The best thing I've ever read...
September 5th 2010 14:15
The best thing I've ever read... on Nietzsche (yes, excuse the misleading title but hey, you gotta market, right?), is in the chapter 'Paris. Nietzsche the Great Martyr' from Nikos Kazantsakis's autobiographical book Report to Greco. What can I say, but, wow. This guy gets it. He doesn't waffle around on the superficial words and logic of Nietzsche as many academics and commentators do, but rather takes the philosophy as is and deals with its implications in the world, judging it accordingly (which, I might add, is what all philosophical process should entail). And the implications are damning, at least for Kazantzakis and his hero, Friedrich. Nietzsche stood toe to toe with the "abyss", resulting ultimately in his madness, and Kazantzakis prepares himself for the same fate, spending three years in one of the most beautiful and cultured cities in the world, Paris, but hardly leaving his room, choosing to explore the eternal questions of meaning rather than exploring the more transient, but far more candescent, streets of Paris.
I'm not going to go into the conclusions and deductions that Kazantzakis reaches, because I'm not sure that that is the point of the writing. And besides, reading the chapter is a process in itself, and for me to attempt a quick summary of it here would be to strip it of its flesh and leave only its bones.
I'm not going to go into the conclusions and deductions that Kazantzakis reaches, because I'm not sure that that is the point of the writing. And besides, reading the chapter is a process in itself, and for me to attempt a quick summary of it here would be to strip it of its flesh and leave only its bones.
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Comment by A. Wik
And the chapter is good, because "[the author] gets [Nietzsche]" as concluded from the fact that he doesn't "waffle around on the superficial words and logic of Nietzsche" in contrast to other analysts, but rather judges Nietzsche's philosophy based upon his view of its "implications in the world". The question of what those implications might be, save for the generous and exquisite revelation of their "damning" quality, is left entirely to the imagination of the reader.
Notwithstanding the brilliance of this analyst's insight into Nietzsche, not *one* of his insights is salient enough to be worthy of mention, in your mind, if only because any attempt on your part at a summary, would leave something wanting - and it is much better to leave it *ALL* out! Why? My guess: because it's easier and faster! That's all right, but it would have been more honest to say so, or not comment at all on the be-or-not-to-be of a summary.
It is in the nature of a summary to leave out detail, because exhaustiveness is contrary to the purpose of a summary, which is... :
Let me summarise your blog post:
"This book chapter is the most brilliant commentary on Nietzsche that I've ever read, because it's different in style from most of the others."
This whole sarcastic comment, of course, is an even greater waste of time than your blog post. It can be understood as an accident of narcissistic caprice. I do it all the time, and it has nothing to do with you, so don't take it personal
Comment by Banana Mango
Quotable Quips
Banana and Mango
I did address your point in my last paragraph, which I don't know if you saw as it's hidden underneath a not-so-conveniently placed Google Ad:
"I'm not going to go into the conclusions and deductions that Kazantzakis reaches, because I'm not sure that that is the point of the writing. And besides, reading the chapter is a process in itself, and for me to attempt a quick summary of it here would be to strip it of its flesh and leave only its bones."
Kazantzakis is not an analyst or even a philosopher; he's an author. And some might disagree that he understands Nietzsche. But I love his writing and I think it's worthwhile to read it just to get a glimpse into the effect that Nietzsche had on him, not to mention for the writing itself.
I guess this blog is a recommendation more than anything.
Comment by A. Wik
I did see the last paragraph you recite. In fact, it's what I interpreted as saying that a summary would necessarily have to leave out detail, and therefore it is better to omit it altogether. That's what I called into question, basically asking why "nothing" is better than "something" if "everything" is not an option. I went on to say a few things as to why summaries are useful despite leaving so much detail wanting.
Also, by "analyst" I did not necessarily mean some kind of seriously in-depth Nietzsche scholar. I felt that something along the lines of "analyst", "interpreter" or why not "connoisseur" was implied by your saying the author "really gets" Nietzsche.
