Category: Philosophy
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Against Ressentiment
Few concepts which Nietzsche developed have been less controversial than ressentiment. I view this as a problem. It’s not unusual to find that ressentiment (and its cousin bad conscience) are at the core of Nietzsche’s thought. It’s also not unusual to observe that Nietzsche was stridently elitist and aristocratic. It’s interesting, then, that people never…
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Thoughts on Fascist Antisemitism
I briefly wanted to reflect on the political utility of minorities for fascists; this is expanding on a point I made in Against Ur-Fascism. I happened to be watching a video where one YouTube historian (What Why How) was criticizing another for their defense of the nazis. Specifically, what caught my attention was not anything…
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Juice: Will to Power and al-Kindi’s Stellar Rays
The concept of Juice is meant to help model how all interpersonal interactions work on an individual level: how does one person persuade another, for instance. Traditional philosophy doesn’t seem to deal with interactions at this particular level; it deals in ideals and generalities. For this reason, traditional philosophy did not give me the tools…
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Aphorism 7 – The Good King
When discussing Nietzsche and ressentiment, those who want to save Nietzsche often make the point that ressentiment is a key part of the idea of justice. In response, I would like to tell a story about The Good King. There once was a good king. One day, a man came to him and said that…
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Aphorism 6 – Morality
To oppose Chomsky’s view of moral systems, though, I do not believe moral systems (or any mental construct) are like biological organs, I believe they are like bone tools. Do we need them (or something better) to navigate the world, to get ourselves sustenance, to protect ourselves? Absolutely. But these are things that we have…
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Aphorism 5 – Technological Determinism
I place the term technological determinism most directly opposite “economic determinism”, though I wouldn’t say one excludes the other. To begin with, “technology” to me is not only the mechanical, motorized, or electronic technology that we usually think of, but also of philosophical technologies such as new concepts, different ways of reading, new mediums, etc.,…
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Aphorism 4 – Nietzsche on Jewish People
I expect that it will be some time until I can do a full treatment on this, but I want to make my case in brief just so I can say I made it. The case I want to make is that Nietzsche was an antisemite. I feel it’s important to make this case because…
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Aphorism 3 – Genealogy
I call myself an anti-Nietzschean but I must be fair. To begin in being fair, I’ll be fair to Foucault and many others in that I did need this pointed out to me (I can’t recall from where). Now to be fair to Nietzsche: in On the Genealogy of Morals he is not doing a…
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Notes on Eristics, or Disputation
I consider myself to be good at arguing. I don’t mean good at shouting over people or good at debate, I mean pretty specifically that I am good at arguing: when we’re not trying to prove a point, when we’re just scuffling, and I’m trying to get a win by the use of language. When…
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Aphorism 2 – The Clean Man
Many people have used concepts that Nietzsche introduced (or, at least, that they were introduced to by Nietzsche) and achieved great things with them. Foucault as I’ve mentioned, Deleuze, Derrida, Weber, Jung, Bataille, Heidegger, and so on. Do I reject concepts like ressentiment and master/slave moralities not because they are untrue but because they are…