Freedom In History

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I believe that freedom for man consists in a particular type of triumph and victory. It consists of the expressions of individual mastery in the midst of chaos, tragedy and brutality. Freedom is a sort of purified assertion of the will of a people or a person within a world rife with chaos and brutality. To say that freedom is survival is only partly correct because true freedom is mastery that has already met its challenges.

People who are free or have been free in the past are known by their names: Greeks, Persian, Florentines and also Americans, Germans, Japanese etc. all of the renowned groups have triumphed over great difficulties and become famous within our history books. History is silent however upon the majority of mankind who lived anonymously and briefly, and who left behind no enduring legacy or cultural achievement. The successful races of people are known and the failures are obscured. Those races who have achieved have gained their measure of freedom and success beyond mere survival; their spirits have soared in the world. Sucess and triumph transcends time and is recognizable because it is particular and unified. It is unified and particular because through the human will it has overcome chaos and formlessness. Free people have beaten the odds!

The Greeks found purpose in nature whereas the modern Europeans found purpose in history. The Greeks revered nature and saw history as mundane. The Europeans did not revere the natural world as did the Greeks; the ancient Greeks, in my opinion, were more primitive and backward in this regard than were the Europeans from the 18th Century to the middle of the 20th Century.

The Europeans used history as a guide for humans to achieve freedom in the world. History was, for them, a better guide toward self-perfection and freedom than was nature. For the Europeans nature was lower and nature was also something to be made use of and not worshiped.

The Greeks who lived in nature would not understand the philosophy of history which is a philosophy which states that there is meaning for man within history itself. There was no purpose in history for the Greeks; history for them was not considered to be progressive in nature. The Greeks knew no philosophy of history.

The type of greatness that Plato the Greek espoused was aristocratic rationalism, an endless discourse upon the purpose of man and nature. Whereas the type of greatness that some modern European philosophies of freedom espoused did not involve nature. For them man was free even from nature, man was to pursue his authenticity using his own psychological powers without any hinderance from within nature. Modern man was radically free to create himself within a cosmos that was lower and more mundane. Man was to erect his psychological masterpiece, which was the creation of himself as a unified and free individual, upon the stage of history.

For the Greeks the power to move the world dwelled in natural forces. Whereas for Nietzsche, for example, the power to move the world lay in man's psychological force called the will to power. Some may argue that the will to power is tantamount to the superstitions of the Greeks with their nature worship and their gods. And I would agree to the extent that Nietzsche's psychological will powers point to an explosive transmutable psychological 'substance' or bio-chemical element that is empirical and 'this' worldly although not fully known and therefore mysterious to us. But if Nietzsche and the moderns are correct then through the achievement of freedom and authenticity through the will to power the true individual will be actually capable of controlling the machinery of world-history. Because the authentically free man is so profound as to literally move the world.

True freedom may just lie in this mystery of psychological profundity and the authentic powers of the will as the will of man conquers nature and forces himself upon world-history as a particular set of psychological states and power-moves.

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@Pythagorean,

Triumph of Will World in Motion

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@Ron C de Weijze,

Quote:

No, I don't think Obama is a fascist. In fact, of all the politicians out there, he gives me more hope that we can chart a path to solve immense problems facing our country.

I guess it depends upon whose will we're talking about?

I'm not trying to get political. I'm writing philosophy of history and psychology as I see and enjoy it.

And Nietzsche was not a Nazi. But don't worry it is a very common mistake. The rule of society by psychologists and philosophers is very far away from Hitler and Obama.

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@Pythagorean,

Freedom flows out of a community... Freedom outside of a community is outlawry...

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

I guess it depends upon whose will we're talking about?

I'm not trying to get political. I'm writing philosophy of history and psychology as I see and enjoy it.

And Nietzsche was not a Nazi. But don't worry it is a very common mistake. The rule of society by psychologists and philosophers is very far away from Hitler and Obama.

You are correct; Nietzsche was not a nazi... The nazis were Neitzchean... In gross... They took him as they took science, only as much as they thought they could use...

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@Fido,

What is meant by 'freedom' from nature? It is natural to breath and live and reproduce; do you suggest we emancipate ourselves from these things? And what is your rather unclear comparison between 'greek' and later 'european' philosophies as regards freedom and nature? Greece is the birthplace of democracy, and freedom from nature is simply the destruction of our selves.

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@avatar6v7,

Hi.

avatar6v7,

I was taught, and I believe, that the modern conquest of nature through the means of scientific knowledge and technology reoriented European thought. And I don't know if there is any academic dispute over this fact. If there is dispute I haven't heard of it.

