Philosophy Paper
Sometimes, The Ends Just Don’t Need Justifying
By
Jared Cox
Philosophy 225 Online
Ms. Craft
December 5, 2011
Because Nietzsche writes in a polemical way, often failing to use any kind of philosophical argument at all, it sometimes seems as though he is merely expressing his own opinion about things like Christianity and religion more generally, and this is what most people criticize his philosophies for—excluding, of course, his highly-controversial subject matters—however, I am unsure if Nietzsche has to be clear and precise for his ideas to work. In fact, Nietzsche’s pathos-driven prose do a better job at expressing his ideas than any lofty, twisted language full of ancient early Greek citations ever could accomplish. Consequently, I will not be writing this paper in a traditional way, but one modeled after Nietzsche’s style—though I will, for fear of looking like a big plagiarizer and failing this paper, cite my sources.
Confused, maybe he was simply suggesting something different—that life is more than this conditioned tradition we have been brainwashed to believe; we, in our Westernized homes with our Westernized ideologies engrained in us since birth, taught to us through our Westernized radios and Westernized televisions, discussed over fatty surpluses topics of good and evil—of love and compassion—while the tenants of the adjacent street wonder if they will have enough food just to sustain life—to keep them breathing. For them, forget about thoughts of one God and our duty as man to put others before ourselves, to do what feels contrary to our nature—our nature that was once perfect and pure but through the fall of mankind—through sin—has become sinful, evil by birth—a nature that is flawed and failing and perpetually doomed without some kind of savior—some kind of redemption. This duty—this morality—we adhere by and need not question—this is why life is better for us than for others. But is it? This same morality—this same adherence and stock built up in religion—the very thing that we claim makes life better is the same thing that wars are fought over—that people kill for? It is what we live and die for, and it just does not make sense! No, we are living a contradiction—and for what? So that we can justify our animalistic behavior or claim that we are more than desperate, lustful creatures whose only choices made are based on pleasure and greed? The way we are, as Westerners, as the lucky ones, the baptized, the fortunate, the depraved, the poor, the needy, we are all the same—it matters not what we believe because whatever we believe, we believe we do it because ultimately, we believe that that something that we believe in will benefit us. You love God while your neighbor starves. You hate God while your neighbor starves. You feed your neighbor so that God will reward you. You feed your neighbor so that one day your neighbor will feed you. Where does it end? What is the end? Is there an end? We act so civilized, but we are just animals in disguise. And why should we be more than this? Why do those who are valueless feel the need to find their value in the external? And why do those with values feel the need to dish their time and efforts—time and efforts hard earned—on those who do not care? Why shouldn’t the valued man be valued because of what he has done with and of himself? What is truly good is the feeling one gets when he has done something good—something to be proud of—something others will see and when they see that person think, “he has done this great thing—he is good.” They will be jealous and want that person’s attention, and that person will have power over them—that is truly good. What is bad? Not evil, bad is the opposite of good—it is anything rooted in weakness. Then what is evil? Evil is the churning of bad—the realization by the weak that they are weaker than the strong, and the developing of a hatred because of that—a hatred that poisons the mind and body! A hatred unknown to the powerful and strong. That poison is far worse than the hand of the strong on the weak!
Nietzsche says it exactly like this, “When the resentment of the aristocratic man manifests itself, it fulfils and exhausts itself in an immediate reaction, and consequently instills no venom… An inability to take seriously for any length of time their enemies, their disasters, their misdeeds—that is the sign of the full strong natures who possess a super-fluity of moulding plastic force that heals completely and produces forgetfulness.”
He goes on to say that it is only through forgetting that one can forgive. So, if society flourishes when men strive—when men have power—when they are good, why then do we suppress these men and squander this potential by stating that all men are equal and by holding pity on the weak as preferred over power for the strong? Where does that lead us? To degradation, degeneration and corruption.
