Hey, jczeroman.

pastor · 12-05-2003, 06:54 PM

jczeroman, I don't generally agree with your politics, but I thought I'd offer you this excerpt from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra that reminds me of the way you feel about leftists. Read it and respond, or don't. It's food for thought and something I feel like throwing out there, even if I don't agree with it.

Nietzsche wrote in a ridiculously metaphorical manner, and, in TSZ at least, his tone took on a comically baroque grandiosity that mocked the language of The Bible. Just keep that in mind if your initial reaction to the excerpt is :erm . That is, if you read it.

On the Tarantulas

Behold, this is the hole of the tarantula. Do you want to see the tarantula itself? Here hangs its web; touch it, that it tremble!

There it comes willingly: welcome, tarantula! Your triangle and symbol sits black on your back; and I also know where it sits in your soul. Revenge sits in your soul: wherever you bite, black scabs grow; your poison makes the soul whirl with revenge.

Thus I speak to you in a parable - you who make souls whirl, you preachers of equality. To me you are tarantulas, and secretly vengeful. But I shall bring your secrets to light; therefore I laugh in your faces with my laughter of the heights. Therefore I tear at your webs, that your rage may lure you out of your lie-holes and your revenge may leap out from behind your word justice. For that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.

The tarantulas, of course, would have it otherwise. "What justice means to us is precisely that the world be filled with the storms of our revenge" - thus they speak to each other. "We shall wreak vengeance and abuse on all whose equals we are not" - thus do the tarantulas vow. "And 'will to equality' shall henceforth be the name for virtue; and against all that has power we want to raise our clamor!"

You preachers of equality, the tyrannomania of impotence clamors thus out of you for equality: your most secret ambitions to be tyrants thus shroud themselves in words of virtue. Aggrieved conceit, repressed envy - perhaps the conceit and envy of your fathers - erupt from you as a flame and as the frenzy of your revenge.

What was silent in the father speaks in the son; and often I found the son the unveiled secret of the father.

They are like enthusiasts, yet it is not the heart that fires them - but revenge. And when they become elegant and cold, it is not the spirit but envy that makes them elegant and cold. Their jealousy leads them even on the paths of thinkers; and this is the sign of their jealousy: they always go too far, till their weariness must in the end lie down to sleep in the snow. Out of every one of their complaints sounds revenge; in their praise there is always a sting, and to be a judge seems bliss to them.

But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangman and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had - power.

My friends, I do not want to be mixed up and confused with others. Some preach my docrtine of life and are at the same time preachers of equality and tarantulas. Although they are sitting in their holes, these poisonous spiders, with their backs turned on life, they speak in favor of life, but only because they wish to hurt. They wish to hurt those who now have power, for among these the preaching of death is still most at home. If it were otherwise the tarantulas would otherwise; they themselves were once the foremost slanderes of the world and burners of heretics. [This paragraph includes several references that address specific factors in Nietzsche's time; ignore if you're confused.]

I do not wish to be mixed up and confused with these preachers of equality. For, to me justice speaks thus: "Men are not equal." Nor shall they become equal! What would my love of the overman be if I spoke otherwise?

On a thousand bridges and paths they shall throng to the future, and ever more war and inequality shall divide them: thus does my great love make me speak. In their hostilities they shall become inventors of images and ghosts, and with their images and ghosts they shall yet fight the highest fight against one another. Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all the names of values - arms shall they be and clattering signs that life must overcome itself again and again.

Life wants to build itself up into the heights with pillars and steps; it wants to look into vast distances and out toward stirring beauties: therefore it requires height. And because it requires height, it requires steps and contradiction among the steps and the climbers. Life wants to climb and to overcome itself climbing.

And behold, my friends: here where the tarantula has its hole, the ruins of an ancient temple rise; behold it with enlightened eyes! Verily, the man who once piled his thoughts to the sky in these stones - he, like the wisest, knew the secret of all life. That struggle and inequality are present even in beauty, and also war for power and more power: that is what he teaches us here in the plainest parable. How divinely vault and arches break through each other in a wrestling match; how they strive against each other with light and shade, the godlike strivers - with such assurance and beauty let us be enemies too, my friends! Let us strive against one another like gods.

