The conversations that I have been having recently seems to
be full with people searching for something, escaping, wanting, and/or desiring
a form of becoming. These conversations have re-affirmed some of the ideas I
have about authority, goals, construction of self, delusion and this never
ending mortal coil. It’s an odd thing to feel liberated by knowing that things
are all messed up and just not right with the world. It is liberating because
from that awareness there is at least a glimmer of challenge, hope, altercation
and even possible alteration of this state.
I think I have always been a nihilist but I am too
anti-group and suspect to attach myself to anything definitively. Regardless,
nihilism is a philosophy of thought that has always resonated with me (oh those
teenage years and Schopenhauer). Nihilism like all things gets a bad rap in
some contexts and deserved criticisms in others. What it is to me though is means
to a clarity of knowing and that clarity induces starkness, which may sometimes
seem like despair or void, but this clarity is essential, as it is only from
that point (to me) that acceptance and change can actually occur. How can one
alter realities if one is deluded from even seeing them? (Rhetorical).
In light of this tone of thinking, below are some excerpts
from Nietzche’s The Will to Power
from the section Nihilism. It makes
me think a lot about this whole living thing and also how it reflects art and the
art world, our sense of self and this postmodern condition we are living in.
It’s a quick and memento like chapter, read it in full if you are further
interested or compelled.
Frederich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 1901 (translated by Walter Kaufman and R.J. Hollingdale, 1967)
From Preface:
What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is
coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. This
history can be related even now; for necessity itself is at work here. This
future speaks even now in a hundred signs, this destiny announces itself
everywhere; for this music of the future all ears are cocked even now. For some
time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe,
with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly,
violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer
reflects, that is afraid to reflect.
---
Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive. The end of the moral
interpretation of the world, which no longer has any sanction after it has
tried to escape into some beyond, leads to nihilism. "Everything lacks
meaning" (the untenability of one interpretation of the world, upon which
a tremendous amount of energy has been lavished, awakens the suspicion that all
interpretations of the world are false).
---
The nihilistic consequences
of contemporary natural science (together with its attempts to escape into some
beyond). The industry of its pursuit eventually leads to self-disintegration, opposition,
an antiscientific mentality. Since Copernicus man has been rolling from the
center toward X.'
---
It posited that man had a knowledge of absolute values and thus adequate
knowledge precisely regarding what is most important. It prevented man from despising
himself as man, from taking sides against life; from despairing of knowledge:
it was a means of preservation. In sum: morality was the great antidote against
practical and theoretical nihilism.
---
(June 10, 1887)
But among the forces cultivated by morality was truthfulness: this eventually
turned against morality, discovered its teleology, its partial perspective-and
now the recognition of this inveterate mendaciousness that one despairs of
shedding becomes a stimulant. Now we discover in ourselves needs implanted by
centuries of moral interpretation-needs that now appear to us as needs for untruth;
on the other hand, the value for which we endure life seems to hinge on these
needs. This antagonism-not to esteem what we know, and not to be allowed any longer
to esteem the lies we should like to tell ourselves-results in a process of
dissolution.
---
(1883-1888)
The nihilistic consequence (the belief in valuelessness) as a consequence of
moral valuation: everything egoistic has come to disgust us (even though we realize
the impossibility of the unegoistic); what is necessary has come to disgust us
(even though we realize the impossibility of any liberum arbitrium' or
"intelligible freedom"). We see that we cannot reach the sphere in
which we have placed our values; but this does not by any means confer any
value on that other sphere in which we live: on the contrary, we are weary
because we have lost the main stimulus.
"In vain so far!"
---
(Spring-Fall 1887)
Pessimism as strength-in what? In the energy of its logic, as anarchism and nihilism,
as analytic. Pessimism as decline-in what? As growing effeteness, as a sort of
cosmopolitan fingering, as “tout comprendre" and historicism. The critical
tension: the extremes appear and become predominant.
---
Nihilism, then, is the
recognition of the long waste of strength, the agony of the "in
vain," insecurity, the lack of any opportunity to recover and to regain
composure—bein ashamed in front of oneself, as if one had deceived oneself all
too long.
---
(Spring-Fall 1887)
Nihilism represents a pathological transitional stage (what is pathological is
the tremendous generalization, the inference that there is no meaning at all):
whether the productive forces are not yet strong enough, or whether decadence
still hesitates and has not yet invented its remedies.
