Like you I struggle to regain emotional equilibrium in the aftermath of the expressed will of the majority of my countrymen to cede the next four years of the Presidency to a con-man entertainer, to a life-long molester of females, to an insurrectionist. The White House, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court…
One of my objectives upon retiring is to read the great works of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. I have purchased several translations with this in mind. These tales remain a cornerstone of culture. Even in Plato’s day the bronze age saga of the great war between the Greeks and Troy was ancient….
Just suppose for a moment… If you could imagine the ultimate game, one which you and I are outside observers,… As nonparticipants, god-like spectators removed, we notice something: the unending suffering, nuanced, background discomfort all the way to extreme agony of the players. Additionally notice how the self-aware creatures assume their suffering is a…
Again I viewed night three of the televised speeches from the Democratic National Convention. As anticipated the parade of celebrities was preliminary to the headliner, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz’ nomination acceptance speech was a praise anthem to middle-class America. Does anyone know what “this” is anymore? Middle class is no longer cleanly…
These days, by contrast, when only the herd animal gets and gives honor in Europe [America], when “equal rights” could all too easily end up as equal wrongs (I mean, in waging a joint war on everything rare, strange, privileged, on the higher man, higher soul, higher duty, higher responsibility, on creative power and…
People in Europe [America] clearly know what Socrates claimed not to know, and what that famous old snake once promised to teach, – people these days “know” what is good and evil. Now it must sound harsh and strike the ear quite badly when we keep insisting on the following point: what it is…
Yesterday was spent at the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, illinois. The New York Times in a 2021 article lists 21 such museums in the United States. In my better judgment there will never be enough of such places. I am still reeling, trying to grasp the meaning of the images and the artifacts that I…
“How could anything originate out of its opposite?Truth from error, for instance?Or the will to truth from the will to deception?Or selfless action from self-interest?Or the pure, sun-bright gaze of wisdom from a covetous leer? Such origins are impossible,and people who dream about such thingsare fools – at best. Things of the highest valuemust…
The strongest knowledge (that of the unfreedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: For it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity. Human, All Too Human by Nietzsche, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, aphorism 50 I entertain many opinions. The most durable opinion that possesses me lately…
What is good? -All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? -Everything that is born of weakness. What is happiness? -The feeling that power is growing -That resistance is overcome. The Anti-Christ, by Friedrich Nietzsche, Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. aphorism 2 The good and…
