willow: "lastly, note the modification to value-preservation"

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willowApr 9, 2025

one of the primary functions my quote posting serves is author-affirmation through pedigree

willowApr 8, 2025

quote posts are like footnotes, and i like writing footnotes more than writing the text itself

willowApr 9, 2025

“author” is intentionally ambiguous here between quotee and quoter (because it’s both). in the case of self-quoting, it is doubly self-affirmative

willowFeb 27, 2025

following me is fun because you’re basically following a curated presentation of previous willow posts

willow @dreary.dev

lastly, note the modification to value-preservation

Raymond Geuss, “Nietzsche and Genealogy”, Morality, Culture, and History, pg 3.

One might think that this way of thinking (and especially characteristic 5) overlooks an important feature of pedigrees, namely that in certain cases the longer the pedigree - the further back it can be traced - the better, the greater the resultant valorization. A family that could trace its patent of nobility back to the 15th century might think that this pedigree showed it to be more noble than a family whose patent went back only to the 19th century. Two distinct thoughts run together in this. First, that what is older is better, i.e. a more genuine or more intense source of value, so that getting into contact with it is inherently desirable and it is just an accident that getting in touch with this source of value requires a large number of steps of succession. The second thought is that the increasing number of steps - the passage of time itself - enhances the prestige or value of the item in question: It isn't that the older is necessarily a better source of value than what is more recent, but the value increases through succession. This suggests that one should perhaps revise 5 to read:
5*. by a series of steps that preserve or enhance whatever
value is in question.

April 9, 2025 at 8:17 AM