Thursday, April 24, 2014

Asceticism and a Denial of Nihilism


I found Nietzsche’s discussion of asceticism to be particular interesting, because the more I thought about it the more pervasive asceticism is in our societies and cultures. Whether it be from people who give up technology like the Amish or the saints who spent their lives on the tops of pillars, every society has a form of asceticism. On the surface it would appear the Nietzsche wouldn’t like this thought, as he is all for expressing strength as strength. Instead he claims "the ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life.". 
This does make sense in many ways. Ascetic people who voluntary give up pleasure usually see themselves stronger than the rest of society, as they can carry on without things that other people consider pleasurable. Asceticism provides a way out for the sickness that we bring upon ourselves. As we struggle with ourselves and the weak tend towards nihilism, asceticism is an instinct that arises in all cultures as a way of protecting life. Asceticism is only bad in the way that it is indicative of sickness. The ascetic ideas of the herd may not be the optimum expression of will but it is miles better than not willing anything at all. 

Nietzsche is also often accused of starting a culture of nihilism so I found it intriguing how he specifically attacks nihilism as a sickness. He clearly anticipated a reaction of nihilism to his philosophy and was quick to disparage this tendency. Life cannot be seen as suffering because that leads to self-pity and nihilism. Reading Nietzsche this becomes very clear. He wants people to take life-affirming actions of the will, reaching out and grabbing power and life. 

Monday, April 21, 2014

The Author and his Work

A few classes ago, we discussed to what extent Kierkegaard's authorial intentions or personal motivations affected our interpretation of the text. I'm generally of the opinion that authorial intention has little to no bearing on the meaning of a text, so somewhat predictably, I was particularly interested in section 4 from Nietzsche's third essay. Now, I think Nietzsche is qualifying his statement when he says "In such a case as this," meaning in Wagner's case, a case where an artist undergoes some sort of radical conceptual shift. Setting aside this qualification, Nietzsche argues that readers should focus on the text rather than the author behind the text (recall his preference for the deed over the "neutral substratum" of the subject): "one does best to separate an artist from his work, not taking him as seriously as his work. He is, after all, only the precondition of his work, the womb, the soil, sometimes the dung and manure on which, out of which, it grows--and therefore in most cases something one must forget if one is to enjoy the work itself" (100-1).

There are all kinds of interesting images going on in this passage, images that have echoes throughout Genealogy of Morals, and I can't give them a full treatment here. But this passage did raise another question that I've been struggling with in some form or another throughout this text. Obviously, as we've all noted I'm sure, there's some pretty racist and misogynistic stuff going on in here. How much of this is just Nietzsche the author, being a white male in the 19th century, and how much of this is Nietzsche's text? If it is just Nietzsche the author, maybe we can "set it aside" (but maybe we shouldn't). If it's the text, I tend to think we can't set it aside. Now, this is a problem I am honestly struggling with here, so feel free to help me out, though I'm not sure it's a resolvable problem. I'll point to one (though we all know there are plenty) of such troublesome passages: "A predominance of mandarins [scholars?] always means something is wrong; so do the advent of democracy, international courts in place of war, equal rights for women, the religion of pity, and whatever other symptoms of declining life there are" (154).

This is really, it seems, a two part question. First: to what extent are Nietzsche's racist, misogynistic, and (I might say) classist comments part or a result of the argument itself? In other words, are they a necessary outcome of the will to power or the ascendancy of the overman? Second: if they aren't necessary outcomes of Nietzsche's argument, how do we respond to their appearance in the text? If they are in the text (which, obviously, they are), shouldn't we account for them in our reading of the text? Even if we could say that these comments are not necessary to the argument itself, can we ignore them in our evaluation of the argument? Or, and this might be a separate question, in our evaluation of the text? I feel like this last question raises yet another question, that is, how do we separate the text's argument from the text itself, and if we can't, does every part of the text need to be accounted for in our evaluation of the argument?

Sunday, April 20, 2014

What is the value of Life according to Nietzsche?

                We have said that Nietzsche’s goal in the Genealogy surpasses that of proposing an account of the development of morality. He intends to question the value of our values themselves (particularly our moral values). The one thing Nietzsche does not question is the value of life itself. This question may be trivial. I am not certain; but the answer will help in our understanding of Nietzsche claims.

                If there is any value in life, then it would have to lie in the will to power according to Nietzsche.  I draw this conclusion based upon his assertion that meaning and/or purpose is only a sign that a will to power is imposing itself on something (i.e. on something in the life). This implies that meaning is variable, as Nietzsche points out. Perhaps more obvious is the implication that meaning is determined solely by a will to power. Thus, meaning does not exist without it.

