This week's episode was prompted by a question
from one of The Living Philosophy’s supporters on Patreon
Kevin Sherman who wrote: “Thanks always for your insights.
I’m interested in the distinction between eastern enlightenment and Nietzsche.
What do you see
as the distinctions, and where do you see enlightenment falling short?”
So this question is coming off the back of the Nietzsche Why it Matters episode.
And it's a great question that reframes the parting shot of Nietzsche's career
in a way that's more relevant for those of us born after the death
of God to: Dionysus versus the Buddha.
When I was younger, I, like many young Westerners over
the past century, got drunk on the idea of Enlightenment.
It was far from a rare affliction.
Three of my four closest friends were equally ensnared by the idea.
It's a similar feeling to what I was talking about in the last episode around
why I had to put Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra down except that
in the case of Enlightenment, I couldn't see the unhealthiness of the urge
and so with no mental defenses it invaded my mind like a virus.
I’m choosing this provocative language deliberately partly to evoke
Richard Dawkins’s work on memes and religion and partly
to knock the idea a little bit from its unassailable pedestal.
Despite what many commenters on the “Buddhism Isn’t a Philosophy” video
think, I’m very far from disliking Buddhism.
In the years
since escaping the spell of Enlightenment I’ve spent 40 days in silence at 10 day
Vipassana retreats and hundreds of hours practicing Buddhist meditation.
In one of the Tibetan Buddhist sutras, The Buddha says: “just as a goldsmith
would test his gold by burning, cutting, and rubbing it,
so you must examine my words and accept them,
but not merely out of reverence for me.” So for those of you
who are lovers of the Buddha and his teachings, take this video
as a bit of playful, burning, tossing and rubbing.
During this phase where I was under the spell of Enlightenment.,
I was also reading a lot of Nietzsche and during this time
I must have read Beyond Good and Evil three or four times
and had a Groundhog Day experience where with the memory of a goldfish,
I got taken in by the same baited hook again and again.
After questioning why we should prefer truth to untruth in the first aphorism,
Nietzsche starts the second aphorism with the following:
“How could anything originate out of its opposite?
for example, truth out of error?
or the will to truth out of the will to deception?
or selfless deeds out of selfishness?
or the pure and sunlike gaze of the sage out of lust?
Such origins are impossible; whoever dreams of them is
a fool, indeed worse; the things of the highest value
must have another, _peculiar_ origin—they cannot be derived from this transitory,
seductive, deceptive, paltry world, from this turmoil of delusion and lust.
Rather from the lap of Being, the intransitory, the hidden god,
the ‘thing-in-itself’—
there must be their basis, and nowhere else.” And I’d be reading this
not in along, getting excited and I thinking “This makes sense.
This gels with everything that I'm reading in the spiritual texts brings
to mind the observer consciousness behind all these fields of Maya. Yes.
There must be something in all of this.
And look, even Nietzsche confirms it.” What I failed to notice
every time I was reading this was that this part was in quotation marks.
And every time I got reeled in, it only made
the sucker punch that followed all the more brutal.
The rest of the aphorism, which is worth quoting in full, goes like this:
“This way of judging constitutes the typical prejudgment and prejudice
which give away the metaphysicians of all ages;
this kind of valuation looms in the background
of all their logical procedures; it is on account of this “faith”
that they trouble themselves about “knowledge,” about something
that is finally baptized solemnly as “the truth.” The fundamental
faith of the metaphysicians is _the faith in opposite values_. It
has not even occurred to the most cautious among them
that one might have a doubt right here at the threshold
where it was surely most necessary—even if they vowed to themselves, “de omnibus
dubitandum” (which on a side note is each a reference to Descartes’s line,
that all is to be doubted) For one may doubt, first,
whether there are any opposites at all, and secondly whether these popular
valuations and opposite values on which the metaphysicians put their seal,
are not perhaps merely foreground estimates, only provisional perspectives,
perhaps even from some nook, perhaps from below,
frog perspectives, as it were, to borrow an expression painters use.
For all the value that the true, the truthful, the selfless may deserve,
it would still be possible that a higher and more fundamental value for life
might have to be ascribed to deception, selfishness, and lust.
It might even be possible that what constitutes the value
of these good and revered things is precisely
that they are insidiously related, tied to, and involved with these wicked,
seemingly opposite things—maybe even one with them in essence.
Maybe!
But who has the will to concern himself with such dangerous maybes?
For that, one really has to wait for the advent of a new species of philosophers,
such as have somehow another and converse taste and propensity from those
we have known so far—philosophers of the dangerous “maybe” in every sense.
And in all seriousness: I see such new philosophers coming up.”
And with that I’d snap in the space of four paragraphs from the Ascetic Ideal
of Buddhism to the Dionysian ideal of Nietzsche.
And with that I’d snap in the space of four paragraphs
from the Ascetic Ideal of Buddhism to the Dionysian ideal of Nietzsche.
