The morality of individuality: from Nietzsche to Oakeshott
CONTENTS
- Introductory comments
- Of universal truths
- Of state and society – the politics of faith
3a. The state as the new idol
3b. The state and its priests
3c. The state, its priests – their discourse
3d. The state and its own populace
3e. The hierarchy of commanding
3f. The state as Babel
3g. The market-place
3h. The populace
3i. The values of the market-place and its populace
3j. Thou-shalt
3k. The for and against of the masses
3l. From idolatry to uniformity
3m. The state as the death of peoples - Forms of state
4a. The politics of faith versus civil association
4b. Civil association as a form of state
4c. Civil association and the question of traditionality - Types of moralities
5a. The life versus the death of a people
5b. The rarity of a genuine people
5c. Of the creative peoples
5d. Rationalist ideology versus the morality of habit of behaviour
5e. Of moralities: the anti-individual versus the individual
5f. The individual as the latest creation
- The individual
6a. The state, and the loss of individuality
6b. The commencement of the necessary individual
6c. Existential self-determination
6d. The loneliest wilderness
6e. Denial of duty
6f. The individual as creator of his own values
6g. The game of creating
6h. The ego, the body, and the self
6i. Of the passions, and virtue
6j. Of virtue and everyday wisdom
6k. A virtue in common with none else
6l. The problem of naming one’s own virtue
6m. Silence, privacy, and the new language of being and becoming
6n. The disposition of indifference towards the populace
6o. The disposition of tolerance towards the many-too-many - Self-organization
7a. From mass ideology to individual disposition
7b. Loving yourself as the individualistic disposition
7c. Living the present as self-organization
7d. Redeeming the past as self-organization
7e. Creating the world in one’s likeness – the question of truth
7f. The over-standing indifference
7g. The conflict of virtues – pride as self-organization - Of being-in-the-world as an Overman in the history of western civilization
- Introductory comments
Western thought has given birth to moments of what may be said to be untimely philosophical reflection. Much of such reflection has attempted to establish a morality of individuality – celebrating such individuality, it has even gone so far as to posit the concept of the Overman. On the other hand, dominant western ideology spread across a variety of historical western milieus has more often than not adopted a highly critical – not to say highly suspicious – stance towards whatever happens to point to such concept of the Overman.
It was of course Nietzsche above all, in his own untimely thinking, that would speak of a certain morality of individuality, and who would clearly articulate a philosophy of the Overman. Perhaps as untimely, Oakeshott would himself attempt to develop his own morality of individuality, and which could be said to be supportive of the virtues of the individual standing over – though not ever against – his own community.
This raises a series of necessary questions. To what extent is there a certain coincidence in the thinking of Nietzsche and that of Oakeshott? Does the thinking of the one help us understand the thinking of the other? And, if that be so, could this in any way help us understand the manner of thinking – and mode of conduct – of the present-day western citizen? Further, could the Nietzschean-Oakeshottian convergence of thought (and to the extent that such exists) be said to in some way reflect a present-day manner of thinking that is somehow entangled in postmodern western political debates? And would such entanglement be justified in terms of the thinking of either Nietzsche or Oakeshott?
These are totally open questions that require serious investigation if the postmodern western milieu is to be in any way understood. Nothing at all need be taken for granted. But to embark on such an investigation, we need to first of all hone in on certain more specific issues that the work of both thinkers has addressed, whether directly or otherwise – their manner of approach to just such issues shall help us compare and contrast particular modes of thinking and thereby better comprehend the question of the morality of individuality, as also the concomitant notion of the Overman. Before we pose such questions, it is of importance to assert that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott did in any case share a certain manner of thinking that may be called “disruptive wisdom”, as we shall certainly see in what follows (the term “disruptive wisdom” has been ascribed to Nietzschean philosophy in particular – cf. Alan Rosenberg, “Nietzsche and Untimeliness: The ‘Philosopher of the Future’ as the Figure of Disruptive Wisdom”, Academia.edu, 2003). It is in the light of such disruptive thinking, and with respect to both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, that the following questions need be raised:
- Who or what determines a person’s ends, goals and overall purpose in life? Who or what should determine an individual’s life-purpose?
- To what extent has the western nation-state ever operated – within its own historical time – as the guardian or guarantor of autonomous space for an individual’s creativity and individual value-creating (and which would define the individual’s life-purpose)?
- More specifically: which particular western milieus have expressed a mode of being supportive of the individual as an autonomous, self-rolling wheel (to use a typically Nietzschean term)? With exclusive reference to the modern or postmodern western world, may one somehow identify such mode of thinking and living in the anti-statist, anti-socialist libertarian political currents?
- To what extent does Oakeshott’s concept of civil association represent a form of state that is supportive of the individual as an autonomous, self-rolling wheel?
- May one identify the operation of civil associations – as a dominant mode of political being in society – in any particular milieu or milieus of western history? Has this history witnessed their operation periodically in time?
- In what way, if at all, does Nietzsche’s understanding of the individual as a self-rolling wheel – and therefore as a creator of his own and unique moral and aesthetic values – dovetail with whatever it is that expresses Oakeshott’s position on the individual’s place in the world?
- Would both Nietzsche and Oakeshott agree that such a type of self-rolling individual is in any case (that is, given whatever form of state) all too rare, or always in the minority?
- What is the position of both these thinkers on the question of mass ideology?
- Of universal truths
For reasons that shall become clear as we proceed, one may say that both the posing of such types of questions and the manner in which one chooses to answer them would be presupposing – or even promulgating – a certain skeptical understanding of the so-called truths of the world. Both the Nietzschean and the Oakeshottian understanding of truth – albeit not themselves of the same order – may be said to share that type of disruptive thinking that radically questions all forms of western rationalist paradigms. It may be argued that both in the case of Nietzsche, as also in the case of Oakeshott, there is no such thing as the truth of the world, and therefore no such thing as a universal truth.
In his Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes as follows: “Too oft, verily, did I follow close to the heels of truth; then did it kick me on the face” (p. 264 – we shall be invariably quoting from Thus Spake Zarathustra, Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997, unless otherwise stated). The Nietzschean project was meant to disrupt, question and disclaim all the universal claims and acquired truths of western rationalist thinking: it announced a radical mistrust of rationalist-based truths and their concomitant social values, ranging from the so-called common good, to so-called equality and so-called justice or social justice. This relentless – not to say merciless – mistrust of all rational, universal claims still reverberates throughout the postmodern western world.
Nietzsche would not, however, disclaim one particular type of truth – that truth would be his very own personal sense of truth. He writes: “Sometimes I meant to lie and behold! Then only did I hit – the truth” (ibid.). We shall examine below in what exact sense the truth that Nietzsche would allow to claim for himself would be his exclusively own, individual truth.
For Oakeshott, there is no single set of truths that may be said to be universal – there is no particular way of seeing the world that can be said to constitute the exclusive truth of things. The Oakeshottian project – as consciously anti-rationalist as is that of the Nietzschean – argues that there is no single truth that stands objectively above all other truths. There happen to be radically different ways of seeing the world – such ways may be seen as languages or voices attempting to comprehend the things of the world. All are in fact different modes of human knowledge – any one thing or event in the world can be interpreted in terms of a particular mode of knowledge. Modes of knowledge would include the historical knowledge of a thing, its scientifically understood structure and composition, the practical knowledge of its usability, as also a knowledge based on its aesthetic appreciation (cf. Elizabeth Corey & John Sailer, Right Ideas: Michael Oakeshott – National Association of Scholars, YouTube, streamlined 23.03.2023).
All modes of knowledge are of equal value in understanding the world, depending on the particular objectives of either an individual or of a field of investigation. However, while there can be no hierarchy of epistemological primacy in the ordering of the modes, one may nonetheless assert that aesthetic appreciation is subjectively dominant – it is via this particular mode that the individual engages in his own creative powers and cultivates his own imagination. Individual creativity and individual imagination constitute a free and therefore self-determining mode of knowledge that is one’s enactment (an Oakeshottian term) of being in the world. We shall see in what follows that Oakeshott will argue his position on the primacy of aesthetic knowledge in a manner that shall attempt to destabilize the foundations of rationalist thinking, rationalist-based ideology and the rationalist-based practices of the western state. Of course, it is precisely this broad field of Oakeshottian critical reflection and investigation that shall allow us to compare and contrast with the work of Nietzsche.
Oakeshott’s critique of the western state – its supposedly rationalist-based practices and all-consuming rationalist-based mass ideology – may be accurately encapsulated in a term that he has coined as the politics of faith. We shall first proceed to examine Nietzsche’s own understanding of the western state, and we shall attempt to show how such an understanding clearly overlaps with the Oakeshottian politics of faith.
- Of state and society – the politics of faith
3a. The state as the new idol
In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes of what he calls “The New Idol” (p. 45). He is referring to the modern western state as he would understand it at the time.
This form of state, Nietzsche shall observe, has now emerged as the singularly most powerful ordering force in – and over – all of western society. It has gradually surfaced as the all-powerful mechanism of society that drives and directs its populace – it is so powerful, in fact, that it has taken the place of God. It entrenches its power by churning out mass ideology. It has come to operate as the new idol precisely because the mass ideology it produces is worshipped by the masses. This is how Nietzsche presents this new idol, the state: “… ‘On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the regulating finger of God’ – thus roareth the monster. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted fall upon their knees!” (ibid.).
Elsewhere in Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche tells us that the state “seeketh by all means to be the most important creature on earth” – and he adds that “people think it so” (p. 130). He shall also go on to suggest that the Church is itself “a kind of state” (ibid.).
As we shall see further below, all of these basic Nietzschean observations on the western state shall be of major concern to the Oakeshottian project. Oakeshott shall undertake a critical investigation of the all-powerful ubiquity of the western state as a producer of mass ideology (which he shall call an enterprise association). He shall also investigate the notion of the state as an all-inclusive entity that calls for – and materializes – the active participation of its populace (Nietzsche’s worshippers). Further, Oakeshott shall examine the notion of religion and religious practice as a state ideology, and identify the historical ramifications of this reality.
3b. The state and its priests
As a producer of mass ideology, the state needs to surround itself with intellectuals – but these must be recognized public intellectuals, and they have to operate in a manner that serves the interests of the state and its populace. Nietzsche shall refer to such intellectuals as either the priests or as the famous wise ones – his observations, one may note, shall certainly prepare the ground for later discussions around the notion of the western organic intellectual. The Nietzschean understanding of the famous wise ones, however, would also include what we would nowadays refer to as a society’s celebrities.
In his discussion of the state as the new idol, he observes: “Heroes and honourable ones it would fain set up around it, the new idol!” (p. 46). It is expected of those set up around the state-as-idol to worship it – were they to do so, the state would indulge them in whatever means possible. Nietzsche continues: “Everything will it give you, if ye worship it, the new idol …” (ibid.).
The Nietzschean critique of the famous wise ones at the service of the state is not meant to necessarily demean their person and their intellectual capacities or talents, at least with respect to some of these. But although intellectually capable, such types have been weakened and wearied by old ideological struggles (over the question of old ideological idols) – they are the weary ones who need to both serve and be supported by a power outside of them, it being the power of the new emergent idol, the state. It is such inbred weariness that allows the state to entice them to it and to use them. And thus Nietzsche writes: “Ah, even in your ears, ye great souls, it [the state] whispereth its gloomy lies! Ah, it findeth out the rich hearts which willingly lavish themselves! … Yea, it findeth you out too, ye conquerors of the old God! Weary ye became of the conflict, and now your weariness serveth the new idol!” (pp. 45-46).
But while the intellectual capacities of the famous wise ones are not to be degraded as such, these persons do come to demean themselves in what they do and say when serving the state and its populace. As functionaries of the state, they debase what for Nietzsche is (as also for Oakeshott, as well shall see) of paramount importance – that being, of course, culture itself. Nietzsche tells us that “They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft – and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them!” (p. 46).
Nietzsche is dismissive of the misappropriated type of culture produced by the famous wise ones – and it is in direct response to them and their state-sponsored decadent cultural values that he offers us a series of alternative figurative models, such as his higher men. In his discussion of the Nietzschean figurative models and their relation to the issue of culture, Rosenberg (op. cit.) writes as follows: “They help us to alter or refine our aesthetic sensibilities … by discouraging us from simply deferring to those ‘useless squanderers’ or ‘cultural philistines’ who currently preside over the ‘catalysis of culture’. As an aesthetic counterpoint to the current ‘timely’ decadent figures who dominate our cultural horizon, Nietzsche offers ‘untimely’ alternative figures.” (p. 10).
Before we proceed any further in our presentation of the Nietzschean understanding of all timely intellectuals and their role in the production of mass culture and ideology, we need to briefly consider the implications of what Nietzsche is actually saying, at least at this point, with respect to authentic and inauthentic (or decadent) culture. He is here suggesting that inauthentic culture is that which steals what time-past has already created, it being something which remains a treasure in itself. One may infer that Nietzsche is not at all rejecting the treasures of western civilization as such – what he wishes to criticize is the appropriation of such treasures by the state (yielding the notion of state culture as theft), and the usage of such treasures by the state for its own ideological purposes (Oakeshott shall himself have much to say on this matter of practical usage of things-past, as we shall see).
It is for this reason (as for many others) that both the state and state power, as also those that are the functionaries of the state, are all plunged in the filth of the world, and what Nietzsche shall call its market-places. He writes: “Towards the throne they all strive; it is their madness – as if happiness sat on the throne! Ofttimes sitteth filth on the throne – and ofttimes also the throne on filth.” (p. 46).
The filth that sits on the throne of state power requires the production of mass ideology – the filth that buttresses such power from beneath effects the production of that mass ideology. The process is neither easy nor without internal contradictions – the priests and/or the famous wise men are bent on asserting their own particular version of the truth of the state. This is typical of all public intellectuals, who wish to preserve and perpetuate their fame and affluence – and so Nietzsche observes: “Sick are they always; they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another, and cannot even digest themselves.” (ibid.).
The famous wise ones squander their talents – and whatever genius they might be endowed with – in the interests of wealth, power and influence. And they squander themselves and their intellect in their public ideological polemics as they struggle to outwit one another. In the last instance, they come to render themselves impotent, at least as regards their own individuality and independent wisdom. Nietzsche continues: “Wealth they acquire and become poorer thereby. Power they seek for, and above all the lever of power, much money – these impotent ones!” (ibid.).
Elsewhere in Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche shall refer to the famous wise ones as reversed cripples, it being a condition that is supposedly emblematic of the impotence of public intellectuals. He describes such reversed cripples (and which is somewhat reminiscent of what we would nowadays call over-specialized idiots) as follows: “men who lack everything, except that they have too much of one thing – men who are nothing more than a big eye, or a big mouth, or a big belly, or something else big – reversed cripples, I call such men.” (p. 136).
And thus the Nietzschean untimely alternative figure – such as Zarathustra – would choose to maintain his safe distance from such famous wise ones and their lust for power in the world and its market-places. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “… holding my nose, I went morosely through all yesterdays and todays: verily, badly smell all yesterdays and todays of the scribbling rabble! … Like a cripple become deaf, and blind, and dumb – thus have I lived long, that I might not live with the power-rabble, the scribe-rabble and the pleasure-rabble.” (p. 95).
Yet another Nietzschean figurative model offers the following advice when it comes to great cities: “Spit on … the city of the obtrusive, the brazen-faced, the pen-demagogues and tongue-demagogues, the overheated ambitious …” (p. 172).
Above all, the state entices the famous wise ones to itself with one primary objective in mind – it wishes to use them so as to attract the masses (Nietzsche’s the many-too-many) to it, and to engage these masses in its all-inclusive, leviathan-like social operations (as we shall further see, however, the state-versus-masses dichotomy is only a more or less false dichotomy). For the state, the famous wise ones are a means to an end – addressing himself to the heroes and honourable ones in the service of the state, Nietzsche writes: “It [the state] seeketh to allure by means of you, the many-too-many! Yea, a hellish artifice hath here been devised, a death-horse jingling with the trappings of divine honours!” (p. 46).
The famous wise ones operate as the supposed representatives of the many-too-many – in turn, the latter see the former as their own great men, and who happen to be great actors. Nietzsche observes: “In the world even the best things are worthless without those who represent them; those representers the people call great men.” (p. 48).
But the implication here is that, since such so-called great men are both in the service of the state and have to operate as representatives of the populace, they are essentially fettered persons – Nietzsche uses the term harnessed. He writes: “… serving ones do they remain, and harnessed ones, even though they glitter in golden harness.” (p. 101). Harnessed to the idolatry of mass ideology and to the notion of the state-as-idol, they live and think as idol-venerators – and it is as idol-venerators that the famous wise ones are reduced to draught-beasts. “In the cities”, Nietzsche writes, “dwell the well-foddered, famous wise ones – the draught-beasts.” (ibid.). And thus do all western cities have their famous wise donkeys – we read: “And many a powerful one who wanted to run well with the people, hath harnessed in front of his horses – a donkey, a famous wise man.” (p.100).
Serving men, harnessed men, draught-beasts or donkeys of the politically powerful, these reversed cripples are nonetheless seen by the many-too-many as exceptional geniuses. Nietzsche writes as follows: “The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But I never believed in the people when they spake of great men – and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed cripple who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.” (p. 137).
One should therefore be wary of both the people and the reversed cripples. The latter, who are taken to be the learned of society, hate whoever chooses to live by an independent morality of individuality – in the last instance, they hate the individual per se. And they hate independence and individuality because these are the sources of productivity and ultimate creativity – the famous wise ones, the learned of society, are themselves unproductive. We shall see below that they are unproductive at least in the sense that they account for the death of both peoples and independent individuals. Nietzsche (as also Oakeshott) shall argue that state ideology is an ideology of death in that it reduces the time-present of peoples and individuals to a mere time-future – this has taken the form either of a future in heaven (religion as a state ideology) or of a future that shall materialize itself as a paradise on earth (secular religion as a state ideology, as in the case of egalitarian socialism). We shall be examining this strand of thought in some greater detail below – for the moment, we merely note Nietzsche’s description of the priests and famous wise ones as the preachers of death. He writes: “Yea, a dying for many hath here been devised, which glorifieth itself as life: verily, a hearty service unto all preachers of death!” (p. 46).
The preachers of death despise those who live life as independent creators of life, as they also preach death to a dead or dying people – and thus Nietzsche warns us to be wary of both the many-too-many in the market-place and of their famous wise ones. He writes: “Be on your guard also [i.e., apart from the populace] against the learned! They hate you, because they are unproductive!” (p. 280).
3c. The state, its priests – their discourse
Both before and after Nietzsche, western intellectuals have spun an endless variety of theories attempting to explain the intricacies of state ideology and mass popular ideology. Nietzsche has himself written much on the ideological discourse of the western state, and as that has been articulated by its priests or its famous wise men. But there is one element in his understanding of state ideology that seems to be a dramatic eye-opener – he tells us that the state is both a liar and a thief (such types of suggestions would of course appear and reappear in more elaborate or composite theories concocted by an endless string of social philosophers). Nietzsche very simply writes as follows: “But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth, and whatever it hath it hath stolen.” (p. 45).
Oakeshott’s own contribution to the question of state ideology belongs to that endless string of theoretical discussion that has come to characterize western thought. But he raises a number of issues that certainly do come to overlap with what Nietzsche has to say about a state that is both liar and thief. Such issues shall be explored in what follows – but we may here simply present some of the types of issues that concern both the Nietzschean and the Oakeshottian projects: (i) to what extent does the state impose its ideology on the masses, and what are the consequences of such imposition?; (ii) to what extent is state discourse a rationalist-based ideology, and what are the implications of this?; (iii) to what extent does the imposition of a rationalist-based ideology translate into mass ideals and the mass idol-adoration of such ideals, and what are the implications of this for both a people and an individual?; (iv) what would all this mean with respect to the question of truth, as also the question of living a life in terms of certain set universal truths? (Some of these issues have been addressed by David Corey, “Oakeshott’s concept of ideology”, Academia.edu, 2014).
To answer these types of questions, one needs to investigate the relationship between the state and the masses.
3d. The state and its own populace
For Nietzsche, the modern western state has been established for none other than the populace itself – it is the populace that explains the raison d’être of a state. It is the many-too-many who are in need of a state’s protection, who depend on it for moral guidance and direction – the many-too-many need the ideology of the state so as to organize their being in the world and so as to find some meaning in their lives. Such need and dependence, however, tells us that the many-too-many are – as Nietzsche puts it – superfluous people. It was for such superfluous people that the state remains an absolute necessity. The implication is that any western state has its own populace – and it is for this reason that we have already suggested that the state-versus-masses dichotomy may be only a false dichotomy. In his discussion of the state as the new idol, Nietzsche writes: “Many too many are born; for the superfluous ones was the state devised!” (p. 45).
The dichotomy is false, but not to the extent that the state may be fully reduced to the populace. The one may practically engage in the business of the other, but they obviously remain different entities (the one is an organized structure or network of organs; the other is a mass of people that is often disorganized and sometimes organized, and especially when it is organized it meshes with and engages with state organs).
To therefore argue that the state has been devised for the populace does not necessarily mean that the state is the populace. To say so is a lie, and such lie constitutes the central ideology of the state in the western world (remember the notion of state ideology as a lie). “A state”, writes Nietzsche, “is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also, and this lie creepeth from its mouth: ‘I, the state, am the people.’ …” (ibid.). The ideological lie does not simply rest on the fact that the state is not reducible to its populace – it is also a lie in that state ideology imposes itself on the populace, substituting itself for it. In the last instance, however, the imposition of such ideological lie is a shared lie (or a shared social illusion) between the state and its own populace – but shared though it be, it can only lead to the demise of a people.
The lie is shared because the many-too-many need state ideology, and they need the state as their protector and educator. Given its function as protector and educator of the masses, the state needs to articulate a universal truth that is expressive of the people – and it is the famous wise ones who spin such universal truth. Writing of the famous wise ones and their idea of truth, Nietzsche puts the following words in their mouth: “For there the truth is, where the people are! Woe, woe to the seeking ones!” And he continues: “Thus hath it echoed through all time.” (p. 100). Whatever seeking beyond the realm of such universal truth would be an anathema.
The dichotomy between state and populace is both false and true, depending on one’s perspective – either way, the western state is such as to create accessible spaces of power that enable a continuous bargaining and/or trafficking of power within its network of organs between itself and its own populace. The populace – or what Nietzsche shall also refer to as the rabble – is able to bargain for power within state structures and is thus actively present within such structures. Nietzsche writes as follows on the question of ruling: “And on the rulers turned I my back, when I saw what they now call ruling: to traffic and bargain for power with the rabble!” (p. 95). Nietzsche is of course here referring to the modern democratic state of the western world – a form of state which is both the supreme idol of society as the regulating finger of God, and is at the same time accessible to the many-too-many. Here, the many-too-many are both of the state and in it, and are so through endless processes of power-bargaining.
Since the state has its own populace, its state-dependent intellectuals are themselves dependent on such populace, and they need always speak of the wisdom of the people – yet again, Nietzsche writes as follows about the famous wise ones: “For always do they draw, as asses – the people’s carts!” (p. 101).
What are such carts? These include the ideological and practical virtue of charity and sympathy for the many-too-many – or what we would nowadays refer to as social solidarity. Nietzsche counterposes the virtues of war, courage and bravery to the type of popular virtues promoted by the state and its intellectuals – he writes: “War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims.” (p. 43). The carts of the modern democratic state have come to carry the ideology of solidarity towards the many-too-many – or, in other words, towards the so-called victims of society. Such solidarity, of course, would translate into the ideology and practice of the modern welfare state (we shall be discussing the issue of utilitarian welfarism further below). Nietzsche shall refer to the ideology and practice of welfarism as a state’s gift-giving to its populace, a practice that would tie the populace to the state-as-idol. “What care they”, Nietzsche writes, “if they bind others still faster with their chains and gifts!” (p. 42). He is of course suggesting that a state’s gift-giving is conducive to the destruction of the life and independence of a people – “But they want to be rid of life” (ibid.), he explains. Perhaps we should merely note here that the Nietzschean understanding of gifts – and their relation to chains – would later on also be taken up by thinkers such as Derrida, who would speculate on the meaning of gift-giving and the reciprocity it involves as a dual dead-end.
In terms of the Nietzschean project, in any case, power-bargaining with the populace, the ideology of popular wisdom, the practice of social solidarity, welfarism and gift-giving and so on – all these are symptoms of the western state and the hierarchy of commanding that takes place within it and society as a whole. It is such particular hierarchy – and its implications – to which we need now turn.
3e. The hierarchy of commanding
Considering the nature of all living things from a general perspective, Nietzsche makes the following observation: “Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.” (p. 112). In terms of such a perspective, the will to power – which would itself translate into a will to truth (and which would be an ideological truth) – is to be found everywhere, from the stronger to the weaker, all down the line. And when Nietzsche speaks of the servant, one might as well substitute that term with that of the populace.
Nietzsche further observes “That to the stronger the weaker shall serve – thereto persuadeth he his will who would be master over a still weaker one. That delight alone he is unwilling to forego.” (ibid.). He is therefore here presenting us with a hierarchical chain of commanding and obeying that traverses the whole of a society, from top to bottom.
One may briefly explain this commanding-obeying hierarchical structure of a society by putting it slightly otherwise as follows: person A commands person B, who obeys so that he may be able to command person C; person C obeys so that he may command person D, who obeys so that he may command person E, and person E himself obeys so that … etc., and so on, right down the line. Parenthetically, we need to emphasize here that this state of affairs describes the general nature of living things – but we shall see below that the exceptional individual (or the so-called Overman) does not at all have to adhere to such chain of command and/or obedience, as he has no need for either commanding or obeying anyone whatsoever.
Now, and as regards the general nature of things in society, such a commanding-obeying hierarchical structure can and does have its own particular consequences. This structural chain is such as to allow the weaker – who we know also possess the will to be master – to enter the fortress of the stronger and usurp their power. Nietzsche explains: “And where there is sacrifice and service and love-glances, there also is the will to be master. By by-ways doth the weaker then slink into the fortress, and into the heart of the mightier one – and there stealeth power.” (ibid.).
The mere fact that there are various by-ways through which the weaker may enter the echelons of power and thereby usurp the levers of political control defines the democratic processes of the western world – such processes determine the very social structure of a society, as they also obfuscate the distinction between those who possess or do not possess wealth. To put it simply: wherever one looks across the hierarchical power structures of western society, one always sees the presence of the populace (or of the superfluous many-too-many). Nietzsche writes as follows: “Populace above, populace below! What are ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ at present! That distinction did I unlearn …” (p. 261). One could here observe that certain social distinctions would naturally continue to prevail in the modern western world, but the distinctions would be relatively seamless across the social strata, and all members of which would in any case be lost in materialistically-oriented idol-adoration (the type that Oakeshott shall himself investigate in great detail, as we shall see).
The hierarchical structure of command and obedience and its gradual penetration by the populace itself would mean that the ideological discourse of the state would come to be permeated with the virtues – that is, the ideological virtues – of the many-too-many. And thus one would see the emergence of a common, universal idol-adoration, it being precisely the Oakeshottian politics of faith to be discussed below. Such politics of faith would come to define an all-inclusive common virtue of good and evil – the universal commonality of such virtue and its ideals would be intended to infuse the thinking and conduct of all and sundry within the hierarchical structure of society. This diffusion of ideological virtues and ideological ideals across the board is presented by Nietzsche as follows: “And this hypocrisy found I worst amongst them, that even those who command feign the virtues of those who serve … ‘I serve, thou servest, we serve’ – so chanteth here even the hypocrisy of the rulers – and alas, if the first lord be only the first servant!” (p. 165).
The rise of the populace, therefore, is the rise and prevalence of its own and exclusive sense of virtue – and the ideological ideals of that sense of virtue are meant to be imposed (via the state and its famous wise ones) onto each and every single individual of society. Nietzsche presents this state of affairs and its implications as follows: “There is no sorer misfortune in all human destiny than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men. Then everything becometh false and distorted and monstrous … And when they are even the last men, and more beast than man, then riseth and riseth the populace in honour, and at last saith even the populace-virtue: ‘Lo, I alone am virtue!’ …” (p. 238).
The populace is composed of the petty people with its own petty virtues – but the populace needs its preacher, who is in any case of that people. It is the preacher who articulates and announces the tenets of populace-virtue to society as a whole, and he articulates such virtue as the dogmatic truth of things. Nietzsche writes: “And ‘truth’ is at present what the preacher spake who himself sprang from them [the populace], that singular saint and advocate of the petty people, who testified of himself: ‘I – am the truth’ … That immodest one hath long made the petty people greatly puffed up, he who taught no small error when he taught: ‘I – am the truth’ …” (p. 256).
Generally speaking, the implication is that the modern democratic state in the western world has ultimately given birth to what we would nowadays sloganize as power to the people – its milieu has thus also glorified the virtues of popular insurrection. Nietzsche observes: “Too long have we acknowledged them [“the throng of grey little waves and wills and souls”] to be right, those petty people: so we have at last given them power as well – and now do they teach that ‘good is only what petty people call good’ …” (ibid.). With respect to the question of popular insurrection and its glorified virtues, Nietzsche writes as follows: “At present … everything low hath become rebellious and exclusive and haughty in its manner – in the manner of the populace … For the hour hath come – thou knowest it forsooth – for the great, evil, long, slow mob-and-slave-insurrection: it extendeth and extendeth!” (p. 260).
An even deeper implication is that both the state and its so-called subverters are one and the same thing – they are, in the last instance, of the same species. Nietzsche speaks of – or rather to – the subverters (whom he includes amongst “the inventors of new noise”, p. 129) as follows: “Like thyself the state is a dissembling dog; like thee doth it like to speak with smoke and roaring – to make believe, like thee, that it speaketh out of the heart of things.” (p. 130).
3f. The state as Babel
All of what Nietzsche has said thus far of the western state – its role as the new idol, the role of its intellectuals as disseminators of mass ideology, and the concomitant rise of the many-too-many to power – is crowned with a presentation of a state of affairs that may be described as Babelian. And it may be described as Babelian because the idol-adoration of the many-too-many would lead to vicious ideological, cultural and material struggles around the idol itself – one would see, in other words, an endless series of verbal disputes within the ambit of that much vaunted space called public opinion. This approach is of major interest because, as we shall see in much greater detail below, this would tally with Oakeshott’s own use of the Babelian myth to describe the all-powerful western state as an enterprise of grand collective projects revolving around the idolatry of social discourse. Oakeshott, like Nietzsche, would of course see that whatever struggles around ideological idolatry ultimately do come to yield a social uniformity amongst the many-too-many, whereby each person is reduced to a replica of the other whatever be their apparent differences.
Speaking of great cities, one of the Nietzschean figurative models makes the following observation: “Seest thou not the souls hanging like limp dirty rags? And they make newspapers also out of these rags! … Hearest thou not how spirit hath here become a verbal game? Loathsome verbal swill doth it vomit forth! And they make newspapers also out of this verbal swill.” (p. 171).
With respect to the space of public opinion and its reduction to a ferocious verbal game in great cities, we further read as follows: “They hound one another, and know not whither! They inflame one another, and know not why! … they are all sick and sore through public opinion.” (ibid.).
It is Babelian-like ideological chatter that rules the roost in the so-called great cities of the western world – Nietzsche writes: “Everything among them talketh, nothing succeedeth any longer and accomplisheth itself. Everything cackleth, but who will still sit quietly on the nest and hatch eggs? … Everything among them talketh, everything is out-talked. And that which yesterday was still too hard for time itself and its tooth, hangeth today, outchamped and outchewed, from the mouths of the men of today … Everything among them talketh, everything is betrayed. And what was once called the secret and secrecy of profound souls, belongeth today to the street-trumpeters and other butterflies.” (pp. 179-180).
As we shall see in due course, the Nietzschean understanding of the Babelian-like ideological chatter permeating great cities is a concept that closely overlaps with that of the Oakeshottian view of the modern western world, and it does so in at least one very specific manner. Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would argue that all ideological chatter – with its grand ideals and even grander visions of the future – revolves around material interests, material survival and the material maintenance of the many-too-many, whatever be their social position. “But down there”, Nietzsche observes, “there speaketh everything, there is everything misheard. If one announce one’s wisdom with bells, the shopmen in the market-place will out-jingle it with pennies!” (p. 179).
Similarly, and as regards the relationship between political rulers and material interests, he writes as follows: “But the moon still revolveth around all that is earthly: so revolveth also the prince around what is earthliest of all – that, however, is the gold of the shopman … The God of the Hosts of war is not the God of the golden bar; the prince proposeth but the shopman – disposeth! … By all that is luminous and strong and good in thee, O Zarathustra, spit on this city of shopmen and return back!” (p. 172).
The God of hosts has now been substituted for the God of the golden bar – and it is therefore only material interests that are of concern to both the political rulers and their populace. In a world where mercantile exchange is the raison d’être of the many-too-many, these have rendered themselves unworthy of the rule of kings (who of course had once been the rulers in pre-capitalist societies, where people would not be exclusively focused on material success). Nietzsche writes of the modern world as follows: “Let there the trader rule, where all that still glittereth is – traders’ gold. It is the time of kings no longer; that which now calleth itself the people is unworthy of kings.” (p. 204).
Not all of the people in the so-called great cities are traders – but the point is that even those that happen not to be traders have come to behave in a manner that replicates that of the traders. Nietzsche continues: “See how these peoples themselves now do just like the traders: they pick up the smallest advantage out of all kinds of rubbish!” (ibid.). It is the mundanely materialistic obsession of the many-too-many that Nietzsche wishes to point to when he uses the expression all kinds of rubbish – the word rubbish, one may assume, must refer to commodities.
The modern cities of the western world have come to be populated by masses of people who swarm around ideological idols, and they do so like herds fighting for little else but their material maintenance – that is their raison d’être: they chatter, cackle and cry for just that, whatever be the lofty ideals of the ideologies they say they espouse. Nietzsche goes even further – he writes: “If they had – bread for nothing, alas, for what would they cry! Their maintainment – that is their true entertainment; and they shall have it hard! … Beasts of prey are they; in their ‘working’ – there is even plundering, in their ‘earning’ – there is even overreaching! Therefore shall they have it hard! … Better beasts of prey shall they thus become, subtler, cleverer, more man-like; for man is the best beast of prey … All the animals hath man already robbed of their virtues: that is why of all animals it hath been hardest for man … Only the birds are still beyond him, and if man should yet learn to fly, alas, to what height – would his rapacity fly?” (ibid.).
One may say that people’s chattering, cackling and crying – all aspects of their ideological discourses – become subtler and clever as the going gets tougher. Ideological struggles and clashing ideological discourses lead to a confusion of language – and such confusion can be both deliberate and unintentional. Either way, it is a Babelian state of affairs – the state, however, thrives on just such confusion. Nietzsche observes: “Confusion of language of good and evil: this sign I give unto you as the sign of the state.” (p. 45). And he then goes on directly to make a further observation, the implications of which shall have to be discussed as we proceed – he writes: “Verily, the will to death indicateth this sign [of confusion]! Verily, it beckoneth unto the preachers of death!” (ibid.). As we shall see, the Babelian state thriving on the confusion of ideological language amongst its populace constitutes a nihilistic, destructive force. Such state does not stand for the will to life – its very existence spells the death of peoples.
The Babelian state holds dominion over the great Babelian city – it is that type of modern city that Nietzsche shall describe as a great slum. He writes: “Here floweth all blood putridly and tepidly and frothily through all veins; spit on the great city, which is the great slum where all the scum frotheth together!” (p. 172).
It is the market-place, of course, around which such great slum revolves. “Here”, Nietzsche asserts, “there is nothing to better, nothing to worsen.” (p. 173). To further understand Nietzsche’s absolute rejection of the Babelian state and society, we need to briefly dwell on what he has to say specifically about the market-place.
3g. The market-place
For Nietzsche, there is a clear dividing line between that space where the free individual can create his own life-values and that other space where such free creativity ends. The space for individual creativity requires solitude – it is precisely there where such solitude ends that the state begins to exist and function. And it is also at that exact point where the market-place begins to exist and function. What is it that exists and functions in the space of the market-place? Therein, one finds the state’s great actors, and one also finds therein the masses – both categories of people are in continual interaction, their mutual co-existence is a binding necessity. Nietzsche speaks of such clear dividing line, and describes the market-place and its people, as follows: “Where solitude endeth, there beginneth the market-place; and where the market-place beginneth, there beginneth also the noise of the great actors, and the buzzing of the poison-flies.” (p. 48).
For the individual who can both endure and celebrate his own creative freedom, Nietzsche gives the following advice regarding the market-place: “Flee, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung all over with the stings of the little ones.” (ibid.). We shall have much more to say on the question of solitude below – at this point, we merely note that the noise of the great men (as functionaries of the state and as mediators of the many-too-many within the market-place) and the stings of the little ones are interrelated dimensions of a single albeit internally contradictory state ideology that wishes to crush all individuality (by deafening it with its noise, and by poisoning it with its stings).
Repudiating all and sundry within the market-place, Nietzsche speaks of these as follows: “Full of clattering buffoons is the market-place – and the people glory in their great men! These are for them the masters of the hour.” (ibid.).
To further understand Nietzsche’s repudiation of the populace in the market-place, we need to dwell in some greater detail on the manner in which he assesses the mettle of the modern masses of the western world.
3h. The populace
The populace is synonymous with the rabble – and it is the rabble that poison life and its felicity. Nietzsche writes: “Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.” (p. 94). He speaks of “the kingdom of the populace”, and observes: “The populace, however – that meaneth, hodgepodge.” (p. 236).
His assessment of the populace is based on a consciously detached bird’s-eye view (a very special type of detachment that shall have to be further examined below). Nietzsche writes: “With the new morning, however, there came unto me a new truth; then did I learn to say: ‘Of what account to me are market-place and populace and populace-noise and long populace-cars!’ …” (p. 276).
The populace – those superfluous ones for which the state had to be devised – is necessarily entangled in that hierarchy of command and obedience running through the structures of western society, and it is therefore inevitably embroiled in a perpetual scramble for power. Being so embroiled, it is a beast of prey that is becoming all the more subtler and cleverer in its manipulations and strategic compromises for state power – the populace is a nimble ape. But it is a nimble ape bent on its nihilistic self-destruction. Nietzsche writes of both the populace and its representatives as follows: “See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another, and thus scuffle into the mud and the abyss.” (p. 46).
It is materialistic ambition that defines the populace as rabble, and its scrambling for social success – and it is that type of ambition and scrambling that determines rabble conduct as a whole, it being a conduct that one should flee from. Nietzschean figurative models assert their distance from the bellowing and yelling rabble as follows: “From the rabble have we gone out of the way, from all those bawlers and scribe-blowflies, from the trader-stench, the ambition-fidgeting, the bad breath; fie, to live among the rabble …” (p. 237).
Materialistic ambition or ambition-fidgeting reduces the populace to a rabble of servile masses – and they are servile as they clamber over one another within the structures of the state. What they expect of their state is the promise of a provided abundance – and they prefer it to the opportunity (and danger) of individual choice. It is just such a critical overview of the modern western masses that clearly points to an essential overlapping between the thinking of Nietzsche and that of Oakeshott. The latter writes of people “with wants so servile that they prefer the promise of a provided abundance [i.e. as provided by the state] to the opportunity of choice and activity on their own account.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism In Politics and other essays, Methuen & Co Ltd, 1962, p. 192).
The servile masses – the great majority of a state’s population – can only but be cowardly. Nietzsche wishes to contrast the exceptional individual to the rest of society – he writes: “The rest: these are always the great majority, the commonplace, the superfluous, the far-too-many – those all are cowardly!” (p. 174).
Servility and cowardice are detectable in the run-of-the-mill lassitude and complacency that characterizes the far-too-many. Even with respect to the young of modern western society, Nietzsche notes as follows: “Those young hearts have already all become old – and not old even! Only weary, ordinary, comfortable. They declare it: ‘We have again become pious.’ …” (ibid.).
The symptoms of weariness, ordinariness and self-comfort are all such as to inevitably lead to a generalized plebeian ignorance. Nietzsche presents the ignorance of the masses as follows: “The ignorant, to be sure, the people – they are like a river on which a boat floateth along; and in the boat sit the estimates of value, solemn and disguised.” (p. 110). It is not the river of the people that decides the value of things – in their ignorance, the people allow the boat of wisdom to estimate for them what is good and evil (we need note, however, that such boat of wisdom has no choice but to flow in accordance with the fashion, faith and fantasy of the age, as Roger Penrose would put it).
The modern western world has of course enabled the masses to read – that, however, has in any case had (and will continue to have) a detrimental effect on western intellectual culture as a whole. “Another century of readers”, Nietzsche tells us, “and spirit itself will stink.” (p. 36). And he continues: “Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only writing but also thinking.” (ibid.). The obvious implication here is that were writers to write so as to please the ignorance of the masses, both their writing and their thinking would suffer in terms of quality. A somewhat similar position on culture (though certainly based on dissimilar premises) would be held by T.S. Eliot in the 1940’s, when he would argue that the maintenance of the quality of culture would depend on the extent to which that culture would remain of the minority; or, similarly, that the expansion of education amongst the masses would ultimately lower the qualitative criteria of culture as a whole (cf. his Notes towards the Definition of Culture, Faber and Faber Limited, 1948; 1949).
For Nietzsche, plebeian ignorance is such that it inadvertently deceives itself, as it also deceives others. “The populace”, he writes, “knoweth not what is great and what is small, what is straight and what is honest; it is innocently crooked, it ever lieth.” (p. 279).
In its innocent crookedness and self-deception, the populace has had beliefs and value-systems imposed on it – imposed, that is, by that boat of wisdom floating on the flowing river of the populace. The estimates of value imposed on it have led it to learn and accept the dogmatic tenets of idol-adoration. And thus Nietzsche asks: “What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who could – refute it to them by means of reasons?” (p. 280). “And on the market-place”, he continues, “one convinceth with gestures. But reasons make the populace distrustful.” (ibid.).
The ramifications of such a state of affairs regarding the populace are obvious – for Nietzsche, the masses of the western world have come to constitute a danger to individual freedom and independent thinking. Oakeshott, as we shall see, would fully agree on the question of the danger posed by mass ideology, and the subservience of the masses to such ideology and to the demagogues peddling it. Luke O’Sullivan, who wishes to present Oakeshott as one of the last of the so-called English Romantics, notes as follows: “Striking a Nietzschean note, Oakeshott warned of the danger that ‘the masses’ posed to representative democracy [here, not to be confused with either the state-as-idol, or with the politics of faith]: the majority of people were unused to choosing for themselves, and would become prey to demagogues.” (cf. “Short Article: Michael Oakeshott Last of the English Romantics”, Academia.edu, 2017, p. 71).
The danger of the populace lies in the fact that, in the last instance, it really has nothing to say for itself. Oakeshott writes as follows: “The major part of mankind has nothing to say; the lives of most men do not revolve round a felt necessity to speak.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 43). In an important sense, the fact that the masses have nothing to say publicly does not in itself constitute a danger – but when many or even some of their members do speak, they simply mimic the thinking of the famous wise ones, who function as demagogues. And when they mimic the demagogic famous wise ones, they bellow and yell fanatically – the estimates of value that have been imposed on them crystallize into mass political dogma. Ultimately, then, almost all may come to cackle around the ideals of such dogma. When the masses do speak, their speech is devoid of authenticity.
The mass cackling is of course meant to assert the values of the populace – the populace, however, does not understand the creating agency hidden behind such values (or it cannot grasp that which reigns disguised within the boat of so-called wisdom). Nietzsche observes: “Little do people understand what is great – that is to say, the creating agency. But they have a taste for all representers and actors of great things.” (p. 48).
Their taste for mere representers and actors of great things means that the masses have come to despise the free, independent individual who is himself his own creating agency. Feeling revengeful, they stand against that type of person. It is for this reason that Nietzsche calls the many-too-many circumscribed souls – their inability to be value-creating agents themselves delimits their very mode of existence. Regarding those many-too-many flies in the market-place, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra tells us that theirs is a small existence – and adds: “But their circumscribed souls think: ‘Blamable is all great existence’ …” (p. 50).
And yet, despite the fact that such circumscribed souls lead a small existence, they all nonetheless think much of themselves, of their own life, and of their own death. Nietzsche observes: “But even the superfluous ones make much ado about their death, and even the hollowest nut wanteth to be cracked.” (p. 68).
This allows Nietzsche to speak as follows about what he calls the sorrow-sighing of the populace: “So unlearn, I pray you, the sorrow-sighing, and all the populace-sadness! Oh, how sad the buffoons of the populace seem to me today! This today, however, is that of the populace.” (pp. 284-285).
Much of what Nietzsche has to say about the populace is more or less also evident in the work of Stendhal (whom, as we know, Nietzsche greatly admired as an untimely explorer of the human psyche). The intolerant dogmatism of the populace, the tyranny of public opinion and the ignorance that goes with it, the pettiness – or small existence – of the lives of the many-too-many, and so on, are also explored in Stendhal’s 1830 novel, The Red and the Black. With respect to “the judgment of those wise and moderate folk who make public opinion in the Franche-Comté”, Stendhal makes the following observation: “As a matter of fact, these folk wield the most wearisome despotism … The tyranny of public opinion – and what an opinion! – is as stupid in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.” (cf. Stendhal, Red and Black, translated by Robert M. Adams, New York, Norton & Co, 1969, p. 4).
Like Nietzsche, Stendhal looks down on the masses, be these the people as a whole or the rising 19th century bourgeoisie. For him, the masses of his time are all materialistically obsessed – they have a single purpose in life, it being to succeed in some profession and nothing much else. Generally, moreover, he cannot stand the very smell and the noise of all such masses. Again like Nietzsche, who would hearken back to time-past for models of heroic virility and an aristocratic spirit set well apart from the many-too-many, Stendhal would likewise opt for the aristocratic instinct as a mode of life – therein, he would discover the qualities of intelligence and self-cultivation. And it would only be within aristocratic social culture that – in contrast to the popular culture of the materialistic masses – one would discover the joys of music, passion and heroism.
The affinity in the thinking of Nietzsche and Stendhal has been well documented in a text by William R. Goetz, “Nietzsche and Le Rouge et le noir”, Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4, December 1981, pp. 443-458.
At this point, we merely wish to corroborate what has been noted above regarding Stendhal’s own positions on the masses vis-à-vis the aristocratic instinct – we shall here present an extract from a 1953 text by Erich Auerbach entitled “In the Hôtel de La Mole” (a supplement to Red and Black, op. cit.). We read as follows: “… he [Stendhal] treats even the classes of society which, according to his views, should be closest to him, extremely critically and without a trace of the emotional views which romanticism attached to the word people. The practically active bourgeoisie with its respectable money-making, inspires him with an unconquerable boredom, he shudders at the ‘republican virtue’ of the United States, and despite his ostensible lack of sentimentality he regrets the fall of the social culture of the ancien régime. ‘My word, there’s no more wit’, he writes in chapter 30 of Henri Brulard, ‘everyone is saving all his energy for a job which will give him standing in the world.’ No longer is birth or intelligence or the self-cultivation of the honnête homme the deciding factor – it is ability in some profession. This is no world in which Stendhal-Dominique can live and breathe … Love, music, passion, intrigue, heroism – these are the things that make life worthwhile … Stendhal is an aristocratic son of the big bourgeoisie of the old regime, he will and can be no nineteenth-century bourgeois. He says so himself time and again: ‘… my family handed down their aristocratic instincts to me’ (Brulard, ch. 14); ‘since the Revolution theater audiences have become stupid’ (Brulard, ch. 22) … he finds the smell and the noise of the masses unendurable, and in his books … we find no ‘people’ …” (pp. 444-445).
But if such be the many-too-many, what is it that constitutes their set of values? We shall need to take a closer look at such values, which are ipso facto the values of the market-place. We shall have to examine issues such as democracy, equality, justice and the so-called common good.
3i. The values of the market-place and its populace
Despite an array of ever-alternating internal contradictions, the values of the populace are the values of the market-place – and again despite an interminable diffusion of internal contradictions, these values are also of the modern western state. This is so because that form of state is a democratic state – and it is democratic in that the many-too-many are of it and in it (being allured by it).
This is the basic social context that shall allow us to understand the values of the populace – Nietzsche describes such broad context as follows: “Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh populace.” (p. 36). One may interpret such an observation by saying that the ethos or motivating force of the western world has undergone three basic transformations in the course of its history: first, values had been determined by religion; then they would be determined by the paradigm of humanism; ultimately, however, it would be the populace itself – via the agency of its demagogues – that would be the determining force of all social values. It would be the democratic state, and its democratic ethos, that would enable the values of the populace to become socially dominant.
Regarding such potentially all-inclusive popular ideological dominance, Nietzsche writes: “Whatever is of the effeminate type, whatever originateth from the servile type, and especially the populace-mishmash – that wisheth now to be master of all human destiny! O disgust! Disgust! Disgust!” (p. 277). The populace power stemming from democracy yields to the prevalence of populace values, and the virtues that accompany such values.
Nietzsche shall observe that these virtues of the populace are the bedwarfing virtues of mass mediocrity – and they reflect the values of a utilitarian-based idol-adoration whereby all are in search of a certain type of petty happiness. “I pass through this people”, Nietzsche writes, “and keep mine eyes open; they have become smaller, and ever become smaller – the reason thereof is their doctrine of happiness and virtue.” (p. 164). And he further goes on to explain such smallness – or such small existences – as follows: “For they are moderate also in virtue – because they want comfort. With comfort, however, moderate virtue only is compatible.” (ibid.).
The common populace virtues, being as they are, induce submission – in its turn, submission induces cowardice, and vice versa. The process turns into a vicious circle, especially as the pursuit for a certain small happiness invariably leads to yet another pursuit for some other small happiness. Nietzsche writes: “Modestly to embrace a small happiness – that do they call ‘submission’! And at the same time they peer modestly after a new small happiness.” (p. 165). “In their hearts”, he explains, “they want simply one thing most of all: that no one hurt them. Thus do they anticipate every one’s wishes and do well unto every one … That, however, is cowardice, though it be called ‘virtue’ …” (ibid.).
The acquiescence to submission, and the tacit cowardice that goes with such acquiescence, has led to the domestication of the many-too-many. According to Nietzsche: “Virtue for them is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have they made the wolf a dog, and man himself man’s best domestic animal.” (ibid.).
Mass domestication has come to be heralded as a social virtue – but a moderation revolving around the small happinesses of a docile people has come to herald mediocrity itself as a virtue. Nietzsche sees in the bedwarfing virtues of domestication and moderation the very essence of mediocrity. He writes of the modern western masses as follows: “… ‘We set our chair in the midst’ – so saith their smirking unto me – ‘and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine’ … That, however, is – mediocrity, though it be called moderation.” (p. 166).
The small happinesses of the mediocre many-too-many are part and parcel of their sorrow-sighing and populace-sadness. And thus Nietzsche’s Zarathustra declares: “of what account to me are your many little, short miseries!” (p. 279).
It is precisely the pursuit of the small happinesses (and the concomitant short miseries) that constitutes the essential source of all the values and all the virtues of the many-too-many – the pursuit and maintenance of such small happinesses is the alpha and the omega of their small existences. And thus they concentrate on the question of their material maintenance and spin grand ideologies around it. Nietzsche writes: “The most careful ask today: ‘How is man to be maintained?’ Zarathustra however asketh, as the first and only one: ‘How is man to be surpassed?’ …” (p. 277). We note that it is the modern, present-day intellectual (he who is of today) that devotes himself to a careful consideration of the issue of human maintenance – his concern is therefore focused on modern western man in particular. For Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, it is specifically that type of man that needs to be surpassed. And he needs to be surpassed – by those who are the first – because the issue of raw material maintenance is such as to inevitably generate utilitarian-oriented ideals that translate into mass idol-adoration. Life is thereby reduced to a mere material maintenance dissipating itself in such adoration. And all such mass ideals – originating as they do from the needs and considerations of material maintenance (the matter of small happinesses) – further reduce life to an incessant projection of time-present into a time-future that never ever truly arrives.
The utilitarian-based effeminately servile type who is enmeshed in the idol-adoration of particular ideals of social justice, and who is thereby struggling for the maintenance of some small happinesses, has come to dominate western civilization both ideologically and culturally. Nietzsche writes as follows of that type of western man: “That asketh and asketh and never tireth: ‘How is man to maintain himself best, longest, most pleasantly?’ Thereby – are they the masters of today.” (ibid.).
The ideological and cultural domination is effected through the spinning of grand ideologies – these are spun by state functionaries and are appropriated in their more vulgar form by the masses as a popular mentality. The utilitarian-based idol-adoration bent on western man’s material maintenance has been informed by the grand ideology of rationalism, a manner of thinking and conduct that has been critically investigated by Oakeshott himself, as we shall further see below. Like utilitarianism, the rationalist mode of thinking and living confines the human experience to the single-minded pursuit of maximizing utility. Elizabeth Corey, in a detailed study of Oakeshottian thinking entitled Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics (University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London, 2006), notes the following: “… Oakeshott saw Rationalism as an intellectual pathology that works to constrict the range of experience, since Rationalists value only those things and activities that encourage modern man in his goals of maximizing utility. Oakeshott’s work is a continual protest against the world’s demand for productivity and progress.” (p. 125).
The goal of maximizing utility is meant to secure the best, the longest, the most possibly pleasant maintenance of western man. This implies that the modern western milieu wishes to maximize utility so as to secure the small happinesses of the many-too-many. Such mode of thinking and living has thereby come to promote as its central ideological and political ideal the people’s petty virtues, yielding all too petty policies – and it is such petty policies that have come to dominate the modern western world. Nietzsche observes: “For today have the petty people become master; they all preach submission and humility and policy and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues.” (p. 277).
Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would wish to see the petty, utilitarian virtues of rationalist ideology to be surpassed – these could only be surpassed by asserting the enactment of a mode of being centered on the self-determining and morally self-determined individual. Both would reject whatever ideology of collectivism meant to secure the maintenance and the so-called common good of the many-too-many as a collectivity. Nietzsche exhorts the exceptional individual to overcome such manner of thinking and living – he writes: “Surpass, ye higher men, the petty virtues, the petty policy, the sand-grain considerateness, the ant-hill trumpery, the pitiable comfortableness, the ‘happiness of the greatest number’!” (ibid.).
We note that Nietzsche refers to that long et cetera of the petty virtues of the many-too-many – he does so because such petty virtues have come to assume a wide variety of closely interrelated ideological dimensions. One such dimension is the notion of the good citizen, and how the feelings of such a citizen ought to be defined by – what we would nowadays call – a sense of solidarity towards his fellow men. Nietzsche certainly has much to say with respect to the good and that so-called solidarity amongst the many-too-many.
As to those who call themselves the good, Nietzsche has this to say: “Especially did I find those who call themselves ‘the good’ the most poisonous flies; they sting in all innocence, they lie in all innocence; how could they – be just towards me! … He who liveth amongst the good – pity teacheth him to lie. Pity maketh stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable.” (p. 180).
The good citizen is good because he is said to feel empathy with those who suffer in his midst – as one of the many-too-many, he stands in solidarity with the pain of the other. Essentially, those who call themselves the good are consciously or unconsciously immersed in the ethical ideology of fellow-suffering. Nietzsche, however, radically reinterprets such empathetic solidarity towards the other – or towards the sufferer – by questioning the deeper motives of the good citizen. He asks him thus: “Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the name of fellow-suffering?” (p. 51).
By and by, empathetic solidarity can translate into a wish to emancipate one’s fellow-sufferer – and yet, asserts Nietzsche: “Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend’s emancipator.” (p. 54). And further, Nietzsche goes on to observe, he who is incapable of loosening his own fetters obviously remains a lustful slave, and lustful slaves cannot in any case have real friends.
A solidarity that translates into the wish to emancipate the other can be destructive, and especially so for the fellow-sufferer who was presumably meant to be emancipated. Nietzsche writes: “He, however, who maketh the lame man run, inflicteth upon him the greatest injury; for hardly can he run, when his vices run away with him …” (p. 136).
The ideological notion of the good citizen – and the concomitant notion of so-called solidarity towards all fellow-sufferers of the many-too-many – constitutes one of the basic common virtues of the petty people (as also those of their rulers). Being good and being in solidarity with the rest is simply being just – it is, in fact, an expression of justice itself. The ideological notion of justice, therefore, is founded on pity for the other. Nietzsche looks around him and observes as follows: “So much kindness, so much weakness do I see. So much justice and pity, so much weakness.” (p. 165). And in Nietzsche’s discussion of the ugliest man, we read: “That however – namely, pity – is called virtue itself at present by all petty people …” (p. 256).
Exactly how the Nietzschean Overman relates to the petty many-too-many remains a subtle issue which shall have to be further discussed below, and especially through the insights provided us by Oakeshott. But one thing is certain here: the exceptional individual, the Overman, is someone who has no time at all for a relationship based on pity, or based on the long et cetera of interrelated petty virtues. Nietzsche declares: “The Superman, I have at heart; that is the first and only thing to me – and not man; not the neighbour, not the poorest, not the sorriest …” (p. 277).
We have noted that that long et cetera of the petty virtues encompasses an ideological notion of justice founded on pity – Nietzsche investigates such notion of justice per se, or the notion of social justice as practiced by the populace and its state. He observes that this is a justice ultimately based on judges and executioners – it is therefore a notion of justice imposed by the state on all members of society through an at least latent coercion (and is especially imposed on whoever dares to deviate, for instance, from the imperatives of the petty virtues). Nietzsche writes: “I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel.” (p. 65). Speaking of the tarantulas, typical preachers of social justice, he observes: “… being judge seemeth to them bliss.” (p. 98). And he continues: “They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound.” (ibid.).
The social justice of the many-too-many, Nietzsche asserts, is a justice of judges where everyone is under investigation (this being the function of the sleuth-hounds). Whoever deviates from the long et cetera of the petty virtues and the grand ideals that are spun around such virtues – those grand utopian ideals of the many-too-many and their society – is suspected of anti-social conduct and can fall prey to the cold steel of the social and/or state judges. Once in a while, these grand utopian ideals are violently imposed on all and sundry in a society – it is there that the hangman is activated. And the hangman has one basic motive, it being vengeance – Nietzsche tells us that “In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance …” (ibid.). We know of course that Albert Camus would himself write much of the role of avenging hangmen in cases where we would see the violent imposition of utopian ideals onto a society, as in the case of the French or Russian Revolutions (cf. Nikos Vlachos, “From Proust’s Aristocracy to Sartre’s Outcasts”, Academia.edu, 2023). As we shall see, Oakeshott has himself as much to say on the imposition of whatever ideals onto societies.
The discourse of social justice, we are saying, gives birth to the hangman and the sleuth-hound – these are on the lookout for any deviation. And they are ready to pounce on him that dares to deviate from the idol-adoration of the many-too-many – to pounce on him who is, as Nietzsche names him, a non-adorer. That which gives the hangmen and sleuth-hounds the right to so pounce on such an individual is precisely the sense of right of the many-too-many. Nietzsche writes as follows: “To hunt him [i.e. the “non-adorer”] out of his lair – that was always called ‘sense of right’ by the people; on him do they still hound their sharpest-toothed dogs.” (p. 100).
Generally speaking, Nietzsche wishes to expose the fraudulent hypocrisy of all ideologies of social justice, and especially when these are imposed on society – such imposition occurs, of course, as soon as populace justice bonds with the rudiments of power. He notes: “And when they call themselves ‘the good and just’, forget not that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but – power!” (p. 98).
Now, one of the grandest of petty virtues of the ideology of social justice is that of equality, or of the equality of the many-too-many and their rulers. It is in the market-place of the modern western cities that the virtue of equality prevails. “Ye higher men”, writes Nietzsche, “learn this from me: on the market-place no one believeth in higher men. But if ye will speak there, very well! The populace, however, blinketh: ‘We are all equal’ … ‘Ye higher men’ – so blinketh the populace – ‘there are no higher men, we are all equal; man is man, before God – we are all equal!’ …” (p. 276).
As in the case of the hangmen and sleuth-hounds of social justice in general, whose basic motive is vengeance, so also in the case of the preachers of equality – the Nietzschean tarantulas – it is above all vengeance that is being sought. Naturally, the preachers of equality – as also the populace that they represent – wish to avenge any individual who happens not to be like those who declare themselves to be equal. Regarding all preachers of equality, Nietzsche writes as follows: “Revenge is in thy soul: wherever thou bitest, there ariseth black scab; with revenge thy poison maketh the soul giddy! … Thus do I speak unto you in parable, ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of equality! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones!” (p. 97).
Nietzsche wishes to expose that which truly lies beneath the discourse of equality, and the notion of social justice that supports such discourse. So as to effect such an exposure, he intends to provoke all preachers of equality in a manner that shall bring forth their vengeful impulses to light. And thus he continues: “Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word ‘justice’ …” (ibid.).
It may be asserted that a great part of the history of the western world has been marked by wars that have been instigated by none other than the vengeful impulses of the preachers of equality and the many-too-many that they have always represented. And it yet still remains the intention of the preachers of equality to continue perpetuating such conflicts – and to do just that in the name of their notion of social justice and equality. Nietzsche continues his exposure of the preachers of justice by telling us of their intentions. While the self-willed, independent individual would wish to redeem himself of all vestiges of revenge (since the wish for whatever revenge would stifle independence itself), the preachers of justice and equality would have it all too differently. Nietzsche writes: “Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas have it. ‘Let it be very justice for the world to become full of the storms of our vengeance’ – thus do they talk to one another.” (ibid.).
And the preachers of justice and equality continue their talk with one another as follows: “… ‘Vengeance we will use, and insult, against all who are not like us’ – thus do the tarantula-hearts pledge themselves.” (ibid.).
For the preachers of equality, the independent individual’s will to power for self-virtue has been abandoned in the name of the virtue of the will to equality for all. Nietzsche writes: “… ‘And “Will to Equality” – that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and against all that hath power will we raise an outcry!’ …” (ibid.).
And yet such a supposedly virtuous outcry for equality is in fact the outcry of the impotent – it is the impulsive protestation of those who are incapable of experiencing their own individuality, and are incapable of discovering their own independent wisdom. And it is for this reason alone that they yearn to be tyrants – yearn, that is, to impose their own virtue of equality on all of society. Nietzsche continues: “Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus in you for ‘equality’: your most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue-words!” (ibid.). In the last instance, Nietzsche asserts, the will to equality of the many-too-many is mere “Fretted conceit and suppressed envy …” (ibid.).
The morality of individuality – that of the independent individual who lives his life as a creative self-rolling wheel – is a morality that eschews the morality of the market-place and its virtue-signalling preachers of equality. The Nietzschean independent individual has no choice but to declare his exceptionality vis-à-vis the many-too-many who name themselves equal – Nietzsche writes as follows: “Before the populace, however, we will not be equal. Ye higher men, away from the market-place!” (p. 276).
The independently creative individual is able to reject the ideological concept of equality because he has already rejected the whole ideological paradigm of social justice on which that concept rests – and he can reject the paradigm of social justice since he lives his life as a sovereign individual capable of creating his own sense of justice, it being a justice organizing none other but his own self. And thus Nietzsche can assert: “With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice unto me: ‘Men are not equal’ …” (p. 98).
The creative individual, in fact, sees the reality of inequality everywhere in life and its various manifestations. Being himself creative, he has naturally come to possess a sense of beauty and an assessment of it – therein, as well, he yet again sees a certain inequality as to what constitutes the beautiful. “There is”, observes Nietzsche, “struggle and inequality even in beauty …” (p. 99).
We shall be discussing Oakeshott’s own critique of the concept of equality further below – especially the clear dividing line that he wishes to draw between, on the one hand, the ignorant mimicking of the masses bent on their materialistically utilitarian survival and, on the other, the independent, self-enacted individual free to experiment with his own life. These two types of categories of persons cannot possibly be considered to be equal. Likewise, we shall also be discussing Oakeshott’s more general critique of equality by examining his presentation of the social ideal of equality as a value willy-nilly imposed on all individuals in society by the state as an enterprise association, and as that form of state promotes a politics of faith centered on social justice and especially so on social equality. But before we come to the approach adopted by Oakeshottian thinking, it would be appropriate here to compare the Nietzschean critique of equality with the position taken by someone such as Friedrich Hayek.
To begin with, it should be said that a thinker such as Hayek would be in full agreement with Nietzsche (and of course with Oakeshott himself) that the question of equality as a social value would have to be rejected to the extent that it is a value that is simply being imposed on all and sundry by an all-inclusive state.
Within this context, and which may perhaps be seen to be a general philosophical position, Hayek articulates his own very specific critique of the ideological concepts of social justice and social equality. In a discussion hosted by William F. Buckley Jr., Hayek would begin to argue as follows: “The point we must start from is that the classical demand is that the state ought to treat all people equally in spite of the fact that they are very unequal. You can’t deduce from this the rule that because the people are unequal it ought to treat them unequally in order to make them equal, and that is what social justice amounts to.” (cf. Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: “Is there a case for private property?”, January 31, 2017, Episode S0300, Recorded on November 7, 1977).
Hayek would continue as follows on what it is that social justice amounts to – he says: “It’s a demand that the state should treat the different people differently in order to place them in the same position. The rule of equal treatment applies only to things the state has to do in any case, but … making people equal a goal of governmental policy would force government to treat people very unequally indeed.” (ibid.).
Were one to thus far compare the Nietzschean critique of equality with that of Hayek’s, one could make the following observations. Firstly, it would be of no real concern to Nietzsche as to whether or not a state treats its citizens equally. For Nietzsche, the exceptional individual would in no way wish to depend on whatever outside force (such as the state) so that his own exceptionality be secured – in fact, were he to depend on whatever state protection, his exceptionality would be fake. Secondly, however, the Nietzschean position on both the state and its ideological concept of equality would certainly overlap with that of Hayek’s when the latter speaks of governmental goals. For the Nietzschean approach, whatever reference to governmental or state goals would point to the production of mass ideology, and to the idol-adoration of mass ideals by the many-too-many. He would therefore fully concur with Hayek (as also definitely with Oakeshott, as we shall see) that whatever state intervention in the lives of individuals through governmental goals would be destructive for those individuals. As we have already seen, Nietzsche would consider whatever state intervention in the lives of individuals – and which would be an intervention via the grand goals for equality – as the implementation of those petty policies aimed at maintaining the small happinesses of the greatest number.
Whatever be the divergences and convergences in the thinking of Nietzsche and Hayek, one thing is certain: both would certainly assert that men are not equal, and that they can never be equal. When Hayek tells us that the rule of equal treatment applies only to things the state has to do as a matter of course for all of its citizens, he is obviously suggesting that equal treatment should be applied to all so that all have equal access to (what Oakeshott shall come to call) a framework whereby all individuals can pursue their own ends. But for Hayek such ends can be and will be unequal in quality, importance, and consequence. The very Nietzschean observation that there is struggle and inequality in all of life would yet once more simply be confirmed.
It goes without saying, of course, that both Nietzsche and Hayek would further agree on yet another principle – viz. that no state should ever be given the right to regulate the quality, equality, or inequality of its citizens. Both, in other words, would reject the state-as-idol that poses as the regulating finger of god, or as the regulating finger of social justice. Government policy simply has no right to impose its own oughts, rules, and goals of social justice, thereby deciding on how to treat each and every individual. Such a monster, as Nietzsche has called it, ultimately imposes a uniformity over all of society – and in that way it crushes the potential uniqueness of an individual. Both Nietzsche and Hayek would agree with the Oakeshottian observation that the modern western state has mutated, from a framework of civil associations, to a leviathan-type enterprise peddling an all-inclusive faith that discourages (or even outlaws) the morality of individuality.
When Hayek is arguing against the concept of social justice, and especially when that is imposed as an ideology and policy by the state on all in society, he is essentially defending the freedom and independence of the individual. In so doing, he is above all for the sovereign individual – and would thus presumably be supportive of an individual’s sovereign sense of justice. For Nietzsche, at least, not all can be sovereign individuals, and not all can cultivate their own sovereign sense of justice. When Nietzsche – like Hayek – rejects the imposition of the ideology of social justice and equality on all members of society, he is in fact recognizing the exceptional individual’s own concept of justice vis-à-vis the petty values of the many-too-many. Not only are people unequal with respect to one another, there are also those very few individuals who are exceptional enough to relate to society as the Overman – their sense of justice is beyond all social sense of good and evil. We shall have to come back to this position in much greater detail below – we may in any case state here that the concept of the Overman would not in any way threaten the lives and (whatever sense of) freedom of others. For Nietzsche, the Overman is merely a law unto himself and for himself. For Oakeshott, as we shall see, the justice of the sovereign individual would be of no threat to others as the rest would be protected by that framework of civil associations that is meant to function as a neutral umpire within the social order – one may assume that Hayek’s own position would more or less tally with such an approach.
Finally, one may simply note here that there is definitely a certain conceptual correlation between the thinking of Nietzsche and that of Hayek, and given that the latter has argued against state centralism, state power and the imposition of mass ideology. Hayek’s libertarian anti-statism can certainly be said to overlap with much of Nietzsche’s own critique of the state-as-idol. On the other hand, Nietzsche’s own exclusive concern – as also that of Oakeshott’s – is definitely not centered around economics and the maintenance of the populace, and we know that much. Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would stand over and above the world of politics and economics – they would rather focus on the question of aesthetic values and how these may be created and re-created by the self-determined individual. Both would have little faith in the modern masses, their narrow materialistic concerns, and the politics of faith that ensue from such concerns.
Nietzsche’s own general position with respect to social equality has been well summarized by Terence Irwin – he presents the Nietzschean critique of equality as a critique of the modern democratic spirit, and how such spirit is bent on both penalizing the exceptional individual and on consoling the unexceptional one. In the prologue to his study entitled Ethics Through History: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020), Irwin writes as follows: “Nietzsche questions the claim – accepted by sentimentalists, rationalists, and Kant – that we have good reasons for accepting moral principles and acting on them. We can see why this claim is open to question if we consider the origins of our moral beliefs and attitudes. They arise from the resentment of inferior people who feel humiliated by the achievements of others. The effect of general observance of moral principles can be seen in the modern democratic spirit, which restrains and penalizes the development of any capacities and talents that tend to make some people superior to others. Belief in the equal moral value of everyone is a consolation for inferior people. When we recognize this psychological basis for our moral outlook, we will be less inclined to suppose that it has any special authority.”
For Nietzsche, all of the values of the market-place and its populace – and as these have been presented here – can only but lead to the self-destruction of a civilization, it being that of the modern western world. The values of the populace are nihilistically self-destructive – they constitute that spirit of gravity that is the nihilism of western modernity itself, and which is a modernity based on democracy and social justice. The ultimate self-destruction of a western people lies in the fact that such populace has come to accept an imposed valuation of things – its very own state is itself expressive of a slave-morality, it being a democratic state of the many-too-many that penalizes (or even outlaws) the exceptional individual. Both the state and its populace have come to be burdened by that spirit of gravity that nihilistically resents life itself, as it also resents the self-love of the independent individual (we shall have to come back to the question of self-love).
Since western democratic civilization is expressive of a resentment towards whatever self-love of the independent, self-rolling individual, it is above all a civilization that is destined to produce and reproduce mediocrity. And thus Nietzsche shall speak of the small people – their small existences, their even smaller happinesses – and of how they shall ultimately come to perish. On the question of the decline and fall of the western mass man, he writes as follows: “Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish – … By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions!” (p. 167).
In summarizing the values of the market-place and its populace, one may say that it is these very values that have come to define much of western democratic modernity. And the very particular form that such democratic milieu has come to take has meant a diffusion of power whereby the rulers are the ruled, and vice versa. It has been precisely such diffusion of power that has given birth to the mass ideology of social equality and social justice. Embedded in the mass ideology of equality is the need to resent individual exceptionality and preserve mass mediocrity. The passive acceptance of such an ideology – and especially a popular acceptance of its all-inclusive imposition by a state that defines itself in terms of a politics of faith – has allowed for the ubiquity of the slave morality. What is it, in the last instance, that reigns in this particular form of the western democratic milieu? It is that banal wish to be a trader or a shopkeeper – all are or wish to be so. It is their mere material survival – or perhaps their mere materialistic ambition – that constitutes their basic sense of entertainment. As we shall see further below, even the historical past of such a civilization was to be reduced to the needs of such a slavish, materialistic populace – Oakeshott shall argue that very much of the historical past of the western world would come to be treated in accordance with the practical needs of the populace. He shall argue that a certain practical history would come to be articulated by the state and its intellectual organs, and it would be imposed as a state ideology on the many-too-many. It would be those very masses, however, that would themselves wish to read or speak of a past that suits their present practical needs.
3j. Thou-shalt
Mass ideology – and the mass idol-adoration that goes with it – amounts to an imposed valuation of all things. The valuation of all things is articulated and imposed on the many-too-many by the famous wise ones, who are of the populace and who represent that docile populace. What Nietzsche shall call the dragon of mass ideology goes so far as to even usurp the valuation of things dating from time-past, and it presents such valuation as its own (it being by nature a thief). The right and the initiative of the individual to value things for himself and in terms of his own will is disallowed – the will as such is neutralized. Henceforth, all is reduced to a Thou-shalt, and the many-too-many bow down and pray to such Thou-shalt.
Nietzsche tells us how the dragon of Thou-shalt confronts the spirit of the lion, it being precisely that type of exceptional individual that wishes to create his own space (and a lordship therein) for an independent creation of new values. He writes as follows: “… ‘Thou-shalt’ lieth in its [the individual’s] path, sparkling with gold – a scale-covered beast; and on every scale glittereth golden, ‘Thou shalt!’ … The values of a thousand years glitter on these scales, and thus speaketh the mightiest of all dragons: ‘All the values of things – glitter on me’ ...” (p 22). And the dragon continues to denounce whatever will to independent value-creation on the part of the individual, as it has already usurped all values – it speaks thus: “All values have already been created, and all created values – do I represent. Verily, there shall be no “I will” any more.’ Thus speaketh the dragon.” (ibid.).
In contrast to the exceptional individual, who remains lion-willed in the face of the dragon, the many-too-many have come to accept their plight, that of being willed by state and/or mass ideology. And by accepting such plight they ultimately become weary-o’-the world itself. Unlike the exceptional individual, who delights in the creativity of discernment regarding the things of the world, the willed many-too-many simply allow themselves to be played by all the waves that circumscribe them. And all this translates into a weary nihilism, it being the self-destructive stamp of the slave. Nietzsche writes of this as follows: “To discern: that is delight to the lion-willed! But he who hath become weary is himself merely ‘willed’; with him play all the waves … And such is always the nature of weak men: they lose themselves on their way. And at last asketh their weariness: ‘Why did we ever go on the way? All is indifferent!’ … To them soundeth it pleasant to have preached in their ears: ‘Nothing is worth while! Ye shall not will!’ That, however, is a sermon for slavery.” (p. 200).
For the individual that is lion-willed, and for whom life is a well of delight, the state and/or its mass ideology of Thou-shalt is nothing but “illusion and arbitrariness” (p. 22).
Parenthetically, it should be noted here that Nietzsche does not necessarily reject all forms of illusion, at least with respect to a people, or peoples. His is a rejection of state-imposed illusions of Thou-shalt that neutralize the will of both a people and – perhaps principally – that of an individual. As regards the former, it may be argued that Nietzsche would certainly recognize the historically efficacious role of – what Oakeshott has himself termed in his own investigations – a people’s morality of habit of behaviour, a morality and manner of conduct that could of course itself be riddled with its own particular illusions. Such a type of morality – born of historical habit – is not akin to a rationalist ideology imposed by a state and its famous wise men. It may be informed by particular historical illusions, but it is in no way an arbitrary phenomenon – and it is not arbitrary precisely because of its time-honoured historical roots. Importantly, since it is not something imposed on a people, it is a habit that is open to the self-creative potentiality of that people as it makes its own history. Being potentially creative, further, it steers clear of nihilism – and Nietzsche has himself identified peoples in history that have steered clear of whatever symptoms of nihilism (the concept of the morality of habit of behaviour, a central concept that has determined Oakeshott’s own reading of the thinking of Nietzsche, shall have to be discussed in much greater detail below).
3k. The for and against of the masses
The western-type mass man is immersed in the dense fluid of mass ideology, and he is therefore imbued with the mass culture that defines that ideology in everyday practices. That dense fluid of ideology and cultural practices is an all-consuming arrow that points to an omnipresent Thou-shalt. All bow down and pray to it – whatever infringements are penalized, both by the organs of the state and, more importantly, by public opinion itself.
All those outside the limits of the grand Thou-shalt are hated by the many-too-many. Since, as Nietzsche has observed, all great existence is blamable for the circumscribed souls of the many-too-many, whoever dares to be an exceptional individual is viewed as the bad conscience of the populace. And it is for this reason that both state and populace hate that type of individual. Nietzsche speaks as follows to the exceptional individual: “Yea, my friend, the bad conscience art thou of thy neighbours; for they are unworthy of thee. Therefore they hate thee, and would fain suck thy blood.” (p. 50). Whatever bad conscience is to be hated, for it lives outside the well-defined limits of the all-consuming ideology of Thou-shalt. The radical implication here is that all ideology – and which is always a mass ideology – translates into hatred per se. And all of ideology translates into hatred since, by its very nature, it is a positioning for and against something. That is the necessary for and against of the masses.
The masses are in urgent need of a for-something-to-believe-in and an against-something- else-to hate – they are always in dire need of an absolute Yea or an absolute Nay, and they expect the famous wise ones (or whichever intellectual) to satisfy that need. The masses, that is, need to believe in and follow something absolute – and they are impatient for their absolute truths. It is in mass political ideology that the many-too-many find such For-Against, or such Yea-Nay, and which amounts to their own existentially necessary absolute truth of things. They look to the state and its organs (such as political parties) for guidance and, above all, for their protection (Oakeshott shall himself have much to say about that type person who is in need of state protection, as we shall see). Speaking of the clattering buffoons that inhabit the market-place, and addressing himself to those few, exceptional individuals who could potentially be outside the ideological ambit of Thou-shalt, Nietzsche observes: “But the hour presseth them; so they press thee. And also from thee they want Yea or Nay. Alas! Thou wouldst set thy chair betwixt For and Against? … On account of those absolute and impatient ones, be not jealous, thou lover of truth! Never yet did truth cling to the arm of an absolute one.” (pp. 48-49).
Thou-shalt delineates the absolute – all of the many-too-many think, feel and conduct themselves in accordance with that absolute. And yet, and right within that delineated moral horizon, one has a motley of different interests competing with one another. And thus one observes that there are different interpretations of Thou-shalt – this is the phenomenon of the Babelian-type verbal disputes that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott have spoken of in their own way. Such verbal disputes yield a variety of conflicting Thou-shalts within the grand Thou-shalt. Remember how Nietzsche describes the ferocity of these verbal disputes and how those who are engaged in them “hound one another, and know not whither! They inflame one another, and know not why!” But there is one thing that they do think they know – and that is that their own particular Thou-shalt and their own particular For and Against are such as to express the most authentic and the most righteous interpretation of the grand Thou-shalt that organizes all of society. The internal divisions of the many-too-many are ideological struggles meant to confirm the ideological supremacy of their own definition of the grand and omnipresent Thou-shalt, and its decrees of social justice and social equality. All thereby sanction and uphold the prevailing ideology of Thou-shalt as articulated by the state and its famous wise ones. All see themselves as the good conscience of society – all are, in the last instance, of the absolute type.
And thus Nietzsche admonishes the exceptional individual – or the higher man – as follows: “Go out of the way of all such absolute ones! They are a poor sickly type, a populace-type: they look at this life with ill-will; they have an evil eye for this earth.” (p. 283).
They are of the poor sickly type with an ill-will and an evil eye because they bear the self-destructive stamp of the slave, in the sense already discussed above – and they bear that stamp since they all have come to accept an imposed valuation of things, it being that Thou-shalt. They have come to accept it as an absolute, and they are therefore of the absolute type, and thus they engage in ideological idolatry and in For-Against ideological struggles revolving round such idolatry. And since they are all immersed in the dense fluid of ideological idolatry and ideological verbal games, they have ultimately all come to live as mere replicas of one another – this, however, can only but yield a social uniformity.
As we shall see further below, it would be precisely because of the prevalence of ideological idolatry in the western world, and the danger of social uniformity that goes with it, that Oakeshott would always and clearly express a deep aversion to whatever entanglement with all ideological struggles – and that aversion would even include whatever entanglement with social movements expressive of conservative ideology itself. Such an Oakeshottian stance is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s own Zarathustrian morality of individuality which, as we have thus far seen, would be a morality that stands over and above all ideological idolatry – over and above, that is, the For and Against of the masses in the market-place; as also over and above that Thou-shalt that is both of the state and its famous wise ones and of the populace itself.
We may at this point examine the social phenomenon of idolatry in some greater detail, and which shall help us understand the sense in which ideological idolatry in the western democratic milieu ultimately comes to yield a certain social uniformity.
3l. From idolatry to uniformity
Modern western idolatry may be defined as the mass idol adoration of a particular system of virtues enshrined in an ideological discourse. Such system of virtues – and more especially the essence of a grand virtue around which orbit all other little virtuous truths – is what it is as it has been appointed to be so. And it has been appointed by the state and its network of institutions, by the famous wise ones, and by a populace that is in existential need of such an appointment. The term appointed virtue shall prove to be of great use to us as we endeavour to further understand both ideological idolatry and the social uniformity that such idolatry leads to – above all, however, the term shall allow us to more fully appreciate Oakeshott’s own presentation of moral ideals pointing to a perfect society (or what he terms perfectionist moral formulae) as an idolatry that has been appointed by rationalist ideologues to homogenize modern western society.
Writing of great cities, Nietzsche observes as follows: “All lusts and vices are here at home; but here there are also the virtuous; there is much appointable appointed virtue – … Much appointable virtue with scribe-fingers …” (p. 171).
And it is the populace that prays to such appointed virtue – and it does so as a begging people, for it is always in urgent need of that virtue. Nietzsche continues: “… unto all … that cometh from the court [viz. “from on high”] do the mendicant people pray, and all appointable mendicant virtues.” (p. 172).
In keeping with the hierarchy of commanding discussed above, all of the populace – right across and up and down the social hierarchy – pray to and all engage in the adoration of a single generic virtue, which is a pivotal appointable virtue enunciating social justice, and which makes all who pray and adore such virtue to be virtuous. And all of the many-too-many come to pray to a hegemonic prince, himself appointed to encapsulate that virtue. Nietzsche writes as follows: “… ‘I serve, thou servest, we serve’ – so prayeth all appointable virtue to the prince, that the merited star may at last stick on the slender breast!” (ibid.).
Nietzsche exhorts the exceptional individual to distance himself from all idolaters, whom he sees – as we know – as the superfluous ones in need of state protection. The very taste and disposition of the Nietzschean higher man is such as to detach himself from both the idol (be it the state-as-idol or its appointable virtues) and the idolater. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks of all idolaters as follows: “Madmen they all seem to me, and clambering apes, and too eager. Badly smelleth their idol to me, the cold monster; badly they all smell to me, these idolaters.” (p. 46). And he continues: “My brethren, will ye suffocate in the fumes of their maws and appetites! Better break the windows and jump into the open air! … Do go out of the way of the bad odour! Withdraw from the idolatry of the superfluous!” (ibid.). Such exhortation, of course, is again very much reminiscent of the Oakeshottian position – we have explained that Oakeshott shall himself ask of the modern western individual to stay well away from all political idol-adoration, and therefore away from all the ideological ideals of perfectionism promoted by the state, its political parties, and their political mass movements (and as already mentioned, such personal distancing would also encompass whatever social movements happen to espouse, in mass ideological veneer, any cherished values of Oakeshottian political philosophy).
Addressing himself, not to the many-too-many, but to the famous wise ones specifically, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has no choice but to question their presumed uprightness – for whatever trace of uprightness has been (or can come to be) lost in their venerating hearts. It has been (or can come to be) lost, in other words, given their own particular indulgence in idol-worshipping, it being a veneration of the idols of the state and of the many-too-many. This is what Zarathustra has to say to them: “Ah, for me to learn to believe in your ‘conscientiousness’, ye would first have to break your venerating will.” (p. 100).
For Nietzsche, the individual who is authentically conscientious is free of all idol-veneration – he writes: “Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from deities and adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, grand and lonesome: so is the will of the conscientious.” (p. 101). But it is all too obvious here that Nietzsche speaks of that type of individual who is, not only beyond the morality of social equality, but is himself superior to all those who happen to be exceptional vis-à-vis the many-too-many. Nietzsche’s Overman stands over and above both the famous wise ones and the many-too-many that they represent.
Very few can endure the dangers and the teeth-chattering of such a stance in life. “Better even a little teeth-chattering”, says Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “than idol-adoration! So willeth my nature. And especially have I a grudge against all ardent, steaming, steamy fire-idols.” (p. 168).
The Overman is that type of exceptional individual whose nature it is to accept the risks of living as a self-rolling will (accept that teeth-chattering, of which Oakeshott shall also have much to say) rather than yield to the small comforts – or stomach the various slave happinesses – offered by the idol-adoration of the modern democratic world. It is this idol-adoration of the western democratic milieu that Nietzsche shall also refer to as ass-worship, it being the appointed mass ideals and the mass ideology of social justice and equality (also described as the people’s carts above).
The ass-worship, deeply symptomatic of the modern democratic age, is articulated in “a pious, strange litany”, and such litany is always “in praise of the adored and censed ass” (p. 302).
And what does that litany of ass-worship actually say? The populace speaks as follows of the ass: “He carrieth our burdens, he hath taken upon him the form of a servant, he is patient of heart and never saith Nay …” (ibid.). The implication is that the burdens of life have been lifted from the back of the individual – these are now carried by the idol of the ass, and the concomitant appointed virtues. A further implication is that the individual is now no longer given the opportunity to harness such burdens to his own creative will – the will of individuality, or even the potential will of a creative people, has been deadened and dulled.
But to deaden and dull the creative will is to produce and reproduce mediocrity – and mediocrity can only ultimately lead to mass stupidity. The stupidity is shared by all who are entangled in the idol-adoration of the ass, or who bow to mass ass-worship. Nietzsche writes: “What hidden wisdom it is to wear long ears, and only to say Yea and never Nay! Hath he [the ass] not created the world in his own image, namely, as stupid as possible?” (ibid.).
Nietzsche is describing the moral life of the western world as he observed it around him at the time – the moral ideals of such world centered on the appointed virtues of (what he called) ass-worship. The ass-worship would constitute the modern idolatry of the masses, all of whom would espouse the ideals and virtues of social justice and social equality. All would live and struggle within the dense fluid of an ideology of social ideals that persistently pointed to a paradisiacal future wherein all would be equal to one another.
In his own time, and as already touched on above, Oakeshott would himself go on to present modern western idolatry as the worshipping of an ideology based on perfectionist moral formulae, the built-in virtues of which would be appointed by the famous wise ones of a leviathan state. With reference to the moral life of the societies of the western world, Oakeshott would write as follows: “… every moral ideal is potentially an obsession; the pursuit of moral ideals [by western society] is an idolatry in which particular objects are recognized as ‘gods’ …” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 69).
Oakeshott would be deeply critical of all grand ideals espoused by the modern mass man of western societies, and the appointed formulaic abstractions that all such ideals would entail. For him, ideals and their abstract comprehension of life would inevitably be outside the realm of individual experience, and therefore outside the will of such individual experience – mass social ideals and formulaic abstractions concocted by rationalist intellectuals would, in fact, imply the absence of will on the part of the individual. As we shall see, the question of ideals and theoretical abstractions would – for the Oakeshottian project – be an issue that is directly related to the more vital question of willing one’s life, or alternatively of being willed in one’s life by externally imposed social powers of idol-adoration (for a useful discussion of the Oakeshottian rejection of social ideals cf., as well, Corey, YouTube, op. cit.).
Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would agree that social idolatry leads to social uniformity – for both, the imposition of ideals on society by a state-as-idol would eventually translate into the imposition of social uniformity. Alluding to the question of uniformity, Nietzsche writes as follows: “I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors [of knowledge]! ‘Uniform’ one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!” (p. 43).
For Nietzsche, whatever servile nature would yield uniformity, and it would do so because a servile nature cannot uphold the sovereignty of the self – this leads to social uniformity. The Nietzschean approach to the issue of uniformity would go as follows: the servile person willingly abandons the self, opting for selflessness; but being selfless means that one has less of a self; and having less of a self means one has less of a unique individuality; and having less of a unique individuality means that one has reduced one’s person to a mere replica of others – replication produces and reproduces social uniformity. Zarathustra speaks of the question of selflessness as follows: “The spurious wise, however – all the priests, the world-weary, and those whose souls are of feminine and servile nature – oh, how hath their game all along abused selfishness? … And precisely that was to be virtue and was to be called virtue – to abuse selfishness! And ‘selfless’ – so did they wish themselves with good reason, all those world-weary cowards and cross-spiders!” (pp. 185-186).
Oakeshott’s own critique of modern-day perfectionist moral formulae is itself a warning that such imposed formulae are interchangeable with an imposed social uniformity. Corey, who wishes to focus on the impact that the Augustinian manner of thinking had on Oakeshott’s own project, writes as follows: “One additional point is worth mentioning with regard to Oakeshott’s Augustinianism, namely, that his objections to certain defective understandings of modern politics are strikingly similar to Augustine’s campaign against Pelagius in the years of the early fifth century. Augustine famously chided the Pelagians for pridefully assuming that they could conquer human imperfection and become godlike. In the same way, Oakeshott berated Rationalists for their faulty assumption that human beings can impose perfection and uniformity upon their political arrangements.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 11). Unlike Nietzsche, who would see the ideological attack on individualistic self-love as the decisive catalyst for social uniformity, Oakeshott would rather maintain – at least at some stage of his thinking – that the intended uniformity could somehow be curbed so long as the operations of the leviathan state as an all-inclusive enterprise association could be contained generally, or could be contained through an individual’s own assertive enactment of his will (Nietzsche would of course concur with the latter case).
But Oakeshott would in any case be consistent in his critique of the rationalist western politics of faith positing a new modern idol that pursues both a politics of formulaic perfectionism and a politics of social uniformity. Oakeshott, Corey goes on to note, “describes the two general characteristics of Rationalism as the “politics of perfection” and the “politics of uniformity” and contends that Rationalism is indeed the combination of both: “the imposition of a uniform condition of perfection upon human conduct” …” (ibid., p. 167).
For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, whatever form of imposed social uniformity – or whatever imposition of the worldly idols of the market-place in pursuit of social perfection – could only lead to a tragic dead-end for the whole of society. But there can be exceptions to this dead-end. While the worshipping of worldly idols can only but lead to a woeful dead-end, the exceptional individual stands over and above such nihilistic self-destruction, for he refuses to partake of and practically engage in the this-worldliness of things (Oakeshott shall himself differentiate between the state of being in the world and that of being of it, as will be discussed further below). Nietzsche’s Zarathustra observes the God’s-hell of this strange world, but absolutely refuses to be in whatever way entangled with the cares and woes of such world. He simply lets the many-too-many hold on to some God, or hold on to whatever idol-adoration, though he himself shall allow no one at all to lean on him as some kind of prop. And thus part of Zarathustra’s drunken song goes as follows: “… grasp after some God; grasp not after me … but yet am I no God, no God’s hell: deep is its woe …” (p. 311). And the song goes on as follows: “God’s woe is deeper, thou strange world! Grasp at God’s woe, not at me! What am I! A drunken sweet lyre …” (ibid.).
Grasping after some God – the ideologically motivated idol-adoration and the mass worshipping that accompanies it – is in itself a shame. But it is a shame only in the eyes of the Overman – as for the rest of society, it is an absolutely necessary protective measure. With respect to all forms of worshipful praying, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows to the potentially exceptional individual – he says: “It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, and whoever hath his conscience in his head. For thee it is a shame to pray!” (p. 175).
3m. The state as the death of peoples
For Nietzsche at least, and based on all that has thus far been discussed, the state per se has meant – or will yet mean – the death of peoples (let alone the individuality of persons). The state renders the people small – it thereby causes their decline. Nietzsche writes: “Hourly do they become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller – poor herbs, poor earth!” (p. 167).
The state renders the people small and unfruitful – it is therefore a destroyer of people. And it is a destroyer of people because it imposes on them both the threat of coercion and the ideological force of consent. The threat of coercion is the dangling of a sword over their heads; the ideological force of consent is effectuated through the manufacturing of wants amongst them. Wants take the form of cravings, hungers, or so-called substantive material needs – and it is on the basis of such substantive wants that people are mobilized and organized around an ideological consensus concentrated on utopian ideals.
The state is a destroyer of people given precisely this imposition of coercion and consent. But the modern state’s destructive practices can be directly contrasted to the creators of yesteryear – to those creators of a historical and noble time-past. These creators created peoples by affirming them – and they created and affirmed peoples by simply serving life. They served life by serving faith and love, these being – according to the Oakeshottian reading of Nietzsche – manifestations of a people’s morality of habit of behaviour. Creators of time-past, in other words, created by affirming life and the life of a people that was itself organically united by a morality of habit of behaviour that instinctively affirmed life – viz. a morality of self-faith and of self-love (or of a proud self-respect). And all this would be achieved in the absence of both an externally imposed coercion and the imposition of any idol-adoration.
Nietzsche expresses such positions through what Zarathustra has to say about the state per se – we read: “Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life … Destroyers are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state; they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.” (p. 45).
Concerning the central Nietzschean position on the modern western state, Zarathustra’s words sum it all up when he says the following: “A state? What is that? Well! Open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of peoples.” (ibid.).
For Oakeshott especially, the death of peoples equals the demise of a people’s self-imposed morality of habit of behaviour. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, it is the rise of a state that imposes its ideology, its faith, and its morality on a spineless people that constitutes the death of such people. Oakeshott’s own response to such a state of affairs, however, is not exactly that of Nietzsche’s. For Nietzsche, as we have seen, the state is simply the point at which both a people, and ultimately any independent individual, can cease to exist. For Oakeshott the political philosopher, the case is more complex – he shall come to entertain different forms of state, and as these have more or less materialized in the different stages of western civilization. One such form of state, Oakeshott shall attempt to show, would help salvage both the individual and the morality of individuality. It is to such different forms of state that we shall now turn – and therefore turn to a slightly more systematic exposition of the Oakeshottian project.
