Response to Daybreak I Comment
Having just got back from Chicago I wrote up a rushed response to sid's comment on my first analysis of Daybreak. I realized it was way too long for the comment section, so here it is as a post. Refer back to the prior post and comment here.
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Everything that would make up my response can be said in the following, which I believe I have used on this site before:
"The magnitude of a 'progress' is gauged by the greatness of the sacrifice that it requires: humanity as a mass sacrificed to the prosperity of the one stronger species of Man-that would be a progress." (On the Genealogy of Morals, essay 2 section 12)
Nietzsche isn't much on political theory. He doesn't really care, except that he really dislikes democracy. It stems from his theory of value. There is no value in the world; thus it is only what one makes of it. That being said, some forms of value are better for mankind, and some are worse. It takes something of a pseudo-evolutionary form, as much as Nietzsche tries to separate himself from Darwin. For him the democratic tendency is a leveling down and evening out. This is, of course, common sense in a way, but Nietzsche rejects it as not being worth while. He feels that the majority of people are not people who can create good, life-affirming values. They tend to just try to avoid pain instead of getting anything out of life ("no pain, no gain" is a truism here in a sense). Zarathustra calls this "the last man," the end result of democracy: everyone sits around, doing nothing really useful, and humanity becomes a mass, an amorphous blob. For Nietzsche such a life is not worth living. Instead one should live a life that is full of excellent values. It is similar to the heroic ideal, but a much better word would be magnanimous as Aristotle uses it. Magnanimous people do 'big' things, leaving petty concerns to others who would be overtaken by such things (Nietzsche often says that what would be for a great man a good experience/job/book/whatever would for a lesser man be devastating or lethal). Democracy weakens this by telling everyone to live by the average, which is dragged down by the sheer mass of below average people. Aristocracy might be more conducive to this, and he says many things that point to hereditary tendencies and the like that would suggest aristocracy (which I will address in a bit). However, I think his idea is in fact closer to the ancient Greek "democracy" than the medieval concept. He takes a lot from the Greeks, and I don't think he changes that habit here. They had great stories and battles and honor and whatnot. Of course, that was a minority. Many others were either not citizens or slaves. Now here's where things get really touchy: does Nietzsche seem to be condoning slavery? I would say that, at least, not in the way Americans think of it. For him one of the great reasons that democracy came about in the first place was resentment from the lower classes because of their position. They wanted that power, and a slave-master situation like in the American South can (and obviously did) create such a situation. For him it is more important to create a value system for the lower classes where they are satisfied with where they are, so that they don't resent those above them. This, however, does not dodge the problem for many. He seems to have a real liking for the law book of Manu, which if you look at, does not seem better. I would say that the most generous reading we can give Nietzsche here is a situation like that in Plato's republic. The lower classes do their thing, the upper classes do theirs. People have the values most suited to them, and that way all, high and low, can feel the most satisfied it is possible for them to feel, while accomplishing the most they can sensibly accomplish. I think his ideas about hereditary status are a bad borrowing from Manu, and only serve to put big problems in the theory. And as I'm sure any good democrat would argue, aristocracy has little to do with what one might call 'genuinely aristocratic people.' Who's to say what degree of difference birth position makes? Plato had an answer with anonymous parenting, whereas Nietzsche jumps into the problem head first. I won't defend him there.
We can go in a similar direction with capitalism, but I think I can also grant him more here. I mentioned Marx and alienation. Capitalism puts the emphasis on capital instead of what capital is actually supposed to be for. Too many people forget this, especially too many talented people, and so they waster their time collecting fortunes only to be miserably rich in the future, their entire lives based only on outer possessions, when they could live much better lives with perhaps no possessions at all. For Nietzsche, if a starving man dies honorably, he not only had but experienced a qualitatively better life than a well-fed man who died a slob. He died happier, because he had a better sense of self-worth. And since Nietzsche rejects objective measures of worth, self-worth is what matters before all else (we see, then, that if one tries to take psychological tendencies into consideration as Plato did, one could conceivably create an overall more self-respecting and thereby better society).
