It's a topic, surprisingly, fairly absent in most of the secondary (non-biographical) literature that i'm familiar with, but the subject of "love" (however defined) is certainly worth discussing. Any thoughts?
I've noticed that several times you've touched on "strong" and "weak" personality types and drive unification etc. These are areas that very much interest me also. I've been meaning for some time to post something on the "Caesar" thread regarding this (I will soon), since I think Nietzsche often (but not always) sees Caesar as the highest human type for reasons very much related to these issues.
What's your view of Nietzsche's estimation and understanding of Caesar?
The question of the "Last Man", and more generally the question of the future of the human animal was a crucial issue for Nietzsche. One can see, for example, the "History" meditation as painfully predictive on this subject, although it's a theme that effectively runs through all of his work.
Is the accelerating slide into mediocrity and mendacity unstoppable? Is irony towards questions of value, dignity, honesty, and meaning, destined to be our universal fate? Should we care? Will we care?
When you say "like Pascal" do you mean which other Christians?
Nietzsche had a qualified respect and admiration for Jesus, but he considered Christianity to be a gross perversion of Jesus's example, and largely the invention of Paul. Aside from Pascal and Jesus it's difficult to think of any "Christian" he respects. He has a very low opinion of people like Paul and Luther. But, he believes that most of the "real" Christians have remained unknown to history.
Many of the ideas at the core of Christianity (and Platonism) he utterly opposes, but it's largely the sociological and historical weight of these concepts and value-systems that concern him most, and not simply the ideas themselves, as such.
Part of the reason why he has such an interest in and admiration for pre-Socratic Greek culture is that the transcendentalism of Platonism and Christianity hadn't arrived yet, and a more honest, noble and tragic culture was able to take root.
But, this tragic culture wasn't possible in modernity, because most unbelievers were, in fact, merely secularised Christians. Nietzsche is untimely because unlike most contemporary atheists, he took the idea of God seriously. Consequently, he treats most contemporary atheists with contempt.
By "like Pascal" I was using Pascal as an example of a person who influenced Nietzsche. But overall, I mean anybody who influenced Nietzsche and not just Christians.
To simplify: Nietzsche felt himself to be in opposition to almost every major thinker who came before him, so people like Socrates, Plato, Kant, Mill, Rousseau and Schopenhauer and Wagner (to name but a few) all influenced him, but largely negatively, as something worthy of refutation.
He saw himself as belonging among the "realists"; and respected people like Heraclitus, Thucydides, Machiavelli, Caesar, Goethe, Napoleon, Shakespeare and Sophocles.
His main concern was characterological (something that's frequently ignored by contemporary academia) rather than abstract philosophical knowledge acquisition, as such. He is a psychologist of the very first rank.
He was greatly influenced by "Darwinism" and nineteenth century advances in physiology and "materialism" generally. He is very critical of "Darwinism" and its emphasis on adaptationism, but it seems probable that he never actually read Darwin himself and he relied on various (unreliable) interpreters; consequently many of his criticisms of Darwinism are misplaced.
Nietzsche was, in the final analysis, an extremist. Almost nothing and no one is ever really good enough for him. I take this to be a significant character defect, especially for someone who strives to be, above all, an affirmer. But he possessed an extraordinarily complex, many-sided and changeable personality and any attempt at a brief summary of his work is bound to be misleading.
Nietzsche, unfortunately, at times, came to see form, in the organic sphere, to be largely the result of a primordial will to power. This gets us into metaphysics and ontology, but although interesting, it's a dead end.
The basic idea is this: rather than there being immutable (and unaccountable) laws of nature to which matter unavoidably conforms, there are quanta of will to power (the drive for growth, expansion, overcoming etc) inherent in every organic (and inorganic) entity. These entities are effectively power-centres and as they interact with each other, the stronger force converts the weaker force into a function of itself. Forces of approximately equal power often make alliances, and in this way complexity and function emerges and grows.
In other words, he thought that the form-giving and form-shaping capacities were largely the result of internal factors, of the will to power operating through its various manifestations and instruments within each organism. Darwinism, on the other hand, he felt, overemphasised the role that the external enviornment plays in shaping the world. He felt this was too reactive, static and passive a picture, whereas the will to power, for him, was fundamentally an active and encroaching force, seeking to maximise itself at all times in all events.
