Lecture on Balance:
Egyptian Wisdom & Confucius
In studying balance as
an Ethical concept, we will look at Ma’at in the wisdom of ancient Egypt, the
doctrine of the middle way in the teachings of the Buddha of India and
Aristotle of ancient Greece, and then finish with the Analects of Confucius,
one of the great ancient world Ethics texts and a masterwork on the balance of
concern for the self and others.
Ma’at and the Wisdom of
Ancient Egypt
The idea of balance was
identified with the Goddess Ma’at in the early periods of Egyptian history, but
just like the sun became the abstract principle of life and the universe Ma’at
became the abstract conception of the balance of opposites.
In the Egyptian wisdom
quotes, one of my favorite examples of early city-state texts, we can see that
the Egyptians were concerned not only with the balance of good and evil that
exist in particular desirable things but also in the ethical virtue of the
balance of concern for oneself and for others. As many tribes gathered
into the earliest city-states and empires, people saw more and more of human
behavior and became concerned with balancing excess and lack. People saw
that some had much to eat, much money, much power, and others had none.
They saw that excess can hurt the individual and society as much as
deficiency, power and riches as much as oppression and poverty. In Egypt
and many societies that followed, including India, Greece and China, we can see
a concern with balance and avoiding both excess and deficiency being praised as
wise and ethical.
In the Egyptian texts
(as well as Confucius) we can see a heart centered theory of the human being
that ties into this concept of balance and wisdom. The heart was thought
to be the center of the human being, as ancient people soon learned that the
heart is the center of the vessels that branch throughout the body and which
are crucial to its health and nourishment. The Egyptians thought that if
one was unkind to others it would choke the breath and blood from the heart and
hurt one’s physical as well as mental health (remember that in ancient
cosmology, physics was identical with psychology and spirituality).
Consider that we still wear the wedding ring on the finger next to the
pinky, which has a large vein in it and was thought to control love and lust by
the ancient Egyptians (the Greeks and Romans picked up much medicine and
physiology from the Egyptians, and we keep this custom today). The
ancient Israelites, in contrast, had their wives wear a ring on the index
finger to keep her from casting spells while pointing.
In the Egyptian wisdom
literature, the “heart-guided-individual” (very similar to the language and
theories of Confucius) put wisdom over desire, mind over the body, and thus had
self-control and the full powers and potential of the human individual.
This was seen as putting oneself in-line with the cosmos, as Being, the
one eternal way, is the source and guide of the many individual mortal beings.
Let us turn now to the
proverbs themselves, considering the wisdom of specific passages.
Let not your heart be
puffed up because of what you know, nor boast that you are a wise man. Consult
with the ignorant as well as with the wise, for there is no limit to where
wisdom can be found. Good speech lies hidden like a precious stone, yet wisdom
is found among maidens at the grindstone.
This passage of
Phah-hotep (Vizier to the Pharaoh, 2500 BCE) is similar to some we will read in
Confucius of ancient China and it is also similar to Socrates of ancient
Greece. We should learn from everyone, and remember that no one is
perfect and no one knows everything when we are tempted to put ourselves above
others. This questions not only human knowledge, but social inequality.
It does not call for getting rid of social divisions (indeed, the last
verse is somewhat sexist) but it does ask us to look beyond inequality and
identify with others.
More acceptable to (the
Father/Highest) God is the virtue of a just man than the ox of one who works
iniquity.
In this verse, we see
Marikare (a local king offering advice to the crown prince, 1500 BCE)
questioning the value of traditional sacrifice. In India, Greece and
China, we will see similar thoughts questioning the value of traditional
practice over being virtuous. If the wealthy make sacrifices, but rule
with cruelty, those who dare to question will ask if performing sacrifices
truly gains one merit. Jesus chasing the money changers and sellers of
sacrificial animals out of the temple is a similar move.
Rage destroys itself.
It damages its own affairs.
Ani (a scribe of the
18th dynasty, 1550-1300 BCE)
Because we refuse to
imitate the wicked man, we help him, we offer him a hand…That he may know
shame, we fill his belly with bread.
Amen-em-opet (local
king, 1800 BCE) is suggesting that we do the opposite of what we typically
think to do to those we consider evil. Rather than punish bad with bad,
like fighting fire with fire, we can show them the compassion and consideration
they lack even if they do not deserve it. This is similar to Jesus
saying, “Turn the other cheek”.
Never permit yourself to
rob a poor man. Do not oppress the down-trodden, nor thrust aside the
elderly, denying them speech.
Amen-em-opet shows not
only concern with social justice, but giving freedom of speech to the
disempowered.
Who plunders the goods
of a poor man takes the very breath of life away from (herself or himself).
Such cheating chokes off justice, but a full measure increases its flow.
The Eloquent Peasant or
The Complaint of the Peasant is a story about a peasant who has been robbed by
a local official and who gives a series of nine arguments to the local
magistrate appealing for justice which shows again that the ancient Egyptians
were concerned about the poor and social justice, while also having problems
with each as we still do today. It also shows ancient Egyptian cosmology
holds that the world works like a giant person, and breath and air carry order downward
from the fire of the stars, sun and moon. If we do injustice, we not only
choke the universe but ourselves as well. The Egyptians were the foremost
doctors of the ancient world and were revered by the Romans in the beginning
ages of Roman empire, and only in the empire’s later years did the Romans begin
turning to Greek doctors, who had learned much from the Egyptians and added to
it. Consider that we still practice the Egyptian custom of wearing the
wedding ring (originally just worn by women) on the ring finger (which is how
it got its name) through the Roman Catholic tradition. There is a large
artery running through this finger, which the Egyptians found by doing anatomy,
and because it was thought to be associated with lust a man puts a wedding ring
on his wife’s finger to serve as a sort of lust collar. We do not
practice the Israelite tradition of wearing the wedding ring on the index
finger, which a man would put on his wife’s finger to prevent her from casting
curses on him.
Honor men of achievement
and the people will prosper, but keep your eyes open. Too much trust
brings affliction…Exalt no man because of birth. Judge the man by his
actions. A man should do that which profits his soul. Let him
perform the services of his temple. Let him share in the mysteries of his
religion.
Merikare shows great
skepticism of authority, not only of political position and noble birth but of
a central singular religious tradition. Notice both ritual and mystery
being included as religion.
Love the wife who is in
your house. Feed her belly, clothe her back. Provide oil and
cosmetics for her limbs. Gladden her heart all the days of your life, for
she is like a field that will prosper its owner, but do not go into court with her,
and never let her get control of your house.
Ptah-hotep is being
quite sexist, but shows us that women had the power to speak in court and ruled
the home as they often do in Islamic traditional culture and our own today in
spite of the sexism. Ptah-hotep is giving this advice to his son.
Provide generously for
your mother with double rations, and carry her even as she once carried you.
It was a heavy load that she bore, but she did not cast it off, and even
after you were born, did she not feed you at the breast for three years?
Your dirt was unpleasant, but she did not say, “Why should I bother with
him?” It was she who placed you in school. It was she who came
daily with food and drink for you.
Ani seems to be giving
us the old, “You never call, you never write” routine of ancient Egyptian
mother syndrome. It is hilarious how he is not only reminding us to take
care of the elderly, but of our own mothers as well.
If you have grown to
some account in greatness, do not forget the time when you were small. If
you have now become a rich man in your city, do not forget how it was when you
were in need.
