What knowledge I would like to keep with me for the rest of my life.
To know what knowledge we should keep with us for the rest of our lives, one must first answer the question: to what end is our life? To agree with the concept of Platonic forms, there are perfect versions of everything, end states which all things aspire to be. However, humanity is very different to any other thing in the cosmos in that we have the ability to look out beyond ourselves, and within ourselves and improve — however, the disagreement held within this essay against Platonic forms is that the relativity of time and history means one cannot have ‘a form’ for man in as precise a specification as we could argue exists for material objects to fit their form. This is because if you take something as core to a person as, say, their morality — Nietzsche explains “If someone prefers revenge to justice, he is moral by the standard of an earlier culture yet by the standard of the present culture he is immoral.” (Nietzsche, 2015, 6). And so one cannot have such rigid concepts for man, when that form would be driven by the currently dominant society. For me, then, the form we aim to reach as humans within our lives is that of Aristotle’s Greater Souled Man. The Greater Souled Man, to use Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94 to describe the concept, is a person who “… Have power to hurt and will do none… Who, moving others, are themselves as stone… To temptation slow… They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others but stewards of their excellence.” (Kaufmann, 1975, 4–5). Aristotle describes the type of person I believe the world would be best highly populated with, or I would at least like to struggle to become. The kind of person that, when right at least, would be unmoving on their morals and knowledge — a person who has the ability to ‘hurt’ those around them but don’t, instead nurturing them and assisting them in their struggles and strife, and someone ultimately who lives for themselves, but that self is one of selflessness in a way. In this essay then, we shall explore the aspects of philosophy which reveal themselves as evidence as to why this Greater Souled Man is the kind of person I aspire to be, and why those bits of information I feel are vital to that effort.
Firstly, then, to the only first principle I worship at the altar of: Socratic negation. Plato writes that: “The wisest of you men is he who has realised, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless” (Plato, 2003, 46). And it fits the Greater Souled Man’s overarching narrative in the sense that whilst the Greater Souled Man is himself a stone, he moves others. Socrates in a sense managed this, albeit as a consequence of when he set out to disprove the oracle who informed him of his new status of wisdom by trying to find someone wiser, to be able to say: “You said that I was the wisest of men, but here is a man who is wiser than I am.” (Plato, 2003, 44). In a sense this is very important to the etiquette and well-being of the Greater Souled Man, and important information I wish to keep with me, because if you live your life trying to find those wiser than yourself to learn from, but refusing to accept anyone as wiser without proof, and similarly refusing to accept anyone as the universally wisest, you’ll be able to be like a stone to those who proclaim falsities, unmoved, whilst also moving those who seek wisdom — without fear of putting thoughts or individuals on pedestals to never be investigated or questioned. In a sense the Greater Souled man must pursue, but in turn will be pursued and must make sure to keep himself in check towards those who look up to them, and keep in check those who view themselves as wiser than them. This balancing act, fueled by Socratic negation, is a humbling experience. Humility is arguably the most important feature in a human: someone must know, going into a debate, that whatever the rhetoric may say, both parties begin with the potential to be right but also to be wrong. And that no matter how strongly you believe in your truth, you must appreciate that you ultimately know nothing. This is not to say you teach nothing, or should believe in nothing. Simply that you must be willing to move, like a stone on a riverbed pushed by a current of new information, should that current be strong enough to invalidate your original stance.
Life is not, however, simply about the struggle of education and knowledge. We have no promise of longevity and even if we did, it would be a mere blip of a second within the clock of history. Because of this, an important aspect of life to appreciate is Nietzsche’s concept of the Dionysian, as well as his work on morality (which this essay shall address first) . Nietzsche writes that:
“The gravest and uncanniest illness, from which humanity has not yet recovered, [is] man’s suffering of man, of himself — the result of a forcible sundering from his animal past, as it were a leap and lunge into new surroundings and conditions of existence, a declaration of war against the old instincts upon which his strength, joy, and terribleness had rested hitherto.” (Nietzsche, 1968, 521).
And by this, he means that there is an issue within life (one which I think modern society is fraught with) where we build such meaning and such importance on things which simply remove life from us. One example would be when people find conflict with natural desires — who has consensual sex with who, or if someone partakes in harmless acts (harmless bar the offence it causes this person, simply for the act being enacted). These ‘moral’ judgements, for Nietzsche are “burnt in so that it stays in the memory: only something that continues to hurt stays in the memory” (Nietzsche, 2006, 38). Because of this, many are trapped in a lifestyle where they are not living for themselves but also not living for enjoyment. The pain of this morality being burnt in removes, in a sense, a part of who someone is. There need not be a reason for the morality which has been burnt in to the person to be true at all, for the victim to prosthelytize to others that they too must burn this morality into themselves. Nietzsche writes that we must move away from such torture within life, writing “the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by a living man, because he is a party to the dispute.” (Nietzsche, 2003, 40) This is another, and a vital, stepping stone on the route to become a Greater Souled Man, as it reminds us to evaluate what we’ve been taught and however painful to move away from it should it be simply burnt in. To continue knowledge from Nietzsche, we look at his writings on the Dionysian. Nietzsche writes that the society we’re in creates an ascetic conflict constraining our beings with social decorum, whilst our natural instincts try to break out. This transforms us into slaves, and not — as Aristotle’s Greater Souled Man demands — living for ourselves, remembering Nietzsche’s warning about allowing yourself to become enslaved “All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward — this is what I call the internalisation of man” (Nietzsche, 1968, 520) For Nietzsche, and so too for this essay, morality is attacked by the asceticism in that it suppresses what is natural for what is perceived to be ‘good’ — this breakdown is detrimental to the Greater Souled Man (and to people generally) as it forced one into line and to comply with others — to give up the ability to be unmoved and to move others. Nietzsche describes this process as if we were and “animal that rubbed itself raw against the bars of its cage as one tried to ‘tame’ it.” (Nietzsche, 1968, p521). Nietzsche then contributes to the knowledge I would keep with me for the rest of my life as he educates oneself to remain unmoved by social pressures, simply because they’re pressures, and to instead embrace baser instincts. A great source for this within literature is Catch 22 — the text as a whole animates this struggle, but within a passage it would be when the American pilots storm Italy, in an exchange between a soldier, Nately, and an old Italian man is summarized as:
““Because it’s better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees,” Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. “I guess you’ve heard that saying before.” “Yes, I certainly have,” mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. “But I’m afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one’s feet than die on one’s knees. That is the way the saying goes.”” (Heller, 2011, 296).