Everything i've said here about the WP has been very superficial, but the fact remains that there is no scientific evidence for any of this, and, moreover, there are several serious conceptual difficulties with any metaphysical or ontological readings of WP.
The WP as a psychological theory, however, I do take very seriously. Not as an answer to every psychological question, of course, but as belonging, in some part, to our best current understanding of human psychology.
The WP, even as a purely psychological theory, is bound to seem extremely exotic and counter-intuitive to anyone unfamiliar with Nietzsche, and it's very difficult to do it anything approaching justice in a few short posts. If you're interested in the WP I would refer you to the thread devoted to it . . .
Why do I rate BGE so highly?
Like all Nietzsche's works, it contains faults and flaws. Nevertheless, i think it is also clearly the work of a thinker of tremendous insight, courage and honesty.
If you're currently reading BGE then sections: 13, 22, 23 & 36 will give you an idea of his conception of WP.
However, as I say, these should not be treated as pieces of Nietzschean dogma. Elsewhere, explicitly and implicitly, he undermines much of what he most confidently claims for WP, and most of the work on the (no-psychological) WP is to be found in his Nachlass.
On certain specific technical points some are excellent, but very few indeed have any meaningful kinship with Nietzsche's larger cultural and characterological concerns, which, for him, were by far the most important questions he addressed. Consequently, most of these otherwise excellent commentators routinely lie or keep silent about what's most important, and thus my respect for them highly qualified.
Nietzsche himself described his ideal reader as "a monster of courage and curiosity", but none of those currently making a living from his work, that i'm aware of, fall into this category.
I guess we should take the scholars with a grain of salt.
Did Nietzsche ever say something like, "That the gods walked as men is the only answer to the problem of evil"? I heard a speaker quote Nietzsche as saying this but can't find any reference.
For example, "One must come to realise that all life is merely a comedy of vain desire, wherein those who strive are the clowns, and those who calmly and dispassionately watch are the fortunate ones who can laugh at the acts of the strivers. The utter emptiness of all the recognised goals of human endeavour is to the detached spectator deliciously apparent--the tomb yawns and grins so ironically!" (HPL to Rheinhart Kleiner, March 7 1920)
I'm not actually sure how close to Nietzsche's own opinion this comes, but it sounds similar. I think he might sound more like Pascal than Nietzsche.
In the following quote, what does Nietzsche think the "big words" actually stand for? "Towards a critique of the big words. - . . . Christianity, the revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words have value only in a fight, as flags; not as realities but as showy words for something quite different (indeed, opposite!)"(WP.80).
That quotation has affinities with Schopenhauer's philosophy and perhaps Buddhism, but it is certainly not a view that Nietzsche endorses. The quotations seems to suggest that because there is no transcendent, objective and external validation of our desires and goals, these desires and goals have no value.
This is the sort of "logic" that Nietzsche spent his entire life fighting against. Value is created by us, here and now, in the only world which exists. Our experiences and desires are not worthless because they are not eternal and because they lack transcendent validation. This is the kind of anti-naturalness and nihilism that Nietzsche is attempting to dismantle.
"To what end the 'world' exists, to what end 'mankind' exists, ought not to concern us at all for the moment except as objects of humour: for the presumptuousness of the little human worm is the funniest thing at present on the world's stage; on the other hand, do ask yourself why you, the individual exists, and if you can get no other answer try for once to justify the meaning of your existence as it were as a posteriori by setting before yourself an aim, a goal, a 'to this end', an exalted and noble 'to this end'. Perish in pursuit of this and only this . . ."
Or: "There is a time with all passions when they are merely fatalities, when they drag their victim down with the weight of their folly - and a later, very much later time when they are wedded with the spirit, when they are 'spiritualized'. Formerly one made war on passion itself on account of the folly inherent in it: one conspired for its extermination - . . . for example, it is said, with reference to sexuality, 'if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out': fortunately no Christian follows this prescription.
"To exterminate the passions and desires merely in order to do away with their folly and its unpleasant consequences - this itself seems to us today merely an acute form of folly. We no longer admire dentists who pull out the teeth to stop them hurting . . . [T]o attack the passions at their roots is to attack life at its roots . . ."
