Recent tv program on Nietzsche: http://www.booktv.org/Program/13175/American+Nietzsche+A+History+of+an+Icon+and+His+Ideas.aspx
On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 6:26 AM, Frances Kelly <[email protected]>wrote: > Frances to posters... > This is an intriguing topic, and for me the solution might best > lay with semiotics and signs. It might be fair to say that closed > dictatorial systems do not care what members think or do in > private, because the system can control members in public by > force via any means; but that opened democratic systems do care > what members think and do in private, because members can think > and do as they freely want in public within reasonable limits. > The role of "convincing persuasive propaganda" is therefore much > more important to the polity in democracies, if the system wants > to "expressively" win over its members. It is also likely that > closed homogeneous systems will stagnate and thus decay, while > opened heterogeneous systems will overlap and integrate and thus > grow. > > William wrote... > No system is a guarantee. Fascism does indeed exploit the narrow > self-interest of groups, as we see today. > > Saul wrote... > Though representative democracy can be the vehicle to autocracy - > in that there are many forms of representation - and fascism > finds these to be useful. > > William wrote... > Democratic pluralism is anarchy. Nihilism is anarchy. A direct > democracy leads to tyranny. A representative democracy is a > safeguard against tyranny because it protects the interests of > the minority, or pluralist interests, without enabling each to > cancel the others. > > Joseph wrote... > "As Nietzsche understood it, nihilism, even radical nihilism, is > compatible with democratic pluralism; it is in fact the > philosophic expression of the leveling of all hierarchies of > value, a phenomenom that takes the political form for modern > democratic culture." > ---The Novel and the Globalization of Culture (1995, Moses) > Do you agree with Dr. Moses' comment?