Ptah-hotep shows us that
there was social mobility in ancient Egypt, and one could become wealthy or
poor depending upon circumstances. Like the passage that tells us the
maidens at the grindstone have wisdom yet no one can obtain it entirely, it
suggests we always keep the view of the poor and unfortunate in mind to not
only appreciate what we have but prevent ourselves from being unjust.
Boast not how many jars
of beer you can drink! Soon your speech turns to babbling nonsense, and
you tumble down into the gutter…and when people seek to question you, they find
only a helpless child.
Ani shows us that as
people gathered into ancient city states, they became critical of human
behavior.
Eat no bread while
another waits in want, but stretch out your hand to the hungry. One man
is rich, another is poor. Yesterday’s master is today’s servant.
Don’t be greedy about filling your belly. Where only last year the
river ran, this year the course is dry. Great seas have turned to desert
wastes, and the sandy shore is now an abyss.
Ani again shows us that
one could become rich or poor in society, and it is wise to remember it.
Do not lie down at night
being afraid of tomorrow. When day breaks, who knows what it will be
like? Surely, no man knows what tomorrow will bring.
Amen-em-opet, like Aztec
poets and the Indian Vedas, reminds us that no one can predict the future,
either through prophecy or science.
The Buddha and The
Middle Way
The Buddha (550 BCE),
the founder of one of the largest systems of thought in history, taught
moderation between extremes as a fundamental doctrine. Known as “The
Middle Way” in both Buddhism and Confucianism, this teaching is quite similar
to the ancient Egyptian conception of Ma’at. According to the story of
the Buddha’s life he tried extreme practices in the jungle to rid himself of
attachment and desire and gain unity of mind and enlightenment as many were
doing in his time and still do today, but he found that extreme self denial
brought self hatred. Moderation became a core part of the Buddha’s later
enlightenment and teaching. Rather than try to rid the self of selfhood
or desire, release is found in the moderation between seeking and denying,
neither running toward nor away from the self or desirable things. Thus,
Buddhist conceptions of ethics often center of moderation between extremes,
neither going completely without desirable things nor completely indulging in
them.
Aristotle and The
Doctrine of The Mean
Aristotle (350 BCE)
argues for a very similar concept of moderation in his texts on ethics and
health. He associates each virtue with two vices, one more extreme than
virtue and the other too deficient. Thus, one should not be afraid of
money or family or war but neither should one be a glutton for these things
either. He argues that too much drinking and athletics can destroy the
body, but no drinking or athletics can make the body and mind weak and
deficient.
Confucius and the Golden
Rule
Confucius (550 BCE – 480
BCE) was one of the great ethical geniuses of the ancient world. It is
worth noting that in Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism we find Jesus,
Buddha and Confucius telling us to press ourselves to identify with others, to
see things through their eyes and treat them as we wish to be treated.
All three were identified with the central gods of the heavens in each
tradition. No matter how religious or non-religious one is, this shows us
that humans consider love and wisdom to be quite divine and the supreme goal of
individual life and activity.
The Golden Rule:
Jesus and Confucius both
say almost the same “Golden Rule”: treat others the way one wants to be
treated. Sometimes scholars say that Confucius rather says the negative
“Silver Rule”: DON’T treat others the way one DOESN’T want to be treated.
It is easy to see that these are two sides of the same rule, quite the
same but slightly different. We will see almost the same dual sided rule
shared between Bentham and Mill next week as we study
consequentialism/utilitarianism. Bentham argued that one should act in a
way to bring about the maximum happiness, and Mill argued (taking his ethics
from Bentham) that one should act in a way to bring about the minimum pain.
Consider that communism often idealizes the positive side of each rule
(provides structure but little room for choice) and capitalism often idealizes
the negative side of each rule (room for choice but provides little structure).
Many scholars have noted that American law is quite influenced by Mill,
and follows his idea of erring on the side of doing little harm rather than
Bentham. Consider that communist countries often put their former rulers
on trial for crimes against the people when things go wrong (except for the top
cult-figures), while capitalist countries rarely send their rulers to jail even
when crimes could be punishable in court (there are severe problems with both
methods, of course).
Heart over Ritual,
Intention over Action:
Confucius and
Confucianism are often identified with ritual and tradition, such as the father
ruling over the household. In many places in the Analects, however,
Confucius is quite clear that although ritual and tradition are essential for
the cultivation of the individual and the maintenance of society, they are
secondary to love and having the right intentions. This can be seen as an
extension of ancient cosmology placing mind over body. In courts of law today,
and individual is only guilty if they intentionally performed an action.
Confucius tells us that action and tradition without the right intention
and emotion are the worst things imaginable. One would think that if the
two elements of an act are the right intention and right action, having the
right action would be half good, but this is wrong according to Confucius.
He even argues that if a ruler is corrupt, one should overthrow the state
and put a proper ruler in place. Strangely, the Analects became the core
text of the Confucian state in China which was quite conservative of
traditional structures.
Nothing is Perfect, but
Everything is Good:
Another beautiful idea
that is central to Confucius’ teachings is “Perfection is nowhere, but good is
always at hand”. Confucius says several times that he is not perfect, and
that he has never met a perfect person (or even, in some passages, an excellent
person), but he tells us that we all share the same virtues and vices and we
can learn to be good by listening to the lowest of people (just like the first
passage of the Egyptian wisdom , which tells us that “Wisdom can be found even
among the maidens at the grindstone”). He even says that Yao and Shun,
the two legendary emperors and ancestors of China, could not obtain perfection,
so how could we? The best quote on this is Analects 7.22:
“Put me in the company
of any two people at random – they will invariably have something to teach me…I
can take their qualities as a model and their vices as a warning.”
Examine Oneself:
The last ethical point
to consider while reading through the Analects is Confucius’ emphasis on
modesty and examining the self for fault before one finds fault with others.
This certainly fits snugly with the quote just mentioned. Confucius
praises individuals who question themselves rather than others and who display
modesty rather than pride. Confucius displays these virtues with regards
to himself many times in the Analects. Consider 1.16, “Don’t worry if
people don’t recognize your merits; worry that you may not recognize theirs”.
Consider 4.17, “When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him; when you
see an unworthy man, examine yourself”.
In reading the Analects,
pay particular attention to the following passages in light of the above:
1.10, 1.14-16,
2.12-15, 2.17,
3.13, 3.26,
4.6, 4.7, 4.10, 4.11,
4.14, 4.17,
5.5, 5.12, 5.13, 5.18,
5.27,
6.15, 6.17, 6.18, 6.20,
6.29,
7.7, 7.22,
9.8, 9.17, 9.26,
11.17,
12.22,
13.24,
14.22, 14.29,
15.21, 15.23, 15.24,
15.36, 15.39
LECTURE ON PERSPECTIVE:
HERACLITUS, ZHUANG ZI & HEGEL
Perspective is not
simply individual, but social. We share reality insofar as we share
perspective. This means that we should not only try to see as many
perspectives or as much perspective as we can, but also resisting the tendency
to accept one’s own perspective as reality or the whole truth. Truth is
in each and every perspective, but it is also always beyond and outside of each
and every perspective. Focusing on the concept of perspective forces us
to affirm our views as truths but also deny our views as the Truth (with a
capital T).
