On Morality and Nietzsche

So... Here is where I talk about why I don't like Nietzsche. It's an adamant dislike, actually which is hopefully founded in sound reason. As I always say, the best way to avoid group think is to encourage disagreement and dissension. Thus, if you have issue, speak up.

Oh and please excuse my very topical treatment of Nietzsche and his "philosophy." After all, I only care enough to have read him to the extent I can write a proper essay of him and hopefully respond to his key arguments, but if I have missed something that would provide crucial insight, please, again, let me know.

First, the part that I can understand. The distinction between Master and Slave morality seems relatively intuitive. I'm not saying it's right, but I think its intuitive as the basis for my disagreement. For those who don't know, Master morality is the championing of natural strength, of wealth, and of power and the distaste of weakness and the like. Slave morality is born of ressentiment which is French for resentment but isn't necessarily being used in the same fashion. Ressentiment in this manner means building a moral code and value system based on a frustration towards an authority you don't respect. Thus we can see where we get the term slave morality (because it comes from the "slaves"). Slave morality is characterized by Nietzsche as self-denying the pleasures of life such as money, sex, and the like as well as adapting strong opposition to killing, stealing, lying etc. because those are things that the Masters do and is therefore bad because they treat us wrong.

He uses the example of lambs and birds of prey. The birds feed on the lambs and the lambs get mad and adopt a no killing policy as part of their moral code. This, Nietzsche says, is part of their ressentiment towards the birds and is not a justifiable moral... thing. Nietzsche says that the birds are just doing their bird thing and cannot be blamed for seeking to conquer and feed on the lambs. (Here, Nietzsche also is falsely attributing cognitive states to animals which I certainly don't approve of.)

Here's where I start to disagree, obviously. You can't blame someone for subjecting someone else? You can't blame the bully for beating up the nerd? You can't blame a murderer for killing? You can't blame someone for just being a general jerk? Really? Really Nietzsche?

Nietzsche adopts the argument that what is natural is right. As I was recently enlightened to, there is no arguable conceptual connection between what is natural behavior and morally correct behavior. Additionally, animals are NOT moral agents and therefore cannot make more judgements! THE LAMBS DON'T HAVE A MORAL CODE. Sorry. I digress. It seems that Nietzsche supports the Darwinian idea of might makes right and whatever behavior promotes oneself is good behavior to have. But again, these ideas in and of themselves are not necessarily moral. Again, since humans are capable of moral action, we are not on level with animals in our moral choices and thus what is necessarily natural is not necessarily moral.

Going back to slave morality: it is in this moral viewpoint that Nietzsche claims that religion is born from. He primarily attacks Christianity and, by extension, Judaism, but he really is attacking the moral framework of all religions. He says they are self-depriving and wrong because they are based upon this championing of the meek and lowly and weakness and the like which is not something that we should be okay with. My issue is that A) while that might be a possible source for morality in religion, that doesn't make it wrong. In fact, seeing injustice and forming a moral code around NOT doing that is what's right, in my opinion. B) To have a very Darwinian society is much like having an anarchist society in that no one abides by laws they feel they can physically overcome. It's a dangerous spiral.

Nietzsche wants a resurgence of Master morality which I think is dangerous to society. Moreover, he wants people to reconsider their morals. Because they might be grounded in falsehoods of slave morality, we should reconsider them. I think we should reconsider our morals for the same reason we should reconsider our beliefs about the world and other values that we hold dear. They might be grounded in false reason or misconceptions. Point is, I think instead of having a strict set of rules, we should have guidance systems that help us come up with rules as we need them. I suggest utilitarianism as just one of the many ways one can establish a frame of reference for these things. Nietzsche says utilitarianism sucks because it treats everyone as equals. REALLY? What kind of elitist is he that he can say that some people's pain or pleasure counts for more or less than other's? It's outrageous to say that one person is inherently better than another. It blows my mind.

Finally, on top of all this absurdity, Nietzsche spends a TON of time talking about why there is no truth. Mainly, he says that any proposition of so-called "truth" is just an assertions of someone's "Will to Power." That is, whoever says, "Hey I've got some truth for you," is really just saying, "Hey I want to be better than you and so here is something you should accept as truth because I said it is and I want to be better than you..." or something. This too seems outrageous for a few GLARING reasons. A) There HAS to be objective, empirical truth about the universe. It abides by laws and any positing of these laws cannot merely be an assertion of power. B) A priori truths are not necessarily false by the virtue of their coming to be. There is a definite possibility of some things being known without having to be experienced or without the need for definitive evidence.

and of course, C) HOW CAN NIETZSCHE SAY THERE IS NO TRUTH WHEN HE IS TRYING TO TELL US THERE IS NO TRUTH? By saying there is no truth, he is trying to convince us of something he believes is true. He's contradicting himself completely and entirely and it bothers me. His claim of untruth fails on so many levels. Additionally, I can't tolerate skepticism in general. Mainly epistemological skepticism because it's not practical in the slightest. It doesn't do us any good to sit around and try to think of reasons why we can't know anything because that's contradictory in itself. Descartes can get away with it because he at least makes an attempt at moving away from his starting point of complete skepticism. All Nietzsche is doing is whining in a corner saying we can't know anything while telling us what to think.

