I haven't studied Strauss but I was intensely influenced/inspired by the lectures on Hegel by his friend Kojeve. Anyway, I like the way Strauss puts it, an active role. — j0e

You might find Strauss' On Tyranny of interest. It contains the correspondence between Kojeve and Strauss.

:up:

I think it is much more valuable to learn to read a few books, slowly and carefully. — Fooloso4

... or not read at all, but use the arguments others make about this or that as your source material. The outcome is the same.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. — Nietzsche

This is both poetry and philosophy. I attest to its truth, that has been delivered to me by a movie plot by W. Allen, "Bullets Over Broadway". W. Allen's later movies serve as an excellent grounding in philosophy, for those who lack the financial resources to attend second-year university lectures.

he was right, not though in that what he proposed after, that a man create the values. Today we are living the era after that, in which the left is dominating politics in the west and promoting the death of man. Dostoevsky was right

The mass murdering secular excesses of Nazism, Soviet Russia and Mao have been tabled as evidence for this proposition (was Nazism – ‘Gott is Mitt Uns’ really Godless?). Our current culture wars and pessimistic, moribund democracies could readily be constructed as part of this legacy of nihilism.
It’s an old slander against atheism that it offers no foundation and therefore, in a phrase commonly and wrongly attributed to Dostoyevsky – ‘without God anything is permitted’. — Tom Storm

I think that the concept of secular religions originated as an analysis of totalitarianism. The idea, I think, was to suggest that the sacral tradition had transformed into the mass cult of this or that regime. I think that it became somewhat popularized during the advent of the Neoconservative movement in the sense that you are referring to.

I, myself, am an atheist, but what atheists often say to Christians about atheists never having persecuted them is just simply not true. It happened in the two Communist regimes that you cited as an example, which is well known.

I have a highly speculative theory that whatever you want to call the Symbolic, effectively a kind of mythic order to the world, 'died' with the outset of Modernity, which I think became embodied by the play, Hamlet, and that much of the human catastrophe of the twentieth century has been because of an incapacity to cope with that. It's not that people need the social stability and purpose that religion ostensibly offers, though; it's that they have to cope with having come to awareness that there is none. I don't really agree with Nietzsche's means to do this, but I do think that he does identify the primary plight of the human condition.

I have a highly speculative theory that whatever you want to call the Symbolic, effectively a kind of mythic order to the world, 'died' with the outset of Modernity, which I think became embodied by the play, Hamlet, and that much of the human catastrophe of the twentieth century has been because of an incapacity to cope with that. It's not that people need the social stability and purpose that religion ostensibly offers, though; it's that they have to cope with having come to awareness that there is none. I don't really agree with Nietzsche's means to do this, but I do think that he does identify the primary plight of the human condition. — thewonder

That's tantalizing. I guess there's no way to test if this is true. One of the things people misunderstand about religion is that its dominant activity isn't necessarily spirituality or grace. People didn't necessarily behave more ethically when religion was strong. The abyss was always there if you were looking, or if you had a certain susceptibility. Holy crusades, inquisitions, witch trials, anti-Semitic pogroms, the KKK and more, were all Christian artifacts. Religion may well have been more about in-groups and community/social connection than transcendence or union with God. We certainly seem to have lost elements of community. But this has dissipated for many reasons and the waning of religion is just one of them.

. Nietzsche or others are tremendously important, but they are not with the whole ...

. Nietzsche talked about existencialism but he was not existencialist ... Nietzsche had philosophies about Life ... but he had not Life. Life is always Now-Here ... and your projections always come from the past ... and your past is Dead. One who have Life, cannot have philosophies about Life ... cannot have any projection towards Life ... Life is existencial ... and ... your so-called projections are always utilitarian ... pseudo-creations ... nothing more ...

. You can know a priori how does the sugar taste ... but this so-called a priori idea is just philosophical rubbish. You must ... taste it ... know it ... be it. Unless, you live the mystery of Life ... intensly ... vividly ... dangerously, you'll never Know ... what Life is. A moralistic will never know what Life is ... He may have theories about Life ... while others ... who Live it ... have Life ...

. They are super-egoists - particularly Nietzsche. I love him, too. He has a tremendous insight into things ... and ... the vivid truth is consubstantialized by his book - "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

. Great revelations have come through his mind. And he's the one most neglected all over the world - perhaps out of fear, because once you're deep into Nietzsche, you cannot be the same person you've been before. Nietzsche is going to change you.

. His thoughts are rational; his insights have no parallel in the whole history of philosophy, but still he is not a meditator. It is all mind creation ... It is not coming from his inner source ... It is not coming from his heart ...

. Meditate over this insight of Nietzsche - "Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed".

Lots of people make these kinds of claims about Nietzsche (Freud, for instance), as they do about any number of writers. But what is his actual contribution? It's very easy to say things like 'tremendous insight' or that he is 'tremendously important' the issue is why?

Nietzsche had philosophies about Life ... but he had not Life. One who have Life, cannot have philosophies about Life ... cannot have any projection towards Life ... Life is existencial ... and ... your so-called projections are always utilitarian ... pseudo-creations ... nothing more ... — Anand-Haqq

What does that mean? 'he had not Life' - can you explain what your intent was here?

I've been reading bits of Nietzsche - seems to me he was a lonely, angry man.

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed". — Anand-Haqq

Did Nietzsche actually write this? It sounds like a 1970's piece of folk wisdom my aunt would have up on her fridge? Can you identify where this comes from in Nietzsche?

. I did say why ... friend ...

. The question is ... Are your consciousness sufficiently open to receive the new ... and put aside ... the old?

. Nietzsche was a philosopher ... Life is not a philosophy ... Life is not a question ... All questions are absurd ... Life is a mystery ... a Divine mystery ...

. The thinking of a so-called intellectual about Life is the same of a blind man about Light ... friend ...

. A blind man may have logical conclusions about what Light is ... still ... The experience will miss ...

But what is his actual contribution? — Tom Storm

One is the shift from the philosophical assumptions of being to becoming, that things have a fixed end-point or completion which determine what they are.

I did say why ... friend ... — Anand-Haqq

You didn't say why at all; you just listed a few vague claims that without substance.

The question is ... Are your consciousness sufficiently open to receive the new ... and put aside ... the old? — Anand-Haqq

Are yours?

You still haven't provided the source for the Nietzsche quote.

I'm curious what Anand-Haqq thinks.

Fooloso4 I'm curious what Anand-Haqq thinks. — Tom Storm

Me too, but your question is one that is often asked.