“An die Nachgeborenen” (To Those Born Later)

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 06: Donald Trump attends the 2015 Hank's Yanks Golf Classic at Trump Golf Links Ferry Point on July 6, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

“Heaven and earth are not humanistic–they regard myriad beings as straw dogs; sages are not humanistic–they regard people as straw dogs” – Sun-Tzu

What is sad is not that a man like Trump is running for president in 2016, what is truly sad about it is that people have forgotten what this means. Think about it, think hard. Remember it. How can you actually be surprised? Within the last 100 years of our American century where were you, what were you doing? It is unfortunate that history, especially American history, agrees with Trump and it is this rapture that we see our very own hypocrisy embodied in a single point of pointlessness. Over the last 100 years, America has been a racist, fascist, fundamentalist, corrupt, violent, bigot who’s only interest is to serve a small group of Anglo-elites to further their own personal agendas at any and all costs: Trump is and has always been the true face of America. He embodies the contradiction and hypocrisy of both the Left and the Right of the double standards in which western civilization has privilege itself to. Continue reading →

Hercules Insane

Quem deus vult perdere prius dementat

(those whom a god wishes to destroy he first drives mad)

I recently stumbled across the collected works of Seneca (the Younger); one of the few extant Latin tragedians. He was a dramatist and philosopher and served as tutor to young Nero. His father is appropriately referred to with the sobriquet of Seneca the Elder, a father who instituted within his son a strong Roman education befitting a man of equestrian station, a social class just below the prestigious senatorial class. Seneca (the Younger) who just managed to extricate himself from the tyrannical grips of the debased Caligula—the young boy emperor who demanded his execution. Eventually, however, Seneca met his untimely end after having been implicated in an assassination attempt on the then reigning Nero (whether such accusations were legitimate or not is entirely up for speculation).

Seneca’s plays are very much deeply entrenched in themes of gruesome revenge, desire, and madness. His works are of incredible psychological insight. Of particular interest is the treatment of madness and rage within the alarmingly and intriguingly entitled work, “Hercules Insane”. Continue reading →

Wagner and Philosophy (An Overview)

Flammarion

Wagner’s operas and musical compositions were steeped in German philosophy and metaphysics. His politico-social idealism, which was very much ingrained in the socialism of the times, through the liberal movement known as the Young Germans, slowly dissolved and took shape in various alternate forms. As a socialist and anarchist, his views challenged the status quo of German society. Towards his friend Bakunin, he was both horrified and enthralled by the oppositional polarities of such a violent philosophy. Anarchism, in the traditional sense of the term, is in fact a humanist/idealist form of thought. It is with a sense of compassion for the plight of everyman that the anarchist seeks to rent and destroy the established institutions and fabric of society, in order therefore to create a new and improved society built on the new foundations of fraternite, egalite, and liberte. Among the left, Hegel’s dialectic become de rigeur and soon after followed Marx’s dialectical materialism. Continue reading →