And the Greeks on the other hand are considered as the most natural people in history. Their religion is that of nature deities, nature gods. For the Greeks, I think, the highest man can reach is contemplation over the nature of things. Whereas for modern man the highest thing is to improve his condition.

Now, I understand that these are complex matters and I realize that my brief outline is superficial. But to answer your question regarding nature I would only go so far.

I would only venture further to say to you that if everything is nature as you suggest, then, strictly speaking, nothing would be nature. Because everything being homogenous there is no point for us to assert specific identities. So there are things which are less natural that some other things, such as man made objects and possibly man's existential condition within technological mass society.

--

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

For the Greeks the power to move the world dwelled in natural forces. Whereas for Nietzsche, for example, the power to move the world lay in man's psychological force called the will to power. Some may argue that the will to power is tantamount to the superstitions of the Greeks with their nature worship and their gods. And I would agree to the extent that Nietzsche's psychological will powers point to an explosive transmutable psychological 'substance' or bio-chemical element that is empirical and 'this' worldly although not fully known and therefore mysterious to us. But if Nietzsche and the moderns are correct then through the achievement of freedom and authenticity through the will to power the true individual will be actually capable of controlling the machinery of world-history. Because the authentically free man is so profound as to literally move the world.

I underlined the part of this that stood out to me the most. Can you please go into more detail as to what you mean by this?

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@Egnirf,

Hi,

It is the human will. From Fichte, for example, we can understand that the human will is the primal force of human freedom. And we can learn from Schopenhauer that the will is the primal source of the representations that appear to us.

To replace God with the deepest element in man which acts upon a this-worldly basis. Kant says that it is the human mind that makes the world of appearance. Step further into the atheist philosophy to use our profoundest determinations to move 'history', to move the world - - it is harsh and it is quite war-like as Nietzsche says. Another way it has been put is that it is the immanentization of the eschaton (see for example Eric Voegelin). The apocalypse as a form of being-in-the-world. But substitue the immanent advent of God with the will to power.

--

1 Reply

@Pythagorean,

I have found the section in Nietzsche where he addresses the problems that are being discussed in this thread. I will post it here. It is from his book titled "Beyond Good And Evil - Prelude To A Philosophy Of The Future","The Free Spirit", section 36:

[CENTER]If we assume that nothing is "given" as real other than our world of desires and passions and that we cannot access from above or below any "reality" other than the direct reality of our drives-for thinking is only a relationship of these drives to each other-: are we not allowed to make the attempt and to ask the question whether this given is not a sufficient basis also for understanding the so-called mechanical (or "material") world on the basis of things like this given. I don't mean to understand it as an illusion, an "appearance," an "idea" (in the sense of Berkeley and Schopenhauer*), but as having the same degree of reality as our affects themselves have-as a more primitive form of the world of affects in which everything is still combined in a powerful unity, something which then branches off and develops in the organic process (also, as is reasonable, gets softer and weaker-), as a form of instinctual life in which the collective organic functions, along with self-regulation, assimilation, nourishment, excretion, and metabolism, are still synthetically bound up with one another-as an early form of life? In the end making this attempt is not only permitted but is also demanded by the conscience of the method. Not to assume various forms of causality as long as the attempt to manage with a single one has been pushed to its furthest limit (-all the way to nonsense, if I may say so): that is one moral of the method which people nowadays may not evade; -as a mathematician would say, it is a consequence "of its definition." In the end the question is whether we acknowledge the will as something really efficient, whether we believe in the causal properties of the will. If we do-and basically our faith in this is simply our faith in causality itself-then we must make the attempt to set up hypothetically the causality of the will as the single causality. Of course, "will" can work only on "will"-and not on "stuff" (not, for example, on "nerves"-). Briefly put, we must venture the hypothesis whether in general, wherever we recognize "effects," will is not working on will-and whether every mechanical event, to the extent that a force is active in it, is not force of will, an effect of the will.-Suppose finally that we were to succeed in explaining our entire instinctual life as a development and branching off of a single fundamental form of the will-that is, of the will to power, as my principle asserts-and suppose we could trace back all organic functions to this will to power and also locate in it the solution to the problem of reproduction and nourishment-that is one problem-then in so doing we would have earned the right to designate all efficient force unambiguously as will to power. Seen from inside, the world defined and described according to its "intelligible character" would be simply "will to power" and nothing else.-[/CENTER]

I hope this helps.

-- Pyth

2 Replies

@Pythagorean,

From what source(s) do you draw the conclusion that the Greeks "would not understand the philosophy of history"? I imagine your source is not Herodotus.

But that is a quibble.

