For me, Nietzsche is "the Last Christian", and every professed Christian who comes after him must first answer his critique. It is deeply humiliating as a Christian to recognise the power of his argument that ours is a slave religion and (worse) perhaps a slave morality. The deepest in faith would perhaps accept this and not be shamed by it, but not the laity. Nietzsche recognised that the brave spirit of the West had other sources, despite the attempts of elite ideology over hundreds of years to join together these strange bedfellows. Nietzsche is also the Last Christian because he stands at the end of moral time, at the abyss. He saw centuries ahead of his time and predicted the moral arc perfectly. Those who hate him from ignorance hear "God is Dead" as a shout of triumph, but (in my view anyway) it's really a scream of despair. But a prophet is always without honour, not least when he's painfully correct.
What an excellent formulation. The Last Christian, indeed. Though of course the man himself said that there had been only one true Christian, that being Christ … whom he greatly admired.
Very true. And apologies for echoing almost your exact interpretation of "God is dead" without crediting it. My only excuse is our minds move in the same track on this point.
Imagine being so stupid as to write an article on Nietzsche and not have the basic decency to point out that Zarathustra is in CONSTANT DIALOGUE with the JESUS of the NEW TESTAMENT, revealing you know nothing of the actual content of the book!
Congratulations, you have concocted an article at great length and also missed the most important part of Nietzsche's writings entirely.
Don't you think that sometimes it's better to just stay silent than reveal your great ignorance? The New Testament is the MOST REFERENCED text in his book. What a massive oversight on your part, and yet the stupid people of substack love it!
Congratulations, you are the great feeder of the ignorant masses.
You should not be humiliated by worshipping a God who taught us that to serve others is our highest purpose.
The alternative is serving oneself - that is the master morality if you like - and it is Satan's creed. Libido dominandi - and it leads nowhere good - neither for the master himself, nor for the men he masters.
the rules of hospitality exist in almost all ancient cultures. also, there were words, meaning "wealth sickness" for such deranged people. The ancient story of the Midas touch , and others suggest to me, that, serving others is part of humanity in all faiths. it depends on Whom you are serving, and this, can get pretty twisted. the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. how do christians prevent themselves from being politically weaponized again? like in the crusades, the inquisition, witch trials?
A fabulous feature of the book Creating Christ (leaving aside the theory of the Roman invention of Christianity) is a chapter documenting that contrary to Christian ideologists (and, perversely, Nietzscheans), the Romans did not need a Jewish cult to "teach" them compassion, which -- clementia -- was already recognized as a virtue. Indeed, the emperors were keen to portray themselves on coins etc. as acting compassionately. You could say this was hypocritical. but hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, as they say: it shows what the emperor's thought would be approved of. Most notably, Julius was famed for his clemency, which brought defeated foes into his coalition and added to his power and popularity. Hmmm, was this the origin of the other JC?
the 4 cardinal virtues of ancient rome (the virtues on which all other virtues are built) were temperance, courage, prudence and judgement. some of these words have fallen so far out of usage as to be unfamiliar. they do require a deeper understanding of the self to operate. "know thyself" above the temple of Apollo. to be Intemperate, would be uncivilized and definitely unfit to rule. One must be able to rule the self ,First before ruling others. So, in that sense i think the old faiths , at least demanded the appearance of self mastery. temperance might today be described as compassion. though that is more superficial way to describe it. appropriate treatment of each individual.
yes, i see compassion as very included in temperance, moderation of how your treat different people which includes compassion, since it is the one you really need to be emotionally mature to express. 2 year olds are not the best at compassion always.
Yes, words like guest and host have ancient and powerful roots. You are right Artemis. Pagans should not be grouped in with vitalists. Folkish is more ancient than that.
They're certainly distinct, yet the vitalist spirit is in many ways a reawakening of certain types of paganism … arguably, the deepest of the Aryan strains, which gave birth to most of Europe’s indigenous faiths, especially the Hellenistic variety.
I do think vitalism draws from folkism, but I view it only as a furthering of Western esoteric thought. It reminds me of the traditionalists like Guenon or even Evola, but instead of focusing on religion they focus on lifestyle. This difference between pagans and vitalists is as vast as that between Christians and vitalists - pagans have various views on the divine which ultimately go beyond what I've seen any vitalist writer or stacker try to cover. Divinity and hierophany are important aspects of religion, but they can remain cerebral in an esoteric school, which I think vitalism is in a way.
I think there is crossover obviously between paganism and vitalism, but I really do think vitalists are just inspired by pagan myth and ethics.
By studying the bible with an emphasis on Christ's teachings and then sticking to what you learn.
It's not a lost cause but sometimes it seems that way.
One thing which is a nice long step towards weaponization which nearly all Christians in America do is worship the flag. I'm pretty sure the flag is as false an idol as ever there was. Good luck trying to get American Christians to listen to you though.
PS - you mean like in the crusades, the inquisition (although it's not clear to me that Jesuits are truly Christians), witch trials, and the current US "modern crusade"?
yes. and i do not accept the no true scottsman fallacy of "not real Christians" . there are at least 500 different denominations, so that will never be settled. recall how long the Catholics and the protestants went at each other in Ireland. not at all a peaceful religion, because of its warlike exclusivity and apocalyptic needs for a scapegoat. it will never make a stable and just society. it is a colonizer of the minds of humanity, that is what it does very, very well.
I understand the concept of different denominations of Christian faith.
However it is possible that the society of Jesus is an occult society which has infiltrated the church and actually - at the higher levels - knowingly worships Lucifer. And when an Irishman dons a kilt, fakes a Scottish accent, infiltrates a drinking den while sipping entirely the wrong type of whiskey and sports underwear where there should be none - then one can legitimately claim that he is no true Scotsman and it is not a fallacy to do so.
I would also question whether you can attribute sectarian violence in Ireland to "Christianity" for at least two reasons:
(1) It is entirely possible that Christianity was what kept the island as peaceful as it was - and that without Christianity things would have been much bloodier. See Gaza for an example.
(2) The struggle in Ireland was primarily a sectarian struggle between two different ethnic groups. The two ethnic groups happened to follow different denominations of Christianity - and therefore fastened on that as a way of measuring who was on which side - but I doubt anything would have been any different if Britain, and therefore the conquering folk had remained Catholic. They still would have been oppressive conquerors and the (justified) grievances would have been the same.
The inquisition is also interesting because one could argue that for such an "ideological cleansing" remarkably few people died - about 3,000 were killed over several decades - far fewer than are murdered in a typical American big city over the same period. Perhaps Christianity acts as a brake on misbehaving rulers and leaders - resulting in fewer deaths when things do go wrong than in a religion/culture which does not so sternly condemn violence and killing.
well, it was not the first clash between sects. i was thinking of a more inclusive approach. because being exclusive always Always causes conflict, because it is a form of not sharing. And sharing is an essential part of humanity. https://artemis6.substack.com/p/the-virtues-revisited/comment/60626877
A hypothetical example would be there’s a mine of rare minerals in some sh*t hole & the local tribes there just go around hacking each other with machetes over jiu-jiu magic.
Instead of paying them for their “property” which is under the ground where they accidentally live, might be better to just go take it & push them aside. To them we’re just another tribe with better machetes. If the benefits are worth the costs I would be willing to. Might even be worth it for the adventure itself.
If we use the minerals to create a beautiful future cool, but I’m not trying to secure anything by conquest much less trade on behalf of fat slobs who watch porn all day. Maybe they should go fight with machetes themselves for that.
Why do we have “free markets” for shitty life choices but not free markets for war? Slobs can’t defend themselves as individuals, much less as nations.
The world I want is worth fighting for, others not so much.
Perhaps an alternative is for the master to serve God or a higher purpose of some form, thereby aligning the purposes of the (Christian) slaves with the purposes of the master who becomes a slave to God. Just spitballing here… perhaps this arrangement worked out well some time in the past. The battle between church and state (monarchs) seemed to oscillate back and forth from one side of the tug of war gaining too much power then the other taking it back, perhaps with periods of balance between times of conflict.