Presupposition of this
hypothesis: that there is no truth, that there is no absolute nature of things nor
a "thing-in-itself." This, too, is merely nihilism-even the most
extreme nihilism. It places the value of things precisely in the lack of any
reality corresponding to these values and in their being merely a symptom of
strength on the part of the value-positers, a simplification for the sake of
life.
---
(1883-1888)
Every purely moral value system (that of Buddhism, for example) ends in
nihilism: this to be expected in Europe. One still hopes to get along with a
moralism without religious background: but that necessarily leads to nihilism.-
In religion the constraint is lacking to consider ourselves as value-positing.
---
(Spring-Fall 1887)
The nihilistic question "for what?" is rooted in the old habit of
supposing that the goal must be put up, given, demanded from outside some
superhuman authority. Having unlearned faith in that, one still follows the old
habit and seeks another authority that can speak unconditionally and command
goals and tasks. The authority of conscience now steps up front (the more
emancipated one is from theology, the more imperativistic morality becomes) to
compensate for the loss of a personal authority. Or the authority of reason. Or
the social instinct (the herd). Or history with an immanent spirit and a goal
within, so one can entrust oneself to it. One wants to get around the will, the
willing of a goal, the risk of positing a goal for oneself.
---
The lower species ("herd," "mass," "society")
unlearns modesty and blows up its needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In
this way the whole of existence is vulgarized: in so far as the mass is
dominant it bullies the exceptions, so they lose their faith in themselves and
become nihilists.
---
(1883-1888)
The ways of self-narcotization.- Deep down: not knowing whither. Emptiness.
Attempt to get over it by intoxication: intoxication as music; intoxication as
cruelty in the tragic enjoyment of the destruction of the noblest; intoxication
as blind enthusiasm for single human beings or ages (as hatred, etc.).- Attempt
to work blindly as an instrument of science: opening one's eyes to the many
small enjoyments; e.g., also in the quest of knowledge (modesty toward oneself);
resignation to generalizing about oneself, a pathos; mysticism, the voluptuous
enjoyment of eternal emptiness; art "for its own sake" ("Ie
fait") and "pure knowledge" as narcotic states of disgust with oneself;
some kind or other of continual work, or of some stupid little fanaticism; a
medley of all means, sickness owing to general immoderation (debauchery kills
enjoyment).
1. Weakness of the will as a result.
2. Extreme pride and the humiliation of petty weakness felt in contrast.
---
The reduction of growing gloom.- Our pessimism: the world does not have the
value we thought it had. Our faith itself has so increased our desire for
knowledge that today we have to say this. Initial result: it seems worth less; that
is how it is experienced initially. It is only in this sense that we are
pessimists; i.e., in our determination to admit this revaluation to ourselves
without any reservation, and to stop telling ourselves tales-lies-the old way.
That is precisely how
we find the pathos that impels us to seek new values. In sum: the world might
be far more valuable than we used to believe; we must see through the naiveté
of our ideals, and while we thought that we accorded it the highest
interpretation, we may not even have given our human existence a moderately
fair value.
---
(Spring-Fall 1887)
The "predominance of suffering over pleasure" or the opposite (hedonism):
these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism.
For in both of these
cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or
displeasure. But that is how a kind of man speaks that no longer dares to posit
a will, a purpose, a meaning: for any healthier kind of man the value of life
is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. And suffering might
predominate, and in spite of that a powerful will might exist, aYes to life, a
need for this predominance.
---
"Life is not worthwhile"; "resignation"; "why the
tears?"a weakly and sentimental way of thinking. "Un monstre gai vaut
mieux qu'un sentimental ennuyeux.” deserves to be repudiated.
At this point nihilism is reached: all one has left are the values that pass
judgment-nothing else. Here the problem of strength and weakness originates:
1. The weak perish of it;
2. those who are stronger destroy what does not perish;
3. those who are strongest overcome the values that pass judgment.
In sum this constitutes the tragic age.
---
One fails to see, although it could hardly be more obvious, that pessimism is
not a problem but a symptom, that the name should be replaced by
"nihilism," that the question whether not to- be is better than to be
is itself a disease, a sign of decline, an idiosyncrasy.
The nihilistic movement is merely the expression of physiologieal decadence
---
(Nov. 1887-March 1888)
To be comprehended: That every kind of decay and sickness has continually
helped to form overall value judgments; that decadence has actually gained
predominance in the value judgments that have become accepted; that we not only
have to fight against the consequences of all present misery of degeneration,
but that all previous decadence is still residual, i.e., survives. Such a total
aberration of mankind from its basic instincts, such a total decadence of value
judgments-that is the question mark par excellence, the real riddle that the
animal "man" poses for the philosopher.
