Nietzsche on Friendship

Hey Tanya,

(Isn't that the name the Sudanese Liberation Front gave to Patty Hearst after she was brainwashed?)

Your post makes me imagine, fondly, a bunch of drunken Texans & Mexicans, together in the shadow of the Alamo church, waving flags that say, "Remember the Opposites!" 

A good bumper sticker for any of us. 

Rome was interesting -- in that it was probably the nicest empire that had existed until that point.  Unlike its predecessors it made infanticide a crime.  It was the Romans who didn't really want to kill Jesus and who permitted the flourishing the early Christian charity organizations.  They sought the Pax Romana and Caesar fought to give land and rights to peasants and foreigners. 

In fact, few slave-owning cultures had anywhere near the Roman system of allowing slaves to become "freemen".

But I take your point about the utility of antagonism.  I always relate this to the early cells dumping toxic waste between each other... which would eventually become the bones that scaffolded animal bodies.  The unpleasant two-way material between entities is potentially a very useful building material.  In fact I would suggest that an emergent planetary civilization cannot wait for people to tolerate and get along but must work "with" -- even embrace -- the structural hostility which exists between different types.  After all -- disliking each other is what an awful lot of groups have in common.  It unites them.  This is potentially a window into the larger context which can hold them all.

>"You cannot see into the future, you can only see a very limited view right now."

From BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA:

LO PAN (evil immortal sorcerer): Shut up, Mr. Burton!  You were not brought upon this world to "get it"!

JACK BURTON (Kurt Russel as vain, pig-transporting, truck driver):  Come on!  Lo Pan is like...

LO PAN: ... nothing you can understand.  There are many mysteries, many unanswerable questions, even in a life as short as yours.

JACK BURTON:  Yeah, well, the way I see it, it doesn't mean we shouldn't ask.  Like: Where's my truck?

So when it comes to "You cannot see into the future, you can only see a very limited view right now" we have to embrace this without stumbling.  Since it is true of everyone all the time, it cannot really be used to modify our behaviour.  We have to be open to new intelligence but this doesn't mean that we can't know a few things for sure... or that we shouldn't proceed as if we do have a good sense of things.  Since this is almost a pre-requisite for action in any larger sense.

>"You do know what you are talking about, yet, at the same time you know absolutely nothing."

Well, exactly.  But the opposite of that is that although I know absolutely nothing I do know what I'm talking about.  And not just me.  So these oppositional truths need to be held together in a dynamic proportionality.  They are not always both equally true.  But they are both always in play -- as the framework for sussing out a more sophisticated line of action. 

That's for the blessings of oppositional context and dynamic exchange,

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal