Unless we enter the peculiar discussion of how the truth can be a murderer and how a lie can make a good psychiatrist, we all agree in our common wisdom that truth is preferable to a lie. The trouble is that we have not been able to define “truth” and “lie” with sufficient precision to understand the difference between these two, except in rather superficial terms, which completely collapse on closer intellectual scrutiny. It is a good thing to pontificate “God is Truth!”, but how does that help us tell the difference between truth and lie in the down-to-earth world we live in?
For this very important reason, I propose that we come up with a radically better definition of the two terms. On my part, I suggest that whenever we are talking about sub-absolute truths in everyday life of humanity, we equate these with intellectual honesty, whereas a lie becomes an expression of intellectual dishonesty. In my judgment, this is a far better way of approaching the question of non-theological truth than anything else that can be said about it. Having said that, I immediately have to admit that it is quite possible, and probably even common, to be intellectually honest while promoting an untruth without being aware that it is such, yet I insist that the connection between truth and honesty is the purest that exists, and, even when wrong, one is still closer to the Absolute Truth than the one who “tells the truth” with dishonest intentions.
Getting back to the lethal downside of truth, Nietzsche has no problem with its destructiveness. Like a true Bakuninian, he harbors in his heart a burning passion for destruction, which for him too is a creative passion, while the “idealists,” as he calls them, are cowards, fleeing from reality.
Here is that rather strange passage, both brilliant and bizarre, from his Ecce Homo, Why I am a Destiny, Section 3, which sets truthfulness as the highest virtue:
“Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; therefore, he must also be the first to recognize it. Not only has he more experience in this matter, for a longer time, than any other thinker-- after all, the whole of history is the refutation by experiment of the principle of the so-called ‘moral world order,’ what is more important is that he is more truthful than any other thinker. His doctrine alone posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the ‘idealist,’ who flees from reality.”
The best natural reaction to this passage, I would argue, would be to ask the most pertinent question under the circumstances: What is truth? And here, I am afraid, what Nietzsche really has in mind is not so much that vague, and essentially undefined concept of truth, as something that can occasionally pass off as truth, but not in a semantically challenging context such as ours, where it ought to be introduced under the more appropriate name that we have just given it: that of intellectual honesty. Once we all agree that the latter is exactly what Nietzsche has in mind, there should be no disagreement, either in principle, or in the specifics of the detail, that intellectual honesty is indeed “the highest virtue,” whereas its direct opposite, intellectual dishonesty, is indeed contemptible cowardice, which however does not imply the person’s idealism, but far more accurately, his sheer pragmatism.
But we are not done yet with our Nietzschean quotes for this entry, and here is another one. Having left the term “truthfulness” unqualified and obscure, Nietzsche shows much more precision in calling art “a lie.” To be more specific, Art, to Nietzsche, is “the Lie Sanctified,” and judging from the following passage from his Genealogy of Morals, 3rd Essay, 25, he is himself of two minds about the merits and demerits of this fact. (Curiously, just as we feel that he is on the side of the artist, and against the ascetic ideal, we are reminded that in his choice of the greatest dead whom he wishes to converse with, it is Plato, and not Homer, who gets on his list!) So, here is that interesting passage:
“Art, in which precisely the lie is sanctified and the will to deception has a good conscience, is much more basically opposed to the ascetic ideal than is science: this was instinctively sensed by Plato, the greatest enemy of art Europe has yet produced. Plato versus Homer: the genuine antagonism. To place himself in the service of the ascetic ideal is, therefore, the most distinctive corruption of an artist possible, also one of the most common, for nothing is more easily corrupted than an artist.”
It looks like Nietzsche’s perception of art and mine are worlds apart here. To him, art is an outright lie, while to me art, being creative fiction, is true. This is however a healthy disagreement: it is exactly in such conflicts that human thought receives its impetus.
Once again, while admiring Nietzsche as a free thinker and a kindred spirit, this does not mean that I have to agree with him all the time (or, technically, even at all!). In this case, in particular, he demonstrates a lesser vagueness with the word lie than with the word truthfulness in the Zarathustra passage. Equating “the lie” to “deception with a good conscience,” he makes a useful qualification already, however, he does not dispense with vagueness altogether by obscuring his own qualifier “deception.”
