File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_1998/nietzsche.9803, message 129


Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 07:58:22 -0600
From: "Paul S. Rhodes" <sadecamus-AT-sprintmail.com>
Subject: Re: Smirking at Nihilism



>Whether one believes that there is an absolute opposition here is very much
>to the point. One need not believe in an absolute oppostiion in this sense
>in order to categorically reject the Holocaust. On the other hand, it seems
>to me that by demonizing the Nazis, etc., we risk saying that we are not it.
>They are evil, we are not, in other words. The real point, I think, is that
>the Nazis were not really, when you get right down to it, that very much
>different from most other human beings. If evil exists, it exists as an
>utter banality.
>
>Paul hasn't got a straight answer because, quite frankly, he doesn't want one.
>
>Best,
>
>The Uebermutt
>

I Write:

  My thanks to Yair Mahalalel for the support, although I must point out
that I do not know that my faith is demonstrably false as Yair Mahalalel
suggests.  In fact, I believe it to be true, although not demonstrably.
  Mr. Callihan is wrong that I do not want a straight answer.  If such
actions as the T4 Operation, the Endloesung, the Mei Lei (sp.?) massacre,
the slaughter in Burundi and Rwanda, the Inquisition among countless others
are not evil, then I want to know what they are.  Tell me, Mr. Callihan,
was Crassus' slaughter of a thousand slaves on the Appian Way evil or an
instance of Master Morality.
  To call all this slaughter, all this suffering inflicted upon defenseless
innocents for the sadistic pleasures of Masters a "Complementarfaerbe"
(Nietzsche's foppish definition of "schlecht") simply is an irresponsible
act of a superficial dandy.  One does not deal with problem of evil by
denying it.  It is real, banal or no.  Circumspice.  One does not deal with
it either by calling it a Complementary Color.  I don't think Kafka's
sisters experienced Auschwitz as a Complementary Color.
  Mr. Callihan, praytell, how can you categorically reject anything?  A
categorical rejection is absolutist, don't you know, and your own
philosophy (if one can call it that) bars you from any absolutist
stance--absolutely, I might add.  (you cannot twist free of that
performative contradiction, nya nya na nya nya).
Paul S. Rhodes

N.B.  That Mr. Callihan persists in addressing me by my first name does not
mean  he is a friend or close associate of mine.


_____________________________________________________________________________

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old Lie:  Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
                              --Wilfred Owen

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scroundel.
                              --Samuel Johnson

Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.
                              --Al Franken






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