Posted by
Zentrist on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 12:28:50 PM
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned...I have been reading an obscure, ancient and pagan philosopher, many, many times." In reality, in an ever-older age, I've pretty much cleaned up my act--marriage and the sacraments can do wonders for a body. To be sure, I'm currently overdue for Confession because I've not been going to Mass due to "work schedule," a lame excuse, actually, because one can make it up on a weekday if one is a nurse or something and has to work through the weekend. But for reading Nietzsche there can be NO EXCUSES, as he himself might say, or Dr. Robert Solomon, RIP, a great American Nietzsche scholar might say. No excuses, none. As Sartre said, "one is responsible, one is free," or something like that.
Now, let's get down to business. First, both at university and in grad school, Nietzsche was required reading with one course even named, "Rousseau and Nietzsche." The liberal arts undergrad curriculum in my major had you reading "The Birth of Tragedy" and "On the Use and Abuse of History." These essays were written in the 1870s, about a hundred years before we were required to read them--in the mid-seventies, over a third of a century ago. Those of us who are boomers need to ponder that and think about our mortality and think about the horrors of the previous century--which took place shortly before, and shortly after, we were born. The death camps, Hiroshima and Cambodia and Rwanda. Say what you will, we are all responsible and there are no excuses.
But I agree with Pat Buchanan that we must continue to fight, each in his or her own way--especially, now, the Republicans. I wish them well. I won't join them just yet. I haven't felt the pain yet. One thing that Pat and Nietzsche (1844-1899) have in common is a deep distrust of liberalism, a contempt for mediocrity, and the virtue of praising what is noble and blaming what is ignoble. There is this fire in Buchanan, this Nietzschean fire; it appears in the article published this morning, the one with the "fight" in the title. I think Nietzsche must be dancing in his grave. For he loved STRENGTH more than anything. Strength for what, you might ask. Strength for a certain "way of life." Strength and vitality for a NOBLE REGIME, a noble and beautiful way of life. Nietzsche, unlike Pat however, had an eternal contempt for liberal democracy. And Nietzsche had an abiding respect and admiration for the Jews--for their strength of character and the fight within them. He did not, though, love "parliaments" or "egalitarian democracies." Again, the "softness" there was repugnant to him. Today, Pat is calling for the antithesis of softness; he is calling for toughness, for the FIGHT--a smart fight, not a dumb one. Whether Bush's fight was a smart one or an ill-advised one perhaps remains to be seen. We may live to see the day in which Chris Matthews will be a strong ally of Bush-Cheney; Matthews and Cheney united, in "hardball," against the extremists, who have landed in America.
As for the socialism and secularism that Prager talks about, needless to say, Friedrich Nietzsche shared an unspeakable contempt for this, especially the socialism. But also, if you read carefully, the secularism. For it was the faith of the Jews, as Nietzsche understood full well, that gave them their inner strength. And inner strength and virtue and authentic manliness oftentimes manifest themselves, "appear on the stage," as martial valor. Witness Bush and Cheney and Company. Witness the inner strength of our Holy Father.
You turn the Cross upside down--and it becomes a sword.