THE TAMING OF THE BEAST

(Although it may appear otherwise, this is not another Genealogie entry, but a smooth move from that one to the next Nietzschean work, which is Die Götzen-Dämmerung.)

In an already quoted passage from Genealogie-3-12, Nietzsche remarks that the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our concept of this thing, our objectivity, be. We ought to keep this profound observation in mind as we approach one of the so many ostensibly unpalatable statements he has in store for us, as I do, reconciling my love of Nietzsche with the offended sense of right and wrong, whenever these two are at odds over something downright outrageous that he has just said in my presence.

Both my mother and my father were Russian Orthodox believers, religion and patriotism being inseparable --- not at all paradoxically --- in the Soviet State.

I was raised in a God-loving home, where “morality” was one of the most important words in our lexicon, and the goodness, the propriety, and the absolute necessity of moral conduct was unequivocally recognized and honored. It is therefore impossible to take Nietzsche’s side in his relentless attacks on morality, should the question be formulated as “are you for it or against it?” But fortunately Nietzsche himself provides the solution for establishing a reasonable compatibility of the incompatibles. He does not require us to take the side of Böse against the side of niceness, as Maxwell Smart used to euphemize the word Gut. Rather than taking sides, what he has suggested is to go jenseits, and, all of a sudden, his intention, and the advantage that it offers to us, are daylight clear: he is offering us an “extra eye” to look at the subject of morality, so dear to our hearts and minds. And, of course, the more eyes, different eyes, we may use to observe the same thing, the more complete will our concept of this thing, our objectivity, be. Therefore, we have nothing to lose, but a great deal to gain here, thus paying proper tribute to the subject whose “goodness, propriety, and absolute necessity we unequivocally recognize and honor.”

The whole preceding consideration has been presented to the reader in anticipation of the following passage, which is both explosive and breathtakingly fresh, from Nietzsche’s Die Götzen-Dämmerung: The Improvers of Mankind: 1-2:

“…My demand of the philosopher is well known: that he take his stand beyond good and evil, and treat the illusion of moral judgment as beneath him. This demand follows from an insight I was first to articulate, namely, that there are no moral facts. Moral and religious judgments are based on realities which do not exist. Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena --- or, more precisely, a misinterpretation. Moral judgments, like religious ones, belong to a stage of ignorance, in which the very concept of the real, and the distinction between what is real and imaginary, are still lacking. “Truth” at this stage designates all sorts of things which we today call “figments of the imagination.” Moral judgments are therefore never to be taken literally: So understood, they are always merely absurd. Semiotically, however, they remain invaluable: they reveal, at least for those who can interpret them, the most valuable realities of cultures and psychologies that did not know how to “understand” themselves. Morality is only a language of signs (a group of symptoms): one must know how to interpret them correctly, to be able to profit from them.

A first, tentative example: at all times morality has aimed to “improve” men --- this aim is above all what was called morality. Under the same word, however, the most divergent tendencies have been concealed. But “improvement” has meant both taming the beast called man, and breeding a particular kind of man. Such zoological concepts are required to express the realities--- realities, of which the typical “improver,” the priest, admittedly neither knows anything, nor wants to know anything.

To call the taming of an animal its “improvement” sounds almost like a joke to our ears. Whoever knows what goes on in kennels, doubts that dogs are “improved” there. They are weakened, they are made less harmful, and through the depressive effect of fear, through pain, through wounds, and through hunger, they become sickly beasts. It is no different with the tamed man. whom the priest has “improved.” In the early Middle Ages,-- when the church was indeed, above all, a kennel,-- the most perfect specimens of the “blond beast” were hunted down everywhere; and the noble Teutons, for example, were “improved.” But how did such an “improved” Teuton look, after he had been drawn into a monastery? Like a caricature of man, a miscarriage: he had become a ‘sinner,’ he was stuck in a cage tormented with all sorts of painful concepts. And there he lay, sick, miserable, hateful to himself, full of evil feelings against the impulses of his own life, full of suspicion against all that was still strong and happy. In short, a “Christian.”

Physiologically speaking, in the struggle with beasts, making them sick may be the only way to make them weak. The church understood this: it sickened and weakened man--- and by so doing, “improved” him.”

As I said before, it is practically impossible for a Christian, or for an adherent of a great religious tradition other than Christianity, to accept this ruthless assassination of morality, while standing on the moral ground provided by those traditions. But then, it is equally impossible to make a moralist of one religious tradition accept the morality of a competing religious tradition as well. It is only on neutral ground, provided to the thinking man by philosophy, and general common sense, that such philosophical challenges and dares may be accepted, and, both intellectually and morally, benefited from.

In fact, it is only when standing on such neutral ground, while reading Nietzsche, that we can properly see and address--not the basics of our morality, which are hopefully unassailable in the best of us--but some of the worst excesses of micro-religious moralities imposed on the believers by their crafty denominations.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a conservative Baptist pastor a few years ago about the evils of drinking and smoking in the eyes of some, while not in the eyes of others. Many Baptist congregations, he told me, outlaw smoking as an immoral vice across the United States, but not in Kentucky, where tobacco is grown, and any attack on smoking is considered an attack on an important home industry, and therefore, immoral in itself, as outlawing smoking in Kentucky undercuts people’s ability to be self-sufficient. By the same token, drinking alcohol is prohibited as a noxious vice by numerous congregations across the United States, but not in the State of California, where Sonoma and Napa Counties depend on the wine industry in making their ends meet… Mind you, we were not even talking about the practices of different Christian or Baptist denominations in America, but about the practices of a single denomination --- Southern Baptist, --- which vary from state to state in their definition of Gut und Böse, depending on the types of industries these states rely on, a criterion which has nothing to do with religious morality per se!

So, long live Nietzsche’s extra eye and his daring to criticize those who dare to hide behind the authority of God just because it best suits their worldly purposes!

A LIE SANCTIFIED OR NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

(This entry is a direct continuation of the previous one, even though it may not seem that way at first. But it is Nietzsche, who provides the close connection. Having just dismissed science as a credible antagonist to the ascetic ideal, he finds art to be a much formidable opponent to it. This is an extremely interesting line of thought, and its implications are numerous and striking.)

