OESTERHOUDT STRIKES
It astounds me how much material I can mine from newspapers. Every story is rife with hidden biases. Every perspective is jilted. Every judgment is faulty--at least from particular angles. My writing, too, is faulty from particular angles. But newspapers "disseminate information on a large scale." They even claim to publish "the truth." I make no such claim. I am just a lonely Nietzschean in a categorical world. My facts are my perspectives, no more. To say anything else would be presumptuous at best.
Yet I am not writing to attack factual inaccuracies in news reporting. Rather, I write to illustrate the ubiquitous, subtle value judgments that underlie even the most innocuous articles.
Last week, for instance, the New York Post ran a brief article about the new "Limelight Mall" that opened in the old Episcopal church on 6th Avenue. See N.Y. Post, May 8, 2010 at p. 6. For New Yorkers, this is a seismic shift. Beginning in 1983, a notorious nightclub called "Limelight" operated in the space. It closed down a three years ago. It remained vacant. People thought the building was falling apart. They thought it was ugly. Actually, they never liked it much when it was a nightclub, either. People used to have sex, do drugs and dance there.
But now it's a high-end shopping mall. You can't hang out with lascivious nocturnal denizens in the Limelight anymore. You can't get lost in Byzantine mazes searching for chance encounters there. Nor can you dance away the night to the techno beat. No, now the Limelight has regular business hours. And rather than offering New York nightlife, now it peddles $400 dog collars, custom soaps and Petrossian caviar.
This is Bloomberg New York at its finest. Out with fun. Out with uniqueness. In with drab, revolting commercialism. In with chain stores, banks and luxury boutiques. It makes me want to vomit.
Yet the New York Post voices its values by praising the transformation at Limelight. Although the staff writer does not directly say that a boutique mall is better than a nightclub known for rollicking Epicurean license, she uses a surrogate to make the judgment for her. Specifically, she quotes a 30-year-old lawyer with a 7-month-old daughter who came down to check out the new shops. The lawyer said: "It's fabulous. It was really a dump before."
Wait a minute. What could a 30-year-old lawyer possibly know about what the Limelight was 20 years ago? She was 10 years old back then. She probably didn't even live in New York. The Limelight has been closed for three years. That means she was 27 when that happened. Kids usually graduate law school at 25, which means that for three years before that, she probably never set foot in a nightclub, let alone assessed whether the Limelight was a "dump." Even assuming she did have the time, most law students don't go to places like the Limelight; such indulgence might reflect poorly on their character applications for bar admissions.
In all likelihood, this lawyer moved to New York very recently and rented an apartment in the neighborhood at some obscenely inflated rent. She had a job waiting for her, then popped out a kid. She probably noticed that the church was unoccupied. She probably also noticed that the other buildings in the area housed nice little restaurants and shops, so the church looked "run down" by comparison. So when a boutique mall opened in her neighborhood, she probably thought to herself: "How consistent! Just what I expected for my block! Now I can get caviar!"
This is revolting value imposition. Who the hell is this little lawyer to say whether the Limelight was a dump? She could never have gone to the Limelight in its heyday. She was studying contracts and torts during its last years in operation. She merely heard about the Limelight and immediately concluded that a boutique mall is better than a nightclub. That is a value judgment. And it reflects allegiance to quiet bourgeois comfort. The Post endorsed that judgment.
Screw her. I think boutique malls are dumps. I'll take the nightclub.
Alas, she made the paper, not me.
Thus spoke Oesterhoudt.
Showing posts with label Nietzsche. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nietzsche. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
UNCOMFORTABLE SUBJECTS : IMPERIALISM AND CONQUEST
AN ESSAY
Over the last half century, "imperialism" has become a dirty word in American academic discourse. During that time, prevailing rhetoric has extolled multiculturalism, tolerance and multiperspectivism. It has championed the rights of historically disadvantaged groups while denigrating traditionally powerful ones. It has empowered the downtrodden and strengthened the weak. It has justified the historically unjustifiable. In the process, university rhetoric has identified "imperialism" as the worst thing one culture can do to another. Great civilizations, so the rhetoric goes, no longer conquer and dominate others. Great civilizations tolerate everyone and allow every culture to flourish within their borders.
Yet I venture that this is an anomalous trend. In fact, I argue that Nations unafraid to act imperialistically are strong Nations, while Nations afraid to do so are weak.
I understand that this squarely contradicts how we are "supposed to think" about imperialism today. But true to my word, I am determined to speak out this week about uncomfortable subjects. To use Nietzsche's term, I am determined to make "Uncontemporary Observations" concerning subjects we have been taught never to consider any other way.
Imperialism is about national power. In its purest form, it means the purposeful, intrusive projection of one Nation's military and cultural power over another Nation. To understand what that entails, it is essential to understand what "Nations" are. In past essays, I have noted that "Nations" and "States" are distinct terms. "Nations" refer to discrete populations united by common linguistic, cultural, genetic and religious traditions. "States," on the other hand, refer merely to a population's adherence to a particular governing instrument for the sake of common administration and convenience. Many Nations can exist under a common State. But Nations are unique.
Throughout history, some Nations have prevailed, while others have fallen. Nations that have prevailed generally have successfully engaged in imperialism. They have crushed and dominated their neighbors. They have brutally stamped out opposition and imposed their own cultural traditions on their defeated enemies. These Nations cared nothing for multiculturalism or tolerance. They did not blink at brutality. Rather, they felt so secure in their own power that they gladly violated other Nations' territory to absorb them into their own realms. This is not a popular thing to do these days. But history shows that the most influential Nations have been the most imperialistic, too.
Consider Rome. Rome grew to eminence because it projected its values across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By sheer will and military prowess, it subjugated its neighbors, occupied their territory and imposed its values on them. It even made them speak Latin and build infrastructure according to the Roman model. It forced them to live under Roman law and observe Roman customs. Rome was strongest when it was unafraid to conquer. It affirmed its own beliefs when it ruthlessly destroyed all who stood before it. Through imperialism, Rome made itself great. At its height, Rome conquered and killed without a second thought. It believed so strongly in its own values that it did not hesitate to eradicate whole Nations.
But consider now how Rome fell. Rome collapsed several centuries after it stopped waging imperial wars. Once it reached its territorial zenith, Roman values began to weaken. Its government began tolerating new ideas and new cultural trends. Internal cultural cracks developed. Its military power waned. Barbarians began picking away at the frontiers. Put simply, Rome lost its appetite for imperialism. It lost faith in its own rightful dominance. So Nations with more assurance in their own values filled the void. They overran Rome and destroyed it.
Turn now to England and Spain, the "great" European colonizers of the Americas and Asia. Both Nations achieved spectacular eminence because they shamelessly engaged in imperialism. Both Nations reached their zenith when they brutally laid claim to others' land and genocidally slaughtered anyone who opposed them. They unswervingly believed in their own causes: Just like the imperial Romans, the British and the Spanish believed that their values were far superior to the Natives they displaced. So they killed, enslaved and uprooted them without a second thought. In the process, they reshaped the world. Like it or not, the fact that English and Spanish are among the world's most spoken languages is the direct result of unabashed, vicious global imperialism. Like it or not, the only reason why European white people live in North America today is because England and Spain barged in and killed everyone else who used to live there. The very existence of the United States is the product of an original, shocking act of imperialism by Great Britain.
To summarize, Nations are strong when they conquer. They believe in their own values so much that they do not shrink from trampling and absorbing other Nations. Nations weaken when they lose faith in their own dominance and begin tolerating dissention in their own borders. Imperialism showcases a Nation's shameless belief in itself; and its contempt for any culture that differs from it.
Needless to say, it is no longer popular to endorse imperialism. It is no longer acceptable to say that one Nation is rightfully superior to another, let alone to suggest that one Nation has the authority to seize territory and butcher native inhabitants in another country. Yet it is precisely that vicious cultural intolerance that created the United States. That same intolerance sustained all the world's mightiest empires. When a Nation engages in imperialism without shame, it declares to all the world: "My Nation is so great that it deserves to dominate you."
America presents an interesting case. Despite all the recent discourse condemning imperialism, the United States remains an immensely imperialistic country. Since roughly 1865, America has engaged in imperialism all over the world. First, it eradicated or marginalized native populations in its own continental borders. Second, it overran Hawaii. Then it battled Spain and conquered Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Philippines and numerous Pacific islands. In World War I, it projected its national power into European affairs, playing a substantial role in dictating the peace terms at Versailles. In World War II, the United States achieved monumental national power by almost single-handedly defeating Japan and Germany, then permanently occupying both defeated countries. After World War II, the United States created the United Nations and oversaw "world peace" by policing various national conflicts from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan and Central America. Later, the United States invaded Iraq on fabricated "self-defense" grounds, plunging that country into civil war.
America's voracious imperialism does not end with military conquest. Beyond physical incursions into other Nations' affairs, America also engages in unabashed cultural intrusion. Its music and film industry dominate the entire world. Children from China to Germany to Africa all learn English so they can listen to American songs and watch American movies. People in Beirut listen to Michael Jackson and Rihanna. Business people all over the world adopt English as their lingua franca. America's cultural imperialism is so complete that when two foreign businessmen meet, chances are they will speak English to each other, even if neither is a native English speaker. None of these things would ever have come to pass if America had not engaged in overwhelming, successful imperialism over the last 150 years.
In this light, perhaps it is not a bad thing to say that a Nation like the United States is "imperialistic." After all, America dominates the world in a way not seen since Rome. Its culture, language and military cow the globe into submission. All other Nations measure themselves by the American standard. Like all empires in history, America's imperialism shows that the United States ruthlessly believes in itself. It does not tolerate dissention abroad. And it has shown that it will crush any Nation that opposes its power. Put simply, America is strong; and it is not afraid to beat anyone down who thinks otherwise.
Is imperialism unpopular? In university rhetoric, of course it is. But when we look closely at what imperialism means--and what it has wrought in the United States--we discover an embarrassing truth: We are all the products of imperialism. Our "American civilization" arose because England and Spain were unafraid to savagely kill the natives who once occupied this land. We speak English and Spanish in North America because the British and Spanish felt so superior that they had a right to set up shop on a foreign continent. And we now live in the world's most powerful Nation because the United States carried on the imperialistic tradition that gave it life in the first place.
America was born in imperialism. It will always be imperialistic. Imperialism showcases American values. It reflects intolerance for all who oppose us. In a perverse way, however, it also confirms America's health. As long as America is unafraid to savagely destroy its enemies and to project is culture over all the world, it is still--as Rome was--at the height of its power. America has not stopped expanding. Indeed, it is not in our nature to stop expanding. Once we stop expanding--whether culturally or militarily--we are no longer imperialistic. And when that happens, we can expect our power to gradually wane, just as Rome's did.
Thus, despite all the criticism, an imperialistic Nation is a healthy Nation. Imperialistic Nations might act like ferocious animals, but ferocious animals defeat any living thing that opposes them. In that light, we can thank imperialism for giving us this mighty Republic, as well as all the comforts it brings.
This is my uncontemporary observation for the day.
Over the last half century, "imperialism" has become a dirty word in American academic discourse. During that time, prevailing rhetoric has extolled multiculturalism, tolerance and multiperspectivism. It has championed the rights of historically disadvantaged groups while denigrating traditionally powerful ones. It has empowered the downtrodden and strengthened the weak. It has justified the historically unjustifiable. In the process, university rhetoric has identified "imperialism" as the worst thing one culture can do to another. Great civilizations, so the rhetoric goes, no longer conquer and dominate others. Great civilizations tolerate everyone and allow every culture to flourish within their borders.
Yet I venture that this is an anomalous trend. In fact, I argue that Nations unafraid to act imperialistically are strong Nations, while Nations afraid to do so are weak.
I understand that this squarely contradicts how we are "supposed to think" about imperialism today. But true to my word, I am determined to speak out this week about uncomfortable subjects. To use Nietzsche's term, I am determined to make "Uncontemporary Observations" concerning subjects we have been taught never to consider any other way.
Imperialism is about national power. In its purest form, it means the purposeful, intrusive projection of one Nation's military and cultural power over another Nation. To understand what that entails, it is essential to understand what "Nations" are. In past essays, I have noted that "Nations" and "States" are distinct terms. "Nations" refer to discrete populations united by common linguistic, cultural, genetic and religious traditions. "States," on the other hand, refer merely to a population's adherence to a particular governing instrument for the sake of common administration and convenience. Many Nations can exist under a common State. But Nations are unique.
Throughout history, some Nations have prevailed, while others have fallen. Nations that have prevailed generally have successfully engaged in imperialism. They have crushed and dominated their neighbors. They have brutally stamped out opposition and imposed their own cultural traditions on their defeated enemies. These Nations cared nothing for multiculturalism or tolerance. They did not blink at brutality. Rather, they felt so secure in their own power that they gladly violated other Nations' territory to absorb them into their own realms. This is not a popular thing to do these days. But history shows that the most influential Nations have been the most imperialistic, too.
Consider Rome. Rome grew to eminence because it projected its values across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By sheer will and military prowess, it subjugated its neighbors, occupied their territory and imposed its values on them. It even made them speak Latin and build infrastructure according to the Roman model. It forced them to live under Roman law and observe Roman customs. Rome was strongest when it was unafraid to conquer. It affirmed its own beliefs when it ruthlessly destroyed all who stood before it. Through imperialism, Rome made itself great. At its height, Rome conquered and killed without a second thought. It believed so strongly in its own values that it did not hesitate to eradicate whole Nations.
But consider now how Rome fell. Rome collapsed several centuries after it stopped waging imperial wars. Once it reached its territorial zenith, Roman values began to weaken. Its government began tolerating new ideas and new cultural trends. Internal cultural cracks developed. Its military power waned. Barbarians began picking away at the frontiers. Put simply, Rome lost its appetite for imperialism. It lost faith in its own rightful dominance. So Nations with more assurance in their own values filled the void. They overran Rome and destroyed it.
Turn now to England and Spain, the "great" European colonizers of the Americas and Asia. Both Nations achieved spectacular eminence because they shamelessly engaged in imperialism. Both Nations reached their zenith when they brutally laid claim to others' land and genocidally slaughtered anyone who opposed them. They unswervingly believed in their own causes: Just like the imperial Romans, the British and the Spanish believed that their values were far superior to the Natives they displaced. So they killed, enslaved and uprooted them without a second thought. In the process, they reshaped the world. Like it or not, the fact that English and Spanish are among the world's most spoken languages is the direct result of unabashed, vicious global imperialism. Like it or not, the only reason why European white people live in North America today is because England and Spain barged in and killed everyone else who used to live there. The very existence of the United States is the product of an original, shocking act of imperialism by Great Britain.
To summarize, Nations are strong when they conquer. They believe in their own values so much that they do not shrink from trampling and absorbing other Nations. Nations weaken when they lose faith in their own dominance and begin tolerating dissention in their own borders. Imperialism showcases a Nation's shameless belief in itself; and its contempt for any culture that differs from it.
Needless to say, it is no longer popular to endorse imperialism. It is no longer acceptable to say that one Nation is rightfully superior to another, let alone to suggest that one Nation has the authority to seize territory and butcher native inhabitants in another country. Yet it is precisely that vicious cultural intolerance that created the United States. That same intolerance sustained all the world's mightiest empires. When a Nation engages in imperialism without shame, it declares to all the world: "My Nation is so great that it deserves to dominate you."
America presents an interesting case. Despite all the recent discourse condemning imperialism, the United States remains an immensely imperialistic country. Since roughly 1865, America has engaged in imperialism all over the world. First, it eradicated or marginalized native populations in its own continental borders. Second, it overran Hawaii. Then it battled Spain and conquered Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Philippines and numerous Pacific islands. In World War I, it projected its national power into European affairs, playing a substantial role in dictating the peace terms at Versailles. In World War II, the United States achieved monumental national power by almost single-handedly defeating Japan and Germany, then permanently occupying both defeated countries. After World War II, the United States created the United Nations and oversaw "world peace" by policing various national conflicts from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan and Central America. Later, the United States invaded Iraq on fabricated "self-defense" grounds, plunging that country into civil war.
America's voracious imperialism does not end with military conquest. Beyond physical incursions into other Nations' affairs, America also engages in unabashed cultural intrusion. Its music and film industry dominate the entire world. Children from China to Germany to Africa all learn English so they can listen to American songs and watch American movies. People in Beirut listen to Michael Jackson and Rihanna. Business people all over the world adopt English as their lingua franca. America's cultural imperialism is so complete that when two foreign businessmen meet, chances are they will speak English to each other, even if neither is a native English speaker. None of these things would ever have come to pass if America had not engaged in overwhelming, successful imperialism over the last 150 years.
In this light, perhaps it is not a bad thing to say that a Nation like the United States is "imperialistic." After all, America dominates the world in a way not seen since Rome. Its culture, language and military cow the globe into submission. All other Nations measure themselves by the American standard. Like all empires in history, America's imperialism shows that the United States ruthlessly believes in itself. It does not tolerate dissention abroad. And it has shown that it will crush any Nation that opposes its power. Put simply, America is strong; and it is not afraid to beat anyone down who thinks otherwise.
