Beyond Good And Evil?

i really have no judgement of him as a person.
all that is lost when anyone is held up as a symbol
and that's the problem with basing any discussion on personalities.

and why i refuse to take the perspective personality vs content.

it really muddies the waters of what is being discussed needlessly and pointlessly.

the whole concept of diametrical oppositions is an inaccuracy at best,
and simply one of those self serving negative human fantasies.

strong dissimilarities are common enough,
but exact diametrical opposites,
are just something humans have pulled out of their asses
to bullshit themselves with and make excuses.

and those excuses in turn,
hide the real harm that really is.

i don't know if that was what the guy was trying to say,
i don't real phylosophurs much,
because i really don't see reality as having a damd thing to do personality,
even collectively that of a species or a culture or a world or anything like that.

sapience is an accident the universe had, that it is neither embarassed by nor overly concerned about,
and its not the kind of thing, that if it happens at all, it is likely to have happened only once either.

as if reality itself were an awareness that had perceptions and feelings,
another human/sapient fantasy

to the extent that such a thing as evil could be said to exist,
its real root is narcessism, whether of the individual,
or collectively as a species.

pity that word isn't shorter or easier to pronounce.
because it is the real problem,
and people are always trying to hide and make excuses for
the fact that it is.

 

The real problem?! Narcissism is only a problem if we let it be one! That the world is in love with itself makes me hope for far, far more than its moral interpretation! Viva la phenomenon! :-D

?

 

This painting hangs in the Tate Modern. Seen it many times. It's from Dali's best period imo.

 

I think reading Nietzsche is more difficult than people realize---particularly those who believe they understand what Nietzsche was saying. Therefore he is often misinterpreted. He was revolutionary yet he reads like the dogmatic and overly objective German rationalist who has to have everything in its proper box. I have sometimes wondered if this was the fault of the translations, but I am sure it is his prose, influenced by the time period he was writing in.

Of the 2 dynamics of culture he wrote about—the Dionysian and the Apollonian—it is clear to me that he favors the Dionysian—that he favors Nature’s explosive, ecstatic, uncontrolled nature over that of the regimented, controlling, repressive, oppressive, nature of man’s attempts to control nature and all around him. Reading Nietzsche in this light has helped me make a lot more sense of him, and to see through what seems like a violent and strict dog eat dog view of life.

The Nazi’s grossly misunderstood the superman as the Stormtrooper. They too saw his philosophy as one of domination. But he repeatedly talked of those in power as the weak held in position by the morals of the weak (The slave mentality). It would be wrong to assume that anyone rising to power and taking it away from those in power would be any different.

Consider his ‘will to power,’ which was really an extension of Schopenhauer’s, ‘will to live.’ He wrote various perspectives on this will to power, and of course, like all aspects of nature, it can lose its benign aspects when it involves more than one individual. Nature can be violent and rough. But in the end, his will to power is really about individuation of the individual—the will to become authentic despite all the social forces that try to force one into the group; to force one to conform to the status quo.

His Superman was not a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a race of overlords, in fact if you read the book where he really discussed the Apollonian and the Dionysian, The Birth of Tragedy, the ones who came closest to the Superman---the most Dionysian of anyone---the free thinkers---were the hippies. The hippies embodied everything Dionysian, the intoxication, the wild music, the sexual freedom, ecstatic experience, the return to nature and the earth, the reawakening of the old spirits and gods. Religion, as institution, is very Apollonian. Christianity, with its Greek influence, and the way St. Thomas of Aquinas purified it of the last bit of sexual freedom, is completely Apollonian. Guilt, for example, is a means of control, as is the fear of not gaining salvation, or of losing it.

And the Superman was never really meant to lead anyway---he points the way, he serves as example---but then he realizes it is not his place to change others, and he disappears. That is exactly what happened after Woodstock. The Hippies were Nietzsche’s ubermensch.

