Christianity vs Earth, the right vs the left (the Nietzsche reading club)

[Henk]

A Nietzschean analysis

With the raping of Earth, the right and the rich bring Christianity to it's final conclusion, while the figure of the sinner is projected effectively on the left, who try to save the Earth. In this process privacy is no longer a value to be protected and respected but is turned into confession demanded of the left by the media. Calling figures on the right liers (even done in private, but recorded by some device) is a self-defeating vice for the left, while for the right lying is a self-strenghtening virtue.

I will add some related aphorisms by Nietzsche to this thread. Maybe I will write an article adding other thoughts relevant to this topic and enrich it with context.

[Henk]

'Abuse of the Conscientious Ones.—It is the conscientious, and not the unscrupulous, who have suffered so greatly from exhortations to penitence and the fear of hell, especially if they happened to be men of imagination. In other words, a gloom has been cast over the lives of those who had the greatest need of cheerfulness and agreeable images—not only for the sake of their own consolation and recovery from themselves, but that humanity itself might take delight in them and absorb a ray of their beauty. Alas, how much superfluous cruelty and torment have been brought about by those religions which invented sin! and by those men who, by means of such religions, desired to reach the highest enjoyment of their power!' (from 'Dawn')

[Henk]

'Egoism versus Egoism.—How many are there who still come to the conclusion: "Life would be intolerable were there no God!" Or, as is said in idealistic circles: "Life would be intolerable if its ethical signification were lacking." Hence there must be a God—or an ethical signification of existence! In reality the case stands thus: He who is accustomed to conceptions of this sort does not desire a life without them, hence these conceptions are necessary for him and his preservation—but what a presumption it is to assert that everything necessary for my preservation must exist in reality! As if my preservation were really necessary! What if others held the contrary opinion? if they did not care to live under the conditions of these two articles of faith, and did not regard life as worth living if they were realised!—And that is the present position of affairs.' (from 'Dawn')

[Henk]

'Possibility of Progress.—When a master of the old civilization (den alten Cultur) vows to hold no more discussion with men who believe in progress, he is quite right. For the old civilization has its greatness and its advantages behind it, and historic training forces one to acknowledge that it can never again acquire vigor: only intolerable stupidity or equally intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this fact. But men may consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization where formerly they evolved unconsciously and accidentally. They can now devise better conditions for the advancement of mankind, for their nourishment, training and education, they can administer the earth as an economic power, and, particularly, compare the capacities of men and select them accordingly. This new, conscious civilization is killing the other which, on the whole, has led but an unreflective animal and plant life: it is also destroying the doubt of progress itself—progress is possible. I mean: it is hasty and almost unreflective to assume that progress must necessarily take place: but how can it be doubted that progress is possible? On the other hand, progress in the sense and along the lines of the old civilization is not even conceivable. If romantic fantasy employs the word progress in connection with certain aims and ends identical with those of the circumscribed primitive national civilizations, the picture presented of progress is always borrowed from the past. The idea and the image of progress thus formed are quite without originality.' (from 'Human, all too human')

[Henk]

'THE CONSOLING SPEECH OF A DESPERATE ADVANCE.--Our age gives the impression of an intermediate condition; the old ways of regarding the world, the old cultures still partially exist, the new are not yet
sure and customary and hence are without decision and consistency. It
appears as if everything would become chaotic, as if the old were being lost, the new worthless and ever becoming weaker. But this is what the soldier feels who is learning to march; for a time he is more uncertain and awkward, because his muscles are moved sometimes according to the old system and sometimes according to the new, and neither gains a decisive victory. We waver, but it is necessary not to lose courage and give up what we have newly gained. Moreover, we _cannot_ go back to the old, we _have_ burnt our boats; there remains nothing but to be brave whatever happen.--_March ahead,_ only get forward! Perhaps our behaviour looks like _progress_; but if not, then the words of Frederick the Great may also be applied to us, and indeed as a consolation: "_Ah, mon cher Sulzer, vous ne connaissez pas assez cette race maudite, à laquelle nous appartenons._" (from 'Human, all too human')

[Henk]

'Enmity of the Germans towards Enlightenment.—Let us consider the contributions which in the first half of this century the Germans made to general culture by their intellectual work. In the first place, let us take the German philosophers: they went back to the first and oldest stage of speculation, for they were content with conceptions instead of explanations, like the thinkers of dreamy epochs—a pre-scientific type of philosophy was thus revived by them. Secondly, we have the German historians and romanticists: their efforts on the whole aimed at restoring to the place of honour certain old and primitive sentiments, especially Christianity, the "soul of the people," folk-lore, folk-speech, mediævalism, Oriental asceticism, and Hinduism. In the third place, there are the natural philosophers who fought against the spirit of Newton and Voltaire, and, like Goethe and Schopenhauer, endeavoured to re-establish the idea of a deified or diabolised nature, and of its absolute ethical and symbolical meaning. The main general tendency of the Germans was directed against enlightenment and against those social revolutions which were stupidly mistaken for the consequences of enlightenment: the piety towards everything that existed tried to become piety towards everything that had ever existed, only in order that heart and mind might be permitted to fill themselves and gush forth again, thus leaving no space for future and novel aims. The cult of feeling took the place of the cult of reason, and the German musicians, as the best exponents of all that is invisible, enthusiastic, legendary, and passionate, showed themselves more successful in building up the new temple than all the other artists in words and thoughts.

