We all want our philosophies to be “cool.” Unfortunately, I’m afraid, some of us don’t
measure up in that regard. Take Empathic
Rationalism. It may be “sensible,” but
cool it’s not. To qualify for that label,
you need a counter-cultural element, something rebellious. And what can be less counter-cultural or
rebellious than rationalism and empathy?
At least to the thinking person, they both sound as innocuous as peace,
love and apple pie.
Fortunately, Empathic Rationalists don’t have to be
prisoners of conformity or “conventional” wisdom. Our charge is to honor the voice of reason and
the face of the “other.” But there is
nothing in that charge about closing our minds to the teachings of rebels, accepting
societal values slavishly, or deciding that seemingly inexorable trends are
necessarily positive ones. Just
consider, for example, the classic status-quo worshiper: the guy who places his
trust in the ability of free market economics to solve all environmental
threats, or the principles that the arc of history bends toward justice and the
fruits of science bend toward progress, or the idea that consumerist values are
more benign than not, or the notion that the human survival instinct will always
make even the most advanced weapons technology controllable and ultimately docile. Do you find such a person “rational”? Or are we simply talking about a modern day Pollyanna?
Empathic Rationalism merely prescribes the faculties
we must consult in reaching our ultimate goals.
As for what those goals are, that is left up to the individual mind and
heart. And as for the means that we use
in accessing the voice of reason or in seeking out the face of the “other,”
that also is left open to the individual. This is why it is one thing to say “Empathic
Rationalism” champions love, but only some of its followers champion “tough
love.” This philosophy is deeply libertarian in the sense that it recognizes
the importance of individual freedom and the danger of imposing too many
iron-clad rules. That is why,
periodically, it is important for the Empathic Rationalist to wade into the waters
of that most provocative disciple of freedom who ever put pen to paper. I’m talking about the crazy syphilitic from
Leipzig, who stopped writing only when his insanity overwhelmed his genius, but
whose total madness at the end of 1888 eerily announced the birth of an even
more insane German the next year. The
latter is the man who came universally to epitomize a word that the crazy
syphilitic frequently discussed in laudatory terms. That word is evil. This “more insane” German is Adolf Hitler. And the disciple of freedom/literary
genius/crazy syphilitic is Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nobody has ever described his philosophy in less “Empathic
Rationalist” terms than did Nietzsche, and yet I will always recommend his
works to any kindred spirit. For he is
our antithesis, and if we wish to attain our potential as Empathic Rationalists,
we must not ignore him. Rather, we must
contemplate what he has to offer and seek a synthesis that incorporates the
wisdom he teaches while recognizing that his philosophy could be as dangerous
and wrong as it could be profound and right.
Personally, I’ve loved Nietzsche ever since college,
when I was directed to read him by a philosophy professor. More than any other author known to me,
Nietzsche was “cool.” He dared call bullshit
on “civilized society,” which every adolescent viscerally knows is largely full
of it. It was in reading Nietzsche that
I felt most at peace because he was telling me in the strongest possible terms
that it was OK, indeed commanded, to feel alienated from modern culture. Marx, who I also read as a collegian, made
vaguely similar arguments, but Nietzsche’s hit home so much better. He would point out the hypocrisy in religion,
the stench of consumerism and pseudo-intellectuality ... in short, the cankers
in culture. Nietzsche appealed to my
sense that what is “highest” is actually lowest, and what is “lowest” is
pointing the way to the highest – a path that has hardly been traveled but that
is up to us, the “free-thinkers,” to create.
Nietzsche was like a muse to me. He made me want to create – with words, with thoughts,
even with deeds. It’s not surprising
that when I became a ba’al teshuva (aka a born-again religious Jew) in the year
after graduating from college, I was in Israel, listening to the lectures of
Orthodox rabbis while also secretly reading Nietzsche books. I couldn’t allow myself to make a decision as
fateful as becoming religious without also consulting the works of my “Antichrist,”
who once wrote a book with that name. I
knew that Nietzsche had stumbled upon the truth. Not the whole truth by any stretch of the imagination,
but a significant part of it – and especially the part that you’re least likely
to hear from your grade school teachers, your parents, or your rabbis.
