"Marcher Arrant walks to make the world big again." Its totally unrelated but this quote reminds me of what Nietzsche says about the "last man", that he makes everything small. I always wondered what he meant by that. Nietzsche's "last man" was his vision of how humans would be in the future. Modernity solved all of lives problems. Science and reason destroyed all religion and myth. What's left are people who no longer believe in anything. "We have discovered happiness says the last man." They are happy and content but no longer strive for anything grand. Everything has been figured out, and everything has been done."What is a star, asks the last man?" One thought of what he means by saying the last man makes everything small is that the last man shuts down anyone who strives for something new and grand. The last man is a nihilist a belittles attempts a making something special by nay saying, saying it has already been done, using critique to make it seem uninteresting or worthless. The last man is very smart, Nietzsche says, and he knows all that has happened. I find Nietzsche's idea of the last man very valuable as a creator. It can be hard being an artist in a world that emphasizes the material above all else. What the world thinks is in our head and criticizes and belittles what we are doing. But I always loved this quote from one of the crimethic books : "in great tests one always doubts themselves, that's the test." We are creating beauty, meaning, myths and stories and humans need that as much as material things. There are anthropological records of tribes whose myths and stories were destroyed from colonization and after that they all killed themselves because their meaning was destroyed. I thing lack of meaning and myth is part of why depression, suicide and drug use are so high. Nietzsche suggests that we have to create our own myths after modernity has destroyed our old ones. I love that he says the last man does not believe in stars because it is a diagnosis of something we should try to avoid. We need to believe in something grand, to have meaning besides material comfort.
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