Maybe you should be, tho. The Christian God I know taught me that my highest purpose is to be united with him in eternity. The two of us get united bodily once per week, a foretaste of our eventual union.
To me this is just babble word salad. Though poetic, sounds exactly like self serving narcissism. “I care so much about other people it’s me who gets to go to heaven”.
In the end anyone who wants eternal salvation by servicing others, is just being selfish, but worse pretending not to.
I want a better world for my children & my people. Africa can starve to death I will not adopt their orphans. 🤣
Unfortunately, I can't respond to you while what I wrote is a babble word salad to you. We're not talking the same language while that's the case, we can't communicate on this topic.
Yea “united with him in eternity” isn’t saying anything at all a pragmatic person can understand. I appreciate you acknowledging that. Sounds nice though!
> Folkish paganism is traditional paganism as outlined by historical studies.
So are you the guys who reject the entire Axial Age and insist that, e.g., Thor is a literal dude in the sky with a literal hammer that makes lightning?
But is the premise that Christianity is a slave morality really unassailable? The early church was clearly a mixed group of considerable diversity; rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Greek, male and female. If the premise falls, what is left of the argument and why must I answer it?
I agree completely that the proclamation of God's death is a cry of despair. "Without God, all things are permissible" and Nietzsche seemed to have no illusion of the hellscape to which that would lead.
That's an excellent question. I'd say that N’s conception of Christianity as embodying slave morality goes beyond the identities of its early constituents, and extends to the imagery and goal-orientation of the faith as well.
Considering imagery, the body of Christ often refers to itself as a flock of sheep. This is a far cry from the metaphor that prevailed on the steppe, which was as a pack of wolves, the identity of which the Proto-Indo-Europeans adopted during their koryos for thousands of years. I think that captures something fundamental about N’s distinction.
Regarding the sectors of society from which early Christians were drawn, it's certainly true that they drew from all of them. However, not all cults in that time were so open. Mithras, for example, was a very popular god indeed, particularly with legionaries. I do not think there were any slaves at all amongst those admitted to the brotherhood of the Mithraic grottos; nor I believe were there any women. Seen from this perspective, the fact that Christianity admitted slaves (and women) to its rites at all, let alone with the status of spiritual equals, may be the significant fact.
Not that the church was unique in allowing the low to participate, far from it; slaves too need religions, always have, and always will. All humans do.
I wonder if N spent more time observing the students and not enough time studying the Master. The students can be quite disappointing, speaking for myself, of course.
It is certainly true that one can draw almost any conclusion about Christianity by studying any given group of followers or "followers" and come to conclusions diametrically opposed to the Teachings.
Of course there are many rabbit trails leading from that statement, including what is translated slave in many verses. The word servant is quite often used and as Jesus demonstrated is more to the point. He was no slave, he was the King of Heaven and yet took on the role of servant. He taught his followers that they were coheirs with him of all that the Father had given him and yet were to consider themselves servants to the very least of their fellow humans because of the status as kings.
One may accept the teachings as Truth or reject them, but to confuse what Christians have done with what they are called to do is an avoidable error on anyone's part.
It seems, if one meets a seeming paradox, one should seek to understand. Perhaps N was not in a state of mind to do so, and your exposition may help us understand the man at his best and worse. For that I am grateful. I wonder that N did not have a more clear understanding of this having been raised in religion. Did he raise up a straw man rather than a superman?
"He taught his followers that they were coheirs with him of all that the Father had given him and yet were to consider themselves servants to the very least of their fellow humans because of the status as kings."
The problem is that A) this is completely unworkable outside of tiny homogeneous communities of high-trust people, which this attitude actively works to destroy and B) this in practice leads to ethno-masochism supporting infinity immigrants from everything because look at all those poor starving brown people.
I don’t know what "tiny" means but I agree that Christianity is meant to be lived in community. It was never intended, and is not, a state religion. Christians are called to live facing the larger world and to live in that larger world with the same ethic they live within their community, subject to wisdom and prudence. Your point B has nothing to do with Christianity. That people, well intentioned or not, misunderstand or misuse a religion or philosophy is no commentary on that religion or philosophy.
That's hilarious. So you openly admit that your conception of the religion doesn't actually have any solutions besides "hope they don't kill us" and it is, literally, a slave's morality.
Yes it is. Hell, even Jesus said "by their fruits you shall know them", ie. results matter.
The OP insists that "In and of themselves neither [master nor slave morality] are good or bad" when called on about the fact the Nietzsche much more resembles a slave then a master. However, then they proceed to act as if Master morality is good and Slave morality is bad.
After spending the entire article talking about "master and slave morality" the article says:
> But I do not think that the answer is as simple as returning to the bosom of the holy mother church, either. The historiographical, archaeological, textual, geological, and astronomical discoveries of the scientific age that shattered Nietzsche’s faith, and the simple faith of so many others, cannot be undone ... not without the species giving itself a self-inflicted lobotomy. What has been learned cannot unlearned; what has been seen cannot be unseen. Naive innocence cannot be regained merely by wishing it so.
Notice that the above reason has nothing to do with master and slave morality, and the above problem is in fact worse for the "Master" Pagan religions. Christianity is probably reconcilable with science. No one is going to take the "Thor's hammer" theory of lightning seriously.
When asked to rebut the specific points of Nietzsche that you had dismissed, you instead deflect to attacking this specific John Carter essay and nebulous "Nietzscheans".
lightening is just a symbol of electricity. you know thor has 2 iron gloves ( + and - ?) that must be used to harness this hammer, and a belt called ground, or earth "gerd" ? even more recent tales like jack and the beanstalk, and Paul Bunyan are just coded language for real things. If you know how to look. None of our ancestors were ignorant savages, i think.
According to a Nietzschean Will to Power isn't Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner the ultimate Ubermensch, the triumph of will over biology itself?
You may object that desiring to change gender is not a suitably "noble" pursuit, but why are you more entitled then a Gold Medal Olympian to determine what's noble?
> It is deeply humiliating as a Christian to recognise the power of his argument that ours is a slave religion and (worse) perhaps a slave morality.
Just how the fuck can it be a slave religion if you're *literally commanded upon pain of Hell* to live like a master one day per week?!? That's what Sunday is. It's practice for the time in Heaven when you'll be sitting on the THRONE OF GOD together with GOD ALLMIGHTY and rulling the Universe.
You're commanded to kneel - that's not living like a master that's practicing being a good little slave.
Christian Heaven is basically eternal slavery - you spend all day every day singing God's praises - joining the choir of angels is in no way a form of mastery.
Ah! This is finally the moment when I can talk about that little bit of Protestant ignorance. :)
> you spend all day every day singing God's praises
As a Catholic, I have not really seen or heard that many depictions of Heaven. After all, writers of the Bible consistently state that what comes after is outside current human comprehension. The prayers at Mass reinforce this idea, with the priest praying stuff like "let us receive in open what we today only receive in mystery". The witness of saints, particularly visions of Heaven, tend to be likewise devoid of detail. There's plenty of speculation, though, but only a few hard facts.
Now, this idea of Heaven as praising God probably comes from that quote I can't find now that basically says "what God wants for you is to praise him". And then that spiraled out of control, giving people like Mark Twain ample room to point out the idiocy of the concept - and in so doing attack the entire edifice.
But the fact is just that Gods wants us to praise him. No qualifier. And another fact is that God is just, without injustice. Query: is it just to praise somebody who didn't really do all that much for you? After all, if Jesus "died for us" but that only got us constant singing - yelling - for all eternity, there isn't too much good to be had, is there? So, in general, we can say that unconditionally praising God, without having a particular justification for it, is unjust. Yet God is not unjust and would never accept unjust praise.
If God doesn't accept unjust praise, and if people praise God in Heaven, it can only follow the praise given is just. And further, since Heaven is normally understood to be perfection, we can surmise the praise offered God is perfect - meaning spontaneous.
