Who Are The New Nietzscheans
Scott Locklin ******************************************************************************
Who Are the New Nietzscheans? They are out there! They have
a tendency to be silent in their ideas, which are usually extremely
unpopular, as they go against the generally accepted dualist
thinking. Another reason you do not see them is the simple fact
that Nietzscheans are generally unconcerned with social issues;
they are busy with their own affairs. I will attempt to catalogue
some of the modern Nietzscheans and their influences. Cyberpunks:
are generally influenced by all the below-mentioned thinkers.
The Cyberpunk exists in cyberspace; virtual reality. While sitting
at a computer terminal may not seem like much of a Nietzschean
activity, the anarchic freedom of cyberspace readily lends itself
to a Nietzschean world-view. ThIs KiNd Of Lettering is a cyberpunk
hallmark. Science Fiction: many Science Fiction writers, among
them R.A. Wilson, Robert Heinlien, Larry Niven, L. Ron Hubbard
and Stanislaw Lem are strongly influenced by Nietzsche and later
Nietzschean thinkers. The readers of their tales are, of course,
influenced by these ideas. Industrial Music: Started in the late
1970's. The music itself is quite Nietzschean/Dionysian; some
aspects of the culture associated with it are even more Nihilistic.
Aliester Crowley: an early 20th century British occultist, Crowley
founded, directly or indirectly, virtually all of the non-traditional
religions we see today. Among the religions directly influenced
by Crowley are the Neo-Pagan movements, the Wiccans, the "occult
fraternities" such as the O.T.O., Rosicrucianism, Scientology
(indirectly, though Hubbard, who was a student of Crowleys),
Satanism and various aspects of the New Age Movement. Crowley
expounded a philosophy that is quite Nietzschean; "Do what
thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." He advised discovery
of the "True Will" through various occult techniques.
Ayn Rand: As stated in the Marxism paper, her book "Atlas
Shrugged" is more influential in America than the Bible.
It is a manifesto for many conservative and not-so conservative
thinkers. Her ideas can be read as quite Nietzschean in a certain
sense, but they are very hostile to the relativist left-wing
post-structuralism. *******************************************************************************
A friend of mine is doing a report on Nietzsche where he attempts
to criticize the Nietzschean superman as being "child-like"
or "infantile." Indeed, I heartily agree with this
sentiment; the overman overflows with the child-like vitality
that we are endowed with at birth. This is exactly the point
of becoming a superman, to recapture the vitality that society
saps from people in order to make them enslavable. The overman
is selfish, and why not? If one has enough self-esteem to realize
that one deserves all of ones desires, one is more likely to
get what one wants. The elevation of humbleness and self-effacement
as virtues is such an abomination and negation of life as to
make it utterly incomprehensible to me, other than as a tool
for the establishment to keep the masses enslaved by their own
moralities. This is not to say that the Nieztschean should revel
in ego-mania; people should be realistic about their abilities,
and should certainly give appropriate respect to their betters.
The important point is that, despite what religion and government
will tell you, you are your own best friend; if you have no pride,
how can anyone else respect you? An apocryphal cyberpunk quote
is appropriate here; "The meek SHALL inherit the earth,
because the strong shall inherit the STARS!" *******************************************************************************
The following are a few aphorisms I cooked up, in an attempted
imitation of Nietzsche's style. Hopefully I have captured a bit
of his spirit as well... *******************************************************************************
Aphorisms Nietzsche says he hits with a hammer, perhaps this
is why he is so misunderstood; hammers have a tendency to break
fragile objects. Perhaps I should aim to hit with a rubber chicken;
but even a rubber chicken can be a lethal weapon in the right
hands! Down with hammers and rubber chickens! To fight and lose
is a sad thing, but to accept torments without fighting back,
or worse, to do the work for the tormenter and wonder why one
is in pain- that is the mentality of masochistic sheep. Governments
and religions are clever that way; they talk their subjects into
performing self-flagellation. They even manage to talk their
subjects into accepting this flagellation as a virtue; that way
the practice becomes self-perpetuating. The game of "oppression"
can be thought of as a game of Sadomasochism. The oppressed must
realize that it must stop playing the game if it really wants
the game to stop. The herd claims to want happiness for all.
