What is Hyperborea?
It may be grammatically more correct to ask where is Hyperborea(?), but for me it is an idea or state of mind. I would like to actually go, but they don't have wireless there - yet.
Hyperborea is many things. It is not an either/or question - a zero sum game; it is and it is and it is.
Hyperborea has a long tradition is Greek mythology as a land of eternal sunshine and bounty beyond the northern winds. Apollo and others wintered there, but there are mixed reports as to whether it is warm or not.
However, I have picked up the Hyperborean motif from Nietzsche, who used it in his later writings as a substitute for the Overman. My usage is not indentical to Nietzsche's, but it is informed by my interpretation of his Hyperborean. When I picture the Hyperborean, I picture Nietzsche in the latter part of his career - alone, in the mountains, severely critical, yet self confident and almost ascetic (he seems to have envisioned a cold Hyperborea). Whether Nietzsche ever really became the Overman as proclaimed by Zarathustra I think Nietzsche himself continually doubted, but the trick, the theater, is to pretend that you are. If one wears the mask of the Overman long enough, does it become phsyiological? What (who) is the Overman? He is the next stage of man who lives in a world of his own creation - ever recreating himself in an independent, eternal feedback loop. He is the existential man - creating his own values in a valueless world. But the Hyperborean is more:
He is far off. This is largely not the constructive criticism of a social reformer. There is a sense of resignation, aloofness, and even elitism. It is a discourse beyond the Enlightenment project of universal maturity and does not attempt argue within those constructed parameters. Besides I am tired of arguing. Give me the cold of my personal transcendence and a window on the world.
He is beyond good and evil. Though certainly in the discouse of Nietzsche's critique of modern morality, my beyond, my Hyperborea, is not the affirmation of Power, necessarily. For myself Hyperborean ethics are beyond the rigid forms of law and into something both relational and personal.
He is beyond left and right. I heard a good quote recently. "If Jesus came back, he would unite the country (or church). Both the left and the right would agree to kill him." The current political discourse in America (and to a lesser extent abroad), in its amnesiac polarity, is nauseating. The Hyperborean is on no one's side, because no one is on his side - which is neither left, not right, but beyond.
He is a bit angry. The passivity is gnawing at him, urging him towards the violent. From his ivory tower he casts down lighting bolts.
He frolics. In the eternal sunshine of the north pole, away from the horrors and pettiness of the world, the Hyperborean dances with the northern lights and revels in the simplicity of the small things.
The Hyperborean is at times very prideful, but struggles to humbly return to the southern winds. Having past through the ice of murky ambiguity and pessimistic solitude he has arrived in a land of peace and joy and bounty. Somewhere, deep inside the insecurity of no absolutes, if one journeys far enough they will find a beautiful land of story and relationship. How does one pass through pessimism and sorrow into light? Or is this light really an oasis of last illusion to suckle the hopes of one desperately lost? Or is this Hyperborea? Do not the beautiful lights of the aurora borealis descend to remind us. Is this some kind of Heaven?
We must journey beyond.
Hyperborea is many things. It is not an either/or question - a zero sum game; it is and it is and it is.
Hyperborea has a long tradition is Greek mythology as a land of eternal sunshine and bounty beyond the northern winds. Apollo and others wintered there, but there are mixed reports as to whether it is warm or not.
However, I have picked up the Hyperborean motif from Nietzsche, who used it in his later writings as a substitute for the Overman. My usage is not indentical to Nietzsche's, but it is informed by my interpretation of his Hyperborean. When I picture the Hyperborean, I picture Nietzsche in the latter part of his career - alone, in the mountains, severely critical, yet self confident and almost ascetic (he seems to have envisioned a cold Hyperborea). Whether Nietzsche ever really became the Overman as proclaimed by Zarathustra I think Nietzsche himself continually doubted, but the trick, the theater, is to pretend that you are. If one wears the mask of the Overman long enough, does it become phsyiological? What (who) is the Overman? He is the next stage of man who lives in a world of his own creation - ever recreating himself in an independent, eternal feedback loop. He is the existential man - creating his own values in a valueless world. But the Hyperborean is more:
He is far off. This is largely not the constructive criticism of a social reformer. There is a sense of resignation, aloofness, and even elitism. It is a discourse beyond the Enlightenment project of universal maturity and does not attempt argue within those constructed parameters. Besides I am tired of arguing. Give me the cold of my personal transcendence and a window on the world.
He is beyond good and evil. Though certainly in the discouse of Nietzsche's critique of modern morality, my beyond, my Hyperborea, is not the affirmation of Power, necessarily. For myself Hyperborean ethics are beyond the rigid forms of law and into something both relational and personal.
He is beyond left and right. I heard a good quote recently. "If Jesus came back, he would unite the country (or church). Both the left and the right would agree to kill him." The current political discourse in America (and to a lesser extent abroad), in its amnesiac polarity, is nauseating. The Hyperborean is on no one's side, because no one is on his side - which is neither left, not right, but beyond.
He is a bit angry. The passivity is gnawing at him, urging him towards the violent. From his ivory tower he casts down lighting bolts.
He frolics. In the eternal sunshine of the north pole, away from the horrors and pettiness of the world, the Hyperborean dances with the northern lights and revels in the simplicity of the small things.
The Hyperborean is at times very prideful, but struggles to humbly return to the southern winds. Having past through the ice of murky ambiguity and pessimistic solitude he has arrived in a land of peace and joy and bounty. Somewhere, deep inside the insecurity of no absolutes, if one journeys far enough they will find a beautiful land of story and relationship. How does one pass through pessimism and sorrow into light? Or is this light really an oasis of last illusion to suckle the hopes of one desperately lost? Or is this Hyperborea? Do not the beautiful lights of the aurora borealis descend to remind us. Is this some kind of Heaven?
We must journey beyond.
posted by JC Turner at 12:40 PM
2 Comments:
Ah,the HB voice... in a post-structuralist world...
Check out this gem from MLK:
Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been constrasted as opposites—polar opposites—so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.
It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
Now a spell from George MacDonald:
It was not his power, however, but his glory, that Jesus showed forth in the miracle. His power could not be hidden, but it was a poor thing beside his glory. Yea, power in itself is a poor thing. If it could stand alone, which it cannot, it would be a horror. No amount of lonely power could create. It is the love that is at the root of power, the power of power, which alone can create. What then was this his glory? What was it that made him glorious? It was that, like his Father, he ministered to the wants of men. Had they not needed the wine, not for the sake of whatever show of his power would he have made it. The concurrence of man's need and his love made it possible for that glory to shine forth. It is for this glory most that we worship him. But power is no object of adoration, and they who try to worship it are slaves. Their worship is no real worship. Those who trembled at the thunder from the mountain went and worshipped a golden calf; but Moses went into the thick darkness to find his God.
can i come with you?
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