Nietzsche’s invective against the artist corrupted by the ascetic ideal could now explain his angry rejection of Richard Wagner (who was, of course, his unassailable idol in earlier times), on account of his last opera Parsifal, which Nietzsche saw exactly as the corrupted artist’s surrender to religious sanctimony. But it is still hard to fathom whether the good artist’s lie sanctified is a commendable thing to Nietzsche, or a lethal flaw at the heart of all artistic creativity, which, no matter how you look at it, comes in sharp conflict with my own understanding of it.
Ironically, Nietzsche’s supreme originality notwithstanding, his gauche treatment of the artist as a liar has a highly respectable precedent, dating back two millennia; and there can be no doubt that Nietzsche, being one of the greatest connoisseurs of the Ancient Greeks who ever lived, knew about this particular instance, and was perhaps directly influenced by it in the art passage above.
Was Homer (remember Nietzsche mentioning him directly by name?) one of the world’s greatest liars, or a genius who left us nothing but the truth? The latter would be my point of view of course, but Nietzsche’s equating of Art to Lying now finds a formidable defender (or should I say, progenitor?) in none other than the great Aristotle, who (with Nietzsche following in his footsteps), would want to make us agree with the former:
“Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.” (Poetics, XXIV)
Alas, Aristotle apparently does not subscribe to my idea of the Truth of Creation, but I don't mind. At least George Bernard Shaw is on my side, but, at any rate, it is always exhilarating to find yourself in a shockingly tiny minority, defending a premise you strongly believe in… But, well, enough of it, for now.
The subject of art continues in the next entry. Meanwhile, I must reiterate my disagreement with Nietzsche’s iconoclastic glorification of immoralism as a substitute for a failed moral world order, an echo of which can be heard loud and clear in the Zarathustra passage, and rather strongly implied in the second “Art” passage. It is one thing to exercise intellectual honesty (“truthfulness,” to Nietzsche) in order to expose and condemn the hypocrisy of the existing failed morality, but quite another thing to reject all morality out of hand, on the basis of a mere disappointment, or bitterness toward the corrupt morality of the day.
For this very important reason, I propose that we come up with a radically better definition of the two terms. On my part, I suggest that whenever we are talking about sub-absolute truths in everyday life of humanity, we equate these with intellectual honesty, whereas a lie becomes an expression of intellectual dishonesty. In my judgment, this is a far better way of approaching the question of non-theological truth than anything else that can be said about it. Having said that, I immediately have to admit that it is quite possible, and probably even common, to be intellectually honest while promoting an untruth without being aware that it is such, yet I insist that the connection between truth and honesty is the purest that exists, and, even when wrong, one is still closer to the Absolute Truth than the one who “tells the truth” with dishonest intentions.
Getting back to the lethal downside of truth, Nietzsche has no problem with its destructiveness. Like a true Bakuninian, he harbors in his heart a burning passion for destruction, which for him too is a creative passion, while the “idealists,” as he calls them, are cowards, fleeing from reality.
Here is that rather strange passage, both brilliant and bizarre, from his Ecce Homo, Why I am a Destiny, Section 3, which sets truthfulness as the highest virtue:
“Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; therefore, he must also be the first to recognize it. Not only has he more experience in this matter, for a longer time, than any other thinker-- after all, the whole of history is the refutation by experiment of the principle of the so-called ‘moral world order,’ what is more important is that he is more truthful than any other thinker. His doctrine alone posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the ‘idealist,’ who flees from reality.”
The best natural reaction to this passage, I would argue, would be to ask the most pertinent question under the circumstances: What is truth? And here, I am afraid, what Nietzsche really has in mind is not so much that vague, and essentially undefined concept of truth, as something that can occasionally pass off as truth, but not in a semantically challenging context such as ours, where it ought to be introduced under the more appropriate name that we have just given it: that of intellectual honesty. Once we all agree that the latter is exactly what Nietzsche has in mind, there should be no disagreement, either in principle, or in the specifics of the detail, that intellectual honesty is indeed “the highest virtue,” whereas its direct opposite, intellectual dishonesty, is indeed contemptible cowardice, which however does not imply the person’s idealism, but far more accurately, his sheer pragmatism.