Is imperialism unpopular? In university rhetoric, of course it is. But when we look closely at what imperialism means--and what it has wrought in the United States--we discover an embarrassing truth: We are all the products of imperialism. Our "American civilization" arose because England and Spain were unafraid to savagely kill the natives who once occupied this land. We speak English and Spanish in North America because the British and Spanish felt so superior that they had a right to set up shop on a foreign continent. And we now live in the world's most powerful Nation because the United States carried on the imperialistic tradition that gave it life in the first place.
America was born in imperialism. It will always be imperialistic. Imperialism showcases American values. It reflects intolerance for all who oppose us. In a perverse way, however, it also confirms America's health. As long as America is unafraid to savagely destroy its enemies and to project is culture over all the world, it is still--as Rome was--at the height of its power. America has not stopped expanding. Indeed, it is not in our nature to stop expanding. Once we stop expanding--whether culturally or militarily--we are no longer imperialistic. And when that happens, we can expect our power to gradually wane, just as Rome's did.
Thus, despite all the criticism, an imperialistic Nation is a healthy Nation. Imperialistic Nations might act like ferocious animals, but ferocious animals defeat any living thing that opposes them. In that light, we can thank imperialism for giving us this mighty Republic, as well as all the comforts it brings.
This is my uncontemporary observation for the day.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
UNCOMFORTABLE SUBJECTS : PRIVATE RACISM
A REFLECTION ON RACE IN AMERICA
I want to take some time to mention what I'm planning to write over the next few days. I think it's especially important to lay out my intentions this time because I am about to venture into very difficult territory.
Whenever I set out on a new intellectual endeavor, I always think of my mentor: Friedrich Nietzsche. In this instance, I think about the title to one of his aphorism collections: Uncontemporary Observations. Nietzsche did not care whether he wrote about subjects that ruffled traditional feathers. He purposely contradicted the expectations of the "the present" and "contemporary" society. His ideas at times recapitulated themes from distant history. At other times, they foretold the future. In either case, he was not "contemporary." To the contrary, he purposely defied "contemporary."
Writers face constant pressure to be contemporary. After all, you can't be successful if you don't write to meet present expectations. Yet no one ever evolves without taking daring chances; and writers are no exception. By accident, I find myself in early 21st Century America: A strange, confusing, conflicted, changing civilization. There are certain subjects that we simply do not talk about, or at least we do not voice certain sentiments about them in public. It is irrelevant what we privately think about these "taboo" subjects. We just never voice what we really believe. Sometimes our beliefs are not even conscious.
Race is among those subjects. Personally, race is an obsession of mine. It frequently inspires my writing because it is so maddeningly relevant. Yet there are certain things we simply do not say about it, no matter how often we think them.
Race has played a pivotal role in American civilization from our earliest history. Through race, we have seen just how low American civilization can fall. Through race, we see our principles challenged. All our grand rhetoric about equality, dignity and fairness falls flat when applied to the American experience with race. It is no surprise that much of my satire involves racial realities in the United States. After all, when we honestly view race in America, we see several different Nations living in one. And they aren't all equal, no matter what the law says.
But I struggle with my own conflicts about race. In my writing and in my public expressions, I vociferously advocate equality. I believe that everyone in this country--no matter their origins--should have equal legal opportunities and a fair shot at success. I truly believe that. It is only just. We cannot claim to live in a just society if some people do not have the same chances for success simply because of their ancestry in a certain country or a certain continent.
Yet even in saying this I feel myself a hypocrite. In fact, I come close to a confession when I say that I am a racist. But we all are. Americans simply do not understand that racism comes in many shades. Some are overt, but most are extraordinarily subtle. Everyone in the United States is a racist in their own fashion; you do not have to be David Duke to be a racist. Rather, every American--including declared liberals--harbors deep-rooted cultural expectations about the "ways" of different ethnic groups. Every American believes on some level that people in other ethnic groups are "different" and "act differently" than they do "because that's the way they are." They do not necessarily mean it in a malicious way; but it is ever-present. And it is racism.
We are racists the moment we say: "Two guys and a black guy entered the room." I was raised with these distinctions. I also grew up in a distinct cultural background (southeastern Connecticut; and as the biological product of hardworking Northern European Protestant descendants). Both by nature and by operation of economic forces, that cultural background was racially exclusive. For the longest time, I never thought I was racist. How could I be? After all, I always learned that it was "bad to be a racist" and that I wasn't a racist because I did not publicly say bad things about people in other ethnic groups. But my own family--the same family that taught me these abstract lessons about race with the best possible intentions--cultivated a set of cultural values in me that made me completely dissociate myself from other races. Those values also made me intuitively judgmental toward anyone who did not share them. And on a subconscious level, I began to believe that my values were normal, while others were not. That was racist.
Racism is everywhere in the United States. It is on everyone's mind all the time. And it is intensely private. When white people eat at a restaurant and a black beggar enters the restaurant, I challenge everyone sitting there to say that they do not harbor certain negative assumptions about black people: "Why doesn't he work? Why do they beg? Why are they all so poor? They're all like that..." they think. They might be ferocious liberals and believe in equality. But in that cultural situation, I challenge them all to say that they do not make immediate judgments about black people in their own private minds. And it is not their fault: It is simply a function of their own cultural backgrounds reacting to another cultural background.
America elected Barack Obama. But that does not mean we are not beyond racism. My "uncontemporary observation" on this subject is that EVERYONE IS A RACIST. It is just a question of degree. We may bear no conscious ill-will toward other ethnic groups. Yet when we make even the most subtle assumptions about them, we are racists. Even disadvantaged ethnic groups engage in racism. I challenge any black person to say he harbors no assumptions about white people when placed in a social situation with them: "He's not going to be fair with me. He's not going to treat me right. He's going to condescend to me. He's going to exploit me. He's going to disrespect me. He's going to fire me because I'm black. That's what they all do. White people are mean and will hurt me any chance they get." Racism goes in both directions--all the time.
Overcoming racism is about more than turning to the law for superficial equalization. Overcoming racism is a mammoth cultural endeavor; and we are nowhere near achieving it. Until we truly harbor no assumptions or expectations about "how other ethnic groups act," and until we truly do not think "How typical" when someone from a particular ethnic group acts in a particular way, we are racists. Yet we do these things all the time without even knowing it. We are merely giving expression to the combined weight of our respective cultural heritages. Heritage bears down upon us in America as in no other country on earth. Nowhere on earth have so many disparate cultural traditions been thrown in with one another. And nowhere else has such burning intolerance arisen when those traditions clash.
Let me be clear for the record. I live my life to avoid racism in all things. But I am still as racist as every other American because I cannot honestly say that I do not occasionally make negative assumptions about other ethnic groups in difficult situations. In this sense, we are all racists. When a black youth wearing a doo rag, low pants, a crooked hat and gangster-style sports garb acts rowdy with his friends on a subway train, I intuitively think: "He is up to no good. He's going to cause a scene." I wish I didn't. But I do. I tell myself I shouldn't think it. I challenge any white person from my cultural background to claim the very same thoughts do not flash in his mind in the same situation.
I have no solutions to the racism problem. The best we can do is to forbear as much as we possibly can in our external behavior. We must try to understand one another as best we can for the sake of order and coexistence. It is relatively easy never to "act like a racist" or "say racist things" in public. It is easy not to be David Duke. But it is not so easy to truly drive racist thoughts from our minds in pressing circumstances.
I wish we weren't all racists. I really, really do. But we would all be dishonest if we said we weren't. And I will immediately call anyone a hypocrite who denies his own racism. Racism is not just the overt hatred we hear about in groups like the KKK. Racism is also about unconscious economic segregation. Living in a part of town that no black person can afford is racist, too. Supporting an economic system that perpetuates racial inequalities is racist, too. After all, why do most wealthy white people live in areas that black people cannot afford? Because they won't have to be around black people. When black people are around, it's a "bad neighborhood." Even using the term "bad neighborhood" is racism. It is no coincidence that "bad neighborhoods" are always the poor, black areas. And it is racist to assume the poor, bad areas are always black. Yet people who claim not to be racist use the term "bad neighborhood" all the time.
Consider a white real estate broker who thinks he is not a racist. He says to his client: "You don't want to live above 96th Street. That's a bad neighborhood." Why? Because black people mostly live there. How can that not reflect deeply entrenched, racist assumptions about black people? Think about how often we use terms like "bad neighborhood." They are racist. And most barely comprehend why.
Racism in the United States is exquisitely subtle. It is the inevitable byproduct of placing so many cultural backgrounds in close proximity to one another, along with the natural human propensity to resent those who are different. As such, racism is everywhere. I know it's not popular to say. But that does not mean we cannot honestly grapple with it. Is it terrible? Of course it is. But there are lots of terrible things about American life; and in my view it makes more sense to call a spade a spade than to pretend it's not.
This is my uncontemporary observation for the day.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT FROM NIETZSCHE
A REFLECTION
Sometimes I wonder what all my writing will lead to. I never intended to make a career from my writing. People tell me: "Go write a book." But then they say: "You need to have a story that people will like, etc., etc." In other words, to be a successful writer I need to stop wandering and get focused. If I want a bestseller, I need to Grishamize.
If you read my blog, you know I'm no John Grisham. I simply write what occurs to me. But my writing is thematically consistent. An identifiable core runs through everything I write here. I think it's possible to glean my life philosophy from the topics I choose to discuss. That might not be a recipe for bestselling commercial writing. But what have I ever cared about commerce? If anything, I recoil from it. I'm an Aristotelean in that regard: Philosophy and commerce just don't mix.
Still, it's a lonely road sometimes. I look at authors who achieve commercial success and wonder why no one ever notices me. Maybe I am just too weak or too preoccupied to promote myself. On the other hand, I know that most Americans really don't care about--or care to think about--the issues I typically address in my writing. So my commercial non-viability is really twofold: (1) I do not promote; and (2) My substance is largely unpalatable.
To be clear, I am not complaining. It is exciting to write only about things that stimulate me. For the longest time, I lived life without commenting on it. Commentary simmered in my mind all the time; work just never gave me a chance to write it all down. This blog has given me the chance I always craved. It has transformed me. So even if this blog does not pay me in U.S. dollars, it pays me in emotional satisfaction. If I die tomorrow, people would know who I am. My voice would not be lost. This blog is as much a testament as it is a forum.
I always find inspiration and encouragement when I need them most. Yesterday, I sat thinking about the fact that no one will ever read what I write, at least not in my lifetime. It frustrated me a little bit. I even thought about my philosophical archetype, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche never achieved commercial success in life, either. His books barely sold a thousand copies. When he was 45, he lost his mind and never recovered. He died young. I don't think I'm losing my mind yet, but I identify with what happened to Nietzsche: I am defiantly proud of the fact that I am anti-commercial; but it nonetheless hurts to know I will likely never receive wide recognition.
So I felt a little down yesterday. It was cold, gray, windy and rainy outside. I reflected on how poor I am. I can barely pay my rent. In fact, this month I can't even pay it at all. I need to budget out my money to buy food. Plus I need to care for Steve, who is incapacitated. It pretty much sucks. I still experience joy these days. But it only peeks through like tiny patches of blue sky on a very cloudy day.
I decided to crack open Nietzsche's Human, All-too Human. I paged through the aphorisms. I stumbled on this one: "121. A Vow--I do not want to read any more authors about whom people say: 'He set out to write a book.' Rather, I only want to read authors whose thoughts became a book by accident."
Is this me? It sure sounds like it. I just write my thoughts. I never set out to write a book. I simply allow myself to pour out impressions on things that fascinate me or incite me. There is consistency in my thoughts. But they do not reflect a conscious plan to "write a book" in the conventional sense. Could they "accidentally" become a book? Perhaps. As a whole, I like to think that this blog resembles a collection of Nietzschean impressions. Nietzsche's unconventional thoughts transformed into books. Perhaps mine can too.
That was encouraging. Without even trying, I fit into the category of "authors" whom Nietzsche might have wanted to read. I am not one of those authors who "set out to write a book." I do not sketch plots or try to cram my writing into a conventional format that people like. I am not John Grisham. John Grisham's thoughts do not become a book "by accident." No, when he sits down to write, he knows what book it's going in. He's just fleshing out the formula he laid down before he starting writing.
I'm glad I stumbled on Nietzsche's aphorism when I did. I was feeling low and worthless. I was losing hope. But after discovering that Nietzsche, too, faced similar struggles in his time, I felt encouraged to face mine. I felt freshly secure in my writing. It did not bother me that I am not a bestseller. Rather, I felt hope that perhaps one day--like Nietzsche--my thoughts would "accidentally" transform into a book. That thought brightened me, even if the "book" appears after I die. I do not really value my life too much anyway. I would rather have people remember my thoughts than my "too too solid flesh." As the Germans say: "Wer schreibt, der bleibt" : "He who writes remains."
I blog because it is the only way for me to publish without editorial control or commercial pressure. Nietzsche wrote longhand and hoarded his writings in his desk. He found a publisher who printed a few editions. I can publish over the internet, even if my audience is small. At least it's something. And I will continue. That is my vow.
Sometimes I wonder what all my writing will lead to. I never intended to make a career from my writing. People tell me: "Go write a book." But then they say: "You need to have a story that people will like, etc., etc." In other words, to be a successful writer I need to stop wandering and get focused. If I want a bestseller, I need to Grishamize.
If you read my blog, you know I'm no John Grisham. I simply write what occurs to me. But my writing is thematically consistent. An identifiable core runs through everything I write here. I think it's possible to glean my life philosophy from the topics I choose to discuss. That might not be a recipe for bestselling commercial writing. But what have I ever cared about commerce? If anything, I recoil from it. I'm an Aristotelean in that regard: Philosophy and commerce just don't mix.
Still, it's a lonely road sometimes. I look at authors who achieve commercial success and wonder why no one ever notices me. Maybe I am just too weak or too preoccupied to promote myself. On the other hand, I know that most Americans really don't care about--or care to think about--the issues I typically address in my writing. So my commercial non-viability is really twofold: (1) I do not promote; and (2) My substance is largely unpalatable.
To be clear, I am not complaining. It is exciting to write only about things that stimulate me. For the longest time, I lived life without commenting on it. Commentary simmered in my mind all the time; work just never gave me a chance to write it all down. This blog has given me the chance I always craved. It has transformed me. So even if this blog does not pay me in U.S. dollars, it pays me in emotional satisfaction. If I die tomorrow, people would know who I am. My voice would not be lost. This blog is as much a testament as it is a forum.
I always find inspiration and encouragement when I need them most. Yesterday, I sat thinking about the fact that no one will ever read what I write, at least not in my lifetime. It frustrated me a little bit. I even thought about my philosophical archetype, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche never achieved commercial success in life, either. His books barely sold a thousand copies. When he was 45, he lost his mind and never recovered. He died young. I don't think I'm losing my mind yet, but I identify with what happened to Nietzsche: I am defiantly proud of the fact that I am anti-commercial; but it nonetheless hurts to know I will likely never receive wide recognition.
So I felt a little down yesterday. It was cold, gray, windy and rainy outside. I reflected on how poor I am. I can barely pay my rent. In fact, this month I can't even pay it at all. I need to budget out my money to buy food. Plus I need to care for Steve, who is incapacitated. It pretty much sucks. I still experience joy these days. But it only peeks through like tiny patches of blue sky on a very cloudy day.
I decided to crack open Nietzsche's Human, All-too Human. I paged through the aphorisms. I stumbled on this one: "121. A Vow--I do not want to read any more authors about whom people say: 'He set out to write a book.' Rather, I only want to read authors whose thoughts became a book by accident."
Is this me? It sure sounds like it. I just write my thoughts. I never set out to write a book. I simply allow myself to pour out impressions on things that fascinate me or incite me. There is consistency in my thoughts. But they do not reflect a conscious plan to "write a book" in the conventional sense. Could they "accidentally" become a book? Perhaps. As a whole, I like to think that this blog resembles a collection of Nietzschean impressions. Nietzsche's unconventional thoughts transformed into books. Perhaps mine can too.
That was encouraging. Without even trying, I fit into the category of "authors" whom Nietzsche might have wanted to read. I am not one of those authors who "set out to write a book." I do not sketch plots or try to cram my writing into a conventional format that people like. I am not John Grisham. John Grisham's thoughts do not become a book "by accident." No, when he sits down to write, he knows what book it's going in. He's just fleshing out the formula he laid down before he starting writing.
I'm glad I stumbled on Nietzsche's aphorism when I did. I was feeling low and worthless. I was losing hope. But after discovering that Nietzsche, too, faced similar struggles in his time, I felt encouraged to face mine. I felt freshly secure in my writing. It did not bother me that I am not a bestseller. Rather, I felt hope that perhaps one day--like Nietzsche--my thoughts would "accidentally" transform into a book. That thought brightened me, even if the "book" appears after I die. I do not really value my life too much anyway. I would rather have people remember my thoughts than my "too too solid flesh." As the Germans say: "Wer schreibt, der bleibt" : "He who writes remains."
I blog because it is the only way for me to publish without editorial control or commercial pressure. Nietzsche wrote longhand and hoarded his writings in his desk. He found a publisher who printed a few editions. I can publish over the internet, even if my audience is small. At least it's something. And I will continue. That is my vow.
