[Buddha-l] As Swami goes, so goes the nation? (Dan Lusthaus and Richard P. Hayes)

[Richard Hayes]

On Apr 25, 2010, at 3:09 PM, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:

> And we know 
> that socalled 'spirituality' has as primary function to aliviate 
> feeligns of guilt of the rich and wealthy.

It's always refreshing to see the Will to Power making its way back into religion and pushing the slave morality back into the shadows. TM, Bhagwan Rajneesh and the Prosperity Gospel would have made Nietzsche smile.

Last week I gave my introduction to philosophy class a short and (I thought) very easy test on Nietzsche. I asked them one simple question: Explain in your own words the distinction between "good and bad" and "good and evil" in the Genealogy of Morals. Thirty students took the test. Two of them gave answers that were recognizable as attempts to recapitulate Nietzsche. All the rest were new-age pabulum. My favorite answer in the latter category:

\begin{answer}
Nietzsche said basically that we are all born good, but sometimes we do bad things anyways. But we can learn not to do bad things by exercising our will power.
\begin{answer}

I'm looking forward to retirement.

Richard