- Forms of state
For Nietzsche, the state can kill a people, as it can crush individuality. We have said that for Oakeshott things are in some ways different – he would rather pose what is to him a key question: what form of state is it that does such killing and crushing, and what form of state does not? For him, the former type of state is that which has come to be established as an ideological force expressive of the Babelian politics of faith (or the state as an enterprise association). The latter type of state is what Oakeshott shall identify as a social structure functioning as would a civil association. We shall need to consider Oakeshott’s presentation of these two different forms of state, and draw a number of conclusions regarding their respective impact on a populace and – above all – on the individual (and especially the exceptional individual).
4a. The politics of faith versus civil association
Oakeshott attempts to present us with these two different forms of western state by adopting a historical perspective. But before we proceed any further, it is of importance to clarify at this point that his historically-based distinction between these two different forms of state is not categorical – and it need not be, nor can it be given the complexities of human history and conduct. The distinction is rather a matter of relative primacy as to which of the two forms of governance happen to prevail within a particular historical conjuncture. Both forms can in fact co-exist and may even overlap – the real question is this: which of these two conflicting forms of human organization is in the last instance overdetermining at a particular point of historical time? On the other hand, Oakeshott does seem to see the modern western world – and especially its postmodern residue – as a milieu that has come to be one-sidedly dominated by an all-powerful and all-consuming state-as-idol (in the Nietzschean sense as discussed above).
Corey points to both the Oakeshottian historical perspective as also to Oakeshott’s specific critique of present-day western politics. She writes: “Oakeshott … spends much effort in setting out damning critiques of certain modern approaches to politics and tracing their development through the last five centuries of European history.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 156).
From a historical perspective, the politics of faith of the modern or postmodern state-as-idol can be said to be mainly rooted in, and can above all be traced back to, the 17th and 18th centuries of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, a milieu that would establish rationalism as the epistemological key to all of the truths of the world. Based on rationalist ideology, the modern politics of faith would usher in a rationalist morality that would belittle culture and the aesthetic moment – and especially that of the creative individual. It would therefore belittle or wish to bedwarf the individual per se, thereby positing a collectivist politics of ideological faith centered on a social justice for the many. The rationalist morality of the politics of faith would therefore be expressive of a resentment of the burdens of individuality. In its interminable struggles to attain social justice and a future paradisiacal society, it would further be symptomatic of a collective incapacity to live time-present to the full. And yet, it would dogmatically insist on a gnostic arrogance all of its own, based on its formulaic truths of the world.
For Oakeshott, this historically traceable modern-day morality of rationalism would have to be directly counterposed to a morality of aesthetic value (be it that of a people, or that of an individual). Corey captures this central Oakeshottian perspective as follows: “If his [Oakeshott’s] favored view of morality is aesthetic, then the morality of Rationalism, of collectivism, and of the “politics of faith” is emphatically not aesthetic. It is the morality of those who would build a Tower of Babel, who look for ready-made codes of conduct, and who resent what they see as the burdens of individuality. This morality is perfectionist in character – Pelagian, as Oakeshott repeatedly puts it – and gnostic. It expresses a fundamental dissatisfaction with the world and an inability to live in the present.” (ibid.).
The prevalence of the morality of rationalism would play a major role in determining the particular form of state that would arise in the western world – it would, in other words, have a major impact on the structures and practices of the western form of state (or on the form of various types of western states).
In terms of the unfolding historical process, of course, it would literally mean an ensuing struggle between two opposing conceptions of the nature of the modern European state. While such opposing conceptions of the western state would never be materialized in the real world as two exclusive and absolutely irreconcilable entities demarcating discrete historical conjunctures of western history, it would in fact be their very conflictual interface that would ultimately yield the nature of the European state. With reference to Oakeshott’s thinking on the nature of the modern European state, Edmund Neill writes as follows: “… [this] was best analyzed as the combination of (or at least struggle between) two opposing conceptions [of the state], namely a purposive ‘teleocratic’ one, and a goalless framework that respected individual differences.” (cf. Edmund Neill, Michael Oakeshott – Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers, Series Editor: John Meadowcroft – Volume 8, The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2010, p. 52).
It goes without saying that this tension in the political, ideological, and social history of the western world – and with respect to Europe in particular – would constitute a major division pivoted around one’s understanding of the relationship between the individual and the collectivity that surrounds him. For Oakeshott, the history of European politics has been a history of tensions between the forces of individualism, otherwise referred to as societas, and those of collectivism, also referred to as universitas (cf., for instance, Luke O’Sullivan, “Michael Oakeshott on European Political History”, Academia.edu, 2000). And we are saying that it would be the ongoing, consecutive struggles between these two major forces that would determine, not only the form of state, but especially the relationship between the state and the individual.
Generally speaking, the forces of individualism would maintain a very clear-cut position on the issue of the state versus the individual. For such ideological forces, if the existence of the state is to be at all justified as an entity, such justification need rest on a recognition of the primacy of individual consciousness – the state, in other words, need respect absolutely the uniqueness of an individual’s life experiences. This would mean that the form of state must be such as to affirm individuality. But such a state of affairs – materialized in a civil association – would depend on the very character of citizens: one would here speak of a state whose associates would themselves embrace individuality. The implication is that the forces of individuality would be such as to consciously reject a Babelian form of state – a state, that is, which rewards collective solidarity and the concomitant social uniformity (one may already detect here a clear rejection of the values of the many-too-many as advanced in the thinking of Nietzsche).
Oakeshottian thinking encapsulates the essence of such individualist position with respect to the state – Corey presents Oakeshott’s political philosophy as follows: “The basis of all political theory, he [Oakeshott] maintained in an unpublished notebook on Plato’s Republic, “must be sought in the individual consciousness … The justification and nature of the State is in the need of men” … And, in a striking anticipation of his later critique of behaviorism …, he argued that the raw material of political science “is to be found in the lives and experiences of a schoolmaster, a University teacher, a social worker, or a thoughtful man with many friends, rather than in those of a politician or a collector of statistics.” All of this supports a relatively straightforward thesis, namely, that politics will necessarily be incomprehensible unless one has a firm grasp of the character of human beings as the “raw material” of politics. As late as 1975 Oakeshott reiterated this view, noting in On Human Conduct that the character of a state depends on the character of its associates. A state whose associates embrace individuality will be quite different from one in which solidarity and conformity are prized.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 5).
For the individualist position and its morality of individuality (and which would be a morality of an individual’s aesthetic values), the key issue would come down to this: it is the concrete person who needs to understand – and who must capable of and willing to understand – his own self and his own place in the world. He must, in other words, have to make a number of fundamental choices with respect to society and to the form of state that he tolerates so that his own independent self be served. He has to make a choice as to how he shall orient himself in the world. Such choice would constitute an individual’s moral decision regarding his relationship with the rest of society. In making such choice, he shall come to belong to one of two contrasting ideal types: either the type that wills to live his life in the context of a civil association, or the type that is in dire need of an enterprise association. In the case of the former, it would be the self-created morality of individuality that would be affirmed; in the case of the latter, it would be the collective faith of collectivism that would be espoused.
With respect to Oakeshott’s emphasis on the vital importance of individual choice and the implications of this, Corey notes as follows: “… Oakeshott is concerned with a fundamental choice that must be made in human life. This choice might be described as Augustinian, for it is the question of how to orient oneself in the world. Oakeshott presents this choice in many different ways over the course of his career. Sometimes, as in “Religion and the World” [1929], it is presented as an explicitly moral decision that an individual must make. More often, this choice appears in the contrasting ideal types Oakeshott sets out as ways of thinking about moral and political life: faith and skepticism, civil and enterprise association, individuality and collectivism. All these expressions, however, point to the same fundamental division in human experience; all are markedly different and oppositional ways of understanding oneself and one’s place in the world.” (ibid., p. 22).
Now, we know that the long-term historical struggle between the two opposing conceptions of the state – viz. the purposive teleocratic state versus a goalless statal framework – would more or less come to be decided by the Age of Reason, and the prevalence of the ideology of rationalism. And thus we would see the gradual emergence of a Babelian form of state, or that leviathan scale-covered beast of the western world, and which would be the mightiest of all dragons, as Nietzsche would put it. Its prevalence, of course, would not and could not possibly be absolute in the real world – consider, perhaps, the case of Connecticut’s New Haven in the period of the 1960’s, where government would function as mere mediator in a pluralistic community (cf. Robert Dahl, Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American city, Yale University Press, 1961).
But the New Havens of the western world, and to the extent that such cases were at all true exceptions, would in any case be exceptions that proved the rule. One would generally observe the steady rise of a state-promoted collective faith in a collectivist ideology inundating most of society. This would naturally be supplemented by the collective solidarity of the many-too-many and its corollary, social uniformity – the tendency towards uniformity would of course at the same time mean an attempt at neutralizing whatever form of individuality.
Collectivist ideology would manifest itself in a variety of different ways – it would yield different versions of collectivism. These versions could complement one another, though – more often than not – they could lead to internal ideological clashes, depending on different interests (remember Nietzsche’s observation about the famous wise ones, and how they usually “devour one another, and cannot even digest themselves”). But despite the internal ideological clashes, all versions of collectivism would share a number of basic features – these would include the following: (i) all would announce a single perfectionist road ahead for the rest of society, and would wish to see that road imposed on all; (ii) their perfectionist ideology would yield an idol-adoration for the symbols of that ideology, and this would amount to a modern form of idolatry; (iii) all would be intolerant of anyone who would be skeptical or dismissive of such idol-adoration – these could be punished for their contrarian stance; and (iv) intolerance could lead to a tyrannical form of state.
In her discussion of the Oakeshottian project, Corey presents us with those different versions of ideological collectivism that have come to prevail in the history of the Babelian-type societies of the western world – she writes as follows: “In the religious version of collectivism the desired perfection is salvation that is to be worked out in the world. In the productivist version it is economic progress. And in the distributionist version it is equality of condition. In each of these a “single road” to perfection is chosen by government and imposed on a society. But each kind of perfection is a kind of idolatry, a Tower of Babel in which individual choice is stamped out in favor of what is supposed to be a greater good. As in the Tower of Babel story, dissent and disobedience are punished “not as a troublesome conduct, but as ‘error’ and ‘sin’. Lack of enthusiasm will be considered a crime, to be prevented by education and to be punished as treason.” …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 172).
The Babelian form of state, it is said, is tyrannical or can be potentially so. Its politics of faith assumes that human beings – or life per se – can be or should be planned and shaped in a manner chosen by the state itself. Any government informed by a collectivist ideology can therefore only but be tyrannical, at least with respect to the concrete individual that wishes to will his own existence. Corey presents Oakeshott’s position on the question of collectivist ideology and its relation to tyrannical government as follows: “Oakeshott understood politics … as an activity that must not lead but follow … For to begin from the other side, that is, to ask, what part should government play in human life? either presupposes a view of human beings or simply assumes that they might be molded into whatever form their government chooses for them. The latter view is one of the principal errors Oakeshott saw in collectivist and tyrannical governments.” (ibid., p. 156).
Counter to the collectivist tyranny of the Babelian form of state, Oakeshott would posit a political economy of freedom – it would be wrong to see such a political positioning as mere idealistic wishful thinking in regard to the plight of western civilization. Rather, one should say that the Oakeshottian understanding of a political economy of freedom is based on past and present material manifestations of human organization and/or human conduct where the role of the state had been or has come to be delimited through individual initiative.
Of course, Oakeshott’s political economy of freedom would not sit well with the Nietzschean understanding of a morality of individuality. Nietzsche’s higher man would necessarily have to stand over and above whatever political economy, and the socio-economic circumstances that such a framework would imply – the life of the exceptional individual would be a free and independently self-rolling project beyond whatever externally imposed tyranny.
On the other hand, it is as important to emphasize that Oakeshott’s critique of collectivist tyranny is not at all dissimilar to that of Nietzsche’s position. Both would be against whatever form of state intervention in the life of an individual, and especially so when that individual is capable of and willing to experience his own individuality, and is capable of and willing to discover his own truth of things. Both Oakeshott and Nietzsche, in other words, would be absolutely opposed to whatever continuous and/or sporadic interruption of the life of the independent individual (or of the life of an independent people and its society for that matter). To put it in a nutshell, interruption of life simply equals tyranny – and this is so for both thinkers.
Nietzsche and Oakeshott, we are saying, part ways when the latter expounds his political economy of freedom. Such an understanding of political economy calls for a society’s settled protective structure – viz. a structure protective of individual freedom. The protective structure would be the rule of law, and such rule of law would operate in partnership with the traditions of time-past and the needs of time-present, as also in partnership between governors and governed. It would be this very specific rule of law functioning as neutral umpire that would protect individual citizens from state tyranny – it would protect them, in other words, from state activity that continually intervenes to disrupt the life of individuality through an endless series of so-called corrective measures presumably meant to deal with concentrations of power in different clusters of society.
In terms of the Nietzschean understanding of life, and as already intimated, the exceptional individual does not need – and should not need if he be truly exceptional – any form of settled protective structure. He would not need whatever form of protection from his friends, his neighbours, his community, or from the state – he is strong enough to protect himself. Oakeshott, by comparison, takes it for granted that such settled protective structure is an absolute necessity for all, given the particular form that the modern – and especially the postmodern – state has come to take.
We may here present in some detail what Oakeshott himself has to say with respect to his political economy of freedom – he writes as follows: “… our experience has disclosed to us a method of government remarkably economical in the use of power and consequently peculiarly fitted to preserve freedom: it is called the rule of law. If the activity of our government were the continuous or sporadic interruption of the life and arrangements of our society with arbitrary corrective measures, we should consider ourselves no longer free, even though the measures were directed against concentrations of power universally recognized to be dangerous. For not only would government of this kind require extraordinary power (each of its acts being an ad hoc intervention), but also, in spite of this concentration of governmental power, the society would be without that known and settled protective structure which is so important a condition of freedom. But government by rule of law (that is, by means of the enforcement by prescribed methods of settled rules binding alike on governors and governed), while losing nothing in strength, is itself the emblem of that diffusion of power which it exists to promote, and is therefore peculiarly appropriate to a free society. It is the method of government most economical in the use of power, it involves a partnership between past and present and between governors and governed which leaves no room for arbitrariness; it encourages a tradition of resistance to the growth of dangerous concentrations of power which is far more effective than any promiscuous onslaught however crushing; it controls effectively, but without breaking the grand affirmative flow of things; and it gives a practical definition of the kind of limited but necessary service a society may expect from its government, restraining us from vain and dangerous expectations. Particular laws, we know, may fail to protect the freedom enjoyed in our society, and may even be destructive of some of our freedom; but we know also that the rule of law is the greatest single condition of our freedom, removing from us that great fear which has overshadowed so many communities, the fear of the power of our own government.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., pp. 42-43).
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is well beyond whatever social arrangements in the modern world – yet still, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would fully agree on the primacy of an individual’s life – on the primacy, that is, of determining one’s own life-purpose. The central concern for both thinkers would be to pose and answer the following quintessential question: who or what determined the ends, the goals, or the very purpose of one’s life, or that of life per se? Should some Mr. A be given the right to plan a way of life for some other Mr. B? Or, alternatively, should that Mr. B refuse to hand over whatever such planning to a Mr. A? Luke O’Sullivan, in his “Michael Oakeshott on European Political History”, op. cit., presents Oakeshott’s position on this question as follows: he argued, we are told, “that the relevant political distinction was not between left and right but between those who would ‘plan and impose a way of life upon a society’ and those who ‘not only refuse to hand over the destiny of a society to any set of officials but also consider the whole notion of planning the destiny of a society to be both stupid and immoral.’ …” (p. 137).
We should note here that Oakeshott’s reference to any set of officials may be directly compared to Nietzsche’s famous wise ones, these being the official and/or ideological planners of the destiny of a society – and these are the state-sustained planners of a populace that does not itself refuse to hand over their destiny to them. And they do not refuse such right to their planners because they both depend on them and are, in the last instance, of them (in the very least as a voting public, but also as participants in the various organs of the state). Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would see such dependence as a denial of one’s freedom, and therefore as slavishly self-destructive.
In her discussion of the politics of faith versus the politics of individuality, Corey confirms and reiterates Luke O’Sullivan’s reading of the Oakeshottian position with respect to the question of the determination of one’s life-purpose – she writes as follows: “Oakeshott argues in the introduction to The Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary Europe (1939) that the differences between various doctrines – Liberalism, Catholicism, Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism – are not so much between those that offer “spiritual” or “material” ideals, but between those “which hand over to the arbitrary will of a society’s self-appointed leaders the planning of its entire life, and those which not only refuse to hand over the destiny of a society to any set of officials but also consider the whole notion of planning the destiny of a society to be both stupid and immoral.” … Once again, the fundamental difference is between those governments that have “faith” in their ability to direct the activities of human beings and those that are “skeptical” about this endeavor.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 169).
For society as a whole (though definitely not with respect to the exceptional individual), the self-determination of the destiny of a people – as also the self-determination of an individual’s life-purpose – would be directly related to the particular form of state that ultimately comes to prevail in the course of history. This again brings us to Oakeshott’s well-known distinction between two generically different types of statal organization – that of civil associations, on the one hand, and that of enterprise associations, on the other. In his “Michael Oakeshott on European Political History”, op. cit., Luke O’Sullivan writes as follows: “To use the terminology Oakeshott later employed in On Human Conduct, States could be described either as civil associations, in which the rule of law provided a framework for individuals to pursue their own ends, or as an enterprise association, in which the State managed and perhaps even determined the pursuit of a common goal or purpose.” (p. 137).
We know that it would be the state as enterprise association that would prevail in the modern western world – and it would be the Babelian world of western civilization that would rule the roost, and do so right through to the dawn of the 21st century. Oakeshott’s own presentation of the myth of the Tower of Babel would attempt to describe what such a state of affairs would imply for both the peoples of the western world, as also for the individuals living in that world.
In her discussion of Oakeshott’s two separate essays entitled “The Tower of Babel”, Corey tells us that the intention of the political philosopher is to issue a double warning – he wishes to warn both the concrete individual and society as a whole about the dangers of submitting to the social order of a Babelian-type world. The individual can lose his self by wholly investing his person in a this-worldly paradisiacal promise; society can damage itself irreversibly by indulging in collective quests aimed at such a paradisiacal promise – such quests could lead to intolerance or even totalitarianism. She writes as follows about Oakeshott’s myth of The Tower of Babel: “For the individual, it is a warning against investing oneself in projects that promise worldly salvation. It is a cautionary tale about the dangers of sensuality and materialism … For a society, the tale is a warning about the hazards inherent in the collective pursuit of perfection and an illustration of the irreparable damage that such pursuit wreaks on civil society.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., pp. 9-10).
At least part of the history of the western world is all about a transition from a pre-Babelian social order (notably in certain geographical localities and particular milieus of the west) to the emergence of a grand state-as-idol that was to discourage and finally crush much of individuality. Making use of The Tower of Babel myth, Corey explains, Oakeshott intends to describe “the sorts of things that take place during this transition from a civil society of free individuals to a mobilized, purposive community.” (ibid., p. 130). The latter type of community would yield what Corey calls a “Babelian servile morality” (ibid., p. 131), and which certainly does echo Nietzsche’s understanding of the state-as-idol and its obsequiously effeminate many-too-many in the modern Europe of his time.
The Babelian servile morality is a faith in mass ideology and a mass idol-adoration of the values and symbols of such ideology – and such ideology would wish to mobilize all of the many-too-many around a singular dream, such dream being the perfect society of equality and social justice. It is precisely such mass faith that Nietzsche would describe as ass-worship, and it is what Oakeshott would identify as the modern politics of faith (or a Pelagian-type politics that wishes to conquer all human imperfection by doing away with all inequality and all forms of social injustice). Corey writes as follows: “In The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism Oakeshott explicitly stated that the modern politics of “faith” is Pelagian. He was profoundly skeptical of all governments that pursue perfection “as the crow flies” … The moral life, according to Oakeshott’s understanding, consists not in the construction of a Tower of Babel or in the single-minded pursuit of perfection, moral or otherwise” (ibid., p. 11) – it is, rather, a confirmation of the possibilities of individuality and of its will to live the present in terms of an aesthetic creativity (a position again very much reminiscent of the Nietzschean disposition).
Whatever single-minded pursuit of perfection is, for both the individual and the community, a narrowly circumscribed faith in certain particular ideals – being narrowly circumscribed, it is an all-consuming faith the followers of which can only but automatically accept the imposition of values reflective of that all-consuming faith. In the last instance, it sacrifices the individual on the altar of such ideals and values. Corey writes: “The pursuit of perfection, whether economic, moral, or cultural, can never be a suitable endeavor for an entire society because this would involve it in undertakings such as building towers to heaven – purposeful, all-consuming projects that mobilize the entirety of a society’s resources to realize an end that not all may agree is worth pursuing or even possible. In a massive mobilization of this kind, a society will necessarily sacrifice the variety that makes civil society worth having … Thus the Babelian pursuit of perfection – society conceived as an enterprise association – cuts off the sources of the richer “civil association” that Oakeshott prefers. In building the Tower of Babel the humbler enjoyments of the vita temporalis are permanently eschewed in favor of a grander – but always postponed – perfect and final satisfaction.” (ibid., p. 132).
The mobilizing of an entire society around the realization of a single, grand end – it being social justice and equality – would mean sacrificing individuality and individual free choice. Within such a setup, all would have to abide by particular values pointing to particular ends, with all such ends meant to be presumably consummated in one grand dream-end. All would therefore have to accept an imposed economic, moral, and cultural order.
The acceptance of an imposed economic, moral and cultural status quo would of course yield a stable and sustainable social order – and it would yield such order, despite whatever contrarian ideological currents (these would themselves be absolutely functional to that status quo in their capacity as mass ideological movements in their own right, and would thus legitimize the very practice of mass ideology). On the other hand, the concomitant stifling of the variety of resources emanating from the richness of civil associations (and their free individuals) would at the same time mean a stifling of plurality – and by plurality we here mean the individual’s free choice to live outside mass ideology, or a plurality of free-rolling individuality.
For the famous wise ones representative of the state-as-idol, such plurality of individuality (or a contrarian position strictly external to all ideology) would spell social chaos – and they would naturally insist that it is only the operation of mass ideology and mass idol-adoration within a society that can avoid such chaos.
In response to this question of the presumed chaos of individualist plurality versus social order, Oakeshott would first all observe that important segments of the western masses would themselves wish to avoid the so-called chaos of individualist plurality and the individualist morality that goes with it – they would need to live, in other words, within the ideologically protective shell of a state-imposed economic, moral and cultural order (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 186).
Those fearful of chaos, Oakeshott goes on to ague, wish to dream of an ideal, collisionless society. And such a society would be ideal and collisionless as it would be organized around a single vision – this vision would be coordinated by the state and would have to be imposed on all. The dream of those who fear chaos is a dream that must be imposed on all as a compulsory manner of living. Given the so-called chaos, Oakeshott writes, some people “tell us that they have seen in a dream the glorious, collisionless manner of living proper to all mankind, and this dream they understand as their warrant for seeking to remove the diversities and occasions of conflict which distinguish our current manner of living. Of course, their dreams are not all exactly alike; but they have this in common: each is a vision of a condition of human circumstance from which the occasion of conflict has been removed, a vision of human activity co-ordinated and set going in a single direction and of every resource being used to the full. And such people appropriately understand the office of government to be the imposition upon its subjects of the condition of human circumstances of their dream. To govern is to turn a private dream into a public and compulsory manner of living.” (ibid.).
The implications of such socially-motivated dreaming can be absolutely destructive for the private lives of individuals. We may here ferret out such implications by carefully re-examining what it is that such dreamers are in fact dreaming about. For them, chaos – or, say, the chaos of a class-based society of pluralist inequality – is to be countered by presenting humanity with a vision or a dream of a particular collisionless (or classless) society. Now, this vision or dream is centered on some symbolic idol of a new and glorious social order. The symbolic idol is accompanied by an awe-inspiring ideal, and it is this ideal that is the womb of all ideology and all ideological narratives. The ideological narratives play a major role in determining the different forms and practices of the state, and especially as these narratives gradually mutate and come to acquire the status of state ideology. Ultimately, state ideology becomes so powerful that it capable of intervening in the private lives of people – it intervenes in the private sphere so that it is able to force that manner of living proper to all mankind. And thus, the distinction between the private and the public spheres gradually comes to disappear. As this distinction disappears, the state as enterprise – or the state with a moral mission – finds itself everywhere in the public and private lives of persons: each and every citizen must abide by the ideological enterprise of the state and must publicly declare his participation in the practices of social justice and equality. By so participating, the dream of the collisionless society becomes a material reality. Naturally, whoever dares to openly question these dominant values, or to in any way belittle the virtues of participation and empathy (remember Nietzsche’s rejection of charity, sympathy, pity, or fellow-suffering), finds himself morally ostracized.
The fears pertaining to the pluralist chaos of individuality – and the presumed need for a counteracting ideology to maintain a collisionless social order – can only but translate into the imposition of a dream (or a variation of dreams) onto society. And thus, Oakeshott observes, “politics becomes an encounter of dreams” (ibid.).
Yet worse, however, this encounter of dreams in the terrain of politics is in fact an encounter of dreaming monomaniacs – for it so happens that each dreamer (together with his followers, of course) is absolutely convinced that it is his particular dream that is the key to ordering society in a perfect world of social justice and equality. And thus, the particular social dream that comes to dominate – and which is often an alliance of mutually related dreams – constitutes an ideological and cultural regime that is intolerant of any divergences vis-à-vis the moral values inherent in the language of that dominant dream. One may therefore speak of the dictatorship of dreams in the modern western milieu.
In response to such a state of affairs, Oakeshott positions himself as follows: “We tolerate monomaniacs, it is our habit to do so; but why should we be ruled by them?” (ibid., p. 187). This typically Oakeshottian response to whichever dictatorship of dreams contains three key words that point to three cardinal concepts in the Oakeshottian political philosophy that shall have to be examined in much greater detail below – the words are: tolerate; habit; and ruled. At this point, we may simply make a number of rough observations. Firstly, when Oakeshott tells us that we should tolerate the monomaniacs since it is our habit in so doing, he is making the absolutely important point that toleration has been a vital part of what he calls, as already mentioned, a people’s self-imposed morality of habit of behaviour. Such traditionally-rooted behaviour, characterizing various phases in the history of western civilization as an essentially anti-Babelian force, has been ipso facto and above all pluralist in nature – simple toleration always was its habitual disposition. The Nietzschean position, by the way and as we shall further see, is actually quite similar to that of Oakeshott’s with respect to both the traditional history of any people’s self-imposed morality of habit of behaviour, and especially with respect to the absolute importance of toleration. We know that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra repeatedly advises the exceptional individual with a key phrase suggesting toleration vis-à-vis the many-too-many: Let them, he says.
Secondly, when Oakeshott refuses to be ruled by the monomaniacs of social dreams, he is rejecting – again, as would Nietzsche – whatever ideology, and which is always and by definition a mass-based ideology. He is rejecting the rule of whatever ideology, not only because all ideologies express singular dreams and perfectionist formulae for paradisiacal futures, but also because they represent dogmatic narratives that are imposed on a people by the state and its famous wise ones. By rejecting such intrusive imposition, Oakeshott is denying all forms of slave morality or whatever submission to (the Nietzschean definition of) idol-adoration.
Any ideology of social justice is intrusive – it especially intrudes on the taste and disposition of an independently self-rolling individual; and it can intrude on the taste and disposition of any historical people that would otherwise have maintained its traditional independence of a Babelian-type society. The intrusion is effected through a politics of faith that comes to encroach into all spheres of life – and it thereby kills the present by speaking of a utopian future; and thereby it kills the diversity of pluralist individuality by reducing all to replicas of mass uniformity. We shall now need to delve slightly deeper into precisely how such politics of faith have come to function in the modern (but also postmodern) western milieu.
In her discussion of how Oakeshott views the politics of faith, Corey writes as follows on the question of the modern mode of governance: “Government becomes huge as it strains to direct the activities of its citizens in politics and in all other spheres of life. It is the “chief inspirer and sole director” of the improvement that is supposed to lead to perfection.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 165).
This general presentation of the modern western mode of governance – and the form of state that such governance presupposes – may be directly compared to what Nietzsche had to say of the state as he saw it in his time. Remember, for instance, his observation that the state “seeketh by all means to be the most important creature on earth”. It even wishes to assert such importance by telling its populace that it has now taken the place of God – this is how the state speaks to its citizens, according to Nietzsche (and as already noted): “On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the regulating finger of God.”
It is in its capacity as the regulating finger of God that the state (and whatever government happens to operate within its structures) assumes the all-important role of the sole director of society. As sole director, it wishes to direct the activities of its citizens in politics, and it thereby strains to politicize everything and everyone in life. Its primary purpose is to absorb all manifestations of life within its own matrix. Extrapolating from the ancient Greek concept of idiotes, it stigmatizes anyone who refuses such politicization as an idiot – any individual who willfully chooses to abstain from public politics and mass ideology (so that, inter alia, he preserve his own private and independent world), is declared to be either an archetypal idiot or an anti-social threat.
As sole director, therefore, the state strives to direct the conduct of its citizens in all other (i.e. those inherently not strictly political) spheres of life – it literally wishes to practically intervene in how persons conduct themselves anywhere and in all spheres of life, from the bedroom to the workplace, from the sitting room to the street corner, and so on.
Aware that such persistent and obvious statal overstretch may cause a certain apprehension on the part of some segments of its populace, the state enables certain of its subjects to engage in what has euphemistically been dubbed non-governmental organizations. Here, the role of the state as sole director is no longer obvious – the regulating finger of God is nonetheless still there (via funding), but its presence is now only half-visible.
As chief inspirer, finally, the state is unremittingly involved in social projects aimed at the perpetual improvement of the lives of its populace – this is dubbed the quality of life of citizens. And all are expected to respect and – in whatever way possible – participate in the socio-political struggles for the improvement of such quality of life. All organs of the state and all members of the populace need scramble for the holiest of holy social titles – that of being politically progressive. For it is progress that shall ultimately yield the perfect society. And thus the whole of the populace is morally obliged to share in one basic tenet of faith – viz. that the progressive series of piecemeal improvements in the lives of citizens shall come to cumulatively yield a perfect society organized around social justice and equality for all.
The politics of faith places mass politics in absolute command – and it does so by declaring that such politics should be pursued to the exclusion of all other human preoccupations, be these mental, manual, or whatever form of human activity. The implication is that the state, like all gods, is itself a jealous god – it wants everything for itself.
The Oakeshottian position, of course, would be absolutely critical of the viewpoint that politics – political ideology and political practice – should be pursued everywhere and at all times. One should in any case not have to obsess over the quite mundane matter of politics. Oakeshott would rather argue that political engagement, albeit an unavoidably necessary human burden, should nonetheless only take place within certain specified times and places – and it should always take place in a manner that would not ever interrupt that which is truly important, viz. living life per se. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, of course, would go even further – he would choose to stand over and above all politics, and would stand over and above all the values of the market-place as reflected in political ideology and political practice.
Oakeshott’s position on the relative status of the so-called political moment in the life of a people, and especially in that of an individual, has been very lucidly presented by Corey as follows: “Whereas the politics of faith understands political activity as preeminently serious, as something that ought to be pursued to the exclusion of all other activities, [Oakeshott’s] skepticism sets aside special times and places for engagement in politics. These times and places (for instance, parliaments and law courts) are deliberately separated from “ordinary life” and have special rituals and requirements for participation. According to this understanding, politics is an activity to be pursued not at all times but “on certain specified occasions.” Its significance lies not in its result, but in the manner in which its participants engage in it. This understanding does not trivialize political activity, for the outcome of this ritualized “play” certainly matters, but it does remove from it the tendency to consider itself more important than all other forms of human activity.” (ibid., pp. 181-182).
The politics of faith, perhaps like most faiths, is above all a faith in the future. And it is such future-prone politics of faith – in the form of a political ideology – that permeates the modern western state. As such, the state is an enterprise that constitutes a powerful existential threat to the individual living his present. It is precisely for this reason that when Nietzsche speaks of the state and its various organs and organic intellectuals, he consistently makes use of death-related pronouncements – consider, for instance, examples such as the following: death-horse; preachers of death; will to death; the death of peoples, etc. Very much like Oakeshott himself, Nietzsche is telling us that the state is against life per se, or that it stands against the will to live the present. The state is a killer of all time-present, and especially the time-present of an individual who would otherwise know what to do with such time. That which the state kills, one may add, is something that has always had a very limited life-span (that of any human being); moreover, it kills a limited life-span that cannot ever be repeated (we shall have to come back to the issue of living the present further below, and especially with reference to Nietzsche).
Corey encapsulates the critical Oakeshottian position with respect to all future-prone ideology by writing as follows: “Living in the present … requires that we neither place our hopes in our future selves nor live on the accumulated capital of past achievements. It certainly goes against everything we hear around us, since looking to the future is a cardinal virtue for politicians, financial planners, and insurance salesmen.” (ibid., p. 46).
The Oakeshottian intellectual project may be said to expose the prevailing (and paramount) virtue underlying the whole of the modern western world – viz. that of living by looking to the future. Modern, as also postmodern, western civilization is in fact obsessed with the future – and such obsession is embedded in its various versions of collectivism, or in its collectivist ideologies. Corey notes: “… the promised perfection – religious, productivist, distributionist – lies always in the future and thus always out of reach. The politics of faith is preoccupied, indeed obsessed, with the future.” (ibid., p. 173).
Now, this politics of faith – or this Pelagian-type utopian politics – answers to the essential needs of the modern mass man, such type of man being Nietzsche’s many-too-many. And it answers to the needs of the many-too-many because it is expressive of a democratic milieu – and it is a democratic milieu because therein, as Nietzsche has observed, I serve, thou servest, we serve. In what way does such milieu serve the many-too-many? It serves them by presenting them with a ready-made life-purpose encapsulated in ideals, or utopian ideals. Recipients of such ideals, they escape from themselves as individuals by submitting to such ideals – they no longer need bother to understand their own selves, and thus they need not bother to both discover and create their own unique purpose in life. Whatever uniqueness could have possibly characterized them as individuals is lost for life. Their own purpose in life comes to be fully articulated by the Babelian priests of an ideal, or by what Nietzsche has called the famous wise ones. Referring to the Babelian tower and what this all means for individuality, Corey writes as follows: “… the tower also symbolizes the human desire to escape the difficult task of self-understanding by becoming part of a project that is thought to be great and noble. An individual’s hopes for the future are thus tied to the success of a grand undertaking with which he has allied himself. And yet by allying himself in this way he has, in a sense, relinquished the difficult task of self-understanding: he is now the recipient of a ready-made purpose in life. In just this way the Babelians have become “priests of an ideal” …” (ibid., p. 132).
This is what generally defines the mode of life of the many-too-many in the typical western democratic state. Being a democratic state, anyone – or almost anyone – can engage in the politics of the state and in the exercise of power. The first lord, Nietzsche has written, can merely be the first servant. The hierarchical chain of commanding is such as to enable the weaker to usurp the power of the stronger – we need remember here how Nietzsche has expressed this in describing the democratic diffusion of power in the modern western milieu: “By by-ways”, he has written, “doth the weaker then slink into the fortress, and into the heart of the mightier one – and there stealeth power.” And he can steal such power as the process of usurpation happens to be, at least theoretically speaking, fairly easy to fulfill – and it is fairly easy to fulfill because the politics of faith is a rationalist-based politics dependent above all on attainable technical knowledge. With reference to rationalist-based politics, and how its political practices are based on an easily accessible technical knowledge, Corey writes: “… in theory this kind of [technical] knowledge is available to everyone. No special talents are required to engage in politics if one can master an ideology.” (ibid., p. 161). And since no special talents are needed, mediocrity becomes rampant even amongst the ruling elites of the state, including its famous wise ones.
With or without special talents, one would need to go through a certain political education so as to master any one prevailing ideology. With respect to that type of political education, Oakeshott has written as follows: “it [political education] is associated with that softening of the mind, by force, by alarm, or by the hypnotism of the endless repetition of what was scarcely worth saying once, by means of which whole populations have been reduced to submission.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 112).
Submission to the politics of faith – to the ideology of a future-prone politics of perfection – means submission to a politics of uniformity. And it is that softening of the mind through political education that allows for such uniformity. In fact, modern-day schooling in the western world consciously trains for the social and ideological uniformity of all.
Before we proceed to examine the possible ways, as suggested by Oakeshott, in which the individual – as an agent of his own self – can live his life even within the context of that modern western state and its political schooling as described above, we may here briefly dwell on the real, material impact of such a type of Babelian state as witnessed in the more recent history of the western world, and especially so in the USA.
The workings of (the Oakeshottian understanding of) the huge state as an enterprise association – and the consequences of its practices with respect to the realities of the western world – would become most clearly evident towards the end of the 20th century, and much more so by the 21st century. While – as has been mentioned above – such form of state may definitely be traced back to the Age of Reason, its all-consuming structures and practices would begin to fully blossom by the post-1990’s. One may roughly sketch such maturation in the USA by commencing one’s analysis with the period of the 1960’s, and then identifying the major mutations that would come to prevail some decades later.
It may be argued that in the period of the 1960’s it was the ideology of fusionism that would come to prevail amongst certain important segments of American intellectuals and various socio-political blocs. It was an ideology articulated by particular famous wise ones – or public intellectuals, such as William F. Buckley Jr. and his National Review – who would insist on struggling against a purposively teleocratic all-powerful state, and who would argue instead for a state that respected or even celebrated individual differences (they would in fact be engaging in that long, historical struggle between two opposing conceptions of the western state, as has been described by Edmund Neill).
The ideology of fusionism was to actually become a dominant force in the USA, and it would even occupy the centre stage of American politics. And it would be fusionist in a very specific sense: it would be an alliance between conservative traditionalism (otherwise known as social conservatism) and the principles of libertarianism. It would, in other words, fuse what Oakeshott has called a popular morality of habit of behaviour (and which would include the Christian religious disposition) with a morality of individuality. This fusionist alliance would have Ronald Reagan as its most well-known advocate, and it would also be at its height ideologically with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994.
In the course of the post-Reagan era, however, this historic alliance would break down: conservative traditionalism would be abandoned, and the principles of American libertarian individualism would be either peripheralized or demonized, or in any case distorted. What had happened? One would see the emergence of the ideology of neo-liberalism and the rise of the all-powerful neo-liberal state as a Babelian-type enterprise. Such state would now focus all of its resources, and do so absolutely, on a licentious economic growth – it would even become obsessed with such growth. It would be doing precisely what Oakeshott had once warned against – viz. the rationalist-based demand for continual productivity and economic growth. And it would be doing what Nietzsche had himself once warned against – viz. the utilitarian-based idol-adoration bent on western man’s material maintenance, it being a maintenance which, again, could only be sustained given that continual productivity and economic growth.
Obsessed with growth, the neo-liberal state would come to impose its economic policies on all – it would come to preach, as Nietzsche would once write, “humility and policy and diligence”. And such state would transform into a huge leviathan network with ubiquitous tentacles intervening in the private lives of its citizens. But further, and given its obsession with economic growth, the state would now forge close alliances with similarly ubiquitous and as all-powerful global corporations. Ultimately, this type of state would come to operate as the Babelian priest of an ideal (that of an announced social justice and equality for all) – and thus we would see that persistent statal imposition of a new ethical order on all of society. Together with its promotion of humility, policy, and diligence, therefore, the state would also become a preacher of what Nietzsche would dub “the long et cetera of petty virtues”.
Patrick J. Deneen, in his book entitled Why Liberalism Failed (Yale University Press, 2018), tells us that a political philosophy that had been put into effect at the birth of the United States has now finally been shattered – why is that so? He goes on to show how “The liberal state expands to control nearly every aspect of life while citizens regard government as a distant and uncontrollable power.” (pagination unavailable).
That which has in fact been thereby shattered is both the morality of individuality and the traditional morality of habit of behaviour. Both the persistent interventionism of the state-as-priest in the private lives of individuals, as also the constant push towards a globalization of cultural practices, would help shatter a people’s habit of behaviour. On the other hand, the obsession with licentious economic growth would yield a distorted form of individualism – it would be a debased, nihilistic, and materialistically this-worldly type of individualism. It would now be the individualism of the commodity consumer and the obsessive profiteer – precisely what Nietzsche had described as the trader-stench and the ambition-fidgeting – that would take the place of an individualism based on value-creation and on individual aesthetic creativity.
In direct contrast to the new nihilistically materialist form of individualism, the libertarian individualism of the creator of his own values and/or aesthetic world would at the same time have been as much respectful of any people’s traditional morality of habit of behaviour – and such aesthetic-based individualism would be thus respectful given its cardinal respect for traditional pluralism. Of course, it was precisely such pluralistic respect that had enabled the ideology of fusionism to materialize in the first place.
In the long term, it may be argued that the expansion of the Babelian-type state can yield different forms of totalitarianism – and that, not in spite of, but in fact precisely due to the democratic milieu itself. It would be René Girard who would point to such totalitarian possibilities, and he would do so in his own perspicacious way. We may rather liberally interpret his own thinking as follows: Democracy may be said to yield equality. But equality would itself mean a diminishing of the concrete differences between men. Since concrete differences are diminished, it would now be abstract ideological conflicts that would play a dominant role in the lives of people. Such collective conflicts over abstract ideological idols would come to intermingle with private and personal conflicts. And thus the public and the private would become indistinguishable – their distinction would disappear into an all-consuming ideological-political mobilization of society. All human desires would come to be organized and mobilized around ideological idol-adoration. Here, the coordinating role of the state-as-idol becomes central and continually expands. By so expanding, totalitarianism raises its head, wherein all are in the service of an ideological nothingness – this, however, gives birth to different forms of nihilism.
Our reading of the thinking of Girard may not necessarily be precise – but it certainly does capture the basic idea that a Babelian-type state based on mass democracy and the virtues of equality can ultimately mutate into some form of totalitarianism. We may here, in any case, quote a bit of Girard himself with respect to the question of democracy and totalitarianism – he writes as follows: “As … the concrete differences between men grow smaller [through democracy and equality], abstract opposition plays an ever larger part in individual and collective existence. All the forces of being are gradually organized into twin structures whose opposition grows ever more exact. Thus every human force is braced in a struggle that is as relentless as it is senseless, since no concrete difference or positive value is involved. Totalitarianism is precisely this. The social and political aspects of this phenomenon cannot be distinguished from its personal and private aspects. Totalitarianism exists when all desires have been organized one by one into a general and permanent mobilization of being in the service of nothingness.” (cf. Stendhal, Red and Black, op. cit., p. 520).
For Girard, it seems, it is the general organization and mobilization of all human desires in the service of an ideological nothingness – both public and private – that defines totalitarianism. And it is the disappearance of the private desire into a mobilized collective desire that confirms such totalitarianism.
How may the independent individual live his life despite the existence of an already huge interventionist state that is in any case continually expanding? How may such individual preserve his private self in the face of a gradually emerging totalitarianism? In his attempt to respond to such vitally important questions, Oakeshott would speak of the potentialities of concrete individuals enacting their own independent selves. And he would go on to argue that such enactment of the self could only be actuated to the extent that the individual possessed the will to redefine his relationship to the world as an alien sojourner within that world. We shall here need to further investigate that thread of Oakeshottian thinking.
At this point, we should once again remind ourselves of the commonalities but also the divergences in the thinking of Oakeshott vis-à-vis that of Nietzsche. We may first of all note that Nietzsche could fully agree with the Oakeshottian notion of self-enactment, and especially as regards that of the alien sojourner (one may here cite the mode of living of Zarathustra himself, as that sui generis alternative figurative model). On the other hand, and as already alluded to, Nietzsche would insist that the type of individual engaging in self-enactment and living as an alien sojourner should be able to do just that whatever the social conditions that happen to contingently circumscribe him – in fact, it would be precisely the contingency of things around him that would test and further enrich his own will to self-enactment and alien sojourn in the world.
Oakeshott, it may be said, could certainly share such a Nietzschean position on the manner in which an independent individual deals with the world around him, and deals with the values of the market-place that define it. But he would also wish to argue that there are – have been, or can be – particular social circumstances and political frameworks that are most amenable to the individual’s capacities for self-enactment. And thus he would go on to investigate the historical concepts of civil association and enterprise association, and how such realities have come to clash in the history of the western world, and would clash precisely on the question of the sovereignty of individuality.
Yet still, Oakeshott would hold the position that whatever the social circumstances and whatever the prevailing political framework, the individual should in any case maintain his independence as an alien sojourner in the world. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, the key issue was always that of redefining morality, and especially when that came to the morality of individual agency. For both, in other words, the creative activity of self-enactment and the independence of the alien sojourner were issues pertaining to none other than morality per se (we shall further below examine the manner in which Nietzsche would understand the virtue of the exceptional individual).
Corey’s work provides us with a clear presentation of the Oakeshottian position on the enactment of individuality, and how this is above all a question of self-morality – she writes as follows: “If Oakeshott’s conception of the moral life takes its bearings from religion and poetry, … then politics must also reflect this understanding. And it should be no surprise that Oakeshott favored a view of political activity in which individual agents are given the greatest possible latitude to act as they see fit. His mature expression of the kind of politics he applauded – civil association – is an understanding of governing in which human beings have the freedom to “enact” themselves as they desire, all the while observing certain agreed-upon conditions (law). This understanding of government is at the opposite pole from one that desires to control all aspects of the lives of its subjects: to construct, in effect, a Tower of Babel or to usher in “the New Jerusalem” …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 13).
We should here dwell on the phrase as they desire, and contrast it to what Girard has to say on the question of desire in the Babelian-type state – viz. his presentation of human desire as a collective mobilization all in the service of an ideological nothingness. And such service would, in the last instance, constitute an ideological nothingness having neutralized the freedom of human beings to enact their own individualities, it being life per se.
Self-morality is the individual desire and, above all, the individual will to freely choose the kind of life to be lived by that individual. Corey here identifies a certain shared ground between the thinking of Oakeshott and that of Augustine. Without wishing to comment on the so-called religiosity of Oakeshott’s own thinking – for us, this remains an open question, depending on how one chooses to define any religious disposition, as also depending on the variety of phases in Oakeshottian thinking itself – we may here nonetheless quote Corey on how Oakeshott would understand the question of human freedom and individual free choice. She writes as follows: “Their [Oakeshott’s and Augustine’s] conceptions of freedom allow human beings a great deal of latitude to choose the kinds of lives they will live. For both thinkers, the fundamental choice was between religion and worldliness, and it is in making this choice, not once and for all but again and again over the course of a lifetime, that a person declares citizenship in either civitas terrena or the civitas Dei.” (ibid., p. 39).
The desire – and ultimately the will – to consciously declare a certain type of citizenship for oneself is that which shall determine one’s freedom or lack of it. Without ever becoming intolerable with respect to the choices of the many-too-many, and while fully recognizing the conditions of the world that one traverses, the individual (but especially so in the case of the exceptional higher man) chooses and wills his place in the world as an alien sojourner within that world. It is this concept of the alien sojourner in the modern western world that may be said to constitute Oakeshott’s central prescription for the attainment of a free, self-rolling individuality, and which would stand over and above the statal politics of faith. The Oakeshottian concept of alien sojourner is said to have been borrowed directly but at the same time creatively from Augustinian thinking itself – Timothy Fuller, Oakeshott’s foremost American protégé, has even spoken of a “transposed Augustinianism” in the political philosophy of Oakeshott (as Corey informs us, ibid., p. 10).
What is it that such concept suggests? In a modern European state – the practices of which should in any case be delimited as much as that be at all feasible to those approximating a civil association – the individual salvages his own individuality by conducting himself as a resident stranger in the world (this being a translation of the Augustinian term, civitas peregrina). How would a resident stranger conduct himself in the modern western world? Corey explains that such individuals “do not see themselves as comrades engaged in a common, substantive enterprise, but as “wanderers” or “pilgrims” who travel on diverse paths yet remain allied in their recognition of certain common conditions.” (ibid.).
There are a number of important observations that one may make regarding such conduct of a resident stranger (or alien sojourner): Firstly, such an individual would not see himself as a comrade with respect to others – he would not stand in solidarity with the many-too-many. Such type of conduct is of course deeply evocative of the Nietzschean disposition. Secondly, and as deeply evocative of the Nietzschean disposition, is that the resident stranger conducts himself as a wanderer or pilgrim – he therefore lives his life in a manner that is expressive of the Zarathustrian alternative paradigm. Thirdly, all resident strangers travel on diverse paths – they therefore choose to follow their own lonesome course informed by its own singular morality, and again very much in terms of the Zarathustrian mode of life. This singular morality would naturally be of no concern to other resident strangers, who would by definition follow their own moral inclination. As importantly, it should also be of no concern to the many-too-many, given that such moral course would not attempt to intervene in the world of those many-too-many, it being a course beyond all political ideologies (on the other hand, a Babelian state-as-idol could certainly concern itself with any diverse paths that diverge from its politics of faith, but that is a risk that resident strangers would have to live with). Finally, the Oakeshottian resident stranger would still remain allied with others in a recognition of certain conditions shared by all in society – he would, in other words, recognize the law in its capacity as social umpire. Interestingly, there is some sense in which the Nietzschean position on this issue can be said to more or less converge with that of the Oakeshottian, and such convergence can be interpreted in a number of ways. For one thing, it may be argued (and as we shall further investigate below) that the Nietzschean approach could fully respect the morality of an independent people’s habit of behaviour, and could therefore respect the laws that emanate from such historically-rooted conduct. As for the modern western citizen who has submitted to the idol-adoration of mass ideology, Nietzsche would simply recognize the slavish needs of the many-too-many to abide by the rules of the hierarchies to which they belong – he would recognize the objective needs of any slave-morality while maintaining his supreme indifference towards such objective reality.
Oakeshott’s concept of the alien sojourner or resident stranger is expressive of a mode of thinking that is both pessimistic and optimistic. It is pessimistic as regards the role of the modern western state, and the various ways in which such state (and its concomitant governmental practices) has been evolving in its relationship to the individual; it is, however, highly optimistic as regards the creative potentialities of the individual, and especially when such individual happens to be exceptional. Corey writes of such pessimism and optimism in the work of Oakeshott as follows: “Indeed, not unlike Augustine’s, Oakeshott’s view of what government can and should achieve is remarkably limited and even pessimistic, despite the fact that he is simultaneously optimistic about the vast possibilities open to individuals. The most important achievements result from people’s making choices for themselves, not from a government that imposes a dominant order on the society as a whole.” (ibid., p. 157).
The imposition of a dominant order is meant to deliberately stifle individual choice, and it thereby stifles those vast possibilities inherent in the individual (or, more realistically, in certain types of individuals). The vast possibilities inherent in the individual constitute the exclusive truth of that individual – and it is precisely this exclusive truth that is stifled when state and government latitude is limitless. It is such limitless latitude that the Oakeshottian project wishes to address, and it does so by presenting the western world with a different understanding of government. Such an understanding is reflective of a particular disposition – being above all a disposition, it is in no way reducible to a system of formulae springing from whatever political ideology. The disposition may nonetheless be said to be philosophically conservative, in that it wishes to salvage whatever remains of a people’s morality of habit of behaviour; as also in that it wishes to salvage the pluralistic culture that has intermittently accompanied such morality. At the same time, such disposition is also essentially radical in its understanding of the current condition of humanity in the western world, and in its vital confirmation of individuality and the exclusive truths of the real world of the concrete individual. Its non-political radicalism is founded on a radical respect for the enactment of one’s independent individuality and its attendant life-project, and as that persistent project is pursued with the individual’s passion for life. Such respect is radical in that it is a confirmation of individual over-activity – and it is such over-activity that is the very womb of inventiveness and changefulness. In fact all too reminiscent of the Nietzschean understanding of life, this conservative-cum-radical disposition announces a respect for the freely-chosen excesses of individual creativity (and the potentially tragic consequences of such excess), and which would imply a deep respect for the freely-chosen exclusive truths of such creativity.
Oakeshott himself expresses all of the above in a very straightforward manner – he writes as follows: “The spring of this other disposition in respect of governing and the instruments of government – a conservative disposition – is to be found in the acceptance of the current condition of human circumstances … : the propensity to make our own choices and to find happiness in doing so, the variety of enterprises each pursued with passion, the diversity of beliefs each held with the conviction of its exclusive truth, the inventiveness, the changefulness and the absence of any large design [as imposed by a politics of faith]; the excess, the over-activity and the informal compromise.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 186).
Based on such radical thinking, the Oakeshottian injunctions towards the state and its organs are quite as radical in terms of their practical implications – again very much reminiscent of the Nietzschean disposition towards all that relates to matters of the state, Oakeshott asserts that the western state should not even, amongst other things, educate its subjects. He expands on this as follows: “And the office of government is not to impose other beliefs and activities upon its subjects, not to tutor or to educate them, not to make them better or happier in another way [i.e. in some other way that disturbs an individual’s own exclusive truth], not to direct them, to galvanize them into action, to lead them or to co-ordinate their activities so that no occasion of conflict shall occur; the office of government is merely to rule. This is a specific and limited activity, easily corrupted when it is combined with any other, and, in the circumstances, indispensable. The image of the ruler is the umpire whose business is to administer the rules of the game, or the chairman who governs the debate according to known rules but does not himself participate in it.” (ibid., pp. 186-187).
It is such types of injunctions that encapsulate the radical, material implications of the Oakeshottian understanding of state and government. It is this particular dispositional stance towards the western state that enables Oakeshott to identify the central conflictual element that has come to characterize much of western history – as already alluded to, such history has not only (or not mainly) been a history of so-called class struggles for social justice and equality (what Nietzsche has referred to as the storms of vengeance on the part of the many-too-many); rather, much of western history has been characterized by struggles between, on the one hand, independent-minded peoples opting to live their lives in civil associations and, on the other, populations seeking the protection of an all-consuming statal politics of faith (the respective and contrasting moral systems of which shall be further investigated below). Such central historical contradiction in the western world has thus been a continual struggle over the limits of politics – and it is the identification of this particular contradiction that allows Oakeshott to argue for and defend the limits of the political moment in the life of the western individual.
With respect to the Oakeshottian position on the necessary limits of the political moment in the western world, Edmund Neill explains that a form of state reflective of a civil association could not and would not ever pursue whatever substantive ends for any of its citizens – and by substantive ends one would here mean whatever policies of distributive justice. And it would not pursue such ends because that would violate the very liberty of its citizens. It is precisely this typically Oakeshottian position that argues for a limited function of the state and politics in western society. Neill writes on this as follows: “… since, by definition, a ‘civil association’ cannot pursue one substantive end without violating the liberty of the citizens within it – even if this (for example) merely consists in upholding one overarching criterion for distributive justice over another – the function of ‘politics’ must inevitably be a fairly limited one, as far as Oakeshott is concerned.” (op. cit., p. 67).
To curb the functions of the political moment in this way is to eschew the very notion of whatever activist government, it being a form of governance that may be said to have come to truly dominate the postmodern western world. Contrasting the Oakeshottian politics of skepticism with that of the politics of faith, Corey delineates what she views as the necessary limits of government, explaining why all forms of activist governance violate such limits. She writes as follows: “It [the politics of skepticism] has much in common with Oakeshott’s idea of civil association, in which government is an umpire, ensuring that minimal rules are obeyed and the rule of law is not jeopardized … skepticism is profoundly dubious about undertakings that pursue mundane perfection [viz. the idol-adoration of perfectionist formulae imposed on society]. Far from the activist government promoted by the politics of faith, in skeptical politics governing is primarily a judicial activity that leaves human beings free to pursue their own purposes.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 165).
Activist government leaves no room for individuals to pursue their own purpose in life, and which is a life that belongs to them and them only. And it leaves no such room as it has already usurped and thereby predetermined the very notion of life-purpose. The imposition of the idol-adoration of social perfectionism presupposes a statal – and ultimately governmental – vision of life. Such vision itself presupposes a truth of the world. But statal truth disallows whatever self-government on the part of society and its social groupings – even more significantly, statal truth abrogates all self-government on the part of the individual, and it thereby wishes to invalidate all manifestations of individual truth. Wishing to salvage both self-government and individual truth, Oakeshott points to the intimations of a form of governance that delimits its own functions in society – he writes as follows: “Government … does not begin with a vision of another, different and better world, but with the observation of the self-government practiced even by men of passion in the conduct of their enterprises … In short, the intimations of government are to be found in ritual, not in religion or philosophy; in the enjoyment of orderly and peaceable behaviour, not in the search for truth or perfection.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 188).
Above all, and given the absolute primacy of individual truth and individual virtue, Oakeshott shall argue that the state ought not to concern itself with what is morally right and morally wrong – like Nietzsche, he is critical of that type of state that has for so long been a value-laden, scale-covered beast. He continues as follows: “It [governing] is not concerned with moral right and wrong, it is not designed to make men good or even better; it is not indispensable on account of ‘the natural depravity of mankind’ …” (ibid., p. 189).
Now, pragmatically speaking – and which implies a dimension of social reality that would be of little interest to the Nietzschean Overman for reasons to be further investigated below – one would be obliged to acknowledge that there are certain limits that must apply to even skeptical politics, and especially as regards its rejection of statal initiatives to mobilize its citizens around specific goals. While such mass mobilization of a people would be anathema to the Oakeshottian understanding of politics, there can be very special circumstances wherein galvanizing a populace into action becomes an inevitable necessity. What could such exceptional circumstances be? Corey points to the limits of Oakeshottian skeptical politics by identifying at least three types of exceptional circumstances – she writes as follows: “… despite its general desirability, skeptical politics may be inappropriate for certain kinds of societies, either those that are just emerging or those that find themselves in times of war or crisis.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 178). It should yet again be emphasized, however, that skeptical politics would here be inappropriate specifically as regards the populace of a society, and not so as regards whichever self-rolling Overman (the relations of the latter to whatever form of state shall be thrashed out in much greater detail in a special section below).
It is quite obvious that when such special circumstances cease to exist, the state should itself cease to operate as an activist state, it should no longer articulate mass, visionary ideologies of the truth of things, and it should no longer concern itself with what is morally right – it would not, in other words, take it upon itself as a state-as-idol to mobilize and galvanize its citizens in terms of a politics of faith. And thus, in an essay written in the aftermath of the Second World War, in 1949, Oakeshott would argue that although any society could find itself mobilizing for war, it would then have to demobilize in the interests of a free society (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 56).
4b. Civil association as a form of state
At least theoretically speaking, when the state-as-Babel ceases, and at that point where the politics of faith also cease to operate, one may say that the structures and practices of civil association as a form of state can come to prevail. Or the inverse might occur, as it more or less happened in the history of western civilization. Civil association as a form of state has of course existed in the history of that civilization – it has also been rigorously upheld as a political option by a variety of major intellectuals in the history of western thought.
To be able to identify the appearance and operation of civil association as a form of state in the history of the western world, one would need to undertake some sort of a historical periodization of western milieus. One would need to pose the following key question: in which particular milieus of the history of the western world did non-purposive forms of state come to prevail? Oakeshott would undertake historical research work attempting to show that Rome – both Republican and Imperial – had in fact been organized around a form (or forms) of state approximating a non-purposive civil association. Therein, it would be none other than private individuals who would associate with one another around the recognition of a law (as neutral umpire) to which they owed obedience – both the recognition of such law, as also the law itself, would not violate either their privacy as persons or their independence as citizens. Oakeshott would go on to argue that the case of Rome did not merely represent an early example of a non-purposive state – it would also constitute a political paradigm that was to be handed down in a variety of ways to the medieval and modern worlds of western civilization. With respect to Oakeshott’s particular historical understanding of the existence of civil association in the course of various western milieus, Luke O’Sullivan writes as follows: “… he [Oakeshott] had begun to reconsider the periods into which political thought was divided – ancient, medieval and modern – and the relationship between them … To begin with the ancient world, he acknowledged its importance without sliding into more-or-less uncritical admiration … Oakeshott recognized the Greeks as the inventors of politics in Europe, but did not go on to draw the conclusion that they had arrived at a definitive understanding of it. In fact, Oakeshott tended to see Rome, rather than Greece, as vital for understanding subsequent developments. The Romans, he believed, were ‘the only European people who have shown a real genius for politics.’ … he saw the Romans as the inventors of ‘by far the most comprehensive and elaborate system of law that any people, save in modern times, has elaborated for itself.’ Rome became ‘a legally organized society in a manner in which even Athens never became.’ In his eyes, Rome, in both its Republican and Imperial periods, had been ‘a civil association … a set of private persons joined in the recognition of a law to which they, all alike, owed obedience.’ The significance of this attitude is worth making explicit – Oakeshott was claiming, in effect, that the Roman State had provided an early example of a non-purposive understanding of a State, an example handed down to the medieval and modern worlds.” (cf. Luke O’Sullivan, “Michael Oakeshott on European Political History”, op. cit., p. 138).
Now, the history of western thought would itself present us with a long list of intellectuals who had, in one way or another, argued for civil association as an effective manner of organizing western societies – to the extent that the Nietzschean project could at all be said to imply some positive element of political thinking applicable to western society as a whole, one would perhaps include Nietzsche himself amongst the list of proponents of civil association. Corey Abel, in his “Forward to The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott’s Conservatism” (cf. Academia.edu, 2010, p. xiv), writes as follows: “Oakeshott’s list of proponents of civil association includes an impressive line-up of major thinkers: Pico della Mirandola, Marsilius of Padua, Montaigne, Hobbes, Pascal, Hume, Kant, Burke, Blake, Locke (usually), the American Founders (in spite of their often ‘enterprising’ rhetoric), Nietzsche, and of course, Hegel.”
It is not for us to verify the accuracy of such general observations regarding the roster of proponents – one may here cautiously assume that most, if not all, of the thinkers listed above would at some point or other in the course of their intellectual careers have espoused a mode of thinking approximating the notion of civil association. But perhaps the most effective manner of verifying the extent to which they constitute proponents of civil association would be to measure the degree to which they would have subscribed to values such as the following:
- The pursuance of an individual’s personal activities must take priority over and above all else in the world – all that politics and its practices can do is to quietly oversee the general rules of conduct precisely so as to facilitate such personal activities (cf., for instance, StJohnsPipeCasts, “Michael Oakeshott’s Political Philosophy”, YouTube, October 16, 2020).
- Beyond providing the obligatory public service of facilitating an individual’s personal activities, government must remain an absolutely indifferent referee (cf., for instance, José Roberto Bonifácio, “On Being Conservative (1956) by Michael Oakeshott”, Academia.edu, undated).
- Although one should acknowledge the need for a stable order as one precondition for human fulfillment, the state and the political realm as a whole can never provide what is ultimately satisfying for human beings – one should not place one’s hopes for salvation in this-worldly activity and in a this-worldly Rationalist-based ideological eschatology for some New Jerusalem (cf., for instance, Corey, op. cit., pp. 20-21).
These would be some of the very basic values – and as these have been presented thus far in this paper – which would have to be espoused by any proponent of civil association. But what really matters in any discussion of the question of civil association as a politico-historical phenomenon is not merely the extent to which such phenomenon has come to be articulated in the history of western political philosophy by particular proponents. What truly matters, and matters above all, belongs to a different order of things. This may be put as succinctly as possible as follows: the actual materialization of whatever form of civil association in the western world can only but depend on individuals who are consciously willing and naturally capable of participating in such a form of social organization. Civil association, in other words, depends on the existence of a particular type of person with particular qualities – Oakeshott would call such type cives. And it is in the definition of a cive that there would be a definite common ground in the thinking of Oakeshott and in that of Nietzsche. How would both define that type of individual who would choose to live his life in a civil association?
To begin with, a typical cive would neither demand nor depend on whatever substantive props which supposedly ought to be provided by the state. His material maintenance, in other words, would not depend on the state’s petty policies (remember Nietzsche) of distributive justice. Corey explains that Oakeshott’s cives participating in civil associations (as opposed to enterprise associations) “are related only in terms of a moral practice, which postulates no substantive ends.” (ibid., p. 184).
Secondly, a typical cive is necessarily a moral individualist, and there can be no civil association in the absence of such moral individualists. In her discussion of skeptical politics, and which is that type of politics yielding civil association, Corey writes as follows: “As he [Oakeshott] makes clear in Morality and Politics in Modern Europe, skeptical politics depends upon the existence of a type of person who is a moral individualist, someone disposed “to make choices for [himself] to the maximum possible extent” …” (ibid., p. 182).
Thirdly, all cives would need to be self-determining free agents. But what is it that makes one a self-determining free agent? Making use of Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct, Corey explains what a self-determining individual is, and especially what he is not – she writes as follows: “Most important to the relationship of cives is that they are self-determining individuals – “not neurophysiological organisms, genetic characters, psychological egos or components of a ‘social process’, but ‘free’ agents whose responses to one another’s actions and utterances is one of understanding” …” (ibid., p. 184). It should be noted here that, precisely because they are morally independent free agents, cives are not and cannot be the products of particular social circumstances – very much like the Nietzschean higher man, the Oakeshottian cive stands over and above the components of whatever so-called social process.
Finally, and again highly reminiscent of the Zarathustrian mode of being, the typical cive is above all a fearless but well prepared risk-taker – he would reject the cowardice of those who comfortably embrace the small happinesses offered by the state (its substantive gifts). The cive is that type of individual who is prepared to face the ordeal of consciousness all by himself – this is how Corey puts it: “Civil association thus requires agents who are well prepared to face the “ordeal of consciousness”, who embrace opportunities to make choices for themselves, and who are unafraid of the possibilities for failure that partner any potential success.” (ibid.). It goes without saying that such particular prerequisites – and especially that ability to fearlessly face the ordeal of one’s own consciousness – are not meant for the modern-day mass man and his ideals for the building of collective Towers. Such prerequisites, in other words, are not meant for what Nietzsche would call the mobilized, idol-worshipping and thereby superfluous many-too-many (“those are all cowardly”, as he observes).
Unless a society is predominantly composed of individuals satisfying the four closely interrelated prerequisites delineated above, such society would not be able to organize itself around civil associations. It seems that for Oakeshott (though certainly not for Nietzsche), while the establishment of civil association as a form of state would depend on a particular type of individual, that type of individual would himself depend upon civil association for his own personal freedom. And he would depend upon civil association so as to secure such personal freedom since civil association as a form of state would above all mean a moderation of all political power – such power would only be put to use when there is an absolute necessity for such use. Oakeshott expresses this position as follows: “… we consider that our freedom depends as much upon the moderation of the power exercised by government as upon the proper and courageous use of that power when necessity arises.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 42).
It is of absolute importance to finally note here that, whenever some form of civil association had (or has) emerged in the course of western civilization, such particular manifestation of political will would come to constitute the guarantor of that civilization. Relating civil association as a form of state to the Oakeshottian language of civility, Edmund Neill writes as follows: “… the ‘language’ of civility has a particular importance in relating agents [through the plurality of tolerance and/or mutual understanding], since it is in some sense the guarantor of civilization …” (op. cit., p. 64).
4c. Civil association and the question of traditionality
As has already been discussed above, civil association as a form of state would presuppose a settled structure protective of individual freedom – such protective structure, enunciated in the rule of law, would operate as a social umpire in partnership with the traditions of time-past (though also, one should not forget, with the practical needs of time-present). We need to dwell further on the implications of the fact that the functioning of a civil association is informed by time-past and the traditionality embedded in such time-past.
Where does the rule of law in any civil association – or, rather, the particular rules of the settled structure protective of individuality in that association – emanate from? The rules of civil association are rules that have evolved over time. They can only but emanate from such a historical evolution; they can only but be inherited from the past – they could not possibly be any one person’s brainchild. Inherited from the past and the traditionality embedded in such time-past, such rules can often limit what any individual may or may not do – but such rules cannot ever determine or dictate individual actions. This seems to be the basic Oakeshottian understanding of civil association and its relationship to traditionality (cf. StJohnsPipeCasts, op. cit.) – how this compares and contrasts with the Nietzschean position on traditionality (and his respect for traditional peoples who had once been able to be life-affirming) shall further unfold below.
In discussing the conditions of civil association and the freedom of the individual therein – and not, in any case, the need for the self-assertion of a morality of individuality under whichever social circumstances in the modern world – Oakeshott cannot escape, and does not wish to escape, the inherited traditions of western civilization and the implications of such a civilization. Given such a context, Oakeshott tells us that the freedom of the individual is a freedom that is acquired, mastered and celebrated within the historical experience bestowed on western man by inherited traditionality – viz. by a particular morality of habit of behaviour. Of course, this would suggest that the freedom of an individual who willfully participates in a civil association (and unlike the Nietzschean Overman vis-à-vis the demands of the market-place in, say, a country of modern Europe) would be constrained by the practices and traditions of that morality of habit of behaviour, and he would be more or less constrained by the habituation that goes with such behaviour. One may therefore say that the Oakeshottian freedom is one that is both expansive and limited. Corey explains Oakeshott’s position with respect to individual freedom and the question of traditionality as follows: “The freedom Oakeshott applauds is something that must be learned and enjoyed within inherited traditions. It is therefore a freedom at once expansive and limited. This is important to note, because many people find Oakeshott’s non-rule-based morality almost frighteningly liberating. If there are no hard and fast rules, they argue, what is to prevent people from acting immorally and badly? Oakeshott’s answer would surely be that no rules could prevent this, and it is a misunderstanding of morality to imagine that any such ironclad rules exist. Nevertheless, he would also point out the constraining features of practices and traditions, which habituate people toward acting in morally acceptable ways.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 222).
Which are the basic values that have come to constitute western inherited traditionality? Oakeshott’s response to this question may be said to belong to the conservative – as opposed to the liberal – genre. While any attempts at labeling Oakeshottian political thinking would be of little use for our purposes, one would in any case have to admit that Oakeshott’s libertarian position does at the same time wish to conserve certain basic values that have come to define the western world. Edmund Neill (op. cit.) explains this as follows: “What, then, marks out Oakeshott’s position as a conservative rather than liberal? … In the first place, … there is a much stronger sense in Oakeshott’s work than one would expect from a late twentieth-century liberal of the value of the nation-state, and beyond this of the importance of patriotism in general. If ‘tradition’ is something that Oakeshott is concerned to value, by this he means – primarily at least – a national tradition, rather than something more international.” (p. 111).
One may perhaps be more specific here as regards the implicit values of Oakeshottian inherited traditionality by making the following observations:
- Western inherited traditionality has generally embraced the political notion of the nation-state as a supreme political unit organizing a people – but that which is to be above all valued in a particular nation-state is its upholding of the principle of pluralism, and which would therefore mean an absolute respect for the morality of individuality.
- The Oakeshottian understanding of the historical nation-state as a value to be conserved presupposes that its political realm is restricted to the role of neutral umpire.
- Oakeshottian inherited traditionality would uphold the value of patriotism – but this would be an understanding of patriotism as a strictly personal taste or personal disposition, and not at all as a political ideology (whether statal or popular, or both).
- A people’s national tradition – and the cultural practices that have come to express it – would also need to be upheld, but only to the extent that such national tradition constitutes a morality of habit of behaviour emanating from the people themselves as independent subjects (and which would therefore not be a set of values and practices that have been imposed by the state and its organic intellectuals).
- Generally speaking, the Oakeshottian understanding of inherited traditionality would value a people’s historical identity – such western identity has above all been informed by the Christian cultural heritage. Again, this Christian cultural heritage is only to be valued to the extent that it is a manifestation of a popular morality of habit of behaviour, and not an imposed state ideology.
Now, the question of western historical identity – and its concomitant Christian cultural heritage – is often of central importance in the work of Oakeshott in that it allows him to examine the relationship between change and sameness within that identity. He wishes to argue, in other words, that one may speak of a cohesive and coherent western identity (its sameness in time) not despite the changes such identity has undergone in the course of its history, but precisely because of such changes. Whatever changes in western identity, he shall attempt to show, actually depend on the sameness of that identity – such changes are also necessary for the enrichment of that identity. And his understanding of civil association as a form of state presupposes both the sameness of western identity and the organically evolving changes taking place within such western identity. Corey presents this important aspect of Oakeshottian political thinking as follows: “The significance of identity lies in its ability to endure through changes. In other words, there must be some aspect of a phenomenon that has a qualitative sameness even while other aspects of it are transformed. This issue of identity is a more pressing issue in Christianity than in most other religions. For in these other religions, Oakeshott observes, “there has often been little change of surrounding civilization and little internal development; Christianity, however, has suffered both extensively”. It is Oakeshott’s task … to find some answer to the question of what part historical understanding plays in Christianity, and in exactly what the “identity” of Christianity may be found … Oakeshott provides the following answer. Identity, he argues, “so far from excluding differences, is meaningless in their absence, just as difference or change depend on something whose identity is not destroyed by that change” … to say that something is exactly the same is not yet to say anything about identity. If identity is to be a meaningful concept at all, then it requires that some sort of change take place even as something else simultaneously stays the same.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 89).
In her presentation of Oakeshott’s position on western identity and traditionality, Corey then goes on to further consider the issue of change and sameness in terms of possible deep ruptures in such identity and traditionality. For Oakeshott, she tells us, “Anything that does not cause an “absolute break” in the development of the Christian tradition may potentially be integrated into that tradition.” (ibid., p. 90). Of course, one may here raise the question as to what constitutes an absolute break, and such question is pertinent as it hinges on the continuity of western civilization, and therefore also hinges on the extent to which such civilization could ever accommodate traditionalist-pluralist civil associations as a form of social organization in the course of its future history. It may be argued that an absolute rupture within western identity and Christian traditionality would be a break that ultimately comes to eliminate all traces of the western morality of habit of behaviour – and, surely, the phenomenon of globalization could be considered to be a force that does just that. On the other hand, and given that the phenomenon of globalization remains a highly complex historical process (some analysts have counterposed globalization to apparently more realistic notions of (g)localization and postmodern regionalization), it would perhaps be wiser at this point in human history to let analysts of the future determine the extent to which absolute breaks in the history of the western identity have actually occurred and have irreversibly eliminated all vestiges of such identity.
For Oakeshott, in any case, western identity and its attendant moral practices – and which is the historical terrain in which civil association as a form of state has sprouted – presupposes a tradition of moral conduct, it being a particular popular morality of habit of behaviour which has characterized various milieus (not all) of western civilization. For Oakeshott, Corey tells us, “No moral ideals can exist prior to or independently of moral conduct …” (ibid., p. 163). By the term ideals, of course, Oakeshott would here definitely not mean those expressive of a political ideology – rather, such ideals would be the moral values of an independent, self-created community, and which would be a community that would respect the moral values of the independent individuals composing that community. And Oakeshott’s understanding of ideals would not be referring to those of an ideology since the ideals of whichever ideology are precisely the type that do exist independently of a tradition of moral conduct. When these do so exist, they are ideals that have been imposed on a people by the state and its ideologues as rules and formulae – they are what Nietzsche has referred to as the appointed virtues of the scribe-fingers. For Oakeshott these scribe-fingers are the rationalist ideologues of the modern western state.
It is in the very nature of the rationalist ideologue to disparage habit, custom and tradition – his rationalist politics of faith are such as to ceaselessly plan the imposition of new conceptual constructions of the truth independently of a community’s traditional morality of habit of behaviour. Corey explains the Oakeshottian position on rationalist politics and its dismissal of traditionality as follows: “The Rationalist disparages habit and custom, preferring new construction on an absolutely “rational” foundation … “To patch up, to repair (that is, to do anything which requires a patient knowledge of the material), [the Rationalist] regards as a waste of time; and he always prefers the invention of a new device to making use of a current and well-tried expedient” …” (ibid., p. 161).
It would be civil association as a form of state that would safeguard – via its primary social arrangement of plurality – both the best of traditionality and the best of the morality of habit of behaviour in its organically progressive transformation through time. For some modern-day thinkers, it has also been the traditional western university – amongst other civil institutions – that has played a major role in salvaging the best of western traditionality. As a body of cumulative traditional learning, Anthony Burgess has argued, the traditional western university has always had to appeal to tradition. On the other hand, he would also go on to argue that the present-day western university – he was speaking in the 1970’s – may be said to be guilty of the debasement of knowledge given its gradual disparagement of western traditionality (cf. Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: “The Young”, January 27, 2017, Episode S0074, Recorded on December 21, 1972). The question therefore yet again arises as to whether or not the postmodern western university has developed in such a way – and given the phenomenon of globalization – as to deepen even further the so-called deep ruptures in western traditional identity discussed above. Again, this shall have to remain an open question.
- Types of moralities
Our discussion of the two generically different forms of state – the Oakeshottian understanding of the state as enterprise association versus the state as civil association – now allows us to examine the radically different types of moralities that are intrinsic to these two different forms of state. The two types of moralities we shall be presenting below may be said to be respectively reflective of a particular form of state and therefore respectively reflective of a particular form of social organization. This presentation of the two discrete moralities that have come to characterize the history of the western world shall naturally interlock with Nietzsche’s own presentation of the issue of morality, and as such issue pertains to both a people (or peoples) and the concrete individual.
5a. The life versus the death of a people
We may commence our presentation of the issue of morality by making the simple – and by now perhaps even self-evident – observation that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would fully agree on the following central understanding of human life: when a people organizes itself around a self-imposed morality, that community of people affirms life per se; when a people is organized around a state-imposed morality, that spells the death of that community. This understanding of human life – and the concomitant issue of morality – needs to be explored further.
“Somewhere”, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra tells us, “there are still peoples … but not with us, my brethren; here there are states.” (p. 45). There where one finds independent, self-created peoples, one finds life and its affirmation; there where one finds the operation of states over peoples, one finds death.
This means that there where there is yet still a people, one finds that there is yet still a people’s own morality of habit of behaviour – it is a morality of habit designating their mode of living which they have gradually created by and for themselves, and which they have gradually come to impose on themselves. In direct contrast, there where the state rules the roost, one finds a superfluous people – and they are superfluous because they are in need of the protection of the state, and they need its protection because they themselves can no longer create their own life-meaning and life-values.
Oakeshott sees both of these realities as part of the history of the western world – so does Nietzsche. And, despite what has so often and so carelessly been said of the Nietzschean enterprise, it should here and once and for all be stated that a careful reading of Thus Spake Zarathustra reveals a deep respect for the history of peoples who had once created their own faiths, and who had thereby served life. Nietzsche therefore truly appreciated and paid tribute to peoples that lived their lives in terms of their own morality of habit of behaviour and the intrinsic moral faith that informed such behaviour. It is of course true that the faith informing their behaviour would above all be articulated by the exceptional amongst them – but these higher men were essentially creators. They did not function as autonomous operators of a state – they simply did not constitute the famous wise ones of some state organ spinning and weaving rationalist-based ideologies and rationalist-based formulae for a utopian future. Rather, they would articulate a morality of life celebrating (what Oakeshott shall call) presentness – i.e., a morality of habit of behaviour centered on human activities as ends in themselves. And it is for this reason that, as Nietzsche says, such creators served life – and did so together with their own people.
Nietzsche would therefore recognize, accept, and respect a certain tradition that had existed prior to the rise of the modern European state, that coldest of all cold monsters. Like Oakeshott, he thereby rejects all of state ideology, which leads to the moral death of its populace. For both, in other words, the state is a destroyer of peoples because it destroys their own organically-developed laws and customs. This is how Nietzsche expresses this important position: “Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and [hated] as sin against laws and customs.” (ibid.).
If there be a definition of sin in a people’s morality of habit of behaviour – in its own laws and customs – that definition is crystal-clear: it is the state itself. And it is the evil eye of that morality since it denies a people its autonomous right to devise its own language and the language of its own morality. Nietzsche continues here as follows: “This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil; this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath it devised for itself in laws and customs.” (ibid.).
Of course, this devising – this creating – of its own language of laws and customs for itself is precisely what Oakeshott has identified as a people’s morality of habit of behaviour. And this creation of a language for itself is reflective of its own will, which it bestows upon itself. An authentically independent people is thus beyond whatever submission to whichever idol-worship as devised by the state-as-idol.
On the question of will, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “And all those are mine equals who give unto themselves their Will, and divest themselves of all submission.” (p. 166). By thus divesting themselves of whatever submission, Zarathustra’s equals deliver themselves from all the ideological waves of the state and its superfluous many-too-many – they deliver themselves, in other words, from the common, small virtues and the idols that symbolize these virtues. And it is thus that they are a free people – free, that is, to become creators of their own morality and the cultural practices that are epitomized in that morality. Zarathustra expresses this as follows: “Willing emancipateth; for willing is creating: so do I teach. And only for creating shall ye learn!” (p. 200).
A free, self-willing people is a people that is brimming with the vitality of life, and which is to be contrasted to the death of the many-too-many as subjects of the state. Brimming with the vitality of life, a free people is able to be the creator of its own morality – but by being the creator of its own good and evil, it is also the creator of its own cultural vitality, and thereby it takes it upon itself to be the creator of its own cultural civilization. This is of central importance to the Nietzschean enterprise, and which is what Oakeshott has himself referred to as the realm of poetry qua mode of life. In Oakeshott’s work, of course, the term poetry shall be used in a very special sense, and which is a concept that will be examined in some detail below. Suffice it to say at this point that the Oakeshottian understanding of poetry is synonymous with the act of creativity in various spheres of life, it being the activity of imagining or of making images for one’s own independent self, thereby creating a universe of poetic images that constitutes culture per se. For Oakeshott, such creative activity of poetic imagining can belong to both a people and an individual.
The crucial point here is that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, in their defense of a free, self-willing and self-creative people (and/or individual), place the moment of culture and cultural creativity in command of all else in human activity. And thus it is that Michael Gillespie, in his paper entitled “Nietzsche’s Deepest Thought”, tells us that it was Nietzsche who would primarily argue for “the necessary cultural foundations of political life” (cf. Academia.edu, January 15, 2015, no pagination). The exact same may be said of Oakeshott’s own work.
5b. The rarity of a genuine people
The history of the western world has not often given birth to genuine peoples that had (or have) been free, self-willing, and self-creative – such types of peoples (but also, as shall be indicated, such types of individuals) happen to be rare. Speaking of peoples, Nietzsche observes as follows: “Some of them will, but most of them are willed. Some of them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.” (p. 165).
Only some of them will or have willed their lives – most do not or have not, they have allowed or expected others to do the willing for them. As the phrase many-too-many obviously implies, these are the majority, and they cannot be genuine. Since they are willed by others, they can only but be bad actors – and they are unconscious of themselves as bad actors. Nietzsche continues thus: “There are actors without knowing it amongst them, and actors without intending it; the genuine ones are always rare, especially the genuine actors.” (ibid.).
Addressing himself to the small people – those who subscribe to the common, small virtues – Zarathustra advises as follows: “Ah, that ye understood my word: ‘Do ever what ye will – but first be such as can will’ …” (p. 167). But the reality is that possessing the ability to will is itself a rarity.
Oakeshott would fully concur with Nietzsche as to what the many-too-many in the western world – most people therein – are capable of doing, and what they are simply incapable of doing when it comes to living their lives as free and independent beings. He has observed that the modern western-type mass man is incapable of willing his life, and is incapable of willing such life as a form of presentness or as an end in itself. Given such generalized incapacity – which reduces the many-too-many to living their lives as bedwarfed cripples – the modern masses are in need of social arrangements that must take care of that unceasing list of practical needs that typifies their mode of being. And so they need to maintain protective institutions and relationships that cater to those practical needs. Most people therefore live their lives within what amounts to a prison, it being a prison that confines them to the needs of practical – as opposed to aesthetic – experience. This must be said to apply to the vast majority of people – the many-too-many. The implication is that it does not apply to certain others – the exceptional types who are, by definition, rare. Corey presents Oakeshott’s position regarding the majority of the western populace and its mode of being as follows: “Indeed, most people, as Oakeshott observes, are confined within practical experience “as in a prison”. The alternative to practice lies in Oakeshott’s conception of “presentness” …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 59). She explains that Oakeshott’s understanding of the nature of practice (or that of practical experience) is essentially that dimension of life that is dominated by nothing else but “the continuousness of needs” (ibid., p. 57). Naturally, it remains quite impossible for even the rarest of all individuals to escape the contingencies of practical needs – but that which makes him in any case rare is that such needs are not ever continuous, they do not demand his constant attention to such practical concerns. In his case, therefore, the realm of practical needs is simply not dominant. He possesses both the self-determination and the capability of peripheralizing all such practical needs – and he possesses the will to both suffer and celebrate the consequences of his selective mode of being.
Now, as regards the question of the rarity and the genuineness of any one group of people (and perhaps to some degree in contrast to the exceptionally rare individual), one should here reflect on a certain qualification that always needs to be considered in attempting to understand that group’s mode of life and history. It may be argued that the historical life of any people can be complex enough to include both a manifestation of its will and a manifestation of an absence of such will. And that can apply to merely a particular moment of its history or can – more often – apply to its history as spread across time and depending on conjunctural circumstances. And thus one may say that a people can often be seen to be both making its history as an independent self-willing force in terms of its own self-made morality of habit of behaviour and, perhaps at the same time, be living its life in terms of a uniform acceptance of an imposed idol-adoration. A people can therefore be both creative (as it nurtures its own morality in a manner facilitating that morality’s organic evolution, development and progress) and uncreative (as it passively accepts an imposed formulaic morality developing of its own accord). Exactly when and where such phenomena manifest themselves in the real world is a matter of investigation for the social historian.
5c. Of the creative peoples
Western history has in any case come to witness the emergence of clusters of truly creative peoples who have – or had – made their own history as informed by their own self-imposed morality, and which was a morality expressive of their own distinct habit of behaviour. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra clearly speaks of such distinct habit of behaviour amongst certain historical peoples, and he celebrates the distinction of such peoples.
A people’s morality of habit of behaviour is that people’s valuing of all things as either good or bad. Such morality designating the good and the bad of a people is a distinct morality created by the people themselves – it is thus a self-imposed morality of habit of behaviour spontaneously and historically created by such truly independent people, and which is at the same time capable of giving birth to a comprehensive valuing culture and thus to a distinct civilization of original cultural practices. That people’s morality of habit of behaviour and its concomitant valuing culture and civilizational practices is a force that may be created and re-created in history (or it may wither and die depending on the form of social arrangements that ultimately come to prevail, especially as regards the form of statal organization).
For Nietzsche, a people’s disposition determining its own sense of good and bad – its own morality of habit of behaviour – is the single most powerful determinant of all of human history. In his Thus Spake Zarathustra, he writes as follows: “Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many people; thus he discovered the good and bad of many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than good and bad.” (p. 55).
Now, a people’s valuing culture must be such as to also define that people’s exceptionalism. The creative act of valuing is essential for the life of a people – in the absence of such creative act, one would see the death of that people. But for that life to be sustained in time, that creative act of valuing must also be exceptionalist. The people’s valuation of things has to be exceptionalist because that is the only way in which it can maintain its own unique cultural identity, and thereby maintain itself. It need value its world in a manner that is different from that of other peoples. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks of such exceptionalism as follows: “No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbour valueth.” (ibid.). And Zarathustra further confirms this position by continuing thus: “Much that passed for good with one people was regarded with scorn and contempt by another: thus I found it. Much found I here called bad, which was there decked with purple honours. Never did the one neighbour understand the other; ever did his soul marvel at his neighbour’s delusion and wickedness.” (ibid.). The Nietzschean admonition that a creative people must not value as does its neighbouring people should not be seen as an admonition encouraging chauvinism – on the other hand, it certainly does confirm the Oakeshottian disposition espousing national traditionality and the sense of patriotism that expresses it.
But above all it should here be emphasized that the Nietzschean insistence on a people’s exceptionalist originality is based on the almost common sense understanding that originality equals creativity and vice versa. That particular Zarathustrian admonition to a people – you must not create as others do – wishes to salvage originality since all creative activities must by definition be original. Were they not to be original, they would simply not be creative. This surely applies to any work of art – but it must similarly apply to the creativity of valuation and thus to a people’s cultural civilization. If art is an aesthetic act, so is a people’s historical conduct and disposition – and the Oakeshottian project would itself fully confirm such an understanding of the art of living (remember Oakeshott’s understanding of poetry as a mode of life).
As in the act of any artistic creativity, it is the will to power that functions as the catalyst to the achievement of excellence in the art of living. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks thus of creative peoples and of their will to power: “A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo, it is the table of their triumphs; lo, it is the voice of their Will to Power.” (ibid.).
It is this will to power that informs a people’s valuation of what is good and what is bad. For a triumphant people, that which is good takes on an exceptional meaning, and which is a meaning that may be contrasted to that sense of good as espoused by the modern mass man (his ideology of virtuous social solidarity, for instance). For any independent, self-determining people, it is the virtue of hardness which constitutes their sense of the good. That which is hard is that which is good, and that which is hardest of all is seen as holy – this would be the intrinsic faith of a self-determining people. It would be a self-imposed faith serving life and, being a self-faith, it would serve to maintain them as an independent people. Zarathustra speaks of this as follows: “It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and hardest of all – they extol as holy.” (ibid.).
This will to power through the virtue of hardness enables a self-determining people to preserve the rule over themselves, to prevail over whatever threatens the exceptionality of their identity, and to thereby sparkle in the excellence and originality of their cultural civilization. It is in such manner that a self-determining people continually tests itself, and by so testing itself it reproduces itself. That which enables it to pass the test of its reproduction – that will to power expressive of the virtue of hardness – would constitute the very meaning of its life as a people. Zarathustra continues thus: “Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and shine, to the dismay and envy of their neighbours, they regard as the high and foremost thing, the test and the meaning of all else.” (ibid.).
Western civilization has actually seen the existence of such creative peoples – that particular civilization’s primal cradle would be populated precisely by such types, and Nietzsche chooses to present the ancient Greeks as such types of a self-determining, creative people (perhaps in some contrast to Oakeshott, who would of course identify the Romans as a superior people possessing that real genius for politics). Zarathustra speaks of the so-called soul of the Greeks as follows: “… ‘Always shalt thou be the foremost and prominent above others; no one shall thy jealous soul love, except a friend’: that made the soul of a Greek thrill; thereby went he his way to greatness.” (ibid.). Terms such as foremost, prominent, and that special and highly selective form of jealousy, are clearly types of expressions meant to capture the exceptionality of the ancient Greek people and their will to creative self-determination.
Nietzsche’s criteria for the evaluation of creative peoples in the course of history are such as to allow him to consider cases other than that of the Greeks – but, and as has already been alluded to, such criteria point to the primacy of values rooted in traditionality, or rooted in traditional moralities of habit of behaviour. With respect to the importance of traditional values in consolidating an exceptional people, Zarathustra speaks as follows: “… ‘To honour father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their will’: this table of surmounting hung another people over them, and became powerful and permanent thereby.” (ibid.).
Above all and in all historically considered cases, exceptional and creative people have been endowed with the possession of that will to power whereby they could give unto themselves their own table of good and bad. That would be their own gift unto themselves, that being their own morality of habit of behaviour. They did not borrow this morality from others – they did not need to imitate other people’s moral habits, this being a matter of their very own exceptionalism. They did not somehow discover this morality – they did not chance upon some pre-existing moral formula which they adopted for themselves. And they did not wait for some extrinsic voice to tell them what is good and what is bad – they did not expect either certain famous wise ones or certain metaphysical agencies to advise them on matters of moral conduct (and this would certainly also be the case where a people happened to uphold a particular religious faith, such faith being of their very own making). The essential point here is that a self-determined people’s morality of habit of behaviour is what it is as that is lived by that people – it is an inherent and defining feature of that people. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks of all this as follows: “Verily, men have given unto themselves all their good and bad. Verily, they took it not, they found it not, it came not unto them as a voice from heaven.” (ibid., p. 56). And it was precisely such mode of life that rendered such people a valuing, creative people aware of its own consequence – Zarathustra continues thus: “Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself – he created only the significance of things, a human significance! Therefore called he himself ‘man’ – that is, the valuator.” (ibid.).
It is the egoism of an artist (the Oakeshottian poet) that would define a people as self-ruling valuator – but, then, it would be precisely such artistic egoism that would ultimately unleash in the course of history what Nietzsche would call bad conscience. And such bad conscience would be unleashed on the part of those peoples (and/or individuals) that would find themselves incapable of affirming their own roles as self-ruling creative valuators. And one would identify such incapacity for the creative valuation of things on the part of the majority of peoples (or individuals) simply because creative peoples (or individuals) have been rare in the history of western civilization, at least as has been observed by both Nietzsche and Oakeshott. In a text entitled “Nietzsche: Psychology vs. Philosophy, and Freedom”, Shlomo Pines considers the question of rulership on the basis of a people’s artistic egoism, and the subsequent backlash of bad conscience on the part of those that have allowed themselves to be ruled – he writes as follows: “A conquering horde, in organizing its rulership with the unconscious egoism of an artist, brings about, according to Nietzsche, the seeming disappearance of a great quantum of freedom. The instinct of freedom becomes latent, is internalized, turns into bad conscience, and thus the transformation of man which Nietzsche found so fascinating comes about.” (cf. Academia.edu, 1986, p. 154).
As we shall see in much greater detail further below, it would be this clash between self-ruling creative valuators and the bad conscience of the rest that would translate into an ideological conflict that would prevail throughout the course of the history of the western world. This would be a clash between two opposing moral worldviews – viz. a clash between individualist and anti-individualist moralities, and which would in fact be a clash between those that celebrated, on the one hand, a people’s (or an individual’s) self-determining creative valuation of things and, on the other, those that celebrated mass man and his collective social movements mobilized around rationalist political ideals of social justice.
For Nietzsche in particular, this clash of worldviews would give birth to a series of historical milieus in the course of western civilization which would either allow the egoism of the artist to rule the roost, or would otherwise allow the democratic many-too-many (and their form of state) to rule that roost. In the case of the former, it would be the best that ruled – and since they would be the best as creating valuators, they would possess the right to imperial rule over weaker peoples and/or individuals. In the case of the modern democratic milieus, it would be the social justice of so-called good neighbourliness that would prevail, and which would ultimately yield the state-as-idol and as the ubiquitous protector of the ideology of good neighbourliness.
Of course, when Nietzsche speaks of milieus wherein the best had once prevailed, he is referring to a remote past – alternatively, when he speaks of the many-too-many and their ideology of good neighbourliness, he is obviously referring to the modern European milieu as he lived it at the time. With respect to his modern European contemporaries – the people as traders – he observes as follows: “They lay lures for one another, they lure things out of one another – that they call ‘good neighbourliness’ …” (p. 204).
