[Wenzel Hablik's Sunset, Mont Blanc] In the second book of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche has life confide to Zarathustra: Behold, [. . .] I am that which must always overcome itself. Indeed, you call it a will to procreate or a drive to an end, to something higher, farther, more manifold: but all this…
Tag Archives: Friedrich Nietzsche
[A revised version of the “purpose of study” I sent out when applying for the PhD, written with the feedback of professors, friends, and family] I have taken a long and unusual route to decide what kind of work to do for the PhD. Partly this is due to my Third World background. Focused on…
I have just passed my comprehensive exam for my MA in Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University. The area of focus is critical theory, specifically Marxism, psychoanalysis, and Foucault and Deleuze. I thought I would pose my responses to the first two parts of the exam (the third and last part being the oral defense).…
Fellows, Friends, and Others, I am sending another one of my reports from the field. As stipulated, I am using the species’ own mode of transmission, their own semiology—what is referred to in these parts as “language” (though, technically speaking, they use many “languages” organized in a similar way as a system (i.e. as “language”),…
I’ve been hiding in the forest, in the woods. Up in the mountains. In the wild. I hadn’t gone back to town for some time now. Ryan, as I see, has taken care of this place. He proves, as always, responsible and competent. Ever mindful of the many unhomes that, fortunately or otherwise, we share.…
In The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche deploys a harsh critique of Socrates, whose influence, represented by the advent of Euripidean comedy in the Greek stage, he sees as having caused the emergence of a new struggle of forces (this time between the Socratic and the Dionysiac, in contrast to the former between the Dionysiac…
[A chart of secret societies] In an overture to fascism, a preliminary suggestion as to what underlies its potency (to capture the masses, to make one desire to be led, one’s own repression, that then connects with social oppression (of the other, e.g. the Jews, but also of the supporting populace itself, i.e. of oneself)),…
[Image from Cartoonstock] In the preface (the “Attempt at Self-Criticism”) to The Birth of Tragedy, written more than ten years after the main text, Friedrich Nietzsche recapitulates the question he had broached in the work of his youth. He asks, “Is pessimism necessarily a sign of decline, decay, malformation, of tired and debilitated instincts [.…
A new group called Radical Thought has been created on Facebook. If you don’t have an account, you can create one there, and then go directly to the group’s site. If that doesn’t work, once you’re already logged-in, go to Groups, and then on the search field, type in “Radical Thought.” (In my experience, there’s…
[All citations, except the passing one from Brian Massumi, are from Manuel De Landa’s Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. Take note of the terminologies species, which refers to the class or genus that the organism, e.g. a particular animal, belongs to.] Despite Charles Darwin’s break with essentialist thinking–the kind of thinking that takes biological species…
