Posted by Guessedworker on Wednesday, 02 January 2008 15:30.
I am more of a Schopenhaurian than a Nietzscheian, and more of a Darwinian than a Schopenhaurian. But the following two-part, 24-minute video by Alain de Botton is a populist introduction to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. It comes with Norman Lowell’s approval, so it has to be worth a post here.
Submitted by Alex Birch on Thu, 01/03/2008 - 16:56
It was days before Christmas Eve that a group of Hindu extremists burned and ransacked eight rural churches in eastern India, upsetting the 2,5% of the population in the country that identifies itself with the Christian faith. This act is just one in a historical line of events where Christians in India have been attacked by Hindus who want to stop the missionaries to convert people over to Christianity. Let’s take a brief look at why this is.
Christian psychology is very simple: life on earth includes pain, horror, suffering and death. Because we cannot change these aspects of reality, we naturally have to look for comfort elsewhere. That comfort is in Christian faith called “Heaven,” an imaginary place where competition, destruction, death and pain don’t exist. And what better way of justifying all of this, than an absolute authority that we cannot perceive but is still “there,” beyond earthly logic? Convenient, isn’t it?
Hindu religion takes a more realistic approach to life. Existence on earth is filled with horror but since it’s all just a part of a cosmic cycle - life->death->new life - it makes more sense to accept it and move on. When we’re no longer held back by fear of pain and death, we can spend our time enjoying life to its fullest. It’s a positive, constructive spiritual faith that regards personal fears as something we must overcome. The individual doesn’t matter, life as a cycle does.
Penn State houses a very good Nietzsche resource - minus the trade-mark accessiblity, perhaps also known as banality, of de Botton.
He is, by the way, from an old Spanish Sephardic family of considerable wealth. He rejected the academic world, and has established himself as a television programme-maker and a sympathetic voice for the Western intellect. I am none too sure to what extent the bracing pursuit of a life of Nietzscheian glory really appeals to him ... or to anyone of us except in a theoretical, armchair way. Not much in reality, I expect.
Posted by skeptical on Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:53 | #
GW,
I followed the YouTube links and noted that there is also a Part Three that you might consider adding.