"If it weren't for capitalism, you and I wouldn't spend our time contemplating and discussing philosophy, but collecting food and firewood in hopes that we and our loved ones will survive until tomorrow."
Yet philosophy existed long before modern capitalism, and in fact during many different systems. It's just that the number of people who had the resources to do philosophy was considerably less. Poor people don't do philosophy, and in Nietzsche's ideal system I would conjecture to say that they probably shouldn't (I would say this is as untenable as it sounds, given the following sentence). Of course, I would be one of those people left out, so that in itself seems to be an objection to his method. ;)
When it comes to Nietzsche and political philosophy, the key is that he in fact wrote virtually nothing on the subject. Sure, he mentions political situations and concepts often, and he talks endlessly about ethics, but the methods of political theory itself he avoids. This is because his interest is value first, and his discussions are in terms of a subjective theory of value. The political system must support the value system, and he thoroughly believed that democracy supported the wrong system. Capitalism, for the most part, is just some sort of drug - we forget what is really valuable and just phase out in the midst of 'stuff' because it is easier. Ultimately it enslaves us when we could be doing more with ourselves. This obsession with the worthy life is his utmost concern, and I would consider it a very important concern, and in many ways his way of going about it has merit, though it can be gone about in ways other than Nietzsche did, and most likely in ways that would piss him off to no end.
On a closing note, the more I think about it, you and Nietzsche really are opposed, but in style more than anything. With Nietzsche you must not look only at what the words spell out, but what they signify, what they sound like, the tone when spoken, and so on. That sends the message more than the words themselves usually do. In this capacity Nietzsche writes philosophy as poetry. Which makes me wonder how I get any of this, since I am terrible with poetry.
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Everything that would make up my response can be said in the following, which I believe I have used on this site before:
"The magnitude of a 'progress' is gauged by the greatness of the sacrifice that it requires: humanity as a mass sacrificed to the prosperity of the one stronger species of Man-that would be a progress." (On the Genealogy of Morals, essay 2 section 12)
Nietzsche isn't much on political theory. He doesn't really care, except that he really dislikes democracy. It stems from his theory of value. There is no value in the world; thus it is only what one makes of it. That being said, some forms of value are better for mankind, and some are worse. It takes something of a pseudo-evolutionary form, as much as Nietzsche tries to separate himself from Darwin. For him the democratic tendency is a leveling down and evening out. This is, of course, common sense in a way, but Nietzsche rejects it as not being worth while. He feels that the majority of people are not people who can create good, life-affirming values. They tend to just try to avoid pain instead of getting anything out of life ("no pain, no gain" is a truism here in a sense). Zarathustra calls this "the last man," the end result of democracy: everyone sits around, doing nothing really useful, and humanity becomes a mass, an amorphous blob. For Nietzsche such a life is not worth living. Instead one should live a life that is full of excellent values. It is similar to the heroic ideal, but a much better word would be magnanimous as Aristotle uses it. Magnanimous people do 'big' things, leaving petty concerns to others who would be overtaken by such things (Nietzsche often says that what would be for a great man a good experience/job/book/whatever would for a lesser man be devastating or lethal). Democracy weakens this by telling everyone to live by the average, which is dragged down by the sheer mass of below average people. Aristocracy might be more conducive to this, and he says many things that point to hereditary tendencies and the like that would suggest aristocracy (which I will address in a bit). However, I think his idea is in fact closer to the ancient Greek "democracy" than the medieval concept. He takes a lot from the Greeks, and I don't think he changes that habit here. They had great stories and battles and honor and whatnot. Of course, that was a minority. Many others were either not citizens or slaves. Now here's where things get really touchy: does Nietzsche seem to be condoning slavery? I would say that, at least, not in the way Americans think of it. For him one of the great reasons that democracy came about in the first place was resentment from the lower classes because of their position. They wanted that power, and a slave-master situation like in the American South can (and obviously did) create such a situation. For him it is more important to create a value system for the lower classes where they are satisfied with where they are, so that they don't resent those above them. This, however, does not dodge the problem for many. He seems to have a real liking for the law book of Manu, which if you look at, does not seem better. I would say that the most generous reading we can give Nietzsche here is a situation like that in Plato's republic. The lower classes do their thing, the upper classes do theirs. People have the values most suited to them, and that way all, high and low, can feel the most satisfied it is possible for them to feel, while accomplishing the most they can sensibly accomplish. I think his ideas about hereditary status are a bad borrowing from Manu, and only serve to put big problems in the theory. And as I'm sure any good democrat would argue, aristocracy has little to do with what one might call 'genuinely aristocratic people.' Who's to say what degree of difference birth position makes? Plato had an answer with anonymous parenting, whereas Nietzsche jumps into the problem head first. I won't defend him there.