I'm currently working on the "Last Man, Modernity and Politics" thread, which will address your question more fully, but unfortunately, it's taking longer than I hoped to complete. The substance of what needs to be said, however, is already fully present in the "Nietzschean Psychology and Sociology" thread. The problem with that thread is that it is untidy and lacks structure, and it has these failings principally because I approached it in a discontinuous, ad hoc basis, posting something whenever I had the opportunity.
Consequently, the "Last Man, Modernity and Politics" thread will be different. I will treat it as a self-contained essay and only when i'm finished it will I post it. In retrospect, I should have done this with all the threads. Nonetheless, I don't wish to seem to be avoiding your question, and so i'll offer a brief and necessarily simplified answer here:
Consider:"Liberal institutions immediately cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained" (TI.Expd.38).
Every value that an individual promotes and every value that an individual combats, are necessarily and unavoidably, expressions of the individual's own desires and needs, given his/her own status and the external enviornment within which they must operate. This is not a moral judgement, it is purely descriptive.
In order to survive or prevail the individual needs to ally him/herself with forces and causes outside the self, because without such alliances the individual is powerless. These commitments to things outside the self, to "principles" and concrete states of affairs in the world, are, in reality, the (often unconscious) instruments and shields used by the individual in order to survive and prevail. The important thing is that these commitments are not valued as 'ends in themselves' by the individual, they are not valued unconditionally, however much the contents of our consciousness suggest otherwise.
However shocking this may seem, it is fairly obvious that this is how the world actually works and has always worked. In essence, the traditional distinction between selflessness and selfishness is untenable and refers only to either our conscious self-representation or the intended effects of our behaviour on others. At the deepest level, this distinction evaporates, as we realise that altruism, philanthropy and "selflessness" are actually sublimated forms and expressions of self-interest.
It's important to stress that this is a descriptive enterprise and not an advocacy of vulgar atomistic hedonism or social anarchy.
"It goes without saying that I do not deny - unless I am a fool - that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many actions called moral ought to be done and encouraged - but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently - in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently" (D.103).
In other words, it does NOT follow that, for example "Christianity, the revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth" are necessarily valueless and not worth striving for!
It means that if we value these things and strive to promote them (as well as therefore denigrating their opponents), we do so acknowledging that we have a personal interest in them. We do so acknowledging our partiality and our own personal relationship to such questions. This partiality doesn't in any way render such things as necessarily unimportant or unworthy, it merely recognises our own self-interest in promoting them.
It certainly doesn't mean that our love and promotion of other people and things outside ourselves are a sham and a disguise. Our love and commitment to other people and things can be perfectly sincere and valid. It means only (though it's a substantive "only") that we recognise that our love and commitment to any non-self (be it person or principle) is, inextricably and unavoidably, related to our our own sense of well-being (whatever form that well-being takes). The crucial point is that our loves and commitments can never transcend our own internal constitution and our place in the world, and that this incapacity is nothing to be ashamed of.
So, these "big words" have been the most common means through which the individual has remained unknown to him/herself, to his/her own advantage. (see also BGE.199).
This is a tricky question, so i'll try to be clear:
No, if by "well-being" we mean happiness and pleasure as traditionally understood. "Well being" in this restricted, utilitarian, material sense, e.g., popularity, wealth, sex, health, self-preservation etc, is not what's intended.
On the other hand, the answer would be Yes, if we understand "well-being" in an expansive and inclusive sense. "Well-being" here refers not to consciousness or material advantage, but to the unconscious and unknown biological and psychological factors which determine action.
If we perform any action at all, I would argue, it simply must reflect our contingent and internal (biological and psychological) content and configuration, given any contingent time and place we find ourselves in. Our actions must reflect our internal nature and its external enviornment at any specific time and place. This is often called "Internalism".
Think of the paradox of masochism, or asceticism, or self-sacrifice etc. Nominally, "well being" is clearly not the goal here, but we think this only because we are not subject to the same internal conditions as the subject. Seen in this light, every action is, and must be, self-affirming, whatever its content, otherwise the action simply wouldn't take place.
I think it's one of those topics that, on closer inspection, is, among certain Nietzsche scholars and readers, vastly inflated and over-rated. I don't think there's anything novel about it.
In addition, shallow and egalitarian versions of it have been embraced by many of the "progressive left", in what's been called, rightly in my view, "the slave revolt in epistemology". Intellectually, I think this is kind of usage is utter nonsense, but politically and culturally, it's potent.