If, in considering these details, we have taken into account the fact that many good things were said and investigated, and that many things have since then been more fairly judged than on any previous occasion, there yet remains to be said of the whole that it was a general danger, and one by no means small, to set knowledge altogether below feeling under the appearance of an entire and definitive acquaintance with the past—and, to use that expression of Kant, who thus defined his own particular task—"To make way again for belief by fixing the limits of knowledge." Let us once more breathe freely, the hour of this danger is past! And yet, strange to say, the very spirits which these Germans conjured up with such eloquence have at length become the most dangerous for the intentions of those who did conjure them up: history, the comprehension of origin and development, sympathy with the past, the new passion for feeling and knowledge, after they had been for a long time at the service of this obscure exalted and retrograde spirit, have once more assumed another nature, and are now soaring with outstretched wings above the heads of those who once upon a time conjured them forth, as new and stronger genii of that very enlightenment to combat which they had been resuscitated. It is this enlightenment which we have now to carry forward,—caring nothing for the fact that there has been and still is "a great revolution," and again a great "reaction" against it: these are but playful crests of foam when compared with the truly great current on which we float, and want to float.' (from 'Dawn')

[Henk]

'There is a Proper Time for Wrath and Punishment.—Wrath and punishment are our inheritance from the animals. Man does not become of age until he has restored to the animals this gift of the cradle.—Herein lies buried one of the mightiest ideas that men can have, the idea of a progress of all progresses.—Let us go forward together a few millenniums, my friends! There is still reserved for mankind a great deal of joy, the very scent of which has not yet been wafted to the men of our day! Indeed, we may promise ourselves this joy, nay summon and conjure it up as a necessary thing, so long as the development of human reason does not stand still. Some day we shall no longer be reconciled to the logical sin that lurks in all wrath and punishment, whether exercised by the individual or by society—some day, when head and heart have learnt to live as near together as they now are far apart. That they no longer stand so far apart as they did originally is fairly palpable from a glance at the whole course of humanity. The individual who can review a life of introspective work will become conscious of the rapprochement arrived at, with a proud delight at the distance he has bridged, in order that he may thereupon venture upon more ample hopes.' (from 'Human, all too human')

[Henk]

'The new Passion.—Why do we fear and dread a possible return to barbarism? Is it because it would make people less happy than they are now? Certainly not! the barbarians of all ages possessed more happiness than we do: let us not deceive ourselves on this point!—but our impulse towards knowledge is too widely developed to allow us to value happiness without knowledge, or the happiness of a strong and fixed delusion: it is painful to us even to imagine such a state of things! Our restless pursuit of discoveries and divinations has become for us as attractive and indispensable as hapless love to the lover, which on no account would he exchange for indifference,—nay, perhaps we, too, are hapless lovers! Knowledge within us has developed into a passion, which does not shrink from any sacrifice, and at bottom fears nothing but its own extinction. We sincerely believe that all humanity, weighed down as it is by the burden of this passion, are bound to feel more exalted and comforted than formerly, when they had not yet overcome the longing for the coarser satisfaction which accompanies barbarism.

It may be that mankind may perish eventually from this passion for knowledge!—but even that does not daunt us. Did Christianity ever shrink from a similar thought? Are not love and death brother and sister? Yes, we detest barbarism,—we all prefer that humanity should perish rather than that knowledge should enter into a stage of retrogression. And, finally, if mankind does not perish through some passion it will perish through some weakness: which would we prefer? This is the main question. Do we wish its end to be in fire and light, or in the sands?' (from 'Dawn')

[Henk]

'Abuse of the Conscientious Ones.—It is the conscientious, and not the unscrupulous, who have suffered so greatly from exhortations to penitence and the fear of hell, especially if they happened to be men of imagination. In other words, a gloom has been cast over the lives of those who had the greatest need of cheerfulness and agreeable images—not only for the sake of their own consolation and recovery from themselves, but that humanity itself might take delight in them and absorb a ray of their beauty. Alas, how much superfluous cruelty and torment have been brought about by those religions which invented sin! and by those men who, by means of such religions, desired to reach the highest enjoyment of their power!' (from 'Dawn')

Btw in the Dutch translation the text also reads 'animal cruelty'.

[Henk]

No one responds. I feel like being sacrificied for the greater good. But I keep fighting for our Earth and for future generations to which the book I have to write will be dedicated.

[Henk]

It's shooting the messenger.

[Henk]

Writing a book ☺️✊️📚🖊