Yes, and you can certainly see the influence in their philosophies. But the idea that good and evil were not universals, did not begin with Nietzsche. Even Kierkegaard, roughly a hundred years earlier declared that there were no universals.

Despite the Eastern influence (which I think was stronger in Schopenhauer anyway), Nietzsche’s philosophy was very much a product of Western philosophy. The idea that God is dead, and the concept of a decadence into nihilism, are the logical end conclusions of Western philosophy and religion.

If he had pursued meditation, then it may have taken him down a different path, but then he would not have had the response to Western philosophy that he had. Perhaps he would have ended up in a temple in the Far East, and then where would we be---not having had the insight he gave? His ideas on the death of God and nihilism were important.

There’s more to it than that. Though he was atheist himself, what he was really saying was that the evolution of Western thought, led by Chrisitianity, as it grew more rational and objective, began to break down the position of the Christian God—Western thought literally evolved towards materialism, especially as good Christians tried to explain the workings of God through the physical phenomena of the universe and the math and the mechanical machinations that appeared to govern it. Then came another devout Christian—Kant—who separated the church from science, and effectively placed metaphysics on its death bed. Hegel tried to say that God was a part of physical reality; tried to bring idealism into the material realm. But in the end, science, steeped in materialism, took over where the church left off. God was dead to Western culture.

That God is dead and therefore nihilism will take hold is therefore a recognition, and prediction of man in the Modern Age---the coming Post Modern problems. Where else could we have gone? We had taken away the answer to the deepest questions, and as Leibniz had demonstrated, life was therefore absurd.

Yet, isn’t that exactly how nature works? We cannot escape death and decay. Without death there would not even be birth of the new.

Though he did not give us any way out of nihilism—only the superman (or supermen) would rise above it within their own lives. But the metaphysics he presented, I forget the name of it, left us trapped in a reality where everything would repeat endlessly, and we would once again relive our lives. Would our Will to Power---our assertion of our own individuality—realizing individuation—eventually free us so that each life relived would be more fulfilling as a superman? I don’t think he ever really said.

Maybe so, as I said earlier, but Dionysus was also the God of madness. Insanity accompanied the intoxication and the ecstatic. But then, as has been pointed out, there were pathological aspects to his insanity---syphilis. In Hindu and Buddhist countries, there are still plenty of those who are mentally ill. Religion in these countries is no more effective at healing the mentally ill, than Christianity in the West. In fact, just like Christianity, Eastern religions also present dogma and fodder for illusions that can play out in the mentally ill. Indigenous cultures are probably the most effective at dealing with mental health issues. They understand certain mental breakdowns as the calling of the gods or spirits to be a healer or shaman. The initiation process actually heals them. But even they recognize that there are types of mental illness that cannot be healed in such a manner, and that may not even be curable.

Most definitely. We are living in the Age of Nihilism—as a culture we have lost our truth, meaning, authenticity, and value. This does not mean that we as individuals are necessarily nihilistic, but our culture certainly is----just look at the last presidential election here in the US.

Nietzsche paved the way for so much that came after him---existentialism grew out of the philosophy of Kierkegaard and then Husserl, but Nietzsche certainly had a deep influence. Structuralism was a reaction in many ways to existentialism, and then Post-Structuralism which gave us Derrida. We could argue that Derrida’s Deconstruction was right along the lines of Nietzsche, and it is hard to get anymore nihilistic than deconstruction. Then Baudrillard sees Post Modern man as living in a hyper-nihilistic state rapidly heading to a metaphysical point of artificiality where both truth and non-truth have collapsed. These are just some examples of how he has shaped Modern man.

