Let us have a bit of fun, My fellow babies, and create a religion from The Second Essay of the Geneaology of Morals wherein shall Be contained the following
The original sin of humanity was agriculture, the slow decision to put aside the ways of hunting and gathering and to take up horticulture and pastoralism (the barbarous arts) and then to continue along that line of wretched sin to its end in the civilized country Of agriculture, with its attendent surpluses, organization, division of labor, alcoholism, writing, and class division.
The second sin was the discovery Of fermentation and distillation - Do you guys have any idea how much many and time I have spent on ethyl alcohol
in the past six months?
The original sin split us off from the fundamental moral rule of the world - never forget your animal Nature, never forget the fundamental materialism and experimentalism of living. Humans are pack animals, we are dogs and dogs are us. Never forget “dog body, monkey spirit, monkey body dog Spirit.” As occasion necessitates.
I bring you the first chapter of the Gospel Of Casanova Wong.
I, his base and abjected messenger, Hermes the Thrice Great, writing from The swamps and hurricane lands
In this case, man’s original sin led the switch from hunter/gatherer to horticulturalist/pastoralist that thus led to society. We could also make the further accusation: the root, the genesis of religion could be tracked back this same original sin. This first sinful act led to society which then required the need for efficiency. The efficiency necessitated organization which necessitated power to execute. The power could no longer be entrusted to the individual as the effects on others would not be in their own best interest. Thus the notion of an organized set of rules and a ruler above all was indoctrinated into society.
And Mother Gia said unto them “You have broken my commandments and defaced the Earth. For this you shall be lead out of this land to a hot and desolate place. And the cold shall be no more.â€
46, Scientific American, William Ruddiman, March 2005. (Loosely translated)
This Original sin, which gave rise to the Christian and so much that Nietzsche hated, was nonetheless to him not an entirely bad thing. Without society we’d be no more than “blond beasts of prey,” mere animals. We would not be clever or interesting; in the Genealogy he decries these beasts as “stupid.” To be sure he is not fond of the Christian slave and seems in many instances to prefer the noble beast, he still has admiration for some aspects of the slave’s achievement. To my mind what he suggests is a sort of melding of the best aspects of the two personality types: a strong, self-assured individual who is nonetheless clever, self-aware, and insightful. Such a creature would display his strength not by crushing the weak, but by allowing them to persist and helping to raise them up in such a way that he himself is affirmed rather than debased.
There’s another thread discussing similar themes here, though the Nietzchean conception of Original Sin is one I don’t remember reading before. Are you sure it’s in the Genealogy, hermes? That’s the book of his I have the best knowledge of and I don’t recollect it.
I would not go as far as claiming that Nietzsche admired the achievements of society. I put up his quote above for a reason: “This more valuable type has appeared often enough in the past: but always as a happy accident, as an exception, never as deliberately willed”.
Couldn’t it be argued that these achievements of man were a result of these accidents and exceptions?
Again, I am not so sure that Nietzsche’s philosophy agrees with this…
Or perhaps I am focusing too much on his later work?
I’ve not read The Antichrist, though it’s on my list. We are focusing on differenct periods of his thought, which I know to have evolved over time. Perhaps we’re both right about the works we are each considering. I dunno.
Hermes, where have you been 'ol chum? You’re like Brando…appear with a startling new revelation, then dissapear from sight for lengthly time periods, only to return once more unexpectedly when all have forgotten you existed to embrace your words!
Were you referencing a specific work here? Or were you offering an open-ended question? This could be a very narrow discussion or all over the park, depending on your intent. I sorta like the idea of all over the park. Could be fun.
Sin, a way too “Asiatic” Jewish invention that has overtaken the Greek foundational influence to “the good Europeans”, through Christianity during the last two millenia. That’s what Nietzsche concluded in The Gay Science.
Hermes…basically it would end ugly. But it’s fun to think about. I think you should have a party, roast a goat in a pit of cinders, dance around naked, learn how to cook at least three new things with garlic, and then get the FUCK out of FL and start a consultancy in Chicago. First off, there are many hot ladies in Chicago who would like a worldly man of action like you, a renaissance man with a cool accent and a history of GIRL TROUBLE.
The past is a bitch. That’s genealogy. The future doesn’t have to be. That’s morals. Reduce your beverage intake to three a day, and nothing before noon. And don’t be such a stranger. You were pivotal in making this fly stick back when. (Well played.)