In direct contrast, and being fully aware of the need for a periodization of the history of the western world, Nietzsche speaks of that remote period – or perhaps that series of milieus – in the history of such world which had been dominated by the egoism of peoples as ruling artists. It is such period – or such conjunctures – that he shall see as blessed. This is what he writes: “O blessed remote period when a people said to itself: ‘I will be – master over peoples!’ For, my brethren, the best shall rule, the best also willeth to rule! And where the teaching is different, there – the best is lacking.” (ibid.).
Now, it should here be quite evident that there are a couple of important problems in this Nietzschean presentation of creative peoples. These problems are already apparent, for instance, in his suggestion that the best shall rule. Elsewhere in Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche even goes so far as to write the following: “Ye lonesome ones of today, ye seceding ones, ye shall one day be a people; out of you who have chosen yourselves shall a chosen people arise – and out of it the Superman.” (p. 74).
The first problem with such type of thinking may be explained as follows: typically, both the Nietzschean and the Oakeshottian understanding of the modern western world could only but have been highly pessimistic as regards that world’s ability to somehow overcome the consequences of the rise of a huge leviathan state-as-idol, and its concomitant imposition of mass ideologies on the many-too-many. And so both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would, in the last instance, focus on an articulation of the morality of individuality – and they would thus both dwell on the exceptional individual’s lonesome struggle to enact himself as a self-rolling wheel within the abject circumstances of a world as market-place (with its flies). And yet, in the particular quotes referred to above, Nietzsche here seems to be moving, from a certain hope in the exceptional individual as placed in the modern world, back to a hope for the future rise of a chosen people.
Of course, and right at the same time, therein lies the second problem in this type of Nietzschean thinking – very much like thinkers such as Hegel and especially Marx, Nietzsche himself apparently seems to be inadvertently lapsing into a millenarian eschatology that simply cannot be taken too seriously. The idea that a chosen people shall someday arise, a people beyond and above the many-too-many, is obviously problematic precisely because it is prophetic, and thus guilty of the fallacy of teleology.
Very much unlike the work of Oakeshott, there can be traces of a certain utopianism in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. Consider the following passage: “He who hath grown wise concerning old origins, lo, he will at last seek after the fountains of the future and new origins. O my brethren, not long will it be until new peoples shall arise and new fountains shall rush down into new depths. For the earthquake – it choketh up many wells, it causeth much languishing; but it bringeth also to light inner powers and secrets. The earthquake discloseth new fountains. In the earthquake of old peoples new fountains burst forth. And whoever calleth out: ‘Lo, here is a well for many thirsty ones, one heart for many longing ones, one will for many instruments’ – around him collecteth a people, that is to say, many attempting ones. Who can command, who must obey – that is there attempted! Ah, with what long seeking and solving and failing and learning and re-attempting!” (p. 205).
This passage seems to radically diverge from any typically Oakeshottian thinking given its eschatological utopianism. Paradoxically, however, it can also be said to converge with Oakeshott’s political philosophy, based at least on a certain inferential perspective. The idea that superior new peoples shall at some point in history arise and collect together in some new and superior form of social arrangement, and that they will do so from the womb of old peoples, is certainly utopian. On the other hand, were they – hypothetically – to in fact so arise, they would be establishing an Oakeshottian-type civil association. And they would be doing this because when free individuals – the type who create and espouse their own personal virtues – collect together, they can only but co-exist within a civil association, it being that type of social arrangement that recognizes such free, self-determining individuality. This collection of free individuals would yield a common will, thus forging a new, self-determining people. Therein, the best would rule (rulership would be a process of attempting and re-attempting), and the rest would obey. But, and as Oakeshott would argue, such obedience would be freely willed and consciously acknowledged by individuals continuing to enact their own private worlds as cives.
For Nietzsche, of course, this type of hypothetical thinking would miss the point of his whole intellectual project, at least as that is presented in Thus Spake Zarathustra. Addressing himself to his guests gathered in his cave, Zarathustra has this to say: “For higher ones, stronger ones, triumphanter ones, merrier ones, for such as are built squarely in body and soul: laughing lions must come! O my guests, ye strange ones – have ye yet heard nothing of my children? And that they are on the way to me? Do speak unto me of my gardens, of my Happy Isles, of my new beautiful race – why do ye not speak unto me thereof?” (p. 273).
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra tells us that it is a new beautiful race that is acoming – and that such race is already on its way in human history. This style of thinking simply does not match the rigour of Nietzschean thinking – on the other hand, one could argue that such idea does tie up with the supposedly Nietzschean notion of the eternal recurrence, whereby all that has ever happened (such as the rise of new beautiful races) is bound to happen all over again ad infinitum in human history. But since such an understanding of the notion of eternal recurrence is beyond whatever experimental verification, it would have to be rejected. Further below, nonetheless, we shall be presenting an interpretation of eternal recurrence that certainly does hold water, and that would further help clarify our understanding of the nature of the creative, self-rolling individual (and which would certainly also be acceptable to the Oakeshottian understanding of the morality of individuality).
5d. Rationalist ideology versus the morality of habit of behaviour
The clash of worldviews in the history of the western world would be a clash over two generic types of moralities, each of which would generate a series of variations expressive of the core of the respective generic type. On the one hand, the western world would witness the emergence of a morality embracing the virtues of collectivism, and which would be founded on rationalist thinking – this type of morality may also be referred to as reflective, for reasons that shall be discussed below. On the other hand, the western world would also witness the emergence of a morality embracing the virtues of individualism, and which would be founded on what we have identified as the morality of habit of behaviour – this type of morality may also be referred to as habitual, again for reasons that shall be discussed below (and cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 10).
We have thus far attempted to present these two types of moral worldviews – and their implications for western societies and the individuals therein – by considering certain dimensions of the thinking of both Nietzsche and Oakeshott. But we now need to go further, and do so by further examining the work of these two thinkers. We know that the clash of worldviews in the history of western civilization has in fact been a clash between the individualist and the anti-individualist worldviews. But before we dissect in greater detail this titanic clash in the course of western history, we shall first need to undertake a prior examination of the mode of thinking that would inform each of these two worldviews. We shall at this point therefore attempt to delve deeper into the clash between rationalist ideology and the morality of habit of behaviour, and their respective mode of thinking. This shall allow us to reconsider the circumstances in which a populace would be creative as a people and the circumstances in which a populace would remain docile as the superfluous many-too-many. It would also enable us to further understand the type of social arrangements and mode of thinking that are reflective of the independent, self-rolling individual and the type of social arrangements and mode of thinking that are reflective of the dependent, state-rolled people-as-traders. Ultimately, this shall allow us to examine the conditions in which the modern western world would give birth to the individual as its latest creation – this shall itself allow us to consider such individual’s possible interaction both with his society’s prevailing mass ideology and with that society’s persistent morality of habit of behaviour (to the extent that such morality still persists). Such possible double interaction on the part of the individual vis-à-vis his society shall finally allow us to consider what is for us the key question in this project – viz., the question of an individual’s manner of self-organization.
By way of a general introduction, we may reiterate that a reflective type of morality is a rationalist-based morality articulated in an ideology and imposed on the passive-receptive masses. In contrast, a habitual type of morality is a self-imposed morality of a people, and which has been organically and cumulatively experienced through the ages. Each of these two types of moralities presupposes a radically different understanding of social change. As we shall see, the reflective type of morality wishes to impose radical changes onto society through continual ideological interventionism. In the case of the habitual type of morality, social change is seen as gradual, gradational and moderated – it wishes to repair rather than uproot a set of social circumstances.
There is yet still another major difference that distinguishes the one type of morality from the other: while in the case of the reflective morality – or what has been called the commonplace rationalist morality – what matters is the imposition of rationalist-based formulae in dealing with problems of the human condition, the morality of habit of behaviour – or traditional morality – is concerned with the self-created aesthetics of everyday human conduct (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 119).
Summarily, one may say that these two conflicting types of moralities represent two different types of knowledge. Reflective morality presupposes the primacy of technical knowledge. Such knowledge must be “formulated into rules” and is “susceptible of precise formulation”. Traditional knowledge, on the other hand, is above all practical knowledge which “exists only in use” and which is developed in the process of its usage (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 8).
Following these rather general introductory pointers, we may now enter the world of rationalism proper, and as that has been critically presented to us by the Oakeshottian intellectual enterprise. Such enterprise, it has been suggested, constitutes a type of so-called conservative wisdom that wishes to expose the weaknesses of the world of rationalism (cf. Ojel L. Rodriguez Burgos, “Rediscovering Oakeshott: Conservative Wisdom in a Rationalist World”, Academia.edu, 2023). These weaknesses will hopefully be exposed by considering the manner in which Oakeshott deals with each of the pointers mentioned above.
According to Oakeshott, the emergence of modern rationalism dates back to the early 17th century (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 13). For the modern rationalist, human experience is such as to call for the solution of its variety of problems through reason – and that reason should not ever be obfuscated by old habits, and the traditions that have accrued around whatever human habituality. Corey presents this Oakeshottian position as follows: “In Rationalism in Politics Oakeshott launches an argument against a certain cast of mind that appears both in individual conduct and in politics. At the heart of Rationalist morality is the idea that experience may be understood as a set of problems calling out for a solution. For the Rationalist, the conduct of affairs is a matter of solving these problems by the application of “reason”, unclouded by habit or tradition.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 121).
In the case of the political sphere, one may say that the application of reason would come down to an actual imposition of such reason onto society. And further, one may also say that when reason is applied or imposed onto society, it is done so in the form of a social ideology. By imposing reason qua ideology onto individuals, one willfully ignores the creative (in the sense of the Oakeshottian poetic) character of human activity.
For the rationalist, the indubitable sovereignty of reason amounts to a sovereignty of technique (or technical knowledge) – this sovereignty of technique, as already mentioned, needs to be contrasted to a society’s tradition of thought, which yields practical knowledge. The rationalist would of course be altogether suspicious of whatever traditional thought and the practical knowledge that such thought has brought forth – and he would be suspicious so long as such thinking and knowledge is not borne out by what he would call reason. The rationalist, therefore, would reject what he would see as traditional, customary, or habitual – above all, he would reject all forms of prejudice (we intend to examine the question of prejudice in much greater detail below). This is how Edmund Neill (op. cit.) presents a rationalist’s typical reservations concerning knowledge based on a community’s traditional habituality – rationalism, he writes, “is a direct consequence of the Enlightenment’s suspicion of anything that cannot be directly justified by reason, so that the rationalist is sceptical of ‘authority, of prejudice, of the merely traditional customary or habitual’ …” (p. 39).
Identifying technical knowledge as an ideology, Oakeshott himself goes on to explain how that type of knowledge must cleanse itself of all traces of preconceived prejudices – he writes as follows: “… the superiority of an ideology [technical knowledge] over a tradition of thought [practical knowledge] lies in its appearance of being self-contained. It can be taught best to those whose minds are empty; and if it is to be taught to one who already believes something, the first step of the teacher must be to administer a purge, to make certain that all prejudices and preconceptions are removed … In short, technical knowledge appears to be the only kind of knowledge which satisfies the standard of certainty which the Rationalist has chosen.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 12).
It is the rationalist’s need for and dependence on a self-contained ideology – and which must be imposed either on empty minds or otherwise be propagated through purges of the mind – that determines his notion of social change. For the rationalist, that which is customary and traditional – and which is materialized practically in the habitual – is ipso facto changeless. The rationalist would not acknowledge the possibility of social change or progress unless such change or progress is the result of conscious interventionism, and which must be expressive of his self-contained ideology. It is of course possible that his self-contained ideology may accept and include elements of traditional thinking within its own ambit – but it would only do so to the extent that such elements happen to satisfy the particular standards of certainty upheld by the closed system that such ideology is, and only to the extent that such elements are reduced to a set of formulae. In short, it is rationalist-based ideology per se that engineers social change as a top-down process, and it is an ideology – designed by ideologues – acting as a substitute for traditional, practical knowledge attained in the process of usage. Speaking of the typical rationalist, Oakeshott writes as follows: “He does not recognize change unless it is a self-consciously induced change, and consequently he falls easily into the error of identifying the customary and the traditional with the changeless. This is aptly illustrated by the rationalist attitude towards a tradition of ideas. There is, of course, no question either of retaining or improving such a tradition, for both these involve an attitude of submission. It must be destroyed. And to fill its place the Rationalist puts something of his own making – an ideology, the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth contained in the tradition.” (ibid., p. 4).
We know that gradually the modern western milieu would come to espouse such rationalist ideology as its basic understanding of the proper moral life – and it would be a question of social morality since such ideology would attempt to determine the mode of thinking and the ready-made code of conduct for all citizens. It would determine, in other words, an imposed understanding of the good and the bad of society. Being a hegemonic ideology, it would constitute the common understandings of the moral life of citizens (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 128). As a common understanding of the moral life, it would be embraced by the populace in its capacity as the many-too-many. Rationalist ideology would thus come to prevail in the western world – but it would at the same time be confronted by what we have elsewhere described as an orrery of cultural and/or moral paradigms that would often be antagonistic to that ideology or to elements of it, and which could be said to have ultimately divided the present-day collective west (cf. Nikos Vlachos, Paper 1: “Defining the West: An orrery of cultural paradigms”, Academia.edu, October 2022; Greek Social & Literary Review, October, 2022).
Now, and as has already been suggested, it would be precisely this ideology of rationalism that would inform the politics of faith, or the politics of mass ideals and mass idolatry. We need to delve into this a bit further – we need to examine the sense in which the ideology of rationalism would function as that particular mode of thinking that would be the determining substratum underlying the politics of faith. It may be argued that the ideology of rationalism would be the ideological mechanism generating those very specific concepts organizing the political discourse of the politics of faith.
To put this a bit more simplistically, one may say that the politics of faith depend on the ideology of rationalism – even more so, one may even go so far as to equate rationalism with the politics of faith. Corey writes as follows: “Both “faith” and Rationalism are examples of a faulty conception of morality in which ideals and rules take the place of personal, lived experience.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 19). But whether or not this may be a fairly simplistic reading of the Oakeshottian project is really beside the point – and it would be beside the point because it in any case does capture the basic implications of the Oakeshottian critique of both the ideology of rationalism and the politics of faith. What are these implications? One may argue that the rules devised by the rationalist mode of thinking (its rationalist-based formulae) inform the ideals of the politics of faith (viz. its socio-political ideals) – it is these rules, in other words, that determine the content of mass political idol-adoration. And it is such political idol-adoration that takes the place of lived experience. This substitution for lived experience takes place at two distinct but interrelated levels. At the personal level, it wishes to obliterate individual lived experience (and it does so despite the fact that, in the last instance, one only experiences oneself, at least in terms of the Nietzschean understanding of life). At the communal level, it wishes to obliterate the lived experience of a people as a morality of habit of behaviour (and it does so despite the fact that, in the last instance, a people cannot be a self-determined, creative people unless it wills its own, self-imposed morality and culture, again in terms of the Nietzschean understanding of history).
Corey goes further: she points out that the statal imposition of a rationalist morality on society (its ideals as informed by rules) comes down to the imposition of a dogmatic morality onto that society. She writes as follows: “When Rationalism infects morality, as it so often does, it appears as a propensity to formulate dogmatic moral rules.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 122). It is the rules and formulae of rationalism that determine the formulation of such dogmatic moral rules. These rules are therefore an expression of dogmatic values. These dogmatic values attempt to regulate the moral conduct of citizens. Conduct has little choice but to model itself on these dogmatic formulae and the concomitant ideals that they wish to impose on citizens. Who, in the western world, models himself – or more or less conscientiously attempts to do so – on the basis of these dogmatic formulae and dogmatic moral ideals? It is none other than the many-too-many that do so. And it is the politicians, the state functionaries, and the state-dependent intellectuals that also do so, and do so as the exemplary members of society.
Such a state of affairs, however, may be directly contrasted to social conjunctures and/or particular communities where rationalism has not been able to infect morality. Here, it is not rationalist rules and formulae that dictate moral values and conduct. Rather, it is the lived experience of individuals and/or communities that shapes moral values and conduct. Most importantly, it is not dogmatic values that are here the determining force of morality and conduct – the lived experience of individuals and/or communities is determined by self-created aesthetic values.
There is an obvious question that arises here, and it is this: why should the lived experience of a people or of an individual necessarily yield aesthetic values, and especially aesthetic values that can shape moral conduct? The answer is simple: the lived experience of a community or of an individual would not necessarily give birth to aesthetic values as determinants of conduct unless that community or that individual is of the exceptional type (either historically as regards a people; or in terms of the strength of personal will as regards the individual). It is only the exceptional type that can model his conduct on the basis of aesthetic values – it is only he that can model himself on the basis of Oakeshottian poetic creativity. That type, however, does not belong to the many: it can only but belong to the so-called otherworldly few (remember Nietzsche: “some of them will, but most of them are willed”).
Historically speaking, rationalist morality – based exclusively on the formulation of ready-made dogmatic moral values – has almost always been the prevailing ideology of the many-too-many and the state of those many-too-many. Both state and populace are in need of rationalist-based moral ideals and moral ideologies for their mutual material survival and maintenance.
This contrast between a rationalist-based morality for the many-too-many and an aesthetic-based morality for the few is perhaps best explained by considering the contrasting manner in which each of these moralities deals with the question of moral conduct. The rationalist simply relies on a ready-made ideology so as to decide on how to conduct himself in the world. By comparison, the typical Oakeshottian cive – a free adventurer quite reminiscent of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra – relies on none other than himself as to how to conduct his person in that same world. Corey here presents the Oakeshottian critique of rationalist morality in a manner that is truly striking – she puts this as follows: the rationalist, she writes, “relies on ideology as a shortcut to knowing how to conduct himself.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 196). Of course, by taking such a shortcut, the rationalist undercuts – or sacrifices – his own self. But, then, this is precisely what gives him his own small comfort in the world – Nietzsche would speak of the small comforts and the easy happinesses of the far-too-many (those “weary, ordinary, comfortable” types, as he writes).
For the many-too-many, the shortcut to conduct is based on rationalist ideology. Practically speaking, this is a shortcut that takes the form of particular rules of conduct as prescribed by a set of moral ideals. These moral ideals constitute a faith organized around a certain idol-adoration – for all ideologies presuppose an adoration of particular dogmatic moral values that delineate the good and the bad of human conduct. The delineation of good and bad is absolute – remember that Thou-shalt of the masses, and their absolute For and Against, as presented by Nietzsche. Being absolute, all must strive to be as good as possible to the point of perfection – all forms of idol-adoration point to a vision of perfection. Corey explains this Oakeshottian position as follows: “These rules [of rationalist morality] are believed to exist in advance of activity itself and must simply be applied as various circumstances arise in an individual’s life. Oakeshott observes that such Rationalist morality consists primarily in “the self-conscious pursuit of moral ideals”. It is the “solution of a stream of problems, the mastery of a succession of crises”, “what other peoples have recognized as ‘idolatry’”. It calls those who practice it to orient themselves by a “vision of perfection”…” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 122).
What are the implications of such a rationalist morality and its idol-adoration as regards human activity? For Oakeshott, that type of faith-based morality yields a moral activity that has lost its freedom to be inventive – what has been lost, in other words, is the creative (or the Oakeshottian poetic) character of human activity. Corey explains the implications of rationalist morality as follows: “… this view denies the fundamental characteristic of moral activity, according to Oakeshott: its freedom and inventiveness. The constant pursuit of moral ideals positively stands in the way of recognizing the poetic character of human activity.” (ibid.).
Such are the implications of a politics of faith as informed by rationalist morality. But these implications would not stand in the way of the many-too-many: these would have no need for, and would not in any case understand, the poetic character of human activity. For them, the idea that the fundamental characteristic of moral activity is its freedom to create and live poetically would of course be stigmatized as mere romanticism. The Oakeshottian critique of the politics of faith (as also the Nietzschean critique of such politics) is ultimately meant for the exceptional few.
For the many-too-many, the politics of faith – and the prescribed rules of its rationalist morality – constitute their own absolute necessity. They cannot possibly live outside the small comforts provided by idolatry, and they cannot survive outside the safe, easy, and steadfast commitments of their own For and Against.
The many-too-many, however, cannot easily tolerate those few that do not abide by their own For and Against, and they cannot especially tolerate such few when these in some way happen to threaten their own small comforts and moral self-assurance. And such absence of toleration is naturally also adopted by the state itself, and is adopted in the name of its people. Both state and populace cannot tolerate whatever threatens the uniformity of their society. In the modern – and especially in the postmodern – western world, one sees mass movements mobilizing around rationalist ideals of social justice and solidarity precisely so as to isolate whatever threatens their politics of faith, and the social uniformity that such politics promotes. Such movements and their ideals embed themselves in the state and its various institutions – and they especially embed themselves in the utilitarian state, the welfare state and/or the ubiquitous mega-state.
Rationalist morality, its politics of faith, and the issue of social uniformity are all inextricably linked to one another. The appointed virtues of rationalist morality and the ass-worship of the politics of faith – as Nietzsche has argued – are meant to lead to the homogenizing of modern western society. This homogenization – or social uniformity – constitutes the small comfort of the many-too-many: they feel safe and protected therein. We here need to take a slightly closer look at the relationship between rationalism and uniformity.
The imposition of the appointed, rationalist-based virtues of the politics of faith onto society amounts to the attempted imposition of perfection onto society – all citizens are called upon to meet the standards of particular social ideals. It is demanded of all that they live in the shadow of a projected vision of perfection. For Oakeshott, this attempted imposition of the ideology of perfection corresponds to the imposition of social uniformity. Speaking of rationalism and its rationalist politics, he writes as follows: “Political activity is recognized as the imposition of a uniform condition of perfection upon human conduct.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 6).
In fact, it is precisely this exact combination of perfection and uniformity that constitutes the exclusive definition of rationalist politics. This is how Oakeshott puts it: “They [rationalist politics] are the politics of perfection, and they are the politics of uniformity; either of these characteristics without the other denotes a different style of politics, the essence of rationalism is their combination.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 5). This combination of perfection and uniformity as a form of socio-political arrangement may or may not necessarily veer towards totalitarianism (the definition of which in any case still remains rather vague, and that, despite René Girard). But one thing is certain: such combination definitely wishes to destroy the morality of individuality, and especially the individual will.
Now, a rationalist-based perfection and uniformity would automatically mean the need to strive for absolute social equality. To achieve that social equality, the rationalist is bent on maximizing utility. In our presentation of the values of the market-place above, we had seen that rationalism generates a political ideology that attempts to mobilize the whole of society around these market-place values – these being the demand for material productivity and material progress for all. It would be demanded of the whole of society that it forget about the individual freedom to experiment in inventiveness and creativity, and to forget about the individual’s potential self-enactment as a self-rolling wheel. For rationalist faith-based morality, all of individual initiative has to be sacrificed on the altar of a perfect society based on a collisionless (classless) social order, and on the uniformity of social equality.
And thus, it may be argued, the ideology of rationalism has come to interpenetrate and deeply permeate – in fact, even invade – the politics of the modern and postmodern western world. Oakeshott, Edmund Neill (op. cit.) tells us, “believed that politics … was the area of society that had become most infested with rationalist thinking.” (p. 40). The invasion of western political thought and practice by rationalist ideology is presented by Oakeshott himself as follows: “How deeply the rationalist disposition of mind has invaded our political thought and practice is illustrated by the extent to which traditions of behaviour have given place to ideologies, the extent to which the politics of destruction and creation have been substituted for the politics of repair, the consciously planned and deliberately executed being considered (for that reason) better than what has grown up and established itself unselfconsciously over a period of time.” (Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 21).
The rationalist disposition of mind, invading western political thought and practice through the imposition of dogmatic ideological discourse and thus through the imposition of idol-adoration, reduces all of human experience to a set of dogmatic principles and formulae. Deliberately planned and executed by the famous wise ones, these principles and formulae themselves come to be worshipped as socio-political idols – and being so worshipped, society is expected to look down on and ultimately cancel the cumulative experience of time-past. The rationalist, Oakeshott writes, “reduces the tangle and variety of experience to a set of principles … He has no sense of the cumulation of experience, only of the readiness of experience when it has been converted into a formula: the past is significant to him only as an encumbrance.” (ibid., p. 2).
By reducing – through mere conversion – the complexity and richness of human experience to a set of politico-moral principles, rationalist-based politics could only but turn out to be inept, and it would turn out to be inept despite the powers of the mega-state. By looking down on, ignoring, and finally cancelling the experience of time-past, the ruling classes of the rationalist disposition would themselves simply be inexperienced. For Oakeshott, this would be quite evident in the politics of both premodern and modern Europe, let alone the political practices of the postmodern western world. He makes the following observations: “… the politics of Rationalism are the politics of the politically inexperienced, and … the outstanding characteristic of European politics in the last four centuries is that they have suffered the incursion of at least three types of political inexperience – that of the new ruler, of the new ruling class, and of the new political society – to say nothing of the incursion of a new sex …” (ibid., p. 23). As has been noted above, in his Thus Spake Zarathustra written in the 1880’s, Nietzsche would already be making a parallel observation – he would write as follows: “There is no sorer misfortune in all human destiny than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men. Then everything becometh false and distorted and monstrous … And when they are even the last men, and more beast than man, then riseth and riseth the populace in honour, and at last saith even the populace-virtue: ‘Lo, I alone am virtue!’ …” (p. 238). He was describing the ineptness of the ruling classes of his time – but he would also see such ineptness as reflective of a populace that had come to fully accept the rationalist politics of modernity, and thus the politics of mass ideology, and which would be accompanied by the gradual rise of the modern mass man with his petty virtues, all of which would be expressive of the rationalist formulae of utilitarianism and egalitarianism.
This invasion of western political thought and practice by rationalist ideology – and the ineptness that that has led to – may be put otherwise: it would mean that all members of society would be expected to adapt themselves and conform their habits to the faith and formulae of a particular ideology – it would be demanded of all that they comply with the ideals and dictates of an idol (it being ass-worship, according to Nietzsche). It would not be the real needs of a people that would be satisfied, but the needs of the ass-as-idol. And so Oakeshott would present the modern western world with the following advice – it is “inappropriate”, he writes, “to understand political activity itself as the activity of amending the arrangements of a society so as to make them agree with the provisions of an ideology.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 125).
We may now counterpose the morality of rationalism as a mode of thinking and living to that of the morality of habit of behaviour (or traditional morality). In a speech given at the Oxford Libertarian Society, on November 11, 2009, Kenneth Minogue would argue that the ideology of political idealism – the very ideals that it promotes and wishes to impose onto society – can function or has functioned as a hindrance to the spontaneous development of civilization (cf. Prof. Kenneth Minogue, “How Political Idealism Threatens Our Civilization”, YouTube, Oxford Hayek Society, uploaded February 18, 2020). What he was implying was that the emergence and development of western civilization would be the result of a spontaneous accumulation of experiences over time – or, to put it otherwise, it would be the result of a gradual and spontaneous evolution of a western habit of behaviour (and that, despite that orrery of cultural paradigms that would characterize that behaviour). It may further be argued that the spontaneous evolution of such collective habit of behaviour would often be hindered or even distorted by the interventionist practices of a rationalist mode of thinking imposing its ideals and ideologies on that historical spontaneity. It is in this sense that this type of rationalist interventionism would be a threat to western civilization.
One may therefore counterpose the element of spontaneity evident in a western morality of habit of behaviour to the element of a pre-planned interventionism evident in rationalist ideology. What does it mean to say that a civilization like that of the western world would emerge and develop on the basis of a spontaneous accumulation of experience? And, as importantly, what would that mean as regards the moral conduct of the peoples that composed that civilization?
A social historian would observe that when a people abides by its own traditional morality – viz. its self-imposed morality of habit of behaviour – its social practices are characterized by a freedom that allows for spontaneous inventiveness. We may consider such manifestations of inventiveness in three different but interrelated types of social practices.
The first type of social practice is a people’s engagement in popular arts and crafts (or what may be loosely termed the plastic arts). Here, innovation takes place through the gradual development of manual skills – but it also takes place at that moment when an individual of the community attains such a high degree of skill that he is able to alter the very style of what he produces. Other members of the community are free to model their own work in accordance with the demands of the new style.
The second type of social practice is the use a people make of their own language. Here, innovation takes place through the gradual development of that language based on changing needs – but it also takes place at that moment when an individual of the community attains such a high degree of language skills that he is able to introduce stylistic changes to that language. Again, other members of the community gradually adopt such changes in their everyday communication.
The third type of social practice is more or less a consummation of the types of innovations referred to above – this would be a practice creatively aesthetic in itself that would ultimately come to be autonomous (or maybe relatively autonomous) of the rest of the practices of the community. In this case, innovation takes place when both the plastic arts and the language of the community attain such a degree of skill that particular individuals of that community are able, not only to use such skills, but to also go beyond them, and thereby establish forms of art independent of all practice.
All such changes taking place within a community – based both on communal spontaneity and the spontaneity of individual initiative and capability – allow the individuals of that community to model their mode of being to that of artistic creativity. Individuals, in other words, are here free to model their lives on the aesthetic values of an art removed from practice (it being the Oakeshottian understanding of the poetic character of human activity). But by modeling their lives on the aesthetic (non-practical) values of art, such individuals are also determining their own moral conduct – here, moral conduct is above all an expression of aesthetic values.
Nowhere in this type of social arrangement – which may be understood as both a historically ideal type but also as an approximate reality of certain past civil associations – can one identify whatever vestiges of an imposed state ideology. In contrast to the gradual, creative spontaneity of traditional morality, a state-imposed morality is the commonplace morality of the modern and postmodern western world. Here, and as has already been argued above, one sees the externally-imposed morality of formulaic ideals yielding social practices based on rationalist constraints. Such constraints, and precisely because they are of a formulaic rationalist nature, deny a mode of life modeled on aesthetic values – they deny, in other words, the poetic dimension of human activity.
This is, more or less, how Oakeshott would himself present the contrast between the creativity of traditional morality and the constraints of rationalist morality – further, this is how he would more or less understand the relationship between art and moral conduct. Corey attempts to summarize such Oakeshottian thinking – this is what she writes: “Oakeshott illustrates this delicate relationship between art and conduct in his 1948 essay “The Tower of Babel”. There is a “freedom and inventiveness” at the heart of every traditional morality, he observes, and this moral inventiveness “may be likened to the sort of innovation introduced into a plastic art by the fortuitous appearance in an individual of a specially high degree of manual skill, or to the sort of change a great stylist may make in language.” Artistic creativity thus stands as the model for a certain kind of moral activity, and yet they are not the same activity. Oakeshott is nevertheless at pains to show that it would be better if moral activity were more often characterized as poetic. For the problem with commonplace morality – and particularly with Rationalist morality – is precisely that it denies the poetic character of human activity.” (Corey, op. cit., p. 119).
The Oakeshottian understanding of traditional morality argues that it is such morality which is best suited to generate a spontaneous creative inventiveness. And it is best suited for a very special reason. We should notice that Oakeshott speaks of “the fortuitous appearance in an individual of a specially high degree of manual skill”; and he further speaks of “a great stylist”. What he is implying is that the morality of habit of behaviour is such as to allow for the individual freedom to discover and practically implement such supreme inventive skills within the community, be these manual or mental. This type of community would therefore be supremely meritocratic. But further, this morality of habit of behaviour would allow the community to spontaneously model itself on the best of its best – viz. to model itself collectively on the individual who possesses exceptionally high manual or mental skills. It could even allow the community to model itself on the exceptional individual who operates beyond either manual or mental skills of the practical type – viz. to model itself on the individual who operates in the purely aesthetic field of art for itself. By modeling itself on the best of manual and mental skills, and by modeling itself on artistic creativity per se, the community would itself live a mode of life based on aesthetic values. And one may therefore conclude that traditional moral activity is itself spontaneously inventive (and if need be, continually self-corrective). It would be inventive because modeling oneself on the best of the best is not replicating the best – unlike the case of an imposed replication, spontaneous modeling can itself be a creative, individual inventiveness (what Oakeshott would call civil conversation amongst cives). Such inventiveness, by the way, is most clearly manifested in the case of the development of language, where the popular usage of language – modeled on a great individual stylist or on exceptional stylists – may give birth to different language games or language paradigms depending on different contexts (the concept of games here meant in the Wittgensteinian sense).
Now, in the case of traditional morality, actions must be understood as a form of sensibility – or, alternatively, as a form of cumulatively selected taste. The important thing is that they are definitely not expressive of whatever ideology. This is a basic element in the thinking of Oakeshott, and it would apply to both collective traditional morality as also to the appropriate mode of thinking for any independent individual living in the modern or postmodern world (we shall have to come back to this question of individual sensibility or taste when discussing the issue of self-organization in the present-day western world). Specifically as regards Oakeshott’s view of morality as a “habit of affection and conduct” pertaining to particular historical communities, Corey presents us with the following crucial observations: “In this kind of morality, actions are guided by a sensibility, by a way of acting that becomes second nature. Like a language, this kind of morality is learned by being observed and by being used … It is a tradition, not an ideology – a habit born of use. In this form of moral conduct, actions do not spring from ideals that have been formulated in advance, nor are they thought of as solutions to problems that constantly arise. Action is far simpler than this, being only a way of responding to others that is acquired by observing one’s elders. This kind of morality, however, is not (as some might suppose) static and unchanging. Nor is it uncreative. Indeed, as Oakeshott points out, it changes very much in the way a language does: subtly, and almost unnoticeably, but at a constant pace. And there is a “freedom and inventiveness” … at the heart of this morality that often goes unnoticed by those who advocate morality of a different sort.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 136).
This tight relationship between traditional morality and moral conduct as expressive of sensibility or taste is based on the Oakeshottian special understanding of knowledge, or his particular understanding of truth (as briefly presented above in our introductory discussion regarding so-called universal truths). And it is an understanding of knowledge and/or truth that is very much reminiscent of the Nietzschean position on this central epistemological issue. We have seen that, for Oakeshott, traditional morality is based on traditional – or practical – knowledge. What sort of knowledge does this approach point to? It points to a form of knowledge that is expressive of a probability, not an absolute universal truth. It is a truth, that is to say, based on probabilities, not formulaic dogmas of the rationalist school of thought. The Oakeshottian position is therefore as disruptive with respect to rationalism as is that of Nietzsche who, we need remember, tells us that whenever he had followed close to the heels of a certain truth, that same truth would often backfire and kick him on the face. For Oakeshott, knowledge qua probability would mean that truth can only be expressed in taste or connoisseurship. What does Nietzsche have to say of taste? As shall be further discussed below, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra puts the matter all too succinctly when he declares that “all life is a dispute about taste and tasting” (p. 114).
This is how Oakeshott himself presents the truths of traditional or practical knowledge – he writes as follows: “… it is a characteristic of practical knowledge that it is not susceptible of formulation … Its normal expression is in a customary or traditional way of doing things, or, simply, in practice. And this gives it the appearance of imprecision and consequently of uncertainty, of being a matter of opinion, of probability rather than truth. It is, indeed, a knowledge that is expressed in taste or connoisseurship, lacking rigidity …” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 10).
Since knowledge is merely expressive of taste or connoisseurship, the traditional modes of conduct are not binding rules regulating or even directing the lives of individuals – these would remain free and independent persons, at least as regards their private mode of being. Corey writes: “Oakeshott himself, of course, came down strongly on the side of traditional modes of conduct.” These modes of conduct, she explains, are “not binding commands or laws that tell us specifically what to do.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 146).
On the other hand, it is to be acknowledged that sensibility, taste, and connoisseurship can only but be informed by what Oakeshott would sometimes refer to as “a large unrecognized inheritance” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 12). And much of that large inheritance would often be unrecognized by its carriers since it would be carried more or less unconsciously. But the inheritance would be there, and the moral conduct that would be expressive of such inheritance would, as already noted above, be acquired by the members of the community through the observation of their elders.
The important implication here is that, at least as regards a community of people, sensibility, taste, and connoisseurship cannot easily be disentangled from a certain continuity. And thus, in a text written in 1951 with respect to modern western societies, Oakeshott would note the following: “… though a tradition of behaviour is flimsy and elusive, it is not without identity … Its principle is a principle of continuity: [its] authority is diffused between past, present, and future; between the old, the new, and what is to come.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 128).
And there is yet another important implication as regards the freedom and rights of an individual vis-à-vis other individuals within a community wherein traditional morality prevails, as in that of a civil association. Again, individual freedom and rights with respect to other individuals should only be understood in terms of that Oakeshottian principle of continuity. It is such principle that determines the political culture of a community informed by traditional morality – and it is only in the context of that particular political culture that individual freedom and rights with respect to others can be entertained. And further, it is the taste and disposition of that political culture – not at all whatever ideology – that is expressive of individual freedom and rights vis-à-vis others. Luke P. Plotica, in a text very aptly entitled “Disposition Not Ideology: Michael Oakeshott’s Unheeded Conservatism”, notes as follows: “… Oakeshott suggested that freedom and rights consist not in the truth of abstract [rationalist] propositions but in actual practices and procedures available to individuals in the context of particular political cultures.” (cf. Academia.edu, 2019, no pagination). It should of course be emphasized that that context of a political culture – the taste and disposition of a civil association – ought not to be viewed as a constraint on individual freedom and rights with respect to others: the political culture of a community informed by a western traditional morality has often been a culture based on the traditions of pluralist individuality (it has often been so, though not always – but Oakeshott wishes to dwell on the best that western traditional morality has had to offer).
In counterposing the morality of rationalism to that of the morality of habit of behaviour, one may here conclude that these two modes of thinking and living are diametrically opposed as to the manner in which they each view human activity. While rationalist morality sees human activity as something that should be determined by rules pointing to some ideal, traditional morality sees human activity as an enterprise best left to its own resources. Corey summarizes this essential difference as follows: “Unlike the views of [rationalist] morality that consist in “rule-following” or “the pursuit of ideals”, Oakeshott’s preferred moral understanding depends upon activity within established practices … Nevertheless, conduct is not determined by such rules [of established practices]. Instead, it contains an indefinable element of aesthetic activity.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 152).
Having clarified the basic differences between rationalist and traditional morality, we may now go on to examine the phenomenon of Christianity in the western world – to examine, that is, the issue of Christianity vis-à-vis, on the one hand, rationalism, and, on the other, habit of behaviour. As we shall see, such an examination shall help us understand, not only the Oakeshottian position on the matter of Christianity, but also his rather original and highly perceptive interpretation of the Nietzschean position on the history of that particular western religious practice.
Oakeshott’s critical examination of the history of western civilization, and the emergence of particular religious practices within that civilization, shall allow him to present us with an understanding of Christianity that is directly related to his study of rationalist morality vis-à-vis traditional morality. He wishes to argue that, at least with respect to particular cultural conjunctures in the history of the western world, Christianity as a cultural-cum-religious practice ought not to be understood as an ideological phenomenon – it should rather be treated as a tradition, and it is therefore an expression of the western morality of habit of behaviour. Corey notes as follows: “Readers who take time to examine Oakeshott’s work as a whole, [Timothy] Fuller observes, will likely “see a connection between his treatment of Christianity as a tradition – and thus not an ‘ideology’ – and his rejection of ‘rationalism’ in politics” …” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 8). The implication here is that the practice of Christianity in the western world should not simply be understood as a set of rules – or as a set of moral formulae – that have been imposed onto a people by external forces. While Christianity may have functioned as a set of imposed rules with the advent of the state and its network of ideological apparatuses (the church as an organized institution), it cannot be reduced to merely such function – much more importantly, Christianity has operated as a morality of habit of behaviour emanating from the cumulative lived experiences of a people or peoples.
“For Oakeshott”, Corey explains, “religion is essentially a way of thinking about the world and of acting in it.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 30). When such thinking and acting is willfully undertaken by individuals, and when such free individuals think and act collectively as in a civil association, one sees the emergence of a people’s Christian mode of life, and which is expressive of a particular aesthetic and/or cultural disposition. Christian morality is here a way of thinking about life and the world in terms of a particular popular sensibility – and it cannot therefore be reduced to a set of imposed rules based on an ideologically (or rationally) fabricated moral system. Such popular religious sensibility, moreover, can be absolutely respectful of the individual’s religious conscience – and can therefore be absolutely respectful of the manner in which the individual thinks of life and the world (as in the case of Protestant individualism, which would recognize the religious autonomy of the individual; though surely not as in the case of the Calvinist variant of Protestantism, with its particular form of tyrannical church government – cf., for instance, Stefan Zweig, Castellio against Calvin or A Conscience against Violence, Herbert Reichner Verlag, 1936).
For Oakeshott, the practice of Christianity as a mode of thinking and acting in the western world (and which is well beyond whatever state interventionism) would often be such as to posit the supremacy of the autonomous individual and his relationship to the world around him. Corey tells us that such an Oakeshottian approach “is a clear-sighted assessment of the universal human condition: for it recognizes at once man’s importance to himself and his unimportance to the world around him.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 95).
The fact that Oakeshott has been able to draw a distinction between, on the one hand, a Christianity that has historically functioned as a morality of habit of behaviour and, on the other, a Christianity that has historically functioned as an imposed moral ideology with the advent of the state in the western world, has enabled him to reinterpret the Nietzschean critique of that religion. Such reinterpretation, albeit original, nevertheless appears to be quite accurate as to what Nietzsche was actually trying to say, at least in his Thus Spake Zarathustra – therein, and as we have thus far seen, Nietzsche would be focusing on a critique of the western state, and how such state would mean the death of peoples capable of creating their own cultures and values (whatever be these cultures and values, and which could include particular cultural practices and interpretations of Biblical theology).
The central core of such an understanding of the Nietzschean critical enterprise comes down to this: Nietzsche is above all attacking Christianity in its capacity as a moral ideology, or as a set of abstract moral ideals (ideals which, as Oakeshott would put it, nullify the virtues of living the present religiously – i.e. revile the virtues of presentness). By attacking Christianity as an ideology – or as one form of idol-adoration – Nietzsche is attacking an imposed morality and is therefore attacking the role of the state in imposing that ideology; at the same time, he is also attacking the masses themselves – those superfluous many-too-many – that docilely have come to accept that imposition from the famous wise ones, having abandoned their role in history as a self-rolling, self-willed people.
Now, the Nietzschean attack on Christianity as a moral ideology – or at least as an imposed moral ideology that stood over and above a people’s morality of habit of behaviour – seems to be justified historically. And it seems to be justified since, and as alluded to above, it was only in particular (or even exceptional) cultural conjunctures in the history of the western world that Christianity would not function as a formulaic ideological system of rules and regulations dictating the good and the bad of human conduct. Of course, the function of Christianity as a spontaneous morality of habit of behaviour would be all too often stifled given precisely the gradual emergence of the Babelian state-as-idol. We know all too well, for instance, the plight of the Lutheran Reformation and the Protestant forms of state it would ultimately give birth to.
Oakeshott himself summarizes all this – as also his interpretation of the Nietzschean critique of Christianity – as follows: “… the moral inheritance of western Europe, both from the classical culture of the ancient world and from Christianity, was not the gift of a morality of habitual behaviour, but of a moral ideology. It is true that, in the course of centuries, this moral form went some way towards being reconverted into a morality of habit of behaviour. Such a conversion is certainly possible when moral ideals become familiar and, finding expression in customs and institutions which exert a direct pressure upon conduct, cease to be mere ideals … Nevertheless, modern European morality has never been able to divest itself of the form in which it first emerged. And having once committed the indiscretion of formulating itself in the abstract terms of moral ideals, it was only to be expected that its critics (who have never for long been silent) should seize upon these, and that in defending them against attack they should become rigid and exaggerated. Every significant attack upon Christian morality (that of Nietzsche, for example) has been mistaken for an attack upon the particular moral ideals of Christian life, whereas whatever force it possessed derived from the fact that the object of attack was a morality of ideals which had never succeeded in becoming a morality of habit of behaviour.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 78).
A critical appreciation of the moral inheritance of the western world in general – and especially a more or less Nietzschean-type critique of such inheritance – may therefore be roughly recapitulated as follows:
- To the extent that Christianity in the western world has at times been practiced as a mode of life informing the traditional habit of behaviour of a people, it may be said to have been expressive of a particular aesthetic and/or cultural disposition or popular sensibility – in this case, the sensibility would belong to a people that wills itself, it does not need (and does not allow) to be willed.
- To the extent that Christianity in the western world would come to prevail as a discourse articulated by statal or quasi-statal ideological apparatuses (such as the formal institutions of a church), it would take the form of rigid rules defining good and bad conduct based on abstract ideals – it would be expressive of a formulaic moral ideology and/or a morality of ideals.
- As a morality of ideals imposed on the masses, Christianity would be reduced to an ideology pointing to the future – the popular morality of habit of behaviour disposed to celebrating the presentness of life to the full, and as an end in itself, would be considered immoral.
- Having lost their presentness, and having lost the initiative to create such presentness as a value in itself, the modern-day Christians would no longer be individuals capable of value-creation.
- Incapable of value-creation, and resentful of all independent, self-determining individuals, the psychology of the masses would come to typify slave morality.
- Within such a western milieu, it is only the independent, self-determining individual who recognizes the need for a radical reevaluation of all values; it is only the exceptional individual who recognizes the need to master his own self as a self-willed Overman.
- What should such new values be? It is of crucial importance to emphasize here that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra absolutely refuses to prescribe whatever specific values that ought presumably to apply to all exceptional individuals. It is exclusively up to each and every self-determining individual to determine his own values, whichever these happen to be. Of course, based on such an understanding, one’s self-chosen values could even be of the Christian type – and that is why Oakeshott insists that the Nietzschean attack upon Christian morality has in fact been mistaken for an attack upon the particular values of the Christian mode of living.
Like Oakeshott, Nietzsche would be critical of the ideologically-laden moral history of the western world. Again like Oakeshott, the Nietzschean project was not meant to debunk whichever religion, Christianity included. And thus, in Walter Kaufmann’s classic study of the overall Nietzschean project – his Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton University Press, 1974) – we read as follows: “Nietzsche never ceased respecting that sincere and “genuine Christianity” which he considered “possible in all ages” …” (p. 37).
We have thus far attempted to show that rationalist ideology, political ideology, and Christian ideology are all manifestations of a deep tripartite entanglement – and we have attempted to show how this would yield a generalized slave-morality amongst the many-too-many. But although this ideological entanglement has come to prevail in the western world, it has almost always been confronted by an assortment of contrarian traditions – these have at times been of a certain historical significance, while at other times they have been of only marginal importance, if at all. What might one say regarding whatever collective (and not only strictly individual) resistance to the western ideological juggernaught?
To begin with, one may say that this ideological juggernaught has in any case – and quite inevitably given its obsessions – always been at war with itself, and that, despite its apparent rationalism. Within the context of such a western misfortune – as Oakeshott chooses to describe such historical circumstances – one may argue that it would be wisest for either groups of people or for particular individuals experiencing such a world to learn to make the best of it.
In 1948, Oakeshott would consider this issue and write as follows: “The history of European morals … is in part the history of the maintenance and extension of a morality whose form has, from the beginning, been dominated by the pursuit of moral ideals. In so far as this is an unhappy form of morality, prone to obsession and at war with itself, it is a misfortune to be deplored; in so far as it cannot now readily be avoided, it is a misfortune to be made the best of.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 78).
But how does one make the best of such circumstances? Generally speaking, one would quite naturally say that whatever attempts – on the part of contrarian social groupings – to establish some type of civil association (or associations) within modern western societies would by now be ludicrously utopian. And thus the question as to how one makes the best of it – or, perhaps much more importantly, how popular contrarian elements of the western world have thus far actually made the best of it – remains a pertinent question. Even more crucial is the self-same question concerning the contrarian individual, and especially so when it comes to the exceptional contrarian individual: in his case, it is the matter of self-organization that raises its head (and which, as already mentioned, is of central concern to this study).
Of course, neither contrarian social groupings nor exceptional contrarian individuals living in the western world have ever been, so to speak, absolutely alone in such complex world. And, at least theoretically speaking, the fact that they have not been absolutely alone would mean that they would not necessarily have to ever compromise their anti-ideological disposition so as to assert their freedom and self-determination. It is for this reason that Oakeshott can write as follows: “… the freedom which we wish to enjoy is not an ‘ideal’ which we premeditate independently of our political experience, it is what is already intimated in that experience.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 121). Oakeshott is here reminding us of the fact that freedom (and the pluralism that goes with it) has been part of the western heritage, or has been a manifestation of the socio-political traditions of western society. To put it otherwise, western society has not only been dominated by the pursuit of western political/collective ideals and idol-adoration, it has also seen the rise of individualist morality and has celebrated its virtues within the traditions of pluralism.
One would have expected contrarian social groupings and individuals to have been tapping precisely these traditions. And yet, and especially so with reference to the modern and postmodern western world, resistance to state and/or mass ideology (be it of the rationalist, political, or religious brand) has more often than not come to take the form of an ideological paradigm itself. To put it slightly otherwise, resistance to rationalism has now itself been converted into an ideology, thereby generating a perfectly ideological struggle wherein one species of rationalism clashes with another (contrarian) species of rationalism. And thus it is that the contrarian who had once initially intended to stand well above all forms of idol-adoration (or ideal-adoration) finally comes to defeat his own intentions.
And so, in his discussion of the various forms of resistance to rationalist ideology, Oakeshott would observe that such resistance “has now itself been converted into an ideology.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 21). The formulaic planning that is intrinsic to all of rationalist political ideology is now countered by positing a counter-planning, and thereby itself taking the form of yet another doctrinal ideology. He writes: “A plan to resist all planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the same style of politics.” (ibid.).
Why is it that both the ideology of rationalism and whatever resistance to such ideology have come to adopt that same style of politics? The reason for this lies in the hegemonic mode of thinking and conduct of the many-too-many: the psychology of the modern masses has been determined by the needs of the market-place, and the market-place organizes itself around both the materialistic values of the trader and the utopian values of idol-adoration. Both competitive materialism and egalitarian utopianism constitute a hegemonic ideological discourse – to engage with such discourse in a politically oppositional manner, one can apparently only but speak the ideological language of that discourse. To do politics at all in the modern and postmodern western world, one is obliged to speak its dominant language. Oakeshott puts this as follows: “It seems that now, in order to participate in politics and expect a hearing, it is necessary to have, in the strict sense, a doctrine; not to have a doctrine appears frivolous, even disreputable.” (ibid., p. 22).
Since whatever participation in politics – even of the oppositional type – presupposes a strict doctrine, the anti-rationalist is required to formulate an ideological discourse. But all ideological discourses are organized around ideals. Ideals, however, point to a mode of thinking and conduct that comes down to idol-adoration. And thus it is that the modern and postmodern western world (and by now not only the western world) finds itself in a catch-22 situation which seems almost impossible to escape.
The individual, on the other hand – and above all the exceptional individual – could escape such a situation depending on his personal will, and could do so without necessarily violating the public rules of the socio-political game. Making use of both Oakeshott and Nietzsche, we shall be investigating this question in much greater detail below – we may here simply note the following by way of preparing the ground:
- The exceptional individual is self-willed precisely because his life-project is to cultivate his own individualism – he cultivates that individualism by creating his own morality of individuality.
- But that morality of individuality is such as to at the same time respect and uphold the historically-rooted identity of his community – he would respect, in other words, those conscious or unconscious living dimensions of his community that are expressive of particular traditions of behaviour. And he would respect and uphold such traditional morality precisely because it has remained free of all statal intervention – it has survived as an unimposed popular disposition, cultural taste, and/or practical sensibility.
- Conversely, the community’s traditions of behaviour would themselves protect – via their own historically-rooted pluralism – the individual’s private morality of individuality. And the community would do so since such private morality would not in any way threaten either its pluralism or its identity.
- And thus, it would be precisely such a particular interaction between the individual as a self-rolling wheel and the pluralistic traditions of behaviour of his community that would allow the exceptional individual to enact his life in a way that he so wills – and which would also mean that he would will his life on the basis of a benign supreme neutrality and/or indifference towards whatever ideological struggles insist on ravaging his society.
Now, of course, this sketchy presentation of the relationship between a free individual and his community may be said to be romantically idealistic. It may also be said to ignore a number of apparent contradictions, especially as regards the mode of being of the individual and his morality of individuality vis-à-vis the rest. At this point in our presentation, both objections certainly seem to hold water. But before we even attempt to deal with such types of objections, we shall first need to examine the historical clash between the moralities of individualism and anti-individualism (each of which have been informed by the two different modes of thinking which we have already discussed above, that of rationalist ideology and that of traditional ideology respectively). We shall also need to examine Nietzsche’s own understanding of individualism and the exceptional individual.
5e. Of moralities: the anti-individual versus the individual
As has already been alluded to, the history of the western world – as also the moral history of that world – has been stamped by a conflict between the morality of the anti-individual and that of the individual. Both moralities have functioned as the extreme poles of a variety of in-between moral worldviews. We shall now have to examine these two extreme poles in some greater detail.
Oakeshott’s 1958 Harvard Lectures would, inter alia, focus on this conflictual relationship between the morality of anti-individualism (or the morality of collectivism) and the morality of individuality. Oakeshott would argue that both of these moral worldviews have contributed greatly to the shaping of liberal democracies in the modern western world (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin (Editor), Michael Oakeshott, Morality and Politics in Modern Europe – The Harvard Lectures, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993).
And it is these two poles of conflictual moral worldviews – collectivism and individuality – that have corresponded directly to, on the one hand, the politics of faith and, on the other, the politics of skepticism. Oakeshott, Corey explains, “casts the faith/skepticism distinction in terms of collectivism versus individuality, even going so far as to call these categories (as he does faith and skepticism) “the poles of the modern European political character”. Collectivism postulates a common good that is chosen by government for the individuals who compose a society. This good is “preferred above all other possible conditions of human circumstance” and is believed “to be at least the emblem of a ‘perfect’ manner of human existence”. In other words, it is the politics of faith.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 170).
Such politics of faith, with its ideologically-based faith in social perfection, postulates a common good for all in society – the good cannot exist outside the collectivity. Anything outside the collectivity is bad – and thus, individualism is itself bad. But this wish to cancel the individual would not mean that the individual – and the virtue of individuality – would simply disappear. And since the individual would not retreat in the face of the collectivity, one would witness an on-going struggle between two opposing moralities in the course of the history of the western world. This struggle would come to be deeply etched in the nature of the modern western state.
Above, we have already drawn a fairly clear-cut distinction between, on the one hand, a purposive, teleocratic type of state projecting a particular goal (or ideal), and, on the other, a non-purposive, goalless type of state. It would be the individual – with his virtue of individualism – that would struggle for the purposeless, goalless type of state. And he would struggle for such a type of state because he would wish to assert his own purpose and his own goal as an independent, free-willed and self-rolling individual.
Of course, this naturally presupposes the actual existence of a purposive individual who has no need for and stands above whatever collective ideals and collective morality – and he could therefore be quite reminiscent of the Nietzschean higher man and his individual morality. But such purposive individual would also be reminiscent of the western type of man that would struggle for a form of state that respected and upheld individual differences and initiatives, as opposed to whatever common good. Such types of men have of course played their role in the history of various western milieus, as in the case of the modern European milieu. And thus one may say that the modern European (but also generally western) milieu has been characterized by a struggle between those who would support the need for an all-inclusive purposive state promoting a mass morality (or a Nietzschean-type slave morality), and those who would support the need for a goalless state that would respect individual purpose and individual morality. It would be this struggle that would play a major role in determining the very nature of the modern European (as also generally western) state.
And thus we may say that western modernity would be characterized by this particular conflict of values – this conflict, however, may also be seen as a matter of celebration, it being precisely the way in which Oakeshott would himself see it. It would be a reality to be celebrated since this clash of values – being on-going and never finally resolved – would simply highlight the role of pluralist individualism in the formation of western civilization. And it is for this reason that Edmund Neill (op. cit.) makes the following observation: “… Oakeshott conceptualizes modernity in a different way from Berlin, Aron and Popper, viewing its irresolvable conflict of values far more unequivocally as a matter for celebration, rather than regret.” (p. 95).
Oakeshott would be celebrating, as he himself writes, “This multiplicity of activity and variety of opinion” that would characterize the moral and political history of the western world (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 185). Such acquired multiplicity in the manner in which western man would conduct himself and such variety in his moral worldviews, he continues, would both be “apt to produce collisions” (ibid.).
In the last instance, the paramount collision within the history of the western world would take the form of a collision between, on the one hand, the sheer mediocrity of the modern mass man and, on the other, those exceptional individuals who are capable of thinking for themselves, of cultivating their passions, and of making choices for their own selves. Such philosophical approach certainly constitutes one fundamental element in the work of Oakeshott. Most importantly, it is precisely this fundamental element in the writings of Oakeshott that constitutes the central philosophical nexus bonding Oakeshottian thinking with that of Nietzschean thinking. It is here that Oakeshott truly meets Nietzsche.
And thus, Noël K. O’Sullivan, in an article entitled “Michael Oakeshott: Religion, Politics and the Moral Life” (International Dialogue, Vol. 3, Article 18, 2013) tells us that an important source of Oakeshott’s ethical inspiration is to be traced to the so-called “romantic tradition”. This, he explains, is “evident in his contempt for the mediocrity of modern mass civilization – a contempt he shares with … Nietzsche.” (p. 210). And he continues as follows: “Oakeshott’s Nietzschean sympathies were evident in a simple distinction he drew between “individuals”, defined as “persons accustomed to making choices for themselves”, and “anti-individuals” who have “feelings rather than thoughts, impulses rather than options, inabilities rather than passions.” …” (ibid.).
Now, this on-going, irresolvable conflict between the morality of individuality and the morality of anti-individuality is inexorably bound up with the question of the rationalist mode of thinking – and this is so because all of anti-individualist morality is a morality based on rationalism. The Oakeshottian understanding of poetry as a mode of life (but also other forms of play that are affirmative of presentness) defines the aesthetic unity of individualist morality. But in direct contrast, the morality of anti-individuality, based on the ideological morality of the rationalist, leaves neither time nor space for such aesthetic unity. And thus Corey writes as follows: “… there is another sort of morality that does not approach any kind of aesthetic unity at all. Such is the morality of the Rationalist, the “anti-individual”, and the ideologue, all targets of Oakeshott’s incisive criticism.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 127).
This long historical conflict between individualist and anti-individualist morality – or between aesthetic unity as a mode of life and the devaluation of aesthetics as a mode of life – has been part and parcel of the history of the Europeans. Kenneth Minogue has suggested that Oakeshott would see the whole history of the peoples of Europe in terms of the individualist versus anti-individualist morality – he explains that the course of events in the history of Europe “left a large population [of Europeans] who were ‘unable’ or ‘unwilling’ to make choices for themselves. These peoples were the materials of what Oakeshott calls a morality of ‘anti-individualism’ in which ‘security is preferred to liberty, solidarity to enterprise and equality to self-determination: every man is recognized as a debtor who owes a debt to society which he can never repay and which is therefore the image of his obligation to the collectivity’ …” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, op. cit., p. xi).
It so happened that certain European peoples (or at least certain sizeable communities within some of these European peoples) proved incapable of determining – and/or lacked the will to determine – their own lives as independent persons. These found it so much easier for themselves to rather opt for security, and the small comforts of that security – they would come to belong to that type of person that Nietzsche shall describe in his Thus Spake Zarathustra as the weary, the ordinary, and the comfortable. And further, being incapable and unwilling to rely on their own selves, they found it necessary to rely on the solidarity of those around them – they would therefore come to abide by the virtue of what Nietzsche shall call good neighbourliness. And, finally, since they were incapable and unwilling to experiment with individual self-determination, they would become fierce supporters of the virtue of equality – and it would of course be this virtue of equality that Nietzsche shall designate as the bedwarfing virtue of mediocrity.
We see here that Oakeshott’s presentation of certain European peoples – or of the sizeable communities that would emerge within such peoples – as being incapable of willing their own destinies is a critical presentation that clearly parallels Nietzsche’s own understanding of the history of the western world. And thus both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would explain the rise of the western-type Babelian state in terms of the needs of such incapable and unwilling peoples.
Being unremittingly obliged to their society, being dependent on their society as debtors, such peoples would not only espouse the collective ideology of the anti-individual – they would naturally also need to idolize the existence of the state, for it would be the state-as-idol that would organize their society in terms of their specific needs. And they would come to have an absolute need for such state, not being able to ever image their lives in the absence of such Babelian form of state. They would need, firstly, the state and its government to manage their desires – or, as Girard has put it, they would need the state to organize all of human desires. Secondly, they would need a state ideology to manage their feelings of inferiority, and to manage the guilt that goes with such inferiority. Thirdly, they would need both the force of the state and the ideology of the state so that they be protected from the threat of individuality, and especially that of exceptional individuality. Finally, and in confluence with the latter, they would need both state and ideology to protect them from whatever individuated aesthetic unity standing over and above them and which would therefore be deemed to be a threat to their own mass desires.
This was the new inclination amongst those European peoples who proved unable and unwilling to determine their own lives. Minogue continues his presentation of the Oakeshottian critical assessment of western history by writing as follows: “Oakeshott’s view of those exhibiting this new disposition is unequivocally negative: here we have a ‘mass man’ or what he calls ‘the anti-individual’. Such a creature is moved by envy and resentment, and his main desires are to be managed by a beneficent government and to create a morality which would relieve him of the feeling of insufficiency and guilt induced in such people by the dominance of individuality.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid.).
For such mass man, individual choice would be seen as a burden best avoided. But what would be a burden to the many-too-many amongst some European peoples would be a blessing to those celebrating their individuality and their free will to make their own life-choices. In his 1958 Harvard Lectures, Oakeshott would describe the situation in 16th century Europe – and the opportunities for free initiative that that century offered – as follows: “In a world being transformed by the aspirations and activities of those who were excited by these opportunities for individual choice, there were some people who … were less ready than others to respond to its invitation; and for many the invitation to make choices for themselves came before the ability to do so, and was consequently recognized as a burden.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 24).
By the 17th and 18th centuries, as the Age of Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason) continued to mature, one would also see the maturation of a mass sentiment of resentment regarding the burdens of individuality and those of free choice and initiative. This would further generate the ideology of the militant anti-individual. The seeds for this had already been sown way back in the 16th century, and it would be a truly militant ideology. It would be so militant that it would wish to impose its anti-individualist faith upon all of mankind – it would aim, in other words, at deposing the individual per se. So as to be able to effect precisely this, the incapable and the unwilling amongst the European peoples would look to the state-as-idol, and it would be thus that the Babelian-type state would emerge.
Oakeshott would be presenting this particularly critical – and at the same time highly perceptive – interpretation of western history in his aforementioned Harvard Lectures of 1958. As regards, on the one hand, the invitation to individuality and, on the other, the generation of the militant anti-individual, he would have this to say: “In some, no doubt, this inability to respond to the invitation to be an individual provoked merely resignation; but in others it bred envy, jealousy and resentment. And in these emotions a new disposition was generated: the impulse to escape from the predicament by imposing it upon all mankind. The man frustrated by his failure to live up to the invitation of the times became a man disposed to assimilate the world to himself by deposing the individual and destroying the moral prestige he had acquired: he became the militant ‘anti-individual’.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid.).
The feeling of mere resignation, though much more so the more intense feelings of envy, jealousy and ultimately even resentment for those capable of functioning as independent individuals, would altogether constitute an impulse – and it would be an impulse characteristic of the weakness of what ultimately came to amount to the many-too-many. It is this collective impulse that wished for and created both the state-as-idol and a particular morality of good versus bad. And thus, in a manner that is deeply reminiscent of the Nietzschean explanation of the modern world – it being a psycho-philosophical explanation – Oakeshott comes up with a particular interpretation of the rise of the Babelian-type state and of the prevalence of a distinct moral ideology. Both state and morality would befit the mass impulse. Both state and morality would serve the morality of collectivism, it being a morality of collective social justice. Oakeshott continues as follows: “In pursuit of this task [viz. to depose the individual] he [viz. the militant anti-individual] looked round for support and he found it in two directions. First, he looked to government to protect him from the necessity of being an individual, to make the choices on his behalf which he was unable to make for himself … This so-called ‘mass-man’ has made a great impact upon the political literature of modern Europe, but he did not … look only to government to support him in his adverse circumstances. He sought, in the second place, to develop a morality appropriate to his character and condition, a morality strong and convincing enough to relieve him from the feeling of guilt and inadequacy which his inability to embrace the morality of individuality provoked. I will call it the morality of collectivism.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., pp. 24-25).
The morality of collectivism is the morality of solidarity; the morality of solidarity is the morality of collective social justice, and the morality of collective social justice is the morality of equality. Such a moral ideology, Oakeshott would observe, had already begun to crystallize by the 17th century. This is what he says: “The emergence of the morality of the ‘anti-individual’, a morality, namely, not of ‘liberty’ and ‘self-determination’ but of ‘solidarity’ and ‘equality’ is … already clearly visible in the seventeenth century …” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 25).
As a morality wishing to impose itself on all, it could only but present itself as the common good. Oakeshott continues as follows: “The nucleus of this new morality was the concept of a substantive condition of human circumstance represented as ‘the common good’ or ‘the public good’ …” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., pp. 25-26). Similarly, of course, Nietzsche would himself be speaking of the tarantulas (the preachers of the morality of equality), and of the populace-mishmash in general (those espousing the public good), and how they would now all wish to be master of all human destiny – they would wish, in other words, to impose their morality of the anti-individual on the whole of society, and do so to the point that even the very concept of the individual higher man would be seen as absolutely evil.
Importantly, Oakeshott would go on to argue that this anti-individual morality of collectivism and solidarity would come to operate as an ideological nerve center organizing a string of related moral tenets and moral attitudes that would more or less permeate the whole of the modern western world. These tenets and attitudes would be veritable ideological satellites orbiting the core of the morality of the anti-individual – and they would come to determine western man’s understanding of issues such as privacy versus public life; or the possible exceptionality of an individual (vis-à-vis others) versus one’s purported resemblance to all others as mere replicas of himself, and so on. Oakeshott would encapsulate this position as lucidly as possible in the following manner: “Round this nucleus of ‘solidarity’ revolved a constellation of appropriate subordinate moral beliefs and sentiments … Indeed, privacy in any connection was recognized as an intrusion of individuality and therefore to be abrogated: an unequivocally ‘public life’ was perceived to be the counterpart of the ‘anti-individual’. And further, it was appropriate that the morality of the ‘anti-individual’ should be radically equalitarian: how should the ‘mass-man’, whose sole distinction was his resemblance to his fellows and whose sole escape from frustration lay in the recognition of others as merely replicas of himself, approve of any divergence from exact uniformity? All must be equal and anonymous units in a ‘collectivity’.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., pp. 26-27).
And it is thus that the morality of the anti-individual would come to morally repudiate the private life (and the very privacy) of the individual – it would view whatever autonomy of the private life of a person as an attempt at undermining the moral superiority of public life and that of its public structures, practices and codes of behaviour. Above all, whatever autonomously private life would be renounced as an attempt at undermining the public idol-adoration of the common good. For it would only be the common good of public life that could recognize the equality of all of its citizens; and it would only be the common good of public life that could enable all citizens to belong to a collectivity that offered them the safe identity of a public sameness – and such duplication of sameness amongst the many-too-many would constitute their sole distinction as persons. It would be none other than the state that would undertake to protect such sole distinction from the alien forces of individuality.
The distinction of the anonymous masses lay in a certain public uniformity and in the inevitable collectivity of that uniformity. Whatever external intrusion would need to be punished by both state and its subjects – the morality of the anti-individual would be a morality of collectivism that would censure individuality (and its private disposition) as an error or a crime, and it would ultimately castigate it as a sin. Nietzsche would make similar observations with respect to modern western societies. In our presentation of the way that Nietzsche would view the values of the market-place and its populace, we had noted that the morality of the anti-individual – a morality embedded in none other than the modern democratic spirit – would be such as to restrain the capacities and talents that make certain people superior to others by penalizing such capacities and talents. Nietzsche would be arguing, precisely as would Oakeshott, that such punishment of individual superiority would emanate automatically from the western moral ideology asserting the equality of all: the punishment would be a consolation for those who happened to be inferior in comparison with the capacity and talents of others.
The clash between individualism and anti-individualist collectivism would be a clash between the realities of inequality and the ideological faith in the equality of all. For good or for bad, the clash would translate into a major ideological struggle in the public life of the western intellectual world. As an ideological struggle, it would necessarily generate an endless series of theoretical discussions for and against individualism, and it is for this reason that Oakeshott would observe, as already noted, that the phenomenon of mass man and his demand for social justice and equality would come to dominate in the discussions of the political literature of the modern western world – all of western political philosophy would have to somehow deal with the issues of individualism, inequality and equality, and it would have to do so whatever its political inclinations (be these Left, Right, or Centrist).
In his consideration of such political literature, Oakeshott would be reviewing the work of a series of major western political thinkers – and he would attempt to identify this dominant theoretical trend that had or has wished to serve the wishes of the many-too-many. To make his point, he would – for instance – quote Adam Smith as follows: “… we are but one of a multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and … when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence and execration.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 64). As for John Stuart Mill, he would have this to say: “Mill shuffled his way towards a collectivist theory of government.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 79).
Being of the multitude, and being in no way superior to it, or shuffling towards a collectivist political ideology, would posit both the virtue of equality and the operational need to impose such equality so that the collectivity be served. Western society would thereby be divided into two basic political categories, both of which would be willing subjects in that hierarchy of commanding that Nietzsche has identified, whereby I serve, thou servest, we serve – and these two political categories would be the planners (for the masses) and the planned (of the masses). Of course, this would not at all mean that such willing subjects within the hierarchy of commanding would themselves desist from engaging in power struggles within the hierarchy – but the structure of this hierarchy would always be there, and it would always maintain the planners/planned dichotomy.
This collectivist form of state and government – based on the planners and the planned – would be evident throughout all of modern western democracies. It would, however, also be as evident in all of modern so-called popular democracies. By the 20th century, and as we all well know, state planning would be undertaken in its most extreme form in the USSR and its satellite countries.
The obvious implication here is that the western politics of faith, collectivist ideology, and the moral ideology of the anti-individual would reach its most tragic apex in Marxian philosophy and quasi-Marxian politics. It may be argued that Marxian theory and politics is the par excellence politics of faith viciously opposed to whatever traces of individuality – for the Marxist, all forms of individualism are typical of the class enemy, the bourgeoisie. As yet one other version of collectivism – but here in its most absolute form – the Marxian worldview is merely part of that typically “religious idiom” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 171) of collectivism that wishes to plan a society of equality and total uniformity.
We may conclude this presentation of the morality of the anti-individual by emphasizing that a planned society wishing to obliterate the individual can only but be based on the servile morality of the many-too-many (and which is a servile morality very much similar to that presented to us by Nietzsche). Apart from what has already been said above – such as the need for state protection on the part of those incapable and unwilling to make choices for themselves – the phenomenon of a servile morality amongst the many-too-many may alternatively be explained as follows. The typical state-planned society of the western world has been a rationally planned society – such rational planning being an expression of rationalist morality. This particular morality, championing the values of solidarity and social equality, would yield a rationalist-based collectivity, and which would ipso facto attempt to arrest whatever symptoms of exceptionalist individuality. The subjects of the collectivity would be expected to reject the individual (and his individualism) as a moral entity – and thus each citizen would be expected to reject his own self (as that of others). Much more than that, each citizen would expect it of himself to reject his self, and to thereby reject whatever need for self-understanding. But by rejecting the need for self-understanding, one also rejects the need for self-determination – and it is precisely the absence of such self-determination that defines a servile morality. As a substitute for the individual’s self, for his self-understanding and for his self-determination, the typical state-planned society of the western world would offer its citizens the pursuit of utilitarian policies, the idea of social equality aimed at a perfect future society, and a ready-made code of moral conduct expressive of such values. Being a ready-made code of conduct, the subjects of the collectivity would be submissively accepting standard notions of the common good and the common bad – and they would thereby be confirming the prevalence of a common servile morality.
This close-knit relationship between rationalist anti-individual morality and servile morality is clearly evident in the Oakeshottian intellectual enterprise. Corey tells us that Oakeshott identifies two basic types of moral characters that have played their role in western history: the one is informed by a liberal morality, and is typical of the morality of the individual; the other is informed by a servile morality, and which is typical of the morality of the anti-individual. She writes that there are “two kinds of moral character that appear time and again throughout Oakeshott’s corpus. The first type is what I designate “servile morality”. The primary characteristics of this morality are its markedly utilitarian character, its rejection of the task of self-understanding, its pursuit of perfection, and its propensity to favor a ready-made code of conduct. This is the morality of the Rationalist.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 127).
But what of that other type of moral character? What of the type informed by a so-called liberal morality? This question needs to be properly addressed because we well know that the western world has also been characterized by a grand tradition of pluralist individualism.
But to suggest that the western world has also been characterized by a tradition of individualism seems quite paradoxical – throughout this paper, we have thus far argued that the modern western world has come to be dominated by an omnipresent Babelian-type state operating as the regulating finger of God (as Nietzsche has put it). And we have also argued that such type of state expresses the needs and wishes of the many-too-many, and that it does so to such an extent that those many-too-many actually participate in the organs of the state through an inclusive and democratic hierarchy of commanding. Such socio-political circumstances, we have further argued, have yielded a rather high degree of social uniformity. Therein, however, lies the paradox: for how is it possible that within a world of such social uniformity one may also identify some grand tradition of individualism? How is it possible that Schrödinger’s cat be both dead and alive – or both servile and independent? We shall here be arguing that – at least as regards the history of western civilization – such cat has been both dead and alive, and that it has been so all at the same time.
Despite the attempts of the Babelian-type western state to obliterate both the individual and the morality of individuality, these have simply not been obliterated. And right alongside the servile many-too-many, there have always been social and individual forces that have asserted and pushed for pluralist individualism. Most importantly, and as we shall see, such forces have often asserted the moral virtue of individualism without having to resort to the application of individualist ideals and individualist rules – without resorting, that is, to the application or imposition of some form of an individualist ideology (although that too has of course occurred in the course of western history, and especially so in the postmodern western world – we have already considered the case of the self-defeating contrarian who wishes to debunk rationalist ideology by establishing his own type of ideology).
The morality of individuality and the will of the exceptional individual have both withstood the test of time. And it should also be noted that not all western political thinkers have chosen to serve the wishes and impulses of the many-too-many – not all, that is, have submitted to the politics of the collectivity and its egalitarianism as did thinkers such as Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill. One truly outstanding example of a western intellectual consciously celebrating the morality of individuality has been, of course, none other than Nietzsche himself. Consciously or unconsciously, the Nietzschean mode of thinking is a child of modern pluralist individualism.
Now, the fact that the western world has also been characterized by a vibrant tradition of individualism would allow the Oakeshottian intellectual project itself to actually dwell on certain positive aspects of modernity. And Oakeshott would dwell on the positive dimensions of modernity despite his deep appreciation of the role of traditionality (and its morality of habit of behaviour), and despite his consistent critique of rationalist ideology. It is perhaps Edmund Neill who has most convincingly presented this important dimension of Oakeshottian thinking – he writes as follows: “On a more political level, despite his respect for the role of tradition, and his worries about some of the effects of Enlightenment rationalism, I argue that Oakeshott becomes an increasingly strong advocate of the strongly pluralist individualism that he believes characterizes modernity, and hence of the form of government he believes most respects it – namely the ‘civil condition’ – since, as far as possible, this does prescribe individuals’ courses of action.” (cf. Edmund Neill, op. cit., p. 16).
In terms of the Oakeshottian reading of history, Neill explains, modern pluralist individualism as a mode of thinking and conduct would come to constitute an important development in the western European tradition – and it would do so starting from the 12th and 13th centuries, and would continue to develop as a mode of living onwards in historical time. But Oakeshott would go further and present such mode of thinking and conduct as a major accomplishment in the history of western civilization – pluralist individualism, he would assert, was to be celebrated, perpetuated and sustained. Neill writes: “Since Oakeshott comes to the view in the mid-1950’s that modern pluralist individualism is not merely an important development in the Western European tradition, but also an achievement that it is vital to celebrate and encourage, it is hardly surprising that he devotes considerable time and effort in the remainder of his career to identifying the system of government that is necessary to sustain such individualism.” (cf. Edmund Neill, ibid., p. 48).
Parenthetically, we may simply note here that the exact historical origins of pluralist individualism remain somewhat debatable – in his Harvard Lectures, Oakeshott states that the morality of individuality would emerge in western Europe roughly in the 13th century, and he adds that this new moral disposition would expand by the 16th century, more or less across the western European continent (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, op. cit., pp. 20-21). That more or less, however, surely secretes important dimensions of European history where the morality of individuality would be constrained by the rise of rudiments of the collectivist/anti-individualist type social organization that would ultimately mutate into the Babelian form of state.
But whatever the exact historical origins of pluralist individualism, the significant point here is that the morality of individualism has been an organic part of the development of western civilization – and it is for this reason that the morality of individualism is in fact part and parcel of a common western tradition. And since it is part of a common tradition, the moral individualist understands both himself and those around him as potential carriers of that tradition – all citizens of western societies may (and can) share in the identity that such particular tradition offers. And since there is such an underlying layer of shared identity, the morality of individualism does not necessarily fragment society – on the contrary, one may say that the shared tradition of the morality of individualism is such as to both unite society in itself and unite the individual in himself. Such double unity, however, would not mean that the individuals sharing that tradition also share a common purpose in life. Their purpose in life is strictly personal and private – what citizens do share is the right to live their own purpose as they deem fit.
This is more or less Oakeshott’s position with respect to the morality of individuality and its relation to western tradition. Such position constitutes both a critique of the modern ideology of the common good, as also a critique of the postmodernist obsession with the purported fragmentation of western pluralist societies and their citizens. Neill presents such dual Oakeshottian critique as follows: “Unlike … ‘the morality of the common good’, Oakeshott argues, the morality of individualism does not pretend that individuals naturally have a common substantive purpose; conversely, however, unlike the post-modernists, Oakeshott does not arbitrarily maintain that the pluralism inherent in modern society is so great that we can neither understand one another as being part of a common tradition, nor argue that the individual self must be seen as necessarily fragmented – for Oakeshott it remains, potentially at least, very much capable of unity.” (cf. Edmund Neill, op. cit., pp. 16-17).
Now, given that pluralist individualism is already an organic part of the western tradition, and given that it already constitutes an underlying layer of shared identity within the western world, its affirmation of the individual (and especially so of the exceptional individual) need not take the form of whatever ideology, let alone an abstract formulation of such a type of ideology. And it is not required of it to do so because the morality it expresses is already there, as a tradition – as a morality of habit of behaviour. All one need do is to tap what is traditionally pre-given. The important implication here is that pluralist individualism should never have to mutate into an ideology of high ideals articulated by its own famous wise ones and have it imposed onto a passive-receptive mass of people – for this would mean sliding back into a self-defeating servile morality, it being naturally incompatible with the morality of individualism. Neill sets forth the Oakeshottian position regarding the essential traditionality of individualism, and how this makes it unnecessary to either break with the traditional achievements of time-past or to resort to individualist rules and ideals – he does this by comparing Oakeshott’s thinking with that of the Cold War liberal theorists as follows: “Unlike the Cold War liberals … who tended to accept an essentially Weberian account of modernity whereby modern pluralism was achieved only at the cost of a radical break with tradition, as part of a radical ‘disenchantment’ with the world, for Oakeshott the situation is different. As far as he is concerned, a commitment to pluralist individualism is something that has been bequeathed to us as part of the Western tradition itself, so that it is unnecessary to support this by self-consciously applying individualist ‘rules’ or ‘ideals’ …” (cf. Edmund Neill, ibid., p. 95).
One may put this position in a slightly different way. One may argue that the morality of individualism – and therefore the self-conscious presence of the individual as such – would evolve within the traditions of the various forms of the western nation-state. Not all of the practices of the typical western nation-state would wish to accommodate such morality – as already discussed above in presenting Nietzsche’s critique of the state, all forms of state as enterprise associations are jealous gods that intend to secure their role as chief inspirers of whatever happens around them. But the gradual structuration of the western nation-state would at the same time be accompanied by particular clusters of society expressing a morality of habit of behaviour that asserted the morality of individualism, as also the self-conscious and independent initiatives of individuals as social entities. And thus, the western nation-state would have no choice but come to tolerate the grassroots morality of pluralist individualism emanating from particular cultural and/or economic clusters of society – in fact, and precisely so as to continue asserting its role as chief inspirer, it would often attempt to usurp the worldview of pluralist individualism as a component part of its own ideological discourse (Nietzsche would here point to the state-as-liar and/or the state-as-thief – remember, for instance, his assertion that “the state lieth in all languages of good and evil”).
But be that as it may, the morality of individualism in the western world carries within it the traditions and the cultural heritage of important dimensions of a series of western milieus, and of the various forms of western nation-state that such milieus would give birth to – and this would manifest itself in history both consciously and unconsciously. The essential intimation here is (and as Oakeshott would himself argue) that there is no need for whatever state (or political party) interventionism in support of individualism as a national ideal – in fact, it would be precisely that type of interventionism that would necessarily emasculate the morality of individuality by reducing it to a state (or party) ideology, and thereby neutralizing it as a traditional morality of habit of behaviour.
In terms of Oakeshottian thinking, the central most important point here may simply be expressed thus: individualism cannot be disentangled from pluralism, and both cannot be disentangled from the western tradition – and these cannot be disentangled from the western tradition since they derive from that tradition. Neill continues his presentation of the Oakeshottian position on traditionality and individualism as follows: “Rather than modernity being seen as a brand new situation where we cannot look to our traditions to help us very much, in other words, as the Cold War liberals argue, for Oakeshott the situation is different: a commitment to individualism and pluralism is something we can derive from tradition.” (cf. Edmund Neill, ibid., p. 96).
Elsewhere in his interpretation of Oakeshott’s political philosophy, Neill further examines how this particular version of conservative libertarianism can – and in fact must – combine traditionality with the liberty of the self-determined individual. He writes: “… although just like a liberal thinker Oakeshott constantly upholds the value of individuality, and on this basis advocates the importance of individual liberty, ultimately … this is something that he does on the basis that it is an important value that has been bequeathed to us by tradition.” (cf. Edmund Neill, ibid., p. 112).
The long and complex legacy of western civilization has in any case been such as to enable people to conceptualize themselves in terms of individualism, and do so despite the state and its subjects, the many-too-many. In his Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche would make the following important observation, this time as would a historian: “Creating ones were first of all peoples, and only in late times individuals; verily, the individual himself is still the latest creation.” (p. 56). We shall have to come back to this important Nietzschean observation and its far-reaching implications – here, we merely wish to point to a more or less parallel understanding of western history on the part of Oakeshott himself, who would also note the birth of individualism within such history. Neill explains: “While accepting that societies are bound together by common tradition, … for Oakeshott what was exciting about modernity is that (at least in Europe) mankind has learned – by and large – to conceptualize itself primarily in terms of individualism, rather than in terms of collective, communal organization. This has opened the way for mankind to enjoy a freedom little known before the onset of modernity, provided the right kind of state can be maintained to uphold such freedom …” (cf. Edmund Neill, op. cit., p. 78).
Modernity would enable the conceptualization of one’s person in terms of individualism; it could even enable the enactment of such conceptualization in the real world; and it could even allow for the accompanying enjoyment of one’s freedom in terms of individualism. For the citizens of western societies, however – and as Neill points out – such individualistic potentialities, and the ensuing gratification, would come to depend on the right kind of state. But we know, as did both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, that the Babelian-type state, or the state as enterprise (as opposed to civil association), would already be hatching even in pre-modern Europe – and it would thereby be neutralizing whatever individualistic potentialities for the many-too-many, who would themselves be viewing such potentialities as both threat and burden. And thus, yes, the individual would be born in the western world, but he would be more or less alone in that world, and he would actually come to choose to be alone (we shall have to discuss this question further below).
Having presented the tight relationship between individualism, pluralism, traditionality and the history of the western world, we may now delve a bit deeper into the philosophy of the moral individualist as such, and especially as that type of person would be investigated by Oakeshott himself.
To begin with, we may note that the Nietzschean understanding of the moral individualist commences with the quintessential observation that, in the end – and when all is said and done – one only experiences himself. The moral individualist is that type of person who is fully conscious of himself in terms of his own unique experience of the world, and he wishes to tap this experience in a manner that would enable him to forge his own moral and ethical evaluation of things. As such, the moral individualist sees man as an end in himself – being an end in himself, he is a self-rolling wheel. But to be a self-rolling wheel, he need possess the will to enact such mode of being.
Such mode of being is above all expressive of a particular moral disposition, and Oakeshott would fully endorse such a Nietzschean position – but he would go further in his capacity as a political philosopher. He argues that “this moral disposition makes it appropriate to regard human societies as associations of individuals, and not, in the strict sense, communities.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, op. cit., p. 23). And yet, and as has been discussed above, such associations of independent individuals would maintain – or conserve – a coherent identity in themselves. This coherent identity would be founded on a historical substratum informed by both pluralism and the patriotism of national consciousness (and both of which would be elements of a particular morality of habit of behaviour).
For Oakeshott in particular, the moral disposition of the moral individualist – and which is a disposition that cherishes the will to make one’s own choices in life – is in fact an acquired condition. It is a condition acquired through the morality of habit of behaviour – that habit is a carrier of the familiarity of heritage. And that historical heritage is such as to express a respect for – and love of – individualist pluralism. This is how Oakeshott presents the status of the moral individualist: “It is an acquired condition … It is the product, not of ‘human nature’ let loose, but of human beings impelled by an acquired love of making choices for themselves.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 185).
But although the status of the moral individualist is supposedly an acquired condition – and which is, as we shall see, also an acquired love of one’s own self – this has not at all meant that all persons born of such a heritage have come to welcome it. Few have, and we need to dwell further on the thinking of those few.
Consider, for instance, how Kenneth Minogue presents that type of exceptional creature – in his discussion of the “story of modernity”, he refers to “A morality of individuality … of the inner-directed man.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, op. cit., p. x).
What is it that drives such inner-directed individual? It is none other than sheer self-love – for the moral individualist, this self-love is a virtue. It follows that the deeper that self-love, the deeper and more authentic would such virtue be. The mode of life of the moral individualist is such as to be consciously and willfully directed inwards – this means that it is directed to one’s self. And since it is directed to one’s self, it has to be a love of that self. Were it not to be a love of the self, such inner direction would lead to a self-destructive nihilism. All this, of course, would not have to apply were one’s mode of life to be outer-directed – in that case, one’s mode of life would be directed to the collectivity, and it would therefore be directed to the morality of the collectivity. And such direction would mean a love for the collectivity, for otherwise one would again veer towards a destructive nihilism. Naturally, such outer-directed love of the collectivity would view whatever trace of self-love as an evil in itself – we know how western societies have gradually come up with a string of words to describe this alleged evil (words such as egotistical, selfish, or megalomaniac). Evil, in this case, is whatever is indifferent towards and presumes to stand over and above the collectivity – and by collectivity one here means both the many-too-many and the state of that many-too-many.
The inner-directed man and his love for his own self is a love of his own will to be free – and this freedom is precisely his supreme indifference vis-à-vis both state and populace. Oakeshott would point to this clash of moralities in his Harvard Lectures – this is what he would have to say: “… while the morality of individuality had recognized ‘self-love’ as among the legitimate springs of human activity …, the morality of collectivism pronounced ‘self-love’ to be evil and sought to replace it … by the love of the ‘collectivity’ itself.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 26). And thus, and as we have already noted above, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra would himself observe, “oh, how their game all along abused selfishness” – instead of acknowledging self-love as a legitimate spring of human activity, those pushing for a love of the collectivity would in fact constitute the world-weary. And it would be this weariness or lassitude with respect to self-creativity and self-initiative that would mean an abandonment and loss of self – being selfless (as Zarathustra puts it) would be the virtue of the morality of collectivism, and thus of the many-too-many.
The self-love of the moral individualist would naturally translate into a love for one’s privacy – and thus one would see the emergence of a morality of privacy, it being yet another dimension of the morality of individuality. Oakeshott notes the following as regards the 16th century: “A ‘privacy’ hitherto unknown began to make its appearance in European life.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 22).
The morality of privacy would mean that the individual is a separate creature vis-à-vis the rest – and being separate, he is a sovereign entity. Oakeshott writes as follows: “In the morality of individuality …, human beings are recognized (because they have come to recognize themselves in this character) as separate and sovereign individuals, associated with one another, not in the pursuit of a single common enterprise …: it is the morality of self and other selves.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 249). And thus, the morality of individuality is the morality of the self as a uniquely independent morality – and on this, Nietzsche would fully agree. But since selves do come to somehow associate with one another, the independent morality of the one self need respect the independent morality of some other self – again, Nietzsche would fully accept this, though would do so based on the notion of a self’s supreme neutrality vis-à-vis other selves (this is an important issue to be further examined below).
It is quite apparent that an individual that sees himself as separate and sovereign vis-à-vis others would need to be absolutely cautious about the manner in which he approaches whatever association with those others. He would of course have little choice but to actually associate with them in some way or another – but the association would have to be such as to consistently preserve and protect both separateness and sovereignty. And thus the moral individualist could only but espouse a particular politics of individuality. In our discussion of the politics of faith above, we had counterposed these politics to the politics of individuality, and had identified the latter in terms of the Oakeshottian concept of civil association. We here need to more or less reiterate such discussion, but this time with a specific focus on how the moral individualist would envisage the most appropriate political organization that would suit his disposition (it being above all, as noted, a disposition of self-love and a love for privacy).
What kind of politics would naturally suit the moral individualist? Without ever burdening himself with any form of engagement in the ideological discussions and struggles of his contemporaries, the moral individualist would be privately disposed to uphold certain principles of his own regarding politics – and such principles would naturally emanate from his love of his own person, and would as naturally emanate from the private world created by his own self and its cherished presentness. He would, for instance, have no need for whatever vision of some other world, other than the one he already experiences – he would be disposed to living his presentness as creatively as possible, depending on his own creative capacities. To live his presentness as he deems best, he would opt for a self-governance that would not deny his own passions – he is a man of passion in conducting his affairs. Wishing to be left alone in conducting his own private affairs, he would opt to minimize whatever collisions with other individuals – and in that, he would prefer a form of government that would merely operate as a neutral umpire preventing or settling such collisions. But although such umpire would have to be authoritative so that it fulfills its purpose, it would not ever be given that type of authority that would allow it to indulge in whatever concentration of power. These are some of the characteristics describing the political disposition of the moral individualist. Contrasting such disposition to the ideology of the politics of faith and its collectivist morality, Corey writes as follows: “The politics of individuality, on the other hand, springs from an entirely different conception of the role of government. Indeed, it has no “vision of another, different and better, world”, but takes its bearings from observations of “the self-government practiced … by men of passion in the conduct of their enterprises”. It calls not for great concentrations of power, but for an authoritative “ritual” that can minimize the chances for greater collisions between individuals. The government is thus merely “custodian” of this ritual, called “law”. Government’s functions, on this reading, are to minimize circumstances in which violent collisions of interest are likely to occur. It provides redress for those who have been wronged, maintains sufficient power to carry out its functions, and protects itself and its subjects from foreign threat. But unlike collectivism, the government of individuality is not in the business of generating grand visions that would guide an entire people.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 170).
Still on the political disposition of the moral individualist, one may add yet a few more – but definitely as important – observations. We know that the moral individualist would above all value his own experiences as a separate and sovereign individual – and he would value these experiences in their own uniqueness. One may further say that the moral individualist would also value the unique experiences of others – he would value these experiences in the more limited sense of respecting them (he would definitely not choose to relate the experiences of others to those of his own). But since he would value and/or respect the uniqueness of both his own experiences and those of others, he would view whatever attempts on the part of the state to unite individuals (around certain collective goals) as an artificial endeavour. Whatever attempts on the part of the state to unite individuals would constitute an act of disrespect for the diversity of individual experiences (and which would mean disrespect for individual practices or conduct, and disrespect for individual desires or passions). And thus whatever attempts on the part of the state to unite individuals would constitute an intervention that is alien to the political disposition of the moral individualist. Above all, state interventionism aimed at artificially uniting individual diversity would constitute a distraction of the uniqueness of experience. Edmund Neill writes as follows on the question of state intervention aimed at unification versus the political disposition of the moral individualist: “In particular, … Oakeshott stresses the necessity of avoiding government … that seeks to unite individuals artificially around a single, pre-determined end, arguing instead that it is the business of government to respect the diversity of individual practices and desires in society, so that ‘every subject … [is] secured of the right to pursue his chosen directions of activity as little hindered as might be by his fellows or by the exactions of government itself, and as little distracted by communal pressures’ …” (cf. Edmund Neill, op. cit., p. 48).
Now, in discussing the political disposition of the moral individualist, we have noted that that type of person, while respecting the experiences of others, would at the same time not choose to relate these experiences to those of his own. Such is the supreme independence of the moral individualist vis-à-vis others – and it is this unique exceptionality that would make of him a higher man. Individual morality is by definition independent morality – and on this question both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would concur.
The question of one’s supreme independence needs to be explored a bit further. We are saying that the uniqueness of the moral individualist’s experiences is not to be entangled with the experiences of others – this would be of vital importance as it would salvage that very uniqueness of experience. But one may go yet one step further: the will not to allow one’s experiences to be in whatever way entangled would also mean that the moral individualist would not allow himself to be disturbed, intimidated or in any way confounded by the conduct, thinking and desires of others. This would not be a case of mere tolerance (though it would be that too, given the respect for other individuals) – rather, it would be the will to maintain one’s supreme independence with respect to whatever flows beneath or (even) above one’s self. Such supreme neutrality would demarcate one’s space for self-creativity, it being the creation and re-creation of one’s own value-system. By the way, and as we shall see further below, Nietzsche would himself always underline the idea that each individual need create his own, unique value-system – and he would persistently emphasize that such value-system can be (or even need be) a moral language that no one else could possibly understand.
Such a position is clearly evident in Oakeshott’s own thinking – Edmund Neill, for instance, tells us that Oakeshott welcomes and praises “the individual who ‘is disinclined to be unnerved because there are other … [moral] languages to which he cannot readily relate his own’ … Oakeshott posits, and indeed advocates a fairly robust form of moral pluralism, associating this with modernity.” (cf. Edmund Neill, ibid., p. 60). We know that Nietzsche’s position on modernity (and given his focus on the market-place and its many-too-many) is far too pessimistic to be compared with that of Oakeshott’s – and yet he too would welcome and praise the individual who cherishes his own moral language without being in any way unnerved by the existence of other moral languages circulating around him.
