"Beyond Good and Evil"

Wolf:

Hmm. Meaty.

'course one cannot tell exaclty who thinks what at what stage but as it is average that only the average are assigned millitary responsibilities- as evidenced by its sloppyness- a good wager is that their actions do invoke some emotion.

However, those extraordianary or just ill-equipped mentally, so to speak. Those "missing something" or inured- don't believe it possible? Kill completely sterile?

 

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I honestly don't know, but I feel that we've been raised on a diet of Hannibal Lecters and assuming that it's reality. The media has a lot to answer for.

Ed Gein, I'm thinking of as an example. Albert Fish, even. Now here are two who one might assume are completely devoid of emotional response to death by their own hands, yes? I'm not denying at all that it's possible to be emotionless during a kill. I'm thinking though that it might be more a result of a combination of factors - circumstances during childhood, and perhaps, perhaps, there is the possibility that some are born with a "lack" (bad word, but meh) in the brain. You might have several people, both brought up in equally disturbing circumstances, and while one might become a serial killer, one might develop MPD, and another might lead a realtively normal life, albeit with "ghosts". This points to differences in the brain, doesn't it? Difficult to say without a controlled environment.

I don't believe though that it's at all common... and those soldiers who talk in interviews afterward and say they felt nothing? I'm skeptical, yes. I think it'd be extremely rare, and an example of talking for the cameras.

 

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"I honestly don't know, but I feel that we've been raised on a diet of Hannibal Lecters and assuming that it's reality. The media has a lot to answer for.'

Wow, there he is, paraphrasing my own argument and passing it off as his own. Congratulations Fenris, you've hit a new low.

 

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My argument, actually - as I've said before. You and Dr Lou were the ones trying to convince each other you were emotionless and could kill with impunity at the very start of this thread, I said otherwise. How you've managed to see that as me agreeing with you I have no idea. Still... you're not exactly rational these days, are you? Poor little thing.

 

Wolf:

And Rice novels, all kinds of Goth simulacra for the bored, disenfrachised "Braveheart" suburbanites dreaming of utopian battlefields. ODIN!!

Anyway- there are some who from childhood harbor this morbid, disgustingly fascniating attraction to murder or blood, myself being one.

Moreso Gein than Fish, though I don't know much of Gein other than his predilictions. Fish was too entrenched in his mother and obsessive over his actions- way too romantic to come off as 'lacking' or 'devoid'.

I'm thinking Chikitiloh who'd go around with morsels of flesh from his victims in his pockets and he'd masturbate to them secretly in full public. Someone like him....perhaps.

Or Gacy- ever seen him describe to an FBI agent his 'procedures'? Never have I seen one so perfunctory in the telling- not even Manson (who was a wannabe)

Of course they are lying sacks of shit.

Its a method to exhude heroism- ever seen how hard they try 'stiffing their lip' and then put on this cute act of trying to hold those tears down?

Poor boys!! The horrors you brave men must have felt on that battlefield pressing those buttons and fetching water!!

I'm thinking of the Russian Steppes now and Danish kings and warriors, Aztec savages. If only.....

 

Where did I say that I was emotionless and could kill with impunity? Please quote me, because I got lost in your pretentious macho tripe.
Or shall I quote myself:
"Now are you going to say anything relevent or at least amuse us with the pathos of your machismo and the quasi-sexual pleasure you take in yammering about the nasty ways in which young women can be humiliated in whatever third-world country you feign acquaintance with?
Drat, you're just going to keep contributing pseudo-Randian verbiage. "

My entire response to Totoro was to show that what we generally see as 'killing with impunity' is simply an ability to dehumanize ourselves from a situation. The administrator or soldier who feels no remorse does so because killing has become institutionalized, rarely because that soldier or administrator is "without conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality"

Irrational? In what way is this argument irrational?

 

Explain why a species that needs to kill to survive would evolve to be squeamish about killing?
Doesn't make much sense does it?
Killing has been taboo-ified in modern times. You don't need to sort through history and find especially heinous sociopaths if you want people who could kill.
Anybody that isn't currently brainwashed should be able to kill without remorse.
I'm not saying they would feel 'nothing' but the feelings wouldn't necesarrily be negative. Anyone in touch with the reality of the universe should not feel bad about killing a stranger. Something is wrong with them if they do. Yes this means there is something wrong with the vast majority. Being the majority doesn't make you correct.