Friday, November 20, 2009
SHAME OR GUILT : WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
AN ESSAY
I tried to answer this question during a conversation I had with one of my best friends. We often talk about philosophy and power, and we both agreed that "shame" and "guilt" are "kindred spirits." They are both strongly negative words. No one likes to feel guilty or shameful. They both imply that you have done "wrong." But are they really the same? That's the question.
Both "shame" and "guilt" flow from an acknowledgment of power. We only feel shameful or guilty when we recognize that we have failed to conform to a standard that we probably did not make. Someone else made the standard, someone we recognize as "superior" to us. In this sense, both guilt and shame emanate from below; the person who makes the rules that induce guilt or shame at most feels "disappointed" that his "subject" broke a rule. Shame and guilt, then, are for those who occupy an inferior power position. This is why Nietzsche called shame and guilt Sklavenmoral--Slaves' Morality. The rule-maker (or "master") does not feel them. Rather, he causes others to feel them because they do not adhere to his standards. They solidify his grasp over them.
But this does not mean that a single "superior person" causes others to feel guilt or shame. While a "superior person" may have originally laid down external standards, in most cases today external standards proceed from institutions. After all, power is deeply entrenched. It emanates from manifold places. It operates in virtually every conceivable manner, whether subtle or overt. Power radiates in families, in schools, in laws, in social settings and in professional relationships. It exists in commerce and in property. Most relationships involve a party with advantages and a party without them. That disparity provides an opportunity for dominance by one party over the other. And this is the setting in which guilt and shame flourish.
Guilt is more extrinsic that shame. Although both guilt and shame flow from an acknowledgment of power, the power that induces guilt is predominantly external. When we feel guilty, we feel bad because we know we have transgressed against some common rule or understanding. Our negative emotion springs from our awareness that we have violated an external expectation. This includes everything from the criminal law (an external authority about which we are conscious) to our parents (an external authority whose commands we respect). A person feels guilty when he steals or when he knowingly fails to attend a dinner he promised his parents he would attend. In both cases, the person knew he was obligated to do something by some external authority, yet he failed to adhere to the obligation. That conscious failure creates guilt.
With guilt, then, the inquiry is external. We feel guilty only when we acknowledge that some external authority holds power over us. When we break its rules, we feel guilt to the extent that we deviate from the "expected standard." Guilt requires an acquiescence to "superior" people or ideas. It necessarily makes the subject "inferior" to the standard he violates. And unlike shame, it can be objectively measured: The "superior" party can declare a subject "guilty" because the subject verifiably deviated from an external standard. This is why the law uses the term "guilt" rather than "shame." Guilt is a conclusion as well as an emotion. You just need to see whether a person met the standard.
Not so with shame. Although shame might feel similar to guilt, it flows from an entirely different conceptual source. Shame has internal origins. A person feels ashamed when he fails to meet a standard that he expects from himself, not a standard some external authority set for him. An external authority might encourage a person to expect certain behavior from himself. But in the final analysis, only an individual can decide whether to adhere to certain principles or beliefs. In this sense, shame intertwines with honor. An honorable person swears to himself that he will not act in a certain way to achieve certain results. He expects certain behavior from himself. He commits himself to certain principles and beliefs. When he fails to act in the way he expects, he feels shame, not guilt. He failed to meet his own standard, not an external one.
Consider a man who commits himself to respecting others and telling the truth. He makes these commitments because he personally believes that respect and truth are honorable principles. If one day he lies and disrespects a competitor to win a job, he deviates from his own standard. If he truly has honor, he would feel ashamed for breaking his own commitments to good principles. He might also be guilty of violating some external standard against perjury or untruthfulness, but that has nothing to do with his own internal transgression. And that internal violation creates shame. In short, shame is ethical (internal), while guilt is legal (external).
But shame still requires an "inferior" mental outlook. Although an honorable person decides for himself whether to believe in certain principles, in many cases he does not decide freely. The decision whether to believe certain things often depends on social circumstance and expectation. An external rulemaker has as great an interest in creating strong internal shame in his subjects as he does in crushing them under external guilt. A rulemaker wants his subjects to decide to believe in principles that could induce individual shame. All this inures to his benefit. For example, a person learns to believe that "it is good to respect private property." He also learns that it is "illegal to steal." If he steals something, he suffers both shame and guilt: On the one hand, he failed to meet his own internal standard about respecting private property; on the other, he knowingly violated the external command not to steal others' property.
Both emotions are negative. They flow from different sources. But in the end, they both serve to reinforce the "superior rulemaker's" control over his subjects. Guilty and shameful people are easier to manage than willful ones.
Shame seems purer than guilt. It is more individual than guilt because it depends on the individual's own moral ordering. But if a person's own moral ordering is not voluntary--and if individual moral ordering merely substitutes for external rulemaking--then the net effect of shame is no different than guilt: They both reinforce dominant values by inducing negative emotions in those bold enough to "transgress."
I tried to answer this question during a conversation I had with one of my best friends. We often talk about philosophy and power, and we both agreed that "shame" and "guilt" are "kindred spirits." They are both strongly negative words. No one likes to feel guilty or shameful. They both imply that you have done "wrong." But are they really the same? That's the question.
Both "shame" and "guilt" flow from an acknowledgment of power. We only feel shameful or guilty when we recognize that we have failed to conform to a standard that we probably did not make. Someone else made the standard, someone we recognize as "superior" to us. In this sense, both guilt and shame emanate from below; the person who makes the rules that induce guilt or shame at most feels "disappointed" that his "subject" broke a rule. Shame and guilt, then, are for those who occupy an inferior power position. This is why Nietzsche called shame and guilt Sklavenmoral--Slaves' Morality. The rule-maker (or "master") does not feel them. Rather, he causes others to feel them because they do not adhere to his standards. They solidify his grasp over them.
But this does not mean that a single "superior person" causes others to feel guilt or shame. While a "superior person" may have originally laid down external standards, in most cases today external standards proceed from institutions. After all, power is deeply entrenched. It emanates from manifold places. It operates in virtually every conceivable manner, whether subtle or overt. Power radiates in families, in schools, in laws, in social settings and in professional relationships. It exists in commerce and in property. Most relationships involve a party with advantages and a party without them. That disparity provides an opportunity for dominance by one party over the other. And this is the setting in which guilt and shame flourish.
Guilt is more extrinsic that shame. Although both guilt and shame flow from an acknowledgment of power, the power that induces guilt is predominantly external. When we feel guilty, we feel bad because we know we have transgressed against some common rule or understanding. Our negative emotion springs from our awareness that we have violated an external expectation. This includes everything from the criminal law (an external authority about which we are conscious) to our parents (an external authority whose commands we respect). A person feels guilty when he steals or when he knowingly fails to attend a dinner he promised his parents he would attend. In both cases, the person knew he was obligated to do something by some external authority, yet he failed to adhere to the obligation. That conscious failure creates guilt.
With guilt, then, the inquiry is external. We feel guilty only when we acknowledge that some external authority holds power over us. When we break its rules, we feel guilt to the extent that we deviate from the "expected standard." Guilt requires an acquiescence to "superior" people or ideas. It necessarily makes the subject "inferior" to the standard he violates. And unlike shame, it can be objectively measured: The "superior" party can declare a subject "guilty" because the subject verifiably deviated from an external standard. This is why the law uses the term "guilt" rather than "shame." Guilt is a conclusion as well as an emotion. You just need to see whether a person met the standard.
Not so with shame. Although shame might feel similar to guilt, it flows from an entirely different conceptual source. Shame has internal origins. A person feels ashamed when he fails to meet a standard that he expects from himself, not a standard some external authority set for him. An external authority might encourage a person to expect certain behavior from himself. But in the final analysis, only an individual can decide whether to adhere to certain principles or beliefs. In this sense, shame intertwines with honor. An honorable person swears to himself that he will not act in a certain way to achieve certain results. He expects certain behavior from himself. He commits himself to certain principles and beliefs. When he fails to act in the way he expects, he feels shame, not guilt. He failed to meet his own standard, not an external one.
Consider a man who commits himself to respecting others and telling the truth. He makes these commitments because he personally believes that respect and truth are honorable principles. If one day he lies and disrespects a competitor to win a job, he deviates from his own standard. If he truly has honor, he would feel ashamed for breaking his own commitments to good principles. He might also be guilty of violating some external standard against perjury or untruthfulness, but that has nothing to do with his own internal transgression. And that internal violation creates shame. In short, shame is ethical (internal), while guilt is legal (external).
But shame still requires an "inferior" mental outlook. Although an honorable person decides for himself whether to believe in certain principles, in many cases he does not decide freely. The decision whether to believe certain things often depends on social circumstance and expectation. An external rulemaker has as great an interest in creating strong internal shame in his subjects as he does in crushing them under external guilt. A rulemaker wants his subjects to decide to believe in principles that could induce individual shame. All this inures to his benefit. For example, a person learns to believe that "it is good to respect private property." He also learns that it is "illegal to steal." If he steals something, he suffers both shame and guilt: On the one hand, he failed to meet his own internal standard about respecting private property; on the other, he knowingly violated the external command not to steal others' property.
Both emotions are negative. They flow from different sources. But in the end, they both serve to reinforce the "superior rulemaker's" control over his subjects. Guilty and shameful people are easier to manage than willful ones.
Shame seems purer than guilt. It is more individual than guilt because it depends on the individual's own moral ordering. But if a person's own moral ordering is not voluntary--and if individual moral ordering merely substitutes for external rulemaking--then the net effect of shame is no different than guilt: They both reinforce dominant values by inducing negative emotions in those bold enough to "transgress."
Saturday, August 8, 2009
REUNITED WITH AN OLD FRIEND : FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
A REFLECTION
I was waiting for a friend in an office two days ago. Unlike most waiting rooms, this one actually had a bookcase with some good books, not just a table stacked with magazines about celebrity sightings. I looked over the titles. I saw familiar names: Kafka, Orwell, Dostoevsky, Bronte, Tolstoy, Woolf.
When I was younger, I loved literature. I dove into books, even did not fully understand them. I really thought literature would make me a better person; I thought it was good to read books. I even took pride in it. I went to school at Columbia in New York. They force you to read “classic literature” there. It’s called the “Core Curriculum.” Many of my classmates resented the compulsion to read so much. I actually enjoyed it; I disregarded the compulsion. I read for myself. I didn’t care what my teachers said; most of them were just graduate students anyway who had to teach the course to get their own degrees. I just conversed with the authors. I even read more over the summer because I liked the themes and ideas I encountered. I wanted to develop them in my head. I didn’t turn off my brain when the school year ended.
All these old impressions came back to me as I looked at that bookcase. A comforting feeling came over me, especially when I saw the name Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was my favorite author from my first year at Columbia. I dedicated the rest of my college days to reading just about everything he wrote. I read all his classic novels: Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Demons, The Idiot. I also read most of his short stories, like Notes from Underground, The Double and The Gambler. Taken together, these books profoundly influenced me. I even used Dostoevsky’s ideas to measure every other philosopher and writer I encountered. Not surprisingly, I liked philosophers and writers who echoed Dostoevsky, like Nietzsche, Kafka and Foucault. By contrast, I reviled philosophers and writers whose ideas stood in contrast to Dostoevsky, like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Dante and St. Augustine.
Dostoevsky was my heroic standard. But then I graduated from college and he faded from my mind. Forced to contend with commerce, I had no time to read Dostoevsky, or anyone else for that matter. My concerns simplified: Work, make money, go home, try to make more money next year. There was no need to think or to be creative. You just needed to put in time. I went to law school in an effort to boost my earning potential and finally get over the commercial hump. Of course, that didn’t happen; twentysomethings dream big but do not have life experience to know that nothing ever pans out as anticipated. True, I might know more now than I did when I was 22. I’m just knee-deep in debt for it.
During law school, I read more than I have ever read in my life. But I did not read any Dostoevsky. In fact, I read books that Dostoevsky would have detested. I read books and judicial opinions that posited “truth” and “objective standards,” two things Dostoevsky routinely criticized in his works. At the time, I did not reflect on the dissonance between the doctrines I was learning and the ideas I absorbed earlier in my life. Not until recently did I uncover that dissonance. It took heartbreak, suffering, reversal, humiliation, rediscovery and self-evaluation to recognize the foolishness in seeking “truth,” “objective standards” and “commercial success.” In short, it took life experience to bring my intellectual focus full circle. Law school doesn’t teach that. And in college, you are too young to amass it. Yet after law school, I contended with personal trauma after personal trauma. The ideas I absorbed in college started to make a lot more sense than they did before I had experience. By the same token, life experience made me deeply question the law and its orderly, well-polished claims to truth. Contrary to every statute, case and order, there really were no objective standards in life. Life was mysterious and unpredictable, not codified and discernable. No legal test could measure it or even judge it. Right and wrong were not juridical concepts; they were nebulous power judgments.
I slowly recognized that my “radical” college ideas were not so far-fetched. Satire became my stock in trade. Satire helped me reconcile my old learning with the absurdity I saw all around me. Satire helped me dethrone the law simply by referring to life. In short, satire helped me “get back to Dostoevsky.”
All these things swarmed my mind as I looked at that bookcase. I picked up a book: “Dostoevsky’s Short Works.” For the first time in almost ten years, I was opening a Dostoevsky book. I perused the contents: Notes from Underground and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. I had always wanted to read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man when I was in college. I never got around to it. I was 21 then. Now, at 31, here was my chance. I began reading. Within seconds, I was transported to another world, a familiar one.
I was ready to read Dostoevsky again. At first, I was somewhat embarrassed when I noticed how much he had influenced my own writing over the years. I recognized at once that I had unwittingly become a Dostoevsky imitator. His sentence structures and ruthlessly satirical attacks on “powerful people” obviously made a deep impression on me. His style won me over when I was young and I internalized it over many years. It has become so engrained that I can’t avoid sounding like Dostoevsky, at least in some ways. I can think of many things I have written in this blog that directly appropriate Dostoevsky’s style. For that reason, as I read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, I eerily felt as if I was reading something I had written. After that passed, I simply felt content. I was just reading my mentor’s words. I felt as if I had been reunited with a dear friend. It was a wonderful feeling after such a long absence. On the other hand, it made me feel good to know that I had been carrying Dostoevsky’s banner on my blog all along, even if I hadn’t known it.
What is it exactly about Dostoevsky that influenced me so much? There are several key ways. For one, he is darkly satirical. He exaggerates details to mock “powerful people”—especially those with ranks and “high standing” in society. At the same time, he calls his heroes “ridiculous” when in fact they are quite noble. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for instance, Dostoevsky calls the protagonist “ridiculous,” “absurd,” “a madman,” "laughable" and “reclusive.” He is poor, lives in a one-room, partitioned apartment and has hundred-year-old furniture. Everyone laughs at him. But later on, we learn that this “ridiculous man” simply wants to treat others as he would like to be treated. For that, society calls him a blathering fool. That is dark satire—this is a man who has noble sentiments. He is not really ridiculous at all; he is only “ridiculous” in the judgment of a broken society. Society is ridiculous, not the good man it calls ridiculous. Dostoevsky knows irony. His sarcastic misanthropy definitely left a solid mark on me.
Second, Dostoevsky deeply understood that “truth” is an elusive—and judgmental—concept. He was one of the first authors to dig deeply into his characters’ conscious thought patterns. His narration, too, recurrently suggests that “things are not what they seem.” He stresses subjective impression and individual reaction to sense, not objective truth. He uses phrases such as “as if,” “even,” “somehow,” “in a way” and “some kind of” when describing people, events, feelings and recollections. This creates an overall impression that there is no “truth,” but rather only fleeting impressions in the minds of those who “were there” to sense something. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man abounds with these “uncertain recollections.” In fact, the reader consciously feels that everything is dark, muddled and indeterminate. When the protagonist recounts his dream, for instance, we have no idea what “actually happened.” In short, Dostoevsky understood that “truth” is in “the eye of the beholder.” Nietzsche picked up on this, too, when he argued that “there are no facts or truths, only interpretations.” In Dostoevsky’s works, every detail is an interpretation. Dostoevsky leaves it to the reader to put the pieces together—and that, too, is an “interpretation.”
Finally, Dostoevsky always tempered his sarcasm and satire with hope. This, too, influenced my writing. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for example, the protagonist—who once gave up on life because “nothing mattered to him anymore”—ultimately declares: “I will not and cannot believe that evil is the natural condition of people.” He goes on to say: “’Knowledge is higher than feelings…[t]he consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness’—that is what must be fought!” The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Pevear/Volokhonsky trans., Bantam 2008) at pp. 338, 342. In short, Dostoevsky takes a stand against “juridical, rule-based” approaches to existence. “Feelings” are better than “knowledge,” and “happiness” is better than “the rules of happiness” because “feelings” and “happiness” intuitively flow from within the individual. By contrast, “knowledge” and “rules” must be “learned according to an extrinsic system.” They are “objective standards.” Yet the protagonist is “ridiculous” for making these discoveries. He is “ridiculous” for daring to oppose “the rules of happiness” and deciding simply to be happy. This is the ultimate satire: It is “ridiculous” to be happy and to savor individual intuitions.