I agree that Kazantzakis may be well worth reading, for the reasons you mention. Thanks for clarifying the role of the blog as being a recommendation more than anything. Part of my complaint, if you read between the lines, was that it gave something of an illusion of being a little more than that, which might have been made clearer by being more candid about it. You did go as far yourself as to admit that the title may have been tending to mislead (promising too much, I presume).
I haven't studied Nietzsche myself in particularly great depth. However, he is my favourite amongst philosophers at this point. I love his frank and candid exposure of morals for what they really are. Too many people pretend that morals are somehow universal or natural when they are in fact little more than abstractions and products of the human mind without any basis in reality or science. Yet, they tend to be held so dearly by a majority of people, that anyone who does not share them, is basically taken to be anti-Christ, Hitler, a psychopath, etc. To an extent, I take such attitudes as personal attacks, because although I'm no longer personality disordered, I was, I'm still a narcissist, and I share some of the characteristics of psychopaths that makes ordinary people get their "panties in a bunch" about this group of people.
One of the characteristics of psychopaths and myself that is particularly glaring and appalling in the eyes of normals is that we have no conscience, and never feel remorse, guilt, or regret, and that we don't share their dear slave morals - to use one of my most favourite Nietzschean terms. It should be added that these characteristics tend to exist in high frequency in some other personality disorders (PDs) than psychopathy, such as the narcissistic and schizoid PDs (NPD and SPD; the two that I had) and certainly, a histrionic would never take the time to feel anything like remorse although that is not explicitly recognised for HPD (I see them as the most hopelessly resistant to insight and introspection of *ALL* PDs; it's sad), nor is it for NPD or SPD (those with SPD are introspective to a much greater extent than normals). As I already implied by referencing myself as an example, recovering from a PD, which is quite unusual, does *not* imply a sudden appearance of any kind of morality or conscience as the terms are commonly (mis)understood by normals, so one doesn't even need to have a PD at all to possess these classically psychopathic features. Also, it is not really technically correct anyway, as those of us with these characteristic may (perhaps not even "may") still have morals and/or conscience in a more technical sense, in the form of a super-ego (Freud's term for conscience, which is more neutral and free from connotations, and thus preferred for the purposes of serious discussions), and in the form of ideals, values, principles, standards, priorities, etc. I haven't really studied this sufficiently to know whether it generalises to others with the conditions mentioned, but I can speak from my own experience for illustration. My ideals and values are more personal in nature and have little to do with society at large; rather, they simply reflect my own ideas and feelings about what is beautiful, admirable, worthy, gentlemanly, good taste, etc. in an individual. They are more like Nietzschean master-morals than the slave-morals, and importantly, they are concerned with "good and bad" rather than "good and evil"; this distinction recognised and expounded upon by Nietzsche is one of the things I like most about his philosophy. Also, failing to live up to these ideals does not result in the classic remorse, guilt, or regret, and not necessarily even shame or embarrassment, although I have experience with these, but rather a sense of dishonour, disgrace, self-disappointment, loss of pride, a sense of being dirty or filthy in a moral sense, or some measure of self-disillusionment or just simple sadness. Furthermore, the obligation to live up to these ideals is *NEVER* to society, and although there is sometimes an illusion of owing to someone else (especially a loved one), that is really only the implication of owing it to myself to respect my own values as a question of honour and pride - so for example, in the case of love, it is more accurately a matter of living up my ideals of what love is or ought to be, rather than a question of living up to some kind of duty to the object of the love, although it accomplishes the exact same result in the end, in practice - so much so, that the two might be mistaken for each other, and admit that it has been a source of confusion to me at times. Also, specifically, *I* am the supreme judge of it all, and the only judge of it, whether I have "failed myself", so to speak, and others are left with little more influence than reminding me of facts (eg. "I thought you said...") with reference to some value or ideal I have claimed to regard as important, and/or their interpretation of facts indicating that I have not acted accordingly. That's a lot more effective than "the Bible sez" or "that's criminal", but more importantly, it's more ego-syntonic. It can be very compelling to me to live up to the values that are most core to my whole self-image the consequence of failure is either death (suicide) or re-defining my sense of self or