Like a great hypnotist Nietzsche was pacing my experience,
he passed what is called the “Ideological Turing Test” —
where he gave such accurate voice to my worldview that I believed he shared it
— and then having matched my experience he ripped the rug from underneath
me and I found myself face down before a new idol.
And intoxicated
with the nectar of Nietzsche I would find myself drawn in by the hopes
of being one of these new philosophers in what can only be described
as a masterpiece of conversion by the German thinker.
It’s a great example of what I mean about Nietzsche having the ability
to challenge assumptions you don’t even know that you have.
In On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche dissects the Ascetic Ideal —
that is, the ideal of asceticism which debases this life
in order to heap adoration on another world.
This can be the objective world of the scientists, it can be the Heaven
and Hell of Christianity, the Nirvana of the Buddhists
or even the “Nature” of the Stoics.
The Ascetic Ideal is the spiritual DNA
that Aldous Huxley talks about in the Perennial Philosophy.
It is the basis of what Nietzsche calls Slave Morality with its
life-denying disgust with this plane of existence.
Where Nietzsche is special is that in criticising
this ideal his standpoint isn’t the one we are used to.
We are used to this ascetic ideal having a counter
in day to day life and that is worldliness.
In the New Testament
we have lines like: “For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and
worldly passions,
and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age”
and “Do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires
of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.
And the world is passing away along with its desires,
but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
So the traditional setup is a dichotomy between the Ascetic Ideal and this world.
The Ascetic Ideal is allied with the metaphysical —
the other world of grace and goodness — Plato’s real world
where the sun of the good shines outside the cave of illusions.
The counter-ideal to this that we experience in our day to day lives
is the compromised, status-driven realm of the world.
And since Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God and secular society
has come into its own, this world tends more and more towards a sort of hedonism.
Before Nietzsche there was this implicit belief
in a dichotomy between truth and illusion; between the sheep
and the goats; the wise and the ignorant; the awakened and the sleeping.
The Ascetic Ideal and its counterpoint in this world
were thought to be the only two alternatives.
The ways of mysticism and enlightenment take this religious
faith in truth and illusion and inject it with steroids.
Rather than leaving it out there as inaccessible like Kant
they tell us we can experience truth.
The Kingdom of Heaven is on earth.
Nirvana is within your reach.
Clear off your doors of perception and you will see things as they truly are.
The Ascetic Ideal draws us away from this world.
Fasting, chastity, simplicity, renunciation —
these pillars of the Ascetic Ideal take us away from life.
They cut us off from the richness of the human experience.
All life is suffering we are told and here’s how to get away from it.
It’s a pulling back out of fear of pain.
But the hook of the Ascetic Ideal has a tasty bait attached.
We can be liberated from suffering; Heaven awaits
those who follow the good path; virtue is sufficient for happiness.
And the Buddhist and Hindu hooks
have an even tastier bait attached — with the peace and contentment
and even bliss that can come with the path to liberation.
Not only can you feel superior to everyone in your life
but you can also feel infinitely happier than them.
You can avoid suffering and experience true bliss.
All you have to do is be non-attached to everyone in your life, renounce
this world and live a life of discipline, simplicity, chastity and renunciation.
The thing about this ideal of Enlightenment
is that it is in many respects, poisonous.
It is the most common form what is know as spiritual bypassing.
As you move through spiritual circles and read spiritual books
you come across so many people who take this as the ideal.
It might be unattainable by them but they still hold it up
there as the number one.
They love consciousness and the light
and think that we need to purify ourselves of the darkness.
It is an overcoming of the instinctual samsara
by the conscious will to liberating nirvana.
I can see the sense in it if you are genuinely shooting for the end goal.
But for your average citizen of the world it is toxic.
It’s ascetic and life-denying.
It gets people retreating from life and the world.
In this age especially that’s a shitty ideal.
We want people to become involved in the world.
We want people to become successful and to stand as a real counter-ideal
to worldliness.
To put it another way the stereotypical image of the east
as seen through this New Age Enlightenment lens is: monastery on the mountain;
village in the valley.
Wisdom and worldliness each with their own domains.
By setting up this polarity you cut off wisdom from the world.
You set up the poles and each end of the pole tends towards its extreme.
To me this isn’t just bullshit; it’s dangerous bullshit.
We need our wisdom in the world.
And we don’t want it to feel dirty and contaminated
just by proximity to money and status.
The separation of wisdom and worldliness
might save a few monks somewhere but the world remains corrupt.
What we need are people who can carry the world and wisdom together.
And that is where Nietzsche comes in.
Rather than the renunciation
of the Ascetic Ideal or the base instinctual life of worldliness,
Nietzsche tries to break the spell of this binary opposition.
On the Genealogy of Morals he writes: “The ascetic ideal expresses
a will: where is the opposing will that might express an opposing ideal! ...
