‘Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, that he is no longer able to despise himself.’ (Zarathustra)
I recently came across a meme on Twitter that motivated me to attempt to clarify the distinction between two forms of so called ‘self-improvement’. First the meme:
Having only recently done a thorough reading of Zarathustra, front to back, I think I could offer some insights into the truth value of this meme. The meme could be read as an intelligent understanding of the text, or an idiotic expectation that somehow philosophy is supposed to ‘help’ you. One could read it either way.
There has been an increase in ‘self-improvement’ inclinations in the past decade or so, which require some deeper reflection upon. Jordan Peterson’s therapeutic, Jungian genre of self-improvement. David Goggins or other health and fitness gurus and their anxiously practical modelling of constant physical activity. New age uptakes of Christianity offering previously consumeristic subjects a sudden identity change toward spirituality and inner contentment. Even get rich quick gurus often appeal to one’s desire for an improved self. ‘Your bad job is holding you back’ ect.
While all these variations of improvement offer some truths and practical insights, they all fail in one crucial aspect. They all fail to acknowledge or make use of what we could call auto-aggressivity (productive self hatred). After all, why bother to improve anything to begin with if you are entirely self-satisfied, content and comfortable in what you are? Within the typically bourgeois, commercially friendly and morally unchallenging character to almost everything that is post-historical society, even a turn away from liberal self satisfaction is ultimately caught into reductively last-manly practices and philosophies.
The above quoted statement from Nietzsche —that a man is despicable if he does not on some level hate himself—stands out as a stark contrast to the humanitarian, bourgeois, materialistic and health orientated versions of self improvement mentioned already. Self-help, which was the late 20th century predecessor to 21st century self-improvement, has always been driven by the capitalist assumption that people wish to have more of good things and less of bad things. This is ‘common sense’ after all.
There is a simple distinction between radical self-improvement (self improvement for space monkeys) and the diet-improvement of the already mentioned examples. Radical self improvement embraces an inquiry into what is being improved and toward what end. Diet-improvement assumes ends and goods that are given to them by purely conventional streams of moral communication (largely advertising, ideology and socio economic expectations) and then simply demands that we should have more, get it faster and have less of whatever is apparently bad and undesirable. Improvement in this regard mean the acquisition of bigger muscles, more money, nicer furniture, more attraction from the other sex and ultimately more social acceptability.
As I have already pointed out in other pieces, cornering Jordan Peterson, there is a false assumption made concerning those who do embark on some form of self improving: that they will finally find their place in society thus reach a sort of psychological and moral completion. Most of the time the opposite is true. They will offend, provoke, make uncomfortable and confuse those around them who either feel no need for taking such a concern regarding the state of themselves seriously, or they will understand how necessary this is but find it easier simply not to. The self-improver is more likely to find himself a pariah than a man of good repute in our time. There are social and historical particularities which complicate the self-improving journey. No enthusiast or advocate has yet tackled theoretically, politically and ethically these complications. Even for those who embark on more vulgar forms of self-improvement, the vertical ambition they exuberate will not necessarily be shared by the easily self-satisfied character which has come to predominate in the ‘end of history’.
As critical as we should sometimes be of the more vulgar forms of self-improvement, we can nonetheless see a radical change in the trajectory the improvement-orientated impulses of Western society. Most of the bourgeois era centred on the improvement of conditions. Our era is somewhat more introspective. It wishes not to simply improve the infrastructure, wealth and cleanliness of a society—and thus assume these developments will in turn improve us (as people separate from these things). Today, we seem to have understood more wisely that the progressive development of a society does not, in fact, always improve us in turn.
This is somewhat due to the fact that the technological and economic development of society has taken on a plurality of forms (think of Korea, China, Dubai, for example) that do not cohere to an assumed model of civilising that was more consistent in the West. In the West itself, regardless of the character of these other ‘advanced’ societies, we see an increasing breakdown in social capital, health, cognition, and so on(things that economic development is apparently supposed to improve).
More comfort, convenience ,security, order, hygiene and other forces of advanced civilisation often degrade us, weaken us, soften us and blind us. The digital era of ‘development’ makes this reality more obvious than ever.
We live within a historical opportunity that should not go to waste. The success of the improved conditions of life created by bourgeois development has spawned so many maladies toward human beings themselves, that it has initiated a need to think of ourselves as not always morally and politically on the same trajectory as technological and economic advances. The more technology and economic complexity and power increases, it seems the worse off humans become.
Nietszche’s insights are radical and prophetic insofar that they accurately intuit the increasing need for this capacity of auto-aggressive human cultivation; improvement that begins with destruction and not acquisition. This book(Zarathustra) is not meant to 'improve' your life. It's meant to destroy you so you can then lift yourself up.
