Notes on Nietzsche 02: Subject and Object

Chapter 5: The Natural History of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil

“Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest processes of all "knowledge and cognizance": there, as here, the premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to "belief," and the lack of distrust and patience are first developed—our senses learn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and cautious organs of knowledge.”

While embarking upon an adventure as this, that is to say, reading Nietzsche’s works, it is lines like these that continually remind one to break down each sentence into clauses, and re-read it a number of times. Nietzsche says so much in such few words, and sometimes more profound truths are only made clear when one reads his text slowly and repeatedly. 

“Our eyes find it easier on a given occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon the divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more force, more "morality." It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear another language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds into words with which we are more familiar and conversant.”

We tend to organise fresh information along the previous lines of thought, along already-formed templates, for doing so is easy. It is comfortable to take in only as much reality that does not disturb our already formed (albeit delicate) world perspectives. Nietzsche gives examples of how this is also literally true: when we hear words from another language, we align their sounds to the ones more familiar in our native tongue, and often laugh at the meaningless result produced. Likewise, it is difficult to take in new information, especially information that challenges the notions that we think we put together. Very often, the thoughts we defend most vociferously, are not even our own, but we attach a sense of identity to them, almost as if they are not ours, but we theirs. When confronted with contradicting information, we are slighted, almost as if someone had dared to contradict our identities. Such borrowed wisdom may be conditioning, or oft-quoted arguments that sound well articulated but may not necessarily be correct, or it might be the outcome of a deeper ideological brainwashing. Needless to say, some arguments are stronger and more imposing than others, and many a time, we will fall victim to ideas whose tendrils fetter our independent thoughts. These ideas have a life of their own: they feed on us as a parasite, and choke the budding thoughts that arise in our minds until they slowly die gasping for air.

“As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words (not to speak of syllables) of a page—he rather takes about five out of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate sense to them—just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we fabricate the greater part of the experience, and can hardly be made to contemplate any event, except as "inventors" thereof.”

Regardless of how keen an eye for detail we might have, we are generally inclined to see “the bigger picture”. Or in most cases, a distorted picture. For one can make the case that even the bigger picture is not the real picture, for any object stripped of its intricacies and nuances, is simply, not the original object at all. This leads one to think, whether any experience that we had was in fact real or not. As the risk of digressing too far into more abstract ideas, I would say that is any experience complete without the subject? Or, in other words, is any object really an object, without the subject? Do we not partake in its interpretation, representation and description? 

At this juncture, I am tempted to quote Medard Boss: “...without a subject, nothing at all would exist to confront objects, and to imagine them as such. True, this implies that every object, everything ‘objective’—in being merely objectivized by the subject—is the most subjective thing possible.”

So, everything we experience, does in fact, include us. Everything that exists, not only exists because we interact with it, but also includes us in its definition. We are, literally, the creator. Perhaps, the words “made in His image” make more sense from this standpoint.

“All this goes to prove that from our fundamental nature and from remote ages we have been—accustomed to lying. Or, to express it more politely and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly—one is much more of an artist than one is aware of.—In an animated conversation, I often see the face of the person with whom I am speaking so clearly and sharply defined before me, according to the thought he expresses, or which I believe to be evoked in his mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the strength of my visual faculty—the delicacy of the play of the muscles and of the expression of the eyes must therefore be imagined by me. Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none at all.”

Given that truth is manifold and more varied than we see, we might be the interpreters and inventors thereof. It is no wonder perhaps, why the overwhelming majority of us understand ourselves, as well as others, so poorly. So often we are unaware of the snakes that make us their house. We would like to believe that we know our thoughts, our desires and our intentions, but these betray themselves to us so many times in the form of dreams and symbols regurgitated by our unconscious. 

“What we experience in dreams, provided we experience it often, pertains at last just as much to the general belongings of our soul as anything "actually" experienced.”

Most brilliantly, Nietzsche ends by touching upon the idea of the unconscious that inhabits our soul just as much as our conscious. No matter how much we educate ourselves, we are all subject to the whims of the unconscious from time to time. Truth, empirical and otherwise, does prevail. At this point, I am compelled to stop writing, for my thoughts outpace my analysis of them. It is always a good idea to stop when to keep on going for the sake of resolution would lead one to come to hasty or over-simplified conclusions that one may be unable to defend or believe.