How do you understand the meaning of the word "value"? How did Nietzsche define the word? For example:
"What does nihilism mean? That the highest values [God, truth, love, justice] devalue themselves. The aim is lacking; 'Why?' finds no answer. Nihilism is the conviction of the absolute untenability of existence when it comes to the highest values one recognizes. This realisation is a consequence of the cultivation of 'truthfulness' - thus itself a consequence of the faith in morality" (from the Nietzsche Nihilism and Sensitivity thread).
Not sure what you mean here. His usage of the term is entirely conventional. The will to truth was initially (historically) understood as a means through which mankind could get closer to a benign transcendence. The closer one got to the truth the more evident it would be that the universe was concerned with our species in a very moral and intelligible sense.
The reality has, unfortunately, proved to be rather different. In very many ways the more we discover about ourselves and the universe, the less does this knowledge flatter and comfort us.
We have projected values into things that are, in themselves, valueless. Now that we realise that this is what we have been doing, how will we react?
Do we recoil in horror and refuse to affirm ourselves because we lack transcendent validation? Or do we affirm ourselves in a very self-conscious and naturalist manner, free from unhelpful historical dogma? Or, do we suppress the will to truth when it clashes with our prejudices (or become "sophists")?
The glorification of the will to truth was a moral prejudice, because it was assumed that behind all appearance and complexity there was indeed a benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient source. It was rarely suspected that the will to truth might undermine these historical foundations. Now we know differently.
It's a topic, surprisingly, fairly absent in most of the secondary (non-biographical) literature that i'm familiar with, but the subject of "love" (however defined) is certainly worth discussing. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteNarziss,
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that several times you've touched on "strong" and "weak" personality types and drive unification etc. These are areas that very much interest me also. I've been meaning for some time to post something on the "Caesar" thread regarding this (I will soon), since I think Nietzsche often (but not always) sees Caesar as the highest human type for reasons very much related to these issues.
What's your view of Nietzsche's estimation and understanding of Caesar?
The question of the "Last Man", and more generally the question of the future of the human animal was a crucial issue for Nietzsche. One can see, for example, the "History" meditation as painfully predictive on this subject, although it's a theme that effectively runs through all of his work.
ReplyDeleteIs the accelerating slide into mediocrity and mendacity unstoppable? Is irony towards questions of value, dignity, honesty, and meaning, destined to be our universal fate? Should we care? Will we care?
Which people (like Pascal) influenced Nietzsche most?
ReplyDeleteEdarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteWhen you say "like Pascal" do you mean which other Christians?
Nietzsche had a qualified respect and admiration for Jesus, but he considered Christianity to be a gross perversion of Jesus's example, and largely the invention of Paul. Aside from Pascal and Jesus it's difficult to think of any "Christian" he respects. He has a very low opinion of people like Paul and Luther. But, he believes that most of the "real" Christians have remained unknown to history.
Many of the ideas at the core of Christianity (and Platonism) he utterly opposes, but it's largely the sociological and historical weight of these concepts and value-systems that concern him most, and not simply the ideas themselves, as such.
Part of the reason why he has such an interest in and admiration for pre-Socratic Greek culture is that the transcendentalism of Platonism and Christianity hadn't arrived yet, and a more honest, noble and tragic culture was able to take root.
But, this tragic culture wasn't possible in modernity, because most unbelievers were, in fact, merely secularised Christians. Nietzsche is untimely because unlike most contemporary atheists, he took the idea of God seriously. Consequently, he treats most contemporary atheists with contempt.
David,
ReplyDeleteBy "like Pascal" I was using Pascal as an example of a person who influenced Nietzsche. But overall, I mean anybody who influenced Nietzsche and not just Christians.
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteIn that case, the list is far too long.
To simplify: Nietzsche felt himself to be in opposition to almost every major thinker who came before him, so people like Socrates, Plato, Kant, Mill, Rousseau and Schopenhauer and Wagner (to name but a few) all influenced him, but largely negatively, as something worthy of refutation.
He saw himself as belonging among the "realists"; and respected people like Heraclitus, Thucydides, Machiavelli, Caesar, Goethe, Napoleon, Shakespeare and Sophocles.