Pulling it all together, Heaven is so good is elicits a spontaneous praise for God.
Further evidence for this comes from base Catholic doctrine, which says God created the world so the world would know of his glory. God's glory isn't increased by creating the world, instead it's made knowable.
> You're commanded to kneel
I'm also pursued by God for a union, alike to the union of a man and woman in sex. That's not my imagination, that's the teaching of Catholic Church: Christ and Church are alike husband and wife (Ephesians 5:32). Furthermore, that's the entire purpose and point of Eucharist. So, given that, am I really commanded to kneel, or is your assesment missing important bits?
This is straight copium. If I'm the master in heaven, then who exactly spends eternity singing MY praises?
You're justifying the ostensibly divine wisdom in heaven being a form of voluntary slavery, while trying to pass it off as mastery and hoping nobody notices the bait and switch.
You misunderstand the meaning of mastery. To be master is not to be praised, it's to have your will be done. And if Revelation says "I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne." (Rev 3:21), then I don't see how you can deny your will be done in Heaven.
Aha! But you have an opening! What if your will conflicts with some other will! AHA!
Well, then the judges come in. Matthew 19:28, although I admit Jesus might have meant something else. At any rate: this objection I raised applies anyway, to any situation where there are two or more masters (really, when there are two or more wills), which is percisely the situation that would exist if the world were populated by ubermensch. And if you say "only the guy at the top is master, all other are slaves", then you'll be a slave forever either way since I can not in any way envision you as being on the top of any pyramid - except the one you imagine in your head - so you might as well drop the objection you hypothetically would be holding. :)
And yet it's still somebody else's throne. What you're describing is more like a dad allowing his kid to sit behind the steering wheel with the engine off and pretend to drive while making vroom vroom noises.
Notice revelation says "my throne" and "his throne" but never "our throne" and certainly not "your throne".
Our ancestors did what they had to do to survive, so we could be here, and for this i am thankful. there is no shame in survival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53PDO7OQSTs
Hmmm. One of the central issues here is the utter lack of humility evinced by “secularists,” “modernists” .. People, like Nietzsche, who believe that “Darwin (science) has falsified the creation account in Genesis..” People whose minds and souls have been eaten away by rationalistic reductivism, crude empiricism, who think that debauched sybarite Hume was a genius.
The power of Christianity lies in paradox. You touch on the essence of the issue here: Nietzsche condemned the humility of God as “slave morality.” Calling poor Fred a gamma is precisely right, because his ethical imagination is basically that of an alienated teenaged boy raging against the social hierarchy of secondary school- it’s all about Apollonian beauty/power and Dionysian poetic hedonism for him, and he is using the exquisite intellectual power that he has (“I am so clever..”) to create and reinforce his own standing within that milieu. It’s all completely superficial, ultimately vapid, meaningless and stupid, and poor Fred knew it, which is definitely one of the reasons why he lost his mind in the end.
There is no such thing as an übermensch apart from Jesus Christ. No one else has ever claimed to be able to redeem us each, as an individual person, from death.. All the pagan titans, gods, heroes are tawdry simulacra of his manifestation of divinity in history. All of us, even the strongest, most beautiful, most intelligent, will decay, become stupid, weak, ugly, then die. Every trace of our existence will ultimately fade into the entropic penumbra of quantum death. There is no possible hope of individual transcendence of this howling void, no matter how valiantly we struggle against it.. We are each apportioned 120 years, no more.. Then..
What? What hope do we have? Is there any hope for the neuro atypical kid being bullied in the play ground? The Chinese worker drone being slaved to death 12 hours a day in that sweatshop? The addict derelict on the street, enslaved by his endocrine response?
The Nietzschean will sneer at these slaves with contempt. As his own paltry strength entropically fades, as he also withers away in time.
But maybe Christ’s inversion of worldly power is, in fact, real. Maybe the cruelty of this world is the true illusion. Maybe justice and mercy will in fact reign. May the infinite power of God is in the full service of goodness, joy, beauty and truth, and all of this not merely in the end.. But now, right now, amongst us here, today. Maybe willing the good of (loving) your enemies is the best and most effective way of defeating them, because maybe by willing the good of your enemies you might covert them to being your friends.. And maybe if this divine love we are called to show even the most recalcitrantly wicked is emphatically rejected, our love in the face of their evil might both sanctify us, as well as those who witness it, both now and in the end..
Maybe power and beauty are not truly material at all, and maybe Apollonian aesthetics are superficial; maybe Dionysian raptures are all ultimately vapid.. Maybe true beauty is transcendent, maybe the only true happiness is in the joy of self sacrifice, the emptying of oneself into the flame of eternal love..
Is there anything more 'vital' than defeating death itself? Any will more powerful than subjugating yourself into a sacrifice for all mankind, even though you could kill all your enemies with a snap of your fingers? I understand that Nietzche saw a decline, and his diagnosis was painfully accurate, however, he got christian morality all wrong. Christ is the ultimate man. "The first man, Adam, was created a living being; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit." Thanks to him we are not bound as animals by the infra-rational, nor made hopeless by the rational.
Vitalism measures vital ness by only human standards. What standards judge the maker of reality? He does what he does, and what he says is, is, without emotional affect.
Human standards are not divinely inspired? Are you sure? It seems to me that being expresses in itself inherent standards. It seems to me there is, contra nihilists, a Will expressed within Being, Nature. It seems to me, for example, that there is a universal morality expressed in comedy..
Citing Don Quixote, upon his ass: “I shall not consider such a mount a dishonor, because I remember reading that when Silenus, the good old tutor and teacher of the merry god of laughter, entered the city of one hundred gates, he rode very happily mounted on a beautiful jackass.”
Sorry. That was glib, but you must have sensed it coming. Forgive me, permit me being a bit dogmatic, here, in definition of terms:
What is Love? Love is Will in affirmation of, congruance with Being. When we say “God is Love” this is what we are intimating: Creation is personal, and the Creator creates and sustains, affirms us in our personhood.. When we love, we affirm our and the other’s personhood, personhood being iconographic of divinity.
(An aside, here: note that the act of creation differs from subsistence only as the first leap of the fountain differs from the leap’s continuance. When we love, we participate in subsistence. This means for example that love is “procreative” and sexually fecund, while evil is sexually sterile.)
In this ontological sense “evil” is desire in negation of Being.. It is will “incurvatus in se,” solipsism of self deification, idolatry, a denial of the source of our being, denial of other people’s personhood iconic of that divinity.
Love is in existential terms the negation of willed evil, the ultimate disruption of mimetic hatred and violence. This is the ontological meaning of the Cross, the Crucifixion: “There is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for one’s friends.” And, “he loved us, when we were still in our sins.”
I’ve been thinking about your comment, Anonymous. I’m wondering if you are Muslim, because you seem to be verging on pure voluntarism here.. I’m a Catholic, I don’t think you can parse Act from Will, or Will from Nature. Act, Will and Nature are triune unity, expressing Being.
Concerning God’s “affect,” I think you are essentially right in a sense, but essentially wrong in another. The pith of being is in serenity. Serenity is its own sort of pure affect: Affectless Essential Affect, if you will, “All things being reconciled within Himself..” But being, all things manifested in time in multiplicity are a tragic comedy, full of dramatic resonance, and thus emotion.
The Bible is in my reading incessant tragedy culminating in pure comedy. The Biblical narrative, particularly the Gospels, seems to me to be very funny. So many unexpected things happen, there are subtle inversions atop of subtle inversion.. Just one example amongst many dozens, is how Christ enters Jerusalem mounted on a donkey. This is God mocking every conquerer in history. It’s very funny, if you think about it..
"There is no such thing as an übermensch apart from Jesus Christ. No one else has ever claimed to be able to redeem us each, as an individual person, from death.. All the pagan titans, gods, heroes are tawdry simulacra of his manifestation of divinity in history."
This is, for anyone who knows anything at all about religions, ancient and modern, an utterly laughable claim. Immortality for believers is among the single most common inducements offered by religions of all ages, and to claim that no one else has ever alleged that as a reward is simply beyond parody.
