In his recent book, "The Grand Design", Stephen Hawking--the most famous scientist of the modern age--declared that philosophy is dead. Hawking argues that this is because philosophy has failed to evolve and too often focuses inward, talking only to itself. If he is correct, it is a dark day indeed. The purpose of this blog is to show that Hawking is not only wrong, but that philosophy is more important and more applicable today than ever before, and sometimes can even be fun. Using memes.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Insanity Wolf: The Internet's Blond Beast
Meet Insanity Wolf; the strung out, crack-addicted, older brother of Courage Wolf. What differentiates Courage Wolf from Insanity wolf is that while Courage Wolf will give advice that might counter-act social norms, he would not advocate that people commit random acts of mindless violence. Not Insanity Wolf. Insanity Wolf doesn't just believe that violence is something that people shouldn't be afraid of. He believes that violence is a great and wonderful aspect of life and that everyone should lash out whenever others wrong them.
Just like with Courage Wolf, Friedrich Nietzsche would be pleased with Insanity Wolf's outlook on life. Not because he believes that violence should be utilized as liberally as Insanity Wolf would have us believe, but because Insanity Wolf has a freedom from what Nietzsche views as oppressive systems that seek to deprive individuals of their will to power. The way Nietzsche arrives at this conclusion is developed in his book, On the Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche explains that the original way people thought about actions being "good" or "bad" was by analyzing whether or not actions were good for society as a whole or bad for society as a whole. The criteria for judging this was to see if an action was life sustaining or not. According to Nietzsche, there were no further moral divisions. Either something was life sustaining and "good", or not life sustaining and "bad". Simple enough.
Nietzsche notes however, that today we don't view the world in such terms. Instead, Nietzsche claims that today we look at the dichotomy as not "good" vs. "bad", but rather "good" vs. "evil". Nietzsche's goal in On the Genealogy of Morals is to determine exactly how society came to shift from one division to the other. In a nutshell, Nietzsche blames the Jewish people. Nietzsche traces the beginnings of the shift from "good" vs. "bad" to "good" vs. "evil" to the time of the Babylonian captivity. Nietzsche explains that the Jewish people felt helpless during their oppression, and as such began to think about how they could return power to themselves. Since they could not use physical force, Nietzsche explains that the Jewish people turned to morality, labeling the Babylonians as "evil" for oppressing them. Nietzsche explains that this was a monumental turning point, because prior to this time there were those who had power, and those who did not, but there was no moral consequence to either label. Now there is a moral weight attached. Nietzsche claims that an attitude like that of Insanity Wolf is the best way to free ourselves from the new moral oppression designed by the Jewish people and carried out to perfection by the Catholic Church.
Beyond being violent, Insanity Wolf does not lose with grace and dignity.
So how could the attitude of Insanity Wolf, that if we get beaten on XBOX we should then viciously beat our friends with said XBOX, make things better? Nietzsche would argue that it is not the actions that Insanity Wolf advocates, but the attitude he espouses that we should emulate. What Insanity Wolf represents is a complete and unapologetic embrace of power. Insanity Wolf knows that he is powerful and can commit acts of violence and he is unafraid to do so. Insanity Wolf mirrors one of Nietzsche's most controversial and misunderstood images, The Blond Beast. The Blond Beast is introduced in The Genealogy of Morals as an individual who, "thirsts for enemies and resistances and triumphs". The reason the Blond Beast is a controversial image is because it is frequently misinterpreted as an endorsement of Nazism. It is seen as alluding to the image of the perfect person that Adolf Hitler envisioned as a blond haired, blue eyed, male. This is a twisting of Nietzsche's original meaning. Nietzsche uses the Blond Beast to mirror one of the most lasting symbols in philosophy, the lion. That is what Nietzsche envisions for mankind's future. That mankind can become like the lion, unafraid of its own power, and self-assured in its potential and abilities.
This is the real Insanity Wolf. That's right. He exists in real life, and is still out there somewhere. Terrifying.
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