Your shit argument is shit because you are saying I would definately be an incompetent human incapable of killing another without feeling sad. You are saying that as though EVERYONE is like this like its the normal mindset of homo-sapiens.
Which is absolutely ridiculous. People would never kill eachother if this was the case. Everyone is brainwashed into thinking killing is wrong and they STILL do it. That just proves how right it is.
The thing is they feel bad afterwards because they are still brainwashed into thinking its wrong. Someone like me doesn't think it is wrong at all. So there wouldn't be that aftershock of despair.
Why would I suddenly feel bad? I would be worried about getting into trouble but thats not the same as feeling bad for the dead person and his family.

 

Dr. Lou:
Because an overly aggressive group does not succeed as well as a group in which there is strong mutual dependance.
Note that our taboos against killing rarely apply to "outlanders"
It's killing within the group that we condemn, and if you examine yourself you'll probably find that those you'd find yourself squeamish about killing would be those - "well of course I wouldn't do so and so, I care for them" - who are of your tribe.

"Compassion" is likely hardwired and serves a real purpose. It is the current ethic of compassion and love that is flawed, not the notions of compassion and love themselves.

 

Gendanken :
You're not alone in your fascination with it, to be sure. So am I. I wouldn't say I'm one of those suburbanites dreaming of bloody battlefields, but to say I hadn't thought of it on occasion would be a lie. However - taking that extra step and actually being there with the axe in your hand, or cutting up the body for later consumption is something which few actually sit down and consider honestly. A rifle would be easy, probably. Up close and personal requires something a little more.

Start a thread about serial killers, will you?

Xev :
You said something earlier about a state of nature being favourable for you and others like you. Inference... but fair enough, you didn't directly come out and say so. Not here in this thread anyway... right?

 

Fenris:
No, I didn't say so. I promptly explained the meaning of that for an idiot like you - part of me longs for that, for nature where I would not be shielded by the compacts of others nor prey to the opinions of men. Gone would be any uncertainty as to my weakness or strength, but weakness and strength would be decided irrevocably. I believe Dr. Lou Natic understands this feeling. I believe Varg Vikernes does. This is what I mean by "calibre"
It implies nothing about whether one is above or below the average man, it implies nothing about whether one would thrive in such an enviornment.

As Hobbes noted, in a state of nature, nobody thrives.

Yet the feeling remains, as an insatiable desire for knowledge and experience yet coupled with a weariness of modern life and a desire simply to disengage. You're the seagull struggling against the uncertain sea of postmodern culture - I am the octopus swimming calmly in the depths. The nuances and implications of my thought pass you by, and you grasp only that which you can cop a feel of.

Why don't you go back to chatting with gendanken about what I may or may not be telling people whom I may or may not be talking to about matters that definitely do not concern any of you?

You're the kid who plays D&D in High School, gets beat up a lot, and fantasizes about raping the cheerleaders who won't give him a second glance. I understand, I even feel some sympathy, but really it is getting ugly when you insist on displaying it to everyone here.

 

Dr Lou :

Now that was good for a chuckle. If you're going to be a tough guy, you'll have to be more convincing than that.

Nope - again, show me where I said that. What I did say to you (once more into the breach, dear friends... once more...) is that for you to tell me without a shadow of doubt that you are one of those who wouldn't feel without ever having done it is ridiculous. Quite simply, you don't know. Quite simply, you've never been there, never done it, and never will have to back up your own words. The best trained soldier might freeze in a fight, and the one everyone picked on for being a wuss might charge down a machine gun nest. You don't know shit. But you posture quite well, I'll give you that.

 

Good girl, round up the groupies. Pat them on the head at just the right time and they're yours for life, aren't they?
As to the prompt explanation, it was given under questioning. Some might call it backpedalling, or softening a stance. It's all in the perspective, isn't it?

Ah, now you see - here's where the irrationality comes in. Not to mention the admission that you're sitting there, invisible I might add (and what does that tell us) watching pm's go back and forth and imagining we're talking about you. We're not. I hope that doesn't sting your ego too much.

Now... what was it you were saying about personal attacks? Please... tell me again. I'm in a bad mood, I need things to smile at today.

 

No it isn't.
You just don't get it. If you knew a murderer well enough before he murdered you could predict whether he was going to feel bad afterwards or not. If he fully understands that lives were made to be taken then it would be bizarre if he suddenly was overcome with dillusional ideas about the sanctity of human life.