identity, but I certainly may forgive myself for the occasional failure, especially if it is a matter of having been under influence of a drug or serious external manipulation or deceit. It is interesting that, back while I had the personality disorders, I was *more* idealistically demanding and less forgiving of myself. Recovery from the PDs involved shattering a unconscious god-complex that essentially required me to be more than human - that is, to be god - and this was a source of much shame that made no sense until *after* the god-complex was lost. The demise of these spectacular delusions of grandeur immediately resulted in the greatest sense of freedom and relief that I have ever experienced, an immediate boost in self-esteem, a range of new personality features and new abilities, as well as the continuation of arrested personality development. The only sad thing, was the the insight of having been a slave under that useless pathology for 30 years or so. That convinced me beyond all doubt, that a pathological narcissist (NPD), regardless of the number of victims he/she has exploited and hurt, is himself or herself the greatest victim of all. So, NPD and also SPD (not to mention HPD) is a tragedy for all impacted by it, directly or secondarily. It makes no-one happy, and especially not the person with the PD, and it is unfair and tragic that he/she is often seen only as a predator and abuser as this is essentially to ignore the greatest victim. Now, it is true that as a result of PD and recovery I have ended up with insights, characteristics, and knowledge, that is unique and extremely valuable to me, and I would not want to trade them away, especially not for having been normal all along. On the other hand, I recognise that almost certainly, save for the first-hand intuitive insight into the subjective experience of having a PD as compared to not having one, to a great extent, the result (what I am now) could have been better, faster, and more painlessly accomplished otherwise... although no-one generally tries to create *any* kind of narcissist, pathological or otherwise, and maybe no-one ever did it intentionally, but it happens (Hermann Göring, and to a lesser extent Sigmund Freud, were examples of this). I've everyone were a narcissist, I imagine that it would be the end of civilisation as we know it. The vast majority, including myself, are subjected to programming with slave-morals in our childhood and youth for reasons making sense for a collective social point of view, even though it is not in the best interests of the individuals. I am at least lucky in largely escaping this brainwashing (though not the attempts at it) and it is sad, but perhaps fortunate, that most people remain slaves and victims for a lifetime and never even know it.
I should note, that I'm by no means perfect, and I have a long way to go, but I have a good chance of success.
Perhaps my greatest challenge is to find someone who can love me and understand me, and whom *I' can understand and love. The fact that some of my thinking on this matter, includes the strategy of deliberately seeking a personality disordered woman (some kind of schizoid, narcissist, or even psychopath is what I had in mind, but a borderline might do) so that I can cure her and thus render her capable of actually loving me, while retaining the benefits of a history of PD, illustrates some of my frustration in this matter, and you cannot fully appreciate the significance of this, without understanding how challenging it *can* be to treat PDs; basically, it rarely happens at all, and results are *never* guaranteed. It is simple in theory: "say the right things" and it all goes away, potentially in a very short time, *BUT* finding the things to say can be a life-long effort, and as I said, there's never a guarantee of success. It is a matter of bringing unconscious delusions or dysfunctional beliefs to consciousness, and in any intelligent and rational individual, that all it takes to destroy them. Essentially, it is psychoanalysis, a procedure notorious for taking many years to achieve satisfactory results. Basically, my own recovery was psychoanalysis of myself by accident, and took the form of channelling rage into a verbally abusive essay to be unleashed on the unsuspecting victims being member of a mailing list I was on. Essentially, I had very good luck, and that's really the only reason why I'm not still personality disordered. Some potential prerequisites I suspect were: a) prior theoretical knowledge of personality disorders, b) a talent for analysis, c) a talent for expressing myself in detail and with exquisite precision (this takes a good vocabulary, but a thesaurus helps greatly), d) a talent for switching points of view or angles of approach, e) good intuition (unconscious cognitive processes) prone to making many conclusions implicitly and without consciously trying, f) a capacity for introspection and being honest to myself, including a relative lack of shame, embarrassment, guilt, etc. that prevents such honesty, g) the possession of rage, but the *absence* of certain other emotions may have been of importance too. The recovery of rage, after years of experiencing none of it, was remarkable in its own right - rage was a driving force in writing the essay that cured me. So, it's not necessarily easy or even possible.
