Rereading Nietzsche

I’m rereading Zarathustra. What a great writer Nietzsche is. As Vicente Huidobro said, “what matters is not Nietzsche’s truth, but Nietzsche’s Nietzscheness”.

“Rebellion is the mark of the slave”

Of course: the free man has no need for rebellion.

Khalil Gibran put it another way, in The Prophet:

And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom. And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff. And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.

Using Linux is not what’s going to make you freer. If it were, I’d be freer than many of you, because I know how to build my own operating system.

You have to spend your strength wisely: freedom is for people, not for things.

It’s men who are free, not software.

If you want to do something for this world, devote yourself to showing your fellow human beings that they are free; help them get rid of the obstacles that keep them from exercising their freedom, like poverty, the lack of education.

If your goal is abolishing copyright, or the fight for free culture, I’m telling you that you’re wasting your youth on nonsense. Use your time and energy on more important things. After all, spending your time defending “culture” has always been a sign of decadence.

“I see soldiers, when what I would like to see are warriors” Look around you. Tell me, which is more valuable?

Culture, once it’s in the museums, is a dead thing; it’s not worth defending.

If culture is alive then there’s no reason to defend it; it looks after itself just fine and adapts to change on its own. What are you defending it from? From the corporations? From savage capitalism?

Get over it. The free man doesn’t let himself be enslaved by other people’s ideas; there is no corporation, no group, no amount of money big enough to take your freedom away.

If you feel more progressive because you use linux, or you have a pretty apple notebook and you practice free culture, I’m telling you to come back down to earth, because progress is an illusion.

Learn to understand evolution; there is no progress in evolution.

Understand that, and you’ll understand what freedom is.

You’ll realize that using or not using Windows is irrelevant.

Live, and take back your freedom. Once you’ve been cured of the ideas they’ve put in your head, let’s talk; there’s a lot to do.