Is art a lie sanctified, as Nietzsche calls it in Genealogie 3-25, or, as I prefer to see it, nothing but the truth (although not the whole truth)? This is a matter of opinion of course, but, strictly speaking, of philosophical opinion, and as such, eminently debatable.

First, here is the Nietzsche excerpt I have in mind. Curiously, Nietzsche says it all parenthetically, and I am obviously keeping his physical parenthesis intact:

(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.)

Am I missing something? It appears that Nietzsche and I have suddenly become irreconcilable antagonists. To him, art is a lie. To me, art, being creative fiction, is the truth. This is, however, a healthy disagreement: it is precisely such conflicts which give an impetus to human thought.

Is Ebenezer Scrooge, whom I remembered just recently, a lie just because a man by that name never lived, and even if by a sheer coincidence there happened to live someone by that name, it is highly inconceivable that he was engaged in anything described in Dickens’s story? Is Hamlet a lie just because his tale has not been recorded in the annals of old Denmark? I would suggest, using Mayakovsky’s words said on another occasion, that these two are definitely more alive than the billions of factual persons walking today on our planet… So is Santa Claus, for that matter!

To be honest, the truth of some famous fictional character is far more universally acceptable than the truth of the Living God, which argument to the numbers says nothing substantial about the veracity of anything, but explains the fact, perceptively raised by Nietzsche, that the ascetic ideal, or, to put it more commonly, the established Church, does see fictional characters, and art as such, as a threat to its monopoly on truth. Harry Potter for instance has been famously denounced by numerous religious leaders for this very reason and not for the wildly improbable suggestion that his magic can lead anybody away from the true faith.

And lastly here, how should we interpret Nietzsche’s concluding words in the passage above, that “to place himself in the service of the ascetic ideal is the most distinctive corruption of an artist possible, also one of the most common, for nothing is more easily corrupted than an artist”?

There are two general reasons why Nietzsche may be right in his assertion, although the latter must not be taken too literally to heart. One is that the best pasture for the artist’s genius is far away from the palace of the authority, as much as from the crowds of the vulgar populace. It is not the Church per se, that corrupts the artist, but his proximity to power, and the irresistible temptation to offer his talents for lucrative hire.

The other is the reverent nature of religious truth, and here my theory of truth of creation serves better than anything else to explain the artist’s problem. How can he, if employed in the service of an Absolute Truth of religion, be capable of creating an alternative truth, which is in the nature of all creation? In such a case we can expect a paltry shadow of religious truth, a “plagiarism” of sorts, rather than an independent and proud creation of an enduring artistic value.

Such, probably, was the essence of Nietzsche’s grudge against Wagner for the latter’s religious in spirit last opera Parsifal. I can understand Nietzsche’s attack against Wagner’s drama of Parsifal, but, in so far as the music is concerned, music is a distinctly independent creative art judged not by any kind of dogma which it purportedly expresses, but exclusively by the beauty and originality of its expression (in which respect, by the way, Wagner’s genius is supremely unimpeachable!), and in view of such a standard it is totally exempt from the previous negative consideration… And so are the visual arts, by the way! It is only in the domain of the letters that the criticism raised by Nietzsche, and subsequently discussed by me, would apply.

An important postscript.

I have already explained myself, I hope, with regard to my seemingly inordinate obsession with Nietzsche, that the reason for his attracting so much of my attention in this book is the enormous scope of his vision of things plus the fact that, although a bona fide established philosopher, he is so close to being the epitome of a Russian philosophizing Intelligent that it is no wonder that I am giving him a prominence above all others including the majesty of the Holy Bible itself.

Parallel to this, although having no other connection to Nietzsche, except for this parallel, is the question of why I have chosen to give such great prominence to J. K. Rowling and to her creation “Harry Potter”? The present entry is a case in point. In order to illustrate a literary point, I am drawing examples from such colossi of the world literature as Shakespeare and Dickens, and then, rather than continuing with another titan, if the first two have not been enough, I suddenly introduce her and Harry as my third example! The reason here is not that I am inordinately obsessed with Rowling, like, say, I am with Nietzsche, but only to make an important point. It would not have been even noticed had I used an established classic of world literature as my example, but in the case of Rowling, I am making a deliberate and salient statement to the effect that, in spite of her being so recent, and, in fact, even much younger in years than I am (one does not expect this from a classic!), she is on a par with the greatest literary classics, in my estimation and this non-trivial point compels me to make more frequent non-specific references to her and her Harry Potter (such as using her as a broad example of literary work) than to any of the host of established classics who do not require such a promotion.

SCIENCE AND TRUTH

Here is yet another variation on the provocative subject of the truth and the lie of fact and fiction, this time in connection with Nietzsche’s comments in the Third Essay of his Genealogie, concerning the non-factual origins of science.

Ever since my childhood I was fascinated by the fact revealed to me by my illustrious mentors, that science was not based on a scientific fact, but on a belief (Glaube, in German, where, surprisingly, one word serves to denote both belief and faith: I say surprisingly, because the German language, ever since Hegel, who, by his own ingenuity, had adapted the whole language for most sophisticated philosophical use, has shown an incredible sensitivity for highly nuanced abstract notions, but, in this case, perhaps intentionally, had made a conspicuous exception), just like any religion, and in this sense, being one (that is, a religion!), to a point. Indeed, the fact that two parallel lines never cross, which is one of the basics of Euclidian geometry, is not even a fact at all, in modern geometry, but a “particular” assumption, made for certain practical purposes, a “belief” of sorts, a matter of convenience, based on one’s personal preference. So is the modern Big Bang theory in physics, and so on, and so forth.

