Subject: Who Are The New Nietzscheans, Scott Locklin

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                      Who Are the New Nietzscheans?

  They are out there! They have a tendency to be silent in their ideas,
which are usually extremely unpopular, as they go against the generally
accepted dualist thinking. Another reason you do not see them is the simple 
fact that Nietzscheans are generally unconcerned with social issues; they 
are busy with their own affairs. I will attempt to catalogue some of the modern
Nietzscheans and their influences. 

  Cyberpunks: are generally influenced by all the below-mentioned thinkers. The
Cyberpunk exists in cyberspace; virtual reality. While sitting at a computer
terminal may not seem like much of a Nietzschean activity, the anarchic freedom
of cyberspace readily lends itself to a Nietzschean world-view.
ThIs KiNd Of Lettering is a cyberpunk hallmark.

  Science Fiction: many Science Fiction writers, among them R.A. Wilson,
Robert Heinlien, Larry Niven, L. Ron Hubbard and Stanislaw Lem are strongly
influenced by Nietzsche and later Nietzschean thinkers. The readers of their 
tales are, of course, influenced by these ideas.

  Industrial Music: Started in the late 1970's. The music itself is quite
Nietzschean/Dionysian; some aspects of the culture associated with it are 
even more Nihilistic.


  Aliester Crowley: an early 20th century British occultist, Crowley founded,
directly or indirectly, virtually all of the non-traditional religions 
we see today. Among the religions directly influenced by Crowley are the 
Neo-Pagan movements, the  Wiccans, the "occult fraternities" such as the
O.T.O., Rosicrucianism, Scientology (indirectly, though Hubbard, who was a
student of Crowleys), Satanism and various aspects of the New Age Movement.
Crowley expounded a philosophy that is quite Nietzschean; "Do what thou wilt
shall be the whole of the Law." He advised discovery of the "True Will" through
various occult techniques.
  
  Ayn Rand: As stated in the Marxism paper, her book "Atlas Shrugged" is more
influential in America than the Bible. It is a manifesto for many conservative
and not-so conservative thinkers. Her ideas can be read as quite Nietzschean
in a certain sense, but they are very hostile to the relativist left-wing
post-structuralism.

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  A friend of mine is doing a report on Nietzsche where he attempts to 
criticize the Nietzschean superman as being "child-like" or "infantile."
Indeed, I heartily agree with this sentiment; the overman overflows with
the child-like vitality that we are endowed with at birth. This is exactly
the point of becoming a superman, to recapture the vitality that society
saps from people in order to make them enslavable. The overman is selfish,
and why not? If one has enough self-esteem to realize that one deserves
all of ones desires, one is more likely to get what one wants. The elevation
of humbleness and self-effacement as virtues is such an abomination and
negation of life as to make it utterly incomprehensible to me, other than as
a tool for the establishment to keep the masses enslaved by their own 
moralities. This is not to say that the Nieztschean should revel in ego-mania;
people should be realistic about their abilities, and should certainly
give appropriate respect to their betters. The important point is that,
despite what religion and government will tell you, you are your own best 
friend; if you have no pride, how can anyone else respect you? An apocryphal 
cyberpunk quote is appropriate here; "The meek SHALL inherit the earth, 
because the strong shall inherit the STARS!"

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  The following are a few aphorisms I cooked up, in an attempted imitation of
Nietzsche's style. Hopefully I have captured a bit of his spirit as well...
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                             Aphorisms

  Nietzsche says he hits with a hammer, perhaps this is why he is so 
misunderstood; hammers have a tendency to break fragile objects. Perhaps
I should aim to hit with a rubber chicken; but even a rubber chicken can
be a lethal weapon in the right hands! Down with hammers and rubber chickens!
  
  To fight and lose is a sad thing, but to accept torments without fighting 
back, or worse, to do the work for the tormenter and wonder why one is in 
pain- that is the mentality of masochistic sheep.

  Governments and religions are clever that way; they talk their subjects
into performing self-flagellation. They even manage to talk their subjects
into accepting this flagellation as a virtue; that way the practice becomes
self-perpetuating.

  The game of "oppression" can be thought of as a game of Sadomasochism. The
oppressed must realize that it must stop playing the game if it really wants
the game to stop.

