From: Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@factory.net)
Date: Tue Sep 03 1996 - 22:32:28 MDT
At 8:23 PM 9/3/96, Steve Witham wrote:
>So I would like to ask the Nietzsche fans in the audience, first, whether
>the idea that peace can be compatible with exploration, makes any sense to
>you, and second, where I might concentrate my reading of N. to check
>his position on this.
First, yes, but it makes a *lot* more sense to me when I consider the idea
from within the Zen Buddhist tradition than it does to me when I consider
the idea from within any Western tradition that I'm likely to affiliate
myself with.
Second, Nietzsche was one of those unreasonable jerks who wrote about
everything that interested him in nearly each one of his books, and did
this for a reason, so it's hard to cite just one book as a place to
concentrate reading to check a position. He really wasn't much of one for
"positions" anyway... with Nietzsche a better metaphor would be
"trajectories". But he talks a lot about the intellectual conscience and
the quest for truth in THE GAY SCIENCE, and to a lesser extent in the first
major section ("On the Prejudices of Philosophers") of BEYOND GOOD AND
EVIL. He talks a lot about peace whenever he talks about "amor fati", which
shows up a lot more often in his later works, from ZARATHUSTRA on. (Hmm, I
wonder why.) But Nietzsche had dreadful health and was in pain more often
than not, so comfort just wasn't big on his list of priorities since it was
basically unobtainable for him.
The guy was a weirdo, what can I say.
Huge Tender Meaty Generalissimo Arkuat Beastmaster
http://www.c2.org/~arkuat <510-843-7256> arkuat@pobox.com
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