There’s only one thing which is more dreadful for humans than fear of death, the fear of life. Indeed, facing with the horror of existence can be causing or involving extreme suffering, fear, or unhappiness. However if you do not feel the emotional necessity of belonging to crowd, to eliminate this fear, you are, my friend, the chosen one. And Nietzsche is the perfect example of how genius and antisocial traits walk hand in hand.
The basic truth has been given that every sane person realize in spirit of Schopenhauer. That is we are living not only on planet of lottery winners, but on the planet of those sentenced to death as well. We have to start something with this. We want the truth, because we want add meaning to existential suffering. Why not rather untruth? – Asks Nietzsche.
What if we all want untruth subconsciously, and we mask it with slogan, that ‘we’re seeking truth’? This is because we cannot really bear the truth. We cannot cope with truth. We pre-decide what we want to find even before we start searching. How many times I’ve heard from my fellow Stoic thinkers ‘let’s follow the method of Stoics’.
In this case according to Nietzsche we already determine what we want to hear, so we tyrannize ourselves by following a blueprint of thinking. Thus the Stoicism is a self-tyrannization. And it’s really stuck in my mind. I don’t even care if you rightly consider me the Trojan horse of Stoic philosophy due to this. But more on that later.
In fact, all sorts of self-tyranny prevent us from seeing the world as it is. Can a critic of Stoicism be Stoic? In other words – can Stoic overbid Stoicism? And the same question applies to all philosophical pathways. Because if we philosophers consider ourselves a ‘seeker of truth’, and we find something which is not in line with our philosophical identity – what we’re gonna do?
We either discart the truth we found to affirm our identity, or we discart our identity for truth. And in this later case we truly ‘truth seekers’. In other words, if we’re talking about Stoic philosophy’ we involuntary determine what we want to see, because we qualify the phrase of philosophy. Or perhaps the Stoic Spirit devalue the spirit itself. It’s enough to use the free spirit phrases. Or even the free is unnecessary, because the spirit automatically contains freedom. Or even the spirit is a pre-decided truth we’re looking for, and I left far from my comfort zone.
This is what Nietzsche pointed out. And this is why Nietzsche is the most non-conformist thinker and the most disoriented as well. Perhaps he is the most misunderstood philosopher as well. He doesn’t use blueprints to think or clichés. I don’t claim that Nietzsche is right or wrong, merely because thinking is incredibly comlex synthetic procedure. There are infinite facts are available, but we have no infinite mental capacity to conclude about the truth. In spite of this or because of this so many deep thinkers come to the same conclusion independently from each other.
The duty of philosopher
The martyrdom of philosopher, his sacrifice of truth. But what a truth? Which truth we want to pick up from infinite numbers of truth? What leads us to that very truth?
Here is the motivation of smart. Every superior human being will instinctively aspire a secret citadel where he is set free from crowd as Nietzsche wrote. Very few are mad for independence – it is privilege of strong. No one is likely to consider a doctrine true merely because it makes happy or makes virtuous. Happiness and virtue are not arguments. Indeed.
And here is the deal. The good is no longer good as common good. If in rare cases the truth of philosopher prevails, urges philosopher to overcome his own result in fear of conformity. The philosopher as a seeker of truth, the lover of wisdom fails if his truth prevails. Which is very ironic. In this sense the philosopher is no longer a seeker of truth but a seeker of solitude.
The truth is useful for them as long as it serves their solitude. One it becomes popular, it loses value for them. Thus they need to pick up another truth.
But the good news for philosopher, and this is a failure of true philosophy as well, the truest truth can never be popular. The truth is the last shelter of abstract thinker. Very few venture there. The motivation of averageness is the opposite. All they need is as much truth as it does not yet alienate them from the crowd.
This is the inferior, or popular truth. For strong it’s only the portion of truth, suiting the taste of the crowd.
But no one thinks this is a voluntary process. The truth comes when it wants, and not when we want. All we have to choose is to accept or ignore. As I get older, I am more and more convinced that we do not pick up truth, but the truth picks up us. But truth about the phenomena belongs to our mind and not to phenomena itself.
