On the Practical Necessity of Having Demons (Session 10)

Okay. Hello and welcome to the 10th session of on the practical necessity of having demons by Reznikaristani. And before we start, I want to make a short announcement. So we have three sessions left. And the objective of the new center is that we write and we deliver some writings at the end of the course. So each certificate students who wants to get credits will deliver a 10 minutes presentation at the very last session of the course so on 22nd of July and telling about their final project what you plan to do and also present literature that you'll be using for your research so in that session we will discuss the project with Reza and it will serve as a basis for your final work many thanks

many thanks so yes we have only three more sessions so we better wrap it up to kind of more structurally you know integrated session we keep comments under three minutes at most for now last session of course we can come back and and talk more uh you know about the questions that we have uh so on so forth so uh today we are going to talk about uh nietzsche and the seyfsky's demons the evolution of the modern concept of evil

This concept is actually, I would say, fundamentally a Marxian one, because Nietzsche is half on the side of the Schopenhauer and Freud and half on the side of Marx. works and this is how we should read mitche as as a kind of synthesis between the two he essentially his idea of evil or the bad two different kind of things as i will talk about fruits of a historical analysis

uh then dostoevsky so dostoevsky lives in a very turbulent time in washiya he also knows the works of marx freud so on and so forth and of course zola someone that i intentionally did not include so we are going to go with these two people analyze the evolution of the modern concept of evil and the bad with that said I think it's time for our first presenter to say something

and then we will take it from there. All right. I'm not sure if I can share the screen. No, Alexa, is it possible to make me host until after the presentation? I allowed screen sharing, so now you can do it. Okay. Okay, do you see it? Yes. Okay, so I mean it's a huge book, and it's Dostoevsky's Demons, and instead of trying to give an overview, I'm trying to suggest different paths for the discussion.

So I start with various levels of demonic possession in the book. So Dostoevsky's demon comes in many different forms and here is listed some of them. A demon of social transgression, she was possessed by the most cruel pride of Satan. Another one is Russians as cultural parasites. And I'm not going to say too much about Nechayev that you mentioned. because I think somebody's going to present on him next week, but I want to mention that there is a dispute over which of his actions and traits are attributed to which character in the book, if it's Varkovczynski or if it's Stavrogin.

And Varkovczynski has the most obvious reminiscent of Nechaev in the sense of his manipulative social engineering skills. And by way of this problem, the two being part of one, that being Nechayev, we can consider Stavrogin as Varkovczynski's demon, a limit condition of Varkovczynski's insurrectionist organizational enterprise, at the same time posing as an uncontrollable challenge and being its intensifying catalyst. Vakovczynski, he even goes so far as calling Stavoginski my greater eye and his demigod.

So if that is so, we can also consider the case of Feja, the murderer, as Stavogins demon, which would mean a demon with a demon. Another demon of Stavogins would be his hallucinations and trauma caused by his brutal actions as he confessed to the Pope Ticum. This moment is reminiscent of the Augustinian thrill of the crime, but much more extreme as he experiences it most intensively when provoked by danger and violence inflicted upon him. He says he finds comfort and forgiveness in the hate directed at him. The theme of asceticism is relevant to several of the characters, but specifically to Stavrogin in his self-torture and self-discipline, self-assessment.

Then I listed some cases of this essentially nihilist trope of the meaning and its following negation. That is on both the level of language, actions and beliefs. Writing an utmost important paper and not sending it. violently accusing someone of immoral behavior following immediate forgetfulness about the events, a heroic act with a reversed outcome, that being Stavokin's marriage with the mentally and physically disabled Maya Lipi Kana and his mother, governess Stavokin's maternal protection of Stefan Trofimovic. A poisonous pride that became irony, they call it, an act of care resulting in lunacy and misery which both Stavokins enact.

a genealogical miasma, the family's proclivity, both on a narratological level and posing the question of social moral inheritance. Also, this figure, we can even see it on such a basic level as an utterance and it's a negation. For example, Stavogen sought his cane. He hadn't sought anything. And then I'll jump to the character of Kirilov, and I'll just read this passage because it's very much reminiscent of Nietzsche, or probably the other way around. Imagine a stone as big as this house. This stone hangs above you. You find yourself just beneath it. In the moment it falls to your head, will it then hurt? Life is pain, life is horror and anxiety.

Man is the most miserable of all creatures. Man, as he exists now, loves life. There you have the deception, pain and anxiety. That is the life man loves. That is why he is miserable. Man is not yet the creature he can become. From the old man a new will appear, a happy and proud man. That for whom it is one to live and not to live will become this new man. He who overcomes pain and anxiety becomes himself God, the God that humans now imagine will no more be. The pain is not in the stone. The pain is in the fear of the stone. The pain of the fear of death, that is God. He who overcomes pain and anxiety, he himself becomes the God. Then overcomes the new life, the new human, everything will be new.

From the gorilla to the destruction of God. I'll just skip to the next page. If God exists, all will is his, and against his will I can do nothing. If he doesn't exist, all will is mine, and it is so my duty to reveal it. I will do so even if I shall be the only, I will. and this I will is very much like Nietzsche's lion who called I will who fights the dragon thou shalt here we see the possibility of transformation the übermensch the ape and man being this suspension

between the two Nietzsche's idea of the individual being morally in debt with society the hanging stone is the anxiety produced by the society by the power of societal moral expectations with which one is expected to pay back for the benevolence of and protection given by society. And after looking into this character of Kirilov, I found Blank's show-rope of this about that specific character in this space of literature. And I thought I'll just read this passage if it's okay. Love of life should make us wish for an altogether different death, a free and conscious death, one which is no accident, and holds no surprises. Nietzsche's words resound like an echo of liberty. One doesn't kill oneself,

but one can. This is a marvelous resource. Without this supply of oxygen, clothes at hand we would smother. We could no longer live. Having death within reach, docile and reliable, make life possible, for it is exactly what provides air, space, free and joyful movement. It is possibility. Voluntary death appears to pose a moral problem. It accuses and it condemns. It makes a final judgment or else it seems a challenge in defiance of an exterior omnipotence. I will kill myself to affirm my insubordination, my new and terrifying liberty. Kirilov's suicide thus becomes the death of God. Hence his strange conviction that this suicide will inaugurate a new era, that it will mark the turning point in the history of humanity,

and that precisely after him men will no longer need to kill themselves. His death, by making death possible, will have liberated life and rendered it wholly human. Dying for the idea, as Kirilov puts it, dying that is in a purely ideal manner. Then Blanchot paraphrases as Kirilov and says, Do I myself die, or do I not rather die, always other from myself, so that I would have to say that, probably speaking, I do not die. Can I die? Have I the power to die? He also considers this other which he claims that Kirilov's death is the actual killing of, as reflected in the relationship of various of the novel's characters, which confirms the aforementioned thesis of Stavogin as Verkovczynski's demon.

