Asylum For Blood-Feuds-Affected Person -- Lawyer Recommandation

[recriminate]

[...]

Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence, for instance, was addressed by Schopenhauer. It is a purely physical concept, involving no "reincarnation," but the return of beings in the same bodies. Time is viewed as being not linear but cyclical. By the way, Eternal Recurrence is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur in the exact same self-similar form an incomprehensible and unfathomable number of times. The concept has roots in ancient Egypt, and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics. With the decline of antiquity and the spread of Christianity, the concept fell into disuse, though Friedrich Nietzsche briefly resurrected it. The basic premise is that the universe is limited in extent and contains a finite amount of matter, while time is viewed as being infinite. The universe has no starting or ending state, while the matter comprising it is constantly changing its state. The number of possible changes is finite, and so sooner or later the same state will recur.

Nietzsche never hid the fact that he was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer and his non-rational philosophy of will expressed in The World as Will and Idea after he transferred to University of Leipzig. However, by nature Nietzsche was not rational, but was, from the beginning of philosophical study, deeply attracted to non-rational elements of reality, which in Schopenhauer's philosophy was the concept of will. 
 

legerdemain was talking about the Eternal Recurrence concept, Santa. Looks like both concepts were addressed by Schopenhauer.

[downthechimney2nite]

Nietzsche was not a fag. It was actually Wagner who, after Nietzsche and Wagner split, conducted a relentless and vindictive campaign against Nietzsche on the grounds that he was homosexual. Unless you think Niezsche should have been gay just because he wrote "The Gay Science" (it's "Die Froeliche Wissenschaft" in German btw you'd have to take into account the fact that when Nietzsche first met Richard Wagner in 1869, the magisterial composer was more than twice the age of the fledgling philologist. Wagner had also just been banished from the royal court of Bavaria for his adulterous affair with Cosima von Bülow. Although the friendship between the two men began rather well, it would famously degenerate into a bitter intellectual and emotional feud. The thing is that Wagner was a manipulative jerk and that Nietzsche and Cosima, who both suffered miserably in youth, were psychologically vulnerable to Wagner's seductive but emotionally abusive behavior. He would "advise," for example, in a letter to an homosexual friend to "try to cut down a little, on the pederasty"...

Wagner appears to have been a hell of a lot like law professors.

[dissipate]

Nietzsche was not a fag. It was actually Wagner who, after Nietzsche and Wagner split, conducted a relentless and vindictive campaign against Nietzsche on the grounds that he was homosexual. Unless you think Niezsche should have been gay just because he wrote "The Gay Science" (it's "Die Froeliche Wissenschaft" in German btw you'd have to take into account the fact that when Nietzsche first met Richard Wagner in 1869, the magisterial composer was more than twice the age of the fledgling philologist. Wagner had also just been banished from the royal court of Bavaria for his adulterous affair with Cosima von Bülow. Although the friendship between the two men began rather well, it would famously degenerate into a bitter intellectual and emotional feud. The thing is that Wagner was a manipulative jerk and that Nietzsche and Cosima, who both suffered miserably in youth, were psychologically vulnerable to Wagner's seductive but emotionally abusive behavior. He would "advise," for example, in a letter to an homosexual friend to "try to cut down a little, on the pederasty"...

Wagner appears to have been a hell of a lot like law professors.

LOL down!

[execrable]

In 1850 Wagner published "Das Judenthum in der Musik" (originally translated as "Judaism in Music," by which name it is still known, but better rendered as "Jewishness in Music") under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The essay began as an attack on Jewish composers, particularly Wagner's contemporaries (and rivals) Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but expanded to accuse Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture. Wagner wrote that the German people were repelled by Jews due to their alien appearance and behavior: "with all our speaking and writing in favor of the Jews' emancipation, we always felt instinctively repelled by any actual, operative contact with them." He argued that Jewish musicians were only capable of producing music that was shallow and artificial, because they had no connection to the genuine spirit of Christian Germans. He also argued that Jews composed music that would likely achieve the greatest popularity and, therefore, financial success as opposed to created truly great and original works of art. To Wagner, the Jews lacked creativity and sought both popular and financial dominance. To Wagner, Jews involved in music were detrimental to the welfare of Germany.