Nietzsche on morality
Values do not exist in the fabric of the world, are not out there to be discovered by us. Sometimes he is so keen to there this point, and to stress that all our apprehensions of the world are value-leaden, that there can be no facts only interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche – Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche distinguishes two kinds of morals:
- Master morality: works independently from social and cultural norms
- Slave morality: determined by social and cultural norms
To be honest until the recent past I was consistent in condemnation this interpretation of morality, which is considerably rather moral relativism. But one thing is fascinating in Nietzsche, he is not hypocrite, and the world is not driven by some upper ethics indeed. No matter how the ‘Critique of pure reason’ fills me with amusement I am not a fan of Kantian ethics, nor the Bismarckian obedience. This is what the famous Prussian iron-discipline for. Precisely masking obedience with morality.
You have to be virtues, and stay moral to what? To the nation, to the state, to the Reich, to the Kaiser, to the fatherland, name the monster whatever you want. This is what Nietzsche labels with all rights slave morality. They want us to believe because we want to believe that society we live in is based upon ultimate ethics. But it’s not the case. This is just a relative ethic, subordinated to the democratic taste of Zeitgeist. This is a plebeian morality or rather cowardice.
The slave stays loyal to his master, not because he is so moral, but rather because he is not brave enough to tear his chain. This is not morality. The people do not follow rules because they are virtous, but because they don’t take responsibility to bear a consequences to breach. There’s no value at the bottom of existence. This is the age of weak men. Obedience is loyalty, and honesty is treason.
The social innervenion of spirit of the age is the true moral relativist and not Nietzsche. They are the hypocrites, the cynics, the liars, the cheaters. They are the true nihilists.
Morality is a human invention, ethics is metaphysical metaphor designed to calm our conscience. None of them exist in reality, only good and bad intentions. Yes, why don’t we see the world as such?
Morality and ethics can easily be hacked, as the called ‘secular ethics’ does consistently. But what about Christianity? Modernism is the failure of Christianity. In turn anti-modernism is masculinity in practice. My conclusion is the same, the Christianity wasn’t good enough to prevent the horror of twenty century, and the distress of modernity. Because they choose the slave morality and herd or victimhood mentality over Christ.
The Christianity is not good enough to Jesus Christ, because can’t be. Christians blamed Jews for betraying Christ, without realizing the fact they committed even bigger betrayal. Because they were exactly aware of what Christ offers, and yet they chose the earthly kingdom luxury and pomp over the heavenly one.
And what would Christians tell Jesus if he would return? Like the Grand Inquisitor told Jesus in Dostoevsky’s novel. Why did you come back? Since you didn’t accept the offer of devil, but we did. We have all joined the ranks of the smart. And that’s it. Go back onto your cross.
As Nietzsche said, there’s only one Christian who ever lived, and that one has died on the cross. I’m not that strict, because I’d list even the martyrs here. Only they deserved to be called followers of Christ. Only they can be good enough to Christ. The world is not yet ready to Christ, nor even to Zarathustra, and never will be.
It is the shame how institutional religion was degenerated to tool of secular power. Moreover it was that either from the very beginning. And Christianity failed showing alternative to the state for its followers when they extremely needed. They accepted a protection and support of state which was proven more fatal for Christianity than the institutional persecutions ever have been.
What a religion is, that needs to be reformed? The Christianity ought haven’t been state religion in Rome. It didn’t change the human mentality, but corrupted and spoiled itself. In other words, if Christianity is a cultural issue, Jesus has died on the cross in vain. Christ brought not culture, but redemption. And Nietzsche the considerable apostate or anti-Christian understood the Christianity better than the most educated Christians. God is dead, we killed him. This is exactly the essence of gospels. We killed the man who offered us the greatest gift, our redemption.
We killed the messiah, the son of God, the embodied Lord himself. And there’s no innocent amongst us. ‘Yeah, but Jesus gave his life to redeem our sin’. But it changes nothing. We killed him. And we would do again.