By their actions one can see that their real desire is to be
anesthetized against strong sensation of any kind. Their happiness
is a lack of pain, and a lack of joy. *****************************************************************************
ThE LeFt WiNg ToDaY Marxists? What I say to the Marxists is "who
benefits?" Everyone they say? The history of Russia shows
that those who gain the most are the white-collar intellectuals
who expound the philosophy. Now- who are the most vocal proponents
of Marxism in America and Europe? Now, to the movement of those
who would make me "Politically Correct" in speech and
action. WHO BENEFITS? It is a good joke they try to play on me;
telling me to efface myself that others may gain? I can appreciate
such jokes, and I will play along with it, using the silence
that they find so intolerable. These days it is fashionable to
identify with the downtrodden in some way. Everyone seems to
have some form of systematic oppression which they are victimized
by. The homosexuals, the rape-survivors, the co-dependency survivors,
the parent/child/sibling of alcohol/drug abusers, the racial
minorities... Perhaps some of these people do have legitimate
grievances, but the manner in which they wear the badge of "oppressed"
as if it were something to be proud of makes me ill. "Oppressed"
people seem to think that their victimization gives them moral
superiority over others; a supremely christian sentiment. It
is often amusing to see various "victims" and survivors
compete amongst themselves to determine who is more downtrodden.
There is a tendency among the left-wing, perhaps largely started
by post-structuralist "thinkers," to redefine terms
and give new terms to replace older "insensitive" terms
to suit political ends. The general tendency is to use a new
term with a broader meaning, or to redefine a term to have a
broader meaning. For example, in the 40's and 50's, crippled
people were called crippled people. This term had very specific
meaning; the person to whom it was applied had physical deficiencies
great enough to severely limit their abilities in comparison
to other human beings. Later, this harsh-sounding term was changed
to handicapped or disabled. While handicapped and disabled are
less harsh terms, they carry less meaning- these adjectives can
be applied to a larger group of people with a broad spectrum
of types and degree of "impairment." The latest term
I have heard is "physically challenged." This term
is apparently clinical-sounding enough to be sufficiently innocuous,
but the information content of this term is almost nil. Example;
while I am fairly proficient at various Karate forms, I am severely
physically challenged in other sports. The same game can be applied
to terms rather than meanings; violence for example. Violence
used to mean a physical act which causes bodily harm to another
person. Now the word violence can be used to mean any number
of abstract injuries, whether psychological, economic, social
or even violence to self-esteem. This method serves to further
the ends of the politicizer through the use of emotion charged
language. Unfortunately for those to whom the original meaning
of the term applied, they now share their misery with new "victims"
thus cheapening the impact of what they have experienced. Worse
than this (for me) is the fact that meaning is blurred and informatic
content is reduced tremendously. Other terms which have "fallen
victim to this disease" are: racism; used to be defined
as a form of racial prejudice, now it is broadened to mean anything
which is considered "damaging" to minority groups.
Some have gone so far as to declare that all whites are racist
and minorities can never be racist (by definition, so I am told).
rape; used to be defined as a non-consensual sexual act, now
it is broadened to include reading pornography, and even (if
you listen to Dworkin's ravings) any male/female sexual act wherin
the male has an erection. sexual-harassment; used to be defined
as the linking of sexual favors to ones job status, now broadened
to include on the job flirtation which is unwelcome by one of
the parties involved. While some of the new meanings associated
with these terms seem unfair by generally accepted morals, the
new meanings associated with the old terms serve to parasitize
the emotional impact of the meanings originally associated with
the terms. To honestly address these issues, new terms should
be invented for these newly-discovered meanings. As demonstrated
with the example of "crippled," this group is quite
adept at inventing new terms to lessen emotional impact. The
fact that it must parasitize terms rather than inventing new
ones when it desires to maximize emotional impact shows a form
of cowardice that can only be associated with the herd's tendency
to equate happiness with a lack of strong sensation. To me, the
true crime of this is not the fact that people seek to anesthetize
language, but that the meaning of the language is distorted and
blurred. This is a subtle variation on one of the fundamental
errors of logic that the sophists were so fond of using. Perhaps
the great success of post-structuralist "thinking"
in the various humanities can be attributed to the ability of
the post-structuralist to change definitions and redefine terms
at will. The post-structuralist is not actually "discovering"
anything and rarely gives any new meanings, s/he is merely playing
an elaborate trick with language. This coupled with a tendency
to value all things equally is what makes po-struc style so popular;
it is a mask for incompetent scholarship. Indeed, the sloppiness
of spoken language in general has been the downfall of philosophy
through the ages. The most successful of the sciences have been
those that use mathematics as their language; mathematics is
the most rigorous language possible. (note: By success I mean
ability of said science to accurately describe the world; the
accuracy is measured by observation). Concluding my rant on post-structuralism,
it seems that Nietzsche's attack on metaphysics and morality
has been distorted into something quite unlike what was intended.
