OCR Text |
Show WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? A few Zephyr readers offer their views on the Meaning of Life (if any)...the conclusion? Read for yourself. EDITOR‘S NOTE: Several months ago, and for a very brief period of time, I found myself pondering the Meaning of Life. I wasn't convinced then, nor am I now, that it has any meaning at all. So I asked the vast Global Zephyr Readership to weigh in on the topic. The responses were...varied. The ‘anonymously-mailed bumper sticker that appears below/right might come closest to the mark, but others were equally...uh...incomprehensible. Here are my favorites...JS Jessica N. Berry Austin, Texas don’t believe in God-we atheists; we have never needed faith." The sophisticated and intelligent response in an increasingly secular society takes up the mantle of atheism, or at least a sort of rugged agnosticism. Especially among intellectuals, "the news of God’s death" is greeted with a shrug, a yawn, a sigh, or perhaps with laughter. Even so, these individuals do not fall outside the scope of Nietzsche's criticism. Examining the scientist's esteem for rationality, the pursuit of truth as an unqualified good, and the high premium placed on “objectivity” in the sciences we are compelled to ask: what purpose do such ideals serve except to stand in for a God whom science itself has rendered explanatorily obsolete? The drive to discover a transcendent source of meaning and purpose that will justify our existence has been (and remains) one of the most powerful forces in human psychology. The need to place one’s faith in something behind or beyond this world--whether a benevolent creator or an objective reality "behind the appearances"--will be satisfied by science where it is not satisfied by religion. So according to Nietzsche, the ends they serve . are not distinct after all. On this account, "truth," "objectivity" and "certainty" are fictions ” If Friedrich Nietzsche is famous for anything ("famous,” that is, in whatever sense a 19th century German philologist can be famous in contemporary popular culture), it is surely for his dramatic proclamation of the death of God. Anyone who read a little Nietzsche as an angst-ridden adolescent or a baffled undergraduate knows that Nietzsche is prone to dramatic proclamations, and also that the rhetorical mastery with which those proclamations are crafted usually guarantees that they will produce correspondingly dramatic effects. of the same sort as "faith" and even "God." That is to say, these are the necessary fictions that invest an otherwise value-less world with meaning and thereby forestall the nihilism What if the Hokey Pokey Some of his more pious readers would have him burned in effigy for his inflammatory and blasphemous assertions; for others, perhaps more sadly, his writing elicits little more than a thoughtless, bovine "right on, man.” But it is important to realize that there are few figures in Western intellectual history more often misrepresented, misunderstood, misquoted or just quoted out of context than Nietzsche. His "God is dead" is no exception. Now certainly, the phrase does turn up from time to time in Nietzsche’s published writings. However, in all its most important occurrences, Nietzsche is careful to put a substantial distance between himself and his announcement by couching it heavily in quotation marks and putting it in the mouths of characters who appear in cryptic, parablelike narratives. Famously, it isa "madman" who first delivers the news: of God’s death to a generally indifferent, apathetic, even mocking crowd. When the context is taken into account, the existentially inquisitive reader should wonder less about "what Nietzsche means” by claiming that God is dead, and more about why such an astute observer of the human comedy as Nietzsche supposes that the natural reaction to such an announcement would be indifference and derision. ; It is, in fact, an open question whether Nietzsche can rightly be said to claim that God is dead at all, since one would search in vain for any argument against the existence of God | anywhere in Nietzsche. The explanation lies in a fact that Nietzsche takes to be simply beyond dispute: that the question of God's existence is not a matter that is susceptible to rational inquiry. Nietzsche, of course, is not the first person to have thought so; that much Immanuel Kant knew by the late 18th century. He rightly observed that there is simply nothing in our experience of the world that could possibly count as evidence either for or against the existence of God. With his indictment of medieval philosophy and theology on these grounds, philosophy turned an important corner and left theology behind for good-for centuries, no respectable post-Enligl t philosopher has been interested in proving (or disproving) the existence of God. Curiously though, even today (and this brings us back to Nietzsche’s original observation), belief in God is itself alive and well. The belief is so deeply entrenched and so much a part of the fabric of Western culture, Nietzsche thinks, that his pronouncement-that the belief in God "has become unworthy of belief"-will necessarily fall upon deaf ears. There is a need for this belief; it is not one that human beings are prepared to do without. "But wait!" say the scientists and all the other coolly rational observers of the world. "We A what its all about? 641 ©1999 Bad Habits copyright 1999 Bad Habits and hopelessness that would likely be the consequence of our coming to realize that we are utterly alone in the world, that there is no ultimate explanatory principle that will allow us to rationalize the evils we find in it, and that there is no redemption of this life in another. So when this Nietzschean madman jumps into the midst of a crowd and demands, "Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him," we now have an explanation for the laughter that precedes his diatribe and for the astonished silence that follows. His listeners are the inheritors of the Enlightenment and of Darwin, and they have already come to terms (they think) with the impact of modern science on religion. In that respect, the news he brings is not news at all. But when this man turns away, realizing that, "I have come too earlySS my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men," it is equally clear that he has confronted the crowd with a question they did not anticipate and for which they have no response (for which many people still have no response). : For Nietzsche, the really pressing issue is not how to demonstrate whether or not God or truth exists, but rather what we decide to do in the wake of the realization that they do not exist (in the case of God) or may not be accessible to us (in the case of truth). Nietzsche supposes that the absence of a God, the failure to find an absolute guarantee for our standards of value ("good" and "“evil"), the lack of a transcendent source of justification for this life will lead most people to conclude that it is indeed not justifiable—that is, not worth living. But he recognizes that a few people will see opportunity and freedom where others perceive a vacuum or a void: the freedom, that is, to make of life something entirely new precisely by creating our own values and standards by which our lives may be measured. For these individuals, life will be weighed not relative to a transcendent, other-worldly ideal that brings all the transitory and imperfect features of our world into stark relief, but on altogether new scales. - You can find rugs, baskets and pots on the inside... In the Spring. you may find dinner. MOAB RESTAURANT S & RANCH CLUB UTAH BASECAMP RESORT .. Formerly the Grand Old Ranch House Restaurant - Reopening Early Summer of 2,000 _ -Serving Regional Ranch CuisineClub Utah is renovating the historic Taylor Homestead as a Restaurant and Clubhouse in the heart of an exciting new member-owned resort. Moab Springs Ranch is designed for the active Canyon Country aficionado. RESTAURANT INFORMATION: 435-259-5753 RESORT INFORMATION; Toll-Free: 877-252-3170 or www.clubutah.com COW CANYON TRADING POST Bluff, Utah 435.672.2208 | |