Alas, then the tarantula, my old enemy, bit me. With godlike assurance and beauty it bit my finger. "Punishment there must be and justice," it thinks; "and here he shall not sing songs in honor of enmity in vain."

Indeed, it has avenged itself. And alas, now it will make my soul, too, whirl with revenge. But to keep me from whirling, my friends, tie me tight to this column. Rather would I be a stylite even, than a whirl of revenge.

Verily, Zarathustra is no cyclone or whirlwind; and if he is a dancer, he will never dance the tarantella.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

MonteLDS · 12-05-2003, 06:55 PM

Hey pastor, have you ever heard of a PM

pastor · 12-05-2003, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MonteLDS
Hey pastor, have you ever heard of a PM

Heard of 'em? I popped Margaret Thatcher's cootchie.

pastor · 12-05-2003, 06:58 PM

And I posted this publicly because I thought it might serve as an ethical supplement to the political discussion about Affirmative Action, Corky.

Elvis The Fat Years · 12-05-2003, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pastor
ethical supplement

Do I have to take that rectally?

MonteLDS · 12-05-2003, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pastor
And I posted this publicly because I thought it might serve as an ethical supplement to the political discussion about Affirmative Action, Corky.

why the attention just on jczeroman then? why not give in a better Subject name?

Lil Apache · 12-05-2003, 07:02 PM

Oh look it's pastor. Don't get stood up now Netphoria.

pastor · 12-05-2003, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Elvis The Fat Years
Do I have to take that rectally?

That, my friend, is the most foundational question in the branch of philosophy known as ethics. In fact, it's what Socrates said right before he took the poison!

pastor · 12-05-2003, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MonteLDS
why the attention just on jczeroman then? why not give in a better Subject name?

Because it was inspired by and aimed at him. If any one else would like to comment on it, they are free to.

Nimrod's Son · 12-05-2003, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pastor

Because it was inspired by and aimed at him. If any one else would like to comment on it, they are free to.

Were you trying to support his position?

The "tarantulas" could be interpreted as those supporting AA, as they rail against "those in power" (white people) and attempt to create equality..

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 03:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pastor
jczeroman, I don't generally agree with your politics, but I thought I'd offer you this excerpt from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra that reminds me of the way you feel about leftists. Read it and respond, or don't. It's food for thought and something I feel like throwing out there, even if I don't agree with it.

Well, I have never read Nietzsche, so I really don't have a sense of the style or context. I can see how that would conjure images of me. In one sense, I do think there are a lot of people like that.

I was thinking about this as I drove somewhere today. Why do people seek positions of power, even those who claim to want that power for self-sacrificial means? Can people really believe a persona like, say, Howard Dean, is putting the working poor, or any other such group above his own interests? Does anyoen really think GW is fought the war to "free iraqis" or "save america from terror?" The ideas are ridiculous. These people seek power because they want power.

In another sense, consider the people voting for these leaders. They vote for these leaders because they claim to desire goals that they themselves hold dear. Therefore, people are voting for people because these people represent their interests, which, by nature, do not represent any kind of "greater good." It's almost a crazy paradox, a paradox of selfishness. Can people really be unselfish? In the passage Nietzsche seemed to argue that pretty mcuh any level of people seeking equality were "tarantulas." i can't say that I completely disagree, because even when voting for leaders that pursue "equality-like actions" such as "liberating people from tyranny" or "getting fair wages," these people are looking to benefit their own interests or their own morality, both of which are selfish actions.

gurr8 · 12-06-2003, 03:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jczeroman

They vote for these leaders because they claim to desire goals that they themselves hold dear. Therefore, people are voting for people because these people represent their interests

Or, all too often, they vote for who they think will win...

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 03:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gurr8

Or, all too often, they vote for who they think will win...

because, they will represent more of their interests than another candidate.

gurr8 · 12-06-2003, 03:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jczeroman

because, they will represent more of their interests than another candidate.

No, I think a lot of people vote for who they think will win. If they really wanna feel good about themselves, maybe they're modify their views so that it looks like things are happening the way they want.

Hey I just realized I LOVE Reagan!!