It seems to me that the original idea of both Nietzsche and some
of the post-structuralists, such as Foucault, was to be rid of
all encumbering metaphysical nonsense in order to strike out
in new directions of scholarship and thought. What it has turned
into is a refuge for incompetent scholars and political whiners.
I think both men are rolling in their graves... Derrida thinks
binary thinking is a result of phallocentrism. Derrida was a
homosexual; I think it more likely that Derrida thinking is a
result of phallocentrism. Being a mathematician, I am of the
opinion that binary thinking is a result of the minimal principle;
since binary thinking is the simplest kind of thinking, lazy
people will adopt it. Then again, perhaps Locklin thinking is
the result of techno-centrism. The test of which idea is more
correct comes in the observation of the predicted consequences
of each theory. ****************************************************************************
Current eVeNtS Rumblings on current events; the former Yugoslavia.
The question in America seems to be "what are we going to
do to fix this situation?" We point accusatory fingers at
the Europeans, who seem unwilling to remedy the situation, which
we assume is more their problem than ours. Perhaps the Europeans
realize what the solution to the problem is; isolate it and leave
it alone. We Americans have an amusing tendency to think we can
remedy any situation via our intervention. Here is a perfect
example of idiot interventionism; the Waco incident. What was
the justification for the attack on the Branch-Davidian compound
in the first place? There were (unsubstantiated) rumors of child
abuse. Guess what? They are now all DEAD! Better a live allegedly
abused child than a charred corpse to my morality. What about
the "War on Drugs?" Perhaps a "War on Liberty"
is more accurate. Do people really think we will somehow be better
off when everyone ceases use of drugs? The only problem I see
with drugs use is the lack of unadulterated drugs and the fact
that large men with firearms will hurt you if they think you
take them. WHO BENEFITS? The "law-enforcement" industry
are the obvious beneficiaries. Through the strengthening of law-enforcement,
all those in power will benefit. One of the more amusing and
ironic aspects of this movement is the fact that the right-wing,
those who are supposed to be staunchest supporters of individual
freedom, use Marxist arguments such as stamping out drugs for
the "common good." The pod-people think the war on
drugs is important; it provides valuable entertainment. The great
danger of drug use is the danger to those in power. People who
take certain drugs tend to see politicians for what they are;
monkeys posturing. A quote from _Atlas Shrugged_: "Did you
really think we wanted those laws to be observed? We WANT them
to be broken... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only
power a government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, if there are not enough criminals, one makes them... You
create a nation of law-breakers---and then you cash in on guilt."
******************************************************************************
LeFt AnD rIgHt? I am not "left-wing" or "right-wing,"
if one must have wings, I will use them and be "up-wing."
The left wing wants a government that acts like an overprotective
mother. The right wing wants a government that acts like a stern
and vengeful father. The "up-wing" wants to be adult
with no parental government. It is amusing the way the left deals
with the "All men are created equal" paradigm. The
left wing shouts this paradigm the loudest but finds it necessary
to pass laws which enforce this paradigm, implying that they
do not really believe it to be true. It is also amusing the way
that the right-wing gives lip-service to personal freedom unless
the person exerting their right to personal freedom is exerting
it in a way that is different from the mainstream. The right
wing is entertaining in that few scholars take it seriously;
the reason I harp on the left wing is because, somehow, it has
been taken seriously. I have observed that there arethree basic
styles of feminism; the type that attempts to force masculine
qualities on women, the type that attempts to force feminine
qualities on men and the type that does neither. The first type
was popular in the 60-70's, the second type popular in the 80's
and early 90's, and the latter type has never been popular; perhaps
in the future... (the next 8 aphorisms taken from "The Abolition
of Work and other Essays" by Bob Black) The right? Wrong!
