Dialectic of Postmodernism and its Derivates Part II

By Tuomas Vainio

Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer is without any undue credit the fundamental basis of the myriad of world-views that define the 20th and 21st century political and ideological left in the Western-cultural hemisphere. Upon reading the Dialectic of Enlightenment it became clear to me that the views of the modern left cannot be correctly understood without first reading Dialectic of Enlightenment, and what I offer you here is the second part of a work that argues against this Dialectic of Enlightenment, and by doing so every manifestation of the 20th and 21st century left-wing ideologies. It is my defence for the works of ancient Homer, from the post-modernist attempt at re-defining the primary aspects of the story into what those were not, and my attempt to show that the inherent errors found in the work of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer are not only grievous but undeniable. The two respective gentlemen have not understood the works of Homer, and therefore, their conclusions are at best lurid and false.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tuomas Vainio
• Release date: Jan 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005028725

Tuomas Vainio

I write, I read, and the typos are still there. It is the crux of my life. Anyhow, my published works should not be overpriced and in some outlets you might be even able to set your own price!

Book preview

Part II

Tuomas Vainio

Table of Contents

Second Preface

Exercise and Odyssey in Reading Comprehension…

Second Postscript

Second Preface

I started working on this on 16 ‎February ‎2021, ‏‎11:16:36, +2 GMT, and on 22 October 2021, 07:55:43 +2 GMT, I had finished the first draft that was at a total of 111,672 words. It had not taken anywhere near as long as I originally thought it would. On ‎22 ‎November ‎2021, ‏‎14:24:38 +2 GMT, I finished reading through and editing the first draft, which sat at 116,502 words. I still do not know what kind of information other people put into prefaces of books, for I never read those myself. I have started working on the Second Postscript, and intend to read the whole thing again before I see any effort to publish it. At 121,381 words, on ‎12 ‎December ‎2021, ‏‎12:12:01 +2 GMT, I had finished the Second Postscript, thus I was ready to read through it once more to correct whatever flaw I could spot, which finally started on the 3 January 2022, 19:00:01 +02 GMT after having a bit of winter holiday. On 18 January 2022, 19:52:46, I clapped my hands, for the deed was done, and it had 123,123 words, out of which estimated 12,200 belonged to our two oft quoted authors, so roughly a one tenth of the total length.

I still do not know what people write in the prefaces of their books, as I never personally read them myself. But anyhow, were I to sum up the discussion to follow, I would argue that Odysseus did nothing wrong, and how the works of ancient Homer can still offer us great advice even today. I was not much impressed by the arguments of our tow oft quoted authors in all due honesty, such is life.

Oh, and I suppose I should offer my thanks to the Internet Archive, who made it possible for me to access the Dialectic of the Enlightenment as it was edited by one Gunzelin Schmid Noer and translated by one Edmund Jephcott, first published by Stanford University Press, in Stanford California, in 2002. I could not have made my arguments against the Dialectic of Enlightenment with such ease without the ability to copy and paste the words of Adorno and Horkheimer – it would have been a torture of the worst kind were I forced to write down every utterance I have thus far quoted.

Exercise and an Odyssey in Reading Comprehension…

"Excursus I: Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment"

- Excursus is a lengthy, appended exposition of a topic or a point. In and of itself, an excursus is an easy enough thing to understand, however, what I struggle to decide is whether I should understand the rest of it as '(Odysseus or Myth) and Enlightenment' or as 'Odysseus or (Myth and Enlightenment)' – the meaning changes based on nothing but the reader's interpretation of the correct placement of the parentheses. Is Odysseus synonymous with myth and compared with Enlightenment, or is Odysseus somehow an entity that simultaneously encapsulates both myth and Enlightenment? I suppose there is no other choice but to read on to find out, because German philosophy has never been about clarity and understanding as much as it has been about self-aggrandizement through intentional obfuscation.

"Just as the story of the Sirens illustrates the intertwinement of myth and rational labor, the Odyssey as a whole bears witness to the dialectic of Enlightenment."

