Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:03 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 2:07 pm

boyjohn wrote: ↑Sun Aug 03, 2025 7:50 pm " absence of God " " all things are permitted "
Who gives God things to permit, us!

Quite. We make it all up. And when in a shadow of a doubt we forbid that which is not permitted. And we make compulsory that which is. Funny buggers aren't we?

But the things the Godless make up in open full care-ful fair community discourse are of no account compared with the things the Goddy or beGodded make up above.

I understand that what Martin claims is that God is a human construct.

The human construct of supernatural authority is a heuristic device that is politically necessary for an elite of priests, or kings ,or priestkings to keep order in a society.

It's no claim. It's a fact. A scientific fact. With no gaps. As you go to demonstrate. It's to keep themselves at the top of the pyramid of privilege, to steal power.

‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

When Nietzsche’s Übermensch or West’s god speak, they breach the bounds of popular wisdom and common sense: “I am not a man, I am dynamite”, Nietzsche said explosively (Ecce Homo, 1888).

On the other hand, they are both mere mortals trying to situate themselves out in a world where those who are able to, come up with a narrative [philosophical or otherwise] that allows them to at least convince themselves they are several cuts above "the masses".

But, in my view, there is no way West comes even close to Nietzsche in the dynamite department. Nietzsche and his ilk yanked God out from under us. And the rest [philosophically or otherwise] is history. How does Kanye West compare to that? Is there something about him and his own pop culture agenda that I am missing?

Or shall we run this by Taylor Swift to get the lowdown?

Whereas the mere boaster uses language reactively, to build fortresses against his envy of other people, the Übermensch makes language a performance of active becoming. Their words are soaring wings, not peacock feathers.

Or, so they tell themselves? Otherwise, the Übermensch themselves no doubt will be squabbling over, say, the best of all possible Übermensch? Their own assessment of what it means to soar in a No God world?

The Übermensch is committed to affirming the overflowing abundance of life, which means confronting all that is painful and wretched. And we may ask, is this not a terrible cross to bear?

Okay, any Übermensch here? Tell us about it. Describe for us all the painful and wretched experiences you have been confronted with yourself. And how you dealt with them as an Übermensch.

And the cross I bear "here and now" revolves around around this:

"1] that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] that human morality in a No God world revolves largely around a fractured and fragmented assessment of right and wrong rooted existentially in dasein.
3] that oblivion is awaiting all of us when we die "

And in my view, ultimately, moral, political and spiritual philosophies abound that "somehow" enable the True Believers among us to insist that their own [and only their own] convictions make all that grim stuff go away.

Do we not imagine the Übermensch to walk with heavy feet, to look upon the world with tired eyes, to sigh the deepest of sighs? No. The Übermensch is possessed of an ability to transmute heaviness into lightness. They spurn the dignity of sorrow. They laugh, dance and play. They take their cross and waltz with it. Life’s abysses reverberate with their laughter.

So much for "the unbearable lightness of being" then? Though, sure, if there are Übermensch among us who are in fact able to act in this world as it is described philosophically above, more power to them? I'd just appreciate more detail regarding how that has unfolded given their own interactions with others in the is/ought world.

I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

Just as Nietzsche counsels us to be wary of our pity for other people, so too must we be wary of other people’s admiration for us.

Why is this? Because, well, life is existential. Pity and admiration are both words you can look up in the dictionary. But how they are understood by particular people in particular sets of circumstances can vary considerably. Even in entirely conflicting ways. Then the part where some feel pity and admiration for that which others feel pitiless and loathing.

Admiration conscripts us into serving others as their guides, but the Übermensch is “a law only for my own; I am not a law for all”. The Übermensch is engaged in the destruction of idols, including morality, not the creation of new ones.

Right, like once you recognize that you yourself are an Übermensch, whenever you bump into others who think the same, you'll all agree on a course of action that reflects the brand spanking new world order? Masters and slaves? Ubermen and Last Men?

But: you're on top not as a reflection of might makes right but as the embodiment itself of right makes might.

