Wednesday morning, I heard from my wife, daughter, and a friend, that the mad king shortly will be ensconced in the White House by the “will of the people.” Did we imagine that democracy was an American birthright, inviolate, a gift of the gods. What a sad illusion that was. We are awake now, too late.

I am drawn to the philosophy of Nietzsche because he was one of the first to characterize our ethos, the  post-industrial age of new tools, – how our tools so radically effect our relationships. Nietzsche was the madman crashing into illusory and placid market square to announce the murder of God, to articulate that all are accomplices to the deed.

These lines are a segment that describes “human nature” as essentially a violent contest between competing desires. The intellect is no match for an urge demanding satisfaction, and an alternate urge rooted in the body also laying claim to our finite quotient of attention, time, and effort for its satisfaction. This isn’t a pretty picture. And what about the notion of “mind over body”, that reason has veto power, mind positioned to manage the will… By Nietzsche’s lights a nonsensical assumption. Homo sapiens are animals and reason plays a supporting role, a minor character, by no means the leading actor in the human drama.

Yes, this is a brutal assessment, one that I do not like. Still, if we are to make common cause for one another and for our habitat, the earth – this evaluation must be taken seriously.

But the will to combat
the violence of a craving is beyond our power,
equally with the method we adopt
and the success we may have in applying it.

In all this process
our intellect is rather
merely the blind instrument
of another rival craving,
     whether it be the impulse to repose,
          or the fear of disgrace and other evil consequences,
               or love.

While “we” thus imagine
that we are complaining of the violence of an impulse,
it is at bottom merely one impulse
which is complaining of another,

i.e. the perception of the violent suffering
which is being caused us
presupposes that there is another
equally or more violent
impulse,
and that a struggle is impending
in which our intellect must take part.

The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by J. M. Kennedy, aphorism 109

*Latin for “the die is cast” attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on January 10, 49BC as his army crossed the Rubicon in defiance of the Senate. There was no return and a long season of civil war followed.