These last ideas struck a familiar chord with me. They seem to mirror my entire opposition to juridical thinking and the objective standards that the law attempts to foist on human beings. How true that we live our lives attempting to mold our behavior to “the rules of happiness” rather than allowing ourselves to simply feel happiness in our own way. Rather than “feeling,” we seek always to “know” some extrinsic rule. In so doing, we forget our own emotions and subject ourselves to an “objective standard.” Someone else laid down the “rules of happiness;” we struggle to learn them. When we fail to reach them, we feel bad. In conforming to those rules, we steadily lose our capacity to form our own impressions about happiness. That is tragic.
Yet Dostoevsky’s message is not entirely pessimistic. After all, the “ridiculous man” does not mind being called “ridiculous.” He resolves to fight the “rules of happiness.” In essence, Dostoevsky holds out hope for those strong enough to fight against objective thinking. He offers support to all the “ridiculous people” who think and feel for themselves in a world that discourages individual approaches to happiness and meaning.
That is a beautiful message. After all, I am a “ridiculous man,” too. I actually consider it a compliment, not an insult. Ridiculous people survive though the ages, not those who merely follow the “rules of happiness.” In fact, ridiculous people might even find their own happiness somewhere along life’s way. The important thing is not to mind being labeled ridiculous. Ridiculous people are special, even if they are not “successful.” Dostoevsky knew that, and that’s one big reason he influenced me so much.
I was waiting for a friend in an office two days ago. Unlike most waiting rooms, this one actually had a bookcase with some good books, not just a table stacked with magazines about celebrity sightings. I looked over the titles. I saw familiar names: Kafka, Orwell, Dostoevsky, Bronte, Tolstoy, Woolf.
When I was younger, I loved literature. I dove into books, even did not fully understand them. I really thought literature would make me a better person; I thought it was good to read books. I even took pride in it. I went to school at Columbia in New York. They force you to read “classic literature” there. It’s called the “Core Curriculum.” Many of my classmates resented the compulsion to read so much. I actually enjoyed it; I disregarded the compulsion. I read for myself. I didn’t care what my teachers said; most of them were just graduate students anyway who had to teach the course to get their own degrees. I just conversed with the authors. I even read more over the summer because I liked the themes and ideas I encountered. I wanted to develop them in my head. I didn’t turn off my brain when the school year ended.
All these old impressions came back to me as I looked at that bookcase. A comforting feeling came over me, especially when I saw the name Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was my favorite author from my first year at Columbia. I dedicated the rest of my college days to reading just about everything he wrote. I read all his classic novels: Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Demons, The Idiot. I also read most of his short stories, like Notes from Underground, The Double and The Gambler. Taken together, these books profoundly influenced me. I even used Dostoevsky’s ideas to measure every other philosopher and writer I encountered. Not surprisingly, I liked philosophers and writers who echoed Dostoevsky, like Nietzsche, Kafka and Foucault. By contrast, I reviled philosophers and writers whose ideas stood in contrast to Dostoevsky, like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Dante and St. Augustine.
Dostoevsky was my heroic standard. But then I graduated from college and he faded from my mind. Forced to contend with commerce, I had no time to read Dostoevsky, or anyone else for that matter. My concerns simplified: Work, make money, go home, try to make more money next year. There was no need to think or to be creative. You just needed to put in time. I went to law school in an effort to boost my earning potential and finally get over the commercial hump. Of course, that didn’t happen; twentysomethings dream big but do not have life experience to know that nothing ever pans out as anticipated. True, I might know more now than I did when I was 22. I’m just knee-deep in debt for it.
During law school, I read more than I have ever read in my life. But I did not read any Dostoevsky. In fact, I read books that Dostoevsky would have detested. I read books and judicial opinions that posited “truth” and “objective standards,” two things Dostoevsky routinely criticized in his works. At the time, I did not reflect on the dissonance between the doctrines I was learning and the ideas I absorbed earlier in my life. Not until recently did I uncover that dissonance. It took heartbreak, suffering, reversal, humiliation, rediscovery and self-evaluation to recognize the foolishness in seeking “truth,” “objective standards” and “commercial success.” In short, it took life experience to bring my intellectual focus full circle. Law school doesn’t teach that. And in college, you are too young to amass it. Yet after law school, I contended with personal trauma after personal trauma. The ideas I absorbed in college started to make a lot more sense than they did before I had experience. By the same token, life experience made me deeply question the law and its orderly, well-polished claims to truth. Contrary to every statute, case and order, there really were no objective standards in life. Life was mysterious and unpredictable, not codified and discernable. No legal test could measure it or even judge it. Right and wrong were not juridical concepts; they were nebulous power judgments.
I slowly recognized that my “radical” college ideas were not so far-fetched. Satire became my stock in trade. Satire helped me reconcile my old learning with the absurdity I saw all around me. Satire helped me dethrone the law simply by referring to life. In short, satire helped me “get back to Dostoevsky.”
All these things swarmed my mind as I looked at that bookcase. I picked up a book: “Dostoevsky’s Short Works.” For the first time in almost ten years, I was opening a Dostoevsky book. I perused the contents: Notes from Underground and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. I had always wanted to read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man when I was in college. I never got around to it. I was 21 then. Now, at 31, here was my chance. I began reading. Within seconds, I was transported to another world, a familiar one.
I was ready to read Dostoevsky again. At first, I was somewhat embarrassed when I noticed how much he had influenced my own writing over the years. I recognized at once that I had unwittingly become a Dostoevsky imitator. His sentence structures and ruthlessly satirical attacks on “powerful people” obviously made a deep impression on me. His style won me over when I was young and I internalized it over many years. It has become so engrained that I can’t avoid sounding like Dostoevsky, at least in some ways. I can think of many things I have written in this blog that directly appropriate Dostoevsky’s style. For that reason, as I read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, I eerily felt as if I was reading something I had written. After that passed, I simply felt content. I was just reading my mentor’s words. I felt as if I had been reunited with a dear friend. It was a wonderful feeling after such a long absence. On the other hand, it made me feel good to know that I had been carrying Dostoevsky’s banner on my blog all along, even if I hadn’t known it.
What is it exactly about Dostoevsky that influenced me so much? There are several key ways. For one, he is darkly satirical. He exaggerates details to mock “powerful people”—especially those with ranks and “high standing” in society. At the same time, he calls his heroes “ridiculous” when in fact they are quite noble. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for instance, Dostoevsky calls the protagonist “ridiculous,” “absurd,” “a madman,” "laughable" and “reclusive.” He is poor, lives in a one-room, partitioned apartment and has hundred-year-old furniture. Everyone laughs at him. But later on, we learn that this “ridiculous man” simply wants to treat others as he would like to be treated. For that, society calls him a blathering fool. That is dark satire—this is a man who has noble sentiments. He is not really ridiculous at all; he is only “ridiculous” in the judgment of a broken society. Society is ridiculous, not the good man it calls ridiculous. Dostoevsky knows irony. His sarcastic misanthropy definitely left a solid mark on me.
Second, Dostoevsky deeply understood that “truth” is an elusive—and judgmental—concept. He was one of the first authors to dig deeply into his characters’ conscious thought patterns. His narration, too, recurrently suggests that “things are not what they seem.” He stresses subjective impression and individual reaction to sense, not objective truth. He uses phrases such as “as if,” “even,” “somehow,” “in a way” and “some kind of” when describing people, events, feelings and recollections. This creates an overall impression that there is no “truth,” but rather only fleeting impressions in the minds of those who “were there” to sense something. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man abounds with these “uncertain recollections.” In fact, the reader consciously feels that everything is dark, muddled and indeterminate. When the protagonist recounts his dream, for instance, we have no idea what “actually happened.” In short, Dostoevsky understood that “truth” is in “the eye of the beholder.” Nietzsche picked up on this, too, when he argued that “there are no facts or truths, only interpretations.” In Dostoevsky’s works, every detail is an interpretation. Dostoevsky leaves it to the reader to put the pieces together—and that, too, is an “interpretation.”
Finally, Dostoevsky always tempered his sarcasm and satire with hope. This, too, influenced my writing. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for example, the protagonist—who once gave up on life because “nothing mattered to him anymore”—ultimately declares: “I will not and cannot believe that evil is the natural condition of people.” He goes on to say: “’Knowledge is higher than feelings…[t]he consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness’—that is what must be fought!” The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Pevear/Volokhonsky trans., Bantam 2008) at pp. 338, 342. In short, Dostoevsky takes a stand against “juridical, rule-based” approaches to existence. “Feelings” are better than “knowledge,” and “happiness” is better than “the rules of happiness” because “feelings” and “happiness” intuitively flow from within the individual. By contrast, “knowledge” and “rules” must be “learned according to an extrinsic system.” They are “objective standards.” Yet the protagonist is “ridiculous” for making these discoveries. He is “ridiculous” for daring to oppose “the rules of happiness” and deciding simply to be happy. This is the ultimate satire: It is “ridiculous” to be happy and to savor individual intuitions.
These last ideas struck a familiar chord with me. They seem to mirror my entire opposition to juridical thinking and the objective standards that the law attempts to foist on human beings. How true that we live our lives attempting to mold our behavior to “the rules of happiness” rather than allowing ourselves to simply feel happiness in our own way. Rather than “feeling,” we seek always to “know” some extrinsic rule. In so doing, we forget our own emotions and subject ourselves to an “objective standard.” Someone else laid down the “rules of happiness;” we struggle to learn them. When we fail to reach them, we feel bad. In conforming to those rules, we steadily lose our capacity to form our own impressions about happiness. That is tragic.
Yet Dostoevsky’s message is not entirely pessimistic. After all, the “ridiculous man” does not mind being called “ridiculous.” He resolves to fight the “rules of happiness.” In essence, Dostoevsky holds out hope for those strong enough to fight against objective thinking. He offers support to all the “ridiculous people” who think and feel for themselves in a world that discourages individual approaches to happiness and meaning.
That is a beautiful message. After all, I am a “ridiculous man,” too. I actually consider it a compliment, not an insult. Ridiculous people survive though the ages, not those who merely follow the “rules of happiness.” In fact, ridiculous people might even find their own happiness somewhere along life’s way. The important thing is not to mind being labeled ridiculous. Ridiculous people are special, even if they are not “successful.” Dostoevsky knew that, and that’s one big reason he influenced me so much.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
WE OWN OUR TASTES; WE ARE WHAT WE WANT
OESTERHOUDT STRIKES
Earlier this week, I wrote that art appeals to subjective taste. It is impossible to measure “good art” because no objective standards apply to it. A person either likes a painting or he does not. There is no magical checklist that automatically transforms a scribbling into a masterpiece. Greatness depends on publicity—and enough people who like you.
What appeals to one man will not appeal to another. For a lawyer, these are difficult concepts to grasp. After all, in law school, students learn that there are objective standards to measure everything. This is complete bullshit, of course, but the law adopts “objective standards” for administrative convenience. For example, the law judges “reasonable conduct,” “reasonable belief” and “reasonable reliance.” It does not look to the individual actor to determine what is “reasonable.” It looks to a fanciful “average, prudent person” to determine what is reasonable, then compares this nonexistent person’s assumed behavior to the poor sap under review. This is a totally unrealistic intellectual enterprise. But without it, there would be no standards at all for human behavior in society. People could get hurt and defrauded. Thus, while objective standards for human behavior may be unrealistic and philosophically untenable, they are vaguely necessary in order to maintain relative decorum in society.
Yet lawyers tend to forget that objective standards for human behavior are unrealistic and philosophically untenable. Instead, they start believing that objective standards actually exist. Legal education and legal practice have a perplexing, smugness-inducing effect. After all, lawyers wield very tangible power in our commercial world. Their words and writings have the power to impact property and even bodily security. By applying unrealistic and philosophically untenable legal formulae in particular cases, they can send people to prison or take away their homes. This naturally will make a lawyer feel quite powerful in his craft. But smugness in an unrealistic and philosophically flawed analytical methodology does not change the fact that it is unrealistic and philosophically flawed. Lawyers actually believe that there are objective standards in every life pursuit. This is just wrong. As Nietzsche said, there are no absolute “facts, only interpretations.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Unpublished Fragments 7(60) (Summer 1887)(my translation). Lawyers cannot fathom this. If they did, the pillars supporting their fanciful castle would collapse.
Yet how can we really debate the fact that objective standards and “truths” depend on interpretation? They do; moreover, they reflect the perspective of those with sufficient power to press home their interpretations. Still, everyone has a unique perspective. Everyone interprets differently. No matter what the law says or attributes to a person, that person still sees things and feels things in his own way. According to the law, he may “deviate from the reasonable standard,” but that is not because the person is intrinsically flawed. It is because the law—by sheer power—judges the person according to a standard that derives from its own perspective.
In this way, the law—and juridical thinking in the abstract—wields considerable influence in our lives. It does not just constrain our behavior by threatening punishment for certain “negative acts.” It also convinces us to think that objective standards exist in life as “absolute facts.” It convinces us that there is such a thing as “reasonable behavior,” even though that is merely a figment of some jurist’s imagination. They forget that everyone has a valid perspective and actually believe that there are universal standards governing everyone. This is unfortunate. On the other hand, it is administratively convenient. What kind of society would we have if every socially unpalatable person simply claimed he “did what he thought was correct” in particular circumstances? It would be a terrible mess. Nonetheless, every individual—in a strict, philosophical sense—is entitled to his own truth, perspective and interpretation. The law is not more right because it has the power to condemn men’s bodies or property. In this sense, the law sacrifices philosophical cohesion for administrative convenience. Legal thinking does not really care whether it represents “true truth.” It is content to merely keep things working without turmoil. Practicality wins over theory.
But there are realms in which subjective taste reigns and the law has no influence at all. Even people who believe strongly in the law nonetheless relish their own, personal tastes. Taste reflects individuality, not obedience to an artificial standard. When we say what we like and what we want, we express our own desires and thoughts. No objective standard applies to these things. They come from within, not from without. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: “Wanting liberates: that is the true lesson of will and freedom.” Also Sprach Zarathustra, Teil II (Auf den Glückseligen Inseln)(my translation). In other words, expressing our own wants and desires from within frees us from the objective standards imposed upon us from without. Wanting feels good because it originates in us, not outside us. Nothing controls our wants; they bespeak us. They define us. The law might say we have “unreasonable desires,” but they remain ours. And nothing in the law makes its judgments intrinsically “right.” It is “right” only to the extent that power supports it.
Taste is crucially important in our lives even though the law has no authority to influence it. What do we consider “beautiful?” Do we refer to a statute book listing the objective factors that constitute “what is beautiful?” Certainly not. We consider things “beautiful” that move us and appeal to our intuition. We define ourselves by judging people or things “beautiful.” After all, certain people find certain things beautiful, while others do not. It has nothing to do with law or objectivity. Rather, it has only to do with individual desire and taste. From an individual perspective, we think about these things all the time because our tastes reflect our deepest core. We pursue things that we like in life. We want to appease our tastes. We want beauty. Why do we want things that appeal to us? Because only we have control over them. We decide what we like, not an external standard. Psychologically, we live for our wants. We make ourselves happy when we satisfy them. We descend into unhappiness when life’s circumstances prevent us from doing so. Wanting is everything because we are our wants.
Recently, I thought about all these questions when reflecting on my own tastes. I thought about people I find beautiful. What turns me on? What makes me say: “That is a beautiful man” or “That is a beautiful woman”? For the longest time, I thought that everyone could agree that certain people are beautiful, at least from a sexual or aesthetic perspective. But then I realized that I was imposing my own tastes on everyone else. This revealed to me just how pernicious objective thinking can be; it leads us to substitute our judgment for others in areas in which we have no authority. After all, we live in a society in which we learn that we can objectify things and rate them according to “reasonable criteria.” This modality works in some areas, but it definitely does not work in others. When it comes to beauty, everyone has a different view. And we have absolutely no right to judge another person’s view about “what is beautiful.” Some people find Tiger Woods beautiful. I don’t. By contrast, I think that Fernando Torres (the Spanish soccer star) is extremely good looking. Yet I’m certain that many people find Tiger Woods more beautiful than Fernando Torres.
Objective standards play no role at all here. Taste is subjective and individual. No one can take it from us. Only we know whether something appeals to us, no matter what anyone says in a book or manual. There are no “universal principles of taste or beauty.” If anyone dares to lay down such principles, he does nothing but memorialize his own subjective desires. True, many people have similar tastes. But tastes remain subjective. We cannot control the myriad details in life that excite our interests or lusts. At the same time, the same details that excite me may not excite my neighbor.
We should never be ashamed of our desires and tastes. In fact, they define us as much—if not more—than our DNA. Nothing truly expresses our individual uniqueness more than the judgments we make about beauty. Taste and desire live within us, beyond all juridical control. We need not conform our tastes and desires to some external standard; we are always free to like and desire whatever appeals to us. We may never get a chance to enjoy or relish the things we want and desire, but that does not deprive our power to want. That power always remains in us.