- I do not exactly recall that our two oft quoted authors would have presented the most accurate paraphrasing of the book XII of the Odyssey, and in my previous judgement neither were they successful at showing any intertwinement between myth and rational labour. In fact, I would even argue that before their eyes the actual point behind the myth of the Sirens remained wholly ignored. But who knows, perhaps they had better luck with the rest of the Odyssey, and perhaps this time around their argumentation does not fall apart the very moment someone actually goes about and reads the Homeric work in question.

"In its oldest stratum, especially, the epic shows clear links to myth: the adventures are drawn from popular tradition. But as the Homeric spirit takes over and organizes the myths, it comes into contradiction with them. The familiar equation of epic and myth, which in any case has been undermined by recent classical philology, proves wholly misleading when subjected to philosophical critique."

- In the realm of geology, a stratum is a bed or layer of sedimentary rock that is visually distinguishable from adjacent beds or layers, and philology is the study of language in oral and written historical sources.

What our oft quoted author is referring here is the Homeric question, by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Homeric epics were composed, and whether these works were a result of singular poetic genius or the combined efforts of unknown contributions. The disagreement is not yet entirely settled, and I suppose this bears some similarity with the philosophical questions in regards of the Ship of Theseus. Is the ship still the same ship, once every original part of it has been replaced at one time or another? One could easily argue in favour of either outcome. If all the parts have been replaced, it is a different boat – and at the same time – the parts do not matter in slightest because it can still be identified as the Ship of Theseus. So I suppose you are free to pick your cup of poison and champion your preferred cause in never ending philosophical debates on topics of exact same nature. Personally, I would prefer to pay more attention towards the actual function, or purpose, the Ship of Theseus is supposed to serve. For example, if the wood of the ship has rotted through and as a consequence the ship itself is nothing but a derelict wreck – we would not recognise it as a seaworthy ship even though it could still be considered to be a possession of our famed Theseus. But at the same time; should our Theseus pass away, should every part of the ship be replaced one after another until the ship itself no longer even appears as it once did – but as long as this ship remains seaworthy – we might still consider it to be the Ship of Theseus for the exact purposes we require there to be a Ship of Theseus. Thus while the origin of Homeric epics is most certainly an interesting topic to discuss, and an argument where one could easily champion any contrarian position for no other reason than for the sake of the argument itself, it is good to remember that these Homeric epics still exist today regardless of their exact origin. Thus, as it was with the Ship of Theseus, I would ask what function or purpose do these Homeric tales actually pertain and hold? The prominence of these poems have, and will fluctuate over time – but regardless of the century; the Homeric epics have managed to entertain, to inspire, and even offer sound advice from time to time. The merit of these works is not how someone might happen to categorize them, the merit simply lies in how these works resonate with the listener, the reader, the very individual itself who partakes in the retelling of the epic – regardless of the era – or the medium used.

And finally, we have to consider the art philosophical critique itself, which is either spot on or something that misses the mark entirely. I suppose it could be grounded upon the best understanding of the objective reality available, or it could be entirely based on nothing more than delusional imaginary abstractions. Therefore, while philosophical critique may potentially offer valuable insight, it can also be nothing more than a complete and utter waste of time for all involved. Thus perhaps it is not the result itself, but instead the so called philosophical critique itself that misleads. For example, if one solely focuses on the notion of absolute power, one is not going to understand anything that transpired in the book XII of the Odyssey.

"The two concepts diverge. They mark two phases of an historical process, which are still visible at the joints where editors have stitched the epic together."

- In other words, our oft quoted author states that first there was a myth, and then came the epic. But one should remember this simple thing, a myth need not be in the form of an epic, an epic need not be a myth, and you can have something that is simultaneously both a myth and an epic. Thus even if the Homeric epics were based upon earlier myths that formed the very basis of the epics we know today, it in and of itself does not deny the status of a myth from these epics. If one in turn desires to deny the mythic nature of the Homeric epics, please, by all means, go ahead and prove that the Homeric epics are flawless depictions of the objective reality and events once transpired long ago.

