Page 86 - Liberating Liberals V2

The God-shaped Hole in the Soul
Still Bloom claims: “Nobody really believes
in anything anymore, but everyone spends his life in frenzied work and frenzied play so as not to face that fact, not to look into the abyss.”66
That’s a nasty statement and hopefully not true for most people. But certainly some of the sound and fury of frenzied work and play is an effort to avoid the feeling of meaninglessness that can invade even the most solid of meanings.
So instead let’s take a long, unflinching look
at the abyss, the void, the absurd, the shadow — meaninglessness, and not go into a frenzied shrillness about them. Let’s also objectively acknowledge all the terrible possibilities that life can throw at us including nuclear annihilation and environmental degradation. Then let’s take a deep long leisurely breath and proceed to arrange the economy in such a way that we become as secure and relaxed as nature will let
us. We can then begin to affirm the many traditional values we think are still relevant, and arrange other values and institutions that we think necessary. All the while protecting the individual’s right to extreme self-expression within the boundaries of a sustainable civilization.
Nietzsche the monster
I’ve been quoting Nietzsche as if it’s assumed he deserves a place at the civilized political table.
71