Jaymie's own parents divorced in 1969, when she was in elementary school. Her article is directed to the under 30 group, because well they have no idea what marriage was suppose to be.
Like so many other "babies" thrown out with the bathwater, the value of marriage has been largely lost to our society. This happened as people who fell short of the ideal were encouraged to trash the ideal they fell short of. In other words, somewhere along the line we decided that if you can't live up to a standard, then don't bother with standards at all. The radical philosopher Nietzsche called this the "smashing of the tablets" and "the devaluation of values." He saw it as a necessary step for man to overcome himself. What he did not see, at least not at first, was that the abandonment of virtue would lead to nihilism. Life without values is meaningless.
I think Nietzsche knew fully well that he was a nihilist, following the philosophical tradition of Aristotle. The real problem with Nietzsche is that his philosophy was introduced into the US through folks like the Frankfurt School and injected directly into academe.
ReplyDeleteAfter 60-80 years of trickling down into common American thought, nihilism is now starting to become the new American religion.
It's what all my friends ever wanted to be. To see in practice though is another story.
ReplyDelete