Two of the greatest
ancient thinkers on perspective are Heraclitus from ancient Greece and Zhuangzi
from ancient China. To consider perspective as an ethical concept we will
be looking at the strikingly similar things that these two ancient thinkers say
and then end with some insights of the German philosopher Hegel and discoveries
of modern psychology.
HERACLITUS
Heraclitus’ most famous
idea is a memorable image: you can never step in the same river twice.
Just as a river is always flowing and changing, so is reality always
flowing and changing, such that nothing stays exactly the same for any two
moments. You step in a river, then step out, then step back in the same
river, but it is no longer ‘the same river’. Heraclitus says this is also
true of himself.
According to one source,
Heraclitus was a king who abandoned the title to become a philosopher.
This has been identified as a close resemblance to the story of the
Buddha in India, and some scholars have argued that Heraclitus was in fact the
Buddha from India while others have argued that the Buddha was in fact
Heraclitus from Greece. Both thinkers were mythologized as a king who
left powerful king position and became a sage, and both believe in the
enlightening sun rising above the watery chaos of reality and human perception,
but it is quite likely the two were not the same individual.
Heraclitus is a very
skeptical thinker. This does not mean he saw all things as negative.
He was convinced that wisdom and inquiring within show us that all is one
big cosmic fire, and things that unify the community and the individual bring
wholeness and true happiness. However, he believed that humans are often
foolish and let their minds divide themselves from the whole and from each
other such that their understandings are disjointed and ignorant.
This is very typical
thinking of skeptics the world over. A positivist would say that there
are specific truths that are certain and must be separated from the uncertain,
specific goods that must be separated from the evil. A skeptic would say,
like Heraclitus and the Daoists from China, that the truth and the good is the
whole and the great One, and the tendency of the mind to divide the good and
the true from the rest is the opposite of true understanding and wisdom.
Heraclitus was not a fan
of experts and specialists, and he ridiculed the cultural leaders of his time.
He says that the common people are completely asleep, but far more
dangerous are the experts who have a small piece of the puzzle and say that
they know the entire truth. He calls the poets (Hesiod and Homer) and the
Pythagoreans frauds, and says that there are no permanent truths or laws other
than the constant formation of watery chaos by the sun and cosmic fire.
Notice that this does
not question the set up of the cosmos as we have studied it everywhere (and
what the Persians gave to the Eastern Greek city states). Many often ask,
“Why, then, should I listen to Heraclitus, since he is simply an expert?”.
Heraclitus replies as most skeptics do: don’t take my word for it, but
look into the world and within yourself and you will find that it is true.
The beginning of his
book, which we still have, reads:
The word proves those first hearing it as numb
to understanding as the ones who have not heard, yet all things follow from the
word. Some, blundering with what I set before you, try in vain with empty
talk to separate the essences of things and say how each thing truly is, and
all the rest make no attempt. They no more see how they behave broad
waking than remember clearly what they did asleep.
For wisdom, listen not to me but to the word and
know that all is one. Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make
of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead. People dull
their wits with gibberish, and cannot use their ears and eyes. Many fail
to grasp what they have seen, and cannot judge what they have learned, although
they tell themselves they know. Yet they lack the skill to listen or to
speak. Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way
is an impasse. Things keep their secrets.
Now that we can travel anywhere, we need no
longer take the poets and myth-makers for sure witnesses over disputed facts…If
learning were a path of wisdom, those most learned about myth would not
believe, with Hesiod, that Pallas in her wisdom gloats over the noise of
battle. Pythagoras may well have been the deepest in his learning of all
men, and still he claimed to recollect details of former lives, being in one a
cucumber and one time a sardine.
Of all the words yet spoken, none comes quite as
far as wisdom, which is the action of the mind beyond all things that may be
said. Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.
Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless
names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one.
Time is a game played beautifully by children.
Applicants for wisdom do what I have done: inquire within.
Since mindfulness, of all things, is the ground
of being, to speak one’s true mind and to keep things known in common, serves
all being, just as laws made clear uphold the city, yet with greater strength.
Of all pronouncements of the law the one source is the word whereby we
choose what helps true mindfulness prevail. Although we need the word to
keep things known in common, people still treat specialists as if their
nonsense were a form of wisdom. Fools seek counsel from the ones they
doubt. People need not act and speak as if they were asleep. The
waking have one world in common. Sleepers meanwhile turn aside, each into
a darkness of his own.
Homer I deem worthy, in a trial by combat, of a
good cudgeling…They raise their voices at stone idols as a man might argue with
his doorpost. They have understood so little of the gods.
This is a psychological
skepticism that is criticizing the human ability to know particular things as
permanent that are able to be separated from the One and All (the cosmic fire).
Only the All is permanent. All the other things are wandering
temporal forms. The many beings arise from the energy of Being, and then
they fall back into the fire and disappear. The cosmos resembles the
chaos yet order of the human community centered on authority by spoken word.
The LOGOS, the word/plan/order/command, is the formative force in the cosmos,
the force of fire and light in the watery chaotic world. The cosmic fire
speaks with its ever-present Logos (fire over air) and this brings about the
firmament in the chaos (the earth rising out of the water). This process,
however, does not bring about eternal or stable beings, but chains of beings
that are in flux and interdependent.
This goes also for laws,
which Heraclitus says have to be defended as if they were city walls.
This is sometimes read that Heraclitus thought human law was important
and had to be defended, which he did, but in fact he is also telling us that
human laws are impermanent like walls made out of earth. They may seem
eternal and permanent, but as any former citizen or city of the Persian empire
knows, empires fall and impressive city states are overthrown and change hands.
The eternal word of the fire forever forms the cosmos, but human speech
and walls are temporary, and therefore take force and effort to maintain.
As a skeptic, Heraclitus believes that the divisions made by the mind are
mortal, not eternal, like the human body. Our knowledge and laws are
impermanent like mounds of dirt. Heraclitus says many things to humble
us, including pointing out our similarity to apes to put our achievements in
perspective:
The language of a grown man, to the cosmic
powers, sounds like baby-talk to men. To a god the wisdom of the wisest
man sounds apish. Beauty in a human face looks apish too. In
everything we have attained the excellence of apes. The ape apes find
most beautiful looks apish to non-apes.
Heraclitus’ most famous
idea is a memorable image: you can never step in the same river twice.
Just as a river is always flowing and changing, so is reality always
flowing and changing, such that nothing stays exactly the same for any two
moments. You step in a river, then step out, then step back in the same
river, but it is no longer ‘the same river’. Heraclitus says this is also
true of the cosmos and the human individual. Fire also flows, and
individual tongues of flame rise out of the fire and then return and integrate
with the whole. Fire, like water, flows in a consistent manner that is
always self-similar but never exactly the same twice. Heraclitus argued
that the world is always in flux, as a single thing stable and eternal but as
many things in constant change and tension. Paradoxically, changing
constantly in the way that things do is the stability and being of things.
Rivers flow, fire burns, life thrives, always in motion to be stable in
what it is. He says, “Goat cheese congeals in wine if not well stirred”.
It is an example of a motion keeping a mixture what it is. When the
motion stops, the elements disintegrate. In the same way that stability
is motion, opposites work together.
Heraclitus was one of
the most famous thinkers of the Greek and Roman world. He was a big
influence on Plato, though Plato is very much opposed to his thinking as we
will see next week. Both Heraclitus and Plato were big influences on
Christianity which initially flourished not in Israel but in Greece and Syria.
