Let me get this straight, you're quoting (Marxist-derivitive) Existentialism on humanity? Existentialism is a gateway philosopy to Marxism-Leninism. It is foremost materialist. It subordinates humanity to material circumstance.
..."They love a man who does not yet exist."
Isn't character, society and even civilization, based upon the pursuit of ideals more than simply material necessity?
I suggest you read Camus sometime.
You might as well be chiding me for hailing the leftist Nat Henthoff's treatment of Terri Shiavo when his article puts 99.9% of the "right's" key infotainment artists to the shame they so richly deserve.
Camus, like Henthoff, does not quite fit the pigeon hole in which Namecallers would stuff him.
THE REBEL is work every man of conscience ought to read.
Are you joking? There's a good line on "ideology" I should pull for you as well.
Do you think we're pursuing ideology at present or material necessity?
And to what extent does one take "material necessity" before it becomes the sort of well-being which (Camus, quoting Nietzsche said): "What we desire is well-being ... as a result we march toward a spiritual slavery such as has never been seen."
When Tom Delay spoke to the Strategic Institute or whatever ... what was he talking about when he spoke of "the saving graces of western materialism"? What sort of ideals are grounded in "western" materialism?
Anyway ... I'm glad you brought this up, because I still have a shred of paper marking an essay portion I wish to post, reading it as I did, while Terri was dying. Here's a taste:
Nietzsche clamored for a Roman Caesar with the soul of Christ. To this mind, this was to say yes to both slave and master. But, in the last analysis, to say yes to both was to give one's blessing to the stronger of the two -- namely, the master. Caesar must inevitably renouce the domination of the mind and choose to rule in the realm of fact.
"How can one make the best of crime?" asks Nietzsche, as a good professor, faithful to his system. Caesar must answer: by multiplying it.
"When the ends are great," Nietzhsche wrote to his own detriment, "humanity employes other standard and no longer judges crime as such even if it resorts to the most frightful means."
He died in 1900, at the beginning of a century in which that pretension was to become fatal. It was in vain that he exclaimed in his hour of lucidity, "It is easy to talk about all sorts of immoral acts; but would one have the courage to carry them through? For example, I could not bear to break my word or to kill; I should languish, and eventually I should die as a result -- that would be my fate."
From the moment that assent was given to the totality of human experience, the way was open to others who, far from languishing, would gather strength from lies and murder. Nietzsche's responsibility lies in having legitimized, for reason of method -- and if only for an instant -- the opportunity for dishonesty of which Dostoievsky had already said that if one offered it to people, one could always be sure of seeing them rush to seize it.
But his responsibility goes still farther ....
[to be continued]
Siobhan ... I thought of Pontius and Caesar of course, reading that last week.
responsibility lies in having legitimized, for reason of method -- and if only for an instant -- the opportunity for dishonesty
"only those killed by August 9, 2001"