The Last Messiah (1933)

philosophynow.org

18 points·DyslexicAtheist··5 comments

Loved it! Definitely bearing Nietzsche's torch in many ways. All the talk in the beginning about the deer with fatally-large antlers reminded me of this recent, perhaps terser, essay from Venkatesh Rao: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/09/20/dodo-thoughts/

[I may have skimmed most of it.]

Insightful, dense and heavy stuff, with definite parallels to the present. At the end it seemed like a pathologically flowery/frenzied way to express quite a fatalistic outlook. My take on the final sentiment is that we'll probably more or less need to become a different species to 'earn the right' to exist in perpetuity. Our ultimate moral failings as city-apes were brought to light like never before in WWI, and it inspired a lot of dark reflection like this. Now I'm curious what this guy thought of WWII!

On my more optimistic days I like to hope the path of improvement from what we are now to something 'better' might turn out to be a gradual, peaceful process. I figure that since we're extremely unlikely to experience it, we may as well just pick the happiest possible transition and pretend that's how it all works out.

In my best moments, i still can't get past the "rich liberals" problem. Democrats are too enriched by the system to make effective change. The tide of fascism is rising around the world, and by the time that pacificts wake up to the magnitude of the problem, it'll be too late

His concept of “anchoring” seems immensely useful, especially today. It is essentially the continuation of Nietzsche’s “God is Dead” concept.

Indeed, one could probably describe modern western society in the 21st century as increasingly devoid of population-wide anchors.

This is Lovecraftian horror at its best.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com