Bugged

As is habit, I was going to take my evening ‘sabbatical’ last night when events took a surreal turn. I turned on the light and saw a small beetle on the floor. Without thinking, I tore off a piece of tissue paper and scooped the little guy up and threw him into the toilet. However, I did take the time to think that I’d throw the toilet paper so that the bug could not swim out from underneath it when it hit the water. Basically, between the time I scooped the beetle up and the time I was sending him into the toilet, I had consciously set out to drown him. I didn’t even bother to immediately flush the toilet and put the bug out of his misery much less out of my mind so that I didn’t have time to reconsider what I’d just done. Surely, most people don’t second guess themselves on such things.

But I’m not most people. As the beetle struggled mightily, I thought to myself Why am I watching him drown? Why am I killing him when I could have easily taken him outside? After all, the bug had done nothing to harm me; I just didn’t want it in the house. And so I took extreme measures against a life. I thought about this for a moment. It was certainly within my power not to kill the beetle. I could take it outside and it could go on doing whatever it does, no harm no foul. I reconsidered my actions, got a glass and scooped the bug out of the water and set him on the front porch. Too late; he was dead. This made me feel terrible.

I usually take bugs out of the house with the exceptions being roaches and ants, which I kill for (presumably) very good reasons. (Actually, I don’t always kill roaches, but I probably should.) But in almost all other cases, I relocate insect outside of the house. Why? For one thing, it is awfully arrogant for me to assume some kind of special status based upon my particular form of life. What makes a human being any more special than a beetle? Because we can think and have emotions and reflect upon these mental events? Because we are not bugs or some other species of animal we have run roughshod over, humans automatically ascend to arrogance in thinking that another form of life doesn’t have an inner world, much less an inner world worthy of respect. (Note that this kind of thinking has long been the excuse for genocide or otherwise treating differing ethnicities poorly.) We don’t know what it is like to be any other life form, so I do not ascend to the arrogance the rest of my brood display. Unfortunately, I happen to be of a species that needs to kill and eat other living things to survive. (Yes, Virginia, even plants are living things.) That makes me sad when I think about it.

Another reason I take bugs back outside the house is because it is so much easier to kill something we tower over than it is to respect its life. But consider the hypothetical situation in which giant hostile aliens with advanced technology descend upon the Earth and begin to lay waste to humanity. Why wouldn’t any such aliens laugh at us while we scurry for cover or plead for mercy? I am not trying to say it would be some kind of cosmic retribution, rather I am saying that’s just how the animal kingdom works, based on how we humans react to it. If we have no mercy for bugs or other life forms, we cannot plead for mercy (at least not without being pitiful) when the Hangman comes for us. That is, unless we really are the special animals we keep telling ourselves we are.

So I try to respect life, not because it will allow me to reason with or plead for mercy with the hostile aliens, but because it is the road less travelled and because I have the power to refrain from killing. Isn’t that supposed to be one of humanity’s nobler traits? I’m not going to say I am the most noble human being ever to live, but surely any bug would rather deal with me late in the evening than deal with most of the rest of you lot.

Nietzsche on Morality

[Although I’ve never been a fan of Nietzsche (read my blog The Nietzsche Blues), he did have some interesting thoughts about morality. Through the course of his writings, he makes a case for extreme moral relativism and you’ll see what I mean in this examination…]

In The Gay Science, Nietzsche touches upon morality, offering reasons why we (or some of us) ought not to engage in moral judgement. His reasons begin to appear early in the

Nietzsche & his silly mustache.

second book when he takes to task the Realist interpretation of reality as being nothing more concrete than any person’s particular explanation of reality. Nietzsche remarks that the Realist is just as full  of  “prejudice, irrationality, ignorance, fear” (57) as anyone else and  as  such,  this prevents any true interpretation of the world. Later, in Section 116, Nietzsche writes that morality is, “the expression of the needs of a community or herd,” and we can take from this to mean that as an agent in one of these communities, the agent is not an impartial evaluator of morals. Nietzsche also sees that individuals within these communities tend to regard themselves as valuable only insofar as they serve a function within the herd, a view of one’s self that is antithetical to Nietzsche’s free-spirit or overman.

Nietzsche’s view of morality begins to become clearer in Section 301, where he points out that, “Nature is always worthless,” in the sense that morality is not born of or inherent in the natural world but that it is man who creates morality. The failure of men to recognize this creates errors in valuation. In sensing that there is something defective about current concepts of morality, Nietzsche chides historians of morality for not coming to a similar conclusion and as such historians are guilty of not critically evaluating morality. [Their lack of insight perhaps due to acquiescing to tradition or plain and common prejudices.] Nietzsche calls these historians childish, for when they think they are evaluating morality they are actually evaluating people. Thus, it should not be the job of historians to evaluate morality.