Although by no means an apologist of religions, Nietzsche ridicules those scientists who aren’t humbled by such shaky origins of their beloved sciences, and put themselves above “religious prejudice” (a classic case of the holier than thou syndrome) as objective nonbelievers in one of his most brilliant passages which is in Genealogie, 3^rd Essay, #24. Observe how he turns the tables on the critics of religions, among whose ranks he was just recently a standard bearer! Here it is, given in excerpts:

And now look at those rarer cases of which I spoke, the last idealists left among philosophers and scholars-- are they, perhaps, the desired opponents of the ascetic ideal, the counter-idealists? Indeed, they believe that they are, these “unbelievers” (for that is what they are, one and all); they are so serious on this point, and so passionate about it in word and gesture, that the faith which they are opponents of this ideal seems to be the last remnant of any faith they have left, but does this mean that their faith is true?

We, “men of knowledge,” have gradually come to mistrust believers of all kinds; our mistrust has gradually brought us to make inferences the reverse of those of former days: Wherever the strength of a faith is very prominently displayed, we infer a certain weakness of demonstrability, even the improbability of what is believed…

(But) strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a science “without any presuppositions.” A philosophy, a faith, must always be there, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist.

It is still a metaphysical faith which underlies our faith in science. We godless men of knowledge of today still derive our flame from the fire ignited by faith, the Christian faith, which was also Plato’s, that God is truth, and that truth is divine… But what if this belief is unbelievable, if nothing turns out to be divine any longer, if God himself turns out to be our longest lie?

At this point, science itself requires justification. (Which is not to say there is any such justification!) Both the earliest and the most recent philosophers are all oblivious of how much the will to truth itself requires justification, here there is a lacuna in every philosophy. How did it come about? Because the ascetic ideal has hitherto dominated philosophy, because truth was posited as Being, as God… From the moment when faith in the God of the Ascetic Ideal is denied, a new problem arises: that of the value of truth. (Genealogie 3^rd Essay #24.)

There are actually two important points for discussion here, as the reader may have noticed already. One is that with which I opened this entry, namely, that science is not an established fact, but a kind of established fiction (strictly speaking, all belief is fiction, as opposed to fact). The other is the question of ‘truth’ in fact and in fiction, and how truth is inextricably tied up with religion: “because truth was posited as Being, as God,” as Nietzsche puts it.

This is a great philosophical puzzle, to which, I believe, I may have found an answer that Nietzsche himself had despaired to find. My geometry example, my insistence on the liberation of God from religion, in order to be One and not to require proof of His existence, my introduction of the concept of God-by-definition, all these justify the value of truth, but not that fragile and vulnerable truth that loses the universality of God is One, when chained to a specific religion,-- all these problems are to be solved when we validate the truth of science not as some disputable fact, but as fully indisputable fiction, and when the existence of truth is also being made indisputable by the categorical power of definition. My two big finds here are saving God from religion, and separation of fact, the lie, from fiction, the truth!

But still another significant comment of mine is the connection between science and philosophy, which in its best form so far I have seen in the first part of my Lecture on International Justice (see it there). While Nietzsche provides in that case too, a useful addition to my thinking on the subject, he is not its centerpiece, and, consequently, that is not a topic for this Nietzsche section.

WILL TO MUTUAL HELPFULNESS. PART II OF 2.

This (Genealogie, 3^rd Essay, #18) has been a splendid multipurpose passage. The first thing which comes to mind is a pertinent comparison with the present day post-Soviet world order. America (as I explained in another place, only as the sum-total of her citizens who explicitly identify themselves as American Citizens, participants in the nation’s majority strength, but not as particles of a minority weakness, or a foreign body keeping residence within the national borders in certain foreigner-friendly communities), meaning the strong, who are “naturally inclined to separate, as the weak are to congregate.” Hence, the healthy (in the Nietzschean sense) tendency toward isolationism, which would have served this nation better, had it been at least consistent, not subverted by the internal contradictions of the weak using the strong on the outside, and therefore opposed to isolationism, while undermining them on the inside by demonizing everything that makes the strong, strong. Yes, America, the strong, not capable of self-isolation and therefore substituting it by an aggressive projection of hegemony, and the rest of the world, the weak, or at least, the weaker, or else the strong pretending not to be all that strong, in order for themselves not to get ostracized, that is, thrown out of the community of nations for the crime of being too strong, dangerously strong for membership in the weak-and-weaker club of nations seeking their strength in numbers and in their aggregate strength. (The pretender, for one, being naturally post-Soviet Russia, who seems to be happy to abandon, or at least to downplay her actual superpower status only as her token membership entrance fee)…

Another observation, which will be incorporated into the Third Rome theme, which follows, is to draw the insightful comparison of Nietzsche’s ascetic priest-ruler with Stalin, both the man and--- even much-much more importantly-- the symbol. This is by no means to be interpreted that I am trying to confuse Stalin with Nietzsche’s… Christ!!! (Curiously, there have been persistent and sincere efforts in modern-day Russia to identify Stalin as a Russian Christian saint, and even icons of Stalin have been painted to that effect, raising some eyebrows, but never condemned as blasphemy…) However, I am free to see what I do see, as long as my image is consistent with his picture, which it is! His priest is certainly less of a God and more of a secular ruler than otherwise, and that is exactly what I have observed, and from which I have drawn my conclusions.

Considering what I am going to say about this, and in connection with this, Nietzsche is very unkind in his description of this Christian type of social organization, where I, however, see a striking parallel with the Christian principles underlying the organization of Soviet (yes!!!) society in Russia, mind you,--- the ideal, the principles, not quite the actual forms of execution in practice. Communism and Christianity, in a sense, are walking hand-in-hand here, and are, as one, made the object of Nietzsche’s contempt. I see the Russian rationale for the Soviet society in this description, but there is nothing wrong with that. I cannot stereotype the Russians as the weak and/or as the sickly, no way, but in the historical retrospect, and also according to plain common sense, all organized societies, all civilized societies contain a certain proportion of the strong and the weak, with the latter, usually, an overwhelming majority, unless eugenics have been introduced and enforced in this society on a scale defying imagination. This Christian principle of organizing the society for the benefit of the weak, so remarkably practiced in Soviet Russia, makes all the sense in the world, because the strong do not like to be organized anyway, according to Nietzsche himself, and any organizing for their benefit is a contradiction in terms. The social task now is how to utilize the strength of the strong, and also how to maximize it for the protection of the community-state, how to make the strong organized, yet keep them happy at the same time. For better or for worse, the Russians have made such an effort, and the main reason why I mentioned Nietzsche’s “unkindness” is that I think that he dismisses or disregards altogether the logic of social organizations in general, too casually, paying no attention to a harmony of sorts existing between such organizations and the Christian communal principles, offered as their model.

