Saturday 27 February 2010

The Curious Doctrine of "All things happen for a reason".


"Everything happens for a reason!" I hear people cry! What does this interminable expression mean? What are those wretched souls saying in emitting such a debilitating offence to humanity? Is there really some guiding force that concerns itself with the intricate affairs of humanity? Are we here laying witness to the last watered-down expression of the Divine? We may have murdered God, as Nietzsche proclaimed we did, yet we we still have not done anything with his ashes. His divine symbol forged by priestly cunning looms in our consciousness in the form an elusive puppet master. The ritual is incomplete. Humanity has not moved on for we are still grieving for our meaning-giving deity; we are living in denial.
Our morality rules our lives, we have failed to notice the humanity behind such an evolutionary convention. Instead morality stands in for God like some inept cover-teacher. The class has become unruly, their nihilism more lethal. God at least sacrificed himself for humanity to be our ultimate end.
If all we have are Reasons, our Amor Fati (love of fate), then life ceases to be. Choice of any kind is out of the question if morality is our governor. Does none of this sound strange to anyone? Morality our Governor? Has nobody stopped to consider that morality only has significance and meaning for humanity, as a piece of human artistry (and I mean this in a Nietzschean sense, i.e. broadly)? Do we imagine the animals have a conscience? Do they consider their actions morally, preside in judgement over evil? Could evil make any sense to them? Further still, Is the Earth evil? Ought we sit in judgement over the Earth when a tsunami kills thousands, or an earthquake topples towns? No, for morality evolved through the creativity and artistry of humanity as form giving agents of the world. Morality does not 'exist'. We took value in life, wanted to defend those values, and take judgement on those who would negate us. We must reclaim morality, and cease subliming that which has always rested in our hands.
Reasons we own. All that has occurred among humans in our relationships, our politics, in the arts, has all been at the hand of humanity; those reasons are our reasons. Yes even the bad reasons. We cannot sublime morality because we fear murderous destruction or genocidal annihilation, that fear is born from the existential angst, and the horror that we experience. But the fear is our fear, the horror our horror, the anxiety our anxiety. The Universe feels none of this. What would it mean for something to be inherently evil? We abhor that which is said to be evil due to the way we as a race have developed together socially and psychologically. This does not demean our morality as mere human frivolity - rather my attempt at a reminder (inspired by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein et al), is an attempt to empower humanity, to show us that we are the creators of meaning. Meaning cannot be sought from something occurring independent of humanity, since all that is meaningful is meaningful within a human context.
Re-claim yourself as the artist of meaning.

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