Breaking A Chrysalis
It is absurd
to praise and blame nature and necessity.
In the same way
as he loves a fine work of art,
but does not praise it,
because it can do nothing for itself;
in the same way as he regards plants,
so must he regard his own actions and
those of mankind.
He can admire
strength, beauty, abundance, in themselves;
but must find no merit therein,
— the chemical progress and the strife of the elements,
the torments of the sick person who thirsts after recovery,
are all equally as little merits
as those struggles of the soul
and states of distress
in which we are torn
hither and thither by different impulses
until we finally decide
for the strongest
— as we say
(but in reality it is the strongest motive which decides for us).
To recognize all this
may be deeply painful,
but consolation comes after:
such pains are the pangs of birth.
The butterfly wants to break through its chrysalis:
It rends and tears it,
and is then blinded and confused
by the unaccustomed light,
the kingdom of liberty.
In such people
as are capable of such sadness
— and how few are!
— the first experiment made is to see
whether mankind can change itself from a moral
into a wise mankind.
Human All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche trans. by Helen Zimmerman, aphorism 107
Nietzsche prefaces this description of our situation by a comment: this is the most bitter pill of all to swallow. The thought that “free-will” is nothing else than a mistake. That everyone of us, myself included in all of my activities is/are doing simply what we must…
Do I have thoughts to condemn birds competing for seeds around the feeder? Of course not. Such a feeling, or the thought never occurs to me. What about a work of art? Do I praise the camera angle, the perspective which is a key feature of a superb photograph? My appraisal of quality, or my dislike of any work of art has no moral sense whatsoever.
Am I willing to concede the same for every aspect of my own behavior? And what of the behavior of others that I find agreeable, or reprehensible? Nietzsche indicates that we are seized by the strongest, within that mostly subterranean melange of motivations.
Is there any upside? What is possible? Are we simply thrown into the rotating wheel of nature, until our species extinguishes itself? Perhaps not.
Nietzsche offers the example of the butterfly. Reflection, self-knowledge is the pivot point. Self-knowledge even when blinding, unpleasant, confusing, — is a pathway of release. It is possible that self-reflection with sufficient time will reveal a more wise, less stupid species.
2 thoughts on “Breaking A Chrysalis”
My apologies for not responding sooner. There are a number of themes present in today’s offering. Not certain I will address all of them, but I’ll dive in with one of my favorite topics: Free Will (or the lack thereof). Yes, I sense that our character, our behavior, the very essence of who we are, are products of our chemistry, our genetic makeup – those codes imbedded in us before we leave the chrysalis of the womb. And so I say, who cares if there is no free will, or if a conscious ability to make decisions is just an illusion. Regardless, we are still here. Despite the musings of some imaginative minds who believe in a Matrix style of reality, life itself does exist. We may see colors in ways that an alien being would not, or interpret the vibrations we refer to as sound in ways that need our brains to unscramble the input, but you and I and everyone we encounter is a living, breathing creature. I say this because even with the notion that free will does not exist, we can enjoy the ride, so let’ do just that. What You See Is What You Get (the old WYSIWYG).
In that realm of the pretense of free will, judgements about the world seem made and we assume that those judgements are the product of free will (the epitome of the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma – thank you Winston Churchill). Sometimes those judgements place absurd notions on our environment, such as imbuing nature with either praise or blame when no such thing exists in nature. As you note, the butterfly is not consciously assessing the right or wrong of existence, it just exists. It emerges from its chrysalis and does whatever it needs to do to survive, or at least it tries its best to survive.
In the end, isn’t that the same for us humans. We do what we can to survive, even when we do the opposite of what we “should” be doing if we want the species to remain at least somewhat intact. And so we circle back to the lack of free will, i.e. our behavior that’s controlled by the genetic fragments lodged in our own brains, ultimately doing what we “feel” is best. Poor us.
Your statement(s) are clear enough to me. But still, the sans free will idea is not the default for our society. I am sure that the consequences of affirming the deterministic nature of all life (without exception) is going to take the passage of some time before we become less inclined to blame, and to feel guilt…