If a primal speaking of the Word or Logos sounds familiar, Heraclitus was
a central influence on the Greek and Roman stoics, and the author of the Gospel
of John was almost certainly a Greek stoic writing in Roman times. The
opening of the Gospel of John famously reads: the Logos/Word/Order was with God
(Fire/Cosmos), and God spoke (“let there be light”) and light was separated
from darkness.
It was only in the late
1700s and 1800s that German scholars rediscovered the presocratics
and gave them attention and study. Before this time, Greek Philosophy was
considered to have originated with Socrates (hence, “presocratics”) and most
scholars were only versed in the surviving writings of Plato and Aristotle.
Schleiermacher, one of the most famous and central protestant theologians
and an opponent of Hegel, was a major force in bringing popularity to
Heraclitus and a major translator of Plato. The philosopher Hegel, who we
will study later, saw Heraclitus as a skeptic who is put in balance with Plato
and other positivists by the course of history itself. Nietzsche, the
great skeptical philosopher who we will also study, wrote that he felt closer
to Heraclitus than any other thinker. Nietzsche believed, like Heraclitus,
that we are proud of our learning and achievement but we are in fact little
better than apes.
ZHUANGZI
Zhuangzi, the second
patriarch of Daoism, lived from 370 to 301 BCE and worked as a manager in a
lacquer warehouse, a large ‘factory’ for making vases, bowls and general wood
products (like bento boxes). Other than this, we know little of his life
other than his work. Daoist tradition holds that Zhuangzi wrote the
‘inner chapters’ of his work, and that the anecdotes about him and other
stories were added by his disciples, the early proto-Daoists.
In several places of the
Zhuangzi, we see the idea of perspective presented the same way as we saw in
Heraclitus. We are told that Mao Quiang and Lady Li were legendary
beautiful women, but minnows were frightened of them when they gazed into a
stream, and birds and deer were frightened by them when they walked through the
forest. Heraclitus said that all human beauty and achievement is nothing but
apes to the gods. Who knows what is beautiful, humans, birds, fish, or deer?
Zhuangzi asks which of them knows what tastes good.
Often, the heroes of
Zhuangzi are common people, woodcutters, fishermen, butchers, carpenters,
ex-cons, and others of low status. In two places, Zhuangzi seems to exalt
while mock Confucius who praises two sages who have had their legs cut off for
committing crimes but have flocks of followers. Confucius is made to say
that his own teachings are the lowly ways of humans, but these sages know the
way of heaven, the Dao, and he would become their student if he only had the
time. Confucius says to Wang Dai, who asks about one of the legless
sages, “If you look at them from the point of view of their differences, then
there is liver and gall (two organs in the body), Ch’u and Yueh (two warring
kingdoms in China), but if you look at them from the point of view of their
sameness, then the ten thousand things are all one.”
We are told that the
emperor learns how to rule his kingdom by listening to Cook Ting, who tells the
emperor that he has learned over a lifetime how to cut up oxen with his knife
that never dulls because he knows instinctively where the spaces are. We
hear about the woodcutter scolding his apprentice for saying that an old
gnarled tree is useless, replying that what is useless in some ways is useful
in others, such as a tree no one will cut down providing a shady spot for
centuries.
When Zhuangzi is asked
by Dung Kuo where the way of heaven is, Zhuangzi says it is everywhere.
Dung Kuo asks him to be more specific, so Zhuangzi says it is in the ant,
in grass, in tile shards, in piss and in shit, horrifying Dung Kuo
progressively. Like the Laozi text, the Zhuangzi continuously suggests
that we see the lowest things as beautiful, and avoid striving for and hoarding
the things people desire to be happy and free.
In the first passage of
the Zhuangzi, the mythical Peng bird is mocked by the dove and the cicada (a
large grasshopper-like insect) for flying high and far in the sky. They have no
frame of reference to understand such an act, as they die every winter and do
not survive by migrating south. Several times Zhuangzi is told by other
sages that his wisdom is foolish and useless, but Zhuangzi replies, much like
the Dao text, that there are no things which are not foolish or useless, but
this does not stop them from also being serious and useful.
The philosopher and
logician Huizi tells Zhuangzi that a king gave him seeds of a huge gourd, but
when he planted the seeds and grew huge gourds they were so large that he could
not use them as containers so he smashed them. Zhuangzi tells him he
should have used them as boats, and “Obviously you still have a lot of
underbrush in your head!” Huizi tells Zhuangzi that he has a large
gnarled tree, which is as useless as Zhuangzi’s reasoning. Zhuangzi
replies that if no ax will cut it down, it makes a great shaded place for
taking a nap.
Tzu Ch’i tells Tzu Yu
that when the wind blows you can hear many sounds made by many things,
including the whistling of trees and the wailing of hollow logs, but there is
only one wind. He then says:
Words are not just wind.
Words have something to say, but if what they have to say is not fixed,
then do they really say something, or do they say nothing? People suppose
that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any
difference, or isn’t there? What does the Way rely upon, such that we
have true and false? What do words rely upon, such that we have right and
wrong?...When the Way relies on little accomplishments and words rely on vain
show, then we have the rights and wrongs of the Confucians and the Moists.
What one calls right the other calls wrong, and what one calls wrong the
other calls right, but if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights,
then the best thing to use is clarity. Everything has its ‘that’, and
everything has its ‘this’. From the point of view of ‘that’, you cannot
see it, but through understanding you can know it, so I say, ‘that’ comes out
of ‘this’ and ‘this’ depends on ‘that’, which is to say ‘this’ and ‘that’ give
birth to each other...Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way, but
illuminates all in the light of heaven. A sage too has a ‘this’ and a
‘that’, but a sage’s ‘that’ has a ‘this’, and a sage’s ‘this’ has a ‘that’.
A sage’s ‘that’ has both a right and a wrong in it, and a sage’s ‘this’
too has both a right and a wrong in it, so does a sage still have a ‘this’ and
‘that’? A state in which ‘this’ and ‘that’ no longer find their opposites
is called the hinge of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket,
it can respond endlessly. Its right then is a single endlessness and its
wrong too is a single endlessness, so I say the best thing to use is clarity...
To wear out your brain
trying to make things into one without realizing that they are all the same is
called “three in the morning”. What do I mean by “three in the morning”?
When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, “You get three
in the morning and four at night.” This made all the monkeys furious.
“Well then,” he said, “you get four in the morning and three at night.”
The monkeys were all delighted. There was no change in the reality
behind the words, and yet the monkeys responded with joy and anger. Let
them, if they want to. The sage harmonizes with both right and wrong and
rests in heaven, the equalizer.
Because right and wrong
appeared, the Way was injured, and because the Way was injured, love became
complete, but do such things as completion and injury really exist, or do they
not?
Those who divide fail to
divide. Those who discriminate fail to discriminate. What does this
mean, you ask? The sage embraces things. Ordinary people
discriminate among things and parade their discriminations in front of others. So
I say, those who discriminate fail to see.
Nieh Ch’ueh asks Wang Ni
about something everyone can agree to. Wang Ni replies:
If someone sleeps in a
damp place, their back aches and he ends up half paralyzed, but is this true of
a carp? If someone lives in a tree, they are terrified and shake with
fright, but is this true of a monkey? Of these three creatures, which
knows the proper place to live? We eat the flesh of grass-fed and
grain-fed animals, deer eat grass, centipedes find snakes tasty, and hawks and
falcons love mice. Of these four, who knows how food ought to taste?
