Heraclitus is considered to be the first philosopher of the West at all. And even ancient Cynics regarded him as the first of theirs. Rightly so, as I shall show. Heraclitus sharply condemned Homer’s pacifism, he demands that he should be expelled and beaten up. Homer dreamed in the Ilias: “Would all discord between gods and men be weakened“ Wow! and then we cynics see Heraclitus as one of ours? Aren’t we the ones who make God in our soul as our true self? Who preach parrehesia, self-realization, and thus want to become like God?
If you think we cynics dream of being like the gods after all, then you have yet to understand the concept of parrhesia. Then we would not want self-realization, but self-improvement. We would not be able and willing to accept ourselves as we are, we would reject ourselves instead of loving ourselves.
Keep reading: Refuse self-improvement
To be or to become, that is the question here
The Homeric rejection of war would not bring eudaimonia, happiness, but the downfall of the world, the end of the harmony created by the power of opposites. He said:
There can be no harmony without high and low tones, and no species without males and females, which are opposite poles
Like any consistent pacifist, Homer was also misogynistic: because of the kidnapped Helen, the bewitched men plunged into a bloody war. “Women are viewed as either objects or as manipulative creatures set on ruining a man’s purpose” in the Iliad. This contempt for women is really essential for philosophers of doom until today, whose common credo is that it would be better not to be born. For example, I don’t know anyone more misogynistic than Schopenhauer, the philosopher of compassion.
That Heraclitus is one of us will hopefully become immediately clear with the following quote, where he names parrhesia as the greatest virtue:
“Right consciousness is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is to speak the true about yourself and act according to nature, listening to it.”
Heralitus. Fragment 112
But then, what does “daring more war” mean?
War is father of all things
This is one of the most famous sayings of Heraclitus. It is interpreted in different ways. We place it here directly in the context of Heraclitus’ concept of harmony:
In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the daughter of Hares, the god of war, and wife of King Kadmos. With Kadmos she went to war.
The Greek concept of harmony, you see, is very different from the one we use today.
For Heraclitus, harmony arises in the unity of opposites. Like Buddhists, Heraclitus recognizes that for us, every feeling of happiness is dependent on feelings of suffering. But he does not despise this connection. He does not maintain it to be in need of redemption, but loves it, even if melancholically.
Only sickness makes health pleasant, evil makes good, hunger makes abundance, toil makes rest“; gods only become conceivable in contrast to humans.Thus, it is precisely in contrast that unity shows itself in the form of the togetherness of the different.
And he complains that most people do not understand this connection:
“They do not understand how that which is apart goes together with itself: opposite joining together, as of bow and lyre.”
Beyond good and evil
An attitude that strives “beyond good and evil” for acceptance and understanding, that is our aspired basic attitude, both in self-experience and in the encounter with others. It is not a matter of erasing opposites into a muddy empty desert-like peace according to the prevailing need of the last people, but of recognizing them, enduring them and defending one’s own.
War understood in this way, not to destroy the opponent (German: Gegner) or even the object (German: Gegenstand), but to want to understand and honor it and to fight in understanding and honoring it.
In this sense the headline is meant: “Daring more war”.
What is currently happening in Ukraine, for example, is, unfortunately, actually not war. Or spoken differently, in the sense of Novalis: war must be romanticized. What we see is a material battle, a continuation of capitalism by other means. Some say that this war must end in victory. Others, it must end quickly through diplomacy. But what would a victory be? What kind of diplomacy should it be that leads a state-capitalist battle to peace. To what kind of peace?
I say the war has not even begun.
But that is what we need most urgently today: a war. So that we do not perish in the desert of nihilism.
Let us become war-mongers.
PS: With the concept of harmony of the greeks shown here perhaps also the simultaneity of joy of life and joy of death described in a previous article is better explained.
Keep reading: Freedom is belonging, not independence