Happiness and Struggle
Dr. Ari Santas
In the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that the conventional morality of his day, which was based on Christianity, was born of oppressed peoples (under the foot of their Roman subjugators) who had no recourse psychologically but to flip the value system of their oppressors. The conqueror virtues of strength and power were rejected, and the weak and the meek became the new paragons of virtue. Weakness, humility, and self-abnegation became good; power and strength became evil. But this was a slave morality, he argued, which could never serve as an ideal for modern human beings. He observed, no doubt, that modern peoples are too often living as sheep, herded together by those in power, and led eventually to the slaughter by those who teach them charity and humility but never themselves abide by their dictates. What we need, he said, is a transvaluation of values, moving beyond good and evil and fashioning a new vision for human beings, asserting and defining themselves, each individually exercising a will-to-power in a new world. Such a person would be the new “higher” man in our evolutionary history--an “overman” (Übermensch). One can see how this ideal was picked up by the Nazi’s, distorted and fed into the myth of the Aryan super race; yet the power Nietzsche spoke of was not a power people exercised over each other, but over themselves. The higher man was master over no one but himself.
Self-Mastery and Reflective Thinking
But what does it mean for one to have self-mastery? What is power over oneself? It does not mean internalizing the dictates of the church, the state, the landlord or slave master. That is simply internalized oppression—what Paulo Freire called the “boss inside.” Rather, it means there is someone there observing one’s impulses, strengths and weaknesses, and commanding them to work together to reach a higher level of conduct and consciousness. But this observer is not always present, often hiding behind the “busy-ness” of routine or buried beneath the surface by distractions and addictions—all thieves of attention and attentiveness. The American Pragmatists said that all reflective thinking is born of struggle, that thinking happens when there’s a problem interrupting conduct. This is the key to addressing the psychology of distraction, inasmuch as escapism can never thrive in an environment fraught with problems disrupting our normal habitual behavior. This is why creativity is often a child of crisis, as a crisis is simply a radical disruption of normal activity. Sometimes it’s a “mid-life crisis,” wherein somebody realizes that the life he or she has settled into cannot bring happiness. Sometimes it’s an economic or environmental crisis, requiring whole societies to rethink the conduct of their business. The creative activities that follow such circumstances are the fruits of the observer, heretofore repressed or sublimated, now called up to the fore of individual or collective consciousness.
Struggle, Overcoming, and Death—As Meaning Makers
One might ask why one needs crisis to be a reflective agent. One doesn’t; but crisis is often what happens when reflective thinking is buried or repressed and not allowed to steer us in our day-to-day conduct. Misery, unhappiness, failure and despair, therefore, are antidotes to unhealthy living, inasmuch as they are the natural checks against inattentiveness. Perhaps this is why Nietzsche emphasized hardship and struggle as crucial features in the development of the higher human being, because it is only in this act of overcoming that one fully engages in self-exploration and knowledge. Moreover, while distractions, escapism and self-deception might keep our “observer” buried for a time, and though we may live in circumstances that mask the consequences of our errant ways, there is always one last natural check against inauthentic living—death. Not in the obvious sense that we all must die, but in the important existential sense that we all become conscious of our own mortality; and as the years pass this fact becomes more and more a palpable reality. In short, consciousness of our own mortality will always invite self-awareness (the observer) to resurface and search for self-knowledge and meaning. The question, of course, is what we will do with these observations.
Happiness, Overcoming, and Film
· BBC: Nietzsche is a documentary film highlighting the role of overcoming, struggling, and self-mastery in Nietzsche’s philosophy.
· American Beauty is a feature film about a family who are miserable in an ostensibly ideal life, and a man who decides to take a radical redirection in his way of being in the world.
· Stranger Than Fiction is a feature film about a man who must confront his imminent death and in doing so remakes his dull life into one full of meaning and joy.
· Into the Wild is a feature film about Christopher McCandless, a young man who check out of society in search of hardship and healing in the wilds of Alaska.
· Pursuit of Happyness is a feature film about Chris Gardener, a man who against all odds managed to succeed in his pursuit of the American Dream.
· 1800 South is a documentary film about a group of adventurers on a quest to “conquer the useless,” while showing that real purpose can be found in pursuing goals with no tangible benefit.