What you just read, for the most part, is how I imagine Nietzsche developed some of his thoughts—set in a modern-day context, of course—kind of an amalgamation of everything I have read of the philosopher thrown into one giant fulmination. I feel that this could have been at least part of the progression of thought that led to his “God is dead” illustration. Thoughts moving in and out of his brain so fast that he did not know what to do with them, thoughts that tried to make sense of everything he had learned his whole life—the things his parents taught him, the things his clergy taught him, and the things his schools taught him—suddenly, not making sense, and he is left to try and make sense of this puzzle that is life. Rather than boringly copy and paste every big idea the thinker had from some scholarly website, I thought Nietzsche could better be described by a sort of rant—because, after all, that was how he wrote. His poignant style was harsh; it was real and in your face and he said what he thought—without worrying about connecting how he got to that thought or whom he offended along the way. I mean, he said some pretty ground-breaking stuff, stuff that did not really have a precedent that he could cite or build off of… it was just him… challenging everything he once thought he knew.
I was first introduced, albeit briefly and vaguely, to Frederich Nietzsche in the film Little Miss Sunshine, where one of the story’s characters, Dwayne Hoover, was highly impressed with the philosopher. Though Dwayne is kind of a portrayal of Nietzsche himself, it is Nietzsche’s ideas on suffering that permeate the viewer’s subconscious, making this movie more than just some source of entertainment. Nietzsche says, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
This idea is almost directly transcribed into the film’s dialogue in the scene where Frank, played by Steve Carell, is talking to Dwayne; he recalls the French writer Marcel Proust—how his life was full of “unrequited love affairs,” how he was “gay,” and how he “spent twenty years writing a book almost no one reads.” Frank continues on, saying, “[Proust] gets down to the end of his life and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, because they made him who he was” (Check out the scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi_UfQpDwxA). Not only this, but Nietzsche’s master/slave moralities can also be seen in the film through Richard Hoover’s character, played by Greg Kinnear, who is an aspiring motivational speaker and author who speaks of being a winner in a very similar fashion to the way Nietzsche speaks of the aristocracy and the powerful—in praise and elevating them over the losers, the peasants, and the weak.
Aside from the obvious homage to Nietzsche as shown in Little Miss Sunshine and other films, Nietzsche’s ideas—especially his “God is dead” expression—have been adopted into many musicians’ lyrics. I am not talking about musicians one would hear on the radio, because most of their lyrics are pretty much void of any significance and especially void of philosophical inquiry. However, this class has opened my eyes to realize that many of the artists I listen to subscribe, at least in their writing, to Nietzsche’s “God is dead” declaration. For example, David Bazan, ex-frontman of indie/Christian rock outfit, Pedro the Lion, has recently openly admitted to his loss of faith. About it, Bazan says:
For now, just being is enough. Whether things happen naturally, completely outside an author, or whether the dynamics of earth and people are that way because God created them—or however you want to credit it—if you look around and pay attention and observe, there is enough right here to know how to act, to know how to live, to be at peace with one another.
The following lyrics are from Bazan’s song titled “Hard To Be;” the song portrays Bazan’s distance from God in a very Nietzsche-like fashion, through irony and sarcasm: “Wait just a minute, You expect me to believe
that all this misbehaving
grew from one enchanted tree? And helpless to fight it,
we should all be satisfied
with this magical explanation
for why the living die?
And why it’s hard to be a decent human being?”
(Check out the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXxEr5Aw5_0).
A couple more examples, though there are many, many more, of Nietzsche’s “God is dead” proclamation can be seen quoted directly in Mansions’ song, “Call Me When It’s Over (listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRyhxoVLP4A), a song Christopher Browder—singer and writer of Mansions—claims is, “a breakup song that’s not about a girl,” lending thought to its subject being a declaration of a possible break from God.
Lastly, my final example can be heard in Brand New’s haunting “Millstone,” where Jesse Lacey—singer and writer of the band—writes, “I used to pray like God was listening…” (Track can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiFmO2GRDWU).
More importantly—though less interesting to me—Nietzsche’s works have also influenced several major thinkers of the twentieth century, including “Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, William Butler Yeats, and Jacques Derrida,” just to name a few.
Part of what makes Nietzsche so unique is that his ideas have transcended different genres of art and expression. Not solely limited to philosophy, Nietzsche’s ideas have inspired psychology, musicians, artists, painters, dancers, and even the Nazis! Obviously, people bought into and are still buying into Nietzsche’s ideas, despite their lack of logical and reasonable groundwork and an identifiable train of thought, proving that his pathos-driven, polemic style of arguing is just as effective as a more respected, traditional style of writing would have been.
