Hesiod wrote about Eris as haing two Facets.
o, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature.
For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.
But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night (Nyx), and the son of Cronus who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.
We know history favours the victors, and as such so do the gods, because they are the victors correct? honest citizens of their empire? How can the gods not favour them as leaders, and victorious at that?
If you notice however, Eris herself has never been known to favour anyone, Even Hesiod fails to mention that. He mentions the jealousy between individuals, that makes them compete. Yet Eris herself has said:
I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, My consciousness left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding.
You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun.
I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.
Eris is the unease and the creative impulse. The happiness shit you speak of has nothing at all to do with sitting in the corner chanting
"all is calm, all is well" You'd have to be thick to do that anyway. But if eris is the spirit in which children and clowns frollic, is there not some form of happiness to be sought?
Can happiness only be mindless? And to seek it as a goal is to do nothing but think happy thoughts is it? to deny reality?
As an optimist I'm talking about
the other axis of the graph: Creative/Destructive. Greyface asserted that the important divide was between order and disorder, and as the principia points out we are thus left with all of the destructive aspects of order as well as its creative aspects. To emphasise chaos purely as a desrective process is to take greyface, stand him on his head, and read him upside down; There's a subtle difference which gives you a crick in the neck.
Ultimately then having dismissed chaos as purely destructive and order as ultimately destructive and spirit-crushing we embrace nihlism, because there is nothing of worth to be gained, nothing above or below us. Now perhaps it is time to add:
"There is what is said and what is done
What is done reveals what is felt
And just as the bitter heart finds no Joy,
so too does the bitter leader create no joyous followers.[/list:u]
Simply put, if you believe that chaos and order are ultimately fruitless then your nihlism will be just as negative. John Lenon said a nihlistic thing or two:
"Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us.
Above us only sky"Now was he optimistic or pessimistic in that instance?
I disagree with the thesis that predominant human behaviours are natural and unchangeable, that's an excuse used to justify both helpless rage and centuries of idiocy. And yet in one breath, while acknowledging the role of consciousness in behaviour and it's manipulation you say it is unchangeable.
As an optimist I say that is false, and I am called mindless and misguided? I find that odd. What keeps you alive if the machine is only going to crush you and spit out your bones?
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