Scientists are likewise not to be arbiters of meaning in the world. It is the scientists’ view of the world that would be worst of all in Nietzsche’s opinion, for the scientific view would be the view most devoid of actual meaning. “An essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world,” he writes, adding how worthlessness a scientific evaluation of music would be (373). To Nietzsche, only a philosopher could possibly investigate such a human construct as morality.

A more precise formulation of morality is exactly what Nietzsche presents in On the Genealogy of Morals. In Genealogy, Nietzsche explains there are two types of morality. [This is not to say there are only two types, but the two types obvious within Western civilization.] There is Master morality—morality in which actions are either good or bad—and Slave morality, which evaluates actions as being either good or evil.

Master morality is characterized by a self-affirmation that they, the Master, are good. This, the self, is where (a) morality begins. If Masters begin by viewing themselves as good, what they value is likewise good: Nobility, courage, open-mindedness, truthfulness—these characteristics are helpful to Masters, insofar as they help Masters maintain their status, and that creates the value of such characteristics. We see then that Master morality is consequence-based; that which does not promote or advance their positions as Masters is deemed bad. [There is at least one notable exception to this rule: Enemies. Enemies are not held in contempt by Masters because Masters see themselves in the enemy. The enemy is trying to do the same as any Master—be a Master—and this, to any Master, should be viewed as honourable.]

Born in response to Master morality is Slave morality, a morality that holds intentions to be either good or evil. The Slave morality comes from weakness, out of being oppressed by Masters and as such does not seek what is good for (strong) individuals, rather it seeks what is good for the entirety of its community. The Slave morality holds that the characteristics Slaves do not possess (those characteristics common to Masters, for example) to be evil since such characteristic can give rise to injustices such as slavery.  Amongst the Slaves then, something such as  humility,  which would be bad as far as Masters are concerned, would be called a virtue by Slaves when in fact Slaves are humble not by choice, but precisely because they do not have a choice, being at the mercy of Masters. Slave morality is a form of resentment aimed at those who they cannot be like or whose goals they cannot assent to. Ironically, Slaves need Masters to define themselves; Masters do not require Slaves in this way.

To Nietzsche however, these formulations of morality are simply the inventions of a given society or culture to advance its own cause. What is good, for example, is merely the expression of whoever wills that conception. There is no metaphysically true morality. We can be fooled into thinking there are moral truths though, perhaps through conditioning or familiarization with the traditional meanings of morality such as they exist in Western civilization. Nietzsche believes that Slave morality has become triumphant in Western civilization, first through Christianity and then through democracy, and this is cause for worry.

Having conceptualized the overman prior to On the Genealogy of Morals, it is not difficult to sense why Nietzsche would be opposed to the triumph of Slave morality. If Slave morality seeks to cast all persons in the same context with the same values, individuals cannot assert any will to power. The Slave’s system of morality favours the interests of the largest numbers of persons, not the few who wish to flourish. An individual cannot create their own values if conditioned to believe tradition-based interpretations of morality. That said, we should make note that Master morality is not without fault either. It is as traditionalist as Slave morality and thus, can be opposed to change and opposed to (other) free-spirits.

Nietzsche thinks there can be morality, but it must come from within us as individuals; morality is never divorced from individual will. Only individual will, the fundamental drive within us, can assign value to anything. Our will to power is the origin of morality. However, if we accept beforehand that morality has fixed meaning(s), we can never aspire to independence and thus, we are surrendering ourselves to other wills. How would we ascend to the overman then? It will not be possible for as long as Slave morality remains embedded to reign over the free-spirit. To Nietzsche, Master mentality is clearly moral and Slave mentality is not because Nietzsche believes in the importance of individuals over any collective mentality. We cannot take Nietzsche to task for this view since he is the origin of morality as much as anyone else.

The Necessity of Art to Freedom

In America, we are living in an age when millions, excuse me, billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into bullets, bombs, and luxurious embassies for U.S. emissaries around the world. The necessity to do so may be subject to debate, but one has to wonder given all those tax dollars, who is getting shortchanged? Should more government money be spent on education? Perhaps if school funding were more than an issue once an election cycle, senior government officials, by virtue of their education, would have seen 9/11 as inevitable and taken the necessary steps politically (if not militarily) to prevent the terrible events of that day.

In the need to fulfill many government services, federal and state legislators routinely shortchange public schools. School lunch programs, the athletic department for all non-essential sports (only football is essential, obviously) and the art departments are usually the first to fall in the battle for funding. But are these programs even necessary? Yes, they are all vitally important. However, if school administrators must decide upon which of these departments are most necessary, especially which one is most valuable to freedom, then the art department may be the most valuable.