This we can consider as yet another transvaluation of values, just as the instantiation of the demand for moral responsibility when the metaphysical modality of evil is irrationally deduced from linguistic semantics, as Nietzsche argues. In the context of our course, this creative act that Nietzsche registers amounts to the possibility of the construction of ethics. The relativism and ambiguity of morality, which Nietzsche's transvaluation of values concludes, constitutes both the problem and the potential of nihilism. Berkowshinsky's determined fanaticism is much more stable than the fluctuations of Stavrogin's temperament. Stavrogin's last letter and following negation thereof and his claim of inability to settle for any one idea is a testament to this ambiguity.

Oh, I should skip the page. Then I just had a few remarks on other potential paths we could take from demons. The first would be the organization that, well, this terror, terroristic organization that thinks of themselves as free thinking without goals. And just like Nietzsche's idea of the free thinker. Then there could be an idea of Stavokin and Nietzsche seen as cynics, as vagabonds subverting social norms. social norms.

And that's even in the ending of the book, Sartusstra, when Sartusstra is out searching for the primordial scream, in the end of the book, he interferes with a man pretending to be poor, who is trying to talk to a pack of cows, and thus seem to have a complicated relationship to this asceticism. And the last thing could be Nietzsche's transvaluation as Freudian transference, counter transference, in the sense of Firenze, he has this idea of the counselor client as the parent child, which is also the society individual relationship.

I think that's it. Many, many thanks. Fantastic. Excellent. Excellent. Does anyone have anything to say? I'm sorry if I spoke too fast. I just wanted to do it within the 10 minute limit. No, no, no. It was great. It was great nonetheless. absolutely fantastic i have i have some thoughts uh but first let's see here and my apologies i need to get a coke so i'm going to turn off my video but i'm uh with you no problem

I think I need a little bit of elaboration on one of the last topics you mentioned, namely free thinking without goals. Could you elaborate on that because you attributed to the Nietzschean idea of, I think you're referring to specifically in Zarathustra, you're referring to that part, I don't remember exactly what was the title, but anyway, the part that Nietzsche is talking, Zarathustra is talking to the sky and is praising himself

because he had set the sky free and returned innocence to it by deleting the idea of having a goal. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yes, I mean, I guess the idea of the free thinker, I guess I was more thinking of when he talks about it in the genealogy of morality. I mean, the fact that Dostoevsky's free thinkers are the nihilists and they refer to themselves as the free thinkers without gold. And I mean,

I just wanted to point out that it was a possible link. It could be that Nietzsche saw potential in the idea of the nihilist freethinker and appropriated in the same sense as it. I think some of his ideas seems quite one-to-one taken from Dostoevsky and of course twisted, but yeah I see thank you no problem I was wondering whether we would want to like make a separation somehow between a free thinker without a t loss and a free

thinker like without it kind of I feel like maybe potentially like there are local goals and there have to be local goals in that sense in order for this to have some kind of traction at least with Nietzsche in terms of like if what we're talking about in an ethical sense is about agents who have certain objectives so they might not have a telos then it's different to nihilism in the sense of like not having some overarching goal. Like for me at least that's how I read nature. You see, Edna, I would of course let our presenters talk about this.

Nihilism is not an orthodox unified movement, right? It comes from the top and it comes from the bottom. Coming from the top is actually an easy task to kind of quill that kind of nihilism, right, the teleological nihilism, you know, final causes and that kind of stuff, right. But the thing is that Nietzsche is a good classical materialist like Marx. The kind of nihilism that he has in mind comes from the bottom, bottom up.

That kind of nihilism is very very hard to approach. Yes, you can approach it and you can criticize it, but it is not as easy as quelling or repelling the teleological, namely the nihilism from the top. Why? precisely because anything any sort of nihilism that comes from the bottom has already somehow axed or criticized fundamentally certain kind of elements by way of which we do think about good and evil

right i mean the conditions of possibility of in fact to come up with such a thing as a notion of good or evil or bad that's what their target is right that kind of conditions of possibility are important you see so with the rise of Novokatianism and then Minche and all of that, you know, early 20th century or late 19th century people, you get a fundamental attack on the conditions of possibility that led you to think socially

and not just individually, that there is such a thing as good or evil. So what they are going to attack are either on the side of the cognitive science, cognitive faculties that you take for granted, you know, as a sapiens or certain kind of social processes a la Marx or in fact Nietzsche that we take for granted. That's the problem with these. see they're the bugbears of ethics because they always launch their attack

from bottom up it is really really easy to kind of attack on the top-down idea of you know good and evil teleology all you need to say is that listen guys you know the whole prospect of a final cause is a sort of a given it's something that we project our motivations toward which but at the end of the day

it's just merely a hypothesis but you cannot do the same thing when people like Nietzsche or Marx or other people even Adorno attack the bottom-up Oedipus of ethics precisely because these are the elements that you have always taken as immediate rather than mere hypotheses rather than mere final causes a question for both you reza and oliver oliver that i thought that was terrific by the way so in terms of this sort of like pushing beyond good and evil the point where

where Dostoevsky is sort of straddling this idea of nothingness, that looking forward through a materialist lens sort of leads first to Nietzsche and then to various stages of nihilism, blah, blah. Looking backwards, isn't Dostoevsky also sort of staring back into mystical theology, apophatic thinking, you know, the idea— To some extent, yes. Sometimes the issue. Ineffability, not just the inability to come up with language, but even thought about the thing. And I'm wondering if that corresponds to this idea of top and bottom that you've talked about. The bottom up is the materialist perspective that leads to political nihilism.

The top down ultimately leads back to this sort of cauldron of mystical thinking that Dostoevsky is also trying to emerge out of. Yes, to pedal. Yeah, I think that it is absolutely correct with both Dostoevsky and Nietzsche and perhaps even Schopenhauer and Nietzsche criticized. The thing is that none of these thinkers do actually believe that they are doing that kind of mystical uh uh what you might call revolution right in ethics they actually think that they are doing

a fundamental materialistic form of re-approaching ethics right but the thing is that for example when you read about Nietzsche's revenge, you know, the idea of revenge against the values, then you might ask yourself, so how can such a revenge be achieved? Where does it come from? What is its motivation really? He's not Marx, even though he has some Marxian elements in his idea of good and bad,

and later good and evil, but he's not Marx precisely because Marx believes in history. He believes in a process, a complete process of self-consciousness, which is tractable by way of valuation. But if Nietzsche doesn't either believe in Marxian version of history, or the kind of valuation techniques that go into this historical consciousness, Then you can ask him, so where does this revenge coming from? It is obviously not the revenge of proletariat, rising bottom up throughout history by way of abolishment, procedural abolishment and sublation of categories of oppression.

It is something that is simply suddenly I decide that all valuations are oppressive, and then I would say that the transvaluation is the way forward. But then if you have got rid of that valuation criteria or normativity, then obviously you You remain in the realm of murky metaphysics such that you have to explain why on earth should I actually go for the transvaluation? Why on earth people should take revenge against these values?