This essay must take a break to identify an Aporia in where we derive knowledge from here. Nietzsche himself writes that: “I recognise Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay… Socrates belonged, in his origin, to the lowest of orders… One knows, one sees for oneself, how ugly he was.” (Nietzsche, 2003, 39–40) and so this would seem to imply you cannot have both scholars within this one resolution to the question and yet the aporia is resolved as not such an issue when we turn to Adorno, who writes about Kant:
“I, on the contrary, am much more interested in the inconsistencies, the contradictions in Kant[read: Moran]. I regard these inconsistencies and contradictions as providing far more compelling evidence of Kant’s greatness than any harmonious system. This is because they express the life of truth, whereas smoothing over the contradictions and creating a superficial synthesis s an easy task.” (Adorno, 2001, 80)
In this essay it’s not relevant what about Kant he was referencing but the point that these contradictions can reveal clues as to the essence of the life of truth.
The final scholar we turn to in our compiling of knowledge is Karl Marx. The reason of this is that the current system of production alienates the worker from the world around them. Marx writes that the first form of alienation is that the worker is alienated from the product “[The worker] does not feel content but unhappy… The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself” (Marx, 1844, 74). This removal from materials is less important for this essay’s point but no doubt feeds into it still, as you must have a healthy appreciation for material things in order to have a good judgement about the world. Likewise is reminds us of having to live for oneself, as previously stated, when Marx continues “He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labour.” (Marx, 1844, 74) Following on then, is the important knowledge I would wish to keep with me for the rest of my life: The alienation from the other workers, “An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life-activity, from his species is the estrangement of man from man.” (Marx, 1844, 77). This alienation is paramount to deconstructing oneself from a life to a tool. The reason I include Marx’s alienation of the worker is that without an appreciation for it, it is simply impossible to realise it as an issue, and to actively connect with your fellow proletariat. To illustrate this point, we can turn to Simone Weil, a woman who who came from the upper tiers of society and forced herself into working class environments, noting the alienation was so thickly laced around the workers that connection was:
“And in the midst of it all a smile, a word of kindness, a moment of human contact, have more value than the most devoted friendships among the privileged, both great and small. It is only there that one knows what human brotherhood is. But there is little of it, very little. Most often relations between comrades reflect the harshness which dominates everything there.”(Miles, 1986, 27)
In order to achieve this form of a Greater Souled Man, it must be argued that we would need to force ourselves to remain aware of this as an issue and side effect of society’s labour structure. You must ensure you grow that brotherhood, rather than let yourself be pulled out of yourself. With this, you complete in the limited words possible the knowledge I would keep with me.
So then, to conclude in a metaphor, Greater Souled Men are like stars, who with their gravitas move planetary bodies of people around them, whilst traveling their journey themselves, for themselves. The planets need the star for a lot of things, and a planet without a star is a very inhospitable environment, but the star is for itself and does not need the planets. Now this goes on to pose interesting questions, such as would the universe be more beautiful should all the bodies be stars? Or, could all the bodies be stars, or would that cause new problems? But those are not questions for this essay. For this essay, in this life, it must be appreciated that the majority of people will be planets, and that I am probably still a planet. But I long to undergo nuclear fusion, become a star and a greater souled man, and I think I’m a little closer to that end for having had this degree to teach me the knowledge I’ve presented above. Because of this, everything stated above constitutes the knowledge I would like to keep with me for the rest of my life.
Bibliography:
Adorno, T.W, 2001, Kant’s critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge Polity Press
Heller, J, 2011, Catch 22, Vintage
Kaufmann, W, 1975, Existentialism, From Dostoevsky to Sartre, London Penguin Publishing
Marx, K, 1844, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, as seen in:
Tucker, R, 1972, The Marx-Engels Reader, W W Norton & Company
Miles, S, 1986, Simone Weil: an anthology, London: Virago
Nietzsche, F, 2006, On the Genealogy of Morals, Cambridge University Publishing
Nietzsche, F, 2003, Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, Penguin Publishing
Nietzsche, F, 1968, Genealogy of Morals in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ed. W.Kaufmann, New York: The Modern Library
Plato, 2003, The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Publishing
Nigel P.21
