Anarch
12-06-2005, 12:57 PM
Those who've read some stuff on Carl Schmitt and who've read Max Stirner's masterwork will recognise their influence here http://forum.skadi.net/images/smilies/pantheon_europa/smile001.gif (I made this post some time ago on Skadi, and to an extent it explains my approach to the Jewish question).
'Save the forests!' 'Do it for the children!' 'Save the poor-disgusting-diseased-riddled third world!'. War cries of modern politics.
Messianism. The world reeks of it, and it has infected Western politics to the point where one cannot advocate anything without grounding it in a moral foundation.
And yet the Romans did not conquer Carthage in the name of humanity. It was a great conquest for Rome - motivation enough for the patriotic legions of the Republic - and, if we believe Spengler's comment, an excellent way for Julius Caeser to relieve his debts. There was no moral eye cast to whether the Gauls should be flattened, enslaved and their country raped of its resources. It was simply a great thing for Rome. Such an approach to modern conquests is no longer possible. Leftists scream that the war of the West against Iraq's militants is part of a plan to take their oil. The question remains why there is anything wrong with that. Something is either wrong with splattering militant guerillas across streets with high explosives and bullets, and giving the Iraqi natives a government the West appreciates, or there's something wrong with breaking the back of the capacity for Iraqi's to resist while oil contracts go to the highest bidder. Usually, both are seen as immoral. 'One hardly dares speak any more of the will to power: it was different in Athens' (Nietzsche).
The question remains, why? So long as the West remains in some sense democratic - that is, the masses can affect the political process with the force of their own perspectives - politics must submit to whichever perspective is held by most. The overwhelming masses of the West are still affected with a universalist morality which some may claim is derived from Christianity, but is more certainly derived from Kant's moral imperative. Greed, pride and power are looked on with disgust, though all possess it - greed even filters down to regular supermarket shopping in which the consumer decides which breakfast cereal to eat, the answer to the question is which cereal will best fulfill my desires. My desires, the root of all action, yet condemned as 'greedy'. One might begin to wonder what 'un-greed' looks like.
Yet modern politics is irrevocably messianist in its character - that is, Jewish. Let us look at the war on Iraq as an example. The crusade in Iraq - for it bears the character of a crusade - rests on four points essential to the frame of reference of the messianist. First, that I am superior, that I possess the knowledge and the sound judgement to make the decision on behalf of an Other regarding his own existence. Second, that an independent, ideal standard of what the world should be like, exists. Third, that the relation of the world to this ideal is unsatisfactory, and fourth, that it must be rectified, that the world must be redeemed - forced to meet the ideal, become the ideal - and since the ends always justify the means (else no action would ever be taken), all options in service of the utopian ideal are acceptable. Hence the war in Iraq. Hence the censorship of video games and movies by the United States government. Hence the 'white man's burden' of the British Empire. Hence Vietnam.
That I possess the power, sound judgement and knowledge required for action is the simple expression of the will to power in social action. This has not, will not and cannot change. That the other is inferior and worthy only of having my will imposed on him, that he should be turned into a piece of machinery for my own will, is another. That I must rescue, save him from himself, in order to redeem myself and the world - witness U2's 'Bono' guilt tripping millions into acquiring their money for the expressed purpose of relieving the third world masses - that is the specific, defining mark of messianism.
The world is not good enough as it is. It must be improved, in order to be put in line with a moral perspective. This negation of the world is the key to Hegelianism. Say no to the resistence that faces this moral ideal.
The messianist is incapable of recognising his own greed, pride, wrath which propells his moral ideal. Say it openly and he will hide behind is moral ideals and whatever spook these ideas hang off. Whether it's 'God', or humanity - humanity is perhaps the most inhuman of the spooks which are used in politics. For by claiming oneself as the guard of humanity, naturally those that oppose the self are inhuman, anti-human - and are not worthy of being fought honourably, or respected, or spared in case of surrender. Witness in the messianists the same zeal of the Islamic mujahadeen which brought Byzantine to its knees. The enemy - from whom formerly one spared death or humiliation and simply took what one went to war for, usually territory or resources - has become the criminal, the heretic, the anti-Christ.