                Returning to an earlier statement, the value in life must be in the will to power.  In this sense, life is almost—if not entirely—equivalent with the will. Without life, one would not even have the opportunity to will. Inverting the situation, life without a will seems odd. This strangeness is likely just a result of my slavish mindset, yet I think the following question is still helpful: what is life that does not will?

                Plants, possibly animals, and other organisms we do not recognize as possessing a will to power. Would life without a will include the humans of the noble value system? To include humans as such would be to claim that these humans were not value positing creatures, or at the very least, that they were not yet value positing creatures. Hence, life prior to value assertions was simply devoid of meaning.  Taking this into account, life as it is read here possesses a meaning that it never possessed prior to value-positing. This is a simple logical conclusion given Nietzsche’s premises.

                What is the value of life now? I think it can viably be any number of things according to Nietzsche.  We see that a will to power determines meaning. This implies that for every distinct will, the value in life and of every other possible object is also distinct (though they could possess similar formulations). I am not satisfied with this conclusion. I have a more general idea in mind. The value of life is the ability to conceive of things as valued i.e. to posit values. This appears to be a tautology given that value positing is made possible via the will to power… which I claimed was almost the equivalent of life.

                If life is not of value because in it one can posit values, then what is life according to Nietzsche? Is it simply the setting upon which the Genealogy unfolds and without which nothing would even be possible? To make such a claim would be to take certain things about existence for granted. I will not discuss that here.  I think life is more important than this since Nietzsche uses life as something like a standard with which to determine his acceptance or unacceptance of a thing (i.e. life is not simply a backdrop). The Nietzschean stamp of approval comes from those wills (and thus values) which are life-affirmative.


                What is the importance of life-affirmation? I pose this question in the hopes that it will reveal 
something about Nietzsche’s conception of life. 

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Descriptive V. Prescriptie, Slave morality and Power, and Morality, Back to the Future


In class on Tuesday we discussed the extent to which Nietzsche’s work is merely descriptive as opposed to prescriptive, and although I tend to agree that his endeavor is, for the most part descriptive, I think that some of the language he uses to discuss slave morality certainly has some elements of judgment as opposed to mere description. The acerbic manner in which he discusses slave morality as "sickening" and "disgusting" as well as the consequences he attributes to it, seem to be at least as critical as descriptive. So, at the very least, we can say that he is critically describing, if not outright judging, slave morality. Although I agree that he is probably not saying that everyone should, or as we discussed in class, even could, rid themselves of slave morality and take up aristocratic morality, the fact of the matter is that many people have read it that way. Furthermore while I see some value in looking at a text, or a philosophy, independent of its’s author’s motivations its historical consequences, I am not entirely convinced that we should, or even can, divorce a text from its historical and cultural location. That being said, I am still on the fence about these issues, and I invite discussion.

There is one other thing that has been bothering me about Nietzsche. I really liked the first few pages of the first section in which Nietzsche engaged in a sort of an entomologically informed historical-sociological look at the development of aristocratic morality and its relationship with power. Then he moved into a discussion of slave morality as coming from the subjugation of one group within that power-laden meaning system, yet, he failed to discuss the ways in which the slave morality was only able to become widespread as Jews and Christians became more powerful. I mean historically, Judeo-Christian morals did not become culturally widespread until they were incorporated into the institutional power structure via Constantine, and later the economic and political power of the Vatican, and even later the economic and political power of protestant Christians in the US, Europe, and all the places colonized by them. It is not as if slave morality, has any less of a power dynamic than aristocratic morality.

 My final bone to pick with Nietzsche, is that he decries slave morality, in favor of a morality which would allow for progress and the continued development of the human race (or factions within it), yet, in looking forward, where does he look? But backward to a morality which existed before slave morality. Should not, Nietzsche look forward to an, as yet undiscovered, new, type of morality, one which is entirely different from not only slave morality, but aristocratic morality as well. However, I do not know if this is a fair criticism, because it seems like Nietzsche sees aristocratic morality not as a type in itself, not as something constructed and artificial, (as is the case with slave morality), but instead as something that is natural and almost self-evident. Like I said, I am not set in any of these critiques, they have just been floating around in my head.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Bioshock's vision of a world outside of slavery


Bioshock is a game which gives a possible interpretation of what it would look like for something to come after Slave Morality. I will give a summary of its prologue before asking my question.

In the world of Bioshock, Andrew Ryan understands how the slaves have duped the Good. In the world of the slaves, strength is asked to express itself as weakness. The strong are murders, the quick are thieves, the smart are blasphemers, and the creative are corrupter. With this understanding, Ryan had a city built where artists, scientists, and the strong could live away from the slaves and their world-wide slave morality. He calls his city Rapture.

