Thomas_More
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
“Editing and Publication of The Will to Power:
” After Nietzsche’s mental collapse in 1889 and subsequent death in 1900, Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his unpublished manuscripts. She compiled these notes into a book titled The Will to Power (published in stages from 1901) and presented it as her brother’s intended magnum opus.
“Distortion of Philosophy:
A staunch German nationalist and antisemite (she co-founded a failed “pure Aryan” colony in Paraguay with her husband, Bernhard Förster), Elisabeth manipulated her brother’s writings, removing or altering passages that were critical of antisemitism and German nationalism to align his philosophy with her own proto-fascist ideology.” (Google)Then Marx must bear responsibility for Bolshevism, Mao and Pol Pot.
Nietzsche meant by “Superman” the rational man who has emancipated himself from religion and bourgeois morality.
“The Will to Power” is not Nietzsche’s work at all, but his sister’s, who was a Nazi, and who passed it off as his.Ideorogues set up ideologies generally consisting of dogmas which are the total antithesis of the thinking of those they claim as their heroes.
Nietzsche / Hitler
Marx / Lenin, Mao, Stalin etc
Rousseau / Robespierre
Epicurus / Epicureanism,
debauchery.
Darwin / Social Darwinism.Are the originals to be blamed?
Only one thing here is inaccurate.
Stalin recreated the Moscow Patriarchate (the official Russian Orthodox Church) in 1927 so that there would be a Church friendly to the state. It is analogous to the Constitutional Church permitted by the French Revolution.
The Russian bishops had been killed or driven into hiding by Trotsky’s persecution of the Church. Most of those surviving refused later to have anything to do with Stalin’s patriarchate. Instead, they formed the Catacomb Church inside Russia, in communion with the Tsarist Russian Church in Exile.
So the Moscow Patriarchate today, which served to bolster patriotism in WW2, was Stalin’s baby, and has continued to honour him, rejecting destalinisation. The Tsarist exiles tended to sympathise with the Nazis, who were accompanied by white Cossack brigades.
The Tsar’s Moscow Patriarchate was set up in 1917 and had only one incumbent before it was dissolved. It had replaced the Holy Synod, which had governed ecclesiastical matters before 1917.
I wrote this some years ago to challenge a conspiraloon who claimed we were no different and likewise followed an ideology:
IDEOLOGY VS PHILOSOPHY.
The difference between brainwashing and thought is the difference between ideology and philosophy.
The ideologist adopts instantly the entire credo of a group because of an emotional / romantic / image-based need, or a need to belong.
This is what the “phases” of adolescents are, seeking belonging, or seduced by imagery.
It is true that most, having passed through this stage, and being working-class (99% of the world’s population are working class), have little time on their hands for thought beyond that of working for their living and struggling to raise families etc. Life under capitalism means it is convenient to rely on mainstream media, and hence be patriotic and trusting of whichever nation-state apparatus governs them and the news it puts out.
Minorities, some small, some large, will seek belonging, still, in groups and cults which, demonstrating some “rebelliousness” or “difference” from “the herd” give them the sense of belonging through difference. Such are converts to religions, racist groups, anything that has a leader or pundit to follow, and by following, belong. For some, the more outrageous and the more reviled, the better.
All these are ideology.Philosophy, however, is very different from ideology.
The philosopher does not accept the entirety of someone else’s thought, nor reject that entirety, on the basis of agreement or disagreement in one or two particulars. A philosopher does not require leaders to follow. S/he does not wish to lead. S/he is not interested in imagery. S/he doesn’t care about belonging to anything. S/he may be mistaken in things, but cannot be brainwashed. There is no danger for the philosopher in listening to or watching or reading any media or propaganda.
S/he is not susceptible to brainwashing, neither by the state nor by any cult, neither by the majority nor any minority.
The only way to damage the philosopher is to physically do so, by violence applied to the brain.
The philosopher sifts information in the light of views – philosophy – developed through the course of their lifetime. This is why philosophers usually disagree about most things. If s/he joins a group it is not to find belonging; it is not because of any need to be in a group. It is purely because of a shared interest.
The philosopher does not abdicate his/her thought in order to be part of a group or party.Religions too are coherent systems and compilations of doctrine.
Maoism too. It is small wonder that state ideologies like Maoism felt it had to either crush religion or drag it into service. There could be no God other than The Leader.
In Europe the Italian and Spanish Fascists were supported by the Catholic Church, so conflict was minimal. In Nazi Germany too, the Protestant churches did not oppose the Nazis, although both Catholic and Protestant individual rebels did. Hitler was not comfortable with Pétain’s ruralist Catholicism, however, but tolerated it. Himmler set up a neo-pagan Germanist religious structure for the SS, but it was limited to his inner circle of cranks. It too was an ideology with its own internal structure for followers to imbibe.
All ideologies are INTERNALLY coherent, in that they all possess their own logic.
For instance, objectively Orthodox Christianity is a compilation of nonsenses, but subjectively and internally it possesses its own logic.
An Orthodox Christian polemicist has a logical response to any theological critique, but all theology is irrational in the light of modern scientific knowledge. But whether one is born and raised in Orthodox Christianity or has consented to enter and be a follower of its ideology, one is introduced to and indoctrinated into a construct that has its own logic and trains its followers in it. The same with all religions and also state ideologies.
But the Socialist Party asks for no followers and has no leaders.
Indeed, it insists that would-be members arrive at common conclusions through individual reasoning and understanding.Ideology. However, a non-socialist author on the subject would say that we follow an ideology, and are no different from other followers of ideologies. Which is why all are welcome to witness our manifold and often harsh clashes of opinion with each other, which are not tolerated in leader and follower organisations.