The best trained soldier might be a christian or who knows what. Being a trained soldier is irrelevent. A trained soldier who has an understanding of life and the universe isn't going to freeze in a fight or weep over the death of a rival. And neither am I.
I'm not a trained soldier, what i have in common with this trained soldier is a philosophy regarding existence. And thats just me. Other people don't feel bad about killing because their brain is incapable of putting themselves in someone elses shoes, or because they flat out enjoy making others suffer or whatever.
I can put myself in others shoes, the thing is, I wouldn't cry for myself either. I don't think like that. It would be very strange if I felt bad after killing a stranger. It would be like a miracle. A supernatural phenomenon. It wouldn't happen basically.
I do know, YOU don't know.
I know how I would react in any situation. And i know how most other people I know would react in any situation. I am constantly making predictions that come true regarding the behaviour of people around me. Countless times have I quoted people word for word before they said what they were going to say.
Example; me and friend put dogshit in wallet of other friend, I tell accomplice "I bet he says 'thats weak man, thats just fucked' all sad and serious" and low and behold that is exactly what victim says when he discovers shit in wallet.
This happens everyday. I just know human beings, and especially myself.
There's only one claim I'm making here, I'm not saying I wouldn't chicken out in a warzone and want to go home, or that I would kill someone if they keyed my car, I'm saying that if I killed someone I wouldn't feel bad. I wouldn't feel sorry for the victim or feel like I had done wrong.
I know this with 100% certainty, and I know people that would commit suicide if they accidently killed someone.
I wouldn't, I know I wouldn't.
Answer this, are you going to break down next time you stand on an ant? How do you know? How do you know you won't lose it, freak out and cap yourself? Oh you've already experienced standing on an ant? Well what if its a different species? Or what if you're wearing different shoes?

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Was your father in the vietnam war by any chance? I bet he was, and I bet he "hasn't been quite right ever since"

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Dr Lou :
Um hmm.

Xev :
Ok... so I've said we talk, but not about you, and this confirms your suspicions that we're... doing what exactly? "chatting with gendanken about what I may or may not be telling people whom I may or may not be talking to about matters that definitely do not concern any of you?"

Right... Ok. Look up "paranoia" in the dictionary. Your rationality fades ever more dimly into the shadows.
Reading this thread again, I'm reminded of the Witch trials -

"Admit you are a devil worshipper!"
"I most certainly am not!"
"but I have a witness - your cat, who has told me that you dance in the forest with the devil!"
"Sir, my cat said no such thing to you!"
"AHA!!! so you admit you have a talking cat!"
"I have what?"
"A TALKING CAT!"
"I don't have a talking cat...."
"YOU JUST SAID IT NEVER SAID ANY SUCH THING!"
"yes, but.. only because you said..."
"so you DO admit it!"
"what? No....wait..."

*Inquisitor holds up a cat*

"here is exhibit A, sciforummers! his TALKING CAT! A WITCH!"

*angry boos from the crowd*

I LOVE this bit :

One supposes this experience must be of the varety one might experience in their own bedroom, of course. I've got this image of a girl, a weary expression on her face and a hand raised dramatically to her forehead : "oh ... I'm so weary of this cruel world *sniff* nobody understands my depth of thought, my feelings...".
Spare us the Gothic crap, Xev. Please.

*Chuckle* yeah.. you're real calm. You're a model of calmness. A paragon of restraint. Now THIS is entertainment.

You're right. It's been a most entertaining afternoon. Seriously though... are you ok?

 

Lou: I am not doubting your ability to 'not feel anything' if u were to kill somebody but I don't think u should apply it to everyone. I believe there are some people out there which have been so infiltrated by religion (and who therefore believe in an afterlife) that they feel they will be condemned to all eternity if they were to kill somebody. Because of this, even if they were really really angry with somebody and could not possibly be caught by the law, they just couldn't do it. At that moment they are not thinking about getting into heaven or going to Hell but they get a feeling that they just can't do it. The reason why (in retrospect of course) is their great belief in an almight being looking down on them.

 

Dr. Lou:

You have allowed distance, sterility and what looks like Western comfort to lie to you. I cannot really blame you it is common and somewhat...inescapable..... but how many times have we heard of your hatred for man, how many times have we suffered your pubescent iconoclastism with nothing to go on save that of appeals to nature? Nature, nature, nature. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!!

You not only brag about twisting peoples arms around, like 3 times, or stabbbing them with pens but do you not realize the amusement of this being little more than an extra on "Jackass"? You'd barely flich having 'crushed' a stranger's skull in with a hammer-post act- but cringe at brutality towards babies? Why, innocence? You wannabe.

Pardon, but your programme is simple to dissect- its a common dressing up of misantropy as mercy towards animals, and you'd probaly hate them as well if they could actually talk and tell you what a pampered, perfectly bored little dipshit you are. Like Schopenhaur sans finesse.