The initial publication of the article attracted little attention, but Wagner republished it as a pamphlet under his own name in 1869, leading to several public protests at performances of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner repeated similar views in several later articles, such as "What is German?" (1878), and subsequent memoirs of him often recorded his derogatory comments on Jews. Although many have argued that he suggested only that Jews should suppress their Jewishness, others have interpreted sections of his writing literally, to mean wiping out or burying the Jewish people. Despite his disparaging views concerning Jews, Wagner continued to have Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters throughout his life.

Adolf Hitler was an admirer of Wagner's music, and saw in it an embodiment of his own heroic mythology of the German nation. There continues to be debate about the extent to which Wagner's views might have influenced Nazi thinking. As with the works of Nietzsche, the Nazis used those parts of Wagner's thought which were useful for propaganda and ignored or suppressed the rest. For example Joseph Goebbels banned Parsifal in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, due to the perceived pacifistic overtones of the opera.Although Hitler himself was obsessed by "the Master" many in the Nazi hierarchy were not, and, according to the historian Richard Carr, most Nazis deeply resented the prospect of attending these lengthy epics at Hitler's insistence. As a consequence of this appropriation by Nazi propaganda, Wagner's operas have never been staged in the modern state of Israel. Although his works are broadcast on Israeli government-owned radio and television stations, attempts to stage public performances in Israel have been halted by protests, including protests from Holocaust survivors.

[moelaw]

In Carl Jung's seminar on "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Jung claims that the dwarf states the idea of the Eternal Return before Zarathustra finishes his argument of the Eternal Return when the dwarf says, "'Everything straight lies,' murmured the dwarf disdainfully. 'All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.'"

Jung had a life long fascination with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), but he distanced himself from Nietzsche for fear he would would suffer the same fate, mental illness in his old age.

Jung's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also Sprach Zarathustra) chronicles the wanderings and teachings of Zarathustra, Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism.


Zarathustra

Also Sprach Zarathustra is also the title of a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by the book. It is best known for its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is postulated to have been inspired by the book, at least in part. The opening section is used three times, most famously in the opening title sequence of the film.

[tantrum]

[...] The only difference being that in the Indian menu it was referred to by another name -- Reincarnation/Karma. Those two names too, recurrence and reincarnation begin to sound more and more alike. Has that German chef, Nietzsche, moved from traditional baking of chocolates and cakes to the cooking of spicy, Oriental dishes? The reincarnation/karma combo, usually marinated with Madras curry, is a traditional Indian dish, served with rice!

There are several forms of reincarnation in many Hindu religions. In Buddhism too, a person is born and reborn dozens of times until he learns to master his emotions and desires. Life is believed to be for the purpose of overcoming the desires of the body. Through a series of births and deaths a person finally achieves Nirvana, when the cycle of births and deaths ends, and one is born no more. Nirvana is supposed to be a state of bliss where one has reached the state beyond birth and death. In some Hindu religions, one can be reborn as an animal, an insect, a worm... etc. One Indian saint told his disciples that he would come as a rat in the next life. There is an Indian temple in his honor where they still continue to feed and protect rats of the neighborhood daily for fear that one of them might be the reincarnation of that saint. There is another Hindu god, Hanuman, who was incarnated as a monkey in his last appearance. They have a temple for him too, where they feed monkeys daily, protect and care for them in the environs of the temple. The law of Karma too, fatalism, is about the powerlessness of man to change or do anything about his fate, that whatever is written is what will take place, and one lives one's life only in the way that the law of Karma dictates.

So, Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence is just a form of reincarnation and karma. Along with the book of Manu, Nietzsche must have come across one or more of the many kinds of Indian religions, absorbed their teachings, and regurgitated some of those thoughts in his writings under the new name -- Eternal Recurrence. So much for originality! This is an old shoe, so common in many Oriental thoughts, and the quote above, '"O Zarathustra, who you are and must become" behold you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence -- that is your destiny! That you as the first must teach this doctrine ...' is simply not true, and has no basis. This doctrine is an ancient concept, taught in various forms by many Oriental teachers throughout the ages, and Zarathustra was not the first to teach this doctrine. Why then does Nietzsche make the claim of being the first to teach it? The answer is simple. It was customary in those days for European travelers to come to Africa or Asia, ask native guides to show them the way to the source of a river, or to the top of a mountain, and then turn around and claim it as their discovery. They would then name it after themselves or their king or queen. Nietzsche's claim of originality and of being first to teach this doctrine must be seen in that light. He could claim of introducing it to Europe.

