Justify your block quote

As a general representation of evil, Adolph Hitler is the number one go-to guy for metaphorically applying negative karma unto those people with whom we disagree with. (And of course, Nazis are the plural.) Yes, he was a bad person, but I believe that he is overused as a representation of evil. Instead, I propose that we use Rene Descartes as the new jumping-off point.

Yes, he is nowhere near as evil as Hitler (and yes, "evil" is too strong a word for Descartes), but I think that for most examples, we don't need something filled with quite so much hyperbole. So, think of Descartes as a modicum of terrible that we can use in day-to-day comparisons.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself "Why Descartes? Who the fuck is he?"

Descartes was a French philosopher who was most famous for "I think, therefore I am." Nothing wrong with that -- it's a wonderful sentiment. Instead, what I have a problem with is his idea that animals don't have souls. Now, that's something that can be debated, but here's the gruesome bit: Descartes was reported to have kicked his dog every so often so that he could "hear the machine squeak." His argument (as I understand it) was that animals don't have emotions; they know only basic operations and that anything else (such as affection) is human rationalization for their actions.

It's a very elementary story that most students of philosophy know. Maybe I'm coming off as a hippy, but think about taking the general sentiment and applying it elsewhere. It is a statement that those unlike you are lesser for it. So let's go back to Hitler. Jews are lesser beings, so it is okay to torture and kill them, etc. Now apply it to a more modern sentiment that homosexuals are lesser because of their personal practices.

Now, let's finish off this little trek into bullshit (that's not entirely meant to be taken seriously) with another section from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

Another image also comes to mind: Nietzsche leaving his hotel in Turin. Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman's very eyes, put his arms around the horse's neck and burst into tears.

That took place in 1889, when Nietzsche, too, had removed himself from the world of people. In other words, it was at the time when his mental illness had just erupted. But for that very reason I feel his gesture has broad implications: Nietzsche was trying to apologize to the horse for Descartes. His lunacy (that is, his final break from mankind) began at the very moment he burst into tears over the horse.

And that is the Nietzsche I love, just as I love Tereza with the mortally ill dog resting his head in her lap. I see them one next to the other: both stepping down from the road along which mankind, "the master and proprietor of nature," marches onward.

There are several other ideas floating around there as well, such as Kundera's concept of the Grand March and man being administrator (instead of master) to all he surveys. But those are neither here nor there...

Now that I've established myself as pretentious idiot, on with the buffoonery!