Do our talents determine what we are? Among other things, this entry is an indirect reflection upon one of Nietzsche’s particularly subtle and thought-provoking aphorisms: “Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.”
(Incidentally, Nietzsche is not complete, when he says that good memory is a hindrance to original thinking, because we can see such hindrance also in bad memory, when we are nearly quoting some great thinker and, in the process, forget that it is his, and not our own thought. Now if both good memory and bad memory are at fault here, what does it say about all other pitfalls in store for the original thinker?)
In the historical fantasy-movie Gladiator Richard Harris’s philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius says to his unworthy son Commodus (who has none of his father’s love for wisdom, that void being filled, instead, with naked ambition): “Your failure as a son is my failure as a father!” In the movie, Marcus Aurelius deals with this failure by deciding to disinherit Commodus, yet he commits a deadly error of judgment underestimating his son’s ambition, and, by forewarning him of his intention, precipitates parricide. In the historical records, the real Marcus Aurelius comes out even more blind and undiscerning and raising some serious doubt about the practical value of all his wisdom, as he is, apparently, content in appointing his insane and unpredictably tyrannical son Commodus as the co-ruler of Rome, to be soon thereafter officially renamed (fortunately, not for too long) Colonia Commodiana,--- one the worst breaches of historical propriety and decency ever.
This little mix of fantasy and history is now directing us to a more general question of why would someone, like Commodus, choose not to take after his philosopher-father Marcus Aurelius, but, instead of gratifying his ego in intellectual pursuits, would prefer physical activity to the insane extreme of becoming a gladiator and a lion-fighter, and in that process comparing himself to Hercules, the strongest, but also the dumbest, of all Graeco-Roman heroes? I can now paraphrase the Nietzschean maxim that opens this entry, by rephrasing the previous question into whether it is possible that many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his physique is too good?
Commodus’ athletic ability must have been well above the average, rousing his self-pride in this particular type of talent, while dimming the lights on all other pursuits, where his skills had not been as outstanding. There is nothing shameful in becoming an athlete, rather than a philosopher, or a man of science, if that is what one is the best at: after all the Biblical Parable of the Talents teaches us to capitalize on our God-given abilities, rather than to seek after other men’s pursuits, no matter how lofty and commendable.
The ancients saw it in the same way. Hercules was never too bright, yet his dimwittedness did not disqualify him from becoming a great hero by virtue of his physical strength alone. Aphrodite’s supreme beauty let her win the famous brainwashing contest, with Paris as the mark, against her super-brainy rival Athena, despite her manifest intellectual handicap, by capitalizing on her greatest talent, her beauty, and allowing it to guide her intuition, appealing to Paris’s weakness, rather than to his manly soldierly ambition, in a situation where even the consummate divine logic was fated to be vanquished by pure earthly lust.
In this context, the question of prioritizing our talents, and taking advantage of our strongest advantage, is coming to the fore, which leads me back to Nietzsche’s aphoristic pearl. One of his best-known assertions is that of the intellectual superiority of the “original thinker” over the epitome of intellectual prowess, that is, the scholarship of the scientist. Are we then to conclude, on the basis of his remarks, that a good memory is a boon to the scholar, but a bane to the thinker? I am willing to admit that this, indeed, may be the case.
By the same token, the future of chess, as a game of human minds, depends on the eventual outcome of the ongoing Man-against-Machine match-up which can be properly likened to a superiority contest between the original thinker, here in the person of Man, versus the scientist, here adequately “personified” by the mighty machine. Even the best human brain, when functioning as a well-organized mechanism, a smartly-designed arrangement of gray/white cells, stands no chance against the much superior scientific memory, contained in the electronic brain of the machine. There is only one way for us, humans, to win, and that is by countering the ironclad scientific predictability of science with the unscientific unpredictability of the original thinker!
