THE TIES THAT BIND

This is only a guess, but it's safe to guess the last time most people thought about philosophy and philosophers was in their last college philosophy course. Still, there usually are a few names that come to everyone's mind. Aristotle, Plato, Oprah. OK, scratch that last one and insert Nietzche...

Friedrich Nietzche -- the 19th C German philosopher who became infamous for reporting "God is dead" and for providing Hitler with the notion of a "superman" -- added to his legendary luster by slipping into madness at the end of his life. Misunderstood or not, Nietszche's messages cast a very long shadow across the western world.

Even among those who can't spell his name!

Which brings to mind anyone in a position of authority and power. From Presidents and prime ministers to bankers and biologists. If there is no God (most existentialists and humanists today start from there) the conequences are enormous. Yes, it frees us from a long history of suffocating clerical traditionalism and the outright repression of ideas. And yet at the very same time, it frees us from the "ties that bind" as is sung in the old gospel lyric.

The ties of fixed moral views and values which trump even the best improvisational work of evolution...the ties of the equality of human dignity which make the most sense only if we are creatures of the same God....the ties that hold us close to the conviction we are each a part of an organic whole, and not simply a super-force of rugged individuality.

It's not likely Neitzche gets mentioned much in Wall Street's coffee shops and in the corridors on the United Nations building. Nor in the discussions at the various international summits. And yet here the Nietzchean shadow is strong and thick. Because here the un-spoken premise is that our world has become a vast, self-regulating economic machine motivated by the greed and/or good of profit.

Not one in 100 of the attendees are likely to consider the economies of the world are also ethical human enterprises. Say, in the same way that perhaps their fathers once sold a car or a house or a washing machine, and sealed the sale with the shake of an honest hand.

OK, now this is getting silly. Suggesting that major corporations and national banking systems be motivated by objective ethical standards as well as by making a buck? Lets get serious, things don't work that way!!

True. Which is, perhaps, exactly why things always ends up this way....