Samuel Damren
“Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
This epigram, number 146, is contained in Part Four of Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” first published in 1886. In 21st century America, it speaks to the abyss of increasing political violence.
One of the 19th century’s most celebrated European intellectuals, Nietzsche cast an influence spread across many disciplines.
His personal life was tragic. Nietzsche suffered periods of severe depression intensified by personal loss, betrayal, and regret.
The isolation he endured was heightened by his imposing intelligence which also separated him from others; and, by the unrelenting demands he imposed on himself.
Nietzsche’s analysis of the history of philosophical thought was novel, penetrating and constantly evolving. He placed special emphasis on the motivations of philosophers, including their fears, desires as well as their rationalizations. Nietzsche served as a therapist to philosophy.
Sigmund Freud, born 12 years after Nietzsche, was one of many intellectuals profoundly influenced by his writings. He quipped that at one point in his career, he decided to give up reading Nietzsche to be better able to claim he had original thoughts of his own.
Nietzsche asked questions that were outside societal bounds. He was controversial. But he was polemic for a purpose: to demand that his readers think for themselves.
In identifying the deleterious effects that self-absorption and self-deception had on the discipline of philosophy, Nietzsche also identified similar risks to individuals.
He did not exclude philosophers, including himself, from those risks.
For Nietzsche, the determination and perseverance of an individual’s own will, “the Will to Power” as he termed it, was the only sure rescue from this struggle. His insistence on this difficult and arduous approach arose from the even greater risks he perceived in the disguised motivations of groups offering rescue by other means.
In the 21st century, those risks are amplified by the abyss of deceitful “voices” residing on the internet and in social media. It is an abyss that quite literally “looks back into you” in a way not possible before the creation of this technology.
For isolated and distressed individuals, the voices are a lure summoned at ease by the “click” of a computer. Whether originating from “influencers,” “bots,” racists, religious zealots, or through webs of conspiracy theories and “over the top” social commentary, the voices are available 24/7 to “look long into.”
In audio and on screen, the deceitful voices offer confirmation that one’s feelings of resentment, isolation, futility and anger are justified. They offer righteous explanation as a reprieve from inexhaustible struggle. They offer entry into a community of shared values.
The path to this rescue comes with a price. But for the agency of desperation, it is a cost that in many instances an individual listener might never before have contemplated: the commission of violence.
There is good reason why law enforcement routinely reviews the social media accounts and internet searches of suspects of political or socially inspired violence. The worst of the internet deceitful voices proclaim the legitimacy, and urge the necessity, of violent revenge as a remedy to societal injustice.
There is good reason why Nietzsche titled his work “Beyond Good and Evil.” Nietzsche viewed the pairing of these concepts and their resulting duality as not only pernicious to the discipline of philosophy, but as capable of creating far greater destruction.
Nietzsche began his philosophical journey by critiquing the pairing in ancient Greek philosophy of the ideal of perfection in the afterlife with the inevitable and unending tragedy of earthly suffering. He saw a similar duality in later religious thought. These insights, however, did not conclude with the exhortation that “God is dead.”
Nietzsche’s life was cut short by disease. He spent his last decade in a state of utter madness. His ideas were thereafter misappropriated by some, misunderstood by many and vengefully misrepresented by others.
As demonstrated by epigram 146, Nietzsche might now speak to the violent turmoil of contemporary times in a way that others do not.
This epigram, number 146, is contained in Part Four of Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” first published in 1886. In 21st century America, it speaks to the abyss of increasing political violence.
One of the 19th century’s most celebrated European intellectuals, Nietzsche cast an influence spread across many disciplines.
His personal life was tragic. Nietzsche suffered periods of severe depression intensified by personal loss, betrayal, and regret.
The isolation he endured was heightened by his imposing intelligence which also separated him from others; and, by the unrelenting demands he imposed on himself.
Nietzsche’s analysis of the history of philosophical thought was novel, penetrating and constantly evolving. He placed special emphasis on the motivations of philosophers, including their fears, desires as well as their rationalizations. Nietzsche served as a therapist to philosophy.
Sigmund Freud, born 12 years after Nietzsche, was one of many intellectuals profoundly influenced by his writings. He quipped that at one point in his career, he decided to give up reading Nietzsche to be better able to claim he had original thoughts of his own.
Nietzsche asked questions that were outside societal bounds. He was controversial. But he was polemic for a purpose: to demand that his readers think for themselves.
In identifying the deleterious effects that self-absorption and self-deception had on the discipline of philosophy, Nietzsche also identified similar risks to individuals.
He did not exclude philosophers, including himself, from those risks.
For Nietzsche, the determination and perseverance of an individual’s own will, “the Will to Power” as he termed it, was the only sure rescue from this struggle. His insistence on this difficult and arduous approach arose from the even greater risks he perceived in the disguised motivations of groups offering rescue by other means.
In the 21st century, those risks are amplified by the abyss of deceitful “voices” residing on the internet and in social media. It is an abyss that quite literally “looks back into you” in a way not possible before the creation of this technology.
For isolated and distressed individuals, the voices are a lure summoned at ease by the “click” of a computer. Whether originating from “influencers,” “bots,” racists, religious zealots, or through webs of conspiracy theories and “over the top” social commentary, the voices are available 24/7 to “look long into.”
In audio and on screen, the deceitful voices offer confirmation that one’s feelings of resentment, isolation, futility and anger are justified. They offer righteous explanation as a reprieve from inexhaustible struggle. They offer entry into a community of shared values.
The path to this rescue comes with a price. But for the agency of desperation, it is a cost that in many instances an individual listener might never before have contemplated: the commission of violence.
There is good reason why law enforcement routinely reviews the social media accounts and internet searches of suspects of political or socially inspired violence. The worst of the internet deceitful voices proclaim the legitimacy, and urge the necessity, of violent revenge as a remedy to societal injustice.
There is good reason why Nietzsche titled his work “Beyond Good and Evil.” Nietzsche viewed the pairing of these concepts and their resulting duality as not only pernicious to the discipline of philosophy, but as capable of creating far greater destruction.
Nietzsche began his philosophical journey by critiquing the pairing in ancient Greek philosophy of the ideal of perfection in the afterlife with the inevitable and unending tragedy of earthly suffering. He saw a similar duality in later religious thought. These insights, however, did not conclude with the exhortation that “God is dead.”
Nietzsche’s life was cut short by disease. He spent his last decade in a state of utter madness. His ideas were thereafter misappropriated by some, misunderstood by many and vengefully misrepresented by others.
As demonstrated by epigram 146, Nietzsche might now speak to the violent turmoil of contemporary times in a way that others do not.
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