Rhetorically this ethical insight is clear in many of the passages in Zarathustra that demand a ‘down-going’. Those who can embrace a down-going seem to harbour the potentiality which the Ubermensch project requires as an axiom.
Some examples from the prologue of Zarathustra:
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a going across and a down going.
I love him who lives for knowledge and who wants the knowledge that one day the superman will live. And thus he wills his own downfall.
I love him whose soul is overfull, so that he forgets himself and all things are in him: thus all things become his downfall.
I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus his head is only the bowels of his heart, but his heart drives him to his downfall.
At the basis of this ethic is the argument that any improvement must begin with a willingness to relinquish what I am. Only a qualified hatred directed toward what I am will motivate this upward trajectory. The self-satisfied will look for more or better of this or of that. The Ubermensch will first begin a journey to the bottom and thus a willingness to relinquish.
This insight is actually not exclusive to Nietzsche but was reflected in a somewhat altered ethic in one of Plato’s dialogues, Alcibiades. In this dialogue Socrates and the ambitious young Athenian engage in what could only be described as their own form of down-going. The young Athenian desires Socrates’ assistance in order to fulfil his ambitions (which were on an imperial scale). Socrates agrees. The Thrasos (boldness ) of Alcibiades requires an entanglement with the logos represented by Socrates in this dialogue—and why?
Does Socrates own a large army, navy or wield immediate political influence that Alcibiades could use in his pursuit of his ambitions? No—he had none of these things. Socrates’ value exists insofar that he had the capacity to engage with a dialectic into what exactly is being pursued and improved. In order to engage with such ambitions, Alcibiades requires an honest evaluation of himself on one hand, and on the other, he requires the spark of a philosophic self awareness. To put it simply, as Socrates does, if you want to repair or improve a shoe, you must first know what a shoe is. This seems quite obvious because it’s obvious what a shoe is. With ‘self-improvement’, however, it’s not so clear; it’s not so clear what a man is. Those who wish to ‘improve’ without inquiring into the question ‘what is a man’ improve insofar a chicken with one foot runs (in circles). Improvement without inquiry—the modern disposition of self-help/improvement par excellence, is destined to fail as it will simply add, or lessen something which is apparently good or bad.
The other wonderful aspect to this dialogue lies in Socrates’ humbling of the assumed superiority of the Athenians. While discussing the lineage of Alcibiades and Socrates to the heroes Daedalus and Eurysaces, Socrates feels the need to make a humbling comparison to the more direct lineage which the Spartans and Persians kings have claim to.
‘But for all that, we are inferior to them (their ancestors). For they are descended ‘from Zeus’, through a line of Kings - either kings of Argos and Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country which the descendants of Achaemenes have always possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns of Asia, as they now are; whereas, we and our fathers were but private persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of your ancestors and of Salamis, the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artraxerces, son of Xerces. You should consider how inferior we are to them both in the derivation of our birth and in our particulars. Did you ever observe how great is the property of the Spartan kings? And their wives are under the guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and watch over them, in order to preserve as far as possible the purity of the Heracleid blood. Still greater is the difference among the Persians, ; for no one entertains a suspicion that the father of a prince of Persia can be anyone but the king. Such is the awe which invests the person of the Queen, that any other guard is needless. And when their heir is born , all the subjects feast ; and the day of his birth is forever afterwards kept as a holiday and a time of sacrifice by all Asia; whereas when you and I were born, Alcibiades, as the cosmic poet says, the neighbours hardly knew of the important event’.
There is a lot to be reflected upon in this section, not to mention this dialogue in general. Yet, we see a peculiar method of both lowering and raising, somewhat dialectically in one. Other passages in this dialogue, which I won’t bother quoting directly here as one can easily read it for themselves, reveal an acknowledgment of Alcibiades’ gifted and exceptional nature. Nor does Socrates attempt to lessen the ambition of Alcibiades in favour of a pacifistic, philosophic character of reflection, as it is often assumed by liberal academia. Socrates attempts to both heighten the ambition and instil a sort of qualified demand for humility at once.
The attention and concern for breeding, raising and educating the best humans possible, seems to be something which the Athenians, compared to their rivalling Spartan and Persian states, have dramatically fell behind in. This is perhaps an odd claim to make given the volume of impressive and exceptional Athenians that history has informed us of, ranging from playwrights, philosophers, generals and politicians. Yet, an honest evaluation of Plato’s writings exhibit a serious concern with what moderns would later call a decline. Perhaps the loss of the Peloponnesian war, alongside the number of other debacles (expedition to Sicily ect.) created a very different perspective to Athenian society than the one typically embraced by us moderns.