By what standard can you judge a race of man to be a success or failure? You mention impact upon history: but such an evaluation necessarily discriminates against those "races" who have not been so well documented or studied in the west as, for example, are the Germans. To judge whole races of men based on a collection of history books is to invite error and confusion - it necessitates an inherent bias in favor of those "races" most studied by the books' authors'.

And I cannot imagine why historical note somehow denotes "success and triumph". Sodom and Gomorrah have earned a solid place in the mind of man, but their "race" would wrongly be called a "success and triumph".

To say that "success and triumph transcend time" is to say the thing which is not. Time will transcend all apparent success and triumph, reducing all of these gains to dust. What recorder of our species will outlive the dust?

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@Didymos Thomas,

Thomas, you are speaking from a specifice tradition. The modern liberal one. I don't share that tradition, I am not affiliated with the Democrats and political correct speech. There's where the difference lies. That's why you disagree. There is no room for substantive debate with you. If I were to try to debate you no doubt you would attempt to silence me. Been there, done that.

1 Reply

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean;66138 wrote:

Thomas, you are speaking from a specifice tradition.

No - I am asking what sources lead you to believe that the ancient Greeks could not appreciate the philosophy of history as you define the subject. I am asking how you can compare civilizations about which you know varying degrees, about which varying degrees of western scholarship has been done. And I am also asking how it is possible for historical datum to transcend time given the fact that time transcends man's ability to keep such records.

I am asking specific questions. I am not (yet) speaking from a specific tradition.

Pythagorean;66138 wrote:

The modern liberal one.

Affectionately referring to Old Testament stories is modern liberal? Bill Maher is not going to like that news.

Pythagorean;66138 wrote:

I don't share that tradition, I am not affiliated with the Democrats and political correct speech.

Cool. I'm not a Democrat, either, nor do I advocate the censorship of speech (except in public safety matters like yelling fire in a crowded auditorium). I bet we have a lot in common.

Pythagorean;66138 wrote:

There's where the difference lies. That's why you disagree. There is no room for substantive debate with you.

Our differences lie in, our disagreements are caused by, and substantive debate is made impossible because we are both not members of the Democratic party and because neither of us advocate the censorship of speech? I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

Pythagorean;66138 wrote:

If I were to try to debate you no doubt you would attempt to silence me.

I'm no mobster and you're no star witness. No cause for concern, friend.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;66135 wrote:

From what source(s) do you draw the conclusion that the Greeks "would not understand the philosophy of history"? I imagine your source is not Herodotus.

But that is a quibble.

Well, in this post you say it is a quibble, meaning, not important enough to discuss I take it. But however, in your next post you come out and ask the question as if it were not a quibble. So is this a random thing or what?

Quote:

By what standard can you judge a race of man to be a success or failure?

The famous ones are successes and the majority of the rest are failures. However, I originally say this in a specific context which is being ignored here.

Quote:

You mention impact upon history: but such an evaluation necessarily discriminates against those "races" who have not been so well documented or studied in the west as, for example, are the Germans.

There is no discrimination -on my part, at least. I am going under the assumption that the great civilizations such as the Roman and the Ancient Greek have been singled out for a reason. You are making something that is rather simple and obvious seem complex or that I have some type of discriminatory agenda and that is wrong. It also changes the subject matter of the thread.

Quote:

To judge whole races of men based on a collection of history books is to invite error and confusion - it necessitates an inherent bias in favor of those "races" most studied by the books' authors'.

I don't think further study will resolve the problem that you are experiencing with my posts. Are you suggesting we "judge whole races of men" without using history books? Again, you are making something that is a banal set of ordinary facts into something that is problematic.

Quote:

And I cannot imagine why historical note somehow denotes "success and triumph". Sodom and Gomorrah have earned a solid place in the mind of man, but their "race" would wrongly be called a "success and triumph".

I think it is the ancient Isrealites who are the noteworthy bunch when it comes to the old testament. I have not denied the Jews greatness and I have not attempted to bestow greatness on Sodom and her sister. However, greatness does not imply moral uprightness either. It is your opinion that Sodom and Ghomorah are more infamous than famous. I could easily imagine an antagonist who could reasonably argue the opposite of what you say is moral.

Quote:

To say that "success and triumph transcend time" is to say the thing which is not. Time will transcend all apparent success and triumph, reducing all of these gains to dust. What recorder of our species will outlive the dust?

Great deeds and great men are eternal objects and object lessons, in my opinion. That's why historians write about them - they know how to find the important ones.

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@Pythagorean,

So; do you see in this something other than the anti rationalism for which Nietzsche is often remarked upon???

At least Freud was correct in saying while the irrational holds sway in our lives that the rational voice will be heard...

