Ideals, better than reality
Everybody has some ideal, something
that he believes in : for some it would be God, for others
Science, and for others cars. #Nietzsche asserts that Man loves being
deceived : and this, History can prove. Reality being too often
cruel, man prefers illusions, to distance himself from it. That's why
he likes going to theatre, where he knows he is going to see an
artificial show, or to the cinema, or reading some novel. He likes
being told some stories, and to believe it, because it's reassuring for him to create such marks, mostly when it's someone else that explains him
what he should think, avoiding him a tiring job of thinking by
himself. Therefore, Man is himself acting the naif one, pretending he
doesn't understand he's being told some ridiculous stories. This is a
cooperation, more or less volunteer, between the believer and the one
who spreads the belief in question.
Just don't look at this too long
The most frightening things for Man
are future, that he can't predict, and death, that he can't know
until it comes : fear comes obviously of ignorance. To avoid
fear and bad moments in life, he'd prefer finding an answer to all
this : and God, or whatever what he believes in, is a pretty
good answer. Indeed, one's deeply believer in God should not worry
about what happens in his life, and should not get tired looking for
the right choices : God has already planed everything for him,
and he, humble man, surely won't go against God's will. This is a
way, to Nietzsche, for weak people to justify all what is wrong in
their life : this is like this, because God wants it to be like
this. In this case, the believer just stops trying to lead his
existence : he abandons his surd, living one absurd life,
according to what #Kierkegaard explains.
In fact, Nietzsche writes in his
Genealogy of Moral, Religion, with the virtues it chose as the
good ones, creates guilt : a good number of the animal instincts
that exist in Man, and elements of his nature, are forbidden, not
being virtuous. This leads to what #Freud would call repression of
urges, what Nietzsche calls internalization of instincts ; and
finally, to frustration. Man is getting to a point that he has
trouble with himself, hating what unvirtuous creature he is,
disgusted of life itself. Thus, bad conscience emerges in him,
because he can't be like he should be, religion putting on him a real
pressure, threatening him not to get to salvation. So religion will
tell him what is wrong and what is bad, and how he should behave to
be a good person. He shouldn't think too much by his own (reading
other things than religious texts is out of the question), and he
shouldn't listen to his instinct : in fact, he should be a « new
man », turned towards God, and forgetting what he feels or
thinks as a rational animal, coming to that point that Kierkegaard
calls « theological suspension of obligations »,
forgetting his human life and thinking only of the one that will come
afterward. Apparently, according to certain religious
representatives, masturbation would even get his hands pregnant in
the afterlife.
Sorry, it's in French, but here's the link to the video of the Imam telling that :
Where is freedom in all this ?
Music of the movie Django
Today, individual Man is looking
for freedom from those kind of morals, according to Nietzsche, and
understands that power is where there is no need of it : maybe this is the age of the lion, the first metamorphosis in Thus spoke Zarathoustra, the lion trying to get rid off metaphysics. Phil,
in the Groundhog's day, discharges from any responsibility and
consequences of his action, by living again and again the same day,
everything of what he has done during the day being removed at the
end of it : he even beats death, not succeeding in getting
suicide : thus he is no man anymore, and calls himself « a
god ». He is the most powerful human because his actions are
simply not limited by any barriers : not law and not mortality ;
and he can totally live according to the « carpe diem »
of #Horace. But still, he can't be happy with the aesthetical life he
has, enjoying everything in excess, because at the end, he is alone
the following day, no one being able to record what he has done the
previous day : continuity in life can't exist without others ;
to feel one's existence, one needs the others to recognize his
existence.
And this we can also notice in #Kafka's Metamorphosis,
where Gregor Samsa, by changing his appearance and becoming useless
to his family, is spectator of his family forgetting him :
Gregor, that is totally conscious despite his new nature, comes to
question what has been certain to him before, not feeling familiar
with the furniture of his own bedroom anymore. Phil also needs a real
contact with another surd, and for this, he changes his own surd,
adopting an ethical life by binding emotionally with Rita. His
simulated freedom is in fact an alienation, excluding him from human
condition. Thus, freedom cannot be found by disconnecting from
others, because, like #Aristote underlined, Man is by definition a
social animal.
Humans become more and more strange animals
Modern men, since Nietzsche's time,
tend to have a paradoxical purpose : distance themselves from
their nature, and Nature in general, that they fear ; thus they
fear themselves. The ones that have organized states have, at the
same time, stolen freedom from men, because they were the most
powerful, so obviously, they were not interested in contract theories
that would have taken some power from them. In the lineage of
#Hobbes, taking for granded that men are bad and are not able to live
peacefully, needing authority and fear to do so, they have promised
punishment to those who don't respect their law ; punishment,
Nietzsche asserts, is a way to show to others one's power.
Modern men have become, in Nietzsche's
words, « valuating animals as such », looking for
measuring all aspects of their life. Men live in comparing one to
another, trying to always be better than the other : competition
is everywhere, in social as economic level. They now live in such a
system where there is a creditor and a debtor, and where this debtor
has to pay his debt back, no matter how, would it be with his most
valuable possessions, as life. This is just the illustration of
larger modern society, so called consumption society, where
individuals are living to consume, more and faster. We can even
notice this aspect in romantic relations : now partners are
found on such technological tools like Tinder or Meetic, where it is
possible to select what you precisely look for _and to order it. The
individual's interests are what really counts, leading to something
that is not so much society anymore, because individuals don't want
to respect the contract they have implicitly signed for by living in
community.
And this, instead of leading to the
third metamorphosis, the age of the Child and of creation of new
values, can explain a revival of a spiritual research : men are
looking for new ideals that have been lost in the emancipation from
religion in Western societies. A phenomenon like islamic
fundamentalism offers a very rigorous frame, a community, and
salvation if the indoctrinated person does his or her duty. Like
Phil, islamic fundamentalists are looking for ethical life by binding
to other people ; like Abraham, they come to what is for
Kierkegaard the madness of faith, not understandable because so
irrational. Maybe God is not dead yet, and the Mad Man is still not
heard.
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