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Nietzsche’s Take on Mankind
By Kitty | June 19, 2009
As I was cleaning out my junk in my parents’ attic the other day, I found a few old paperbacks from my college days (probably required or suggested readings from various Lit classes), which I figured would be better posted on paperback swap than recycled. One of those classics was Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche. I don’t remember actually ever reading it, but in flipping through it I found one passage that drew my attention. Since I’m posting the book and hopefully will be sending it to a willing reader one day soon, I figured I’d post the quote on my blog so as to “keep it handy”. Here it is:
Man is absolutely not the crown of creation: every creature stands beside him at the very same stage of perfection… And even in asserting that we assert too much: man is, relatively speaking, the most unsuccessful animal, the sickliest, the one most dangerously strayed from its instincts – with all that, to be sure, the most interesting! (p. 136)
The part that really grabbed me, and that has been concerning me lately is the line about “…the one most dangerously strayed from its instincts…” How true. How scary. I personally hope to go back to following instincts and living on the land as much as possible. I just hope others see the potentially detrimental effect straying too far from instincts and from our connection to the Earth may have on mankind…
To see my paperback swap listings, check out my bookshelf by clicking the box below.
Topics: Daily Update, What are you Reading? | 1 Comment »
June 20th, 2009 at 8:04 am
A few years ago I spent an evening with an Amish family near New Castle, Pennsylvania. We sat in rocking chairs they had made and chatted in a room lit only by kerosene lamps. The couple was incredibly fascinating and the evening whizzed by.
One thing that’ll I always remember– when the husband spoke on the attitudes, greediness and failures of some men, he’d conclude, “He’s too far from the plow.”