The trauma hates hypocrisy, as Jesus hates agendas and despises conventions. If he will ever return, he won’t be meek and gentle but a brutal punisher. And woe to those who deny the cult of love and forgiveness. The cult of suffering. And the sufferers, as Nietzsche wrote, are higher ranked than clevers, and most sophisticated intellectuals. The experience of sufferers is worth the most.
I’m not better either, I admit. Although I have one excuse, I’m not hypocrite. I became an anti-Christian Christian, or yet worse, an anti-Stoic Stoic, or sinner innocent. Whatever. But I am NOT hypocrite. I regret that I treated Nietzsche as a disgusting toad, troll or a freak. I had no right to it. That was the hypocrisy. Since he was right all the time in almost everything. What he was wrong about, however, was a mistake made in good intention. Treating good intention in contempt is the true hypocrisy.
What is our natural inclination for arrogance and intellectual snobism? I know the truth, moreover only I know the truth. Because I consume only such a news which tell the truth only. I never read lie. I pick carefully and wisely up the source of truth without the possibility of being at error. Because I am so awesome. I know everything, and if I still wouldn’t know something, it’s not even worth to know, because that’s a bullcrapt anyways. I never let a lie distract me.
Like a loser who is desperately seeking self-validation in truth. All women are evil. And I rule out that I was wrong with picking up bad mate, or I let bad mate pick up me. This is how so many find virtue in victimhood mentality. As If being naive victim or fool would be virtues. Like one who empties his bag onto the table, saying, all gravels on the earth are flat shaped. Lo, here is the evidence for this I collected on the beach. That’s a whole different matter he picked only flat shaped gravels instinctively, because he is gravitated towards them for some unknown reasons.
But he is an expert of gravels. He knows the truth about gravels. Only he knows. All gravels are flat shaped. Here is the proof for this. Do you really think you can move him out from his comfort zone with showing a round shaped gravel? No way you can destroy his delusions, because there’s always room for objections. But do not wonder on finding only garbage in trash. If you’re wandering amongst low quality women, you’ll end up picking low quality woman. Because you’re a low quality man?
Let’s return to issue of morality. What a morality, asks Nietzsche. The morality of Aristotle, or the Platonic one, Kantian ethics, Christianity, Buddhism, Stoicism, or secular morality of modern democracy and nation state? Radical leftist or far right wing conceptions for morality? Like seeing the same thing through different colored glass? Through different arbitrary adjusted filters? Do not overcomplicate, just pick one. Perhaps eventually you come to conclusion that Socrates deserved the hemlock. Even he admitted it involuntarily by the way by his obedient suicide.
We see what is not there, what we imagine there, our prejudice about ethics. One already knows what one will find, even before starts searching, because it’s pre-decided.
Will power
It’s better to be alone than in bad company. Only strong are aware of this fact. The weak are social not because they want the best for community, but because they cannot afford living without them. The greatest strength of human species is the greatest weakness as well; to be social. Why on earth human cannot enjoy their life alone? The animal can’t be forced to act against their own nature that God planted into them. But the human animal betrays themselves with compromising against their true nature. As result the animals can be better than humans.
Because the 99% of species are perfectly well alone. The crown of creation is the failure of creation. Do not take me out of content, there’s nothing wrong with being social, the problem is for humans it’s not a choice. And one who has no choice, can’t be virtues, and can’t be strong. The will of power lurks in having choice. This is exactly the essence of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
The extraordinary jeapotizes the herd by their bare existence. Because the whole can’t be whole as long as portion left behind. And the herd animal exactly knows that anyone who is different than him, can only be better than him.
You claim to belong to your family, to your spouse, to your nation, or to any imaginary or real category? Well, wait the moment when your family puts you into state home. You’ll be forgotten within generation after your death. Nothing is personal in nuclear society, but everything is ‘professional’. Everything is outsourced to called ‘professionals’ without your consent.
Strangers educate your child. Strangers take care of your parents. While life is worth living only when it’s authentic, only if it’s amateur.
Do you have will power to have a life? Are you brave enough to be amateur?
Do not miss my previous post and my previous delusion about Nietzsche. Which is still instructive:
Thanks for reading this very unique post!