His main concern was characterological (something that's frequently ignored by contemporary academia) rather than abstract philosophical knowledge acquisition, as such. He is a psychologist of the very first rank.
He was greatly influenced by "Darwinism" and nineteenth century advances in physiology and "materialism" generally. He is very critical of "Darwinism" and its emphasis on adaptationism, but it seems probable that he never actually read Darwin himself and he relied on various (unreliable) interpreters; consequently many of his criticisms of Darwinism are misplaced.
Nietzsche was, in the final analysis, an extremist. Almost nothing and no one is ever really good enough for him. I take this to be a significant character defect, especially for someone who strives to be, above all, an affirmer. But he possessed an extraordinarily complex, many-sided and changeable personality and any attempt at a brief summary of his work is bound to be misleading.
David,
ReplyDeleteAlright then. That answers my question.
If Nietzsche was critical of Darwinism, did he have any explanation for the existence/diversity of life besides theism?
I am reading BGE right now and would like to know why it is one of your favorite of Nietzsche's works?
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteNietzsche, unfortunately, at times, came to see form, in the organic sphere, to be largely the result of a primordial will to power. This gets us into metaphysics and ontology, but although interesting, it's a dead end.
The basic idea is this: rather than there being immutable (and unaccountable) laws of nature to which matter unavoidably conforms, there are quanta of will to power (the drive for growth, expansion, overcoming etc) inherent in every organic (and inorganic) entity. These entities are effectively power-centres and as they interact with each other, the stronger force converts the weaker force into a function of itself. Forces of approximately equal power often make alliances, and in this way complexity and function emerges and grows.
In other words, he thought that the form-giving and form-shaping capacities were largely the result of internal factors, of the will to power operating through its various manifestations and instruments within each organism. Darwinism, on the other hand, he felt, overemphasised the role that the external enviornment plays in shaping the world. He felt this was too reactive, static and passive a picture, whereas the will to power, for him, was fundamentally an active and encroaching force, seeking to maximise itself at all times in all events.
Everything i've said here about the WP has been very superficial, but the fact remains that there is no scientific evidence for any of this, and, moreover, there are several serious conceptual difficulties with any metaphysical or ontological readings of WP.
The WP as a psychological theory, however, I do take very seriously. Not as an answer to every psychological question, of course, but as belonging, in some part, to our best current understanding of human psychology.
The WP, even as a purely psychological theory, is bound to seem extremely exotic and counter-intuitive to anyone unfamiliar with Nietzsche, and it's very difficult to do it anything approaching justice in a few short posts. If you're interested in the WP I would refer you to the thread devoted to it . . .
Why do I rate BGE so highly?
Like all Nietzsche's works, it contains faults and flaws. Nevertheless, i think it is also clearly the work of a thinker of tremendous insight, courage and honesty.
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteIf you're currently reading BGE then sections: 13, 22, 23 & 36 will give you an idea of his conception of WP.
However, as I say, these should not be treated as pieces of Nietzschean dogma. Elsewhere, explicitly and implicitly, he undermines much of what he most confidently claims for WP, and most of the work on the (no-psychological) WP is to be found in his Nachlass.
David,
ReplyDeleteOK, thank you for answering my questions. If I ever read more on WP, we can discuss it deeper.
Is there a Nietzschean scholar you particularly respect or find insightful?
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteOn certain specific technical points some are excellent, but very few indeed have any meaningful kinship with Nietzsche's larger cultural and characterological concerns, which, for him, were by far the most important questions he addressed. Consequently, most of these otherwise excellent commentators routinely lie or keep silent about what's most important, and thus my respect for them highly qualified.
Nietzsche himself described his ideal reader as "a monster of courage and curiosity", but none of those currently making a living from his work, that i'm aware of, fall into this category.
David,
ReplyDeleteI guess we should take the scholars with a grain of salt.
Did Nietzsche ever say something like, "That the gods walked as men is the only answer to the problem of evil"? I heard a speaker quote Nietzsche as saying this but can't find any reference.
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteI've never hear of it.
David,
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft?
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of him/her.
David,
ReplyDeleteHe has some ideas that remind me of Nietzsche.
