/lit/ - Literature

>>22709771
>as symptoms of decline, as instruments in the disintegration of Hellas, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek

"The poets lie." The Gods are present it is we that presence them!


>It proved rather that these sages themselves must have been alike in some physiological particular, in order to assume the same negative attitude towards life—in order to be bound to assume that attitude

Overcrowding of the polis, Ur-Mouse Utopia Experiment symptoms.

>judgments and valuations of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their only value lies in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as symptoms,—per se such judgments are nonsense ... the value of life cannot be estimated

Ethics inducements by mind viruses are more cost effective than compelling by physical force. We SAY "all life has intrinsic value [soul]" but not that it is truly equally distributed in fact much less recognized by to varying degrees more beast than man hoi polloi. The charity of pneumatics damns with faint praise.


>A living man cannot do so, because he is a contending party, or rather the very object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a dead man [e.g. Socrates] estimate it—for other reasons

An initiate of Orphic mysteries ought to appreciate this more than most; the point is not being merely inured to the life of the world as a walking corpse, but returning in spirit to the surface of things reification is a hell of a drug Where he says "symptoms" there we find expressions of will-to-power, constellations of drives and configurations greater and lesser of intention & agency; this is Perspectivalism. The tripartite caste of the gnostics gives only a general sense of this agentic field-- it is intensive within the individual, and among syndicates thereof acting in concert in ever greater webs of causal effect. Sheldrakes 'morphogenetic resonance' is on the panpsychic path of correction on that note.


>For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life, is almost an objection against him, a note of interrogation set against his wisdom—a lack of wisdom

His indigestion leitmotif is appropriate here: when the best cannot rule for some reason (or what and whom the best are), the will turns inward. The revolt of lower drives and their standard bearers disgusts enough to fall prey to the notion that decay and chaos are the real way of things, and sustaining against this spiritual tide of barbarism is a losing battle against voracious annihilating time. This is no argument against the endurance of their betters higher and further along in the scale of things, the 'order of rank' in the Great Chain of Being.

To destroy the body as the way to sever one's relation with this
world is another motive behind certain cases of religious suicide.
Under this category, the following are worthy of mention.
Monk Fa-k'uang (d. 633), a native of Hsien-yang (in present
Shensi province), "had an uncommon moral integrity in his youth.
He was more inclined to the Confucian ideals of conduct." Some
years later, when he became a monk, he used to live strictly
according to the monastic discipline. He often said: "Only because
of birth and death am I involved in the endless wheel of transmigration." He therefore "constantly felt dissatisfaction and
wished to abandon [his body]. On the twenty-first day of the
second month of the seventh year of the Chen-kuan period (April
5, 633), he entered into the Chung-nan mountain. When he arrived
at a place about forty li inside the Charcoal Valley (T'an-ku), he
hung his clothes on a tree, cut his throat," and thus ended his life
in this world.24
There was an anonymous monk of Fen-chou (in present Shansi
province) who "disliked birth and death. It was difficult for him
to pass days in this evil world, so he vowed that he would abandon
his body. At first, he gradually limited his food and took incense.
When the occasion of his meeting death came, monks and laymen
were assembled. Incense, flowers, banners, and umbrellas [were
offered to him] and arrangements were made for his escort.
People followed him to the Tzu-hsia-hsiieh cliff. At the top of
the cliff, the monk faced towards the west, with a solemn
expression on his face. People sang 'Hail, hail!' as a farewell to him
for his happiness. The monk then let his body fall from the overhanging cliff. After he had fallen to the ground below the cliff, he
was found in a sitting posture. When people rushed to see him,
they found that he had already passed away." 25
Another example concerns two sister-nuns of Ching-chou (in
present Hupeh province), who "read the Lotus Sutra together and
deeply disliked their bodies." Both of them therefore burned themselves to death in the same flame after performing religious
ceremonies.26