Then there is his Dionysian and Apollonian dynamic that runs through civilized societies. The Apollonian dynamic is very much in control right now. The last time it was, we hippies rose up and broke us free from that dynamic by reintroducing the Dionysian. Nietzsche was watching the collapse of the European Bourgeoisie culture all around him, and that was also what he was writing about. The Apollonian is that dynamic that, unfettered, carries us into our cultural death. The problem is, who will rise up to save us now…

But if nihilism is the logical end-conclusion of Western thought, there comes a point where we have to realize that nature also demonstrates a rebirth after death. In other words, at some point we have to move beyond Nietzsche, beyond Derrida, and Baudrillard. If all truth, meaning, value, and authenticity has been destroyed in the archaic motif of death found ritualistically worldwide, then it is at this point that we find the rebirth—we find what is our authentic truth, authentic meaning, and authentic value.

 

I think Nietzsche was more interested in Siddhartha the hot and sexy warrior, which everything Nietzsche was sadly not, rather than Siddhartha the sage.

 

Yes, and as you have stated, it was just a mere philosophical idea with them, and not a matter of actual perception for them.

They were just toying with ideas and abstract concepts from an intellectual standpoint, utterly ignorant that an enlightened or unconditioned state of existence and viewpoint is also possible, where one sees existence or truth as it is, and not from the background of one's culture or intellectual ideas or social programming, likes and dislikes which inevitably distort the perception resulting in an incorrect response.

 

I don't care anymore. I got things to do.

 

What? What are you--some kind of rhetorical juvenile?! (I'm joking! I'm joking!)


Well---if nothing else, the next time you get into Nietzsche, try reading him from the viewpoint of the Dionysian.

 

I've wasted much of my life under the mistaken notion that it was cool to follow Dionysus. I'm actually more into Apollo at the mo.

I still think the notion of "Beyond Good And Evil" is just an excuse for wickedness. Yeah I can sin with the best of them, but I'm a changing man.

You may say nature has no moral interpretation, but this facticity of nature can certainly teach moral sense to us, in what arises to mind as appearance.

 

I like being Apollonian on the inside and Dionysian on the outside.

 

Like a lemon sherbet?

 

I would certainly not call it toying around. They weren't simply making things up, and their observations were grounded in perceptions of the world around them. There was a cultural programming as Western philosophy grew out of a combination of both Greek and Jewish traditions, and it is based very much on precedent.

They were working with truth, and at times defining truth. Because truth is relative, and what may be truth to one culture and time is not truth to another culture and time. I am speaking here of fundamental truths that provide a unifying force to a culture--because it is in this truth that gives a people meaning to life, and unifies their culture, and their reason to continue on as individuals, as a community, and as a culture.

Everything that Western man was, and became, and is today, was dependent upon Western philosophy. The computers that you and I are interacting through and the web that connects them, would not be possible without a process of dialectic that began with the Ancient Greeks, without later philosophers trying to explain the workings of a universe designed by a Christian God, and then for Descartes trying to find the one truth he could not deny and the resulting Cartesian objectivism. It would not be possible without the subsequent rise of rationalism, and empiricism, or the stalemate that ensued between the arguments that the world is spirit, or that the world is physical matter. It took Kant to come along and separate religion from science. It required that existence would come to be primary and fundamental to being rather than essence. It then involved the dominance of the physical, and the erosion of philosophy.

All of these things were necessary to bring modern man to where he is today, with all the good and the bad that progress has brought. This does not mean that Western thought was superior to Eastern thought, nor that Eastern thought is superior. It just means that the West took a different path than the East (and after all, Western math and science can be traced back to ancient advances in the Middle and Far East). We could argue that each were meant to be on the path they were on.

As I said in my post, the nihilism of today is the logical end result of western thought up to the Post Modern era. The problem with this path is that it marginalizes the nonphysical, and eventually becomes dogmatically attached to physical existence. The fact that Western philosophy would eventually consume itself does not make it wrong, or broken—we can argue that it was meant to be. More importantly, while we lose all truth, value, and meaning in our culture today, at the same time there is an increase in globalism and diversity. Unlike cultures of the past, there is a greater acceptance of other paths and other truths. There is a deep search for meaning as today Modern Culture, which is largely defined by American Culture, really doesn’t have a unifying truth—just a pseudo-truth of consumerism. If we are going to progress we need to find a new truth, one that is multiplistic, and globalistic, and that validates all belief systems. But it makes incredible sense that this is how it was supposed to be.