Is it? And that's the old point. That's essentially the kernel of Nietzschean ethics, precisely because he thinks that all sorts of ways of distinguishing between good and bad are species of social privilege, which have historically been entrenched and now we have something like the distinction between good and evil and we should just get rid of it but of course

this opens up a lot of problems so how can you historically analyze the distinction between good and bad saying that it's historical, where the distinction between good and evil is not. I think he's making some shady moves but at the end of the day I think that we should actually read Nietzsche generously by way of Marx precisely because he's making a Marxian It's just that he doesn't believe, either because he just doesn't know what history

is or because he's coming through a very context sensitive notion of history, namely European history. That he just doesn't want to have anything to do with it. Can I ask a question regarding Dostoevsky's stance towards rationalist will? So it appears like that in his book on demons, rationalist will makes one to be revolutionary so and revolutionary to the end up to the very limit of it up to killing someone in the name of revolution which for Dostoevsky goes against God, religion, church and this

is seems to be very top-down kind of movement but becomes the source of demonic in the book yes i i don't know i don't fault dostoevsky um you see uh when the idea of rational will was posed to these russian writers back then it was essentially far more aristotelian you had no uh idea of collective rationality because rational reason doesn't mean anything other than is a collective pragmatic enterprise right it's a kind of um way of uh intersubjectivity that subject doesn't even arise to begin with without intersubjective rational procedures these rational

procedures are not you know these kinds of lavish ideas about reason that camp told us not they are actually quite modest saying that however as a stalinist i would say that any non-rationalist person should be sent to moon flags. I have a question Reza. When you were speaking you just kind of bundled together Nietzsche with neocantism and they seem kind of not incompatible to me so if you know no no but they are compatible

in a sense. You see, essentially Nietzsche's revenge and reason was a response to the Nookantian idea of reason. You see, it was a kind of a reaction, historical, philosophical reaction. Nietzsche knew about this. Nookantians simply said that, you know, we are not interested, you know whatever you say but yes no kantianism is exactly the opposite of Nietzsche but what I implore you to look at is that how much Nietzsche's idea of

of ethics or morality as a revenge or what he calls the fight against resentment and hate and vagaries is actually a reaction to the canon of Noah Kantianism. I have actually a tentative answer for this. You see, nookantianism at the end of the day were platonistic people. No platonists, right?

And Nietzsche could not agree with that. Because for Plato, ethics is always something that is there, even if you don't practice it. For Nietzsche, it was a fundamental, what you might call it to be, enraging lie. How can we have ethics? if we cannot practice it, if it is merely given to us, not by senses but by some form in the Platonistic sense.

I think that Nietzsche's ultimate enemy is Plato. Reza, could you elaborate on your conclusion of Nietzsche, where you said that his alternative to morality and systematic evaluation was to get rid of it once and for all? Then why naming his project and evaluation? Not all sorts of morality though, not all sorts of morality. The kind of morality that philosophers,

according to Nietzsche, have peddled for centuries, right? It is not as if Nietzsche is against morality or ethics. He wants that. He actually wants that. I mean, what is the idea of the revenge, if not fundamentally ethical revolutionary ideas. So he has that, but he's dismissing or challenging centuries of moralistic and ethical ideas for which, or he thinks that they are merely bankrupt.

Because beyond good and evil there is still evaluation. Yes, absolutely. Nietzsche's transvaluation is actually what you might call to be a very Marxian-Hegelian idea of sublations of current valuations, right, such that our valuations appear to us as immediate, as if they were god-given or nature-given, and Nishev wants to fundamentally abolish these categories in favor of a different valuation, a valuation of and for humans.

Humans who are no longer humans in a canonical sense because you see the term human in this kind of ethical moralistic thing is always tethered, chained, yoked to the idea of valuation. A valuation that comes from a certain kind of social strata. And Nietzsche wants to abolish this in favor of a different kind of valuation by virtue of having a different kind of human.

That, I think, is the genius idea of Nietzsche, which aligns with the inhumanists. Another similarity between Marx and Nietzsche, which comes to my mind right now, is that neither of them proposes a prescription of what this kind of society would look like with the new system of evaluation, at least explicitly. Can you elaborate a little bit about this?

For example, if you scroll through Marx, you cannot find any single passage where he is describing how a communist society would exactly look like. There is a communist manifesto, but other than that, it's all about the methods to get past this historical point. Yes, and essentially, communism, like ethics, I think that is a very good point. I think that both Marx and Nietzsche would think that ethics, a la communism,

is not a blueprint, it is a hypothesis. So that's why you get the hypothesis and the communism. something that you should test it, something that should be constructed. Well how do we go to construct such a thing? That's the question. Nietzsche tries to answer this question with regard to ethics. I don't think that his answers are all convincing and Marx tries to do that with communism, with social relations i think that the idea of revenge is also very prominent in dostojavsky because uh for him like in revolutionary

conditions there is this readiness to kill uh but also it goes against the christian idea of self-sacrificient there is a revolutionary who doesn't want to kill for example but wants to sacrifice himself be killed but it's impossible in the conditions of revolution because this uh because it presupposes revenge even on those who sacrificed themselves yes yes yes no absolutely uh nietzsche doesn't think of the idea of revenge uh in sacrificial terms uh or any of such terms. The thing is that and this is this is something that why we should think back and see why that Nietzsche became a kind of passive loudspeaker for national socialism, right?

Well the question is actually quite straightforward. Having uh missed or not responded to the question of what revenge consists in obviously and on the side going beyond the question of good and evil cursorily obviously you get something like Nazi death industry. This is of course not Nietzsche, but this is why philosophers

absolutely have to clarify what they mean when they actually say really, you know, deliver the punchline right I don't think that in any sort of alternative history or multiverse Nietzsche could be anything but some granddaddy of the Nazis That's what happens when philosophy doesn't articulate. The articulation, making explicit the concepts that we use is of the greatest virtue.

Because otherwise using charged terms such as revenge, slave morality and these kinds of stuff. I mean, what the fuck do you think that is going to happen? But I was thinking about the Bataille, Nietzsche and the fascists, which for me at least made quite clear how completely out of context Nietzsche's statements that were used in favor of national socialism uh yes yeah it's it's when you see that batai is also uh basically uh

convicted of a fundamental human crime crime against humanity it's called serpacism Superficial fascism. So Bataille is not really also a good one, precisely because the way that Bataille talks about it is merely through the materialistic vocabulary. So the materialistic vocabulary at the end of the day are metaphysical vocabulary. So you have to have certain kinds of ideas as what these things are.

I don't think that Bataille always gives the right answer as what he's actually working on with regard to these questions. You see, the word Kryptonazi, I think is a very apt name. You can, you can, there are two ways to interpret it. Either the kind of Nazis who think the word Nazi is too nebulous for it to be actually a word. But crypto-nazi in a different sense. Crypto-nazi in the sense that you are coming from a variety of possibly justifiable claims

which have been integrated under unjustifiable criteria. And that unfortunately is what Heidegger, what I and our good friend here are basically the flaw for having a trial. This is, that I think is something that I think that, I don't want to talk about this quite often, but I think that to talk about topics such as ethics and morality,

particularly if you are a philosopher, you should be capable of clarifying and explicating the very concepts that you use, because if you don't then fans. You get many, many fascist Twitter fans, as we have seen. Adnan, you a snake? Me, it's Enda. Well, I was curious, well, one possible thing that I wanted to say, and I don't know if that was like totally, it doesn't, it's not a complete defeater

to what you just said, but I think specifically in the case of Nietzsche, wasn't it also true that his estate was quite heavily edited in order to kind of fit within the framework of the Nazi appropriation of his work. So like Elizabeth Forster Nietzsche being a huge fan. Well, you mean his later works? Yeah, I guess so. Will to power and these kinds of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. But the thing is that he had already left a mark. He was already on the wrong side of the Twitter account. But I think at the same time, didn't he in other works and even within the same work,

because you have a lot of things that are kind of intention, even within individual works with Nietzsche. I'm not sure where I stand on this because I am convinced by what you're saying, but at the same time, it seems like Nietzsche is quite explicit in saying that he has no truck with any anti-semites he has no truck with racists to you know like he isn't it what nick land talks about possibly i don't know i haven't read it but um that is totally nick land is it okay well i'll i'll back down then um yeah but but the thing is not you see the process of ethics, the process of evil, distinguishing evil from good, which I actually think is a very

task of philosophy, is not about going to trivial discussions about that, oh where I came from, you know, I'm a goddamn Middle Eastern, I'm a person of color, you know, I have a, I used to have a nice beard, I don't have one. But what does that even matter? What matters is to look into that kind of discussions. You see, a genealogical, a bottom-up idea is probably one of the most potent fascistic ideas ever came.

It wasn't fascistic, but it was appropriated. And you see this with Nick, with so many people, I mean, goddamn Ernest Hummingway or Jack London, I mean they were communists, but they believed in certain kind of Darwinian genetic that is bestowed upon certain kind of people and not others, right? That kind of stuff, I think that we should throw them out of the window. Ethics has nothing to do with either evolution or what you might call to be this kind of teleological account of reason.

Ethics is all about historical evaluation. rather than Nietzsche's ahistorical transvaluation. The moment that you make such claims, someone can come and knock at your door and say that, the way so when you said you know for example like Nietzsche that you know there or Nick Lanz I think Nick is a better example than Nietzsche to be honest with you you were talking about Darwin's concept of this of this

dynamics you know conservation of energy hamiltonian dynamics but would you be able to tell me where it came from so they have two choices they have to say that well it came from laws of nature you know as if they were given to us like prophet Muhammad or they can say that you know according to the historical analysis of the histories of science we think that this is

a great shit but then if you say the latter you actually trap yourself precisely because if you are talking about the history of science you should actually look into the sociological history of science because science is not a linear thing right just like the concept of morality just like the concept of ethics these are non-linear concepts which are historically emerging by way of intersubjectivity I think one important aspect of Nietzsche's reappropriation by fascism is the

critique of the victim, right? Not defending the victim, defending the executioner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, Nazis jumped on that shit. So good. Yeah, yeah, and morality was always founded on trying to defend the victim and Christian morality I mean there's slave morality and and I think that's one important aspect also a lot of Nietzsche's critique of communism you know because he was very very critical of it right as a sort of his leave morality or herd herd morality yes but the thing is that in response in Nietzsche you can say that okay so you think that this victim has a kind of a slave morality yeah sure it might

because we see it today on twitter and social media elsewhere but then you should actually explain you see you can't you can't simply say that x happened without explaining the explanatory job of why why it happened why also as a letter I don't think that Nietzsche can explain that kind of stuff. Nietzsche is essentially still in a very, very metaphysical arena of philosophy, just

like I would say Spinoza, so on and so forth, Bruno. They have knowledge of natural sciences that can challenge rationalist dogmas, but they don't have enough knowledge to actually break away. And they always end up to be the goddamn reactionaries. Whereas Marx doesn't. Marx absolutely doesn't. Because Marx, Marx's axiom of communism is that history is a scientific enterprise.

And to do science means to come up with better practices and better concepts. Nietzsche doesn't have that. But didn't he try to do that with the, I mean, the quite unsuccessful birth of the tragedy or, I mean, making it a philological problem instead of a philosophical problem, a problem of language? Yes, sure, yes, he did. But you can ask that was the methodology that went into that kind of attempt was sufficient?

Probably not. No, I actually, don't get me wrong, I just think that this is what happens to philosophers who are over ambitious and under under equates with regard to mythological questions the problems such as ethics socialism so on so forth are not decided by the goals that we have as hypotheses but by the ways the concrete ways toward which we

can make a piecemeal progression talks okay do we have a responder by the way I don't think anyone was assigned. Who is going to be a volunteer? complete and utter involuntary response.

That gets you a gold medal, I would say. I can ask a question meanwhile if it's okay? Absolutely, absolutely. Because you talked about non-linearity before, and I lifted this article from you, what's it called it's called the the problem of scale in anarchy and the case for cybernetic communism yes and yeah i was besides it being extremely great i was just thinking how it relate how this

the the notion of the the problem of of of scale and the the large-scale structure how that relates to our notion of of the demon I mean how are those sorry or ethics for that matter Sure. Yeah, well, you see, I mean, when you look into the ancient demonology, there are lesser and larger demons, not in the sense that there's lesser demons can do less harm and the larger

demons can do more harm, no. It simply means that they are targeting various scales of an individual psyche or a collective for that matter. So the idea is that ethics should always be scale sensitive. We should understand it by way of not merely brain global system. We should not merely understand it by certain kinds of hormonal fluctuations.

We shouldn't simply understand it by a brain that is interacting with other brains, but But also we should understand it as a certain kind of interaction that is impersonal. That is not of personal faculties. To integrate all of this together is the very task of ethics. Otherwise we are going to fail.

You need to have neuroscience, you need to have certain kind of philosophy of desires and also philosophy of making better collectivities. what ethics look like, so to speak. you who's going to talk now martina sophie

I'll see up words are see a by the way yeah I saw him so Peter you didn't say something come on we are not going to bite it's just a very friendly non-academic meeting we just want to hear about each other's opinions Okay, I unmuted myself.

