If nothing got caught, I am not to blame, there were no fish.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
The "Last Man", Modernity and Politics.
This thread will bring many of the points highlighted in the "Nietzschean Psychology and Sociology" thread, which were necessarily general, up to date. Here, by contrast, I will focus primarily on modernity.
Two points before begining properly: 1) I have lived long enough to anticipate, with almost absolute certainty, that my opinions here will not be widely shared. For decades I have asked myself seriously why this oft-repeated phenomenon occurs, especially in matters of morality and politics (see, incidentally, BGE.211 for Nietzsche's conflation of these two things), and my best attempt at an explanation is as follows: I was born into a wholly working class environment. I had no sustained and meaningful interaction with middle-class people until, as a mature student, I attended (a rather posh) University. Why is this relevant? Because almost all opinion-formers on the subjects of morality and politics are most definitely not honestly familiar with the reality, the actual experience, of working class life and people. Hence they frequently lie or innocently misrepresent the working classes, usually, of course, to their own advantage.
The same is true for many celebrated "oppressed" groups, who are now increasingly patronised via the same pious fraud. A great many important facts follow from this apparently mundane and trivial reality. Almost all of my life has been lived in a working class environment, and I remain there still. I know for a fact that most of the Left and the Right are thoroughly and habitually dishonest in their depiction of the working classes, and most of these lies, errors, omissions and distortions, which are routinely perpetuated in most opinion-forming circles, I was and remain constitutionally incapable of swallowing.
The other primary reason for my frequent heterodoxy on these matters is that, not to mince words, much of my adult life has been dominated by failure and unhappiness. This ugly fact, as Nietzsche greatly appreciated, can have profound implications regarding our relationship with "truth". That "metaphysical faith" in truth, which even "godless, anti-metaphysicians" still harbour, that visceral and ancient faith "that God is the truth, that truth is divine" (GS.344); that desire for a "faith, a support, a backbone, something to fall back on", whether it be logic, or science, or "wisdom", or some such similar "worthy verbal pomp" (BGE.230); in short every anti-Dionysian candidate that offers the possibility of redemption, rest, peace, security, healing, forgiveness, joy, love, power, meaning etc; all these states are earnestly sought via the instrument of "truth", on the (false and visceral) assumption that truth is benign and conducive to human well-being. Most functionally successful people have no great need or interest in "truth" because their organism is already operating normally, i.e. instinctively, spontaneously, naturally - successfully (relatively speaking, of course).
Nietzsche, like Dostoyevsky, sees heightened consciousness as a symptom of "disease", as a sign that our organism is faltering and in crisis. I am very sympathetic to this interpretation as it seems to track my own vicissitudes with alarming accuracy. The relevant point of all this is that my suffering would not easily rest content with superficially edifying lies and errors. I had little to gain from assenting to the propagation of these lies and errors, unlike the majority of functionally successful individuals.
So much for a key part of my relationship with "truth".
2)It is clear that Nietzsche offers us nothing deserving the title of "Political Theory". In fact he often takes pride in the fact that he considers such a thing beneath him. "Political and economic affairs are not worthy of being the enforced concern of society's most gifted spirits: such a wasteful use of the spirit is at bottom worse than having none at all. They are and remain the domains for lesser heads, and other than lesser heads ought not to be in the service of these workshops: better for the machinery to fall to pieces again! (Daybreak.179).
Nevertheless, Nietzsche does offer various political, sociological and cultural opinions and analyses, and (some of) these I will attempt to present coherently and intelligibly in order to shed some light on modernity and its most likely trajectory.
Much of what follows will be very critical of "left wing" ideas and behaviours. I make no secret of the fact that much of what passes for the "left" sickens and appals me profoundly.
As a citizen of the UK I do not, of course, mean to suggest that the intellectual and practical phenomena I experience here is necessarily applicable elsewhere. There are no doubt regions of the globe where things are significantly different. Nevertheless, I am sufficiently informed enough to be aware that, in one form or another, variations of the general ideological mendacity I routinely encounter here have a family resemblance to events elsewhere in the west.
This pronounced hostility to much (but not all) of the "left" should not, however, be taken as support for the "right". As far as i'm concerned the "right" essentially means one of two things.
The first is an emphasis on economic prosperity for the nation, low taxation for the wealthy . . . and that's basically it; everything else is secondary. Such stupidity and vulgarity is an obscenity to me and should be forcefully rejected by any thoughtful person.
The second type of "right" wing ideology is perhaps even more vile and stupid. Here some form of often innate, but actually inconsequential, identity is frequently used to categorise individuals and establish the relevant in-group and out-group dichotomy. Divisions based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religious upbringing, social class and nationality are some of the most common forms of this toxic stupidity, and I have nothing but contempt and derision for any ideology which views such things as predetermining quality.