At first, this city thrives with competition, but from competition came someone who would compete with Andrew Ryan. This was Frank Fontaine, a conman. He created several altruistic seeming enterprises in Rapture like orphanages and poor houses, which were in fact all used to create and collect ADAM, a substance with extreme medicinal properties like allowing for genetic re-engineering but is also addictive and leads to insanity and deformity. Exploiting the poor for good PR and medical research, Fontaine eventually reached the point to actually compete with Andrew Ryan for control of Rapture.

This led to both figures fighting for control through propaganda and other means. Eventually Fontaine uses his obedient poor people to stage a rebellion, empowering them with ADAM. These poor people, despite the power they have obtained through ADAM, are but slaves and horrid-looking. The insane artists, doctors, and inventors are some of the most deadliest denizens of this new Rapture as they have the power to make their amoral visions a reality.

Now, of course, Rapture is just a fictional world, but I think one should be concerned to what extent the Masters could sustain their world before one masters exploits the weak, causing another slave revolt, and the addiction to power turns itself against the strong, making them actually weak.

What do you think a post-slave world would look like? How long would it last? Can it only exist as a separate little haven for the strong like Rapture or must the whole world change?

Nietzsche's Jesus

In his Geneology of Morals, Nietzsche identifies the former flawed reasoning of the noble mode of evaluation. He challenges that the slave mode of evaluation, what he would say that we have today, is similar to the ideas espoused by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount ("blessed are the meek, etc. for they shall inherit the Earth.) By inverting the noble mode of evaluation, the slave mode asserts that those who are beloved by God for what the noble mode has called failings and flaws are good because they embody the "be attitudes," listed in the Sermon on the Mount.

But how does this goodness ascend upon such persons? How is Jesus a role model for goodness - or for God-ness, for that matter?

A crucified God subject, as Nietzsche has argued, is fundamentally out of order with the identity of who God is understood to be. The Christian Bible recounts Jesus as having endured much suffering and many mixed feelings about being crucified. Yet he had the free will to take his own "cup" from himself, and and did not.

Was Jesus's demonstration of strength (God) acting as weakness out of order with goodness? With these ideas of Nietzsche in mind, what do you think? Are we misunderstanding the character of God? Or, was Jesus not a satisfactory enough representation of God, or even God at all, according to the "gospel" of  Nietzsche?

Strength Expressing itself as Strength


            I want to elaborate a little bit on a point I made in class on Tuesday. On Tuesday, our resident child molester questioned whether strength must always express itself as strength by bringing out an interesting example: a lion kills his prey but then proceeds to take care of the child it has with its prey, thus seemingly being strong but expressing weakness. The lion has shown the ability to successfully kill prey but does not actually express that ability in its interaction with the young animal. Thus, the lion’s action does not match his capabilities. Seemingly, his strength does not express itself as strength. This example led me to the point I kind of made in class, which is that this example and examples like this really have no bearing on whether strength expresses itself as strength. For if an animal or a person does not fully want to do something that he or she is capable of doing, he or she is not expressing strength as weakness. If the lion does not want to eat and kill the small animal, the lion’s not doing so would not mean his strength is not expressing itself as strength. On the contrary, the lion’s doing what he wants to do is a reflection of his strength in a way. He is doing what he wants or what he thinks is right. If a bird of prey had no desire to eat or attack the lamb, the bird’s not doing so would mean nothing. For an example actually about people, if a person doesn’t actually want to do something that he or she is capable of, then he or she would be expressing him or herself as none the weaker for it. To think of it in a different way, if every person and every animal who had strength acted on this strength just for the sake of doing so or expressing that strength, seemingly all humans and animals would be killing everything they could and destroying everything they could. Then the world would be in chaos, and it might even be the case that everyone would destroy everyone else until there was nothing left. The question of strength expressing itself as strength has to be about more than whether someone has in the past shown the ability to do something; it instead has to encompass what the person wants to do or what he or she thinks is right.

            I stand by this point, but I do have a little bit of uncertainty about it. This all seems to suggest that there is a subject that is desiring or thinking about an action or willing something into action. This confuses me a little bit because a major point Nietzsche is trying to make of course is about demolishing the concept of the subject, seemingly putting these two points at odds with each other. I would try to resolve this by saying that these two points are still compatible because for Nietzsche, there is no free will. Thus, while a person may desire something or think in a certain way, whether he or she does this in a certain way or not is not up to him or her. While he or she might desire to do x, he or she really has no choice in the matter of whether he or she wants to do x. Thus, he or she as a subject really doesn’t have any control over the action. However, I’m still a little uncertain about this. What do you guys think?