Nietzsche, poor fellow, obviously had serious nursing issues with his
mother. Apparently she either wouldn't or couldn't satisfy his hunger. It
is said that she hated nursing because it stripped her of
her autonomy, turned her into an unpaid servant -- a slave, no
less. Society had tethered her to this -- this, burping, pissing, shitting
"thing" called Friedrich. She had not asked for this -- this, insult to
her dignity. Little Friedrich merely used her as a milk machine. Too many
times she would pull him away from her breast with his pursed little
lips still working, wanting more.. He would scream and thrash about and
raise holy hell but to no avail. Mother Nietzsche had to take a stand for
all womankind. We are not milk machines, she shouted, we are human
beings. We have as much right and as great dignity as babies do!.--let the
men suckle them she ranted. So, little Friedrich grew up saying things
like: "I counsel you, my friends: Distrust all in whom the impulse to
punish is powerful." And "Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond
good and evil." And "I counsel you, my friends: Distrust all in whom the
impulse to punish is powerful." And " What do you regard as most humane?
To spare someone shame." And " Whatever is done for love always occurs
beyond good and evil." And: "We should consider every day lost on which we
have not danced at least once." And: "Nothing on earth consumes a man more
quickly than the passion of resentment." And: " The man of knowledge must
be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends." .The
quotes are from www.raptitude.com. I can't vouch for them, but I like
them. I see Nietzsche not in the will to power mode, rather I see him as
the advocate of close to the opposite. He's the man who says to the world:
of power: "Fuck you! Your world is ruthless and hideous and vicious and
anathema to all things human." I believe that Nietzsche is preaching
sissy, pussy themes as mankind's only salvation. Not many agree with me.
They're wrong.
On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 12:16 PM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:
I'm not ignoring Max Hastings, but I have 2 or 3 of his books (maybe more)
some place and can't lay my finger on them. I'm planning to move to Idaho
early next year and have been weeding out my library, getting rid of books
I've read and didn't like, or books I've read but won't read or want to
refer to again to minimize the stuff I take to Idaho. I don't think I got
rid of any Max Hastings, in fact my intention is to keep most of the
serious works on history. When I'm looking for a change from poetry I most
often turn to history.
I'm not up to another overview quite yet. I'm slowly wending my way
through Rick Atkinson's trilogy and am half way through *The Day of
Battle. *The philosophy of why we fight interests me more at present.
Fighting great wars couldn't have occurred during our 185,000 years as
hunter-gatherers, but once we created villages they got much larger than
the H-G tribal battles. With cities they got larger still. But the
option to fight to protect (or acquire) territory probably developed during
the 185,000 years as H-G's, and no edict saying "we won't do that any
longer" will mean much. Peaces such as the Pax Romana and the Cold War are
merely interregnums between wars. Rousseau's Nobel Savage who lived at
peace with nature and his fellow man was a fiction. The pacifist walks
into a tough neighborhood and when confronted by muggers says "I don't want
any trouble." Good luck with that argument.
Then too when I was 16 in 1951 I tried to enlist in the Marine Corps. I
was accepted but the pulled me off the bus destined for MCRD and told me to
come back when I was 17; which I did. Looking back I often wonder what
impelled me to do that. Not everyone does that, but in history we see
that enormous numbers of young men do -- more than enough usually to fight
all the wars of history . . . unless we assume that a majority were drafted
or forced by royal laws to fight, but that isn't my assumption. There has
been in history a liking for battle, a willingness to fight. Old men
gathered around will often ask each other about their military experience.
Those who don't have any will be embarrassed to admit it.
So how likely is Nietzsche's "last man"? Those "last men" clustered in
cities want to be without guns and have the police and other tax-supported
authorities and leaders take care of them from the cradle to the grave.
But out beyond the cities are plenty left who will still enlist when there
is the likelihood of war. If this willingness to fight is in our genes,
put there during our 185,000 years as hunter-gatherers and further fostered
during our wars in villages and cities and, in modern times, on larger
tapestries, can anything be done about it, and more especially should
anything be done? If we can anticipate mere wars then we probably don't
want to do anything about them, but as happened during the Cold War and the
threat of nuclear war, we pull back and put our weapons away, confused by
the choice between protecting (or enhancing) our territory and
annihilation.
Many current movies show mankind being wiped out by zombies (the "last
men" hungry?) or apocalyptic events -- very pessimistic. But other movies
show us moving out to other planets. I think the latter while not
eliminating our willingness to fight will give us plenty to do in order to
survive. We may one day (30,000 years from now as Isaac Asimov
hypothesizes in his *Foundation *series) be living on millions of
planets. Asimov doesn't see that as an end to war. There are still wars
between planets and political wars between powerful leaders, but if we need
a beneficent robot to guide is into a more peaceful future we may be out of
luck. Terminator movies have convinced most of us that machines are not to
be trusted. ;-)
Lawrence
