Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Categorical imperative

The more I look at it, the more I see that Kant´s categorical moral imperative (i.e. "duty") has done considerable harm to Western civilisation. Yet it still holds sway, the entire Western political spectrum rests on it, maybe even the entire world political spectrum, from the far left to the far right. Further, one must realize that without Kant, Freud would have never existed.

Look, if you consider that in a same day one sleeps and one is awake, this begets the question of whether sleep is an imperfect state relative to the state of being awake. For Kant, to be awake is to do ones' duty. It was thus left to Freud to explain that sleep is that state in which our instinct rips off the camisole which duty is, which each of us don all others. In other words, for Freud, our instinct is our primitive state, savage and amoral, the virgin state which escapes from what culture, education and the collective circus imposes unduly on each individual. To summarize, Kant reduces the state of being awake to morality, and in response to this farce, Freud, through a quite infantile dialectic, has inversed the perfect (ruined by Kant) and the imperfect, i.e. has inversed the state of being awake and sleep, by withdrawing to instinct under the pretext that he escapes from the moralizing ruin of human reality.

There is nothing more destructive than to diminish reality, all the more so when it is sublime. The Western world is presently almost entirely subordinated to humanitarian moral atheism and Kantian anthropology. I would hardly be surprised if more and more irreproachable men, well educated, perfect examples of morality and duty, should suddenly commit abominable acts, muting at night in a sort of sub-animal species, for neither morality nor duty come first, and, in fact, it is so absurd to think such a thing that the most monstruous human instincts would not cease to seek revenge since morality assumes nothing of the grim underpinnings of human nature, nothing at all. Morality and duty are consequences, and one must beware the back draft if they are put to the fore.


11 comments:

  1. Great post! We are born with two natures that are always at odds with each other.


    Cheers! JJ

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  2. this is awesome. it feels like you jumped inside my brain and said what I was thinking -- only you worded it far more intelligently. thanks for making me fully realize my point of view.

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  3. JJ Loch,
    Yes, we are an animal with reason.

    Cassandra,
    You must have some exposure to philosophy? Thanks for comment!

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  4. Complex? Yes. But, overall, simplicity rules the day. The only cure for insomnia is to get more sleep.

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  5. Good evening Jack,
    Glad you stopped by. I have a cold to cure, I think sleep will help there ;) You speak of simplicity, only extreme intelligence is simple, stupidity is actually complex...

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  6. You remind me of Ayn Rand's criticism of Kant--especially about morality and reality. Kantian philosophy inherently negates the ability of man to view reality objectively.

    I blogged a video of Rand some time back.

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  7. MTM,
    Looking forward to watching that (no sound on computer at mom)! Cheers.

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  8. Leonard Peikoff described Kant as the more modern manifestation of Plato's side in the duel with Aristotle.

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  9. MTM,
    Thanks for the link! Looking forward to listening to the Aristotle audio book, when I get sound back! Aristotle did follow Plato for 15-20 years, and then he left him reportedly saying: I love Plato and truth, but I prefer truth.

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  10. I agree. When the thrust is towards "must do because" the shore is distant.

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