In particular here lies the themes of neglect; of a society that neglects the potential of their most exceptional, leaving their education and upbringing to a comparatively low standard. This is perhaps explainable when a society feels, often due to historical victories and advances, that it is intrinsically superior (so why worry?). Societies caught up in such assumptions rarely feel the need to inquire towards what—and towards what end—their improving energies are directed towards. Losers, simply put, are more likely to reflect.
One mindless assumption that winners often make lies in the conflation of themselves with their property. Harmony of reflection and thrasos (boldness) is only possible by making distinctions in ownership and being. Socrates continues to assert that those who follow Alcibiades for his status and wealth love him for what he owns—and not what he is. By this logic, real ambition and real participants in said ambition must embrace some form of an ascetic disavowal for the fleeting material luxuries and signifiers of power. Only when we can separate ourselves from what we own, can we take the next true step towards a bold and ambitious horizon; which of course, is what Alcibiades truly desires, or else he would be already content, given he has all and everything a man could possibly want.
Alcibiades is not used as a simple character reference by Plato for merely thematic effect. According to Plutarch, Alcibiades truly did have a great affection for Socrates. The young Athenian enjoyed the affections of many influential men of Athenian society, who would offer a constant stream of gifts and flatteries, yet Alcibiades (sometimes violently) rejected these affections in favour of Socrates. One has to wonder why? Where lies the attraction of a man who refuses to gift or flatter? The simple answer is in honesty. Not honesty as a merely humbling, restrictive morality —but in this case, as having a rather necessary presence for the truly ambitious.
To return again to Nietzsche, this is where we encounter the Ubermesnch: not as a vulgar self-improver, thoughtlessly demanding more and more (of money, influence, pleasure ect.) nor as a ruthless power player ‘liberated’ from ethical standards—but instead as a cross roads between the honesty and reflection of the philosopher and the conviction and boldness of the military visionary and the artist.
Oddly enough it was the cult classic FightClub that masterfully portrayed these aspirations and ethics all the way at the end of the 20th century. A lot has been said concerning the meaning of Fight Club—and there are an enormous array of themes and philosophies that can be emphasised—but for the sake of the theme of self-improvement, it’s worth analysing the piece of dialogue where self-improvement is directly depicted as a failure, ironically, as an effort to achieve what is clearly a literary depiction of the tension between Last Man (Edward Norton) and Ubermensch (Brad Pitt).
The dialogue in question(immediately after Norton’s apartment is blown up):
‘ I called Tyler. The phone rang in Tyler’s rented house on paper street. Oh Tyler, please deliver me. And the phone rang. Oh Tyler please rescue me.
Tyler and I agreed to meet at a bar. It was still raining. Tyler and I we met and drank a lot of beer—and Tyler said yes, I could move in with him. But I would have to do him a favour. There, where no one was watching and no one would care, I asked Tyler what he wanted me to do. Tyler said; I want you to hit me as hard as you can.
May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. Deliver me Tyler from being perfect and complete. Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Maybe self improvement isn’t the answer. Tyler never knew his Father. Maybe self-destruction is the answer.’
The ‘end of history’ geist which this book and film encapsulates, is best summarised as a totalising state of abandonment. Consumption standards, security, comfort, medical technologies—these are all tightly secured and facilitated. The state of man’s soul, however—what he truly is—is neglected beyond toleration. The Ubermensch arises not from an inheritance of civilisation goods—but as a disavowal of self towards self.
Post-war, post-religious and post-historical humans have developed an array of identities in place of historical and ethical participation with life. However, these little, mass produced, personalized Mona Lisas are falling apart far more rapidly than the real painting; built is self-obsolescence, we could say.
The power of the statement ‘I want you to hit me as hard as you can’ lies in the willingness to accept the necessity of that intrusive force that schisms the structure of your very identity and separates what you are, from what you own (which now includes a makeshift, commercialized and merely therapeutic identity). The creation of real humans, now more than ever, relies on an initial self-destruction of what you think you are, and what you own, in favour of what you must be.
More historically and politically speaking, liberalism could escape the historical contests of opposing ideologies such as Communism and Fascism, but when it ‘evaluates’ its ideal subjects - its Last Men - it sometimes can’t escape the intrusive partial-self; the nagging identification with something other(or higher). If we assert that this Last Man before you is the highest stage—the end of the many millennia long betterment and struggle of man— then the partial self, the one that refuses this assumed completeness, must reply in indignation: ‘If this is your completion of man, death is better than fulfilment; incompleteness is the last horizon of dignity left!’ Or in other words, loving thyself is sometimes synonymous with beating thyself.
Self-help fails because it lacks this initial destructive capacity. It lacks the conviction to burn your own house to save yourself. It lacks the capacity to productively hate yourself. The Ubermensch begins with an act of relinquishing—and not an act of acquisition. Without this premise, a space monkey will never take his first steps towards his new horizon.
This was excellent!