> >Mr. Callihan,
> >
> >>This is a bit of a reprise of the earlier thread, some months ago, on
> >>Nietzsche and the Categorical Imperative. From _The Antichrist_, #11 >(my
> ellipses):
> >
> >
> >Would you be so kind as to provide the list with the reference to this
> >"earlier thread" or a quotation from it?
> >
> >Lambda C
>
> Going back through my in-box, I see that I first introduced the subject in
> the thread, Re: Eternal recurrence is a morally irresponsible doctrine, of
> Fri, 18 Oct 1996, which was one in a series of responses to P. S. Rhodes'
> contention that Nietzsche is to be blamed for the Holocaust, etc. The
> argument revolved, largely, around the issue of whether ER had the effect of
> composing a kind of reversed categorical imperative, etc. More recently, in
> the thread, Nietzsche -claim to anti-universalism?, there was some talk
> around and about the issue. It seems to me there were other posts that also
> discussed this question, but I haven't been able to pin-point them.
>
> The notion that the ER is to be construed as prescribing that we live each
> action as though it were to be repeated ad infinitum is, it seems to me, a
> kind of categorical imperative, for instance. My contention has been that ER
> cannot be construed in this fashion, at least not on the basis of anything
> Nietzsche has written.
>
> Best,
>
> Steve C.
>
>
>
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>
My understanding of ER is that we do live each action as though it is
to be repeated eternally, however this with the proviso that each
time we have a responsible to choose anew our responses. at a
cultural level the Holocaust keeps happening (compare Nazi germany
with Indochina, or Panama in the early nineties) These examples seem
to be enacting similar threads of moral depravity, only with a
shifting cast of players. The ER is that the international community
is not, once and for all, immune to the legacy of the Holocaust. The
"choice" lies in the recognition that, given that crimes against
humanity of a large scale will continue to re-emerge, and given that
the standard response of "My, weren't those Nazi Germans bad dudes"
has proved insufficient in preventing similar examples, the question
is etenally "What is to be done?"
The moral imperative is not to remain impassive to ER.
Andrew
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