But we are not done yet with our Nietzschean quotes for this entry, and here is another one. Having left the term “truthfulness” unqualified and obscure, Nietzsche shows much more precision in calling art “a lie.” To be more specific, Art, to Nietzsche, is “the Lie Sanctified,” and judging from the following passage from his Genealogy of Morals, 3rd Essay, 25, he is himself of two minds about the merits and demerits of this fact. (Curiously, just as we feel that he is on the side of the artist, and against the ascetic ideal, we are reminded that in his choice of the greatest dead whom he wishes to converse with, it is Plato, and not Homer, who gets on his list!) So, here is that interesting passage:
“Art, in which precisely the lie is sanctified and the will to deception has a good conscience, is much more basically opposed to the ascetic ideal than is science: this was instinctively sensed by Plato, the greatest enemy of art Europe has yet produced. Plato versus Homer: the genuine antagonism. To place himself in the service of the ascetic ideal is, therefore, the most distinctive corruption of an artist possible, also one of the most common, for nothing is more easily corrupted than an artist.”
It looks like Nietzsche’s perception of art and mine are worlds apart here. To him, art is an outright lie, while to me art, being creative fiction, is true. This is however a healthy disagreement: it is exactly in such conflicts that human thought receives its impetus.
Once again, while admiring Nietzsche as a free thinker and a kindred spirit, this does not mean that I have to agree with him all the time (or, technically, even at all!). In this case, in particular, he demonstrates a lesser vagueness with the word lie than with the word truthfulness in the Zarathustra passage. Equating “the lie” to “deception with a good conscience,” he makes a useful qualification already, however, he does not dispense with vagueness altogether by obscuring his own qualifier “deception.”
Nietzsche’s invective against the artist corrupted by the ascetic ideal could now explain his angry rejection of Richard Wagner (who was, of course, his unassailable idol in earlier times), on account of his last opera Parsifal, which Nietzsche saw exactly as the corrupted artist’s surrender to religious sanctimony. But it is still hard to fathom whether the good artist’s lie sanctified is a commendable thing to Nietzsche, or a lethal flaw at the heart of all artistic creativity, which, no matter how you look at it, comes in sharp conflict with my own understanding of it.
Ironically, Nietzsche’s supreme originality notwithstanding, his gauche treatment of the artist as a liar has a highly respectable precedent, dating back two millennia; and there can be no doubt that Nietzsche, being one of the greatest connoisseurs of the Ancient Greeks who ever lived, knew about this particular instance, and was perhaps directly influenced by it in the art passage above.
Was Homer (remember Nietzsche mentioning him directly by name?) one of the world’s greatest liars, or a genius who left us nothing but the truth? The latter would be my point of view of course, but Nietzsche’s equating of Art to Lying now finds a formidable defender (or should I say, progenitor?) in none other than the great Aristotle, who (with Nietzsche following in his footsteps), would want to make us agree with the former:
“Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.” (Poetics, XXIV)
Alas, Aristotle apparently does not subscribe to my idea of the Truth of Creation, but I don't mind. At least George Bernard Shaw is on my side, but, at any rate, it is always exhilarating to find yourself in a shockingly tiny minority, defending a premise you strongly believe in… But, well, enough of it, for now.
The subject of art continues in the next entry. Meanwhile, I must reiterate my disagreement with Nietzsche’s iconoclastic glorification of immoralism as a substitute for a failed moral world order, an echo of which can be heard loud and clear in the Zarathustra passage, and rather strongly implied in the second “Art” passage. It is one thing to exercise intellectual honesty (“truthfulness,” to Nietzsche) in order to expose and condemn the hypocrisy of the existing failed morality, but quite another thing to reject all morality out of hand, on the basis of a mere disappointment, or bitterness toward the corrupt morality of the day.
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