Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Foundations of Mathematics (2nd ed)' and 'The Will to Power (notebooks)'

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2 ideas

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.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.