I find it interesting that just as the theory of relativity began to shape science, truth as well began to take on a more relativistic form. Based on the dualism that all civilized cultures have carried from their planter culture ancestors, coming to terms with relative truth is very nihilistic. In a dualistic world truth there is either truth or falsehood, there is no room for relativity. But as dualism is replaced by a multiplicity, we begin to realize that truth is relative just as every point in the universe is relative. In other words, as we move into the quantum age---when quantum mechanics takes over and shapes science and technology, truth becomes relative in a quantum sense, which will give it new authenticity. It is like our indigenous ancestors which saw the world in multiplistic terms.

As we move into a global multiplistic zeitgeist, you yourself have apparently found an Eastern path that provides your truth and gives meaning to life. The opportunities to pursue such things today are far greater than they were in the age of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, which were greater than in the age of Kant, and so forth.

But let me respond to one thing, I would disagree that meditation affords a truth that is not culturally programmed, or that it is a truth that is free of distorted perceptions. We could certainly say that there are elements of the experience that are universal among humans. But we cannot reductively determine that the overall experience represents a universal truth. For example, the experience of satori, like other mystical experiences that Maslow referred to as Peak Experiences, typically involves the feeling of interconnectedness to the whole universe; that everything is one, and connected everywhere. Whether the universe is one or not, this subjective experience may or may not represent a true representation of that reality. I say this because we cannot rule out the possibility that we are experiencing a higher dimensional reality, which would be beyond the context of our 3 dimensional understanding of reality. Consider, for example, that you can point out the direction of an up-down dimension, or a front-back dimension, and also a side-side dimension. We can understand how an object in any direction from us relates to us in terms of these 3 dimensions—such as an object that is to your right, behind, and above you. This is part of our a-priori understanding of space. But in what directions would you point to in order to identify a 4th or 5th dimension? If we were to suddenly be able to see being as it appears in a higher dimension, it would be something entirely beyond our 3 dimensions. Therefore we could only grasp it as being somehow infinite and everywhere and within, and without of, everything.

The ecstatic experience of Eastern religion is culturally programmed. The perception is tainted by this programming. The programming is called dharma. Hindus refer to dharma as the tool to fight dogma. They claim it to be opposite of dogma. But it is an institutional construct, and therefore by its very nature is dogmatic. If this was not the case, then the moment of satori (referring back to Buddhism) would be entirely unconditioned, a-priori, and universal, and there would be no need for the priests to continue teaching that individual who had attained satori, or for the priest to sort out if it was true satori or simply ego-induced illusion, there would no longer be a need for continued meditation, and so forth. But that is not the case. If such a path was so pure, and full of truth, you would also not have the same hypocrisy that you have in every other religion—consider for example the concept of compassion juxtaposed to the battles between the Shaolin temples and those of other sects in old China (and is that any different from those that interpret Nietzsche’s will to power in terms of violence?).

I would argue that the least cultural programming involved in the ecstatic experience is found in those cultural traditions where the experience is most easily and readily achieved. The spirit journey’s of the Tungusic shamans, for example, or the peyote ceremonies of the Huichol, or the ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon just to name a few. Some of these ceremonies involve the use of hallucinogens, while others do not. But even then, there is a context which incorporates cultural programming. But these ecstatic experiences are the most universal of such mystical experiences, sharing all kinds of common elements from one continent to the next, across a whole array of cultures, most of which are isolated from each other. But such ecstatic experiences present a truth that does not efficiently support the strong group ethic of a more heavily institutionalized planter culture with a strict social hierarchy—such as a village in India, or a crowded town in Japan, or even a feudal village in Europe. Civilized man needed truths that would support and empower the structures that had evolved to make his communities viable and sustainable. Daily life alienated him from nature, even as he toiled all day in the fields. His primary relationship to the universe was in the context of his relationship to the community and the people around him. The truths to his existence needed to reflect this. Therefore Hinduism, Buddhism. Islam, and Christianity all evolved to meet these needs.