“If Christianity at its core is slave morality redeemed, then what is master morality redeemed? Can we not draw upon both? One as armour and shield, the other as flaming sword?”
Christianity was one of many Cults until Constantine has his soldiers paint it’s symbol on their shields with the words “In this sign be victorious.” It was probably a Fish symbol not the Cross and he won the battle of Milvan Bridge, killing the rival Emperor and taking the throne. He then has a trembling Pope dragged from the Catacombs, expecting death the Pope instead is informed he is now an Official Religion, and that of the Emperor as well.
… the poor man dies of strain within the year.
Constantine then codified Christianity in 325 at the Nicene Council.
The next major step for Christians and Europe is the Coda of the social revolution in Europe begun by monks at Cluny when Pope Urban II declared Crusade in 1095, pronouncing that any man who dies on Crusade shall go to heaven… reversing the prior condition that killing in war was the sin of murder requiring penance.. DEUS VULT (God Wills It) and in 1099 this raggedy Army from a barbaric backwater conquers all in its path and Jerusalem.
We can go on.
Crusades? Conquistadors?
The European conquests of colonies? All quite Christian, all quite masculine and warlike.
The Problem.
Liberals from the 18th century at least are very anti-church, to say the least.
In the 20th century both Communism and Nazism are anti-Christian, Communists far more. Later we have feminism which un-mans all its victims, regardless of creed. Masculinity is a mortal sin under Feminism and Modern Liberalism.
We certainly have a problem, that Christianity which is a Chief target and victim of modern Progressive government is nonsense.
It’s fair to say that outside of the Latin countries it doesn’t defend itself, that it’s present leadership is utterly unequal to worldly tasks.
But it’s not the source of weakness. The plague is modernity, Christianity isn’t the cure… but it’s not the problem. The Cure is Warrior masculinity. That’s not coming from our utterly feminized Churches (or in the case of Catholicism - worse, and I am Catholic).
But Gibbon wrote Gibberish whenever the Church or the Orthodox are concerned, and Nietzsche simply is wrong on the historical record… but probably correct on what he saw.
Not a solution, but in a country that will not have Men as leaders… Americans… not the problem.
Our real slave morality is we’re law abiding.
And henpecked Cucks.
Women voting…
Women will never elect the Men we need, nor allow it…
There is a competitive principal that says to figure out what your opponent (or enemy) is trying to do, and to not let him do it (the Belichick principal). This principal can be applied to all sports and competitive games, including warfare. In this case, I understand that my enemy in this spiritual war wants to separate me from my faith. I look at the teaching of atheism as a warfare tactic. It's enemy propaganda designed to demoralize us. Our enemies understand that a warrior can't function without his whole soul. That's why our enemies want to pick our souls apart. They want to say that our anger is evil and our faith is naive and stupid. Nietzsche is a good example of a warrior who couldn't function without faith. No warrior can. (I don't hate atheists and I venerate the work of poet/historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, a flag-waving atheist and author of good books who is new on substack: https://jmh170.substack.com/ I find I have a lot in common with anyone antagonizing priestcraft and mind control.)
Christianity is a freedom religion. Jesus freed us from Satan's moral system. Satan, whose name means prosecutor, is our accuser, and Jesus is the advocate of humanity before the throne of God. We don't have to follow 591 commandments like the ancient Hebrews. We have to accept forgiveness and pass it on. We don't win by crushing our enemies. We win by flipping them. It makes perfect sense to me that Christianity developed as a Roman slave religion. It gave hope to the slaves. That's what Christianity does. It gives back faith, hope, and love to us slaves, and it causes us to become free men and women. Christianity results in free independent ethical thinkers and actors. It is an alternative to being in lock-step with the devil's corporatist social hierarchy, in which no one enjoys any autonomy of thought or action, but all are slaves.
But before one can understand what Christianity is, he first has to define priestcraft, and understand that the priests don't offer real Christianity. The priests are the enemies of humanity. The priests have nothing to offer but superstition and mind-control. The established church is a false husk that must be shed. The whole cloth of the priests has been woven to shroud the gospel in mystery. All that cloth is about to be purged away.
The anti-status and anti-hierarchy speech of Jesus also makes perfect sense to me. I believe Satan is the top of all hierarchies of men. The incomplete pyramid (on the dollar bill) represents human hierarchy and we know what the Eye above the pyramid represents. The bottom of the pyramid is the plane (or the square). If we don't participate in the hierarchies of men, we are on the plane and on the square. That is where a Christian should be. Personal holiness becomes its own status system (a way to elevate oneself above others) and I'm very suspicious of anyone who makes a pretense to holiness. Finally, I'm reminded that the Tao Te Ching (the way of water), is to flow to the lowest point and create a level plane. In section 38, Lao Tzu proves that humble station is the basis of honor. Both Jesus's and Lao Tzu's philosophies antagonize hierarchical status systems, and offer an alternative.
Neechee (spelled as pronounced) is the lord of schizoposting, the absolute king of sounding like a ranting, raving lunatic, raging against the dying of the light and the horrible world he discovered. While I didn't read him seriously because I have a policy of not taking philosophers seriously, I had fun with his aphorisms.
He was the proto-red/blackpill imo, who also gets interpreted as arrogant asshole, the same way that Epicurus is the proto-basement dweller, who also gets interpreted as a super hedonist when that's not the case.
He'd probably also have a doompill substack plus a YT channel in the vein of dbdr/Millennial Steam where he rants about his mom making him go to something or his sister dragging him to her little Nueve Germania meetings, and so on.
Do you think his anime pfp would be Guts? Revy from Black Lagoon? Probably had an Evangelion phase in his youth.
For me, Nietzsche is "the Last Christian", and every professed Christian who comes after him must first answer his critique. It is deeply humiliating as a Christian to recognise the power of his argument that ours is a slave religion and (worse) perhaps a slave morality. The deepest in faith would perhaps accept this and not be shamed by it, but not the laity. Nietzsche recognised that the brave spirit of the West had other sources, despite the attempts of elite ideology over hundreds of years to join together these strange bedfellows. Nietzsche is also the Last Christian because he stands at the end of moral time, at the abyss. He saw centuries ahead of his time and predicted the moral arc perfectly. Those who hate him from ignorance hear "God is Dead" as a shout of triumph, but (in my view anyway) it's really a scream of despair. But a prophet is always without honour, not least when he's painfully correct.
What an excellent formulation. The Last Christian, indeed. Though of course the man himself said that there had been only one true Christian, that being Christ … whom he greatly admired.
Very true. And apologies for echoing almost your exact interpretation of "God is dead" without crediting it. My only excuse is our minds move in the same track on this point.
Imagine being so stupid as to write an article on Nietzsche and not have the basic decency to point out that Zarathustra is in CONSTANT DIALOGUE with the JESUS of the NEW TESTAMENT, revealing you know nothing of the actual content of the book!
Congratulations, you have concocted an article at great length and also missed the most important part of Nietzsche's writings entirely.
Don't you think that sometimes it's better to just stay silent than reveal your great ignorance? The New Testament is the MOST REFERENCED text in his book. What a massive oversight on your part, and yet the stupid people of substack love it!
Congratulations, you are the great feeder of the ignorant masses.
You are very smart. Go write your own article.
I already have. Try honesty next time.
>you didn’t mention a thing I think is important, but chose to focus on other things
>this is dishonest
You’re not well.
What an ignorant summary, you’re a good Christian liar.
You should not be humiliated by worshipping a God who taught us that to serve others is our highest purpose.
The alternative is serving oneself - that is the master morality if you like - and it is Satan's creed. Libido dominandi - and it leads nowhere good - neither for the master himself, nor for the men he masters.
the rules of hospitality exist in almost all ancient cultures. also, there were words, meaning "wealth sickness" for such deranged people. The ancient story of the Midas touch , and others suggest to me, that, serving others is part of humanity in all faiths. it depends on Whom you are serving, and this, can get pretty twisted. the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. how do christians prevent themselves from being politically weaponized again? like in the crusades, the inquisition, witch trials?
