10/19/2012 The Birth of Tragedy

by Melanie Muller

Deemed by his later self “wildly enthusiastic,” “badly written, clumsy, and embarrassing,” Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy represents his attempt to explain the contradictory elements of Greek tragedy and an exploration of human psychology through an interpretation of the classical past. He argues that tragedy represents a hybrid of two competing artistic impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. He argues both impulses arise from a human need to shield itself from the knowledge of suffering and a conviction that:

“The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.”

The Apollonian mindset takes its name from the Greek god of reason and prophecy. Nietzsche argues that it expresses itself artistically as sculpture and man’s “inner fantasy world.” It is characterized by “calm,” “freedom from wilder impulses,” “restraint” and “beauty.” He describes it as an assertion of “principium individuationis” or the principle of individuality, and its expressions in art are a glorification of this principle. The Apollonian artist creates a perfected semblance of reality; Nietzsche considers any dreamer who creates such perfected images in his mind an Apollonian artist. He argues that those who continually surround themselves with Apollonian images are “compelled to feel this semblance to be that which it is not,” something which will become the empirical reality.

A Dionysian mindset, Nietzsche argues, results when a “break down of the principium individuationis” occurs. The Dionysian is named for the Greek god of wine and associated with excess, a sense of becoming one with nature (thus losing individuality), and an intoxicated state of mind. It is expressed artistically through music and dance. Having recognized the pain of existence, the Dionysian loses themself in intoxication and oneness with nature, perversely taking pleasure from pain. As expressed in Nietzsche’s overblown language:

“Excess revealed itself as the truth; contradiction, bliss born of pain, spoke of itself from out of the heart of nature.”

In this week’s meeting we will discuss these ideas, how Nietzsche uses them to formulate a theory concerning the birth and death of Greek tragedy, and possible implications of the theory.

Some Thoughts on Prometheus

by Benny Mattis

[SPOILER ALERT]

I saw Ridley Scott's amazing Prometheus today, and it was as thrilling as I expected.  There was, however, an unexpected theme--that of faith and its relationship with science.

Scott made sure we saw that the heroine, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, had faith.  She was one of the very few people on the expedition who weren't completely cynical in the beginning, and held an attachment to her cross necklace despite scorn from the android David and patronizing disbelief from her boyfriend Charlie.  But was this a message specifically endorsing Christianity?  Has Ridley Scott started taking cues from Focus on the Family?  I don't think so.  The faith that Dr. Shaw acted on in the movie had nothing to do with Jesus in particular, but was placed in the mission she was on.  I think her cross necklace was just a reminder that there is a faith shared by naturalists and supernaturalists alike--faith, that is, in the interpretability of reality.

Science itself is not justified by mere science.  As shown in the movie, it can lead to disastrous consequences, and there is no guarantee that answers will be obtained.  In fact, inductive reasoning--the cornerstone of a naturalistic worldview--would lead one to doubt the efficacy of any kind of scientific investigation.  Take DNA, for example:  Up until the structure of DNA was first discovered (presumably by Crick and Watson), nobody had ever before succeeded in doing such a thing.  Every discovery, every new invention of humanity, is a violation of the inductive premise that what has never happened in the past will continue not to happen in the future.  To put in so much work towards something that may not even be possible to achieve requires great faith in one's own ability to discover the truth.

Even more important than one's own ability to discover the truth is the discoverability of truth itself.  This is where science and religion share the faith that is missing from Nietzsche and others who say that "There is simply no true world."  "Not all perspectives are equally valid," say the scientists.  "We strive for objective truth."  And what is the religious call to compassion and love for all but a call to view things from God's eyes, being fully aware of the suffering of others around the world?  In a way, the scientist and theist (I know they aren't mutually exclusive categories) are both just trying to submit their own perspectives to a God's-eye view of the world.  The theist thinks that this perspective has been instantiated in at least one existing mind already; the atheistic scientist, on the other hand, in a way believes in God without believing that God exists.  It's the faith shared by these people--the belief without evidence in the potentiality of an obtainable "true" perspective--that separates Dr. Shaw from David the android, who doesn't understand why she keeps seeking answers in the face of unimaginable horror.

However, it was also faith which led the decrepit Peter Weyland to awaken the evil aliens in hopes that they would grant him eternal life.  Weyland, a perfect foil to young female Shaw, exemplified the dark side of faith.  He was not engaged in an analysis of evidence, but a flight from it--the whole mission is a result of his inability to accept death, and he ignores Shaw's warnings about the violent intentions of their newfound extraterrestrial Engineers.  Like the religious fanatic who 'wouldn't want to live in a world where [holy book X] was not true,' Weyland's insatiable lust for eternal life leads him to bring about the destruction of his ship and almost of the entire human species.  Living in what Jean-Paul Sartre called "Bad Faith," Weyland is continually in a state of lying to himself.

But where does Prometheus come into all of this?  Prometheus was the Titan who tried to bring fire from the gods to the humans, putting them on equal ground.  Is Dr. Shaw Prometheus in this story, saving Homo sapiens from its very creators and forever seeking forbidden truths with the faith she has in humanity's potential?  Or is Weyland the typical Prometheus, who tries to get fire from the gods but ends up being brutally punished by them (and rightly so)?  Maybe the two of them are supposed to be representative of Prometheus as a noble hero and Prometheus as an arrogant fool--two possible spins on the original story.  In any case, I thought the movie was worth a watch.