---
(March-June 1888)
The concept of decadence.- Waste, decay, elimination need not be condemned:
they are necessary consequences of life, of the growth of life. The phenomenon
of decadence is as necessary as any increase and advance of life: one is in no
position to abolish it. Reason demands, on the contrary, that we do justice to
it. It is a disgrace for all socialist systematizers that they suppose
---
What should be fought vigorously is the contagion of the healthy parts of the
organism. Is this being done? The opposite is done. Precisely that is attempted
in the name of humanity. -How are the supreme values held so far, related to
this basic biological question? Philosophy, religion, morality, art, etc. (The
cure: e.g., militarism, beginning with Napoleon who considered civilization his
natural enemy.)
---
The most dangerous misunderstanding.- One concept apparently permits no
confusion or ambiguity: that of exhaustion. Exhaustion can be acquired or inherited-in
any case it changes the aspect of things, the value of things.
---
The cult of the fool
is always the cult of those rich in life, the powerful. The fanatic, the
possessed, the religious epileptic, all eccentrics have been experienced as the
highest types of power: as divine. This kind of strength that excites fear was
considered preeminently divine: here was the origin of authority; here one
interpreted, heard, sought wisdom.- This led to the development, almost
everywhere, of a will to "deify," i.e., a will to the typical degeneration
of spirit, body, and nerves: an attempt to find the way to this higher level of
being.
---
The herd instinct, then-a power that has now become sovereign-is something
totally different from the instinct of an aristocratic society: and the value
of the units determines the significance of the sum.- Our entire sociology
simply does not know any other instinct than that of the herd, i.e., that of
the sum of zeroes-where every zero has "equal rights," where it is
virtuous to be zero.- solution?" Duration "in vain," without end
or aim, is the most paralyzing idea, particularly when one understands that one
is being fooled and yet lacks the power not to be fooled .
---
Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is,
without meaning or aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of
nothingness: the eternal recurrence.
---
This is the most extreme form of nihilism: the nothing (the
"meaningless"), eternally! The European form of Buddhism: the energy
of knowledge and strength compels this belief. It is the most scientific of all
possible hypotheses. We deny end goals: if existence had one it would have to
have been reached.
---
Morality consequently taught men to hate and despise most profoundly what is
the basic character trait of those who rule: their will to power. To abolish, deny,
and dissolve this morality-that would mean looking at the best-hated drive with
an opposite feeling and valuation. If the suffering and oppressed lost the faith
that they have the right to despise the will to power, they would enter the
phase of hopeless despair. This would be the case if this trait were essential
to life and it could be shown that even in this will to morality this very "will
to power" were hidden, and even this hatred and contempt were still a will
to power. The oppressed would come to see that they were on the same plain with
the oppressors, without prerogative, without higher rank.
---
There is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power-assuming
that life itself is the will to power. Morality guarded the underprivileged
against nihilism by assigning to each an infinite value, a metaphysical value,
and by placing each in an order that did not agree with the worldly order of
rank and power: it taught resignation, meekness, etc.
---
What does "underprivileged" mean? Above all, physiologically-no
longer politically. The unhealthiest kind of man in Europe (in all classes)
furnishes the soil for this nihilism: they will experience the belief in the
eternal recurrence as a curse, struck by which one no longer shrinks from any action;
not to be extinguished passively but to extinguish everything that is so aim-
and meaningless, although this is a mere convulsion, a blind rage at the
insight that everything has been for eternities-even this moment of nihilism
and lust for destruction.- It is the value of such a crisis that it purifies,
that it pushes together related elements to perish of each other, that it
assigns common tasks to meu who have opposite ways of thinking-and it also
brings to light the weaker and less secure among them and thus promotes an
order of rank according to strength, from the point of view of health: those
who command are recognized as those who command, those who obey as those who
obey. Of course, outside every existing social order.
---
Who will prove to be the strongest in the course of this? The most moderate;
those who do not require any extreme articles of faith; those who not only concede
but love a fair amount of accidents and nonsense; those who can think of man
with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on
that account: those richest in health who are equal to most misfortunes and
therefore not so afraid of misfortunes-human beings who are sure of their power
and represent the attained strength of humanity with conscious pride.
