2004-08-25 - 10:45 a.m.

Rich and I were discussing Schopenhauer yesterday; more specifically, how someone needs to pen a Schopenhauer-like case study of American Christians and Republicans, by way of explaining their strange worldviews. It's been a recurring theme in our conversations for the past, oh, four years, but it has picked up considerably since the attempt by Bush and his right-wing stratocracy to codify bigotry.

What is most striking about the far-right is how they direct their hatred: They hate love. I mean, is there any other way to define it? They hate those who love differently than they do, which is why they revile not only homosexuals, but feminists. Both groups, by simply being who they are, call into question the entire system of Christian belief, by reminding everyone that gender is a construct, there are no immutable differences between the sexes. So, I guess I understand from that perspective where the hate comes from, but what I simply cannot comprehend is why anyone would voluntarily subscribe to such a narrow worldview. Why they would allow something as powerful as faith and spirituality to become synonymous with hatred and bigotry.

But I guess that is something I will never understand. So, in lieu of a case study (frankly, I'm afraid to tread down that dark path), I'll just offer some quotes from Schopenhauer. He's slowly becoming my hero, and it's not just because he had as little patience for human foibles as I do!

• "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
• "Compassion is the basis of all morality."
• "Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world."
• "We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people."
• "The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity."
• "Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think."
• "The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice."
• "The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority."

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