  The herd claims to want happiness for all. By their actions one can see that
their real desire is to be anesthetized against strong sensation of any kind.
Their happiness is a lack of pain, and a lack of joy.

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                         ThE LeFt WiNg ToDaY

  Marxists? What I say to the Marxists is "who benefits?"
Everyone they say? The history of Russia shows that those who gain the most 
are the white-collar intellectuals who expound the philosophy. Now- who are 
the most vocal proponents of Marxism in America and Europe?

  Now, to the movement of those who would make me "Politically Correct" in
speech and action. WHO BENEFITS? It is a good joke they try to play on me;
telling me to efface myself that others may gain? I can appreciate such
jokes, and I will play along with it, using the silence that they find so
intolerable. 

  These days it is fashionable to identify with the downtrodden in some way.
Everyone seems to have some form of systematic oppression which they are 
victimized by. The homosexuals, the rape-survivors, the co-dependency 
survivors, the parent/child/sibling of alcohol/drug abusers, the racial 
minorities... Perhaps some of these people do have legitimate grievances,
but the manner in which they wear the badge of "oppressed" as if it were
something to be proud of makes me ill. "Oppressed" people seem to think that 
their victimization gives them moral superiority over others; a supremely 
christian sentiment. It is often amusing to see various "victims" and 
survivors compete amongst themselves to determine who is more downtrodden.

  There is a tendency among the left-wing, perhaps largely started by 
post-structuralist "thinkers," to redefine terms and give new terms to replace
older "insensitive" terms to suit political ends. The general tendency is to 
use a new term with a broader meaning, or to redefine a term to have a broader
meaning. For example, in the 40's and 50's, crippled people were called 
crippled people. This term had very specific meaning; the person to whom it 
was applied had physical deficiencies great enough to severely limit their 
abilities in comparison to other human beings. Later, this harsh-sounding
term was changed to handicapped or disabled. While handicapped and disabled 
are less harsh terms, they carry less meaning- these adjectives can be applied 
to a larger group of people with a broad spectrum of types and degree of 
"impairment." The latest term I have heard is "physically challenged." This
term is apparently clinical-sounding enough to be sufficiently innocuous,
but the information content of this term is almost nil. Example; while I am 
fairly proficient at various Karate forms, I am severely physically challenged
in other sports.
  The same game can be applied to terms rather than meanings; violence for
example. Violence used to mean a physical act which causes bodily harm to
another person. Now the word violence can be used to mean any number of
abstract injuries, whether psychological, economic, social or even violence
to self-esteem. This method serves to further the ends of the politicizer 
through the use of emotion charged language. Unfortunately for those to 
whom the original meaning of the term applied, they now share their misery
with new "victims" thus cheapening the impact of what they have experienced.
Worse than this (for me) is the fact that meaning is blurred and informatic
content is reduced tremendously. 
  Other terms which have "fallen victim to this disease" are: 
 racism; used to be defined as a form of racial prejudice, now it is broadened
to mean anything which is considered "damaging" to minority groups. Some 
have gone so far as to declare that all whites are racist and minorities
can never be racist (by definition, so I am told).
 rape; used to be defined as a non-consensual sexual act, now it is broadened
to include reading pornography, and even (if you listen to Dworkin's ravings)
any male/female sexual act wherin the male has an erection.
 sexual-harassment; used to be defined as the linking of sexual favors to ones
job status, now broadened to include on the job flirtation which is unwelcome
by one of the parties involved.
  While some of the new meanings associated with these terms seem unfair by 
generally accepted morals, the new meanings associated with the old terms 
serve to parasitize the emotional impact of the meanings originally associated 
with the terms. To honestly address these issues, new terms should be invented 
for these newly-discovered meanings. As demonstrated with the example of 
"crippled," this group is quite adept at inventing new terms to lessen 
emotional impact. The fact that it must parasitize terms rather than inventing 
new ones when it desires to maximize emotional impact shows a form of cowardice
that can only be associated with the herd's tendency to equate happiness
with a lack of strong sensation.
  To me, the true crime of this is not the fact that people seek to anesthetize
language, but that the meaning of the language is distorted and blurred. This
is a subtle variation on one of the fundamental errors of logic that the 
sophists were so fond of using. Perhaps the great success of post-structuralist
"thinking" in the various humanities can be attributed to the ability of the
post-structuralist to change definitions and redefine terms at will. The 
post-structuralist is not actually "discovering" anything and rarely gives any 
new meanings, s/he is merely playing an elaborate trick with language. This 
coupled with a tendency to value all things equally is what makes po-struc 
style so popular; it is a mask for incompetent scholarship.
  Indeed, the sloppiness of spoken language in general has been the downfall 
of philosophy through the ages. The most successful of the sciences have been
those that use mathematics as their language; mathematics is the most rigorous
language possible. (note: By success I mean ability of said science to 
accurately describe the world; the accuracy is measured by observation).
  Concluding my rant on post-structuralism, it seems that Nietzsche's attack
on metaphysics and morality has been distorted into something quite unlike
what was intended. It seems to me that the original idea of both Nietzsche and
some of the post-structuralists, such as Foucault, was to be rid of all
encumbering metaphysical nonsense in order to strike out in new directions of
scholarship and thought. What it has turned into is a refuge for incompetent
scholars and political whiners. I think both men are rolling in their graves...

