Philosophers have had many perspectives on the meaning of life throughout the ages. Some have some up with reasons for existence; others have come up with reasons why there are no reasons for existence, even more have come up with reasons for why the reasons of why there are no reasons for existence are wrong, and so forth. Friedrich Nietzsche was a nineteenth century philosopher who developed many ideas on the meaning of life and who contracted even more. Nietzsche developed ideas on how animals and humans exist, and what they exist for; one of his major theories was that of Will to Power, which is that animals and humans live their lives to promote their power. “Nietzsche aims at freeing higher human beings from their false consciousness about morality (their false belief that this morality is good for them), not at a transformation of society at large.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Nietzsche also talked about the transvaluation of values, which is the acceptance of all instincts as organic and therefore valid, the will to power being one of these instincts. Nietzsche believed that one must accept organic human instincts and not attempt to oppress them, thus he was vastly anti-Christian because he viewed the religion as something that oppressed natural human instinct.
Nietzsche detested morality because he claimed that it made “untenable descriptive (metaphysical and empirical) claims about human agency” and that morality took away from the organic human instincts, which is how someone should live their life. Nietzsche believed that there were two types of morality, slave-morality and master-morality. Nietzsche looked down mainly upon slave-morality and claimed that master-morality was the creator of man as he is now. Master-morality, which Nietzsche claimed is the creator of values, is the morality of the strong and the noble. “The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, 'what is harmful to me is harmful in itself'; it knows itself to be that which first accords honor to things; it is value-creating." (On Genealogy of Morals) What Nietzsche is claiming here is that the noble man, the master-morality, is the one that creates values and does not follow others. From his views on master morality, we understand that Nietzsche had a very individualist perspective on the meaning of life, and viewed values as needing to be self created. Along with this master-morality is slave-morality, which Nietzsche looked down upon. The people of slave-morality are weak; they do not create their own values and follow the herd in a sort of herd mentality. Slave-morality uses good and evil as excuses for actions. Nietzsche distained slave-morality and viewed its followers as weak minded and oppressed. While Nietzsche didn’t distain master-morality as much as he did slave-morality, he believed that they both detracted from the way ones life should be lived, with purely organic values.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The ideas that the meanings of our lives are controlled by what other people say and do have been around for a long time. In his book “Survivor”, Chuck Palahniuk explores a step further and creates a character that has, throughout his entire life, had his meaning of life created and controlled directly by other people. Through this character Palahniuk demonstrates how modern day culture is now doing this for all of us and the meaning of life has become something impersonal that is created by other people. He does this through a secondary characters outlook on the world in the story, the main characters life as a member of the so-called “Creedish Death Cult”, and through his life afterwards as the publicly promoted hero/sole surviving member of the “Creedish Death Cult.”
The main character, Tender Branson, has always had everything in his life controlled by others, even the meaning of his life has always been dictated by other people and never by himself. This is first evident in his situation with the “Creedish Death Cult,” in which he was raised, named (even his name was dictated by what point in the family he was born. Because he was not a first-born, and because he was male, he was named Tender, just like every other second born male in the cult), taught beliefs, and sent to work. All these things are controlled by the leading members of the Creedish “cult”. “If you met someone form the church district colony, you could say: May you be of complete service in your lifetime. You could say: Praise and glory to the Lord for this day through which we labor. […] That was the limit. […] No hugging. No hand shaking. You would say one approved bit. She would say one. The two of you would of back and forth until each of you had said two lines. You kept your heads bowed, and you each went back to your task.” All his actions, interactions, jobs, and relationships were controlled by the Creedish Church, and by controlling all of these things they controlled his meaning of life, which Palahniuk is using as a blatant example for how all of our life meanings are controlled by others.
Palahniuk further expands this example by highlighting Tender Branson’s life after the entire Creedish Church (which was a suicide cult) has died and he is the sole surviving member. His life meaning then becomes controlled by the people who want to use him as a publicity stunt and make money off of him. “In the shadows, the agent and the writers give each other silent high fives. The agent gives me a big thumbs-up. My hands are numb. I can’t feel my face. My tongue belongs to someone else.” His life meaning has now become dictated by the “Tele-Prompter” which he reads off of as instructed by the writers and his agent. Palahniuk has now given us two examples of how this one persons life is controlled by others and uses Tender as the overarching example for how all our lives are controlled by others.
While most of the book focuses on the example of Tender Branson, Palahniuk is able to bring the example to the rest of America through the views of a secondary character who states that “We all grew up with the same television shows. It’s like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.” This is what the book is exploring about the meaning of life. How all of our life meanings have become dictated by other people, mainly the media, and how we will never have control of our lives until we commit suicide (hence the use of an suicide cult as an example for the main character.)
The main character, Tender Branson, has always had everything in his life controlled by others, even the meaning of his life has always been dictated by other people and never by himself. This is first evident in his situation with the “Creedish Death Cult,” in which he was raised, named (even his name was dictated by what point in the family he was born. Because he was not a first-born, and because he was male, he was named Tender, just like every other second born male in the cult), taught beliefs, and sent to work. All these things are controlled by the leading members of the Creedish “cult”. “If you met someone form the church district colony, you could say: May you be of complete service in your lifetime. You could say: Praise and glory to the Lord for this day through which we labor. […] That was the limit. […] No hugging. No hand shaking. You would say one approved bit. She would say one. The two of you would of back and forth until each of you had said two lines. You kept your heads bowed, and you each went back to your task.” All his actions, interactions, jobs, and relationships were controlled by the Creedish Church, and by controlling all of these things they controlled his meaning of life, which Palahniuk is using as a blatant example for how all of our life meanings are controlled by others.
Palahniuk further expands this example by highlighting Tender Branson’s life after the entire Creedish Church (which was a suicide cult) has died and he is the sole surviving member. His life meaning then becomes controlled by the people who want to use him as a publicity stunt and make money off of him. “In the shadows, the agent and the writers give each other silent high fives. The agent gives me a big thumbs-up. My hands are numb. I can’t feel my face. My tongue belongs to someone else.” His life meaning has now become dictated by the “Tele-Prompter” which he reads off of as instructed by the writers and his agent. Palahniuk has now given us two examples of how this one persons life is controlled by others and uses Tender as the overarching example for how all our lives are controlled by others.
While most of the book focuses on the example of Tender Branson, Palahniuk is able to bring the example to the rest of America through the views of a secondary character who states that “We all grew up with the same television shows. It’s like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.” This is what the book is exploring about the meaning of life. How all of our life meanings have become dictated by other people, mainly the media, and how we will never have control of our lives until we commit suicide (hence the use of an suicide cult as an example for the main character.)
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