Sure. Go on, Sepideh. Thank you so much. So, about what you were talking about. I was talking about shit, but you can make up another kind of shit. No, no, no. I'm just talking about the same. So you were talking about the collectivity and ethics, right? Yes. Or ethics as some sort of construction of collectivity. So I was actually thinking about a similar thing recently, and I was thinking about how

collectivity can be transformative as a formation. And so for that, I was thinking about what is it that it's actually transforming. So then basically, we are going to deal with the normatives as some sort of... I'm getting stressed. Don't worry. Don't worry. don't worry some sort of rigid correlations between the totality of the structure and functions and okay that's it I can't let me please do

correct me if i'm wrong if from what you said you're asking that okay so uh uh there is a kind of uh what you might call to be uh not essentially an opposition but a certain kind of disjunction between the idea of looking at ethics by way of the totalities of moral codes or you can reiterate the same question about any other kind of topic and there is also a

question that this totality is never given and you have to strive to build it out I think the totality is actually is some sort of metaphysical idea and what it's in general if we want to deal with this we maybe need to when if you want to arrive at the dynamicity that can actually work to be transformative. We don't need to deal with normative and rigid correlations because that's already like, as you say, it's

given it's only some sort of metaphysical or like this yeah it's like a totality or I don't know it's cemented it's cemented yeah totality of the structure you know that's what i'm talking about that doesn't exist right i see yeah so so basically uh it's like and we are when we are looking at the global structure versus the global continuity of the um structure you know so the continuity of the global structure is

as something that I was thinking can work with the functions that the dynamic and they're more like a difference between the action and norms again yeah I'm talking too much okay no no no no this is really fantastic so essentially what you are saying uh you're suggesting that okay uh there is such a thing as a global structure but that global structure doesn't come uh like a free-floating uh thing as a given right and essentially

for example I'm merely making fun of you now that we architects we are going to build this right out of various kinds of materials by different methods everything else is just a haphazard idea Yes. Yes. But at the same time, while we are dealing already with what we have as a global structure that determines our functions, it's not something that we need to fix. That thing

is like it's not really given to a little bit talk about this the idea of that not everything that should be not everything should be fixed would you be able to talk a little bit about this I mean don't worry about this I mean you can just like you know throw anything that you want yes yes so basically it's like some sort of like like basically when we are picking like our first elements for world building you know it's like a sort of like finding like

axioms I don't want to call it axiom necessarily but if if we use them Because because and then we have two problems here. One is the Global structure and then one is with the local which is this discrete right And so we need still the global structure as is some sort as some some kind of thing that we can Guiding measure collective yeah and in the what the global structure and its totality it's

it's not gonna be part of what the way I'm looking at this to create some kind of functions some kind of collect collect collectivity that can be transformative in relation to the global structure yeah so so essentially that even if we use certain kinds of global measures right and this is in fact Nietzsche's idea you know Nietzsche is even though he is talking about the

local problem of ethics is always when he's talking about the revenge the slave morality and so on and so forth and with sentiment, he's not talking about individual people, right? He's talking about global problems. So I think that the idea is that, okay, given the fact that we might have all sorts of good goddamn global problems, Is it actually a warrant that we can come up with a good ethics?

Such that Alexei gets his hair pink, I get some money and now getting a good school and so on and so forth. I don't think so. I think that is a real problem. That is like a liberal type of... Yes, I know, I know, I know. No, I'm not talking... Go on, Sabine, my apologies. I'm sorry, I just interrupted you. No, no, no, please, please go on.

Please go on, my apologies. you know I'm not talking about that type yeah that's it continue yeah no I'm talking yes please go on please go on for example the way that the spirit is like a collective of the can't say agents thinking and agents yes so so it's it's a little bit different than it's like that it's a little bit different than like those other the way you were

okay my apologies if I misinterpreted but essentially this is the whole course of the spirits odyssey because the spirit always comes at different levels and for different levels of experience there should be different forms of ethics here you go one or one so how do you treat a tern right or how do you treat the sentient photo Tim Morton will be fucking so happy, that is on your camera. Are you going to delete

it or not? Right? And then becomes even more complex, more intricate, socially intricate and historically one questions that Okay, as a Marxist, for example, you ask yourself, you see, this is a question of ethics 101. So, do I want to deliver humankind to the stars, or should I just abide in this cradle,

which we call Earth? because that kind of journey might actually deplete all the resources of the planet. You see Nietzsche is trying to say that these are shit kind of questions. You shouldn't even concern with these kinds of stuff. Now, my friends, time to bathroom break, then we will convene.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

um so

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. My sincere apologies.

A storm is coming. I had to close the doors. Reza, did you know that Michaev and Nietzsche both proposed to the same woman and were rejected by the same woman? Is it Los Alomés? No. Her name was Natalie Tata Herzl. But she's beautiful though. was undoubtedly she was amazing. Nietzsche was one of the worst people you know uh you know he he and his friends you know the poets were kind of womanizers of the

time right but my god they were went after the wrong kinds of people. You see whether you are a man or a woman there comes certain kinds of consequences if you run for someone who is and people told Nietzsche that you know this this this this person is rather you know infamous for these kinds of behavior but unfortunately men are just monkeys well loose

Lou Salome is right there. This woman was the daughter of one of the most famous revolutionaries of the period, Alexander Herzl. So she was remarkable for a totally different set of people. Have you read Art of Seduction by Greene? It's a magnificent book. It is one of those know, extremely vulgar books that basically people just buy it to seduce boys and girls. But the section on Nietzsche is absolutely tough notch. Now, I actually do not want to chase after another person.

I want a very goddamn boring life. Unlike Nietzsche. Tend your own garden. Yes, yes, definitely so. Richard Green's book The Art of Seduction is really one of the greatest books that I've read. It is, you know, it's of course one of the most best books ever. My favorite chapter is on Gabriel Donanzio. Donanzio?

Yes. So Gabriel coming back from his, you know, flights and he now tries to seduce people. Oh my god. If I had only read this book. Carl, what are you up to these days? I'm still reading James Ladyman. To go back to the sort of previous conversation though,

though, now that the break is possibly over, I sort of, I'm always so intrigued when people are talking about scales. It's just one of these things they have never been able to really understand and I mean I'm a joker offer which is quite ironic. You are not supposed to understand it. No, no, but really, the thing about scales is that there is a certain, clearly when we're talking about scales in this sense we are not meaning simply a sort of proportional ratio where we're no absolutely something like that it's something that is much more vague and poorly defined than that it's a metaphor it's a metaphor of science yes exactly and it's quite vague

interestingly there are sort of these ways in which different scales are um interlinked but also scales that are sort of roughly the same order of size or magnitude, if you will, that, for instance, the global and the planetary, which are not necessarily the same thing, but they are perhaps trying to describe something that is almost coextensive, but they're used in quite different settings. And whenever we are discussing ethics and sort of the large scale, for instance, in the paper that we mentioned before and conversation, I'm always so curious exactly what are we talking about? What does it mean to sort of be talking on about ethics on a global scale or on a sort of national scale or something

like that? This is a question that can also be levied against the idea of levels in sciences, right? And that makes what makes science exciting, that what also makes potentially ethics exciting. So when we are talking about levels or scales, obviously you can... are you talking about individual and collective? Are you talking about local and global? Are you talking about this and that? No. You see, the mere idea that the very idea of scale or level in either ethics or

science should always be accurate according to a certain kind of criteria so for example in sciences we have ideal levels according to the composition compositionality or for example you know this metal is composed of such and such rudimentary elements and those are composed of such and such things on so forth but then it can also be levels according to a different criteria for example such as predictability how for example difference lower

predictive level informs a higher predictive level. There can be even more ideas of levels. That is the whole point, just like science, that the very idea of level and how we should formulate it fundamentally informs how we do science. The same thing can be said about ethics. The criteria of recognizing a scale is a very criterion that tells us what should we do right now.