On the other hand, an alternative strategy, which is to take a normal person and reverse the results of long-time brainwashing starting in childhood, may be equally or even more challenging. It involves much the same thing as defeating a personality disorder. Getting rid of dysfunctional beliefs and delusions, some of which are held very dearly and close to the core to a person's self-image. Like a pathological narcissist's mind, may cling to a god-complex or other delusions of grandeur, a normal person's mind might cling to slave-morals. To destroy such things is understandably a challenge. Even though the *result* of doing so is pleasant and yields feeling of freedom, relief, and improved self-esteem, there is *great* resistance to it, and most of that resistance is very incompletely understood consciously, if there is awareness at all. For that reason, to attack it with reason is difficult, and involves luck and guessing. Taking my god-complex as an example, I had *absolutely* no idea of having such as ridiculous thing. I even denied having NPD, due to my belief that I did not have the false-ego (basically an inflated self-image supported by the delusions of grandeur) that seemed so characteristic of, and essential to, pathological narcissism. I also did not meet the NPD diagnostic criteria which are based upon observable behaviour and attitudes. So, I was not unreasonable in denying NPD, unlike many or most NPD people who simply deny it as a result of engaging in cognitive bias, psychological defences and wishful thinking that nothing is wrong with them; sometimes, this is mostly a defence against accusations (cautiously suggesting something unflattering to an NPD is often taken as an attack or insult) by others that one has NPD, and the person may be willing to recognise it if left to consider the evidence in privacy and without fear of judgement, but in this case, the disorder is likely to be rationalised as an *advantage* and as something desirable, and frankly, that is understandable due to the way it is typically described and presented - a narcissist typically has very different ideas about what is desirable and may take pride in a lack of conscience or immorality (not unlike myself), although this may be outwardly denied (I'm probably very unusual in being so open and even brazen about such things) simply based on the knowledge that it would be bad for one's reputation (which is one of the things I care little for after losing the PDs and gaining true self-esteem; not very advisable, but I like it).
Back to finding myself a romantic partner: it may be more realistic to seek someone who is already good enough and not in much need of therapy or reprogramming - *perhaps* a former NPD having recovered as a result of their *own* efforts. Alternative, an individual who is unusually flexible and laid-back morally, but who was never personality disordered; e.g. a naturally non-PD narcissist like Freud or Göring. All these types of remarkable individuals are likely to be very scarce in supply and few and far between. I guess... as far as the odds are concerned, it's not unlike the prospects of marrying rich or dating one's favourite rock star or actor. Well, not quite as hopeless as the last two (movie or rock star).
Haha... that was not part of the plan. All that rambling, that is. However, I hope something of it was of interest, and if you take an interest in any of the topics that came up, I'd be delighted to take part of your own thinking on these matters, or ideally, to have a constructive and rewarding dialogue. When it comes to topics I have much insight into, I'm in the awkward position of being to far advanced beyond those with only modest or cursory interest, and at the same time, I'm likely to fall short of matching anyone with a research interest in the topics, although I do find myself with useful ideas and questions for such people occasionally, I have never acted upon that, in part because I've neglected it, in part because it's a work in progress and I never finish anything, and in part because I've been lacking in confidence, especially while having the PDs - that is funny, because an NPD usually has little respect or patience for others except to the extent they are useful, he/she may have exaggerated respect for a small elite of special or unique people that he/she admires for whatever reason. It depends on one's focus as an individual, and in my case those I admire have tended to be scientists, researchers, certain medical doctors, or basically just people recognised in my critical view as experts on one or more topics that I'm *very* interested or excited about. So, this class of people may be another source of the romantic partner I'm looking for, but it's complicated, as most of the people in question are somewhat old for me, and very likely to be married already, and some are likely to be very disappointing especially against the background of high expectations (ie. not as clever or interesting as I hoped, or failing to take interest in the same aspects or subsets of their field as I do).
So, any advice on hooking up with "special and unique" individuals would be greatly appreciated... I guess I said that only for completeness, and out of some level of frustration or budding desperation.