🚀 go-pugleaf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 12:38:48 -0500
From: KEVIN.FARRELL1@chase.com
To: <quality@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject: Re: Wordfight at the Kerfuffle Corral


Kevin Farrell
11/17/97 12:17 PM

In reply to this post,

no wonder some people see ISO 9000 as a load of irrelevant nonsense if
this is what you make of it.
I thought this was a Quality orientated mailing list, not a multi
lingual philosophical battle of intellects.

K.Farrell

kevin.farrell1@chase.com




From: owner-quality@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU AT INTERNET on 17/11/97 11:48
      EST


To:   KEVIN FARRELL, QUALITY@PUCC.BITNET AT INTERNET@ccmail
cc:
Subject:  Wordfight at the Kerfuffle Corral


Recently Ms Becky Knight has posted a quotation from everybody's
favorite Uebermensch, Friedrich Nietzsche, to wit: >Here is a quote to
ponder: >"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process
he does >not become a monster"

This evoked the usual amen chorus and perhaps there is something in
this to ponder as it relates to pursuit of quality. Alas, this is not
what Nietzsche wrote in "Beyond Good and Evil, Maxims and Interludes"
which
was

"Wer mit Ungeheueren kaempft, mag zusehen, dass er nicht dabei zum
Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einem Abgrund blickst, blickt der
Abgrund auch in dich hinein."

This is better translated as

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes
into you."

The important difference is  Ms Knight presupposes fighting (against)
monsters and Nietzsche writes of fighting alongside them.  A less
generous soul than I might propound the notion that this complete
translation supports Jim Smith's alarms about ISO9000 more than it
does the evangelism of Mr Goreckte, et. al.

Mr.Smith's occasionally lonely protests evokes another quote from
"Beyond Good and Evil": "He shall be he greatest who is the loneliest,
the most hidden, the most deviating, the human being beyond good and
evil, the master of his virtues, who is overrich in will."

I must note for the record that I am one of those "PHD types" (sic)
that Mr. Goreckte recently subjected to his vulturine denigration who
recalls that Nietzsche's emphasis on death and rebirth is a two edged
sword for those too hasty in citing him. Let me finally quote the
words of a 16th Century English writer as admonition to those who
would adduce the words of 19th Century German philosophers in support
of their 20th Century positions.

Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why so can I or so can any man.
But will they come when you do call for them?

Henry IV, Part 1

Frank Isackson
re:SOLUTIONS
FIsackson@aol.com