But speaking of those two phases of historical process; imagine that there is a story of such tremendous importance that people desire it to be preserved for generations to come. If the society in question is literate, they could just write the story down and make copies of these writings to preserve it for the countless generations to come after them. But if that is not a possibility, then the only way to preserve the story is to try and maintain it in the living memory, which leaves the story at the mercy of the fleeting nature of human memory, and how through the act of retelling this story could become something it originally was not. Which brings us back to the Homeric epics, stories that could be used as a prime example for the dactylic hexameter, a pattern of specific rules to help the retelling of the story with as little deviation as possible. Thus if a mistake was done by the orator, it would be immediately noticed as a violation of the expected pattern. Not to mention that if something bears a similar and a repetitive pattern, it will be much easier for the human mind to remember, and thus allow one to orate the entire epic from memory alone. Moreover, if the style of the oration itself differs from the every day speech, then the oration itself could be seen as something special or of unique importance that should in and of itself be preserved and maintained.

"The Homeric discourse creates a universality of language, if it does not already presuppose it; it disintegrates the hierarchical order of society through the exoteric form of its depiction, even and especially when it glorifies that order."

- The language used to depict the Homeric epics was not universal, and participation in any retelling of these Homeric epics required familiarity with the literary language of these epics to be understood. The so called universality of language can only exist if a group of people understands and speaks the same language. But were we to instead consider the universality of the Homeric epics themselves, and how – even after being translated into different languages – the stories themselves can still resonate with people who have nothing in common with the ancient Greeks, then it is obvious how the source of this universality is not the language, instead it is simply the very nature of human existence, which has not fundamentally changed in a very long time. Human beings are individuals who form societies. Human beings have natural instinct and desire to survive. Human beings are able make sense of the world they observe, and we have an innate tendency towards valuing the result of difficult deeds rather than what would have been far easier to achieve. Thus – for example – the walls of Troy represent something nigh impossible to overcome, an obstacle that a lesser man would simply give up against, and yet through human cleverness and cunning even this nigh impossible obstacle can be overcome. It presents a story that is based on a very human element, and therefore, the story can be enjoyed regardless of the origin or the situation of its listener. A good story knows of no limitations when it comes to those who would lend their ears to hear it. And the fact is, anyone can create some kind of a story, and that story can be enjoyed by just about anyone if it simply resonates with our human existence.

Now, I must also regrettably inform that the enjoyment of a story does not disintegrate the hierarchical order of the society. All of society might have gathered to one place to hear the same tale being told, and yet the hierarchical order of the society remains. Someone who happens to be deluded by the collectivist delusions of socialism might scream, jump, and point out how they are all equal listeners of the same tale – and claim it as an example of their idealized absolute equality as something real and palpable. Nevertheless, the fact remains, each human being is an individual, a separate entity from the society at large. Therefore, while a story may be considered to be the best story ever told, but how that story resonates with any given single individual is not something that the others can dictate, or for the idealized collective at large to decide. It is also entirely possible that the perception of the same story might change over time, through virtue of nothing more than the lived experiences of the individual himself. As a young boy I thought that Odysseus' encounter with the Sirens was something of a rather dull affair, mere act of rowing with beeswax in their ears – but with the long years gone by since that distant day I first heard of the encounter, I can now recognise that part of the story as an allegory for something else entirely. There are also stories that are more likely to cater to some than they are to others, for example the movie 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' (1966), it is something I will personally watch with goosebumps and shivers on my back, where as my wife literally fell asleep then one time we tried to watch it together.

In other words, our oft quoted author attempts to describe something that does not exist.

"The celebration of the wrath of Achilles and the wanderings of Odysseus is already a nostalgic stylization of what can no longer be celebrated; and the hero of the adventures turns out to be the prototype of the bourgeois individual, whose concept originates in the unwavering self-assertion of which the protagonist driven to wander the earth is the primeval model."