  Derrida thinks binary thinking is a result of phallocentrism. Derrida was
a homosexual; I think it more likely that Derrida thinking is a result of 
phallocentrism. Being a mathematician, I am of the opinion that binary
thinking is a result of the minimal principle; since binary thinking is the
simplest kind of thinking, lazy people will adopt it. Then again, perhaps
Locklin thinking is the result of techno-centrism. The test of which idea
is more correct comes in the observation of the predicted consequences of each 
theory.
 
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                             Current eVeNtS

  Rumblings on current events; the former Yugoslavia. The question in 
America seems to be "what are we going to do to fix this situation?" We point
accusatory fingers at the Europeans, who seem unwilling to remedy the 
situation, which we assume is more their problem than ours. Perhaps the
Europeans realize what the solution to the problem is; isolate it and leave 
it alone. We Americans have an amusing tendency to think we can remedy any 
situation via our intervention.

  Here is a perfect example of idiot interventionism; the Waco incident. What
was the justification for the attack on the Branch-Davidian compound in the
first place? There were (unsubstantiated) rumors of child abuse.
Guess what? They are now all DEAD! Better a live allegedly abused child than 
a charred corpse to my morality. 

  What about the "War on Drugs?" Perhaps a "War on Liberty" is more accurate.
Do people really think we will somehow be better off when everyone ceases
use of drugs? The only problem I see with drugs use is the lack of 
unadulterated drugs and the fact that large men with firearms will hurt you 
if they think you take them.

  WHO BENEFITS? The "law-enforcement" industry are the obvious beneficiaries.
Through the strengthening of law-enforcement, all those in power will benefit.

  One of the more amusing and ironic aspects of this movement is the fact that
the right-wing, those who are supposed to be staunchest supporters of 
individual freedom, use Marxist arguments such as stamping out drugs for the
"common good." 

  The pod-people think the war on drugs is important; it provides valuable
entertainment.

  The great danger of drug use is the danger to those in power. People who 
take certain drugs tend to see politicians for what they are; monkeys 
posturing.  

A quote from _Atlas Shrugged_: "Did you really think we wanted those laws to
be observed? We WANT them to be broken... There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power a government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well,
if there are not enough criminals, one makes them... You create a nation of
law-breakers---and then you cash in on guilt."

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                          LeFt AnD rIgHt?

  I am not "left-wing" or "right-wing," if one must have wings, I will use 
them and be "up-wing."

  The left wing wants a government that acts like an overprotective mother. 
The right wing wants a government that acts like a stern and vengeful father. 
The "up-wing" wants to be adult with no parental government.

  It is amusing the way the left deals with the "All men are created
equal" paradigm. The left wing shouts this paradigm the loudest but finds
it necessary to pass laws which enforce this paradigm, implying that they
do not really believe it to be true. 

  It is also amusing the way that the right-wing gives lip-service to personal
freedom unless the person exerting their right to personal freedom is exerting
it in a way that is different from the mainstream.

  The right wing is entertaining in that few scholars take it seriously; 
the reason I harp on the left wing is because, somehow, it has been taken
seriously.