Whatever, for all practical purposes, this means?

Being admired precludes the exercise of those instincts that delight in war – the very instincts that for Nietzsche constitute our freedom: “One has renounced the great life when one has renounced war” (Twilight of the Idols). With the final line of the song West writes: “Ain’t no way I’m giving up, I’m a god”: the warrior instincts of West as a god mean that his is a life unblighted by regret.

I'll tell you who delights in war these days: https://www.thelastbearstanding.com/p/m ... al-complex

So, where does West fit into all of this? And to the extent he would describe himself as a warrior, what actual battles has he fought in?

Also, let's not forget those among us who regret absolutely nothing that they do because they are sociopaths.

'I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than HumanDavid Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

Yet despite the similarities between West’s god and Nietzsche’s Übermensch, the following three lines also show their profound differences:

"I am a god
Even though I’m a man of God
My whole life in the hands of God”

How does this not mean only that which West himself thinks the words mean? The same with anyone who might think more or less the same.

In other words, from my frame of mind, words of this sort can mean any number of conflicting things to any number of conflicted people. Those folks, for example, who insist it is only what they believe the words mean that count.  

Rather than seeing life as a kind of submission to the embracing care of a higher being, Nietzsche believed that ‘life itself is the will to power’ (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886).

Will to power! One of those expressions that can often sound bold to the ear. And as such can take on an importance in someone's life well beyond his or her actually being able to finally pin down -- philosophically? morally? politically -- what it means. 

On the one hand, it sounds like something that might be embraced by those who practice might makes right. On the other hand, for many Nietzscheans, it's not that at all. Any number of Ubermensch exercise their will to power because they deem themselves to be worthy of it. It's more about their self-righteous assumptions regarding the masters and the slaves in a "God is dead" world.

We are not, as Darwin thought, primarily driven by a will to survive. To define life as the opposition to death offers no clear idea of what life itself is. On the contrary, Nietzsche wants to characterise life as something that cannot be understood simply in its relation to death. It is more than the mere flight from its absence. It is, for Nietzsche, the will to grow, expand, and dominate.

Now all we need are the Nietzsheans among us to come down out of the philosophical clouds and note how they practice the will to power themselves in their day to day interactions with others. Interactions in particular in which value judgments come into conflict.

And one by one by one even the Ubermensch will tumble over into an abyss that may or may not be oblivion.

Mitchell Heisman

There is a very popular opinion that choosing life is inherently superior to choosing death. This belief that life is inherently preferable to death is one of the most widespread superstitions. This bias constitutes one of the most obstinate mythologies of the human species.

Gods and religions some suspect.

Uncertain of uncertainty, skeptical of skepticism, it seems that the most important question is whether there is an important question.

Next up [or not]: whether there are important answers.

What does despair mean to someone who interprets that emotion as a chemical reaction in the brain?

See, I told you.

If there is no extant God and no extant gods, no good and no evil, no right and no wrong, no meaning and no purpose: if there are no values that are inherently valuable; no justice that is ultimately justifiable; no reasoning that is fundamentally rational, then there is no sane way to choose between science, religion, racism, philosophy, nationalism, art, conservatism, nihilism, liberalism, surrealism, fascism, asceticism, egalitarianism, subjectivism, elitism, ismism. If reason is incapable of deducing ultimate, non-arbitrary human ends, and nothing can be judged as ultimately more important than anything else, then freedom is equal to slavery; cruelty is equal to kindness; love is equal to hate; war is equal to peace; dignity is equal to contempt; destruction is equal to creation; life is equal to death and death is equal to life. Nihilism represents the ultimate logical conclusion of our great values and ideals- because we must experience nihilism before we can find out what value these "values" really had.”

Pick 3:

1] new post
2] new thread
3] new forum

Now put them in the correct order.

I might be a nihilist except that I don’t believe in anything.

So, is that the same as or different from believing in nothing?

