NIAISERIE AMERICAINE?

One of Nietzsche’s most frequently dispensed insults is his term “niaiserie allemande.” Why “allemande”? The answer is easy: it is because Germany is where he is (I am paraphrasing Thomas Mann). The honest critic does not reach across the oceans and continents to criticize others just so that his next-door neighbors would not get offended in their pampered sensibilities. He goes after his own, like a Biblical Prophet, even though he must know that no prophet has ever been honored in his own hometown while he is still alive… After his death, perhaps, he will be honored, but, in the spirit of our age, not as a prophet, but as a historical celebrity.

Making no claim of any kind for myself, I need to make it clear that, regrettably, I had missed my chance to be a critic of “niaiserie russe,” especially in those reprehensible times, when my homeland may have been in need of such criticism. Having become an American by fate or folly, and probably by both, my focus had to shift to where I am, and so, here I am, blasting… “niaiserie americaine.”

Reflecting on the same passage in Nietzsche’s Jenseits: (11) as in another entry, on The Most Difficult Task On Behalf Of Philosophy, the question must be asked with regard to the world’s most advanced nations, just as it can be asked about all people--- whether they actually need anaesthetics against the uncomfortable truth of life, and then, can they get away with a lie?

On the other hand, to use Nietzsche’s very pertinent question from elsewhere: “Why a will to truth, why not a will to a lie?”

The experience of Nietzsche’s Germany obviously does not bode well for such practice. This is not a moot matter, because today in America we see the same “will to a lie” reaching truly dramatic proportions, even as the day of reckoning draws near. Today’s Lie, within the American national psyche, does not even have the lame excuse that Kant’s Germany might have presented in her defense. The current American lie is not intended to preserve the moral tradition of yesterday. It is invented and perpetuated for the sole purpose of promoting an alien ideology, which is to serve as a substitute for traditional morality, and for the values of mainstream American society. Thus, the intent is the opposite to what used to be German wishful thinking. But the effect may yet prove to be no less deadly, unless someone sets an urgent alarm for the wakeup call: What are you, guys, thinking and doing, are you all out of your minds?

Today as ever, and maybe even more by reason of exasperation, I stand behind these words. I tried and tried to make myself heard, but no one wanted to listen. It is quite possible that even before this book is finished in its shorter version, the day of reckoning will come to this country in a storm of fire and fury, and I shall then keep a permanent sad silence, as for me there will be neither any pleasure, nor any point, in calling out onto the wind: “I told you so!”