Two points before begining properly: 1) I have lived long enough to anticipate, with almost absolute certainty, that my opinions here will not be widely shared. For decades I have asked myself seriously why this oft-repeated phenomenon occurs, especially in matters of morality and politics (see, incidentally, BGE.211 for Nietzsche's conflation of these two things), and my best attempt at an explanation is as follows: I was born into a wholly working class environment. I had no sustained and meaningful interaction with middle-class people until, as a mature student, I attended (a rather posh) University. Why is this relevant? Because almost all opinion-formers on the subjects of morality and politics are most definitely not honestly familiar with the reality, the actual experience, of working class life and people. Hence they frequently lie or innocently misrepresent the working classes, usually, of course, to their own advantage.
ReplyDeleteThe same is true for many celebrated "oppressed" groups, who are now increasingly patronised via the same pious fraud. A great many important facts follow from this apparently mundane and trivial reality. Almost all of my life has been lived in a working class environment, and I remain there still. I know for a fact that most of the Left and the Right are thoroughly and habitually dishonest in their depiction of the working classes, and most of these lies, errors, omissions and distortions, which are routinely perpetuated in most opinion-forming circles, I was and remain constitutionally incapable of swallowing.
The other primary reason for my frequent heterodoxy on these matters is that, not to mince words, much of my adult life has been dominated by failure and unhappiness. This ugly fact, as Nietzsche greatly appreciated, can have profound implications regarding our relationship with "truth". That "metaphysical faith" in truth, which even "godless, anti-metaphysicians" still harbour, that visceral and ancient faith "that God is the truth, that truth is divine" (GS.344); that desire for a "faith, a support, a backbone, something to fall back on", whether it be logic, or science, or "wisdom", or some such similar "worthy verbal pomp" (BGE.230); in short every anti-Dionysian candidate that offers the possibility of redemption, rest, peace, security, healing, forgiveness, joy, love, power, meaning etc; all these states are earnestly sought via the instrument of "truth", on the (false and visceral) assumption that truth is benign and conducive to human well-being. Most functionally successful people have no great need or interest in "truth" because their organism is already operating normally, i.e. instinctively, spontaneously, naturally - successfully (relatively speaking, of course).
Nietzsche, like Dostoyevsky, sees heightened consciousness as a symptom of "disease", as a sign that our organism is faltering and in crisis. I am very sympathetic to this interpretation as it seems to track my own vicissitudes with alarming accuracy. The relevant point of all this is that my suffering would not easily rest content with superficially edifying lies and errors. I had little to gain from assenting to the propagation of these lies and errors, unlike the majority of functionally successful individuals.
So much for a key part of my relationship with "truth".
2)It is clear that Nietzsche offers us nothing deserving the title of "Political Theory". In fact he often takes pride in the fact that he considers such a thing beneath him. "Political and economic affairs are not worthy of being the enforced concern of society's most gifted spirits: such a wasteful use of the spirit is at bottom worse than having none at all. They are and remain the domains for lesser heads, and other than lesser heads ought not to be in the service of these workshops: better for the machinery to fall to pieces again! (Daybreak.179).
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, Nietzsche does offer various political, sociological and cultural opinions and analyses, and (some of) these I will attempt to present coherently and intelligibly in order to shed some light on modernity and its most likely trajectory.
Much of what follows will be very critical of "left wing" ideas and behaviours. I make no secret of the fact that much of what passes for the "left" sickens and appals me profoundly.
ReplyDeleteAs a citizen of the UK I do not, of course, mean to suggest that the intellectual and practical phenomena I experience here is necessarily applicable elsewhere. There are no doubt regions of the globe where things are significantly different. Nevertheless, I am sufficiently informed enough to be aware that, in one form or another, variations of the general ideological mendacity I routinely encounter here have a family resemblance to events elsewhere in the west.
This pronounced hostility to much (but not all) of the "left" should not, however, be taken as support for the "right". As far as i'm concerned the "right" essentially means one of two things.
The first is an emphasis on economic prosperity for the nation, low taxation for the wealthy . . . and that's basically it; everything else is secondary. Such stupidity and vulgarity is an obscenity to me and should be forcefully rejected by any thoughtful person.
The second type of "right" wing ideology is perhaps even more vile and stupid. Here some form of often innate, but actually inconsequential, identity is frequently used to categorise individuals and establish the relevant in-group and out-group dichotomy. Divisions based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religious upbringing, social class and nationality are some of the most common forms of this toxic stupidity, and I have nothing but contempt and derision for any ideology which views such things as predetermining quality.