Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

livebonk t1_iy8oyl6 wrote

I think we see in Emerson the Nietzschean ideal of rejecting the institutions and dogma of your youth to consciously and carefully choose your own value system, and embracing something to give meaning. Nietzsche found meaning in art, but art is a dialogue with other ideas and does not preclude philosophies or religions or German identity that Nietzsche abhorred. When you tell people to consider and reconstruct all value and meaning then of course they will end up in completely different places. Some will embrace a different kind of religion or nature worship or whatever, some will create a system of post-rationalism that allows for rationally choosing the morality of the masses, some will be racists or embrace national identity to imbue their life and actions with meaning, even if they know it's something they chose and not fundamentally true. And all of those choices I think Nietzsche would argue against.

56

jeeesus t1_iya5kwi wrote

Why do you think that they will naturally end up in completely different places? Would you care to explain?

1

Fontec t1_iyaoc65 wrote

everyone’s moral compass is tuned to them, when they release themselves from societal values; not everyone’s going to head in the same direction

2

Goldenrule-er t1_iyay96f wrote

What if they did end up in the same direction? "Society" is a phantom. Necessity however remains true for each individual as well as families, communities, entire cultures and species. Perhaps a release from the phantom and subsequent acknowledgement of an objective standard can guide people toward the same place-- morally speaking?

2