Are you sure you really understand Buddhism and its concepts? Because even Nietzsche may not have really understood the point of it. Buddhism is very complicated for the Western mind to fully grasp in its entirety. For example, According to Nietzsche, Buddhism can be described as an effort, through restraint from action, to escape suffering and pass into absolute non-existence. But is this description accurate? Dukkha is the Sanskrit word commonly translated as 'suffering'. Its full meaning, however, is much more extensive, and this has important implications for the interpretation of Buddhist doctrine, because it is an integral constituent in the articulation of the fundamental Buddhist doctrine, the Four Noble Truths, as expressed in the Vinayapitaka:  

'And this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, and old age is dukkha, and disease is dukkha, and dying is dukkha, association from what is not dear is dukkha, separation from what is dear is dukkha, not getting what you want is dukkha - in short, the five aggregates of grasping are dukkha.'

Understood simply as 'suffering', the word dukkha in this central Buddhist passage expresses only simple pessimism. The common translation of dukkha as suffering has quite likely been the cause of a great deal of misunderstanding on the part of the non-Buddhist world. In fact, 'dukkha' comes in three flavors. The first is dukkha-dukkhata, suffering qua suffering in its direct physical and mental manifestations. The second is vapirinama-dukkha, or suffering through transformation. This refers to the awareness that one's happiness is highly contingent and dependent on factors beyond one's control. Though you may be happy now, it could change at any moment, and this is due to the ungrounded and fluctuating nature of existence itself. The most important type of dukkha, however, is sankhara-dukkha, an existential incompleteness due to spiritual ignorance. This incompleteness arises from being limited to one's own contingent and unenlightened perspective. Panna is the word used to refer to the transcendental consciousness of those who have attained enlightenment and are thereby free from sankhara-dukkha and existentially complete. For those who have attained Panna, even the most blissful existence as a deva in one of the Buddhist Heavens would seem to be a miserable Hell. This is because any of these existences of a relative nature (more or less blissful, painful, etc) are only results of the spiritual ignorance that results in sankhara-dukkha.  

Interpreted in this way, it is easy to begin to see how the statement of the First Noble Truth takes on a much deeper meaning than was assumed by Nietzsche. Not only are birth, death, and disease painful, they are products of spiritual ignorance. To say that they are 'dukkha' implies that they are, as co-dependently arising oppositions, ultimately unreal. It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real. Perhaps the most compelling evidence that the primary motivation behind Buddhism is not simply suffering qua suffering is the fact that out of the 121 classes of conscious experience listed in Buddhist psychology, only three have to do with pain, while 63 are joyful. Both the joyful and the painful, however, are considered sankhara-dukkha -- products of spiritual ignorance. Kamma-niradha is the Sanskrit word for 'cessation of action'. This state is achieved through adherence to the eight-fold path, which guides the Buddhist into kusula, or 'skillful action'. Therefore, it is not simply ceasing to perform actions that the Buddhist believes will eventually lead one to his or her goal. Rather, the type of actions that are performed is the deciding factor. Likewise, it is wrong to conclude that just because one has attained Nirvana that one ceases to act. Such a conclusion implies a misconceived interpretation of kamma-niradha, as it is understood in Buddhism. This is the misconception Nietzsche seems to have made in characterising Buddhism as being centered on the guideline not to act. That such an interpretation is indeed misconceived is apparent when we consider the life and words of the Buddha. After attaining enlightenment and Nirvana, he continued to lead an active life for the next forty-five years. Again, it is the nature of the action that differentiates the enlightened, described in the following passage from the Vinayapatika:  

'I, monks, am freed from all snares, both those of devas and those of men. And you, monks, are freed from all snares, both those of devas and those of men. Go, monks, and wander for the blessing of the manyfolk, for the happiness of the manyfolk out of compassion for the world, for the welfare, the blessing, the happiness of devas and men. Let not two (of you) go by one (way). Monks, teach the Dhamma which is lovely at the beginning, lovely in the middle, and lovely at the end.'