Like for example, you're a metallurgist, right? You're talking about this elasticity of metals. For example, an iron beam. all goods and fantastic on the surface level but then if you go a little bit further by way of a different configuration of how we understand the scales of a metal beam such as for example the formation of crystals right

you find yourself confronted with a new code about elasticity. It is not any longer the canonical or commonsensical notion of, right, elasticity. it is something else precisely because it actually requires information from molecular structure from crystallization so on so forth the same thing goes with ethics essentially everything i would say that everything

that is a certain kind of idea that we have taken for granted such as ethics, science, should be handled scale sensitive. With the idea that scale sensitivity is not just one thing, you can come up with different ideas of what it means for this level to be a scale and define it. So what would the relationship be between the practice of ethics and the construction

of different scales if you will? Because if something is scale sensitive certainly it entails that that scale is also available for for thinking about. Yes, but would you be able to tell me that what is the kernel, the punchline of this question? Because I know that you are not going to say anything unless that there is a punchline. no I mean the punchline is that already the I would I would what I'm trying to hint at this that isn't already the deconstruction of scales or the making available for thought of scales yes yes yes okay here here we go you see the

The problem of ethics is not Nietzschean, it's not Spinozian, it is not Hegelian, it is none of these sorts. It is all of them. precisely because such philosophers bring they bring idea of a scale to the problem of ethics such that we ask ourselves so are you asking this question at the mere physiological neurophysiological level? Are you asking this question at a normative level?

Are you asking this question at a social level? So on and so forth. The task is to integrate, rather than fusing such criteria which are fundamentally important to understand ethics. There is no ethics. ethics is simply what you might call to be an integrated name for a wide variety of constraints either of reality or normativity. But my point is that already the set of questions that you outlined are for instance

are you asking this on a normative level, are you asking this on a physiological level, it already implies that these levels exist for our thinking and in some sense they pre-exist the question. So isn't already the task of ethics to make available different scales to think? Yes, but the thing is that the self-consciousness of such a task is unfortunately missing. you see yes i completely agree but how many people actually think that is the job of ethics yeah you i mean because you are you are you are a god damn pseudo-rationalist nerd

but ask timothy morrison does timothy morrison say the same thing to you most probably not Well, I wasn't actually raising my hand, I was more sort of indicating my disparity question. No, I know that you are one of those people. I don't know what Timothy Morrison would say about that. No, you are absolutely, you know quite a great deal on these areas. The thing is that, you see, I'm not just talking about philosophers but also scientists. They can be fundamentally blind to this kind of scale sensitivity of the question of ethics,

complexity, so on and so forth. We have seen it. We have seen it. One of the ways that you've been characterizing, by appealing to rational will and their . It seems like there's a presumption of a scale at which ethics does take place, below which you end up with the predicate for morality. If you don't get up to at least the scale of the molecular from the atomic, never mind the compound, you know, then you're sort of in this individual relationship with the sorts of material that would ultimately lead to moral laws and religious thinking. Rational decision choice theory.

That that has to, you have to get at least up to the level of there's other people involved, right, before you start the process of constructing these rational will-based rules that you can then update based cybernetically on like inputs that are coming in from the demons or whatever. So is there a presumption in that sense, like Carl is saying, that you've already decided the scale at which ethics forms in this class? That's a difficult question. I would say yes. Essentially, what you might call the collective scale, right, is of utmost importance to me.

I go for that for the time being. But yes, you can go either way. But, for example, if you go to the micro level, then would you be able to rescue some sort of, for example, decision from individual motivations? basic ethical problem i would say no i might be wrong i don't know

but yes of course i have a bias yeah last week i was not really joking though you accused me of kind of coming up with a plot of a manga. When we were talking about this idea of an alien will and the possibility that you could create a pseudo collective within one consciousness where an alien will and the atrophying sort of original victimized will were in dialogue with one another in a way that approximated the way that an individual consciousness would be in collective dialogue with another individual consciousness, could you have a pseudo-ethical production happening

inside of one mind? You said that would actually be ideal if you could escape the psychological ramifications, and that's what something like a communism, you know, the sort of ideational version of that is sort of like something that we could at least consider, where the individual is able to be sort of ethically producing these things in dialogue with an idea of the collective. At least that's the way that I was interpreting it. So even there it seemed like there was a certain scale at which these things have to happen that involves at least a molecular dialogue. Yes, truly, truly. But the thing is that I would say that being a cynical person I'm totally wrong might be totally wrong this

thing I would say that isn't it already the idea of Twitter what does it get us to This is what Twitter looks like. Liberal social media is the very epitome of that kind of ideation. Right? I might be fundamentally wrong. Please do correct me. Yeah, I mean, if you're interacting with bots and forming or revising ethical rules based

on your interaction with non-human agents, then yes. To that extent, I'm not a great idea. But that is the whole point. You see that individual psychology is predisposed to certain kinds of hijacking. Right. Right. So me talking on Twitter, even though, you know, I'm that kind of leftist, the bad leftist, the one who wants to send everyone to the moon who likes, I would say that, yes, yes yes yes i agree i actually quite agree with everyone that leads to a certain kind of pattern

this is the whole point that the configuration as marx understood that nietzsche also understood that the configuration of the social valuation system. No matter how great it is, it might lead you to certain kinds of errors, errors from which you can never recover. okay you slots

show your faces Sophie Hi. Hi. Get on with the program now. What? I don't have anything to say. Well, you say something. What do you mean something? I really don't have... I'm listening very interested. I don't really have anything to say. I'm sorry, Reza. No, okay, okay. I'm sorry. maybe another big thing. Asya? Romolo? Ah you rat! Show your face now.

Essentially, what we are talking about here is the very idea of Nietzsche, which actually reflects the work of Dostoevsky. Nietzsche has this idea that there is no such a thing as the distinction between evil and good. All we have ever is distinction between good and bad.

The bad, being part of a sociological regime, is essentially something that elites call, for example, lowly actions and thoughts bad. But the moment that this distinction between good and bad gets entrenched in some sort of historical process a la Marx, it becomes the discourse about good and evil. And at that point, things are fundamentally different.