A fabulous feature of the book Creating Christ (leaving aside the theory of the Roman invention of Christianity) is a chapter documenting that contrary to Christian ideologists (and, perversely, Nietzscheans), the Romans did not need a Jewish cult to "teach" them compassion, which -- clementia -- was already recognized as a virtue. Indeed, the emperors were keen to portray themselves on coins etc. as acting compassionately. You could say this was hypocritical. but hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, as they say: it shows what the emperor's thought would be approved of. Most notably, Julius was famed for his clemency, which brought defeated foes into his coalition and added to his power and popularity. Hmmm, was this the origin of the other JC?
the 4 cardinal virtues of ancient rome (the virtues on which all other virtues are built) were temperance, courage, prudence and judgement. some of these words have fallen so far out of usage as to be unfamiliar. they do require a deeper understanding of the self to operate. "know thyself" above the temple of Apollo. to be Intemperate, would be uncivilized and definitely unfit to rule. One must be able to rule the self ,First before ruling others. So, in that sense i think the old faiths , at least demanded the appearance of self mastery. temperance might today be described as compassion. though that is more superficial way to describe it. appropriate treatment of each individual.
I thought temperance was essentially moderation.
Compassion appears nowhere among the cardinal virtues; hence it is added as one of the three heavenly virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
yes, i see compassion as very included in temperance, moderation of how your treat different people which includes compassion, since it is the one you really need to be emotionally mature to express. 2 year olds are not the best at compassion always.
i did not feel i was very clear, so i wrote an article about it. https://artemis6.substack.com/p/the-virtues-revisited/comment/60626877
Inquiring minds want to know!
Stawman. Even Aleister Crowley loves his friends.
What was different about Christ was not that his view on compassion was unique, it was that he taught people to love their enemies.
The Romans' track record in this department was sorely lacking.
That's because loving your enemies is both insane and objectively an evil thing to do. The results of doing so can be seen all around you, right now.
Yes, words like guest and host have ancient and powerful roots. You are right Artemis. Pagans should not be grouped in with vitalists. Folkish is more ancient than that.
They're certainly distinct, yet the vitalist spirit is in many ways a reawakening of certain types of paganism … arguably, the deepest of the Aryan strains, which gave birth to most of Europe’s indigenous faiths, especially the Hellenistic variety.
I do think vitalism draws from folkism, but I view it only as a furthering of Western esoteric thought. It reminds me of the traditionalists like Guenon or even Evola, but instead of focusing on religion they focus on lifestyle. This difference between pagans and vitalists is as vast as that between Christians and vitalists - pagans have various views on the divine which ultimately go beyond what I've seen any vitalist writer or stacker try to cover. Divinity and hierophany are important aspects of religion, but they can remain cerebral in an esoteric school, which I think vitalism is in a way.
I think there is crossover obviously between paganism and vitalism, but I really do think vitalists are just inspired by pagan myth and ethics.
By studying the bible with an emphasis on Christ's teachings and then sticking to what you learn.
It's not a lost cause but sometimes it seems that way.
One thing which is a nice long step towards weaponization which nearly all Christians in America do is worship the flag. I'm pretty sure the flag is as false an idol as ever there was. Good luck trying to get American Christians to listen to you though.
The problem with Christ's teachings are that they are retarded and seriously followed lead immediately to societal implosion:
"Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back."
-Luke 6:30
PS - you mean like in the crusades, the inquisition (although it's not clear to me that Jesuits are truly Christians), witch trials, and the current US "modern crusade"?
yes. and i do not accept the no true scottsman fallacy of "not real Christians" . there are at least 500 different denominations, so that will never be settled. recall how long the Catholics and the protestants went at each other in Ireland. not at all a peaceful religion, because of its warlike exclusivity and apocalyptic needs for a scapegoat. it will never make a stable and just society. it is a colonizer of the minds of humanity, that is what it does very, very well.
I understand the concept of different denominations of Christian faith.
However it is possible that the society of Jesus is an occult society which has infiltrated the church and actually - at the higher levels - knowingly worships Lucifer. And when an Irishman dons a kilt, fakes a Scottish accent, infiltrates a drinking den while sipping entirely the wrong type of whiskey and sports underwear where there should be none - then one can legitimately claim that he is no true Scotsman and it is not a fallacy to do so.
I would also question whether you can attribute sectarian violence in Ireland to "Christianity" for at least two reasons:
(1) It is entirely possible that Christianity was what kept the island as peaceful as it was - and that without Christianity things would have been much bloodier. See Gaza for an example.
(2) The struggle in Ireland was primarily a sectarian struggle between two different ethnic groups. The two ethnic groups happened to follow different denominations of Christianity - and therefore fastened on that as a way of measuring who was on which side - but I doubt anything would have been any different if Britain, and therefore the conquering folk had remained Catholic. They still would have been oppressive conquerors and the (justified) grievances would have been the same.
The inquisition is also interesting because one could argue that for such an "ideological cleansing" remarkably few people died - about 3,000 were killed over several decades - far fewer than are murdered in a typical American big city over the same period. Perhaps Christianity acts as a brake on misbehaving rulers and leaders - resulting in fewer deaths when things do go wrong than in a religion/culture which does not so sternly condemn violence and killing.
well, it was not the first clash between sects. i was thinking of a more inclusive approach. because being exclusive always Always causes conflict, because it is a form of not sharing. And sharing is an essential part of humanity. https://artemis6.substack.com/p/the-virtues-revisited/comment/60626877
I’m ok with war & colonization in theory, if on behalf of the actual people of a nation & especially the warriors themselves. Rare these days.
Just out of interest, how do you arrive at this position?
A hypothetical example would be there’s a mine of rare minerals in some sh*t hole & the local tribes there just go around hacking each other with machetes over jiu-jiu magic.
Instead of paying them for their “property” which is under the ground where they accidentally live, might be better to just go take it & push them aside. To them we’re just another tribe with better machetes. If the benefits are worth the costs I would be willing to. Might even be worth it for the adventure itself.
If we use the minerals to create a beautiful future cool, but I’m not trying to secure anything by conquest much less trade on behalf of fat slobs who watch porn all day. Maybe they should go fight with machetes themselves for that.
Why do we have “free markets” for shitty life choices but not free markets for war? Slobs can’t defend themselves as individuals, much less as nations.
The world I want is worth fighting for, others not so much.
Sorry took me a while to find your comment due to Substack notification not directing… anyone else that problem?
Ultimately it all comes down to what you want, & the costs & benefits of choices/actions.
So you only have to justify colonization & war on such grounds like anything else.
Why you want anything at all is the more interesting question IMO.
Service to others, and service to self, are the two fundamental moral poles of creation. It all comes down to this in the end.
That sounds exactly like the sort of self-serving guilt-trip a conniving slave would try to talk the master into.
"Will to power is evil/Satanic; to save your soul you should stay away from power" (so that I can then fill the power vacuum instead)
Perhaps an alternative is for the master to serve God or a higher purpose of some form, thereby aligning the purposes of the (Christian) slaves with the purposes of the master who becomes a slave to God. Just spitballing here… perhaps this arrangement worked out well some time in the past. The battle between church and state (monarchs) seemed to oscillate back and forth from one side of the tug of war gaining too much power then the other taking it back, perhaps with periods of balance between times of conflict.
yeah. agree. I prefer something more inclusive and generous. If there is only one of anything it will always cause pointless strife. https://artemis6.substack.com/p/the-virtues-revisited/comment/60626877
Maybe you should be, tho. The Christian God I know taught me that my highest purpose is to be united with him in eternity. The two of us get united bodily once per week, a foretaste of our eventual union.
To me this is just babble word salad. Though poetic, sounds exactly like self serving narcissism. “I care so much about other people it’s me who gets to go to heaven”.