It is my strong contention, supported by personal knowledge and experience in Russia, that Russian society, both before and after the Soviet experience, has always gravitated toward this philosophical, strangely, but distinctly, Christian, principle of social organization, making the Russian Orthodox Christianity capable of rising to its stated mission of becoming The Third Rome--- the hope and the future of ‘pure Christianity,’ at least in its own eyes, but this is the only legitimacy, which the Russians ultimately need and seek.

WILL TO MUTUAL HELPFULNESS. PART I OF 2.

There is only one way to ‘moralize’ Scrooge’s redemption, the glorious uplifting triumph of the Christmas spirit of sharing and giving, even better when that spirit extends throughout the year. “This is good, this is very-very good!” we say, and perhaps we should stop right there, because unless we intend to write another Christmas Carol to rival the Dickens masterpiece, talking about this subject for too long is too predictable and, frankly, not terribly interesting.

By the same token, people helping other people, joining mutual aid societies, or simply joining together to seek political and economic safety in numbers is also a commendable undertaking. Only a heartless brute can disparage something like that, and once again, there is only one way to moralize this will to mutual aid and general helpfulness: “Good, very-very good!” we say, and once again talking for too long about such a predictable subject is commendable, but not terribly interesting.

Nietzsche can be called a lot of things, but he is not a ‘heartless brute,’ and he is always breathtakingly and exhilaratingly interesting. Therefore, reading his analysis of the will to mutual helpfulness, in Genealogie-3-18, is a particular challenge which, once we understand what he is doing, leads us straight to the core of his unique concept of Jenseits von Gut und Böse, like nothing else does better. Let us have it then--- in excerpts--- right away:

“…When one looks for the beginnings of Christianity in the Roman world, one finds associations for mutual aid, for the poor, for the sick, for burials, evolved among the lowest strata of society, in which this major remedy for depression, petty pleasure produced by mutual helpfulness, was consciously employed. The will to mutual aid, to the formation of a herd, to community, to congregation, called up in this fashion, is bound to lead to fresh and far more fundamental outbursts of that will to power which it has even if only to a small extent, aroused--- the formation of a herd is a major victory and advance in the struggle against depression. With the growth of the community, a new interest grows for the individual too, often lifting him above the most personal element in his discontent: his aversion to himself. Instinctively, all the sick and the sickly strive after a herd organization, as a means of shaking off their dull displeasure and a feeling of weakness: the ascetic priest divines this instinct and furthers it; wherever there are herds, it is the instinct of weakness that has willed the herd, and the prudence of the priest that has organized it. For, one should not overlook this fact: the strong are as naturally inclined to separate as the weak are to congregate; if the former unite together, it is only with the aim of an aggressive collective action and collective satisfaction of their will to power, and with much resistance from the individual conscience; the latter, on the contrary, enjoy precisely this coming together, their instinct is as much satisfied by this as the instinct of the born masters (that is, the solitary, “beast-of-prey” species of man) is fundamentally irritated and disquieted by organization. History teaches us that every oligarchy conceals the lust for tyranny; every oligarchy constantly trembles with the tension each member feels, in controlling this lust…” (Genealogie, 3^rd Essay, #18.)

And so here’s my point. It is quite clear to me that in this passage (like in innumerable other passages) there is no moralizing, no valuation of the subject as either good or bad. Just as he has promised us elsewhere, he Nietzsche is talking “extra-morally, jenseits von Gut und Böse,” and this is exactly what it is. Now with this in mind, let us proceed with some of our specific comments.

To be continued…

THE DAY THAT MUST NOT BE FORGOTTEN

Today is the never-to-be-forgotten day of one of the greatest tragedies of Russian history. June 22^nd, 1941. The day when Hitler’s Germany invaded the USSR, resulting in the death of countless millions and unimaginable suffering of the Soviet people, yet in the next four years reducing the German colossus to the unenviable status of loser, and Hitler himself, literally, to ashes.

The greatest irony: Stalin’s totalitarianism fought and defeated Hitler’s totalitarianism, thus saving the Western world for its democracy. Who else but a totalitarian superpower could overcome another great totalitarian empire?

There was something about the Soviet national will that brought the German national will to dust. No other nation was capable of this world-historical feat…

How does that reflect on today?

The future of the world depends on mutual respect and cooperation between East and West, and Russia is the key to that future.

Restoring that mutually beneficial relationship is the most critical task facing the West. Let us hope that sobriety and reason may return to the political elites of the North-Atlantic community, bringing a radical change to the policies and perspectives of their elected politicians.

Every great endeavor starts with the first step. So, let this step be a serious and deep contemplation on the significance of today’s date in history.

Meanwhile, may Russia mark this day with national remembrance, great grief, and great pride in her heroic history.

***

 

See also my other entries posted on this day in previous years:

June of War (2011);

Tragedy and Glory (2012);

Seventy-Two Years Ago (2013);

Seventy-Three Years Later (2014).

REASON AND THE HOLY GRAIL OF TRUTH.

Whatever happened to the good old Advocatus Diaboli? Has he completely lost his legitimacy to exist? Are we all reduced to yes or no answers, with objective reasoning anathemized?

One of the worst mistakes of Nietzsche’s critics would be to read his iconoclastic attacks on conventional values as his value judgments of these values, and, whenever he has nothing nice to say about such values, to ascribe to him negative attitudes toward them. In our conventional wisdom we are overly accustomed to equate positive statements with valuations as good, and conversely negative statements with valuations as bad, or evil. However, by his own explicit admission, Nietzsche always speaks extra-morally, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, and having no reason not to take him at his word, it follows that he does not view Christianity, or its ascetic ideal, as bad things. What concerns him most about religion and all dogma is that it uses its higher authority to impose certain definitive value judgments on things that do not deserve (one way or the other) these particular valuations.

