Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Nietzschean Aphorism - Encouragement for Aspiring Philosophers

For any happen-chance readers who find their way over here before I have had the chance to publish any new material, (believe me its coming) here is an aphorism I wrote for my specialized study on Nietzsche course:

The zeitgeist remedy – I prescribe that those philosophers of the future begin each day with a healthy dose of Dionysian pessimism. Not just in their philosophizing, but in ‘Life’ itself. Western Europe has, for the most part, neglected that soteriology is simply a ‘matter of the heart’. That heaven is best found on earth and that ‘Life’ is its own justification. Thus if it is a mere psychological state of paralysis that Europe is after, I say let them have their decadent music-dramas, their slave virtues, their optimism, their Christianity! This is their pharmakon, the hemlock which they so willfully drink before asking of its contents. But for the philosophers of the future, I am most adamant and severe when I prescribe to you this remedy of pessimism. Enjoy it! For this may be the only cure for decadence; the only true cheerfulness that one can experience in life. Socrates found it best to knowingly drink his poison, and for this he has become known as the ugliest, nastiest Greek that had ever been produced. For his devaluation of ‘Life’ itself is of the highest offense. Europeans today are simply unaware of the pharamkon they drink. They sheepishly think that because someone two-thousand years ago once called it ‘living water’ that its nutritional value has been preserved. To you ‘Free Spirits’ to come, be faithful to all that ‘life’ offers; and do not be bedridden by what ails you, rather, make precisely this your cure.

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