My relationship with Nietzsche deepened in of all
places, Harvard Law School. Surely,
Nietzsche would have viewed that place as rotten to the core. But well outside the institution’s core was a
mischievous, tenured law professor named Richard Parker. Known as a constitutional law scholar, Parker
taught a class called “Ideology and Legitimization in Constitutional Law” and
many of the most rebellious (Nietzschean) students were enrolled. At the very beginning of the first day of
class, Parker said, “Alright. You have
three choices for this class, and we’re going to take a vote. Choice One is that we talk about ideology and
legitimization in constitutional law.
Choice Two is that we talk about ideology and legitimization, but not
necessarily confined to constitutional law.
And Choice Three is that we talk about whatever the fuck we want. OK, raise your hand if you want Choice One
....” Needless to say (a) the vote was unanimous;
and (b) Parker is almost as cool as Nietzsche.
My entire grade in the class was based on my presentation, which if you
can’t tell by now entirely dealt with Nietzsche and had nothing remotely to do
with the law. In preparation for the
presentation, I read every book the crazy syphilitic wrote. And yes, I got an “A” for the class. :)
Years later, I decided to do another presentation
about Nietzsche. This time it was
written for the Washington Spinoza Society at a time when we were meeting in
the auditorium of the Washington Goethe Institute. (That wonderful place gave us free access to their
auditorium for a number of years based on the idea that if Goethe were alive
today and living in Washington DC, the first thing he’d do is create a society
devoted to his favorite philosopher, the man who Nietzsche called his own “twin”
– Spinoza.) I wrote a play entitled “Spinoza
and Nietzsche: the Meeting,” which you can find on my website or just by
googling that name. What I remember most
about the play had nothing to do with its content. Our society met every month, and I decided to
surprise everyone by growing as thick a mustache as I could between the
previous session and the session where we put on the play. My friend Jay Bratt played the role of
Spinoza. I played the role of
Nietzsche. And believe me, I was far
more proud of the mustache than the play.
Moving ahead to the present, I’m back to reading
Nietzsche again – “Thus Spake Zarathustra” to be precise – in preparation for a
vacation study group. I have to say that
the older I get, the crazier he gets.
But I still love his writing to death.
I had forgotten just how many times in that book he uses the word “good”
to mean “bad” and how even the most “empathic rationalist” of values come
across as decadent when Nietzsche has an opportunity to dissect them.
I felt especially compelled to write about Nietzsche
in this Blog after reading the chapter of Zarathustra entitled “Of the
Compassionate” (which sounds a lot like “Of the Empathic”). That
is the chapter with such gems as:
“Beggars ... should be
entirely abolished! Truly, it is
annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them. And likewise sinners and bad
consciences! Believe me, my friends:
stings of conscience teach one to sting.
But worst of all are petty thoughts.
Truly, better even to have done wickedly than to have thought pettily!”
“But if you have a
suffering friend, be a resting-place for his suffering, but a resting-place
like a hard bed, a camp-bed thus you will serve him best. And should your friend do you a wrong, then
say, ‘I forgive you what you did to me; but that you did it to yourself – how could
I forgive that?”
“Thus spoke the Devil
to me once: ‘Even God has his Hell: it is his love for man.’ And I lately heard him say these words: ‘God
is dead; God has died of his pity for man.”
“’I offer myself to my
love, and my neighbor as myself’ – this is the language of all creators.”
“Of the Compassionate” is less than 1/100th
of Thus Spake Zarathustra, and yet it has produced all of those memorable tidbits.
That’s hardly atypical of Nietzsche’s works, which are chocked full of some of
the most provocative and insightful writing our species has ever produced.
Do yourself a favor: sometime this summer, when you’re
either getting bored or feeling playful, or just want to understand whether
there is something naughty that is actually nice, pick up a Nietzsche book and
read. But don’t just read – think! God forbid you will mindlessly wind
your way through his delicious filth and thereby verify his statement (also in
Zarathustra), “That everyone can learn to read will ruin in the long run not
only writing but thinking too.” I wonder
what Nietzsche’s “twin,” Spinoza – the supreme democrat – would have thought
about that statement. Well, surely he
would have agreed that you can easily enough read without doing much original
thinking. For me, though, the beauty of
reading Nietzsche is that he helps me to think originally. And honestly, is there a greater compliment
that any of us can pay to a writer than that?
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