Nietzsche and nepotism

[My two major intellectual influences are Sri Aurobindo and Nietzsche. In my opinion Aurobindo’s philosophy is the most holistic of all spiritual worldviews, and encompasses existentialism. At the moment my spiritual goal is to synthesize the Nietzschian goal of high vitality (energy, ‘gravity defiance’, love of life, a movement forward and upward) and the Christian one of becoming a child of God. Commenting on This Blog Monday, Jul 27 2009 Yes and no]

[One central point on the whole subject of envy is how foolish we so often are in envying others when they have their own life and story, and fate. Often we envy someone who we believe to have a better fortune than our own only to learn that they have sufferings and troubles beyond those we imagined. 'Envy' is a seemingly inescapable element of our nature. And this little book may do an enviable job of helping us understand it a bit better. And this said with the minor praise of one who might envy Mr. Epstein's talent and success which is considerable. July 17, 2005 By Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
Permalink Amazon.com: Envy: The Seven Deadly Sins: Joseph Epstein]

[“Nepotism, like sex, is a powerful human motive that many people are too squeamish to examine. Adam Bellow has made an important contribution to our understanding of the human condition with this sparkling and eye-opening natural history of an underappreciated but eternally fascinating topic.”— Steven Pinker, Peter de Florez Professor, MIT and author of The Blank Slate and How the Mind Works. “Nepotism is widely condemned yet even more widely practiced. Adam Bellow shows why this is so, and he makes a fascinating and well-researched argument that this is not necessarily a bad thing.”— Walter Isaacson, author of Kissinger: A Life and former chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time Amazon.com: In Praise of Nepotism: A History of Family Enterprise by Adam Bellow]

Biological drives like envy and nepotism are not easy to handle. The helper/bar dialectic is an essential key to turn them into springboards. [TNM]