“The resulting war, like Americas Iraq debade, is one of choice rather than strategic necessity.”
Sayfa 42
Michael Corleone
“Instead, his overriding goal is to protect the family’s interests and save it from impending ruin by any and all means necessary. In today’s foreign policy terminology, Michael is a realist.”
Sayfa 46
In the beginning, there was indeed a primal unity, a single universal substance, which was an undifferentiated, indivisible oneness. However, that unity no longer exists; its existence lies entirely in the past. The original unity of the world, the single universal substance, gradually split into a multiplicity of individual things; there is enough of its unity left for their interconnection, but not so much that they cannot be independent. The process of the world is therefore from unity to difference, from one to many, where that original oneness gradually and continually differentiates itself, splitting into many fragments, which are more independent units (94, 107). The individual is then partly free or independent, according to how much the original unity has dissolved, and partly interconnected and dependent, according to how much unity still remains. Freedom and necessity are partial truths, because the individual acts upon the world and changes it, just as the world acts upon the individual and changes it.
It is in this context that Mainlander introduces his dramatic concept of the death of God (108). This primal unity, this single universal substance, has all the attributes of God: it is transcendent, infinite and omnipotent. But since it no longer exists, this God is dead. Yet its death was not in vain. From it came the existence of the world. And so Mainlander declares in prophetic vein: “God is dead and his death was the life of the world” (108).
P. Mainländer, metaphysics, death of GodKitabı okudu
Before the creation, Mainlander tells us, God had the freedom of the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae (323). His absolute power and will meant that there were no causes determining him into action, and that he could have done otherwise with no contradiction to his nature. God had the power to do whatever he willed; but there was one point over which he had no power at all: his sheer existence. Although absolutely free in how he existed, he was limited in the mere fact that he existed (324). God, for all his omnipotence, could not immediately negate his own existence. After all, if he did not exist, he could not exert his power whatsoever. But once God saw that he existed, he was not amused. Sheer existence horrified him, because he recognized that nothingness is better than being. So God longed for nothingness. Since, however, he could not immediately negate his existence, he decided on a suicide by proxy. God would destroy himself through other things, by creating the world and fragmenting his existence into a multitude of individual things (325). To achieve his goal of complete non-existence, the total serenity of nothingness, God had to create the world as the necessary means toward his self-destruction.
creation myth, mainlanderKitabı okudu
in the field of action, realism tends to emphasise the irresistible strength of existing forces and the inevitable character of existing tendencies, and to insist that the highest wisdom lies in accepting, and adapting oneself to, these forces and these tendencies. such an attitude, though advocated in the name of “objective” thought, may no doubt be carried to a point where it results in the sterilisation of thought and the negation of action.
but there is a stage where realism is the necessary corrective to the exuberance of utopianism, just as in other periods utopianism must be invoked to counteract the barrenness of realism. immature thought is predominantly purposive and utopian. thought which rejects purpose altogether is the thought of old age. mature thought combines purpose with observation and analysis.
utopia and reality are thus the two facets of political science. sound political thought and sound political life will be found only where both have their place.
Sayfa 10Kitabı okudu
Like the Stoics, Schopenhauer teaches that the common experience of human life consists in suffering, and that the more we attach ourselves to things the more we expose ourselves to misfortune. He also agrees with the Stoics that the pursuit of the unnatural desires—those for fame, wealth and power—is a major source of unhappiness, because these desires are limitless and therefore insatiable. Again like the Stoics, Schopenhauer thinks that the path to true happiness consists in self-control, self-renunciation and withdrawal from the world, where we cultivate an inner indifference to all that happens. Schopenhauer’s wise man, much like the Stoics’, realizes that he cannot change the world—its suffering, evil and death are eternal and essential features—but he believes that at least he can change his attitude toward it. Achieving the right attitude is a matter of resigning ourselves to the ways of the world, learning to surrender to necessity and then cultivating an indifference to it.