…if I have observed correctly, “un-freedom of the will”
is regarded as a problem
by two completely opposed parties,
but always in a profoundly personal manner.

The one party would never dream of relinquishing their
“responsibility,” a belief in themselves,
a personal right
to their own merit
(the vain races belong to this group).

Those in the other party,
on the contrary,
do not want to be responsible for anything
or to be guilty of anything;
driven by an inner self-contempt,
they long to be able to shift
the blame for themselves to something else.

When they write books these days,
this latter group tends to side with the criminal;
a type of socialist pity is their most attractive disguise.
And, in fact, the fatalism of the weak of will
starts to look surprisingly attractive
when it can present itself as

“la religion de la souffrance humaine”:
this is its “good taste.”

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Judith Norman, aphorism 21

Nietzsche, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud grounded his philosophizing in the demands of physiology, those submerged preferences that are felt, those visceral inclinations of the body.  As in the Wizard of Oz story, what the body demands, — that’s the “man behind the curtain”, to which we’re not supposed to pay attention.

The excerpt offered today describes the alternative, opposed interpretations of a “conservative” verses a “liberal” point of view.  The opposed groups interpret the external world according to the insistence of an inchoate physical urge, – “the world” is the cause and effect context within which each and every one of us is embedded.  Forgive me for indicating the conservative psychology with a red highlight and the liberal with blue. Colors, red and blue are well understood code nowadays.

Nietzsche dedicates a single statement to characterize conservatives. The conservative view hews to traditional values, and is wide spread. No one, not even the government is going to take away my guns. Nor will I pay more taxes to better fund public education. You’ve heard such many times before: the fixation on guns and the opposition to public education. Nietzsche concludes this climax of personal freedom is the vanity of their tribe.

The liberal minded folk on the other hand interpret the constraints of cause and effect as absolution from responsibility, from any burden of guilt.  To feel empathetic is as much as I can do.

To believe poverty, that dehumanizing decrepitude is “baked in” is nothing but a fatalism of the weak of will. Nietzsche dedicates twice the ink to describe his contempt for a view that in fact celebrates human suffering. The bleeding-heart-liberal “knows” the meaning of suffering and this is his/her good taste.

Am I to be satisfied when so many “twist in the wind”, marginally literate, no real prospects for a decent future?  Could I ever subscribe to the myth of American individualism, unleashed freedom in an abolition of any constraint, of the rules which make civilized living possible?

Nietzsche declares conservative and liberal points of view stoke human suffering…