Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Karl Marx, A.C. Grayling and Friedrich Nietzsche

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3 ideas

25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 1. Grounds of equality
Liberty and equality cannot be reconciled [Grayling]
     Full Idea: Liberty and equality appear to be irresolvable contradictions.
     From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 2)
     A reaction: [He particularly cites Isaiah Berlin for this view] Hm. The liberty of one is the liberty of all. I don't think I would feel that my liberty was unreasonably infringed if I lived in a society of imposed equality. The greedy hate equality the most.
Justice says people are not equal, and should become increasingly unequal [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: People are not equal: thus speaks justice. …Humans should keep becoming ever more unequal.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 12[43])
     A reaction: Important to add a little dash of Nietzsche to the widespread modern mantras about equality. We must at least question the extent to which equality should be our aim. (Personally I am an egalitarian liberal).
25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 2. Political equality
In modern society virtue is 'equal rights', but only because everyone is zero, so it is a sum of zeroes [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Our entire sociology simply does not know any other instinct than that of the herd, i.e. that of the sum of zeroes - where every zero has "equal rights", where it is virtuous to be zero.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §053)
     A reaction: I see his point, but all social arrangements are a trade-off. It would be quite exciting if warlike aristocrats dragged us into massive conquest, but nuclear weapons seem to have ruined that game.