The reason for such a preamble to the present entry is that our object of comment is the Third Essay of his Genealogie, which discusses at great length what he has called the ascetic ideal. It is important to keep in mind that Nietzsche is not denigrating the ascetic ideal, but moving in to restrain its power of imprimatur, or anathema, for that matter.

Our case in point is the religious dogma positing that instinct (read: religious faith) is superior to reason to such a degree that only through revelation, an act of faith, is it possible to attain to the absolute truth. The limitations of reason in this case are so severe that, should reason find itself at odds with faith, reason must back off and know its subordinate place.

What follows from this dogma is the denial to reason of the ability to attain to the truth. As we shall see in the following Nietzschean passage, from Genealogie-3-12, dogmatically speaking, there is a realm of truth and being, but reason is excluded from it. (I imagine an army of scientists scoffing, in unison, at this idea, but, personally, I am not so sure myself that the truth is attainable by reason alone, or, to put this even more shockingly, by reason at all!)

But let us now partake of Nietzsche’s exquisitely literate wisdom:

Suppose such an incarnate will to contradiction and anti-naturalness (the ascetic priest’s will) is induced to philosophize: upon what will it vent innermost contrariness? Upon what is felt most certainly to be real and actual: it will look for error precisely where the instinct of life most unconditionally posits truth. It is, like the ascetics of the Vedanta philosophy, going to downgrade physicality to an illusion; likewise, pain, multiplicity, the entire conceptual antithesis of subject and object, nothing but errors! To renounce belief in one’s ego, to deny one’s own reality,-- what a triumph!--- not merely over the senses, over appearance, but a much higher kind of triumph, a violation and cruelty against reason, a voluptuous pleasure that reaches its height when the ascetic contempt and self-mockery of reason declares--- “There is a realm of truth and being, but reason is excluded from it.” Even in the Kantian concept of the intelligible character of things, something remains of this ascetic discord of reason against reason, for the intelligible character signifies that things are so constituted that the intellect comprehends just enough of them to know that for itself, the intellect, they are utterly incomprehensible. But precisely because we are seeking knowledge, let us not be ungrateful to such resolute reversals of accustomed perspectives and valuations. To see differently, to want to see differently, is no small discipline… so that one knows how to employ a variety of perspectives in the service of knowledge. Henceforth, my dear philosophers, let us be on our guard against the dangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a pure will-less, painless, timeless knowing subject; let us guard against the snares of such contradictory concepts as pure reason, absolute spirituality, or ‘knowledge an-Sich’: these always demand that we think of an eye which is completely unthinkable, turned in no particular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces,-- through which alone seeing becomes seeing something,--are supposed to be lacking;-- these always demand of the eye an absurdity and a nonsense.-- There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective ‘knowing’, and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our concept of this thing, our objectivity, be. But to eliminate the will altogether, to suspend each and every affect, supposing we were capable of this-- what would that mean but to castrate the intellect!

Admiring as we undoubtedly should be Nietzsche’s magnificent style, let us not lose track of two things that he is talking about. The ascetic attack on reason is one of them, and it must be perfectly clear to us why faith chooses reason as its target: apparently it apprehends and deeply loathes competition from reason, as well as it recognizes its own inadequacy in tackling matters, at which reason is a much better tackler. Significantly, however, Nietzsche does not strike back at faith, in his defense of reason. On the contrary, he encourages an array of different approaches: reason, instinct, or faith, and what not: “the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our concept of this thing, our objectivity, be.”

But there is a question remaining, sooner or later to be addressed by us, so why not here and right now? It boils down to this: Can it be that the ascetic attack on reason is at least in part justified? Is reason competent enough to embark on a search for truth all by itself, or is such a journey doomed from the start? Honestly, I believe that the ascetic attack hits the mark here: reason on its own has no competence in the realm of truth. This does not mean, though, that truth and reason are totally incompatible. No, reason cannot lead us to the truth, but, having found truth, mainly by instinct, we would not be able to comprehend it without our reason. This little conundrum can perhaps be elucidated by using the following metaphor:

Stating now my position on the compatibility of truth and reason, reason is like an instrument allowing us to break the ore and extract the precious mineral from it, but not to find the ore deposit itself, for which a good “nose,” that is, instinct, is needed…

And lastly, as a postscript to the above, what is the proper correlation between instinct and faith? Religion oftentimes does indeed impose itself over this matter, superimposing faith on instinct as if instinct without faith cannot exist. This is a reprehensible practice, and Nietzsche is completely within his rights, to attack religion for it. I have no objection to the assertion that strong faith may sharpen the instinct and produce the unique phenomenon known as revelation. We know from theology and hagiography, and, especially, from the Scriptures that revelation is in most instances a product of faith. But it does not follow from this that the preexistence of faith is a necessary condition; or that there can be no revelation where faith is absent. As a matter of fact, the personal experience of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus is a powerful faith-producing revelation in an enemy of faith! (We are talking, of course, within the parameters of the Christian faith per se.) Now, what should we call such a revelation in the absence of faith, if not instinct? In case a better word for it can be found, it does not make the word instinct wrong in this context, but only less adequate than the other one, which we may like more, but this is already an argument about personal preferences, rather than about the essence of things. In other words, faith is by no means a substitute for instinct, and here we have the authority of the Christian Bible to prove it!

BAD CONSCIENCE AND INSTINCT FOR FREEDOM. PART III OF 3.