  I have observed that there arethree basic styles of feminism; the type 
that attempts to force masculine qualities on women, the type that attempts
to force feminine qualities on men and the type that does neither. The first
type was popular in the 60-70's, the second type popular in the 80's and early
90's, and the latter type has never been popular; perhaps in the future...

(the next 8 aphorisms taken from "The Abolition of Work and other Essays" by 
Bob Black)
The right? Wrong!
The left? Left behind!
Libertarianism? All the freedom money can buy!
Marxism? The highest form of capitalism!
Feminism? Equality with men; a paltry ambition!
Liberals? Conservatives with a guilty conscience!
Police? Terrorists with the right credentials!
Religion? Deifying your defects!
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                            HuMaNiTy?

  The great absurdity of humanity is the refusal to acknowledge the fact that
we are a mammal; a form of ape. The strongest refusal of this fact comes from
those who have the most to lose by admitting this.

  People wonder why humans seem so psychologically screwed up. Consider 
this; when other mammals give birth, the mother finds a dark and cozy place 
to have this private, intimate experience. In our industrialized societies
the mother is assaulted with all manner of indignities and the newborn is 
greeted by harsh lights and monstrous, sterile, masked demons who cut the 
cord and beat the newborn until it breathes. 

  No wonder some men are naturally violent; after they are welcomed into 
the world with a beating, they are harnessed into plastic chairs and their
genitals are cut. 

  Altruism is touted by the cattle-men as the highest form of human action.
Unfortunately for the high-minded altruist, whenever one analyses altruistic 
behaviors sufficiently close enough, one always finds that altruism has its
roots in selfishness and greed.

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                            TeChNoLoGy

  Religion? Mass media has largely replaced the roles of organized religion 
in our social structure; many of the truly religious realize this in some
shadowy way. Where do people commune together to share common emotional
experiences in our age? In front of the television! What do people talk
about when they are not in front of the television? They speak of what
they saw on the television!

  Where do we get our values? Elders? Parents? Teachers? None of these
could get me to bathe regularly as a child. It was television advertising,
taking advantage of my psycho-sexual insecurities at puberty, that made me
believe that I stink...

  Polls (ye gods, the polls) show that most people would not give up the 
television for a year even if paid one million dollars. When the need to
be pacified replaces good old human greed and avarice, I fear for the future
of humanity. I suppose it is similar to the martyr who would rather die than
give up his religious safety blanket, even in thought...

  When given a choice between the television and their fathers, most children
choose the television. The end of the patriarchy? Or the beginning of the
reign of the machine...  (factoids from the Society for Eradication of 
Television)

  The ancient Hebrews and Pagans would ritually slaughter their beasts in 
temple before using them as food, to ease the wrath of the gods. It was a
symbolism, an appeasement of the personified forces of the natural world; 
the temples were microcosms of the natural world (and often situated in 
breathtaking natural surroundings). Today we build great engines of death 
for our slaughterhouses and symbolical temples. What angry machine gods are 
we trying to satiate?

  When peopleare shown the machine-god they become frightened; they run away
from all machines. They refuse to eat the meat from the animals sacrificed
to the machine god, saying it is a terrible blasphemy. Instead they eat
granola and vegetables. They forget how the granola and vegetables are 
produced; the great machine tears furrows in the earth with its claws and 
fills the soil with its venoms.

  Some see the furrows and the venom, and insist on food grown in little
scratches in the soil, fed on shit. The machine charges extra for these
antiquated extravagances.

  The pod-people cannot see the machine. Jonah could not see the whale.

  The god-machine hides behind a forest of televisions; these are machine 
camouflage.

  Old hacker maxim; "If you cannot understand and control a technology, it 
will control you."

  Make the Machine your ally; you cannot hide from it, and you cannot kill
it without killing yourself; learn how it works and you can change it and
use it to your benefit.

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                        WhAt NiEtZsChe MeAnS tO mE
  
  The writings of Nietzsche have much appeal to me, both as a budding 
scientist and as a human being trying to find an appealing way to live my life.