W.W.B.J.S.H.D.

by Benny Mattis

The modern heretic, given an initial rejection of nihilism, is presented with the various religious traditions as the first place to look for answers that cannot be provided by indifferent scientific observation (namely, how one ought to live).  As Hume wrote, you can't derive an "ought" from an "is," and science is only concerned with what is.  But there is a strain in atheism that is less preoccupied by the thrills of deicide and more concerned with helping people come to terms with life without God; Sam Harris is a member of this group, and has been working on adapting Buddhist spirituality towards a more fulfilling secular life.

Harris recently tweeted a link to his speech at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention, entitled "Death and the Present Moment."  Never content to let the audience merely wallow in their shared disrespect for belief in the supernatural, he brings up what tends to be the elephant in the room among antagonistic atheists: the simple fact that a belief in the afterlife does bring people a great amount of comfort, and that a destruction of that belief can lead to a rather violent rude awakening to the injustice and overall absurdity of life on Earth.  Nobody's beliefs should be influenced by a desire to escape uncomfortable truths, and any serious religious folk would agree, but I'm glad Harris brought up this topic because, as he mentions, atheism is nothing more than a way of "clearing the space for better conversations" about the art of living.  The funny part is that it seems like these "better conversations" consist largely of reclaiming leftover pieces from the religious beliefs that had to be "cleared" out of the way in the first place.

So, how does Harris propose the modern infidel deal with suffering and finitude?  He notices that "If we're right, and nothing happens after death, death, therefore, is not a problem.  Life is the problem.  The problem is that, without God...life appears to be an emergency."  The constant demands of living in reality, Harris claims, are constantly tearing us away from well-being and towards stress and neuroticism.  A solution to this natural flight from the present into the future, linked to the decline from mindful appreciation to irritable discontentment, is the Buddhist practice of mindfulness meditation.  Harris takes it upon himself to lead his audience in a complimentary trial of this spiritual technique, advising them to avoid being swayed too much by their various 'objects of thought.'

I think here would be a good place to mention Slavoj Zizek.  Zizek, a self-professed Christian materialist, notes in his book The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity that Harris' brand of spiritualism can function rather well as a tool of harmful political ideology, currently leading people to become ultimately indifferent to some of the less-than-appealing aspects of global state capitalism; I wonder if it's just a coincidence that Harris, in his litany of uncomfortable truths and absurdities the modern man is presented with, mentions the dismal conditions of the workers who make Apple products in China and elsewhere.  Zizek would likely say that the way to find true well-being in the face of such suffering would not be to discount 'thought objects' of future justice in order to accept the present as it is, but rather to make that future a reality by working ceaselessly for it in the present, losing not one's attachment to justice, but rather one's attachments to inner peace and even survival.  In other words, you can only really live by finding something you'd be willing to die for; a world of emergency is, therefore, full of opportunities for truly meaningful existence.

This concern regarding indifference to injustice finds its object in Harris's talk about the conscience.  "If you're constantly ruminating on what you just did, or what you should've done, or would've done if only you'd had the chance, you will miss your life," warns Harris.  "The conversation we have with ourselves every every minute of the day comes at a cost.  I'm not saying that discursive thought is not necessary or useful, but it is the mechanism by which most of our suffering is inflicted."  Harris paid his respects to the late Christopher Hitchens in the beginning, but hearing this part of the speech reminded me of Hitchens's praise for the "inner witness" as the primary source of morality, and I don't think Harris's own view on 'ethical intuitions subject to rational justification' is much different.  So, it would seem that Sam Harris, champion of secular ethics, in this speech advocates for a moral moderation of sorts.  But is this much better than the so-called religious moderation that he so (rightfully) detests?  If one's ethical intuitions must be domesticated and controlled to avoid stress, then how does one know when to actually pay attention to them?

The problem when life stops appearing emergent is is one of boredom and anxiety.  What is there to do once you've escaped the vicious incarnate cycle of attachment to virtue?  No action can be justified or condemned, not even by one's own 'objects of thought.'  Real anxiety comes not with moral sensitivity, but at a distance from the self-evident validity of those stress-inducing ethical intuitions.

Yet, this is not a problem for Harris or the Buddha.  They do not discount all the value of human well-being, but take it upon themselves to spread their teachings into the rest of the world.  Like Christ, who "Being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" (Philippians 2:6-7), Sidhartha Gautama, being in very nature Enlightened, gave up the isolated bliss of nirvana by investing himself in the spread of wisdom throughout the world.  As Harris tries to bring back morality without anxiety and guilt, so too Jesus "Redeemed us from the curse of the Law" (Galatians 3:13), forgiving past sins without destroying the role of morality as an imperative to progress.  Once detachment has been achieved, re-attachment or Christian love can be chosen by a free choice, in spite of the suffering that comes with it.

What if Buddhism, like Atheism, is just a way of "clearing the space for better conversations?"  What if those conversations lead back from detachment and nirvana to a conscious embrace of attachment and its resultant suffering?  Zizek wants to set Christianity and Marxism in opposition to a bourgeois spiritual detachment from significance, but it seems like the love and sacrifice of Christ may only be fully understood through the Buddhist lens of attachment and nirvana.  Next time you're faced with a moral dilemma, be sure to ask yourself: "What Would the Buddha, Jesus, and Sam Harris Do?"