- The wrath of Achilles, from the pages of the Iliad, could be perhaps celebrated by some. But I would ask in turn what exactly roused up this wrath of Achilles, and what followed it? At first the wrath of Achilles is derived from the power struggle between Achilles and Agamemnon; the greater number of men allowed Agamemnon to humiliate Achilles' superior strength by claiming and stealing Briseis from him – during a war and siege that was fought to return Agamemnon's brother's stolen wife. The wrath of Achilles at first takes its form through nothing more or less than inaction; he is completely willing to let his side loose one battle after another before he himself even considers his return to the battlefield. But before the Greeks are driven back to their boats, a man known as Patroclus dons the armour of Achilles, and under disguise leads the Myrmidons to battle to save the Greek camp. Patroclus is slain by prince Hector of Troy, and the armour of Achilles is removed from Patroclus' body. At that point the wrath of Achilles is now directed towards Hector, and even though Achilles slays Hector – even though he mutilates and humiliates the body – his wrath does not dissipate. Thus the king Priam of Troy has no choice but to sneak into the Greek camp to beg and plead for Achilles to return this mutilated corpse of Hector – to let a father bury his son – and only after Achilles agrees to return the corpse of the slain son does his wrath finally dissipate. The two men know that come the new morning, they will be mortal enemies once more, but at least for that one night they could choose not to be – at least for that one night they could empathize with the sorrow and loss of the other. The wrath of Achilles is a tale of how both great and horrible things can be achieved through the emotion of wrath – and yet, Achilles remains wholly unsatisfied with the results of his wrath. It is only through his act of forgiveness and empathy that allows him to finally find some peace and calm. One is free to free to celebrate the wrath of Achilles – or that of his own – but those enslaved by their wrath often have no consideration for rhyme or reason of any kind. Thus for an argument's sake, let us entertain the idea that the wrath of Achilles had never been redirected at Hector; the men of Troy might have driven the Greeks back to their ships, and even if Achilles had secured their retreat, how many of them would have remained able or willing to fight on the fields of Troy the next day? And let us entertain the idea that Achilles had never returned the body of Hector to the mourning father; Achilles would have surely fought against Troy until the very last man, and then his wrath would have demanded a new enemy, and his gaze would have returned back to Agamemnon and all who fought by his side. Thus what indeed follows the worship of wrath if not an otherwise avoidable defeat, or a war that knows no end? We may know how the siege of Troy ended, but during the tale of the Iliad that very end has not yet transpired, and I cannot shake away the feeling that the entire story is nothing more or less than a warning against the excesses of wrath, rather than some act of worship.

Which then leads us to the Odyssey, and the so called wanderings of Odysseus. Who would not wish to see strange new places, discover lands unheard of, overcome great difficulties, and lead a life full of experiences that the stuff of legends are made out of? But at the same time, we should not forget the reason why Odysseus partook in these wanderings, he was simply lost at sea and wished nothing more but to find a way back home; a safe homecoming for himself and his men.

With the naivete of youth, it is easy to worship the wrath of Achilles and the wanderings of Odysseus. After all, who would not wish to be powerful and able to affect the world, who would not wish to see what the world at large has to offer beyond what is already known and familiar? But increase in age is often followed by increase in wisdom, and with it rises the realization that there are times when wrath simply serves no purpose of any kind, and how wild wanderings can be utterly meaningless without a home to return to. What our oft quoted author has referred as some nostalgic stylization, is simply nothing more than other people having grown older and far wiser. What our oft quoted author describes as a prototype of the bourgeois individual is in all due reality nothing more than a description of the nature of human existence itself. Foolishness of youth replaced by the wisdom learned along with passing of the long years. And as long as the world knows of freedom, as long as there is a choice, the individual will wander the earth in search of a place he can call as his home. Some may find it sooner, others will later, and once it has been found it offers safe harbour from the storms of wild wanderings, and a foundation upon which the so called wrath of Achilles can be put into good service so that it doesn't manifest ever greater ills onto the world at large. The bourgeois individual is but an individual, there is no need to make a special distinction. The only thing that matters is whether or not the world of our individual knows of freedom and choice, because otherwise the individual will know of refuge from these wild wanderings, and no escape from the wrath of others.

