PHILOSOPHY 100

When I returned to college there were a couple of classes that I was very challenged with. Like I didn't think I was going to be able to graduate. One of these was philosophy. I thought it would be a piece of cake because I had smoked lots of pot and done all sorts of hallucinogens. I'd sat around for hours having meandering conversations and thinking deep thoughts. But none of the classes I enrolled in, and there was more than one, ever came close to approximating those exhilerating experiences.

No. Philosophy 100 was boring. This may have been because I was attending a commuter school by the beach so my fellow students were like 19 and totally tan dude, wearing their dayglo beachware and a visor because they'd just rolled in right off the volleyball court. And because they were there to primarily memorize and vomit the information required by the syllabus, the professor was not all that excited about philosophy either. And you could tell.

Like totally.

So after my fourth semester with a "W" in philosophy I finally decided that I might do better with some kind of linear context upon which to frame the various and sundry ideas. I signed up for a political philosophy class and whadda you know? I not only got it, I really enjoyed it.

The class was taught by an Iranian man who had grown up under the oppressive dictatorship - a form of fascism - of the United State's very own puppet, the Shah of Iran. That's my editorializing not his. Although he didn't disagree with me when I raised the point one day in class. I think he liked having me in there amongst the 18-20 year old Republicans because I would say things he could only think. Like, "I bet you all vote the way your parents vote and have no idea what the party platforms or ideologies are. Why don't you think for yourselves?"

For the first time in my life I really studied and got to understand the philosophy that a democracy is built on - part of the reason I get so upset by this administration and the fact that our government is beginning to approximate a fascist dictatorship. I got the low down on socialism and the fact that although Russia had always been spun as a communist threat, they had never actually achieved communism, or pure socialism in the USSR. They didn't have the industrial foundation that was necessary for it work.

I also found Nietszche in this class and developed big love for him. He has been spun as an anti-semite (that was his sister) and a mysoginist, but neither is true. His ideas challenge the foundation of traditional morality and Christianity and affirm life, creativity, health, reality. And this world can't handle that so those who are most threatened make the thinker wrong in order to get people to dismiss the ideas.

And it's astonishing that today's media still functions to do the same thing to those who would disagree with this president and his cabal, I mean cabinet.

According to this site me and Nietszche still got a thing going on. I took the test and was 100% in alignment with the dude. Of course I was 80% in alignment with Ayn Rand, and that's just plain distressing. So I don't know how accurate the ethical philosophy selector is, but you should check it out. See where you fall. If you like Nietszche too, give me a call and let's share a bottle of wine, maybe a puff of pot - just for fun.