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 03:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gurr8

No, I think a lot of people vote for who they think will win. If they really wanna feel good about themselves, maybe they're modify their views so that it looks like things are happening the way they want.

Whatever their desires are are irrelivant though. They are still voting for that person based on their desires, be they to look cool or whatever.

machinaddict · 12-06-2003, 03:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gurr8

Or, all too often, they vote for who they think will win...

Most people won't vote at all if they think that the person they are supporting won't win.

gurr8 · 12-06-2003, 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jczeroman

Whatever their desires are are irrelivant though. They are still voting for that person based on their desires, be they to look cool or whatever.

My point does actually agree with your thought, i think....that people merely want power when it comes to politics....

Dead · 12-06-2003, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pastor
Heard of 'em? I popped Margaret Thatcher's cootchie.

Awesome!

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 03:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gurr8

My point does actually agree with your thought, i think....that people merely want power when it comes to politics....

no, when it comes to everything. Every single action a person ever takes is completely selfish and completely for power. That is my point.

machinaddict · 12-06-2003, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jczeroman

no, when it comes to everything. Every single action a person ever takes is completely selfish and completely for power. That is my point.

Are you talking ever or just in politics?

gurr8 · 12-06-2003, 03:56 AM

I would agree with you that people are inherently selfish.

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by machinaddict

Are you talking ever or just in politics?

see

machinaddict · 12-06-2003, 04:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jczeroman

see

just making sure.

gurr8 · 12-06-2003, 04:01 AM

People are inherently selfish.

Not necessarily for power, though.

They seek whatever makes them happy. I think that a lot of people end up hurting themselves for short-term gain in this endeavor.

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by machinaddict

just making sure.

i think that shows the wisdom of past experience/observation of me. Thanks.

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gurr8
People are inherently selfish.

Not necessarily for power, though.

They seek whatever makes them happy. I think that a lot of people end up hurting themselves for short-term gain in this endeavor.

Sure, I will acept that. I think power (or the illusion of) makes people happy though.

gurr8 · 12-06-2003, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jczeroman

Sure, I will acept that. I think power (or the illusion of) makes people happy though.

Oh for sure, power is an aspect of that search for happiness.

machinaddict · 12-06-2003, 04:18 AM

Not all people search for power.
Not all people that look to attain power do it for selfish reasons.
Not all people find happiness in power.

That's all I got. It's fucking late.

jczeroman · 12-06-2003, 04:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by machinaddict
It's fucking late.