We can go in a similar direction with capitalism, but I think I can also grant him more here. I mentioned Marx and alienation. Capitalism puts the emphasis on capital instead of what capital is actually supposed to be for. Too many people forget this, especially too many talented people, and so they waster their time collecting fortunes only to be miserably rich in the future, their entire lives based only on outer possessions, when they could live much better lives with perhaps no possessions at all. For Nietzsche, if a starving man dies honorably, he not only had but experienced a qualitatively better life than a well-fed man who died a slob. He died happier, because he had a better sense of self-worth. And since Nietzsche rejects objective measures of worth, self-worth is what matters before all else (we see, then, that if one tries to take psychological tendencies into consideration as Plato did, one could conceivably create an overall more self-respecting and thereby better society).
"If it weren't for capitalism, you and I wouldn't spend our time contemplating and discussing philosophy, but collecting food and firewood in hopes that we and our loved ones will survive until tomorrow."
Yet philosophy existed long before modern capitalism, and in fact during many different systems. It's just that the number of people who had the resources to do philosophy was considerably less. Poor people don't do philosophy, and in Nietzsche's ideal system I would conjecture to say that they probably shouldn't (I would say this is as untenable as it sounds, given the following sentence). Of course, I would be one of those people left out, so that in itself seems to be an objection to his method. ;)
When it comes to Nietzsche and political philosophy, the key is that he in fact wrote virtually nothing on the subject. Sure, he mentions political situations and concepts often, and he talks endlessly about ethics, but the methods of political theory itself he avoids. This is because his interest is value first, and his discussions are in terms of a subjective theory of value. The political system must support the value system, and he thoroughly believed that democracy supported the wrong system. Capitalism, for the most part, is just some sort of drug - we forget what is really valuable and just phase out in the midst of 'stuff' because it is easier. Ultimately it enslaves us when we could be doing more with ourselves. This obsession with the worthy life is his utmost concern, and I would consider it a very important concern, and in many ways his way of going about it has merit, though it can be gone about in ways other than Nietzsche did, and most likely in ways that would piss him off to no end.
On a closing note, the more I think about it, you and Nietzsche really are opposed, but in style more than anything. With Nietzsche you must not look only at what the words spell out, but what they signify, what they sound like, the tone when spoken, and so on. That sends the message more than the words themselves usually do. In this capacity Nietzsche writes philosophy as poetry. Which makes me wonder how I get any of this, since I am terrible with poetry.
posted by Derek at 11:17 PM
3 Comments:
Hello Snurp,
Welcome back from Chicago and thanks for the response. I haven't taken the time to read all of Daybreak II yet, so keep an eye out for a comment there some time.
"For him the democratic tendency is a leveling down and evening out."
Ah, but to me, democracy is about leveling (as much as possible) opportunity. Thus those who have the potential of greatness also have the means of becoming great. Every other system puts power in the hands of the few based on arbitrary criteria. Even in Plato's Republic, someone or some group must decide who is a 'true' philosopher and how is not.
Once that group is in power, self-interest and human instinct inevitable cause them to use that power to make the system hereditary. This has obvious problems, but since I just finished reading Common Sense, I'll use Paine's words, "virtue is not hereditary".
"Poor people don't do philosophy"
Ignorance is not always hereditary either. The child of a poor couple may be a philosophical phenomenon, but without the opportunity to develop that talent, his/her greatness would be lost to Nietzsche's system.
"Yet philosophy existed long before modern capitalism, and in fact during many different systems."