To borrow from Nietzsche, we can see that organized religion is Apollonian, and that includes the ecstatic experiences they induce. It is man attempting to suppress nature, as in years of meditation to suppress the ego. On the other hand, indigenous spirituality is Dionysian with its spontaneity and freedom. In fact, Nietzsche made this point in a sense, by comparing the Apollonian Homeric tradition with its temple gods to the Dionysian Bacchanalia out in the forests late at night.

Life for man today is even more alienating, as he is grossly alienated even from himself, and those around him. We live in what is largely an artificial world of texting and cybersex and what not. Buddhism is well suited for that, as it gives meaning to an overly objectivist world. It is even giving atheists a sense of metaphysics in what they see as supportive of their godless view of the cosmos. But to think that it provides the answer for everyone is wrong. Today the world is growing increasingly subjective—the individual is returning. That is the only way that would be befitting of the quantum age. Therefore there is most certainly a return of indigenous spirituality, which speaks to the subjective. For example, while there has been a plethora of titles on Eastern religion for several centuries, and of course an explosion of titles beginning around the 1960’s, the books on indigenous spirituality were very limited, you didn’t see an explosion of titles until the 1990’s. But there are a myriad of paths, and as the individual is liberated in the Information Age, each must find his own truth.

As the Zen Buddhist saying goes, ‘having eaten your rice, wash out your rice bowl.’ This refers to the point that, satori will make you think that you found the absolute truth, and you now have the only answer. Eating rice is a metaphor for satori, so the meaning here is that after satori you must remember that you don’t have the answer, and you should forget everything you learned and start fresh anew.

 

I guess I should clarify what I wrote here:

I didn't mean that we would find absolute truth, meaning, and value, just that we would find 'our' authentic truth, meaning, and value---the truth, meaning, and value that will give meaning to our culture such that we can progress to the next level of human development.

 

Some writers on Nietzsche say that his superman was someone who could balance the Apollonian and Dionysian. I still feel that while there is something to that, Nietzsche definitely stressed the Dionysian, and that it is through the Dionysian that we are liberated to step out of the status quo and find individuation.

 

The ideas of good and evil will always be subjective ideas. Even though as a society, we have laws - you can't steal from others, for it's against the law. On some level, we have to agree on things that help to create a balanced justice system. But, is it always ''bad'' to steal? Would it always be immoral to steal? The argument could be made that no, it's not always morally unacceptable to steal. I want to believe that I'd never steal anything from anyone...ever in my life. But, I've never been faced with such dire circumstances that the need to steal has ever come into my life. So maybe the motive behind what we do and don't do, is what determines a moral judgement of the action? If I'm going to steal from people because I'm greedy, and have no regard for others, then would that be considered immoral or ''evil?'' The action is the same - I'm stealing food for example -- but if my motive is to feed starving children in a ravaged village or they face death, or I'm greedy and want to have more than everyone 'just because,' it changes perhaps how we might see the overall action of ''stealing.''

I tend to look at the motives behind why someone does something, but it takes a lot for me to call someone ''evil.'' Or their actions as ''evil.'' Because every single person has a backstory. Back stories aren't excuses, but if someone was raised in a home without love as an example, odds are they might find it hard to love others as freely as if they were raised by loving parents.

This kind of makes me think about determinism - if everything is pre-determined by perhaps a deity, do any of us really have free will? Or is free will just an illusion? We don't treat free will as an illusion otherwise the prison system in the US wouldn't be over flowing with new arrivals every day. I tend to think that the quality of our lives is largely based on our perception of what happens to us, and the choices we make in response to those things.

 

I can dig that. Though the Dionysian and moving beyond good and evil is not necessarily a ticket to just sin.

