Moderator: MagsJ
Stoic Guardian wrote:Have you ever read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius?
Fixed Cross wrote:Stoic Guardian wrote:Have you ever read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius?
I read part of it once, it felt vaguely Buddhist, strangely... but it was a long time ago. Would you recommend it? I might try it again, can you say something more about why this comes to your mind in this context?
Stoic Guardian wrote:He was an Emperor of Rome during times of great natural disasters and Wars and Ruled because he believed it was his duty not because he was ambitous.
Auctoritas: "Spiritual Authority" The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.
Comitas: "Humor" Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Clementia: "Mercy" Mildness and gentleness.
Dignitas: "Dignity" A sense of self-worth, personal pride.
Firmitas: "Tenacity" Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.
Frugalitas: "Frugalness" Economy and simplicity of style, without being miserly.
Gravitas: "Gravity" A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.
Honestas: "Respectibility" The image that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas: "Humanity" Refinement, civilization, learning, and being cultured.
Industria: "Industriousness" Hard work.
Pietas: "Dutifulness" More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.
Prudentia: "Prudence" Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas: "Wholesomeness" Health and cleanliness.
Severitas: "Sternness" Gravity, self-control.
Veritas: "Truthfulness" Honesty in dealing with others.
Stoic Guardian wrote:Im not sure what you wish too achieve with your ambition.
Fixed Cross wrote:Stoic Guardian wrote:Im not sure what you wish too achieve with your ambition.
A constant achieving, ascending, paired with a breaking of intellectual limitations. I do not have an end-goal. I do not want to rest, ever.
Fixed Cross wrote:I remember why I put down the book. He does no justice to the ones who came before him, who established the base of his power. He does no justice to the furious will of the Roman tribe.
Stoic Guardian wrote:Fixed Cross wrote:Stoic Guardian wrote:Im not sure what you wish too achieve with your ambition.
A constant achieving, ascending, paired with a breaking of intellectual limitations. I do not have an end-goal. I do not want to rest, ever.
Then you will be very dissapointed.
Stoic Guardian wrote:Fixed Cross wrote:I remember why I put down the book. He does no justice to the ones who came before him, who established the base of his power. He does no justice to the furious will of the Roman tribe.
Philosophers have a quirk about not playing to the tune of the masses. He did Great justice to Rome and his ancestors by representing in one man the Virtues of the Empire.
Magsj wrote:I will reply to this later today, as I am in the same place a you it seems
lizbethrose wrote:In the meantime, and I'm not joking or trying in any way to turn your thoughts into any sort of frivolity--please believe me.
If you really do clench your teeth, especially at night, will you please go to your dentist and have him make you a mouth-guard. It equalizes the pressure you put on your molars and can keep you from ultimately losing them.
Other than that, I really don't think I can give you any more practical advice. If you feel that being some sort of world-wide mover and shaker is your destiny, go for it! If that means having all the attributes of an ancient Roman warrior-hero, go for it!
I realize I'm starting to sound snide. I don't really mean to be. You've declared yourself.
What's next?
I'm not being sarcastic--I really want to know. For goodness sake, we need to be lifted out of this morass of doubt and disbelief given where we are now.
Sauwelios wrote:Interesting read. I was struck by the phrase, "my will to imprint my will on the world". These two wills cannot be one and the same, for then the self-reference would create an infinite regress: "my will to imprint my will [to imprint my will [to imprint my will [...]]] on the world". So what is it you seek to imprint on the world?
septimus wrote:Seems problematic. Sir Richard Branson, for example, is a multimillion dollar successful icon, started with nothing and built a huge, dominating empire.
If you asked him, when he was selling records from the back seat of his car: "Do you have an unbearable ambition to dominate the world, Richard?" He most definitely would say no.
I am a business owner, I know what it's like to have ambition, to have these longings for being, rich, famous and successful. But I didn't open my business, work 15 hours a day and sell off almost all of my belongings for rent and advertising because I had that ambition.
What I understand now is that ambition is like sugar, it's nothing but calories and fat. It's sweet, but pointless and even bad for you. If you really want to be that man, you need to love yourself and be as fucking confident as posible, ambition is a goal, not a tool.
Fixed Cross wrote:What do I will to imprint on the world, if not my will?