Monkeys pair with monkeys, deer go out with deer, and fish play around
with fish. Men claim that Mao-Ch’iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if
fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them
they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of
these four, which knows the standard of beauty for the world?
In the most famous
passage of the book, Zhuangzi dreamt that he was a butterfly and forgot that he
was Zhuangzi. When he woke, he no longer knew whether he was Zhuangzi who
had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is Zhuangzi.
Another famous metaphor
used is that of the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an
approaching carriage, unaware that it is incapable of stopping it. It
suggests that we move in response to life rather than hold our ground taking
pride in our own abilities.
You hide your boat in
the ravine and your fish net in the swamp and tell yourself that they will be
safe, but in the middle of the night a strong man shoulders them and carries
them off, and in your stupidity you don’t know why it happened. You think
you do right to hide little things in big ones, and yet they get away from you,
but if you were to hide the world in the world, so that nothing could get away,
this would be the final reality of the constancy of things.
Jo of the North Sea
said, “You can’t discuss the ocean with a well frog. He’s limited by the
space he lives in. You can’t discuss ice with a summer insect. He’s
bound to a single season. You can’t discuss the Way with a cramped
scholar. He’s shackled by his doctrines. Now you have come out
beyond your banks and borders and have seen the great sea, so you realize your
own insignificance. From now on it will be possible to talk to you about
the Great Principle.
Jo of the North Sea
said, “From the point of view of the Way, things have no nobility or meanness.
From the point of view of things themselves, each regards itself as noble
and other things as mean. From the point of view of common opinion,
nobility and meanness are not determined by the individual himself. From
the point of view of differences, if we regard a thing as big because there is
a certain bigness to it, then among all the ten thousand things there are none
that are not big. If we regard a thing as small because there is a
certain smallness to it, then among the ten thousand things there are none that
are not small. If we know that heaven and earth are tiny grains and the
tip of a hair is a range of mountains, then we have perceived the law of
difference. From the point of view of function, if we regard a thing as
useful because there is a certain usefulness to it, then among all the ten
thousand things there are none that are not useful. If we regard a thing
as useless because there is a certain uselessness to it, then among the ten
thousand things none that are not useless. If we know that east and west
are mutually opposed but that one cannot do without the other, then we can
estimate degree of use.
Notice that Confucius
appears many times in the Zhuangzi, used to argue AGAINST his own position and
in favor of a Daoist position. Many times Confucius says that his own way
is inferior to the Daoist way. Clearly, these are texts written by
Daoists who appreciate the good in Confucianism but think their own school to
be superior. For example, page 65, in the chapter ‘The Sign of Virtue
Complete’, Confucius says of Wang T’ai, “If you look at them from the point of
view of their differences, then there is liver and gall, Ch’u and Yueh (two
warring kingdoms in China). But if you look at them from the point of
view of their sameness, then the ten thousand things are all one.” I
still use this contradiction of one and many to this day. It shows you
much about how people make judgments and arguments.
HEGEL
Hegel, a German philosopher
who lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s, believed that the history of the
world and the process of thought in history and the individual was an evolution
of perspective that works from opposite sides to bring itself to greater
completion. One of the most famous parts of his Phenomenology of Spirit,
a history of the evolution of thought, is the Master/Slave dialectic.
This concept became very important for anti-sexism (like the feminist De
Beauvoir), anti-racism (like Franz Fanon and Angela Davis) and anti-class
thinkers (like Hegel’s student Karl Marx). These will be the last three
topics for this class, the “Big Three” in universities since the sixties.
Hegel argues that as the
self or identity (like a nation) comes into the world, it cannot understand how
there can be others like itself that are not itself and so it tries to fight
and kill its others. Then the self figures out that it does not have to
kill its others and that it is more productive to enslave them (consider that
the most selfish individual would tell everyone else “You are wrong” but the
slightly smarter but still selfish individual would tell everyone else “That is
just what I have been saying”, neither capable of tolerating opinions other
than their own).
At first, the master is
in the superior position. However, over time, the slave comes to do
everything for the master and thus learns through experience while the master
grows lazy and ignorant. The slave comes to realize that he can do things
he never thought of for someone or something else, comes to grasp subjectivity
and perspective, and thus overturns the master and becomes the greater and more
highly developed master.
INSIGHTS OF MODERN
PSYCHOLOGY:
INTERNAL/EXTERNAL
ATTRIBUTION & THE HOSTILE MEDIA EFFECT
Modern Psychology has
learned much from experiments in recent years about how individuals tend to
interpret reality. This teaches us many things about perspective that
extend and develop what Heraclitus, Zhuang Zi and Hegel had to say.
Internal vs. External
Attribution:
Many experiments have
confirmed what is often called the actor/observer bias or internal vs. external
attribution. If an individual succeeds at a task, they often attribute
the success to themselves or the group to which they belong (internal attribution
– “I/We are really good at that”). If an individual fails at a task, they
often attribute the failure to the situation (external attribution – “It was
because of that thing”). However, if the same individual watches another
(especially someone disliked or ‘other’ to the individual) succeed at a task,
they often attribute the success to the situation (external attribution – “They
just got lucky”, or “It was easier that time”), and when they watch another
fail at a task, they often attribute the failure to the other person or the
group to which they belong (internal attribution – “That shows they are
stupid”).
Notice the complete
reversal and the contradiction of opposite perspectives given the same
evidence. The attribution and perspective is one way or the complete
opposite depending on who does the task and whether or not they succeed.
The Hostile Media
Effect:
Other experiments have
confirmed that both sides of an issue view media coverage and moderation
(judges, referees) as hostile to their side. For example, liberals are
angry that the media is conservative, and conservatives are angry that the
media is liberal. One study at Stanford showed American media coverage of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pro-Israeli students and pro-Palestinian students,
and both sides said the coverage was clearly biased in favor of the other side.
Another study had students from Princeton and Dartmouth (a big East Coast
rivalry) view a Princeton vs. Dartmouth football game, and each group saw more
illegal moves on the other side and each said that the referees missed more of
these for the other side.
If we consider
perspective, anyone in the middle of an issue is to the opposite side of anyone
on the edges. I have a card I like that shows children on a see-saw with
one standing on the middle, and it reads “I know I am being fair when both
sides accuse me of unfairness”. Unfortunately, this is often true in the
world of competing and opposite perspectives.
LECTURE ON DRIVE AND
DESIRE: NIETZSCHE VS RAND
Last time talked about
Mill, Utilitarianism and looking at the Ends of acts rather than beginnings.
So far, we have been
concerned with collectivist, not individualist ethical concepts. This
time we talk about drive, desire and self interest, reading Nietzsche but also
looking at a thinker important in American thought who takes this sort of
thinking in an entirely different direction, Ayn Rand. With modern times
and increasing technology that enables the individual comes new individualistic
thinking and criticism of more collectivist traditional thought.
While Nietzsche and Rand
both believe the individual should try to create something in the name of the
self, Nietzsche says this is because no one is simply right while Rand says
that she and her school of thought, Objectivism, are simply right.
Myself, love Nietzsche, hate Rand. Both are critical for looking at
modernized society.