Sure, but how many more philosophers have we never heard because they never had the opportunity to learn to read and write?
I think it fair to criticize some of the effects of democracy and capitalism, but I think that Nietzsche doesn't even consider the benefits of those systems. They are the best we've invented yet. They have the seemingly miraculous ability to turn mass self-interest into a form of governance that benefits the most.
I'm thinking that the first response Nietzsche might make to you is regarding virtue: he would say that virtue is indeed not hereditary; in fact, it is made up. Values are, in fact, completely arbitrary. That being said, it's time to get somewhat inconsistent. Values are nonmoral and thus do not fit into "good" or "bad", but some values are better than others. Good means conducive to life, bad means the opposite. The values themselves don't matter, only what immediate effects they have. I say this is somewhat inconsistent because Nietzsche does still keep the sense that moral value doesn't exist, just our world of experience and what comes about. So he tries to keep in tune with what one interpreter called a naturalism (I really didn't like that interpreter, but the word is the best I can think of). Nature is nonmoral for Nietzsche, and so should our lives.
Now heredity is where it looks like he gets completely inconsistent. Why heredity has any value for him at all I am not sure. I think it may be a holdover from when he wasn't so independent, and I am tempted to just throw it out altogether (though that would be unfair, so I will not). However, perhaps the following is a possibility
(Disclaimer: to interpret anyone, especially Nietzsche, is treacherous ground. Nietzsche more than most was aware of this. So this may be his thoughts, it may be mine more than his. But I do think that, after having read enough Nietzsche, you can sense the tone of his words, and using that can get quite a strong sense of his direction. That's why I write this stuff, after all, and those I talk to in real life seem to think I'm not too far off base. No guarantees, though, and this should be kept in mind.)
It is possible that, in his use of terms like heredity and blood and such, he is referring not to literal heredity (he does decry the so-called 'aristocracy' of his time) and instead refers to a sort of cultural or situational heredity, kind of like a son or brother in spirit and kind. One learns from one's fathers the way to live. I think this would fit better, and perhaps be allowable given Nietzsche's use of metaphorical language in talking about culture as well as the more concrete attacks against the conventional concept of aristocracy.
Given the stand on democracy...it's a tougher one. There is no doubt that he really doesn't like democracy. Talking to this with you has start to make me consider more and more that he may have had much archaic in this range of thoughts, whatever his own philosophy tried to establish. Yet in a major sense I think he is eerily relevant: democracy + capitalism in America has created a sort of mass culture where it seems much is dumbed down. I am considering just copying the whole aphorism on intoxication here, because I think it is really perceptive (unfortunately I no longer have access to the original source and translation of the quotation, and translation can make a big difference with Nietzsche). People need a greater sense of subtlety in life, in a way. When politics is shouting in one's ears, one forgets where one is. As for the benefits, you are quite right in that he probably ignored most if not all of the benefits, especially those that would lean towards what he sought, which is the ability of his 'higher men' to move of their own. He was more focused on the cultural effects of 'averageness' on people (he says repeatedly that it is the rule, not the exception that is more interesting), and did not seem to think that even his higher men could get out of the rut they are born into, a point I don't think I agree with. I sometimes want to test him as being self-contradictory in his own style: "You say that a great man needs a great enemy. Well if democracy is so bad, don't your higher men have their greatest enemy? In that case you should seek that it grow stronger, so that only the best may rise up! A man who can transcend cultures, can transcend this as well!" I get the feeling the response might be that, when one is indoctrinated from birth it is not so simple, but I think that that would be a rather grim assessment. He does not give his own higher men enough credit.
A couple things I should add. First, I'm not sure I made it quite clear that I think the idea that the different ranks of people will be able to "sort themselves out" I find as ridiculous as anyone should. You are right there, I think. Castes don't reflect reality, and many are lost. Nietzsche rants about the social effects of democracy, but not much (if at all) about the flaws of caste systems, which it is not difficult to boil his concept of rank down to.
Second, I will not be talking about Nietzsche for at least the next book I read. I have Human, All too Human sitting on my shelf, but I'll spare people for a little while. The next one is an interesting surprise ;)
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