Page 61 - Liberating Liberals V2

Liberating Liberals
Whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither oneself nor one’s neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, one does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared — this must become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth too.46
What an invigorating angle on peace. Rather than humble resignation to the onslaught, it’s a spirited rejection of such a debasement of human potential. Perhaps it describes a bit of how Gandhi and M.L. King felt at the pinnacles of their pacifist idealism.
However, in many other areas Nietzsche disagreed with Jesus about as much as anyone can disagree. Said he, as interpreted by Theile:
Man suffers, but man suffers most from his inability to provide his suffering with meaning. Philosophy, religion, and morality attempt to alleviate this predicament through various “lies.” Religion promises an afterlife which allows compensation for earthly woes. Morality gives man guilt, because punishment is easier to bear than meaningless pain. Philosophy speaks of ideal worlds to anesthetize man against the sting of existing in a non-ideal world...
[These retreats] are man’s revenge on life for his suffering... [These retreats are] nihilistic... For in their weakness they reject life...and for what? There is nothing else. They reject life for nothing!... The charge of nihilism is leveled against all those who, by Nietzsche’s reckoning, are too weak to celebrate life in all its meaninglessness.47
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