Notes on Nietzsche 08: Discovery of One's Value Hierarchy

By Sadhika on

Book IV, The Joyful Wisdom

“How many men are there who know how to observe? And among the few who do know,—how many observe themselves? "Everyone is furthest from himself"—all the "triers of the reins" know that to their discomfort; and the saying, "Know thyself," in the mouth of a God and spoken to man, is almost a mockery.”

When one puts oneself in one’s own scrutiny, it comes into one’s knowledge how little one actually knows about oneself. Observing oneself as a third person, especially one’s actions and inactions in times of chaos is akin to being punched in the stomach, for it is then that one comes face to face with one’s shadow. One would fain avoid it, and many men do for the realisation that one embodies many devils that take over one’s kinder impulses from time to time, is a harsh one. Even more men are less specific in their criticism of oneself: the danger of a self-deprecating approach is that it equates all your misdeeds. The intent behind observing, acknowledging and criticising one’s inhumanity is not to offer blanket apologies for what one is. That is not humility in the slightest. In fact, that approach implies that every act of one’s that was little understood at the time of its performance does not merit understanding. “I must have committed a sin, though I know not what it might be, So let me express remorse doubly; first for my sin, and second, for my ignorance of it, for it is better to be sorry in case I was wrong, but it is too much of a bother to find out!” says the apologetic.

“But that the case of self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the manner in which almost everybody talks of the nature of a moral action, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its look, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined to say to you: "Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely my affair! You address yourself with your question to him who is authorised to answer, for I happen to be wiser with regard to this matter than in anything else.”

Every man believes himself to be an expert on matters of morality, as if he holds extensive knowledge of the many ways in which he acts morally, but he is much removed from the knowledge of how he acts immorally. The world is overfull with “principled men” who claim to have developed systems of ethics so foolproof that they would be more than willing to tear down the structures of society and supplant them with these systems which, undoubtedly, have answers to ALL the problems of the world. And such a man considers his own moral character to be so unblemished that he would do so not for glory, but for the “greater good”, or so he claims, for nary was there a more deserving man whose cosmic significance assigned him for precisely that task!

“Admire rather your selfishness therein! And the blindness, paltriness, and modesty of your selfishness! For it is selfishness in a person to regard his judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry and modest selfishness besides, because it betrays that you have not yet discovered yourself, that you have not yet created for yourself any individual, quite individual ideal:—for this could never be the ideal of another, to say nothing of all, of every one!...Let us confine ourselves, therefore, to the purification of our opinions and appreciations, and to the construction of new tables of value of our own:—we will, however, brood no longer over the "moral worth of our actions"!” 

Nietzsche advocates for the creation of our own value hierarchies by each individual for there can be no universal law, no categorical imperative whose implementation might result in a utopian(?) society where no man dares err. We consider ourselves experts on all matters pertaining to the systems that give the world its structure but are keenly avoidant of the snakes that dwell in our own confines. We can barely keep to our laws (provided we have any for ourselves), but seem to have no trouble believing that the whole world would benefit if we were to strike down existing systems of laws and replace them with what we have arrogantly conceived of in the hangover of our intellectual superiority. We attack religion with such ferocity, as if rationality and science can take its place to provide the interpretative framework for man’s place in the world. We attack the laws of our country with such vociferousness as though we might found entire nations that would function as ideally as we like to imagine. Yet we have trouble keeping to routines we gave ourselves and every law of land, faith or home we are asked to live by, we reject as an assault on our “freedom”, as if in their absence, we would have built a kingdom mightier than the one from which Man’s first disobedience* caused him to be expelled. 

*Paradise Lost - John Milton. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Keeper

By Sadhika on
Image
Of late, there has been a feeling settling in my chest like dust in an empty room—soft, silent, and certain. It is the quiet realization that my memories are not permanent things. Not chiseled into stone or sealed up in iron-bound books, but written in pencil, the graphite growing faint with each passing season. I am aware, now more than ever, that what I remember will not be remembered for long. I think of my parents often. I remember my mother in her early sarees —floral, soft, like the curtains of a spring house. As the years passed, her colours dulled. Maybe they matched her age better, or maybe they just matched her mood. I see her now in my mind, young, barefoot and newly married, in a kitchen not yet hers, lifting a spoon to her mother’s lips and asking if the peas were soft enough. What was her scent like?  Turmeric?   Talcum powder? Or those white rajnigandha flowers she loved so much? I don’t remember. I think of my father and the way he used to hum when he shaved, a...
Read more

A Village Denied

By Sadhika on
Image
Co-authored by  Shrankhla and Sadhika on August 28, 2025 Of all the deprivations visited upon modern childhood, none is so grave and yet so little acknowledged as the absence of other people. Those of us who grew up in fuller households know what today’s children are missing. We remember weddings where ten different families would squeeze into one house, sleeping on the floor, with cousins lined up like sardines. We remember giving up one’s own bed to an elderly uncle, and waking up to the sound of aunties and uncles gossiping arguing over tea. In those homes, very little belonged entirely to us. The bed we slept on, the food on our plate, not even our stories. Someone was always listening in, correcting us, mocking us, softening our triumphs with their own, or placing a hand on our shoulders when we faltered. It was infuriating. It was also how we learned that life is not designed for any one person’s comfort—least of all a child’s. Siblings taught us this brutally and tende...
Read more

So begins our undoing

By Sadhika on
In rich aplomb we sit Atop the piles of gold and good That we write to our credit, When the good Lady Fortune’s scales tip And the waves of Chaos come gushing in From directions unventured, To lay waste to our kingdoms. So begins our undoing. Then a shadow confronts us To which, earlier, we became privy Only in brief flashes of thought or dream, And brushed away with impatience. The darkest among us have a still darker self Long lost and buried Beneath the best of us. The old altars lay slighted, Our ideals bear no resemblance  To the names we gave them. We are ruled by Furies aplenty. How do we rebuild our fallen kingdoms Without Divine Guidance? Somewhere along our final descent, We meet the gods we banished. A faint glow (perhaps even imagined)  Beckons across the waste yonder. Do we follow? Or do we give in to the darkness? 
Read more