A Groping Game
This art of dissimulation
reaches its peak
in man.
- Deception,
- flattering,
- lying,
- deluding,
- talking behind the back,
- putting up a false front,
- living in borrowed splendor,
- wearing a mask,
- hiding behind convention,
- playing a role for others and for oneself
– in short, a continuous fluttering
around the solitary flame of vanity
– is so much the rule and the law
among men that there is almost nothing
which is less comprehensible than
how an honest and pure drive for truth
could have arisen
among them.
They are deeply immersed
in illusions and in dream images;
their eyes merely glide over the surface of things
and see “forms.”
Their senses nowhere lead to truth;
on the contrary,
they are content to receive stimuli and,
as it were,
to engage in a groping game
on the backs of things.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1873
What do I want? More time focused upon Nietzsche? The Zhuangzi waits, while I am again captured by the thought of a late 19th century German philosopher who is famously pessimistic in tonality. Does Nietzsche not have a granite-like basis for his pessimism? We who come later, are to decide for ourselves whether this strikes you or I as “true.” Who possibly has the better vantage point, – to judge ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ for another person? “Think for yourself!” – is a voice that haunts me. I am attracted as a moth to flame…
When I consider the argument that the natural habitation, the environment of greatest congeniality for humankind, is abject delusion, even worse, self-delusion, a shape-shifting of distortion, – a vertigo rises up within me. He writes that I am so taken with my reasoning ability, so adroit are my skills, approaching high art, that my habit is to employ as reflex the repertoire of verbal stratagem that make up his list of ten.
I confess my guilt fits the charge!
With a backward look at years of company management, my primary role in sales, I do not think un-shaded truth existed. Did a single encounter occur with a potential customer, or with a client, or with a co-worker that was not occasion for some degree of embellishment? There wasn’t. Not that I intended to hurt anyone, cause overt pain/injury… No matter, we all involved communication skills to achieve our own survival, an unspoken tacitly agreed upon compromise.
The images employed by Nietzsche are volatile, explosive even! Describing encounter and even mundane conversation as “fluttering about the flame of vanity.” The “groping game” too is a chilling image, crude and overt, emotionally opposite to fluttering about vanity’s flame.
Nietzsche writes further a painterly description of the transpiration of human verbal behavior – that we are like a man that dreams while hanging onto the back of a tiger. He’s oblivious, ignorant of his precarious circumstance, dreaming that somehow he will escape being eaten.
* The header image was AI generated. Truth is, any rider would swiftly become cat food.
Enough rummaging around in the cellar of life. This tune, I’ll Never Love This Way Again by the incomparable Dionne Warwick will light up your day.
2 thoughts on “A Groping Game”
Of course this is right along the lines of what we have been discussing lately. But this passage gets me thinking about Nietzsche himself. If I were able to ask him, would he tell me he knows that he himself is as immersed in the art of dissimulation as those he views around him? The difference being that he is aware of this living nightmare and the other members of society are oblivious, much like zombies. Would he tell me he is in the same cage of all of his fellow humans, seeking recognition, playing a role for others but he alone seems to be able to view his reflection in the mirror of human corruption? And so, perhaps this is why he was slowly driving himself towards madness. If this were the case, he must have been extraordinarily lonely.
There is a Sci-Fi series on Apple TV at the moment. It is called Pluribus and it takes place in our world, in our time. A code is received from a distant solar system suggesting a chemical compound that when ingested, turns you happy and docile, but you are then connected by a telepathic ability to all other humans on Earth. Only a handful of people are immune to this compound and one in particular is determined to “wake up” everyone. There are elements of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this scenario, but the most intriguing part is the loneliness of the main character. She sees the usurping of the individual spirit and refuses to become a part of the single-minded species that now inhabit our planet.
I mentioned this because this is what I imagine Nietzsche’s life may have been like. He alone saw the march of the incoherent towards a life of dreams and illusion that most gladly joined. He desperately attempted to wave a flag of rational thought but was shoved aside as if HE was the incoherent one. And so he gave into portions of this sickness while doing his best to remain on the outside. With that in mind, where does all that leave us? What side of madness have we chosen? Can we resolve our own dilemma with regard to the mass delusional trap of our species? I know we will continue to try (as are millions of others), but my hope for our delivery from this insanity is waning. Pessimism thy name is me!
Agree 100% with your estimation of what Nietzsche’s relationship to himself must have been like. He was brilliant and beset with a variety of misfortunes throughout his life. His letters to close friends describe the loneliness that you surmise was his lot in life.
As you asked, where does this leave us, – now what? Two things seem pertinent. Forget about happiness, the pursuit of ephemera, which capitalism takes to the bank at the expense of a majority of us. Seek what is meaningful, what lends coherence to my sense of self, to the growth of community, the integration of difference to a “circle of care”… Granted I propose a straight up repudiation of individualism, the notion that I am the center of reality…
Is that likely to appear insane? Of course.