Though art is often taught in pre-school through middle school, it is done so almost as an afterthought. By the time a student reaches high school, training in art is not likely to be offered, presumably because art is not as valued as math, science, or history. (Let’s put aside America’s abysmal scores in these subjects for the time being which would otherwise lead us to question the value of those subjects as well.) Among those subjects, though, history is nothing like math or science, and history is not particularly crucial given America’s One-Billion-Hamburgers-Sold, consumer-driven society that routinely ignores historical facts. Why then is history required for high school students? Because it teaches them something, particularly the way the prevailing local government wants students to develop their worldview.

Traditionally with art, it has been taught because of what it does where what it does is necessary in safeguarding freedom. We should be requiring art classes in high school because developing artistic talents aid in the development of critical thinking and communication skills. Art teaches us to think in different ways, providing us with an ability to evaluate the world around us. There is also the matter of what art does for students as a means of self-expression.

Although art is a form of communication primarily associated with visual arts, it encompasses so much more. Art also comes in the form of music, literature, and our bodily movements. Art can be found in architecture and other forms of technology as well. As a form of communication, it is a language that coveys lessons and messages that, “…succeeds where words fail” (Lynn Olsen). And it is a language every bit as important as mathematics. As Albert Einstein said, “The value of an education…is not the learning of many facts, but the training of the mind to think of something that cannot be learned from textbooks.” Is it ethical to deprive a student of the unique voice and ear art has to offer?

What are the implications of withdrawing art appreciation from our schools? Without the ability to recognize and decipher the language of art, we open ourselves to manipulation. As columnist Lynne Olsen once noted, “Totalitarian rulers recognize the power of art.” The Nazi’s, for example, instituted strict rules upon artists with only themes sanctioned by the state being allowed for the sake of manipulating public opinion. If a student does not learn to think in different ways, they become prone to monotonously linear thinking, and easily swayed to believe any truth a government may want to invent.

 

Case in point 1: American cable news. Cue the Fox News logo; red, white, and blue. Not only are these colors the colors of the American flag, they are primary colors well known to lure flies into spiders’ webs. The Fox News channel logo is quite intentionally, and they have the rating to prove it. As stock quotes and headlines tick by, a once ever present “Terror Alert” graphic reminded the public that war is permanent. Down the fauxhole our taxpayer dollars go.

Case in point 2: Advertisers use art to manipulate consumers all the time. All one has to do is mention the words “Coca-Cola,” and immediately, flowing white cursive lettering on a red background – a color combination know to invoke hunger and thirst – forms in one’s mind. But who would know to resist this application of art without any art training? Without critical thinking and communication skills, anyone is at risk of being open to propaganda and advertising. If students do not learn to be creative, conventional wisdom cannot be challenged, and what America is left with is a population susceptible to corporations, fascism or some other form of tyranny.

Many tyrants have imposed restrictions on artists. Art as a form of self-expression is vehemently opposed, leading to a culturally bleak existence. An existence without art, as artist Zel Brook put it, “…is the same as telling us that we should go through our days ignoring our senses, with endless days of frustration…with no hope the situation will ever change.”

In the 18^th century, philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, surrounded by the constant turmoil and conflict in Europe, explained that engaging in the arts is the only way to release one’s self from an otherwise painful existence. Another philosopher, the ill-regarded Karl Marx, felt that repressing an individual’s expression with art will ultimately result in noncompliance or violent revolt, given that in totalitarian or fascist societies, the public has no outlet for social criticism. Likewise, teenagers who have not been instructed in art face limited means of expressing themselves or will become the target of criticism by their classmates when they buck the status quo when they do express themselves in a unique manner. Is the American teenager’s obligatory rebellion or fits of depression a product of artistic repression, from not being heard?

Art helps express the ineffable. Cathy McGuire, an art therapist in Portland, Oregon, says, “The physical act of creation connects our bodies with the external world…what we are really making is ourselves.” As any parent can attest to, it’s hard enough to communicate with their children. Limiting the means by which they can communicate only complicates issues. Surely, parents would rather understand their children than roll their eyes at them. Or would parents simply rather their children be compliant with their governing beliefs? With parents often attempting to mold their children in their own image, I suppose they should then be happy with the disposal of any art department. Why bother questioning advertisers who will attempt to manipulate everyone into buying their products, the safety or efficacy of those products be damned? Politicians, men of power who love nothing more than more power, why wouldn’t they want to cut funding for the arts in public schools; they simply don’t want people thinking for themselves if they expect to remain within a sphere of influence. 

That is the problem faced with art. Without artists, the world is a colorless and dull world shaped by the demands of the figures of authority. Whether or not such a world is the world we should be living in is another question, but without all the practical tools and languages with which to debate the question, how can we be sure of the truth?

Few people will dispute the pleasure of freedom. However, it should be realized that freedom and artistry cannot live without each other. Is it necessary for the arts to be taught in high school? Yes, it is vital to everyone’s freedom if freedom is in fact what we value.