"Finally; the epic which in terms of the philosophy of history is the counterpart of the novel, exhibits features reminiscent of that genre, and the venerable cosmos of the Homeric world, a world charged with meaning, reveals itself as an achievement of classifying reason, which destroys myth by virtue of the same rational order which is used to reflect it."

- The meaning of a thing is often strongly tied to nothing more than its use. For example, the saying; 'my life bears no meaning' – is simply a statement and acknowledgement that one's life bears no use to oneself or anyone else. Feel free to argue against this notion, but what emphatic words would you offer to someone who declares that their life bears no meaning? In one way or another, the words you would choose to speak are of how one's life bears some use, or how it could be of some use in the future. Imagine a man fired from his job for no fault of his own, he has a family to feed, and all of a sudden the very foundation oh his life has been yanked below his feet, he is desperate, he is uncertain, terrified even, and thus he proclaims how his life bears no meaning. He lies in a street corner wallowing in his own misery. What help can you offer to such a man, what could you even say to such a man? I can find no other words than: 'Your wife and kids still need you, you will find another job, you will make ends meet.' In other words; even if you feel you are of no use to anyone at the moment, you can still be come tomorrow.

Thus let us consider the Homeric world, in modernity we could easily consider it to be nothing more than an ancient myth, a work of simple literary fiction – and yet – I would argue that the core meaning behind these works remains one and the same. Whether it is the wrath of Achilles, or the wanderings of Odysseus, it does not matter if there was a man known as Achilles, or Odysseus – because the story in and off itself offers us a tale of meaning, something of use. There needs to be an end to even the most justified wrath, and the point of all the wanderings is to find oneself a place one can call and consider as his home.

"Understanding of the element of bourgeois enlightenment in Homer has been advanced by the German late-Romantic interpretation of antiquity based on the early writings of Nietzsche. Like few others since Hegel, Nietzsche recognized the dialectic of enlightenment. He formulated the ambivalent relationship of enlightenment to power. Enlightenment must be drummed into the people, so that the priests all turn into priests with a bad conscience — and likewise with the state. That is the task of enlightenment: to show up the pompous behavior of princes and statesmen as a deliberate lie."