There are many positive
and negative things about individualism over collectivism. When
individualism is a problem we call it ‘selfish’ to label it bad, but our
society sees more than just evils in individualism and self-centeredness.
As society has become modernized, it is up to the individual to regulate
themselves and keep themselves in line. Foucault is the big thinker on
this point (who was very influenced by Nietzsche). This means that
individualism is just as much praised, as ‘self-starting’, ‘self-reliant’, that
one should have ‘self-esteem’ (this is the repackaged ideas of Rand by Brandon,
as it is scorned as ‘selfish’. There are many ways today that individuals
are more enabled to be individuals than ever before, and it is very bound up
with America being both the best and the worst so far in many things that civilizations
have been doing from the beginning.
While America is very
individualistic as a culture, with positive and negative aspects, it is
important to recognize that ‘Western’ white European people are not
individualistic by culture starting with the Greeks. This is
unfortunately how it is often presented, that Greece was a very ‘human’ and
‘individualist’ place, and that’s why the West is so the West vs. all other
cultures. As you know, I am a big fan of saying that the West is a bunch
of enabled, wealthy HUMAN BEINGS, and so when they get ‘humanist’ they are
actually getting stuff and culture.
When we look at Japanese
teenagers in Tokyo and Kyoto, we can see profound individualism (like in the
rising ‘Street Culture’ and Art that is shared the world over today beyond
cultural differences).
Good evidence for this
can be seen in a recent experiment where rural African children were given
laptops and the researchers were surprised when the results showed that there
was no lag time of any length in the learning compared to American urban
children. The researchers all assumed that individualistic-culture raised
children would be able to master laptops faster.
Thus, the Greeks and the
Renaissance were ‘humanism’ rising, but only because there were surges of wealth
and culture, just like in Baghdad 1000 years ago and in China before that.
One should expect to see rises, not simple ‘achievements’ of freedom of
thought, diversity of opinions, inventions and innovations, etc whenever a city
or area becomes enabled. Americans, because of the last 150 years and due
to geographic positioning, have become far more enabled and innovating than
other areas of the world but we should not fool ourselves in thinking that we
are the good culture that owns this, either genetically (by ethnicity) or
socially (by form of politics, religion, or science).
In the context of
ancient cosmology, individualism and self interest are typically BAD.
Consider that the big
ONE is more important and ranks all of the little branches. Many has been
characterized as bad and One as good on both an individual and social level.
With modern individualist thinking and development, diversity becomes a
good thing, both for the individual (post modern conceptions and novels, movies
etc) and for the social (multiculturalism, in America called “the melting
pot”).
Consider a tree.
The more the branches, the larger the trunk has to be to support them,
and the larger the trunk, the more branches are needed to feed the tree.
Individuality and community are mutually supportive. While
traditional society favors the collective and modern society prizes the
individual, both can help each other in balance.
While individualism can
be too extreme (for me, Rand is just this in particular ways, such as calling
her group ‘Objective’ with a capital ‘O’ for praising selfishness) we are now
waking to new levels of seeing how the individual can support the group and the
group support the individual. This makes individualism and emphasis on
drive, the self, and survival forces of GOOD (regardless of what one thinks of
Nietzsche or Rand) and thus important for our Ethics even though Ethics has
largely ignored individualism to concentrate on the collectivists dueling back
and forth (most famously Kant and Mill, both of whom Nietzsche hated).
NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)
Nietzsche is often
called the first modern thinker. In fact, depending on whether you say we
live in modern or post-modern times, he is called the first modern OR
post-modern thinker. He is without doubt one of the most influential
philosophers of modern Europe, and most skeptical thought is now deeply in his
debt.
Nietzsche came from a
long line of protestant Lutheran preachers. Unfortunately, Nietzsche’s
father died when he was very little, and though his family sent the boy to
school to become a preacher and theologian (like Hegel, Heidegger and many
other German thinkers) Nietzsche rebelled and turned to philosophy.
German Pessimism and
Schopenhauer
Just before Nietzsche’s
birth, Germany had been going through a great period of pessimism. Just
like in China, Egypt, Greece and everywhere, human thought flourishes in the
period after tragedy and warring states because people are forced to turn
against old conceptions and institutions and ask hard questions that become
very popular in these sorts of times.
German princes came
together to crush the popular people’s movements for individual rights, and
there was a great turning away from the German reason of Kant towards the
German will of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Since reason failed in the
world, the world is not a reasonable place but a tough place in which it is
hard to push for what one sees as beautiful and true.
Marx wrote in this time,
for this crowd.
Schopenhauer is deeply
influenced by Buddhism and Indian thought, in a very pessimistic way.
He uses the image of a
ship bobbing on the water, just hanging on in a watery, stormy ocean of a
world. Rather than believe in a reason beyond, having the stomach to see
the harsh reality of the situation became a value, a value that skeptical
thought has retained.
German pessimism,
including its famous thinkers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, flourished in two
more recent periods of pessimism: WWI for Europe and Vietnam for America.
In fact, Nietzsche was the original guy who said ‘my home country is
stupid and think they are awesome’, bashing Germany and all things German quite
openly, for which he has been honored as not only individualistic but
incredibly courageous. Thus European thought following WWI and American
culture following the 60’s (Berkeley a key player in this) found deep meaning
in calling their society and ‘the system’ a bunch of chumps.
Nietzsche vs. Morality
The text I gave you to
read is ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, in which Nietzsche asks us to look at humanity
critically and see that following the rules (like Kant) or ‘the greater good’
(like Mill) is for sheep. The individual rises above the masses and sees
things in a new way. Nietzsche came up with these ideas reading Kant and
Mill, reacting against their overall goods for everyone evenly. For
Nietzsche, inequality are the beautiful mountain ranges to climb and conquer.
Nietzsche was a staunch
individualist, believing that ANY group morality is a slave morality, and he
called Christianity, Scientific ‘Objectivity’, German Nationalism and German
Racism (very much centered in Anti-Semitism) out on this vocally. Again,
he is seen as a hero by many for this. Consider: “When we create the
master race, we will have to mix in a lot of Jews to get their good qualities”,
a joke considering that Nietzsche would never advise creating a master race of
equals but rather loves the individual who stands above the race as a herd.
It was a shame that
Nietzsche was censored and used by the Nazis to support their ideas of the
beautiful rising German will of the master race, taking Nietzsche’s
individualism and twisting it into a racial and social doctrine.
Nietzsche intended his words for individualists, as he says over and over
again. In this, they famously used his concept of the Superman (and yes,
Nietzsche is the first person on record to use this phrase, the UBERMENCH) to
mean not the artist or visionary who creates but the German race.
Nietzsche vs. Nihilism
While many would say
‘Nietzsche believes in nothing, then”, this would not be true. Nietzsche
was just as vocal about believing in something as he was about not believing
the herd mentality. Nietzsche saw himself as a new sort of thinker who would
be followed and imitated by many. Because of this, he warns over and over
again NOT to make his thought into a school or a system. However, he did
not believe like Schopenhauer that one could believe or not and it makes little
difference. Nietzsche believed that the whole worth of the individual is
that, in the face of nothing being absolutely true, staring into the void of
being, you create something and stand for something in a beautiful way,
creating your own meaning in life. He was very critical of ‘Nihilism’,
believing in nothing, thought this is just what his critics, religious and not,
have called him.