In the end anyone who wants eternal salvation by servicing others, is just being selfish, but worse pretending not to.
I want a better world for my children & my people. Africa can starve to death I will not adopt their orphans. 🤣
Unfortunately, I can't respond to you while what I wrote is a babble word salad to you. We're not talking the same language while that's the case, we can't communicate on this topic.
Yea “united with him in eternity” isn’t saying anything at all a pragmatic person can understand. I appreciate you acknowledging that. Sounds nice though!
It's interesting that you only respond to a conflicting opinion with insults.
You can serve the ancestors, the gods, and yourself all at once. Really don't get why this vitalist stuff is thrown in with folkish paganism.
> You can serve the ancestors, the gods, and yourself all at once.
Until the point where they come into conflict.
> Really don't get why this vitalist stuff is thrown in with folkish paganism.
What's "folkish paganism"? I've lost track of the different flavors of neo-paganism floating about.
Folkish paganism is traditional paganism as outlined by historical studies. You mostly seem aware of wicca types - universalist pagans.
I hate universalist pagans more than I dislike Christians. Folkism goes back to the stone age - universalist religions are heresy.
By serving the gods and the ancestors, I serve myself and my household.
> Folkish paganism is traditional paganism as outlined by historical studies.
So are you the guys who reject the entire Axial Age and insist that, e.g., Thor is a literal dude in the sky with a literal hammer that makes lightning?
https://gildhelm.substack.com/p/pagan-phenomenology-i-what-is-a-god This should help.
Excellent Gilgamech
But is the premise that Christianity is a slave morality really unassailable? The early church was clearly a mixed group of considerable diversity; rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Greek, male and female. If the premise falls, what is left of the argument and why must I answer it?
I agree completely that the proclamation of God's death is a cry of despair. "Without God, all things are permissible" and Nietzsche seemed to have no illusion of the hellscape to which that would lead.
That's an excellent question. I'd say that N’s conception of Christianity as embodying slave morality goes beyond the identities of its early constituents, and extends to the imagery and goal-orientation of the faith as well.
Considering imagery, the body of Christ often refers to itself as a flock of sheep. This is a far cry from the metaphor that prevailed on the steppe, which was as a pack of wolves, the identity of which the Proto-Indo-Europeans adopted during their koryos for thousands of years. I think that captures something fundamental about N’s distinction.
Regarding the sectors of society from which early Christians were drawn, it's certainly true that they drew from all of them. However, not all cults in that time were so open. Mithras, for example, was a very popular god indeed, particularly with legionaries. I do not think there were any slaves at all amongst those admitted to the brotherhood of the Mithraic grottos; nor I believe were there any women. Seen from this perspective, the fact that Christianity admitted slaves (and women) to its rites at all, let alone with the status of spiritual equals, may be the significant fact.
Not that the church was unique in allowing the low to participate, far from it; slaves too need religions, always have, and always will. All humans do.
I wonder if N spent more time observing the students and not enough time studying the Master. The students can be quite disappointing, speaking for myself, of course.
It is certainly true that one can draw almost any conclusion about Christianity by studying any given group of followers or "followers" and come to conclusions diametrically opposed to the Teachings.
Of course there are many rabbit trails leading from that statement, including what is translated slave in many verses. The word servant is quite often used and as Jesus demonstrated is more to the point. He was no slave, he was the King of Heaven and yet took on the role of servant. He taught his followers that they were coheirs with him of all that the Father had given him and yet were to consider themselves servants to the very least of their fellow humans because of the status as kings.
One may accept the teachings as Truth or reject them, but to confuse what Christians have done with what they are called to do is an avoidable error on anyone's part.
It seems, if one meets a seeming paradox, one should seek to understand. Perhaps N was not in a state of mind to do so, and your exposition may help us understand the man at his best and worse. For that I am grateful. I wonder that N did not have a more clear understanding of this having been raised in religion. Did he raise up a straw man rather than a superman?
"He taught his followers that they were coheirs with him of all that the Father had given him and yet were to consider themselves servants to the very least of their fellow humans because of the status as kings."
The problem is that A) this is completely unworkable outside of tiny homogeneous communities of high-trust people, which this attitude actively works to destroy and B) this in practice leads to ethno-masochism supporting infinity immigrants from everything because look at all those poor starving brown people.
I don’t know what "tiny" means but I agree that Christianity is meant to be lived in community. It was never intended, and is not, a state religion. Christians are called to live facing the larger world and to live in that larger world with the same ethic they live within their community, subject to wisdom and prudence. Your point B has nothing to do with Christianity. That people, well intentioned or not, misunderstand or misuse a religion or philosophy is no commentary on that religion or philosophy.
That's hilarious. So you openly admit that your conception of the religion doesn't actually have any solutions besides "hope they don't kill us" and it is, literally, a slave's morality.
Yes it is. Hell, even Jesus said "by their fruits you shall know them", ie. results matter.
Ironically. Nietzsche said Christ was the last Christian.
Logical: to be the first is to be the original, making all followers diluted copies.
Thus, the first is also the last.
> It is deeply humiliating as a Christian to recognise the power of his argument that ours is a slave religion and (worse) perhaps a slave morality.
What argument? Vibes aren’t an argument.
By all means go ahead and rebut Nietzsche on these points.
Nietzscheans are full of Motte-and-baileys.
The OP insists that "In and of themselves neither [master nor slave morality] are good or bad" when called on about the fact the Nietzsche much more resembles a slave then a master. However, then they proceed to act as if Master morality is good and Slave morality is bad.
After spending the entire article talking about "master and slave morality" the article says:
> But I do not think that the answer is as simple as returning to the bosom of the holy mother church, either. The historiographical, archaeological, textual, geological, and astronomical discoveries of the scientific age that shattered Nietzsche’s faith, and the simple faith of so many others, cannot be undone ... not without the species giving itself a self-inflicted lobotomy. What has been learned cannot unlearned; what has been seen cannot be unseen. Naive innocence cannot be regained merely by wishing it so.
Notice that the above reason has nothing to do with master and slave morality, and the above problem is in fact worse for the "Master" Pagan religions. Christianity is probably reconcilable with science. No one is going to take the "Thor's hammer" theory of lightning seriously.
When asked to rebut the specific points of Nietzsche that you had dismissed, you instead deflect to attacking this specific John Carter essay and nebulous "Nietzscheans".
There are a number of zoomers who might.
lightening is just a symbol of electricity. you know thor has 2 iron gloves ( + and - ?) that must be used to harness this hammer, and a belt called ground, or earth "gerd" ? even more recent tales like jack and the beanstalk, and Paul Bunyan are just coded language for real things. If you know how to look. None of our ancestors were ignorant savages, i think.
According to a Nietzschean Will to Power isn't Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner the ultimate Ubermensch, the triumph of will over biology itself?
You may object that desiring to change gender is not a suitably "noble" pursuit, but why are you more entitled then a Gold Medal Olympian to determine what's noble?
Life turned against life is always a sign of decline, not of ascent.
> It is deeply humiliating as a Christian to recognise the power of his argument that ours is a slave religion and (worse) perhaps a slave morality.
Just how the fuck can it be a slave religion if you're *literally commanded upon pain of Hell* to live like a master one day per week?!? That's what Sunday is. It's practice for the time in Heaven when you'll be sitting on the THRONE OF GOD together with GOD ALLMIGHTY and rulling the Universe.
You're commanded to kneel - that's not living like a master that's practicing being a good little slave.
Christian Heaven is basically eternal slavery - you spend all day every day singing God's praises - joining the choir of angels is in no way a form of mastery.
Ah! This is finally the moment when I can talk about that little bit of Protestant ignorance. :)
> you spend all day every day singing God's praises
As a Catholic, I have not really seen or heard that many depictions of Heaven. After all, writers of the Bible consistently state that what comes after is outside current human comprehension. The prayers at Mass reinforce this idea, with the priest praying stuff like "let us receive in open what we today only receive in mystery". The witness of saints, particularly visions of Heaven, tend to be likewise devoid of detail. There's plenty of speculation, though, but only a few hard facts.
