Page 29 - Liberating Liberals V2

Liberating Liberals
In one mighty declaration Nietzsche claims a liberation from all guilt, a proclamation of inescapable innocence, and an invitation to living it up, down and sideways — all while reserving the right to cordial relations with the straight and narrow. Complete freedom from guilt and for innocence means we’re
also innocent even if we nuke or pollute the world. According to Thiele, one of Nietzsche’s goals was
to eliminate the guilt “...that darkens our minds and casts upon the world of appearance the gloom of
lost innocence.”15 And Friedrich contends that such innocent freedom automatically confers upon its acolyte the courage to pursue it.
This may not seem like news to liberated liberals. Breaking through unnecessary guilt is merely what we did in the 1960s. However, now we’ve attained enough maturity to explore these experiments more responsibly.
Alternatively, Vonnegut describes a life that fulfills a boiler-plate contract — one to which even we liberals are prone to backslide:
To the yet unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness. Watch out for life. I have caught life. I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened
up quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed. They said I was a boy named Rudolph Waltz, and that was that. They said the year was 1932, and that was that. They never shut up. Year after year they piled detail
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