Nietzsche believes in
Heraclitus and Hegel’s Becoming between Being and Nothing. He avoids
believing in eternal positives, but also believing in nothing whatsoever.
It is the overturning of the old into the new by the true individual who
wills something created beyond themselves and the world that stands in the face
of Nihilism that Nietzsche sees as modernity’s greatest threat. He sees a
world where everyone sits on their couch, believes in nothing but is afraid to
contradict the state or church and do SOMETHING other than sit there.
Thus, Nietzsche
relentlessly bashes reason and judgment in himself and in others, but he
believes that you must have the courage to create as a contradictory and mortal
being.
Nietzsche’s bashing of
women:
An Interesting Example
of Nietzsche’s Skeptical Individualism
One of the most
beautiful and deep parts of Nietzsche’s writings is his turn in Human, All Too
Human from bashing Kant and others for believing in objective truth to say
‘here are some of my truths’ and without warning start bashing women repeatedly
including the famous “When you go to woman, do not forget your whip”. The
beauty of this philosophical performance, what inspires Bataille and Derrida,
is that Nietzsche here is showing you both sides of himself at once.
Unlike Kant or Mill who are writing like they can be consistent and not
contradict themselves in the building or seeing of the truth, Nietzsche knows
the truth is psychological and complex, and that beauty comes from tension and
pain. Thus, even in his bashing he knows he is a human being and flawed.
This has had an amazing impact on Art and Literature (particularly since
Bataille and his open obscenity in following Nietzsche).
Nietzsche’s Beyond Good
and Evil:
In this book, Nietzsche
attempts to push thought beyond categorical understandings of good and evil and
of true and false to show the complexity of human meaning and life. He
starts this work asking: Why do we want simple truth or suppose we can
simply get truth? Philosophy seems like it has barely started, but it has been
assumed that something in us wants absolute truth and can acquire it.
Nietzsche says that asking this question is perhaps the greatest risk.
If we question our ability to gain truth, it becomes possible that we
will lose all hope for truth and turn to nihilism, which Nietzsche argues later
is equally as dangerous to human creativity and the process of life as the
belief in objectivity. Typically, thinkers have assumed that there must
be absolute pure truth apart from or hidden within the messy world and various
human opinions. He writes:
“This way of judging
constitutes the typical prejudgment and prejudice which gives away the
metaphysicians of all ages; this kind of valuation looms in the background of
all their logical procedures; it is on account of this ‘faith’ that they
trouble themselves about ‘knowledge’, about something that is finally baptized
solemnly as ‘the truth’. The fundamental faith of the metaphysicians is
the faith in opposite values. It has not even occurred to the most
cautious among them that one might have a doubt right here at the threshold
where it was surely most necessary...For one may doubt, first, whether there
are any opposites at all, and secondly whether these popular valuations and
opposite values on which the metaphysicians put their seal, are not perhaps
merely foreground estimates, only provisional perspectives, perhaps even from
some nook, perhaps from below, frog perspectives, as it were, to borrow an
expression painters use. For all the value that the true, the truthful,
the selfless may deserve, it would still be possible that a higher and more
fundamental value for life might have to be ascribed to deception, selfishness,
and lust. It might even be possible that what constitutes the value of
these good and revered things is precisely that they are insidiously related,
tied to, and involved with these wicked, seemingly opposite things, maybe even
one with them in essence. Maybe!”
(BGE 2)
Note the ‘frog
perspectives’ in their nooks, used by painters, is possibly from the Daoist
Zhuangzi. Later, Nietzsche uses the term ‘well-frogs’ similarly.
European painting was influenced in the Renaissance and later
Enlightenment by Chinese landscape paintings.
“After having looked
long enough between the philosopher’s lines and fingers, I say to myself: by
far the greater part of conscious thinking must still be included among
instinctive activities, and that goes even for philosophical thinking...most of
the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly guided and forced into
certain channels by his instincts. Behind all logic and its seeming
sovereignty of movement, too, there stand valuations or, more clearly,
physiological demands for the preservation of a certain type of life, for
example, that the definite should be worth more than the indefinite, and mere appearance
worth less than ‘truth’... (BGE 3)
“The falseness of a
judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment. In this
respect our new language may sound strangest. The question is to what
extent is it life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even
species-cultivating, and we are fundamentally inclined to claim that the
falsest judgments (which include the synthetic judgments apriori) are the most
indispensable for us, that without accepting the fictions of logic, without
measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and
self-identical, without a constant falsification of the world by means of
numbers, man could not live, that renouncing false judgments would mean
renouncing life and a denial of life. To recognize untruth as a condition
of life, that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a
dangerous way, and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place
itself beyond good and evil.” (BGE 4)
Notice Nietzsche calling
Kant out on apriori truth as a fiction, as well as the title of the work stated
here.
“What provokes one to
look at all philosophers half suspiciously, half mockingly, is not that one
discovers again and again how innocent they are, how often and how easily they
make mistakes and go astray, in short, their childishness and childlikeness,
but that they are not honest enough in their work, although they all make a lot
of virtuous noise when the problem of truthfulness is touched even remotely. They
all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the
self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic (as opposed to
the mystics of every rank, who are more honest and doltish, and talk of
‘inspiration’), while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of
‘inspiration’, most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made
abstract, that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact.
They are all advocates who resent that name, and for the most part even
wily spokesmen for their prejudices which they baptize ‘truths’, and very far
from having the courage of the conscience that admits this, precisely this, to
itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which also lets this
be known, whether to warn an enemy or friend, or, from exuberance, to mock
itself. The equally stiff and decorous tartuffery of the old Kant as he
lures us on the dialectical bypaths that lead to his ‘categorical imperative’
really lead astray and seduce, this spectacle makes us smile, as we are
fastidious and finds it quite amusing to watch closely the subtle tricks of old
moralists...” (BGE 5)
Notice Nietzsche calling
the dialectic of Kant and Hegel, the two big names in German thought in
Nietzsche’s time, a sham that parades itself as pure cold truth.
Nietzsche argues that truth is seduction, we believe what we want to
believe and project it through abstraction into the places we can not see or
are afraid to look. Baudrillard, another French Nietzschean philosopher,
took ‘Truth is Seduction’ as the starting point of his philosophy, wandering in
Vegas and marvelling at the seduction of consumerism and the spectacles we can
create through technology.
“Gradually it has become
clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal
confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious
memoir...Indeed, if one would explain how the abstrusest metaphysical claims of
a philosopher really came about, it is always well (and wise) to ask first: at
what morality does all this (does he) aim? Accordingly, I do not believe
that a ‘drive to knowledge’ is the father of philosophy, but rather that
another drive has, here as elsewhere, employed understanding (and misunderstanding)
as a mere instrument. But anyone who considers the basic drives of man to
see what extent they may have been at play just here as inspiring spirits (or
demons and kobolds) will find that all of them have done philosophy at some
time, and that every single one of them would like only too well to represent
just itself as the ultimate purpose of existence and the legitimate master of
all the other drives.” (BGE 6)
“It is perhaps just
dawning on five or six minds that physics, too, is only an interpretation of
the world (to suit us, if I may say so!) and not a world-explanation.” (BGE 14)
“There are still
harmless self-observers who believe that there are ‘immediate certainties’, for
example, ‘I think’, or as the superstition of Schopenhauer put it, ‘I will’, as
though knowledge here got hold of its object purely and nakedly as ‘the thing
in itself’, without falsification on the part of either the subject or the
object...I shall repeat a hundred times, we really ought to free ourselves from
the seduction of words!” (BGE 16)
“With regard to the
superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small terse
fact, which these superstitious minds hate to concede: namely, that a thought
comes when ‘it’ wishes, and not when ‘I’ wish, so that it is a falsification of
the facts of the case to say that the subject ‘I’ is the condition of the
predicate ‘think’. IT thinks...The strange family resemblance of all
Indian, Greek and German philosophizing is explained easily enough. Where
there is affinity of languages, it cannot fail, owing to the common philosophy
of grammar, I mean, owing to the unconscious domination and guidance by similar
grammatical functions, that everything is prepared at the outset for a similar
development and sequence of philosophical systems, just as the way seems barred
against certain other possibilities of world-interpretation.” (BGE 17)
“O holy simplicity!
