Elmo Recio
Date:
99-08-26
Entry:
Well, I was all fired up to write all of my thoughts down (pages and pages of it) into this Portfolio check, when I lost my redbook. The small "mental notebook" that I keep with me everywhere! This is the first time that I have ever lost a book like this. I am very angry right now, because, it is all wasted time, and thoughts. I can never think back and fully convey how amazed I was at my first read through Nietzsche. Now I am of a different mindset and can understand what he is saying. Attempting to reproduce my feelings then, now, about him would be doing the entry a great injustice.
Let me start from the beginning. At my first read of Nietzsche's passages, and his analogous definition of truth being like a woman, took me in for a spin. He sounded more like a poet than a philosopher. I had until this point been inculcated with the image that philosophers were "a tame lot" That philosophy was all about logic and rationalization. Suddenly this was no longer true.
Another reason why Nietzsche's "hammer" (if you will) meant a lot to me is because of the fact that I used reason to override emotion when it came to a long distance relationship I knew wouldn't survive. I concluded that because we lived to far apart (he lives in buffalo and goes to school at CMU- where another friend of mine goes to school from around here, which is the reason why I knew about him at all) that I was able to rationally say, this won't work out. I allowed reason to dictate my actions (and reactions in this case.) However, how wrong was I when Nietzsche came along and hit me upside the head with this very thing I was attempting to escape from.
Some of my arguments against this post-modern philosophical avenue was that emotion really did not dictate correctness in any particular situation. Emotion usually muddled the situations where real decisions had to be made. They (emotions) made the decision making process more complex by attributing factors which were irrelevant in many cases.
I (in my redbook, which is now forever missing- such a waste, I have been keeping a mental notebook for over four years and this is the first time that I have lost one) came up with a few rational counter-arguments against Nietzsche's insistence of the emotional aspects of life.
The first example that I delineated with regard to this issue was one of the criminal and loved one. Consider the following scenario. There is a criminal who was been prosecuted and found guilty of a federal crime. Let us say that he killed his immediate family with a shotgun. It just so happens that you were in love this individual and still are in love with him (despite his deviance.) Now, the criminal has escaped from the federal prison where he was held and has fled to your abode to evade capture by the authorities. The logical and rational thing to do under these circumstances would be to inform the authorities of his presence in your house. However, due to the fact that you have such emotions towards him, the situation complicates itself quite a bit in that you are torn between self gratification (keeping him there, allowing yourself to love him in your presence) and turning him in (doing the law abiding, ethically correct thing to do.) Even if you turn him in, there is this extra tinge of regret and pain in doing so due to your emotions toward this criminal. Rationality and logic gives us the correct answers, and emotions leave us stranded, torn between what is correct, and what you 'feel' you should do.
Another such scenario follows. Consider your ownership of a pet dog. This animal has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He shall live with treatment (which is very expensive for you- let's say you are a philosophy professor, ehhe j/k) but live in pain due to the treatment. The only rational course of action would be euthanasia- putting the animal to sleep. Yet your attachment to this animal and your emotions towards him would make it virtually impossible to accept euthanasia as a course of action. You know that this is the correct course of action to take, and know that this will bring about the least problems for all involved. Yet you do not take this course of action, or you hesitate, why? Emotions!!
So now we get down to the interesting bits. I realize that Nietzsche's correct. How and why did this happen? Well, I was in sociology class when I was confronted with the issue of Macdondalization of society. A systematic overrationalization of society. This leads to websites replacing professors, humans to be treated like numbers, student being customers, doctor's offices being large assembly lines of rooms, to get in the most number of people as possible in as little time as possible, for what...? to make money screw those humane aspects of life... it's all about time... well, this is what rationalization has gotten us. This rationalization has actually gotten us exactly what Nietzsche has predicted!! Us being lost at sea!