I'm currently reading Thus Spake Zarathustra right now in my Contemporary Political Thought class, and I'd like to mention a valid point that Nietzsche makes in one of the parables. There's an idea in the religious community, probably outside of it too, that if you don't participate in sinful deeds you are a virtuous person. Nietzsche points out that if you don't have any desire to commit said bad deeds, that not doing them doesn't make you virtuous. (Duh.) Virtue is having the desire to commit various sins and the will to not act on that desire. So, if you have no desire to steal, molest young boys, or covet thy neighbor's bangin' hot wife, then not doing those things doesn't make you a virtuous person.
Now, let me give you a more straightforward example.
Right now, I would really like to turn about 6000 pretty white ping-pong balls into cherry bombs. (I'm not skilled in the art of constructing explosives, so my options are limited, please bear with me.) Then, I would like to take those 6000 exploding ping-pong balls and systematically blow up the upper levels of management at the headquarters of Toyota or Apple, starting with the meatheads who wear their man blouses just a little too tight across their chesticles, and work my way down from there. Probably not do any real damage or cause any fatalities (not due to any lack of effort on my part), but at the very least cause a few of them to evacuate their bowels into those expensive Andrew Christian briefs they're probably wearing. Maybe take a butter knife to the throat of Steve Jobs or do something completely irrational and messy like that. I have the complete and unfettered desire to go postal on the big suits and piss-ant retail workers who royally sodomized my near-virgin bum today.
But, since I'm not acting on that desire, I'd like to point out that those people should thank their lucky fucking stars I'm such a virtuous person.
Now, let me give you a more straightforward example.
Right now, I would really like to turn about 6000 pretty white ping-pong balls into cherry bombs. (I'm not skilled in the art of constructing explosives, so my options are limited, please bear with me.) Then, I would like to take those 6000 exploding ping-pong balls and systematically blow up the upper levels of management at the headquarters of Toyota or Apple, starting with the meatheads who wear their man blouses just a little too tight across their chesticles, and work my way down from there. Probably not do any real damage or cause any fatalities (not due to any lack of effort on my part), but at the very least cause a few of them to evacuate their bowels into those expensive Andrew Christian briefs they're probably wearing. Maybe take a butter knife to the throat of Steve Jobs or do something completely irrational and messy like that. I have the complete and unfettered desire to go postal on the big suits and piss-ant retail workers who royally sodomized my near-virgin bum today.
But, since I'm not acting on that desire, I'd like to point out that those people should thank their lucky fucking stars I'm such a virtuous person.
fin.
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4 comments:
interesting point about virtue; the Thomas Paine quote in Obama's speech has had me thinking about it and how philosophers/thinkers define it. Machiavelli is full of virtu and for the I Ching it is an essential element to the success/survival/completion of anything, but now I am wondering differently it is viewed for different cultures.
It's interesting that the translation you were given includes the word "Spake." In addition to that not being a word (that I know of) the proper translation is "spoke." I want to read that book in German, though... if only I could FIND it somewhere.
Yeah, I have two different copies. One translates it as Spake, one as Spoke. I'll send you a link to a german version I found...
Awesome. I wonder what the reason for the difference is. Thanks for the link, but for now I think that it'll have to go on a wish list. I have too much other stuff I have to be spending my money on. =/ I was hoping to find it in the library but no luck, which is not really all that surprising, since I can't even find the English version there.
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