a mythological extrapolation of nihilists to hide the real tragedy that in all reality this is the generation of the last men.
It’s the belief that there is no universal objective meaning to life and has a problem when others decide to create meaning for themselves they disagree with because of their fundamental belief in nothing. Their fundamental belief in nothing causes them to be at odds with everyone and everything basically.
Nihilism is merely the binary logic reasoning of the biological machine body or the automated side of our nature which exists and doesn’t exist because it doesn’t possess life.
Self is separate from binary logic reasoning.
Ditto monsieur/mademoiselle
I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.
Why is this? Because, well, life is existential. Pity and admiration are both words you can look up in the dictionary. But how they are understood by particular people in particular sets of circumstances can vary considerably. Even in entirely conflicting ways. Then the part where some feel pity and admiration for that which others feel pitiless and loathing.
Right, like once you recognize that you yourself are an Übermensch, whenever you bump into others who think the same, you’ll all agree on a course of action that reflects the brand spanking new world order? Masters and slaves? Ubermen and Last Men?
But: you’re on top not as a reflection of might makes right but as the embodiment itself of right makes might.
Whatever, for all practical purposes, this means?
I’ll tell you who delights in war these days: Mapping the Military Industrial Complex
So, where does West fit into all of this? And to the extent he would describe himself as a warrior, what actual battles has he fought in?
Also, let’s not forget those among us who regret absolutely nothing that they do because they are sociopaths.
