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In this section we will discuss the attack on understanding
virtues as objective, and the trend to recreate them as subjective
values. This trend has become prevalent in this century, following the work of
Nietzsche. Nietzsche rightly understood the power of virtues
(see power). He correctly understood
that they held a position of influence in relation to human
activity. Nietzsche believed that humans should not be subject
to any non-human defined limitations, and consequently designed a
paradigm of subjective values to displace objective virtues. As Values were subjective constructs, they could be defined by humans in
regard to any particular situation. Virtues as objective
realities cannot be so manipulated, so he banished them from the equation, and Western Society agreed. An idea is very powerful. The only way to stop it is to
either subvert its content, or to prevent hearers from hearing
it. Following Nietzsche Virtues were subverted to Values, and
Virtues ceased to be considered for what they were. For background on Virtues and Vices, there is an excellent
discussion HERE. It is also informative to read Nietzsche's 'Beond
Good and Evil'. As it stands however, Virtues only need to be communicated to the
populace and their power and beauty made evident, and people who do
not consider such things as goodness, love, joy, etc as 'dangerous'
to human power will again embrace them. A bird does not see the trees, grass, earth and sky as enemies
just because it does not have control over them. A Virtuous
person a 'child of the Kingdom of Heaven' as Jesus would have
put it, does not see the network of Virtues (the Virtue Matrix) in which
he or she exists as an enemy just because he or she does not have
authority over the virtues. You do not need to have control over
friends. The term for humans who insist on such control is 'control
freak'. To borrow from the Master, 'it easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a control freak to enter
the Virtue Matrix'! So just to get the whole objective/subjective thing into context
we are asserting that love an all other virtues (and vices) are
objective realities. This means that love is not just a
subjective feeling or amorphous human construct it is sourced in
reality as much as anything else. Think about it. Would life be worth living if love was not
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