…by Jonas E. Alexis
Corey Robin of Brooklyn College and the City University of New York’s Graduate Center has recently written that “The biggest challenges to today’s public intellectual are imagination and will.”[1]
Complete nonsense.
The biggest challenge to today’s public intellectuals and politicians is that they need to stop being fools. They think they can live an intellectual and political life without morality and practical reason or without the truth, but the past two centuries alone have shown us that this is a complete delusion.[2]
Marquis de Sade for example did not lack “imagination and will.” His fantasy allowed him to turn practical reason upside down. This led to immoral acts, which played a central role during the French Revolution.[3]
Arthur Schopenhauer did not lack imagination when he wrote The World as Will and Idea, a book which had an enormously powerful influence on Friedrich Nietzsche. Schopenhauer’s imagination, as articulated in The World as Will and Idea, allowed him to propound that ultimate reality is not fundamentally good and desirable. Hegel argued that metaphysical reason, which is fundamentally good, will work itself out in history. Metaphysical reason, Hegel further argued, is divine and will triumph in the end.
However, for Schopenhauer, there is no such thing as “the cunning of reason.” Like Darwin, Schopenhauer believes that “will”—another subtle substitute for things like nature—is blind, chaotic, unpredictable, and dangerous.
According Schopenhauer’s philosophical conclusion, man’s existence seems to be an error; therefore, he must create his own standards, living as if no ultimate truth exists. This radical idea indeed had enormous philosophical consequences, too much to detail here.
Biographer and translator of German philosophy R. J. Hollingdale argues that Schopenhauer’s central philosophy, that “life is incurably evil,”[4] distinguishes him from all other philosophers before him.
Perhaps this was one reason why Schopenhauer found solace in misogyny. Perhaps this was one reason why he contracted syphilis as a young man. Perhaps it was one reason why he died “an embittered and disappointed man.”[5]
So, the modern fool and de Sade and even Schopenhauer have something in common. De Sade wanted nothing to do with the moral order, and the modern fool is actually following the same path. The modern fool wants to fulfill his appetite or passion, which he does not want to submit to practical reason.
The modern fool wants to go for the gusto—be it sexual, political, or even diabolical. He wants to fool around as much as he can and sometimes drags others in the same rabbit hole. John McCain is a classic representation of this.
The apologist for terrorism has recently declared that
“Mr. Putin is not interested in being our partner. He wants to re-establish Russia as a major power in the Middle East. He wants to use Syria as a live-fire exercise for Russia’s modernizing military, he wants to turn Latakia province into a military outpost from which to harden and enforce a Russian sphere of influence — a new Kaliningrad, or Crimea — and he wants to exacerbate the refugee crisis and use it as a weapon to divide the trans-Atlantic alliance and undermine the European project.”[6]
This is what one ought to call “stream of consciousness.” These ideas pass through McCain’s mind and he doesn’t even seem to sit down for a moment and start evaluating them.
How many times has Putin modified his standards to meet the Zionist State of America on their own turf? How many times has he told them to abide by international law and basically stop worshiping Satan?
When will McCain have the courage to tell the truth himself and about Russia? Why can’t he tell his listeners that Assad was democratically elected—and won the presidential campaign by a landslide?[7] Could it be that McCain is just jealous that Putin continues to win,[8] despite obstacles? Perhaps the book of Proverbs was right after all:
“Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.”
[1] Corey Robin, “How Intellectuals Create a Public,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 22, 2016.
[2] See E. Michael Jones, Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2012).
[3] For a cultural history on this, see E. Michael Jones, Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2000).
[4] R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche: The Man and His Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965 and 1999), 65.
[5] Ibid., 65.
[6] Quoted in Tim Hume, “McCain slams Russia: ‘Mr. Putin is not interested in being our partner,’” CNN, February 15, 2016.
[7] “Bashar al-Assad wins re-election in Syria as uprising against him rages on,” Guardian, June 4, 2014; “Assad wins Syria’s presidential vote in landslide,” CBS News, June 4, 2014; Syria’s Assad Wins Presidential Election in Landslide,” Voice of America, June 6, 2014; “Landslide Win for Assad in Syria’s Presidential Elections,” Haaretz, June 4, 2014; “Bashar Assad wins Syria presidential election with 88.7% of vote,” Russia Today, June 4, 2014.
[8] “Why Putin’s Strategy in Syria Wins Over and Over Again,” Sputnik News, February 15, 2016.
Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.
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