“Wanting liberates.” It liberates us from external strictures and gives us free rein in a uniquely individual realm beyond all external controls. I think it is important to remember this in a world that mercilessly seeks to hold us to objective standards. Worse, our world even attempts to change our wants. Why do advertisers try to foist a certain image of beauty upon us? Are we not free to make our own judgments based on our own tastes? Skinny, tan white chicks may appeal to many, but not all. Abercrombie boys may appeal to many, but not all. I find it presumptuous when mass media attempts to displace our own desires with “better ones.” When mass media does this, it encroaches on sacred ground—our ground. Wants and desires belong to us and no others. There is nothing “better” about one person’s ideal of beauty as against another’s. All are valid. Powerful people may ridicule less powerful people for having “strange wants and desires.” But those judgments carry no real force. We should be most vigilant when defending ourselves against attempts to “change our wants.” Our wants are us. If we allow others to displace our wants—or even to doubt or regret our wants—they displace us completely. When we no longer want, we no longer are.
For better or worse, our tastes reflect our individual humanity. They might be “weird,” “off-color,” “unconventional” or even “deviant” in some eyes, but they remain uniquely ours. No matter what the law says, objectivity is a fantasy, and subjectivity really does matter. It matters because our whole existence is subjective. No one will ever experience life the way we do. No one will ever see, feel, hear, touch, taste and smell the world in precisely the same way we do at this very moment in time. Our unique experiences and senses lead to unique emotions that no one can duplicate or even really understand. Our existence is subjective. We can only look through our own eyes; we have only our feelings. We have only one consciousness—our own. Within that consciousness, we want, we desire, we think; we even dream and fantasize. No one else does it the same way we do. And that is a wonderful thing if you stop to think about it. That is why our tastes, desires and wants really do matter, even if they mean nothing to the law.
Earlier this week, I wrote that art appeals to subjective taste. It is impossible to measure “good art” because no objective standards apply to it. A person either likes a painting or he does not. There is no magical checklist that automatically transforms a scribbling into a masterpiece. Greatness depends on publicity—and enough people who like you.
What appeals to one man will not appeal to another. For a lawyer, these are difficult concepts to grasp. After all, in law school, students learn that there are objective standards to measure everything. This is complete bullshit, of course, but the law adopts “objective standards” for administrative convenience. For example, the law judges “reasonable conduct,” “reasonable belief” and “reasonable reliance.” It does not look to the individual actor to determine what is “reasonable.” It looks to a fanciful “average, prudent person” to determine what is reasonable, then compares this nonexistent person’s assumed behavior to the poor sap under review. This is a totally unrealistic intellectual enterprise. But without it, there would be no standards at all for human behavior in society. People could get hurt and defrauded. Thus, while objective standards for human behavior may be unrealistic and philosophically untenable, they are vaguely necessary in order to maintain relative decorum in society.
Yet lawyers tend to forget that objective standards for human behavior are unrealistic and philosophically untenable. Instead, they start believing that objective standards actually exist. Legal education and legal practice have a perplexing, smugness-inducing effect. After all, lawyers wield very tangible power in our commercial world. Their words and writings have the power to impact property and even bodily security. By applying unrealistic and philosophically untenable legal formulae in particular cases, they can send people to prison or take away their homes. This naturally will make a lawyer feel quite powerful in his craft. But smugness in an unrealistic and philosophically flawed analytical methodology does not change the fact that it is unrealistic and philosophically flawed. Lawyers actually believe that there are objective standards in every life pursuit. This is just wrong. As Nietzsche said, there are no absolute “facts, only interpretations.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Unpublished Fragments 7(60) (Summer 1887)(my translation). Lawyers cannot fathom this. If they did, the pillars supporting their fanciful castle would collapse.
Yet how can we really debate the fact that objective standards and “truths” depend on interpretation? They do; moreover, they reflect the perspective of those with sufficient power to press home their interpretations. Still, everyone has a unique perspective. Everyone interprets differently. No matter what the law says or attributes to a person, that person still sees things and feels things in his own way. According to the law, he may “deviate from the reasonable standard,” but that is not because the person is intrinsically flawed. It is because the law—by sheer power—judges the person according to a standard that derives from its own perspective.
In this way, the law—and juridical thinking in the abstract—wields considerable influence in our lives. It does not just constrain our behavior by threatening punishment for certain “negative acts.” It also convinces us to think that objective standards exist in life as “absolute facts.” It convinces us that there is such a thing as “reasonable behavior,” even though that is merely a figment of some jurist’s imagination. They forget that everyone has a valid perspective and actually believe that there are universal standards governing everyone. This is unfortunate. On the other hand, it is administratively convenient. What kind of society would we have if every socially unpalatable person simply claimed he “did what he thought was correct” in particular circumstances? It would be a terrible mess. Nonetheless, every individual—in a strict, philosophical sense—is entitled to his own truth, perspective and interpretation. The law is not more right because it has the power to condemn men’s bodies or property. In this sense, the law sacrifices philosophical cohesion for administrative convenience. Legal thinking does not really care whether it represents “true truth.” It is content to merely keep things working without turmoil. Practicality wins over theory.
But there are realms in which subjective taste reigns and the law has no influence at all. Even people who believe strongly in the law nonetheless relish their own, personal tastes. Taste reflects individuality, not obedience to an artificial standard. When we say what we like and what we want, we express our own desires and thoughts. No objective standard applies to these things. They come from within, not from without. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: “Wanting liberates: that is the true lesson of will and freedom.” Also Sprach Zarathustra, Teil II (Auf den Glückseligen Inseln)(my translation). In other words, expressing our own wants and desires from within frees us from the objective standards imposed upon us from without. Wanting feels good because it originates in us, not outside us. Nothing controls our wants; they bespeak us. They define us. The law might say we have “unreasonable desires,” but they remain ours. And nothing in the law makes its judgments intrinsically “right.” It is “right” only to the extent that power supports it.
Taste is crucially important in our lives even though the law has no authority to influence it. What do we consider “beautiful?” Do we refer to a statute book listing the objective factors that constitute “what is beautiful?” Certainly not. We consider things “beautiful” that move us and appeal to our intuition. We define ourselves by judging people or things “beautiful.” After all, certain people find certain things beautiful, while others do not. It has nothing to do with law or objectivity. Rather, it has only to do with individual desire and taste. From an individual perspective, we think about these things all the time because our tastes reflect our deepest core. We pursue things that we like in life. We want to appease our tastes. We want beauty. Why do we want things that appeal to us? Because only we have control over them. We decide what we like, not an external standard. Psychologically, we live for our wants. We make ourselves happy when we satisfy them. We descend into unhappiness when life’s circumstances prevent us from doing so. Wanting is everything because we are our wants.
Recently, I thought about all these questions when reflecting on my own tastes. I thought about people I find beautiful. What turns me on? What makes me say: “That is a beautiful man” or “That is a beautiful woman”? For the longest time, I thought that everyone could agree that certain people are beautiful, at least from a sexual or aesthetic perspective. But then I realized that I was imposing my own tastes on everyone else. This revealed to me just how pernicious objective thinking can be; it leads us to substitute our judgment for others in areas in which we have no authority. After all, we live in a society in which we learn that we can objectify things and rate them according to “reasonable criteria.” This modality works in some areas, but it definitely does not work in others. When it comes to beauty, everyone has a different view. And we have absolutely no right to judge another person’s view about “what is beautiful.” Some people find Tiger Woods beautiful. I don’t. By contrast, I think that Fernando Torres (the Spanish soccer star) is extremely good looking. Yet I’m certain that many people find Tiger Woods more beautiful than Fernando Torres.
Objective standards play no role at all here. Taste is subjective and individual. No one can take it from us. Only we know whether something appeals to us, no matter what anyone says in a book or manual. There are no “universal principles of taste or beauty.” If anyone dares to lay down such principles, he does nothing but memorialize his own subjective desires. True, many people have similar tastes. But tastes remain subjective. We cannot control the myriad details in life that excite our interests or lusts. At the same time, the same details that excite me may not excite my neighbor.
We should never be ashamed of our desires and tastes. In fact, they define us as much—if not more—than our DNA. Nothing truly expresses our individual uniqueness more than the judgments we make about beauty. Taste and desire live within us, beyond all juridical control. We need not conform our tastes and desires to some external standard; we are always free to like and desire whatever appeals to us. We may never get a chance to enjoy or relish the things we want and desire, but that does not deprive our power to want. That power always remains in us.
“Wanting liberates.” It liberates us from external strictures and gives us free rein in a uniquely individual realm beyond all external controls. I think it is important to remember this in a world that mercilessly seeks to hold us to objective standards. Worse, our world even attempts to change our wants. Why do advertisers try to foist a certain image of beauty upon us? Are we not free to make our own judgments based on our own tastes? Skinny, tan white chicks may appeal to many, but not all. Abercrombie boys may appeal to many, but not all. I find it presumptuous when mass media attempts to displace our own desires with “better ones.” When mass media does this, it encroaches on sacred ground—our ground. Wants and desires belong to us and no others. There is nothing “better” about one person’s ideal of beauty as against another’s. All are valid. Powerful people may ridicule less powerful people for having “strange wants and desires.” But those judgments carry no real force. We should be most vigilant when defending ourselves against attempts to “change our wants.” Our wants are us. If we allow others to displace our wants—or even to doubt or regret our wants—they displace us completely. When we no longer want, we no longer are.
For better or worse, our tastes reflect our individual humanity. They might be “weird,” “off-color,” “unconventional” or even “deviant” in some eyes, but they remain uniquely ours. No matter what the law says, objectivity is a fantasy, and subjectivity really does matter. It matters because our whole existence is subjective. No one will ever experience life the way we do. No one will ever see, feel, hear, touch, taste and smell the world in precisely the same way we do at this very moment in time. Our unique experiences and senses lead to unique emotions that no one can duplicate or even really understand. Our existence is subjective. We can only look through our own eyes; we have only our feelings. We have only one consciousness—our own. Within that consciousness, we want, we desire, we think; we even dream and fantasize. No one else does it the same way we do. And that is a wonderful thing if you stop to think about it. That is why our tastes, desires and wants really do matter, even if they mean nothing to the law.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
LAW IS CUMBERSOME, CRUDE AND MONOTONOUS : POWER AT ITS SIMPLEST
AN ESSAY
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) did not attract fame or fortune during his lifetime. His ideas were ahead of their time; the world was simply not ready for him. He lost his mind in 1888; he died twelve years later, embittered and alone. Interestingly, you can sense his desperation in his late writings, such as On the Genealogy of Morals (1887). In his Prologue to the Genealogy, Nietzsche wonders why people criticize him for “readability.” He defends his aphoristic style, but he seems to want others to understand him. In his last essay, Nietzsche even ventures an “interpretation” of his own writing. He reaches out to the reader as if to say: “Look! It’s not that complex; this is what I am trying to say.”
Nietzsche explained that there really is no explanation. Truth depends on power and judgment. It depends on the narrator, the legislator and their values. Every story is to some extent a judgment; a story gives voice to only one perspective on unique events. That was Nietzsche’s core point in all his writings. During the 19th Century, people had difficulty grasping that concept. After all, most “good bourgeois citizens” in the Victorian era believed that there was a “single good” and a “single evil.” There was no room for debate. The Bible and “popular morality” told them about right and wrong. They comfortably viewed the world equipped with these metaphysical assumptions. Against such entrenched resistance, Nietzsche was bound to fail. He was too progressive for his time. He was a relativist in an absolute world.
But Nietzsche’s influence survived. Within decades after his death, his ideas took root in numerous intellectual fields. Authors such as Franz Kafka and Albert Camus followed in his footsteps. Psychiatrists such as Sigmund Freud formulated scientific theories that substantiated his thought. And 20th Century philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Martin Heidegger all paid tribute to Nietzsche’s groundbreaking “polyperspectivism.” In death, Nietzsche’s relativism triumphed over metaphysics. For all these disciples, Nietzsche’s message was clear: “Truth is illusory. Only raw power and judgment declare truth. Life is a constant battle between individual perspective and constraining powers that impose rules on the individual in all social circumstances, from education to employment to family to law. In the end, it is a war for individual souls; and in most cases, the individual loses badly.”
Michel Foucault theorized extensively about the “power relations” that constrain individuals in modern society. In that sense, he took up Nietzsche’s mantle and more closely analyzed his general ideas about power and judgment. I admire Foucault because he carried on Nietzsche’s original theories about power. My own life experience confirms to me that both Nietzsche and Foucault were right about power relationships in our world. We live amid unfairness, subjected to power from all directions. As individuals, we have little chance to realize our own potential without in part surrendering to massively more powerful forces that can impact our bodies and our property. These forces cannot directly impact our souls, but by impacting our bodies and our property, they can indirectly affect the way we value ourselves. We may not want to work at a certain job for our soul’s sake, but power relations (the landlord, the tax collector, the family, the student loan creditor) indirectly force us to work in order to satisfy their property demands. By forcing us to do things we do not want to do, these superior forces impact our souls. It is not a direct influence on us, but it is an influence nonetheless.
But it is no easy task to read Foucault. In that sense, he differs from Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote in extremely clear, accessible prose. Even his aphorisms cut to the heart of a question, sometimes with irony, other times with pure rhetorical clarity. Nietzsche could argue as well as a lawyer and ruminate as well as a theologian; but he was too profound to be either a lawyer or a theologian. He was both cogent and creative. He used many voices. He could imitate other writers and mock them. Nietzsche’s facility as a writer makes him easy—and joyful—to read. With Nietzsche, you never know exactly what style you will get. Yet in the end you know you will get an unmistakably Nietzschean message about power, individuality and judgment.
By contrast, Foucault wrote in a much more stilted, academic style. Unlike Nietzsche, Foucault did not write real literature; he wrote academic criticisms. Nietzsche criticized with lively prose or ironic musings; Foucault criticized with analytical university-speak. This is not to say that Foucault did not write excellent criticism. Quite the contrary; Foucault’s work places him among the most cogent 20th Century philosophers. But he is not a writer’s philosopher. It is harder to read his books than it is to read Nietzsche. You need to pore over each page longer. It is worth the effort to read him, of course. It simply takes a bit more work to grasp his points because his language is more obscure and technical than Nietzsche’s.
I enjoy any criticism about law. Foucault wrote extensively about the law because law is an institution of power. During law school, I spent countless hours learning American legal doctrine without really reflecting on the power that created it. Since my last months in law school, I have reflected intensely on that very question. What is law? Where did it come from? How does it operate? Intuitively, I did not buy the American rhetoric about “equality under law” and the neutral “rule of law” that supposedly nullifies all human caprice. No, I thought. Law is not neutral, nor does it apply equally. Law is neither objective nor fair, although it claims to be both.
Why is law so flawed? Simple: Because it is a human invention. Human beings are deeply flawed creatures. They want nothing more than to enrich themselves and win as much power as they can before dying. To achieve that goal, they invent whatever mechanisms necessary to obtain and maintain power. Law represents a way to obtain and maintain power without alienating everyone else. By law, powerful people protect their values and assure their domination over the population. At the same time, the law espouses a superficial appeal that convinces its subjects that they are getting a fair deal, and that the law actually serves them. This encourages them to stay at work, pay their taxes and continue to support a system that really does not care whether they advance or not. In short, I learned that law simply codifies value systems and uses it to cement prevailing power relationships.
When I picked up Foucault, I found confirmation for many of the ideas I formulated after law school. Foucault provided me with additional insights into the power-law connection. Most strikingly, Foucault reminded me that the law is essentially crude and unimaginative. In The History of Sexuality : An Introduction (1976), Foucault asserts that Western discourse about human sexuality has never been repressed. Rather, he argues, we constantly talk about sex; we simply channel our discussions to conform to various power influences. The law is one such “power influence” that channels discussion about sex. In analyzing the law, Foucault writes: “[The law] is defined in a strangely restrictive way, in that, to begin with, this power is poor in resources, sparing of its methods, monotonous in the tactics it utilizes, incapable of invention and seemingly doomed always to repeat itself. Further, it is a power that only has the force of the negative on its side, a power to say no; in no condition to produce, capable only of posting limits, it is basically anti-energy.” The History of Sexuality (Vintage Books Edition 1990) at p. 85.
What a searing critique! Every law professor, lawyer and judge should read that passage and think about it. Why praise the law for its subtlety when it is actually so pathetically simple? When you get right down to it, what is the law except a crude mechanism of repression? What does the law really produce? It does nothing but forbid, then threaten punishment for infractions. It is remarkably simplistic. It is little more than a compendium of general “do’s” and “don’t’s.” Structurally, the law is no different than a kindergarten list that forbids such behavior as “eating crayons,” “punching your neighbor in the face” or “going wee-wee on the floor at nap time.” The lawgiver forbids; he then enforces obedience by punishing those who trespass against his word. It is a power relationship: One speaks; the other obeys. The powerful party inflicts pain; the weaker party submits.