- One may very well be able to read the words written on a page, but it is an entirely different matter whether one understands them. And it is also entirely possible that different people seemingly agree on a particular thing for wholly different reasons. Thus let us consider these words of Nietzsche after they have been strung up with the strange context provided by none other than our oft quoted author: Enlightenment does not exist automatically, thus regardless of one's profession, one must be forever aware how any society only exists through the countless contributing labours of others, and how those in positions of power are not masters of absolute power. I believe I have already said this in the first part – but I shall repeat my self – human beings are not born as noble savages, human beings are simply born to survive. If humanity is to ever offer anything beyond the pursuit immediate necessities of survival as practised by mere savages, humanity must first know of the better ideas, and of better ways to live their lives. Thus let us consider the priest, traditionally and historically the profession of a priest has been one of a great importance. The livelihood of the priest is guaranteed by the society at large as a compensation for the functions and services the priest provides in turn, and this compensation may be far larger than what the actual need of the priest is, and thus I would argue that the priest needs to suffer from a bad conscience in order to bring about more good onto the society at large. After all – regardless of wealth and abundance of the society at large – there will always be those who are less fortunate, and the bad conscience of the priest should drive him to offer his aid to those who are less fortunate. This idea has been expanded onto the shoulders of the state – and because the wealth and abundance at the hands of the state is only possible as a direct result of the labours of its citizens: then just as the priests before; the state should do its best to offer aid to those who are less fortunate among its citizens. In other words, the people in these positions of authority should not be pompous in their behaviour, because there are expectations for their proper behaviour, there are expectation of good outcomes and responsibility that far surpass the mere veneer of the position itself. Thus what we can see from these early writings of Nietzsche is a very German approach to society at large, an approach that leans far more towards collectivism than it does to individualism, and it is an approach we could quite easily describe as the statist ideal. The individual does not solve problems, the state does. And I would like to remind that the whole idea of a unified Germany is still something of a brand new idea. The territory we might currently recognise as the nation of Germany has existed as a thousand little kingdoms for a far longer time than it has ever remained unified as one. Which is to say, while a statist approach to the local government may produce desirable end results, when that same approach is expanded to cover the totality of a nation, the limits on capacity and capability to govern are met far quicker than not. In other words, it creates a system where the people in power are utterly detached from the consequences of their decisions. And even if such a state fills its positions through requirements of meritocratic competence, as a matter of its highest concern, such a state cannot forever delay the slow and eventually death by thousand little spoons. The bureaucrat pours himself a standardized cup of coffee, he adds the state mandated cube of sugar, he pours a drop of state certified cream, he then stirs this mixture exactly as many times as it was stated in the instruction manual, and then he puts his spoon away and begins his work. There is no aspect of human life that in his eyes cannot be regularized, standardized, mandated, instructed, and certified. Thus when something unexpected happens – and something unexpected always will – the very regulation of such a state will prevent the correct course of action from taking place, and thus the regulation itself will be the source of the greatest harm. Which springs to mind the First World War of all things; a man gets assassinated, and Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, Russia in turn declares war on Austria-Hungary, which prompts Germany to declare war on Belgium in order to attack France, which then brings Great Britain into the war, and thus began the First World War. It may sound like hasty decisions, but the whole process took weeks and weeks with back and forth communication taking place between these different powers, and simply the inability – or lack of will – to adjust or change the carefully crafted mobilization plans meant that once the bureaucratic structures started to enact out these plans, there was simply no alternative but to engage a war. All use of reason was simply thrown out of the window because all of these states had their carefully crafted plans to follow. Were we to now focus on Austria-Hungary, or Austro-Hungarian Empire, during the First World War; they enacted policies of central control in order to create a state monopoly over all aspects of the economy, which resulted in the exact same results such attempts have always manifested. In short: the mismanagement of resources, rule of incompetence, lack of individual incentives towards innovation, the creation of black markets, the public going hungry and lacking in basic necessities, et cetera, et cetera. Socialism never works as advertised.

As for this ambivalent relationship between power and enlightenment, I will have to once again state that power is never absolute, power is always relative and ever fleeting. Power exists, it has always existed, and it will always exist – thus power in and of itself is not a primary concern, what matters far more is how its abuses are limited, if not outright prevented. Thus in the quote by Nietzsche I can see the understanding that power needs to be limited, kept in check, and it also hints at where the 'German philosophical error of thought' has been derived from: a priest is but an individual, where as a state is an organization that is composed out of an untold number of different individuals. Therefore, where as an individual priest could be held responsible for his own actions, a state forms a collective entity that is infinitely more capable of denying any and all responsibility and simply blaming it elsewhere. The individual and the collective do not operate on the same set of rules, and yet it has been the insistence of German philosophy that these two are either one and the same, or that the idea of a collective could somehow replace the very concept of human individuality by somehow denying the very natural instincts individual human beings have towards their own survival. In other words; it is the idea that the so called state could supplant the individual in all aspects of life. It is an idea that has been attempted countless times, and these attempts have only ever ended up in complete and utter disaster.

"However, enlightenment had always been a means employed by the great artists of government (Confucius in China, the Roman Empire, Napoleon, the Papacy, when it was concerned with power and not just with the world) . . . The self-deception of the masses in this respect — for instance, in all democracies — is highly advantageous: making people small and governable is hailed as 'progress'!"