…Imagine identical twins getting married and moving out of their parents’ house, to live under the different roofs of their respective husbands. We now continue the discussion on the defining properties of our natural talents, and on their development, under the circumstances of our individual lives. Almost identical in making the same point, that our talents determine what we are, the legitimate reason for keeping these two entries apart is that the first is fashioned as a variation on a Nietzsche theme, while the present one is cooked up, Iron Chef-style, featuring as its key ingredient a passage from Dèscartes spiced up with a pinch of Karl Marx.
Here is that promised passage from Dèscartes' Method, Book I:
"Good Sense, or Reason, is by nature equal in all men, and the diversity of our opinions consequently does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of Reason than others but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to possess a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it."
How does this Cartesian wisdom relate to the famous dictum of Karl Marx: “Das Sein (or Dasein, meaning the circumstances of being) bestimmt das Bewußtsein (determines the consciousness)”? The fact that we do “conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects” can mean exactly those differences in the circumstances of life. No doubt that Dèscartes looks at this matter through a very different prism, than Karl Marx, but what I am driving at is that their two angles lend themselves to “harmonization,” and this aspect is interesting enough, to keep thinking about.
Returning to the different personas of Commodus and Marcus Aurelius, as depicted in the movie Gladiator, the question is, why do bad apples happen to a good tree? Is it peer pressure from other trees’ bad apples, or what?
I will repeat, that peer pressure has little to do with it. Commodus of history was obviously very well-built, and physically fit, which tempted him (insanity a contributing factor, rather than the underlying reason) to challenge gladiators and lions in the Colosseum arena. Had he been less physical, the attraction of martial excellence should not have had such power over him, that he would want to spend most of his time in this particular type of activity. Had he been a physically-inadequate nerd, philosophical contemplations might perhaps have had more charm for him, and he might have even been able to discover in his soul something that would have been more in tune with his father’s intellectual pursuits. Or, even had he been of average built and athletic ability, he might have found more time and pleasure in reading books and in listening to his Greek tutors. But like a talented musician from tender age spends four to six hours a day practicing his skill in the art, at the expense of other interests and occupations, so does the athlete of excellence employ himself in accordance with his inclination. Again, the main reason for my repetitive interest in the person of Marcus Aurelius’s son, in this entry, is that it has a most direct connection, in my mind, to what Dèscartes is saying, in the passage above.
(Incidentally, Nietzsche is not complete, when he says that good memory is a hindrance to original thinking, because we can see such hindrance also in bad memory, when we are nearly quoting some great thinker and, in the process, forget that it is his, and not our own thought. Now if both good memory and bad memory are at fault here, what does it say about all other pitfalls in store for the original thinker?)
In the historical fantasy-movie Gladiator Richard Harris’s philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius says to his unworthy son Commodus (who has none of his father’s love for wisdom, that void being filled, instead, with naked ambition): “Your failure as a son is my failure as a father!” In the movie, Marcus Aurelius deals with this failure by deciding to disinherit Commodus, yet he commits a deadly error of judgment underestimating his son’s ambition, and, by forewarning him of his intention, precipitates parricide. In the historical records, the real Marcus Aurelius comes out even more blind and undiscerning and raising some serious doubt about the practical value of all his wisdom, as he is, apparently, content in appointing his insane and unpredictably tyrannical son Commodus as the co-ruler of Rome, to be soon thereafter officially renamed (fortunately, not for too long) Colonia Commodiana,--- one the worst breaches of historical propriety and decency ever.
This little mix of fantasy and history is now directing us to a more general question of why would someone, like Commodus, choose not to take after his philosopher-father Marcus Aurelius, but, instead of gratifying his ego in intellectual pursuits, would prefer physical activity to the insane extreme of becoming a gladiator and a lion-fighter, and in that process comparing himself to Hercules, the strongest, but also the dumbest, of all Graeco-Roman heroes? I can now paraphrase the Nietzschean maxim that opens this entry, by rephrasing the previous question into whether it is possible that many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his physique is too good?
Commodus’ athletic ability must have been well above the average, rousing his self-pride in this particular type of talent, while dimming the lights on all other pursuits, where his skills had not been as outstanding. There is nothing shameful in becoming an athlete, rather than a philosopher, or a man of science, if that is what one is the best at: after all the Biblical Parable of the Talents teaches us to capitalize on our God-given abilities, rather than to seek after other men’s pursuits, no matter how lofty and commendable.
