Started reading Friedrich Nietzsche's The Dawn of Day (1881) and was immediately struck by its aptness to the current struggle to free ourselves of the tentacles of the European Union. I could not help transposing every mention of the word 'morality' to 'the EU':
"...in the presences of the EU, as before all authority, we must not even think, much less speak: here we must obey! Ever since the beginning of the world, no authority has permitted itself to be made the subject of criticism; and to criticise the EU--to look upon the EU as a problem, as problematic--what! was that not--is that not--immoral?--But the EU has at its disposal not only every means of intimidation wherewith to keep itself free from critical hands and instruments of torture: its security lies rather in a certain art of enchantment, in which it is a past master--it knows how to 'enrapture'. It can often paralyse the critical will with a single look, or even seduce it to itself: yea, there are even cases where the EU can turn the critical will against itself; so that then, like the scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own body. The EU has for ages been an expert in all kinds of devilry in the art of convincing: even at the present day there is no orator who would not turn to it for assistance...The EU has shown itself to be the greatest mistress of seduction ever since men began to discourse and persuade on earth."
"The right answer would rather have been that all philosophers including Kant himself were building under the seductive influence of the EU--that they aimed at certainty and 'truth' only in appearance; but that in reality their attention was directed towards 'majestic EU edifices,' to use once more Kant's innocent mode of expression, who deems it his 'less brilliant, but not undeserving' task and work 'to level the ground and prepare a solid foundation for the erection of those majestic EU edifices'".
"He, too, had been bitten by the EU tarantula, Rousseau; he, too, felt weighing on his soul that EU fanaticism of which another disciple of Rousseau's, Robespierre, felt and proclaimed himself to be the executor: de fonder sur la terre l'empire de la sagesse, de la justice, et de la vertu. (Speech of June 4th, 1794)."
"And if this book is pessimistic even in regard to the EU, even above the confidence in the EU--should it not be a German book for that very reason? For, in fact, it represents a contradiction, and one which it does not fear: in it confidence in the EU is retracted--but why? Out of morality!...here, if anywhere, are we still men of conscience, because, to put the matter in plain words, we will not return to that which we look upon as decayed, outlived, and superseded, we will not return to something 'unworthy of belief'...we will not permit ourselves to open up a lying path to old ideals...opposed also to [that] which would fain make us worship where we no longer believe...opposed, in short, to all this European feminism (or idealism, if this term be thought preferable), which everlastingly 'draws upward', and which in consequence everlastingly 'lowers' and 'degrades'."
If Nietzsche said God is dead, Christian morality is dead, nowadays we say the EU is dead. The once noble idea has been revealed as a pernicious, poisonous motivation & methodology. It has become truly rotten at the core, and deserves to be burned to the ground. Great Britain to our eternal glory is trying--trying--to be the first to strike the blow.
What would Karl Kraus make of the EU! What would Friedrich Nietzsche make of the EU!
"...in the presences of the EU, as before all authority, we must not even think, much less speak: here we must obey! Ever since the beginning of the world, no authority has permitted itself to be made the subject of criticism; and to criticise the EU--to look upon the EU as a problem, as problematic--what! was that not--is that not--immoral?--But the EU has at its disposal not only every means of intimidation wherewith to keep itself free from critical hands and instruments of torture: its security lies rather in a certain art of enchantment, in which it is a past master--it knows how to 'enrapture'. It can often paralyse the critical will with a single look, or even seduce it to itself: yea, there are even cases where the EU can turn the critical will against itself; so that then, like the scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own body. The EU has for ages been an expert in all kinds of devilry in the art of convincing: even at the present day there is no orator who would not turn to it for assistance...The EU has shown itself to be the greatest mistress of seduction ever since men began to discourse and persuade on earth."
"The right answer would rather have been that all philosophers including Kant himself were building under the seductive influence of the EU--that they aimed at certainty and 'truth' only in appearance; but that in reality their attention was directed towards 'majestic EU edifices,' to use once more Kant's innocent mode of expression, who deems it his 'less brilliant, but not undeserving' task and work 'to level the ground and prepare a solid foundation for the erection of those majestic EU edifices'".
"He, too, had been bitten by the EU tarantula, Rousseau; he, too, felt weighing on his soul that EU fanaticism of which another disciple of Rousseau's, Robespierre, felt and proclaimed himself to be the executor: de fonder sur la terre l'empire de la sagesse, de la justice, et de la vertu. (Speech of June 4th, 1794)."
"And if this book is pessimistic even in regard to the EU, even above the confidence in the EU--should it not be a German book for that very reason? For, in fact, it represents a contradiction, and one which it does not fear: in it confidence in the EU is retracted--but why? Out of morality!...here, if anywhere, are we still men of conscience, because, to put the matter in plain words, we will not return to that which we look upon as decayed, outlived, and superseded, we will not return to something 'unworthy of belief'...we will not permit ourselves to open up a lying path to old ideals...opposed also to [that] which would fain make us worship where we no longer believe...opposed, in short, to all this European feminism (or idealism, if this term be thought preferable), which everlastingly 'draws upward', and which in consequence everlastingly 'lowers' and 'degrades'."
If Nietzsche said God is dead, Christian morality is dead, nowadays we say the EU is dead. The once noble idea has been revealed as a pernicious, poisonous motivation & methodology. It has become truly rotten at the core, and deserves to be burned to the ground. Great Britain to our eternal glory is trying--trying--to be the first to strike the blow.
What would Karl Kraus make of the EU! What would Friedrich Nietzsche make of the EU!