- And another quote from Nietzsche. The ideas of Confucius have countless interpretations, which is simply a result of having been long dead and still spoken about. The Roman Empire, with or without the Roman Republic, did not remain one and the same during the long years between its birth and its end. Napoleon is remembered as a general rather than as a great artist of government. As for the Papacy, well, as it was with the Roman Empire, it has not remained the same during the long years of its existence either. What these four things have in common is simply that their status and influence has not remained the same, in other words, through these four examples history itself has proven how power is something relative, and ever fleeting – power is never absolute. The world changes, and thus whoever wishes to retain that ever elusive absolute grasp of power or influence, will be proven to be in error through nothing more than the mere passage of time.

But let us speak of the self-deception of the masses: an authoritarian state truly benefits from individuals that regard themselves as something small and insignificant, for it is the desire of the authoritarian state to command and to be obeyed. But when it comes to democracies, republics, individuals who regard themselves as something small and insignificant is the fastest way for the very democracy of that society to simply wither and die off. In order for democracy to function, it requires people who are willing to step up, it requires people who are willing to take the initiative, it requires people who are difficult and ungovernable – people who are willing to challenge the status quo for the reasons they believe to be true. Thus a democratic society affords no other alternative for the powers that be – but to seek the volition and support of the armed and ungovernable public. It creates a society where the merit of ideas is worth far more than who utters them, and nevertheless the powers that be may certainly find their temporary benefits from self-deception of the masses. They may indeed call it as civilizational 'progress' – but ultimately these powers that be will find themselves at the limits of their own competence and ability – and as the ever changing world sees their grasp of power torn asunder, they will remain helpless to turn back the tide and their civilizational 'progress' is proven to be nothing more than otherwise avoidable fall into decadence, into ruin and destruction.

"As this twofold character of enlightenment emerged more clearly as a basic motif of history, its concept, that of advancing thought, was traced back to the beginning of recorded history."

- Power exists, but it is not absolute, it is not permanent. It can be used for something good, and it can be abused for something evil. There needs to be checks and balances against the abuses of power. There needs to be ways to ensure that power resides in competent hands. There needs to be ways to ensure that positions of power can be peacefully transferred from one individual to another. There needs to be a way that allows the once powerful to live in peace even when they have given up their mantles and positions of power. It is the slow realization that individual volition works far better than the use of force to ensure all of the above.

"However, whereas Nietzsche's attitude to enlightenment, and thus to Homer, remained ambivalent; whereas he perceived in enlightenment both the universal movement of sovereign mind, whose supreme exponent he believed himself to be, and a nihilistic, life-denying power, only the second moment was taken over by his pre-fascist followers and perverted into ideology."

- And let us consider the sovereign mind, for it is nothing more than the individual himself as manifested through nothing more but his individual agency and responsibility – where as this nihilistic and life-denying power is nothing less than an absolute manifestation of collectivism: the very rejection of human individuality.

And were we to speak of those pre-fascist followers, and did these pre-fascistic individuals by any chance happen to identify themselves as socialists of one creed or another? I ask this because the ideology of fascism is simply yet another face on the collectivist dice of socialism. Moreover; were one to inspect the various individuals who have openly identified themselves as fascists of one creed or another, the chances are that these individuals previously identified themselves as a socialist of one creed or another – and perhaps, the only reason why their professed ideology 'changed' in the first place was due to no more but a mere roll of a dice.

"This ideology became a blind eulogy of blind life, which imposes a praxis by which everything living is suppressed."

- In other words, the reality of the so called socialist utopia. Nothing is allowed to exist against the imaginary abstractions of the preferred ideology, nothing is allowed to exist separately from the imaginary abstractions of the preferred ideology, and everything must be in accordance of the imaginary abstractions of the preferred ideology.

"This is seen in the cultural fascists' attitude to Homer."

- And the chances are that the so called cultural fascists are nothing but socialist of another creed in practice.

"In the Homeric depiction of feudal conditions they detect a democratic element, brand the work a product of seafarers and traders, and condemn the Ionian epic for its of overly rational