Musings on the American Virtue

Daniel Christopher June to the Students of Life:

 

Greetings!

 

 

In Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, he identifies the "tables of self-overcoming" of various peoples. His ability to formulate is peerless, and so I will quote the four formulations he offers:

"You shall always be the first and excel all others: your jealous soul shall love no one, unless it be the friend"-that made the soul of the Greek quiver: thus he walked the path of his greatness.

"To speak the truth and to handle bow and arrow well"-that seemed both dear and difficult to the people who gave me my name-the name which is both dear and difficult to me.

"To honor father and mother and to follow their will to the root of one's soul"- this was the tablet of overcoming that another people hung up over themselves and became powerful and eternal thereby.

"To practice loyalty and, for the sake of loyalty, to risk honor and blood even for evil and dangerous things"-with this teaching another people conquered themselves; and through this self-conquest they became pregnant and heavy with great hopes.

That is, the Greek, Persian, Jewish, and German -- the last a tad prophetic, considering he wrote this before the world wars.

 

I would formulate the American ethic as such: "To be the most solitary and to be a self-made man, to make from your private self-reliance wealth and wisdom."

 

I justify this formulation through the works of Franklin with his autobiography, and through the collective work of Emerson, who is the mind of America.

 

Frontier life was solitary, and the religious revivals that broke out from it are an answer to extreme solitude.

 

William James said God was known alone. This is the American experience. I say we speak to Ama before the mirror of self reflection. The I is alone with the Self. All my religious ecstasies involve this situation.

 

Take Care, Caretakers!

 

-- R ᴤ88s Я --

Perfection Is Easy

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