  To deal with the first issue; in discussion, there was much to-do about 
Nietzsche's supposed criticism of science. I am of the opinion that the
points raised are non-issues in the writings of Nietzsche (at least the ones
we studied, and the ones I have read thus far). There was no mention of
science in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and only a brief section in "Beyond
Good and Evil" which dealt with the issue of some physicists making the
standard error of 'confusing map with territory' in physical law. Nietzsche
certainly points out that the fundamental assumptions, such as the validity
of sensory input, can be brought into question; but logical reduction along
these lines eventually leads to absurdity, and is not particularly useful.
I am of the opinion that the criticism of rigorous physical science is
more post-structuralist than Nietzschean, and probably doomed to failure.
It seems difficult and pointless to try to argue with physics or chemistry
as we (as physical and chemical objects) are subject to the laws of these 
sciences.
  What is useful is the stripping away of the sacred cows in science; remove
the human prejudices and you will be free to discover new and wonderful 
things.
  Relativity, for example, came about largely through removing human 
prejudices from science. If we had been smart enough (or unprejudiced
enough), we may have been able to figure out relativity at the time of
Newton. The basic Newtonian error that relativity corrected was the idea
of a privileged co-ordinate system; i.e. what makes one person's set of
measurements more valid than another persons. Relativity tells us that
one cannot make a distinction between the coordinate systems of uniformly 
moving observers; there is no universal space/time axis which we can measure 
them with, therefore the observations of a person in one frame of reference 
are as valid as those of a person in any other frame of reference. (a bit of 
thought may lead one to the conclusion that a privileged reference system 
somewhat implies the existence of a god). Relativity gives the exact 
relationship by which one can transform the observations taken in one 
coordinate system to find out what the observations from another coordinate 
system would be. A shame that there is not yet a relativity theory for the
social sciences where one may observe through the eyes of a person with
a different "coordinate system."
  Quantum mechanics is even worse; it was added into theory as a mathematical
convenence to account for certain observations about the spectrum of 
radiation from hot objects. When observations were made of other systems, it
was realized, much to the chagrin of the scientists, that this "convenience"
seemed to be needed to account for many observations; in fact it had to be
expanded to even greater absurdities (absurd to human minds) to account for
observation. Even though quantum theory is probably the most useful tool
available to physicists and chemists, to this day, people are still trying 
to make it less absurd (without a mutual knowledge of partial differential 
equations it would be difficult for me to explain why it is absurd; verbal
communication is insufficient to communicate these ideas.)
  As I see it, a Nietzschean outlook gives one a superior "bullshit meter"
(the most important tool of the physicist); a "Nietzschean razor" if you will.
The "Nietzsche's Razor" might be; "One's human prejudices should be removed
as much as possible when thinking about a problem in science." That is not 
to say that physical principles that have proved useful should be carelessly
tossed aside, but one should field crazy ideas and question basic assumptions;
a new discovery may be made in that way. Since social sciences are generally
"softer" in rigor (to say the least), it would seem that this form of 
scholarship is most easily criticized using my "Nietzsche's Razor."
  One of my favorite new sciences is Sociobiology. It may turn out to be a
useless concept (though I doubt it), but I have great admiration for the 
manner in which its thinkers ruthlessly followed the evolutionary paradigm
while giving no truck to their humanist prejudices. Indeed, I find it useful
to look into anything that raises the ire of those with strong prejudice of 
some kind (in the case of sociobiology, it is the humanist set who cluck the
loudest); these people are my "miner's canaries" in my search for useful
ideas. When they feel threatened by a new paradigm, they become agitated and
make much noise (as Shakespeare said, "Methinks thou protesteth too much") 
with little logical content. 
  
  Nietzsche's world-view is profoundly disturbing to most. Perhaps the reason
for this is that most are raised on metaphysical delusions; popular lies. 
These popular lies are instilled in people to alleviate fear and psychological
discomfort, but in many ways these lies are the source of the fear; a 
self-perpetuating system. When Nietzschean ideas and philosophy are presented,
people react in one of several predictable manners. Most often, people simply
refuse to get the message; the ideas are simply too foreign to register. Then
there is the group who realize exactly what Nietzsche is saying and are 
horrified by it, calling it blasphemy (which is an accurate adjective in my
opinion). Then there is the group who find valuable ideas in the writings of
Nietzsche...