Magni Formica Laboris

1. Early explorers to the land of the Inuit were given raw liver by the natives, which contained a toxic overdose of vitamin A for the white explorers; however, the same amount was harmless to the Inuit, who had no other source of Vitamin A except animal livers. source: forgotten

cf. to Judge Holden, "If war is not holy man is nothing but antic clay." p. 307 cf. Heraclitus fragmenta: "War is both father and king of all; some he has shown forth as gods and others as men, some he has made slaves and others free." (53) "It should be understood that war is the common condition, that strife is justice, and that all things come to pass through the compulsion of strife." (80) From Zarathustra: I tell you: one must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. (Prologue, 5) I would only believe in a God that knows how to dance. (I.7) vs. the theme of dancing and the judge as a skilled dancer. From GM: Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches — and in punishment there is so much that is festive! (2.VI) [In this one the link to BM is especially appreciable.] That every will must consider every other will its equal [ie. Kant's categorical imperative] — would be a p...

Some of the salient passages from GM: 1. Every animal, including l a bête philosophe , strives instinctively for the optimum conditions under which it may release its powers. Every animal, instinctively and with a subtle flair that leaves reason far behind, abhors all interference that might conceivably block its path to that optimum. (3.VII) 2. It is easy to tell a philosopher: he avoids three shiny, loud things--fame, princes, and women; which is not to say that they won't seek him out. (3.VIII) 3. Even measured by the Greek standard, our whole modern existence, insofar as it is not weakness but power and the consciousness of power, looks like sheer hubris and impiety: things exactly contrary to the ones we reverence today had for the longest time conscience on their side and God for their guardian. Our whole attitude toward nature, our violation of nature with the help of machines and the heedless ingenuity of technicians and engineers, is hubris; so is our attitude to G...

(from last 50 pages, excerpt copied from some other blog) One could well argue that there are not categories of no ceremony but only ceremonies of greater or lesser degree and deferring to this argument we will say that this is a ceremony of a certain magnitude perhaps more commonly called a ritual. A ritual includes the letting of blood. Rituals which fail in this requirement are but mock rituals. Here every man knows the false at once. Never doubt it. That feeling in the breast that evokes a child's memory of loneliness such as when the others have gone and only the game is left with its solitary participant. A solitary game, without opponent. Where only the rules are at hazard. Don't look away. We are not speaking in mysteries. You of all men are no stranger to that feeling, the emptiness and the despair. It is that which we take arms against, is it not? Is not blood the tempering agent in the mortar which bonds? The judge leaned closer. What do you think death is, man? Of w...

Melville had begun to suspect that violence and death (as opposed, say, to liberty and justice) defined American history. That is why the bloody business of whaling, and not something more benign like the spread of railroads or the "annex" of new territories (which were, of course, only relatively benign), stands as his metaphor for American capitalist and imperial aspirations. (Philips 8)