To be serious about an idea, one must push it to its most extreme consequence and conclusion. Are moderns serious about the idea that biology does not matter? Are moderns willing to push economic materialism to its logical conclusion?

You tell me.

‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

Life exists either actively or reactively. The active will to power creates its own values; it remakes the world in its own image and confidently seeks to destroy all that impedes it. The reactive will to power is not the source of its own values; it has no confidence in itself. It exercises its power by denying the values of the active.

Back to the part whereby, in being an Ubermensch, you accumulate any number of assumptions regarding the best of all possible No God worlds. And, again, if every single Ubermensch shared the same convictions regarding this...?

That would be intriguing to say the least.

To me, it would be analogous to all Kantians around the globe not only embracing moral obligations, but all agreeing on what actions and reactions must be embodied by those who wish to think of themselves as rational and virtuous human beings. Given particular sets of circumstances.

We act and then react to others who then react to our own reactions given what they imagine the most reasonable actions and reactions must be. Their very own, say. The rest being history if you get my drift.

Lacking the strength to say ‘Yes’, it asserts itself by saying ‘No’. The reactive will to power is dependent on the values it opposes. If it were to destroy these values, it would instantaneously destroy itself. Those enslaved to their reactive attitudes are both too weak to create, and too weak to destroy.

What on Earth and for all practical purposes does this mean? If you basically agree with it, how then is it applicable to your own interactions with others that come into conflict?

In other words, destroying what values and replacing them with what other values in a world teeming with deeply conflicted accounts of what actually does constitute "the best of all possible worlds".

Then the part where moral nihilists of my ilk become "fractured and fragmented" in a No God world said to be "beyond good and evil".

‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

As he went sniffing through history he heaved with disgust upon encountering Christianity and its virtues of compassion, self-sacrifice, and equality. Nietzsche thought that Christian ethics is the very antithesis of the concept of life. Christianity believes that we are forlorn sinners in need of salvation, too weak to survive without constant care, too lost to cope without universal laws and subsequent judgment, each of us awaiting the ultimate solution to the problem of existence – eternal peace in a heavenly hereafter.

On the other hand, when it comes down to "sniffing through history", Nietzsche, much like the rest of us, took out of it what he first put into it...his very own moral, political, philosophical and religious prejudices. As though assumptions regarding "will to power", "Übermensch", "last men", "eternal return", "perspectivism", "the death of God", and the distinction made between "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" can be pinned down such that all historians can agree on what they meant to Nietzsche and the extent to which what they meant to Nietzsche can be demonstrated to encompass that which all rational men and women are then obligated to accept if they they wish to be thought of as rational.

To Nietzsche these ideas constitute a total devaluation of our terrestrial lives. But Nietzsche wants to emphasise that this story is still in the service of the will to power. To him Christianity is a concerted effort on the part of the weak to subjugate the strong and suppress the healthy.

This is a classic assumption, in my view. In other words, some will embrace it just as whole-heartedly as others will flat out reject it. And both historically and culturally, human communities have come up with any number of "for all practical purposes" "rules of behavior" that would seem to lean in one direction here rather than another. Then the part political economy plays in sustaining one or another rendition of the "deep state".

Unable to create its own values, the reactive will to power parasitically exerts itself by negating life-affirming values. Whereas the active will to power creates a Yes-saying ‘master morality’, in which good is contrasted with bad, the ‘slave morality’ of the reactive will to power contrasts good with evil.

Then back to the part where those here who accept this note how it is pertinent existentially to their own interactions with others in which assessments of "the meaning of life", "morality" and "metaphysics" come into conflict. Why one set of assumptions arriving at one set of conclusions rather than another?

Given particular sets of circumstances. 

‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than Human
David Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

Nietzsche’s Post-Human

West’s implication that there is something deficient about mere humanity places him well in the company of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both see themselves as outsiders. Nietzsche felt disconnected from his profession (his work was generally ignored), his nation (he spent much of his life outside of Germany, alternating between Switzerland and Italy) and his epoch (‘a weak age’).

