So
Tony Blair wants to return to politics does he.? Every prime
-Minister since Lloyd George has fantasied about being called back to
power. Each dreams of recall king, Arthur like to power. I am sorry
Tony for me the word is bugger off Blair. It was you who begot Farage
and UKIP bugger off and don't return..you have done enough
I
t
was Tony Blair all along. He began it all. He sought to make Labour
electable by making it all things to all people. He went along with
George Bush as part of this quest. I remember Margaret Thatcher
saying that Blair was her true heir. We have had Chilcott and it is
quite clear that he did not listen to experts, those who knew what an
invasion of Iraq would bring. Tony Blair destroyed the value and
respect of experts and it has continued on.
Tony
Blair lit the fuse that destroyed the value of the person who thinks,
reads and analyses. No expert was believed, the big lie becomes the
truth. Goebbels was right. Now we have had the legacy of June 23, no
expert was believed, racism walks our streets and we inherit the
consequences. Teflon Tony Blair begot a true heir and that was Teflon
Nigel Farage. And so we move from Augustus to Caligula, Tony Blair
midwife of Nigel Farage and UKIP.
In
destroying knowledge, turning our education system into a server of
the employer you began in Tony. We teach bland things but fail to
help people think critically. The big lie is believed and we haunted
by denial of the truth.
Coming in this
morning I remembered the words of TS Eliot s poem the Hollow men
A penny for the Old Guy
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
In
his magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche comments
upon the insidious nature of modern political communities, “The
State is where slow universal suicide is called Life.” In this
video, we will explore Nietzsche’s criticism of the modern State
and of the State’s ultimate goal – the creation of the Last Man.
The
Social Contract theory is a highly accepted explanation of the origin
of societies. Many of the most respected political philosophers –
such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Immanuel Kant – agree with
the theory. It states that groups of people form societies by
surrendering certain freedoms to the authority of a common government
in exchange for protection of their remaining freedoms. In the words
of Thomas Hobbes, “Desire of ease, sensual delight, and fear of
death and wounds dispose men to obey a common power.”
It
is important to note the motivations enumerated by Hobbes. Nietzsche
believes that these motivations – the desire for pleasure, comfort,
and security; and the fear of injury and death – are the
characteristics of the Last Man. According to Nietzsche, the goal of
the modern State is to change the whole of mankind into this Last
Man. “It is the purpose of all culture simply to breed a tame and
civilized animal, a domestic pet.”
The
Last Man is the antithesis of the Ubermensch. The Last Man has no
great aspiration. He merely seeks to earn a living, to be
comfortable, and to be content. “We see nothing today which wants
to be greater. We suspect that things are constantly still going
down, down into something more comfortable, more mediocre, more
apathetic. One no longer becomes poor or rich; both are too
burdensome. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both
are too burdensome. No shepherd and one herd! Every one wants the
same; everyone is equal.”
The
modern man of the West is frighteningly similar to Nietzsche’s Last
Man. In the movie Fight Club, Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden,
describes the mediocrity that Western cultures have imposed on their
citizens. “I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men
who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering
– an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with
white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working
jobs we hate so we can buy [things] we don’t need.”
Fortunately,
Nietzsche believes that humanity has not yet devolved entirely into
the Last Man.
“One
must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing
star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.” In order
to conquer the seductive charms of pleasure, comfort, and security,
man must embrace the chaos within himself. Naturally, many people of
the West will offer resistance against this advice. They will not
quit their job because they fear becoming homeless. They fear the
pain of hunger; they fear sleeping in the cold; they fear injury and
death at the hands of others. They desire the comfort and ease that a
paycheck provides, despite the mediocrity and lack of fulfilment that
their job provides. They believe that conformity is the only option.
They lack the imagination, courage, and ambition to think of new,
more exalted forms of life. These are the Hollow Men, the Stuffed Men
about whom T.S. Eliot wrote. These are the Last Men.
To
conclude, Nietzsche accuses modern societies of promoting the
development of the Last Man. The struggle of Modern Man is to
overcome all those seductive instincts of the Last Man – the
instincts for pleasure, comfort, security, and mediocrity. It is a
difficult struggle, but one that is worthwhile. I will leave you with
the words of the English Poet John Milton: “Long is the way and
hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
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