(Untitled)

[cassiusdrow]

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes it is necessary to become the evil that one fights in order to conquer it and move beyond it.

Comments

[wench18]

Doesn't one lose the fight by becoming that which one fights? Even if victorious in the battle with that monster, then you are left standing as a monster...and the monster still exists - in you.

[cassiusdrow]

The monster already exists in all of us.

[wench18]

I guess it depends then. Are you just fighting to defeat another monster, so that you are the undisputed monster in residence...or are you struggling to defeat monsterisms in general? If the success depends on defeating the monster...then you cannot become that monster or the battle is lost before it's begun.

[cassiusdrow]

I'm speaking internally here, psychologically or spiritually, not physically.
In anathemad's example below, a criminal profiler must understand the behavior of a serial killer in order to catch him. In essence, the profiler must become the evil that he wishes to destroy, at least on a psychological level. It is then the profiler's responsibility to contain the evil within himself. He must recognizes the monster in himself, learn to control it and contain it, and ultimately move beyond it. The monster can still exist, but it has no power.

[magmafire]

It all depends upon one's training and how one deals with the darker aspects of one's self. It very much has seemed to me after reading his writings that Nietzsche had many issues and one of them was with the fortitude of his own sense of spirit. A weapon is not a weapon until someone uses it as a mode of violence, this includes the weapons we all have within us. This is variously called the "evil' or "darkness" or some other scary phrase as many of our leaders, both political and religious would rather we didn't even know we were capable of dealing with things including our own souls. Nietzsche came from an era ripe with this form of sentiment and could not escape it himself, hence his mourning for the death of God and whatnot. Cultural parameters are often control factors that on one hand can help with societal cohesion but on the other hand can be restrictive to the benefit of a select few. Knowing and using the "monster" within in an appropriate venue can work wonders especially when confronted by those who have allowed themselves

[bronxelf_ag001]

Ends drive means.

That's really all anything comes down to in the end.

[kamuiangel]

evil is a thing of all that can choose.

[greatwazoo42]

"Ye though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for I am Samuel L. Jackson, the baddest mutha phuqah in the valley." or something like that.

Joe, be what you need to be in order to finish what needs to be done so that you can go back to being what you want to be.