(In case the irony of my title is
too subtle for its own good, let me decipher it in the following way. I am not
referring here to some Dumas-esque camaraderie of the four musketeer spirits,
but to the direct relationship between authority and obedience. One authority
for all, all obedient to one…
This is my Jenseits-199 comment,
and as such, it belongs in the Nietzsche section. However, as an entry
on totalitarianism it may also be placed in the Collective section.
Considering that the latter is already saturated with similarly themed
material, the placement of this one here is well justified.)
Totalitarianism runs like blood
through the veins of humanity. Doktor Hegel exposed its mind; the twentieth
century exposed its body. In the following passage Nietzsche exposes its soul,
revealing to us that it is not an aberration of some sort, and not an unnatural
perversion, but, on the contrary, it is the most natural manifestation of the
homo “sapiens” as a herd animal. (Defenders of Democracy, do not
underestimate the herd! The herd is democracy!
Who knew it better than Thomas Jefferson?..)
So, here is the passage,
constituting Nietzsche’s Jenseits-199, and I am giving it here in toto,
because of its tremendous significance.---
“Inasmuch
as at all times, as long as there have been human beings, there have also been
herds of men (clans, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches), and
always a great number of people who obeyed, compared with the small number of
those commanding-- considering then, that nothing has been exercised and
cultivated better and longer among men so far than obedience, it may fairly be
assumed that the need for it is now innate in the average man, as a kind of
formal conscience, which commands: “thou shalt unconditionally do something,
unconditionally not do something else,” in short, “thou shalt.”
Obedience is the stuff, which
makes totalitarianism not only possible but even desirable... Does Nietzsche’s
allusion to the Ten Commandments indicate his opinion of Christianity as
a “herd religion”? In such a case, it should not be surprising that the
idea of Communism has never offended the Russian Christian sensibilities, and
then I must also be right to diagnose as a peculiar case of national
schizophrenia the inconsistency of those American Christians who embrace
capitalism, as if it had been sent to them directly from God, as an expression
of His Goodness, and condemn communism as if it were from the devil, whereas
this whole thing is the other way around…
“This
need seeks to satisfy itself, and fill its form with some content. According to
its strength, impatience and tension, it seizes upon things as a rude appetite,
rather indiscriminately, and accepts what is shouted into its ear by someone
who issues commands: parents, teachers, laws, class prejudices, public
opinions.”
It may be shocking at first, but
at the end it turns out almost a platitude, that the American society, the freest
of the free, is, in fact, a closet totalitarian, searching for someone of authority---
a politician, a cult leader, a snake oil salesman, a dominatrix---- to give
their obedience to, to be commanded, disciplined by… “The
strange limits of human development, the way it hesitates, takes so long, often
turns back, and moves in circles, is due to the fact that the herd instinct of
obedience is inherited best, and at the expense of, the art of commanding. If
we imagine this instinct progressing for once to its ultimate excesses,---
then, those who command and are independent would eventually be lacking altogether;
or they would secretly suffer from a bad conscience and would find it necessary
to deceive themselves before they could command --- as if they, too, merely
obeyed.”
This insight compares to my own
observation that the true totalitarian leader does not represent his own
person, but the totalitarian State, the System, and to this System, even if he
is the one who had made it up himself, he submits his obedient will.
Nota bene: The greatest commander
is he who commands as if he, too, merely obeyed…
End of Part I. To be continued.
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