In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can
never cease wondering once one has acquired eyes for this marvel! How we
have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple! How we
have been able to give our senses a passport to everything superficial, our
thoughts a divine desire for wanton leaps and wrong inferences! How from
the beginning we have contrived to retain our ignorance...and only on this now
solid, granite foundation of ignorance could knowledge rise so far, the will to
knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will: the will to ignorance,
to the uncertain, to the untrue, not as its opposite, but as its refinement!
Even if language, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness,
and will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees and many
subtleties of gradation...here and there we understand it and laugh at the way
in which precisely science at its best seeks most to keep us in this
simplified, thoroughly artificial, suitable constructed and suitable falsified
world, at the way in which, willy-nilly, it loves error, because, being alive,
it loves life.” (BGE 24)
“Take care, philosophers
and friends, of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom, of suffering ‘for truth’s
sake’, even of defending yourselves...as though ‘the truth’ were such an
innocuous and incompetent creature as to require protectors!” (BGE 25)
“In all seriousness, the
innocence of our thinkers is somehow touching and evokes reverence, when today
they still step before consciousness with the request that it should please
give them honest answers...A philosopher has nothing less than a right to ‘bad
character’, as the being who has so far always been fooled best on earth.
He has a duty to suspicion today, to squint maliciously out of every
abyss of suspicion...Why couldn’t the world that concerns us, be a fiction?
And if somebody asked, ‘but to a fiction there surely belongs an
author?’, couldn’t one answer simply: Why? Doesn’t this ‘belongs’ perhaps
belong to the fiction too?...Shouldn’t philosophers be permitted to rise above
faith in grammar?” (BGE 34)
“One should not dodge
one’s tests, though they may be the most dangerous.” (BGE 41)
“Under peaceful
conditions a warlike man sets upon himself.” (BGE 76)
“Whoever despises
himself still respects himself as one who despises.” (BGE 78)
“A man’s maturity
consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play.”
(BGE 94)
“A people is a detour of
nature to get to six or seven great men. Yes, and then to get around
them.” (BGE 126)
AYN RAND (1905-1982)
As said, I like
Nietzsche’s individualism much more than Rand. I believe Nietzsche takes
his individualism too far, to the point that he values it above collective
truth where I would rather have a balance of individual and collective goods,
both being equally enjoyable and profitable for human beings. Ayn Rand,
however, takes what is beautiful in Nietzsche and rams it straight into the
ground like the head of an ostrich.
For starters, to give
fair warning, Ayn Rand believes that all Philosophers have simply been too
stupid to see that reality is right in front of our eyes, that we see real
objects, and there are times (MOST of the time for her and her Objectivist
followers) when we are just right and others are just wrong and we should
simply say so. While this can come in a good form as ‘self esteem’, it is
easy to see why philosophy people bash her writings, say that she has never
read any philosophy and since she now proposes to simply answer all of the
deepest questions correctly with simple and obvious answers she has no idea what
philosophy actually is. It is pointed out that she is very popular with
individualist people who have never studied philosophy but not with philosophy
students. This charge can be quite elitist, but in my opinion it is
somewhat justified. What would Nietzsche think of common American people
who have not studied great works but come together as ‘Objectivists’ in groups
to say over and over again that they are objectively right and everyone who
disagrees is simply wrong? He would say that they are hardly enabled
individuals, but rather a herd suffering herd delusions of objectivity, like
Kant but far less educated.
On the other hand, Ayn
Rand is very much a popular, common person’s American Realist philosopher.
American Realists, who actually come from Scottish realism, believe in
the positivist position (reality is real, self is real, we perceive real
objects for real, and one can simply judge things to be true or false, for
real) and believe that philosophy, even the positivists like Kant and Aristotle,
have been led astray by skepticism and compromised their positions. The
problem for philosophy professionals is that, unlike the realists, Rand
believes that she is simply right and there are no problems and the rest of
philosophy is meaningless, which is a position that even hardcore American
realists cannot support.
Rand’s life and
Pro-Capitalism, Objectivism Stance
Ayn Rand is big in
America because she defected from Soviet Russia and embraced America as
Objectively right. This is why she has reading rooms dedicated to her in
Marine academies and other hard core pro-American institutions. She is
anti-collectivist like Nietzsche, but thinks that the Soviet Union is simply
wrong and collectivist while America is simply right and individualist.
Ayn Rand believes in the
value of Selfishness, termed better by Brandon as ‘self esteem’.
You may remember it: it
has become a Neo-Con staple and artifact of the 80s.
Argue against Freedman’s
(free market) argument that selflessness is an ideal never obtained, so we are
based in the self and selfishness as anchor. Each is an extreme, and
balance is best.
Think of how Nietzsche
would weep at the end of Atlas Shrugged, after the collectivists have ruined
society, Rand has her hero trace a dollar sign over the ruins. Praise of
selfishness and the all-mighty dollar in a neo-con fashion are the truth that
will lift society back up for Rand.
For Nietzsche, belief in
the dollar or America is a sheep-like fiction for killing your individuality,
not supporting it or lifting society up as a whole.
My Three Moments of
Hating Ayn Rand
End of her speech to
Marine graduating class of 1975: ‘and that’s why my philosophy is the only true
philosophy’…
Her ejection of
Nathaniel Brandon, the ‘King of Self Esteem’, from her Objectivist school after
she found out he was two timing her with a model (thought this seems selfish,
just not for Rand).
Her attempted cover-up
of her lung cancer (from which she died) because she had been very vocal about
how doctors who said cigarettes cause cancer are simply wrong and she ‘knew it
objectively’.
The Moral of the Story
You should stand for
yourself, and have self esteem, but do not let it blind you into going on and
on about how you are right such that you are not critical of your views or the
views of those who agree with you (in a school or otherwise). As Hegel
says, it is fine that each individual believes themselves at first to be simply
the positive truth, but it is important to be critical of oneself in order to
develop the self. Doing things for the self and others should be mutually
supportive, in balance.
There is decent evidence
from biology that human beings are designed to balance self and other interest,
and that selfishness kills the individual and isolates them from the supports
of society. Angry and judgmental people naturally isolate themselves and
have shorter life spans.
Having a pet increases
your life span, so caring for others is good for your individual self.
As we will see in
Violence week, Lt. Grossman tells us that people will stand up in fire for
random strangers in particular situations entirely independent of personality.
Thus, self interest is important for ethics and balance, but not as the
sole anchor in the way that Kant and Mill try to make principle or ends the
sole point of action.