Let us now proceed with excerpts from Nietzsche’s Genealogie-2^nd Essay: 16 and 17, extensively annotated by me both within the text, and following the quote, loaded with deep meaning, and illuminated by non-stop lightning strikes of his inexhaustible genius.---

“I regard bad conscience as the serious illness (the question of whether this “serious illness” is terminal, or only temporary, will be instantly answered by Nietzsche’s own clarification next) contracted by man under stress, when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society and of peace. All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward, this is what I call the internalization of man. (As you can see, I have chosen not to put my next comment right after the sentence-ending word ‘peace,’ which would have been natural, but that temptation has been resisted for the reason that the reader may well conjecture. Yes, we are dealing here with that same touchy subject of the cathartic effect of war on society, prominent in Hegel, and even more explicitly stated in Dostoyevsky, but here, in Nietzsche, receiving its psychiatric rationale. Internalization of man is, therefore, the clinical description of the disease of social degeneration, caused by man’s prolonged confinement within the tight prison walls of peace!) Thus it was that man first developed what was later called his soul. (I cannot accept such a definition of soul, of course, for obvious reasons, but Nietzsche is hardly offering this as a definition of anything. This is an idea caught within the moment of creation, one of those bright illuminating lightning strikes that I was talking about before, and it must be treasured as such. Precisely speaking, we are dealing here with only one aspect of soul and a rather fetid one at that, I dare say… but not with “soul” as such!) Those fearful bulwarks, with which the political organization protected itself against old instincts of freedom--- punishments belong among these bulwarks ---brought about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man turned backward against man himself. That is the origin of the “bad conscience.”

The instinct for freedom (how about freedom in this context, our smart-alecky freedom-lovers, sending this nation’s troops to foreign lands in the name of… ‘freedom,’-- is this river too deep for you?!) forcibly made latent, pushed back and repressed, and finally able to vent itself only on itself: that alone is what the bad conscience is in its beginnings. Genealogie-2-16 & 17.

Here is vintage Nietzsche, terrifically useful for my purpose, and in several ways.

First, how about the theory of freedom? This wonderful passage is an absolute must in all my deliberations on the nature of freedom and liberty, two words too badly misused and made incomprehensible by overuse and indiscriminate thoughtless abuse these days.

To get serious however, the concept of freedom poses exactly the same sort of difficulty that the concept of democracy does: where do we draw the line between good freedom and bad freedom, the freedom which we love and promote, and the freedom we find objectionable and suppress through law enforcement, and such. Not a simple question, not an easy answer. But look at all the Bacchanalia of freedom-loving sloganeering and propaganda around us! It leaves no place for serious thinking; just toe the line and cheer!

But here is some really serious thinking: Nietzsche writing about “the instinct for freedom” in Passage 17. What is very clear is that our professors have been slightly confused, or rather deliberately confusing, about these two things: democracy and freedom. The latter is, of course, a natural force, an instinct, as Nietzsche puts it, and Hobbes in his definition of freedom as absence of external impediments suggests the existence of the same natural law, or law of nature, from which all instincts are derived.

But democracy, as I have already said, is very different. All philosophers agree in this that every man at all times wants to impose his will on others. Which means that he does not want to be left out of the political process. But his will to power does not mean a will to power-sharing. The social contract, or covenant of any kind, to use Hobbesian language, is drawn up for this very reason: to prevent individuals from striving for the same object, leaving them in a perpetual state of war. Peace is bought at the price of every man’s--- except the absolute ruler’s--- deprivation of liberty. Thus, war is a natural aspiration of freedom, and peace is an “external impediment” to it.

Thus, every social contract is drawn to restrain man’s natural ‘freedom,’ but it does not follow that having been deprived of it, he would prefer democracy over a strong one-man rule. Read history books, professors! Maybe you can still learn something…

An afterthought of sorts… Incidentally, Nietzsche is the precursor-genius of modern European philosophy, which, as I see it, is bent, with spectacular unsuccess, on philosophical analysis. But is the disease curable? Thinking “positive,” this remains an open question.

The End.

BAD CONSCIENCE AND INSTINCT FOR FREEDOM. PART II OF 3.

But let us now return to the promised Nietzschean passages, starting with Genealogie-2-14, where the idea of bad conscience is first brought to the fore.

Nietzsche approaches the formulation of this concept through his discussion of the practice of punishment, whose primary function is supposed to be the development of “bad conscience” in the actual and potential perpetrators, to serve as a deterrent against future recurrences of criminal behavior. However, he ridicules the notion that punishment evokes the feeling of guilt, which is the essence of bad conscience:

Punishment is supposed to possess the value of awakening the feeling of guilt in the guilty; one seeks in it the actual instrumentum of that psychical reaction called “bad conscience, sting of conscience.” Thus one misunderstands psychology. It is precisely among criminals and convicts that bad conscience, the sting of conscience is extremely rare. Generally speaking, punishment makes men hard and cold, it concentrates, it sharpens the feeling of alienation, and it strengthens the power of resistance. We must not underrate the extent to which the sight of the judicial and executive procedures prevents the criminal from considering his deed reprehensible; for he sees exactly the same kind of actions practiced in the service of justice and approved of with good conscience: spying, deception, bribery, setting traps, etc… practiced as a matter of principle and without even emotion to excuse them.

The bad conscience, this most uncanny and most interesting plant of our earthly vegetation, did not grow on this soil…

It is fascinating, that the above passage may be easily misconstrued to be in total contradiction with what I was saying about Raskolnikov’s freedom circle, catalyzed by bad conscience, as if in Nietzsche’s mind the two are incompatible. The real question here is that of precedence and consequence, of cause and effect. I completely agree with Nietzsche’s psychological assertion that punishment, as long as it is a result of the failure, on the part of the perpetrator of the crime, to escape the law, makes men hard and cold. There is a strong element of sports competition in the cat and mouse game between the robbers and the cops, and this element imposes its own parameters on the crime and punishment situation, causing deep resentment and creating an insurmountable obstacle to repentance in the heart and the mind of the criminal, as long as he can perceive himself as the loser in this game. The secret of Raskolnikov’s triumph of bad conscience was that he had won the game in the first place and then threw it all to the loser, accentuating the fact that his act of repentance was not from a position of weakness of the loser, but clearly from the position of strength. Only under such conditions is the true bad conscience, and the ensuing liberation through repentance, at all possible.

Let us now continue with Nietzsche’s Genealogie-2-15, as promised, because what this passage says, is of great interest and importance, both in general terms and to our discussion.

This fact once came insidiously into the mind of Spinoza when one afternoon he mused on the question of what really remained to him of the famous morsus conscientiae, he, who had banished good and evil to the realm of human imagination and had defended the honor of his “free” God against those blasphemers who asserted that God effected all things ‘sub ratione boni.’ (“But that would mean making God subject to fate, and it would surely be the greatest of all absurdities!”) The world, for Spinoza, had returned to that state of innocence, in which it had lain before the invention of the “bad conscience”: what, then, had become of the morsus conscientiae?