I would say we are hardly rational, but our non rational goals we reach by way of reason, so we are clearly able to be rational for great periods of time... But until we know what is good for us, truly good, moral and virtuous we are wrong to suggest reason, because reason toward a bad end is no virtue... First determine upon the goal..

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;66172 wrote:

So; do you see in this something other than the anti rationalism for which Nietzsche is often remarked upon???

At least Freud was correct in saying while the irrational holds sway in our lives that the rational voice will be heard...

I would say we are hardly rational, but our non rational goals we reach by way of reason, so we are clearly able to be rational for great periods of time... But until we know what is good for us, truly good, moral and virtuous we are wrong to suggest reason, because reason toward a bad end is no virtue... First determine upon the goal..

Let me attempt to describe what I think Nietzsche is saying regarding reason and morality.

I believe he is saying that man is an animal. Let me repeat, man is an animal. Man is not some form of Euclidian object who is somehow mysteriously connected to some supernatural force on high. (Also, Jesus Christ was, according to Nietzsche's thinking, not the supernatural son of god.) So man is fundamentally irrational.

So all of the goals or ends that men seek are goals and ends whose purpose is for the benefit or for the use of the irrational animal man. Things like sex and eating, appetite and human will, reveal to the 'reasonable' observer what man is: i.e. an irrational animal. An animal who is not supported (or who is barely supported) by any type of cosmic deity.

Nature has no ulterior motive. Nature is blind force and there is no escaping it. Nature does not conceal some kind of rational purpose within it.

God, reason, and morality are, therefore, qualities or objects or things that serve the irrational purpose because they serve an animal i.e. man. Reason and morality are not supernatural bridges.

Man can develop his reason to the highest degree possible and he can develop a morality which is extremely "good". But these things will not lead to a supernatural heaven. Nietzsche believes that man is fooling himself with his morality and his reason. Man is thus blinding himself to his true nature. Reason is only for the benefit of the animal man, morality is only a regulatory custom handed down from mythological origins (such as the belief that the man Jesus Christ was a god).

--

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@Pythagorean,

How does one go about proving man is irrational with reason??? If you use reason you must be reasonable...Apart from what Nietzsche had to say on the subject, clearly we are both, motivated by desires, achieving our desires by reason... As far as Jesus being human... Well sure, but Jesus is not the problem... We simply have no choice given our information and our ignorance, but to conceive of ourselves spiritually... This we do, and this we as humans may always have done... We do as much with rocks, or atoms...It is not the thing we conceive, but the spirit of the thing...We have life, soul, or as the Greeks said: animus...Other spiritual conceptions support this life, like justice, or freedom, or rights, and they are like ourselves, moral forms...

Now; I agree that no heaven awaits us; but that again is not the problem... Heaven is a problem, because it springs from this metaphysical conception of mankind... That is not what I am saying... I am saying we conceive of ourselves and all things spiritually... Only some things have being and meaning, and some only have meaning...So if we say reason is a virtue, which no one has ever proved, then the opposite must be true of emotion, that it is a vice... I would say that we can only seldom reason what is good, but know it as emotion, which is to say, Illogically...Here is where I tell you Nietzsche was all wrong...He was still associating animal with bad, and brutal...He could not escape his own morality...He had his time with prostitutes; and do you think he did not judge himself at time, and rebel against that judgement???If we cannot reason out our emotions, and if we canot justify all that we feel; that does not mean they are bad or good...Nietzsche was very good at denying what was humane about people... Where was Mrs. Overman, or little baby overman??? Is love unnatural???Is it rational???His overman was more reasonable than real...As much as he ran down Socrates, he suffered from the same blindness... Both were cut off from natural realtionships, and neither could judge their own society... But morality has nothing to do with knowledge, or mythology... We learn morality before we learn consciously, when we learn to love our mothers... Community is morality... Nature, nation, naive, nascent all come frrom natal, our common mother, our true social unity...No one makes morality, and the reason behind it cannot be systematized and taught...If you get it, you got it before you got anything else, and if you did not get it you will always be an odd duck like N, or like Socrates, or Caesar, or like Napoleon, or like any number of philosophers, or psycho killers, que est'ce que....If it is possible, then on faith we must accept that much of society has its own logic, and not because it was reasoned out before hand, but has simply worked out for the best -sort of logic... Nietzsche never seems more foolish than when trying to judge natural behavior as though it was art, and bad art at that... He had more knowledge than understanding, and not enough knowledge...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;66297 wrote:

How does one go about proving man is irrational with reason??? If you use reason you must be reasonable...