But here we see another weakness in the law. After all, if the law can only say “no” to various human behavior, then the law must also observe and stop the behavior it prohibits. It is one thing to abstractly forbid conduct; it is quite another to find that conduct and punish it. Put simply, it is extremely easy to evade the law because the law has the burden to seek out the prohibited behavior. It is “poor in resources” because there is no way the police can be everywhere all the time. If the law cannot find a violation, it cannot punish. If it cannot punish, it cannot write its power on its subjects. Thus, its general, prohibitory statements mean nothing in practice. On the other hand, if it does find a violation, it punishes. In Foucault’s words, it is “monotonous anti-energy.” You know how it operates. It is simple. It is not subtle. It is not inventive. It “posts limits.” The lawgiver says: “Drive 55.” You drive 56. You transgress. Moreover, law creates nothing. Put simply, we should hesitate before speaking highly about noble legal principles. There is nothing special going on here; the law is little more than a glorified kindergarten “do and don’t” list.
There is reason for all this. The law is simple because it reflects an earlier time. Foucault explains that western legal systems as we know them evolved during the Middle Ages; and they have not essentially changed in the 1000 years since. See History of Sexuality at pp. 86-88. He argues that the law arose around the same time as modern nation-States. Modern nation-States replaced feudal chaos, in which fractured fiefdoms squabbled incessantly because each local prince had his own laws and customs. National Kings, however, imposed uniform rules on the warring nobles, bringing uniformity and peace to splintered realms. Foucault explains: “Faced with a myriad of clashing forces, these great forms of power functioned as a principle of right that transcended all the heterogeneous claims…forming a unitary regime, identifying its will with the law, and [acting] through interdiction and sanction.” Id. at p. 87. In this way, Kings imposed “pax et justitia (peace and justice)” on the land. Their royal courts replaced disruptive private vendettas between aggrieved nobles. Id. at p. 87. The people obeyed their father the King. The King forbade; the people listened. When a child disobeyed the law, the King punished him, assuming he found the transgressor.
This basic structure has not changed. While modern States no longer look to Kings for law, they put their faith in “replacement monarchs,” namely, written Constitutions. As Foucault eloquently points out: “In political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the King.” History of Sexuality at pp. 88-89. In sum, western societies still follow the “law model” to formulate power. The law has always been simplistic. It still is, even if we make a “Constitution” our sovereign father rather than a King.
Legal theorists applaud the law because it provides “fairness, justice and uniform procedure” for redressing public and private wrongs. In short, these theorists praise “the rule of law,” as if that phrase makes it impossible for tyranny to exist anywhere in a society committed to law. But these theorists unjustifiably elevate the law to a loftier station than it should occupy. They think that the “rule of law” makes it impossible for individual caprice to influence human relationships. Put simply, “rule of law” theorists dress a pig in fine clothes. The law is not ethereal or flawless. It does not provide infallible justice or equal results for all. In fact, contrary to all “rule of law” rhetoric, the law does not apply in all cases to which it should apply. Instead, exemptions, exceptions and immunities to the law are as old as the law itself. This is entirely consistent with the law as a system of power relationships, since powerful people will always treat themselves better than those who must obey. In short, the law is only uniform in theory; in practice, it is exceedingly inconsistent.
Foucault calls this phenomenon “tolerated illegality.” He reasons that every legal system does not enforce laws against certain “unlawful conduct.” It does not matter that certain conduct is “illegal;” power operates by suspending the law in its own favor. See Discipline & Punish (1975) (Vintage Books, 2nd Ed. 1995) at pp. 82-87. In short, every legal system purposely enforces the law in a discriminatory manner in order to favor those who control the system. After all, powerful interests create the law; they will not suffer punishment under rules they created to secure their own advantages. Why become powerful if you are subject to the same laws as the masses? The allure of power lies precisely in the right to play by “different, preferential rules.” In this sense, “rule of law” supporters completely misunderstand the law. The law does not exist to secure common justice and equality. Rather, it preserves the will of powerful interests, and if powerful interests technically violate the law, they will not face punishment. After all, they created the law; it exists to secure them in their superior positions. On this point, Foucault writes: “[The] bourgeoisie was to reserve to itself the illegality of rights: the possibility of getting round its own regulations and its own laws, of ensuring itself an immense sector of economic circulation by a skillful manipulation of gaps in the law—gaps that were foreseen by its silences, or opened up by de facto tolerance.” Id. at p. 87. At the same time, these powerful interests ensured that lower classes faced inexorable punishment for breaking “property rules:” “[This] illegality [of property]…was intolerable in commercial and industrial ownership...the development [of modern commerce] necessitated a severe repression of illegality [against property].” Id. at p. 85. In short, the powerful classes ensured that their conduct would not be punished, while they made every effort to punish conduct that affected their economic interests.
On the whole, then, what is law? A crude, predictable, exception-riddled and ancient system that does little more than “say no,” and even then only selectively. And it is precisely the law’s “selectivity” that makes it so suspect. After all, if all people do not face equal treatment under the law, it supports the argument that law embodies the will of the powerful. Powerful people impose their will on others; they do not allow others to impose their will on them. Law provides a superficially appealing—and straightforward—way for power to maintain itself while allaying popular discord with nice-sounding rhetoric about “equality.” In many individual cases, of course, the law works. It enforces everyday private promises and provides some redress for various wrongs. But this does not make it thematically spectacular, nor does it embody metaphysical truth. It is merely a convenient way to channel power in society. Its goal is not to provide justice or equality. Its goal is to enshrine dominant values in a familiar, awe-inspiring manner: As the father who commands obedience from his children. Yet upon closer inspection, we see that our father is not infallible, nor does he embody metaphysical truth. Instead, he is simply a metaphor for power.
There is nothing grandiose about human attempts to obtain and maintain power. This is law’s function, and the law operates crudely. This is why I disagree with the starry-eyed “rule of law” fanatics. There is nothing spectacular about the law. It is merely power incarnate. And its methods are easy to decipher. As Foucault said, law is “monotonous” and “uninventive.” Power, too, is “uninventive.” It has two simple goals: (1) To stay where it is; and (2) to restrict others from joining its ranks. The law facilitates these two goals.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) did not attract fame or fortune during his lifetime. His ideas were ahead of their time; the world was simply not ready for him. He lost his mind in 1888; he died twelve years later, embittered and alone. Interestingly, you can sense his desperation in his late writings, such as On the Genealogy of Morals (1887). In his Prologue to the Genealogy, Nietzsche wonders why people criticize him for “readability.” He defends his aphoristic style, but he seems to want others to understand him. In his last essay, Nietzsche even ventures an “interpretation” of his own writing. He reaches out to the reader as if to say: “Look! It’s not that complex; this is what I am trying to say.”
Nietzsche explained that there really is no explanation. Truth depends on power and judgment. It depends on the narrator, the legislator and their values. Every story is to some extent a judgment; a story gives voice to only one perspective on unique events. That was Nietzsche’s core point in all his writings. During the 19th Century, people had difficulty grasping that concept. After all, most “good bourgeois citizens” in the Victorian era believed that there was a “single good” and a “single evil.” There was no room for debate. The Bible and “popular morality” told them about right and wrong. They comfortably viewed the world equipped with these metaphysical assumptions. Against such entrenched resistance, Nietzsche was bound to fail. He was too progressive for his time. He was a relativist in an absolute world.
But Nietzsche’s influence survived. Within decades after his death, his ideas took root in numerous intellectual fields. Authors such as Franz Kafka and Albert Camus followed in his footsteps. Psychiatrists such as Sigmund Freud formulated scientific theories that substantiated his thought. And 20th Century philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Martin Heidegger all paid tribute to Nietzsche’s groundbreaking “polyperspectivism.” In death, Nietzsche’s relativism triumphed over metaphysics. For all these disciples, Nietzsche’s message was clear: “Truth is illusory. Only raw power and judgment declare truth. Life is a constant battle between individual perspective and constraining powers that impose rules on the individual in all social circumstances, from education to employment to family to law. In the end, it is a war for individual souls; and in most cases, the individual loses badly.”
Michel Foucault theorized extensively about the “power relations” that constrain individuals in modern society. In that sense, he took up Nietzsche’s mantle and more closely analyzed his general ideas about power and judgment. I admire Foucault because he carried on Nietzsche’s original theories about power. My own life experience confirms to me that both Nietzsche and Foucault were right about power relationships in our world. We live amid unfairness, subjected to power from all directions. As individuals, we have little chance to realize our own potential without in part surrendering to massively more powerful forces that can impact our bodies and our property. These forces cannot directly impact our souls, but by impacting our bodies and our property, they can indirectly affect the way we value ourselves. We may not want to work at a certain job for our soul’s sake, but power relations (the landlord, the tax collector, the family, the student loan creditor) indirectly force us to work in order to satisfy their property demands. By forcing us to do things we do not want to do, these superior forces impact our souls. It is not a direct influence on us, but it is an influence nonetheless.
But it is no easy task to read Foucault. In that sense, he differs from Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote in extremely clear, accessible prose. Even his aphorisms cut to the heart of a question, sometimes with irony, other times with pure rhetorical clarity. Nietzsche could argue as well as a lawyer and ruminate as well as a theologian; but he was too profound to be either a lawyer or a theologian. He was both cogent and creative. He used many voices. He could imitate other writers and mock them. Nietzsche’s facility as a writer makes him easy—and joyful—to read. With Nietzsche, you never know exactly what style you will get. Yet in the end you know you will get an unmistakably Nietzschean message about power, individuality and judgment.
By contrast, Foucault wrote in a much more stilted, academic style. Unlike Nietzsche, Foucault did not write real literature; he wrote academic criticisms. Nietzsche criticized with lively prose or ironic musings; Foucault criticized with analytical university-speak. This is not to say that Foucault did not write excellent criticism. Quite the contrary; Foucault’s work places him among the most cogent 20th Century philosophers. But he is not a writer’s philosopher. It is harder to read his books than it is to read Nietzsche. You need to pore over each page longer. It is worth the effort to read him, of course. It simply takes a bit more work to grasp his points because his language is more obscure and technical than Nietzsche’s.
I enjoy any criticism about law. Foucault wrote extensively about the law because law is an institution of power. During law school, I spent countless hours learning American legal doctrine without really reflecting on the power that created it. Since my last months in law school, I have reflected intensely on that very question. What is law? Where did it come from? How does it operate? Intuitively, I did not buy the American rhetoric about “equality under law” and the neutral “rule of law” that supposedly nullifies all human caprice. No, I thought. Law is not neutral, nor does it apply equally. Law is neither objective nor fair, although it claims to be both.
Why is law so flawed? Simple: Because it is a human invention. Human beings are deeply flawed creatures. They want nothing more than to enrich themselves and win as much power as they can before dying. To achieve that goal, they invent whatever mechanisms necessary to obtain and maintain power. Law represents a way to obtain and maintain power without alienating everyone else. By law, powerful people protect their values and assure their domination over the population. At the same time, the law espouses a superficial appeal that convinces its subjects that they are getting a fair deal, and that the law actually serves them. This encourages them to stay at work, pay their taxes and continue to support a system that really does not care whether they advance or not. In short, I learned that law simply codifies value systems and uses it to cement prevailing power relationships.
When I picked up Foucault, I found confirmation for many of the ideas I formulated after law school. Foucault provided me with additional insights into the power-law connection. Most strikingly, Foucault reminded me that the law is essentially crude and unimaginative. In The History of Sexuality : An Introduction (1976), Foucault asserts that Western discourse about human sexuality has never been repressed. Rather, he argues, we constantly talk about sex; we simply channel our discussions to conform to various power influences. The law is one such “power influence” that channels discussion about sex. In analyzing the law, Foucault writes: “[The law] is defined in a strangely restrictive way, in that, to begin with, this power is poor in resources, sparing of its methods, monotonous in the tactics it utilizes, incapable of invention and seemingly doomed always to repeat itself. Further, it is a power that only has the force of the negative on its side, a power to say no; in no condition to produce, capable only of posting limits, it is basically anti-energy.” The History of Sexuality (Vintage Books Edition 1990) at p. 85.
What a searing critique! Every law professor, lawyer and judge should read that passage and think about it. Why praise the law for its subtlety when it is actually so pathetically simple? When you get right down to it, what is the law except a crude mechanism of repression? What does the law really produce? It does nothing but forbid, then threaten punishment for infractions. It is remarkably simplistic. It is little more than a compendium of general “do’s” and “don’t’s.” Structurally, the law is no different than a kindergarten list that forbids such behavior as “eating crayons,” “punching your neighbor in the face” or “going wee-wee on the floor at nap time.” The lawgiver forbids; he then enforces obedience by punishing those who trespass against his word. It is a power relationship: One speaks; the other obeys. The powerful party inflicts pain; the weaker party submits.
But here we see another weakness in the law. After all, if the law can only say “no” to various human behavior, then the law must also observe and stop the behavior it prohibits. It is one thing to abstractly forbid conduct; it is quite another to find that conduct and punish it. Put simply, it is extremely easy to evade the law because the law has the burden to seek out the prohibited behavior. It is “poor in resources” because there is no way the police can be everywhere all the time. If the law cannot find a violation, it cannot punish. If it cannot punish, it cannot write its power on its subjects. Thus, its general, prohibitory statements mean nothing in practice. On the other hand, if it does find a violation, it punishes. In Foucault’s words, it is “monotonous anti-energy.” You know how it operates. It is simple. It is not subtle. It is not inventive. It “posts limits.” The lawgiver says: “Drive 55.” You drive 56. You transgress. Moreover, law creates nothing. Put simply, we should hesitate before speaking highly about noble legal principles. There is nothing special going on here; the law is little more than a glorified kindergarten “do and don’t” list.
There is reason for all this. The law is simple because it reflects an earlier time. Foucault explains that western legal systems as we know them evolved during the Middle Ages; and they have not essentially changed in the 1000 years since. See History of Sexuality at pp. 86-88. He argues that the law arose around the same time as modern nation-States. Modern nation-States replaced feudal chaos, in which fractured fiefdoms squabbled incessantly because each local prince had his own laws and customs. National Kings, however, imposed uniform rules on the warring nobles, bringing uniformity and peace to splintered realms. Foucault explains: “Faced with a myriad of clashing forces, these great forms of power functioned as a principle of right that transcended all the heterogeneous claims…forming a unitary regime, identifying its will with the law, and [acting] through interdiction and sanction.” Id. at p. 87. In this way, Kings imposed “pax et justitia (peace and justice)” on the land. Their royal courts replaced disruptive private vendettas between aggrieved nobles. Id. at p. 87. The people obeyed their father the King. The King forbade; the people listened. When a child disobeyed the law, the King punished him, assuming he found the transgressor.
This basic structure has not changed. While modern States no longer look to Kings for law, they put their faith in “replacement monarchs,” namely, written Constitutions. As Foucault eloquently points out: “In political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the King.” History of Sexuality at pp. 88-89. In sum, western societies still follow the “law model” to formulate power. The law has always been simplistic. It still is, even if we make a “Constitution” our sovereign father rather than a King.
Legal theorists applaud the law because it provides “fairness, justice and uniform procedure” for redressing public and private wrongs. In short, these theorists praise “the rule of law,” as if that phrase makes it impossible for tyranny to exist anywhere in a society committed to law. But these theorists unjustifiably elevate the law to a loftier station than it should occupy. They think that the “rule of law” makes it impossible for individual caprice to influence human relationships. Put simply, “rule of law” theorists dress a pig in fine clothes. The law is not ethereal or flawless. It does not provide infallible justice or equal results for all. In fact, contrary to all “rule of law” rhetoric, the law does not apply in all cases to which it should apply. Instead, exemptions, exceptions and immunities to the law are as old as the law itself. This is entirely consistent with the law as a system of power relationships, since powerful people will always treat themselves better than those who must obey. In short, the law is only uniform in theory; in practice, it is exceedingly inconsistent.
Foucault calls this phenomenon “tolerated illegality.” He reasons that every legal system does not enforce laws against certain “unlawful conduct.” It does not matter that certain conduct is “illegal;” power operates by suspending the law in its own favor. See Discipline & Punish (1975) (Vintage Books, 2nd Ed. 1995) at pp. 82-87. In short, every legal system purposely enforces the law in a discriminatory manner in order to favor those who control the system. After all, powerful interests create the law; they will not suffer punishment under rules they created to secure their own advantages. Why become powerful if you are subject to the same laws as the masses? The allure of power lies precisely in the right to play by “different, preferential rules.” In this sense, “rule of law” supporters completely misunderstand the law. The law does not exist to secure common justice and equality. Rather, it preserves the will of powerful interests, and if powerful interests technically violate the law, they will not face punishment. After all, they created the law; it exists to secure them in their superior positions. On this point, Foucault writes: “[The] bourgeoisie was to reserve to itself the illegality of rights: the possibility of getting round its own regulations and its own laws, of ensuring itself an immense sector of economic circulation by a skillful manipulation of gaps in the law—gaps that were foreseen by its silences, or opened up by de facto tolerance.” Id. at p. 87. At the same time, these powerful interests ensured that lower classes faced inexorable punishment for breaking “property rules:” “[This] illegality [of property]…was intolerable in commercial and industrial ownership...the development [of modern commerce] necessitated a severe repression of illegality [against property].” Id. at p. 85. In short, the powerful classes ensured that their conduct would not be punished, while they made every effort to punish conduct that affected their economic interests.
