ReasonAlone Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 So, I was on ABEbooks.com and I found something VERY surprising. Check it out: In October, the New York Times asked Obama to provide a list of books and writers that were significant to him. Here goes – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois’ Souls of Black Folk, Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory and The Quiet American, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward, John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Robert Caro’s Power Broker, Studs Terkel’s Working, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments, and also Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men – a novel about a corrupt Southern governor (Rod Blagojevich anyone?). And then there were his theology and philosophy influences - Friedrich Nietzsche, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. This snippet taken from: http://www.abebooks.com/books/barack-obama...ite-books.shtml Did that say Nietzsche? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aequalsa Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 Did that say Nietzsche? Sure, don't you remember all the stuff about "slave morality" where all the regular people are made to serve the ubermench, and all that. Anyone want to guess who the ubermench is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ordr Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 Anyone want to guess who the ubermench is? *raises hand* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake_Ellison Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 Sure, don't you remember all the stuff about "slave morality" where all the regular people are made to serve the ubermench, and all that. Anyone want to guess who the ubermench is? I don't agree with the way you're "interpreting" ol' Freddy there. On a different subject, from the article being quoted: Recently Karl Rove, George Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004 until 2007, revealed his boss read 95 books in 2006... After a quick math on the hours that would require, I'm inclined to be pissed off: spending that much time reading would count as negligence on the job for a nightwatchman at a rubber duck factory. What should we call it if the Commander in Chief is doing it at the hight of the Iraq war? Obviously, that claim is false, so I don't trust the Obama reading list the article gives either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReasonAlone Posted January 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 I don't agree with the way you're "interpreting" ol' Freddy there. On a different subject, from the article being quoted: After a quick math on the hours that would require, I'm inclined to be pissed off: spending that much time reading would count as negligence on the job for a nightwatchman at a rubber duck factory. What should we call it if the Commander in Chief is doing it at the hight of the Iraq war? Obviously, that claim is false, so I don't trust the Obama reading list the article gives either. I'm not so sure the claim was false. On other sites like Amazon and BN, he consistently says Friedrich Nietzsche, while changing some of his other influences. It is truly unbelievable that Nietzsche remains constant. I totally agree with you about the whole job negligence thing, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott_Connery Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 95 books a year is less than two a week. That doesn't seem like an excessively large amount to me. Imagine all the travel time he has. What if the guy like to relax by reading for 30-45 mins before bed every night. That adds up in a hurry. I suppose it depends on his reading speed and reading list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aequalsa Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 *raises hand* You get the gold star! I don't agree with the way you're "interpreting" ol' Freddy there. Please realize, I was just trying to put myself in Obama's shoes...explain how Obama would interpret it. I meant no ill will to Freddy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~Sophia~ Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 I don't agree with the way you're "interpreting" ol' Freddy there. Well, that meets my interpretation of him on this subject. His noble man was not a universal type and thus he denied that there is a universal morality applicable to all human beings and instead he designated a series of moralities in order of rank raging from noble to the plebeian and one could become noble mostly only through heredity. He said "no morality is possible without good birth". It is true that he DID allow for an occasional exception - that in case of accidental capacity for independent reasoning a person from the drudge class should be admitted to the master class. What is your take on that since you don't agree? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaight Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 Nietzsche has a lot of aspects to him. His perspectivalism, for example, is one of the roots that feeds into postmodern skepticism. Without knowing more about what specific values Obama claims to have found in Nietzsche it's really pointless to speculate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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