The weight of heritage
On the axis: Temporal orientation · what we have received
We are heirs: does fidelity to roots, to debts, to the dead make the depth of a life, or a chain that shuts the living inside a past that is over? For too much memory, too, can paralyze.
Justification
Confucian time is oriented toward the past as a model: reviving the old to understand the new is the master's way. Studying the Ancients, the rituals and the odes transmits a wisdom to embody; the future counts less as a project to invent than as a continuity to preserve. This is an orientation of .
He who revives the old to understand the new is fit to be a teacher.Analects, II, 11
Analects, II, 11 (reviving the old to know the new) · Analects, VII, 19 (a man fond of antiquity, untiring in his study)
Justification
The premise is that the was already fully realized by the sage-kings and the li 禮 (rites) of the Zhou dynasty, and that the disorder of the age stems from their decay, not from a want of novelty. If the good has an accomplished precedent, the rational task is to restore and transmit it, not to invent: to call oneself a transmitter and not a maker is therefore not modesty but a thesis, the refusal to ground the norm in present invention. The normative reference is the exemplary past, which makes him a in the strong sense, against any faith in progress.
I transmit and do not create; I love the Ancients and trust them.Analects, VII, 1
Analects, VII, 1 (I transmit and do not create, I love and trust the Ancients) · Analects, III, 14 (Confucius follows the Zhou)
Justification
and command us to love the moment enough to will its eternal repetition: the weight falls on the fullness of the affirmed present. A share of project remains, since the is a task to accomplish, but Nietzsche devalues the excess of historical memory that paralyzes action.
The Gay Science, §341 · On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, §1
Justification
works as a test: if a demon told you that you will relive this very life, identically, infinitely, would you curse him, or would it be your greatest joy? To say yes to every instant is : not 's resignation, but the highest affirmation, to love the necessary so much that one wills its eternal return.
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.Ecce Homo, "Why I Am So Clever", §10
Ecce Homo, "Why I Am So Clever", §10 · The Gay Science, §276 and §341
Anchors: Burke · Confucius · Nietzsche · Paine
leads to: Relation to the past · Tradition and transformation