It's not okay.

On the Facade and the Public Self

Now... this post is the direct result of criticism and me being the way I am... but I'm going to do my best and keep it professional.

It's funny because I'm supposed to be writing a 1000 word essay about this very topic so I suppose the mere typing of this post begs the question, "Why don't you just write the stupid essay?" Truth is, I don't know.

Anyway, in my meditation, I was having a rough time distinguishing the private self from the public self. For me, I couldn't put A and B together but I now realize the following:
1) The private self is that who you are when no one is around. The private self is that idea that you know yourself best--that you're the best monitor of your own beliefs and feelings. The private self is the self you would sit down and have the most truthful conversations with (or just talking to yourself). The private self is that person you talk to when you think to yourself, "I should have known better," "I didn't really mean to say that," or any other type of cognition-related dissonance.
2) The public self is that person (the Jungian persona or facade) who you are to every other human being. Now, I think it's important to make the distinction between good friends (who you don't have to impress and who know you), acquaintances of interest (that is, people who you want to be friends with or people in a position to be flattered by you for your own personal gain), and strangers or other temporary acquaintances (those who will only you know based on a first impression). For the first, self-monitoring is usually low and who you are reflects your private self very well. For the second two, the public self can be this completely different person--that is, the person you think you want people to know. And of course, for some, this might be the same person as their private self. But you have to admit, for everyone, there are always those situations where they can't say or do exactly what they want because they're worried about how others will judge them for it.

That's another key point--being judged. That persona for the public self is a direct result of how you want to be remembered by everyone. The fact of the matter is, you can die with all your dirty secrets, but the person every one will know you as is the person you will always be. I guess it speaks to past transgressions: don't let anyone ever be mad at you for anything; simply because that kind of thing is hard to forget.

As I said, this all is a direct result of not only have to write a paper on the very same topic (which I think I have just mostly done... sort of), but a lot of self-reflection. I think my private self is very different from my public self but I think my good friends truly know me since I'm typically an open book for those people at certain times. I have a terrible time admitting my insecurities but when I do, that's pretty much a peek into who I am underneath it all.

I'm sure I had a point, but as usual, it escapes me. What can you do?

Considering things less important than usual...

So I don't have anything deep to say (surprise, surprise) and so I'll give a general update.

School is good albeit stressful--mostly due to personal expectations for a certain amount of academic success which isn't necessarily being met/validated on a normal day-to-day basis. I mean, I can suppose that I'm doing pretty well and considering the kind of material that I'm working with, I think I'm doing pretty good. I guess my main issue is the consistency of speculation towards performance in that I generally have to just sit around and hope that I'm doing well instead of actually having a quantifiable measure of actual performance.

That being said, I have a short paper to write (which will consist of 40% of my grade) for my philosophy seminar on Animal Considerability. Honestly, I wish I hadn't taken the class... but my main source of stress comes from my total lack of understanding towards cognitive ethology and a general lack of caring towards the idea of whether animals can think. I don't think animals have desires and while I grant that they have feelings and rudimentary/crude reasoning skills, I don't think that we need attribute moral status to them in so much as we only take cares to ensure they never suffer more pain and suffering than is acceptable for any living creature. But then again, that's how I feel about all people I don't really know. I simply wish that all people be granted at a minimum enough moral consideration that they not be egregiously harmed.

Is it so much to ask that I not be forced to believe that animals are so morally considerable that they be granted the right to property and representation in congress? I exaggerate of course because out of all the gargantuan readings we've had for that class, none of them make any sense and I don't understand the point of any of them.

Perhaps you can see the underlying causes of my stress?

I thought this wasn't going to be a deep post...?

Anyways, everything else is going fine. Social life is fine and considering it's infinitely better than the past two years of college, I can't complain. The radio show is going swimmingly. Writing for Broadside has been much, much better than it was last year but still not nearly as wonderful as it was Freshman year when I was able to write more to my style and about more things I cared about.

Note to self: Broadside retrospective in an upcoming blog post?

I'm participating (for the most part) in National Novel Writing Month. Even though, I'm really only doing it in my head and not physically because I still am lacking any extrinsic motivation and pressure for actually doing it. I write my best under pressure and I am not feeling any when it comes to these novels. I guess I could drop out of school and declare to the world that I will make a living writing novels and the only way I can eat is by the fruits (lol) of my imagination. Seems like that would deliver adequate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for finishing one or more of the five projects I've started.

Latest project: Novel! By: Author (by Dylan Hares)

It's the epic story of writing an epic story. The journey of one writer in his quest for his magnum opus. I got the idea from Paul Laudiero (who came up with the title) and from Milan Kundera's Immortality whose first chapter seems much like Kundera is narrating his epiphany on immortality and identity and the human condition. It will be literally brilliant if I can find the voice and pacing and stick to it. Maybe I'll write some more tonight after I study for my Personality exam.

But yeah... I suppose that's it for now.

I mean... considering things less important than usual, that is.