With a moral foundation one can concievably get away with anything, politically. The enemy, painted as a criminal, a madman, a hostile outsider, disgusting and morally bankrupt, is one on whom open season is declared. Indeed, to spare such an enemy is a sign of moral bankruptcy - see Slobodan Milosevic, but never mind that last I checked the charges against him are dissolving in court. Which is a great thing if you're a politician or a demagogue you want to amass support, and if you've got a demon or a heathen to persecute. You just run the risk of having your own will subordinated to someone who has a better moral justification. Sovereignty is handed over to the spook of choice. Stirner shows up in a whole new light. Precisely because of morality - as opposed to ethics - civilization is crumbling.
If Julius Caeser had pronounced before the Senate of Rome he intended to conquer Gaul in the name of Rome to make himself rich, the Senate may well have called for his head. Not that there was anything wrong with getting one's self rich - rather, the Senate would've called for his head because they would have known it'd make him the most powerful man in the Empire and a man of his ambitions would be a danger to the political constitution of Republican Rome.
But this is hardly a moral charge against Caeser, even from the perspective of the Senate of Rome, anymore than Thomas Jefferson owning slaves was to be considered immoral. It was simply what happens.
Nor is the libertarian 'non-aggression principle' an adequate counter to messianism. For here it is still possible for a group to crusade against moral criminals, and the spook justifying it - that is, the ideal of 'Man' with all his rights to life, liberty and property' - still floats above.
No, the only adequate opponent to messianism is something totally Other to messianism's origins - the long opponent to Judaism, that is the ethos of this world, the will to power, the will to survive, enhance, expand, create, reform, propagate, the becoming healthy - the engine of Max Stirner's phenomenological 'creative nothing'. Life for the sake of life, action in service of the acting agent's well being. Here it is entirely possibly to have space for Nietzsche's four cardinal virtues - 'Honest with ourselves and whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy, generous toward the vanquished; polite - always: that is how the four cardinal virtues want us'.
'Save the forests!' 'Do it for the children!' 'Save the poor-disgusting-diseased-riddled third world!'. War cries of modern politics.
Messianism. The world reeks of it, and it has infected Western politics to the point where one cannot advocate anything without grounding it in a moral foundation.
And yet the Romans did not conquer Carthage in the name of humanity. It was a great conquest for Rome - motivation enough for the patriotic legions of the Republic - and, if we believe Spengler's comment, an excellent way for Julius Caeser to relieve his debts. There was no moral eye cast to whether the Gauls should be flattened, enslaved and their country raped of its resources. It was simply a great thing for Rome. Such an approach to modern conquests is no longer possible. Leftists scream that the war of the West against Iraq's militants is part of a plan to take their oil. The question remains why there is anything wrong with that. Something is either wrong with splattering militant guerillas across streets with high explosives and bullets, and giving the Iraqi natives a government the West appreciates, or there's something wrong with breaking the back of the capacity for Iraqi's to resist while oil contracts go to the highest bidder. Usually, both are seen as immoral. 'One hardly dares speak any more of the will to power: it was different in Athens' (Nietzsche).
The question remains, why? So long as the West remains in some sense democratic - that is, the masses can affect the political process with the force of their own perspectives - politics must submit to whichever perspective is held by most. The overwhelming masses of the West are still affected with a universalist morality which some may claim is derived from Christianity, but is more certainly derived from Kant's moral imperative. Greed, pride and power are looked on with disgust, though all possess it - greed even filters down to regular supermarket shopping in which the consumer decides which breakfast cereal to eat, the answer to the question is which cereal will best fulfill my desires. My desires, the root of all action, yet condemned as 'greedy'. One might begin to wonder what 'un-greed' looks like.