For example,
"One must come to realise that all life is merely a comedy of vain desire, wherein those who strive are the clowns, and those who calmly and dispassionately watch are the fortunate ones who can laugh at the acts of the strivers. The utter emptiness of all the recognised goals of human endeavour is to the detached spectator deliciously apparent--the tomb yawns and grins so ironically!" (HPL to Rheinhart Kleiner, March 7 1920)
I'm not actually sure how close to Nietzsche's own opinion this comes, but it sounds similar. I think he might sound more like Pascal than Nietzsche.
In the following quote, what does Nietzsche think the "big words" actually stand for?
"Towards a critique of the big words. - . . . Christianity, the revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words have value only in a fight, as flags; not as realities but as showy words for something quite different (indeed, opposite!)"(WP.80).
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteThat quotation has affinities with Schopenhauer's philosophy and perhaps Buddhism, but it is certainly not a view that Nietzsche endorses. The quotations seems to suggest that because there is no transcendent, objective and external validation of our desires and goals, these desires and goals have no value.
This is the sort of "logic" that Nietzsche spent his entire life fighting against. Value is created by us, here and now, in the only world which exists. Our experiences and desires are not worthless because they are not eternal and because they lack transcendent validation. This is the kind of anti-naturalness and nihilism that Nietzsche is attempting to dismantle.
"To what end the 'world' exists, to what end 'mankind' exists, ought not to concern us at all for the moment except as objects of humour: for the presumptuousness of the little human worm is the funniest thing at present on the world's stage; on the other hand, do ask yourself why you, the individual exists, and if you can get no other answer try for once to justify the meaning of your existence as it were as a posteriori by setting before yourself an aim, a goal, a 'to this end', an exalted and noble 'to this end'. Perish in pursuit of this and only this . . ."
Or: "There is a time with all passions when they are merely fatalities, when they drag their victim down with the weight of their folly - and a later, very much later time when they are wedded with the spirit, when they are 'spiritualized'. Formerly one made war on passion itself on account of the folly inherent in it: one conspired for its extermination - . . . for example, it is said, with reference to sexuality, 'if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out': fortunately no Christian follows this prescription.
"To exterminate the passions and desires merely in order to do away with their folly and its unpleasant consequences - this itself seems to us today merely an acute form of folly. We no longer admire dentists who pull out the teeth to stop them hurting . . . [T]o attack the passions at their roots is to attack life at its roots . . ."
The "critique of 'big words'" quotation:
ReplyDeleteI'm currently working on the "Last Man, Modernity and Politics" thread, which will address your question more fully, but unfortunately, it's taking longer than I hoped to complete. The substance of what needs to be said, however, is already fully present in the "Nietzschean Psychology and Sociology" thread. The problem with that thread is that it is untidy and lacks structure, and it has these failings principally because I approached it in a discontinuous, ad hoc basis, posting something whenever I had the opportunity.
Consequently, the "Last Man, Modernity and Politics" thread will be different. I will treat it as a self-contained essay and only when i'm finished it will I post it. In retrospect, I should have done this with all the threads. Nonetheless, I don't wish to seem to be avoiding your question, and so i'll offer a brief and necessarily simplified answer here:
Consider:"Liberal institutions immediately cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained" (TI.Expd.38).
Every value that an individual promotes and every value that an individual combats, are necessarily and unavoidably, expressions of the individual's own desires and needs, given his/her own status and the external enviornment within which they must operate. This is not a moral judgement, it is purely descriptive.
In order to survive or prevail the individual needs to ally him/herself with forces and causes outside the self, because without such alliances the individual is powerless. These commitments to things outside the self, to "principles" and concrete states of affairs in the world, are, in reality, the (often unconscious) instruments and shields used by the individual in order to survive and prevail. The important thing is that these commitments are not valued as 'ends in themselves' by the individual, they are not valued unconditionally, however much the contents of our consciousness suggest otherwise.
However shocking this may seem, it is fairly obvious that this is how the world actually works and has always worked. In essence, the traditional distinction between selflessness and selfishness is untenable and refers only to either our conscious self-representation or the intended effects of our behaviour on others. At the deepest level, this distinction evaporates, as we realise that altruism, philanthropy and "selflessness" are actually sublimated forms and expressions of self-interest.
It's important to stress that this is a descriptive enterprise and not an advocacy of vulgar atomistic hedonism or social anarchy.
"It goes without saying that I do not deny - unless I am a fool - that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many actions called moral ought to be done and encouraged - but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently - in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently" (D.103).
