Frederich Nietzsche

Okay. Movies take a while to come out to the sticks, but I saw Little Miss Sunshine last night, and ... wow.

I'm not a big fan of bandwagons. Hate to jump on them, mostly 'coz they're a bitch to get off of. Last night, however, I attended a packed screening of the movie with my teenaged daughter, her best friend, and BF's parents, and dear god, how we laughed.

The script, written by Michael Arndt, is first-rate, and the acting is ensemble work at its best. The lines from the film are gems, and I thought about posting my faves here, but then I'd take away from the pleasure of you experiencing them first-hand.

But, here's what you can expect: discussions of Proust, Nietzsche, childhood beauty pageants, motivational speaking, marriage, family, goals, vows of silence, and the awkward, bumbling pursuit of the dysfunctional American dream, which, according to one character, is one continuous fucking beauty pageant.

I've been thinking a lot about Friedrich Nietzsche and two of his books, Beyond Good and Evil and Gay Science.

I've always thought of Beyond Good and Evil as the best critique of the hypocrisy involved in the concept of sin and righteousness.

Aphorism #138: What we do in dreams we also do when we are awake: we invent and fabricate the person with whom we associate - and immediately forget we have done so.

Nietzsche has always been critized for being some sort of a brutal philosopher but I've never in all the years I have been reading his books thought about him as being brutal to be cruel. On the contrary, with this particular book I have always thought of it as a book about the power of love and compassion through the understanding of perspective.

Aphorism #153 : What is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil.

The Gay Science is a book written way before the word gay became synonymous with homosexuality; yet I've always found it interesting that Nietzsche used the term as synonymous to queer. And queerness in this books is what's he describes as being at the heart of all creative people.

#116 : Morality is herd instinct in the individual.

# 275 : What is the seal of liberation? — No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.

# 283 : For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.

# 299 : We want to be poets of our life — first of all in the smallest most everyday matters.

# 381 : I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.

To which I must add, it is the book where he first wrote about the Madman who screamed to the crowds in Aphorism #125, God is dead and you killed him.

Why all of this?

When I read the following article about how Muslim gay men are seeking to marry Muslim lesbian women --and are using the internet to find their partners-- I couldn't help but wonder.

On the one hand, it's a testament of how the internet is not just a technology but a means for communication and community. On the other hand, since these gay men are using the net to stay in the closet and protect themselves while remaining within the strictures of theocratic cultures that would rather have them dead than gay, I could not but shake my head and say, But god is dead, now it's time to dance as philosophers.