/nietzsches-eternal-return

  • Nietzsche’s Eternal Return
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/nietzsches-eternal-return

    #Nietzsche could be a fiercely prescient analyst of democratic politics, and [...] we can learn from his observations without following him into antidemocratic invective. [...] Who can deny that human beings are a fundamentally predatory species, and that no political system or moral code has yet tamed our worst impulses? Nineteenth-century thinkers in the tradition of Hegel anticipated the attainment of a perfected state of humanity; instead, as Nietzsche foresaw, a century of unprecedented horrors ensued. During the Cold War, the powers that defeated fascism brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war that would have made the Second World War seem like a minor episode in comparison. Today, anthropogenic climate change is causing mass extinctions. To quote Zarathustra: “The Earth has a skin, and this skin has diseases. One of these diseases is called, for example, ‘humanity.’ ”