Choosing and cherishing one’s own moral language would naturally translate into making particular types of choices in the world, and thereby pursuing particular courses of action and forms of conduct. Not all could make choices and pursue particular courses of action and forms of conduct based on a moral language that none other understands. Conducting oneself in terms of one’s own private moral language would be a burden (and definitely a risk) for the many-too-many – for the moral individualist, however, it would be an invitation to be taken up as an affirmation of life itself. And thus Oakeshott writes as follows: “Each of us is pursuing a course of his own … For some, the opportunities of making choices … are invitations readily accepted; others welcome them less eagerly or even find them burdensome …” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 184).
This brings us to a central Oakeshottian concept already alluded to, that of self-enactment, and which is also a thoroughly Nietzschean concept – viz. the willful creation of one’s unique moral system (and/or language), and the will to act on it. We intend to discuss this concept further – at this point, we may merely quote Edmund Neill, who writes as follows: “… this commitment to moral pluralism and individualism is confirmed by Oakeshott’s analysis of what he sees as the other vital aspect of morality [viz. apart from that of not being unnerved by the different moral languages of others], which he refers to as ‘self-enactment’ …” (cf. Edmund Neill, op. cit., p. 60).
The Oakeshottian position on the moral individualist – and the personal desire on the part of the moral individualist to enact his life in terms of a proud love of his own self – constitutes the culmination of a form of western thinking that had been articulated by a long list of political philosophers and men of letters. One such political philosopher would be Thomas Hobbes, and it is therefore to him that we shall now have to briefly turn. The thinking of Hobbes is of course open to a variety of interpretations – for Oakeshott, Hobbes represents the par excellence philosopher of the morality of individuality.
In what sense might one argue that the thinking of Hobbes is expressive of a moral individualism? We know that, for Hobbes, the vast majority of people – the Nietzschean many-too-many – are motivated by fear, shame, and the need for safety. And it is such fear, shame and the need for protection on the part of the many-too-many – and especially their fear of a shameful death – that calls for the necessary operation of the state (or for a sovereign power). Such types of motivations engender the morality of the tame man (Nietzsche would here speak of domestication). However, Hobbes would also observe that there are some people who are not at all motivated by such tame impulses – their own motivation is rather that of pride and the need for nobility (in the sense of a self-principled exceptionality and moral superiority). In terms of Hobbesian thinking, both the many-too-many and the exceptional individuals may come to accept the sovereign power of the state – but they would do so for absolutely different reasons (given their altogether different motivations), and they could therefore relate to such power differently. This is how Oakeshott interprets Hobbesian thinking – he writes as follows: “Fear of shameful death [i.e. not pride] … generates the morality of the tame man, the man who has settled for safety and has no need for nobility, generosity, magnanimity or an endeavour for glory in order to move him to behave justly. And, in so far as this was Hobbes’s view, he has been recognized as the philosopher of a so-called ‘bourgeois’ morality … But there are qualifications to be noticed which tend to confirm the view that … he was pre-eminently a philosopher of the morality of individuality.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 293).
For Hobbes, Oakeshott explains, the moral individualist is the type of person who upholds a morality of individuality that is essentially aristocratic – and by this term Hobbesian philosophy would be describing a certain version of higher man whose primary concern would be honour. He would not – and could not, given his moral system – be concerned with mere survival or material prosperity (both of which, as Nietzsche would argue, are the needs of the market-place and its flies). With respect to Hobbesian moral individualism and the aristocratic spirit, Oakeshott writes as follows: “This idiom of morality is ‘aristocratic’; and it is neither inappropriate nor unexpected to find it reflected in the writings of one who (though he felt constrained to write for those whose chief desire was to ‘prosper’) himself understood human beings as creatures more properly concerned with honour than with either survival or property.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, ibid., p. 294).
Thus, while Hobbes would view the aristocratic spirit of the moral individualist as a superior mode of being, he would – in his capacity as a political philosopher – have no choice but to examine the appropriate social conditions for the maintenance of social peace. And, as such, he would have to consider the minimum conditions for that social peace. He would argue that for such conditions to be sustainable in a society, one law would have to apply to all members of that society – i.e. that one law would have to apply both to the many-too-many as motivated by particular tame needs and to those exceptional individuals motivated by pride, nobility and honour.
To put it otherwise, that one law would be for both the ox and the lion – the ox, of course, would represent the anti-individualist, collectivist creature; while the lion would represent the exceptional individual. The ox would have to abide by that law out of fear, shame, and the need for safety. The lion, on the other hand, would voluntarily choose to abide by the selfsame law so that there be social peace – and the lion would wish such peace so that he could do whatever he wishes as regards his highly prized private life and individuality.
One may therefore draw the conclusion that Hobbes recognizes the needs of the many-too-many – but he also recognizes those few lions (he speaks of a dearth of such characters) that can to some meaningful extent predetermine their own individual destinies. The Hobbesian lion is the Nietzschean higher man, and such higher man is the Oakeshottian self-enacting individual – all three conceptions of human beings share one common, defining feature: they point to that type of individual who is willing and capable of deciding for himself what he shall do with his own life. Oakeshott writes of the Hobbesian minimum condition, and of the ox and the lion, as follows: “Hobbes was primarily concerned with motives for obeying civil law; he is less concerned with what a man might otherwise do with his life than with the minimum conditions in which the endeavour for peace could be the pattern of conduct for even the least well-disposed man. These minimum conditions are that there shall be one law for the lion and the ox and that both should have known and adequate motives for obeying it.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, ibid., p. 293).
Hobbes would be describing a western world that would gradually have to accommodate peoples characterized by the fear and shame of the tame impulses – and which is very much similar to Nietzsche’s understanding of the small existences and the small happinesses. But within such world of the domesticated many-too-many, Hobbes would uphold the higher virtues of the lion, it being the morality of the individualist.
The morality of individuality is also clearly evident in yet another important western thinker, that of Montesquieu. As with Hobbes, Oakeshott undertakes a critical examination of the work of this great political philosopher – he does so as part of his investigation of the character of modern western politics. According to Oakeshott, Montesquieu’s central political concept is that of Aristocratic Republicanism – and the central principle of this mode of political organization revolves around the superior value of individual honour. Very much reminiscent of the Hobbesian understanding of honour, therefore, Montesquieu would be arguing for the aristocratic virtue – or the aristocratic morality – of that ideal type of individual (beyond social class) who organizes his person on the basis of such honour. And again reminiscent of Hobbes, Montesquieu would understand individual honour as a virtue expressive of individual pride, and the personal dignity that goes with it.
But what is truly outstanding in the thinking of Montesquieu is the manner in which he approaches the whole question of aristocratic morality and the question of individual pride as a mode of life – he presents such morality in a manner which runs absolutely counter to whatever ideology of the morality of the anti-individualist and his collectivism. For Montesquieu, firstly, the individual is responsible for his own conduct. And secondly, but most importantly, one’s personal virtue (that of aristocratic honour and pride) is viewed as a mode of conduct which the person owes only to himself as an individual – he does not owe it to society; he does not owe it to whatever collectivity. Montesquieu’s thinking therefore posits itself against whatever anti-individualist morality – for such morality, and as has been discussed above, man must necessarily be seen as a debtor who owes a debt to society and its organized collectivity, and he ought to conduct himself accordingly. For Montesquieu, the individual does not in any way stand obliged to whatever collectivity – being responsible for his own moral conduct, he can only but be indebted to his own person as regards the virtue of aristocratic pride.
This is how Oakeshott presents his critical understanding of the thinking of Montesquieu, which he sees as part of the pro-individualist and anti-collectivist tradition – he writes: “By ‘honour’ Montesquieu means an aristocratic virtue but one which need not be confined to an aristocracy. He means the natural pride and dignity of a man who feels himself to be an individual among individuals, to be responsible for his own conduct, and who, because he is self-confident in making his own choices, is able to be frank without being arrogant. The ideal type of the character Montesquieu has in mind is, I think, the megalopsychos of Aristotle, the magnanimous man … As Montesquieu describes him, the man of honour is a man whose virtue is not understood as a conduct which he owes to others or to his society so much as to himself: he is a self-contained man who recognizes mean and ignoble conduct as undignified, a relapse into barbarism, a denigration of himself.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, op. cit., pp. 38-39).
Montesquieu’s understanding of the aristocratic self-contained individual, being self-contained, is the Oakeshottian type who engages in his own self-enactment – that type of individual, moreover, is none other than the Nietzschean individual qua self-rolling wheel. For Montesquieu – as also for Oakeshott himself – the form of government that is most appropriate to that type of individual is “an association of self-determined individuals” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 39). To the extent that the aristocratic self-contained individual is in any need of whatever form of governance at all, that form would be Montesquieu’s Aristocratic Republicanism.
It would be Aristocratic Republicanism, not democracy. And it could not be democracy since, for Montesquieu, that particular form of government yields a common mediocrity. We know that Nietzsche would of course be in full agreement with this position. But so would Oakeshott, at least when it comes to the democratic state as enterprise and its politics of faith. Oakeshott shall present Montesquieu’s own negative assessment of democratic societies (as opposed to Aristocratic Republicanism) as follows: in their case, “Individuality, or any suspicion of superiority in taste or enterprise, will arouse resentment, and a common mediocrity of ability and fortune will be recognized as appropriate in such a community …” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., pp. 39-40).
Apart from Hobbes and Montesquieu, Oakeshott shall go on to identify the intellectual tradition of individualism in a rather long string of other western thinkers. In the case of John Locke, for instance, he shall identify important elements of the morality of individuality. Oakeshott tells us that Locke’s work would recognize “the indestructible value of individuality”. For Locke, in fact, the very purpose of government would be to secure the “sanctuary” of such individuality. (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 56). Immanuel Kant, as well, would acknowledge “the supremacy of self-determination” (ibid., p. 59).
We in any case know that there have been other western intellectuals not examined by Oakeshott himself who have also investigated, in their own special way, this clash between the morality of individuality and that of anti-individuality. Consider the case of Stendhal. In his discussion of Red and Black, Erich Auerbach (op. cit.) tells us that Stendhal’s novel wishes to undertake an in-depth psychological investigation of the mindset of two fundamentally different types of personalities. On the one hand, there is that type of person that wishes to courageously assert his independent individuality whatever be the adverse circumstances that besiege him – he determines to stand over and above these circumstances, his basic aim being self-assertion. On the other hand, and in stark contrast, there are the rest – those trivial middle-of-the-roads (Nietzsche would himself speak of their moderation) – who are mere victims of historical circumstances and lack the will to rise above and/or resist such circumstances. Being trivial (or superfluous), they represent the anti-individualist and collectivist morality of the many-too-many. And so, with reference to Stendhal’s Julien Sorel, Auerbach observes that “… his courageous assertion of his personality [is set] against the triviality of the rising middle-of-the-roads …”, those who are incapable of resisting their historical circumstances (cf. Red and Black, op. cit., p. 446). And further, “the realism of this “fractious horse” [Julien Sorel] is a product of his fight for self-assertion.” (ibid.).
It is of course not for nothing that Nietzsche would so much come to admire the psychological perspicacity of Stendhal’s work – we know that he would view his discovery of Stendhal as one of the “most beautiful strokes of fortune in my life.” It would be Julien Sorel’s “virile and virtuous conduct” that would speak to Nietzsche’s own understanding of the moral individualist (cf. William R. Goetz, op. cit.).
Sorel’s courageous self-assertion cannot be expressive of the trivial many-too-many – such a disposition would simply not be appropriate, as Oakeshott puts it, “in the circumstances of an unadventurous, a slothful or a spiritless people.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 195). And on this, and naturally so, Oakeshott’s position would fully correspond to that of Nietzsche’s.
We may now sum up and close this discussion of the anti-individualist versus individualist moralities by trying to tie up what may be considered to be some loose ends. The first issue concerns the Oakeshottian understanding of associations of individuals as opposed to collectivities. We have emphasized all along the exceptionality of the individual as a higher man and how such individual consistently asserts his individuality on the basis of his own unique experiences. The theoretical question that immediately arises here is whether or not anyone would be able to participate in an association of individuals. Given, as we have seen, that Oakeshottian thinking does attach great value to pluralist individualism, the question remains meaningful within the context of the history of the western world. But the question is not in fact purely theoretical, as associations of individuals may yet still be in operation as independent cultural, political or economic clusters existing within the complex networks of Babelian-type states – and such associations may yet still exist in their capacity as relatively free zones (their actual existence naturally remains an empirical question). Who would be eligible for participation in such libertarian zones? One may say that literally anyone would be able to join an association of individuals, but only do so to the extent that he himself has nurtured his own self as an independent entity – he would not, therefore, belong to whatever clusters of modern mass man and their idol-adoration. And further, he would only be able to participate in an association of individuals to the extent that he is a conscious (or relatively unconscious) carrier of that western tradition that has come to be known as pluralist individualism, as also a carrier of the specific identity bestowed on westerners by its concomitant morality of habit of behaviour.
The second issue to be touched on is such as to complicate the response suggested above – precisely who would be eligible (but also willing) to participate in a libertarian zone typical of associations of individuals seems crystal clear at first sight. And yet, and as Kenneth Minogue has argued, many individuals may in fact be characterized by a balanced tension within their very own person between, on the one hand, an inclination for slavishness (typical of the collectivity) and, on the other, an inclination for self-determination and independence (typical of individuality). Minogue would be pointing, in other words, to the well-known Aristotelian distinction between the state of the natural slave and that of the natural master, and he would consider how these two states may come to interact within a single human being (cf. Prof. Kenneth Minogue, “How Political Idealism Threatens Our Civilization”, YouTube, op. cit.). It is not for us to determine how each and every single person organizes his own understanding of the world, and how he comes to decide on the manner in which he relates to that world (all psychological theories attempting to understand individual persons cannot possibly hold a candle to the complexity of the human brain, as Iris Murdoch would have said). And yet still, the question regarding the mode of conduct of the many-too-many as a social category seems more or less settled – one could not possibly expect much of those who seek the protection of the state against the creative initiative of self-rolling individuals. And those that seek the protection of the state would not even choose to consider whatever niche in an association of independent individuals.
In the last instance (and this constitutes the final interrelated issue), one need say that any free zone typical of an association of independent individuals would naturally come to resist whatever happens to threaten its identity – and its identity could be threatened either by persons that are simply resentful of its existence, or by the penetrative intervention of a jealously expansionist state. An association of individuals could resist in a variety of ways: for one, it could do so in a manner that ultimately preserves the independent disposition of its members, thus conscientiously absconding from whatever engagement in ideological battles with its opponents. Alternatively, and maybe even tragically so, it could submit to such engagement in ideological battles, thereby compromising the very purpose of its existence, it being the preservation of the inviolable independence of its members (this issue has already been discussed above, in our examination of possible forms of resistance to rationalist thinking). Either way, the original intention of the association of individuals would be to conserve an identity arising from the morality of habit of behaviour and its pluralist individualism (and which is not an ideology per se), and/or to conserve the identity of the strong self-willed individual wishing to be left alone. On the question of identity-threatening changes, and the individual’s resistance to such changes, Oakeshott writes as follows: “Indeed, wherever a firm identity [of individuality] has been achieved, and whenever [such] identity is felt to be precariously balanced, a conservative disposition is likely to prevail.” (cf. Michael Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 173). Such conservative disposition would have one object in mind: to thwart whatever intervention (usually dubbed an innovation), on the part of the collectivity, in the affairs of either the independent individual or those of an association of independent individuals.
5f. The individual as the latest creation
It may be argued – or perhaps it must be admitted – that both whatever particular morality of habit of behaviour (expressive of a historical people), as also whatever morality of a concrete individual (expressive of none other than that individual himself), do actually share at least one common feature. Which is that common feature?
Let us first consider the case of a morality of habit of behaviour – it may be argued that such morality is based on illusionary (or illusory-based) values of society. But despite the standard meaning of a term such as illusionary, we do not mean to say that a morality of habit of behaviour is in any sense self-deceptive for those that espouse its values – and it is not self-deceptive since the values they embrace are such as to meet their specific identitarian needs as a people. We therefore speak here of a socially functional illusion of values. And most importantly, we speak here of a set of values that have been created by the community itself – these are self-imposed values, not extraneously imposed values.
Similar observations may be made regarding the morality of a concrete individual. As an independent, creative individual, he possesses the inviolable right to create his own values, and to create these in his own world as created. And such creativity must necessarily be the production of an illusionary world – self-creativity is the creativity of an artist, and art is by definition the production of the imaginary. We should yet again remind ourselves here (but which is a matter to be further explored below) that the Oakeshottian conception of the moral life takes its bearings from poetry qua mode of life, and which is the activity of imagining or of making images for one’s own self as a unique entity.
And it is in this sense, therefore, that both a morality of habit of behaviour pertaining to a people, as also any morality expressive of an independent individual, are essentially illusionary – but both of these worldviews are self-created and self-imposed, and they stand over, above and against whatever mass ideology imposed by the state and its protected subjects.
Creators of values – whatever the status of such illusionary values – have emerged in the history of the western world as both peoples and as individuals. But Nietzsche would observe that there would come a time when it would only be the individual per se who could ultimately operate as an authentic creator. We have already noted above how Nietzsche would observe that, initially in the history of humanity, it would be peoples who would be creators of values and cultures, and who had possessed the will to power for such creation. But then he would go on to maintain that, in what he calls late times, the task of authentic creation would be transferred to individuals – indeed, he adds, the individual per se is the latest creation (but here certainly not in the sense ideologically manufactured by the state, as a mere replica of others). And it would now only be the individual who could potentially assert his will to power as a self-valuing and self-conquering creator since modernity would see the loss of peoples, and it would see such loss given the incursions of the state.
Generally speaking (and based on both Nietzsche and especially Oakeshott), one may say that, in the history of the western world, it is the individual per se that has been the most demonized, the most preyed on, and the most hunted as an existential entity within society. And yet, right at the same time, it is the individual per se that has been the most resilient as an existential entity – often enough in such history, the hunted has even turned hunter.
Often enough in this history, the individual has been noticed by the many-too-many – and he has been noticed as either a famous wise one in the service of the state, or he has been noticed as a public contrarian of sorts, and usually so with respect to a motley of public issues and controversies. But most often it seems, the individual has gone quite unnoticed – in fact, one may suspect that there has been that category of individuals that have determined to actually remain unnoticed (as Nietzsche shall tell us).
In the course of western history, there has been that type of individual who has overcome tribal behaviour, or stood above the tribal herd – and he could have paid the price for doing so. More often perhaps, there has been that type of individual who has swam with the tide of a community’s habit of behaviour, but has consciously done so without wholly submitting to that tide.
Often, as well, the independent individual has tried to show some understanding for the many-too-many and their idol-adoration – he has tried to show some understanding, in other words, for what Nietzsche has described as “the throng of [those] grey little waves”, these being the ideological waves that usually mesmerize mass man. More often than not, however, the independent individual has remained supremely indifferent or neutral as regards the many-too-many, and their volatile and ephemeral political faiths. He has often, and simply, adopted a stance expressed in that Nietzschean phrase referred to above, Let them.
In the last instance, and quite despite the rise of the Babelian-type state, one can observe that either more or less within or very much outside the space of that supposedly all-inclusive state, the independent individual remains a reality to be reckoned with.
Now, of course, the individual (or even the independent individual) cannot simply be equated to the Nietzschean higher man – on the other hand, and as shall be further examined below, the individual (and especially the independent individual) can relate to the higher man in a variety of discrete ways.
But unlike whatever type of individual, the Nietzschean higher man is above all a creator of values worthy of themselves, and they would only be worthy of themselves in terms of their own uniqueness and originality (it being a singular originality which – and as has already been suggested above – also happens to be the defining characteristic of whichever artist in relation to his art).
And yet, and as we shall see, the Nietzschean higher man is himself divided in his creativity, and deeply divided in a number of ways – the difference with respect to the rest, however, is that such exceptional individual can actually celebrate his internal divisions, and celebrate these precisely in his capacity as creator.
All this now needs to be discussed in some greater detail – and since it is the Nietzschean enterprise (perhaps above all in western thought) that specifically focuses on the individual and his various existential gradations, it must be it that we need to yet again tap.
- The individual
6a. The state, and the loss of individuality
We have seen how, for Nietzsche, the western state has come to operate as a killer of all time-present: its preachers of death have come to articulate an ideology of death whereby the meaning of life is continually projected into an ideologically manufactured future. Such mass ideology has spelt the destruction of peoples. But, together with the demise of peoples who had once pursued a will to life, one would also witness an attempted destruction of the individual, in conjunction with his own morality of individuality and his natural sense of presentness.
In its capacity as a death-horse, the state wishes to allure to itself both the populace and the concrete individual. And when it has successfully enticed these to itself, it proceeds to chew and rechew its subjects to the point where they all come to lose whatever sense of self-determination and individuality. It is therefore this overarching destructive process that would also spell the loss of the individual as such. Writing of the western state as the grand new idol, Nietzsche describes this destructive process in his Thus Spake Zarathustra as follows: “See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them!” (p. 45).
The process of swallowing, chewing, and rechewing of people shall mean that they all come to lose their own selves, and they all lose their sense of selfhood within the nihilistic ideology of the state. Nietzsche continues as follows: “The state, I call it, where all are poison-drinkers, the good and the bad; the state, where all lose themselves, the good and the bad; the state, where the slow suicide of all – is called ‘life’ …” (p. 46).
It is within the western Babelian-type state that all lose themselves – they all kill their selves and their presentness. This suicidal loss of self has meant that men have come to lose their cohesion as independent selves – they have dissipated and scattered their bodies, and have thus by implication dishonoured their independent minds. “Verily, my friends”, Zarathustra says, “I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments and limbs of human beings! … This is the terrible thing to mine eye, that I find man broken up, and scattered about as on a battle- and butcher-ground.” (p. 137).
6b. The commencement of the necessary individual
For certain types of individuals, it so happens that the state, its governments, their policies and ideologies, all constitute a mode of life that is indifferent to them – such indifference is here a willfully selected disposition. There is an important sense in which, for these particular types of individuals, the state has ceased to exist. And by ceasing to exist, these types of individuals can begin to enact their own mode of life as necessary individuals. In a passage that may be considered pivotal to the thinking of Nietzsche as articulated in his Thus Spake Zarathustra, we read as follows: “There, where the state ceaseth – there only commenceth the man who is not superfluous: there commenceth the song of the necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody.” (p. 47).
There are a number of observations that one may make with respect to this position. Firstly, we should note that it is only once the state and its ideological politics of faith cease to dominate the mode of life of a person, that that person can commence to be a necessary individual – necessary, that is, to none other than his own self (if such mode of life also proves to be inadvertently necessary to certain others, however, then that person would let it be so – but he would let it be so with a number of important provisos, and which shall be examined further below).
Secondly, we note that Nietzsche makes use of terms such as song and melody – and he does so because he is referring to a mode of life, or a self-determined moral life, that takes its bearings from poetry or art (in the specific Oakeshottian sense). Nietzsche is thinking of the individual as a self-rolling wheel revolving around its artistic creativity.
Finally, one may say that the necessity of the non-superfluous individual is based precisely on the fact that such artistic creativity is exceptional and/or unique in its originality – it is the uniqueness of such creative mode of being that renders it necessary. That melody, Nietzsche tells us, is the single and irreplaceable melody.
It is only at that point where the supremacy of the state ceases, that the supremacy of the morality of individuality – and that of the individual himself – can be enacted. And it is only at that particular point where the higher man may also enact his own mode of being. That is the precise point, in other words, where the Superman as a mode of being can commence. Alternatively, one may say that the point where the supremacy of the state ceases is that point where one may prepare the ground (or build the bridge) for such higher mode of being as is encapsulated in the notion of the Nietzschean Superman. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra puts this as follows: “There, where the state ceaseth – pray look thither, my brethren! Do ye not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the Superman?” (ibid.).
There are two express clarifications that need to be made at this point. Firstly, when one speaks of the ceasing of the state, one does not mean to at all imply its material destruction in whatever way – such an implication would obviously be both ludicrous and absolutely utopian. For the concrete individual, the ceasing of the state would be exclusively enacted in his own personal disposition – and it would be so enacted by choosing to merely look down on (and thereby surpassing) whatever faith in state ideology, as also whatever faith in the ideological waves of the many-too-many.
Secondly, whatever eschatological approach to the concept of the Superman – and which is often quite evident in Thus Spake Zarathustra – simply needs to be bypassed. For us, as also for Oakeshott, whatever superior mode of being must remain a choice that can only apply to a concrete individual, and that can only apply here and now. But such choice, one need add, presupposes both personal will and (especially) personal capability – and this brings us directly to the question of self-determination.
6c. Existential self-determination
Central to the Nietzschean enterprise in Thus Spake Zarathustra is an investigation – and an affirmation – of the self-rolling individual as a self-conqueror. What, exactly, is a self-conqueror for Nietzsche? His definition of that type of individual is explicit, and it is faithful to his overall understanding of such a type of person. Contrary to what has so often been insinuated, Nietzsche is never ambiguous, and not ever self-contradictory, when it comes to presenting us with a definition of the self-rolling individual as a self-conqueror. In fact, one may say that his exposition of that type of individual in his Thus Spake Zarathustra is all too systematic – and it is systematic despite the apparently supercilious usage of various alternative and/or untimely figurative models. And thus, what we shall be presenting here correlates perfectly well with whatever has been stated above with respect to Nietzschean thinking.
To begin with, the self-rolling individual as a self-conqueror is invariably faced with what Nietzsche has termed the Thou-shalt of this world – viz. that Thou-shalt as articulated by the state, and that concomitant Thou-shalt as demanded by the many-too-many. In its place, the self-conqueror simply and naturally posits his own, individualist I will. That is how the spirit of the self-conqueror delineates its own free space. Nietzsche writes as follows: “What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God? ‘Thou-shalt’ is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, ‘I will’ …” (p. 22).
That much we know of, and have already spoken of above – but what does it really mean to assert one’s I will in the place of the other’s Thou-shalt? Asserting one’s I will certainly seems to declare one’s freedom as a person vis-à-vis that Thou-shalt of the rest – but such freedom really says little to nothing: it suggests that the individual has merely escaped from the encumbrance of the many-too-many, and the so-called conscience of the many-too-many. Any mere escape is easy – but it does not constitute an alternative mode of being. In one’s response to whatever Thou-shalt, one needs to forge a real substitute – and such real substitute can only emanate from one’s ruling thought. Many can escape from both the state and the many-too-many – few, however, can come up with a ruling thought of their own, and which must be a ruling thought substantial enough to replace whatever Thou-shalt. This is how Nietzsche begins to analyze what he calls “The Way of the Creating One” – addressing those who merely wish to escape the yoke of dominant ideology, he writes as follows: “Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.” (p. 59).
What is a ruling thought? What may its substance be? And what is it definitely not? Answering such types of questions is both simple and complex. It is simple because what Nietzsche has to say about them is actually crystal-clear – but it is also complex because the way one answers such questions really depends on the individual answering them. At a general level, one should say that whatever a ruling thought may be, it must above all operate as an authority. And it must be such an authority so as to be able to circumvent the authority of both the state and the many-too-many, and especially their shared anti-individualistic morality. To be able to circumvent a Babelian-type authority that takes the form of collective idol-adoration, that individual ruling thought must also be an original authority, unique in its own self-independence. It need necessarily be an original authority absolutely independent of all that circumscribes the individual, or that intends to circumscribe him. But to be able to be independent of all that circumscribes the individual, his original authority must be such as to enable him to live beyond lust. And most importantly, the individual’s original authority must be such so as to enable him to live beyond ambition – beyond, that is, all this-worldly ambition, this world being that of the market-place and its flies. Nietzsche has already observed that it is materialistic ambition that defines the populace as rabble, and he has made use of expressions such as the ambition-fidgeting to describe both the many-too-many and the famous wise ones in the service of the state. The ruling thought need be beyond whatever such ambition-fidgeting since such incessant fidgeting is a killer of presentness as a mode of life – and it should also be emphasized here that the whole of the Oakeshottian intellectual enterprise would be in absolute agreement with this Nietzschean position on the question of ambition.
With respect to the way of the creating one, and his ruling thought as an original authority, Nietzsche writes as follows: “Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A self-rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee? … Alas, there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou are not a lusting and ambitious one!” (ibid.).
Beyond the lust and the ambition of the flies in the market-place, the authority of the self-conqueror can begin to create. Such creation would be self-creation – the individual would literally begin to create his own self. And he would create his own self in such a way that that self would itself be, above all, a creator. Addressing himself to the self-conqueror, Nietzsche tells him that he shall have to create his own “first movement”; he shall have to create his own self as “a spontaneously rolling wheel” – and he adds: “a creating one shalt thou create” (p. 66).
As a self-conqueror and self-creator, this type of individual would be the sole authority that would determine his own passions, and he would thereby create his own virtues – he would be a master of both, and thus he would be his own master. It is this that constitutes the will to power of the individual – and it is a will to power since that type of individual would have moved beyond animal necessity. Nietzsche writes as follows: “Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee … Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or discord in thee?” (ibid.).
The very first motion of the self-determining individual as a first movement would thus be the building of his very own self: “first of all”, Nietzsche advises, “must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul.” (ibid.). And so, in his Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche shall undertake a highly systematic presentation of that first motion of building one’s self, and he shall go on to present a series of further steps conducive to the construction of the individual as a first movement. Below, we intend to analyze each of these so-called steps in some detail – at this point, we may merely name these as follows. Firstly, and as already touched on, there is that struggle to conquer one’s self and one’s own passions (not in the sense of simply denying them – rather, the question here is how to master and forge them in terms of one’s own independent identity). Secondly, there is the need to define one’s own absolutely independent space – this raises the question of a necessary solitariness vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Thirdly, there is that need to deny whatever duty to the world (this being a denial of duty to society or the collectivity, and which is a position fully expressive of Oakeshottian thinking – we need remember that such thinking rejects the idea that individuals ought to see themselves as debtors dependent on society). Fourthly, and having attained a state of solitary independence that stands in denial of whatever moral obligation to others, the individual as first movement can engage in the game of creation as a mode of being. Fifthly, that type of individual can engage in the game of creation by clearly differentiating between his ego and his self (both as self-defined), and by allowing such ego and self to interact in a manner determined by the individual. Finally, and by engaging in a game of creation that allows for this interplay between ego and self, the higher individual would be creating his own sense of virtue.
These are the various dimensions of enacting one’s self as a self-conqueror, and which certainly need to be clarified further. At first sight, one could object that all such so-called steps constitute a very tall order for anyone – and, as such, they ought to be dismissed as typical dreams of a tragic Don Quixote. And yet, and as human history has so often come to verifiably pronounce on the matter, there have been – or there are – those exceptions to the rule of mediocrity. Who, then, is entitled to such a mode of being?
To be able to understand what type of individual is entitled to that superior mode of being, one may begin by identifying those types of people that are not so entitled. The will to personal truth and the will to self-creative power are forces that are simply not equally distributed amongst humans. Nietzsche wishes to examine such unequal distribution of will by surveying the whole spectrum of human behaviour, from the weakest type of person (he who is born to obey) to the strongest type of (he who is born to command). “But wherever I found living things”, writes Nietzsche, “there heard I also the language of obedience. All living things are obeying things … And this heard I secondly: whatever cannot obey itself, is commanded. Such is the nature of living things … This, however, is the third thing which I heard – namely, that commanding is more difficult than obeying.” (p. 112).
Observing the world around him, Nietzsche comes to the conclusion that all living creatures have no choice but to obey someone or something – that is the natural law of life, and there are no exceptions to this rule. But while there are those who fulfill this rule by obeying others, there are also those who can fulfill that same rule by obeying their own selves. Naturally, those that cannot obey their own selves must be commanded by others; as naturally, those that can obey their own selves have no need for the commanding of others. While this privileges the latter by entitling them to a higher mode of being, such mode of being is in fact more demanding than that of simply obeying the commands of others. And it is more demanding – or more difficult, as Nietzsche puts it – since the mode of being that is self-determining requires both capability and will power. And it requires these as it constitutes a first motion beyond mere animal necessity (this being the necessity of material maintenance typical amongst the many-too-many).
And thus it is that all living creatures do obey, as does the western-type mass man living within a Babelian-type state and society – and it is precisely this that Nietzsche has described as the hierarchical chain of commanding traversing the whole of society. This is the natural order of things in the world. And yet, there is that type of individual who chooses to remain – and possesses the ability to remain – well outside that chain of commanding. But that too is in the natural order of things, since he who is outside the social chain of commanding is merely adhering to his own, personal chain of commanding (as we shall see, such personal chain of commanding shall have to revolve around the ego-self interface).
We are saying that it remains within the natural order of things for someone to obey himself, not others. And yet, that particular natural order is not of the same status as in the case of someone obeying others within a hierarchical chain of commanding. For when one commands and obeys one’s self, he at the same time surpasses animal necessity and the impulsive conscience of the herd. In other words, one’s self-rolling moral order of self-obedience and self-command lies beyond the animal needs of what Nietzsche calls a small existence (with its small happinesses and small miseries).
But remaining outside the social chain of commanding is not for all – it may be argued, and it is a historically verifiable manifestation of life itself, that obeying others (servitude itself) can be a virtue for those who cannot obey themselves. Nietzsche asserts this by writing as follows: “Art thou one entitled to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.” (p. 59).
Naturally, this immediately raises the question of inequality: not all can have ruling thoughts; not all can be self-rolling wheels. Only some are entitled to live a mode of being outside of servitude – the rest are simply not born with (and therefore cannot nurture) either the will or the genius (or both) to self-obedience and self-command. And since they possess neither will nor genius, being free of servitude would most probably lead to anarchic self-destruction and/or anarchic social destruction – and it is for this reason that, for the many-too-many, servitude is their final worth.
In contrast to that final worth of the many-too-many, the exceptional individual possesses, not only his own will to self-power, but also the ability to orient that will towards a freely-chosen direction for himself. But by so orienting his will, he simultaneously orients himself in a particular manner in the world that circumscribes him. This particular orientation of one’s will in the world would be such as to move one’s self beyond mere animal necessity or mere animal needs, these being primarily the needs of material maintenance. Such an orientation would be a matter of personal choice – but, and as we are suggesting, this would be a highly demanding choice that would entitle some individuals to live such a mode of being while at the same time necessarily disqualifying other persons to do the same. It should here be emphasized that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would be in full agreement with respect to the particular orientation of the will as a matter of individual choice – but free choice is in itself not sufficient. Now, based on Corey’s presentation of the Oakeshottian position on this matter, one could at first suppose that each and every human being has the opportunity to make that type of free choice that places one’s person beyond social servitude and its hierarchical chain of commanding and obeying. And yet, Corey does clarify that the choice of self-determination presupposes someone who is capable of making that choice, and who possesses the will to make and stick to that choice. Perhaps most importantly, the choice presupposes that type of individual who would be prepared to both suffer and celebrate whatever be the ensuing consequences of that choice (and do both as would the Oakeshottian-type megalopsychos). Such preconditions are of course highly reminiscent of the Nietzschean understanding of the exceptional individual. This is how Corey presents Oakeshott’s position: “… there are alternative ways of orienting oneself in the world, and … every human being must make a choice between these orientations. However, this choice (viz. that of living or not living beyond servitude and/or the morality of the collectivity) demands someone who is capable of making it. It requires a self-determined, rational individual who can suffer or celebrate the consequences of his actions.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 34).
We now need dwell a bit further on this question of orienting one’s will, and the implications of this with respect to one’s existential self-determination. One may begin by saying that, for Oakeshott at least, the will is something to be exercised – what is it that exercises, and thereby nurtures, the will? In his 1933 text entitled Experience and its Modes, Oakeshott shall tell us that practice is the exercise of the will (and cf. also StJohnsPipeCasts, op. cit.). And on this, Corey writes as follows: “… we are blessed with the freedom to orient our wills as we see fit. The adventure of human life thus consists precisely in this exercise of will …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 24).
The idea that life is an adventure precisely because it involves this exercising of the will is clearly evident in the Nietzschean enterprise, with its well-known emphasis on the will to power as a virtue. It has also played a major role in the thinking of those select few who would continue to enrich the Nietzschean understanding of life in an exceptionally competent – and decidedly unbiased – manner. Heidegger’s concept of care, for instance, has certainly helped us to further understand the question of individual will and its practical nurturing. We know that the Heideggerian concept of care, consistently used in the neutral sense, is directly related to the question of individual will. For Heidegger, will is founded on care, it being always a modification of such care – and the being of being per se is revealed only in relation to will, which wishes for itself to be free and decisive. Whatever the on-going controversies over a definitive interpretation of the Heideggerian philosophical enterprise, one could in any case entertain the position that Heidegger’s concept of resoluteness (or willful resolve) may ultimately privilege becoming over being (as in the case of Nietzschean thinking) – and the process of becoming is necessarily tied up with the question of individual will. The question of both becoming and individual will, however, cannot possibly be disentangled from the Oakeshottian focus on practice as the exercising of the will, and its practical orientation.
The exercising of the will is the individual’s orientation of his will towards existential self-determination. But, by definition, self-determination is beyond whatever obedience to the other, beyond whatever knee-bending, and beyond whatever form of ideological idol-adoration. Nietzsche writes of this as follows: “O my soul, I have taken from thee all obeying and knee-bending and homage-paying …” (p. 215). And thus, the existentially self-determined individual is able to utter – as does Nietzsche’s Zarathustra – words expressive of a personal experience that is itself utterly beyond those who are in social servitude. This new Zarathustrian language, absolutely foreign to the many-too-many, goes as follows: “But I live in mine own light; I drink again into myself the flames that break forth from me.” (p. 103).
What does it really mean to live in one’s own light? Nicholas Davey has attempted to summarize, as accurately as that be possible, the defining characteristics of the existentially self-determined Overman. He writes as follows: “In Thus Spake Zarathustra the notion of Übermensch refers to … a life-form free from anxiety and guilt, and reliant upon the values it has created for itself.” (cf. Nicholas Davey, “An Introduction”, Thus Spake Zarathustra, ibid., p. xi). We also need to acknowledge here that the term existential self-determination belongs to Davey (ibid.).
6d. The loneliest wilderness
To be capable of orienting one’s will in the direction of existential self-determination, one needs to exercise one’s will, as Oakeshott has pointed out – and it is this exercising of the will that also constitutes the very adventure of life. But the exercising of the will would require that one goes into isolation (it being a matter of going unto thyself), as Nietzsche has put it. But as has already been suggested, undertaking such a life-adventure presupposes that he who does it has to be in possession of both authority and strength – it is therefore only that type of individual who is in possession of both that is entitled to do so. Both authority and strength are required since that adventurous mode of being would mean an entry into a certain affliction (a Nietzschean term). As we have already seen, and according to Oakeshottian thinking as well, one’s will to power (or self-determination) presupposes that one is prepared to both suffer and celebrate – viz. to also celebrate the suffering itself, or to celebrate the Nietzschean understanding of affliction.
And thus, when Nietzsche discusses the way of the creating one, he speaks of the necessary isolation of the creative individual vis-à-vis the many-too-many (it being the modern herd). He writes as follows: “But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength.” (p. 59).
There is a key question that arises here, and which is a question that concerns both Nietzsche and Oakeshott – this question may be put as follows: can one still effectively isolate oneself while living right within the all-consuming and ubiquitous network of the modern Babelian-type state? Nietzsche shall argue that, if the individual does in fact have the appropriate authority and strength, then he can withdraw from the realm of state idolatry and its maze of Thou-shalts – there are, yet still, sites for the lone ones. He writes: “Open still remaineth the earth for great souls. Empty are still many sites for lone ones and twain ones, around which floateth the odour of tranquil seas.” (p. 47). This ability to withdraw from state idolatry – as also the idolatry of politics itself – is as central to the Oakeshottian intellectual project as a whole as it is to the Nietzschean: both would wish to uphold the supremacy of individual privacy, and both would investigate the conditions (or the sites) for upholding this supremacy.
Going into isolation, or going back to one’s own individualistic self, means consciously selecting one’s own personal site well outside of all state idolatry, and well outside of whatever mass ideology, and the protection that both are supposed to offer. In doing so, the individual overcomes the animal needs of material maintenance – he does so in the sense that such needs do not predominate as a raison d’être in his mode of being. We know all too well that almost all of the policies of the modern western state, as also almost all of the demands, ideologies, and ideological mobilizations of the masses, spring from one basic source: that of satisfying material needs. The necessarily lonesome but tranquil seas of the self-determined individual (tranquil because therein one celebrates affliction itself) would constitute a site over and above such material realities of the market-place. The practical implication here is crystal clear: living a mode of being in isolation from the many-too-many, and doing so in terms of a self-affirmation within one’s sovereign site, would mean that one does not engage in the struggles of the populace for material maintenance, or for the betterment of such maintenance. And this would therefore mean that the self-determined individual chooses to possess little – and he would choose to possess little since the less he possesses, the less would he be possessed by others (or by the state). Nietzsche asserts that living such a life is yet still possible, even within the realities of the modern western state. And it is yet still possible if only because the will – for those who have it and can orientate it according to their independent disposition – is well above and well beyond the contingent circumstances that surround it. This is what he writes: “Open still remaineth a free life for great souls. Verily, he who possesseth little is so much the less possessed: blessed be moderate poverty!” (ibid.).
There is no doubt that one of the major themes running right across the whole of Thus Spake Zarathustra is precisely this admonition to run away from the market-place of the modern western world, and to do so by entering the loneliest wilderness of one’s own self. Naturally so, Nietzsche explains, the mass herd would eschew such an admonition – but even the exceptional individual could himself harbour his own reservations as to the efficacy of such an admonition, and he could do so since he would himself have been tempted by the so-called solidarity and the little comforts offered by the collectivity of the herd. Regarding the attitude of the many-too-many towards self-isolation, but also that of the exceptional individual, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has this to say: “… ‘He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong’: so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.” (p. 59).
Having lived amongst the collectivity of the herd, the exceptional individual has had to suffer both the noise and the stings of the market-place. He has been continually bombarded, in other words, with two different – albeit tightly interrelated – forms of ideology. On the one hand, he would have been bombarded with the sophisticated intellectual discourse of the great men – such noise would invariably argue for the virtues of collective solidarity and the social engagement of all, and would stigmatize anyone who abstains from the collectivity as an idiot (as belonging to the idiotes). On the other hand, the exceptional individual would have been bombarded with the popular morality of the anti-individual as expressed by the little ones (those constituting the many-too-many) – such stings would wish to poison whatever smacks of egoism, apparent arrogance, and self-love. But, Nietzsche argues, it is precisely such noise and such stings that the exceptional individual shall need to overcome – and he could only overcome these through self-isolation. Zarathustra advises, simply, as follows: “Flee, my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung all over with the stings of the little ones.” (p. 48).
The grand intellectual noise of much of western social philosophy, together with the permeating sting of the moral beliefs of the many-too-many, have come to constitute the dense fluid of mass ideology – as already indicated, such mass ideology expresses an absolute need for a for and an against with respect to whatever in life, down to the smallest little detail. This is the absolute Yea and the absolute Nay of the masses and their organic intellectuals – this is the terrain of the market-place, or the site of the masses (usually referred to as the public space in present-day terminology). Fully aware of how such noise can deafen and how such sting can poison, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra asks of the exceptional individual to flee from these into the security of his own private wilderness – this would be the terrain or the site of the sovereign self, it being a free zone in the world. Therein, one would be free of whatever external assailment, for it is only in the market-place that such assailment occurs. Zarathustra continues his advice as follows: “On account of those abrupt ones [or those absolute ones], return into thy security; only in the market-place is one assailed by Yea or Nay.” (p. 49).
This return to one’s private wilderness, however, would be an absolute abomination for the collectivity – it would fly in the face of their absolute sense of moral justice. It would unsettle their absolute faith in a moral justice that wishes to defend the equality of all – such justice would automatically declare its absolute Nay to whoever decides to be more equal than others by devising his own sense of justice, and who does this in a site that is not of the collectivity. It so happens that the absolute Yea and the absolute Nay of the collectivity constitutes an absolute measure of virtue that leaves no room for – and would not ever tolerate – whatever alternative understanding of virtue. And when such alternative virtue dares question and disown the very site of the masses, that doubting virtue would have to be extirpated by the noise of the great men and by the stings of the masses. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra advises as follows: “And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue – they hate the lonesome ones.” (p. 60). And in his discussion of what he calls old and new tables, Nietzsche goes on to repeat the selfsame observation – he writes: “The good must crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That is the truth!” (p. 206). And it should be noted here that rarely would Nietzschean thinking speak generally of the truth, and yet Nietzsche does so in discussing the sense of justice amongst the virtuous many-too-many.
The flight of the exceptional individual into his loneliest wilderness is a flight that simply has no time for the small, the pitiable, and the vengeful. Zarathustra reminds the exceptional individual of how the many-too-many truly feel about his exceptionality – this is what he says: “Flee into thou solitude! Thou hast lived too close to the small and the pitiable. Flee from their invisible vengeance! Towards thee they have nothing but vengeance.” (p. 49).
Why is it that the many-too-many wish to avenge the exceptional individual? Why is it that they hate him so? Is there any other reason for such hatred apart from the fact that the exceptional individual has been able to devise his own table of virtues? One may observe that they would also hate him because, unlike them, he manages to remain free of the ideological fetters to which they have come to so religiously subscribe (this being their politics of faith). Unlike the many-too-many, the exceptional individual is free of all idol-adoration. He adores neither state nor collectivity – he is not a knee-bender. And since it is only he who is entitled to be free of all knee-bending, the rest can only but despise him. Nietzsche puts this as follows: “But he who is hated by the people, as the wolf by the dogs – is the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer, the dweller in the woods.” (p. 100).
This dweller in the woods constitutes the Nietzschean metaphor for self-isolation, or Zarathustra’s own loneliest wilderness – its antithesis, of course, is the market-place. But this is not really a question of geographical location (though it could, practically speaking, be that as well). What we have here, rather, is a dweller in the woods in the sense of the individual dwelling within his own, private site, this essentially being what we may call a dispositional site. Nietzsche shall here suggest that, to maintain such dispositional site as a free zone, the exceptional individual need remain the least known amongst the populace. This is a logical move, despite its apparently dramatic implications. To salvage one’s disposition as a free-rolling wheel revolving around its own table of self-devised virtues, the exceptional individual cannot risk – or simply has no time for – public exchanges with the subjects of the market-place, be they great ones or little ones. And thus, in remaining one who is least known, the exceptional individual cannot belong to a society’s famous wise ones; and he cannot belong to that society’s so-called great men. Not being known, he cannot possibly be famous – and not being famous, he could not ever be recognized as great. He does not in any case produce the noise of either the famous or the great. And thus he preserves his exceptional originality and unfettered independence. We need to carefully examine how Nietzsche presents us with this apparently dramatic line of reasoning.
Firstly, Nietzsche notes, there have been individuals who have denied life itself if only because of the many-too-many, or of what he calls the rabble. Such individuals simply did not wish to share with the rabble whatever they have found to be of value in life – and they did not wish to indulge in such sharing because the rabble adulterates whatever is of value. This type of exceptional individual does not simply wish to remain the least known amongst the masses so that he can salvage the delights of life – in a sense, he chooses to destroy both himself and the rabble so that the delights of life remain unadulterated. But the basic point here is that the individual who is aware of the delights of life refuses to share his experience of such delights with the many-too-many: what he wishes to forgo is whatever exchanges (let alone public exchanges) with the subjects of the market-place (be these great or small). Nietzsche writes of such cases of individuals as follows: “And many a one who hath turned away from life, hath only turned away from the rabble; he hated to share with them fountain, flame and fruit.” (p. 94).
The Nietzschean position, of course, would not espouse self-destruction – what is definitely embraced is the need to maintain one’s dispositional distance from the market-place. And by maintaining this dispositional distance away from the rabble, the exceptional individual discovers his own independent site as a free zone, or as a free mode of life receptive to the delights of the earth. Zarathustra can therefore declare: “Oh, I have found it, my brethren! Here on the loftiest height bubbleth up for me the well of delight! And there is a life at whose waters none of the rabble drink with me!” (p. 95).
There, on the loftiest height, there is a life of gratification – and which therefore does not require whatever proclivity towards self-destruction. But this is a form of life of which the many-too-many cannot partake. And the many-too-many cannot do so since such lofty heights presuppose that the exceptional individual has retained his status as the least known amongst those that populate the market-place.
Nietzsche is crystal clear on the question of fame – in his discussion of the flies in the market-place, his forewarning as addressed to the exceptional individual goes as follows: “Away from the market-place and from fame taketh place all that is great; away from the market-place and from fame have ever dwelt the devisers of new values.” (p. 49).
And as to the importance of being, not merely unknown, but actually being the least known, he writes the following: “The purest are to be masters of the world, the least known, the strongest, the midnight-souls, who are brighter and deeper than any day.” (p. 311).
Specifically as regards the question of fame, Oakeshottian thinking would support a similar position. Oakeshott would argue that, for the individual to be able to preserve his morality of individuality and therefore his own sovereign independence, he ought not to be of this world – all individuals have, however, no choice but to be in it (as in the case of Nietzsche, Oakeshottian thinking is clearly devoid of whatever self-destructive disposition). In terms of Oakeshottian thinking, it follows that since the individual should not be of this world and its market-place, he cannot be famous – and he therefore cannot be recognized by society as one of its famous wise ones.
For Oakeshott, as for Nietzsche, the problem of worldliness and its overcoming (i.e. saving the individual from worldliness, as Corey, op. cit., p. 32, puts it), is directly related to the question of one’s reputation in the world. How does Oakeshott relate the problem of worldliness and its fettered mode of being to that of reputation? His reasoning may be summarized as follows. Firstly, Oakeshott argues, the only things in life that are of lasting value are our own selves and the cultivation of our sensibilities as selves. Secondly, therefore, it is only through our insight that we can appreciate the things of life, and it is only through such self-insight that we can come to possess those things of life. But thirdly, the cultivation of our sensibilities and/or of our individual insight is obstructed by none other than our reputation in the world.
In what manner does a person’s reputation in the world function as an obstacle to selfhood and its insight regarding the things of the world? Oakeshott argues that the achievement of a certain reputation in the world would function as an external force that could hide an individual’s de facto lack of whatever insight. Lack of insight is loss of insight – and loss of insight emaciates the will to joy for life itself. Corey summarizes this Oakeshottian position as follows: “For Oakeshott, the only things of permanent value are our selves and the sensibilities we choose to cultivate over the course of our lives. Once we see that “the richest possessions are valueless apart from our possession of them by insight”, the way of the world loses its charm. “The worth of a life is measured, then, by its sensibility, not by its external achievement of the reputation behind which it may have been able to hide its lack of actual insight” …” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 33). We may naturally add here that, the less an individual achieves a certain reputation in the world, the less would he be prone to hiding his lack of insight from himself – this, of course, brings us back to Nietzsche’s virtue of being the least known.
For Nietzsche especially, this need for the least known higher man is directly related to – and it is in direct response to – what he regards as the decadence of the modern western world (we have seen that the Oakeshottian assessment of the modern western world would itself come down to a critique of the Babelian-type state and its decadent politics of faith). It is in the context of the decadence of modern society that Nietzsche needs to speak of that dweller in the woods – this being the self-isolated individual who chooses to abscond from the noise of the great organic intellectuals of the western world, as also from the stings of modern mass man. And it can only be through such absconding that the exceptional individual can live a life of free aesthetic creativity over and above the decadence of the market-place. For Nietzsche, therefore, such dweller in the woods can only but be both untimely and least known – and it is precisely this that constitutes Nietzsche’s disruptive wisdom, as Alan Rosenberg (op. cit.) has suggested. Nietzsche thereby disrupts the thinking of both western intellectuals and the conventional wisdom of the many-too-many – and to do just that he needs “models and exemplars”, and which necessarily need to be untimely and unknown. With reference to the Nietzschean untimely individual who is a free spirit, Rosenberg observes as follows: “Nietzsche believed that the contemporary world was short on actual existing heroic “models and exemplars”. Thus the figures [viz. the various Nietzschean metaphorical figures, such as Zarathustra] also offer Nietzsche “brave companions and imaginary free spirits” – in the absence of any actual existing ones – that help keep him (and his readers) “in good spirits while surrounded by ills”, e.g., the decadence of modern society …” (cf. Rosenberg, ibid., p. 7).
It surely does make full sense that Nietzsche would have responded to what he saw as the decadence of the modern world by presenting us with untimely “models and exemplars”. On the other hand, such an approach does raise a number of questions – one such question touches on the Nietzschean (but also Oakeshottian) position regarding the issue of fame, reputation and/or being the least known as a self-determining individual of free aesthetic creativity. To put it simply, one would be tempted to counter-argue that all “models and exemplars” (pertaining, for instance, to some free spirit living in his loneliest wilderness) are just too idealistic in conception – they cannot be considered actual possibilities in the real world.
Whatever “models and exemplars”, it may be argued, cannot be realistic possibilities if only because they usually contain unavoidable incongruities with respect to the complexities of the human condition. The model of the least known individual, for instance, can be said to be incongruous with respect to the realities of the human experience in a number of ways. For one, the status (and which is in fact a lack of status) of remaining unknown can function as a mere consolation for those who so remain – and thus in their supposedly splendid isolation they would be prone to harbouring illusions of grandeur. For such cases of individuals, their obscurity – or being the least known – cannot be a virtue. But secondly, and as regards individuals who happen to have attained a certain reputation in their society – and who may have done so given a certain natural talent – the virtue of being the least known would remain practically inaccessible to them.
But, then, the relevant question that arises here is this: under what circumstances, if any at all, is remaining the least known individual a genuine virtue? Alternatively, one may put the selfsame question as follows: for what type of individual is remaining the least known a real virtue? What, in fact, would constitute the appropriate counter-response to those who would reject the model of the least known individual for its purported idealism? Such counter-response could actually be quite simple. One would say that remaining the least known is a virtue for the individual who simply wishes to be left alone – and he would wish to be left alone because he happens to know what he wants to do with his life, and do this without the recognition of others. Being absolutely aware of the unique opportunity that has been offered him to live on this planet (and to do so for a very short span of time), his only desire is to live life in its unique exceptionality – and to live such exceptional life to the utmost. But since such wish to be left alone presupposes a personal knowledge of what is to be done with one’s life, it is a wish that cannot apply to the mediocrity typical of the many-too-many – applying the model of the least known to mediocrity would certainly be unrealistic, and here the model would itself be idealistic. It follows that the model of the least known can only apply to that rare, exceptional individual that knows how to live life in and for itself. For him, moreover, whatever consolation or whatever illusions of grandeur would simply be redundant – and were he to have already acquired a certain fame in society, such fame would also be quite redundant.
Yet still, and while only applying to the exceptional individual, all “models and exemplars” pertaining to the virtue of being the least known do require a certain – and absolutely important – qualification. We shall be arguing below that the exceptional individual who has selected to be least known could nonetheless engage in a certain interaction – or a certain intellectual commerce – with the society (or elements of that society) in which he lives, and he would be able to do so without violating his independence as a self-rolling wheel in its own abiding loneliest wilderness. Such capacity, we shall attempt to show, is based on a very particular understanding of the manner in which any exceptional human being functions – or has historically functioned – in the world. We shall be arguing that the mode of being of the exceptional individual is organized – or, rather, possesses the capacity to be organized – around a bipartite structure. What is such bipartite structure? It may be said that the psyche of the exceptional individual is composed of two interlocking components, that of the self and that of the ego. While the self maintains its absolute independence vis-à-vis the world, the ego is such as to actually be capable of engaging in the world (while at the same time avoiding whatever form of compromising entanglement).
Now, one may understandably object that this bipartite understanding of the exceptional individual is merely yet another theoretical model that requires verification – and we know that whatever models attempting to explain the so-called human psyche are beset with the problem of oversimplification. But such an objection would in this case be quite unfair – and it would be unfair since we are not at all proposing a certain model of the brain, so to speak. The differentiation between self and ego is a simple, down-to-earth and all too concrete a differentiation, and which is obvious to empirical observation: it is undeniable that all humans – whatever their degree of exceptionality – are in possession of a private self and of a public self (and which we choose to name ego, but for reasons to be explored below). The exceptionality of the individual – and of his morality of individuality – is defined by the extent to which such individual is capable of maintaining a strict distinction between his self and his ego (in the case of the many-too-many, such distinction is blurred to the point of disappearance). Put slightly otherwise, one may say that the exceptionality of the individual is defined by the very specific relation that he wills to determine between his self and his ego (in the case of the many-too-many, that relation is determined by external forces such as the state and its ideological apparatuses).
Now, having said all that, we need to stand back and make an important admission: this differentiation between self and ego is not at all ours – it is a differentiation presented to us by none other than Nietzsche himself in his Thus Spake Zarathustra. But we shall here have to rest our case on this matter until such time as we come to consider how Nietzschean thinking approaches what we may call the ego-self interface. For the moment, we shall need to further investigate what Nietzsche (but also Oakeshott) mean by a mode of life that is beyond fame or reputation. What is it that constitutes the content of the Nietzschean loneliest wilderness, and which is the site of the self (as opposed to the ego)?
Generally speaking, one may say that, for Nietzsche, one’s loneliest wilderness is one’s veritable home – and it is therein that the individual can struggle for his own perfection. And it is of importance to note here that, as Oakeshott has argued, the question of perfection can only apply to the concrete individual, not to society – for Oakeshott, of course, the application of perfection to society invariably leads to the politics of faith, it being a loss of the individual human experience.
In his Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes of The Return Home – and there we see that when Zarathustra finally does return back to his own cave, his first reaction is as follows: “O lonesomeness! My home, lonesomeness!” (p. 178). By going back to his own home, Zarathustra has returned to the lonesome site (or free zone) of his own self – and it is only there that he may speak of perfection, or of a perfect world. And thus, in his drunken song, Zarathustra asserts both his independence and his personal experience of perfection – this is what he says: “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I am too pure for thee. Touch me not! Hath not my world just now become perfect?” (p. 311). As in the case of Oakeshottian thinking, therefore, Nietzsche presents us with that type of individual who wishes to be left alone since it is only in the terrain of personal independence (my world) that one can taste the experience of perfection – by wishing to be left alone, both the Nietzschean and the Oakeshottian exceptional individual chooses to reject whatever idea of social perfection. And social perfection needs to be rejected because it presupposes both ideological idol-adoration and the ubiquity of the Babelian-type state.
Despite their clearly disparate sociocultural backgrounds, their dissimilar philosophical starting points, and their unquestionably different temperaments, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott do speak the exact same language when it comes to the idea of the individual as an alien sojourner in the world.
For Nietzsche, the individual – and especially the exceptional individual – can only but be an alien sojourner in the world given the sheer ubiquity of the many-too-many in this world. The flies of the market-place – be these great men or little men – seem to be everywhere, and they even seem to be getting closer and closer to the very site of the individual’s own home, the site of his own self. They swarm the peripheries of that free zone to such an extent that the free individual has no choice but to continually reset and redefine his own boundaries – and in so doing, the individual is a natural alien sojourner. Zarathustra, as the par excellence model of such a sojourner, speaks of this continual attempt – on the part of the many-too-many – at invading his own kingdom, or this “crowding in his mountains”. This is what he says: “It is verily becoming too much for me; these mountains swarm; my kingdom is no longer of this world; I require new mountains.” (p. 263).
Those that swarm the peripheries of the individual’s free zone have little to share with the free individual – they are simply of a different disposition. This further explains why the exceptional individual must be an alien sojourner. And this difference in disposition applies both to the vast majority that hate the free individual, as also to those few within the many-too-many that wish to somehow approach him. And thus Zarathustra shall speak of, and reject, the coarseness of all those that wish to besiege him and the site of his self. With respect to the vulgarity of the worldly type, he speaks thus: “O world, thou wantest me? Am I worldly for thee? Am I spiritual for thee? Am I divine for thee? But day and world, ye are too coarse …” (p. 311).
In response to the attempted swarming of the exceptional individual’s free zone by the coarseness of the worldly many-too-many, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra selects not to be of this world right at the same time as he is in it. Such willful selection is a disposition that surely corresponds absolutely with the Oakeshottian concept of the individual as a stranger in the world (or, and has already been discussed above, with Oakeshott’s understanding of the resident stranger). Nietzsche shall clearly speak of the exceptional individual as a stranger in the world throughout his Thus Spake Zarathustra, but perhaps this is most accurately expressed in the following excerpt – he writes: “And therefore do I live blindly among men, as if I knew them not, that my hand may not entirely lose belief in firmness … I know not you men …” (p. 141).
To stay free of the ever-swarming coarseness that attempts to besiege him, this alien sojourner or resident stranger protects the site of his self by continually creating boundaries around him – doing that, however, is also a dimension of his own creativity. And thus his boundaries are in themselves holy. Zarathustra speaks of this as follows: “I form circles around me and holy boundaries; ever fewer ascend with me ever higher mountains; I build a mountain-range out of ever holier mountains …” (p. 202).
The convergence of thinking between Nietzsche and Oakeshott, the precise manner in which their thinking interlocks when it comes to the role of the individual in the modern world, requires further research. But the convergence is certainly there: both would argue that the free individual cannot be reduced to that of a mere cog engaged in some common, mechanically-driven enterprise with the rest of whatever collectivity. We have seen how Nietzsche would reject the ideology of what he calls neighbourliness – likewise, we have also seen how Oakeshott would reject the notion that individual members of any collectivity can be reduced to the role of comrades engaged in some common, social undertaking. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, the free and healthy individual is a wanderer or pilgrim in the world travelling on his own, lonesome path (he is a pilgrim journeying back to his own self, being in love with that self). But this could only apply to the self-determined individual, not to the regimented type – and we here borrow the term regimented from the well-known Robert Frost poem asserting that I have none of the tenderer-than-thou / Collectivistic regimenting love / With which the modern world is being swept (cf. Robert Frost, Selected Poems, Penguin Books, 1973, p. 22).
The central notion that individuals are all residents in the world but nonetheless remain strangers within it (not of the world) seems to underlie the thinking of both Nietzsche and Oakeshott – and this, we say, requires further research. And such research would need to span a much wider field in the history of western thought: one may in fact identify an unconscious chain of similar thinking stretching back to Augustine’s civitas peregrina; and from Augustine one may move on to Nietzsche’s loneliest wilderness as embodied in his Zarathustra; and finally dwell on Oakeshott’s own contribution to the understanding of human conduct vis-à-vis the morality of individuality in a world beholden to the Babelian-type state. It may even be argued that the Oakeshottian enterprise is such as to ultimately reunite two absolutely antagonistic modes of thinking (that of Augustine’s and that of Nietzsche’s) around one central existential question – viz. that of the alien sojourner thrown in the world of the market-place, and how such sojourner may live over and above such market-place.
Corey summarizes the overall Oakeshottian enterprise by writing as follows: “The challenge, for Oakeshott as for Augustine, was to live fully in the world without becoming worldly” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 10). But to live fully in the world would demand that one stays away from the everydayness of that world, and such everydayness is what constitutes the Nietzschean understanding of the market-place. How does Oakeshott himself deal with the question of everydayness? Corey tells us that Oakeshott would remain fascinated by the idea of a mode of life that frees – or “removes” – individuals from the “everydayness of ordinary life.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 6).
It is this capacity for removal from the ordinary life of commonness and regularity (and which is a regularity primarily focused on mere material maintenance as represented by the politics of faith) that is expressive of the individual’s self – and which must therefore be a self that remains supremely indifferent to the little dramas of all ordinary life. To the extent that such self does maintain its supreme indifference, the possessor of that self is a stranger to the world of ordinary life and its everydayness. On the other hand, however, this removal from the ordinary life cannot possibly exclude a certain interaction with the world – this interaction would be expressive of the individual’s ego. To the extent that the ego’s interaction with the world can be both practical and (even) intellectual, the possessor of that ego would be a resident of the world of ordinary life and its everydayness. Yet still, such interaction could only but take place from a certain selective distance vis-à-vis the world of everydayness, and it would be selective to the extent that the ego is accountable to the self (Nietzsche shall have much to say on this, as we shall see below).
It is obvious that both the self and the ego are located in the world. But the self is not worldly – and the ego need be accountable to the self. And since the self is not worldly and since the ego is accountable to the self, it is the self that rules the free individual. And thus, the individual as a united, coherent identity is – in the last, determining instance – removed from the everydayness of the market-place and its ideological idol-adoration. And being so removed, the individual is an alien sojourner living his loneliest wilderness. What is implied here is that a resident ego and an alien self presupposes that site of the loneliest wilderness from which the individual can launch his own enactment as a self-rolling wheel.
Nietzsche shall attempt to encapsulate this idea of the potentially free, self-rolling individual by speaking of the spirit of the lion, and how such lion shall have to first of all secure its own free zone for self-enactment. The initially “load-bearing spirit”, Nietzsche writes, “hasteneth … into its wilderness”. What is it that occurs therein? He continues as follows: “But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness.” (p. 21). Therein, the individual creates an absolutely free zone for his own self, and it is a zone outside of all human relations. Most importantly, the individual is here in full control of that zone – it constitutes the laboratory wherein he shall create and re-create his own mode of being.
Whatever attempted lordship within one’s own wilderness can be an extremely hazardous enterprise. Being hazardous, not everyone can – or should – even entertain the idea itself. Not everyone is entitled to do so – as has already been suggested, not everyone possesses the authority and the strength to undertake such an experimentation on his own person. And as we have also seen, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would argue that the individual who does attempt to forge a lordship within one’s wilderness – and which also means forging that wilderness himself (i.e. building one’s own cave) – should be prepared to both suffer and celebrate the practical consequences of such an exclusive mode of being. The exclusive entitlement is an obvious sine qua non at this level of experimentation – and it is obvious since solitude and isolation can lead to nihilism and self-destruction. The Nietzschean injunction on this is very cautious – his Zarathustra puts it as follows: “But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: ‘I am alone!’ … One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: ‘All is false!’ …” (p. 60).
The exceptional individual who chooses the lonesome way of the creating one certainly does run the risk of ultimate self-destruction – but, then, the many-too-many have already submitted to the preachers of death, who are the killers of their own presentness. Unlike the many-too-many, the way of the loneliest wilderness is a mode of being that is indebted to no one but its own self-enacting self, and it thereby submits to no one but its own will.
6e. Denial of duty
We have stated above that there are a number of motions (or steps) identified by Nietzsche that are conducive to the construction of the individual: all such phases would constitute what he calls a first movement. We have seen that the exceptional individual’s very first motion is to conquer his own self and his own passions (and that this conquering of the passions would not be a matter of their denial but rather of their creative redirection). We have further argued that, once this first motion has been accomplished, the individual would need to undertake a definition – and thereby a veritable creation – of his own absolutely independent space, it being his solitary wilderness. This would enable him to move yet one step further – viz. to deny whatever duty (either practical or moral, or both) to the world.
Of course, we have already referred to the Oakeshottian position on the question of social obligation or collective duty – Oakeshott, we have seen, would not acknowledge whatever indebtedness to society or the collectivity on the part of the independent individual. And since the individual is not a debtor dependent on society, he is not duty-bound to whatever collectivity (apart from abiding by the rule of law as a matter of convenience, given that such rule of law is a neutral structure or umpire protective of individual freedom).
We have also referred to Montesquieu’s position on the question of social obligation or collective duty. We have seen that, for Montesquieu, personal virtue is a mode of conduct which the person owes only to himself as an honourable and/or proud individual – he does not owe it to society or the collectivity.
Generally speaking, then, one may summarize this stance on obligation and duty as follows: one may argue that since the individual is only indebted to himself, he is not bound by any duty to society, and especially as regards that society’s dominant, state-sponsored ideology of morality. Now, it is precisely this type of viewpoint that constitutes Nietzsche’s third motion conducive to the construction of the individual as a first movement. Speaking of the spirit of the lion, Nietzsche writes as follows: “To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need for the lion.” (p. 22).
When Nietzsche suggests that the individual-as-lion (and which is itself reminiscent of the Hobbesian ox-lion dichotomy) need “create itself freedom”, he is telling us that the exceptional individual has to create that exclusive individualist space necessary for his own individualist freedom. But in doing so, he would be asserting his own Nay with respect to all duty – at least in the sense of all duty reflective of dominant social values, and the morality that underpins these values. It should also be observed that here Nietzsche seems to be implying that there is a certain fuzziness as regards the apparently discrete definitions of each of the various motions or steps consummating the individual as a first movement – he seems to be conjoining the creation of one’s free zone with one’s denial of all duty (on the other hand, and by way of just one example, he can also speak of the three metamorphoses as three clearly discrete stages).
6f. The individual as creator of his own values
The fourth motion or step conducive to the progressive consummation of the individual as a first movement or as a self-rolling wheel – and which is a step that presupposes the three steps referred to above – may be described as the game of creation, and which itself constitutes a particular mode of being. This game of creation is the game of the individual as creator of his own values. But this should not in any case be assumed to constitute the final stage in the motions of self-enactment, if there could ever be such a stage.
Throughout our presentation, we have all too often spoken of creation, values, and the self-creation of such values (as undertaken by the exceptional individual, though as has also been undertaken by free, exceptional peoples in the course of western history). We shall here endeavour to further investigate what Nietzsche actually said when he was presenting this game of creation in his Thus Spake Zarathustra. Intellectuals have devoted their lives to interpreting Nietzsche – our objective is here much simpler: let us merely sit back and listen to his own words (and which would allow us to compare his thoughts on the self-creation of values to those of someone such as Oakeshott). Sitting back and listening, however, would not mean a passive reception of Nietzschean thinking – we shall of course need to comment on what is said.
The conquering of one’s passions, the creation of one’s absolutely independent space of solitary wilderness, and the concomitant denial of whatever duty to the world – all such accomplishments are necessary to the process of enacting one’s individuality as a first movement. Nietzsche shall tell us that all these existential exercises are such that the individual-as-lion can actually accomplish for himself. But there are things that the lion cannot do. And, in any case, all these exercises would be pointless unless they were such as to enable the individual to do just one thing – viz. to engage in his own value-creation. To be able to engage in his own value-creation, he has to move from the state of the lion to that of a child.
On this, Nietzsche writes as follows: “To create new values – that even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating – that can the might of the lion do.” (ibid.). What else is needed for value-creation? He continues as follows: “But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?” (ibid.) Why does the game of value-creating demand the state of being a child? Nietzsche explains: “Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.” (ibid.).
The game of creating one’s own world of values presupposes that the individual has reverted to innocence and forgetfulness – but innocent and forgetful of what precisely? The individual need be innocent and forgetful of – and therefore free of – the standards of certainty which western rationalist thinking has devised and attempted to implant into the minds of the many-too-many. Unless the individual can forget such rationalist implants, he shall never be able to engage in the creation of his own world of values – it being that holy Yea to life per se. All this, it should be noted, brings us back to Oakeshott’s own critique of western rationalism.
When the individual creates his own independent zone and denies whatever obligations outside that zone, he renders himself free from the small existences and their idol-adoration. But in doing so, he is immediately faced with an existential vacuum – and therein the standards of certainty articulated by the modern Babelian-type state and its rationalist formulae inevitably stare him in the face, and do so imperiously. And thus what truly concerns Nietzsche is not the question of being free from whatever but rather the question of being free for something in particular. And that particular would have to be a creation and re-creation of something at least as self-convincing as that of the certainties of rationalism – in fact, whatever it is that is created would have to be a disposition superior to whatever formulaic certainties. As regards this question of being free from vis-à-vis being free for, Nietzsche writes as follows: “Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra? Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free for what?” (p. 59).
It is only when the individual has a clear and ready answer to that for what question that he may be said to have entered the fourth motion conducive to the consummation of his own person as a first movement. At this stage, the individual’s attained innocence and forgetfulness of rationalist formulae would not only mean that he is free of the rationalist syndrome – it would also mean that he is now ready to respond affirmatively to his own existentialist question as an independent individual. He is now free for whatever form of creation beyond rationalism – or in any case beyond whatever elements of rationalism he chooses to discard in terms of his own needs.
It is at this stage, in other words, that the individual has purged himself of all external obligations so that he may assert his right to a new internal obligation – viz. the right to new values. “To assume the right to new values”, writes Nietzsche, “is the most formidable assumption for a … reverent spirit.” (p. 22).
New values means new valuing, and new valuing means creating – it is in valuing per se and in creating per se that the independent individual discovers and re-creates his own self. At the same time, he also discovers the value of things that surround him. But by now he has also come to fully understand that when he himself does not value things, things do not have any value at all. Nietzsche writes as follows: “Valuing is creating; hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things.” (p. 56). And he continues: “Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones!” (ibid.).
The fourth motion conducive to the progressive consummation of the individual as a self-rolling wheel answers that free for what question by establishing within the world of the individual one central mechanism – viz. the mechanism of being one’s own judge (and therefore also one’s own jury) with respect to whatever it is that is being valuated. Such mechanism is an absolute necessity since what the independent individual is now in the process of doing amounts to the creation of his own sovereign law. And he shall have to judge his valuing practices in terms of nothing other than that particular law.
One may put this slightly otherwise – one may say that valuing things means defining and creating the good and the bad of things. And by so defining and by so creating, the independent individual establishes a private law for his own self and over his own self. There is no single or collective other that can judge him on his thoughts and actions – he is his own singular judge, and he judges in terms of what he has defined and created as good or bad. It is this that constitutes the freedom of the independent individual – he is precisely free for this and this only. Nietzsche writes: “Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy law?” (p. 59).
We have seen that the process whereby the individual establishes his lordship within his own wilderness can be an extremely hazardous process – and it can be hazardous because the individual would have to suffer the multifarious consequences of that process. But now, it would also have to be admitted that establishing one’s own law and acting as one’s own judge could be twice as dangerous. And it could be twice as dangerous since the individual who chooses to live by his own law could find himself falling victim to that law – or he could find himself being punished by that very judicial mechanism that he has set up for his own self. Writing of those living things that choose to live by their own law and thus command their own selves, Nietzsche observes: “Yea, even when it [the living thing] commandeth itself, then also must it atone for its commanding. Of its own law must it become the judge and avenger and victim.” (p. 112).
That is the real price of freedom – the price of being free for the creation of one’s own law. And yet, this is the individual’s singular motion whereby he can accomplish an authentically independent and exclusively original creativity for his own self. Such high degree of independence and originality is encapsulated in Nietzsche’s understanding of the higher man – and to him he speaks as follows: “If ye would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves carried aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people’s backs and heads!” (p. 280). Nietzsche speaks here of a radical independence – he speaks of the individual’s creation of values as a process that steers absolutely clear of the modern waves of intellectual fashion, faith and fantasy (to remember Roger Penrose). Even more than that, Nietzsche asks of the higher man not to build his own evaluation of the world on other people’s backs and heads – the exceptional individual should, in other words, ignore what we may call the bibliography of rationalist learning. The independent value-creator stands over and above all academic peer group norms, above academic chairs in general, and above the learned famous wise ones – he also stands over and above the so-called conventional wisdom of the many-too-many (the throngs of grey little waves, as Nietzsche has put it).
That which is to be created must be unique – it has to be one’s own, exceptional creation, and one can only be pregnant with such creation if one is independent of all the rationalist ideology of the famous wise ones and their collective politics of faith. This is how Nietzsche asserts what he sees as the absolute importance of creating one’s own world of the good and the bad of things – he writes: “Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one’s own child.” (ibid.).
The process of independent self-creation – that of giving birth to one’s own child – can only take place outside the realm of the state, outside the academic or intellectual spheres of the famous wise ones, and well outside the whims of the many-too-many. Nietzsche makes it absolutely clear that the independent individual does not create for his neighbour; he does not create because of his neighbour; he does not create in response to his neighbour. In the last instance, the independent individual acts, thinks and creates for his own moral world, and in response to it and nothing else. And thus, he does not allow his own self to be imposed on by the other; and he does not allow his own moral world to be put upon (or exploited) by the other. Nietzsche addresses himself to the creating ones as follows: “Do not let yourselves be imposed upon or put upon! Who then is your neighbour? Even if ye act ‘for your neighbour’ – ye still do not create for him! … Unlearn, I pray you, this ‘for’, ye creating ones; your very virtue wisheth you to have naught to do with ‘for’ and ‘on account of’ and ‘because’. Against these false little words shall ye stop your ears.” (ibid.).
We have spoken here of the individual as a creator of his own values, and we have ascribed to him a number of qualities following the thinking of major pioneers such as Nietzsche, or Hobbes, or Montesquieu, or Oakeshott himself. We have said that this type of person must be an exceptional individual who takes risks, does not require the protection of the state, is independent of all comradeship and/or neighbourliness, and who is capable of answering that crucial free for what question. But, then, who can possibly belong to such a category of people? This is a concrete question – and yet it remains extremely difficult to answer. Oakeshott, who would himself place great emphasis on the virtue of creating one’s own moral world, would go on to advise us that whatever attempt at answering this type of question would have to reject at least three types of approaches. We should reject, firstly, any approach based on some universal human nature – such nature simply does not exist. Secondly, we should reject whatever approach based on the censorious opinion of outsiders with respect to someone (or some others) striving for independent self-creation and self-valuing. And thirdly, he would advise us to reject whatever approach based on the analyses (and presumed predictability) of the so-called social – or political – sciences.
This Oakeshottian caution obviously requires further explanation. By rejecting a universal human nature, Oakeshott would also be rejecting the notion of human equality – and he would therefore also be rejecting the idea that all humans are necessarily equal to the task of creating their own moral world. Not all are equal, and especially given the impulse of modern mass man to be a follower of the politics of faith. And further, by rejecting the assessment of whatever outsiders with respect to the capacities of individuals, he would also be rejecting whatever so-called scientific predictability as to who is exceptional as a self-creator and who is not – and this would imply that the will and the capability of any particular individual remains outside the intellectual and moral reach of society and its well-trained organic intellectuals (and who nowadays belong to a variety of academic disciplines, such as that of social psychology).
In his rejection of whatever social (or external) estimation regarding the capacity of the independent individual, Oakeshott would rather focus on the subjective ability and the subjective will of certain particular individuals to be morally creative for and within their own selves – this form of enactment, however, could only belong to the private domain of their lives, and which would be a domain beyond the judgmental mores of society. Self-valuing and self-creativity, therefore, cannot apply to the all too public many-too-many – it cannot apply to the collectivity and its collective dreams for a social utopia or a social perfectionism.
Corey more or less summarizes this Oakeshottian position as follows: “Understanding human beings was no easy task for Oakeshott, because he was not one to ascribe a universal “human nature” to the diverse lot of persons he observed around him. For what he found most remarkable about people was their ability to be morally creative and to envision alternatives for their lives that could never be predicted by an outsider – indeed, not even by a well-trained political scientist.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 6).
Was Oakeshott – perhaps in contrast to Nietzsche – overly optimistic as regards the ability of people to be morally creative? We know that Oakeshott’s thinking would often suggest a deep pessimism as regards the modern mass man of his own time – it seems that whatever optimism he did retain, he reserved it for the unpredictable individual that he could observe around him (unpredictable, that is, in terms of the social theories and expectations of the famous wise ones).
One could say that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would remain highly pessimistic as regards the modern masses of the western world and their capacity to be creators of their own values. Their respective pessimism is fairly easily explainable. When, for instance, the many-too-many come to lose their sense of collectivity – and this could happen when their idol-adoration enters a period of protracted crisis (as has happened once in a while in western history) – they react by succumbing to a miserable sense of isolation which yields a warped or perverted form of individualism, it being an individualism of animal maintenance and the small passions. And thus they in fact come to operate like the herd, but do so in a relative isolation – and so they live their mundane lives as would hurt animals. They cannot – and do not even wish to – cultivate their own world of self-creation, self-valuing, and self-morality. They are terrified of acting as their own judges of their own independent world. They sulk in their miserable little passions, and thus they are always on the lookout for particular social issues that could galvanize them as a collective mob. And they have been taught to look to political parties for their mobilization as a mob. Of course, when the emotional thrill of the particular social issue fades, they revert to their existential misery and warped individualist nihilism. This state of affairs, however, cannot be said to apply to all members of a western society – it is possible that at least significant minorities of such societies insist on abiding by a morality of habit of behaviour that they have inherited from their historical past – and such morality enables them to preserve their identity as a proud historical people, thereby more or less protecting them from the misery of the little passions and the banality of mere animal maintenance. And yet, here too, such sections of a populace can be overwhelmed by new mass ideologies expressive of their particular conservative disposition – and thereby, yet once more, one sees the rise of a new idol-adoration, as also the manipulation of such idol-adoration by new political formations. In the last instance, therefore, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would come to see the process of self-creation and self-valuing as a process belonging exclusively to none other than the entitled, exceptional individual living his own world outside that of the market-place. Who it is that would come to belong to such a category of persons remains unpredictable – but it is precisely that unpredictable individual that is also a necessary individual, as Nietzsche would put it.
6g. The game of creating
Before we proceed any further, we shall need to yet still linger over the significance of what Nietzsche has called the game of creating – it would also be of some interest to compare this classically Nietzschean concept to one of its more distant relatives, that of Hannah Arendt’s natality.
We have referred to the fourth motion – conducive to that consummation of the individual as a first movement – as the game of creating, it being the creation of the individual’s own values. For Nietzsche, we have seen, it is only the child that can indulge in such a game – for original creation is, in the last instance, a child’s game. And it can only be a child’s game since that game has to be predicated on innocence and forgetfulness – it is a game that says its own Yes to life in its own innocence and forgetfulness.
Being innocent and forgetful, therefore, such game is a Yes beyond all rationalist-based morality and its socially-imposed formulae. For one, the fact that it is a game predicated on innocence would mean that the game of creation asserts its Yes to life in a manner that is beyond all sense of guilt – it is an absolutely guilt-free game. And thus, the moral formulae of rationalist ideology are of no moral concern to the individual who indulges in such game of creation. And secondly, the fact that it is a game predicated on forgetfulness would mean that the game of creation asserts its Yes to life in a manner that is wholly indifferent to the affairs of the world. And thus, the moral formulae of rationalist ideology – and especially as regards the practical impact of such formulae on the everyday lives of the populace – are of no interest to the individual indulging in such game of creation.
For Nietzsche, this guilt-free game indifferent to rationalist morality constitutes the nut of existence, and it is a nut that wins its own world, outside of society. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra puts this as follows: “Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world’s outcast.” (p. 22).
The fourth motion towards winning one’s own world is that motion whereby one gives birth to one’s own child – and by giving birth to one’s own child, one moves towards constituting one’s self as a first movement. This first movement constitutes the individual as a new beginning. But both the notion of giving birth to one’s own child and the notion of the individual as a new beginning do in some ways resonate with Arendt’s concept of natality. Writing specifically in response to regimes that are said to aim at erasing whatever form of pluralism in society, Arendt has argued – albeit with a rather naïve optimism that remains unverifiable – that each individual is inherently capable of beginning something new. Rooted in the fact of being born – it being the condition of natality – human beings are endowed with the capacity to begin the world anew. Beginning the world anew, one would be engaged in the capacity to create a first beginning. Now, this capacity to begin anew may be said to be a distant relative of Nietzsche’s own understanding of the will (or the will to enacting the game of creativity). We know that when Nietzsche spoke of the will as exercised by the higher man, such will was not ever meant in the sense of some blind force asserting itself in the world – rather, it would be seen as a conscious choice of the self-determined individual. Likewise, Arendt would herself see the capacity to initiate something new as the expression of a person’s free will.
One may therefore close this brief discussion on the question of creativity as a child’s game by simply observing that, much like Nietzsche’s own concept of the will (as also, by the way, Heidegger’s concept of care as discussed above), Arendt’s understanding of natality (or the broader concept of nativity) was meant to point to the human capacity to begin things anew, it being reminiscent of giving birth to one’s own child. But very much unlike Arendt’s belief that all human beings are capable of such an initiative (for all are naturally born in the world), Nietzsche would focus exclusively on the select few capable of moving towards winning their own world, and who would do so as free and independent self-rolling wheels. For him, it is only the exceptional individual that is capable of creating his own art of living – it being an art of valuation and self-made culture. Whether or not such art of living and especially such culture do rub off on others in society is an absolutely separate matter, and which calls for an altogether different type of discussion.
6h. The ego, the body, and the self
The game of creation – as the already discussed fourth motion of the self-determined individual – both presupposes and further allows for a fifth motion in that individual’s struggle towards winning his own world. What is it that defines this fifth motion? Above, we have already made mention of what we have called the ego-self interface, or that psyche of the exceptional individual organized around a bipartite structure of the ego and the self. Keeping such interface in mind, it may be suggested that the fifth motion would be the individual’s engagement in the game of creation by consistently and clearly differentiating between his ego and his self. And this would be a consistent and willed differentiation between, on the one hand, his ego as a mode of being that publicly engages with the world and, on the other, his self as a strictly private mode of being that preserves its absolute independence with respect to that same world.
We have also suggested that this differentiation between the ego and the self is not ours – it has in fact been elaborated in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. Therein, Nietzsche shall define the difference between ego and self, and he shall explore the manner in which these two existential forces come to interact within the psyche of the exceptional individual. His examination of the ego and the self shall also – and inevitably so – lead him to bring in the role of the human body in the interplay of these two existential forces.
To the casual (and perhaps often prejudiced) reader, Nietzsche’s presentation of the relationship between the ego, the body, and the self may appear to be rather slippery, at times even somewhat internally contradictory. Our purpose here is to show that the Nietzschean understanding of the human psyche is in fact quite coherent. Before examining precisely what it is that he has to say, we shall first attempt a tentative and rough summary of his basic thinking on the matter – we shall in due course see the extent to which such a preliminary interpretation of Nietzsche’s position does justice to Nietzsche himself. The basic – apparently axiomatic – points may be put as follows:
- On the surface of things – and which is a public surface – the ego is the measure of all things.
- That ego, however, speaks of the body.
- But the body itself is a plurality.
- As a plurality, it is the body that does ego – since it is the body that does ego, the body is greater than the ego. But, then, in what sense is the ego the measure of all things?
- The ego measures all things as it is enacted by the body.
- Now, the body itself has an instrument – its instrument is the spirit (obviously not in any religious sense).
- But such spirit is an instrument of the self.
- It is therefore the self that rules – it is the ruler of the ego.
- For the exceptional individual, the self-cum-body concurrence reigns supreme.
- And therefore, while the ego functions as an expression of public (or social) surface, the self is the productive core of the individual – it is the individual’s uniqueness in his self-rolling wilderness.
We may now go on to further explore (but also test) these axiomatic points in terms of what Nietzsche himself has to say.
One may begin by noting that, for the exceptional individual, the ego is a force that willfully counterposes itself to the state and its mass ideology. The ego speaks of its own being – it does not listen to, and it does not need to respond to, the discourse of the state and how such state wishes to interpret the question of a person’s being-in-the-world. The ego of the exceptional individual speaks of its own game of creating – not that of the state’s; it speaks of its own willing – not of the purposeful ideologies and petty policies of the state; it speaks of its own valuing of things – not of the good and the bad as defined by the state and its famous wise ones. For the exceptional individual, it is his ego that is the measure and the value of all things – it is not the state that is that measure, and it is not the state’s organic intellectuals that determine whatever measure and valuation of things. It is the ego that measures and values – it is not the state and society that does the measuring for it.
While at this point not directly concerned with the state and its innate intention to function as the moral evaluator of all things, Nietzsche wishes to emphasize that, in the case of the independent ego, it is it and none else that does the creating, willing, and valuing for itself. His Zarathustra therefore speaks as follows: “Yea, this ego, with its contradiction and perplexity, speaketh most uprightly of its being – this creating, willing, evaluing ego, which is the measure and value of things.” (p. 28).
There can be contradiction and perplexity within the ego as it speaks of its being in itself and especially by itself – and there can be a certain contradiction and perplexity because the ego is a public or social surface, and all such surface is always contradictory and perplexing for whatever or whoever. As a potentially surface force in the world, the ego nonetheless insists on speaking of its own being. But by so speaking it can find itself unconsciously (or maybe even willfully) engaging with both the state and society. This engagement need not at all be a formally public debate – it may simply take the form of some degree of interaction with a concrete other (or concrete others) in the market-place of the world. The contradiction and perplexity that would ensue would be quite natural were the ego to merely operate by itself in the world – but for the exceptional individual, at least, the ego would never operate in such manner. And thus Nietzsche would go on to tell us that the ego does not merely speak of its being in general (or in abstracto), and it never does so by itself – the ego, in fact, speaks of the body (or rather, its body), and it does so in relation with other dimensions of the individual’s psyche.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra continues as follows: “And this most upright existence, the ego – it speaketh of the body, and still implieth the body, even when it museth and raveth and fluttereth with broken wings.” (ibid.). The ego, Nietzsche explains, learns to speak – and it learns to speak by operating within the world as a public or social surface, wherein everyone speaks a public language. And by learning to so speak, it most authentically speaks of the body, and thus naturally also of the earth. But speaking of the body and of the earth in its capacity as a public or social surface, it need bestow on these none other than public titles and public honours. The ego therefore speaks of its body (and of the earth that gave birth to it) in public by naming and honouring the body in the public sphere. That is the most upright thing that the ego can yet do within a world of contradiction and perplexity. Nietzsche continues: “Always more uprightly learneth it to speak, the ego; and the more it learneth, the more doth it find titles and honours for the body and the earth.” (ibid.).
In so doing, the ego teaches the individual of a new pride – Nietzsche writes: “A new pride taught me mine ego, and that teach I unto men: no longer to thrust one’s head into the sand of celestial things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, which giveth meaning to the earth!” (ibid.). The ego, we are told, can teach of a new pride – and it is such pride that enables the individual to give a meaning to the earth, and to thereby bestow earthly life itself with meaning in its most authentically terrestrial dimension. On the other hand, the ego can so teach only to the extent that it recognizes the body as (what Nietzsche calls) the big sagacity – or otherwise as the great reason.
Presenting the body as the big sagacity or the great reason, Nietzsche shall go on to describe such body as a plurality, but it is a plurality which is at the same time of one sense. Making use of typically metaphorical language, Zarathustra explains this as follows: “The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.” (p. 30).
With respect to Nietzsche’s understanding of the role of the body in the life of an individual, Leo Strauss writes as follows: “Your body is not a mere body – three-dimensional, organic, studied by anatomy, physiology, etc. – but it is also a self. The body is more than the anatomist and physiologist can say about it.” (cf. Richard L. Velkley (Editor), Leo Strauss on Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, University of Chicago Press, 2017, pp. 38-39). The body is not a mere body, Strauss explains, since it operates as the great reason. And it is the great reason because it consists of a ruling element. While it is a plurality – it being both herd and shepherd – the body can rule the herd within itself via its own shepherd.
What the individual calls spirit, Nietzsche shall argue, is itself an instrument of the body. His Zarathustra speaks as follows: “An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest ‘spirit’ – a little instrument and plaything of thy big sagacity.” (p. 30).
What, then, is the exact relationship between the ego and the body? The ego, we have said, does not operate in itself and by itself, and it does not speak of being in abstraction. The ego operates with and speaks of the body. In the last instance, it is the body itself that does ego – and it is in terms of this understanding that the ego (as that which is being done or being enacted by the body) is the body itself. And therefore one may say that the individual’s body is the higher sagacity, reason, or wisdom – higher, that is, in relation to the ego. Nietzsche writes: “… ‘Ego,’ sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing – in which thou art unwilling to believe – is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not ‘ego’, but doeth it.” (ibid.).
But now, both sense and spirit are in fact instruments of the self. More specifically, both the bodily eyes of the senses (which seek and feel) and the bodily ears of the spirit (which listen and discern) are instruments of none other than the individual’s own self. Nietzsche continues: “What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things, so vain are they … Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit; behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.” (ibid.).
Having spoken of ego, body, and self, one may now ask the following question: what is the relation between the ego and the self? Put simply, one may say that the self is the ultimate ruler – and thus it is the exceptional individual’s self that rules the ego. Nietzsche writes as follows: “Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego’s ruler.” (ibid.).
For Nietzsche, then, it is none other than the self per se that is the individual’s mighty lord – and it is the mighty lord so long as the individual recognizes its function and discrete power vis-à-vis the surface space of the ego. More than that, the self is the mighty lord so long as the individual comes to recognize precisely what this self is to be equated to – Nietzsche explains: “Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage – it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.” (ibid.).
And thus one may now draw the conclusion that, for the exceptional individual who is capable of differentiating between his surface ego and that mighty lord which is his own self, it is the self-cum-body concurrence that comes to rule supreme in his own mode of being. Such mode of being, however, does not simply presuppose an intellectual recognition of the difference between ego and self – it also presupposes the individual’s willful choice to empower the self to exercise its own right as mighty lord. That is its will to power.
We may here refer to Leo Strauss’s own interpretation of Thus Spake Zarathustra to further clarify – as also perhaps verify – this understanding of the ego-surface interface as presented above. Strauss writes as follows: “… the ego is not sovereign; it belongs to a being which is in a body … At any rate, the ego includes a thought-content or mind. In other words, the ego is a surface phenomenon. It is controlled by what Nietzsche calls the self; hence the origin of all meaning is not the ego … but the self … Nietzsche makes here the extreme statement that the self is the body.” (cf. Richard L. Velkley, op. cit., p. 38). “Why”, asks Strauss, “is not the ego the self?” He explains the difference between ego and self as follows: “… the ego as Nietzsche understands it lives in the world of names, of universals, of roles, of what is common to a man with all men.” (ibid.). The ego, in other words – and very much unlike the self – is a public phenomenon. The implication of this is of absolute importance to Nietzsche and his understanding of the self-determining creative individual – it tells us that the ego, unlike the self, cannot ever assert its own uniqueness to itself.
The ego cannot assert the uniqueness of individuality since it operates in the world. It operates within the terrain of what Nietzsche understood as the market-place and its flies – viz. in the world of (public) names, of (public) roles, of what is (publicly) common to all citizens and the many-too-many. The ego of the individual in the world – an ego in itself and by itself – cannot assert an authentic uniqueness and originality since it operates in the world of conventions (and the variety of laws that either express such conventions or go on to supplement them in alignment with the formulae of so-called progress). The ego, in itself and by itself, has no choice but to recognize such conventions – it may quietly abstain from these when they shout and scream the ideologies of idol-adoration; or it may respect at least certain elements of a popular morality of habit of behaviour.
