.. [they mean] absolutely nothing!...Or they means so many things, that they amount to nothing at all!" (Nietzsche, sec. 5). His major problem with the logic of the ascetic ideal seems to be that it rejects everything outside the body as unimportant, but then places a major emphasis on refraining from these unimportant things. Nietzsche sees ascetic ideals as a way for the power structure to continue to control people, and to have the people think that it is good without even realizing that they are being controlled. Furthermore, he suggests that ascetic ideals are also nihilistic (Nietzsche, sec. 26). Though his rhetoric is often as emotional as it is logical -- and sometimes more so -- Nietzsche finds a way to dismantle any concept of ascetics as moral. Gandhi, on the other hand, does a great deal to restore (or at least to attempt to restore) a sense of morality to the ascetic ideal. This begins in the very first chapter of The Story of my Experiments with the Truth. His description of his mother is that of the extreme ascetic: "To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her. Living on one meal a day during Chaturmas was a habit with her. Not content with that she fasted every alternate day during one Chaturmas" (Gandhi Part I, Chapter 1). The cheerfulness with which she undertook these fasts, her continued performance of all duties, and an opening statement regarding her "saintliness" all show quite clearly that Gandhi felt very strongly in favor of the ascetic...
In part three of his book, in the chapter entitle "The Spirit of Service," Gandhi opens by saying "My profession progressed satisfactorily, but that was far from satisfying me. The Question of further simplifying my life and of doing some concrete act of service to my fellowmen had been constantly agitating me" (Gandhi, III Chapter 6). Clearly, he saw enormous benefit in freeing himself from the distractions of the material and sensual world. Nietzsche did not consider these things to be distractions, but rather simply things like anything else, with no real objective value or purpose. Doubtless these two men were influenced by their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, in Nietzsche's case, but it is the differing philosophies that grew out of these religious views -- or perhaps that caused or enhanced the religious views -- that are of enduring interest to mankind. The answer might lie somewhere in the middle, with an enjoyment of the things that life has to offer without abandoning morality all together.
(Juergensmeyer, 1984) According to Gandhi's philosophy, the religious factualist becomes a religious innovator. This is where the facts of religion merge with contemporary concerns. Religion in turn is the codebook for moral conduct, and by introducing the element of fasting in the Satyagraha, Gandhi mixed this religious element with Satyagraha and the Satyagraha then became a search for Truth. In a similar vein, the Gandhi-Irwin pact was established, where Gandhi agreed
5. Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy is in his genius use of the positive aspects of Rationalism (Descartes and so on) and Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley and Hume). How can you argue this out with the help of the "Critique of Pure Reason"? The human experience of negotiating the universe as it seems to be presented to us is one governed by a great many assumptions. Our education of this process, and
Martin Luther King & George Orwell Martin Luther King and George Orwell's representations of an ethical society Civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King and novelist George Orwell had been known for their political discourses regarding the extent of the government's responsibility to civil society. In the essay "My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" by King and "Shooting an Elephant" by Orwell, each author's discourse contemplated the kind of ethical society that humanity should
Reflection on HobbesIntroductionIn �The Misery of the Natural Condition of Mankind� Hobbes begins by arguing that equality exists among men in spite of physical and intellectual differences. He states that even the weakest can conspire to kill the strongest so that the same threat to both exists for both. It is from this innate equality, Hobbes contends, that �ariseth equality of hope of our ends� (Hobbes, p. 12). The problem,
philosophical questions about, Jean Jacque Rousseau, John Dewey, Michel Foucault and Marin Luther King, Jr. It has 4 sources. Rousseau and Nature" We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education. This education comes to us from nature, from men, or from things."[Rousseau 143]. According
52). Furthermore, Marx felt that money had "deprived the whole world, both the human world and nature, of their own proper value. Money is the alienated essence of man's work and existence; this essence dominates him and he worships it..." (Strathern, 2001, p. 52). From Marx's point-of-view, owners or holders of capital were in a position to exploit workers because of their "systematically privileged position within the market" (Pierson,
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