Xev:

This from a cyberglitch with her ICQ number displayed like free pussy.
This from a girl whose hands have probably bled from the carpal tunnel to another girl, gendanken, who has never seen a chatroom.

So tell me about how you don't get this social shit, dearest, tell me about high shool bullshit and I'll show you a kitchen wench that has taken something private and made it public, like writing some slut's phone number up on a bathroom wall. How cute, how quaint, how Wandish.

Speaking of which, going to "pfft" me again? Going to yap about nobody being able to "deconstruct" that bedouin fly?
Kinda like Rocky Balboa's wife squealing in the background, you know? Tell me about your husband you unsocial creature!! Muhahahha.....

This, ladies and gentlemen, this is why I love, fucking LOVE Freud and Skinner- godammned would I love to have you and Andy in a room with me- in real life- all alone sometimes. Perfect little specimen.

Wolf:

And so let that be a lesson Wolf- never, ever fuck with a woman's memory. Ever.

I know. It was reading what you wrote about it here that was impetus.

Hmm. You may not be but I need help here- Petrus Borel, as I've said before, was a writer/dandy who wrote something that perked my ears up one day.

It concerned being aware of one's chains simultenously with this awarenes off one's own reticence. I may go so far as saying some virulant strain of ethic or some mutant form of moralty is biologicallly wired in all of us (hierarchies could not exist without some semblence of order, cooperation)....to keep organisms in line, so to speak.

But this yearing for Earth for Gaia for her verity buttfucking naked- given the chance we recoil but why? Is it only becuase of that internal checkbit or this awareness of having to prove oneself to...oneself maybe?

Camus wrote:
"I was conscious of my power and I was conscious of my chains. But these chains are valuable objects. Without them it wold be necessary to prove, or to exercise, this power which, after all, one is not very sure of having."

I long and I'm fascinated but which is it? This knowing or the checkbit? I feel a hypocrite at times.

Easy and boring.

I touched a dead body when I was 13. I've always had this...attraction but having touched it I felt as if I was set on fire or disturbed. Her breast were huge and flattened on her sides and her fingers bloated. She felt like furniture. It was the first time in my life that my motional feel for most humans- that of them being furniture- became flesh.
Ever since then I've been wanting to look at a human from the inside or at least be given the chance to dissect one (did you know one is given free access to the morgue in Haiti?) but no dice.

Imagine holding a head in your hands...a human head. Like Benthman- he's got his body embalmed and displayed in some medical college or other. Imagine holding that head of his that looked on this world and built a philosophy for it- that head that used to be filled with all the angst, yearning, wonder, and intellect that feels so timeless, there it is smelling like dirt and looking like furniture.

Will do- told you this some time ago. Raskolnikov.

 

I've always seen humans as having a type of BIOS... something not quite considered hardware and not software - in computer speak, it's termed "firmware". Existing at some level below the subconscious as a set of programmed thoughts or reactions accessed continously without the person ever being aware of it. Social conditioning over millennia. Now while this bios isn't normally changed, it can be "flashed" by events, a trigger, in the same way we'd do it with a computer. Circumstances in childhood, perhaps, or something similar, changing that core program so that person is somewhat different from other humans. I still think that it would also take something more, perhaps this bad wiring you speak of, which dictates why one might survive relatively intact and another become a killer, but the why's and wherefores would take a scientist to determine.

Most will settle for the checkbit until one is forced to know. The west has ensured over time most will never have to... and we're free to fantasize in the comfort of that knowledge.

Haiti it is then.
I felt the same with my grandfather. Seeing him lying there like a lump of plastic, not even remotely resembling a human being. This was my grandfather, and yet I felt absolutely nothing looking at this wax dummy. Could have done anything at that point... it simply wasn't him. Not that I ever liked the guy much in the first place of course.

Or a wax caricature. Yes.
But also imagine seeing a head alive, and breathing, talking... and pulling the trigger making it explode into a mess of flesh, making it nothing more than chaotic garbage when only seconds ago it was speaking to you. Another step. YOUR hand.

In your words... hop to!

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when Nietzsche coined the phrase "beyond good and evil" wasn't he talking about redefining our cultural values so that we had a different conception of right and wrong – a master morality as opposed to a slave morality?

Also, I don't think that Nietzsche would have said that the ideas of good and evil didn't have any rational or logical basis; just that society had grown to a point where they were no longer useful in their current form.

 

Lie about what? Why do you never actually say anything? Its very irritating.

