A Wedding and Philosophy

This weekend I went to a friends wedding in Atlanta. At the wedding I had an interesting conversation with a middle aged man. He asked me the typical questions "Where do you go to school?" "What are you studying?" etc. Anyways when I told him I was a philosophy major, he looked at me like I was evil. We started talking about philosophy and who my favorite philosophers were. Naturally, I said it was like picking a favorite child and just could not be done, so I mentioned that I was reading a book by Nietzsche and another by Schopenhauer at present. As the conversation went on, he turned out to be a bit of an ignoramus as regards philosophy, which is ok, because I don't expect everyone to know everything about everything. What was not ok was that through his completely unfounded assertions against Nietzsche and philosophy, he became completely unreceptive to anything but what little he already knew. The only thing the naive gentleman knew about Nietzsche was that he said "God is dead" and because of it he didn't care about Nietzsche or anything else he had to say. Oh mon enfant! This very meek individual then started telling me that philosophy was shallow and proceeded in trying to convert me to Christianity. He absolutely hated Nietzsche, but he didn't even know anything about him, his philosophical ideas, and ultimately why he hated him. !Que ridiculo! When I mentioned to him that Nietzsche loved Jesus his face brightened up. If you disown someone or something like this guy did, just because of one thing that he or she believes, or that the subject entails, then you are just trying to protect your image and please others. And that my dear friends, is weak and pathetic!!!

Dammit, forget all that I just said, what I'm trying to point out here is that if we shut out people, or whole subjects i.e. philosophy, because of one opposing view, then we would all hate each other and everything...and that's BULLSHIT!!! The fact is that none of us hate everyone, and his arbitrary intolerance for Nietzsche and philosophy in general, is completely unfounded. It's almost like saying "oh, you are wearing a pink shirt today, and I don't like pink, so I'll pretend like you don't exist from here on out." How random?! Even more: How limiting to oneself?! With that kind of "logic"(or lack there of), he might as well start disowning his wife, smokin hot daughter I got to meet, parents and everyone else, and ignore them all out right. This is because NO ONE agrees completely with their fellow man's views! NO ONE! no matter who they are! So to make others irrelevant (Nietzsche and Philosophy), just because you don't agree with everything they say, is flawed. The way I see it, I don't care who you are, or what you've said, if you say something that helps me understand something better and I find wisdom in it, then I accept it, and apply it. nuff said

In summation of this story, I told this man exactly what I just told you, and the conversation went on much better from there. He even stopped trying to convert me!

ok, now I'll take the poker out of my ass and start taking some deep breaths:)

love you guys,
Mark