Thursday 21 June 2007

"Every Aristocratic Culture is Intolerant"

Said Nietzsche. To take aristocratic in the sense of what is elevated in man, and what is elevated in man being man in his true or more real sense, where does this leave the current culture of liberalism of the West? A liberalism towards things such as the tabloid culture in its various forms, and its inevitable degading of man's sense of self and life.
To try and pull myself back to the point, a culture needs to be strong enough to say no to the right, or wrong, things. The idea of saying no to smoking while yes to super-casinos, for example, tells us that the powers that be are either completely confused beings, ill-suited to leading their cultures in beneficial directions, or else they are intentionally screwing with people's minds in the inconsistent directions people's sensibilities are being pulled.
I'll possibly do a bit of work on this later but one bug-bear; how can one take seriously a culture that permits a valueless substance such as chewing-gum to basically defigure all of its footpaths? Are we getting some great cultural boon in exchange for this uglifying of our streets?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes to super casinos, yes to cigarettes, and yes, oh yes, to chewing gum (makes me look and feel sexy)

Andrew said...

Doesn't make the footpaths look sexy. And makes a placid being like myself wish to strike the chewing-gum chewer with great violence.

Andrew said...

Though I'm not saying I'm in favour of banning smoking, and the possibility at the moment of even banning smoking outside pubs is incredible.

Vince said...

People, as best they can try and rub along. In Ireland the smoking ban was not an issue because the bar persons were without real choice. This invoked the basic level of fairness within most people. But, what irritates most is a sense that things are drifting to a banned or mandatory position.

Andrew said...

Hi, Vince. I'm actually quite happy not to have the option of smoking in pubs as if I did have the choice, I would if you follow me. But that's not an action my somewhat allergy prone being appreciates. Whatever about the options of having a smoking-room & all that, the notion of banning people from smoking out of doors really seems to be a step along an authoritarian path.

Gar said...

I agree. Everyone should be compelled to be far less authoritarian!

Andrew said...

Though I did, now I remember, have an idea worth considering which I orignially posted on Bryan A's site which went:

Smokers to be permitted only to smoke outside in special designated smoking-areas. These smoking areas to be a little out of the ordinary and to consist of structures known as pillories. Local councils should keep the immediate vicinity well suppled with rotten fruit which decent non-smoking citizens should be encouraged to throw at high rates of velocity at the relevant drug-addict. He or indeed she should be made to wallow and squirm in his/her humilation, and verbal abuse should accompany the fruit throwing with frequent mention of not wanting to "inhale your second-hand smoke, you prick."

Anonymous said...

sorry, people chewing gum just like vacuous teenagers in need of a kicking.

actually i suppose that is the definition of 'sexy' to most people, e.g. in porn

Andrew said...

I've one intense possibly unnatural phobia in life, Elberry, & it's chewing gum. I genuinely hate even saying the words & even typing them experienced as unpleasant. But just take a look at the footpath of any street as you walk along it- covered in this worthless crap.