What are you saying here? It's stereotypically pubescent to feel the most realistic pespective with which to view the world would be the natural one?
Oh wait, sorry i read too much into it you actually said nothing at all again. hmmm...

This was fucking entrapment, I was accused of being a fat nerd thats never hurt anyone and its not true. Thats the only reason i said that. You are bragging about seeing a dead body, what a .... wait, what point were you trying to make about me bragging about things???
Again nothing...

I wouldn't flinch at all, I'd probably be overly exited like a kid that got his first kiss because I've been depraved of the natural act for so long.

Where did I say I'd cringe at brutality towards babies? I said I'd be disappointed in myself if I killed babies. Merely because i could do better.
I don't like the idea of visciously killing innocents (animals, babies), because its just lame, its the killing equivalent of masturbation, or rape even. Masturbating with somethings body... hows that? Killing an adult is like sex. Its consentual, in that all parties fully understand whats going on. Sure one might be sad or frightened, but they can think "this person is murdering me". That makes it right.
Dispatching of an animal for food, or dispatching of an infant due to lean months ahead would be fine in my eyes. As long as your not 'attacking' with pleasure or anger.

If they could talk and understand humans the way humans understand eachother I wouldn't feel as bad about murdering them, you're right.
If they thought they were above everything else on the planet and were constantly complaining about trivial problems I'd probably find it easier still.
But we're turning animals into things they are not here.

I've openly admitted many times that i live a very pampered life.
In comparison to members of other species.
Whats cute is you'd probably say you aren't pampered. Or that muslims in war torn countries are having a hard time.
You have no fucking idea.
People are pampered, and thats another big reason why bringing them misery is no sin. For this reason i don't think killing me would be a sin. How could I dare to complain about it?
The thing is people do complain about a lot of things. No rain came for the fucking farmers this year, and people will even set up a fund for the fucking farmers.
Some stupid bitch 'demands' justice for her dead son, who the fuck does she think she is?
Meanwhile a gray whale watches killer whales tear her baby apart for hours while it screams in pain. Will she get justice? Will she even get to tell anyone about it? Will she get to cry into a camera and make the world feel sorry for her and feel satisfied that she's a victim and get pampered by everyone around her? No. She'll just have to deal with it all by herself allone in the ocean and continue struggling to survive. And no one will ever know or care about her or what happened.
I can't feel sorry for humans, they already have so many benefits. Complaining is a benefit in itself that cancels out any pity I could possibly muster.

It's violently insulting for people to think i would feel bad about killing someone. It's infuriating. I've worked hard to accept that nature works as it does. It takes alot for me to not feel horrible about what naturally happens on earth. But as I've become an adult I've had to say 'too bad little eagle, you slowly get pecked to death by your older sibling, thats just what happens'. I've gotten used to it and come to terms with the fact that life is horrible for the majority of those that experience it. The major exception being human beings.
If I'm struggling to stop caring about torture victims how am I going to feel sorry for someone with a boo-boo on their pinky finger?
Like I said, its fucking insulting. Most of all to the animal kingdom.
So I smash someones head open with a hammer, what an easy way to go? and everyones going to remember that guy and feel sorry for him. He's a fucking prince. What an unbelievably fortunate organism.
If I was forced to somehow get myself into the state of mind where i could slightly pity him, feel bad for him or his family. If I had to lower my depressing-situation-tolerance-meter that low, I would automatically break down into a hysterical wreck thinking about what other organisms have to go through. I'd just stop eating and drinking and rock myself to death.
I can't afford to pity such petty issues as a murdered human being.
And if i couldn't stomach killing someone I'd kill myself because i wouldn't feel that I deserve to live on earth. The game of life would clearly be way out of my league.

Anyway go on dissecting gendanken. You're really good at it and it makes you look pretty too

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Sweat shops are in any fair-minded person not good things; however, I was raised working hard at a young age, in the fields, and believe me, we perspired, were tired and hungry, but had to work. Children were excused from school to help make a living for the family.....to buy food mostly. Untility bills were almost nothing then in comparison to now, outhouses were common, walking two or three miles to school in the cold without decent clothing was not that unusual, but you know what? I would not trade my wood-splitting, cotton picking, post-making, sometimes hungry childhood for one where I sat in front of a TV screen playing video games. I knew that I was a necessary part of what it took to keep things going. I learned respect for nature and respect for responsibility, and me and all those other cotton-picking kids, of all colors, had something in common with the earth and with each other.

Just thought I would mention that. It is often to the outsider that things look so bad, and they were, but to us it was the norm. .......pmt