Now, this idea of Heaven as praising God probably comes from that quote I can't find now that basically says "what God wants for you is to praise him". And then that spiraled out of control, giving people like Mark Twain ample room to point out the idiocy of the concept - and in so doing attack the entire edifice.
But the fact is just that Gods wants us to praise him. No qualifier. And another fact is that God is just, without injustice. Query: is it just to praise somebody who didn't really do all that much for you? After all, if Jesus "died for us" but that only got us constant singing - yelling - for all eternity, there isn't too much good to be had, is there? So, in general, we can say that unconditionally praising God, without having a particular justification for it, is unjust. Yet God is not unjust and would never accept unjust praise.
If God doesn't accept unjust praise, and if people praise God in Heaven, it can only follow the praise given is just. And further, since Heaven is normally understood to be perfection, we can surmise the praise offered God is perfect - meaning spontaneous.
Pulling it all together, Heaven is so good is elicits a spontaneous praise for God.
Further evidence for this comes from base Catholic doctrine, which says God created the world so the world would know of his glory. God's glory isn't increased by creating the world, instead it's made knowable.
> You're commanded to kneel
I'm also pursued by God for a union, alike to the union of a man and woman in sex. That's not my imagination, that's the teaching of Catholic Church: Christ and Church are alike husband and wife (Ephesians 5:32). Furthermore, that's the entire purpose and point of Eucharist. So, given that, am I really commanded to kneel, or is your assesment missing important bits?
This is straight copium. If I'm the master in heaven, then who exactly spends eternity singing MY praises?
You're justifying the ostensibly divine wisdom in heaven being a form of voluntary slavery, while trying to pass it off as mastery and hoping nobody notices the bait and switch.
You misunderstand the meaning of mastery. To be master is not to be praised, it's to have your will be done. And if Revelation says "I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne." (Rev 3:21), then I don't see how you can deny your will be done in Heaven.
Aha! But you have an opening! What if your will conflicts with some other will! AHA!
Well, then the judges come in. Matthew 19:28, although I admit Jesus might have meant something else. At any rate: this objection I raised applies anyway, to any situation where there are two or more masters (really, when there are two or more wills), which is percisely the situation that would exist if the world were populated by ubermensch. And if you say "only the guy at the top is master, all other are slaves", then you'll be a slave forever either way since I can not in any way envision you as being on the top of any pyramid - except the one you imagine in your head - so you might as well drop the objection you hypothetically would be holding. :)
"To be master is not to be praised, it's to have your will be done."
A truly Nietzshean statement.
And yet it's still somebody else's throne. What you're describing is more like a dad allowing his kid to sit behind the steering wheel with the engine off and pretend to drive while making vroom vroom noises.
Notice revelation says "my throne" and "his throne" but never "our throne" and certainly not "your throne".
perhaps we should master ourselves First, before considering ourselves entitled to master others? https://artemis6.substack.com/p/the-virtues-revisited/comment/60626877
Solid Take ✍🏼☑️
well said
Our ancestors did what they had to do to survive, so we could be here, and for this i am thankful. there is no shame in survival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53PDO7OQSTs
Hmmm. One of the central issues here is the utter lack of humility evinced by “secularists,” “modernists” .. People, like Nietzsche, who believe that “Darwin (science) has falsified the creation account in Genesis..” People whose minds and souls have been eaten away by rationalistic reductivism, crude empiricism, who think that debauched sybarite Hume was a genius.
The power of Christianity lies in paradox. You touch on the essence of the issue here: Nietzsche condemned the humility of God as “slave morality.” Calling poor Fred a gamma is precisely right, because his ethical imagination is basically that of an alienated teenaged boy raging against the social hierarchy of secondary school- it’s all about Apollonian beauty/power and Dionysian poetic hedonism for him, and he is using the exquisite intellectual power that he has (“I am so clever..”) to create and reinforce his own standing within that milieu. It’s all completely superficial, ultimately vapid, meaningless and stupid, and poor Fred knew it, which is definitely one of the reasons why he lost his mind in the end.
There is no such thing as an übermensch apart from Jesus Christ. No one else has ever claimed to be able to redeem us each, as an individual person, from death.. All the pagan titans, gods, heroes are tawdry simulacra of his manifestation of divinity in history. All of us, even the strongest, most beautiful, most intelligent, will decay, become stupid, weak, ugly, then die. Every trace of our existence will ultimately fade into the entropic penumbra of quantum death. There is no possible hope of individual transcendence of this howling void, no matter how valiantly we struggle against it.. We are each apportioned 120 years, no more.. Then..
What? What hope do we have? Is there any hope for the neuro atypical kid being bullied in the play ground? The Chinese worker drone being slaved to death 12 hours a day in that sweatshop? The addict derelict on the street, enslaved by his endocrine response?
The Nietzschean will sneer at these slaves with contempt. As his own paltry strength entropically fades, as he also withers away in time.
But maybe Christ’s inversion of worldly power is, in fact, real. Maybe the cruelty of this world is the true illusion. Maybe justice and mercy will in fact reign. May the infinite power of God is in the full service of goodness, joy, beauty and truth, and all of this not merely in the end.. But now, right now, amongst us here, today. Maybe willing the good of (loving) your enemies is the best and most effective way of defeating them, because maybe by willing the good of your enemies you might covert them to being your friends.. And maybe if this divine love we are called to show even the most recalcitrantly wicked is emphatically rejected, our love in the face of their evil might both sanctify us, as well as those who witness it, both now and in the end..
Maybe power and beauty are not truly material at all, and maybe Apollonian aesthetics are superficial; maybe Dionysian raptures are all ultimately vapid.. Maybe true beauty is transcendent, maybe the only true happiness is in the joy of self sacrifice, the emptying of oneself into the flame of eternal love..
Is there anything more 'vital' than defeating death itself? Any will more powerful than subjugating yourself into a sacrifice for all mankind, even though you could kill all your enemies with a snap of your fingers? I understand that Nietzche saw a decline, and his diagnosis was painfully accurate, however, he got christian morality all wrong. Christ is the ultimate man. "The first man, Adam, was created a living being; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit." Thanks to him we are not bound as animals by the infra-rational, nor made hopeless by the rational.
Vitalism measures vital ness by only human standards. What standards judge the maker of reality? He does what he does, and what he says is, is, without emotional affect.
Human standards are not divinely inspired? Are you sure? It seems to me that being expresses in itself inherent standards. It seems to me there is, contra nihilists, a Will expressed within Being, Nature. It seems to me, for example, that there is a universal morality expressed in comedy..
Citing Don Quixote, upon his ass: “I shall not consider such a mount a dishonor, because I remember reading that when Silenus, the good old tutor and teacher of the merry god of laughter, entered the city of one hundred gates, he rode very happily mounted on a beautiful jackass.”
But a Will to what?
Sorry. That was glib, but you must have sensed it coming. Forgive me, permit me being a bit dogmatic, here, in definition of terms:
What is Love? Love is Will in affirmation of, congruance with Being. When we say “God is Love” this is what we are intimating: Creation is personal, and the Creator creates and sustains, affirms us in our personhood.. When we love, we affirm our and the other’s personhood, personhood being iconographic of divinity.
(An aside, here: note that the act of creation differs from subsistence only as the first leap of the fountain differs from the leap’s continuance. When we love, we participate in subsistence. This means for example that love is “procreative” and sexually fecund, while evil is sexually sterile.)
In this ontological sense “evil” is desire in negation of Being.. It is will “incurvatus in se,” solipsism of self deification, idolatry, a denial of the source of our being, denial of other people’s personhood iconic of that divinity.
Love is in existential terms the negation of willed evil, the ultimate disruption of mimetic hatred and violence. This is the ontological meaning of the Cross, the Crucifixion: “There is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for one’s friends.” And, “he loved us, when we were still in our sins.”
Love.
Silenius was Dionysus's Teacher. I should probably read that book again. How clever you are to quote it!
