Nietzsche, Marx, and Kierkegaard
Zarathustra is always a favorite, with the ringing of God is dead throughout the mountains. Re-evaluating our idols, discovering the significance of their dethroning and how it relates to the intricate web that we create for our lives. Zarathustra, holy man in his blasphemy, ushering in a new era where the last men are eradicated, the filthy vermin masquerading intelligence led by the promise of cheese. Formerly the world was a mad place, filled with mice traps, and the drool pours down their uncomprehending faces. So much feces no longer serving the purpose to cleanse, but only lobotomized. All hail Zarathustra; all hail the maker of the overwoman. (Imperfection lies in the most perfect
understanding.) Which brings us to Kierkegaard. A lovely mind with an intense dislike for Hegel and his apparent existentialist system lacking ethics. All the focus on the creation of a possibility for lethargy, a large market emerges for indulgent difficulty. Kierkegaard is a funny man. A logical system triumphant against the impossibility of the existentialist dilemmas. Systems begin in reflection, there is perhaps thus never a true beginning, is the light of the big bang still visible? Favorite quotes: "A philosopher has gradually come to be so fantastic a being that scarcely the most extravagant fancy has ever invented anything so fabulous (pg. 200)." and "the ideal of a persistent striving is the only view of life that does not carry with it an inevitable disillusionment (pg. 203)." God for Kierkegaard is the only systematic thinker, and systems are silly silly in their finality of macrocosmic proportions because people cannot be God. Existing being a system for God but not for anything existing sounds almost as if good old Soren is not claiming that God is dead but perhaps that God does not exist? How does he reconcile this? Past existence perhaps is systematic in that it has drawn to a close but the present is no time for birth because it is immediately transcended into the past, and what is transcendent other than the past because what else can be transcended than the base in the present which leads to the "bad infinite" in my mind, outside the realm of logic and therefore of little importance other than that it is seemingly impossible.
Grendel started his search for meaning with solipsistic beliefs, thinking himself the creator of the world he lived in. “I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe, blink by blink” (21-22). However, after speaking to the existentialist Fire Dragon, Grendel realized that aspects of his first theory didn’t make sense and that even after his death things will continue to exist. “Every rock, every tree, every crystal of snow cries out cold-blooded objectness” (172).
8- McDermid, Douglas. "God's Existence." PHIL 1000H-B Lecture 9. Trent University, Peterborough. 21 Nov. 2013. Lecture.
Kierkegaard, Søren, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong, and Søren Kierkegaard. Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1985. Print.
Society is flawed. There are critical imbalances in it that cause much of humanity to suffer. In, the most interesting work from this past half-semester, The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx is reacting to this fact by describing his vision of a perfectly balanced society, a communist society. Simply put, a communist society is one where all property is held in common. No one person has more than the other, but rather everyone shares in the fruits of their labors. Marx is writing of this society because, he believes it to be the best form of society possible. He states that communism creates the correct balance between the needs of the individual and the needs of society. And furthermore thinks that sometimes violence is necessary to reach the state of communism. This paper will reflect upon these two topics: the relationship of the individual and society, and the issue of violence, as each is portrayed in the manifesto.
An influential literary movement in the nineteenth century, transcendentalism placed an emphasis on the wonder of nature and its deep connection to the divine. As the two most prominent figures in the transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau whole-heartedly embraced these principles. In their essays “Self-Reliance” and “Civil Disobedience”, Emerson and Thoreau, respectively, argue for individuality and personal expression in different manners. In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson calls for individuals to speak their minds and resist societal conformity, while in “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau urged Americans to publicly state their opinions in order to improve their own government.
The debate between existentialism and the rest of the world is a fierce, albeit recent one. Before the "dawn of science" and the Age Of Reason, it was universally accepted that there were such things as gods, right and wrong, and heroism. However, with the developing interest in science and the mechanization of the universe near the end of the Renaissance, the need for a God was essentially removed, and humankind was left to reconsider the origin of meaning. John Gardner’s intelligently written Grendel is a commentary on the merits and flaws of both types of worldview: the existentialist "meaning-free" universe, and the heroic universe, where every action is imbued with purpose and power. Indeed, the book raises many philosophical questions in regards to the meaning of life as well as to the way humans define themselves. Additionally, Gardner portrays continual analysis, and final approval, of existentialist viewpoints as one observes that the main character, Grendel, is an existentialist.
Two great writers, whose ideas have been read by many, are Karl Marx and Abraham Kuyper. Marx was a philosopher and because of his writing about Communist many places responded with revolutions. Kuyper was a Christian leader inspired many with his writings about society and culture. Marx and Kuyper both addressed how social issues in the world. Marx and Kuyper’s views of human nature are very different. While Kuyper believes that God shapes our lives and humans have no control; Marx, on the other hand, believes that human beings can shape and control the direction of their own lives. Both men show their beliefs of human nature through history, government, economy, and society. Though they both believe in equal society they don’t agree on the
During the nineteenth century, Karl Marx and Max Weber were two of the most influential sociologists. Both of them tried to explain social change taking place in a society at that time. On the one hand, their views are very different, but on the other hand, they had many similarities.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due to our illusion of truth. Therefore, Nietzsche concludes that all we can claim to know are interpretations of truth and not truth itself.
According to Karl Marx, religion is like other social institutions in that it is dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given society. It has no independent history; instead it is the creature of productive forces. As Marx wrote, “The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.”
The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of capital and distributions from the government. Studying the different approaches will let us show the similarities of principles that eliminate abuse of power and concentration of wealth by few, and allow access for all. To further evaluate these similarities, we must first understand the primary principles of each of the philosophers’ concepts.
Rousseau and Marx are leftist thinkers who believe in freedom and equality for all humans. Rousseau and Marx agree that modernization and industrialization ruin society, Rousseau believes that it leaves men in chains hooked to materialistic things, and Marx argues that it creates class differences where not everyone is equal to gain theses materialistic things. Marx was interested in moving beyond materialistic equality to a society where everyone is equally free to develop to the fullness of their potential.
There are many classical sociologists in the world with many different theories and key elements within the sociological imagination. James Fulcher and John Scott (p.21, 2011) explain why theories of sociologists in past time and todays modern so-ciety are so important and why they can still be relevant today, “theory is or should be an attempt to describe and explain the real world, it is impossible to know any-thing about the real world without drawing on some kind of theoretical ideas.” Per-ceptions of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber (who can also be known as the ‘holy trinity’ of the three founding fathers) theories have been interpreted for hundreds of years, leading to them having a remarkable impact in history and to-day’s society. However the relevance of these theories in contemporary sociology raises a magnitude of different questions and opinions on how the theories effect citizens in society to this day. Furthermore this essay will be focusing on how the three sociologists discussed and argued certain concepts such as inequality and social change, also how they can relate to key events, for example the Olympics the Arab Spring and the 2011 riots. In addition to this how they help our understanding of current societies, times and events.
Elrod, John. Being and Existence in Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Works. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975.