So with that said, who is going to talk about this? Our great moderator maybe should select some poor victim among the poof. Do you really want me to pick someone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe I can postpone the moment and ask the question myself. Okay, yes, yes. That's a very diplomatic way to approach this problem. So again, in relation to Dostoevsky, I want to ask, like, in one of the sessions at the very start of the seminar,

you said something like the problem of demons and the problem of morality is the problem is like the question of the very limit of self so in this regards uh dostoyevsky in his book on demons he sort of talks to himself and imagines an alternative direction for his own destiny because he himself was part of this collective like of discussion club or like sort of revolutionary future, possibly revolutionary circle. So when he got to know the story about Nietzscheyev, he was very impressed and stressed, imagining that he himself could be among the killers. And isn't it what makes this book entirely

being the question of morality and demons? It's because he explores sort of the limit of himself in this book, uh uh he imagines himself being in the position of the killer i'm not sure about that but i think that the savi definitely uh had a certain kind of of uh terpidation anxiety once he read nashayev's i don't think that we should go actually to the sscape talk about this we can actually make a

better example a more far more contemporary example you know those of us were friend of me clans and now essentially what can we do are we going to disown him are we going to challenge him are we going to critically troll him so on and so forth you see this is a problem reza has he came up with are demons just a metaphor for nick lens then

are you trying to exercise no no no no no but what Our greatest demon at this point is Nick Land. I mean, the man is quite a hero, right? So I'm not going to reduce it to Nick Land, but obviously from a historical perspective, we should actually deal with our own demons. not just ourselves but also those we demonize right so what is Niklan what does he stand for

that makes him such a cancelled person that is a question and an actual ethical question I would like you, by way of Nietzsche and other kinds of people that we have talked about, say, why is that? We have a certain kind of cautionary, a cautionary relationship with Nick Land.

You still want to be his friend, but you don't want to be Nick Land, because that would be just fucking bad. So as Philippines. Because this leads us to a certain kind of what Nietzsche calls the hypocrisy of ethics morality. I don't think it's a hypocrisy, but there is an element of hypocritical

thoughts in that. So you have to explain to me your relationship with Nicolait. I think that Nick Land is one of your personal demons. And this is Sam, I think, you know, I think that Nick Land is one of your personal demons. And this is Sam, I think, I think that Nick Land is one of your personal demons. And this Sam, I think that Nick Land is one of your personal demons. And this Sam, and this seminar is like trying to deal with him,

with this demon in particular. And there's a sort of back and forth between embracing it and exercising it. And there is- That is absolutely true. That is absolutely true. It is absolutely, you see, many, many people think of such influences by way of this kind of Edipal. influence, right? That was your daddy and you are just trying to kill your daddy. No, absolutely I don't believe in such things. But nevertheless I think that there's a demon that ought to be exorcised. You can't exorcise a demon unless you agree

that this demon exists. So, Ressa, maybe this is presumptuous to ask, but maybe you could begin and sort of say something about your own relationship to Nickland, because, I mean, it's probably different from the relationship that most of us do have to Nickland. And sort of, especially, and I think many of us sort of have these analogous figures, as we were talking about in the chat, that present this kind of problem for us, even though Niklan may be irrelevant as a philosopher at the moment, I think he poses a kind of philosophical problem in the sense that sort of we have these figures that have influenced us but have turned into a direction that we can no longer agree with and we can no longer

follow them there. Also I'd add that Reza, don't you think you are the demon for various people like in people including your students because all of this sort of leadership and cool like cool status of the classes you give you sort of attract people everyone that sort of attracts people that exercises this attraction ultimately turns turns into a demon for the for the the followers right? Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. No, I completely understand about that. That unfortunately is not something that you can

say that it's a bad thing. I would say that Nick Land practices quite vigilantly, consciously, knowing him for almost 20 years, right? The thing about Nick is that yes, he's the kind of demon that we have to live with, that we ought to have, right? But the question is that what kind of demon is he?

Such that we can say that we ought to live with this kind of person. Any idea? I mean in relation to Nietzsche, not that I have that much of Nick Land knowledge, but I mean in comparison to Nietzsche whose words had to be manipulated into being appropriated

by fascism, I would suggest that some of what Nick Lenz says is quite outspoken racism. Yes, yes. But the thing is that he makes these kinds of comments, but he's still being followed People I know are good Marxists, are good leftists, who don't believe in any of such things. But why such a person being followed by these kinds of people? The question I think is actually a little bit uncanny.

My idea is that we Marxists, we leftists, can do a good job without a crow on our shoulder. that what makes Marxism Marxism, you always need to have a crow on your shoulder, otherwise you are not a Marxist. need to have a certain kind of enemy which you don't actually annihilate right but nevertheless

use certain kinds of intellectual energy from that thing and that unfortunately is Nick Land And there's also some sort of masochism to it, to like some sort of liking to be to be denigrated by Nick Landers, seeing yourself in what he says pejoratively. but that comes from more of the fans and stuff you see there are many people who are not uh part of that kind of group uh yes yes the magic is and cons and so on so forth but uh

many many people who actually do follow nick are not that kind of masochist people the only reason that they follow him is either precisely because of his past contributions ones or the fact that he can actually makes us smarter leftists yeah i think so but what i meant is that when you admit yours to yourself that you have a demon one of the first first things you do like it's not denial exactly but this sort of masochistic engagement with the demon like trying to think oh this can

be negotiated and like just feeling worse and I wouldn't call it masochistic though I would call it a conning trade with the devil The trade with the devil is not a masochistic trade. You see, the trade with the devil, you have to give something and he gives something back to you. Like, absentia. Have you watched that movie? magnificent magnificent movie um he is so uh the the monster is a certain kind of

troll or i don't know what what what it is who is basically living in the outside right and it kidnaps people The idea is that if you ever trade with this entity, you most probably get into the basically gates of hell. is fundamentally excellent excellent movie and the thing is that yes you see i would

say that let us trade with such entities but under conditions yeah what i think is uh i say it's masochistic i think it's because i'm biased against the the deal beforehand like i i think the deal is always kind of bad you need you need a really uh like to to you need a really complex deal for it to be actually good like isn't that the the the thing with vampires right vampires always regret uh becoming vampires in like popular Yes, yes, yes, yes. But you can always make a deal.

You can make a deal with shady characters, such as vampires, and then later on tell them that, sorry, I don't recognize your codes of exchange. That's what we do. That's what Marxists should do. That's the very idea of ethics. You see, the idea of ethics is not to fall into this kind of idea of complacency with certain kinds of ideas or entities. But to leave behind a certain kind of what you might call to be liability clause, where

I can actually get out of the fucking contract. That's what makes Marxism Marxism. The conning of intelligence. I can, as a Marxist, I can actually make a friend with a vampire, with Nick Land, with Nietzsche, so on and so forth. thing is that I will tell them not before and but after the signing of the contract that sorry you guys never actually signed that kind of contract

with me. My contract is all about that I am not the kind of person who simply follow you to the hell, precisely because I have other emergencies. Essentially, when it comes to Nietzsche, to Schopenhauer, we see a kind of idea of ethics which tries to deliver you to a certain kind of singularity, right?

That kind of singularity is wrong. It's Aristotelian to begin with. You should ask, why do I actually need to go to this singularity if I have other options? You know, I'm going to actually make a pizza while you guys are trying to be the messiah. So are you kind of saying that Marxism, you know, that what is salient and useful in Marxism contra like, yeah, the philosophy of people like Nietzsche, Nickland and so on is that

you can kind of tie yourself to the mast and in so doing give yourself some kind of freedom to nullify those contracts because you've given yourself that kind of constraint or have I got the wrong? It's essentially the idea of the contracts, yes. I think the idea of contract is something that should be talked more often. Mark's idea of contract is open source, whereas Nietzsche's and land is not. And that's basically the very idea of what you might call to be Greek or German tragedy, right? Dr. Faustus, Mephisto Bliss, the moment that you make the contract you are in.