Whether in its quiet abstinence or in its humble respect of the world around it, the ego has in any case no choice but to learn its own art of adjustment. To the extent that the ego is a person’s social surface, it is also his acceptance of and adjustment to convention and law.
Since the ego belongs to the realm of social convention, it is not an entity reciprocal to and expressive of nature itself. On the other hand, since the self-as-body is independent of all social convention, it is that entity which is reciprocal to and expressive of nature itself within the individual’s psyche. And it is that naturalness within the individual that constitutes his source of creativity – it constitutes that fountainhead of creativity whereby the individual creates the values of his own individual exceptionality. The self, in other words, contains the individual’s core of productive creativity. And so while the ego quietly observes and adjusts to social convention, the self asserts its own private independence from all social convention so as to make way for its own productive core of creativity.
It is Strauss that most lucidly presents us with this radical distinction as regards the particular functionality of the ego vis-à-vis that of the self. He writes as follows: “The ego belongs to convention in the widest sense of the term, and is therefore distinguished from something like nature. If Nietzsche had still been free to use these traditional distinctions, he would have stated this proportion: ego to self like convention to nature …” (ibid.). And, most importantly, Strauss continues as follows: “The self is the productive core of man and inseparable from the body. There is no human spirituality which is not specific or, rather, individual – i.e. Goethe’s spirituality differs from Shakespeare’s spirituality – and no spirituality is possible without a corresponding specific sensuality. For example, the way Shakespeare and Goethe perceived smells corresponds to their difference in the purely intellectual. This productive core in man is inseparable from his core, and Nietzsche goes beyond that and says it is his body.” (ibid.).
To put it otherwise: the individual’s self is an exceptional self since it is part and parcel of an exceptional body with its own exceptional bodily sensuality – this constitutes the individual’s exceptional source of so-called intellectuality as a valuing and creating being. This is the individual’s unique and uniquely independent productive core, and the fountainhead of his self-creativity. In contrast to the self as creative core, the individual’s ego – if left to its own resources and in its inevitable engagement with the world – can only but simply adjust to the conventions that encircle it. And thus the self-determining individual has no choice but to radically redefine the relationship between his own ego and his own self.
As already intimated above, such redefinition would come down to an understanding of what it is that the ego in the world can – and what it is that it cannot – achieve. Strauss explains that Nietzsche’s understanding of the ego was such as to demarcate its functional limitations for the individual as a free-rolling wheel. He writes as follows: “The ego is not the seat of the uniqueness of individuals and therefore of what can be his best, of his “productive uniqueness” …” (ibid.).
The self operates differently from the ego – enabled or empowered to rule over the surface needs of the ego, the self is activated as the productive core of individuality. In its supreme activation, the self produces its own unique content informing its own morality of individuality. What is it that allows the self to create such unique content? Why, in other words, may one speak of a productive uniqueness? As Strauss explains, the individual body is possessive of a sensuality that is unique unto itself – Goethe would not ever experience smell in the manner that Shakespeare would. Of course, this corresponds to the Nietzschean assertion that one only experiences one’s own self. And since individual experience is unique unto itself, the productive core of the self can yield a productive individuality and creativity that Oakeshott shall himself describe as a supreme form of idle play (to be discussed in due course).
Both for Nietzsche and for Oakeshott, the self – in its free and idle play – is the source of aesthetic creativity. And for both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, of course, aesthetic creativity as a mode of being is the very purpose of being. Since the self is nature, and since nature is the body, and since the body is the carrier and activator of sensuality, it is that sensuality that is the source of aesthetics for the self – it is through this sensuality that the individual can engage in the idle play of creation. Such creation is the creation of aesthetic values and therefore of meaning in the world.
This understanding of the relationship between sensuality, creativity, aesthetics, and the self is such as to place the individual and his own morality of individuality in command, and to place it strictly over and above the conventions and laws of the worldly market-place. The self of the exceptional individual is here recognized as the purposive value-creator and the creator of aesthetic values. Here, the self is one’s unique individualism – and it is therefore the private individual that is recognized in all his existential supremacy. As a private and unique self, the self of the individual is the originator of all meaning.
We have thus far suggested that the distinction between ego and self has been a distinctly Nietzschean contribution – Oakeshott himself, however, has as much to say about the workings of the self in particular, and it is to this Oakeshottian dimension of the debate that we now need to turn. At a general level, Noël K. O’Sullivan (op. cit.) tells us that one of the primary intentions of the Oakeshottian intellectual exercise was to investigate the relation of the self to the world. More specifically, Oakeshott wished to investigate the role of the self in the history of the western world, and to investigate such self in its capacity as the original existential core of the individual. He wished to investigate, in other words, the role of the individual, the morality of individualism, and therefore the role of the self itself, in what he would understand as “the historicity of human experience” (p. 210). We know that it would be these investigations – and which would also involve much empirical research around the history of the western world – that would allow Oakeshott to identify the historical role of civil associations vis-à-vis enterprise associations.
What, then, is the self for Oakeshott? He shall argue that the self is above all an activity. But much more than that, the self is a primordial activity – being of the primordial type, the self may be correlated to nature itself (an idea which more or less echoes the Nietzschean position). And yet, although the self manifests itself as a primordial activity, it does so in varying degrees of intensity depending on the particular individual (and/or depending on an individual’s particular circumstances). The implication is that although the self is a primordial activity, this activity is not equally distributed amongst all individuals. Of course, such an understanding of the self may be said to tie up neatly with Nietzsche’s understanding of the higher man. Oakeshott introduces us to his own so-called theory of the self by writing as follows: “The self appears as an activity. It is not a ‘thing’ or a ‘substance’ capable of being active; it is activity. And this activity is primordial; there is nothing antecedent to it. It may display varying degrees of strength or weakness …” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 204).
Before we proceed any further with Oakeshott’s understanding of the self, we need briefly dwell here on his suggestion that there is nothing antecedent to the self. While making such an explicit observation, he can elsewhere in his writings also state that “the self-made man is never literally self-made, but depends upon a certain kind of society …” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 12). But, when all is said and done, these two positions are in fact quite compatible: one may say that Oakeshott thereby recognizes the distinction between, on the one hand, a person’s primordial self which is bar all antecedents and, on the other, a person’s overall identity in the world as one expressive of a certain (or relative) social dependence – it is precisely this latter dimension of individuality which we have identified, following Nietzsche, as the ego.
Now, we further notice that the Oakeshottian understanding of the self-as-activity clearly wishes to differentiate between “varying degrees of strength or weakness” pertaining to that type of activity. And we have suggested that this understanding of the self does echo the Nietzschean position on the higher man – how fair is such a suggestion? What, in fact, does Oakeshott really mean when he speaks of self-as-activity? And in what sense would such an activity display different degrees of intensity amongst different individuals? Is Oakeshott here referring to different degrees of creative activity? And what form does such creative activity take?
Oakeshott’s response to such questions brings him very close to the Nietzschean position on creativity, self-creation, and the game of creation as discussed above. For Oakeshott, the key term that may explain the creative activity of the self is that of imagining. Above, we have already referred to the Oakeshottian understanding of the realm of poetry as a mode of life; we have also referred to his understanding of poetry as an individual act of creativity; and we have referred to creativity as the act of imagining. Such imagining, we noted, was the act of making images for one’s self and/or creating a universe of poetic images for one’s self. It is this form of superior activity that constitutes the productive core of the individual’s self (as opposed to his ego), it being the productive core of the self for its own self.
In a nutshell, one could therefore present Oakeshott’s position on the self and its creative imagining as follows: the self is activity; as activity it is the act of creating; as creating it is the making of images; the making of images is the creating of a universe to which the imagining self and its images belong. This is the idle play of the self – this is its productive core, and it is this core that renders the individual a self-rolling, independent will of self-creativity. It is this very core, indeed, that is the source of truth for the individual (an issue to be examined further below in discussing the question of truth itself).
With respect to the self and the concept of imagining, Oakeshott writes as follows: “I call this activity ‘imagining’: the self making and recognizing images …” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 204). What does such activity yield for the individual? Oakeshott tells us that this activity of imagining creates a “universe of discourse to which our imagining … belongs …” (ibid., p. 205).
The self as the creator of images is a willing self – and one may argue that such self desires what it wills and wills what it desires. The self as the creator of images is therefore a desiring self. Oakeshott shall argue that every image created by the self is a reflection of that desiring self. And by creating such images, the desiring self is engaged in constructing its very own world – this world is independent of the world of the market-place and of the truths of the market-place. Being independent of the moral truths and the rationalist formulae of the market-place, the independently desiring self constructs and engages in its own sense of pleasure. Oakeshott writes: “In practical activity, then, every image is the reflection of a desiring self engaged in constructing its world and in continuing to reconstruct it in such manner as to afford it pleasure.” (ibid., p. 207).
This desiring self-as-activity, we note, can display different degrees of intensity from person to person. Such varying degrees of intensity point to different degrees of strengths and weaknesses pertaining to the ability to engage in poetic activity – to engage, that is, in the making of images for one’s own self. This Oakeshottian acknowledgement that there are different degrees of strengths and weaknesses amongst people corresponds to the Nietzschean insistence that the world is inhabited by both higher and lower men – we are not all equal when it comes to self-creativity, or to the enactment of one’s self-as-activity. Oakeshott shall clearly go on to observe that not everyone has the will or the capacity to speak in the idiom of poetry. And not everyone can speak in the idiom of poetry since, while the self is by definition unique in its own creativity, it just so happens that not all people can come to possess such uniqueness. Perhaps more accurately, one should say that although everyone is in natural possession of a self, the relative intensity or strength of such self-as-activity can be such as to render it atrophic in the eyes of its ego – atrophic, that is, vis-à-vis the machinations of that surface ego to survive in the public surfaces of the world (here, it is the ego that would rule the self, not vice versa).
Oakeshott has often attempted to explain why not everyone in society was (or is) meant to engage in the creative image-making of his self – he writes, for instance, as follows: “By ‘poetry’ I mean the activity of making images of a certain kind and moving about them in a manner appropriate to their character. Painting, sculpting, acting, dancing, singing, literary and musical composition are different kinds of poetic activity. Of course, not everyone who lays paint upon canvas, who chisels stone, or moves his limbs rhythmically, or opens his mouth in song, or puts pen to paper in verse or prose, speaks in the idiom of poetry …” (ibid., pp. 216-217).
It is not everyone who speaks in the idiom of poetry. Many may try to do so, and these may even live in the twisted, self-established illusion that they actually speak in such idiom. Many do try to speak so, but very few can achieve that idiom of poetry for their own selves – achieve, that is, an idiom that is original in itself. But even outside the question of originality, few possess the right to create their own poetic images, and as few are ever prepared to pay the cost for doing so – as Ludwig Wittgenstein would explain to his friend, Norman Malcolm (cf. Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein – A Memoir, Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 37; and p. 47). Wittgenstein, by the way, would himself write and speak in a style that remains a monument to both acute precision and stylistic originality – but he could also whistle musical melodies in a manner that few could match; but, further, he could also sculpt, play the clarinet, design airplane propellers, design houses, compose musical pieces, and so on. The point we are here making is simple but quite undemocratic: not everyone may do what the exceptional individual can do – we are not born equal. Here, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would agree, both being mercilessly honest with respect to human will and human capacity.
Now, the creation of images for one’s own self is a creation beyond all the so-called good and evil as designated by the state and its many-too-many. Oakeshott explains that “the image in contemplation … does not attract to itself either moral approval or disapproval.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 218). This would mean that the self, as a creator of images, would enter into a state of independent contemplation – such contemplation would speak the language of the self, not that of the world. But by speaking its own private language, the contemplative self would be indulging in image-making that would be beyond the good and evil of the world – it would be beyond the moral approval of the world. This is surely highly reminiscent of the Zarathustrian project – it would also be a highly dangerous project, and thus definitely not meant for the many-too-many (not for everyone, as Oakeshott would put it.).
We may round off this discussion of the ego, the body, the self – and how such a discussion is necessarily related to the question of individual creativity and an individual’s productive core – by making a number of comments about art itself and its relation to morality. It has been suggested that the self’s image-making is beyond the moral approval of the other. Such image-making, however, does constitute moral conduct as such for the individual engaging in it. And that very moral conduct is art per se (the only possible definition of art is that designated by the self of the individual in its own enactment). But it should be kept in mind that that moral conduct – as an expression of aesthetic practice – is always art, not ever nature. Why is this so? As discussed above, the self – in its naturalness and in its sensuality – is the source of creativity, and therefore the source of art, not art itself. The implications of this are of absolutely critical importance as regards the individual’s relationship to himself and society – Oakeshott puts this as succinctly as possible when he tells us that “moral conduct is art, not nature.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 248).
From a slightly different perspective – but which does come down to making the exact same point – one could say that this Nietzschean/Oakeshottian understanding of both art and moral conduct point to the health and proper functioning of an individual’s stomach (which must be, for both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, a desiring primordial organ). Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows on the human stomach: “For verily, my brethren, the spirit is a stomach!” (p. 200). What he says makes full sense, being reflective of what has been asserted above – viz. that the self is nature; that nature is the individual’s body; that that body is the carrier of sensuality; and that therefore the body is the source of aesthetics and art, and is therefore the source of whatever sense of spirit. And thus one may say that body is spirit, and in that sense the spirit is the stomach (this being somewhat reminiscent of Feuerbach’s observation on eating). But what of that particular stomach of those who are weary-o’-the-world, of the many-too-many? As regards that particular stomach, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “For a ruined stomach, is their spirit; it persuadeth to death!” (ibid.). This ruined stomach of the many-too-many is their ruined productive core – it is their ruined passions. This may be said to be the nihilism of modern mass man – it being his acquired and conceded incapacity to create values and morality by himself and for himself. A ruined stomach is a ruined body. A ruined body is a ruined self, or it is a ruination of the self-body supremacy in the individual. And it is therefore the reduction of the individual to a surface ego enmeshed in a web of idol-adoration together with an endless multitude of surface egos in the world of the modern market-place.
It is this conceded mass incapacity to create and self-create that opens the door to the intervention of the state, or to the intervention of the state as an enterprise association (to come back to Oakeshott). The state, one might here say, thrives on ruined bodies or ruined stomachs. It thrives on the nihilism of modern mass man. And thus it is that the vast majority of people in the western world are a willed people (or at least they seem to be so – this must remain an empirical question, and it is a question subject to the particular locality and conjunctural time span under investigation). But one may very generally observe that they are a willed people in the sense that their everyday conduct more or less reflects the will of the state and its famous wise ones. They are a willed people in that both their ego and their self (both their public and their private lives) are subject to an imposition of values and aesthetic paradigms as articulated by the state qua enterprise association. Therein, all individuality and purposive value-creating and/or image-making by the self can be challenged by extraneous ideological forces, or they can be crushed by such forces. Under such circumstances, the person can get lost in the world – he can get lost, in other words, in a world where productivity is no longer the Oakeshottian idle play (as expressive of one’s productive core). Human productivity is here reduced to the production and consumption of commodities as the primary mode of life.
The majority are thus willed – but some insist on willing. These latter are obedient, not to the will of the state, but to that of the ruling self. Such ruling self, however, is only exceptional when it knows for itself what it is that it desires to will.
6i. Of the passions, and virtue
We have thus far traced all the motions, steps, or mutually interacting stages that need be enacted in the building of one’s independent and supreme self – all such motions (we have identified five such) would be necessary to the construction of the individual as a first movement in the Nietzschean sense. We noted that the very first of such motions involved the conquering of one’s passions. This must, however, be based on a presupposition – viz. that the passions of the individual are not already ruined (as in a ruined stomach).
To the extent that the passions are neither ruined nor subject to the control of external forces (such as that of state ideology), the exceptional individual would now be free to enter the sixth and final stage of his self-consummation – what would such final motion involve? This final motion – but which would inevitably have to be continually produced and reproduced according to the strengths and desires of the will – may simply be described as follows: the passions of the individual need beget the very sense of virtue of that individual. We shall now very briefly turn to this higher, or perhaps the highest, dimension of self-creation.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks of the exceptional individual, and how such individual must be a creator of new virtue – this is what he says: “The new would the noble man create, and a new virtue.” (p. 40).
But where would such new virtue come from? Nietzsche shall assert that it can only come from the individual’s already existing passions. We know that the self of the individual is his body (his stomach) – such body, however, is naturally beset with natural passions. It is these passions that constitute the productive source of the individual. But the latent productive source (the passions) can only become an active productive core (art) when the self comes to understand its body as its own plurality – and within such plurality, the self recognizes both the flock of its passions and the shepherd of that flock. And it is only when the shepherd within the body becomes the ruling element of the individual that the passions of the individual can be transformed into a new virtue.
Of which passions in particular is Nietzsche talking about? And how exactly are these to be used for purposes of creation and self-creation, or for purposes of the Oakeshottian-type of image-making? Nietzsche does not wish to provide whatever answers to such questions – and he does not wish to do so because he simply cannot answer them. He cannot answer such questions because it all depends on the individual himself. Not one thinker – Nietzsche included – could possibly define or determine the creative wheel of the individual self-rolling wheel. Were it to be defined or determined by the other, that wheel would no longer be self-rolling. To put it otherwise: the passions of the body can only be said to be translated into art and virtue when such art and virtue is original unto itself – its uniqueness is beyond definition or determination by the other. Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott do not wish to offer whatever general formulae regarding the question of self-creativity – doing so would be self-defeating. And it would be self-defeating given that their whole intellectual project comes down precisely to surpassing the ideological constraints of rationalist-based formulae as to how one should live one’s own life (by the way, this Nietzschean/Oakeshottian aversion to general formulae or general theoretical formulations regarding life forms is also somewhat reminiscent of the Wittgensteinian aversion to all theoretical generalization concerning language).
Now, at a very general level, what does Nietzsche’s Zarathustra have to say about the passions? And how may these generally relate to one’s virtues? He speaks as follows: “Once hadst thou passions and calledst them evil. But now hast thou only thy virtues; they grew out of thy passions.” (p. 32). And further: “Thou implantedst thy highest aim into the heart of those passions: then became they thy virtues and joys.” (ibid.).
The natural passions of the body, shepherded by the self – and as it injects these passions with its own highest aims – are reappropriated by the individual in their transformed form as virtues. And they are transformed as the joys of his very own personal virtue since they are now the source of his own artistic creativity. Nietzsche may go on to list a variety of passions, and he may point to their ultimate transformation as virtues and art – but he can only do this through metaphorical language as he has to steer clear of whatever putative formulae. We thus have here a willful transformation of the passions into a new world of virtues as embodied in the joys of art itself, or as embodied in the idle play of Oakeshott’s idiom of poetry as mode of life.
Both like and very much unlike John Climacus in his The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Zarathustra shall attempt to describe these passions and their mutation into the virtues of art – he shall do that in a number of metaphorical ways. We read as follows: “And though thou wert of the race of the hot-tempered, or of the voluptuous, or of the fanatical, or the vindictive, all thy passions in the end became virtues, and all thy devils angels … Once hadst thou wild dogs in thy cellar; but they changed at last into birds and charming songstresses … Out of thy poisons brewedst thou balsam for thyself; thy cow, affliction, milkedst thou – now drinketh thou the sweet milk of her udder … And nothing evil groweth in thee any longer …” (ibid.).
Of course, the notion that no evil whatsoever now grows within the individual (or is externalized by him) shall have to be seriously qualified – the matter would all depend on the degree of internal cohesion attained by the individual within his own self. This major issue shall require further investigation – we intend to do this further below.
6j. Of virtue and everyday wisdom
It is impossible for whoever to be at all specific with respect to the content and proclivities of any individual’s passions, and as to how such passions may or may not translate into a new world of virtues. But while one cannot say much about an individual’s passions and virtues, one can at least clarify that the new virtues of the independent individual cannot ever take certain particular forms. What forms can they never take? To put it as simply as possible, one may say that such virtues cannot ever be of any practical value in the world – and we need say that Oakeshott has himself all too often emphasized precisely such insight throughout his work. It is absolutely clear that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would yet again agree on this one central issue – viz. that the practical values of the market-place, those of a person’s practical maintenance and his concomitant practical achievements in the world, cannot define the moral and aesthetic world of the free individual (this being his own world of virtue).
The small values of the market-place – their everyday little wisdoms – would be beyond the exceptional individual. In his discussion of joys and wisdoms, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “An earthly virtue is it which I love; little prudence is therein, and the least everyday wisdom.” (ibid.).
Nietzsche speaks of an earthly virtue – and it must be earthly since its source is the body itself. And it is also an earthly virtue since it is a love of life in its presentness. Such virtue has no need for whatever utopian ideology, and it has no need for – and which comes down to the same thing – any ideological theology pointing to the future. But further, such virtue contains, if it does at all, only a little prudence – it is therefore not of any practical value with respect to the needs of everyday life. And similarly, informed as it is by the least everyday wisdom, it is a virtue expressive of Oakeshott’s idle play.
The Nietzschean understanding of virtue is, simply, a virtue without reward. Addressing himself to the virtuous, Zarathustra has this to say: “Ye want to be paid besides, ye virtuous ones! Ye want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your today? … And now ye upbraid me for teaching that there is no reward-giver, nor paymaster? And verily, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward.” (p. 91).
Why is virtue of no practical value? Why is it informed of the least practical wisdom? And why is it bar whatever practical reward in the world? Zarathustra explains as follows: “Ye love your virtue as a mother loveth her child; but when did one hear of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?” (ibid.). In the last instance, Zarathustra tells us, it is the individual’s own self that is virtue itself – as he so clearly puts it: “It is your dearest Self, your virtue.” (ibid.).
The exceptional individual has created for his own self a virtue that defines that self – and it is a self-virtue beyond all practical value and all practical reward since the will of the self-rolling individual has come to determine its own, independent needs. We have here a redefinition of the very content of need itself by the will of the individual. On this role of one’s will, Zarathustra proclaims as follows: “O thou, my Will! Thou change of every need, my needfulness! Preserve me from all small victories!” (p. 208).
Such virtue, such need, such self – these now come to constitute a form of life that is exceptional vis-à-vis the rest of society. Beyond and above the many-too-many, the higher man and his virtue are simply uncommon. The virtue itself is uncommon because it is, as Nietzsche says, unprofiting. It is unprofiting since it only endows its own self with its own values – and such values only satisfy the newly-acquired needs of the self. The self does not in this sense profit – it is merely being itself, which is its virtue. This virtue is committed only to its own self – by simply being its own self, it only honours its own self. And it therefore gains nothing with respect to the honours of the world. Speaking of the bestowing virtue, and comparing this type of virtue to gold, Nietzsche writes as follows: “Tell me, pray: how came gold to the highest value? Because it is uncommon, and unprofiting, and beaming, and soft in lustre; it always bestoweth itself … Only as image of the highest virtue came gold to the highest value. Goldlike beameth the glance of the bestower. Gold-lustre maketh peace between moon and sun … Uncommon is the highest virtue, and unprofiting; beaming it is, and soft of lustre: a bestowing virtue is the highest virtue.” (p. 71).
Such virtue – that which “accumulates all the riches in your soul” – is uncommon because the exceptional individual is uncommon. And thus Nietzsche asks of the exceptional individual to consider the following simple question: “What should ye have in common with cats and wolves?” (ibid.).
The assertion that the bestowing type of virtue is by definition uncommon implies that the virtue of the higher man is a virtue held in common with no one else – and that would still be the case whether that other else is of the exceptional type or of the many-too-many. Such a radical understanding of virtue requires further examination.
6k. A virtue in common with none else
Perhaps the most radical intimation on the question of virtue as presented in Thus Spake Zarathustra is when Nietzsche writes as follows: “My brother, when thou hast a virtue, and it is thine own virtue, thou hast it in common with no one.” (p. 32). Although such thinking is truly radical, it can neither surprise us nor shock us – and it is authentic Nietzschean thinking since it yet again affirms and locks in with the morality of individuality as systematically articulated throughout Thus Spake Zarathustra. That type of intimation simply asserts the morality of individuality as explored by both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, each in their own way – both have emphasized the exceptionality and necessary originality of the independent individual. Both have celebrated the uniqueness of individual experience – but whatever uniqueness of individual experience can only but beget a uniqueness of individual virtue.
For Nietzsche, as we have already seen, virtue is the individual’s “dearest Self” – it cannot therefore be shared with anyone else, whoever that anyone else happens to be (and that other may be inferior or even superior to that dearest self). When the individual has his own virtue, he has his own self – and he has his own self by re-creating and thereby rediscovering his own self. This re-creation and rediscovery of the self cannot be shared – and thus the virtuous self of the exceptional individual has its own good and evil, and it is a good and evil that can only express that individual and absolutely none else. And it is for this reason that, at least for the exceptional individual, there is no general good and evil that supposedly applies to all and sundry in society. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has this to say as regards the exceptional virtue of the exceptional individual: “He, however, hath discovered himself who saith: ‘This is my good and evil.’ Therewith hath he silenced the mole and the dwarf, who say: ‘Good for all, evil for all.’ …” (p.189).
He who speaks of his own good and evil has already discovered his own exceptional self – his mode of being belongs only to his own self. Such mode of being does not model itself on the modes of being of other people (however exceptional such people may happen to be); and such mode of being cannot serve as a replica for others. It is a mode of being – or a virtue – that is never to be repeated by whosoever. And thus Zarathustra speaks as follows: “… ‘This – is now my way. Where is yours?’ Thus did I answer those who asked me ‘the way’. For the way – it does not exist!” (p. 190).
6l. The problem of naming one’s own virtue
A virtue held in common with no one else, we have said, is a virtue that cannot be shared with anyone else – the implication of this is obvious: that type of self-bestowing virtue simply cannot be communicated to others; it constitutes an incommunicable language all of its own. This makes full sense: since virtue is – or is of – the self, such self does not engage in the world, as also in the conventions of that world. Unlike the ego, and as already discussed in considering Nietzschean thinking, the self does not live in the world of names – it cannot therefore name its virtue to the world. And as also discussed in our consideration of Oakeshottian thinking, the individual’s creation of images (or the self-creation of images in contemplation) likewise constitutes the language of the self and none other – again, it is not a communicable language in the world of surface conventionality.
That much we apparently do understand. And yet, another as important a question arises at this point. Can the individual name his own virtue at all, or in any way? Could he name it, for instance, to himself? The problem here is that when one attempts to name his virtue – when he decides, that is, to call his virtue by name – he immediately or automatically finds himself being one with the herd (and thereby sees his private self being reduced to his public ego). On this question of naming one’s virtue to one’s self, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra warns the exceptional individual by saying the following: “To be sure, thou wouldst call it [your virtue] by name and caress it; thou wouldst pull its ears and amuse thyself with it … And lo, then hast thou its name in common with the people, and hast become one of the people and the herd with thy virtue!” (p. 32).
And thus, the individual’s self-bestowing virtue need remain nameless – it must remain indescribable and beyond words. It must remain unnamed so that such virtue not be of – and not be reduced to – that of the herd. Still on the question of one’s own virtue, Zarathustra continues: “Better for thee to say: ‘Ineffable is it, and nameless, that which is pain and sweetness to my soul, and also the hunger of my bowels.’ …” (ibid.).
And he continues with his all too consistent advice as follows: “Let thy virtue be too high for the familiarity of names; and if thou must speak of it, be not ashamed to stammer about it.” (ibid.). The self-bestowing virtue must remain unfamiliar to the language of the world and its market-place. And if there do arise circumstances where the exceptional individual finds it necessary to somehow speak of his virtue (or of his conduct) to the world, he shall have to do it in a way that remains more or less incoherent – he must teach himself to merely stammer about it. That would be a technique of the ego that has learnt to survive (and be tolerant of) the world around it: stammering would here be mere speech signals functioning as safety valves for the self itself. Being a language system of safety valves, the individual need not feel whatever shame about such so-called stammering (and which would be a language practice more or less unique to the individual – it could take an endless variety of literary or verbal forms).
Stammering would secrete and protect the virtue that cannot be named to the world – and it cannot be named because it is not a virtue expressive of human needs and of human relations. The self-bestowing virtue is simply too high for the familiarity of human (or statal) law, and the human needs and relations that such law wishes to organize in society. Zarathustra continues as follows: “Thus speak and stammer: ‘That is my good! That do I love, thus doth it please me entirely, thus only do I desire the good … Not as the law of a God do I desire it, not as a human law or a human need do I desire it; it is not to be a guidepost for me to superearths and paradises.” (ibid.).
The individual’s self-bestowing virtue is a virtue beyond all of statal law organizing human relations; it is beyond the small happinesses of human needs; and it is beyond all of this-worldly and/or all of those other-worldly utopias that have permeated rationalist-based ideologies and theologies. It is therefore silent to the world and to its laws, as it is silent also to all the practical needs emanating from that world. And it is for this reason that Zarathustra may speak as follows: “Oh, the lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones!” (p. 104).
One may at this point reiterate that Nietzsche has identified two basic types of so-called necessary virtues that have come to permeate the history (as also the psychology) of the western world. The one type is that of what he calls the small people, and which is meant to serve their small happinesses. On this, he makes the following observations: “I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open; they do not forgive me for not envying their virtues … They bite at me, because I say unto them that for small people, small virtues are necessary – and because it is hard for me to understand that small people are necessary!” (p. 163). And he continues as follows: “To small virtues would they [this people] fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.” (p. 164). There is, however, that other type of virtue which – as we have seen – is meant for the exceptional individual who has no need for such small virtues and their everyday small happinesses.
In the former case, whatever set of virtues need necessarily be of the masses – they therefore need necessarily be common (or social) virtues. Within such social terrain, the ego of whichever individual has no choice but to interact with such virtues through a more or less common language – in the case of the self-consciously independent and/or exceptional individual, however, such language would have to be such so as not to compromise the independence of that individual. The individual here finds himself in the world of names and roles, and commonly recognized good or bad conduct – therein, the independent individual must pass through the people, but must do so as he keeps his eyes open.
In the latter case, virtue is of the individual and for the individual – it obviously cannot be a common virtue. And because it cannot be common, the exceptional individual must retain a silence towards the world with respect to the disposition entailed in his own self-bestowing virtue. By not at all naming such uncommon virtue to the world or even to himself, the individual confirms the uniqueness of his own self.
There are now two final comments we wish to make on the question of the necessary silence of the self, or – and which is of course the exact same thing – on the essentially incommunicable nature of an individual’s self-bestowing virtue.
The first comment – and which is a very rough and tentative observation – concerns the thinking of Nietzsche vis-à-vis that of Wittgenstein. Nietzsche’s suggestion that the virtue of the exceptional individual is ineffable and nameless (and thus beyond language) may be said to somehow relate to Proposition 7 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which famously asserts that “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must one be silent.” The Nietzschean and Wittgensteinian assertions on the question of a silence beyond language may or may not at all be related to one another, depending on how one chooses to interpret Wittgenstein’s understanding of ineffable truths pertaining to questions of an ethical nature. The well-known controversy revolves around the manner in which one is to understand the idea of the so-called nonsensical realm beyond or outside language. It also revolves around interpretations of the Tractatus Proposition 6.421, where Wittgenstein tells us that “ethics cannot be put into words”. And here, most interestingly by the way, Wittgenstein equates ethics to aesthetics – as does both Nietzsche and Oakeshott.
Whatever the measure of philosophical commerce between Nietzsche and Wittgenstein on the question of ethics, there is at least one point which could be said to constitute a certain common ground between them: an individual does harbour realms of thought within him that are beyond words, or that are beyond public language, or that are beyond the common naming of things. If this be the case, the individual can stand beyond the herd – and by so standing beyond the herd, the individual can discover and affirm his self-rolling independence. This would be the individual’s discovery and affirmation of his own self per se vis-à-vis the surface egos of the market-place. On the other hand, however, it should also be observed that an individual can harbour thoughts within himself that are both beyond public language and at the same time inferior to the culture of such public language – in such case, the individual would not stand beyond and above the herd but quite below it. Such a condition would of course be the antithesis to Nietzsche’s higher man (or it would be the individual aping Zarathustra’s Superman).
Now, and this is the second comment we wish to make, it may be said that there are in fact special cases where the practice of virtue would not be – or need not be – designated by any degree of ineffability or silence (we are obviously here not at all concerned with the publicly shared values of idol-adoration as witnessed in the market-place). It should also be parenthetically added, however, that in proposing such a qualification, we would be digressing from the basic purpose of this subsection – it primarily being to consider the concrete individual and his particular problem of naming or not naming his self-virtue to others in the world. Veering off course, we may in any case propose that the language of a self-imposed virtue can in fact be – or has in fact been – a truly shared language amongst particular independent and historical peoples of the western world. In their case, the ineffability and silence of virtue would not apply – and it would not apply since such peoples would share their virtue as a common morality of habit of behaviour (how the independent individual bearing his own internal self-virtue comes to interact with such external common morality of behaviour would depend on nothing else but that individual’s own will and chosen disposition – we have already asserted that there can be no set formulae for whatever interaction between individual and community).
On the other hand –and having said all of the above – it should also be noted that, while there would be no silence amongst people sharing a morality of habit of behaviour as to their common understanding and/or experience of such morality, the language of that morality would nonetheless remain ineffable and silent to whoever lives outside of that community of people. In Wittgensteinian terms, one could perhaps say that the language games of a particular people would not be understood by other peoples – the language games of the one would remain ineffable and silent vis-à-vis the games of the other. Here, we may yet again remind ourselves of what Nietzsche has to say on this matter – as he puts it: “… every people speaketh its language of good and evil; this its neighbour understandeth not …” (p. 45).
6m. Silence, privacy, and the new language of being and becoming
Nietzsche, we have seen, has warned the exceptional individual who wishes to be ruled by his independent self not to fall into the trap of naming his virtue in whatever manner – by so doing, the individual would find himself being one with the heard. And yet, the silence of his self-bestowing virtue is not to be a mute and dumb virtue – on the contrary, and as we have repeatedly emphasized, the Nietzschean understanding of virtue cannot be disentangled from the world of aesthetics. It therefore follows that the Nietzschean understanding of the self-bestowing virtue is a virtue that does come to talk its own language – but this is a language beyond the individual’s ego and certainly beyond the language of the world. It is the language of the individual’s unique being and of his unique becoming – such language need be the language of his unique artistic creativity.
The language of being and becoming – it being the aesthetic mode of being – presupposes the ineffability and the silence of the self-bestowing virtue. It therefore also presupposes the privacy of the exceptional individual – for it is within the world of such privacy (Nietzsche shall refer to it as the return home) that the individual may materialize his own forms of self-enactment. And it would be precisely such self-enactment that would constitute the new language of being and becoming. Therein, via a language that is altogether autonomous of all social language, the exceptional individual may begin to utter anything he so wills and wishes. Such utterances would certainly be of the Oakeshottian image-making and/or poetic creativity, as discussed above.
We need to briefly examine here how Nietzschean thinking shall gradually move from the private state (or lonesome wilderness) of individual being, to that of the ineffability and silence of its virtue, and ultimately to the homecoming of learning how to talk a language that is beyond all worldly language – this being the language of being per se and especially the language of becoming as a life process.
Nietzsche wishes to affirm the individual’s private terrain and hermetic silence as the site of his ultimate will – this being the will to establishing his own virtue. No one is to be given the right to eye such private terrain or to penetrate such hermetic silence. He writes as follows: “That no one might see down into my depth and into mine ultimate will – for that purpose did I devise the long clear silence.” (p. 169).
Within this self-created long and clear silence, the individual is now at home with his self – being at home and within his very own privacy, he is now both ready and free to utter whatever he so wishes. He is ready, in other words, to utter anything in terms of his new, self-determined needs as a self-rolling wheel. Speaking of the individual’s return home, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra for the first time declares the possibility of a new self-language and thereby of a new self-understanding – this is how he puts it: “Here, however, art thou at home and house with thyself; here canst thou utter everything, and unbosom all motives; nothing is here ashamed of concealed, congealed feelings.” (p. 178). Within his private home, in other words, the individual is now free to understand his true wishes and intentions, to reinterpret his needs, and to thereby overcome the self-imposed silence of the self as to its own virtue.
While, as Nietzsche writes, “Down there [in the world] … all talking is in vain”, this is not so within the private world of the individual’s own home. It is within such home that the new language of being and becoming is created by the individual. On this, his Zarathustra speaks as follows: “Here fly open unto me all being’s words and word-cabinets; here all being wanteth to become words; here all becoming wanteth to learn of me how to talk.” (p. 179).
This new self-communication on self-virtue is the language of the private self as it enacts both its being and its reproductive becoming – as it is a private language, it cannot take place outside the terrain of a supreme privacy. Privacy, however, has been one of the central cultural and psychological endowments of western civilization – but it has also been an endowment that that very same civilization has, through the ages, abused, defamed and censured, depending on historical circumstances. Yet still, the long-standing traditional pluralism of western civilization – at least as identified by the Oakeshottian enterprise – has meant that the virtue of privacy has remained a major privilege of the western world. We may here remind ourselves of what Oakeshott has observed with respect to the 16th century – viz. that by that time a privacy hitherto unknown to mankind would make its appearance in the cultural and economic life of Europe (though this is not meant to imply that all other civilizations would necessarily ignore or stifle the moment of human privacy – we shall have to let such exclusively historical issue remain a historian’s open question).
For the western world in particular, it would be such cultural endowment of traditional pluralism that would point to the emergence of the supreme individual in his supreme moment of privacy speaking a language of his own being and becoming. But this, too, would give birth to a new aesthetics – and it would do so both for the exceptional individual as artist for-himself as also (though only potentially so) for the rest of society with which the surface-ego of that artist interacts (the precise interaction between, on the one hand, the realm of supreme privacy/individualistic creativity and, on the other, the realm of culture and art within the western world itself – or, rather, within particular dimensions of that world – is a complex entanglement that we do intend to touch on in forthcoming sections below).
6n. The disposition of indifference towards the populace
The impact of the exceptional individual onto society – if (but also when and how) such impact does ensue – remains a highly complex sociological issue. And, in any case, such impact would depend, not only on the circumstances of that society, but also and above all on the disposition and will of the exceptional individual himself. But whatever form such disposition takes, it would have to be characterized by a supreme indifference towards the many-too-many and the values of the market-place. This, obviously, is not an iron rule that all exceptional individuals do follow or have followed – the famous wise ones and the state’s organic intellectuals, for instance, do not abide by such rule or have rarely done so. On the other hand, the independent, self-rolling individual whose self determines to rule its ego can only but remain supremely indifferent vis-à-vis the populace and its idol-adoration – it is precisely for this reason that whatever impact on the part of the self-rolling intellect onto society is usually of the untimely type (and being untimely, such impact is often received in distorted form by its contemporaries, as it most famously was so received in the case of Nietzschean thought).
Specifically on the question of indifference (or of being unconcerned vis-à-vis the rest of the world), Nietzsche writes as follows: “He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities … Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive – so wisdom wisheth us; she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.” (p.36). The lack of concern – the indifference – is directed towards the little tragedies of everyday life. On the other hand, the courage, the scorn and the coercion are all directed towards the independent warrior himself – it is only in such manner that the individual can preserve his independent indifference. It is only through such type of courage that the self can rule the surface-ego – and it has to be so ruled since the ego finds itself entangled in the world with its tragic plays and tragic realities.
Were the independent individual not to preserve a disposition of indifference towards the little tragedies of everyday history (or even, as we shall see, towards the so-called great events of that history), he would soon find himself being reduced to what Nietzsche calls a fly-flap. He writes as follows about how to respond to the many-too-many and their manner of thinking and living in the world: “Raise no longer an arm against them! Innumerable are they, and it is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.” (p. 49). Although the exceptional individual is a warrior with respect to his own self and its independent preservation, he is not at war with the many-too-many – he does not care to raise an arm against them. He knows that their sheer numerical presence – and the ideological values of democracy and equality that emanate from such numerical presence – is a social force that cannot easily be confronted. In fact, the very idea of whatever form of confrontation with the many-too-many and their ideologies would be a sheer waste of time – the independent individual simply cannot waste the limited years of his life on earth by focusing his attention on the myriad flies swarming the market-place. His intellect and creativity cannot be dissipated in activities involving flies – chasing after them, driving them away, or killing them would all be beyond the needs of his creative disposition.
As an independent, self-rolling intellect, the exceptional individual is not really against anyone, and especially not ever against the populace. This does not mean that he has no intellectual enemies – he does, but he is inclined to treat them from a position of indifference. While the many-too-many cannot themselves be considered enemies, the so-called priests of the populace may be said to constitute some type of enemy – but there again, the exceptional individual would maintain his indifference by simply refusing to despise all famous wise ones. And if there is to be a certain hatred, it would have to be a superior form of hatred – it need be a hatred from a distance, steering clear of all emotional contempt. Such emotional distance would itself be an expression of indifference. This is how Nietzsche advises the exceptional individual: “Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud of your enemies; then the successes of your enemies are also your successes.” (p. 44).
The exceptional individual may “hate” his intellectual enemies – but this would be a hatred free of all whatever emotion-based or ambition-based disposition. His hatred is not that of worldly hate; it is not that of the hatred one witnesses in the market-place of ideas and ideologies – and we may here once again remind ourselves of how Nietzsche has already described the hatred amongst the famous wise ones evident within the market-place: “They devour one another”, he writes, “and cannot even digest themselves.” (p. 46). In stark contrast, the exceptional individual may even be proud of his intellectual enemies and their intellectual successes. It would precisely such disposition – beyond and outside of the dog fights of public intellectuals – that the exceptional individual may be said to maintain his supreme indifference vis-à-vis all his so-called enemies.
One may go one step further and suggest that the supreme indifference of the exceptional individual would be confirmed by the fact that such individual would choose not ever to engage in whatever form of resistance vis-à-vis the other, whoever such other may be. “Resistance –”, writes Nietzsche, “that is the distinction of the slave.” (p. 44).
The basic point here is that the disposition of supreme indifference towards the populace and their famous wise ones simply cannot allow for either contempt or resistance.
6o. The disposition of tolerance towards the many-too-many
The exceptional individual that has achieved a mode of life expressive of an independent and self-rolling intellect does not feel the need to hate the many-too-many. But while the many-too-many are not to be at all hated, the exceptional individual can nonetheless see that they are superfluous. But yet still he can also see that such superfluity has its own needs. He therefore needs to recognize the superfluous needs of the many-too-many. How does Nietzsche’s Zarathustra recognize such needs? This is what he says: “Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the ‘life eternal’!” (p. 41). The inherent superfluity of the many-too-many in this life is such as to ask for another life elsewhere. This need ought to be recognized – and by recognizing such need, the exceptional individual comes to tolerate both the masses and their needs. By being tolerant, the exceptional individual operates within the old, western tradition of pluralism.
The many-too-many may do whatever it is that they to wish to do; they may do whatever is in accordance with their own, socially-determined needs. And so, in what is called the drunken song, Zarathustra simply tells the world at large that people may – if they so feel and so need – grasp after some God. They may do so, so long as they do not try to grasp after him. While Zarathustra may be fully aware of the woeful dead-ends of all worldly idols, he does not wish to intervene in the affairs of the many-too-many and their idol-adoration – and he shall not intervene so long as he is left alone by the many-too-many. In fact, he has so determined his own position in the world that he would not find it necessary to ever have to intervene. He speaks as follows: “God’s woe is deeper, thou strange world! Grasp at God’s woe, not at me! What am I! A drunken sweet lyre …” (p. 311).
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra does not merely recognize the needs of the many-too-many – and he does not merely tolerate such needs and the right on the part of the many-too-many to satisfy them. He goes further: he actually approves of them. And by recognizing, tolerating and even approving of the needs of the masses, he might even wish to conserve them – and such conservation would definitely apply to needs sprouting from a primeval morality of habit of behaviour (as opposed to state-imposed ideological needs).
The implications of such an understanding of mass needs are radical, and they are radical from the perspective of western pluralism: Nietzsche is thereby suggesting that there can be – or should be – a certain condition of co-existence between individual morality and mass morality.
How does Nietzsche’s Zarathustra express his approval of the needs of the many-too-many? This is what he has to say of the wishes of the populace: “They would fain be dead, and we should approve of their wish!” (p. 41).
But this approval and tolerant co-existence could not ever mean that the exceptional individual would at some point allow the wishes of the populace to permeate his own, independent needs. The exceptional individual should always guard against and be cautious of the wishes of the many-too-many. He should beware of the many-too-many and their wishes, for the many-too-many may also wish to grasp at and after those few who choose to be left alone. And thus Nietzsche continues as follows: “Let us beware of awakening those dead ones, and of damaging those living coffins!” (ibid.).
Very importantly, we see here that Nietzsche is not only asking of the exceptional individual to stay well away from the masses – he is even advising such individual not to dare awaken these masses. This, of course, brings us back to the question of supreme indifference vis-à-vis the many-too-many. When he asks of the exceptional individual not to awaken the masses, he is asking of him not to attempt to enlighten them. Nietzsche does not wish to have the masses re-educated, or to have them mobilized towards such re-education. His is a position of supreme non-intervention, it being precisely that position of supreme indifference towards the many-too-many as discussed above. On the other hand, such supreme indifference goes hand-in-hand with a position of toleration and co-existence as regards the needs and wishes of the populace.
Whenever the exceptional individual has found himself amongst the masses, he has often had to disguise himself – and he has had to disguise himself so that he could endure the masses. It is in the nature of his person to choose to endure them, but such disguise could also lead him to a misjudgment of his own self. Toleration of the many-too-many is therefore called for, but it needs to be handled with the greatest of caution so that the self of the individual be protected – and self-protection means that the individual does not come to misjudge his own self. Zarathustra speaks as follows: “Disguised did I sit amongst them, ready to misjudge myself that I might endure them, and willingly saying to myself: ‘Thou fool, thou dost not know men!’ …” (p. 180).
It is such type of experience on the part of the exceptional individual in being amongst the masses that has come to teach him not to indulge the masses in his presence (while yet still tolerating their own presence as such). And thus on the question of indulging others, Zarathustra has this to say: “In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated.” (ibid.).
The exceptional individual is thereby advised not ever to pity the masses – one may approve of and understand the needs and wishes of the masses, and one may even be courteous towards the small annoyances of such masses. But indulging the masses and pitying them for their little everyday tragedies would be a compromise of the self. Human hubbub – the noise pollution of the market-place, the chaos of competitive ambitions, the very bedlam of the Babelian-type society – stands in need of the empathy of the other and his compassion. Such type of disposition, however, would remain the greatest of dangers for the exceptional individual – and it would remain so since it could yield a misjudgment of his own self.
While pity is a danger to the self, courtesy is not – and the exceptional individual can only but be courteous towards the small virtues and the small annoyances of the many-too-many since he has to acknowledge to himself that such small virtues and annoyances are necessary in terms of the needs of the masses. Since they are necessary, they must be tolerated – and since they must be tolerated, one should be courteous towards the carriers of these small virtues as also to these virtues themselves. Comparing himself to a cock and the populace to hens, Zarathustra speaks as follows: “Here am I still like a cock in a strange farm-yard, at which even the hens peck; but on that account I am not unfriendly to the hens … I am courteous towards them, as towards all small annoyances; to be prickly towards what is small seemeth to me wisdom for hedgehogs.” (p. 164).
Being not unfriendly and being courteous towards the many-too-many means that the many-too-many must be allowed to live their lives as they wish – or need – to so live. This is the essential disposition of pluralist tolerance that defines the exceptional individual. As has already been noted above, Nietzsche would express such tolerance towards the modern western world by proposing that the exceptional individual should simply let the world be as it is – “Let there the trader rule”, he propounds. Let them live as they wish, though they – the modern-day masses – are “unworthy” (p. 204).
Nietzsche’s will to a revaluation of all values – at least as that is presented in his Thus Spake Zarathustra – does not really concern society at all; it does not concern its collectivities, their collective ideologies and their concomitant collective values. It concerns the individual as a self-rolling wheel – it is addressed to the individualist and his morality of individualism as a self-rolling mode of life. Of course, whenever Nietzsche does wish to point to a future wherein his higher man is both paradigm and hegemon, he inadvertently falls into the trap of a utopian teleology – it seems that even untimely thinkers are not impervious to time and its fashions.
But apart from such imperfections in the Nietzschean project, one may safely say that his Zarathustra only truly wishes to address the individual in all his existential exclusivity. The Zarathustrian-type individualist remains supremely indifferent towards the many-too-many – but it is precisely such indifference that constitutes his toleration of people and nations. Yet it is also that selfsame indifference that constitutes his choice to go his own way in the world (as does Oakeshott’s alien sojourner). This combination of both indifference and independent choice is most lucidly encapsulated in the following Zarathustrian injunction: “Go your ways! and let the people and peoples go theirs!” (ibid.).
It is in this sense that the morality of individuality may coexist with the morality of the masses. They coexist as two radically different modes of being in the world. But this does not mean that the exceptional individual severs all interaction with the world and its market-place – he cannot: he, too, is composed of a surface ego that understands and speaks the language of a particular people. This, however, calls for his self-organization in the world. It is to this issue that we must now turn – and which constitutes the very core and purpose of this presentation of Nietzschean and Oakeshottian thinking.
- Self-organization
The exceptional individual, being exceptional, identifies his own being and becoming in the world as unique in the world. Being unique, the exceptional individual is by definition of the contrarian type. The exceptional contrarian individual is an individualist who is capable of forging his own manner or mode of self-organization in the world. What he organizes is his individual sensibility and his individual taste.
Synonymatic with the term self-organization – and as this term shall be used here – is the Nietzschean concept of will. When the exceptional contrarian individual organizes his own self, he wills that self.
What exactly is it that is organized – or willed – within that self? The exceptional individual organizes, not just his thoughts, but above all his own disposition, his own mood, his own aesthetic taste. Very importantly, he selects and organizes all of these in terms of his own absolutely free will – he therefore selects and organizes his disposition and taste however prejudiced these may happen to be. Prejudice, we shall be arguing, is a virtue and an entitlement of the exceptional individual – and it is so over and above all the moral and/or cognitive standards of the world.
We are suggesting that self-organization does not necessarily mean the organization of one’s thoughts – and we say this because whatever organization of one’s thinking would simply mean the organization of one’s self around particular formulae. Formulaic thinking, however, is merely the mode of thinking of all rationalist-based morality. The absolute moral freedom of the exceptional individual presupposes or recognizes one single absolute truth – viz. that there is no absolute truth in the world. He senses that there is no single truthful thought that cannot be countered by yet another as truthful thought – he thereby lets the world sort out the consequentiality of all such thoughts for itself.
That there is no one absolute truth in the world has even been recognized by thinkers who have operated in the field of the so-called physical sciences, such as, for instance, Niels Bohr – we may here remind ourselves of his famous assertion that “The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” The exceptional individual is thereby courteous towards all worldly thoughts, but remains indifferent towards them. It is the disposition of the self and the aesthetic taste of the self that the exceptional individual cares for. Such a position calls for a reexamination of the relationship between mass ideology and individual disposition – it is to this that we now need turn.
7a. From mass ideology to individual disposition
In our discussion of the exceptional individual and his own self-enactment, we have attempted to present – following both Nietzsche and Oakeshott – a series of motions or steps that would be conducive to the progressive consummation of such self-enactment. And yet, not one of these motions or steps would be at all possible for any individual unless that individual has successfully taught himself one fundamental lesson in life – such a lesson may succinctly be put as follows: to unlearn all of mass ideology.
One may refer to all of worldly mass ideology as human hubbub. And thus, when Nietzsche’s Zarathustra finally returns to his own home, he may safely declare to his own self that he is now free of all such ideological hubbub – this is how he puts it: “With blessed nostrils do I again breathe mountain freedom. Freed at last is my nose from the smell of all human hubbub!” (p. 181).
To be able to be free of all human hubbub is to have unlearnt all of mass ideology. And to have unlearnt all of mass ideology is to have unlearnt one’s trust in the worldly manner of naming things in the world – it is to have unlearnt one’s reliance on whatever names or words as used in the public languages of the world. Zarathustra’s shadow speaks of this to Zarathustra himself as follows: “With thee did I unlearn the belief in words and worths and in great names.” (p. 264). One may say that when Zarathustra’s shadow speaks of words, he is referring to mass public discourse; when he speaks of worths, he is referring to mass idol-adoration and the valuation of things that such adoration implies; and when he speaks of great names, he is referring to the so-called great events that are said to dominate the public histories of the many-too-many. The varieties of mass discourse, the mass evaluation of all things based on such varieties of discourse, and the great events that come to define the mass identity of the many-too-many – all such are social phenomena that the exceptional individual has to unlearn and to delimit as surface phenomena. And it is for this reason that Zarathustra’s shadow continues as follows: “When the devil casteth his skin doth not his name also fall away? It is also skin. The devil himself is perhaps – skin.” (ibid.). For the exceptional individual, it cannot be such skin that constitutes the determinant of his own mode of being.
To unlearn mass ideology is to unlearn the very particular understanding of freedom that all such ideology stands for and which it is meant to struggle for. This is meant to be a social, collectivist freedom – and it is therefore a freedom that can only be accomplished through the political and social struggles of the many-too-many and their leaders. The exceptional individual looks down on and remains indifferent towards the so-called great historical events that have attempted to materialize a freedom and equality for the many-too-many within the history of the western world. But to look down on and to be indifferent towards all great events presupposes an unlearning of the so-called historical significance of such events. This unlearning, however, also presupposes a radical self-organization of the individual vis-à-vis the masses, their ideologies, and their history. With respect to this-worldly social freedom and this-worldly great historical events, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “… “Freedom,” ye all roar most eagerly; but I have unlearned the belief in “great events”, when there is much roaring and smoke about them.” (p. 129).
The exceptional individual need reorganize his own self in such manner that he is able to stand over and above that which is this-worldly – and by the term this-worldly we here specifically mean that which is of the modern western world and the values of its market-place. Such type of individual self-organization is an absolute necessity within the modern western world for a number of reasons – but one basic reason is the manner in which both the western masses and especially their famous wise ones have come to view life itself. And they have come to view life in a manner determined by the specific ideological lens that the famous wise ones have so meticulously refined precisely for such type of viewing. This lens, founded on their rationalist-based ideology, simply refuses to acknowledge the limiting conditions of life itself – its calculations and its formulae are incapable of considering the implications of human mortality as such. Corey tells us that the Oakeshottian project was an investigation of precisely such limiting conditions of the human experience – the undeniable fact of human mortality – and the inevitable “frustrations of the search for power after power” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 25).
Often consciously and as often unconsciously, the western Babelian-type state and its mass ideology would ignore the limiting conditions of the human experience and the sheer fact of human mortality, and it would thereby focus primarily (or even exclusively) on the question of power for the sake of power. All of its existence would be focused on the search for political power, or on the will to impose its political power on others. Its raison d’être would come to revolve around nothing else but an endless – and futile – series of power struggles within itself and amongst its many-too-many. As to the latter, we may here remind ourselves of Nietzsche’s observation that “At present … everything low hath become rebellious” and that “the hour hath come … for the great, evil, long, slow mob-and-slave-insurrection: it extendeth and extendeth!” (p. 260). This endless search and struggle for political power – obsessively recorded and naively celebrated by Marxian and Foucaultian historians amongst others – simply wishes to forget or escape from the reality of human mortality. It also forgets that most or all of the power struggles that have ever taken place or that continue to take place cannot possibly be fully resolved in one way or another given the sheer fact of the limiting conditions of all human experience – inequality, exploitation, domination, and so on, have always been an integral part of the human condition and shall remain to be so.
The exceptional individual cannot expend his limited time on earth by engaging with or by allowing himself to get entangled with the little tragedies of the worldly man. From the point of view of the western worldly man, these little tragedies are of such major importance to his person that they can absorb the whole of his personal existence – when they take the form of tragic plays in the so-called grand historical theatre of his civilization, these can fracture his personal identity to the point of its irredeemable disappearance. The little tragedies and the tragic plays of the worldly man are part and parcel of the search and struggle for this-worldly power within society.
This search and struggle for power is thus evident at both a personal and at a collective level – both levels often being closely interrelated. At a personal level, worldly man is a deeply (or at times even a bitterly) concerned person – he is concerned with the need to achieve in the practical world (most of such achievement being reducible to consumption). At a collective level, worldly man is often deeply concerned with making some sort of a contribution to the great, collective enterprise and collective ideals of his society (for he definitely wishes to be remembered when he is gone).
But it is precisely because of such obsessive concerns that the western worldly man finds himself continually postponing his own fulfillment as an individual – his own individual self-enactment is continually being postponed for the future. And this is so, despite the limiting conditions and the mortality of his being. Oakeshott wishes to contrast the independent individual who is bent on accomplishing his self-enactment in his own presentness – and who is thus fully aware of his own mortality – to the type of the worldly man lost in the collectivity. With respect to the latter, Oakeshott’s position is presented as follows by Corey: “… the worldly man is concerned with getting and spending, with practical achievement in the world of affairs, and with “making a contribution” to some greater enterprise or field of study. His life is spent in the pursuit of immanent ideals. Fulfillment is postponed to the future, and he values himself and others solely on the basis of [worldly] accomplishment.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 26).
Again, we notice here how the western worldly man can mingle his practical pursuits in the world of affairs (and its market-place) with a predetermined adoration of quintessential abstract formulae expressive of certain so-called immanent social ideals. In both cases, he is obsessed with achievement and contribution – like the rest in his society, and as Nietzsche has observed, he is continually engaged in public cackling, having unlearnt the art of sitting quietly on his nest so that he may hatch his own private eggs. He must, like the rest, make his own contribution to the world – he cannot suffer the art of being the least known in his own self-creative wilderness.
Living his life within the dense, illusive fog of rationalist ideology – and it is illusive since it systematically obfuscates the fact of one’s mortality – the western worldly man has come to believe in the permanence of whatever it is that surrounds him. Given such steady but illusive sense of permanence, the western worldly man has also come to believe in the need for the progressive betterment of whatever it is that is supposed to permanently surround him. And since permanence calls for and allows for progress, the so-called progressive western worldly man has come to devote his life to an endless series of works in progress – it is therefore to projects that he devotes his life. He can and does devote near endless hours to the meticulous planning and the supposed fulfillment of such projects. Of course, all such rationalist-based projects are, by definition, projects that can only but project man’s life into the future. This is a supposed future of well-being and happiness that rarely materializes as planned or as imagined. And when there is a certain materialization of a particular plan, it often comes too late for the planners themselves – and so these planners love to think of their works as contributions meant to be appreciated by future generations. Nurtured within the ideology of rationalism, however, their descendants also live their lives in similar fashion. Corey summarizes Oakeshott’s critical position on the western worldly masses and their ideology of rationalist projection as follows: “To be worldly is to believe in the permanence of the things we see around us and to put our faith in progress and projects.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 30).
Western worldliness, although ultimately expressive of the raw survivalist (or animal) needs of the market-place, has attempted to sublimate these material needs into mass ideological ideals. And there have been numerous instances where people have even wished to sacrifice their own lives in the name of such ideals – the obvious implication is that they have come to see these ideals as something more real (or as even more permanent) than their own lives. The value of their own life comes to be measured in terms of their contribution to such ideals – and these ideals are always an expression of the so-called greater good.
One important form of western worldliness, therefore, has been to put one’s faith in ideals – and to thereby assume that one makes history or that one contributes to the making of history in this world. And when such faith in ideals and such faith in History (in itself and by itself) leads persons to self-sacrifice, one may say that this-worldliness is being taken to its most extreme forms. This, however, has truly been a major dimension of modern western history – and it is this that Nietzsche would come to call mass idol-adoration. For Oakeshott, this mode of life is both empty and futile – and for him, moreover, sacrificing one’s life for the so-called greater good is simply yet another (albeit more extreme) dimension of living one’s life in terms of the materialistic values of the market-place. Corey presents this Oakeshottian position – or, rather, this Oakeshottian philosophical disposition against the different versions of western worldliness – as follows: “Oakeshott … rejects the common view that the way to overcome worldliness is to put one’s faith in ideals. If worldliness consists in placing money, comfort, sensual pleasure, and progress before all else, so their argument goes, then self-sacrifice in the pursuit of some greater good must be its opposite, and therefore closer to religion … But this pursuit of ideals does not save us from worldliness, Oakeshott observes. Indeed, it only reinforces the mistaken view that life in this world is permanent and stable. Could any notion of life “be more empty and futile”, Oakeshott wonders, than the idea that the value of one’s life is measured by one’s contribution to “something thought more permanent than life itself – a race, a people, an art, a science or a profession?” Not only is this view no different than the worldly view, it is worldliness taken to an extreme.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 32).
The exceptional individual need organize his self outside of the mode of being of such western worldliness (whatever be its particular version) – and he even need organize his self beyond whatever feeling of guttural contempt for all forms of western worldliness. And yet, there can be a feeling of some sort of contempt for this mode of life, but only so long as such so-called contempt is at the same time buttressed by a supreme indifference – as has already been discussed above, this would be a certain superior form of contempt held from a distance. It has been noted that, even since the 1920’s, Oakeshott would himself express his “contempt … for the modern concern with worldly success and material gain.” (cf. Noël K. O’Sullivan, op. cit., p. 210). Nietzsche would of course have harboured similar feelings for the contemporary world that surrounded his own person. Ideally speaking, neither Nietzschean nor Oakeshottian contempt would have been such as to seriously affect individual disposition. It is to this absolutely crucial question of disposition – and to its internal organization within the independent world of the exceptional individual – that we shall now turn.
Mass ideology, we have argued, is necessarily expressive of a For and an Against; it is always expressive of a Yes and a No – and it is always thus with respect to an array of interrelated absolute truths that are all subsumed within one grand Truth. This is a mass need – it is a necessary need of the many-too-many. It can take the form of an openly fanatical mass need depending on circumstances (as in the case of the early 20th century communist movement) – if not openly fanatical, however, it can and does take the form of a latent but absolute conviction with respect to a list of socio-existential issues. None can question, for instance, the absolute historical necessity of the masses-as-masses in the world (as opposed to their superfluity), and above all none may question their natural equality. All of their famous wise ones persistently assert the natural wisdom of the masses – they may do so by adding a number of subtle caveats to the effectivity of such wisdom, but such mass wisdom is nonetheless presented with apparently profound metaphysical underpinnings. All and sundry within the masses are convinced of their own, trustworthy evaluation of the affairs of the world and of the great events of their history – their public opinion on affairs, issues and events is measured as an expression of simple factuality through continuous opinion polls, and it is governmental policy that is determined thereby. All and sundry, further, consider their particular role in the affairs of the world and in all greats events as the supremely determinant factor of things – it is the masses, as the Marxists would insist, that make and move history. None may question the notion of justice upheld by the many-too-many. None may question their sense of good and bad; their understanding of what is good and what is evil. And when such questions do happen to arise depending on conjunctural circumstances, various alternative ideologies – all of which are yet again expressive of current mass sentiment – are correspondingly articulated by the famous wise ones.
It is such a western social or collective paradigm that has come to constitute the world of mass ideology and its absolute truths – and it is precisely this that is to be counterposed to the individual disposition of the exceptional individualist. Oakeshott’s political position has often been dubbed conservative – and yet, and as we shall further see, one may argue that such a position did not at all constitute an alternative political ideology (alternative, say, to that of the Left). His position constituted a disposition – as a disposition, it belonged to him as an individual espousing the dispositional morality of individuation. Exactly as in the case of Nietzschean thinking, the Oakeshottian intellectual enterprise must be viewed as an enterprise beyond the world of this-worldly politics.
One may present this Nietzschean and Oakeshottian stance in a slightly different manner, although the matter would come down to the exact same thing. The world of this-worldly politics, being a Yes-No or a For-and-Against symptomatic of all mass ideology, is a world revolving around vengeance. Vengeance, however, cannot possibly characterize the disposition of the independent individual. As a self-rolling wheel, he can only but be absolutely independent of whatever emotion of vengefulness – by definition, that is, a self-rolling wheel cannot be disposed for or be disposed against whichever Other. And thus, and to the extent that the independent individual does maintain a certain political understanding of the world, such political understanding could not ever take the form of a support for a particular political camp and a concomitant vengeful contempt for some other political camp. The political stance of the independent individual would be a political disposition informing his own self and none other. He could, for instance, be disposed towards a certain sympathy for the libertarian social currents of his society struggling to escape the tentacles of an overarching Babelian state; or he could be disposed towards a certain sympathy for the conservative social currents of his society struggling to preserve traditional morality in the face of state-imposed mass ideology – in either case, the independent individual could not ever partake in the activities of mass mobilization for or against whatever social forces. Vengefulness would in any case debauch his independent disposition – the self-enacted will and the self-created identity of the individual would willy-nilly be dissolved within the collectivity and its collective idol-adoration. The independent individual could not therefore partake of the so-called great events of whichever many-too-many: these would kill his own, unique presentness.
It is above all this uniqueness of his presentness that the exceptional individual has to salvage for his own self – and to compromise the presentness of his disposition in the name of mass politics, mass ideology, and mass movements would amount to a loss of that dispositional presentness. And it is for this reason that the many-too-many – or what Nietzsche calls the petty people – may be considered to constitute a potential danger for the exceptional individual and his individual disposition. It is the politics and the ideology of these petty people that have come to dominate the western world through the democratic practices of the Babelian state – and it is this near-absolute ideological hegemony of mediocrity (this being viewed as a democratic virtue) that renders the many-too-many a possible danger to all higher men. And it renders them so to the extent that these higher men could find themselves compromising their own independence and superiority at the inviting altar of mass idol-adoration. Addressing the higher men, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra advises them as follows: “These masters of today – surpass them, O my brethren. These petty people: they are the Superman’s greatest danger!” (p. 277).
Zarathustra advises the exceptional individual that it is preferable for him to despair rather than to submit to whichever mass ideology – and it is only thus that he lives best. He lives best, that is, by cultivating his own, unique and independent disposition. And he thus lives best despite the possible pain of despair – for a refusal to submit to mass idol-adoration can always be painful and apparently untimely. Zarathustra here speaks as follows: “And rather despair than submit yourselves … For thus do ye live – best!” (ibid.).
Not to submit to mass ideology means to cultivate one’s very own taste. For Oakeshott in particular, such taste would take the form of a very distinct – and very personal – so-called conservatism. Here, conservatism would not at all be an expression of whatever form of mass idol-adoration for particular values and against other, anti-conservative or non-conservative, values. A taste is here neither for nor against something – it is a mere Yes to an individual disposition beyond all social ideology and beyond all ideological battles and the so-called great events that such battles have given birth to.
And thus, it may be said that whatever conservatism on the part of the exceptional individual would not constitute a political position as such – and it would not constitute a political position as it would be a personal taste outside all of ideology and outside all of ideological idol-adoration. Since such conservatism would not be a political stance in the conventional sense of the word, and since it would consciously stand outside all of social ideology, it would be an individual’s dispositional taste – and being so, it would be a particular expression of the morality of individuation.
But what does it really mean to say that a conservative disposition is merely an expression of one’s individual taste? The response to such a question is actually rather simple: it means that such personal taste would determine the particular manner in which the individual decides to live his own life (and cf. here Corey, YouTube, op. cit.). It would decide that and nothing more – on the other hand, such a decision would certainly come to permeate the whole mode of being of the individual. It would determine, in other words, the manner in which the individual would organize his own self vis-à-vis his own ego.
Further, and within the particular context of such willed self-organization, the Oakeshottian understanding of the conservative disposition would decide on how the individual lives his own life “by consulting inheritance” (cf. Corey, YouTube, ibid.). This, it should be emphasized, would be mere consultation – and by mere consultation, one would mean the process whereby the individual’s superior self would engage in a certain commerce with its own surface ego. The commerce between self and ego would be the consultation itself.
What exactly would be the content of such consultation between self and ego? And what type of content, in contrast, would be of no or little interest within such consultation? The consultation would not much entertain – or could even reject – whatever content relating to state-imposed ideology and the moral formulae expressive of such mass ideology. On the other hand, it would certainly entertain and interact with inherited conventions, these being precisely what Oakeshott has termed a society’s morality of habit of behaviour. And thus one may say that the inherited social conventions (or the morality of habit of behaviour) secreted within – and as experienced by – the surface ego of the individual would inform the supreme self of the individual, and would do so consultatively. The supreme self, which (and as has been argued above in our presentation of the Straussian interpretation of Nietzsche) constitutes the productive core of the individual, would work on – or rather play with – such inherited conventions for its own creative purposes. It could work creatively on such habit of behaviour given that it is exclusively such habit of behaviour that has remained free of state intervention and state-imposed idol-adoration – it is it, in other words, that has remained more or less independent of the rationalist formulae of what is good and what is bad in society. Of course, and as in Oakeshottian thinking, the Nietzschean intellectual enterprise would itself recognize this consultation between supreme self and surface ego with respect to age-old inherited values – as we have elsewhere noted, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra would be in continual consultation with the exceptionalist identities of bygone creative peoples and their civilizations.
Now, given that here conservatism takes the form of consultation within the individual (or within his own morality of supreme individualism), and that it does so for the single purpose of activating his own productive core, such conservatism is a disposition that could never take the form of any creed or doctrine. And it is therefore in this sense that the Oakeshottian understanding of conservatism cannot be reduced to a political ideology. In his presentation of “On Being Conservative”, Oakeshott explains as lucidly as possible what he means when he speaks of conservative conduct – this is how he puts it: “My theme [viz. that of conservative conduct] is not a creed or a doctrine, but a disposition. To be conservative is to be disposed to think and behave in certain manners … it is to be disposed to make certain kinds of choices.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 168).
That being so, the Oakeshottian understanding of conservatism may freely and openly speak for the nation-state, for patriotism, for national tradition, and so forth – and not ever thereby imply that such for expresses a support for a creed, a doctrine, or some sort of dogma. As we have seen above, and according to Edmund Neill (op. cit.), there is in Oakeshottian thinking a rather strong sense of the value of the nation-state, of the value of patriotism in general, and of the value of national tradition as opposed to global, so-called humanistic ideals. And yet, none of these values would – for Oakeshott – constitute a creed or set of formulae to be set up against other creeds and formulae at the level of politico-ideological struggles fought in so-called public spaces. These are, rather, purely personal values determining personal thinking, personal behaviour, and personal life-choices. And thus, when Oakeshott wishes to value the nation-state, he is basically wishing to relate to such type of state in its capacity as a neutral umpire with clearly delimited and constrained powers (and he knows full well that is only the nation-state itself that can be so delimited and constrained). He is fully aware that such state no longer exists: he is confronted by a state functioning as a huge enterprise association (and which would in due time come to function as a globally-based enterprise association) – and thus his disposition is to have as little as possible to do with whatever state. He respects the reality of the state, but quietly keeps his distance.
Likewise, when Oakeshottian thinking speaks of the value of patriotism, it does so as a mere appreciation of the aesthetic heritage that patriotism in general has come to symbolize. And since this is above all an appreciation of the aesthetic dimensions of patriotism, it translates into a very personal appreciation of such dimensions in the form of one’s individual taste and sensibility (and which therefore has absolutely nothing to do with whatever political creed).
And again likewise, when Oakeshottian thinking speaks of the value of national tradition, it does so as a personal appreciation of the age-old and popularly-rooted morality of habit of behaviour that one may yet still discover within the thinking and conduct of a people – and one may yet still discover such elements of traditional habit of behaviour despite the ravages of the modern state.
The Oakeshottian appreciation of the value of the nation-state, of patriotism, and of national tradition would constitute aesthetic data informing nothing else but the disposition of the independent individual – and this would mean that the independent individual would live his life by consulting inheritance. We have already alluded to the process of such consultation – i.e. the process whereby the aesthetic data of one’s national heritage, as experienced by the surface ego, would be offered by that ego to the individual’s supreme self as an incentive for internal deliberation. And such data would be so offered (in deliberation) for one and only single purpose – that of enacting the individual’s artistic creativity, or that of enabling the individual’s poetic image-making for his own self.
Specifically as regards the Oakeshottian understanding of patriotism, one may further state that it constitutes a basic component of the independent individual’s self-realization. Given that patriotism is symbolic of aesthetic heritage, it is an expression of aesthetics per se. As an expression of aesthetics, it is a manifestation of the individual’s emotional taste; it is also a manifestation of the individual’s intellectual taste. But since aesthetics is itself the very definition of morality, the independent individual’s appreciation of the value of patriotism is an appreciation of a people’s morality of habit of behaviour. And thus, the independent individual’s emotional and intellectual taste for patriotism constitutes an important element of his own version of morality. This would imply that, for him, patriotism is in fact one of the important elements constituting the very basis of his own morality. Both as an aesthetic force and as a moral force (and both of which in any case come down to the exact same thing), the patriotic disposition can function as a catalyst that may activate the productive core of the creative self. By activating the productive core of the individual, that individual achieves his own self-realization – this is therefore the virtue of patriotism. Oakeshott would more or less be suggesting such an understanding of patriotism in his 1925 essay entitled “Some Remarks on the Nature and Meaning of Sociality”. Therein, he would write as follows: “Patriotism is the basis of all morality, in short, is the greatest emotion and intellectual effort of which we are capable.” (cf. Noël K. O’Sullivan, op. cit., p. 210). Being the greatest emotional and intellectual effort of any individual, Oakeshott would thereby assert that the virtue of the patriotic disposition informs that individual’s own “self-realization” (ibid.).
Here, in any case, patriotism can in no way be understood as a political ideology – and it is perhaps Oakeshott’s particular understanding of the patriotic disposition that most clearly elucidates the Oakeshottian dethronement of politics as a matter of primary importance in the life of a person. Placing aesthetic disposition in command, Oakeshottian thinking dethrones the moment of politics once and for all – and in so doing, such thinking confirms the Nietzschean critique of the state, of state ideology, and of the idol-adoration of the western masses.
We shall need to delve a little bit further into such a revolutionary dethronement of politics – and this is all too revolutionary as it announces the alternative enthronement of both the morality of individuality and of the aesthetic disposition of such morality. It would be such enthronement that would reorganize the self of the individual, it being a reorganization of the relation between self and surface ego.
Primarily in the course of the decades of the 1960’s and 1970’s, westerners – and especially western youth – had been taught to believe that everything is political. Politics – so students were told by highly articulate university professors of various radical persuasions – was just too important to be left to politicians. Oakeshott would himself not deny the importance of the political moment in the life of an individual or in that of a community – but he would be absolutely against the notion that all dimensions of human existence are of a political nature. Such an understanding of life would be an exceedingly narrow understanding of life. Challenging the conventional wisdom that everything in life is political, Oakeshott would argue that what is of much greater importance in life is to preserve and – above all by so preserving – to actually enjoy the best of things already existing around us (cf., for instance, Corey, YouTube, op. cit.). This would mean that the individual would allow himself to both critically consult all of his cultural inheritance, and at the same time to appreciate such inheritance in a personally creative manner. Of course, the art of appreciating and creatively interacting with one’s cultural inheritance is not something that everyone can do – such capability and such will belongs to the (naturally entitled) few. And it is for this reason that the vast majority of a populace (those many-too-many) finds it easier to comfortably lose itself in the ideologies of mass politics. The youth of those many-too-many – in their supposedly educated resentment of what they perceive to be the status quo – devote their fledgling intellectuality to political activism. And thus they assume that everything is political – such an assumption, however, is an assumption expressive of a resentful mediocrity lost in the idol-adorations of various collectivities and sub-collectivities.
For Oakeshott, politics as an activity needs to be strictly delimited and checked in terms of its impact on a person’s life. Above, in our discussion of the politics of faith as opposed to the politics of civil association, we have already noted how Oakeshott would envisage such delimitation and check on politics as a human activity. Political activity, he would argue, is not something to be pursued at all times; and it is not something to be pursued in all places. One might add here that, even were one to assume that politics is present at all times and in all places, the independent individual owes it to his own treasured independence to will his indifference towards such dismal ubiquity – such ubiquity can be (and is) a reality for the amorphous masses, not for his own self-created world. On the other hand, since Oakeshott would be realistic enough to recognize the possible consequences of state or governmental policy with respect to the life of a person (and especially so in the case of the Babelian-type enterprise association), he would go on to qualify his position by adding that political activity would need to be exercised on certain specified occasions – this, however, would be a mere burden on the individual. The duties of such burden would have to be executed as quickly as possible and then expunged completely from the terrain of the self. Yet still, we are all nonetheless fully aware of how certain intellectuals in the history of western literature would make use of their painful experiences in the world of everydayness to inform their own art – consider, for instance, the deeply esoteric work of Rainer Maria Rilke, and how such work would attempt to investigate the relationship between the “essential artist” and the “modern world around him” (cf. Ranjit Rodrigues, “Why Did They Write? Rainer Maria Rilke and George Orwell”, Academia.edu, October 9, 2014, p. 3).
The central Oakeshottian point here is that the concern of the independent individual should not ever be to wish to change the world (and cf. Corey, YouTube, op. cit.). Since, for instance, the patriotic disposition is not a creed, a dogma, or an ideology, such a disposition cannot take the form of an activism bent on changing the world in terms of its own so-called vision. Given that the Oakeshottian understanding of conservatism constitutes a personal taste determining (in part) the individual’s mode of life, such conservatism cannot ever be a matter of engagement with the political ideologies and ideological struggles of society and the world that such society stands for. Of course, this Oakeshottian anti-activist stance interlocks perfectly well with the Nietzschean admonition that the exceptional individual should always stay away from the market-places of the world – therein, we are reminded, it is nothing other than the ideological noise of the great actors and the ideological buzzing of the poison-flies that has come to prevail.
For Oakeshott, civic sentiment – in the very specific sense of individual taste and individual sensibility – should have nothing to do with political activism. The latter constitutes an oversimplification of life itself – and, as such, whatever form of political activism is mere mental vulgarity. Highlighting “Oakeshott’s dismissive view of politics”, Noël K. O’Sullivan goes on to write as follows: “Despite his [Oakeshott’s] praise of patriotism …, he wrote in “The Claims of Politics” (1939) that “political action involves mental vulgarity,” not least because of “the false simplification of life implied in even the best of its purposes” … Although in his late work he valued civic sentiment highly, political activity itself he always regarded with suspicion.” (cf. Noël K. O’Sullivan, op. cit., pp. 212-213).
It is for this reason, therefore, that all forms of politico-ideological resistance – whatever be the alleged high intentions of such resistance – are a manifestation of the vulgar in human thought and conduct. The unrefined or even profane in human thought and conduct cannot possibly be expressive of whichever higher man – to the extent that vulgarity is a reality of human life, it is a reality that most often flourishes amongst the many-too-many and their representatives (and as is all too often the case in the party politics of the western democratic world). And thus, when the exceptional individual finds it necessary (for his own purposes) to have to resist rationalist ideology, he would have to do so within the exceptionalist realm of his own disposition – it would take the form of a dispositional resistance to all rationalist-based morality and the politics of such morality (and being merely dispositional, it could even manifest itself as a personal choice based on one’s self-defined virtue of prejudice). Were such resistance to go beyond the realm of disposition, it would willy-nilly take the form of an ideological resistance. And in that case, the very mode of thinking of the exceptional individual would be a component part – or a so-called organic part – of the ideological sentiments of the many-too-many. It would be a mode of thinking, in other words, that would be as vulgar as that of all idol-adoration.
Now, we well know that, in the history of the western world, there have been numerous cases of exceptional individuals – or exceptional intellectuals – who have found themselves compromising with the mental vulgarity of their age (or compromising with the vulgarity of politics itself). On the one hand, such compromise has constituted their own personal tragedy (and which could take the extreme form of ultimately taking one’s life, as in the case of Stephan Zweig). On the other hand, their compromise may be understood in terms of the exceptional circumstances that had come to surround them – one such exceptional circumstance would be to witness the utter destruction of all the historical and traditional values that one has come to appreciate in one’s life (again as in the case of Zweig).
Circumstantial necessity in the present-day western world has often led exceptional intellectuals to actively engage with the affairs of the world. Any one western society allegedly under siege – or that generally feels itself encircled by what it perceives to be alien cultural forces – could give birth to political movements of a nationalist conservative orientation (this term being expressive of the thinking of Yoram Hazony, the well-known Israeli-American philosopher). Such a society would feel that its own cultural inheritance – that very morality of habit of behaviour defining its own historical identity – is under serious threat. And one may observe that many exceptional intellectuals belonging to such a society would find it necessary – and find it so despite their valued independence as individuals – to participate intellectually in such political movements. They would choose to fuse their libertarian individualism with a collective consciousness of nationalist conservatism (a state of affairs somewhat reminiscent of American 1960’s fusionism, as has been discussed above). Such intellectuals would thereby find themselves having to compromise with the vulgarity of politics. Their very intellectual enterprises – whatever the actual merit of their work, and which is certainly of the highest merit in the case of Hazony – would necessarily be expressive of an entanglement with political ideology, as with the mental vulgarities of all ideological battles. Constituting an entanglement with the so-called great ideological events of the world, the very thought and conduct of such intellectuals could only but seriously undermine their independence as self-rolling wheels (certainly in the Nietzschean sense of this term; though also in the Oakeshottian anti-political sense).
Exceptional intellectuals – or exceptional individuals – that opt to respond to the historical needs of their people may nonetheless survive the consequences of social and ideological entanglement. And they may salvage their independence as self-rolling wheels by intervening in the historical affairs of their people from a safe distance. But it should here also be noted that exceptional intellectuals have more often than not exercised a positive influence on their own people – or predisposed their people towards a particular cultural ethos – in ways that, in the last instance, have been neither deliberate as such nor consciously planned as such on their part.
In direct contrast, those types of exceptional intellectuals who come to devote their lives exclusively to organizing or reorganizing their (besieged) society ideologically – by making their own contribution to that society – do so at the expense of organizing their own selves existentially. Such would be their personal tragedy. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, whatever be the meaningful mode of life for each individual, it would be a mode of life that lies well outside the realm of the market-place and its flies (irrespective of the particular circumstantial needs of the latter). For both, personal tragedy means losing your own self within the swarm of all such flies.
The Oakeshottian position on politics, political struggles, and the battles of political ideology may best be summarized as a position of quietism – and it is a quietism based on a skepticism regarding all things political. It is perhaps Ojel L. Rodriguez Burgos who best encapsulates the political skepticism and the political quietism of the Oakeshottian position – he writes as follows: “Oakeshott’s writings encourage skepticism about human political knowledge, and they repeatedly stress the limitations of what can be achieved in political activity. This approach to conservatism is challenging for many modern conservatives, due to its quietism and the difficulty in formulating a political programme that follows from its acceptance.” (cf. Ojel L. Rodriguez Burgos, op. cit., p. 64).
Oakeshott’s quietism is of course deeply reminiscent of the type of disposition clearly articulated and consciously selected as his own by Nietzsche’s Zarathustra – it is the disposition that is naturally expressive of the exceptional individual, whatever be the circumstances that circumscribe him. The Oakeshottian-type quietism is a position aimed at salvaging the independent individual from what Nietzsche calls the inventors of new noise; or from the noise of the great actors; or from all populace noise and all market-place cackling. Being a quietist position, further, Oakeshottian so-called conservative thinking cannot possibly yield whatever political programme. Formulating whatever programme, in fact, would mean establishing particular formulae for political action – that, however, would immediately smack of the rationalist mode of thinking, which would be self-defeatist for Oakeshottian thinking.
Of course, modern-day western conservatism – and especially that of the New Right variety that has sprouted in the 21st century given its own circumstantial necessities – can only but constitute a political movement. And being a mass political movement, it is characterized by its own mass idol-adoration and its own inevitable false simplifications and mental vulgarities. Oakeshottian quietist thinking, however, is beyond all collectivist movements and the activism that goes with these. Such quietist conservatism is an individualist disposition outside the politics – and the political noise – of whichever western market-place. This is a quintessential Nietzschean-type disposition – it being the mode of self-organization of the exceptional individual. It naturally goes without saying that whatever exclusive focus on the self-organization of personal disposition cannot sit well with political activism and the collectivist mode of thinking that such activism presupposes.
Self-organization is a question of self-selected taste – and taste is a question of a self-selected manner of living one’s life. Oakeshott perhaps best expresses such a position when he considers the question of education. Adopting an obviously anti-rationalist position with respect to all forms of educational practice, Oakeshott argues that true education is not a matter of instilling rules, laws, and formulae in the mind of the learner – doing so would simply amount to ideological indoctrination, or to the imposition of a particular ideological paradigm onto unsuspecting victims. Educational practices should rather be such as to allow the learner to discover and nurture his own manner of life; his own manner of enquiry; and his own personal style (cf. Corey, YouTube, op. cit.). For those learners who shall be capable of ultimately discovering and nurturing their own personal style in life, these would ultimately come to nurture their personal taste as individual and independent self-creators.
The implication is that, for Oakeshott, education should not be a matter of preparing learners to live their future lives as passive supporters of – or as active participants in – ideological movements or collectivities for so-called social justice. Educational practices should not aim at instilling in learners dogmatic formulae of justice – such practices should not, in other words, engender a politics of faith. And we know that all politics of faith is such as to steer educated youth towards supporting the so-called virtues of social justice as a matter of an acutely personal mission (and whereby they lose their person within the mission). Often enough, moreover, the more capable amongst them go on to support the virtues of social justice via an appropriate political or quasi-political career.
The Oakeshottian understanding of education would object to whatever notion that learners should above all be prepared for whatever professional career, be it a career in politics or via some form of political activism (through their participation, for instance, in present-day so-called non-governmental organizations). For Oakeshott, in any case, the primary purpose of education should have little or even nothing to do with the training of learners in the pursuance of a future career – careerism in itself kills the presentness of the independent individual. Above all, education ought to prepare the individual for the cultivation of his personal sensibility.
What does it mean to organize one’s own self around a self-selected personal sensibility? One would have to first of all emphasize that personal sensibility is what Corey (op. cit., p. 128) describes as “a positive alternative” to all types of “servile morality” – such positive alternative Corey further designates as a “liberal morality”, it being a morality of individual freedom beyond the dictates of all rationalist morality (and it is liberalistic in the sense of the libertarian individualist dimension of the conservative disposition).
Now, the personal sensibility of a non-servile morality would mean that the individual’s self does not ever adhere to or obey whatever rules imposed on the individual by the state and the moral dictates of idol-adoration as practiced by the many-too-many. It would mean that the individual’s self does not adhere to any ideology – the individual’s one and only loyalty is to his own self. And it would mean that the individual’s self does not postpone any of its own satisfactions for the future (such postponement being symptomatic of all ideologies).
The self-organization around – and the cultivation of – a personal sensibility, Corey explains, would mean to strive “to live fully in the present” (ibid.). And she continues as follows: “Such morality is learned through observation and action, not by internalizing a set of intellectual principles that are then “applied” to conduct. This kind of morality is natural, creative, and habitual. At its highest reaches, it may also be called aesthetic.” (ibid.).
In what sense is the morality of personal sensibility natural, creative, and (even) habitual? It is natural as it is of the body itself. It is creative as it emanates from the self, it being the productive core of the individual. And it can even be habitual as it borrows consultatively from a people’s morality of habit of behaviour. For the highest man, however, it is above all an aesthetic self-enactment. Being aesthetic, it is a supreme moral disposition.
At its most unexacting and rudimentary level, personal sensibility means satisfying the real needs and desires of the autonomous individual. As such, it adopts a position of quiet indifference towards all abstract ideals and all socially constructed systems of ideology. All versions of abstract ideology and the particular ideologies of various collectivities can only but remain alien and unnatural to the personal sensibility of the concrete, independent individual. We know that such a stance has most brilliantly been presented to us by Henry James’s The Bostonians, where the real needs and desires of the conservative-minded Basil Ransom are set in a revealing juxtaposition to the grandiose pomposity of a supercilious feminism as practiced by a particular female collectivity (and cf., especially, chapter xxxviii of the novel).
In the case of the exceptional individual, such real needs and desires take the form of a higher individualistic aesthetic creativity. We shall here need to delve a little bit deeper into the intricacies of such aesthetic morality and its aesthetic taste. Such morality and such taste would have much wider implications with respect to the self-organization of thought and conduct on the part of the exceptional individual – and these too, we intend to consider in some greater detail.
In his discussion of the sublime ones, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra tells us that all of life revolves around just one basic issue – and that issue is nothing other than that of aesthetic taste. The question of taste has always remained a disputed question in the life of human beings – and it is always the particular manner in which such dispute is settled that has determined the differentiation between the higher man and all the rest. Zarathustra speaks as follows: “And ye tell me, friends, that there is to be no dispute about taste and tasting? But all life is a dispute about taste and tasting! … Taste: that is weight at the same time, and scales and weigher; and alas, for every living thing that would live without dispute about weight and scales and weigher!” (p. 114).
But then Nietzsche’s Zarathustra shall go on to utter a thought that shall sound absolutely outrageous to all the rest – taste, he shall tell us, is neither good nor bad in terms of the truths of society. What truly matters is that taste be absolutely and exclusively expressive of the exceptional individual – and none other. And absolutely so. This is what he declares to the world: “Neither a good nor a bad taste, but my taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.” (p. 190). That is precisely how the exceptional individual settles his own dispute around the question of taste, aesthetics, and the morality of such aesthetic taste. Such internal settlement, however, must necessarily involve a series of self-consultative procedures that shall have to be further illuminated below – and we shall obviously have to investigate such self-consultative procedures since the vital question remains as to exactly how the exceptional individual does finally come to decide on his own particular taste.
Zarathustra’s radical position on self-taste may be restated in a slightly different manner – and by so restating it the real implications of such a position shall be further highlighted. Taste, it is said, determines the individual – and it is a particular type of taste that determines the exceptional individual. This determinant is the latter’s unique taste – being unique and accountable to no one, it is a prejudiced taste. It is a unique and prejudiced taste that can never be reduced to a replica or to a reflection (or even a mediated reflection) of the social values and the social ideals of the many-too-many. This constitutes a uniqueness and a prejudice that organizes the aesthetically reproductive self of the exceptional individual, and it does so outside all of the rest in the world that surrounds that individual. As an organizational mechanism of the individual, taste can be neither good nor bad vis-à-vis the set values of society – and such values can be either of the state-imposed ideological type, or they can be of the type belonging to a traditional morality of habit of behaviour, or they can even be a combination of these. For the exceptional individual, aesthetic taste is just, just because it is the self-organizing mechanism of his own individuality. That is his one and only virtue – and none ought to share it, or mimic it (as monkeys would).
As in the case of Nietzschean thought, so too would Oakeshott insist that life is a question of taste – for him too, aesthetics is the sine qua non of life. Immersed as he was in the tradition of Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater, he would (as did Roger Scruton later on) think of life in primarily aesthetic terms. Aesthetics and individual taste – it is this dimension of life that, for Oakeshott, truly matters (and cf. Corey, YouTube, op. cit.).
Corey considers Oakeshott’s appreciation of poetry (and the aesthetic moment in general) as the one and only mode of authentic being for the free individual as his most significant contribution to his critique of rationalism – and it is this treatment of life in the spirit of art that allows Oakeshottian thinking to present us with an alternative understanding of the individual’s fee self-organization in the world. She writes as follows: “To treat life in the spirit of art and to pursue activities in which human conduct may best display its “poetic character” is to reject the Rationalist conception of life …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 121).
Free self-organization in the spirit of art is conducive to an aesthetic (or liberal) morality – and such morality is the direct opposite to servile (or Babelian-type) morality. Aesthetic morality is such as to activate the individual as a self-rolling wheel, wherein life is creativity as an end in itself. In contrast, servile morality is a mode of life wherein creativity itself is servile to Babelian idol-adoration. Aesthetic morality creates for the mere sake of creating – it is an essentially non-purposive activity. Servile morality, on the other hand, is such as to be chained to past shame and past secrecy; and it is such as to be chained to the chimerical needs of whatever future utopia. With respect to the non-purposive character of aesthetic morality and its practices, Corey writes as follows: “… poetry (by which Oakeshott means all kinds of artistic activity, as well as contemplation) takes on a radically nonpurposive character in which it may be enjoyed entirely as an end in itself, with no thought for past or future … some such conception of experience also informs Oakeshott’s views on morality … It is what I term “liberal” or “aesthetic” morality, as opposed to the “servile” morality that Oakeshott criticizes.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 18).
Now, when the exceptional individual willfully selects to organize his individuality around a morality informed by the aesthetic, non-purposive moment, he at the same time willfully selects to organize his individuality around a very personal – and therefore an absolutely exclusive – sense of justice. This understanding of justice resonates perfectly well with the Nietzschean position on justice. We may here remind ourselves of how Nietzsche’s Zarathustra expresses himself on the matter: it is the Superman, he says, that he has at heart – “that is”, he continues, “the first and only thing to me – and not man; not the neighbour, not the poorest, not the sorriest …” (p. 277). It is not even “the best” (ibid.) amongst the many-too-many that is of any concern to Zarathustra. The aesthetic, non-purposive moment of the exceptional individual does not care for whatever notion of social justice; and it cannot even care for whatever notion of human justice, or for a justice-centered humanism. The aesthetic, non-purposive moment of the exceptional individual cares only for its own self-justice. And it is for this reason that Nietzsche writes of “So much justice and pity, so much weakness.” (p. 165).
By rejecting the imposition of the ideology of social justice (and even that of a justice-centered humanism, for this, too, is an ideology) – the exceptional individual can only recognize his own concept of justice vis-à-vis himself and others. Such sense of self-justice emanates from the aesthetic workings of the self-cum-body as supreme ruler of the individual. It therefore emanates from the individual as a private disposition – one’s sense of justice is thus merely a question of private taste.
Justice as private disposition and private taste would determine (or, rather, organize) the thought and conduct of the individual – such sense of justice constitutes a conscious movement away from all social ideologies of social or human justice towards the justice of the sovereign individual. Such an understanding of justice, however, would not in whatever manner threaten the freedom of others – and it could not threaten the freedom of others as it would be based on a disposition of aristocratic indifference towards the many-too-many. We have already discussed how the exceptional individual is exceptional only unto himself, and therefore tolerant of the non-exceptionality of others.
The aesthetic moment of the exceptional individual, as also the sense of sovereign self-justice of that individual, are both dimensions of the morality of individuality. But the morality of individuality is an expression of the individual will. And the individual will is an expression of one’s self-determination. We shall here need to further investigate the notion of individual will, as also the notion of self-determination.
Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott are, in the last instance, concerned with the lived experience of the individual in society – and they are concerned with such actual lived experience of concrete persons because they wish to emphasize the vital importance of the will of the individual and his self-determination within the society that circumscribes him.