The problem seems to lie in giving to reason a distorted and inexcusable amount of respect. It is the hierarchy or the forced ordering of the natural drives that occur within us that is the important matter. Reason must be something like the ordering and the satisfaction of these inner drives. Upon what basis do you explain your deification of reason? It is all too abstract and wispy, this power that you endow reason with. This is voodoo.

And one does not prove that man is irrational. One only sees, then thinks (whatever thinking may really be) and then one acts. Enough! Reason is not some light from a hidden god, reason is the workings which originate withing an organic being, a rather nasty and selfish being at that, i.e. man. And so reason itself, considering its origins, is equally filthy farty, disgusting and natural. You are inverting the natural perspective and putting airy and vaporous ideas before man, you are putting the cart before the horse. Because considering all of the claims of different peoples, it was man who came first and his gods came later on. In fact man continued even as his gods kept changing throughout history and region.

Quote:

Apart from what Nietzsche had to say on the subject, clearly we are both, motivated by desires, achieving our desires by reason... As far as Jesus being human... Well sure, but Jesus is not the problem... We simply have no choice given our information and our ignorance, but to conceive of ourselves spiritually...

I don't believe the business man, for example would share your view. The more we see ourselves spiritually the greater our ignorance. It is not god who conquers nature and makes life tolerable for us, it is the work of science based not upon spiritual considerations but upon hard evidence.

Quote:

This we do, and this we as humans may always have done... We do as much with rocks, or atoms...It is not the thing we conceive, but the spirit of the thing...

The problem of the nature of reality is important. I don't see god in the rocks I see natural forces that took so long and pressed so hard, I see a giant potentially crushing me like an ant, I see dark blind force.

In the book "Beyond Good and Evil" Nietzsche addresses the exact questions that you raise regarding the real nature of things. It is titled "On the Prejudices of Philosophers".

Quote:

We have life, soul, or as the Greeks said: animus...Other spiritual conceptions support this life, like justice, or freedom, or rights, and they are like ourselves, moral forms...

I will say this, that it is practically impossible to teach a liberal the truth about morality. But try to think of other places and perhaps even other times than the ones you currently inhabit. How could there be some supra-human force called justice to a five year old girl who lives in the sewer in Brazil, for example (and who will not live to be very old either)?

And once you combine the liberal ideology with material comfort you have certainly prepared a whole people for slavery. For it will be in the name of justice and morality that they (the Americans) give up those same liberties. Aristocratic societies saw things differently. And one could study the ante-bellum American South to find such a different example.

Quote:

Now; I agree that no heaven awaits us; but that again is not the problem... Heaven is a problem, because it springs from this metaphysical conception of mankind... That is not what I am saying... I am saying we conceive of ourselves and all things spiritually...

Nietzsche never says that there is no afterlife or even that there is no god in the generic sense.

Quote:

Only some things have being and meaning, and some only have meaning...So if we say reason is a virtue, which no one has ever proved, then the opposite must be true of emotion, that it is a vice... I would say that we can only seldom reason what is good, but know it as emotion, which is to say, Illogically...Here is where I tell you Nietzsche was all wrong...He was still associating animal with bad, and brutal...He could not escape his own morality...He had his time with prostitutes; and do you think he did not judge himself at time, and rebel against that judgement???If we cannot reason out our emotions, and if we canot justify all that we feel; that does not mean they are bad or good...Nietzsche was very good at denying what was humane about people... Where was Mrs. Overman, or little baby overman??? Is love unnatural???Is it rational???His overman was more reasonable than real...As much as he ran down Socrates, he suffered from the same blindness... Both were cut off from natural realtionships, and neither could judge their own society... But morality has nothing to do with knowledge, or mythology... We learn morality before we learn consciously, when we learn to love our mothers... Community is morality... Nature, nation, naive, nascent all come frrom natal, our common mother, our true social unity...No one makes morality, and the reason behind it cannot be systematized and taught...If you get it, you got it before you got anything else, and if you did not get it you will always be an odd duck like N, or like Socrates, or Caesar, or like Napoleon, or like any number of philosophers, or psycho killers, que est'ce que....If it is possible, then on faith we must accept that much of society has its own logic, and not because it was reasoned out before hand, but has simply worked out for the best -sort of logic... Nietzsche never seems more foolish than when trying to judge natural behavior as though it was art, and bad art at that... He had more knowledge than understanding, and not enough knowledge...

Nietzsche's ideas are in his books. Before you rush to judgements about him, I suggest that you pick up one of his books or read one of his essays. He was a highly consistent writer.

You could start at the Nietzsche Channel and begin reading some of the shorter essays in English:
The Nietzsche Channel: Nietzsche's Works: English

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