On the whole, then, what is law? A crude, predictable, exception-riddled and ancient system that does little more than “say no,” and even then only selectively. And it is precisely the law’s “selectivity” that makes it so suspect. After all, if all people do not face equal treatment under the law, it supports the argument that law embodies the will of the powerful. Powerful people impose their will on others; they do not allow others to impose their will on them. Law provides a superficially appealing—and straightforward—way for power to maintain itself while allaying popular discord with nice-sounding rhetoric about “equality.” In many individual cases, of course, the law works. It enforces everyday private promises and provides some redress for various wrongs. But this does not make it thematically spectacular, nor does it embody metaphysical truth. It is merely a convenient way to channel power in society. Its goal is not to provide justice or equality. Its goal is to enshrine dominant values in a familiar, awe-inspiring manner: As the father who commands obedience from his children. Yet upon closer inspection, we see that our father is not infallible, nor does he embody metaphysical truth. Instead, he is simply a metaphor for power.
There is nothing grandiose about human attempts to obtain and maintain power. This is law’s function, and the law operates crudely. This is why I disagree with the starry-eyed “rule of law” fanatics. There is nothing spectacular about the law. It is merely power incarnate. And its methods are easy to decipher. As Foucault said, law is “monotonous” and “uninventive.” Power, too, is “uninventive.” It has two simple goals: (1) To stay where it is; and (2) to restrict others from joining its ranks. The law facilitates these two goals.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
MORALITY DOES NOT PROVE THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE NATURALLY GOOD OR COOPERATIVE : A RESPONSE TO DAVID BROOKS
AN ESSAY
Three days ago, David Brooks published a popular editorial in the New York Times entitled “The End of Philosophy.” See N.Y. Times April 6, 2009. In it, he argues that new studies concerning morality have “[challenged] the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people.” He bases his conclusion on “new” research that links moral theories with “human emotion” rather than “abstract reasoning,” and the fact that moral rules arise because people “just know things” when they see them. He also concludes that moral rules descend to us because human beings are “successful cooperators” who naturally praise values such as loyalty, cohesion and “tradition.” Viewing these developments, he concludes that moral rules show that human beings seek “goodness as an end in itself” rather than “a means.” In sum, he labels these developments an “epochal change.”
At the outset, I was impressed that Mr. Brooks stepped into the age-old philosophical debate about morality. Yet there is nothing new about his assertion that human morality derives from “emotion” rather than reason. In truth, morality has little to do with rational postulation. Instead, as I have written many times before, morality represents nothing more than a particular society’s long-held social beliefs, customs, values, traditions, judgments and intuitive “feeling” about whether something is “good” or “bad.” It is about judgment, not cooperation. If our ancestors felt that something was noxious, disgusting or rancid, they labeled it bad, then “immoral.” They did not like encountering smelly things. They thought dead carcasses were “disgusting.” They thought that human waste was “disgusting” and “smelly.” If their fellow man smelled bad, then he, too, was “disgusting” and “bad.” If a man had anal sex, that was “disgusting” and “bad” because they associated the anus with human waste—and that “smelled bad.” If a man betrayed his brother, the aggrieved party felt disgusted, then labeled the traitor “bad.” These original, visceral—and ultimately sensory—judgments come down to us as “modern morality.” Mr. Brooks is correct that they do not derive from pure reason; instead, they are intuitive, emotional responses to “disgusting” stimuli.
Morality is quintessentially organic. It develops over time and descends. There is nothing metaphysical about the inquiry. And that is significant: After all, Mr. Brooks argues that moral rules lead people to “the good” as “an end,” as if there were an absolute “good” to achieve in the first place. If anything, moral rules enshrine original, emotional judgments of powerful men in distant history. These men cared nothing for “absolute good.” They simply knew what they smelled and they did not like it. In this light, Mr. Brooks is profoundly confused. Morality is organic, not metaphysical. It is judgmental, not neutral. He is right that it derived from human emotion, but he is wrong that it proves that human beings are “good, “cooperative,” “empathetic” and “altruistic.” Quite the contrary, men historically have used morality much more often to dominate and tyrannize their fellow man, not to cooperate with him.
Mr. Brooks finds it reassuring that there are philosophers out there who think about morality in a way that “entails a warmer view of human nature.” In other words, he finds it comforting that morality serves “the good” and perpetuates “human cooperation,” as well as respect for “tradition, religion and loyalty” as positive moral values. He thinks these “discoveries” represent an “epochal change.” But what is so new about relating morality to human emotion and intuitive preference? In 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that the notion “good” derives not from some metaphysical conception of “useful behavior,” but rather from the individual judgments of “the noble, the privileged, the higher and the sophisticated, who considered their activity and themselves as ‘first-rate,’ in contrast to all low, mean, common and rabble-like people.” On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, § 2 (my translation). Over 120 years ago, Nietzsche knew that morality was about judgment, inequality, condescension and power, not cooperation. This “power” to create moral rules involved the power to designate whether conduct was “good” or “bad:” “The right of the master to give names extends so far that we can even understand that the origin of language itself represents an expression of power by the ruling classes: they tell us ‘this is this, and this is that (emphasis added).’” Id. In short, we have known for a long time that our “powerful ancient masters” had the authority to enshrine their emotional judgments as “moral rules.” And they weren’t trying to “warmly” cooperate with the “masses,” either.
In truth, I could not help laughing when I read Mr. Brooks’ argument that morality shows human beings “at their best.” In my experience, morality shows human beings at their worst. When I read a discussion about morality that does not involve disgust, judgment, hatred and resentment, I know something is wrong. After all, morality is about power. When powerful people judge, they necessarily must focus that judgment on someone who has “deviated from the moral standard.” Morality requires judgment to maintain its authority. After all, how could we praise “good” behavior if we did not also condemn “bad” behavior? Mr. Brooks believes that it is “moral” to be “loyal” because human beings are “successful cooperators” who found loyalty helpful in reaching their common goals. Yet this does not prove that human beings are good. Rather, it proves that our ancient forbears praised people who helped them hunt or build a house, while they condemned and hated people who said they would help, but did not. They felt disgust and hatred toward the people who broke their promises. They transformed that disgust into a judgment: “Disloyal people are bad; loyal people are good. Loyal people make me feel good. Disloyal people make me feel bad. Therefore, I like loyal people and I hate disloyal people.” It is pathetically simple. It is not nuanced. Yet this supposedly reveals human beings as “naturally good” creatures? No—it reveals human beings as self-interested, judgmental and simple-minded creatures: They like things they find “good” and they “hate” things they find “disgusting” and “bad.” This shows inherent goodness? I think not. It shows only that human beings have intuitive preferences and make judgments according to those preferences.
“Thing smell good. Me like. Thing smell bad. Me hate.” Tell me again: What is so earth-shattering about this?
In moral questions, there is no “inherent good.” There is only power and judgment. True, there are many behaviors that most of us would consider both “good” and “moral.” For example, we all hate lying, stealing, murdering, thieving, robbing and violence. Morality labels these behaviors “immoral” and “bad.” We agree with morality in these cases. Yet we often fail to understand that when we apply moral rules, we are applying an ancient code. Moral judgments come down to us over many generations and we absorb them fully into our subconscious. But this is not because morality arose through the efforts of well-intentioned men. Rather, morality arose because powerful men pronounced their emotional judgments about behavior long ago, and those judgments prevailed. Now we live with their pronouncements. They labeled stealing, murdering and robbing “disgusting.” Their view triumphed. Now their judgments rule us.
But what about behavior that harms no one? Mr. Brooks completely fails to visit this “darker side” of moral history. After all, morality is about power and judgment. We face no problem when the powerful label obviously harmful activity “bad” and “immoral.” Similarly, we have no problem when we judge people who deviate from these “good” standards. But what happens when powerful men—or even majorities—find certain behavior “disgusting” that is not clearly harmful? Throughout history, powerful men have found certain innocuous behavior “disgusting” and severely judged it. It is one thing to deem murder “disgusting,” but quite another to deem interracial marriage “disgusting.” What about consensual sodomy? Is that “disgusting?” Is it “immoral?” If we say yes, does that mean we “show ourselves to be successful cooperators” and “altruists?” When human beings formulate moral rules, they focus their social energy on an enemy. They judge that enemy with ruthless spite. They say the enemy is “disgusting,” “wicked,” “evil,” “deviant,” “abhorrent,” “abominable,” “sinful,” “wretched” and “wrong.” As recently as the 18th Century, English common law courts hanged men for engaging in consensual sex with one another for the “heinous and detestable sin of sodomy.” See, e.g., http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17260420-64-off299&div=t17260420-64#highlight. This is what morality can lead to. Contrary to Mr. Brooks’ assertion, this does not show humans “at their best,” nor does it reveal a “warmer, cooperative side” to human nature. Quite the contrary, morality can show human beings at their most unjust, most intolerant and most peremptory. And why? Because some people consider a particular behavior “disgusting,” even if it harms no one. They just think it “smells bad.” In my view, there is nothing “cooperative,” “warm” or “altruistic” about executing “immoral” people.
Morality vexes me because it is firmly engrained in culture. It is exceedingly difficult to trace its origins. Every society has its own moral code, just as every person has his own tastes. It makes sense to analogize morality with taste because moral rules reflect subjective judgments, just as taste does. Yet this also makes it hard to understand. Morality, after all, looks like law. It lays down external rules. It projects authority. It judges and punishes. The problem is divining its origins. Law begins with an acknowledged sovereign, but morality begins in primeval, emotional history. Mr. Brooks correctly points out that morality finds its roots in individual emotional intuition, not theoretical abstraction. Thereafter, his analysis veers into strange territory, concluding in essence that human beings are naturally good, and that their moral rules reflect good, cooperative principles.
But Mr. Brooks is wrong on these points. For one, it makes no sense to assume that there is “absolute good” while arguing that men’s moral rules do not conform to “absolute good.” Second, Mr. Brooks does not recognize that moral rules only arise through power, and they only preserve their authority through judgment, hatred and resentment. Last, Mr. Brooks is startlingly incorrect to use morality as proof of human goodness, altruism and cooperation. If anything, our moral history reveals humans as intolerant, judgmental, cruel and divisive creatures. Mr. Brooks may debunk Socrates to begin his essay, but he praises Aristotle at the end.
Aristotle believed that human beings were cooperative creatures, like bees and fish. He believed that every human activity had a natural purpose, just as every animal activity appears to have a natural purpose. He assumed that men pursued a metaphysical “good.” Yet these are all theoretical abstractions. Mr. Brooks says that morality does not conform to theoretical abstraction, but in the end he assumes that men follow morality to reach metaphysical “good.” He would be better to recognize that morality has no “natural purpose,” and there is no “metaphysical good.” Rather, morality is nothing but power and judgment. Powerful men say what they like, what they hate, pass it down, and punish those who disagree. In this sense, moral rules reflect inequality and division, not cooperation and altruism. And they certainly do not reveal a “warmer side” to human nature. Instead, they show that human beings will always divide themselves from one another and judge one another according to “the right moral code.”
This is not an “epochal change.” This is the way it has always been.
Three days ago, David Brooks published a popular editorial in the New York Times entitled “The End of Philosophy.” See N.Y. Times April 6, 2009. In it, he argues that new studies concerning morality have “[challenged] the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people.” He bases his conclusion on “new” research that links moral theories with “human emotion” rather than “abstract reasoning,” and the fact that moral rules arise because people “just know things” when they see them. He also concludes that moral rules descend to us because human beings are “successful cooperators” who naturally praise values such as loyalty, cohesion and “tradition.” Viewing these developments, he concludes that moral rules show that human beings seek “goodness as an end in itself” rather than “a means.” In sum, he labels these developments an “epochal change.”
At the outset, I was impressed that Mr. Brooks stepped into the age-old philosophical debate about morality. Yet there is nothing new about his assertion that human morality derives from “emotion” rather than reason. In truth, morality has little to do with rational postulation. Instead, as I have written many times before, morality represents nothing more than a particular society’s long-held social beliefs, customs, values, traditions, judgments and intuitive “feeling” about whether something is “good” or “bad.” It is about judgment, not cooperation. If our ancestors felt that something was noxious, disgusting or rancid, they labeled it bad, then “immoral.” They did not like encountering smelly things. They thought dead carcasses were “disgusting.” They thought that human waste was “disgusting” and “smelly.” If their fellow man smelled bad, then he, too, was “disgusting” and “bad.” If a man had anal sex, that was “disgusting” and “bad” because they associated the anus with human waste—and that “smelled bad.” If a man betrayed his brother, the aggrieved party felt disgusted, then labeled the traitor “bad.” These original, visceral—and ultimately sensory—judgments come down to us as “modern morality.” Mr. Brooks is correct that they do not derive from pure reason; instead, they are intuitive, emotional responses to “disgusting” stimuli.
Morality is quintessentially organic. It develops over time and descends. There is nothing metaphysical about the inquiry. And that is significant: After all, Mr. Brooks argues that moral rules lead people to “the good” as “an end,” as if there were an absolute “good” to achieve in the first place. If anything, moral rules enshrine original, emotional judgments of powerful men in distant history. These men cared nothing for “absolute good.” They simply knew what they smelled and they did not like it. In this light, Mr. Brooks is profoundly confused. Morality is organic, not metaphysical. It is judgmental, not neutral. He is right that it derived from human emotion, but he is wrong that it proves that human beings are “good, “cooperative,” “empathetic” and “altruistic.” Quite the contrary, men historically have used morality much more often to dominate and tyrannize their fellow man, not to cooperate with him.
Mr. Brooks finds it reassuring that there are philosophers out there who think about morality in a way that “entails a warmer view of human nature.” In other words, he finds it comforting that morality serves “the good” and perpetuates “human cooperation,” as well as respect for “tradition, religion and loyalty” as positive moral values. He thinks these “discoveries” represent an “epochal change.” But what is so new about relating morality to human emotion and intuitive preference? In 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that the notion “good” derives not from some metaphysical conception of “useful behavior,” but rather from the individual judgments of “the noble, the privileged, the higher and the sophisticated, who considered their activity and themselves as ‘first-rate,’ in contrast to all low, mean, common and rabble-like people.” On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, § 2 (my translation). Over 120 years ago, Nietzsche knew that morality was about judgment, inequality, condescension and power, not cooperation. This “power” to create moral rules involved the power to designate whether conduct was “good” or “bad:” “The right of the master to give names extends so far that we can even understand that the origin of language itself represents an expression of power by the ruling classes: they tell us ‘this is this, and this is that (emphasis added).’” Id. In short, we have known for a long time that our “powerful ancient masters” had the authority to enshrine their emotional judgments as “moral rules.” And they weren’t trying to “warmly” cooperate with the “masses,” either.
In truth, I could not help laughing when I read Mr. Brooks’ argument that morality shows human beings “at their best.” In my experience, morality shows human beings at their worst. When I read a discussion about morality that does not involve disgust, judgment, hatred and resentment, I know something is wrong. After all, morality is about power. When powerful people judge, they necessarily must focus that judgment on someone who has “deviated from the moral standard.” Morality requires judgment to maintain its authority. After all, how could we praise “good” behavior if we did not also condemn “bad” behavior? Mr. Brooks believes that it is “moral” to be “loyal” because human beings are “successful cooperators” who found loyalty helpful in reaching their common goals. Yet this does not prove that human beings are good. Rather, it proves that our ancient forbears praised people who helped them hunt or build a house, while they condemned and hated people who said they would help, but did not. They felt disgust and hatred toward the people who broke their promises. They transformed that disgust into a judgment: “Disloyal people are bad; loyal people are good. Loyal people make me feel good. Disloyal people make me feel bad. Therefore, I like loyal people and I hate disloyal people.” It is pathetically simple. It is not nuanced. Yet this supposedly reveals human beings as “naturally good” creatures? No—it reveals human beings as self-interested, judgmental and simple-minded creatures: They like things they find “good” and they “hate” things they find “disgusting” and “bad.” This shows inherent goodness? I think not. It shows only that human beings have intuitive preferences and make judgments according to those preferences.
“Thing smell good. Me like. Thing smell bad. Me hate.” Tell me again: What is so earth-shattering about this?
In moral questions, there is no “inherent good.” There is only power and judgment. True, there are many behaviors that most of us would consider both “good” and “moral.” For example, we all hate lying, stealing, murdering, thieving, robbing and violence. Morality labels these behaviors “immoral” and “bad.” We agree with morality in these cases. Yet we often fail to understand that when we apply moral rules, we are applying an ancient code. Moral judgments come down to us over many generations and we absorb them fully into our subconscious. But this is not because morality arose through the efforts of well-intentioned men. Rather, morality arose because powerful men pronounced their emotional judgments about behavior long ago, and those judgments prevailed. Now we live with their pronouncements. They labeled stealing, murdering and robbing “disgusting.” Their view triumphed. Now their judgments rule us.