I’ve been thinking about your comment, Anonymous. I’m wondering if you are Muslim, because you seem to be verging on pure voluntarism here.. I’m a Catholic, I don’t think you can parse Act from Will, or Will from Nature. Act, Will and Nature are triune unity, expressing Being.
Concerning God’s “affect,” I think you are essentially right in a sense, but essentially wrong in another. The pith of being is in serenity. Serenity is its own sort of pure affect: Affectless Essential Affect, if you will, “All things being reconciled within Himself..” But being, all things manifested in time in multiplicity are a tragic comedy, full of dramatic resonance, and thus emotion.
The Bible is in my reading incessant tragedy culminating in pure comedy. The Biblical narrative, particularly the Gospels, seems to me to be very funny. So many unexpected things happen, there are subtle inversions atop of subtle inversion.. Just one example amongst many dozens, is how Christ enters Jerusalem mounted on a donkey. This is God mocking every conquerer in history. It’s very funny, if you think about it..
I am not Muslim. I found many of the Old Testament stories to contain moments of amusement. But these are human standards still.
*C.S. Lewis beams with pride.*
This is a beautiful comment.
"There is no such thing as an übermensch apart from Jesus Christ. No one else has ever claimed to be able to redeem us each, as an individual person, from death.. All the pagan titans, gods, heroes are tawdry simulacra of his manifestation of divinity in history."
This is, for anyone who knows anything at all about religions, ancient and modern, an utterly laughable claim. Immortality for believers is among the single most common inducements offered by religions of all ages, and to claim that no one else has ever alleged that as a reward is simply beyond parody.
This is profound.
“If Christianity at its core is slave morality redeemed, then what is master morality redeemed? Can we not draw upon both? One as armour and shield, the other as flaming sword?”
Well Urban II had an idea along these lines…
DEUS VULT BROTHER!!!
IN HOC SIGNO VINCES.
Christianity was one of many Cults until Constantine has his soldiers paint it’s symbol on their shields with the words “In this sign be victorious.” It was probably a Fish symbol not the Cross and he won the battle of Milvan Bridge, killing the rival Emperor and taking the throne. He then has a trembling Pope dragged from the Catacombs, expecting death the Pope instead is informed he is now an Official Religion, and that of the Emperor as well.
… the poor man dies of strain within the year.
Constantine then codified Christianity in 325 at the Nicene Council.
The next major step for Christians and Europe is the Coda of the social revolution in Europe begun by monks at Cluny when Pope Urban II declared Crusade in 1095, pronouncing that any man who dies on Crusade shall go to heaven… reversing the prior condition that killing in war was the sin of murder requiring penance.. DEUS VULT (God Wills It) and in 1099 this raggedy Army from a barbaric backwater conquers all in its path and Jerusalem.
We can go on.
Crusades? Conquistadors?
The European conquests of colonies? All quite Christian, all quite masculine and warlike.
The Problem.
Liberals from the 18th century at least are very anti-church, to say the least.
In the 20th century both Communism and Nazism are anti-Christian, Communists far more. Later we have feminism which un-mans all its victims, regardless of creed. Masculinity is a mortal sin under Feminism and Modern Liberalism.
We certainly have a problem, that Christianity which is a Chief target and victim of modern Progressive government is nonsense.
It’s fair to say that outside of the Latin countries it doesn’t defend itself, that it’s present leadership is utterly unequal to worldly tasks.
But it’s not the source of weakness. The plague is modernity, Christianity isn’t the cure… but it’s not the problem. The Cure is Warrior masculinity. That’s not coming from our utterly feminized Churches (or in the case of Catholicism - worse, and I am Catholic).
But Gibbon wrote Gibberish whenever the Church or the Orthodox are concerned, and Nietzsche simply is wrong on the historical record… but probably correct on what he saw.
Not a solution, but in a country that will not have Men as leaders… Americans… not the problem.
Our real slave morality is we’re law abiding.
And henpecked Cucks.
Women voting…
Women will never elect the Men we need, nor allow it…
We’re not voting our way out of this…
Just posted on that
There is a competitive principal that says to figure out what your opponent (or enemy) is trying to do, and to not let him do it (the Belichick principal). This principal can be applied to all sports and competitive games, including warfare. In this case, I understand that my enemy in this spiritual war wants to separate me from my faith. I look at the teaching of atheism as a warfare tactic. It's enemy propaganda designed to demoralize us. Our enemies understand that a warrior can't function without his whole soul. That's why our enemies want to pick our souls apart. They want to say that our anger is evil and our faith is naive and stupid. Nietzsche is a good example of a warrior who couldn't function without faith. No warrior can. (I don't hate atheists and I venerate the work of poet/historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, a flag-waving atheist and author of good books who is new on substack: https://jmh170.substack.com/ I find I have a lot in common with anyone antagonizing priestcraft and mind control.)
Christianity is a freedom religion. Jesus freed us from Satan's moral system. Satan, whose name means prosecutor, is our accuser, and Jesus is the advocate of humanity before the throne of God. We don't have to follow 591 commandments like the ancient Hebrews. We have to accept forgiveness and pass it on. We don't win by crushing our enemies. We win by flipping them. It makes perfect sense to me that Christianity developed as a Roman slave religion. It gave hope to the slaves. That's what Christianity does. It gives back faith, hope, and love to us slaves, and it causes us to become free men and women. Christianity results in free independent ethical thinkers and actors. It is an alternative to being in lock-step with the devil's corporatist social hierarchy, in which no one enjoys any autonomy of thought or action, but all are slaves.
But before one can understand what Christianity is, he first has to define priestcraft, and understand that the priests don't offer real Christianity. The priests are the enemies of humanity. The priests have nothing to offer but superstition and mind-control. The established church is a false husk that must be shed. The whole cloth of the priests has been woven to shroud the gospel in mystery. All that cloth is about to be purged away.
The anti-status and anti-hierarchy speech of Jesus also makes perfect sense to me. I believe Satan is the top of all hierarchies of men. The incomplete pyramid (on the dollar bill) represents human hierarchy and we know what the Eye above the pyramid represents. The bottom of the pyramid is the plane (or the square). If we don't participate in the hierarchies of men, we are on the plane and on the square. That is where a Christian should be. Personal holiness becomes its own status system (a way to elevate oneself above others) and I'm very suspicious of anyone who makes a pretense to holiness. Finally, I'm reminded that the Tao Te Ching (the way of water), is to flow to the lowest point and create a level plane. In section 38, Lao Tzu proves that humble station is the basis of honor. Both Jesus's and Lao Tzu's philosophies antagonize hierarchical status systems, and offer an alternative.
Fantastic comment.
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
-Plato
i agree. all political entities are the left hand path always.
Neechee (spelled as pronounced) is the lord of schizoposting, the absolute king of sounding like a ranting, raving lunatic, raging against the dying of the light and the horrible world he discovered. While I didn't read him seriously because I have a policy of not taking philosophers seriously, I had fun with his aphorisms.
He was the proto-red/blackpill imo, who also gets interpreted as arrogant asshole, the same way that Epicurus is the proto-basement dweller, who also gets interpreted as a super hedonist when that's not the case.
https://argomend.substack.com/p/a-look-at-epicurus
If NEETzsche was alive today he'd have a 50k follower account on X with an anime pfp that gets shut down for Trust & Safety violations on the regular.
I'd prolly read that then. Most interesting people have been kicked off of every darn thing...
He'd probably also have a doompill substack plus a YT channel in the vein of dbdr/Millennial Steam where he rants about his mom making him go to something or his sister dragging him to her little Nueve Germania meetings, and so on.
Do you think his anime pfp would be Guts? Revy from Black Lagoon? Probably had an Evangelion phase in his youth.
Asuka is best girl.
I never got into Evangelion so I’m agnostic on the NGE waifu question.
Same. I was just repeating a meme.
If Sophocles were alive today, his students would not only report him but call for his execution. I mean cancellation.
he would have earned it maybe.