‘The opposite of gaudium,’ he finally said to himself, ‘a sadness, accompanied by the recollection of a past event that flouted all of our expectations.’ Mischief-makers overtaken by punishments have for thousands of years felt, in respect of their transgressions, just as Spinoza did: ‘here something has unexpectedly gone wrong,’ and not ‘I ought not to have done that.’ They submitted to punishment as one submits to an illness or to a misfortune or to death, with that stout-hearted fatalism without rebellion through which the Russians for example still have an advantage over us Westerners in dealing with life.

If there existed any criticism of the deed in those days, it was prudence that criticized the deed. Punishment tames men, but it does not make them “better.” One might with more justice assert the opposite.

Here is the thrust of Nietzsche’s brilliant challenge that morality is incompatible with freedom. Assigning Spinoza to buttress his cause, he claims that the concepts of good (thou shalt) and evil (thou shalt not) are restrictive to freedom, which compels him to go Jenseits von Gut und Böse, where he apparently joins God Himself. He is right, of course, in correctly characterizing Russian fatalism as a philosophical recognition of the inevitable, but he has failed to find a key to the essence of the Russian attitude to crime and punishment, which I hopefully elucidated with some adequacy in my previous comment.

To be continued…

BAD CONSCIENCE AND INSTINCT FOR FREEDOM. PART I OF 3.

There are perhaps too many obscure places in my entry, I am afraid,--- all demanding an elucidation. However, I shall leave them unelucidated, as a sort of challenge to the readers to find the key by their own devices. In one case only shall I provide an elucidation. "Neat German precision" in the second paragraph seems totally out of place, as the context is not even about Nietzsche, but about a consummately Russian masterpiece of a shining genius of Russian literature, the writer most admired by Nietzsche himself -- Fedor Dostoyevsky. So, what is the meaning then of “neat German precision ”? In fact, this is a Russian idiomatic expression (the literal translation would be “clean German workmanship”) which signifies a very high level of workmanship, and it is usually conferred on a Russian master craftsman and artist. (Who ever said that the Russians were xenophobic? They do appreciate what is best in foreign cultures and consider themselves the last repository of Western Civilization. Peter the Great was a great example of a Russian patriot respecting foreign achievements and avidly learning from the West for the greater glory of Mother Russia.)

***

This rather complicated entry with an honestly inscrutable title strings together a number of passages from Nietzsche’s Second Essay (Guilt, Bad Conscience and the Like) of Zur Genealogie der Moral. The bulk of this entry centers around (16) and (17), but (14) and (15) are leading up to these ‘paragraphs,’ particularly in articulating the Nietzschean concept of bad conscience, which we cannot do without. It is therefore with bad conscience that we ought to start off our entry, but, instead, I feel compelled to launch the following Russian preamble:

Leaving aside all definitions, and guided by instinct only, we can construe the meanings of the two parts in the title with sufficient accuracy of approximation, to venture that we know exactly what ‘bad conscience’ and ‘instinct for freedom’ are, and that these two come together with a neat ‘German’ precision in the matter of the Crime and Punishment of Fedor Dostoyevsky’s Fedor Raskolnikov, namely, in instinct for freedom being the actual cause of Raskolnikov’s crime, the crime becoming the actual cause of bad conscience, the latter suppressing ‘instinct for freedom,’ the latter seeking to be released through the repentance, admission of guilt, and punishment, thus completing the circle of freedom, which, as we find out, could not have been completed without a bad conscience, to start with!

Having said that, let us see how Nietzsche, somewhat differently, approaches and handles the subject that, we must acknowledge, does not focus on, or even mention Raskolnikov, but is entirely of his own making, although his notable reference to the Russian "fatalism without rebellion," in Genealogie-2-15, suggests that Dostoyevsky may not have been entirely off Nietzsche's mind...

To be continued…

COMMUNITY TYPES AND THEIR CONCEPTS OF JUSTICE

We are moving next to two back-to-back segments (2^nd Essay: #9 & #10) in Nietzsche’s Zur Genealogie der Moral, where he offers his take on the evolution of the concept of justice as a function of the growing power of the community. Curiously, he talks of this as a diachronic horizontal progress within the same community (I am using my own, and not Nietzsche’s, terminology here), but his theory starts making much more sense, and even reveals a remarkable prophetic gift on his part, only when we regard the switch from #9 to #10 as two alternative routes of progress, taken by the two ideologically divergent community types, corresponding to the totalitarian and the modern European models.

The first of these two segments is very appropriately discussed in the entry Understanding Stalinism (in my Collective section), to which I am directing the reader for the details. Here however is the segment in point, followed by my commentary.

“Still retaining the criteria of prehistory (this prehistory is in any case present in all ages, or may always reappear), the community, too, stands to its members in that same vital basic relation, that of the creditor to his debtors. One lives in a community, enjoys the advantages of a communality… dwells protected, cared for, in peace and trustfulness, without fear of certain injuries and hostile acts to which the man outside, the ‘man without peace’ is exposed... since one has bound and pledged oneself to the community precisely with a view to injuries and hostile acts. What will happen if this pledge is broken? The community, disappointed creditor, will get what repayment it can, one may depend on that. The direct harm, caused by the culprit, is here a minor matter. The lawbreaker is a breaker of his contract and his word with the whole, in respect to the benefits and comforts of communal life of which he has hitherto had a share; the lawbreaker is a debtor who has not merely failed to make good the advantages and advanced payments bestowed on him, but has actually attacked his creditor: therefore he is not only deprived henceforth of all these advantages, which is fair,--- he is also reminded what these benefits are really worth. The wrath of a disappointed creditor, the community throws him back into the savage and outlaw state against which he has hitherto been protected, and now every kind of hostility may be vented upon him. Punishment at this level of civilization is simply a copy of the normal attitude toward a hated, disarmed, prostrated enemy, who has lost not only every right and protection, but all hope of quarter as well... Vae victis!” (Genealogy of Morals, 2^nd Essay, Section 9.)