But what about behavior that harms no one? Mr. Brooks completely fails to visit this “darker side” of moral history. After all, morality is about power and judgment. We face no problem when the powerful label obviously harmful activity “bad” and “immoral.” Similarly, we have no problem when we judge people who deviate from these “good” standards. But what happens when powerful men—or even majorities—find certain behavior “disgusting” that is not clearly harmful? Throughout history, powerful men have found certain innocuous behavior “disgusting” and severely judged it. It is one thing to deem murder “disgusting,” but quite another to deem interracial marriage “disgusting.” What about consensual sodomy? Is that “disgusting?” Is it “immoral?” If we say yes, does that mean we “show ourselves to be successful cooperators” and “altruists?” When human beings formulate moral rules, they focus their social energy on an enemy. They judge that enemy with ruthless spite. They say the enemy is “disgusting,” “wicked,” “evil,” “deviant,” “abhorrent,” “abominable,” “sinful,” “wretched” and “wrong.” As recently as the 18th Century, English common law courts hanged men for engaging in consensual sex with one another for the “heinous and detestable sin of sodomy.” See, e.g., http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17260420-64-off299&div=t17260420-64#highlight. This is what morality can lead to. Contrary to Mr. Brooks’ assertion, this does not show humans “at their best,” nor does it reveal a “warmer, cooperative side” to human nature. Quite the contrary, morality can show human beings at their most unjust, most intolerant and most peremptory. And why? Because some people consider a particular behavior “disgusting,” even if it harms no one. They just think it “smells bad.” In my view, there is nothing “cooperative,” “warm” or “altruistic” about executing “immoral” people.
Morality vexes me because it is firmly engrained in culture. It is exceedingly difficult to trace its origins. Every society has its own moral code, just as every person has his own tastes. It makes sense to analogize morality with taste because moral rules reflect subjective judgments, just as taste does. Yet this also makes it hard to understand. Morality, after all, looks like law. It lays down external rules. It projects authority. It judges and punishes. The problem is divining its origins. Law begins with an acknowledged sovereign, but morality begins in primeval, emotional history. Mr. Brooks correctly points out that morality finds its roots in individual emotional intuition, not theoretical abstraction. Thereafter, his analysis veers into strange territory, concluding in essence that human beings are naturally good, and that their moral rules reflect good, cooperative principles.
But Mr. Brooks is wrong on these points. For one, it makes no sense to assume that there is “absolute good” while arguing that men’s moral rules do not conform to “absolute good.” Second, Mr. Brooks does not recognize that moral rules only arise through power, and they only preserve their authority through judgment, hatred and resentment. Last, Mr. Brooks is startlingly incorrect to use morality as proof of human goodness, altruism and cooperation. If anything, our moral history reveals humans as intolerant, judgmental, cruel and divisive creatures. Mr. Brooks may debunk Socrates to begin his essay, but he praises Aristotle at the end.
Aristotle believed that human beings were cooperative creatures, like bees and fish. He believed that every human activity had a natural purpose, just as every animal activity appears to have a natural purpose. He assumed that men pursued a metaphysical “good.” Yet these are all theoretical abstractions. Mr. Brooks says that morality does not conform to theoretical abstraction, but in the end he assumes that men follow morality to reach metaphysical “good.” He would be better to recognize that morality has no “natural purpose,” and there is no “metaphysical good.” Rather, morality is nothing but power and judgment. Powerful men say what they like, what they hate, pass it down, and punish those who disagree. In this sense, moral rules reflect inequality and division, not cooperation and altruism. And they certainly do not reveal a “warmer side” to human nature. Instead, they show that human beings will always divide themselves from one another and judge one another according to “the right moral code.”
This is not an “epochal change.” This is the way it has always been.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
NIETZSCHE & ME : WHO I AM AND WHERE I'M HEADED
OESTERHOUDT STRIKES
I have written almost every day for the past seven months. When I began maintaining this blog, I had a clear vision in mind: I would write satires and essays. I think I have generally held to this vision. But during my recent trip to Berlin I made an important discovery about my own identity as a writer. While there, I picked up one of my favorite old texts, Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. I read the first twenty pages or so in my hotel room, including the Prologue. Nietzsche always put great weight on his Prologues. He used them to provide some insight into the reasons why he was writing, as well as how he perceived his audience. As I read his words, I felt a close kinship with Nietzsche. Nietzsche always inspired me when I was younger, but only now—after truly immersing myself in writing for many months—do I truly perceive the pervasive influence he has exerted on me. I certainly do not want to compare myself to Nietzsche. I simply believe that my writings continue his tradition: Brash criticism of prevailing values; acerbic analysis; and unashamed pugnacity in confronting long-held “truths.” I also believe that Nietzsche’s approachable prose inspired me to write clearly. Above all else, I attempt to make my writings readable, even if the subject matter is wildly complex. Nietzsche has many followers who did not achieve his readability. Foucault is a prime example. For me, however, rhetoric and readability are essential. How else can I satirize and analyze if others cannot readily grasp my points?
Nietzsche called On the Genealogy of Morals “eine Streitschrift.” Typically, translators render that German word as “A Polemic” in English, namely, a “writing that incites conflict in its readers by strongly advocating a contentious position.” “Polemic” derives from the Greek word for “war.” But in my view, the German sounds so much better. “Streitschrift” derives from two words: “Streiten,” meaning “to dispute, fight or contend” and “die Schrift,” meaning “writing,” or “written piece.” Streiten is a core Germanic word. It gives us our English words “strife” and “strive.” It implies bitter dispute, struggle and a willingness to fight. Viewing these meanings as a whole, then, “polemic” seems an academic and indirect way to label On the Genealogy of Morals. It would be better to stick to Germanic words to convey Nietzsche’s core meaning. His writings “strive,” “struggle,” “fight” and invite “conflict.” They cause “strife.” Germanic words hit harder than Greek ones, at least in English. Nietzsche’s iconoclastic willingness to present unpopular views will always intoxicate me.
Streitschriften. That is what I write.
I adore Nietzsche’s Streitschrift style because it stands in contradistinction to vacuous, faux logical “legal writing.” Nietzsche does not burden the reader with endless references to “legal authorities” or “scholars” when he writes his arguments. He takes a position, drops a bomb then lets the reader figure it out. He does not quote. He does not cite “authors” or “judges” to back his position. He presents his own position. He criticizes authorities; he does not depend on them for persuasiveness. In this sense, legal writing is essentially anti-individualistic. In the law, no argument works without reference to “established authority.” Yet Nietzsche’s writing is quintessentially individualistic. He identifies troubling intellectual issues, cuts to their heart and brutally points out the folly in accepted approaches to those issues. Nietzsche did not shy away from inviting quarrels. He even labeled one of his books “Unzeitgenössische Betrachtungen” (Untimely (or Unpopular) Observations). He did not mind ruffling feathers or presenting unpopular views. Nor did he attempt to convince anyone. Legal writing always attempts to “persuade the reader” to accept this or that position. Nietzsche did no such thing. In his Prologue to the Genealogy of Morals, he wrote that it would be a mistake to try to “decipher” his writing. Rather, he intended his writing to spark “interpretations.” Zur Genealogie der Moral, Vorrede 8, S. 11. He hoped to cultivate “reading as art” rather than labor. To practice that art, he admonished his readers not to be “modern men,” but rather “cows,” because good reading necessarily involves “rechewing.”
I see all these sentiments reflected in my own writing. Although Nietzsche did not write satires, his ruthless criticisms concerning ethics, morals, culture and neglected principles all joyfully mock accepted viewpoints. I share his joy in mocking accepted viewpoints and hypocrisy. That joy burns through my writing, whether satirical or not. Satire is a good vehicle to expose absurdities in culture, argument and power. Nietzsche used aphorisms and short, biting essays to expose those absurdities. I opt for satire because I find it accomplishes the same mission, plus it is fun to write. Nietzsche constantly exhorted his readers to relish their intellectual abilities by mocking accepted notions. “Cheerfulness,” Nietzsche wrote, “or to be more precise and to say it in my own language, ‘The Joyful Science,’ is a reward: a reward for a long, brave, diligent and otherworldly seriousness—something that, freely, will not appeal to all.” Zur Geneaolgie der Moral, Vorrede 7, S. 10. For both Nietzsche and me, there is a joy in criticism, a joy in mocking accepted notions. It is fun to write satires; and there is an “intellectual reward” in it because it makes me—and hopefully some of my readers—“cheerful.”
Nietzsche also knew that not everyone would appreciate him. He recognized that his Streitschriften would insult his targets as much as they would delight his followers. I do the same thing. I recognize that my satires about morality, lawyers, “conventional life,” children, criminal justice, finance, sexuality, politics and capitalism will negatively impact some readers. Some readers will inevitably reject my criticisms or take offense that I mock certain dominant values. Some may even resent me for my own values. But here I quote Nietzsche again: “If this piece is incomprehensible or grates the ears of some listeners, I am not necessarily to blame.” Zur Genealogie der Moral, Vorrede 8, S. 10. If people are offended by what I write because I have “no respect” for certain values, or if I “unfairly simplify” certain issues, they fail to understand that my purpose is neither to convince nor to win. Rather, like Nietzsche, I aim only to “cheerfully” spark “interpretation” by pointing out critically troublesome conundrums in our civilization. If I can bring joy to some and thought to others, I will have succeeded in my mission as a writer. If someone blames me for advocating an unpopular position—or for failing to understand the irony in my satires—then I feel sorry for the reader who did not grasp my purpose. As Nietzsche theorized on this point, perhaps an angry reader should question his own values, rather than mine, to identify the source of his outrage with my critique.
I have learned so much by writing. It is astounding to think that, since beginning this blog, I have written the equivalent of a 600-page book. I have no intention of stopping. I simply think it is important to at times sit back and reflect on the trajectory my writing has followed, and to evaluate whether I have stayed true to my original aims. Reading Nietzsche again showed me not only that I have held the course, but also reminded me that I am part of his ongoing critical tradition. To that extent, do not expect my essays or my satires to contain airtight logic or rigid organizational structure. Rather, expect them to toss rhetorical grenades into tranquil waters. Expect them to breathe with joyful mockery. Let them provide an incitement to think about power, relationships, fairness, equality and principle. Do not expect them to provide answers to every specific question. Rather, let them provide an opportunity to think more deeply about things you might never have thought deeply about. I am not here to convince, persuade or conquer. I am here simply to point a few things out—with Streitschriften. If I cause strife, I apologize; but as Nietzsche said, I am not fully to blame for it. It is “constructive strife.”
Thank you to all who take the time to read—and “rechew”—my posts. If my arguments seem overheated, illogical, disorganized or melodramatic, I have good reason, for Streitschriften are not traditional arguments. Instead, they are invitations to intellectual struggle, and there is joy in that.
I have written almost every day for the past seven months. When I began maintaining this blog, I had a clear vision in mind: I would write satires and essays. I think I have generally held to this vision. But during my recent trip to Berlin I made an important discovery about my own identity as a writer. While there, I picked up one of my favorite old texts, Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. I read the first twenty pages or so in my hotel room, including the Prologue. Nietzsche always put great weight on his Prologues. He used them to provide some insight into the reasons why he was writing, as well as how he perceived his audience. As I read his words, I felt a close kinship with Nietzsche. Nietzsche always inspired me when I was younger, but only now—after truly immersing myself in writing for many months—do I truly perceive the pervasive influence he has exerted on me. I certainly do not want to compare myself to Nietzsche. I simply believe that my writings continue his tradition: Brash criticism of prevailing values; acerbic analysis; and unashamed pugnacity in confronting long-held “truths.” I also believe that Nietzsche’s approachable prose inspired me to write clearly. Above all else, I attempt to make my writings readable, even if the subject matter is wildly complex. Nietzsche has many followers who did not achieve his readability. Foucault is a prime example. For me, however, rhetoric and readability are essential. How else can I satirize and analyze if others cannot readily grasp my points?
Nietzsche called On the Genealogy of Morals “eine Streitschrift.” Typically, translators render that German word as “A Polemic” in English, namely, a “writing that incites conflict in its readers by strongly advocating a contentious position.” “Polemic” derives from the Greek word for “war.” But in my view, the German sounds so much better. “Streitschrift” derives from two words: “Streiten,” meaning “to dispute, fight or contend” and “die Schrift,” meaning “writing,” or “written piece.” Streiten is a core Germanic word. It gives us our English words “strife” and “strive.” It implies bitter dispute, struggle and a willingness to fight. Viewing these meanings as a whole, then, “polemic” seems an academic and indirect way to label On the Genealogy of Morals. It would be better to stick to Germanic words to convey Nietzsche’s core meaning. His writings “strive,” “struggle,” “fight” and invite “conflict.” They cause “strife.” Germanic words hit harder than Greek ones, at least in English. Nietzsche’s iconoclastic willingness to present unpopular views will always intoxicate me.
Streitschriften. That is what I write.
I adore Nietzsche’s Streitschrift style because it stands in contradistinction to vacuous, faux logical “legal writing.” Nietzsche does not burden the reader with endless references to “legal authorities” or “scholars” when he writes his arguments. He takes a position, drops a bomb then lets the reader figure it out. He does not quote. He does not cite “authors” or “judges” to back his position. He presents his own position. He criticizes authorities; he does not depend on them for persuasiveness. In this sense, legal writing is essentially anti-individualistic. In the law, no argument works without reference to “established authority.” Yet Nietzsche’s writing is quintessentially individualistic. He identifies troubling intellectual issues, cuts to their heart and brutally points out the folly in accepted approaches to those issues. Nietzsche did not shy away from inviting quarrels. He even labeled one of his books “Unzeitgenössische Betrachtungen” (Untimely (or Unpopular) Observations). He did not mind ruffling feathers or presenting unpopular views. Nor did he attempt to convince anyone. Legal writing always attempts to “persuade the reader” to accept this or that position. Nietzsche did no such thing. In his Prologue to the Genealogy of Morals, he wrote that it would be a mistake to try to “decipher” his writing. Rather, he intended his writing to spark “interpretations.” Zur Genealogie der Moral, Vorrede 8, S. 11. He hoped to cultivate “reading as art” rather than labor. To practice that art, he admonished his readers not to be “modern men,” but rather “cows,” because good reading necessarily involves “rechewing.”
I see all these sentiments reflected in my own writing. Although Nietzsche did not write satires, his ruthless criticisms concerning ethics, morals, culture and neglected principles all joyfully mock accepted viewpoints. I share his joy in mocking accepted viewpoints and hypocrisy. That joy burns through my writing, whether satirical or not. Satire is a good vehicle to expose absurdities in culture, argument and power. Nietzsche used aphorisms and short, biting essays to expose those absurdities. I opt for satire because I find it accomplishes the same mission, plus it is fun to write. Nietzsche constantly exhorted his readers to relish their intellectual abilities by mocking accepted notions. “Cheerfulness,” Nietzsche wrote, “or to be more precise and to say it in my own language, ‘The Joyful Science,’ is a reward: a reward for a long, brave, diligent and otherworldly seriousness—something that, freely, will not appeal to all.” Zur Geneaolgie der Moral, Vorrede 7, S. 10. For both Nietzsche and me, there is a joy in criticism, a joy in mocking accepted notions. It is fun to write satires; and there is an “intellectual reward” in it because it makes me—and hopefully some of my readers—“cheerful.”
Nietzsche also knew that not everyone would appreciate him. He recognized that his Streitschriften would insult his targets as much as they would delight his followers. I do the same thing. I recognize that my satires about morality, lawyers, “conventional life,” children, criminal justice, finance, sexuality, politics and capitalism will negatively impact some readers. Some readers will inevitably reject my criticisms or take offense that I mock certain dominant values. Some may even resent me for my own values. But here I quote Nietzsche again: “If this piece is incomprehensible or grates the ears of some listeners, I am not necessarily to blame.” Zur Genealogie der Moral, Vorrede 8, S. 10. If people are offended by what I write because I have “no respect” for certain values, or if I “unfairly simplify” certain issues, they fail to understand that my purpose is neither to convince nor to win. Rather, like Nietzsche, I aim only to “cheerfully” spark “interpretation” by pointing out critically troublesome conundrums in our civilization. If I can bring joy to some and thought to others, I will have succeeded in my mission as a writer. If someone blames me for advocating an unpopular position—or for failing to understand the irony in my satires—then I feel sorry for the reader who did not grasp my purpose. As Nietzsche theorized on this point, perhaps an angry reader should question his own values, rather than mine, to identify the source of his outrage with my critique.
I have learned so much by writing. It is astounding to think that, since beginning this blog, I have written the equivalent of a 600-page book. I have no intention of stopping. I simply think it is important to at times sit back and reflect on the trajectory my writing has followed, and to evaluate whether I have stayed true to my original aims. Reading Nietzsche again showed me not only that I have held the course, but also reminded me that I am part of his ongoing critical tradition. To that extent, do not expect my essays or my satires to contain airtight logic or rigid organizational structure. Rather, expect them to toss rhetorical grenades into tranquil waters. Expect them to breathe with joyful mockery. Let them provide an incitement to think about power, relationships, fairness, equality and principle. Do not expect them to provide answers to every specific question. Rather, let them provide an opportunity to think more deeply about things you might never have thought deeply about. I am not here to convince, persuade or conquer. I am here simply to point a few things out—with Streitschriften. If I cause strife, I apologize; but as Nietzsche said, I am not fully to blame for it. It is “constructive strife.”
Thank you to all who take the time to read—and “rechew”—my posts. If my arguments seem overheated, illogical, disorganized or melodramatic, I have good reason, for Streitschriften are not traditional arguments. Instead, they are invitations to intellectual struggle, and there is joy in that.
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