The ancients saw it in the same way. Hercules was never too bright, yet his dimwittedness did not disqualify him from becoming a great hero by virtue of his physical strength alone. Aphrodite’s supreme beauty let her win the famous brainwashing contest, with Paris as the mark, against her super-brainy rival Athena, despite her manifest intellectual handicap, by capitalizing on her greatest talent, her beauty, and allowing it to guide her intuition, appealing to Paris’s weakness, rather than to his manly soldierly ambition, in a situation where even the consummate divine logic was fated to be vanquished by pure earthly lust.
In this context, the question of prioritizing our talents, and taking advantage of our strongest advantage, is coming to the fore, which leads me back to Nietzsche’s aphoristic pearl. One of his best-known assertions is that of the intellectual superiority of the “original thinker” over the epitome of intellectual prowess, that is, the scholarship of the scientist. Are we then to conclude, on the basis of his remarks, that a good memory is a boon to the scholar, but a bane to the thinker? I am willing to admit that this, indeed, may be the case.
By the same token, the future of chess, as a game of human minds, depends on the eventual outcome of the ongoing Man-against-Machine match-up which can be properly likened to a superiority contest between the original thinker, here in the person of Man, versus the scientist, here adequately “personified” by the mighty machine. Even the best human brain, when functioning as a well-organized mechanism, a smartly-designed arrangement of gray/white cells, stands no chance against the much superior scientific memory, contained in the electronic brain of the machine. There is only one way for us, humans, to win, and that is by countering the ironclad scientific predictability of science with the unscientific unpredictability of the original thinker!
…Imagine identical twins getting married and moving out of their parents’ house, to live under the different roofs of their respective husbands. We now continue the discussion on the defining properties of our natural talents, and on their development, under the circumstances of our individual lives. Almost identical in making the same point, that our talents determine what we are, the legitimate reason for keeping these two entries apart is that the first is fashioned as a variation on a Nietzsche theme, while the present one is cooked up, Iron Chef-style, featuring as its key ingredient a passage from Dèscartes spiced up with a pinch of Karl Marx.
Here is that promised passage from Dèscartes' Method, Book I:
"Good Sense, or Reason, is by nature equal in all men, and the diversity of our opinions consequently does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of Reason than others but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to possess a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it."
How does this Cartesian wisdom relate to the famous dictum of Karl Marx: “Das Sein (or Dasein, meaning the circumstances of being) bestimmt das Bewußtsein (determines the consciousness)”? The fact that we do “conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects” can mean exactly those differences in the circumstances of life. No doubt that Dèscartes looks at this matter through a very different prism, than Karl Marx, but what I am driving at is that their two angles lend themselves to “harmonization,” and this aspect is interesting enough, to keep thinking about.
Returning to the different personas of Commodus and Marcus Aurelius, as depicted in the movie Gladiator, the question is, why do bad apples happen to a good tree? Is it peer pressure from other trees’ bad apples, or what?
I will repeat, that peer pressure has little to do with it. Commodus of history was obviously very well-built, and physically fit, which tempted him (insanity a contributing factor, rather than the underlying reason) to challenge gladiators and lions in the Colosseum arena. Had he been less physical, the attraction of martial excellence should not have had such power over him, that he would want to spend most of his time in this particular type of activity. Had he been a physically-inadequate nerd, philosophical contemplations might perhaps have had more charm for him, and he might have even been able to discover in his soul something that would have been more in tune with his father’s intellectual pursuits. Or, even had he been of average built and athletic ability, he might have found more time and pleasure in reading books and in listening to his Greek tutors. But like a talented musician from tender age spends four to six hours a day practicing his skill in the art, at the expense of other interests and occupations, so does the athlete of excellence employ himself in accordance with his inclination. Again, the main reason for my repetitive interest in the person of Marcus Aurelius’s son, in this entry, is that it has a most direct connection, in my mind, to what Dèscartes is saying, in the passage above.
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