Yet modern politics is irrevocably messianist in its character - that is, Jewish. Let us look at the war on Iraq as an example. The crusade in Iraq - for it bears the character of a crusade - rests on four points essential to the frame of reference of the messianist. First, that I am superior, that I possess the knowledge and the sound judgement to make the decision on behalf of an Other regarding his own existence. Second, that an independent, ideal standard of what the world should be like, exists. Third, that the relation of the world to this ideal is unsatisfactory, and fourth, that it must be rectified, that the world must be redeemed - forced to meet the ideal, become the ideal - and since the ends always justify the means (else no action would ever be taken), all options in service of the utopian ideal are acceptable. Hence the war in Iraq. Hence the censorship of video games and movies by the United States government. Hence the 'white man's burden' of the British Empire. Hence Vietnam.
That I possess the power, sound judgement and knowledge required for action is the simple expression of the will to power in social action. This has not, will not and cannot change. That the other is inferior and worthy only of having my will imposed on him, that he should be turned into a piece of machinery for my own will, is another. That I must rescue, save him from himself, in order to redeem myself and the world - witness U2's 'Bono' guilt tripping millions into acquiring their money for the expressed purpose of relieving the third world masses - that is the specific, defining mark of messianism.
The world is not good enough as it is. It must be improved, in order to be put in line with a moral perspective. This negation of the world is the key to Hegelianism. Say no to the resistence that faces this moral ideal.
The messianist is incapable of recognising his own greed, pride, wrath which propells his moral ideal. Say it openly and he will hide behind is moral ideals and whatever spook these ideas hang off. Whether it's 'God', or humanity - humanity is perhaps the most inhuman of the spooks which are used in politics. For by claiming oneself as the guard of humanity, naturally those that oppose the self are inhuman, anti-human - and are not worthy of being fought honourably, or respected, or spared in case of surrender. Witness in the messianists the same zeal of the Islamic mujahadeen which brought Byzantine to its knees. The enemy - from whom formerly one spared death or humiliation and simply took what one went to war for, usually territory or resources - has become the criminal, the heretic, the anti-Christ.
With a moral foundation one can concievably get away with anything, politically. The enemy, painted as a criminal, a madman, a hostile outsider, disgusting and morally bankrupt, is one on whom open season is declared. Indeed, to spare such an enemy is a sign of moral bankruptcy - see Slobodan Milosevic, but never mind that last I checked the charges against him are dissolving in court. Which is a great thing if you're a politician or a demagogue you want to amass support, and if you've got a demon or a heathen to persecute. You just run the risk of having your own will subordinated to someone who has a better moral justification. Sovereignty is handed over to the spook of choice. Stirner shows up in a whole new light. Precisely because of morality - as opposed to ethics - civilization is crumbling.
If Julius Caeser had pronounced before the Senate of Rome he intended to conquer Gaul in the name of Rome to make himself rich, the Senate may well have called for his head. Not that there was anything wrong with getting one's self rich - rather, the Senate would've called for his head because they would have known it'd make him the most powerful man in the Empire and a man of his ambitions would be a danger to the political constitution of Republican Rome.
But this is hardly a moral charge against Caeser, even from the perspective of the Senate of Rome, anymore than Thomas Jefferson owning slaves was to be considered immoral. It was simply what happens.
Nor is the libertarian 'non-aggression principle' an adequate counter to messianism. For here it is still possible for a group to crusade against moral criminals, and the spook justifying it - that is, the ideal of 'Man' with all his rights to life, liberty and property' - still floats above.
No, the only adequate opponent to messianism is something totally Other to messianism's origins - the long opponent to Judaism, that is the ethos of this world, the will to power, the will to survive, enhance, expand, create, reform, propagate, the becoming healthy - the engine of Max Stirner's phenomenological 'creative nothing'. Life for the sake of life, action in service of the acting agent's well being. Here it is entirely possibly to have space for Nietzsche's four cardinal virtues - 'Honest with ourselves and whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy, generous toward the vanquished; polite - always: that is how the four cardinal virtues want us'.