And it is for this very reason that Oakeshott would undertake a critique of the conventional political theories articulated by most of his contemporaries. Most such theories, he would argue, are not grounded upon the concrete experience of concrete individuals – most such theories are based on abstract ideological categories that are deliberately forgetful of both individual experience and of individual will (cf. StJohnsPipeCasts, op. cit). If one truly wishes to understand western society, Oakeshott would argue, one would have to avoid the ideal as much as that be possible, and one would have to avoid all abstractions – attempting to understand the world in terms of ideal types and in terms of abstract constructions drives one’s understanding of life in the real world outside the realities of individual experience (cf. StJohnsPipeCasts, ibid.). But it is precisely therein – viz. within that realm of individual experience – that one may identify the workings of the will, as also the workings of the absence of the will. It is precisely therein that one may witness the self-willed and self-determined individual, but as also the willed, servile morality, of the person (as willed, that is, by state-imposed ideology). And it is only once one has identified such forms of experience within individual experience that one can then go on to identify either exceptional individuality or the loss of all individuality within the many-too-many (the latter being, not an abstract sociological category, but a concrete manifestation of the loss of the morality of individuality).
If we are to at all understand so-called politics, we would have to understand such politics in the context of individual practice (and cf. StJohnsPipeCasts). And to do so, one would first have to delimit the practice of the moment of politics in its operation as structures and practices, and move from such structures and practices on to the individual as an entity expressive of a particular mode of being. For the many-too-many, of course, it is the ideology imbuing such structures and practices of the political moment that animates both body and mind (in their own respective practices). For the exceptional individual, in contrast, the delimitation of politics means placing the will in command. Here, practice is individual practice, and it is the practice of the individual will; the practice of the individual will is the practice of the individual’s disposition and taste; it is therefore the practice of the individual’s aesthetics; and it is therefore also the practice of the individual’s virtue – it is, in other words, the practice of the individual’s own world as centered around the self-body axis.
Individual will is here the mechanism of individual self-organization. At least as regards the exceptional individual, this presupposes the operation of a free will. What is free will? We know that western philosophy (as also western theology) has much tormented itself since time immemorial with this particular question – and surely rightly so. And yet, it seems to have addressed such question of free will always in keeping with the all-consuming social ideology of political correctness whereby all and sundry have an equal and fair access to the possibility – or the relative impossibility – of free will. The problem of free will, in other words, is dealt with in a general, abstract manner based on the assumption that all are either capable of acting according to their free will or are victims of the absence of such free will, or find themselves falling somewhere in-between such two extreme situations. What western philosophy has rarely done is to address the matter in terms of the concrete individual – some individuals are simply more free than others to identify, to inform, and to exercise their own free will. Such an individual capacity can depend on a variety of factors – above all, however, it depends on the level of intelligence of the particular individual (and we know how much of a taboo issue it is for political correctness to even raise the question of an unequal distribution of intelligence amongst human beings). Free will, it may be argued, depends on the intelligence of the individual – and intelligence is one mark of the exceptional individual. Oakeshott himself does not much beat about the bush in his attempt to explain the practice of free will – he offers us a simple and lucid explanation of such human capacity, it being an explanation that cannot escape the matter of intelligence. For him, free will is responding to one’s situation and constructing one’s own situation via one’s intelligent engagement. The implication is that free will is exercised when the individual operates in a consciously intelligent manner beyond mere animal instincts – human will, in other words, is human intelligence. Corey presents the Oakeshottian position on free will as follows: “A person may be said to have a free will, according to Oakeshott, “because his response to his situation, like his situation itself, is the outcome of an intelligent engagement.” Without an intelligence that can recognize alternatives of better or worse, more and less desirable, actions must be determined simply by organic urges and animal instincts. Human “will” is thus equivalent to human intelligence.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 40).
When Oakeshott designates the will as “intelligence in doing” (ibid.), he immediately recognizes the possibility of human freedom (and therefore the possibility for self-organization and self-determination) – and this is naturally of vital importance both for the Nietzschean and the Oakeshottian intellectual enterprises. But the designation of the will as intelligence in doing may also be said to imply a rejection of deterministic explanations of human behaviour in general. It is this Oakeshottian rejection of deterministic explanations of human behaviour that allows Corey to point to at least one dimension of the striking parallels between the thinking of Oakeshott and that of Augustine. On this, she writes as follows: “There are other striking parallels between Oakeshott and Augustine. Coats [i.e. Wendell John Coats Jr., whose work has explored Oakeshott’s thinking in relation to his contemporaries] highlights both writers’ preoccupation with human freedom, pointing out that both argue against deterministic explanations of human behaviour.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 28).
Of course, it is definitely beyond all doubt – and as we have seen elsewhere in this paper – that Oakeshottian thinking had been deeply influenced by Augustinianism. On the other hand, and despite the Augustinian influences in Oakeshottian thinking, one may nonetheless point out that the literal implications of the Oakeshottian concept of intelligence in doing can introduce a major qualification to the anti-deterministic explanation of all of human conduct. It surely goes without saying that since human freedom is based on human intelligence, and since human intelligence is not at all evenly distributed, human freedom is itself not evenly distributed. There are therefore those who do possess the necessary intelligence to respond to and to reconstruct situations in accordance with their own individual free will. And there are also those who simply allow themselves to be determined by others. One sees that, in the case of the latter, the deterministic explanation of human behaviour does apply – and it can apply when whatever intelligence in doing is reduced to the mass mediocrity of the many-too-many (or when reduced to crowd psychology, as Gustave Le Bon would put it in his 1895 study of the popular mind).
Self-organization and self-determination is an entitlement based, inter alia, on intelligence (and especially that type of independent intelligence that stands outside the psychology of the crowd). And it is only the Nietzschean higher man who is so entitled – for it is only he who is capable of re-imagining his life in terms of his own aesthetic creativity. In his On Human Conduct, Oakeshott would himself refer to that type of individual who simply has the nerve to live his life as a “self-employed adventurer of unpredictable fancy” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 21).
Now, there is a sense in which the question of self-organization and self-determination can be somewhat paradoxical. It may be argued that that type of person who does not wish to be an adventurer of unpredictable fancy – and who thereby simply wishes to have his life be determined and protected by others – has actually chosen to live that mode of life. His self-determination, in other words, is such as to be other-determined (and by other we mean the ideological operations of the state and the idol-adoration of the masses). But, here again, this would be a choice based on the absence of an intelligent will – it would be a choice expressive of a blind submission to the animal instincts of mere survival (or of a survival in the mass consumerist culture of the modern western world). Here, we would not have a choice based on the independent intelligence of the free individual – it would be a choice blindly expressive of the impulses and instincts of the collectivity. One may therefore speak here of a crowd intelligence in doing, and which Nietzsche has referred to as the plebeian ignorance of the rabble.
On the basis of such a clarification, we may therefore say that we have here two types of choices that help describe the mode of being of any individual person – and it is this clash between these two radically different types of choices that has come to define the history of western civilization: we have here either a choice that is dependent on this-worldly activity and the state that organizes such activity, or a choice based on absolute self-determination (and where statal politics would merely be a second order activity). This either/or distinction is clearly evident throughout much of the thinking of Oakeshott – Corey presents this truly radical differentiation between self-determination and other-determination as follows: “One can either put one’s hopes in worldly activity, viewing human activity and government as ways of achieving fulfillment, or one can reject the idea that government or, for that matter, any kind of human achievement can ever offer the fulfillment desired. Oakeshott’s own opinion on the matter is clearly expressed in a verse from Samuel Johnson that he quotes in an early notebook on Plato’s Republic: How small, of all that human hearts endure, / The part which laws or kings can cause or cure … Politics is a distinctly second-order activity for Oakeshott, though this is not to say that it is unimportant. A properly ordered politics is a necessary prerequisite for the kind of fulfillment that can only be achieved outside the political realm.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 22).
The Oakeshottian reference to cause or cure should here be noted – and it should be noted since it bears directly on the question of determinism. For those who put their hopes in this-worldly activity and in the state and/or government, their wished-for fulfillment depends on external forces. By being dependent on such external forces, the lives of such people are caused and presumably cured by such forces, these forces being primarily the state and the collectivity collecting around that state. In such case, one may say, laws do deterministically cause (and attempt to cure) that which the collective human heart endures. Even internal contradictions within state structures, and whatever attendant extra-statal practices, are themselves, in the last instance, more or less overdetermined in some way or another. The collective human heart – as a mass entity – allows itself to be moved in accordance with the laws of the market-place. Being so moved, its hoped-for self-fulfillment continuously awaits for the dawn of its own little utopias – that is its protective illusion. This may be contrasted to the intelligence in doing of the independent individual – this is such as to remain supremely indifferent to the worldly affairs caused by all of this-worldly law. And by maintaining this supreme indifference, it is in no need of whatever cure emanating from that law. The political moment is peripheralized – self-fulfillment is outside the realm of the political. The very concept of human achievement in the world of the market-place (an ideological concept) is redefined by the self-determined individual. The very concept of hope (also an ideological concept pointing to the future) is absolutely rejected – presentness takes its place. And thus all of human need is redefined – remember Nietzsche’s “O thou, my Will! Thou change of every need …” (p. 208). Such self-defined need is neither caused nor cured by state law – the latter is just too small to cover either of the two, these being what the independent individual has selected to endure.
The independent individual is responsible for who he is and who he becomes. And it may also be said that the dependent individual is himself responsible for who he is and what he becomes. The former is and cultivates his own self; the latter is what he is as cultivated by external causes and cures. Keeping in mind the ineluctable divergence in the levels of human will and intelligence – and how some hope for their self-fulfillment via the collectivity (the anti-individualists) while others proudly abide by their own morality of individuality – Oakeshott often wishes to celebrate the self-determined being. This would constitute the more optimistic dimension of his thinking with respect to the western world (though he could often be all too terribly pessimistic in much of his work). With an emphasis on the celebratory approach to the question of human self-determination, Corey wishes to present the more optimistic side of Oakeshott – and so she writes as follows: “Oakeshott … argues throughout his corpus that each person is responsible for who he becomes. Each of us is “wholly responsible for his own experience; each makes his own choices and conducts his own life on the basis of judgments he makes by reflecting on his own experience of the world.” Oakeshott believed that human beings are unavoidably self-determined and that there is no single pattern of conduct to be imposed upon them.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 29).
To the extent that the individual retains his individuality, there can of course be no single pattern of conduct that can be imposed on him either by the state or by the collectivist truths of the many-too-many. The populace, of course, is itself responsible for its own collective choices and collective truths – but such choices and truths, being collective, do constitute a more or less single (or more or less uniform) pattern of conduct. All uniform patterns of thought and conduct can only but remain alien to him who conserves his own individuality.
The individual that conserves his individuality does so because he delights in his own self, and he does so because he delights in the life such self experiences. Since he delights in his own self and its experiences, he demarcates the limits of the state and government vis-à-vis himself. He sees the whole of the political moment as an essentially inferior activity of the second order – this, and as has already been expounded on, is the specifically Oakeshottian understanding of the so-called conservative disposition towards whatever political. The type of individual who adopts such a disposition does so because he wishes to salvage as much room as possible for his own personal delight. Oakeshott himself describes the disposition of the so-called conservative individualist as follows: “Indeed, a disposition to be conservative in respect of government would seem to be pre-eminently appropriate to men who have something to do and something to think about on their own account, who have a skill to practice or an intellectual fortune to make, to people whose passions do not need to be inflamed, whose desires do not need to be provoked and whose dreams of a better world need no prompting. Such people know the value of a rule which imposes orderliness without directing enterprise, a rule which concentrates duty so that room is left for delight.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 194).
The individual who delights in his own self as a self-rolling wheel is also that type of individual who delights in life as such – he has that sense, as Roger Scruton would put it, that the world per se is lovable. He delights in his own free choice, and he delights in his own moral creativity. The latter is a test of the level of individual intelligence – it is also that which comes to form one’s character. As Corey puts it: “… the formation of character through intelligent choice is a kind of moral creativity.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 40).
To delight in a life that is lovable is to delight in that free space that one forges for one’s self so as to indulge in the play of one’s moral-cum-aesthetic creativity – that is the room that one salvages for one’s own self, it being a room outside state and populace. What exactly is it that thrives within such room? That which thrives is none other than the focused genius of the exceptional individual. What does such genius focus on? What is it interested in? In his 1939 essay entitled “The Claims of Politics”, Oakeshott contrasts all of political activity or all of political activism to the work of “those whose genius and interest lie in the fields of literature, art, and philosophy.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 107). What is presupposed here is that the individual, not only salvages a room for his own delight, but also possesses the genius to know what to do within that room – this, of course, is the well-known free for what question tabled by Nietzsche himself. The Oakeshottian position expressive of the self-determining adventurers of unpredictable fancy further presupposes that such adventurers are well versed in the fields of literature, art, and philosophy. For such type of individual, whatever form of political activity can only but be a boring and simplistic mental vulgarity. One may of course reason as a political theorist, but one may reason in such manner precisely so as to understand why politics is a killer of literature, art, and philosophy qua activities that inform the self-determination of the individual.
And so it goes without saying that Oakeshott’s apparent celebration of the self-determined being comes with its highly significant caveats – and the basic underlying caveat is that of the human reality of inequality. Oakeshott argues for a clear-cut distinction between, on the one hand, the poet, the artist, and the philosopher, and, on the other, those who belong to the ordinary folk. These are two different categories of people – like Nietzsche (but certainly more so), Oakeshott is courteously respectful of most such ordinary folk. And while Nietzsche, as already noted above, simply declares that he is not unfriendly to the hens and is courteous towards them, Oakeshott places all of his hopes (with respect to western civilization) in the morality of habit of behaviour as carried by the ordinary folk.
This clear-cut distinction between the exceptional individual and the ordinary people is definitely evident throughout the Oakeshottian enterprise – for one, his distinction between the state as an enterprise association and the state as a civil association points to the distinction between the many-too-many dependent on the protection of the state and those individualist alien sojourners who are in little need of whatever state. But such distinction between the exceptional individual and the populace as ordinary folk is perhaps most lucidly articulated in his essay, “The Claims of Politics”. Corey informs us as that this particular essay “marks the beginning of Oakeshott’s move toward separating out the poet and artist as persons who, like the philosopher, are somehow different from ordinary folk. At the very least, he has begun to question the appropriateness of placing the poet and artist unambiguously within practice [viz. within the practice of everydayness and its materialist survivalism].” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 108).
The Oakeshottian distinction between the poet/artist and the rest of the ordinary folk in society is of course reminiscent of the Nietzschean distinction between the Overman and the many-too-many. This Oakeshottian qualitative differentiation between types of persons and the corresponding Nietzschean discrimination between the Overman and the rest – both pointing to the archetypal fact of human inequality – may be compared and contrasted in a near-endless variety of ways. But the basic differentiation or discrimination is in any case common to both thinkers – being common, one needs to come up with some shared understanding of what it is that makes one exceptional as a person and what it is that does not.
It seems quite impossible, however, to come up with some serious definition of the type of individual who stands out from the ordinary folk and who qualifies as exceptional. Whatever attempt at such a definition would amount to an abstract formula – and, as we know, all formulae simplify the rich complexities of life. It is at any rate life itself that determines the exceptional in its own mysterious ways, whoever and whatever that may be.
But very generally speaking, one could make a number of rough observations regarding individual exceptionality. We may identify at least three general categories of the exceptional individual as these have appeared in the history of the western world.
The first clear category is that of the Nietzschean Übermensch – viz. he who lives absolutely beyond the expectations of the other; who adopts a self-determining mode of life beyond whatever be the ensuing consequences (and which could be tragic); and who is in no need of whatever social recognition. It is difficult to point to concrete examples of such types of persons – one may think of cases which satisfy some of the suggested criteria, though rarely all of these criteria and all at the same time. It may be someone absolutely devoted to his own artistic, intellectual or creative enterprise irrespective of the truths, fashions and expectations of those around him – one may here tentatively speak of someone truly outstanding in the history of the western world, such as the polymath Leonardo da Vinci. Or it may even be someone completely unknown to the world but who is nonetheless extraordinarily self-willed in his own terrain of life, such as Hemingway’s old fisherman, Santiago.
The second clear category would include all those types of individuals who are absolutely devoted to both their personal freedom and their own creative enterprise while nonetheless – and right at the same time – being fully cognizant of the superiority of others (of those others, that is, belonging to the first category). This second category of the exceptional type of person would be willing to sincerely admire and celebrate the superiority of others – he would not be dismayed by such superiority (or by the implicit inequality). This type of person would display (and do so unto himself) a humility towards the superior, but which would be a humility absolutely devoid of whatever humiliation. One may perhaps rather tentatively refer here to the brilliant theoretical physicist (and as brilliant a teacher) Leonard Susskind, and his humble – though not ever humbling – admiration of the thinking of Richard Feynman.
The third category would be more profuse in terms of numbers – it would include the Oakeshottian-type cives bent on self-determination outside the protective embrace of the state as enterprise association.
All three categories – and despite their hierarchical discrimination in terms of quality of will and intellect – would be expressive of the Oakeshottian self-employed, purposeless adventurer. All would be characterized by that non-deterministic unpredictable fancy of self-creativity.
It is Corey who best sketches this Oakeshottian understanding of the diverse variety of the exceptional individual, or of that exceptional group of individuals within a society that steers clear of forming a uniform collectivity. In a passage that is truly worth contemplating in all its rich details, and which is based on Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct, she writes as follows: “The characters who appear on this stage [viz. the player’s stage of life itself] are, however, infinitely diverse. Though they share the disposition to enjoy freedom, they are not all masterful egoists in the image of Aristotle’s magnanimous man or Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Some, of course, may be of this type, “careless of the concerns of others” and disdaining “consequences or recognition” in their self-assured courses. But others embrace their freedom even as they display an “undismayed acknowledgement and admiration of the superiority of others” and a “humility devoid of humiliation.” All these lovers of freedom, however, share the disposition to “prefer the road to the inn, ambulatory conversation to deliberation about means for achieving ends, the rules of the road to direction about how to reach a destination.” … This, then, is the character of the cives who engage in civil association … They have learned to enjoy the “purposelessness” that may be intentionally cultivated even in a world that prioritizes enterprise and achievement.” (cf. Corey, ibid., pp. 184-185).
The exceptionally superior Übermensch, as also the freedom-loving exceptional individual who cherishes his humility in celebrating the superiority of others, as also the freedom-loving cive who does not need to be directed by others in reaching his own destination – all these constitute types of individuals that are absolutely independent of the ideological dictates of modern western mass civilization while at the same time being children of that civilization. And it is this type of modern mass civilization that celebrates mediocrity and stigmatizes exceptionality – and does so all in the name of the ideology of equality. Above, we have noted – following Noël K. O’Sullivan – how Oakeshott would share with Nietzsche a contempt (if that be the appropriate term) for the mediocrity of modern mass civilization. And we have also noted how Oakeshott would share with Nietzsche this critical need to distinguish – or even discriminate – between the morality of the independent individual and the collective morality of the anti-individual. The latter, we further noted, does not wish to make any life-choices for himself; he harbours feelings rather than coherent thoughts; he is motivated by mass-based impulses rather than independently arrived at personal options; he is characterized by personal inabilities rather than personal passions.
And so, whatever understanding of self-determination would have to be based on this need to separate the poet/artist/philosopher from all ordinary folk. It would, however, also have to be based on the need to distinguish – within the very ranks of that ordinary folk – the individualist from the anti-individualist. The latter is emblematic of the mediocrity of modern mass civilization – the former lives both within that civilization and outside of it.
The fact that the individualist also lives outside of his own civilization requires of us to briefly reconsider the status of the independent self versus the all-inclusive Babelian-type state. One may say that the relationship between the individualist and the state is both simple and complex. The self-determined individual who organizes his own self and its disposition vis-à-vis an all-inclusive state is faced by the simple hostility of both state and its populace. And yet, it may also be argued that the exceptionally superior individual (he, at least, if not also those of relatively humbler intellectual capabilities) could ultimately have a long-term impact on society, and could do so in terms of the inauguration of new values within that society. This is the complex dimension of the relationship between the exceptional individual and the society he lives in. It is a complex dimension because the new impact on values may be completely unintentional, indirect, and even absolutely distortive of the original thought of the exceptional individual (but, then, such problematic type of impact may not necessarily apply – it would all depend on the conjunctural circumstances of the day, as it would also depend on which section of the populace actually receives the impact).
How may we here reconsider the interface between the independent self and the state? On the one hand, we know that the independent self is expressive of a private disposition – and we also know that the state (as an enterprise association) wishes to crush whatever private disposition by systematically displacing it with the imposition of collective moral values, a potpourri of collective aesthetic dogmas, and a variety of collective political ideologies. And so it is that the independently disposed individual does not love whatever relates to politics, political discourses, and political practices (and cf. Corey, YouTube, op. cit.). One may here observe that, while the many-too-many may have a love-hate relationship with the state and government, they all do love to talk of politics, political parties, and the on-going political affairs of the day. We have also noted, however, that the self-determined individual has himself no choice but to recognize the relative importance of politics, given the attempted all-inclusive role of the modern western state as an enterprise association and its incursion into the private life of the individual.
Oakeshott has described the befitting interface between the self-determined individual and the state/government in very lucid terms – wishing to define “the appropriate attitude to a government”, he tells us that such an attitude is “not love or devotion or affection”. It should, rather, be “loyalty …, respect and some suspicion.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 192). One’s attitude ought to be loyal and respectful to the extent that the state/government functions as neutral umpire preserving social peace amongst citizens – but one should also maintain a certain suspicion as the state/government comes to assume functions outside the strict limits of a civil association.
Now, it is absolutely important to emphasize that the Oakeshottian understanding of the interface between the self-determined individual and the state is, in fact, a deeply radical position. In what exact sense is such position radical? One may say that the self-determining individual, while maintaining a conservative – and at the same time a deeply a-political – disposition with respect to the state and all forms of government, it is also a potentially extreme disposition with respect to any other form of human activity. Such potential extremism with respect to all of possible human activity (but well outside of the political moment) is none other than the Nietzschean radicalism of the independent self-rolling wheel.
Oakeshott is clearly and consciously emphatic with respect to the radicalism expressive of the self-determined individual – he writes as follows: “it is not at all inconsistent to be conservative in respect of government and radical in respect of almost every other activity.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 195).
This revolutionary disposition with respect to every (or almost any) other human activity outside the realm of the state and outside the realm of ideological idol-adoration could yield a free and open experimentation around questions pertaining to the possible advent of new values (moral, social), and it could yield a free and open experimentation around questions pertaining to the possible advent of new aesthetic sensibilities. What we are saying is that the creative work of the exceptionally superior individual can have, in the course of history and in the last unintentional instance, a potential impact on the moral and/or aesthetic values of the society to which that individual belongs (or on the civilization as a whole of which he is its child).
Such unintentional instances of western history wherein society (or sections of that society) has received the impact of the creative work of the exceptionally superior individual have of course occurred, and they have not been infrequent. But here the question is this: how may the exceptionally superior individual ultimately have a certain impact on the values of society? Or: how might the exceptionally superior individual ultimately have had such impact despite belonging to the Nietzschean understanding of that category of Übermensch that is said to be the least known? Such types of questions are of special interest for our purpose here – and they are of special interest as they obviously do touch on the matter of the self-organization of the individual. Would the independent, self-creative enterprise of the exceptional individual be in any way compromised when the fruits of his creativity happen to be received by society itself? Would such reception have some kind of impact on his own life and work?
To begin with, when we speak of new values or new aesthetic sensibilities we mean values and sensibilities that consult the inheritance and the artistic canons of time-past. This would mean that such new values and aesthetic sensibilities have absolutely nothing to do with the ideological noise produced by the state and its famous wise ones. Nietzsche would himself draw a sharp distinction between what he would consider to constitute new values as such and what he would call new noise. The latter is an invention of organic intellectuals usually responding to so-called great events; new values as such are expressive of the creative enterprise of individuals belonging to the category of the Übermensch.
Unlike mass ideological noise, new values neither reflect nor respond to the so-called great events of the day – they can germinate, hibernate and silently circulate in the stillest hours of a particular civilization. In our case, what concerns us here are those stillest hours of western civilization. And these new values can gradually come to the surface of the civilization in ways that are inaudible and imperceptible, and well outside the noise of both state and the many-too-many. In his highly critical discussion of great events, Nietzsche writes as follows: “And believe me, friend Hollaballoo! The greatest events – are not our noisiest, but our stillest hours … Not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of new values, doth the world revolve; inaudibly it revolveth.” (p. 129).
Nietzsche wishes to insist that new values – creations of the exceptional individual – can germinate, hibernate, silently circulate, and ultimately have an important impact on the world, and do so even to the extent that that world comes to revolve around these particular values. While Nietzsche therefore clearly recognizes the possible impact of the creators of new values on a particular society, the quality and configuration of such impact remains an open – a historically open – question. So does the very specific manner in which such impact actually happens.
Very much like Nietzsche, Oakeshott himself recognizes the potential impact of the poet, the artist and/or the philosopher on a particular society. Corey notes that, for Oakeshott, “those who “create and recreate” the values of society are … designated as the poet, the artist, and the philosopher.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 107). The important – albeit somewhat elusive – implication here is that it is not at all the politicians that are the creators and re-creators of the values of society. With respect to this apparently delimiting role of the politicians (and their politics) on the values of a society, Corey further explains the Oakeshottian position as follows: “As Oakeshott observes in a 1939 essay entitled “The Claims of Politics”, although the achievements of politics are significant [viz. as a necessary activity to lessen the consequences of human conflict], they are by no means “the most valuable things in the communal life of a society.” The “real” life of a society inheres in the activity of artists and poets and of all those who “create and recreate the values of their society” …” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 180).
One might therefore say that, like Nietzsche, Oakeshott does not see the politicians (and their famous wise ones) as those who have the deepest impact – in the last historical and unintentional instance – on the life of a society. While the impact of the state (and its ideological state apparatuses) remains all-inclusive in its intentional functionality, such impact is nonetheless essentially ephemeral and ultimately constrained by the bounds of conjunctural contingencies. And the impact of state ideology is ephemeral since it is incapable of establishing a deeply-rooted and long-lasting morality of habit of behaviour.
But now, and having said this, one also needs to reiterate a number of highly important provisos with respect to social value-creation – these provisos must naturally refer us back to whatever we have already reflected on as regards the functions of the modern western, and especially Babelian-type, state (either as presented to us by Nietzsche in his Thus Spake Zarathustra, or as presented to us by Oakeshott’s analysis of the western state as enterprise association). One cannot but observe that the Babelian-type state has been able to produce mass ideological paradigms that have no (or little) need for whatever forms of a traditional morality of habit of behaviour – and when that type of state does make use of such morality, it does so by manipulating its content to serve its own purposes (remember Nietzsche’s presentation of the state as a thief of the values of time-past). By destroying, displacing, or distorting such types of traditional moralities, the state’s organic intellectuals are able to establish new ideological spaces that function as substitutes for these moralities – and therein they are able to invent grand ideological narratives that mould generations upon generations of western citizens who come to gradually forget (or even consciously look down on) whatever self-determined moralities of habit of behaviour had once signified their own identities as a people. The point is that such grand narratives of grand ideological noise cannot easily be taken to be merely ephemeral. Within such circumstances, little or minimal space would be left for the creators of new values outside state apparatuses (outside institutions such as universities or, say, the press) to have any serious moral or aesthetic impact on society. And to such constricting circumstances as regards the social role of independent intellectuals, one should also add a pinch – and what a pinch indeed – of Heideggerian pessimism. We refer here to the rise and the all too grossly ostentatious role of the global subject within the politico-economic structures of the western world (and of course well beyond that by now). Such global subject, it is said, “is now free to impose its techno-think and techno-do on everything there is and to dictate the terms to which significance (being) must conform.” (cf. Thomas Sheehan, “Heidegger’s Being and Time – Paraphrased and Annotated”, Academia.edu, 2025, p. xxiii).
Based on such observations, one must draw the conclusion that politicians (and the famous wise ones of the state and its apparatuses) do or can have a deep and lasting impact on modern-day western society (and that, despite the at times problematic Nietzschean presentation of the Superman as the type of exceptional individual that shall ultimately salvage humanity from the state; and that, despite the at times elusive presentation of the political moment in the Oakeshottian intellectual enterprise).
And thus, one needs to reconsider the relationship between the state, the various types of creators of values, and the many-too-many. For Nietzsche – as also for Oakeshott – we surmise that there are at least two different types of creators, and the differentiation between these is quite clear-cut. There are, on the one hand, the famous wise ones – these are the servants of the state and of the populace itself. Their impact on society may be ephemeral, conjunctural or contingent on particular needs, depending on as particular historical circumstances. Or their impact can be deep and long-lasting, again depending on very particular historical circumstances. Either way, they are the servants of a superfluous populace – and being mere servants of a superfluous mass of people, their status as authentic creators can be rather dubious. They may in fact merely reflect the needs and fashions of the day, but can do so in an especially articulate manner. On the other hand, there are the exceptional individuals – the Oakeshottian poets, artists, and philosophers – who are not of their society and its market-place. These can be the least known or the most misunderstood (and who are more often than not deliberately misinterpreted). Their work often does have an untimely impact on society – but its reception may be mediated and distorted by a variety of extraneous social forces; or it may more deeply and even directly impact on certain sections and/or individuals of a particular western society. For these types of creative or self-creative intellectuals who refuse to operate as anyone’s servants, the question of self-organization – the particular forms it takes – is obviously of absolutely central importance.
The mesh of relationships between the state, these two basic types of creators as discussed above, and the many-too-many, can take a number of forms – the consideration of all such relationships is of vital interest as it can again bear heavily on the question of the self-organization of the independent creator. A serious analysis of these various types of relationships is well beyond our purposes. Very schematically, however, one may simply point to three different forms of relationships particularly applying to the independent creator within his own society. All three forms are what we may call discordant relationships – the content of these relationships is nonetheless quite dissimilar.
Firstly, the independent creator of values – the morally and aesthetically self-rolling individual – is in a discordant relationship with the state and the political moment in general. He wishes to live and think well beyond the boundaries of all aspects of the political – politics simply bore him with their insufferable vulgarity.
Secondly, the independent creator of values is in a discordant relationship with the many-too-many as a whole. He is nonetheless courteous but supremely indifferent towards them and their slavish-like plight.
And thirdly, the independent, self-rolling creator is in a discordant relationship with the creators of social values operating as servants of both the state and the many-too-many. He may at times converse with them, albeit selectively, obliquely, and always from a safe distance. He steers clear of all theoretical controversies and the polemics of the mass media – he has absolutely nothing to do with those who vomit their bile and call it a newspaper (as Nietzsche notes).
But we need notice here the term converse – it refers to that specifically Oakeshottian concept of conversation, and as that has been articulated in his studies of what he calls “the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 197). For Oakeshott, western civilization – or, more accurately, particular historical dimensions of that civilization – has been (or has also been) the product of the voice of poetry, art, and the aesthetic moment. And it has been that as well despite the emergence of the state and its famous wise ones. To put it slightly otherwise, the aesthetic moment has itself constituted a mode of being in the conversation – that long and internally contradictory conversation – of the western world. And there have been different forms that such conversation has taken.
We may here refer to some of these different forms of conversation within the history of western civilization – for instance:
- There has been conversation amongst the various Overmen of the western world – either contemporaneously or across historical time;
- There has been conversation between the various Overmen and sections of the western peoples (and especially those sections of a people that have maintained a proud distance from state-imposed idol-adoration);
- There has been conversation as an expression of pluralist individualism (and which has yielded conversation even between various Overmen and various intellectuals operating as servants of the state and its populace);
- There has been conversation within the very selves of a range of exceptional individuals, such as those who preserve the absolute freedom of their own conversing selves but are nonetheless cognizant of the superiority of others (maintaining a humility devoid of humiliation).
But now the pertinent question that need be posed is this: how does the free individual engaging in such types of conversation actually organize his own self? To be able to answer such a question, we shall need to consider the site from which the exceptional individual conducts whatever conversation, and consider what it is that he does within that site. Such type of conversation as a mode of being emanates from a creator who is free from the world – the creator preserves his own free zone outside the market-places of society. This would mean that the creator does not ever create within the practical realm of life. And he does not therefore produce whatever form of practical knowledge. He does not wish to participate in whatever conversation based on a creativity that is intentionally meant to yield some form of knowledge that is practically interventionist. The creativity of the exceptional individual is never meant to solve whatever practical problems of society, or solve whatever practical problems of some section or group of that society. The creativity of the exceptional individual is essentially purposeless – its only purpose is artistic creativity for the sake of that creativity. And it is this purposeless mode of creativity that informs whatever engagement in conversation. Here, the independent creator has escaped from the conduct of a particular mode of western life – he has escaped from the conduct of the survivalist market-place and its ever-raging ideologies. Corey presents this Oakeshottian understanding of the independent creator and his potential role in society as follows: “The philosopher, however, as we recall from [Oakeshott’s] Experience and Its Modes, is someone whose activity cannot ever be called practical. Philosophy, after all, is an attempt “to escape from the conduct of life” and to “throw off the responsibility of living.” Therefore, to associate the poet with the philosopher, as Oakeshott does here, would seem to signal that he has begun to question whether the poet ought to be classified unambiguously within practice. Indeed, he observes that the poet, artist, and philosopher must be free from the world in order to make their most profound contributions.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., pp. 107-108).
Truly profound contributions are consummated when the creator has been able to move away from the mundane noise of ideology (which is always related to practical intentions – or related to what the Marxists have pompously referred to as praxis). By so withdrawing, he is able to endow his own self – but perhaps also some of those around him – with new aesthetic and moral values. But to move away from the mundane and its noise, one has to operate beyond all sense of responsibility with respect to the exigencies of life. The self-rolling creator is thus both purposeless and irresponsible.
Being purposeless and irresponsible, the self-rolling creator is naturally beyond all social posturing – but, most importantly, he does not intend to present his person and mode of life as some kind of noble example for others to follow; he does not care to inspire others (we know that he wishes to be left alone, even to the point of being the least known). And thus (and despite whatever contributions he might ultimately make to society), the self-rolling creator does not ever aim at having whatever impact on society or on whichever individuals within that society. He follows his own movements, not those of society.
Posturing as a noble example, wishing to inspire, or aiming at some sort of impact on the world outside of his own free zone or site – all such intentions would imply an intervention in the practical (and therefore also ideological) realm of life. But that is precisely that realm of life that the self-rolling creator consciously wishes to eschew. He does not care to in any way either protect or change the customs and habits of the populace (these in any case may undergo their own evolution in time without any external intervention); and he does not aim at in some way re-orienting the prevailing ideals of the many-too-many. The self-rolling creator is not what Marxists call an organic intellectual – he cannot operate as the servant of the state, or of the populace. His work cannot ever be reduced to a reflection of whichever so-called movements of that populace. He is his own movement – as is his very life, such movement is absolutely unique. He does not replicate, and he is not replicated.
In what sense, then, may one say that the poet, the artist, or the philosopher can make a profound contribution to society? In what sense can he create and re-create the values of a society (when and if he does so)? Corey presents the Oakeshottian approach to this issue by writing as follows: “On the one hand, this [potentially profound contribution] might be read as a kind of encouragement for the poet, artist, and philosopher to make noble examples of themselves or to “inspire” other members of their society by their work. Such a reading would imply that the activities of the poet, artist, and philosopher are in some sense practical, in that they aim to make an impact on other members of their society – perhaps changing customs or reorienting ideals.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 108).
Such a reading of the Oakeshottian position, Corey explains, would obviously constitute an absolute misreading of what Oakeshott wishes to say of the creator. For the independent, self-rolling creator, there is just one thing that he need do, and that is to remain true to his own genius – and that is one basic reason why he need be removed from practice. And thus the question of remaining true to one’s genius is simply non-negotiable. But precisely by remaining true to his own genius, the independent creator may – in the last, lonely, and unintentional instance of a society – have a certain impact on that society. Such an impact could take a number of forms – but there are at least two ways in which society may be positively impacted. Firstly, it would for the first time become aware of its own ignorance – the myth of the many-too-many as a historical agency would have to be mitigated, checked or assuaged. But secondly, society (or perhaps just some section of that society) would for the first time see itself as something other than a mere political entity. Its mode of being would acquire an authentic status informed by a historical identity outside of politics, outside of the state, and outside of all collectivist ideological idol-adoration. Corey herself more or less continues along this line of thought in her interpretation of the Oakeshottian position – she writes as follows: “But Oakeshott sees both the poet and the philosopher as engaged in another kind of activity that, if it is not altogether removed from practice, does not wholly take place there either. The task of artists, poets, and philosophers is to “remain true to their genius, which is to mitigate a little their society’s ignorance of itself.” Through their activity, society “becomes conscious and critical of itself, of its whole self,” and not just of itself as a political entity. Thus the activity of poets, artists, and philosophers takes place in a more profound sphere of consciousness.” (cf. Corey, ibid.).
Exactly how the exceptional individual may have an impact on his society is extremely difficult to delineate – and it is extremely difficult to do so because whatever general theoretical formulae regarding the role of such intellectuals in society would fall short of the stated theoretical objectives. Since the exceptional individual is by definition unique, his work is unique – and thus his alleged contribution to society is also unique. But, then, so also would be his manner of contribution (and which would itself be determined by the needs of conjunctural circumstances). But here just one thing is absolutely clear – whatever contribution on the part of the exceptional individual to society would not be a contribution that would happen through whatever form of political activity. Again, it would be a matter of remaining true to one’s genius – and therefore also true to one’s self and work – that would enable such contribution to materialize somewhat positively at a social level. To put it slightly otherwise, one may simply say that all the exceptional individual need do is remain active in his own very particular sphere of creativity – and society may or may not receive the fruits of such creativity depending on the needs of its historical milieu. Corey expresses such an Oakeshottian position on the role of the exceptional individual as follows: “… they [the poet, artist, and philosopher] create and re-create the values of their society. But exactly how do they do this? It is certainly not through political activity, but instead by “remaining true to their genius” and being active in their particular spheres.” (cf. Corey, ibid.).
At a general, fairly abstract level, one may now go on to observe that independent poetic creativity, independent artistic creativity, and independent philosophical creativity all possess the capacity – at some stage in time and in some way or another – to actually inform the practical realm of life (such informing of the practical would be their contribution to the practical from a distance). It may in contrast be said that the practical – strictly in itself and by itself – cannot inform poetry, the arts, or philosophy. And it cannot do so given, inter alia, its disunited and amorphous nature. Yet still, we should here immediately add (and based on what we have already discussed above regarding the ego-self interface) that the practical realm – such as, say, a traditional morality of habit of behaviour – can inform poetic, artistic and philosophical creativity via what we have called the ego-self consultative function. That seems to be the exclusive manner in which the practical can be of value to the independent creator – it can be of informative value as raw material or as mere fodder for his work. But the realm of the practical can offer no meaningful direction (or whatever form of evaluation) to the work of the independent creator – in itself and by itself, it has nothing to say. It is only made to speak when the independent creator begins forging values around the raw material of the practical. Here, we need remind ourselves of what Nietzsche has to say as regards the world of the practical: the practical, he asserts, is not thinkable in itself, it is something to be made thinkable via the creative process of the valuing of things around us. (p. 111).
The natural implication of all this is that the practical in itself and by itself cannot inform the morality of the creator – it is only the creative realm that can do this. Corey presents this Oakeshottian position as follows: “poetry”, she writes, “appears as the ideal of activity” for the independent creator. And she explains this by pointing out that “[Poetry] may inform morality as a model, but it should be clear that morality [in its capacity as moral conduct in the real world of everyday life] (as a less unified experience) can have nothing relevant to say to poetry …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 120).
One final observation to make at this point is that the impact of aesthetic values on moral conduct (and as such values would be articulated by the exceptional individual) can in no way be compared to the impact of dogmatic values on moral conduct (and as such values are articulated by the moral rationalist). The respective impact on the social morality of a society would be radically divergent. Our examination of rationalist ideology as opposed to the morality of habit of behaviour (cf. above) allowed us to elucidate on such a divergence in as accurate a manner as that be possible (based primarily on Oakeshottian thinking). We may now restate this divergence keeping in mind our present discussion regarding the possible impact of the exceptional individual on a society. On the one hand, the impact of dogmatic values on the moral conduct of a person would be such that that person would model himself mechanically on dogmatic formulae and ideals (those of the state and those of a slavishly emasculated many-too-many). On the other hand, the impact of aesthetic values (as articulated by an Übermensch) on the moral conduct of a people would be such that that people would model itself on the poetry of these aesthetic values – and the manner in which it would so fashion itself would itself be poetically and/or freely expressive. This latter case naturally appears to be a rather idealistic impossibility in the real world – often enough, however, the exceptionally superior few can have an impact on particular groupings of individuals within a society, and given particular historical periods (remember the Hobbesian reference to the lions of a society; or yet still to Nietzsche’s own reference to the laughing lions of a society). These particular groupings of individuals model themselves on the aesthetic values of exceptional individuals in a manner that does not violate their own individuality within a community. Or they ultimately turn out to be aesthetic models of their own selves within the life of that community (both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would identify such historical instances within the course of western civilization – most such instances, however, would refer to ancient peoples, or at least to peoples of a Proustian-type time-past).
Now, when the work of an exceptional individual does have a certain impact on society, that individual risks an entanglement with the affairs of the world – and that would certainly constitute his most dangerous moment as an independent creator. We know that, above all, the self-rolling individual needs to experience a mode of being that is well beyond the illusion of all public affairs. To be able to maintain a consistent awareness of such illusion, he would need to activate his self-organizational will to self-power at full throttle. We shall here have to examine in some more detail the precise relationship between the Übermensch (and related categories of exceptional individuals) and the matter of public affairs.
Nietzsche’s position regarding public affairs is well known and has been much discussed throughout this paper – but what precisely is Oakeshott’s own position? For Oakeshott, it is the moral rationalist (or the Babelian-type of citizen) who is immersed in and becomes obsessive with public affairs – or, rather, with the illusion of public affairs. He thereby suffers a loss of self within such illusion. In contrast, the independent individual organizes his being in such manner that he stands over and above the illusion – and he thereby attains an understanding of his own self. This self-understanding operates as a footing for self-cultivation (cf., as well, the Nietzschean-type steps or stages towards self-consummation as discussed above).
For the moral rationalist or the Babelian-type, and as Corey explains, “the illusion of affairs” acts as “a substitute for self-understanding” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 128). It is as if the moral rationalist makes use of public affairs so as to forget his own person. The same would apply to those vast masses of people who are themselves immersed in and obsess over public affairs – they wish to forget the poverty of their own so-called individuality. Both the organic intellectuals of the state and the many-too-many thus indulge in a certain self-deception.
We may unpack this notion of self-deception by making the following observations. One may begin by making the simple observation that life in itself is empty. And it remains empty unless it is somehow filled in. Some fill it in through the genius of creativity. Others – most – simply try to cover up the emptiness (this covering up being precisely the self-deception). How do they try to cover up this emptiness? There are very many ways in which this is done – but there is one generic, collective, or rather usual manner which may here best be described by considering it in its most extreme form. People try to cover up the emptiness of life by devoting themselves to a singleness of purpose. Such singleness of purpose can range from the obsession to accumulate wealth, or to attain fame, or to change the so-called political system. With respect to the latter case, consider – for instance – the singleness of purpose as expressed by someone as banal as Sergey Nechayev, or as expressed by someone as brilliant a political strategist as was Vladimir Lenin.
Many of those devoted to a singleness of purpose invest all of their energies in such singleness – this means, however, that they actually reduce all of life to such singleness. By so reducing all of life, they avoid life itself. And by avoiding life itself, they come to avoid their own selves.
One may describe this human condition in a more general manner by observing that those engaged in self-deception wish to achieve in the world of illusion – and so they devote their lives to achievement in the absence of any understanding. Their singleness of purpose is part and parcel of the illusion of affairs – the pursuit of whatever ideal (materialistic or ideological) is immersed in an illusion of affairs without the joy (and the necessary pain) of self-understanding.
Corey summarizes this characteristically Oakeshottian position on worldly achievement – and the self-deception that such type of achievement entails – as follows: “This is the familiar “illusion of affairs” to which Oakeshott returns many times as he considers the human condition. People are constantly inclined to ignore or avoid the episodic nature of human life [in the sense of its contingent, irregular, or sporadic attributes], believing that the “greatness of an agent’s devotion to his aims and … his singleness of purpose” suffice to cover up the emptiness of achievement without understanding. But investing all one’s energies in the pursuit of an ideal is, according to Oakeshott, one of the most serious mistakes a human being can make. Human beings are not simply the sum of their achievements, and no amount of worldly achievement can make up for a lack of self-understanding.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 133).
Specifically as regards the sphere of western political ideology, this devotion to a singleness of purpose translates – or has often translated – into a devotion to a common purpose. The ideological notion of a single purpose becomes a purpose for all in society – and the implication here is that the self-delusional mutates into a collective illusion. The collective illusion is aptly encapsulated in the term comradeship (and which is a term more or less akin to Nietzsche’s neighbourliness). Comradeship points to common purpose; common purpose points to a regimented community; and a regimented community is a collectivity of people enclosed within a formulated communal identity. This particular form of imposed communal identity, however, means that there is a loss of distinct identities (this being a loss which stifles the inventiveness of civil conversation). The loss of distinct identities within the collectivity means a loss of identity for the concrete individual – and this leads to a decline in the moral character of the members of that collectivity.
It is this ideological notion of a political singleness of purpose – yielding the collective illusion of comradeship within the illusion of affairs – which ultimately gives birth to what Oakeshott has identified as the Babelian-type of person discussed above (viz. the comradeship of Babelians in the building of their Tower of Babel). But a society that has come to stifle the inventiveness of distinct identities is a society wherein its members lose themselves in the collective identity of their Babelian state. They lose themselves, in other words, in an illusion of public affairs which the exceptional individual himself has no choice but to deny – he determines to remain absolutely free of whatever entanglement with such illusion.
It is precisely this critical understanding of self-deception in the illusion of political or public affairs that allows Oakeshott to develop this potent metaphor of The Tower of Babel. Corey writes as follows on Oakeshott’s very specific critique of all Babelians and their so-called comradeship: “… there is a great sense of comradeship among those who are involved in building the tower. There is much talk of common purpose and of “community”. Babel thus acquires a communal identity instead of the distinct individualities that its citizens formerly possessed. It is quite clear that Oakeshott perceives the loss of identity as a precipitous decline in the moral character of the Babelians. It is always a corrupting enterprise to force all citizens into a single overarching project, and the consequence of this enterprise is to kill the diversity from which civil conversation springs. The story [it being this metaphor of Oakeshott’s Tower of Babel] is a fictional illustration of the emptiness of life oriented only toward achievement.” (cf. Corey, ibid.).
It is incumbent upon the exceptional individual to preserve his own distinct individuality. He thus selects to organize his own self outside the Babelian-type state and outside the Babelian-type many-too-many. He selects, in other words, a mode of being that denies the tyranny of the western market-place (and not merely in its specifically economic dimension), and is in personal denial of the manner in which such public space has developed in the modern and postmodern eras. This means to say that he denies the tyranny of the practical terrain – viz. the tyrannical issue of practical survival as the dominant life-question, and especially the issue of practical achievement in the world. The exceptional individual denies the tyranny of the illusion of public-practical affairs. He thereby also denies the tyranny of all future ideals, and has thus nothing to do with politics and all political movements. He therefore stands above the politically-motivated utilitarian common good as a future ideal (he does not necessarily, however, dwell much on whatever denial – he would rather dwell on his own affirmative self-enactment and independent creativity).
Oakeshott shall himself have much to say as regards the tyranny of practice – for him, the Babelian-type world is an example of the practical-utilitarian mode of life taken to its most extreme form. Babelians, he would argue, cannot ever escape the tyranny of the small passions of practice – the implication here being that, by now, it is only a few (or perhaps the few) that can actually effect such an existentially-motivated escape within the western world. Corey summarizes this Oakeshottian pessimism by writing that “The Babelians are … a dramatic illustration of the practical life taken to its furthest extreme … The Babelians can never escape the tyranny of practice.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 134).
All this, and yet again, brings us back to the Oakeshottian – but as also Nietzschean – quiet detachment from politics and the mental vulgarity of political activism. The exceptional individual’s quietist withdrawal from the tyranny of practice is also a withdrawal from the false oversimplifications of all political ideologies. And thus the independent individual does not care to intervene in the illusion of affairs that constantly bombard western societies. He does not therefore care to organize ideas and concomitant human conduct within such illusion of affairs, or within the context of the so-called great events of the day.
For the Übermensch – as also for the various types of exceptional individuals somehow approximating the qualities of such an Übermensch – life itself is infinitely more plentiful than all of the ideological eschatologies or theoretical nuggets put together. The self-created world of the independent individual is infinitely more complex and so much richer than the world of the regimented and replicated many-too-many. Organizing the self and its disposition, therefore, takes priority above all else and is quietly placed in supreme command. Doing this, however, requires a creative genius that is in love with its own self. We now need to examine such question of self-love a bit more closely.
7b. Loving yourself as the individualistic disposition
The question of self-love immediately posits a vitally necessary question. What is it precisely that defines the relationship between the exceptional individual and the multitude? And here, when one speaks of the multitude one may mean it either as a mass of people or as concrete persons belonging to that multitude, or both at the same time.
For Nietzsche, the multitude as a mass of people ought to be seen as a problem (and not at all as a historical solution to historical impasses, as the collectivists and/or all Marxian theoreticians would wish to believe). The multitude as a mass of people is a problem in the sense that it has taken the form of an affliction upsetting the very psyche of western civilization. Nietzsche points to this affliction when he writes as follows: “Today sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual …” (p. 59).
The multitude as a concrete person belonging to that multitude is as much a problem, and it is as much an affliction. That multitudinous concrete person is one’s neighbour – and one’s neighbour is someone that one uses to escape to, it being an escape from one’s own self. Even worse, such escape within one’s neighbour is presented as a standard western virtue – viz. the universal western virtue of unselfishness. Nietzsche is typically merciless in his attempt to penetrate the so-called virtuous psyche of the western collectivist – he writes: “Ye flee unto your neighbour from yourselves, and would fain make a virtue thereof; but I fathom your ‘unselfishness’ … (p. 57).
Being an escape from one’s self, however, neighbour-love is merely the poverty of all bad love – Nietzsche observes: “Ye crowd around your neighbour, and have fine words for it. But I say unto you: your neighbour-love is your bad love of yourselves.” (ibid.).
On the basis of such irrefutably sincere thinking, therefore, Nietzsche’s natural advice to the individual is not neighbour-love but rather neighbour-flight. And so he writes: “Do I advise you to neighbour-love? Rather do I advise you to neighbour-flight …” (ibid.).
Who is the independent individual’s real neighbour? His authentic neighbour is none other than his own will – it is, in other words, his will to creation. In his discussion of the higher man, Nietzsche writes as follows: “Where your entire love is – namely, with your child – there is also your entire virtue! Your work, your will is your ‘neighbour’: let no false values impose upon you!” (p. 281).
The individual’s only authentic neighbour is his own self-creating self – and this is so since one only experiences one’s own self. And one does so, not only in the last and final instance of one’s life, but throughout all instances of one’s life – from the beginning of one’s being in the world and right through to its final end. The collectivist, anti-individualist ideology of neighbour-love has obfuscated the simplest truth of all things human – which is that truth? Nietzsche’s Zarathustra – a self-rolling wanderer or an Oakeshottian alien sojourner – expresses this simple truth as follows: “And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience – a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing; in the end one experienceth only oneself.” (p. 149).
The self-rolling wanderer or alien sojourner dares to both claim and fully own that supreme reality of his own self-experience, this being his entitlement. He therefore dares to believe only in his own self. And by believing only in his own individuality, he also believes in all the existential forces that compose his own psyche – these forces being (and as has been discussed above) the ego, the body, and the self. And thus – and referring as he does to these existential forces as one’s inward parts – Zarathustra shall declare: “Dare only to believe in yourselves – in yourselves and in your inward parts!” (p. 121).
He who does not believe in his own self – he who claims to believe in neighbour-love – is a victim of the collective ideology of comradeship. Since all ideologies deceive, he who says he believes in others deceives himself – he lies to himself and others. And so Zarathustra adds: “He who doth not believe in himself always lieth.” (ibid.).
That simple truth of all things human as presented to us by Nietzsche – viz. that one only experiences one’s own self, and which one does in a manner that is all too verifiably so – is fully endorsed by Oakeshott himself. In his 1958 Harvard Lectures, he would make the following observation: “For each man the starting-point of his knowledge is his own experience – not that of others or of a community.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, op. cit., p. 22).
The masses experience themselves through the illusion emanating from the affairs of the market-place – that is their own starting-point. In contrast, the exceptional individual determines to experience himself through the supremacy of his own self (and as that self interacts with its body and its ego). The masses experience themselves through the rationalist-based morality imposed on them by the state and its conventional wisdom (that of the famous wise ones). In contrast, the exceptional individual experiences himself through his own self-created morality. Either way, both the masses and the exceptional individual experience themselves primarily through their ethical world. Knowledge of one’s experience is, above all, a knowledge of one’s sense of good and bad vis-à-vis that which surrounds them. And thus one may say that it has been in the life-field of ethics that one has the clearest reflection of human experience. Hobbes, it is said, was one of the first moralists of the modern western world to have made such an observation – and he had been able to make such an observation with the rise of privacy as a mode of life within parts of the western world (and especially with respect to the concomitant experience of individuality). And thus, when Oakeshott affirms that an individual’s starting-point of knowledge is his own experience, such experience would be primarily in the life-field of ethics, or in the overarching world of moral values. With reference to individual experience and ethical theory in particular, Oakeshott writes as follows: “… it was in the field of ethical theory that the clearest reflection of this experience [viz. that which is the starting-point of an individual’s knowledge] appeared … This is unmistakable in Hobbes, the first moralist of the modern world to take candid account of the current experience of individuality.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid.).
But then Oakeshottian thinking goes one important step further. He argues that since each individual’s knowledge of his own experience is in the field of ethics – since it is an ethically-based knowledge – each independent individual ought to be understood as a moral world in himself. And since each independent individual is an independent moral world, each such individual ought to be regarded as an end in himself (or as an ethical end in himself). And thus Oakeshott goes on to draw a cardinal conclusion which is also an admonition addressed to the modern western state – he writes as follows: : “The moral law is to acknowledge each man as an independent personality and to regard him not as a means but as an end in himself.” (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, ibid., p. 23).
The Oakeshottian announcement that the independent individual is an end in himself – and who cannot ever be seen as a means to whatever – points to yet another announcement, and which is clearly reminiscent of Nietzschean thinking. The announcement is clear: the individual who sees himself as an end – as an ethical end – in himself is an individual who loves his own self. Self-love is a love for one’s own original moral values as an end in themselves – and they are an end in themselves since such values are of an aesthetically creative and self-creative nature.
We may at this point summarize this Nietzschean-cum-Oakeshottian position as follows. We may say that, not only does the exceptional individual only experience himself, he also experiences himself and his own mode of being as a moral/ethical evaluation of life. It is such evaluation that renders him an end in himself – it is this that entitles him to live his life as a self-rolling wheel. This, however, would also mean that the exceptional individual is a self-rolling wheel of healthy self-love.
But although this must be a case of healthy self-love, one cannot escape the fact that such love presupposes that each independent self lives in a world of its own. And by living in a world of its own, each independent self is a stranger vis-à-vis others. Oakeshott shall himself observe that when an independent self comes to inhabit a world of its own, it inhabits a world of very personal images reflective of its own desires – and, by inhabiting a world of very particular personal desires, the self is in a selected state of solitariness. Being in a state of solitariness, the self is intrinsically incapable of recognizing – or unwilling to recognize – other selves. This, of course, could mean a possibly unavoidable war amongst different independent selves. Oakeshott considers this problem by writing as follows: “Each self inhabits a world of its own, a world of images related to its own desires; solitariness, the consequence of its inability in this activity to recognize other selves as such, is intrinsic, not accidental. The relations between such selves is an unavoidable bellum omnium contra omnes.” (cf. Oakeshott, op cit., p. 208).
Is it true to say that self-love would inevitably lead to a war of all against all? Rationalist-based morality would certainly wish to draw such a conclusion. And yet, this would mean a total misunderstanding of the Nietzschean – as also the Oakeshottian – understanding of individualistic self-love. It would constitute a gross misunderstanding of the notion of the Übermensch and his approximations. What rationalist-based, anti-individualistic morality would in this case forget is that one of the central, most defining characteristics of the Übermensch is his own supreme disposition for self-control. That, precisely, is his self-organization.
Oakeshott makes use of the thinking of Duns Scotus to clarify his own position regarding the issue of self-pride and self-love. For Scotus, self-love is self-knowledge – self-knowledge, however, is self-respect. And such self-respect means that the self is not ever delusional – it does not therefore wish to entertain whatever delusion of power over others. Self-respect recognizes just one sense of power, this being a power over one’s own person. This power over one’s person is self-control – and self-control is the will to self-organization. The exceptional individual organizes his own self vis-à-vis his own inward parts and thereby organizes his own self vis-à-vis the external world.
The exceptional individual’s self-controlled organizational will over his own person would render him invulnerable to all external social forces (be these the state, the discourse of the famous wise ones, or the mass ideologies of the many-too-many). Being invulnerable to all external forces, he would also remain impervious to the antipathy that such forces may express against him as an independent, self-loving individual. But by being thus invulnerable and impervious, the exceptional individual would at the same time be able to preserve a personal capacity to perhaps offer his magnanimity and generosity towards – at the very least – other selves. Such magnanimity would avert that bellum omnium contra omnes, at least as regards the exceptional individual’s own stance and disposition. Healthy self-love, therefore, is not at all a belligerent disposition – it is, in fact, a courage that generates peace (or at least a self-organized peace with the rest of the world so as to facilitate the self-enactment of aesthetic creativity).
With respect to the question of self-love and the thinking of Duns Scotus, Oakeshott writes as follows: “self-love appears as self-knowledge and self-respect, the delusion of power over others is replaced by the reality of self-control, and the glory of the invulnerability which comes from courage generates magnanimity and magnanimity, peace.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 291).
One may now go one step further and say that self-love in the sense of self-organization is a virtue – this, however, is precisely the virtue of selfishness as asserted by Nietzsche. And it is in this very particular sense that one may further assert – as does Nietzsche himself – that the self (as also its body and ego) is holy.
We need to dwell on the question of selfishness as a virtue a bit further – as also on the concomitant idea that the self (with its own inward parts) can be holy. Nietzsche asserts that the self is blessed when selfishness itself is blessed – and when selfishness is blessed, the ego is itself wholesome and it is holy (p. 186).
Now, there is a healthy – and thereby holy – selfishness; and there is a sickly – and thereby unholy – selfishness. With respect to the latter, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “Another selfishness is there, an all-too-poor and hungry kind, which would always steal – the selfishness of the sick, the sickly selfishness … With the eye of the thief it looketh upon all that is lustrous; with the craving of hunger it measureth him who hath abundance; and ever doth it prowl round the tables of bestowers.” (pp. 71-72).
Healthy selfishness rejects sickly selfishness as a cowardly disposition – and being cowardly, it is not virtuous. Zarathustra rejects sickly selfishness as “Bad – that is cowardly!” (p. 185). And it is cowardly because this is a selfishness that craves after whatever it opportunistically or temporarily deems expedient for itself – the sickly selfish are those who “pick up the most trifling advantage” (ibid.).
In contrast to the cowardice of sickly selfishness, healthy selfishness emanates from the powerful self – it is an expression of self-power. Zarathustra speaks of “the blessed selfishness, the wholesome, healthy selfishness that springeth from the powerful soul” (p. 184).
The blessed type of selfishness – that which springs from the powerful soul – is a self-enjoying selfishness. Informed by the will to self-enjoyment, it is a virtue. Zarathustra goes on to speak of “the dancer whose symbol and epitome is the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the self-enjoyment calleth itself ‘virtue’ …” (p. 185).
And thus, the self-enjoying blessed selfishness of the exceptional individual is a virtue that shuns whatever be deemed cowardly – “Away from itself”, Zarathustra asserts, “doth it banish everything cowardly” (ibid.).
By shunning whatever be considered cowardly, the virtue of healthy selfishness may be directly contrasted to the mode of slaves. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra shall speak of how blessed selfishness spits on the submissive type of person in particular, as also on the slavish mode of life in general – this is how he puts it: “Hateful to it altogether, and a loathing, is he who will never defend himself, he who swolloweth down poisonous spittle and bad looks, the all-too-patient one, the all-endurer, the all-satisfied one; for that is the mode of slaves … Whether they be servile before Gods and divine spurnings, or before men and stupid human opinions, at all kinds of slaves doth it spit, this blessed selfishness.” (ibid.).
Healthy selfishness – as a virtue – is therefore a selfishness that rejects whatever smacks of submissiveness. And there is a certain type of submissiveness that is informed by its own utilitarian wisdom – such wisdom, however, is the wisdom of slaves. Slave-wisdom is unhealthy selfishness. Zarathustra tells us how healthy selfishness regards the unhealthy selfishness of submissive slave-wisdom – he speaks thus: “Baser still it regardeth the obsequious, doggish one, who immediately lieth on his back, the submissive one; and there is also wisdom that is submissive, and doggish, and pious, and obsequious.” (ibid.).
Whatever be the differences in their mode of thinking, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would here agree on one basic interpretation of human conduct – viz. that the individual who is not selfish (in the healthy sense of such a disposition) is in fact a selfless individual. For these selfless types, of course, such selflessness is in fact promoted to a personal virtue. And it is just such persons sans a well-defined self that come to abuse whatever virtue of healthy selfishness defines powerful souls. We have already discussed above what Nietzsche would observe regarding those selfless abusers of selfishness – it is worthwhile in this context to recall yet once more what Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has to say on the selfless type of persons. This is what he says: “The spurious wise, however – all the priests, the world-weary, and those whose souls are of feminine and servile nature – oh, how hath their game all along abused selfishness! … And precisely that was to be virtue and was to be called virtue – to abuse selfishness! And ‘selfless’ – so did they wish themselves with good reason, all those world-weary cowards and cross-spiders!” (pp. 185-186).
It is in the nature of the selfless person to be absolutely obsessed with how the world perceives him – the vacuum inside him (his selflessness) requires that it be filled in with the perceptions of others, as also with a hope in some better future. Such concern throws him into a constant state of anxiety. In contrast, when the self is defined by the virtue of selfishness, that self takes the measure of itself from within its own self, and none else. The self is thereby free of worldly measure and worldly anxiety – being free of worldly anxiety, it experiences the state of a self-enjoying selfishness. Such self-enjoying selfishness is the terrain of self-love – and the terrain of self-love is the terrain of self-cultivation. Self-cultivation is aesthetic creation for one’s self.
Corey has herself examined the Oakeshottian position on the question of selflessness versus selfishness – in doing so, she considers the work of Glenn Worthington and his own interpretation of the philosophy of Oakeshott (with a special focus on the religious and/or poetic experience – cf. Glenn Worthington, Religious and Poetic Experience in the Thought of Michael Oakeshott, Imprint Academic, 2005). Worthington has observed that Oakeshott provides us with two different types of characters – each of these is representative of “two [distinct] systems of value” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 27). What is it that distinguishes these types and their respective so-called systems? That which distinguishes them is how they approach “the worth of the self” (ibid.). “In other words,” Corey explains, “he [Worthington] observes that Oakeshott’s moral characters have fundamentally different orientations. Those who are worldly are in a state of constant anxiety, for their focus is always on the future. On the other hand, [there are] those who … avoid this intrinsic dissatisfaction by refusing to engage in speculation about the future or about how the “world” perceives them. [For the latter,] … value “is realized in a self that takes the measure of itself from within itself” …” (ibid.).
By taking the measure of one’s self from within one’s own self, one rejects selflessness as a virtue – here, one’s one and only measuring rod is one’s individuality, and not at all the perceptions of the outside world. This naturally yields a morality of individuality – and it is such morality that speaks of self-love. And as already suggested, self-love is the precondition for self-cultivation. Oakeshott has argued that self-love is a legitimate spring of human activity, and which is to be contrasted to one’s love for the collectivity and its common good (cf. Shirley Robin Letwin, p. 26, as discussed above). It is such legitimate human activity that allows for one’s self-enactment, it being one’s own self-cultivation. It is to the question of self-cultivation that we now need turn.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is prepared to give up almost everything in the world so that he may be able to concentrate on – and thereby cultivate – his very own thoughts. “What did I not surrender,” he tells us, “that I might have one thing: this living plantation of my thoughts, and this dawn of my highest hope!” (p. 157). He, too, hopes – but such hope is focused on his own self, not on the perceptions of others; he, too, hopes – but such hope is a hope for the presentness of his creative pregnancy.
The Nietzschean plantation of the self must be a pregnant plantation – and it is pregnant because pregnancy spells creativity. Such pregnancy, however, can only but presuppose a great love of the self. Zarathustra upholds this presupposition when he speaks as follows: “For in one’s heart one loveth only one’s child and one’s work; and where there is great love to oneself, then is it the sign of pregnancy: so have I found it.” (ibid.).
What is it that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott have found? They have found that particular dimension of life which is of stable and permanent value so long as one remains alive – and they have therefore also found what it is that is not at all stable and permanent in life. Oakeshottian thinking, for one, recognizes that whatever belief in the stability and permanence of some social ideal is mere illusion (cf. Corey, op. cit., pp. 32-33). That which is of stable and permanent value in life is, firstly, the individual’s self. And secondly, it is the selection and cultivation of that self’s sensibilities. And at the same time, it is the nurturing of a will capable of enjoying (as opposed to constantly appropriating) the fruits of life. (ibid.).
For Oakeshott, self-cultivation is the cultivation of the individual idiom – and it is above all within that individual idiom that one may discover the possibilities of originality, poetic imagination, and an overall creative resourcefulness. He asserts this as follows: “There is room for the individual idiom, it affords opportunity to inventiveness …” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 123).
This Nietzschean and Oakeshottian emphasis on the virtue of self-love, on the individual idiom, and on the existential primacy of self-cultivation may of course also be ascertained in a variety of other major western thinkers – above, we have already referred to Stendhal and his own understanding of the aristocratic spirit. Such spirit, we noted, would stand over and above the masses – and it would do so precisely because it would view individualistic self-cultivation as a sovereign virtue prioritized above all else in life. What truly mattered for Stendhal was a self devoted to the cultivation of love, music, passion, intrigue, and heroism (cf. Erich Auerbach, above). Such self-cultivation would naturally go hand-in-hand with a supreme self-assertion of one’s personality and individuality (this being Stendhal’s own Sorelian fractious horse).
Self-love is self-cultivation, and self-cultivation is in itself an art, or the finest of arts – at the same time, it may also be said to generate art in itself. As the finest of arts, it is also a gamble. We need to delve into this understanding of self-cultivation as being both a fine art and a gamble.
Self-love is the art of self-cultivation – and the art of self-cultivation is being able to be with one’s own self without at the same time being in need of the other. Such art of self-cultivation would further suggest that – and depending on personal circumstances – one is able to endure one’s own self without the help of some other. For Nietzsche, self-love and self-cultivation is not based on whatever commandment (as in the case of Thou shalt love thy neighbour). Self-love – and the existential implications of such love – is something that is to be learnt. And it is to be learnt precisely because it is a very subtle art in itself. This is how Zarathustra puts it: “One must learn to love oneself – thus do I teach – with a wholesome and healthy love, that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about … Such roving about christeneth itself ‘brotherly love’; with these words hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially by those who have been burdensome to every one … And verily, it is no commandment for today and tomorrow to learn to love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, the subtlest, last and most patient.” (p. 188).
We know that for both Nietzsche and later on for Heidegger, and as much – one need say – for Oakeshott himself, it is the question of the finitude of life that ought to determine the mode of living for the individual. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott in particular it is this finitude that asks of us to learn to love our own self and its own cultivation. Given such finitude, Oakeshott poses an absolutely vital question: what ought we to recognize as the most valuable thing in life? His response shall be to assert that this finitude asks of us to cultivate a mind of our own. He goes even further: we ought to cultivate a mind and a self that are at all times uniquely one’s own.
At some point in his lifetime, Oakeshott would give a talk to new LSE undergraduates on the purpose of a liberal education. Therein, he would speak openly of both looming death beds and of the concurrent need to cultivate one’s mind and one’s self in their own respective independent uniqueness. Noël K. O’Sullivan (op. cit.) has presented us with a summary of this seminal Oakeshottian speech – he writes as follows: “This [i.e. liberal education], he told them [told the undergraduates], is not merely to acquire facts, or skills, or training for a career but is, rather, to acquire “what in the end, on [your] far distant death beds, [you] will recognize as one of the things most worth having,” which is “a mind and some thoughts of your own” … The aim, in other words, is to transform the ready made, off-the-peg self with which life begins into a self uniquely one’s own.” (pp. 208-209).
For Nietzsche, we have noted, this process of transforming one’s self (the one with which we begin in life) into a self that is uniquely one’s own is a process that is to be learnt – and this learning happens through the acquisition of a fine art that is subtle, that requires the greatest of patience, and which would constitute an individual’s final achievement in life. And it is this very process of self-transformation that would come to define Oakeshott’s own understanding of a certain so-called spirituality. This particular understanding of spirituality may be said to more or less resonate with the Husserlian understanding of the body as spirit-cum-motivation – for Oakeshott in particular, it would be a matter of seeing the body (and its self) as spirit-cum-enactment. And such spiritual enactment would yield a self that would be the child of its very own accomplishment. Such spiritual enactment, further, would yield a self that would be a carrier of its own constitutive meaning and its own constitutive value.
Noël O’Sullivan (ibid.) writes of such particular Oakeshottian spirituality as follows: “In line with the British Idealist tradition, Oakeshott describes his own ideal of spirituality as the realization of a self which is “its own achievement,” in the sense that it carries “within each of its moments its whole meaning and value.” (p. 210).
Now, of course, such an understanding of self-enactment would be no mean feat for whoever selects to undertake such an enterprise, whatever be his intellectual gifts – much more than that, however, it could also spell total disaster for any individual (on the other hand, such disaster could take the form of a self-affirming tragedy, as Jaspers would argue). How could all this lead to a personal disaster? Let us consider more carefully what it is that is here being suggested. Self-love would translate into a will to self-cultivation. This process of self-cultivation would translate into a wish for a self that would be its own achievement. And it would translate into a wish for a self that would be the absolutely independent carrier of its own unique meaning and exclusive value-creation. Naturally, therefore, such a process of self-cultivation would ultimately come to mean the establishment of a self determined by its own moral activity, it being a lonesome activity outside the state (and its protective structures) and outside the moral values of society (and their protective functions). The implication here is quite obvious: the individual would be engaging in a gamble, and the gamble could yield a personal tragedy that may prove quite irremediable.
Of course, the exceptional individual – and especially the exceptionally exceptional individual (as in the case of the Übermensch) – would have to be prepared to face what Oakeshott has termed the ordeal of consciousness (cf. above). And especially so when the particular intentionality of such consciousness is to achieve an independent, self-created self that carries its own sense of good and bad. And so as to be prepared to face such ordeal, the individual would need to think and live as a laughing lion – or think and live in terms of the spirit of the lion (as Nietzsche has of course put it). He would, in other words, have to be quite unafraid of whatever consequences.
“Human life”, Oakeshott has observed, “is a gamble” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 60). This observation perhaps calls for a certain qualification – while there is a general sense in which life is in fact and in any case a gamble for all, there is also the more strict sense in which life is not on the whole a gamble as such but can in fact be made to be so (it all depends on what one takes the term gamble to imply). In the stricter sense of the term, some accept the idea that life can be seen as a gamble and undertake to live accordingly – their selected mode of being is of the experimental type. Others cautiously keep away from whatever risky experimentation – they can be prudent and risk-averse (they seem to be aware of their own fears and personal limits).
On occasion, Oakeshott has argued that the individual must be allowed to gamble (cf., for instance, Oakeshott, ibid.). Of course, the idea that someone ought to be allowed to do something (such as opt to gamble in his life) can suggest a paternalistic or patronizing approval of one’s behaviour as determined by some other – it implies a validation of conduct from a certain authority. But it may also imply – and this seems to be Oakeshott’s primary intention – that the state itself has no right to disallow any citizen from gambling in life, or experimenting with his own life.
But what is of so much greater significance here is to assert that the individual ought to allow himself to gamble in his own life. More accurately, one may say that the exceptional individual ought to allow himself to gamble in his own life so as to achieve – or in any case pursue, as Oakeshott puts it – his own perfection.
For Oakeshott, the issues of life-gambling, self-experimentation, and the pursuance of self-perfection are issues that belong exclusively to the individual idiom and the morality of individuality – they cannot or should not ever be entertained at the level of society. For him, the concept of perfection – or, more accurately, that of pursuing perfection – cannot or should not apply to society as an entity in itself.
Why is it that perfectionism cannot apply to society? The pursuance of a perfect society is a utopian-based gamble, and all utopian-based ideological gambles imply a certain idol-adoration – all forms of idol-adoration, however, could ultimately lead to a totalitarian-type social formation. The perfectionist social gamble could simply translate into the need to impose the perfect ideal onto all the rest in society. Alternatively, one may also argue that – and again following Oakeshottian thinking – the pursuance of and struggle for social perfectionism constitutes a type of gamble that society itself should not ever be allowed to taste. And society cannot be allowed to gamble in such manner because it can lead to the rise of conflicting interests and conflicting ideologies – and such conflictual social relations may lead to chaos. Social chaos usually needs to be resolved through some form of absolute rule – and this would, yet again, lead to different forms of totalitarianism.
Such types of collective risks do not apply to the individual. Gambling, experimentation, and perfectionism – these are meant exclusively for the individual. Much more accurately, these struggles are meant only for the very exceptional individual. And when one asserts that perfectionism is only meant for the exceptional individual, one should here understand whatever measure of perfectionism in terms of the individual’s own measure of his own self, as discussed above. But since such sense of perfectionism would depend exclusively on the personal measure of one’s own self, it would be an anxiety-free pursuance of perfectionism.
The anxiety-free pursuance of perfectionism on the part of the exceptional individual would further mean that that type of individual would presumably be ready and prepared to handle the tragedy of a possible personal failure and defeat. For the Übermensch, at least, the personal reward of pursuing perfectionism – that independent sojourn within the realm of self-enactment – would compensate for any final defeat. And it would compensate for the penalty of self-defeat since life would constitute an absolutely unique gamble for perfection, it being a perfection in aesthetic creativity and self-creativity. Such type of compensation, in contrast, could not ever apply to whichever society or collectivity – and it could not apply to these given, as already noted, the inherent proneness of all collectivities towards internal conflict, chaos, and the hazards of authoritarianism.
With respect to the question of perfectionism – and the implicit issue of gambling in life – Oakeshott writes as follows: “The pursuit of perfection … is an activity … suitable for individuals, but not for societies. For an individual who is impelled to engage in it, the reward may exceed both the penalty and the inevitable defeat … For a society, on the other hand, the penalty is a chaos of conflicting ideas, the disruption of a common life, and the reward is the renown which attaches to monumental folly.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 59).
To put it in a nutshell, one may simply say that self-love and self-cultivation can be a major personal gamble – but such gamble is meant for the Nietzschean-type Übermensch, not for the populace. It is only the Übermensch – and/or related categories of individuality – that can experiment and gamble with the pursuance of his own self-perfection. And it is only he who may do so since such experimentation and gambling involves his own moral activity. And for him, further, all moral activity takes the form of artistic self-creativity. But since the choice of moral activity (and the concomitant artistic self-creation) is his and his only – and since he is fully aware of other possible alternatives – such choice can be dangerous as regards his own person, though not ever as regards others (despite a possible unintended influence on others).
Oakeshott presents the question of perfection, moral activity, art, and gambling in life generally as follows: “The activity with which we are concerned [viz. human life as a gamble for perfection] is what is called moral activity … The moral life is human affection and behaviour determined, not by nature, but by art.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 60). But since the moral life is not determined by nature as such, there are alternatives to whatever chosen moral activity – he continues as follows: “It is conduct to which there is an alternative.” (ibid.). Therein, of course, lies both the independent creativity of the exceptional individual and his own gambling – and therein too, therefore, lies the life-risk.
Such life-risk is not meant for the rest – the popular masses. All Nietzsche can do is offer his own untimely advice to the small people – his Zarathustra cautions the many-too-many to first and foremost come to love their own selves. Only then may they also come to love their neighbours (p. 167). This is the substance of the individualistic disposition towards the question of love.
7c. Living the present as self-organization
Organizing the self around self-love and self-cultivation is organizing the self around its love for its own present (or for its own present moment). Self-organization is therefore a love for, and living of, the present as it is – or, more accurately, it is a love of the present as it is for the self (though as it also is for all those inward – and often contradictory – parts that compose the psyche of the individual). We have already, and often enough, referred to the notion of presentness – it is this notion of presentness that points to the self’s love of its present moment. Presentness points to the self’s living of its present in an affirmative, creative, and joyous manner (and that, despite the inevitable tragedies inherent in whatever loving attempts at claiming and living the present). We shall now need to delve a bit further into this notion of presentness in the context of an individual’s self-organization.
Presentness as self-organization is to claim the moments of an individual’s life as ends in themselves. It stands in stark contradistinction to that mode of life wherein a person lives his life awaiting the future. Presentness is living and loving the present, and the moments of that present. It is in many ways related to the art of poetry, which – perhaps at its supreme best – aims at freezing the present and its moments, and the individual experience of these.
Good poetry has done that – exceptional poets can do it. So can the exceptional individual – and we need remember that the exceptional individual is himself a poet in the strictly Oakeshottian sense. The popular masses – at least taken as a bloc – cannot and do not claim the moments of their life as ends in themselves. They await the future – and such waiting is aided and abetted by a very powerful, all-inclusive and all-knowing creature, this being the modern western state. In aiding and abetting such mass-based anticipation, the state functions as a double-thief.
In what ways does the modern western state function as a double-thief? For one, since the state always functions in the name of some imagined future for its subjects, the state needs to steal – and invariably does steal – the present from the individual. At the same time, and again in the name of some future, it always needs to steal the (historical) past from the individual – but since such historical past can also inform the present of a person, the state yet again tries to expropriate the present of the individual. The state as a double-thief of the present, but also the popular masses as equivocally expressive of that double-thief, are inclined to participate in an incessant game of anticipation: they wait for the future, look to the future, and struggle for the future (both in the sense of the short, and in the sense of the long, term).
The idea of the state as a thief of individual presentness has already been corroborated in our presentation of Oakeshott’s critique of the politics of faith. Therein, Oakeshott would argue that the cardinal virtue of the modern western state – as embodied primarily in its financial planners – is measured in terms of its ability to deliver to its subjects apparently feasible projects aimed at securing their future (short-term and/or long-term). Its primary operational purpose is to submit to its subjects a series of policies and programs for their future well-being, as also for that of their offspring. And thereby, whatever sense of presentness is itself postponed for the future.
Systematically, and incessantly on a day-to-day basis, the state (with its famous wise ones) weaves an ideology pointing to the future – its technocrats plan meticulously for that future; its politicians operate as insurance salesmen (as Oakeshott himself puts it). And thus, that which comes to prevail in the minds of most in the modern western world is “the bogus eternity” expressive of all of western ideology (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 29). This, one should emphasize, would apply to ideologies both of the so-called Left and of the so-called Right, as also to all those ideologies that place themselves somewhere in-between Left and Right. For the popular masses and their politicians, this bogus eternity constitutes a quick and easy getaway from the finitude of time and from the fortuities of time. Oakeshott asserts that such bogus eternity comes down to operating as a “quick escape” from “the intricacy of the world of time and contingency” (ibid.). This certainly applies to both politicians and their followers.
Both politicians and the many-too-many cannot understand – and cannot easily tolerate – whoever dares not be anxious about or care for the future. The presentness defining the Übermensch as his mode of being is utterly alien to them – and it is alien because they view such mode of being as irresponsibly arrogant, foolishly reckless, irrationally idealistic, and above all uncomradely. The Übermensch and his likes cannot participate in whatever care for the future, or in whatever visions pertaining to the future – their type does not espouse the universal virtue of what has come to be called social solidarity in fighting for a better common future.
Since the truly exceptional individual is in no need for whatever quick escapes from the finitude of time and its fortuities, he is in no need of whatever bogus eternities. And thus the truly exceptional individual orients his creative will in a manner that fully engages the self in each of its moments – and in as creative a manner, this type of individual never forgets his own mortality (memento mori). Very much unlike the state and the popular masses, therefore, the exceptional individual has no time for postponing whatever to the future – he has no time for whatever ideals pointing to whichever future.
Now, such a mode of being may certainly sound irrationally idealistic – or it may in any case sound thus for those not belonging to the category of the truly exceptional type of individual. Making use of Glenn Worthington’s appreciation of Oakeshottian thinking (cf. above), Corey attempts to explain how Oakeshott’s position regarding the present vis-à-vis the future is not at all irrationally impractical in the modern western world. Corey writes as follows: “Oakeshott’s … [exceptional] man, by contrast, does not postpone fulfillment to the future but is fully engaged in each moment. He finds meaning in present activity and lives life as its own end rather than as a means to some future satisfaction. He understands practical endeavors as activities that have a distinct, though limited, value. Activities that do stand as ends in themselves – for example, love, friendship, and contemplation – are the … [exceptional] man’s true focus. And although he must take part in worldly activities to survive, the spirit in which he undertakes such actions clearly distinguishes him from the worldly man.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., pp. 26-27).
The exceptional individual, very simply, delights in the present. It is such disposition (it being a particular propensity and taste) that organizes the self of the exceptional individual. Such self-organizational propensity, taste, or disposition, however, is also that which defines Oakeshott’s own understanding of the conservative disposition. Corey writes of this Oakeshottian conservative disposition as a sheer delight in the present as follows: “In his 1956 essay “On Being Conservative”, Oakeshott describes conservatism as the propensity to “use and to enjoy what is available rather than to wish for or to look for something else; to delight in what is present than what was or what may be.” …” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 125).
Such a disposition does not come easy, and it is not for the everyman of the market-place. To delight in the present presupposes the self-organizational will to do so – above all, however, it also presupposes the creative artistry to be able to do just that. It further presupposes both a love for one’s own self and the disposition of memento mori.
The conservative disposition and its delight in the presentness of experience is not at all, therefore, some so-called political position – it is a mode of life expressive of a particular existential perspective of the world. Such a perspective would be based on the individual’s exceptional capacity to reflect upon the world – for Oakeshott, such reflection would bring to light “an appropriate gratefulness for what is available” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 168). And such gratefulness would constitute “the acknowledgment of a gift” (ibid.) – the gift, that is, of time-present (but which would be a time-present that carries within itself the positive gifts of time-past).
To put it all in a fairly crude nutshell, one may simply say that the everyman’s rationalist-based morality is a worldview that points to the future. In contrast, the morality of the exceptional individual that organizes the self in terms of the conservative disposition points to the present. Corey quite accurately summarizes this Oakeshottian position when she writes as follows: “If the ends of the Rationalist are thrown ever forward into the future, poetry may be engaged in a fully “present” experience.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 123). As has already been noted, the exceptional individual lives a mode of life that resonates with the poetic mode of being – and it is poetry per se that wishes to freeze the present experience so that it may claim it for itself.
The mode of being that loves its self is a mode of being that loves the presentness of the self – and to love such presentness is to love the earth. But love of the earth also means a love for all that one experiences upon the earth – so much so, that one can assert a love even for the suffering that life offers to the presentness of the individual upon the earth. To love one’s self, one’s presentness, and all the suffering that such presentness can offer, the exceptional individual requires the courage of the morality of individuality. It is such courage that allows the exceptional individual to assert that Nietzschean Once more! with respect to all of the joys and all of the sufferings that presentness offers him. On the question of courage and the acceptance of all experiences in the life of the exceptional individual, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “Courage is the best slayer; courage slayeth also fellow-suffering. Fellow-suffering, however, is the deepest abyss; as deeply as man looketh into life, so deeply also doth he look into suffering … Courage, however, is the best slayer, courage which attacketh; it slayeth even death itself, for it saith: ‘Was that life? Well! Once more!’ … In such speech, however, there is much sound of triumph. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (p. 153).
It is such Once more! that expresses a love of the earth, and all that the presentness of the earth offers. This triumph of love for the earth and of the presentness of life is not for all – it is exclusively for that exceptional individual who has the appropriate ears to hear that sound of triumph. Such ears possess both the capacity and the aristocratic entitlement to rejoice at all of the human creativity that the earth has thus far offered. And it is for this reason that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra may speak as follows: “There are on the earth many good inventions, some useful, some pleasant: for their sake is the earth to be loved.” (p. 201).
Following both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, we are saying that to love one’s self is to love one’s presentness – and to love one’s presentness is to love the earth itself. But now this means to come to love all of the experiences one has on earth – and these would include both those of the past and those of the present. More specifically, this would mean loving the present as such present carries within it the experiences of time-past. It would also mean loving time-past to the extent that it has helped mould the present. Further, it would also mean that one would also come to love whatever it is that shall befall one in the moments of time-future. This, of course, is encapsulated in the concept of the Nietzschean Once more! – it is also directly related to that well-known concept of the Nietzschean eternal recurrence, it being a concept expressive of one’s love of presentness (or of momentary presentness).
The Nietzschean understanding of eternal recurrence is an absolutely central concept in any attempt at understanding that mode of being organized around a love of presentness. We well know that that famous idea of the so-called eternal recurrence has often been misused, abused and often deliberately mangled – we also know that it would be Nietzsche’s own handling of that idea that would often itself be responsible for such conceptual despoliation. Putting all such aside, we shall here consider the concept of eternal recurrence only insofar as it helps us understand the question of presentness – the rest is of no concern to us and for our purposes.
To begin with, one should say that the Nietzschean concept of eternal recurrence is based on an apparently simple but in any case absolutely lucid understanding of what it is that constitutes presentness – or, in other words, what it is that constitutes this very moment. Each and every dimension of this very moment is a combination of time-past and time-future. Diverging somewhat from the Nietzschean position (which is itself not always absolutely consistent with itself), one may further add that neither time-past nor time-future may be reduced to one another – although they do fuse into one another within this very moment, they nonetheless remain structurally independent and therefore discrete experiential entities. This would mean that this very moment is not really a simple combination of time-past and time-future – it in fact constitutes a complex combinatory of these, in the sense that it upholds the discrete independence of time-past and time-future within the momentary fusion. Such an observation is not meant to engage in mere academic trifling – it is meant to underline the fact that each and every combinatory of time-past and time-future is unique in itself. The implication is that no combinatory can ever be repeated or reproduced down to its littlest details – and this is important as it points to the near-absolute uniqueness of all experience (and which is itself reflective of the uniqueness of the exceptional individual and how such individual relates to the unique reality of his own presentness). Here, what is of vital importance is not the eternal recurrence of a particular moment in time (which in any case smacks of a peculiar metaphysics) but, rather, the eternal recurrence of the uniqueness of each and every moment in itself (and which may be verified experientially by the individual).
Although such observations would not fully resonate with some dimensions of Nietzschean thinking in his Thus Spake Zarathustra, one may nonetheless safely endorse Nietzsche’s presentation of what he calls This Moment – his Zarathustra speaks as follows: “… ‘Look at this gateway, dwarf!’ I continued. ‘It hath two faces. Two roads come together here; these hath no one yet gone to the end of … This long lane backwards, it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward – that is another eternity … They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another – and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: “This Moment” …’ …” (p. 154).
How is the presentness of This Moment to be lived? It is to be lived as that ever-constant junction where time-past meets time-future. And this means that it is to be lived as that ever-constant junction where joy is entangled with pain. But, then, each of these momentary junctions is to be lived in such manner that one would come to desire their very recurrence. And this would mean that the exceptional individual would come to wish for the so-called eternal recurrence of the uniqueness of each and every momentary junction composing his own life. Obviously, this does not in whatever sense imply that This Moment somehow recurs by and of itself – what is being suggested is that the exceptional individual would nurture such a love for each and every of his unique moments that he would wish to see their repetition.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra would, more or less, echo some such thoughts – this is what he says in his drunken song: “Pain is also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun – go away, or ye will learn that a sage is also a fool! … Said ye ever Yea to one joy? O my friends, then said ye Yea also unto all woe. All things are enlinked, enlaced and enamoured – … Wanted ye ever once to come twice; said ye ever: ‘Thou pleasest me, happiness! Instant! Moment!’ then wanted ye all to come back again! … All anew, all eternal, all enlinked, enlaced and enamoured. Oh, then did ye love the world – …” (pp. 312-313).
What, then, is presentness? Presentness as a mode of being is asserting a Yes to everything of the earth, past, present and future – it is therefore asserting joy in itself and for itself. Zarathustra speaks of this as follows: “Joy, however, doth not want heirs, it doth not want children – joy wanteth itself, it wanteth eternity, it wanteth recurrence, it wanteth everything eternally-like-itself.” (p. 312).
Presentness – experiencing This Moment as joy in and for itself – is the terrain of perfection. We need remember here that Oakeshott would wish to delimit the terrain of perfection to that of the individual (as opposed to society) – likewise, Nietzsche would speak of perfection in the context of that type of individual who is capable of asserting that joyful yes to each and every of his unique moments. “Hath not my world,” Zarathustra asks, “just now become perfect?”
The question of presentness as that mode of being allowing for individualistic perfectionism – and which is that wished-for recurrence of This Moment – has been discussed by a variety of major western thinkers, and with special reference to Nietzschean thinking. Here, one should note that the notion of the Nietzschean eternal recurrence is open – or has been open – to an array of independent interpretations (apart from the numerous offhand dismissals). And yet, there is one particular sense in which that notion remains of primary, and here of certainly unambiguous, importance – and this is to understand eternal recurrence as an ethical (and therefore also as an aesthetic) principle.
In what sense does the notion of eternal recurrence point to an ethical understanding of this present moment? And in what sense does it at the same time point to the primacy of the aesthetic mode of being? As an ethical principle, it posits the following question for the individual: how does one decide (or will) to live one’s life now, at this present moment? The notion of eternal recurrence presents the individual with a number of inescapable answers to this particularly existential type of question – we may consider some such answers by tabling a number of assumptions.
Let us assume, firstly, that the notion of eternal recurrence implies a possible return of the present moment across time ad infinitum. In such case, the individual would ask himself: what if it in fact returns? And if it in fact returns, how should I live this present moment both ethically and aesthetically? How should I wish to live the moment now so that I may live it likewise in its return?
Let us assume, secondly, that the idea of the actual return of the present moment is to be dismissed as sheer metaphysical claptrap. In such case, the individual may in any case decide to live his present moment as if that moment will in fact return (we would here have a shift from the what if to the as if question). Again, living the present moment as if it would recur ad infinitum would lead the individual to ask himself how he should live that moment both ethically and aesthetically. Presumably, the individual would choose to live the present moment in a way that he would wish to have it relived.
Finally, let us assume that the individual is absolutely convinced that his present moment shall not ever return again. But since that present moment would not ever recur again, it is an absolutely unique moment – and its uniqueness is a value that cannot ever be squandered to the winds. Here again, the individual would ask himself how he should live his present moment ethically and aesthetically knowing that such moment is absolutely unique, not ever to return (and here we would have a second shift from that as if question to the Oakeshottian-conservative what is question). In such case, the individual either grabs or simply loses the incontrovertible opportunity of living a uniqueness that always returns as a totally original possibility.
Generally speaking, it should be emphasized that the notion of eternal recurrence as an ethical-cum-aesthetic principle must at all times be understood as a purely assertive Yes! to all of time, and especially so with respect to the passage (or transit) of all of time through nothing other than the present moment. And thus the Nietzschean notion of the eternal recurrence is meant to express a life-affirmation (as opposed to a mere resentment) of the passage of time-past into time-future as embodied in all of presentness. It cares (in the Heideggerian sense) for the present moment, and the living of such moment. This implies that each and every moment is a becoming of the self, as such self authenticates itself in its presentness – and by so authenticating itself, each moment of the self is an aesthetic act (or an aesthetic act of self-enactment, as Oakeshott would put it). The Nietzschean notion of the eternal recurrence is also an expression of the will to power over one’s self, as also over the time-present of one’s self. To put it otherwise, finally, one may say that the notion of eternal recurrence is an ethical-cum-aesthetic principle pointing to the aesthetic production of the self recurring ad infinitum within the natural limits of an individual’s life-span.
Both the notion of eternal recurrence and the presentness it wishes to glorify are accurately (and perhaps most coherently) encompassed within the Oakeshottian understanding of the conservative disposition – this of course being a celebration of what is. It is the Oakeshottian conservative disposition, we need remember, that declares its own Yes! to the what is of the present – and, without ever idolizing whatever of time-past, it also declares its own Yes! to the past (thereby acknowledging an appreciation of those gifts of time-past that help inform the what is of time-present).
The Oakeshottian celebration of the present – and which constitutes the essence of the conservative disposition – expresses a love for the what is since it is that particular experiential phenomenon (and that only) which is always the most familiar to the individual. Oakeshott himself writes as follows on the question of presentness and its exceptional familiarity: “What is esteemed is the present; and it is esteemed not on account of its connections with a remote antiquity, nor because it is recognized to be more admirable than any possible alternative, but on account of its familiarity: not, Verweile doch, du bist so schön [“Stay a while, you are so beautiful”], but, Stay with me because I am attached to you.” …” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 168).
We know – and based on what has thus far been said regarding the conservative disposition – that Oakeshott is not at all saying Yes! to his present as someone thrown into some random present. He is saying Yes! to his present as an independent individual who both respects and creates his own unique individuality within the esteemed what is of that present (and he does so within the what is of a pluralist individualism, which he upholds as such precisely as an independent individual). He respects both the what is of his present and the becoming of his own self because, not only is he most familiar with these, but also because such double familiarity allows him to care for both. Familiarity leads to care-for, and such care-for facilitates the ethical and aesthetic self-cultivation of the Oakeshottian individual idiom.
It is this essential familiarity with one’s self and with what is (and which allows for one’s care-for and one’s self-cultivation therein) that renders both the self and its what is absolutely supreme. And it is for this very reason that Oakeshottian thinking would express “the conviction that life should be taken as it is” – and such thinking would thus also express the conviction that, if the individual is to live authentically, he would need “to live in the present” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 30). Of course, the conviction that life should be taken as it is – as the what is of the self – clearly echoes the Nietzschean Thus would I have it! (the further implications of which shall have to be discussed below).