The “community” in this segment closely corresponds to the Stalinist State, and the infamous mass purges of the 1930’s and of other times are in effect rationalized. It does not matter how serious the crime committed by the individual is, in terms of the actual harm done (it can be an “innocent” act of adultery by mutual consent, which not only is non-punishable, but openly tolerated as acceptable, or even normal behavior in modern free societies), but the serious nature of the offense is established ipso facto, when the offending individual breaks his or her pledge to the community as a whole. The grave crime committed here is not so much the particular offense by the individual, whatever that may have been, as the generalized offense of pledge-breaking, which constitutes an act of betrayal perpetrated by the individual against society, and must be therefore severely punished as no less than treason.

Moving now to Nietzsche’s #10, it is hard for me to see an evolutionary development within the community which I have previously identified as a Stalinist-type society, leading to the following reinterpretation of the concept of justice:

“As its power increases, a community ceases to take the individual’s transgressions so seriously. because they can no longer be considered as dangerous and destructive to the whole as they were formerly: the malefactor is no longer “set beyond the pale of peace” and thrust out; universal anger may no longer be vented upon him as unrestrainedly as before -- on the contrary, the whole from now on carefully defends the malefactor against this anger and takes him under its protection. As the power and self-confidence of the community grow, the penal law always becomes more moderate. ‘The creditor’ always becomes more humane to the extent that he has grown richer; finally, how much injury he can endure without suffering from it becomes the actual measure of his wealth. It is not unthinkable that a society might attain such a consciousness of power that it could allow itself the noblest luxury possible to it: letting those who harm it go unpunished. This self-overcoming of justice: mercy, remains the privilege of the most powerful man, or better, his -- beyond the law.” ( Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, 2^nd Essay, Section 10.)

In this amazing segment, Nietzsche is making a prophetic leap from the totalitarian society of the twentieth century to the free society of the twentieth century, as represented by modern Europe. Yes, this is not some evolutionary change of the one into the other (to believe that such a thing is possible is to indulge in a large dose of wishful thinking), but an analysis of a separate branch of society, whose main tree trunk is known as Western Civilization.

One can argue, of course, that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, both totalitarian states, have evolved into the type of modern European community, which makes Nietzsche’s evolutionary scenario perfectly accurate. It is not a correct kind of reasoning, however. Nietzsche’s main condition of such an evolution (“as its power increases…”) has not been met by these formerly totalitarian communities. Their power had not increased at all: in fact, these nations were overwhelmingly defeated in World War Two, and their subsequent manner of development was not a natural result of their increase in power, but rather, it was imposed on the defeated enemies by the victor nations of the West.

There was only one totalitarian victor in WWII, and that was Russia. If we wish to study the evolution of an authentic totalitarian state, we must study the evolution of Russia, first and foremost. Except that her history has not been written yet: it is still in the making. But, honestly, I see no reason to expect her abandonment of the historical Russian totalitarian model in favor of the modern European model, except in producing a few whiffs of smokescreen to convince the West that Russia and Europe have not been all that far apart, after all, in this new age of mass communications, “media power,” and the miracle of the Internet.

BEYOND THE POETRY OF NOSCE TE IPSUM

Our next Nietzschean work is Zur Genealogie der Moral, and I start with a comment on its Preface.

Contemplating Nietzsche’s philosophy, we must never underestimate its poetic power. But falling under the spell of his poetry, we must never forget the depth of philosophy in those poetic waters. Nietzsche is a true philosopher poet.

This fairly self-evident observation has already been made on more than one occasion, but never has it been more apposite than as we are reading Nietzsche’s Preface to his most ‘traditional’ (if this term can possibly be applied to Nietzsche), in the sense of most resembling a standard work of professional philosophy, opus: Zur Genealogie der Moral. The first section of the Preface is a richly poetic variation on the ancient Greek saying of unaccredited origin, best known in its Latin translation as nosce te ipsum, know thyself.

Here is that first section in toto:

We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge, and with good reason. We’ve never sought ourselves, ---how could it happen that that we should ever find ourselves? It has rightly been said: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” [Matthew 6:21]; our treasure is where the beehives of our knowledge are. We are constantly making for them, being by nature winged creatures and honey-gatherers of the spirit; there is one thing alone we really care about from the heart--- “bringing something home.” Whatever else there is in life, so-called “experiences”- which of us has sufficient earnestness for them? Or sufficient time? Present experience has, I am afraid, always found us “absent-minded”: we cannot give our hearts to it, not even our ears! Rather, as one divinely preoccupied and immersed in himself into whose ear the bell has just boomed with all its strength the twelve beats of noon suddenly starts up and asks himself “what really was that which struck?” so we sometimes rub our ears afterward and ask, utterly surprised and disconcerted, “what really was that which we have just experienced?” and moreover: “who are we really?” and afterward as aforesaid, count the twelve trembling bell-strokes of our experience, our life, our being--- and alas! miscount them.--- So we are necessarily strangers to ourselves, we do not comprehend ourselves, we have to misunderstand ourselves, for us the law “Each is furthest from himself” applies to all eternity--- we are not men of knowledge with respect to ourselves. (Nietzsche: Preface to Zur Genealogie der Moral, July 1887. Translator: Walter Kaufmann.)

It is eminently commendable, particularly with such breathtakingly poetic expressiveness, to comment on our lack of self-knowledge, but as long as we stay with the mere admonition “nosce te ipsum” without explaining why it is so necessary to “know ourselves,” our admonition falls flat. It is difficult enough to start knowing ourselves, in the first place, but without knowing why it is virtually impossible.

And Nietzsche does not disappoint us on that account. Why should he start his Preface to the Genealogy of Morals with the poetry of nosce te ipsum, unless he wanted to move beyond the poetry to the philosophy of it. His answer is now obvious and exciting: we are not competent at all to talk about the origins of morality, unless we look for these origins within us, and only then project our findings on the outside world and society.

It is only bearing this in mind that Nietzsche’s Preface in its totality starts making complete sense, and now we have our answer.