A Comment on Machiaveli

[Pedro I Rengel]

I heard a man once say that the means give the ends. I propose this: that the ends give the means.

I propose this within the framework of the ethics of fate.

Thus the ends must be understood with some honesty. Are Joe's ends just to save the unborn child? Or does the emotional state of Mary concern him as well?

[Thanathots]

The idea of choosing the end or the means is contradictory, as whatever one chooses is by definition the end. The only choice is which end will be pursued.

[Fixed Cross]

I like the phrase "power sets goals".

In my experience this is true.

First there is power, and then this power finds a way to "celebrate" itself, to make itself known to itself.

But power is more than a means, it is also the goal.
So power sets goals in service of a higher goal, namely its own greater glory. So specific goals are means for the will to power to exist.

[Pedro I Rengel]

So what are the goals of Joe? Is it really fair to say that it is to walk around aimlessly like a headless chicken?

Or is it possible that there can be a disease of goal setting? I think this disease is the pretence that there is an alternative to fate.

[Fixed Cross]

So what are the goals of Joe? Is it really fair to say that it is to walk around aimlessly like a headless chicken?

It is probably not fair, but all the more true.
Though paradoxically it seams to me more his fate than his goal.

Or is it possible that there can be a disease of goal setting? I think this disease is the pretence that there is an alternative to fate.

Yes, for sure this is one of the ailments, neuroses, spasms that came about with, I suppose, the death of God.
This is why I don't make decisions in the modern world, I just have made the decision to refuse the modern world at every juncture as I draw my straight line under Zeus.

[Pedro I Rengel]

It is his fate if it ends up being his fate.

Joe feels love, and care, and has certain knowledge at his disposal. He refuses himself his knowledge by this disease of not accepting fate, of questioning his own existence.

[Pedro I Rengel]

Once fate is acceptes, all victory and all mistake is allowed. But if we are honest, what would be our preference?

[Fixed Cross]

It is his fate if it ends up being his fate.

Joe feels love, and care, and has certain knowledge at his disposal. He refuses himself his knowledge by this disease of not accepting fate, of questioning his own existence.

He refuses his love and knowledge, exactly; he refuses his self-valuing, his friction with the world, his violence, his nobility, his manhood, his animal hood, his being.

Like you said, people aren't aware that they are not only allowed their values by existence, but their existence only by their values.

They think their values need to be established by other people for them to really exist.

[Fixed Cross]

In mans first birth the pain is shared by the mother and the infant.
In the other birth, the birth into autarky, the pain is owned completely.

[Pedro I Rengel]

Also the glory.

[Fixed Cross]

Naturally.

And, as history shows is all too well known, glory is most real when it is completely owned.

[Fixed Cross]

Further, if glory is totally owned, it is possible to give true honour to another glorious human.
Napoleons exulting words about Jesus were only possible because Nap knew Jesus could not touch his own achievement.

Nap was ready to fall back to be a leaf in the wind, because he had already been the storm. And that is what he will forever be.

[Pedro I Rengel]

Nah Jesus sucked.

I do like baby Jesus. I read somewhere that it was essencially a transposed Dionisus. I did always wonder about why wine. Old Jesus would have turned the water into straw.

[Pedro I Rengel]

Baby Jesus was only ever concerned with the hearts of women. To the level of divinity.

[Fixed Cross]

Baybey Jeeyzus.

Word.




Nap was impressed with Jesus' influence.

The idea that Baby Jesus is a form of Dionysus feels real.

Baybey JEEHZOS!

make it rain, blood.

[Arcturus Descending]

Once fate is acceptes, all victory and all mistake is allowed. /quote]

Maybe I am not understanding you here but with your first four words you seem to be detaching from any Will or Determination at all. So how can one consider the outcome to be one's fate if it could have been otherwise by determining the results by one's own behavior and will to act. I may not have expressed that well.

But if we are honest, what would be our preference?[

To be self-determined creatures, not part of the Borg mentality.

[Fixed Cross]

But if we are honest, what would be our preference?[

To be self-determined creatures, not part of the Borg mentality.

[Gloominary]

Some schools of thought, like the Stoics, make (ad)verbs their ends, and nouns/adjectives their means.