There is no way out. But as a socialist, rationalist person, you should actually read the contract carefully, you know, those people, I don't know how many of you, I'm sure all of you, those people who don't read a postal office disclaimer, most probably are going to be paying a good penalty for doing shit. Right? Always read the disclaimer.

This is the whole point that Marx doesn't actually want that disclaimer. Marx wants this idea that Everything that we said is open, transparent, and if you actually take sides with us, then you have to live with the consequences of not hidden laws, like hidden laws of morality or ethics, But the explicit laws of socialization, to be part of the collective, that's what marks

versus Nietzsche. Nietzsche is this sleazy, shitty guy who is just a postman officer making, you know, shitty stuff. that you can never understand and Marx on the other hand is the one who says that guys this is it or this is that if you don't do this I will send you the fucking moonbeams if you do this I will send you to the heavens of Mars and that's the difference between Nietzsche and Marx

The sheer level of difference between articulations, between what you might call to be explicating, hidden clauses as what ethics entail. Nietzsche is always weasley about that. Marxism. But isn't the demonic also very much about the kind of, I mean, the contract with and

moment of the triggering of that cause as well in which case would then we say that rather than nick land or you know his like people that you're going to associate with him are the demons rather uh given that two sides draw up the contract then we are the demon in that sense right because uh we're saying that we're triggering that kind of that clause um no that is true that is true Of course I came up as fundamentally brutal against my enemies, but yes, that is true. However, the thing is that if the protocols of going to the outside are fundamentally mysterious,

then how the fuck? can we go to the outside? You see that's a problem with these people. So it's a kind of a new theology or neo-theology. So the promises of great authors are so good in the realm of ethics and social politics, right? But then, when you see what it entails to go outside, you tell yourself that, did I just

and role in the wrong army? Are we baddies now? Marx doesn't think about this kind of stuff. Essentially the fundamental idea of Marx is that you see There is no such a pain as living in the great outdoors. Anything that might ever come close to it is something that should arrive and progress by way of certain kinds of collective entity,

their subjectivity, their historical subjectivity. It's not a brain issue, it's not an IQ issue, it's not a Darwinian issue, nothing of the sort. Nick does actually reduce these kinds of stuff to certain kinds of what you might call basic constraints like physical constraints, Darwinian constraints, genetic constraints. But how the fuck did you come up with degenerative constraints, really?

That is the philosophical question of science of philosophy. How can you in fact come up with the constraints, right, such as IQ, to be the deterrent? You can't, you really can't. The same goes with Nietzsche. He wants, he's very Schopenhauerian, even though he criticizes Schopenhauer.

He's very naturalistic philosopher, even though he tries to be beyond all reasons. But the thing at the end of the day is living certain kinds of reasons, which are fundamentally rational, but also irrational in their way of them being positive, just like Nick Lantz. Time to go sit now.

Asya, Rumelo, Emrin, you rascal. I like to my great moderator find some victims here okay should I have a chance then I personally would love to hear something from Georgia I think her contribution sure sure possible

Oh, since George is not replying, we have 10 minutes before the end of the session. So maybe it's actually time to talk about what we're going to do the next session. Yes. Before that, something that I would recommend for all of you to read, my apologies, my real apologies.

So, I'm going to recommend a few papers with regard to Nietzsche's idea of evil and how it is being taken.

so so so Lou Salome, no, I'm sure that you know her. Lou Salome's Nietzsche is translated by University of Illinois Press. sheds the lights about Nietzsche's idea of evil, then I would say...

Okay. Tamsin Shaw, Nietzsche's political skepticism. Okay. Tamsin Shaw. How do you spell that? Nietzsche's skeptical politicism. and then sorry what was the name again uh it's thompson thompson t-a-n-s-i-n s-h-a-w then

Then Robin Small, book on Nietzsche, they actually shed a fundamentally new light on Nietzsche. You see, as I said, Nietzsche absolutely by no means can be simply cancelled, but we ought to understand where it is coming from, particularly given the fact that his analysis of valuation is a Marxist one, mixed with naturalistic philosophy.

So, friends and foes, Asya, you're sleeping now. who is going to first of all who is going to present next session you see if you do not send your names

our good dictator moderator will actually decide the things okay so I would like to present Necheyev. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah, the catechism, revolutionary catechism. Does anyone still need to present? Like, anyone still hasn't presented yet and is obliged to? I'll be a responder for the Necheyev. good ah richards bring it are we reading a soul also

um is he we can we can read zola uh the human beast um the thing is that i i thought that You know, it's best to leave it to the students. If you want to read that kind of novel, by all means. It's a great novel, an absolutely goddamn brilliant, very serial killer novel, if I can convince you to read it. But if not, no.

Zolo is perhaps one of the greatest writers ever lived. precisely because he tried to merge ethics with naturalistic problems right and that's basically the kernel of naturalism literally naturalism right showing vehemently in his best novel, The Human Beast. What if all revolutionaries were psychopaths?

Zola's first question. so the respondents yeah i'm going to be the respondent for the niche okay okay okay Okay, good, good, good. So, our time is almost done. And now it is, we can probably go offline,

and it's time for you to slander me. We're saying shit. I know some of you rants. I don't know. It's probably not in the slender category, but I never wrote a paper in your class. Is there anything that we should know about that? No, okay, yes. With regard, everyone who has presented should deliver a paper. I will read them. I will make a comment and I will probably Skype.

most probably almost certainly but the thing is that no as long as you don't talk shit but should it be on any any specific topic within what we've been talking about or Pick your topic. For example, you can talk about Plotinus' problem of evil, Plato's problems of evil, Dostoevsky's idea of morality, Nietzsche's idea that all of these morality and ethical

codes should go away on behalf of a better ethic, so on and so forth. It doesn't matter. Just come up with a certain topic. as long as you know it's clear it's clear I'm not going to basically the bad guy saying bullshit about it Reza what is the minimum requirement regarding page wise for the final paper I would say 2000 to 3000. I mean, guys, I have a lot. Do I look like a person who reads

6000 pages? 6000 words by you guys? No, I'm not that kind of guy. So you better come up with some sort of 2000, 3000, and stuff, and then we will take it from them. And if you want to expand it, I will help. And do we have any specific date, which would be the deadline? I would say 20 days after the end of this session, this seminar. Those who don't show up, oh those people it will be utterly annihilated for good you mean from

today's seminar from the last semester lesson also I wanted to ask about the after we talked about them scale and and levels if there's if there's anything you would recommend reading about that besides absolutely one of the most classic essays I mean there is a classicism there is also a classic book about this the classic essay is levels provides it's by help me guys you know

levels okay once again call Craver levels okay it's online you can easily find it. That's the essay, it's really magnificent, excellent, excellent. But if you want to get into the nitty-gritty kind of stuff, I would actually recommend Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings by William Wimpsett,

W-I-N-S-A-T-T. so shall we assault and now assault gossip What was the sign?