The left? Left behind! Libertarianism? All the freedom money
can buy! Marxism? The highest form of capitalism! Feminism? Equality
with men; a paltry ambition! Liberals? Conservatives with a guilty
conscience! Police? Terrorists with the right credentials! Religion?
Deifying your defects! *******************************************************************************
HuMaNiTy? The great absurdity of humanity is the refusal to acknowledge
the fact that we are a mammal; a form of ape. The strongest refusal
of this fact comes from those who have the most to lose by admitting
this. People wonder why humans seem so psychologically screwed
up. Consider this; when other mammals give birth, the mother
finds a dark and cozy place to have this private, intimate experience.
In our industrialized societies the mother is assaulted with
all manner of indignities and the newborn is greeted by harsh
lights and monstrous, sterile, masked demons who cut the cord
and beat the newborn until it breathes. No wonder some men are
naturally violent; after they are welcomed into the world with
a beating, they are harnessed into plastic chairs and their genitals
are cut. Altruism is touted by the cattle-men as the highest
form of human action. Unfortunately for the high-minded altruist,
whenever one analyses altruistic behaviors sufficiently close
enough, one always finds that altruism has its roots in selfishness
and greed. *******************************************************************************
TeChNoLoGy Religion? Mass media has largely replaced the roles
of organized religion in our social structure; many of the truly
religious realize this in some shadowy way. Where do people commune
together to share common emotional experiences in our age? In
front of the television! What do people talk about when they
are not in front of the television? They speak of what they saw
on the television! Where do we get our values? Elders? Parents?
Teachers? None of these could get me to bathe regularly as a
child. It was television advertising, taking advantage of my
psycho-sexual insecurities at puberty, that made me believe that
I stink... Polls (ye gods, the polls) show that most people would
not give up the television for a year even if paid one million
dollars. When the need to be pacified replaces good old human
greed and avarice, I fear for the future of humanity. I suppose
it is similar to the martyr who would rather die than give up
his religious safety blanket, even in thought... When given a
choice between the television and their fathers, most children
choose the television. The end of the patriarchy? Or the beginning
of the reign of the machine... (factoids from the Society for
Eradication of Television) The ancient Hebrews and Pagans would
ritually slaughter their beasts in temple before using them as
food, to ease the wrath of the gods. It was a symbolism, an appeasement
of the personified forces of the natural world; the temples were
microcosms of the natural world (and often situated in breathtaking
natural surroundings). Today we build great engines of death
for our slaughterhouses and symbolical temples. What angry machine
gods are we trying to satiate? When peopleare shown the machine-god
they become frightened; they run away from all machines. They
refuse to eat the meat from the animals sacrificed to the machine
god, saying it is a terrible blasphemy. Instead they eat granola
and vegetables. They forget how the granola and vegetables are
produced; the great machine tears furrows in the earth with its
claws and fills the soil with its venoms. Some see the furrows
and the venom, and insist on food grown in little scratches in
the soil, fed on shit. The machine charges extra for these antiquated
extravagances. The pod-people cannot see the machine. Jonah could
not see the whale. The god-machine hides behind a forest of televisions;
these are machine camouflage. Old hacker maxim; "If you
cannot understand and control a technology, it will control you."