I should clarify that nature does not have the human moral interpretation that hs dominated civilized man up to the present. Nature teaches us, as understood through indigenous spirituality, a natural goodness, a respect for life, and a natural balance to things. But nature is not dualistic, and it does not demonstrate a good and evil duality. It is multiplistic. Nature has tricksters, it has danger, it has helpers, and forces that are good and those that are bad. Good forces can have bad consequences, bad forces can have good consequences, and so forth. Above all else there is power.

In Lakota (One of the main Sioux languages), for example, there is the term 'wakan tanka' which is translated to English as the Great Spirit. Tanka means large, big, or great. But wakan can be translated as sacred, mysterious, and above all, powerful, or power. A better translation for wakan tanka is therefore the Great Mystery, or the Great Mystery Power. But when liquor was introduced to the Sioux they called it mni wakan. Mni means water. But this does not mean that liquor was a good thing--a sacred thing to be used in ceremony. Drinking alcohol before ceremony would be greatly discouraged and you would certainly want to keep the sacred pipes protected from it. In the case of liquor wakan refers to its power. And power is mysterious and therefore sacred. The power of liquor is abused, and too easily leads to problems, so to call liquor power is not exactly the same as to speak of something used in a sacred manner as power. But they both are represent powers of the universe. The Lakota by the way, do not have a concept of absolute evil, or evil so great that man is caught between a battle between an all powerful good and evil. In fact, duality and the idea of a powerful evil being is not developed anywhere until man has found himself deep into a planter culture. The Hopi for example, who have lived in the same pueblos for hundreds of years, have a basic concept of cosmic twins--one good, one bad. The Mayans and Aztecs, both of whom had established civilizations believed in an evil twin--the twin of Quetzalcoatl, or Kulkulkan. But for the Lakota, and all indigenous communities that still carry a hunter-gatherer spirituality, the cosmos and nature is essentially good and benevolent.

If we move beyond good and evil then we are moving beyond the duality of a God and a Devil, and we are left with the goodness that is natural, the same goodness that gave birth to us from the earth mother (and cosmos) that is the source of all the material flesh that we are, and from our human mother through which, because of basic animal drives, with our father, conceived us. And we are not caught powerless between the powers of two opposing forces in the universe.

 

I've been thinking of Good Indian Corn Beer . Got to get out to the farm's Indian corn patch to see if it's ready for transformation .
The change begins with sprouting , then it's existence gets crucified into soup , then , low comes kima stree so quiet as ghost hawk .

 

I think the forth dimension would be time.

 

But if I was to ask you, which direction is yesterday, or in what direction is tomorrow, it is the same thing. the present moment takes up space in every direction we can concieve of, yet there is the next moment, or the moment before.

Of course that is assuming that time is an actuality rather than a human perception of a dimension defined by energy at the universal constant (the speed of light). In my own philosophy I treat the 4th dimension as a nonphysical dimension representing the quantum wave (of wave-particle duality). Therefore only the particle has a position in the physical 3 dimensions, and as this position only lasts for an instant, it is otherwise a nonphysical 4th dimensional thing. If we ignore all the human measures of time, and get right down to how time is truly experienced--the movement of light. By my definition, this would be nothing more than the manifestations of photons at specific positions in space-time from a non-physical 4th dimensional wave. The speed of light is fundamental in this regard--if we take a specific moment in time where one photon is perceived, detected, or somehow interacted with--say at a vision cell in the eye, or on a light meter, or on an antenna recieiving radio waves (for photons are always the carrier of electromagnetic waves), no other photon at that point can be perceived, detected, or interacted with. the one before it is gone into the past, the next photon in line is still in the future, and is completely undetectable.

 

Time as a 4th dimension may be a construct of fear , even as 3d space is a primitive idea . I'd consider 3d to be just a single
dimension and then to account for the creatures of light (some UFO's ?) - add one more . Within the fear devilish imagination
in control . The gargoyles rule there .