This assertion that one should live in the present is above all a moral vision – and it is so both for Nietzsche and for Oakeshott. For the latter in particular, this moral vision entails a graceful acceptance of one’s what is. And it is a graceful acceptance of one’s situation based on whatever personal interpretation one chooses to ascribe to that situation – viz. whether it is interpreted on the basis of the what if, or on the as if, or on simply the conservative what is as such. The Oakeshottian graceful acceptance is a willful acceptance of the Nietzschean This Moment, and it is an expression of the joy of that moment’s Once More!
For Oakeshott, the individual’s graceful acceptance of This Moment is an acceptance both of the in-built limitations of that moment and of the open possibilities of that very moment. And thus to live in and for the present is to enjoy what one has and to enjoy the possibilities of what one has.
Such a graceful acceptance of the limits and possibilities of the present, however, is at the same time a conscious rejection of worldliness – put otherwise, it is a rejection of the small passions and miseries of the market-place, and all that such mode of being entails. It is a rejection of the need to pursue whatever accomplishment as defined by the social order of the market-place. It is therefore a rejection of worldly success and social recognition. It is also a rejection of the worldly obsession for the acquisition of material goods exchanged within the market-place. It is a rejection of the idol-adoration of the goods of the market-place, and therefore a rejection of mass consumerist subculture. The implication is that the graceful acceptance of the present – or the mode of being of presentness – is a mode of being in the world without being of the world.
Corey has attempted to present this Oakeshottian moral vision of the graceful acceptance of the present as accurately as that be possible, albeit with somewhat religious undertones – she writes that the Oakeshottian moral life is “a graceful … acceptance of human limitations and human possibilities … The possibilities depend upon a clear-sighted assessment of one’s situation and are most likely to be achieved by living the present, enjoying what one has … In short, this moral vision rejects the worldliness in pursuing accomplishment and material goods, and strives to be “in” the world but not “of” it.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 11).
This Oakeshottian moral vision is also – and naturally so – an aesthetic vision. And it is an aesthetic vision pertaining to the personality attributes of any particular individual – or, more accurately, pertaining to that type of individual who is capable of living his life in terms of an aesthetic presentness. Corey observes that Oakeshott’s moral vision is “an essentially … aesthetic vision of the character of human beings, in which life is understood as something that ought to be enjoyed and cherished in the present moment, so far as it is possible.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 3).
The present moment can be most enjoyed and most cherished when that moment is lived aesthetically – for Oakeshott, the most consummate form of presentness is above all attained through the individual’s aesthetic sensibility. It is only through such sensibility that the individual (as opposed to society) can attain his own self-perfection – it being the selfsame perfection of the aesthetic moment itself. As Corey observes: “… Oakeshott finds that the most complete form of “presentness” is possible not in religion, but in the aesthetic experience …” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 74).
Presentness is an aesthetic experience – and it is such aesthetic experience that, for Oakeshott, yields (what we have already identified as) the individual’s self-enactment. An individual’s self-enactment within its presentness, however, depends on that individual’s personal insight (and which must invariably imply that such capacity cannot be possessed by the superfluous many-too-many). Corey herself writes as follows on the Oakeshottian understanding of presentness, self-enactment, and individual insight: “Indeed, self-enactment (a form of moral activity that Oakeshott discusses in On Human Conduct) depends on … [insight]. Insight is essential to living a moral … life.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 84).
Self-enactment is the independent individual’s form of moral conduct – and moral conduct is to live all of presentness aesthetically. This means that for the individual to live This Moment aesthetically, he would live it through his individual insight – and this is the individual insight of poetry, or it is the individual’s poetic imagination vis-à-vis the world and the moments of this world. But to be able to live presentness through the aesthetics of poetry – or through the aesthetics of the poetic imagination – the individual need acquire a state of indifference with respect to the consequences and outcomes of his life-choices; and he would need to attain a state of indifference with respect to both the achievements and the frustrations of his life. He would, in short, need to sustain a state of indifference with respect to the future itself (and cf. Corey, ibid., p. 119).
Perhaps it should be noted at this point – and more or less following Oakeshottian thinking – that by now (in the postmodern western world, at least) it is only the individual who can actually enact such a mode of being as is suggested here. And it is only the individual who can do this as all of traditional morality is being peripheralized. One may further elucidate on this observation by very briefly explaining that, as the morality of habit of behaviour of the western cives – those once independent, self-created peoples – gets marginalized or distorted to the point of disappearance, it is the all-powerful state that takes over as the creator of values (with its ideology of social justice and equality). And therein, all forms of popular self-enactment are checked, scrutinized, and demonized as mere anachronisms that go against the dominant ideological grain of so-called progress. All space for independent self-creation is thwarted – and it is for just this reason that it is only the independent individual who can yet still attempt his own self-enactment, and thereby struggle to salvage his own presentness. To salvage, that is, the very holiness of his This Moment.
And thus, all too prophetically, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra would declare: “… ‘All days shall be holy unto me’ – so spake once the wisdom of my youth: verily, the language of a joyous wisdom!” (p. 109).
That all days shall be holy for the individual means nothing other than that, for the individual, This Moment shall be holy unto him in its own uniqueness. And that This Moment shall be holy in its own uniqueness would mean that that moment is indifferent to worldly success and worldly power. For some – for certain exceptional individuals – this state of being can be brought to the surface as they (alas) await their own death (and we need remember here Oakeshott’s own reference to the death bed – cf. above). In the case of the Sorelian experience referred to above, the question of time (its finitude) and the presentness of the moment is fully illuminated precisely as Stendhal’s Julien Sorel becomes fully aware of the fact that he is dying (activation of his memento mori). Such an awareness goes hand-in-hand with a consciousness of absolute presentness. In such terminal state of being, Sorel lives for This Moment and nothing else – he loses all sense of ambition, and he no longer cares for the future (cf. George Poulet, “Stendhal and Time”, in Red and Black, op. cit., p. 473).
We might as well briefly restate the Sorelian experience and draw out its implications by summarizing its tragic life-span. Julien Sorel races across his life to achieve his social ambitions – his mode of life is thus fully tensed towards the future. He races so fast that he soon finds himself out of breath, so to speak. It is then that he falters and acts impulsively – and he does so in reaction to a momentary provocation. It is then, and only then, that he lapses into a loss of his person – but this loss is in fact a finding. He lapses into a loss that is a finding of his own self within certain singular moments of his life – his singular presentness is illuminated. And it is therein that he finds himself. This happens, above all, when his death is imminent – for, being imminent, there is no extra time for the achievement of any ambition whatsoever. It is within such state of mind that the dying Sorel can now live his life as would a Montaigne – and Montaigne had once declared the following as regards his own mode of life: “I live each day as it comes; my plans extend no further”. (cf. George Poulet, ibid.).
Loving the earth within the limits of the finitude of time and loving presentness within such finitude is – and quite naturally so – a celebration of life. But what does it really mean to celebrate life and its duration within time? It means, simply, to indulge in idle play. We need to investigate this idea of idle play a bit deeper. We have, thus far, already made a number of pertinent observations regarding the question of idle play based on both Nietzschean and Oakeshottian thinking. Idle play, it has been suggested, is the idle play of the individual’s self per se – and the idle play of the self is the productive core of that self. And the productive core of the self is that which transforms the passions into a self-sustaining world of virtues. It is such transformation which constitutes the individual’s idiom of poetry – and it is this very idiom of poetry which is the idle play of the self. Such idle play, it has also been asserted, is based on the least everyday wisdom – it operates well beyond and above the wisdom of the herd. And since it must operate beyond and above the wisdom of the herd and its statal representations, idle play is the supreme source of self-truth – it is truth as such for the independent individual engaged in idle play.
We may now further investigate this central concept of idle play as an organizer of the presentness of the self. Examining the whole of human history – and perhaps above all that of the western world – Nietzsche comes up with a truly dramatic diagnosis. This is what he says: “Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin!” (p. 85). Such a diagnosis certainly confirms the Oakeshottian observation that the typical western-type mass man has given up on living and enjoying his presentness – and he has done so given his obsession with materialistic ambitions and this-worldly success and this-worldly recognition. For Oakeshott, as for Nietzsche, man has forgotten the virtue of enjoying himself in his presentness by projecting such presentness into an idol-adoration pointing to some (usually utopian) future.
For the typical western-type mass man, what matters is utilitarianism and the ultimate possession and utility of all the things that surround him – it is usefulness that counts, not uselessness and the idle play of whatever forms of uselessness. And yet, and as George Steiner has himself argued (cf., for instance, “George Steiner on how to reform the Humanities”, The Nexus Institute, 11.06.2012), uselessness ought to be seen as a core virtue of humanity as it is the source of cultural and civilizational vitality – and in that sense, uselessness is useful, so to speak. And thus too is all idle play (although it does all depend on who does the playing).
The figures or figurative models in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra are meant to present us with cases of types of individuals who do, or who potentially could, or who could not ever live their lives in an affirmative joyful idleness. With respect to the Nietzschean notion of living one’s presentness joyfully and affirmatively, Alan Rosenberg (op. cit.) writes as follows: “Figures such as “the scholars”, the “philosophical laborers”, the “higher men”, provide a kind of imaginative “litmus paper” test for whether or not one can live one’s life “joyfully” and “affirmatively” according to that figurative model.” (p. 9).
The virtue of idle play and uselessness within the joy of This Moment means that all the so-called little things composing that moment are actually of supreme – or exclusive – importance for the independent individual. The absolutely vital importance of one’s choice of food, place of residence, climatic conditions and all that goes to satisfy the aesthetics of the body within its presentness have to be relearnt by the individual – and in relearning the absolute significance of these little things one must also forget the (political) affairs of this world, forget the pearls of wisdom of the famous wise ones, and forget the highfalutin exhortations of the so-called great men of the day (and their bad and/or sick instincts). It is the idle play of recreation within This Moment that truly matters in life – it is such recreation that re-creates (and thereby revitalizes) one’s self.
Now, although this paper focuses exclusively on Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, we may here in any case quote a passage from his Ecce Home, if only because of what Nietzsche has to say in this book about the so-called small things that constitute life. Therein, he writes as follows: “… these small things – nutrition, place, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness – are inconceivably more important than everything one has taken to be important so far. Precisely here one must begin to relearn. What mankind has so far considered seriously have not even been realities but mere imaginings [viz. ideologies] – more strictly speaking, lies prompted by the bad instincts of sick natures … All the problems of politics, of social organization, and of education have been falsified through and through because one mistook the most harmful men for great men – because one learnt to despise “little” things, which means the basic concerns of life.” (cf. Ecce Home, “Why I Am So Clever”, Section 10).
It is none other than those little things that constitute the what is of the individual – and it is within such what is that idle play, one’s self-recreation, takes place. The Oakeshottian conservative disposition is a disposition that moves, from a Yes! to all what is, to a Yes! to idle play within that what is. By so moving, the Oakeshottian position constitutes a critique of the western concept – and practice – of work.
As a virtue, idle play is ill-disposed towards this-worldly achievement – it is therefore ill-disposed towards all achievement as defined by the subculture of the western market-place. And thus idle play looks down on all work oriented towards career achievement, it being a prevailing mode of life in the modern and/or postmodern western world (cf. Corey, YouTube, op. cit.).
And thus one may say that the Oakeshottian moral-cum-aesthetic vision is a position that stands against the prevailing modern western ideology that wishes to marshal all humans, all of their relationships and all of their activities so as to serve one single idol – viz. that of work, and which is itself directly related to the idol-adoration of progress and productivity. Corey writes of the Oakeshottian position on work and its corollaries as follows: “Oakeshott’s writings are a continual protest against the modern call (now some five centuries old) for all activities and relationships to be put in the service of work, progress, and productivity.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 3). Nietzsche, of course, would himself assert that it was precisely such modern type of call – the call of the flies in the market-place – that would reduce this-worldly modern affairs to the affairs of traders and shopkeepers. And by so reducing the affairs of the modern western world, that world would – via the state – kill all of presentness. And therein, it would only be the exceptional individual who could reassert the value, not of work, not of progress and of productivity, but that of idle play itself – it being the mode of being of self-enactment, or of one’s re-creation within one’s presentness.
By rejecting the primacy of work, progress, and productivity, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would wish to reject the utilitarian concept of use as the determinant factor defining the individual’s mode of being – and in its place they would declare the virtue of enjoyment. The value of work (as that of progress and productivity) constitutes the ideologically-determined disposition of the modern worldly man where the usage of all things takes exclusive priority – all forms of activity that are of any real value are those that fulfill that very usage. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, it is not use-oriented work that truly counts – what truly counts for the exceptional individual is the enjoyment of things and activities as ends in themselves (and which again points to the notion of uselessness as a primary virtue).
Corey presents us with this Oakeshottian dichotomous polarity between use and enjoyment by drawing on the work of Wendell John Coats Jr. (whose studies have investigated Oakeshottian thinking as a philosophy of the “creative” – cf. above). Corey writes as follows: “Wendell John Coats Jr. expresses the difference between Oakeshott’s two ideal types as a distinction between “use” and “enjoyment”. The disposition of the worldly man is to view all things according to their actual or potential utility.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 28). The other-worldly man, in contrast, “seeks activities that are ends in themselves and that may be “enjoyed” in their performance …” (ibid.).
For Oakeshott, enjoyment as a virtue points to a playful or an aesthetically playful mode of life – such mode of life has no time for work as a virtue in itself. Playful human conduct stands over, above, and against what Oakeshott has referred to as the deadliners of doing – work deadlines being all too typical of the modern and postmodern western world. Corey summarizes this Oakeshottian position as follows: “Human conduct … has a playful, aesthetic character that removes it from the “deadliners of doing” and from the interminable practical considerations of work.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 181).
Oakeshottian thinking on the question of enjoyment would yet again appeal to death bed considerations. In his address to the new LSE undergraduates referred to above, Oakeshott would also go on to assert that, towards the end of an individual’s life – in his perhaps far distant death bed, that is – the individual would need to ask himself how much he had truly enjoyed the moments of his time-past. Noël K. O’Sullivan (op. cit.) presents us with this aspect of Oakeshott’s address to the students by summarizing it as follows: “When success is the goal, the ability to enjoy the present which is the essence of the spiritual life is lost since only future accomplishments … are valued.” (p. 209).
And similarly, when Nietzsche’s Zarathustra decides to address himself to what he calls the small and comfortable people, this is what he has to tell them: “Ah, that ye would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action!” (p. 167). If, in other words, anyone belonging to the small and comfortable ones wishes to discover his own exceptionality (and to the extent that such exists), then he ought to decide – or will – for nothing other than his own personal idleness. He ought not to decide for action (or, its concomitant, activism). He ought not to decide for action in the sense of deciding to devote one’s self to everyday practical considerations, these being synonymous with work as such. What one ought to sustain for one’s own self is one’s strong-willed idleness.
For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, this stance on work versus play would necessarily emanate from the manner in which they understood the notion of the self – for both, and as we have already seen, the self constitutes the productive core of the individual. And this productive core is the self’s own uniqueness in the world. This constitutes the productive individuality of the person. But what precisely is one’s productive individuality? It is none other than the idle play of the individual’s self – for it is only through idle play that the individual can create for the sake of creating as an end in itself.
Both Nietzsche’s advice that one ought to decide for idleness and Oakeshott’s vision of the playful mode of living point to the aesthetics of leisure – Corey informs us that this understanding of life is also evident in a number of other important western thinkers. She writes as follows: “Oakeshott’s exposition on man’s “playful” character recalls other thinkers – such as Joseph Pieper and Johan Huizinga – who recognize the vital importance of leisure as a means of facilitating contemplation and what might be called the “life of the spirit” …” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 3). Reminding us here of the work of both Pieper and Huizinga is surely of the utmost importance if one is to place the aesthetics of leisure in its historical context – viz. within the context of the history of western thinking. We know that Pieper – a German Catholic philosopher – would investigate the aesthetics of idle play in his Leisure, the Basis of Culture, originally published in 1948. And we further know that Huizinga – a Dutch historian – would undertake an investigation of the role of aesthetics, art, and spectacle in the history of both the western world and of humanity as a whole. His historical research would focus on the significance of idle play – of fun itself – as a cultural phenomenon of vital importance to civilizational practices.
Oakeshottian thinking would in the last instance be a celebration of present laughter – and it would counterpose such present laughter to all of so-called utopian bliss. Present laughter is accepting the circumstances of one’s life – it is accepting and laughing with whatever destiny befalls one’s self in its presentness. Present laughter is accepting one’s own capacities and capabilities bar whatever dependence on others. In essence, one may simply say that present laughter is laughing with the present bar whatever hope in the future, and bar whatever anticipatory anxiety for the future. Oakeshott would himself express this celebration of present laughter by writing as follows with respect to the conservative disposition: “To be conservative … is to prefer … present laughter to utopian bliss … It is to be equal to one’s own fortune, to live at the level of one’s own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one’s circumstances.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 169). Such thinking, surely, echoes all too clearly the classical Zarathustrian disposition (and such echoing of the Zarathustrian disposition on the part of Oakeshott is quite remarkable – and it is so keeping in mind that the mindset of an Englishman such as Oakeshott can in no way be compared to the emotional intensity typical of a Nietzsche).
The classical Zarathustrian disposition may be even further compared to the Oakeshottian conservative disposition with respect to the question of presentness and the idle play of presentness. For Oakeshott, as for Nietzsche, what truly matter in life is the dramatic moment – and such dramatic moment stands over, above, and against all types of utilitarian moments. What matters in all of one’s presentness is the dramatic, non-utilitarian moment of such presentness – and a dramatic, non-utilitarian moment is a moment of existential exhilaration and experiential delight. Oakeshott shall write of the dramatic, non-utilitarian experience as follows: “The relationship of friend to friend is dramatic, not utilitarian; the tie is one of familiarity, not usefulness; the disposition engaged is conservative, not ‘progressive’. And what is true of friendship is not less true of other experiences – of patriotism, for example, and of conversation – each of which demands a conservative disposition as a condition of its enjoyment.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 177).
Pivotal to the thinking of Oakeshott, therefore, is this basic distinction between work and play. To take work as a virtue in itself is to reduce life to a never-ending struggle aimed at satisfying an overwhelming barrage of material needs – and Oakeshott would argue for the existential need, on the part of the self-enacting individual, to emancipate himself from just such futile struggle. Put as simply as possible, one asks oneself the obvious question: what is the point of living those few years on earth by continually struggling to satisfy one’s animal needs? And what does such mode of living mean as regards the cultural quality of a civilization? Corey tells us that Oakeshott would ultimately come up with a clear distinction between work and play – and undertake a rather lucid analysis of the implications of such a distinction – in an essay entitled “Work and Play” (written circa 1960). She writes: “In this short piece he defines work as the activity humans undertake to satisfy an endless stream of wants. Play, on the other hand, is activity that is emancipated from wants … The danger Oakeshott identifies and laments is the modern tendency to recognize only the value of work and to ignore the supremely civilizing influence of play.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 34).
The Oakeshottian position in particular – and one may add here in some contrast to that of the Nietzschean – is to argue for a civil association that allows for aesthetic activity amongst its members. Oakeshott, in other words, would stand for a type of western society organized in the form of civil associations that allow for aesthetic play – or that allow for poetry and other, related, activities of play.
However, to say that one needs a civil association that allows for such types of activities presupposes that there are already existing individuals who are both willing and capable of engaging in such types of activities. There is no reason to assume that such types of individuals do in fact exist. Alternatively, one may pose the following sort of question: what if such types of individuals do exist but are nonetheless marginalized? Or what if such types are already slowly disappearing? In any case, the point here is that the Oakeshottian vision of a western civil association would be a form of social organization that would, not only allow for aesthetic play, but which would at the same time require the existence of a certain type of moral person. And Oakeshott, as we have already seen above, would not fall for the idea that there is some universal human nature that somehow guarantees a propensity for free, aesthetic play amongst humans. At least in terms of present-day reality, such issues can be said to be rather perplexing.
Writing of Oakeshott’s supposedly more mature understanding of the concept of civil association, Corey presents this allows vis-à-vis requires complication as follows: “… we may observe in his mature political theory an emphasis on a kind of civil association that allows – perhaps requires – the kind of moral persons who know how to engage in the sorts of activities that make one most fully human. Poetry and other kinds of “play” express this highest part of human experience.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 126).
For Nietzsche, of course, the underlying perplexities of such a position (allows vis-à-vis requires) are overcome by simply – and perhaps more realistically – asserting that aesthetic play is only for the few, these being the exceptional type of self-loving individualists.
Oakeshott in any case wishes to celebrate the mode of being of cives as that of a self-determined, a self-improvised and – in the last instance – a spontaneously free dance. In her discussion of Oakeshott’s understanding of the mode of being of cives, Corey tells us that such cives are engaged in “a continually extemporized dance” – and their world is “seen as a player’s stage” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 184). With respect to the question of dance, of course, we know that this is a concept that is also absolutely central to the whole corpus of Nietzschean thought – his own Zarathustra is a dancer. Zarathustra dances – as does Dionysus – for life, for This Moment, as for the joy-in-idleness. For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, to dance in one’s own self-determined manner is to create values (poetry) for one’s own self.
Before we close this section on the question of living one’s presentness as a form of self-organization, we may perhaps add a number of more general observations on the question of idle play as a virtue. We have already indicated that the notion of idle play has been investigated, apart from Nietzsche and Oakeshott, by thinkers such as Joseph Pieper and Johan Huizinga. But the notion of idle pleasure as a virtue has in fact been recurring in much of western philosophy, literature, and history, and it has done so from a number of radically different perspectives.
Mikhail Bakhtin, for instance, would investigate the practice of idle pleasures amongst the popular masses, and would do so through a particular interpretation of the work of Rabelais (cf. his Rabelais and His World, MIT Press, 1968). In keeping with a peculiar form of Marxian metaphysics, Bakhtin would wish to invest the popular masses with the qualities of the Nietzschean Übermensch – he would wish to endow the collectivity with what can only belong to the exceptional individual (and which could only belong to the exceptional individual for reasons discussed throughout this paper). Of course, his deterministic sociological imagination regarding the historical capacities of the proletariat (or of the so-called lumpen proletariat of the Middle Ages) has in no way been verified in the real world. On the other hand, however, it should also be said that various independent peoples abiding by their own morality of habit of behaviour within the history of the western world have certainly lived in celebration of their presentness and in celebration of the idle pleasures of such presentness. And they would be able to do so despite the difficult material conditions imposed on them by class-based circumstances. And one may therefore assert that the depiction of the popular carnival in the work of Rabelais does in fact point to a popular practice whereby social hierarchy and social norms are temporarily bracketed in time so as to merely enjoy life in itself. Such carnivalesque social inversions, however, presuppose that the popular masses maintain their own independence (their own morality of habit of behaviour) well outside the state, the famous wise ones, and the political parties of the organic intellectuals. To put it otherwise, the popular masses can live in celebration of their idle pleasures – and thereby temporarily suspend their sufferings – only to the extent that they are free of all state-imposed ideology and the idol-adoration of such ideology.
Now, if Bakhtin focused – for his own ideologically dogmatic reasons – on the idle pleasures of the popular masses in the Middle Ages, Proust would himself write of such idle pleasures, but this time as practiced by the French aristocracy at the time of the Third Republic. The final remnants of this aristocracy, it may be argued, represent the most historically authentic representatives of that western mode of life dominated exclusively by self-love, a love of all time-present, and of an absolutely guilt-free devotion to the idle pleasures of a work-free presentness (cf. Nikos Vlachos, “From Proust’s Aristocracy to Sartre’s Outcasts”, op. cit.). The underlying aristocratic ideals secreted within the overall Proustian literary enterprise may of course be compared to those of Stendhal himself who – as has already been noted – upheld the aristocratic instinct as a virtue in itself. The Proustian aristocratic ideal, as in the case of the Stendhal ideal, would celebrate love, music, and aesthetic passion as superior modes of conduct expressive of presentness, and the joyful living of such presentness.
Both Bakhtin and Proust would focus on the question of idle pleasure as practiced by social collectivities – be these plebeian or aristocratic. And yet, while the quasi-Marxist Bakhtin would wish to see the collectivity itself as a historical socio-cultural force, Proust would dwell almost exclusively on the conduct of concrete individuals belonging to a particular social grouping.
We know that, in contrast to both the thinking of Bakhtin and Proust, Oakeshott would focus on the capacities of the modern western individual – his so-called political philosophy would be concerned with the potentialities of the free, self-determined individual as a concrete person whatever be his original class position. Oakeshott would envisage the possibility of idle play within any one individual, and within the context of a western, historically-rooted pluralism (or an individualistic moral pluralism). But his thinking would in any case have to presuppose the existence of a certain type of moral individual capable of living a creative exceptionality within that very western social context.
Likewise, though definitely all the more demanding, discriminating and aristocratically selective, Nietzsche would examine the virtue of idle pleasure (especially in the sense of the gay, Dionysian mode of life) as practiced by the truly exceptional individual – viz. as practiced by his Übermensch and/or variations of such a type of individual. As in the case of Oakeshott, however, the Nietzschean exceptional individual – and the practice of idle pleasure as a virtue – may certainly be located in walks of life completely independent of social collectivities or class position (remember the old fisherman, Santiago). But what truly matters for Nietzsche is that such type of exceptional individual indulges in aesthetically superior idle pleasures well outside the collectivity – and even to the point of being a least known self-rolling wheel.
The question of idle play or idle pleasure, it is to be finally noted, has also been investigated by a variety of western intellectuals and artists whose work stretches right through to late modern or postmodern times – to end, therefore, we here definitely need to refer to the work of Jacques Tati, that truly brilliant filmmaker-cum-philosophical essayist who would devote his art to a meticulous and subtle investigation of the practice of idle play in the world of western modernity. We shall have to limit ourselves to a number of very basic observations.
Generally speaking, one may commence by observing that Jacques Tati’s films are all an exploration of the complex question of free and idle recreation within (and despite) the context of the up-and-coming ultra-modernity of the western world of the 20th century, and especially as regards the milieu of France.
In his Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953), he would focus exclusively on the all-too-human pains and pleasures of recreation, or on the modern western practice of holidaying. All along, the recreational activities of the modern western individual prevail in all their paradoxical glory – but they prevail within a space of time which we know shall soon come to an end, and where thereafter work shall have to take over. And yet both the practice of idle play and that of work can co-exist and potentially inform each other respectively. The film is a study of recreation vis-à-vis the absent presence of work. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert would summarize its theme with the following apt phrase: “to play instead of work” (cf. Roger Ebert, “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday”, RogerEbert.com, November 10, 1996).
In his Mon Oncle (1958), Tati would delve even deeper into the question of idle pleasures – or on the idle pleasures of the western individual in 1950’s Paris. He presents us with the popular practices of an idle pleasure based on a traditional morality of habit of behaviour (in the Oakeshottian sense) rooted in a time-honoured and well-established Parisian lifestyle – and he would starkly contrast such mode of life to that of an up-and-coming ultra-modernity besieging such lifestyle. Put slightly otherwise, one may say that Tati’s Mon Oncle is a study of the simple, everyday idle pleasures of Frenchmen – all such pleasures being expressive of a Parisian morality of habit of behaviour rooted in time-past and yet still remaining vibrant and vivacious in time-present. Therein, work per se takes second place (or, more accurately, is in fact quite non-existent, as in the case of the public street cleaner – he never really gets round to sweeping whatever litter lying on the street). This popular social cluster of Parisians – brimming with its own élan vital – remains unaffected by and is proudly independent of the clinical-type lifestyle expressive of the new ultra-modernity. Tati’s presentation of such ultra-modernity is such as to highlight the manner in which that particular style of life is organized around the primacy of work (be it blue-collar or white-collar), and the plastic commodities that that work constantly produces for the western market-place. It is not at all idle pleasure that prevails in this case: here, it is the factory and its products that both organize a sterile life-style.
Tati’s approach to western modernity, however, is not at all a simple (let alone a simplistic) rejection of that reality. His Play Time (1967) presents us with the what is of modernity as an experience that is to be lived (or that can be lived) affirmatively – modernity is to be lived (and can be so lived) imaginatively and creatively, and should be so lived depending on the independent perspective of the individual. Modernity may be dehumanizing (for want of a better term) – but the individual can assert his individuality within the modern western world. “I want to proclaim,” Tati has asserted, “the survival of the individual in a world that is more and more dehumanized.” (cf. “How Jacques Tati Directs Beautiful Comedy”, YouTube, October 5, 2020).
Importantly, Tati’s critique of modernity in Play Time echoes that of Oakeshott’s – viz. that the individual has to accept the what is of modernity and therein perform his own extemporaneous dance. Tati shows us how individuals can actually do that – how they do it, till the rooster crows.
In his review of Play Time, Roger Ebert makes use of Jonathan Rosenbaum’s observations on the film so as to explain Tati’s delectably creative approach to the world of western modernity. He writes as follows: “… “Playtime” is Rosenbaum’s favorite film … he doesn’t believe it’s about urban angst or alienation. In a lovely passage, he writes: “It directs us to look around at the world we live in …, then at each other, and to see how funny that relationship is and how many brilliant possibilities we still have in a shopping-mall world that perpetually suggests otherwise; to look and see that there are many possibilities and that the play between them, activated by the dance of our gaze, can become a kind of comic ballet, one that we both observe and perform …” …” (cf. Roger Ebert, “A magical mystery tour de force”, RogerEbert.com, August 29, 2004).
Tati’s understanding of the modern western world is complex. Being complex, such a world is viewed as contradictory, paradoxical, and ambiguous – and being ambiguous, it offers that space for the independent individual to freely explore and create the endless possibilities of his own mode of being (again, reminiscent of the Oakeshottian position). The ineluctable ambiguities of western modernity amount to a pluralistic cultural infrastructure that allows for individual creative innovation – ambiguity means that the world is open to individual free interpretation and a concomitant free individual performance therein. For those who happen to be in some need of a relatively agreeable cultural context of pluralistic openness (as in Oakeshott’s society of civil associations), the sheer reality of a paradoxical ambiguity may be said to allow for the play of the individual will – for the free play of such will.
Jonathan Rosenbaum’s own appreciation of Play Time would above all focus on how the film explores this tension between the what is of modernity and the potential force of individual agency. In his analysis of the film, Rosenbaum writes as follows with respect to what Play Time wishes to provoke in the minds of viewers: “… once our observation starts to superimpose a playful dance of scanning exploration and improvisation across the rigid space of the buildings – we can spend our time as creative citizens in an interactive community.” (cf. Jonathan Rosenbaum, “PlayTime”, posted October 11, 2024; written in 2013 for a 2019 Taschen publication).
One could observe here, inter alia, that Rosenbaum’s reference to creative citizens – these being Tati’s own conceptualization of individual agency as a carrier of open possibilities in the western world – is certainly analogous to that of the Oakeshottian cives.
As in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and in Mon Oncle, Tati’s Play Time above all wishes to declare the supremacy of the virtue of idle pleasure – the virtue of playing, of partying, of living life within the context of the modern western world as a free individual will opting to participate and perform in a recurring merry-go-round. Tati’s Play Time, to put it otherwise, wishes to celebrate the free individual will of the modern western individual who determines to enact his own extemporaneous dance within that merry-go-round.
It is in that sense that Play Time is synonymous with party time as such – and such partying is all enacted in a fictional high-class restaurant, Tati’s purpose-built iconic The Royal Garden. Therein, the viewer’s eye can only but feast on a truly wild cornucopia of guests who all go boisterously wild in an endless frenzy of joyful partying, and all this happens as almost everything within the restaurant gradually falls apart. But none cares, and feels authentically thus in a carefree zone of time and place – this being the epitome of a gay indifference to the things of the world.
The partying in The Royal Garden restaurant is idle play par excellence – it is an absolutely carefree, an absolutely hilarious surrender to play. Such play happens in the world of western modernity – and it all happens in an apparently sharply differentiating contrast to the film’s initial portrayal of a clinical, sterile this-worldly materialist reality. But this sterile materialist reality is neither self-contained nor insulated from alternative dimensions of modernity. In fact, it is those selfsame people operating mechanically in the ultra-modern office blocks of the city – stuck anonymously within a grid of cubicles – that engage in such spontaneous partying. Their imposed anonymity is overcome – and they conduct themselves as individuals with their own, peculiar personalities. The Royal Garden is thus a garden of intoxicated children – all traces of machine-like spiritless productivity evident in the world of so-called progress is utterly forgotten, or simply overlooked. The functional space of the office (or the factory) gives way to the spontaneous enactment of free play. Put otherwise, whatever form of rationalist functionality – it being Oakeshott’s own understanding of collective western rationalism – is transcended: it gives way to individual self-enactment beyond the needs of a rationalist-prone market-place.
Now, this disintegration of rationalist sterility and its transubstantiation into an endless play of the carnivalesque state of mind is certainly not limited to the so-called upper classes of society – although The Royal Garden is itself a high-class restaurant, the partying that takes place therein engages all possible social strata. Members of the so-called middle classes (or even those of the upper middle classes) intermingle freely with hotel employees and other so-called common working people who happen to be on the premises – all likewise let their hair down (and which echoes both the Nietzschean and Oakeshottian position that the capacity for individual idle play is extraneous to the question of one’s class position).
The point here is that the presentness of idle play as a mode of being can be enacted by whoever, whenever and wherever – it all depends on the extent to which the particular individual possesses both the will and the genius to stand over and above the material circumstances of the world that he is thrown into. The idle play portrayed in Tati’s Play Time might take place despite the circumstances of a prevailing ultra-modernity – but it does in fact take place, and it does so till the small hours of a Parisian morning.
Interestingly, Rosenbaum (ibid.) informs us that an early and tentative title of Play Time was none other than Récreation, or Recess. But to live a mode of being of presentness is – for the self-rolling individual – to live a life of continual recreation. That is part and parcel of his own self-organization.
7d. Redeeming the past as self-organization
Above, we have maintained the position that living the present in its direct presentness constitutes the definitive mode of being of the independent, self-rolling individual. And it is in that sense that all time-present – The Moment – is to be recurrently redeemed. But, then, no present can be truly redeemed unless the past is itself redeemed. We shall here focus on the question of time-past and its own necessary redemption as a mode of self-organization.
Redeeming the past, we shall be arguing, constitutes an essential component of the morality of individuality. The independent individual need salvage his own time-past in a self-organizational manner that affirms his individuality and the originality of such individuality – the self-rolling creator, in other words, need roll his own past (each and every aspect of it) in terms of his own creative imagination, or in terms of his own forms of poetization. And he need do all this in terms absolutely expressive of his own unique sense of what is good and what is bad. The presentness of individuality cannot be enacted unless time-past itself is redeemed absolutely in guilt-free, self-virtuous creativity. It is the supreme selfishness of the independent individual that selfishly redeems his own time-past in ways that indulge his own sense of virtue.
In our consideration of the question of time-past, we shall have to first of all examine the concept of the past as articulated by the state, and as experienced by its own ideologically-prone populace. We shall see that both state and populace view all of time-past as a matter of practical history – they view the past, in other words, in terms of their own practical needs, economic interests, and preferred ideological rationale. As we shall see, whatever ideologically-dominated perspective of time-past – or whatever form of practical history – immediately raises the question of nihilism as a mode of thinking within the western world.
We shall then go on to contrast such a particular – but dominant – understanding of time-past with an alternative conceptualization of all time-past that can belong neither to the state nor to the superfluous many-too-many. This alternative conceptualization speaks of the past of the valuing and self-valuing individual. Here, the valuing individual reinscribes the noble in all of his own time-past, and the noble in all of a selective it was – and he reinscribes such quality of the noble in terms of the measure of his own sense of virtue. The valuing individual remains supremely indifferent to whatever practical dimensions raise their head both within his own time-past and within the it was of all of human history. He is above all engaged in the re-creation of the past – and he is engaged in such re-creation in terms of his own individual morality. What, with respect to the past, is expressive of individual morality? Here, the morality of individuality is the will as a force of reconciliation with all of time – it is a reconciliation of the it was with the what is.
Now, one may make the empirical observation that, at least as regards the western world, the manner in which the state and its organic intellectuals present the question of history has a determining impact on the way in which the populace itself comes to view its own understanding of its own history – above all, such manner also determines the way in which people come to assess their very own personal time-past. And thus it is that the state’s focus on practical history comes to influence the personal understanding of the person’s own private history – here too, each member of society assesses his own story in terms of practical considerations. With this in mind, this section will therefore also have to briefly consider the question of historical time-past as inclusive of the traditionality of past moralities of habit of behaviour, and their exceptional role in the history of the western world – such moralities have informed both independent peoples and independent individuals in ways that remained relatively or wholly independent of the state and its famous wise ones (with respect to independent individuals, remember the ego-self interplay vis-à-vis the world, as has been discussed above). Theirs, we shall be asserting, was an understanding of history beyond the merely practical dimension of survival – and thereby they were able to forge proud and independent civilizational cultures that remain unique in themselves. But while, as we shall see, such peoples or individuals would acknowledge the gifts of time-past, they would not ever idolize such time-past. They lived beyond such idolization because they lived outside the realms of political (or religious) ideology.
Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra and Oakeshottian thinking both express lucid positions on the question of time-past – be that as regards historical events in general or as regards the mode of living of concrete individuals vis-à-vis their own private histories.
Our discussion regarding the question of the historical past has to begin by considering the manner in which western civilization has come to deal with its own time-past (as also with that of other civilizations). The state and its ideologically-prone populace have come to establish a very particular understanding of the past – the state and its intellectual organs have done so at a so-called academic level; the populace do so at the level of popular, conventional wisdom (and, at least in terms of method and rationale, they all think and feel alike regarding the meaning of the past whatever ideology they happen to espouse). Both state and populace have come to reinterpret the past in terms of their practical needs. By reinterpreting the past in terms of their needs, they have come to abandon the history of the past to the needs of their current politico-economic conjuncture. They have come to abandon the gifts of the past to the ideological whims and transient rationalities of the current generation – they abandon history as such to their own this-worldly market-dominated nihilistic follies.
This, in fact, is the Nietzschean position on present-day modern historiography, as expressed in his Thus Spake Zarathustra – and it is a position that, as we shall see, clearly resonates with Oakeshott’s critique of the dominant ideology of the practical past, as used and abused by activist academics, politicians, and the many-too-many. With respect to the past, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “It is my sympathy with all the past that I see it is abandoned – Abandoned to the favour, the spirit and the madness of every generation that cometh, and reinterpreteth all that hath been as its bridge!” (p. 197).
But it is not simply that the current generation does the reinterpretation of the past – the interpretation of the past is restricted, regulated, and reinterpreted in terms of the needs of the current ruler of that generation (or its own ideological hegemon). The ruler writes history to serve his needs – or to serve the needs of hegemonic legitimation. Zarathustra more or less expresses this as follows: “A great potentate might arise, an artful prodigy, who with approval and disapproval could strain and constrain all the past, until it became for him a bridge, a harbinger, a herald, and a cock-crowing.” (ibid.).
But while the ruler restricts and regulates time-past for his own practical purposes, the populace itself constrains time-past in its own way – it has a short-term memory of the past; it is simply forgetful of the distant past and of the gifts of such distant past. And thus the historical past is restricted by both the hegemon and his populace. With respect to the manner in which the many-too-many relate to time-past, Zarathustra observes as follows: “This however is the other danger … : he who is of the populace, his thoughts go back to his grandfather – with his grandfather, however, doth time cease.” (ibid.). Time thus ceases for the populace given its restrictive short-term memory – and its memory is short-term given that the mindset of the populace is merely practical. Its practicality is focused on material survival, the small passions, and a politics of faith obsessively pointing to a better future.
What happens when the restrictive and practically-oriented historical memory of the many-too-many itself becomes totally hegemonic? What happens when the so-called democratic masses come to directly determine the manner in which the state interprets history? When the masses become master within state formations, time-past is ultimately drowned in the banal myths of a trivial superficiality. Zarathustra warns as follows: “Thus is all the past abandoned; for it might some day happen for the populace to become master, and drown all time in shallow waters.” (ibid.). It is precisely this idea of the shallow waters drowning the past that echoes the Oakeshottian critique of the popular, mass-based understanding of time-past as mere practical history.
To drown history in shallow waters is nihilistic – and, being nihilistic, it is destructive of presentness itself. And it is for this reason that the independent individual needs to redeem history for his own self, and for the presentness of his self. He thus needs to salvage the past so as to reconcile it with the uniqueness of The Moment. He need reconcile the it was with his what is.
But to be able to do this, the independent individual needs to comprehend time-past in a manner that shall completely reject all interpretations of history as woven by the utilitarian intentionalities of both state and populace. To reject all established interpretations of history, to salvage and to reconcile the it was with the what is, would yield a new, creative reinterpretation of the past. It would mean to reassess history in terms of a new, self-created virtue. Such new, independent virtue would necessarily reinscribe the quality of the noble in all of time-past as selected by the valuing individual.
For Nietzsche, only a new nobility could possibly undertake such a task – and such nobility would undertake this task for itself only (whatever happen to be the ultimate, unintentional reverberations with respect to whichever outsiders): such task of reinterpreting history would not yield a new historiography meant for the purposes of either the state or the masses. Such nobility, of course, is none other than that special case of the individual embodied in the Nietzschean Übermensch.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks quite lucidly of the exceptional individual – his Übermensch or the so-called new nobility – and how the moral individuality of such individual would reject both state and popular historiography so as to inscribe the noble in his own selectively salvaged it was. This is how he puts it: “Therefore, O my brethren, a new nobility is needed, which shall be the adversary of all populace and potentate rule, and shall inscribe anew the word ‘noble’ on new tables.” (ibid.). It would be these new tables of vice and virtue that shall salvage the past so as to confirm a guilt-free present Moment for the individual.
We have suggested that the alternative to such form of salvaging the past for the present leads to nihilism. And we suggested that this nihilism springs from a practical understanding of the past. We therefore need to delve a bit deeper into the implications of an ideology that wishes to reduce all of the it was to a political practicality.
It is certainly (and apart from the Nietzschean perspective) the Oakeshottian critique of western historiography that helps us much in understanding the nihilistic implications of such historiography – it helps us understand how practical history is conducive to the destruction of the identity of autonomous peoples within western civilization (and thereby also destructive of the autonomous morality of individuality). It may be said that Oakeshott commences his critique by arguing that the past ought to be seen as a particular mode of experience that is distinct in itself – and being distinct, it is distinct from all practice and all practical experience. There is that discrete mode of experience, Corey tells us, that Oakeshott presents as distinct from practice, and this mode is history per se (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 61).
Given that history is a distinct mode, the past cannot be assimilated to a practical present. Being a distinct mode, the historical past need be protected and defended from the political practicalities of whichever socio-political and/or ideological conjuncture. It needs to be protected and defended, in other words, from the encroachments of the practical present (and the consequences of such encroachment can quite easily be seen in the case of the Christian tradition and its cultural heritage within the western world – such tradition and heritage have come to be used and abused for practical reasons to the point of having reduced both to a mere state ideology). One may say that Corey does an excellent job in presenting this Oakeshottian defense of the historical past as a discrete mode of (so-called) human knowledge – she writes as follows: “History’s most important postulate is its concern with the idea of the “past”. But what kind of past is this? Oakeshott attempts to define a specifically “historical” past, a past that cannot merely be assimilated to the practical present. His task here is one of definition, but also of protection: he aims to defend history, that is, a particularly pure understanding of history, against its most common misunderstandings and misappropriations. Practice, because it is so immediately pressing, tends to invade the territory of other modes [of knowledge] and to insinuate itself into areas of experience where it does not belong. It certainly does this in the case of history – “history is only important for what it can tell us about the here and now”, practice argues – and Oakeshott expends much effort defending history from this encroachment.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 62).
For Oakeshott, the historical past cannot be used (and should not ever be used) to help us understand or explain the present – such mode of experience is not meant to illuminate the present. The historical past cannot be presented to the masses – and as it is in fact being presented – as a didactic form of knowledge meant to warn them of how they ought to think and how they ought to conduct themselves in practice. History is what it is for its own sake – it is concerned with the past for the sake of that past. And it is only such history that can be reconciled with the presentness of The Moment. Corey goes on to present us with this sharp Oakeshottian critique of an illuminatory and/or didactic understanding of history – she tells us that, for Oakeshott, “History does not exist to “illuminate the present” or to “provide lessons” for practical conduct. While practice is the realm of action … where all decisions have consequences for an imagined future, history is concerned with the past for its own sake.” (cf. Corey, ibid.).
But since history exists for its own sake, it constitutes a realm of so-called human knowledge that is outside any moral and/or causal judgments as determined by the ideological worldviews of modern contemporaries – it remains a realm of experience beyond all the ideologies of the state (their singular understanding of causality) and that of the many-too-many (their singular sense of right and wrong). Corey presents this alternative vision of the Oakeshottian historical past by writing as follows: “This alternative vision is the “historical past” … in which there is no place for moral or causal judgments.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 64).
On the other hand, it need here be stressed that the noble that can be inscribed in history remains the absolutely exclusive prerogative of the morality of individuality as determined by the independent individual – he inscribes such noble quality for his own self and only for himself, and which constitutes a necessary part of his own reconciliation with all of the it was. Such inscription is not at all an ideological evaluation, and it would not be intended as a didactic initiative meant to inform the many-too-many. Above all, to inscribe the noble within time-past would constitute a reinterpretation of that time-past in the sense of an individual disposition, or in the sense of an individual sensibility as a mode of self-organization.
One may now state that there are two types of pasts – the one is the so-called practical past, and which is in fact a mere dimension of the practical present as expressive of a current conjuncture. Corey notes as follows: “Oakeshott observes that there are two different meanings of the term past. The first is what he calls the “practical past”, and it is the counterpart of the practical present.” (cf. Corey, ibid., p. 63). And there is that other past, which is essentially an end in itself. The first understanding of the past is an ideologically manufactured past – it is manufactured by ideologically informed organic intellectuals at the service of a particular conjuncture; and it is as much manufactured by the small passions of the many-too-many. But it is the second understanding of the past – that which is beyond all collective ideology and all practical intentionality – that is to be salvaged. And it is to be salvaged so that there be a reconciliation with it within the idle play of the present Moment. It is only the exceptional individual that has the capacity – or the genius – to do such salvaging and such reconciliation.
The state itself is incapable of salvaging such an understanding of the historical past – it needs to usurp and use the past so as to secure its own hegemony and so as to serve its own functionality. The state (and therefore all of politics, and especially the politics of faith) usurps history in the form of a practical past for its own purposes – it usurps it for its political and ideological usefulness. The past, interpreted as a practical past, serves the state (and its politics) as it would an autocratic master. The historical past as an end in itself is well-nigh cancelled – as Nietzsche has asserted, the state steals the historical past from the individual. And it steals this from the individual in the same way as it steals living in the present from the individual.
It is therefore precisely for this reason that there is this need for an autonomous form of historical identity – and Oakeshott would argue for such an identity, counterposing it to the prevailing practical historical identity. It is of such a fine distinction in the thinking of Oakeshott that Noël K. O’Sullivan (op. cit., p. 211) would refer to when he writes as follows: “… a very original refinement of his early analysis emerged in Experience and Its Modes, where he distinguished between an autonomous form of historical identity, on the one hand, and the “practical” historical identity sought for example in religion and politics, on the other.”
We notice here that Noël K. O’Sullivan includes the realm of religion as a victim of practical history – the implication being that the practical interpretation of history has also invaded the world of western religiosity. As already alluded to, such encroachment has had a major impact on religious practices in the western world – the impact being destructively nihilistic. The autonomous historical identity of the Christian tradition and heritage, as embedded in the consciousness of western peoples, would ultimately be overridden and/or debased by an ideologically informed practical historical identity – Christianity would be reduced to a state ideology, or it would in any case be systematized and thereby reduced to a useful ideological discourse as articulated by academic philosophers, theologians, and even those operating in the field of so-called sociological studies. The time-past of Christianity would come to be stolen by the state, its organic intellectuals, and the slavish conventional wisdom of its populace – and this practical reinterpretation of Christianity would come to mould the socio-cultural formation of much of the western world. Briefly speaking, one may say that as Christianity would come to mutate into a practical historical identity, it would take the form of a functional state ideology – as a functional state ideology, it would speak of equality and social justice. And thus it would come to yield the ideology of democracy – but democracy and its discourse of neighbour-love would lead to the slum cities of the many-too-many, or would lead to the Nietzschean flies in the market-place. And it is in this sense that the state-imposed ideology of practical history would convert the autonomous identity of a popular morality of habit of behaviour (viz. the popular customs and traditionality emanating from Christian popular cultural practices, as also the supreme cultural products of Christianity as celebrated by a Proustian love of the Gothic-type cathedral) into a self-denying, effeminate nihilism. This, however, would herald the gradual decay and death of western civilization itself.
Beyond and above the decay and death of whatever civilization, the valuing individual establishes his own original and autonomous relationship to the historical past – and it is a relationship that is by definition informed by a self-rolling creative understanding of a past as an end in itself. We have already argued that the valuing individual salvages the past as an end in itself by reinscribing the word noble in it, and he does so contra both state and populace. Here, no longer is the past in itself abandoned; no longer is such past a practical ideological tool of state and populace. And while the state and its organic intellectuals make use of public discourse – language – to promote the ideology of a practical, didactic past, the valuing individual salvages the past in silence vis-à-vis the public. It is in silence – as that least known morality of individuality – that the independent individual revalues the past in terms of his own sense of nobility and virtue. And it is thus that the independent, valuing individual salvages the historical past of the western world from a practical past of state and populace bent on nihilistic self-destruction.
We need to further investigate the mode of being of the independent, self-rolling individual as regards his relationship to the past, or as regards his relationship to all of the it was of human history. What does it really mean to redeem what is of the past? It is Nietzsche who answers such a critical question most decisively. He writes as follows: “To redeem what is past, and to transform every ‘It was’ into ‘Thus would I have it’ – that only do I call redemption!” (p. 138). The redemption of the past is its creative transformation – and it is transformed in such a manner that it may be properly possessed by the “I” of the self. It is therefore a transformation of the past in terms of the virtue of the self (and none other), this being the virtue of the individual’s supreme selfishness. That which is being transformed is each and every aspect of the it was – each and every aspect of the past is accepted as an end in itself, and it is on the basis of such acceptance that each and every aspect of the past may be transformed in terms of the individual’s own table of values (and it is this very table of values that selects the exceptionally noble in the past).
It would be this transformation and reclaiming of the past that would allow the exceptional individual to assert that affirmative disposition declaring: Thus would I have it. That the individual would have reclaimed the past in such manner – as transformed – would mean that the individual would have eradicated whatever guilt feelings regarding the past; he would eye the past bar whatever miserable little passions; and he would eye the past without the need to cancel any aspect of it. Of course, such a mode of being with respect to the past is precisely a reconciliation with each and every aspect of the it was – and it is such reconciliation that allows for the enactment of the free and creative presentness of the joyfully idle Moment.
It is the exceptional individual’s will – his will to empower his own independent self for itself – that enables him to reconcile with all of the it was. It is such will to power that facilitates this reconciliation with time per se – and it is precisely this reconciliation that Nietzsche speaks of when he discusses the question of redemption. Reconciliation with the past is based on this redemption, and redemption is to will backwards. This is how Zarathustra puts it: “All ‘It was’ is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance – until the creating Will saith thereto: ‘But thus would I have it.’ … Until the creating Will saith thereto: ‘But thus do I will it! Thus shall I will it!’ … But did it ever speak thus? And when doth this take place? Hath the Will been unharnessed from its own folly? … Hath the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Hath it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing? … And who hath taught it reconciliation with time, and something higher than all reconciliation? … Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is the Will to Power; but how doth that take place? Who hath taught it also to will backwards?” (139).
The power to will backwards, of course, can only belong to the exceptionally independent individual with the genius to do so – this type of capacity for reconciliation and joy-bringing can only belong to the Übermensch, or to types of individuals approximating such ideal archetype.
The Nietzschean notion that the exceptional individual need reconcile himself with all of time-past – and thereby reclaim in terms of his own values whatever fragments, riddles, and fearful chances of all time-past – is certainly echoed in the fundamentals of Oakeshottian thinking. “Like the wise man,” Oakeshott writes, “we remain reconciled with our past” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 48).
For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, reconciliation is a process of creation. Oakeshott, we have already seen, would argue for a morality of individuality that necessarily indulges itself in the aesthetics of poetization and the creative imagination with respect to both time-past and time-present. And Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “I taught them all my poetisation and aspiration: to compose and collect into unity what is fragment in man, and riddle and fearful chance …” (p. 193).
For both thinkers (and despite their various differences), the exceptional individual is above all – and is so by definition – a composer. Zarathustra continues as follows: “As composer, riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance did I teach them to create … all that hath been – to redeem by creating … The past of man to redeem, and every ‘It was’ to transform, until the Will saith: ‘But so did I will it! So shall I will it’ … This did I call redemption; this alone taught I them to call redemption …” (ibid.).
For both, therefore, the past is redeemed and reconciled in the self (outside whatever collective and institutionalized so-called wisdom) by being re-created and re-willed and thus transformed and accepted (such acceptance being precisely the Oakeshottian conservative disposition).
It is this redemption and reconciliation with the it was that allows Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to in fact rejoice over all of time-past – he thus naturally speaks of a blessed remote past (p. 204). And one may contrast this reference to a remote and distant past with the typical thinking of the many-too-many – the practical memory of the latter, as Nietzsche has observed, only goes back to their grandfathers. Being both unwilling and incapable of rejoicing over their historical identity, the many-too-many simply forget the distant time-past – and they need forget since they have been taught to harbour deep guilt feelings about their historical origins. In contrast to both the Nietzschean and Oakeshottian disposition with respect to a non-practical past, the many-too-many have no time for the historical past as an end in itself – for them, time ceases; it ceases there where practical utility also ceases.
For Nietzsche and Oakeshott, reconciliation with all of time-past – however remote – takes place within the self. It is only within the so-called soul of the self that all of time – past, present, and therefore the future itself – comes to fuse into one experience. And it is therefore within the self that all of time is reconciled for the self. The fusion brings together the remotest of pasts with all that has come to succeed such historical past – and since such reconciliation is that extensive, so too is the soul of the self. But a soul that is thus extensive is also a comprehensive soul. Such all-inclusive reconciliation means joy – or the creative joy of the idle Moment of the self-rolling individual. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks of such joyful all-inclusive reconciliation within the soul of the individual as follows: “O my soul, exuberant and heavy dost thou now stand forth … Filled and weighted by thy happiness … O my soul, there is nowhere a soul which could be more loving and more comprehensive and more extensive! Where could future and past be closer together than with thee?” (p. 216).
The all-inclusive fusion and reconciliation composes the very presentness of the individual – that is how the joyful individual now asserts his own self – that is how he now stands forth.
We have seen that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would argue for a reconciliation with all of time-past – all of the it was (being a historical past beyond whatever practical and/or utilitarian intentionalities) is to be allowed to fuse within the terrain of an extensive and comprehensive self. But although all of time-past is to be accepted as such, some of that time-past may be selected as exceptional in terms of the virtues it happened to express (and such selectivity, as already clarified, would be a matter of purely individual disposition). Nietzsche has spoken of the noble in a certain remote time-past; Oakeshott has himself lauded the role of the independent individual – and that of the cives in civil association – within the course of western history. We shall therefore end this section by very briefly considering how both speak of the virtues of time-past.
Nietzsche expects of the individual not to restrict his awareness of the historical past to that of his own grandfathers – and yet, and right at the same time, he can advise the individual as follows: “Walk”, he writes, “in the footsteps in which your fathers’ virtue hath already walked! How would ye rise high, if your fathers’ will should not rise with you?” (p. 281). For Nietzsche, therefore, the fathers’ virtue is expressive of a certain virtue of the past.
Similarly, whenever Oakeshott turns to a discussion of the question of education – and especially that of tertiary education – he advises students to above all see themselves in the reflection of their own inheritance (cf. Corey, YouTube, op. cit.). Oakeshott argues that when a student sees himself in the reflection of his own inheritance – and primarily in the reflection of the most positive (or noble) dimensions of that inheritance – that student shall ultimately be able to attain a certain level of (what Oakeshott calls) self-understanding. Of course, Nietzsche would himself speak of the critical importance of self-understanding – it being a self-understanding based on one’s reconciliation with all of one’s inheritance. But, need we say, to reconcile oneself in such manner is to also see one’s own individuality as reflected in the inheritance bestowed by time-past.
Edmund Neill (op. cit., p. 111) has observed that Oakeshott would remain “adamant that upholding the best parts of our tradition is a vital part of ‘disclosing’ and ‘enacting’ ourselves successfully, to use the terminology of On Human Conduct.” And we are suggesting that this Oakeshottian need to uphold the best parts of our tradition may certainly be compared with the Nietzschean advice that the exceptional individual need walk in the footsteps of his fathers’ virtue.
Generally speaking, then, we may say that both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would argue for the need to uphold the most noble dimensions of time-past – and especially when such time-past involved proud peoples that had had the courage and self-respect to will their own fate. On the other hand, such upholding of one’s own inheritance – that need to see one’s own individuality in the inheritance bestowed by the historical past – cannot be allowed to in any way violate or compromise the supremacy of presentness (or the joyful confirmation of The Idle Moment). And thus, while the Oakeshottian conservative disposition would acknowledge the inherited gifts emanating from time-past, such a disposition would in no way wish to idolize time-past – all idolization and idol-adoration would in any case be an anathema to Oakeshott (let alone to Nietzsche). And thus, when Oakeshott writes of a gift or an inheritance from the past, he immediately adds: “… but there is no mere idolizing of what is past and gone.” (cf. Oakeshott, p. 168).
7e. Creating the world in one’s likeness – the question of truth
Whatever degree of self-organization on the part of the individual would remain absolutely fruitless and as absolutely meaningless unless such self-organization could be centered around its own sense of truth. Truth, it may be trenchantly argued, is to create the world in one’s very own likeness – such a suggestion, of course, apparently sounds all too far-fetched. But such apparent far-fetchedness ought not to dissuade us from a serious consideration of the suggestion – defining truth in any case remains elusive, if not up for grabs. We well know that even a thinker such as Max Weber would himself have no ready answer to that pertinent epistemological question put to him by one of his frustrated Viennese students – viz. what does so-called objective knowledge of the world really mean? This section shall therefore have to deal with the rather controversial question regarding truth per se – and the function of truth per se vis-à-vis the self-organization of the exceptional individual.
We know that all of Nietzschean thinking would be characterized by a relentless mistrust of whatever so-called universal claims regarding the realities of life. Such mistrust would be a symptom of healthy, original, and truly independent thinking. Being the fruit of an authentic health, originality and independence, such mistrust would not simply be an expression of an apprehensive negativity – it would in fact affirm the spirit of the supremely independent individual. And the spirit of the supremely independent individual is by definition enigma-intoxicated (and thereby creative).
The supremely independent individual, being independent of the market-places of this-world, maintains a supremely indifferent disposition towards whatever takes place within such world. As already discussed, he remains supremely indifferent or neutral towards the many-too-many and their ephemeral political faiths, and their as ephemeral so-called great events. He is and so remains – unmoved. At the same time, however, his spirit is alive with and fully receptive to all the enigmas and paradoxes of life per se. Such enigmas and paradoxes bring him joy and engender a healthy laughter in his soul (remember here the Oakeshottian celebration of present laughter as opposed to utopian bliss) – the orrery of enigmas and paradoxes does not and cannot ever cause him whatever sense of existential misery. And thus Nietzsche’s Zarathustra may aptly speak as follows: “Unmoved is my depth; but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters.” (p. 114).
The truth (or, better still, the truths) of life is not an absolute (and all absolutes smack of the metaphysical) – whatever truth is an enigma, a paradox, and a laughter. It is of great interest at this point to observe that even a mathematician can acknowledge such reality – and that, despite all one’s logico-mathematical truths. One may, by way of an example, consider here the quasi-philosophical albeit lucid thinking of someone such as Edward Frenkel, the important Russian-American mathematician in his discussions with Lex Fridman. Therein, Frenkel would argue that to acknowledge and recognize the paradoxes and riddles of reality is a mode of thinking that sets one free from dogmatic truths and dogmatic formulae. Frenkel wishes to emphasize the freedom that such paradoxes and riddles bestow on us as thinking individuals, and this as opposed to the sheer tyranny of dogma. (cf. “Reality is a Paradox”, Lex Fridman Podcast 370, YouTube, April 10, 2023).
The freedom bestowed by paradoxes and riddles is such as to intoxicate the creative individual – Zarathustra addresses himself to that type of free, creative individual as follows: “To you, the daring venturers and adventurers, and whoever hath embarked with cunning sails upon frightful seas … To you the enigma-intoxicated, … whose souls are allured by flutes to every treacherous gulf …” (p. 152).
What is it that the enigma-intoxicated individual dares? Where lies the gamble? Oakeshott shall himself speak of such gamble. For him, the independent individual engages in a conversation wherein there is no truth to be discovered, no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought. Such conversation is above all just an idle gamble – but it is precisely therein that the joy and freedom of The Moment is fulfilled. This is how Oakeshott considers the type of conversation taking place amongst independent individuals, and the concomitant question of truth: “… it may be supposed”, he writes, “that the diverse idioms of utterance which make up current human intercourse have some meeting-place and compose a manifold of some sort. And, as I understand it, the image of this meeting-place is not an inquiry or an argument, but a conversation … In a conversation the participants are not engaged in an inquiry or a debate; there is no ‘truth’ to be discovered, no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought … Every entrant [in the conversation] is taken at its face-value and everything is permitted which can get itself accepted into the flow of speculation … It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 198). And he then goes on as follows with respect to the situation in the modern western world: “To rescue the conversation from the bog into which it has fallen and to restore to it some of its lost freedom of movement would require a philosophy more profound than anything I have to offer. But there is another, more modest, undertaking which is perhaps worth pursuing. My proposal is to consider again the voice of poetry; to consider it as it speaks in the conversation … And if what is now needed is some relief from the monotony of a conversation too long appropriated by politics and science, it may be supposed that an inquiry into the quality and significance of the voice of poetry may be something in this interest.” (ibid., pp. 202-203).
It would be as early as 1959 that Oakeshott would express such deep skepticism with respect to the monotonously formulaic truths of both political ideology and scientific discourse – and it would be to the paradoxical and riddle-ridden language of the voice of poetry that he would turn instead. As such, his own understanding of the concept of truth would be highly disruptive. Such disruptive thinking on the part of Oakeshottian thinking with respect to the question of truth certainly does echo Nietzsche’s own disruptive wisdom, as alluded to above (cf. Alan Rosenberg, op. cit.).
It is such type of disruptive thinking on the question of truth and objectivity that allows the independent individual to assert his right to articulate his own sense of personal truth. It enables the individual, in other words, to assert the right to, and the power for, his self-seeking with respect to truth. The implication here is that the many-too-many and their state (or, for that matter, one’s neighbour; or the other) do not possess whatever right – and do not in any case possess the power – to obstruct such individualist self-seeking in whatever manner. And thus Nietzsche’s Zarathustra may speak to the exceptional individual as follows with respect to the many-too-many vis-à-vis the question of self-seeking: “Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one’s own child [viz. with one’s own truth] … ‘For one’s neighbour’ is the virtue only of the petty people; there it is said ‘like and like’, and ‘hand washeth hand’ – they have neither the right nor the power for your self-seeking!” (pp. 280-281).
Self-seeking directed to one’s self-truth constitutes a mode of being that need be located well beyond the so-called natural order of all social values. This means surpassing the so-called natural order of society. But to be able to surpass the social order one needs to surpass a self that remains servile to its socially-oriented ego – one needs to overcome that type of condition wherein the public ego dictates to the private self as to what is good and what is evil in the world. Such overcoming is a self-surpassing whereby the self as such ultimately mutates into a ruling thought, a self-authority, and a self-conqueror. And it is thus that the self is activated to function – and as has been already discussed – as the productive core of the individual. It would be this productive core that becomes the self-seeker – the seeker of one’s unique self-truth.
Seeking one’s own unique self-truth is surpassing the so-called natural order of good and evil. To surpass such order, the individual needs to activate his own will to truth. And thereby the individual mutates into a self-rolling movement – he moves from the so-called natural order of good and evil (as defined by social justice) to an affirmation of his will to his own truth as to what is – or is not – virtuous. That, however, presupposes a power over one’s own self (a self-surpassing) whereby the self is now of a higher order – it is now an independent, self-rolling productive authority determining its own truth of the world and of its relationship to that world.
Now, specifically as regards the question of good and evil, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “Verily, I say unto you: good and evil which would be everlasting – it doth not exist! Of its own accord must it ever surpass itself anew.” (p. 113). Within such apparently eternal flux, the exceptional individual is called upon to determine his own sense of good and evil. This now brings us to the question of the thinkableness of all being – as also to the role of the will within such thinkableness.
In his discussion of the question of self-surpassing, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows: “But that ye may understand my gospel of good and evil, for that purpose will I tell you my gospel of life, and of the nature of all living things.” (p. 111). Before we proceed any further, there are a number of issues that need a certain clarification as to what Nietzsche is really implying when he speaks of the nature of all living things. To begin with, it should be emphasized that Nietzsche’s reference to nature is obviously not meant, at least at this point, to present us with some particular theory of human nature. On the other hand, and as we have seen above, Nietzsche does have a very specific understanding of the relationship between the ego, the self, and the body. But since these existential forces composing the psyche of the individual may relate in a wide variety of combinations within persons, there can be no universal human nature. In fact, it may be argued that the general Nietzschean understanding of human nature is not altogether dissimilar to that of Oakeshott’s – and we know that Oakeshott rejects (and has no need for) whatever conceptualization relating to some universal human nature. Nietzsche here wishes to speak of the nature of all living beings – and he speaks of such nature based on his own individual (or even consciously individualistic) experience of the world around him. His Zarathustra expresses such very personal experience as follows: “The living thing did I follow; I walked in the broadest and narrowest paths to learn its nature … With a hundred-faced mirror did I catch its glance when its mouth was shut, so that its eye might speak unto me. And its eye spake unto me.” (ibid.).
Nietzsche shall argue that it is in the nature of all things to strive for a certain will to power. And yet, it is only the exceptional individual – the unpredictable and entitled higher man – who possesses that particular will to power that strives for its very own will to truth (and here this specifically Nietzschean position on the unpredictability and the entitlement of certain exceptional individuals may be contrasted to that of the Weberian understanding of the autonomous personality within the western milieu).
The exceptional individual’s own will to truth is his exceptional creative force to make all being thinkable in terms of his own values – it is the capacity to make all being thinkable via an absolutely independent self-valuing of all things. And he is able to attain such moral status as a moral individualist that interprets all things in terms of his own selfhood not because of the conjunctural circumstances that happen to circumscribe him, but rather despite such circumstances.
Very importantly, Nietzsche shall write as follows with respect to the will to truth, and the possible thinkableness of things: “… ‘Will to Truth’ do ye call it, ye wisest ones, that which impelleth you and maketh you ardent? … Will for the thinkableness of all being: thus do I call your will! … All being would ye make thinkable: for ye doubt with good reason whether it be already thinkable … But it shall accommodate and bend itself to you! So willeth your will. Smooth shall it become and subject to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection … That is your entire will, ye wisest ones, as a Will to Power; and even when ye speak of good and evil, and of estimates of value.” (ibid.).
Nietzsche is here asserting that, for certain individuals, all being can be forged in such manner that it can be made subject to their creative spirit – and not vice versa (and which would be expressive of the servile state of mind). All being can be reinterpreted in such form that it need adjust to and be wholly expressive of the creative power of the individual. Being would here be determined by – and thereby have to reflect – the will of the individual, and not vice versa.
Since here all of being is determined by the individual’s will, that will wills being in its very own likeness – and it is this that constitutes the truth of the will, as also the truth of what is good and what evil in all of being. But to be able to materialize such a creative possibility, the individual must possess the capacity – the genius – to make all being thinkable. Not everyone can do that. More than that, not everyone can engage in such truly risky life-gamble.
The will to truth is the will to create the meaning of life as the mirror reflection of one’s own self – it is to create truth in terms of one’s own likeness. In his presentation of the happy isles, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks of precisely such type of creativity as follows: “Could ye conceive a God? But let this mean Will to Truth unto you, that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the humanly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall ye follow out to the end! … And what ye have called the world shall but be created by you; your reason, your likeness, your will, your love, shall it itself become! And verily, for your bliss, ye discerning ones!” (p. 82).
Truth is here to be determined by the will of the exceptional – the discerning – individual. And thus the truth of all being – and thus the truth of the world itself – is to be created in accordance with the will of that type of exceptional individual. It thereby follows that the world and its truth can only but be that individual’s own reason. And further, given the self-love of the exceptional individual, the world that he creates can only but be – and as it so righteously must be – in his very own likeness. By so creating the world and the truth of that world, the exceptional individual attains his own all-consuming joy – his mode of being would be expressive of the Oakeshottian present laughter (or what Nietzsche simply calls bliss).
One’s creation of (what one calls) the world in terms of his own likeness – or as a reflection of his own image – would mean that one creates one’s own singular truth. And any singular truth is by definition a supremely exclusive truth. Now, such a position may at first sound like a typically extreme Nietzschean epistemological aberration. Apart from the fact that such a position is simply and absolutely consistent with Nietzsche’s general understanding of the morality of individuality vis-à-vis the world of the western market-place, it should also be acknowledged that this Nietzschean epistemological position is not much different from that of Oakeshottian thinking. We may remind ourselves here of what Oakeshott has written on the question of truth, and especially with respect to the notion of exclusive truth – as has already been quoted above, Oakeshott would celebrate the individual’s propensity to make his own choices in life and thereby find his own happiness; he would celebrate the diversity of beliefs held by each individual; he would celebrate the individual’s conviction for his own exclusive truth; he would celebrate inventiveness and changefulness; and he would above all celebrate the individual’s impassioned excess and impassioned over-activity with respect to his exclusive truth.
For Nietzsche, either one creates the world in terms of his own image or he submits to the ass-worship and mass idol-adoration of the market-place. Were he not to create the world in his own image, he would have to live in a world created in the image of the ass. Speaking of the ass or, rather, of the idol of the ass, Zarathustra observes as follows: “Hath he not created the world in his own image, namely, as stupid as possible?” (p. 302). The individual who creates the world in terms of his own image creates a world determined by his own self-created values; in contrast, the individual who accepts a world as created by ass-worship and idol-adoration has to submit to the appointed values of such adoration. But all appointed values are expressive of mediocrity – and mediocrity is the foundation of mass stupidity.
Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott – each in his own manner and style – would thereby argue for the supremely exclusive truth of the independent individual. Oakeshott would argue that there exists no single objective truth whatsoever, and he would go so far as to emphasize the vital and paramount status of aesthetic knowledge and/or aesthetic truth, as determined by the individual. We have already noted above that, for Oakeshott, there are radically different ways of interpreting the truth of things in the world – and each manner or mode of interpretation constitutes a specific language (or voice in a conversation) with respect to a certain understanding of things in the world. A historical knowledge of things can be related to a scientific knowledge of these things – and yet such scientific knowledge is an absolutely different type of discourse when compared to historical knowledge. Both a historical and a scientific knowledge of any particular thing could more or less be related to a practical knowledge of that thing – yet still, practical knowledge is completely different from both historical and scientific discourse. Unlike historical, scientific, and practical knowledge, the exceptional individual is entitled to an exceptional aesthetic knowledge of the things of the world. And, by here neatly combining the best of both Nietzschean with Oakeshottian thinking, one may argue that the aesthetic truth of a thing is the individual’s creation of that thing in his own image – and it is for this reason that aesthetic truth is a mode of knowledge that must be seen as paramount in the life of an individual. And it must also be seen as such because it is a mode of knowledge that constitutes a process of value-creation.
Without wishing to go any deeper into an analysis of the Oakeshottian understanding of knowledge, we may in any case further note in this context that Oakeshott would also differentiate between what he calls a technical knowledge and a practical knowledge of things in the world. Technical knowledge, he would argue, is typically “formulated into rules” and is “susceptible to precise formulation”; on the other hand, practical knowledge need be seen as “traditional knowledge”, and which “exists only in use” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 8). Knowledge that has been formulated into rules (and is thereby systematized as an ideology) is knowledge imposed by the state and its organs onto a people; practical knowledge is knowledge received from the past and may be used by a people as an informed morality of habit of behaviour. Both have had their respective impact on the history of the western world and its peoples – but both remain inferior to whatever thinkable truths as created in the likeness of a person’s supreme individuality.
We here need to briefly reexamine how Oakeshott would himself approach the question of creating the truth of the world in terms of one’s own likeness. Strictly speaking of course, the notion of creating the world in one’s own likeness belongs to the Nietzschean mode of thinking – and yet likewise, Oakeshott would present us with the notion that truth is to be created in terms of one’s own creative imagining. But such creative imagining need be of an order that reflects the truths – the self-created values – of none other than the self. As has been discussed above, Oakeshott would see the self as an activity, or as a potential process of continual self-enactment. Such activity, being an act of creativity, is the making of images. But this making of images is the creation of a universe – a total universe – to which the imagining self and its images belongs; it is also a universe which the imagining self recognizes as its own (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., pp. 204-205). Such sense of belonging and recognition necessarily implies that the individual is creating a universe of images in his own likeness. And since the universe that he creates constitutes the truth of his world, the individual is in fact creating a particular form of truth which is in his own likeness.
Now, the obvious question that arises here is this: if the creative self creates a particular form of truth which is only in his own likeness, what is it that constitutes a fact for him? Oakeshott is quite naturally fully consistent with his particular understanding of the truths of the world – he writes as follows: “As I understand it, the distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘non-fact’ is a distinction between different kinds of images …” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 207).
These images reflect the self, as Nietzsche would himself argue. And for Oakeshott, as well, every created image is a reflection of the self – or, as he puts it, it is a reflection of the desiring self. On this, we here need to re-quote Oakeshott himself, and which would help confirm that his epistemological position echoes the Nietzschean idea that the individual creates the world in his likeness – Oakeshott writes as follows: “… every image is the reflection of a desiring self engaged in constructing its world and in continuing to reconstruct it in such manner as to afford it [its own sense of] pleasure” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid.). For both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, therefore, truth itself is determined by the self-rolling, creative self – and being so determined, truth need be a mirror image of such self.
Now, such an epistemological position – and which is in fact an epistemological disposition – immediately raises the question of so-called prejudice. One could perhaps embark on a consideration of the controversial issue of prejudice by simply observing that such issue has, quite paradoxically, almost always been approached in a highly prejudiced manner itself, at least in the thinking of the western world. Above, we have considered the notion of a self-defined virtue of prejudice as a privileged entitlement of the exceptional individual. And we have spoken of a prejudiced aesthetic taste as that which helps organize the productive core of the self. We now need to further investigate this issue of prejudice in a manner that could help elucidate its quintessential and intrinsic virtue as a privileged entitlement for certain categories of individuals.
All along, we have focused on that type of individual who may be considered to be a self-rolling wheel – or, rather, a self-rolling will. We know that that type of individual selects, forges, and wills his own estimates of value, and thereby wills his own sense of truth. We have seen how Oakeshott would speak of different modes of truth, and how he would consider the supreme mode of any truth as that which is expressive of the individual’s aesthetic imagination. We have also dwelt on Nietzsche own position on the question of truth, and especially his own understanding of the relativity of truth. Both the Nietzschean and the Oakeshottian understandings of truth allow for the primacy of individual choice as to what constitutes the truth of things. But the primacy of individual choice points to the individual’s right to adopt prejudice as a mode of thinking and evaluating. Such type of thinking and evaluating, it may be argued, can be a virtue in itself. In what way can prejudice be viewed as a virtue?
Of course, it is one thing to argue for the right of the individual to adopt prejudice as a mode of thinking and evaluating – one may even go on to assert that any individual has the right to think in a stupid way about the things of the world. But it is quite another thing to argue that adopting prejudice as a mode of thinking is a virtue in itself – or, even, that it is a superior mode of thinking. Where, then, lies the virtue and the superiority of prejudice?
The exceptional individual as a self-rolling, value-creating being can choose – indeed need choose – his own relative truths. Such truths can be – indeed need be – prejudiced. And this is so because prejudice can be potentially expressive of certain relatively real truths of the world that merely await to be refined – in such case, prejudice must be seen as a starting-point for the refinement of a certain existential and/or aesthetic disposition with respect to life itself. Prejudice is therefore a necessary starting-point for original value-creation on the part of the exceptional individual.
Now, such a radical interpretation of the question of prejudice is certainly not ground-breaking on our part. In fact, it is a position that has been articulated and rather persuasively defended by the American philosopher, Allen Bloom (cf. Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr., February 3, 2017, Episode S0735, Recorded on April 15, 1987). Bloom’s “fundamental belief” is that “one only first sees the world by having strong opinions [or prejudices] about it. Those opinions may need refinement.” (ibid.).
How does Bloom defend such a position with respect to an individual’s strong opinions – or original prejudices – about the world? Bloom is for a “lived reformulation of the Socratic teaching”. His reformulation of such teaching goes as follows: “… you have to begin with opinions to examine them. Plato says we are all born in caves … and … what constitutes these caves are strong prejudices … But without those strong prejudices you would have no interpretation of the world which would give you a picture of the world and then that critical faculty that ever arises wouldn’t have anything to work on, I mean a kind of indifference, a kind of gray sameness, they’re all values …” (ibid.).
Based on the above – and which is a mere sample of a public discussion between Buckley Jr. and Bloom – one may reiterate this rather original position on the question of prejudice (and draw its logical implications) as follows. First, one would have to acknowledge that all thinking about the world – however complex or sophisticated – can only but commence with simplistic or primitive notions of that world (we are all born in caves). These simplistic or primitive notions about the world are in fact strong prejudices attempting to interpret the world. Now, these strong prejudices constitute the individual’s necessary material with which his minds works and on which it reflects – it is precisely this material that allows him to gradually articulate his interpretation of the world. This means that the critical faculty of the individual is thereby activated – the critical faculty (to the extent that such exists) undertakes an examination of that material and a refinement of one’s interpretation of the world. We need notice here that such refinement presupposes the original strong prejudices – in fact, it is precisely this set of strong prejudices that mother the refinement. Finally, and most importantly, it may be argued that, without an individual’s own prejudices, a value-based interpretation of the world would be imposed on that individual by the ideological apparatuses of the state, as also by the ideological idol-adoration of the masses.
Plato’s allegory of the cave certainly allows us to argue that we all do live in our own cave – and it therefore also allows us to say that such cave can only give birth to prejudices as presupposed ideas. But the pertinent question here is this: who is it that shall ultimately come to refine these ideas? Who is it that shall systematize them? Who is it that does the valuing of what is good and what is bad within the context of such refinement? Who, in other words, is allowed or empowered to interpret all such presupposed ideas?
Within the context of the Nietzschean understanding of the western market-place, or within the context of the Oakeshottian understanding of the state as an enterprise association, it is the state that poses and presents itself as the grand interpreter of all presupposed ideas. In fact, the state as an enterprise association adopts its own prejudices (and which are reflective of mass ideology) – and it proceeds to impose such prejudices on all within society as values (based on a refinement of the adopted prejudices). These can – and do – clash with the prejudices/values of a free-thinking individual citizen. And thus one may witness a clash between individual self-rolling prejudices and state-imposed prejudices. The level of refinement in both cases could depend on the socio-cultural conjuncture enveloping both the individual and the state – or it may depend on subjectively contingent factors (more or less as understood by Weberian thinking).
We know that the western state as enterprise association – and as has been discussed above – has been permeated almost through and through with rationalist ideology. Being thus permeated, it is suspicious of whatever forms of prejudice articulated and refined by intellectual forces other than itself; and it is suspicious of whatever forms of prejudice that remain unfiltered and uncodified by its own rationalist ideology (and cf. Edmund Neill, op. cit., p. 39). And yet, and as Bloom (ibid.) would argue, prejudice is presupposed in the western cultural tradition of tolerance. Oakeshottian thinking would add that the culture of tolerance had been traditionally embedded in the functioning of any civil association (it being, and as we know, a form of self-governance that has – or had – in fact manifested itself in the history of western civilization). Prejudice as a mode of thinking and as a popular disposition would be tolerated by the pluralist culture of civil associations. Such type of tolerance, of course, cannot apply to an all-inclusive state-as-leviathan bent on obsessive social intervention and peddling an all-inclusive politics of faith. And thus the independent individual in the modern western world need assert and define both his prejudices and their refinement outside of and contra to the ideological whims of such leviathan-type state. For, while prejudice is presupposed in the traditional western culture of tolerance, it is not at all presupposed in that type of faith-based and mission-oriented state formation that has come to dominate the lives (even the private lives) of western citizens.
And it is precisely on the basis of such reasoning that Bloom (ibid.) would declare that we are all prejudiced to believe that we are unprejudiced (and cf. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Simon & Schuster, 1987).
But then, and if that is more or less so, we may now go on to reassert the central most important epistemological notion underlying both Nietzschean and Oakeshottian thinking – viz. that knowledge (truth itself) is a question of taste. Oakeshott himself would even speak of knowledge and/or truth as, in the last instance, a question of connoisseurship.
Above, it has all along been suggested that all knowledge is, in the last instance, a matter of probability. Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott have argued to that effect and, in his own way, so had Weber in the field of so-called political science and sociology. And one cannot fail to notice that the matter of probability has come to be almost fully accepted within the field of the natural sciences and related areas of research. One could simply mention here Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, it being a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. And one could further make mention of the fine-graining and coarse-graining processes used in statistical mechanics to describe systems – since all knowledge of such systems can be either microscopically detailed or deliberately simplified by smoothing over the details of that system, all knowledge of these systems remains probable. And, finally, one may also simply point to the major importance of the various strains of probability theory and probability calculus in modern-day mathematics.
And thus, and at least in the field of human values and the human valuing of things, so-called human truth and human knowledge can only be expressed via individual taste or individual connoisseurship. We may here remind ourselves yet once more of Nietzsche’s all too decisive observation that all life is a dispute about taste. The implication of such a stance is absolutely crucial for the mode of life of any independent individual. What is the crucial implication of such stance? To put it as simply as possible, one need conclude that all so-called human truth and human knowledge cannot ever be equated to (or ever lead to) laws or rules regulating the lives of independent individuals. Taste and connoisseurship – and the manner of thinking and conduct that goes with these – cannot be violated by the imposition of whatever state regulatory laws (bar, of course, that category of regulatory laws that are expressive of the Oakeshottian – or even Hobbesian – imperative that the state maintain a framework of civil association protecting individual freedom and safety).
The imposition of state regulatory laws that are supposedly expressive of a certain truth of the world would constitute a violation of the mode of life of the independent individual for one very basic reason – viz. all such regulatory laws presuppose the existence of a certain complete truth about the world. But we know that there are no such complete truths – the fact is that knowledge and truth cannot ever be complete for whoever, and this is so even in the case of that exceptional type of individual endowed with the superior genius to discern the complexities of the world in his own extraordinary manner. It so happens that even a Nietzschean-type higher man possessive of the genius to create his own truths and values does remain a child of a certain inheritance and of a certain historical conjuncture (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 12) – his knowledge, in other words, can only but be informed by the legacy of a time-past and by the social realities of a time-present. And since his perception of the world is thereby mediated by a certain degree of received information, he does not simply begin the process of value-creation from an absolute zero – and thus his own understanding of the world is not unadulterated. But, then, given such human-all-too-human circumstances, both the knowledge and the truths of the exceptional individual need remain probable and uncertain – for both Nietzsche and Oakeshott, value-creation remains an idle gamble.
The knowledge and truth of the exceptional individual is a refined prejudice, a combination of creative paradoxes, a gamble of uncertainties and experimental probabilities – yet still, it is a knowledge and a truth in his very own likeness. It is such likeness that structures his own particular taste and connoisseurship. And since such taste and connoisseurship pertaining to knowledge and truth is above all a self-rolling uniqueness and originality, the wisdom of the exceptional individual can only but be disruptive.
For Nietzsche, it is such taste and creativity – be it in the form of art or poetry – that can liberate the individual from formulaic state-imposed truths. It is such taste and creativity that can deliver the individual from all state-imposed regulatory truths as to what is ethically (or so-called politically) correct or incorrect. Much more than that, taste and creativity can liberate the individual from the nihilism of both the state and its market-places (both of which are bent on obliterating the presentness of the idle Moment of individuality). Following Maurice Blanchot, one could here simply observe that the artistic creativity of the independent creator is not some means to so-called truth – it is, in fact, a truth-making activity. Artistic creativity generates its own truth, its own sense of value, and therefore its own meaningful understanding of life. And by so doing, it liberates the individual from the nihilism of the flies swarming the ubiquitous western market-place.
Artistic creativity is coming to terms with a world that kills all of its gods so as to replace these with a motley crowd of traders and shopkeepers. But it comes to terms with such nihilism by re-creating it own truths of the world.
However, and as has been argued all along, the creation and re-creation of one’s own truth in terms of one’s own poetic imagination and in terms of one’s own likeness presupposes a condition of supreme indifference. We need once again remember Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, who would declare his own sense of supreme indifference vis-à-vis the affairs of the many-too-many by simply telling us that Unmoved is my depth – and yet his self sparkles with creative enigmas and self-affirming laughters. It is on this issue of over-standing indifference that we shall now focus as a necessary precondition pointing to one’s own knowledge and truth of the world.
7f. The over-standing indifference
Effective self-organization means that one is not of the world, and one’s truth is not of such world. More accurately, one should say that the self of the individual – that which sparkles with the laughter of paradoxes – is not of the world. That, of course, does not mean that the self is not in the world – like the individual’s ego (that which constantly converses with public conventionality), the self can only but find itself in the world. But its relationship to that world is radically different – unlike the ego, the self remains indifferent to the world (this being its unmoved depth). It remains indifferent to the state/government and to its many-too-many, and it remains indifferent to the so-called great events that incessantly consume both. The supreme indifference of the individual’s self is expressive of the self-as-nature and of the self-as-body. Such supreme indifference is expressive of the sensuality of the self – viz. it is expressive of the self as a higher creative order, or as a higher productive core.
Such higher productive core consults, reflects, and works on the selective material it receives from the world (via the mediation of its own ego) for its own creative purposes – but to do so, it need maintain its own detachment from the world itself. The woes of the world are not its own woes – and neither are all the woes of the idols that the state and the many-too-many happen to worship. Both those who worship and that which is worshipped are all riddled with woes – and they are so riddled since both are permeated with a dead-end nihilism. The self’s productive core over-stands such nihilism – and to over-stand such nihilism it need be left all alone.
Nietzsche, as we know, shall speak lucidly of worldly idols and their woeful dead-ends – and he shall speak as lucidly of the independent indifference of the self with respect to such woes. As already cited above, the Zarathustrian drunken song shall confirm such stance on the part of all higher men – it shall clearly underline three basic dispositions: first, it shall respect the right of others to lose themselves in idol-worship; second, it shall point to the dead-end agonies of such worship; and third, it shall above all reserve the right on the part of the higher men to be left alone so that they may stand over the events of this world. As quoted, Zarathustra speaks as follows: “God’s woe is deeper, thou strange world! Grasp at God’s woe, not at me! What am I! A drunken sweet lyre …” (p. 311).
To be left alone so that the individual may stand consistently over and above the woes of this world can be nothing else but a sheer blessing. And it would be a sheer blessing for the individual since such indifferent standing-over would allow him to experience the fruits of a certain inner peace – and he would be able to attain such certain inner peace as he would be able to stand over the paradoxes and riddles of life through his own self-organization. Much more than that, he would be able to handle the possible conflict of values that could torment his own self (exactly how he would be able to do that would of course depend on the particular individual – below, we shall in any case attempt to show how an internal conflict of values may arise within the self of the individual, and how such conflict may be resolved without at all compromising the supreme independence of that individual).
The supreme indifference of over-standing as a disposition would thereby be a blessing for the individual as it would allow him to experience the inner peace of his very own heaven. But the attainment of such inner peace without at all compromising one’s own supreme independence vis-à-vis the world would also constitute one’s own security vis-à-vis that world.
The idea that the disposition of over-standing (or of one’s supreme indifference to the affairs of the world) is a blessing, and that it is so since it is capable of bestowing the independent individual with his own heaven and with his own so-called eternal security, is clearly expressed by Nietzsche’s Zarathustra – this is how he puts it: “This, however, is my blessing: to stand above everything as its own heaven, its round roof, its azure bell and eternal security; and blessed is he who thus blesseth!” (p. 161).
For the independent individual, everything must flow under him – what exactly is it that must flow under him? Nietzsche’s Zarathustra explains as follows: “Uncloudedly to smile down out of luminous eyes and out of miles of distance, when under us constraint and purpose and guilt steam like rain.” (p. 160).
It is here clear that that which must flow under the exceptional individual – or that which the exceptional individual must look down on (and do so with a smile) – is a world characterized by at least three basic realities. One such reality is that of constraint or social restriction – and this is the compulsion imposed by the state and the many-too-many that one ought to adhere to the rationalist-based ideology of what is good and what is evil. It is the compulsion to accept the norms – or the politico-ethical correctness – of social justice and social equality as determined by state ideology and conventional mass wisdom. To some extent, constraint is expressive of a mass ideological discourse that wishes to define that which is decent and that which is not.
The second reality that the exceptional individual must look down on is that of purpose, or worldly purpose – it is the rationalist-based ideology of worldly objectives, or the social objectives of the market-place. That which must flow under the exceptional individual is purpose as determined by all socio-political ideology, this being idol-worship as articulated by the state-as-mission. This is the purpose of the Oakeshottian politics of faith – and which is a politics bent on realizing a better society in the future. Often enough, it takes the form of wishing to realize a better world for future generations (and which usually comes down to hoping to simply secure better material/economic conditions for such generations) – and all this in the name of progress, humanism, and the sanctity of human history. Alternatively, one may say that such purpose – to which the masses ought to and do generally adhere – is the purposive planning of the lives of all citizens by the state, by its bureaucratic technocrats and by the near-endless categories of specialized organic intellectuals. Purpose, therefore, here translates into planning the lives of subjects.
The third reality that must flow under the exceptional individual is that of guilt – this being the guilt-ridden psyche of the state and its masses with respect to the specifically western history of all time-past, as also with respect to the personal or private history of each and every person belonging to the western world.
All three realities as delineated by Nietzsche – constraint, purpose, and guilt – have come to characterize the modern western world. And that is precisely why Nietzsche asks of the exceptional individual to stand over all three. Were he to be able to do so, he would be blessed.
But to be so blessed, the individual would also need to be blessed with the virtue of pride (a notion to which we shall have to return yet once more in our final section). It would be quite impossible for any individual to stand over the hard realities of constraint, purpose, and guilt without having attained and without having refined his own virtue of pride. Such pride is needed so that the thinking self (its mind) is informed of its power – or its will – to stand over the affairs of the world. For it is only such type of mental power that can effect that refined indifference to the affairs – and the incessant woes – of the state and the many-too-many. Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would (each in his very own way) fully agree on the need for such individual pride – and which would be a form of pride absolutely free of all petty arrogance, as also absolutely free of those miserable little passions craving to dominate others (something which Sartre would, for some reason or other, see as inevitable in all human relations). Oakeshott, as we know, would examine the question of a virtuous pride in his study of Hobbesian thinking (the lion as opposed to the ox). And he would go on to compare Hobbesian thinking with that of Spinoza’s understanding of the world. For the latter, the individual need make use of the power of the mind so that he be able to escape and thereby stand over the circumstances of human life. Oakeshott writes as follows: “Spinoza, considering the same problem as Hobbes, indicated two alternative escapes into peace from the competitive propensities of human nature; the one generated by fear and prudential foresight which results in the law and order of the civitas, and the other the escape offered by the power of the mind over the circumstances of human life.” (cf. Oakeshott, p. 292).
For both Hobbes and Spinoza – as also for Oakeshott himself – the question for the individual is how best to stand over the circumstances of human life. Alternatively, the question comes down to this: how is it that one may escape into peace. Of course, such question clearly echoes the Nietzschean blessing referred to above – viz. that of bestowing the individual with his own heaven as his own inner peace. The force of the individual will – or the sheer power of the individual mind – allow for such over-standing mode of being. That, however, presupposes the will to a virtuous pride. But, then, the virtue of pride itself presupposes the virtue of hardness.
In the absence of the virtue of hardness, the individual cannot possibly stand over and be indifferent to the woeful affairs of the world. The act or disposition of over-standing need be proud – and it need be pitilessly hard. Zarathustrian teaching goes as follows: “All creators are hard, all great love is beyond their pity.” (p. 257). In fact, it may be argued that the virtue of indifference or over-standing could mutate into a vice unless it were bolstered by a proud and pitiless hardness (and it could mutate into a vice were it to be allowed to wither into a self-destructive vortex of inner conflictual values, and which could willy-nilly plunge the individual into a state of utter chaos).
But why exactly need one be hard? And hard as to what? It is Oakeshottian thinking that provides us with an exceptionally convincing description of those types of circumstances wherein the independent individual would need to deploy his own self-protective – and therefore pitilessly hard – resources so as to survive particular threats to his own mode of being (these being threats to his very own identity). Oakeshott refers to social circumstances surrounding an individual which can in some way attempt to threaten his individuality and imaginative creativity – and they could threaten his individuality with the introduction of radically interventionist changes to the world around him as he has come to interpret it. Now, generally speaking, the independent individual may simply stand over such changes – at worst, he may even have to suffer such changes as mere disturbances. However, if a particular disturbance – viz. a particular attempt at imposing a change – is such as to endanger his own identity as a self-willing man, he shall then have to deploy all his resources so that he may protect himself, his identity, and his mode of being. Such deployment naturally presupposes both self-pride and, especially, a pitiless hardness. One may put this state of affairs slightly otherwise, as follows: it is by definition true that everything in the world flows beneath the Overman – but if such flow (or, rather, change of flow) affects him personally, then he would have no choice but to react bar all pity for the world and its affairs.
Oakeshott presents this type of individual reaction to external disturbances in the context of the conservative temperament, and with respect to such temperament’s possible reaction to state-imposed social changes – gently but incisively, he describes such reaction by writing as follows: “Changes … have to be suffered; and a man of conservative temperament (that is, one strongly disposed to preserve his identity) cannot be indifferent to them. In the main, he judges them by the disturbance they entail and … deploys his resources to meet them.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 171).