Make the Machine your ally; you cannot hide from it, and you
cannot kill it without killing yourself; learn how it works and
you can change it and use it to your benefit. ******************************************************************************
WhAt NiEtZsChe MeAnS tO mE The writings of Nietzsche have much
appeal to me, both as a budding scientist and as a human being
trying to find an appealing way to live my life. To deal with
the first issue; in discussion, there was much to-do about Nietzsche's
supposed criticism of science. I am of the opinion that the points
raised are non-issues in the writings of Nietzsche (at least
the ones we studied, and the ones I have read thus far). There
was no mention of science in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
and only a brief section in "Beyond Good and Evil"
which dealt with the issue of some physicists making the standard
error of 'confusing map with territory' in physical law. Nietzsche
certainly points out that the fundamental assumptions, such as
the validity of sensory input, can be brought into question;
but logical reduction along these lines eventually leads to absurdity,
and is not particularly useful. I am of the opinion that the
criticism of rigorous physical science is more post-structuralist
than Nietzschean, and probably doomed to failure. It seems difficult
and pointless to try to argue with physics or chemistry as we
(as physical and chemical objects) are subject to the laws of
these sciences. What is useful is the stripping away of the sacred
cows in science; remove the human prejudices and you will be
free to discover new and wonderful things. Relativity, for example,
came about largely through removing human prejudices from science.
If we had been smart enough (or unprejudiced enough), we may
have been able to figure out relativity at the time of Newton.
The basic Newtonian error that relativity corrected was the idea
of a privileged co-ordinate system; i.e. what makes one person's
set of measurements more valid than another persons. Relativity
tells us that one cannot make a distinction between the coordinate
systems of uniformly moving observers; there is no universal
space/time axis which we can measure them with, therefore the
observations of a person in one frame of reference are as valid
as those of a person in any other frame of reference. (a bit
of thought may lead one to the conclusion that a privileged reference
system somewhat implies the existence of a god). Relativity gives
the exact relationship by which one can transform the observations
taken in one coordinate system to find out what the observations
from another coordinate system would be. A shame that there is
not yet a relativity theory for the social sciences where one
may observe through the eyes of a person with a different "coordinate
system." Quantum mechanics is even worse; it was added into
theory as a mathematical convenence to account for certain observations
about the spectrum of radiation from hot objects. When observations
were made of other systems, it was realized, much to the chagrin
of the scientists, that this "convenience" seemed to
be needed to account for many observations; in fact it had to
be expanded to even greater absurdities (absurd to human minds)
to account for observation. Even though quantum theory is probably
the most useful tool available to physicists and chemists, to
this day, people are still trying to make it less absurd (without
a mutual knowledge of partial differential equations it would
be difficult for me to explain why it is absurd; verbal communication
is insufficient to communicate these ideas.) As I see it, a Nietzschean
outlook gives one a superior "bullshit meter" (the
most important tool of the physicist); a "Nietzschean razor"
if you will. The "Nietzsche's Razor" might be; "One's
human prejudices should be removed as much as possible when thinking
about a problem in science." That is not to say that physical
principles that have proved useful should be carelessly tossed
aside, but one should field crazy ideas and question basic assumptions;
a new discovery may be made in that way. Since social sciences
are generally "softer" in rigor (to say the least),
it would seem that this form of scholarship is most easily criticized
using my "Nietzsche's Razor." One of my favorite new
sciences is Sociobiology. It may turn out to be a useless concept
(though I doubt it), but I have great admiration for the manner
in which its thinkers ruthlessly followed the evolutionary paradigm
while giving no truck to their humanist prejudices. Indeed, I
find it useful to look into anything that raises the ire of those
with strong prejudice of some kind (in the case of sociobiology,
it is the humanist set who cluck the loudest); these people are
my "miner's canaries" in my search for useful ideas.
When they feel threatened by a new paradigm, they become agitated
and make much noise (as Shakespeare said, "Methinks thou
protesteth too much") with little logical content. Nietzsche's
world-view is profoundly disturbing to most. Perhaps the reason
for this is that most are raised on metaphysical delusions; popular
lies. These popular lies are instilled in people to alleviate
fear and psychological discomfort, but in many ways these lies
are the source of the fear; a self-perpetuating system. When
Nietzschean ideas and philosophy are presented, people react
in one of several predictable manners. Most often, people simply
refuse to get the message; the ideas are simply too foreign to
register. Then there is the group who realize exactly what Nietzsche
is saying and are horrified by it, calling it blasphemy (which
is an accurate adjective in my opinion). Then there is the group
who find valuable ideas in the writings of Nietzsche... |