12-05-2003, 06:54 PM	#1
pastor Apocalyptic Poster Location: somewhere Posts: 2,276	Hey, jczeroman. jczeroman, I don't generally agree with your politics, but I thought I'd offer you this excerpt from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra that reminds me of the way you feel about leftists. Read it and respond, or don't. It's food for thought and something I feel like throwing out there, even if I don't agree with it. Nietzsche wrote in a ridiculously metaphorical manner, and, in TSZ at least, his tone took on a comically baroque grandiosity that mocked the language of The Bible. Just keep that in mind if your initial reaction to the excerpt is :erm . That is, if you read it. On the Tarantulas Behold, this is the hole of the tarantula. Do you want to see the tarantula itself? Here hangs its web; touch it, that it tremble! There it comes willingly: welcome, tarantula! Your triangle and symbol sits black on your back; and I also know where it sits in your soul. Revenge sits in your soul: wherever you bite, black scabs grow; your poison makes the soul whirl with revenge. Thus I speak to you in a parable - you who make souls whirl, you preachers of equality. To me you are tarantulas, and secretly vengeful. But I shall bring your secrets to light; therefore I laugh in your faces with my laughter of the heights. Therefore I tear at your webs, that your rage may lure you out of your lie-holes and your revenge may leap out from behind your word justice. For that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms. The tarantulas, of course, would have it otherwise. "What justice means to us is precisely that the world be filled with the storms of our revenge" - thus they speak to each other. "We shall wreak vengeance and abuse on all whose equals we are not" - thus do the tarantulas vow. "And 'will to equality' shall henceforth be the name for virtue; and against all that has power we want to raise our clamor!" You preachers of equality, the tyrannomania of impotence clamors thus out of you for equality: your most secret ambitions to be tyrants thus shroud themselves in words of virtue. Aggrieved conceit, repressed envy - perhaps the conceit and envy of your fathers - erupt from you as a flame and as the frenzy of your revenge. What was silent in the father speaks in the son; and often I found the son the unveiled secret of the father. They are like enthusiasts, yet it is not the heart that fires them - but revenge. And when they become elegant and cold, it is not the spirit but envy that makes them elegant and cold. Their jealousy leads them even on the paths of thinkers; and this is the sign of their jealousy: they always go too far, till their weariness must in the end lie down to sleep in the snow. Out of every one of their complaints sounds revenge; in their praise there is always a sting, and to be a judge seems bliss to them. But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangman and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had - power. My friends, I do not want to be mixed up and confused with others. Some preach my docrtine of life and are at the same time preachers of equality and tarantulas. Although they are sitting in their holes, these poisonous spiders, with their backs turned on life, they speak in favor of life, but only because they wish to hurt. They wish to hurt those who now have power, for among these the preaching of death is still most at home. If it were otherwise the tarantulas would otherwise; they themselves were once the foremost slanderes of the world and burners of heretics. [This paragraph includes several references that address specific factors in Nietzsche's time; ignore if you're confused.] I do not wish to be mixed up and confused with these preachers of equality. For, to me justice speaks thus: "Men are not equal." Nor shall they become equal! What would my love of the overman be if I spoke otherwise? On a thousand bridges and paths they shall throng to the future, and ever more war and inequality shall divide them: thus does my great love make me speak. In their hostilities they shall become inventors of images and ghosts, and with their images and ghosts they shall yet fight the highest fight against one another. Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all the names of values - arms shall they be and clattering signs that life must overcome itself again and again. Life wants to build itself up into the heights with pillars and steps; it wants to look into vast distances and out toward stirring beauties: therefore it requires height. And because it requires height, it requires steps and contradiction among the steps and the climbers. Life wants to climb and to overcome itself climbing. And behold, my friends: here where the tarantula has its hole, the ruins of an ancient temple rise; behold it with enlightened eyes! Verily, the man who once piled his thoughts to the sky in these stones - he, like the wisest, knew the secret of all life. That struggle and inequality are present even in beauty, and also war for power and more power: that is what he teaches us here in the plainest parable. How divinely vault and arches break through each other in a wrestling match; how they strive against each other with light and shade, the godlike strivers - with such assurance and beauty let us be enemies too, my friends! Let us strive against one another like gods. Alas, then the tarantula, my old enemy, bit me. With godlike assurance and beauty it bit my finger. "Punishment there must be and justice," it thinks; "and here he shall not sing songs in honor of enmity in vain." Indeed, it has avenged itself. And alas, now it will make my soul, too, whirl with revenge. But to keep me from whirling, my friends, tie me tight to this column. Rather would I be a stylite even, than a whirl of revenge. Verily, Zarathustra is no cyclone or whirlwind; and if he is a dancer, he will never dance the tarantella. Thus spoke Zarathustra.

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12-05-2003, 06:55 PM	#2
MonteLDS sigh Posts: 8,850	Hey pastor, have you ever heard of a PM

12-05-2003, 06:58 PM	#4
pastor Apocalyptic Poster Location: somewhere Posts: 2,276	And I posted this publicly because I thought it might serve as an ethical supplement to the political discussion about Affirmative Action, Corky.

12-05-2003, 07:02 PM	#7
Lil Apache Ownz Location: Los Angeles county. Posts: 678	Oh look it's pastor. Don't get stood up now Netphoria.

12-06-2003, 03:56 AM	#21
gurr8 Ownz Location: Kingston, ON. Posts: 940	I would agree with you that people are inherently selfish.

12-06-2003, 04:01 AM	#24
gurr8 Ownz Location: Kingston, ON. Posts: 940	People are inherently selfish. Not necessarily for power, though. They seek whatever makes them happy. I think that a lot of people end up hurting themselves for short-term gain in this endeavor.

12-06-2003, 04:18 AM	#28
machinaddict Apocalyptic Poster Location: Wolfville, NS Posts: 4,617	Not all people search for power. Not all people that look to attain power do it for selfish reasons. Not all people find happiness in power. That's all I got. It's fucking late.