Where is the match of this closed system of will, goal, and interpretation?
Why has it not found its match?—Where is the other “one
goal”?” After quickly dismissing democracy and science.
Nietzsche admits that he sees no other goal.
Bezos and Buddha are the only options on the menu.
But in Thus Spoke Zarathustra he does offer an alternative.
He offers his own metaphysics of the earthly with his Dionysian Ideal.
He metaphysicalises this world.
He orients us not up and away from the world into the metaphysical realm
of the father or of Nirvana but instead towards this world.
The Dionysian affirms the value of this world and this life
in all its trials and tribulations as it is. He declares his doctrine
to be amor fati — love of fate — a term
that Nietzsche coined and which has since been appropriated by Neo-Stoicism.
He tells us that “There are heights of the soul
from which even tragedy ceases to look tragic”.
This is the ideal of the Dionysian.
And this ideal with its Eternal Recurrence its Will to Power and its Übermensch
is a set of perspectives that orient us towards this world.
Not away from it in disgust
but into its guts — into the blood and bones of life itself.
The problem with Enlightenment is that it draws people who have a lot of wisdom
and a lot of good to offer away from the world.
It makes them feel dirty for interacting with the worldly and so it creates
a barrier between wisdom and the world thus making the world a worse place.
Either you follow the ascetic path of the Buddha
or else you are turning your back on your spiritual path.
You are caught in a polarised binary.
Nietzsche’s counterideal does the opposite.
It draws us into the world. It valorises the world.
And not merely in a hedonistic YOLO kind of way but in a spiritual way.
It affirms the world and the body and life
and so we can form a positive spiritual relationship to this world.
It reminds me of the old Taoist ideal where the masters weren’t away
on the mountaintop in some monastery but they were in the village
they were the master butcher and the master baker.
They were in the world.
They were living ideals affecting the world around them.
The Dionysian ideal encourages us towards this.
It is an orientation towards life.
We go into the darkness we look into our shadow and into our underworld
and we affirm it.
Buddhism in contrast is a decadent affirmation of death.
The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara has taken an oath that she will not become
enlightened until every other being has achieved liberation.
And liberation of course means the cessation
of the wheel of Samsara — of births and rebirths i.e.
of the entirety of life itself with all its miseries and its corruption.
There’s a scene from the Lord of the Rings that comes to mind
where Elrond advises his daughter Arwen to take the ship
to Valinor — the Undying Lands over the sea.
Nothing awaits her in Middle-Earth but death.
Even if Sauron is defeated and Aragorn becomes king, Arwen
will still have to see him die and she’ll live on to face her mortality alone.
But what Elrond conveniently leaves out of the story is the new life — her son.
By emphasising our aloneness and our suffering, the Ascetic Ideal
makes a Cartesian error: it cuts us off from the network of people and community.
It cuts us off from the past and the future and leaves us to marinate
in our aloneness.
The Dionysian path however offers another way.
Not just the base life of hedonism but a metaphysics of the earthly
— a making sacred of this life and this world.
It is an affirmation of life in all its sufferings and its joys,
in all its highs and its lows.
For the Dionysian Ideal, suffering is not a counter-argument but a centrepiece.
Nietzsche’s most famous line is “that which does not kill me makes me stronger”.
He also writes that “To those human beings who are of any concern to me
I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities”.
All of this because he believes in catharsis.
He believes in the sacredness
of becoming — in the ever-babbling brook of the generations.
I find Nietzsche to be the best critic of the ideal of New Age’s
Enlightenment because unlike the worldly hedonists I don’t
get the sense that he’s living in darkness.
The materialistic hedonists seem to be denying their higher nature
— their spirit.
They have turned their back on the sacred.
They have given up.
They are the prodigal son off in the world.
The Ascetic Ideal has the sense that it will be vindicated on its deathbed.
It alone holds the higher ground.
But Nietzsche changes the landscape entirely.
He manages to criticise the ideal of Enlightenment
from another peak of spirit — and until now as he would put it,
there seemed to be no other peak.
It was either the peak of Enlightenment or the valley of Kierkegaardian Despair.
Nietzsche offers an alternative route: the sacredness of the world;
and with that he changes the entire spiritual
landscape. That’s not to say that Nietzsche gets everything right.
I’m not sure his metaphysics of the earthly is the metaphysics of the earthly
but what he has broken is the binary that was keeping
us locked between the worldly and the Ascetic Ideal.
What’s important about Nietzsche is not that he is 100% right
but the fact that he finds a separate standing ground —
the fact that he finds a perspective from which he can validly criticise
the entire history of metaphysics up to now.
This is what is valuable.
He is liberating.
He broadens our horizons and allows us to see from a point of view that nobody else
seems to have that’s no small thing in the long history of philosophy.
That’s everything for this episode of The Living Philosophy.
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