As this passage illustrates, there are certain kinds of actions that are enjoined on the enlightened. However, it is inaccurate to use the word 'enjoined' in this context because the skillful actions are naturally done by the enlightened Buddhist, and are no longer performed as if they are obligations in a code of behavior. Following the Buddhist 'code', the eightfold path, is merely a means to the end of making it obsolete upon enlightenment. This is because of the way 'skillful action' is defined in Buddhism. The action that ceases is not activity in general, but only the unskillful actions that originate in spiritual ignorance. An action originates in spiritual ignorance when it is affected by one of three biases. These biases are sense desire, desire for some future form of existence, and spiritual ignorance. Buddhism further classifies actions into three categories. Wrong actions run counter to the goal of enlightenment and are driven by one or more of the biases. Of right actions there are those that tend toward enlightenment but are still driven by one the biases and those that are completely free of the biases and based on the correct understanding of the enlightened agent. Examples of the former are actions performed by aspiring Buddhists who have not yet attained enlightenment and behave according to the Buddhist guidelines because they are enjoined on them by the religion itself. Upon enlightenment, the cessation of action that takes place is a cessation of the actions that are driven by the biases and, hence, unenlightened.

[tantrum]

By interpreting the Buddhist conception of inaction as a cessation of all action, Nietzsche presented Buddhism as an escapist, and 'weary' ideology. Rightly understood, however, the Buddhist ideal of kamma-niradha actually comes closer to Nietzsche's ideal -- being, in his own words, action that is 'beyond good and evil,' or outside the moral categories of a dogma. Now that it has become clearer that Buddhism does not involve a retreat simply from pain, and that it does not prescribe complete inertness, we must ask ourselves about the goal toward which its genuine recommendations are directed. The most crucial point of contention over Nietzsche's criticisms of Buddhism might be the question: is Nirvana really an 'Oriental Nothing? 'Do Buddhists really seek, by developing panna and performing kamma-niradha, to exterminate themselves beyond the possibility of re-birth? 

'Since a Tathagata, even when actually present, is incomprehensible, it is inept to say of him - of the Uttermost Person, the Supernal Person, the Attainer of the Supernal - that after dying the Tathagata is, or is not, or both is and is not, or neither is nor is not ...'

(Majjhima-Nikaya)

It is hard to imagine that Nietzsche misinterpreted the concept of Buddhist Nirvana completely inadvertently, given the sheer amount of Theravada literature that exists on the topic. In so many passages, the texts insist that Nirvana transcends the difference between the four sets of categories given above (being, non-being, both, and neither), and that it is therefore inaccurate to say of Nirvana that it is nothingness - and just as inaccurate to conclude that it must be something. Nirvana is postulated as a state quite beyond the realm of reason and language. In the Suttanipata, the Buddha explains: 

'There is no measuring of one who has gone to his setting, Upasiva,' said the Blessed One. 'That no longer exists for him by which people might refer to him. When all conditions [dhammas] are removed, then all ways of telling are also removed.'

All points of reference by which one makes descriptions and explanations are products of the unenlightened perspective. Nirvana, since it is beyond this perspective, is beyond description by way of these relative concepts and categories. It can only be understood by way of attainment? of losing spiritual ignorance in exchange for enlightened understanding. That, according to Buddhism, is why it is so problematic to give an explanation for it. The Buddha replies to the bewilderment expressed by a disciple, Vacchagotta: 

'It is enough to cause you bewilderment, Vaccha, enough to cause you confusion. For this truth, Vaccha, is deep, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. It is hard for you to understand when you hold to another view, accept another teaching, approve another teaching, pursue a different training, and follow a different teacher.'

Admittedly, having not attained the state of enlightenment described by the Buddhists, I find it perplexing to conceive of. It appears that in order to understand the concept one must transcend rationality itself and operate on some plane completely outside of anything we can imagine. In other words, only the enlightened can understand the goal they have achieved (at which point it ceases to be anything like a 'goal'). Though only a fool denies the reality of a thing based solely on the fact that one has not yet experienced it, it is quite understandable that in so many cases a concept that requires such direct experience should be completely misunderstood by those who have lack the experience. In such a case, one unenlightened onlooker has really no point of reference by which to test the accuracy of another unenlightened explanation. Indeed, it appears that any words used to explain Nirvana, according to the Buddhist postulations, would be horrendous mistakes. And so it is with this in mind that we should examine a statement by Schopenhauer (in The World as Will and Idea), who was a major influence on Nietzsche, regarding the subject.
 

'...We must banish the dark impression of that nothingness which we discern behind all virtue and holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as children fear the dark; we must not even evade it like the Indians, through myths and meaningless words, such as reabsorption in Brahma, or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Rather, do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the abolition of will is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing; but conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways - is nothing.'