Upon some reflection and some tea, I have come to the thought that it is my aesthetics.
septimus wrote:Then Hitler is your man. He definitely imprinted his will on the world. All the moral/ethical questions aside, he was one of the most powerful/influential figures in the 20th century.
septimus wrote:Then Hitler is your man He definitely imprinted his will on the world.
All the moral/ethical questions aside, he was one of the most powerful/influential figures in the 20th century. Psychologically speaking, this will to dominate and be omnisciently powerful is simply your reaction to those who ignored you and did not take you seriously,
Sauwelios wrote:It is my current view that the only right kind of influence is an influence beneficial to philosophy---"the world" be damned, if it weren't for the fact that philosophy needs "the world" (I'm alluding to the last sentence of Nietzsche's Genealogy, third treatise, section 7 here).
And his influence on philosophy is Plato's true apology: for for the longest time, Platonism, Plato's exoteric doctrine, was beneficial to philosophy... Nietzsche even says somewhere that the Church is a nobler institution than the State because it's a hierarchy based on spirituality.
Only with the victory of Baconianism---i.e., of science over religion and its ostensible handmaid, philosophy---has Platonism truly become a threat to philosophy. And just as Plato rightly saw, back in his day, that his "noble lies" had become necessary for the sake of philosophy, so Nietzsche rightly saw that they had become detrimental to it.
But why would the only right kind of influence be an influence beneficial to philosophy?---Because only in philosophy does the object of human eros, i.e., of the human will to power, coincide with its true aim:
"We have been observing that, on Socrates' account in the Republic, eros has a single aim but many objects. The case of the philosopher, though, reveals that we must amend that formula: however numerous its objects, eros as Socrates depicts it in the Republic has a limited number of proper or true objects, indeed, in the deepest sense just one true object. That object is the Good[.]" (Cooper, Eros in Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, page 32.)
EDIT: This quote now reminds me of the following:
"The real community of man, in the midst of all the self-contradictory simulacra of community, is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers, that is, in principle of all men to the extent they desire to know. But in fact this includes only a few, the true friends, as Plato was to Aristotle at the very moment they were disagreeing about the nature of the good. Their common concern for the good linked them; their disagreement about it proved that they needed one another to understand it. They were absolutely one soul as they looked at the problem. This, according to Plato, is the only real friendship, the only real common good. It is here that the contact people so desperately seek is to be found. The other kinds of relatedness are only imperfect reflections of this one trying to be self-subsisting, gaining their only justification from their ultimate relation to this one. This is the meaning of the riddle of the improbable philosopher-kings. They have a real community that is exemplary for all other communities." (Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Conclusion.)
And cannot Plato and Aristotle be understood as a (spiritual) erastes and eromenos? Aristotle started out as a pupil of Plato's, after all... Not to mention Socrates and Plato!
without-music wrote:Fixed Cross wrote:What do I will to imprint on the world, if not my will?
Upon some reflection and some tea, I have come to the thought that it is my aesthetics.
Ah, the will to power as art.
What, today, is worth imprinting upon the world, if not one's art? Humanity needs a moulder, a sculptor -- in a word, an artist -- and I do place great faith in your declaration that the time is coming. While Plato has certainly been one of the most influential thinkers of history, it is indeed necessary to question his influence -- and one need not delve deeply to uncover just how regrettable it was. And I do mean was, for we need to rid ourselves of our Christian roots; we need to destroy, after all, before we can create anew.
I, too, find myself wrestling with this monumental issue -- one must have such ambition for influence, of course, but for what kind of influence, that is certainly the question that keeps me up more nights than most. Currently, I intend to pursue my thought academically, as you know, to see how far I can get within that specific realm -- always, however, with the intention to transcend it. Such a transcendence must, for we philosophers of tomorrow (and I do hope to be able to count myself among such a type; if not now, soon), remain open-ended, ceaseless, anti-teleological.
Also, I have already given three examples of people in the category of power I am interested in: Plato, Jesus and Nietzsche.
septimus wrote:Also, I have already given three examples of people in the category of power I am interested in: Plato, Jesus and Nietzsche.
Those times are long gone, Cross. All ideas have been spoken, all strategies implemented. You either take something by force, invent a time machine or be a CEO. Also, for a man of your personality and ambition, at least as you describe it, I find it very odd to find someone like you on the internet.
Just the fact that you are interested in philosophy, tells me you are a man of thought, not action, and the fact that you are discussing philosophy on an internet forum and not at Cambridge or Oxford , doubles down on that.
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