In other words, it does NOT follow that, for example "Christianity, the revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth" are necessarily valueless and not worth striving for!
ReplyDeleteIt means that if we value these things and strive to promote them (as well as therefore denigrating their opponents), we do so acknowledging that we have a personal interest in them. We do so acknowledging our partiality and our own personal relationship to such questions. This partiality doesn't in any way render such things as necessarily unimportant or unworthy, it merely recognises our own self-interest in promoting them.
It certainly doesn't mean that our love and promotion of other people and things outside ourselves are a sham and a disguise. Our love and commitment to other people and things can be perfectly sincere and valid. It means only (though it's a substantive "only") that we recognise that our love and commitment to any non-self (be it person or principle) is, inextricably and unavoidably, related to our our own sense of well-being (whatever form that well-being takes). The crucial point is that our loves and commitments can never transcend our own internal constitution and our place in the world, and that this incapacity is nothing to be ashamed of.
So, these "big words" have been the most common means through which the individual has remained unknown to him/herself, to his/her own advantage. (see also BGE.199).
David,
ReplyDeleteIn the Nietzschean psychology thread, is your main point that all of our actions are principally done for our own well-being?
Edarlitrix,
DeleteThis is a tricky question, so i'll try to be clear:
No, if by "well-being" we mean happiness and pleasure as traditionally understood. "Well being" in this restricted, utilitarian, material sense, e.g., popularity, wealth, sex, health, self-preservation etc, is not what's intended.
On the other hand, the answer would be Yes, if we understand "well-being" in an expansive and inclusive sense. "Well-being" here refers not to consciousness or material advantage, but to the unconscious and unknown biological and psychological factors which determine action.
If we perform any action at all, I would argue, it simply must reflect our contingent and internal (biological and psychological) content and configuration, given any contingent time and place we find ourselves in. Our actions must reflect our internal nature and its external enviornment at any specific time and place. This is often called "Internalism".
Think of the paradox of masochism, or asceticism, or self-sacrifice etc. Nominally, "well being" is clearly not the goal here, but we think this only because we are not subject to the same internal conditions as the subject. Seen in this light, every action is, and must be, self-affirming, whatever its content, otherwise the action simply wouldn't take place.
David,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of perspectivism?
Edarlitrix,
DeleteSorry for the delay . . .
I think it's one of those topics that, on closer inspection, is, among certain Nietzsche scholars and readers, vastly inflated and over-rated. I don't think there's anything novel about it.
In addition, shallow and egalitarian versions of it have been embraced by many of the "progressive left", in what's been called, rightly in my view, "the slave revolt in epistemology". Intellectually, I think this is kind of usage is utter nonsense, but politically and culturally, it's potent.
David,
ReplyDeleteNo problem about any delays.
How do you understand the meaning of the word "value"? How did Nietzsche define the word? For example:
"What does nihilism mean? That the highest values [God, truth, love, justice] devalue themselves. The aim is lacking; 'Why?' finds no answer. Nihilism is the conviction of the absolute untenability of existence when it comes to the highest values one recognizes. This realisation is a consequence of the cultivation of 'truthfulness' - thus itself a consequence of the faith in morality" (from the Nietzsche Nihilism and Sensitivity thread).
Edarlitrix,
ReplyDeleteNot sure what you mean here. His usage of the term is entirely conventional. The will to truth was initially (historically) understood as a means through which mankind could get closer to a benign transcendence. The closer one got to the truth the more evident it would be that the universe was concerned with our species in a very moral and intelligible sense.
The reality has, unfortunately, proved to be rather different. In very many ways the more we discover about ourselves and the universe, the less does this knowledge flatter and comfort us.
We have projected values into things that are, in themselves, valueless. Now that we realise that this is what we have been doing, how will we react?
Do we recoil in horror and refuse to affirm ourselves because we lack transcendent validation? Or do we affirm ourselves in a very self-conscious and naturalist manner, free from unhelpful historical dogma? Or, do we suppress the will to truth when it clashes with our prejudices (or become "sophists")?
The glorification of the will to truth was a moral prejudice, because it was assumed that behind all appearance and complexity there was indeed a benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient source. It was rarely suspected that the will to truth might undermine these historical foundations. Now we know differently.