We who have a different faith
–, we who consider the democratic movement
to be not merely an abased form
of political organization, but rather
an abased (a diminished) form of humanity,
a mediocritization
and depreciation of humanity in value:
where do we need to reach with our hopes?

– Towards new philosophers,
there is no alternative;
towards spirits who are strong and original enough
to give impetus to opposed valuations and initiate
a revaluation and reversal of “eternal values”;
towards those sent out ahead;

towards the men of the future who in the present
tie the knots and gather the force
that compels the will of millennia into new channels.

To teach humanity
its future as its will, as dependent on a human will,
to prepare for the great risk
and wholesale
attempt at discipline and cultivation
and so to put an end
to the gruesome rule of chance and nonsense
that has passed for “history” so far
(the nonsense of the “greatest number” is only its latest form)

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Judith Butler, aphorism 203

The final day at the Coloma Michigan lake house, is colored with glow of another chapter of good memories from activities, stories told, serious conversations, even some jokes that “went sideways.” There is a lot to reflect upon with gratitude. Also there is a sadness because it is time to leave, to return to the day-to-day of everyone’s life.

While here – the adults remain aware of events reported in the news, especially of the attempted assassination of the Republican’s designated choice to occupy the White House, Donald Trump. Possessing an iphone insures being informed. Within our family the adults had mixed feelings about this shattering event at the Pennsylvania campaign rally.  And now the Republican candidate, the martyr who cheated death, resurrected as it were, with clinched fist raised in victory, proceeds to the Republican nomination in Milwaukee.

“And so it goes,” to quote Kurt Vonnegut one more time.

The image was captured the morning of our last day in Coloma.  The cherub, head bowed in sorrow, sits upon the stump of a once great tree, now in a state of advanced decay. All things are subject to time.  This means that nothing remains as it was at any point, implicated in the ebb of energy, to speak bluntly of life and death. My instinct tells me that the sun is setting upon the empire which America built in the aftermath of World War II. To “make America great again” is a fools errand for many reasons. Time moves us all in a single direction.

The future depends upon each of us. The horizon of the future is not a Trump property, or that of any ersatz “messiah.”

It is obvious from the quoted passage that Nietzsche was no fan of democracy.  He wrote that rule by the many, direction by the lowest common denominator, was just another gruesome episode of the “chance and nonsense” that we have labeled “history.”