Ah, Best Friends October 3, 2006
My two best friends from college are, what can I say? The best. If you read through my 25 things, they’re part of probably half of those moments. I assume you have those friends who just ‘get’ how weird you are, and are okay with it? (If not, sucks to be you.)
About my two BFF’s, if you calculated all the time I spent laughing with them, the number would be marginally higher for percentage of time spent laughing together than with most others. One is Brassy Girl, who is on her way to a Master’s in Economics and the other is Lawyer Girl, who is on her way to a law degree. I’m simply on my way to getting rileyed.
I get word of the day emails, which include a quote of the day. From time to time, I forward the quote on to certain friends, if it seems applicable. The following is an email conversation* that took place as a result of one such quote. It would be important to note at this point that not a one of us majored in Philosophy.
Oh, and also, I have a dirty mind and a wicked stream of consciousness.
Riley:
Today’s quote of the day was–
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into
you.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
Wow… did he think that up all on his own? Way to go, dude.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Brassy Girl:
To be fair, the guy was ape-shit crazy with syphilis for most of his adult life. He invented an alter-ego philosopher called Zarathustra to help him escape his apparently very painful daily life. After that he created what some people consider the basis for the Nazi party. Frankly, pointing out the obvious may have been some of his best work.
Lawyer Girl:
I don’t think philosophers should get any sort of credit for pointing out their own crazy. I mean how much of a philosophy is to just spout out you’re crazy. I guess syphilis does have some good side effects, like making you one of the most respected philosophers of all time. Oh yeah, and getting your quotes on email… ROCK!
Riley:
Well, Brassy, aren’t we little miss optimist today. I had no idea about the Nazism. His quote suddenly seems more apropos. Speaking of syphilis, do you think he ever wore a merkin? That sounds like a good book: Nietzsche’s Merkin.
I’d also like to add that the two sentences of his quote have NOTHING to do with one another.
He may as well have said, I’ve got 99 problems and my merkin ain’t one of them. When in Rome.
Brassy Girl:
I just laughed out loud so hard I scared the dog.
You funny.
2 things:
1) I had to look up “merkin, ” fuck you very much.
2) Apparently his sister & his aunt took care of him for most of his . . . “ahem”. . . creative period, so I’m not sure that a merkin was entirely necessary. I don’t think he was getting a lot of play. Thus the prolific craziness committed to paper.
Lawyer Girl:
I too had to look up ‘merkin’. Now the girl next to me is probably wondering why my friends and I talk about pubic wigs when I should be listening to this guy talk about negative covenants.
Riley:
I wonder if you can make the argument that Nietzsche owning a merkin constitutes a negative covenant with Zarathustra.
Meaning, I don’t know what a negative covenant is.
I imagine a merkin looks somewhat like the stuffed animal carcasses Schwag [our dog when we were in college] used to drag around the house. Brassy, maybe you should give your dog a merkin to chew on, so he’ll calm down.
Lawyer Girl:
I would like to include a Negative Covenant that we never talk about Nietzsche, his alleged merkin, or Schwag chewing on it, ever again.
A negative covenant is a contractual promise to not do something.
Brassy Girl:
I second Lawyer’s motion to henceforth ban all talk of crotch wigs or the Ubermensch.
Unless someone knows how to make the umlaut appear over the “U.”
Lawyer Girl:
It’s on…Übermensch
Kisses, girls. Hope you don’t mind I posted our conversation for the world to see. What can I say? I thought it was funny.
*Names and details have been altered to protect the identities of the so-called innocent.
i’m a tad disappointed that “lawyer girl” didn’t know what a merkin was.
That was almost more than my poor, simple brain could handle, but too funny to not finish!
Ah, “Nietzsche’s Merkin”, the famous work wherein he argues that Christianity is covering up our base and primal natures. A masterwork.
I have friends… well, not many and certainly none I have known that long. … and furthermore, we are SOOO not that smart to have conversations like that that are completely hilarious and yet so far over my head that I could climb Mt. Everest and still not reach them.
For the record… I somehow thought it was gerkin… but now that I think of it, merkin does sound right. What can I say, I’m not a walking dictionary for private part termonolgy
But I do know what a taint is.
Okay, I had to look up that word, too. And now it is there, in my brain, never to be removed. Curse you.
I have clever, quippy friends (or did have before I had kids), but not a one of them would be so communicative in email. What a delight. You are blessed. And how many times will you hear that about a merkin conversation?
Blame this on Lawyergirl because she’s the one who told me about this post; once I read it, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. (warning: what follows is the product of a philosophy BA from a third-tier college)
Nietzsche didn’t actually provide the philosophical foundation of Nazism. Well, he kinda did, but only because he was taken completely out of context. After he died his sister took his writings, notably the Will to Power, and recut them. She was a huge Nazi sympathizer and made his works support what was then the foundation of the tenants of national socialism.
The Will to Power and other writings were, at the time of Nietzsche’s death, unpublished. They were basically just notes. FYI- Nietzsche is notorious for not keeping any system of organization; he’d write on the back side of old writings, never keep page numbers, etc. So she re-cut them and sold out her brother to the Nazis. Maybe she was dumb and thought he believed it, maybe not. Nietzsche did write some things that are… well… less than charitable about women and gender roles. But he had an awful mother and sister, so most people attribute his he-man-woman-hating at least in part to that.
And, yes some people do suspect the cause of death was untreated syphilis. I don’t know exactly why they suspect this because he was, by all accounts, completely socially inept. But he did spend his latter years writing crazy philosophy notes (complete with umlauts) and talking to his horse. So maybe he did get lucky at least once (and contracted an STD; jesus that’s bad luck).
Anyway, that’s “Why Nietzsche isn’t a Nazi” in a few paragraphs. If you want more, wikipedia is always a winner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_and_reception_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche#Nietzsche_and_fascists
(And finally, to answer the remaining question: yes, the “tenants of national socialism” quote is a Dude reference)
[...] – Here’s a lovely conversation between me and my two best friends, Brassy and Lawyer Girls. Nietzsche, merkins. Good clean [...]