Obviously, Schopenhauer, after being so influenced by Hindu and Buddhist ideas about the effect that desire and will has on binding us to continued existence, completely dismissed the perplexing descriptions of Nirvana as 'meaningless words'. Unable to conceive of a state beyond the categories of being and non-being, he concluded that the final state that is entered into after dissolution of the will is complete non-existence. Hence, his diagnosis that the philosophers who postulated inconceivable states were merely 'evading'the nothingness that they feared. Diagnoses of 'psychological dishonesty'such as this became, in some form or other, staples of later existentialist thinkers. Nietzsche, of course, made similar attacks against Christianity as well as Buddhism.  The fact is, Nirvana can only be explained to the 'unenlightened' by negation. The Buddhist texts tell us what it cannot be thought of as, but the only positive descriptions of it tend toward non-existence. An example of this is the simile of the fire that the Buddha uses in his dialogue with Vacchagotama. He asks whether the fire, when it is extinguished, can be said to have gone north, south, east, or west. Of course, the obvious answer is that the fire no longer exists. Nirvana, however, cannot be described as existing, not existing, both existing and not, or neither existing nor not. For Buddhism, even nothingness is constituted by the relative contingencies that arise co-dependently as samsara. 

For Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, nothingness is what is left when these illusions are removed. This explains their sharply opposed responses to the human condition as they understand it. Schopenhauer and, according to Nietzsche, Buddhism, prescribe a surrender into nothingness that can only be actualized by extinction of the will. Nietzsche, on the other hand, asserts an affirmation of the illusion by becoming the creator of it. His überman, by accepting the groundlessness of his own 'truths' and yet maintaining them and continually creating them -- wanting to create them over and over again (as opposed to wanting to escape the cycle) -- represents an ideal response to existence. So both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer greatly misunderstood Buddhism, by interpreting Nirvana as non-existence. The Buddhist response to them both would be that they failed to understand the system fully because they failed to adopt Buddhist practices aimed at enlightenment -- at which point they would have developed the capacity to conceive of Nirvana. 'Sire, Nirvana is', says the Buddhist disciple, Nagasena, 'cognizable by mind: an ariyan disciple, faring along with a mind that is purified, lofty, straight, without obstructions, without temporal desires, sees Nirvana.'

[unexceptionable]

Learning to bear the burden of a meaningless universe, and justify one's own existence, is the first step toward becoming the "Übermensch" (English: "overman or "superman") [...]

Does your keyboard have a button for the letter Ü?

Hold ALT and tap U.

[syn]

There are several forms of reincarnation in many Hindu religions. In Buddhism too, a person is born and reborn dozens of times until he learns to master his emotions and desires. Life is believed to be for the purpose of overcoming the desires of the body. Through a series of births and deaths a person finally achieves Nirvana, when the cycle of births and deaths ends, and one is born no more. Nirvana is supposed to be a state of bliss where one has reached the state beyond birth and death. In some Hindu religions, one can be reborn as an animal, an insect, a worm... etc. One Indian saint told his disciples that he would come as a rat in the next life. There is an Indian temple in his honor where they still continue to feed and protect rats of the neighborhood daily for fear that one of them might be the reincarnation of that saint. There is another Hindu god, Hanuman, who was incarnated as a monkey in his last appearance. They have a temple for him too, where they feed monkeys daily, protect and care for them in the environs of the temple.

That is a good thing I guess -- it encourages people to treat other animals with respect!

Quite interesting username and post, bedizen!

[Möbius]

There are several forms of reincarnation in many Hindu religions. In Buddhism too, a person is born and reborn dozens of times until he learns to master his emotions and desires. Life is believed to be for the purpose of overcoming the desires of the body. Through a series of births and deaths a person finally achieves Nirvana, when the cycle of births and deaths ends, and one is born no more. Nirvana is supposed to be a state of bliss where one has reached the state beyond birth and death. In some Hindu religions, one can be reborn as an animal, an insect, a worm... etc. One Indian saint told his disciples that he would come as a rat in the next life. There is an Indian temple in his honor where they still continue to feed and protect rats of the neighborhood daily for fear that one of them might be the reincarnation of that saint. There is another Hindu god, Hanuman, who was incarnated as a monkey in his last appearance. They have a temple for him too, where they feed monkeys daily, protect and care for them in the environs of the temple.

That is a good thing I guess -- it encourages people to treat other animals with respect!

Quite interesting username and post, bedizen!

You too, syn!