On the other hand, I suspect any number of "mere mortals" reacted to Nietzsche as they did because he yanked God out from under them. And even though historically there were any number secular facsimiles to choose from, they only take you to the grave.

Similarly, I believe any number of "mere mortals" react to me in much the same way. What if the "human condition" really is essentially meaningless and purposeless? What if objective morality does give way [reasonably] to a fractured and fragmented moral philosophy in a No God universe? What if death does end in oblivion?

Or what if we are to nature what robots are to us?

But more provocatively, Nietzsche felt disconnected from his species: “Disgust at mankind… has always been my greatest danger” (Ecce Homo, 1888).

Though not unlike any other such reaction to the world around us, there does not appear to be a one size fits all assessment. In other words, how on Earth would philosophers go about determining if "disgust at mankind" ought to be the reaction of all rational men and women to the human species?

Like West, he heard no power in the assertion, ‘I am human’. He thought that being human was a state to be overcome; humanity’s finest moment will be the day it becomes something else entirely, something better. The future belongs to this new creature, the Übermensch or ‘overman’ (‘superman’).

Now, I've come to believe this indicated an attempt on Nietzsche's part to offer "mere mortals" in a No God universe hope that there was still a hierarchy to be had between those deemed to be "one of us" [the Übermensch] and those deemed to be "one of them" [the Last Men]. Not only that but what if there was hope for immortality:

"And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we lived we’re gonna live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I’ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." woody allen

Still, I suspect those of Allen's ilk would no doubt jump at the chance to actually believe in anything pertaining to "the afterlife" that does not revolve around oblivion. I know that I would.

Now, where does Kanye West fit into all of this comparatively today?

Damned if I know.

‘I Am A God’: On Becoming More Than HumanDavid Birch compares the attitudes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West.

Do you, reader, sympathise with Nietzsche’s wish for a species revolution? Do you see some fundamental defect in humanity? If there were a referendum on human nature, would you vote to leave? How would you even describe human nature? Are there words elastic enough to encompass us all? Is there a common thread? A shared bond?

Let's run that by these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philosophies

...to see if we can come up with something in the way of a consensus regarding questions of this sort.

Well, if you get my drift, of course.

For Nietzsche, our bond is our sickness, and our sickness is a state he called nihilism. In short, a hatred of life.

Again, however, I suspect actual examples of those who do hate their life will revolve far more around circumstances than...philosophy? And for all those ubermensch and uberwomensch who, instead, love life, have they reached a consensus regarding what exactly that entails given specific sets of circumstances?

Nietzsche believed that to be human was to belong to a species-wide endeavour to stunt growth, enervate power, deaden vitality, limit strength, and poison joy; an endeavour impelled by so-called ‘reactive’ attitudes such as envy and the urge to avenge ourselves against the strong and vigorous.

This, one suspects, is why some will insist religions such as Abrahamism beget nihilism. In other words, in regard to actual consequences, they seek to create a world in which the ubermensch and uberwomensch are crushed under the weight of majority rules, democracy, the welfare state, etc.

On the other hand, for those of my own "rooted existentially in dasein" persuasion, religions, political ideologies, philosophical dogmas and the like reflect the opposite of nihilism. Instead, they embrace one or another One True Path to Enlightenment. Often though these moral and political objectivists will embrace a "by any means necessary" "anything goes" mentality/agenda that some will construe as nihilistic.

And although for Nietzsche there have been great ages – history is punctuated by glorious deviations from the norm – sooner or later the overwhelming weight of nihilism drags us back into the gutter. Greek culture was corrupted by the philosophers; Roman values by the morality of Judaism; Christ’s teachings by St Paul; and Napoleonic aristocracy by democratic ideals. This nihilism ensures that, contra Darwin, the strong and vital will always be defeated by the weak and envious.

This is the part where some ubermensch and uberwomensch will reconfigure "might makes right" into "right makes might". They are the masters not because they have sustained the brute power to rule but because they are entitled to rule being superior human beings.