Oakeshott here speaks of none other than the exceptional individual – viz. that type of individual that is strongly disposed to preserve his own identity, this being his own conservative disposition. Such strong disposition would mean that he would have to judge whatever interventionist changes may attempt to besiege his person. Depending on his judgment of things, he would have to react appropriately. Of course, the implications of such a position are rather momentous as regards the principle of the individual’s supreme indifference to the world – such supreme indifference does have its own limits, being dependent on the level of external disturbances. Such qualification, however, would not be inconsistent with the Nietzschean understanding of over-standing and/or of one’s supreme indifference to the affairs of the world – very simply, Nietzsche’s suggestion that one ought to be hard towards the affairs of the world and its many-too-many is not at all, in itself, a neutrally indifferent disposition.
Both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would fully agree on at least one thing – that the individual with a firm self-identity need be left alone. More accurately, they would agree that such a type of individual possesses the will to be left alone. Where need be, the individual who has been able to attain a firm self-identity would come to resist particular identity-threatening changes – and he would employ his pride and hardness to resist these particular changes without ever compromising his will to detachment.
And yet, such notion of resistance on the part of the independent individual can easily be misunderstood – it would be absolutely spurious to wish to present the independent and/or exceptional individual as some sort of guerrilla fighter engaged in his own war of the flea against the state (and which would be sadly reminiscent of Don Quixote waging war with the windmills of his mind). So that this question of resistance be clarified once and for all, we may here restate the mode of conduct of the exceptional individual vis-à-vis external disturbances by making the following observations. For the exceptional individual, firstly, the will to supreme indifference gradually comes to roll all by itself – it comes to do so both habitually (or even automatically) but also self-consciously. Such will is supremely indifferent to the world, not because it needs to engage conflictually with that world as a declaration of its independence, but simply because it needs to concentrate on its own creative self-enactment. And thus the individual wishes to remain at peace with himself (the Nietzschean understanding of heaven and security) and at peace with the world that surrounds him (let them …) so that he may create and re-create the world in the image of his own self. Constraint, purpose, and guilt are modes of being that are simply of no interest (and of no use) to the exceptional individual – his own mode of being is enacted well outside all such worldly phenomena.
And yet, and as we have already argued, such supreme indifference does have its own limits. There may come a time when the exceptional individual would need to deploy that Zarathustrian principle that “One thing is [or becomes] more necessary than the other” (p. 266), depending on the occasion. Circumstances may arise, in other words, where the exceptional individual may have to reconsider his own hierarchy of necessities. Particular circumstances may be such so that one may have to readjust one’s hierarchy of necessities whereby the protection of one’s identity is placed in command – the protection of one’s identity, that is, as a self-rolling individual. Here, what becomes of paramount importance is the need to protect that identity from outside disturbances.
But such need for self-protection does not and cannot define the self-rolling morality of individuality – it can never be the raison d’être of such morality. And this is the central point that we need to highlight in this context – in fact, and as should be obvious by now, what defines such morality is standing over all worldly constraints, purposes, and guilt feelings. It is not at all a matter of waging one’s war with the world – the disposition of the self-rolling individual has absolutely nothing to do with whatever sense of activism, let alone with any sense of political activism (and we know that Oakeshott had himself been fully opposed to all forms of social activism).
This is the Oakeshottian (as also Nietzschean) mood of indifference. But it is not easy to acquire such mood, and it is not always easy to sustain such mood. Oakeshott would be fully aware of the difficulties of such an accomplishment, and which would also depend on who decides to undertake the realization of such a feat.
We need here to briefly reconsider the Oakeshottian presentation of the difficulties of such mood of indifference, and briefly touch on how such difficulties may be bypassed or overcome. We have noted above that, for Oakeshott, the conservative disposition towards the state/governance is what it is – viz. conservative, at least in the sense that the state/governance should be conserved in its most limited structural formations, and in its most limited expressions of interventionist power. But we have also noted that such conservative disposition is also, and right at the same time, absolutely radical in respect of almost every other activity. Such radicalism would above all take the form of an independent indifference vis-à-vis all the affairs of statal and governmental activity. All such activity is simply just too vulgar for whoever wishes to engage his own presentness in the valuing creativity of his own world. Now, it is precisely here that Oakeshott points to the exceptional difficulties of affirming and maintaining such superior mood of indifference – he would, in 1956, write as follows: “Nobody pretends that it is easy to acquire or to sustain the mood of indifference which this manner of politics [the conservative disposition] calls for.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 195). That it is not at all easy to acquire and sustain such mood would, in the last instance, mean just one thing: that it is only the exceptional individual that can attempt such mode of life.
For Nietzsche, such mode of life is achievable whatever be the socio-political circumstances that happen to face the Overman – it all depends on the genius of the self, its self-love, self-pride, and hardness. For Oakeshott, on the other hand, such mode of life calls for a very specific political framework that would allow for and facilitate the mood of indifference expressive of the independent individual – it would be such framework that would help bypass or overcome the difficulties of the mood of indifference. And it is precisely for this reason that Oakeshott is especially critical of whatever political interventionism that attempts to disrupt or disturb such mood of indifference – or that attempts to deform his ideal political framework (the civil association). We shall end this section on the question of supreme indifference by very briefly summarizing the Oakeshottian conservative disposition with respect to the form of governance best expressive of the morality of individuality and its mood of indifference.
On the one hand, the state/governance – the very act of governing the lives of others – should be limited. And it should be limited so that there is that sovereign space for individual choice. This delimitation of the structural framework of state/governance is not at all a question expressive of a certain morality. It is what it is for purely practical purposes – viz. that the individual is enabled or allowed to make his own personal choices as to how he should live his own life. It is such sovereign space that can facilitate the free existential gamble of the independent individual – it is such gamble that enables or allows for the individual’s creation of his own morality of individuality, and which enables or allows for the individual’s own authentic living of his present Moment (the experiencing of his own presentness). Oakeshott argues for the delimitation of the structural framework of the state/governance, and speaks of the concomitant question of free individual choice, as follows: “… what makes a conservative disposition in politics intelligible is nothing to do with a natural law or a providential order, nothing to do with morals or religion; it is the observation of our current manner of living combined with the belief … that governing is a specific and limited activity, namely the provision and custody of general rules of conduct, which are understood, not as plans for imposing substantive activities, but as instruments enabling people to pursue the activities of their own choice with the minimum frustration, and therefore something which it is appropriate to be conservative about.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., pp. 183-184).
To delimit the state/governance to a mere provision and protection of certain general rules of conduct is to facilitate the individual’s initiative to pursue activities of his own choice – and such activities could obviously include a person’s choice to indulge in a certain existential gamble organized around a particular morality of individuality, and organized around a particular appreciation of presentness.
But while the individual has the right to indulge in the creation of his own sense of morality and in his own aesthetic disposition as to what is good and what is evil, such individual morality and such individual disposition ought not to violate the moral framework of the society in which he lives – and it ought not to violate such framework since he would be violating the moral pluralism of that society (it being precisely such pluralism that recognizes his own right to his own morality). To put it otherwise, Oakeshott wishes to combine his understanding of a limited state/governance (not at all a moral question) with that of a particular socio-cultural framework that does point to a certain tradition of western morality – viz. a morality of habit of behaviour that recognizes the virtue of plurality. Such western morality of habit of behaviour, while upholding pluralism as a moral social virtue, would nonetheless protect society from gambling with its own fate (as may happen, for example, in the case of a radical social revolution or a political struggle for the imposition of some all-inclusive totalitarian social ideal). Gambling or radical experimentation at the level of society as a whole can only but yield its own victims (and we know that such victims would also include many of those who had once initiated the radical social engineering). The conscious need to avoid whatever social gambling, whatever radical social experimentation and imposed engineering would, of course, mean that society and its institutions would consistently – albeit always critically – acknowledge the gift emanating from its own time-past. And such acknowledgement of the gift of time-past would secure the socio-political framework wherein the free and independent individual could create and re-create his own aesthetic sense of presentness from a position of supreme indifference.
Now, such framework always runs the risk of being disrupted – and such disruption could mean the possible frustration of individual free choice. It could also mean the possible frustration of the individual’s right to organize his own mode of being on the basis of a supreme indifference vis-à-vis both state and the masses.
It is perhaps the state above all that may attempt to effect such disruption of individual free choice – and such disruption would be effected by intervening in a society’s morality of habit of behaviour. By so intervening, the state would threaten the space within which the individual can make his own choice regarding his own mode of being – and it could thereby attempt to neutralize whatever form of free existential gambling on the part of the independent individual. The state would thereby be disrupting the identity emanating from a people’s morality of habit of behaviour – but as importantly, it would also be disrupting the identity of the self-willed individual. And it would especially be in the latter case where the Zarathustrian principle mentioned above would be activated – viz. that one thing becomes more necessary than the other. What is it that here becomes the most necessary? Here, it is the protection of individual identity – and its right to supreme indifference – that would take priority.
7g. The conflict of virtues – pride as self-organization
It has been stated above that the independent and/or exceptional individual may come to experience a conflict of virtues (or values) within his own self. In this section, we shall have to examine this possibility – in doing so, we shall be considering the possible causes of such an almost inevitable internal conflict of virtues. Most importantly, however, we shall have to examine the precise manner in which the individual can come to resolve such internal conflict of virtues. We shall be arguing that there is only one way in which any conflict of virtues may be overcome – and that singular way would be to posit the supreme virtue of pride over and above whatever virtues happen to be in conflict within the self of the individual. It is only the virtue of self-pride, we shall be arguing, that can – and must – over-stand whatever conflict of virtues. In arguing such a position, we shall have to reiterate some of the most substantive reasoning already considered above – by so doing, we shall be clarifying how all such reasoning does relate directly to both the question of internal conflictual values, as also to the question of pride as a mode of being. Such further clarification of the positions we have been presenting above shall here be finally rounded off and all brought to their most logical conclusion.
Nietzsche asserts that the independent and/or exceptional individual is he who is able to forge his very own singular and unique sense of virtue, and who can do that despite the world that surrounds him. Once the individual has been able to accomplish such sense of singular and unique virtue, there will no longer be any evil in him, and no evil whatsoever shall henceforth grow in him. And yet, and as he goes on to assert, there can be a major exception to such a virtuous and evil-free mode of being. In what case would such an exception apply? Nietzsche’s response is straightforward: evil can come to grow even within the independent and/or exceptional individual when the self of that individual comes to be besieged by its own, internal, conflict of virtues. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is absolutely lucid as regards this possibly tragic reality – he speaks as follows to whoever has been able to create his own sense of virtue: “And nothing evil groweth in thee any longer, unless it be the evil that groweth out of the conflict of thy virtues.” (p. 32).
The word unless is here especially portentous. And because it is so portentous, the individual first needs to come to understand how it be possible that such conflict of virtues could have come to riddle his own mode of being. Generally speaking, Nietzsche shall argue that a conflict of virtues may come to riddle the self of the exceptional individual when such individual also harbours the concealed populace in his very own self.
How may the exceptional individual harbour the populace within his own self? This question is of critical importance, especially since such harbouring of the many-too-many within the individual’s very own person may happen in a manner that is camouflaged or disguised – or it may happen in a variety of surreptitious ways so that the individual simply fails to clearly suspect the actual presence of such populace within his own psyche. To deal with this portentous question, we need to go back to our consideration of the ego-self nexus. We have seen how the self of the individual, being inexorably tied up with the individual’s ego, need always and necessarily consult with such ego. The mentally healthy individual cannot possibly escape such continual ego-self consultation. But the consultation may be such as to yield a burden – and even a tragic burden – for the independent individual. And it could yield a burden for a variety of reasons, some of which are in fact quite explainable.
What could such reasons be? For one, the individual may feel the burden of what may be referred to as its ego-recollection – viz. the stream of memories encompassing the ways in which the individual’s ego had ever so often found itself having to compromise with the conventionalities of the world (or, even, memories of how the ego had once related to such conventionalities in its own mistaken ways and maneuvers). Alternatively, the individual may feel the burden of what may be referred to as its ego-self recollection – viz. the stream of memories encompassing the ways in which the ego had ever so often been ill-disposed towards the independence of the self (or even vice versa, when the self had not heeded the implications of its consultative conversations with the voice of the ego).
Generally speaking, the individual could feel the burden of conflictual relations simmering within himself – simmering, that is, within the myriad corners of his ego, his self, and those of his ego-self interface. It is within such conscious, semi-conscious, or even darkly unconscious corners that the individual could feel an incessant conflict within his own person – and he could feel so as though an alien mischievous creature (or psychic force) dwells and acts within such corners.
Now, it may be said that such alien force operating within the independent individual is none other than the concealed populace that has come to settle – in the course of time – within the various corners of the individual’s identity. But what is it that characterizes such concealed populace within the independent individual? That which most accurately characterizes such mischievous creature within the independent individual may be described metaphorically as the dwarf within that individual. This metaphor of the dwarf is of course meant to suggest that the independent individual can carry within his very own psyche (or within the stream of memories harboured in his psyche) those small, miserable passions that are characteristic of the many-too-many (the small existences of the flies in the market-place).
It is precisely this type of human condition that can yield a major existential burden for the independent individual. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra summarizes this condition by speaking all too incisively as follows: “On your shoulders presseth many a burden, many a recollection; many a mischievous dwarf squatteth in your corners. There is concealed populace also in you.” (p. 272).
One may now – and at a slightly more concrete level – speak of at least two identifiable types of conflicts that can come to burden the independent, creative individual. The first possible type of conflict may be caused by a clash between the existing morality of habit of behaviour (and to the extent that such morality still happens to exist in a society) and the individual’s own chosen self-virtue. Much more accurately, one should say that this first type of conflict could ensue when the manner in which the individual’s ego receives such morality of habit of behaviour comes to clash with the self’s own virtue. This type of conflict would therefore, and in the last instance, be a clash between the individual’s ego and his own independent self.
The second possible type of conflict may be caused by a clash of conflicting virtues within the individual’s own self. This kind of conflict would ensue when the self has come to select a hierarchy of conflicting virtues that ever so often contradict one another – and this may be the outcome of the different ways in which the self in itself and for itself has opted to respond to its consultative engagement with the ego. This type of conflict would therefore, and in the last instance, be a clash between some one version of the independent individual’s identity (or aesthetics) of self and some other version of that same individual’s identity (or aesthetics) of self.
Both of these identifiable types of conflicts could constitute a tortuous burden for the independent individual. And since these can be such a tortuous – or even a tragic – burden, the individual would need to overcome such burden by resolving the inner conflict. But such resolution can only be effected through the will and capacity for self-organization.
Self-organization, we shall be arguing below, presupposes three basic factors: First, that the individual recognizes his own self-as-a-whole as a potential battlefield of virtues. Second, that the battles taking place within that battlefield can only be resolved – and be thus resolved in the name of inner peace and security – when the individual can finally settle on the selection of a single virtue (however creatively synthetic that single virtue may turn out to be). Third, that the individual cannot possibly resolve and select his own single virtue unless he makes use of a supreme tool that would need to be nurtured and sharpened as a weapon of war – and this can only but be the supreme tool of self-pride.
Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra refers to such “battlefield of virtues” (p. 33) – and Nietzsche shall therein go on to declare that the individual’s war for self-organization is a war for the creation and attainment of a single virtue. And it is for this reason that when his Zarathustra entertains the question of an individual’s joys and passions, he does not fail to focus on the absolute importance of having attained such singleness of virtue on the part of the joyous individual. Zarathustra speaks here as follows: “My brother, if thou be fortunate, then wilt thou have one virtue and no more: thus goest thou easier over the bridge.” (ibid.).
What is it, more exactly, that Nietzsche has to say with respect to such war? The individual need be aware of the conflict – or the potential conflict – that occurs or that can occur within his own identity as an independent individual. But the awareness of the battlefield within him is not enough – the individual would further need to identify the real enemy within such battlefield, and thus he would be further required to seek out that enemy. This means that he would need to identify the precise form in which the presence of the concealed populace has taken within his own thoughts. He would therefore wage war within his thoughts, and for the sake of his thoughts – and he would do this so that the presence of the concealed populace within him is both brought to light and ultimately neutralized.
When the independent individual becomes aware of the conflict, when he demarcates the configurations of the battlefield, and when he identifies and wages war with the real enemy within that battlefield – when he can do and does all that – than he shall be able to salvage his own uprightness with respect to his proud independence and his as proud originality. What truly matters is that such uprightness is consistently sustained and salvaged (and it may be sustained and salvaged even as the war may finally be lost at a particular point in time – remember the Oakeshottian understanding of the life-gamble as discussed above).
Of course, all this would mean that the independent individual is in constant war with his own thoughts. Paradoxically, therefore, the Nietzschean understanding of inner peace and security (as referred to above) is based on the need for continual vigilance as regards the presence of the concealed populace within the identity of the independent individual. Such individual’s peace is based on the possibility of (as also the necessity for) new wars – wars, that is, over his own thinking and his own values. “One can only be silent and sit peacefully”, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra observes, “when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise, one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!” (p. 43).
It is such type of war within the independent individual, however, that mothers the very creativity of the individual – it mothers his own taste and disposition. His is a war for the aesthetic creation of new values and a new standing over and above the many-too-many. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra summarizes this Nietzschean understanding of war within the context of the morality of individuality by advising all of such type of warriors as follows: “Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby! … Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars – and the short peace more than the long.” (ibid.).
For Nietzsche, it is only this that constitutes the good war – and this is the good war since, and as we shall see, it is a war for independent self-organization; and it is the good war since it upholds the virtue of self-pride, this being precisely the individual’s supreme uprightness. With respect to this understanding of the good war for personal uprightness, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra speaks as follows to the warriors who are engaged in this war within their own selves: “Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.” (ibid.).
This good war waged within the thinking and disposition of the independent individual – this inner battlefield of virtues – has just two sole combatants, these being the individual’s ego and the individual’s self (whereby the ego is engaged in a war with the self; and/or where the self is engaged in a war with its own self). These are the two sole actors (or the two sole soldiers) fighting within the demarcated configuration of an absolutely private battlefield – and such configuration of this private battlefield is none other than that Nietzschean loneliest wilderness as has been presented above (or it is the free zone of the Oakeshottian alien sojourner, as has also been presented above). It is within such loneliest wilderness (or within such alien sojourn) that both self and ego wage their war in the myriad corners of the individual’s own psyche – and it is in precisely such corners that the ego-self interface itself conceals the presence of the populace.
Having demarcated the battlefield, and having identified the two sole combatants in the Nietzschean good war of the independent individual, we may now proceed to reexamine the relationship between ego and self – we shall need to reexamine their conflictual behaviour within the thoughts of the independent individual. Importantly, this reexamination shall finally allow us to draw the central most important conclusion as to how the ego-self conflict may be ultimately resolved for the independent individual – the form that such resolution could take would certainly constitute the core concept of this project, as also the one and only purpose of the project. It would be such core concept that shall allow us to redefine the meaning of what we have termed self-organization – and the concept of self-organization shall further allow us to ultimately redefine the meaning of order within the self of the individual.
We know that the role of the ego within the individual is that of mediator. And we know that the role of the self within the individual is that of guardian – it wishes to guard the supreme individuality of the individual, and thereby guard its originality in the world. Unlike the ego, the self is defined by – and further guards – its own unique secrecy with respect to the world.
As mediator, the ego is public; as guardian, the self is private. The ego and the self of the individual are therefore two discrete components of the identity of individuality. And yet, while these two salient components of individuality are clearly and distinguishably discrete, they are also inescapably entangled and continually interactive with each other – they cannot but consult each other (each on their own terms, being discrete).
The ego is public – it is social surface. Being social surface, the ego is prone to adjustment. It usually attempts – or is usually inclined – to adjust to conventions, social roles, and the social naming of things. The ego finds that it has to do so since it operates in the world – and since it need in some manner respond to conventions, social roles and the social naming of things, it can also (or even) be said to be of the world.
But this inclination to be of the world – and to be of a world that is in any case composed of the flies of the market-place – compromises and ultimately destroys individuality and the morality of individuality. And thus the ego – its thoughts, its dispositions, and its conduct – needs to be continually reorganized and ordered vis-à-vis the private self. And it needs to be continually reorganized and ordered by the self since it is only the self that can operate as its independent guardian and as the benefactor of its unique originality (and to the extent that the genius of such originality is at all feasible within the particular individual).
The self can function as organizer since it is beyond all social surface. And being beyond all social surface, it is the only force capable of organizing the private world of the independent individual. Nietzsche would declare – and as has already been discussed above – that the self (which is the body per se beyond its mere organic three-dimensional anatomy) need be the ruling element of the individual as-a-whole. It need be the shepherd of the herd that is secreted within its own plurality (the herd being the concealed populace).
While the self of the individual is a plurality (secreting both the herd and the shepherd of that herd), it is nonetheless a plurality with one sense – and it is a plurality with one sense since it is expressive of the body, which itself always wishes to operate as the great reason of being. And yet, such one sense, expressive of such one great reason, can and often does find itself entangled in a conflictual relationship with the ego – and such conflictual relationship can ultimately undermine the ruling element of the self as the element of self-organization.
This dissipation into the ego-self conflictual entanglement is fairly easily explainable and has already been alluded to above. We may here restate such human condition by simply describing it as follows: while the ego relates to a morality of habit of behaviour (the populace), the self relates only to itself (at least in the last instance) – it wishes to relate to its own body, the sensuality of such body, and to the uniqueness of such experience.
Within such conflictual entanglement, the self can operate as the ruling element – it can potentially operate as the shepherd of the herd (both of the inner herd qua concealed populace, and of the outer herd qua the world of the many-too-many). The self can potentially so operate, but it often may simply not do so and ultimately may not carry its own weight – and this can happen since the self finds itself locked in an interminable and protracted tension with the ego, a tension which first needs to be resolved before the self can even attempt to reassert its own ruling element. But the resolution of such tension presupposes the imposition of a certain order on the individual as-a-whole.
To further explain this core concept of order and self-organization as regards the ego-self interface, we need at this point to reiterate our basic argument in slightly different terms, and which shall allow us to draw our final key conclusions on the question of such order and self-organization. This core concept of order revolves around the contradistinction between what we may call the disposition inclined towards replication (that of the ego) and the disposition inclined towards uniqueness (that of the self).
It may be said that this contradistinction between replication and uniqueness describes the cause of the burden – or of the burdens – of the exceptional individual (on his shoulders presseth many a burden). The fact that the ego interacts with the morality of habit of behaviour would almost automatically imply that some or even much of its thoughts and conduct are prone to a certain replication of such habit of behaviour (one responds positively to habit via the public exhibition of a similar habit).
In direct contrast to such proclivity, the self as the self-rolling wheel (or will) of the individual tends to be supremely indifferent to whatever need for replication. One may go even further and say that the self is, not only indifferent to the need for replication, it is also pitilessly hard towards all forms and all vestiges of replication – it actually forswears all traces of replication. And the self forswears all forms and vestiges of replication in thought and conduct since it wishes to create and salvage its own uniqueness in the world (and it in any case knows that it is only born once, it itself being a unique event).
It is obvious that replication stands in direct and utter contradistinction to uniqueness – but since both such proclivities occur within the singular body of the individual, they can only but cause a psychological and existential tension within the exceptional individual. They can lead to inner friction, inner antagonism and self-antipathy. Such symptoms within the exceptional individual could ultimately point to a loss of his sense of self-pride. Naturally, such loss could mean self-destruction.
The only way in which such a nihilistic condition can be countered is through the will of the self, assuming that such cultivated will exists. Such will activates the body-self as the ruling element of the individual-as-a-whole. The body-self thereby operates as shepherd ruling over the herd within its own person – ruling over, that is, the replication of the herd as detected in the proclivities of the ego.
Such ruling element is none other than self-organization, and the order around which such organization orbits. That order, however, is itself none other than pride – and it is only the pride of the morality of individuality that can respond to the potential loss of pride, to the potential nihilism, and to the potential self-destruction. It is, in other words, only the pride of the morality of individuality that can counter that loss of self-pride which occurs when the individuality of the individual scatters within the replicative automaticity of the collectivity.
From a bird’s-eye view, one clearly sees here that the problem for the exceptional individual arises when he is faced by two absolutely distinct realities – viz., on the one hand, the reality of a people’s morality of habit of behaviour (obviously, the state-imposed mass ideologies of the many-too-many need be altogether ignored here) and, on the other hand, the reality of independent individuality. For the individual’s self, these two alternative realities stand in absolute conflict with each other. For the individual’s ego, these two alternative realities have to be somehow accommodated. It is this absolute conflict versus the need for accommodation that causes the tension – and the burden of such tension – within the individual.
It is, we are saying, precisely this tension that has to be settled – and we are asserting that it is to be settled through the imposition of a higher order. Such higher order is the pride of the Overman. And, importantly, it is a higher order beyond all moral ideology. This would of course point to the resolution of the Nietzschean problem of the conflict of virtues as described above. But such core concept pointing to a final resolution of the conflict of virtues runs a basic risk – it may be construed as a mere formulaic settlement of the inner tension of the independent individual. Much worse than that, it may even be said to be an empty formulaic resolution of the problem.
Generally speaking, of course, this problem of the independent individual may be reduced to one simple question – and the question is this: how should the independent individual connect to his own society? No set of formulae whatsoever could possibly answer such a question. Speaking of exceptionally creative individuals, Corey makes the following useful observation: “The poet, artist, and philosopher clearly have a connection to their society, but the precise nature of this connection is somewhat difficult to specify.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 108).
One may argue that Corey’s observation is both wrong and right. The observation may be taken to be wrong in the sense that it fails to underline the fact that the creator does have a very specific connection to his society – or, much more accurately, it fails to underline the fact that the creator ought to have a very specific connection to his society so that the tension between replication and uniqueness (the inner conflict of his virtues) would not lead him to self-destruction (or, to say the least, would not lead to a destruction of his own independent creativity). But Corey’s observation may be taken to be quite right in the sense that there is no general formula that could guarantee the resolution of the inner conflict of virtues – exactly how the exceptional individual goes about handling his connection to society is a strictly private matter. The exceptional individual has no choice but to order his relation to society – but precisely how he does this ordering would depend on his own uniquely independent and uniquely private self. The exceptional individual has no choice but to order his relation to society in terms of his own individual values – but, again, such values are of his own private creation. And, since they are of his own private creation, they cannot possibly belong to public conventions determining good and evil. The exceptional individual has no choice but to effect a self-organization orbiting around an order expressive of self-pride – and yet, precisely how he understands such self-pride cannot be categorized in terms of set, publicly shared, formulae.
Needless to say, one could easily counter such an approach to the mode of being of the exceptional individual by simply saying that such an individual does have a choice – he may choose to apply his genius to the needs, the desires, and the tastes of the many-too-many. This would fully align the values of his private self with those of an ego that has decided to accommodate itself to the masses by serving the masses – such choice would make of him an organic intellectual of the state. Of course, the servility of this mode of being would neutralize his independence as an Overman – his own sense of pride would have absolutely nothing to do with that type of pride that wishes to salvage the uniqueness of the self.
But, then, what is pride? Is there anything at all that one can say about it? We know that the notion of pride is not – or cannot be – an abstract problem-solving formula of sorts. It is a concrete disposition that many wish to have; and it is a disposition that many do have but often lose along the way. It is something that many imagine that they have – for most, however, pride is a disposition that is absolutely dependent on the accreditation of others. Here, the person is proud of himself whenever the many-too-many recognize his own achievements in the world of the market-place – were such recognition to be at some point withdrawn, pride could mutate into depression and self-deprecation.
For the very few, pride is a disposition that defines their being – and it defines their being in a manner that is absolutely independent of the need for whatever accreditation and whatever recognition (or of whatever possible sentiments) on the part of others. For these few exceptional individuals, such self-pride is their own order of things, this being a strictly private (and therefore deliberately lonesome) order. And exactly what such self-pride really is as a disposition is something that only they happen to know – and they only know this for themselves. For these exceptional individuals, pride is their very secret virtue.
Keeping such caveats in mind, we need here to briefly reexamine the question of pride (if only from an outsider’s point of view). And we need to do this given that the question of pride is so absolutely central to our core concept of self-organization.
The question of pride has been addressed – directly or indirectly – by a great many thinkers of the western world. Amongst them (and apart from Nietzsche), it is perhaps Thomas Hobbes who stands out as the greatest and most articulate celebrator of pride – or of the proud individual. He celebrates pride by presenting it as a moral virtue that prevails over all other virtues. In his particular interpretation of Hobbesian philosophy, Oakeshott concludes that that philosophy may be summed up as “the moralization of pride itself” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 289).
For Hobbes, it is pride that defines individuality, or defines the higher individual – it is the catalyst of the self-moved individual (a notion clearly reminiscent of Nietzschean thinking). The self-moved individual is pride per se. Oakeshott shall go on to compare such Hobbesian understanding of pride with the thinking of Montaigne – for the latter, a proud person is he who “knows how to belong to himself” (ibid., p. 290). Self-belonging, and the technique or the art of self-belonging, is based on the virtue of pride. Alternatively, one may say that self-belonging is being self-moved – and both are mothered by the virtue of pride.
How does Hobbes describe the thinking and conduct of the proud individual? Whatever be the particular manner in which the proud individual connects to society, that connection is predicated on his own sense of pride (and which is a disposition running opposite to that of the many-too-many, whose thinking and conduct is predicated on fear). Oakeshott explains this as follows: “He [Hobbes] recognized that a man may keep his word, not merely because he fears the consequences of breaking it, but from ‘a glory or pride in appearing not to need to break it’ …” (ibid., p. 291).
The exceptional individual moves in the world without fear – he moves and lives in the world on the basis of his own self-respect (this being his glory), and on the basis of his own independent self-belonging and self-movement (this being his pride). He therefore connects to the world around him in terms of his own virtue of pride.
Oakeshott shall further present us with a historical explication of the virtue of pride – he shall explore the various modes of thinking in the history of the western world which, in some way or another, would celebrate such virtue. The Oakeshottian investigation of the concept of pride as a virtue in the history of western thought spans the whole history of the west since its apparent birth in the Classical world of the ancient Greeks. And he would attempt to show how such concept had been understood by both the ancient Greeks and by the later medieval moral theologians – and he would correspondingly go on to show how such concept would be interpreted or reinterpreted by thinkers such as Hobbes, Montesquieu, and even Spinoza (we have already touched on the thinking of such philosophers in our discussion of the morality of individuality above, as also in our discussion of the question of over-standing indifference).
Oakeshott, we know, would identify the concept of pride as a virtue in the Aristotelian understanding of megalopsychos. For Aristotle, the individual who is megalopsychos is someone who knows his own worth; it is someone who is unconcerned with – or remains indifferent to – the minor matters of life; and it is someone whose pride is his own virtue – and he does not therefore compete for status with others (his pride is in no way dependent on others).
For our purposes, we may here further expand on our understanding of the Aristotelian understanding of pride by briefly considering what W.D. Ross has to say on the matter (cf. his Aristotle, Methuen & Co Ltd., 1977; Greek edition, Athens, 1991, pp. 295-297). According to this Scottish Aristotelian philosopher, the concept of megalopsychos may be summarized as follows:
- The concept of megalopsychos expresses the correct or proper sense of pride – and the correct or proper sense of pride is self-respect.
- Such sense of pride is a virtue that, not only does it presuppose all other virtues, it can actually even supersede or surpass all other virtues.
- Pride is in fact the supreme virtue that organizes all other virtues (and it may therefore be argued that it can thereby resolve whatever conflict of virtues – that type of conflict, that is, as delineated by Nietzsche).
- Pride, therefore, and in a nutshell, is the virtue of all virtues – it is the kosmos (or adornment) of all other virtues.
- Pride is self-honour – it is the honour that one bestows on one’s own self.
- Pride is not therefore interested in the bestowment of honour by others – it is not interested in competing for honour with others.
- Pride moves in terms of its own will – it does not ever move in terms of the will of others (although here Aristotle would see the possibility of a certain commerce – or conversation – between wills taking place amongst friendships of virtue, this being the exceptional case of a supreme form of philia).
- Pride is indifferent towards the mundane affairs of the world – it remains unmoved by such affairs (or by such minor matters). The proud individual remains impassive – very much reminiscent of the Nietzschean disposition, the proud individual feels no pity for such matters.
- Pride does not care for the minor matters of the world – it cares for aesthetic beauty beyond whatever considerations of use-value (and here, yet once more, both Nietzsche and Oakeshott would be in full agreement with Aristotle).
- Throughout, Aristotle presupposes that that type of person who ascribes to such pride possesses exceptional qualities – he speaks of the truly exceptional individual. It may be argued that such truly exceptional individual as presented to us by Aristotle is obviously comparable to the Nietzschean-type Overman.
- Such Aristotelian presentation of pride expresses an individualistic – or even an all too egocentric – understanding of the exceptional individual. At least this particular dimension of Aristotelian thinking therefore belongs to the long tradition of western thought celebrating the morality of individuality (as opposed to the morality of collectivist anti-individualism).
Now, Oakeshott shall go on to argue that this Aristotelian understanding of pride would come to resurface – and do so in a variety of modified forms – in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greek philosophy through the teachings of the Stoics. In his Aristotle (ibid.), W.D. Ross would certainly confirm this – he would speak of a prefiguration of the notion of pride as articulated in the thinking of Aristotle. Ross shall observe that the Aristotelian understanding of pride would be more or less adopted by the Stoic philosophers – adopted, that is, in their own definition of the wise man (or of human wisdom). For the Stoics, the mode of being of the wise man is informed by the virtue of pride.
And it is precisely such virtue, Oakeshott continues, that would yet again reappear in the teachings of the medieval moral theologians of the western world – importantly, it would do so in the form of sancta superbia. The term superbia, of course, refers to pride; and that of sancta refers to holy – that the medieval theologians were thinking of a holy pride hearkens back to the Aristotelian understanding of a pride that is correct or proper (and which quite obviously implies that pride can be of the unhealthily improper, or sinfully unholy, type).
It is within such context of the surfacing and the resurfacing of the notion of pride as a virtue in the course of western history that one needs to understand that particularly Hobbesian contribution to the question of pride. Hobbes shall of course take up the matter of pride in his investigations around the problem of maintaining socio-political order in the societies of the western world. In his examination of the question of order, he would ultimately come to interpret pride as that mode of being that stands in contradistinction to that of fear – he would thereby be counterposing the virtue of pride to that all too common frame of mind motivated by fear and shame.
The intellectual movement in the history of western thought on the question of pride from Aristotle and right through to Hobbes is summarized by Oakeshott as follows: “This is the virtue of pride … the pride which is reflected in the megalopsychos of Aristotle and at a lower level in the wise man of the Stoics; the sancta superbia which had its place in medieval moral theology; and which was recognized by Hobbes as an alternative manner to that suggested by fear and reason of preserving one’s own nature and emancipating oneself from the fear of shameful death and from the strife which this fear generates.” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 292).
As has already been discussed above, the question of pride as a virtue would also be taken up by Montesquieu himself. While Hobbes would come to revitalize the Aristotelian notion of megalopsychos in his capacity as an English philosopher, Montesquieu would in his own way be doing the same thing in his capacity as a French philosopher. Having investigated the revitalization of the notion of megalopsychos in the thinking of Montesquieu, Oakeshott would come up with a number of basic conclusions, some of which we have already noted above. All we need say here is that, while for Aristotle the megalopsychos is an exceptional type of individual, for Montesquieu it is the aristocratic individual (and here, the aristocratic qualities of an individual would not necessarily be reflective of the social stratum to which that individual happens to belong). For both Aristotle and Montesquieu, the type of individual who is a megalopsychos is a self-contained, self-determined individual who is indebted to himself – and he does not need to ever feel in whatever way indebted to others (be it society or the state). For both Aristotle and Montesquieu, this is precisely the virtue of pride that defines the individual who is megalopsychos.
While Hobbes would revitalize the notion of pride in his response to the English Civil War of the 17th century, and while Montesquieu would himself revitalize the notion of aristocratic pride in his response to the prevailing political conditions of 18th century France, Spinoza’s own understanding of pride would itself be a response to the political and religious climate of the Dutch Republic in the course of the mid-17th century. Like Hobbes, Spinoza would counterpose the type of individual that is motivated by fear to that type of individual who deploys the power of his independent mind to stand over the mundane and/or tumultuous circumstances of life. Such standing over, of course, is the Aristotelian notion of indifference vis-à-vis the affairs of the world – and it is such indifference as informed by the power of an independent mind that is proud of its independence.
It nonetheless seems that it was Hobbesian thinking above all that best encapsulated the notion of that type of individual that may be described as a powerful and proud soul (âme forte). What, for Hobbes, such type of individual is – or is not – is presented to us as concisely as that be possible by Oakeshott as follows: “Now, a man of this sort … is in a high degree self-moved. His endeavour is for peace; and if the peace he enjoys is largely his own unaided achievement and is secure against the mishaps that may befall him, it is not in any way unfriendly to the peace of other men of a different kind. There is nothing hostile in his conduct, nothing in it to provoke hostility, nothing censorious. What he achieves for himself and what he contributes to a common life is a complete alternative to what others may achieve by means of agreement inspired by fear and dictated by reason; for, if the unavoidable endeavour of every man is for self-preservation, and if self-preservation is interpreted (as Hobbes interprets it), not as immunity from death but from the fear of shameful death, then this man achieves in one manner (by courage) what others may achieve in another (by rational calculation). And, unlike others, he not only abstains from doing injury but is able to be indifferent to having to suffer it from others. In short, … there is nothing in it [i.e. in this character; the powerful soul; âme forte] which conflicts with Hobbes’s psychology, which, in fact, identifies differences between men as differences in their preponderant passions and can accommodate the man in whom pride occupies a greater place than fear.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 290).
Based on this Oakeshottian presentation of Hobbesian psychology, one may conclude that the independently proud individual is characterized by the following cardinal features:
- He is self-moved.
- He is not hostile or condemnatory with respect to all other persons of a different calibre.
- He achieves by courage what others may achieve through fear.
- He is indifferent to the doings of others.
- He possesses and cultivates a powerful soul (âme forte).
- Above all, he is different from others in that he is that type of individual in whom pride occupies a greater place than does fear.
Being self-moved is the self-movement of the self – and it is not, therefore, that of the ego. And thus pride itself is not of the ego – it is of the self. A proud self is proud of the self-knowledge that it has attained for itself – such self-knowledge enables the individual to exercise a high measure of self-control over his thinking and his conduct. Self-control is therefore self-organization – it is that exceptional human condition whereby the self organizes each and every component part constituting the psyche of himself-as-a-whole. That is the pride of the self.
Throughout, we have either asserted or implied that the human condition of the Aristotelian – or Hobbesian – megalopsychos is an exceptional human condition. Being exceptional, it is a phenomenon that is simply rarely found in whichever western society and in whichever historical period of western civilization. To suggest that the exceptional individuals are few and far between is of course a clearly tautological statement – and yet, it is also a clearly verifiable statement of fact: the western world has not ever given birth to an endless list of creative polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci (and in any case not all creative polymaths would necessarily belong to the category of the megalopsychos). Both Oakeshott and Hobbes (and surely both Aristotle and Nietzsche as well) would fully acknowledge the rarity of individuals who may be said to belong to the category of the megalopsychos. With respect to the character of the megalopsychos as discussed in Hobbes, Oakeshott writes as follows: “Indeed, it is a character which actually appears in Hobbes’s writings … ‘That which gives to human actions the relish of justice’, he says, ‘is a certain Nobleness or Gallantness of courage (rarely found)’ …” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 290). And Oakeshott confirms such rarity by further adding that, for Hobbes, there is a “dearth of noble characters”. (ibid., p. 292).
Perhaps one should also observe here that, even in the case of a man’s fear of shameful death, there is the presupposition of the need for pride – for otherwise, why would someone fear a death that is shameful? And yet, it just so happens that not all can achieve the requirements for such pride. For pride rests on the genius of self-organization – and such will for self-organization cannot belong to all (and even if such propensity did belong to most, it would not belong to them in equal measure – and it is this mercilessly hard reality that flies in the face of the ideology of social equality).
Now, having established the (albeit abstract) rudiments of the proud individual, we are at this stage in a position to consider the possible relationship – or the possible connection – between that type of individual and the rest of society. Here again, however, we need keep in mind that the manner in which an exceptional individual relates or connects to society cannot be reduced to any set of formulae – it all depends on the case of each single and/or unique individual. We shall here merely be considering abstract and tentative axioms that could possibly describe the existential horizon of the exceptional individual delineating general modes of connecting with the society of the many-too-many (or, alternatively, with the society of an independent people).
In this final and concluding section, we intend to round off our discussion on the question of individuality and its morality, and how such morality relates to the rest within any western society. In doing so, we shall again have to restate much of what has already been covered above – at this point, however, we shall restate some of our basic positions in a way that brings them to their final, conclusive implications.
By way of clarification, we need say that when one speaks of the rest, one can be referring to at least three different categories of people comprising a society in the western world (we say at least since there could be many in-between cases of citizens that do not clearly or absolutely belong to any of these three categories). First, there are always those who have come to accept imposed values (imposed on them by the state and its organic intellectuals; or in any case imposed on them through their own uncritical acceptance of the dominant, conventional wisdom). Second, there are those who consciously (or more or less even unconsciously) resist – or wish to resist – any imposition of whichever values. Third, there are those who do not merely resist or wish to resist whatever imposition of values – they are that category of citizens that consciously choose to abide by inherited values and/or values embedded in the customs and historically-rooted cultural practices of their people.
One may here observe that all three categories as presented above would engage in socio-cultural practices that are in some way or another collective (even in the case of the second category, those who mean to resist the imposition of values usually come to adopt their own alternative values primarily as a collectivity, and it is that collectivity that prescribes norms of conduct – the 1960’s counterculture movement of the hippies is a case in point). In direct contrast, when we speak of the exceptional individual we refer to all possible varieties of such individual that need nonetheless be delimited by the ideal type that is ultimately a law unto his own self. Standing outside whatever collectivity, such individual is a law only for his own self, not so for any other or others – and his own virtue need ultimately be a single virtue that should be of no concern to the rest. His own singular law and singular virtue is expressive of his own personal society – very much as expressed in Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, his soul selects its own society, then shuts the door. As has already been indicated, the exceptional individual would only be able to attain such an absolutely independent status given a certain degree of internal self-organization, this being the internal organization (or ordering) of the ego-self relationship. Such capacity, we have further argued, presupposes the virtue of pride (or the virtue of the megalopsychos).
The virtue of pride is definitely not the vice of some haughty arrogance – on the other hand, however, such virtue reserves the right to maintain a selective disposition vis-à-vis the rest. And thus the exceptional individual may recognize and respect those categories of people who abide by their own customs and cultural practices. And he especially does so when such people have attained a sense of historical identity which enables them to co-exist in a society of their own making and without the operations and interventions of an all-consuming state apparatus. He would here recognize and respect the independence of a category of a people that has come to reject whatever form of slavishness. At the same time, nonetheless, the exceptional individual insists on abiding by his own self-made law – and he wishes that such law is meant for himself only and none other. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra more or less expresses such a position when he speaks to those who uphold their own cultural practices, and as he compares them to the exceptional type of individual – this is what he tells the traditionalist type: “Be of good cheer … as I am. Abide by thy customs, thou excellent one; grind thy corn, drink thy water, praise thy cooking – if only it make thee glad! … I am a law only for mine own; I am not a law for all. He, however, who belongeth unto me must be strong of bone and light of foot …” (p. 275).
But such a potentially complex relationship with the various categories of the rest – and which could also take the form of a dual relationship expressive of both respect for certain categories of the other but also independence vis-à-vis these very categories – raises a number of apparently paradoxical questions. While the individual as an independent creator of his own values needs to maintain his own independent morality of individuality (so that he lives both his own presentness and his own sense of memento mori), he need also tolerate his inevitable co-existence with the masses (and it usually so happens that large numbers of such masses passively accept and/or worship and mobilize around certain mass ideals of idol-adoration). Any possible resolution of such contradictory circumstances could only point to tentative axioms describing the individual’s relation to both the state and society.
The exceptional individual has to tolerate his co-existence with those masses of people whose psyche is permeated with mass idol-adoration (and he need tolerate such masses of people if only because, in the absence of toleration, he could find himself entangled in the endless and futile conflicts of the world of the market-place). But specifically with respect to such masses of people, he need maintain a pitiless indifference towards their thoughts and conduct. Now, and has already been suggested, not all peoples can be reduced to a set of servile masses worshipping a state-imposed (or a party-imposed) ideology. In fact, western societies have often been characterized by a conflictual relationship between a traditional morality of habit of behaviour and a commonplace rationalist-based morality. Those members of society adhering to a traditional morality of habit of behaviour live their lives in terms of certain cultural and aesthetic values that define their cohesive identity as a people. Those members of society adhering to a commonplace rationalist-based morality live their lives in terms of technocratically-defined, instrumentalist, and/or utilitarian values – their identity does not constitute a people in the proper sense of the word (and it does not constitute a people at least in the sense once defined by Carl Jung).
The exceptional individual does not belong to either of these two categories – and yet, he does not relate to each of these in a similar way. His public ego is naturally more empathetic towards an aesthetically informed morality of habit of behaviour – and it is naturally dismissive of all commonplace (or market-place) utilitarianism, and especially so when such utilitarianism is an imposed ideology manipulating the animal instincts of the many-too-many.
But the exceptional individual, further, may also be confronted by yet another set of circumstances. He may find that he lives in a society wherein a faith-based or mission-oriented state is locked into a conflictual relationship with masses of people who would be rejecting the values of such faith or mission. Such categories of citizens would be rejecting a state the apparent ideological project of which would be to impose a particular value-system on all and sundry, and which would thereby be attempting to both penetrate and assert its presence in the private lives of each and every member of society. But in rejecting the ideology of such faith or mission, the contrarians would be responding by manufacturing their own mass ideology. Their rejection of state ideology would be such as to transform their own spontaneously arising morality of habit of behaviour into a set of formulae expressive of an ideological paradigm as guilty of idol-adoration as that of state ideology. Here, one ideology (that of the state) would be giving birth to a counter-ideology (that of the contrarians) – both paradigms would be merely reflective of one other; both would constitute forms of mass idol-adoration organized around the western ideological plague of isms. Both, in other words, would constitute alternative or oppositional politics of faith.
The individual as a self-rolling value creator cannot possibly subscribe to whatever ism; he cannot possibly follow – or even wish to himself articulate – whatever form of ism meant to express the needs of whichever category of people embroiled in the ideological struggles of the market-place (and even so when such ideological struggles are pivoted around issues of a people’s identity and/or its own popular culture). Since the self of the exceptional individual (as opposed to his public ego) is a uniqueness that only experiences itself, it cannot join forces with whatever sections of the populace – and, were it to do so, it would come to lose the uniqueness of its own experience. Much worse than that, the self would also come to lose its own independence – the individual-as-a-whole would be reduced to a mere servant of the populace. But further, his own taste and disposition – both supreme components of his psyche – would themselves be reduced to systems of formulaic axioms typical of all ideological isms. And it precisely in terms of such mode of thinking that the Oakeshottian understanding of conservatism is not ever a political position as such (at least not in the conventional sense of the term) – it is an individual’s personal taste standing outside of all ideology, and whatever be the source or intentions of whichever ideology.
The implication here is obvious – since the exceptional individual cannot lose himself in the isms of the day, he need maintain his own supreme indifference with respect to all isms.
There is yet another set of circumstances that the exceptional individual can be confronted with as an alien sojourner within the societies of the western world – this set of circumstances, however, can be said to be the possibly most generic of all. Such state of affairs can be described as the breakdown of social consensus – or the potential breakdown of such consensus. What, within such possibly chaotic state of affairs, would the stance of the exceptional individual be?
Before we attempt to respond to such a complex question (and it is complex since whatever particular stance on the part of the exceptional individual would, in the last instance, depend exclusively on that individual and none other), we need to first of all clarify what it is that we mean by that state of affairs characterized by a chaotic breakdown of social consensus. We know of course that consensus can break down for a wide variety of reasons – and yet, it is a particular type of breakdown that can truly destabilize a western social formation. How may one describe such a set of circumstances? One may begin by observing that any form of western state would be expected, first, to simply safeguard the identity of its people – and this would mean to simply safeguard the common historical experience of its citizens. And second, it would be expected to safeguard that common – and traditional – political framework that respects the individuality of all citizens, and which comes down to a safeguarding of the morality of pluralism. Now, when the state fails to safeguard either identity or pluralism or both, it can lose its legitimacy in the eyes of at least certain sections of the populace that it is meant to somehow represent. Loss of legitimacy obviously means a breakdown of consensus – such breakdown may lead to a crisis of the traditional nation-state, and it is possible that such crisis may itself yield different degrees of chaos within the structures and practices of the state-as-a-whole. In the last instance, one may observe that chaos is characterized by a lack of trust between members belonging to different state apparatuses, and a concomitant lack of trust between state functionaries and sections of the populace. And the chaos is even further exacerbated when large swathes of the population begin to mistrust one another (or their very neighbours, so to speak).
How, then, would one expect the exceptional individual to react to such a state of affairs? It is quite obvious – and based on our understanding of such a type of individual – that he would remain supremely indifferent to whatever degree of social chaos within the society that wishes to circumscribe him. That, at least, seems crystal clear – but what are the practical implications of such indifference? Here, one need say that, being supremely indifferent, the exceptional individual would not ever desire to contribute to the social chaos in whatever manner – and thus he would not in any way ally himself with those responsible for the breakdown of the social consensus (and he would not do so even in cases where he might possibly see eye to eye with some of their political demands).
Such a stance may be described in a slightly different way – one may argue that, although the exceptional individual maintains his position of supreme indifference, he would nonetheless still recognize the need to avoid whatever forms of nihilistic chaos. And he would in any case wish to see the avoidance of the rise of whatever violent revolutionary forces – usually those of the malcontented masses – aimed at the nihilistic destruction of the cultural values of a society’s time-past (and, in this case, he would not ever see eye to eye with such forces).
The exceptional individual could therefore recognize the authority of the state vis-à-vis the masses of people constituting a social formation – but he would only be doing so on condition that that state is not a vast enterprise association based on an intrusive and all-consuming ideological mission (in cases where the state is in fact intrusive, he would of course concentrate on salvaging his own privacy, as has been discussed above).
But here the question of recognizing and/or accepting the authority of a certain type of state needs to be thrashed out a bit further. It is of course not Nietzsche but, typically, Oakeshott himself that most accurately attempts to clarify both the issue of authority and that of its recognition and/or acceptance on the part of the independent individual. It is to this matter that we now need turn.
Specifically at the public/political level, it may be argued that there are two basic types of citizens. The one type is he who is willed by the state – it is this type that one may describe as the followers, or as the servile adherents to a particular mass idol-adoration. The second type is he who wills his own recognition and his own acceptance of the authority of the state. Both types may be said to represent mere abstract ideals of two contrasting states of mind – and yet, such apparently abstract types can certainly manifest themselves as concrete forms of socio-political conduct in the real world.
The independent individual would naturally belong to the second type of citizen. But the independent individual who is also an exceptional individual would not belong to either of these two categories. And he would not belong to either of these two categories since his own mode of being cannot be said to operate at the level of the public/political. His exclusive sphere of operation is only the private/apolitical. From within such sphere of operation, however, the independent and exceptional individual would himself will his own recognition and acceptance of state authority – and this stance would naturally align him with the second type of citizen operating at the public/political level. But although his stance would align him with the second type of citizen, he could not ever be reduced to the state of mind of that second type of citizen. And he could not be so reduced for at least one very basic existential reason: the exceptional individual wills his recognition and acceptance of state authority while right at the same time remaining an alien sojourner within society.
What are the practical implications of reserving one’s entitlement to live as an alien sojourner within society? It would mean that the exceptional, self-valuing individual may participate in a recognition and acceptance of state authority in his capacity as a public ego – or, to put it otherwise, he would be passively recognizing and accepting state authority in his capacity as a being with a social surface. And thus his so-called participation would happen from a great distance, or it would happen from afar (and it would also happen selectively, depending on the form of state). Such absolutely remote distance would mean that the exceptional, self-valuing individual would be retaining his autonomy as a self – in the last instance, he would be salvaging the autonomy of his own body, it being the great reason of all things (or the big sagacity, as Nietzsche has put it).
Such an approach to the problem of state authority – or to the more specific problem of how the exceptional individual would approach the question of state authority – constitutes a tentative interpretation of the Oakeshottian position. It is also an attempt to amalgamate Oakeshottian with Nietzschean modes of thinking as regards the question of authority.
Is this perhaps a distortion of the political philosophy of Oakeshott? Let us examine how Corey herself presents this dimension of Oakeshottian thinking. The central concept one needs to grasp here is that of individual insight vis-à-vis authority – it is a self-enactment based on insight that determines the exceptional individual’s relation to state authority. Corey writes on this as follows: “Insight is an essential part of what it means to act within the bounds of law and to accept authority. As he [Oakeshott] observes in … The Authority of the State, authority – one might as easily substitute religion here – does not consist in the commands given by someone or something utterly external, but in our willing acceptance of the ground of that authority. In other words, neither law nor religious precepts are in themselves authoritative for us until we grasp them by insight – by understanding them for ourselves. “An authority”, Oakeshott observes, “is not a person or institution whose experience we decide to accept and make use of where our own appears deficient, for such an ‘authority’ is secondary and compels not by its own but by a borrowed power; a real authority is the whole ground upon which our acceptance or rejection of anything is based. To have a belief it must be ours, and even if it were derived from some external source, that which actually compels us to hold it is the ground on which it has been accepted, that is, the whole world of ideas into which it has been fitted and in the light of which it has been understood and appropriated.” Insight is what provides meaning in the moral life … it is also … a crucial part of what it means to act politically.” (cf. Corey, op. cit., p. 84).
Corey’s presentation of the Oakeshottian position on the question of state authority may be reiterated and/or reinterpreted by focusing on the following basic points. Firstly, one should observe that the independent insight of the exceptional individual with respect to authority would not ever be such as to cause him to be a lawbreaker – his public conduct would always remain within the bounds of the law (bar, of course, all instances where state authority would seriously attempt to violate his supreme privacy), and it would always remain within the bounds of the law despite his own morality of individuality (it being a morality meant exclusively for his own self-rule). Secondly, the fact that the exceptional individual would not ever be a willing lawbreaker would merely be symptomatic of his own willing acceptance of the moral grounds of state authority – his stance is a willed acceptance of authority. Being willed, such acceptance is not at all a matter of being obedient to anyone’s commands – it would not therefore be symptomatic of whatever form of slavishness. Thirdly, and in consistence with the previous point, the exceptional individual’s willed acceptance of authority is not at all a symptom of slavishness since it would be founded on the absolutely independent insight of that individual with respect to all authority – his own appreciation of a particular political formation would be expressive of his own autonomous discernment of the world around him (to have a belief it must be ours). Fourthly, and following from what has been asserted thus far, it is of absolute importance to assert that whatever acceptance of authority on the part of the exceptional individual would not ever be based on his own deficiency. His acceptance of authority would not stem from a position of any deficient weakness on his part – quite the exact opposite: it would stem from a position of insightful pride of knowledge (his own self-created knowledge). His acceptance of authority would therefore be a symptom of self-pride.
Now, and going slightly beyond this particular Oakeshottian understanding of the question of authority, we may superimpose the following position regarding the selfsame question: we may say, firstly, that the public ego of the exceptional individual more or less compromises in its interaction with the state and society – and it compromises since it really has no time at all to spare for whatever conflictual activity regarding the affairs of the market-place. For such a type of individual, such affairs are the miserable obsessions of what Nietzsche has described as the small existences of the many-too-many. But secondly, we also need to say that, when the public ego of the exceptional individual compromises in its interaction with the state and society, it does so as a willing acceptance informed by the morality of its own independent self – informed, that is, by the moral insight of that self and none else. But the independent moral insight of the supreme self is the selfish pride of the individual-as-a-whole.
Based on such a reading of the question of authority, one may generally conclude that the authority of the state can be quite compatible with the autonomy of the individual. Such positive compatibility between state and individual would depend on the extent to which the exceptional individual would come to accept the moral grounds upon which authority is predicated. Noël K. O’Sullivan (op. cit.) also points to this dimension of Oakeshottian thinking when he writes of “… Oakeshott’s insistence that political authority is moral, and therefore distinct from mere power or domination.” (p. 211). And he continues as follows: “Only when the moral status of authority is acknowledged is it possible to speak of obligation to a non-voluntary association (viz. the state) and to maintain … that the authority of the state is perfectly compatible with the autonomy of the individual.” (ibid.).
What are the basic moral grounds that the exceptional individual would find acceptable in a state formation? As has already been alluded to, the exceptional individual would acknowledge the moral status of a state formation when such formation safeguards the identity of its citizens as a people; and when it safeguards the morality of pluralism – and especially so when it does both in its capacity as a civil association absconding from whatever politics of faith. But, then, what if – to put it as simply as possible – the moral values of the state do not agree with those of the exceptional individual? Or, to put it otherwise, what if the state would be seen as immoral in terms of the morality of the exceptional individual? This is a real and all-too-concrete question – and it is real and concrete given that the modern western state has generally matured into an all-powerful and all-intrusive state-as-enterprise. Would the exceptional individual in such case break the law? It may be argued that, even under such tragic circumstances, the exceptional individual would generally not attempt to break the law – unless of course such law would itself directly attempt to break his own independent individuality. In principle, the exceptional individual would not break the law since doing so could mean his personal entanglement with the state and its legal apparatuses – such entanglement would constitute a loss of his own time, or it would constitute a violation of his own treasured presentness. Instead of reducing himself to a mere public lawbreaker, he would rather choose to object to such type of state from afar – such objection would merely constitute a moral, dispositional stance that he need share with no one but his own self.
Whatever be the form of state, the exceptional individual always has one supreme objective in mind – and that objective is to preserve his own self (and the unique identity of such self) by protecting it from its dissolution. This supreme need for self-preservation can become urgent whenever the individual finds himself having to more or less practically interact with the state and its functionaries (and there shall naturally come occasions when such interaction would prove unavoidable).
The risk of self-dissolution has of course been addressed by Oakeshott himself – he writes as follows with respect to the required personal aptitudes of the independent individual: “The skill in desire and aversion is knowing how to preserve the practical self [which in our terms translates into the public ego] from dissolution.” (op. cit., p. 208).
Self-preservation is commensurate with self-organization, and it is expressive of the pride of such self-organization. But the preservation of the self – as also its public ego – does not only become urgent in one’s dealings with the state. Self-preservation can become as important in one’s dealings with others. For the exceptional individual in particular, self-preservation needs to be sustained even in his relations with that type of friend (based on the Aristotelian philia) with whom he may often indulge in an Oakeshottian type of conversation.
The question of preserving the identity of the self in the face of others has of course again been addressed by Oakeshott. As we know from what has already been noted above, Oakeshott would observe (as would Nietzsche) that each self inhabits a world of its own. And he would even go on to speak of a possible war of selves. How, then, would the exceptional individual be expected to think and act within the context of such virtual battlefield?
This virtual battlefield is in fact an all-too-real actuality – and it is so in a very special sense when those in the battlefield happen to be those types of individuals who belong to the exceptional, desiring selves. Such types of selves are inclined to eschew whatever obligation to the world of other desiring selves. They might even wish to go so far as to question the validity of the rights of other desiring selves (such questioning would of course not apply to the innocuous rights of the many-too-many – these latter are simply enmeshed in their own senseless struggles for so-called equality). With respect to the overly selfish (or rather unhealthily proud) proclivities of desiring selves, Oakeshott writes as follows: “The desiring selves enter into no obligation, recognize no right; they admit the subjectivity of other selves only in order to make use of it for their own ends.” (ibid., p. 209).
On the other hand, the Oakeshottian understanding of the morality of individuality (concomitant to healthy pride; or to that of the Aristotelian megalopsychos) allows for a balanced compromise between all exceptional, desiring selves. In terms of such an understanding of the morality of individuality, moral activity on the part of a desiring self would include a balanced accommodation vis-à-vis other desiring selves (in terms of our own understanding of the ego-self interface, such balanced accommodation could only be effected at the level of public egos). Such balance would mean that a desiring self would be recognized by some other desiring self as an end in itself – and it would mean that none can be a slave to the desires of some other self. The Oakeshottian correction to the proclivities of unhealthy pride is expressed as follows: “In general … moral activity may be said to be the observation of a balance of accommodation between the demands of desiring selves each recognized by the others to be an end and not a mere slave of somebody else’s desires.” (cf. Oakeshott, ibid., p. 210).
The battlefield of selves – and the resolution of whatever conflictual exchanges amongst them – may be summarized as follows. Firstly, it needs to be acknowledged that the self per se constitutes a world of its own. And that the self does in fact constitute an independent and creative world of its own would depend exclusively on the will of the individual-as-a-whole. As such, the primary impulse of the independent self vis-à-vis other selves is to consistently protect its own world and its own identity from dissolution. But secondly, the independent and creative self needs to acknowledge a balance of accommodation with respect to other suchlike selves – since such an acknowledgement would be enacted from a position of self-organized pride, it would in no way threaten the world and identity of the self that acknowledges other selves (and it would not therefore induce whatever degree of dissolution). Thirdly, and as importantly, such balance of accommodation between selves would imply that no independent selves would ever accept a relationship of slavery vis-à-vis whatever other selves.
But, then, what of individuals who slavishly follow others? This type of question points to two different but closely interrelated problems. Firstly, how is the independent individual expected to relate to those many-too-many whose idol-adoration appears to be more or less innocuous (at least as regards his own independent preservation)? This type of problem has been dealt with fairly rigorously in our discussions around the question of the relationship between the Nietzschean Overman and the flies in the market-place. But, secondly, the question of slavishness points to a perhaps even more substantial issue – and such issue is none other than the question of the relationship between the morality of individuality and that of social (or even ontological) equality.
Here, one may clearly distinguish between two absolutely different notions of the morality of individuality – and the distinction between these two notions revolves around the central question of human equality. More specifically, it posits the issue of an ontological inequality amongst all human beings. Although we have elsewhere reflected on the question of human (or social) so-called equality or inequality, we shall here very briefly attempt to relate such question to that of the morality of individuality (and which, as we are asserting, is above all a morality expressive of self-organization and the disposition of pride that informs it).
It may be argued that the morality of individuality can be subdivided into two irreconcilable perspectives. On the one hand, one may wish to support that all individuals are supposedly equal in their self-determination and personal competence. Such a perspective is a moral worldview expressive of a particular ideology (or set of ideologies which may in themselves yet still be mutually conflicting). It is precisely this type of perspective that has come to yield the modern democratic spirit of the western world (and which to a large extent is embedded in the philosophical discourse of thinkers such as Immanuel Kant – cf. Terence Irwin, op. cit.). On the other hand, one may assert that all individuals may be potentially equal in their self-determination and personal competence, but not all do in fact come to possess the necessary measure of will and competence to achieve such potentiality. It is this empirically verifiable reality that has yielded the self-rolling individual who is simply superior to all the rest that belong to the category of the populace – and it is for this reason that the self-rolling individual lives a morality that is over, above, and beyond the morality of the populace.
The self-rolling individual is a desiring individual that possesses the will and the capacity to plan (or organize) his own life on earth (and do so in all its littlest details). Those belonging to the category of the rest are themselves a desiring set of people – but these desire to be planned (or organized) by the state and its wise organic intellectuals. Their desire is based on the need for protection, it being a need symptomatic of a certain relative inferiority (and which therefore takes the form of a certain human weakness). And it is for this reason that one may speak of an ontological inequality amongst humans.
Now, the self-rolling individual can coexist with the morality of the populace, but only so long as such populace does not impose its morality as an ideology – or as an idol-adoration – on superior, self-rolling individuality. Only so long, that is, that the populace – via the state – does not restrain or penalize the superiority of the exceptional individual. But it may be argued that, in the case of the collectivist-democratic type of state and society – and which is the Oakeshottian understanding of the state-as-enterprise – the populace often does attempt to restrain and/or penalize independent individuality, and especially so when such individuality does not comply with the codes of mass morality. Western civilization has of course witnessed a number of extreme cases of such collectivist interventionism in the lives of the self-rolling type of individual – and one may here refer to Soviet-style socialism, Mussolini-style Fascism, or Hitler’s own version of National Socialism (it yet still remains an open historical question as to whether or not what may be described as postmodern globalist monoculturalism shall itself yield a form of totalitarianism that would willy-nilly intervene in the lives of independent individuals).
Whatever be the particular social circumstances or cultural conjunctures, one would nonetheless expect of the exceptional individual to preserve both his identity and his mode of being as a self-rolling creator of his own aesthetic values. Such self-preservation on the part of the exceptional individual has in any case manifested itself all-too-concretely right across the history of western civilization – we know that western civilization has in fact given birth to what Thomas Carlyle would call great men (although at least some of his so-called individual heroes could fall under the category of the state-sponsored famous wise ones). But it was precisely so as to reinforce the conditions for the self-preservation of individuality that Oakeshott would himself argue for a form of state that would be conducive to such an independent mode of being. As has been noted throughout this project, Oakeshott would be arguing for a form of state that would be limited in its scope and social operations – and being thus limited, it would function as a neutral umpire within a society of independent citizens. Within such social framework, citizens would be living their lives in terms of their own morality of habit of behaviour – they would not, therefore, be living in the shadow of a state-imposed mass ideology. For Oakeshott, such framework would allow for – and encourage – the self-determining superior individual (this being the great man, but being so only for-himself).
But then, and having articulated such a political philosophy, Oakeshottian thinking seems to be running counter to the idea that the exceptional individual would be expected to preserve his exceptionality under whatever social circumstances. It is precisely here that the Oakeshottian perspective seems to diverge from that of the Nietzschean – in terms of the latter, the self-organizational pride of the self-rolling individual ought not to be in need for whatever type of protection; pride per se would not need whatever preconditions so as to preserve itself. The Oakeshottian concept of the civil type of state, however, is a form of protection for the independent individual – worse still, it seems to suggest that independent individuality can only come to fruition given certain social preconditions. On the other hand, it should also be noted that such a deterministic reading of Oakeshottian thinking does not really do justice to the complexity of such thinking, and which would in any case span a period of approximately 60 long years of theoretical reflection and ultimate maturation – and thus one may add that the divergence in the thinking of Nietzsche and Oakeshott is not ever such as to constitute an unbridgeable divide.
The distinction between different notions of the morality of individuality is absolute – and it is absolute given the irreconcilable perspective regarding the question of the ontological inequality of human beings. Here, however, one could introduce a possibly important caveat – one could argue that, while ontological inequality is empirically/historically verifiable, whatever distinction between the superior and the inferior human being is not always absolute and clear-cut, and it is not so at least when one proceeds to undertake a finer-grained examination of the history of the western world. As has already been observed above, it would be Kenneth Minogue (cf. “How Political Idealism Threatens Our Civilization”, op. cit.) who would argue that the attributes of the natural slave and those of the natural master are perhaps present in all individuals – that these attributes may coexist can be a cause of tension in everybody’s life. Yet still, it is only that type of individual who can resolve such tension through the pride of his self-organization that can ultimately achieve the status of a self-rolling excellence. And further, it is only that type of individual who can resolve such tension through a respectful detachment vis-à-vis the many-too-many that can ultimately achieve the status of the Overman. But it is precisely in such manner, however, that the reality of ontological inequality is yet again confirmed.
Having come thus far, we may now condense the notion of self-organization into the following very basic points. First, the exceptional individual need organize his own self vis-à-vis the many-too-many and their proclivity for idol-adoration (and which could itself take the form of various political or quasi-political movements, or the form of various ideological-cum-cultural blocs). Second, the exceptional individual need organize his own self vis-à-vis the state and the moral discourse of its various organic intellectuals. Third, the exceptional individual need organize his own self vis-à-vis a people’s morality of habit of behaviour. All such moves towards self-organization (and which would not always be necessarily contrarian in themselves) would most probably cause internal tensions within the exceptional individual – but such tensions would have to be creatively resolved through the independent pride of that self-organization itself. Such pride, however, cannot be contingent on whatever form of external protection – it cannot depend on the benign support of whatever father protector (such as a civil association).
But the notion of self-organization does go one step further – as implied throughout, self-organization means being in the world but not of it. This, however, automatically suggests that the exceptional individual need preserve his own secrets vis-à-vis the world – and it is by preserving his own secrets that he preserves his own independent self. Now, the suggestion that one preserves one’s own secrets vis-à-vis others may at first sound morally sinister. And yet, the preservation of secrecy can be seen as a natural and/or necessary precondition for whoever (or whatever) intends to maintain his (or its) sovereignty. Take the state (and especially some central state apparatus) as a case in point – in such case, none can truly deny the need of the state to protect all of its classified data. But if such secrecy is necessary for the operation of any state, it is just as necessary for any individual who lives his life as a state-unto-himself.
Oakeshottian thinking would more or less presuppose such need for secrecy on the part of the independent individual; Nietzschean thinking would openly assert such need for secrecy on the part of the exceptional individual. It is of importance to briefly investigate here how one would undertake an affirmation of the need for secrecy as a virtuous disposition. Much of what shall be considered has already been touched on above – again, we mean to carefully reconsider such thinking so as to round off and finally draw some key conclusions pertaining to the question of self-organization and the implications of such self-organization.
We are suggesting that the need for secrecy on the part of the independent individual is a position that is more or less presupposed in the thinking of Oakeshott. Such an assertion may at first sound rather controversial – standard readers of Oakeshottian political thinking could object that we are here guilty of misrepresenting Oakeshott’s own understanding of what it means to be a proper cive within a civil association. And yet, it may be argued that Oakeshott’s particular interpretation of Augustinian thinking – and especially with respect to the core concept of civitas peregrina – certainly would lead to the idea that the independent individual need preserve his own secrecy vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and it would certainly imply that such preservation of secrecy is a virtue in itself. Of course, that this is so requires further clarification.
Corey (op. cit.) presents the key conceptual nexus between the thinking of Augustine and that of Oakeshott by writing as follows: “The challenge, for Oakeshott as for Augustine, was to live fully in the world without becoming worldly – that is, to appreciate the beauty and goodness of creation while avoiding the corruption inherent in pursuing worldly goods for their own sake.” (p. 10). The suggestion that the individual should live fully in the world without at the same time being (or becoming) worldly may be said to imply a double disposition – it implies, on the one hand, a disposition of compromise (this being an acknowledgement that one is in the world); on the other hand, it also implies a disposition of detachment (this being one’s will not to be of the world).
Obviously aware of the internal tension inherent in such a double disposition, Corey shall go on to simply but importantly observe that “… it is possible to live in the world without being of it … Both thinkers [Augustine and Oakeshott], in quite different ways, remained “otherworldly in the world” …” (ibid., p. 23).
Is it really possible to both live in the world and at the same time not be of it? Could an individual – or how could an individual – be “otherworldly in the world”? And what would be the implications of being – or rather doing – both? Being – or doing – both at the same time would mean to integrate a disposition of compromise with a disposition of detachment, and it would mean to do that with respect to the selfsame object (the world), and it would further mean to do all that within the arena of the selfsame subject (one’s very own person). We know that, for Nietzsche, one can live in the world by compromising with it in a manner that suggests pluralistic tolerance – “Let them …”, he advises the exceptional individual with respect to the mode of being of those in the market-place. But, he would add, one should let society (and its many-too-many) live its own mode of being without personally caring for such mode of being – one should “Let them” be as they are from a position of detachment.
And thus it is that the ego interacts with the world (it is thereby in the world), while at the same time the individual-as-a-whole remains beyond all state and mass ideology (and he is thereby not of the world).
But, then, one immediately notices here that this in-but-not-of the world already points to a disposition of secrecy on the part of the individual. Can one say that much of Oakeshottian thinking itself? One certainly can – to show this, we need to carefully reconsider the real meaning secreted behind the notion of resident stranger (civitas peregrina). Wishing to expound on the Oakeshottian idea that the independent individual lives in the world but is not of it, Corey writes as follows: “Perhaps the most vivid way of expressing this idea is to consider the image of the civitas peregrina. Oakeshott borrows this phrase from Augustine as a way of conveying his conception of human beings as “resident strangers” – people who take part in worldly affairs but simultaneously maintain a certain detachment from them. In the final section of On Human Conduct Oakeshott makes a case that his preferred understanding of human association (civil association, or societas) is a reflection of the civitas peregrina, which he describes as an association “of adventurers each responding as best he can to the ordeal of consciousness”, and of partners in “a practice of civility the rules of which are not devices for satisfying substantive wants”. For while pursuing substantive wants is certainly a vital part of life, it cannot be understood as the entirety of human experience. Oakeshott thus wants to preserve the freedom of human adventurers to recognize and pursue those things that concern more than worldly survival and achievement.” (ibid.).
Such an understanding of the human experience – and especially given its emphasis on the freedom of human adventurers – can only but imply the virtue of secrecy as an integral part of the morality of individuality. How is this so? We would argue that the virtue of secrecy is the secrecy of the resident stranger (or that of the civitas peregrina) – it is a necessary virtue emanating from and functional to the very nature of such mode of being.
What, in fact, is a resident stranger? On the one hand, he is an individual who may take part in – or, much more accurately, may interact with – the affairs of the world (albeit from a very safe distance indeed). Now, it would of course be the individual’s public ego that would be engaged in such an interaction with society. And thus one would say that the individual’s public ego is none other than the resident subject as such. The Oakeshottian concept of resident (or civitas) is here clearly equivalent to the term public ego (or, simply, the ego of the individual).
But although the individual is a resident subject, he is also a stranger (peregrina) – in terms of this alternative dimension of individuality, it is as an independent foreigner, or as an independent alien, that the individual may or may not interact with society (and when he does so happen to interact, he in any case does that as mediated by his public ego). As a stranger, he maintains a certain detachment from the world. And thus it would be the individual’s private self that would be disengaged from the world – and he would be disengaged as a veritable stranger to that world. One may conclude therefore that the Oakeshottian concept of stranger (peregrina) is here clearly equivalent to the term private self (or, simply, the self of the individual).
The detached stranger (or the individual as a private self) is defined by such detachment and by such foreignness. And it is in his detachment and foreignness that he carries his own secrecy vis-à-vis the rest of the world – the peregrina state of being is the secrecy of that being.
What would the content of such secrecy be? The content of such secrecy would be the creative content of the self – it would be the productive core of the self. For Oakeshott, it would be a content informed by the independent subject as an adventurer in the world. Being a free adventurer is being secretive – it is to carry the secret of one’s own independent being, and it is to carry the secret of one’s love for one’s own independent being as a creative adventurer. What, further, could the inner content of such secret-for-one’s-self be? The inner content of such secret would be the special – or unique – way in which the free adventurer-cum-stranger responds to the ordeal of his own consciousness. And thus there can be nothing at all morally sinister in harbouring the secret of his own particular response to an ordeal that concerns nothing short of his very own body – it being the body of a stranger (for none else can feel his own toothache).
The response of the adventurer-cum-stranger to the ordeal of his own consciousness (or to the ordeal of his own body) can only but be secret, it also being the response of a stranger to a world that cannot be reduced to his own consciousness and to his own body. It need be secret – but it need not be blind or anarchic (or blindly anarchistic). We would argue, to the contrary, that the secret of the self is itself an order of that self. Why need this be so?
The secret of the self is what it is – a secret outside, beyond, and despite the world. But although such secret is outside, beyond, and despite the world, it cannot ever be an anarchic secret. And it cannot be anarchic wherein anything goes without any holds barred since it cannot be a blind secret – it cannot be an anarchically blind force of the self. Blind forces are rarely if ever creative – and the sheer blindness of such forces can turn out to be nihilistically destructive (for others) and/or nihilistically self-destructive.
Much more accurately, the secret of the self cannot be blind given that – and as we have asserted throughout – the self remains in constant consultation with the ego. The ego, however, is in constant communication with a people’s morality of habit of behaviour – it is in constant communication with such people’s inherited tradition and the morality of such tradition. The ego both respects and selects – for the purposes of the creative self – whatever it deems to be the best of such inherited tradition (and it thereby also rejects whatever is the worst of that tradition). The perspective of the independent individual is not therefore reducible to a blind and disordered force – and the secret of his own self is therefore also not reducible to whatever anarchically blind and disordered force. Corey attempts to capture such Oakeshottian form of thinking – but which is also Augustinian – by writing as follows with respect to the question of individual creativity: “… this moral creativity takes place among other people and within inherited traditions; and in neither Oakeshott nor Augustine is the importance of the individual perspective “ever radicalized into some sort of anarchistic, blindly willful individuality” …” (ibid., p. 43).
Moral creativity – which happens within the productive core of the self – is an evaluation and a reevaluation (even an absolutely total one) of all that pertains to life and its meaning. But evaluation and reevaluation constantly consults with an ego that can recognize and acknowledge a people’s independent morality of behaviour. Such consultation means that the valuing activity of the self need take into account the ensuing tensions between itself and the experiential data of the ego. Such tensions need be ordered and overcome via the virtue of pride. But since order must be imposed on such tensions, the secret of the self must itself be an order. Being an order, it cannot be either blind or anarchic. That which orders is pride itself – but this is not ever either a blind or a recklessly anarchic pride.
This, of course, seems to paradoxically suggest a certain constraint on the freedom of individuality – this very constraint is, however, the necessary constraint of creativity. Constraint is order – but order is a basic presupposition for creation, and especially as regards artistic creativity. The point here is that while the exceptional individual need be absolutely original in his own artistic creativity, such creativity ought not to ever sacrifice aesthetic beauty on the altar of whatever anarchic or blind so-called originality. For a variety of reasons that need not concern us here, we know that anarchic or unfettered creativity would of course be rejected by Plato in his Republic; Aristotle’s Poetics would further argue for the importance of structure and order in all of art; and 20th century philosophers such as Roger Scruton would attempt to explain to the modern western citizen why it is that beauty as such matters.
Now, whatever it is that defines beauty, it is in any case that which constrains the meaning of beauty per se. And such constraint is a child born of a civilization’s morality of habit of behaviour – beauty is a discipline the definition of which is embedded within the long history of that civilization’s aesthetic practices. And it is precisely with these aesthetic practices that the ego-self interface constantly converses – by so conversing, it exercises a willed discipline upon itself as creator. It may be argued, in contrast, that rationalist-based morality – and which is concomitant to the mass-based morality of modernity and postmodernity – has come to blindly and anarchically embrace a cult of ugliness (as Scruton would put it). And such cult of ugliness may be said to be expressive of the ultimate loss of time-past and its embedded sense of beauty. This naturally leads to a self-destructive nihilism – and nihilism cannot define the psyche of the self-rolling exceptional individual.
The self of the independent and exceptional individual thus secretes its own proud order – and yet, such proud order is also and at the same time a gambling order. Such an assertion, however, may at first sound all too perplexing – the idea that the secret of the exceptional individual is itself expressive of a willfully chosen personal gamble can suggest a certain and deliberate risk-taking recklessness on the part of that individual, and such proclivity may itself be suggestive of a self-destructive nihilism. In any case, it seems rather implausible to wish to combine a secret that is neither blind nor anarchic with a type of conduct that is also and at the same time reminiscent of wagering.
There is of course a clear and straightforward resolution to such predicament – we need simply remind ourselves that, although the exceptional individual does indulge in a gamble, he does so in a manner that is always constrained by the conversation that takes place between his ego and his self. And thus the gamble of the creative individual is constrained by the discipline of a proud, self-organized will. The free self gambles in a way that is wisely cognizant of the experiences of his ego (in the case of the exceptional individual, of course, such ego naturally has an exceptional ear – or an exceptionally critical ear – for the so-called chattering classes of the market-place; that very same ear, however, can at the same time be exceptionally empathetic towards any proud and independent people).
We should at this point also remind ourselves that, while the secret of the self is a gambling secret, such type of secret cannot – or should not – ever apply to society as a whole (and which would constitute a public secret, so to speak). As we know, Oakeshott would argue (and Nietzsche would here absolutely see eye to eye) that neither the state nor its populace should ever engage in whatever form of gambling – or engage in whatever form of social/collective gambling (also referred to, inter alia, as social engineering). Such type of gambling would endanger both a people’s morality of habit of behaviour as also an individual’s own morality of individuality (it being his freedom as an individual citizen).
Oakeshott would here argue that existential gambling on the part of the individual “may have its reward when undertaken within the limits of a society which is not itself engaged in the gamble” – when society does itself engage in gambling, however, that “is mere folly” (cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., p. 70).
The individual’s particular moral activity can constitute a secret gamble since his own self is not of the collectivity and its market-place. But he must gamble in a manner that recognizes the needs of his public ego, which can only but remain in society (it being within the limits of a society). Society, however, cannot and should not engage in whatever collective gambling – when it does so, the exceptional individual would consciously strive to preserve his own identity as a person, as also preserve the discrete identity of his own secret gambling.
We may now conclude here by making the very general observation that self-organization is invariably dependent on the virtue of secrecy – and secrecy is the realm of the supremacy of the private, gambling self. The exceptional individual need therefore salvage and preserve his secret reason for being-so-in-the-world, and being precisely so vis-à-vis the rest of those in the world. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra summarizes such thinking as follows: “Have a good distrust today, ye higher men, ye enheartened ones! Ye open-hearted ones! And keep your reasons secret! For this today is that of the populace.” (p. 279).
- Of being-in-the-world as an Overman in the history of western civilization
Who is it that has actually lived his life as an Overman in the history of the western world? Is being an Overman an ideal-type? Given the natural human weaknesses that may be ascribed to all humans as a species, should one have to admit that being-in-the-world as an Overman is merely a chimerical ideal (and tragic at that)?
The history of the western world has certainly witnessed exceptional individuals whose intellectual and cultural adventures have been enacted over and above the fashions, the faiths, and the fantasies of their epoch (to remember Roger Penrose). Who such individuals have been – or who they are in the midst of us – is for the historian to determine. Identifying them is sometimes quite an easy task – the lives of such persons simply stand out as a landmark in the history of the western world (and they often do so despite their personal intentions). On the other hand, such task can be difficult and controversial – we in any case know that there is a wide variety of gradations of exceptionality. And there are also cases of exceptionality that have remained utterly obscure for ages on end until such time as some peculiar moment of history happened to be such as to need to unearth them.
Whatever the gradations (as also whatever the status of a possible and ultimate societal recognition), one may safely assume that the exceptional individual possesses qualities of will and genius that are simply all too rare to come by. But such naturally rare double entitlement would not mean that the exceptional individual does not have to undergo personal struggles and face personal challenges so as to identify, preserve, and cultivate his own potentialities (that being his adventurous and secret gamble in life).
It is surely needless to say that writing (or thinking) of the phenomenon of individual exceptionality would not at all mean that he who does so is himself in any way exceptional (the controversial case of someone such as Thomas Carlyle remains a case in point) – almost any so-called intellectual could write (or think) of the Overman in history, depending on his skills and training as a researcher. Many may be able to do just that – this would, however, say little to nothing either about their will or their genius as persons. And yet, there have been some thinkers who did dare write of exceptionality (and thereby did articulate an exceptional understanding of the morality of individuality), and who at the same time were themselves exceptional individuals. Few would wish to deny that Nietzsche was himself an exceptional person, despite his various failings and contradictions. So was, one might say, Oakeshott himself – and he was an exceptional individual in his own humble way (and, again, despite his own failings and weaknesses).
Neither of them consciously pursued fame or recognition – both were devoted to their own untimely thinking about the meaning of life in the modern western world. Both struggled to practically enact in the life that they lived their own particular understanding of the self-rolling independent individual. Each did so in his own peculiar way – the one as would a German philosopher of the 19th century; the other as would an Englishman operating in the academic world of the 20th century. Both meant exactly what they wrote – and they honestly did so despite the internal contradictions of their thought and conduct.
Both struggled to be exceptional and think exceptionally. We shall have to end this project with a number of very brief observations concerning both the character-type of these two thinkers and their struggles in the world.
For the case of Nietzsche, we shall make use of Walter Kaufmann’s classic study already referred to above, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (op. cit.). Our intention is to merely present a few snippets of the very private thoughts – or very private letters – of Nietzsche, and as these have been recorded in Kaufmann’s work.
We shall not be bothered with the person to whom Nietzsche expresses such thoughts, and we shall not be concerned with the particular circumstances in which he penned these letters. What is here of paramount interest to us is that such thoughts revolved around the matter of his own self, and how such self would relate – or would intend to relate – to those around him (the other vis-à-vis his own person). What follows is a presentation of these few snippets, and which are accompanied by some rudimentary remarks.
- To begin with, Nietzsche shall acknowledge that, yet still, much remains to be overcome within his own self as an individual. He writes as follows: “There is an awful lot to overcome in my self.” (cf. Kaufmann, p. 57).
- Given that much as yet remains to be overcome within his own self, Nietzsche recognizes that his own person is continually engaged in a struggle to overcome whatever weaknesses of his own self. The personal experiences of such struggle, however, are in themselves holy. One may explain this a bit further – we may say that this struggle on the part of Nietzsche to overcome the weaknesses of his own self would throw onto his own shoulders, so to speak, the sheer burden of his self-chosen solitary wilderness. Living a life of solitude was no easy matter – and thus he would come to privately express a feeling of personal brokenness. And yet, and right at the same time, it would be precisely such type of agonizing emotional state that would – for Nietzsche – raise a key question regarding his own person and his own life: could he possibly discover within his own struggling self that particular alchemist’s trick that could transform all such painful experiences into gold? The discovery of such an alchemist’s trick would constitute for him that exceptional and beautiful opportunity to prove to himself that all of human experience is both existentially useful and existentially holy, however painful all such experience might turn out to be. The discovery of that trick would have major implications with respect to life per se, and especially human life itself (it would mean that both were to be loved and cherished absolutely). Were Nietzsche to fail in discovering such a trick, he felt that he would be lost to himself, as he would be lost to life itself. That, however, was Nietzsche’s own very personal gamble. And it was precisely such tormenting thoughts and such search for the alchemist’s gold that would lead him to the creation of his own masterpiece, Thus Spake Zarathustra. Nietzsche would express all such thoughts in a private letter, part of which read as follows: “I tense every fiber of my self-overcoming – but I have lived in solitude too long, living off my “own fat”, so that now, more than anyone else, I am being broken on the wheel of my own feelings … If I do not discover the alchemist’s trick of turning even this – filth into gold, I am lost. – Thus I have the most beautiful opportunity to prove that for me “all experiences are useful, all days holy, and all human beings divine”!!!…” (cf. Kaufmann, ibid., p. 59).
- The fact that Nietzsche would come to see his own struggles for self-overcoming as useful and holy – this being the very process whereby he would be able to discover the alchemist’s gold in affirmation of life itself – would often induce him to draw one simple, albeit dramatic practical conclusion as regards his own mode of being. What would such decision be? He would come to the conclusion that, given the existential usefulness and the existential holiness of his own personal struggles, such struggles should be taken to their utmost limits. Naturally, that in itself would mean that he would be compelled to stretch his own lonesome wilderness and his own denial of the world of the market-place to its most extreme point of no return. That could not possibly have been an easy decision – one may assume that there must have been recurrent moments in his life when Nietzsche would surely waver as to the extent of such so-called utmost limits. This is what he writes: “A few times I also thought of the opposite: driving my solitude and renunciation to its ultimate point …” (cf. Hoffmann, ibid.). Here, one need notice his phrase, a few times – and yet, his own Zarathustra would be much more consistent and all the more decisive as to all utmost limits. This would of course point to Nietzsche’s all-too-real existential intentions as to the mode of being of his own person.
- Nietzsche’s decision – or his innermost intention – to drive his solitude and renunciation to its utmost limits would mean that he could prove pitiless as regards his own self. For him – and as has been discussed above – pity ought to be seen as a general vice in itself; it would also be rejected as a deeply troubling personal emotion. He would write as follows: “Pity, my friend, is a kind of hell …” (cf. Hoffmann, ibid.). But since Nietzsche would be pitiless towards his own self, he could likewise be as pitiless towards others – in what particular sense could he have been pitiless towards those around him? This brings us to a consideration of how his own self would relate – or ultimately intend to relate – to other selves.
- His pitilessness towards those around him was meant to determine a very specific type of relationship with other selves, or at least as regards those other selves that were close to him, and/or that he truly valued. Nietzsche would wish to see such types of relationships as a rendezvous between selves that were above and beyond all common souls – such selves would therefore have to somehow be exceptional in themselves (this very personal expectation regarding particular friends or acquaintances may therefore be said to be highly reminiscent of the Aristotelian philia as discussed above). Nietzsche would thereby wish to willingly renounce all familiarity (or proximity) with other persons unless such familiarity (or proximity) took place at a sphere the intellectual demands of which were such that common souls do not and cannot ever live up to. In other words, he wanted to meet and interact with the other on terms that simply could not be met by the so-called ordinary populace. He writes as follows: “I gladly renounce all familiarity and proximity if only I may be sure of this: that we feel at one where common souls don’t reach.” (cf. Kaufmann, ibid., p. 57).
- Nietzsche felt that he did not wish to interact with other persons unless such persons were able to raise themselves to a height that met his own expectations – they would necessarily have to satisfy particular intellectual standards that allowed for a level of conversation (in the Oakeshottian sense) that would be expressive of a certain exceptionality. Unless they did so, Nietzsche could not possibly feel at one with them. But if they nonetheless persisted in interacting with him in a manner that would not meet his expectations, then he would have no choice but to feel contempt for them – and therein lay his own pitilessness. Nietzsche would once write as follows: “I wish you would raise yourself up before me so that I need not feel contempt for you.” (cf. Kaufmann, ibid.).
- One may therefore conclude that Nietzsche would be highly self-protective – he would wish to protect and preserve his own struggling self vis-à-vis others (and which would naturally mean that all his relations with others would be very carefully vetted). Such an expressly vigilant disposition with respect to others would constitute one core element of his personal self-organization. It would be such particular will for self-organization that would make of Nietzsche an exacting type of individual – and such severity could make him pitiless towards both himself and others. He would write that “All proximity makes one so exacting – and in the end I am after all an exacting person.” (cf. Kaufmann, ibid., p. 56).
What of Oakeshott as a character-type? For his case, we shall briefly refer to a number of observations made by Kenneth Minogue, who of course happened to know Oakeshott personally (cf. Kenneth Minogue, https://manwithoutqualities.com, October 2, 2007).
- How may one generally describe Oakeshott’s relationship with his own self? According to Minogue, it would above all be self-sufficiency that would describe such a relationship. Throughout his life, Oakeshott would preserve his own independence as an individual – and he would likewise consistently uphold his own independent and original philosophical thought (and he would do so despite A.J. Ayer’s dismissive, off-hand remarks regarding the questionable originality of Oakeshottian philosophy). For Oakeshott, autonomy was one existentially vital element composing his own thought and conduct. Minogue informs us simply that “This marvelous philosophical self-sufficiency was vital in his life …” (ibid., no pagination).
- Oakeshott would attempt to establish some kind of correlation between his thought and his conduct in life – his was a mode of thinking that could be enacted in his own person, as it more or less seems to have so been. His thought would inform his personal mode of being – the Oakeshottian understanding of the morality of individuality would be personally enacted as a way of life. His mode of being was not simply that of an academic (and definitely not suggestive of the usual academic stuffiness) – it would above all be a philosopher’s mode of being. And thus Minogue would observe that “… Oakeshott was a philosopher down to the tips of his toes.” (ibid.).
- In what way would Oakeshott’s mode of thinking be enacted in his own person? Such enactment would take two superimposed forms – on the one hand, he would be of the other-worldly type; on the other, and at the same time, he would consciously and efficiently be in the world. Oakeshott’s thought and way of life would be essentially other-worldly in the sense that his disposition would be such as to locate itself beyond and outside the values of the market-place (and therefore beyond and outside the politics of such market-place). But such private dispositional thinking and conduct (it being the psyche of his authentic self) would not prevent him from dealing practically and efficiently with the outside world – his public ego and its functionality (functioning, that is, as an academic and/or as an academic administrator) would be superbly efficient. “For all his unworldliness”, Minogue tells us, “he was a marvelous administrator, who ran the Government department at LSE quite brilliantly for nearly twenty years.” (ibid.).
- Although Oakeshott did operate all too efficiently in the world (that of academia), it was nonetheless his other-worldly disposition that would prevail within his own self. What more can we say of such a peculiarly Oakeshottian other-worldly disposition? One may observe a tripartite dimensionality composing that disposition – firstly, it would be a disposition that was above all tensed towards an affirmation of life per se. But secondly, such tension would at the same time be carefully informed by a sense of memento mori. And thirdly, given that it was thus informed, it would also be a disposition that could remain supremely indifferent towards the affairs of the world (and especially its market-place). Oakeshott’s thinking and conduct would certainly affirm life itself – he would be for the cultivation of the individual’s creative imagination (and its very own mode of truth); he would see the poetic dimension of existence; and he would see life as a gambler’s adventure. But such an affirmation would at the same time involve a proper preparation for death. Such a relationship with death – that persistent sense of memento mori – would naturally mean a supreme indifference towards the mundane and small passions of the masses of the market-place (and which he would often describe as the ignorant masses). Oakeshott’s philosophical indifference to the world would mean his own personal detachment from the materialistic obsessions of such world; it would also mean a detachment from the ideological idol-adoration of the masses and their representative organic intellectuals (peddling their politics of faith); and it would therefore also mean a detachment from a world that placed politics in command of all aspects of human existence. It would be such tripartite dispositional dimensionality that would define his other-worldliness. Minogue informs us of Oakeshott’s particular sense of unworldliness by writing as follows: “He took over from Montaigne the Socratic view that philosophy is a preparation for death, a systematic detachment from the desires and passions of ordinary life.” (ibid.).
- Oakeshott’s other-worldly stance – both as a mode of thinking and as a mode of personal enactment – could in the last instance be described as an existentialist disposition. Such a disposition, however, would be as much (so-called) political as it would be existentialist. It would in fact be a deeply political disposition, and which was expressed in his unwavering respect for any people’s morality of habit of behaviour (and therefore a concomitant respect for much of the rich cultural heritage secreted within such habit of behaviour). Oakeshott would therefore maintain a deep personal respect for all peoples (and especially for all concrete individuals belonging to such peoples), so long as these remained an independent and proud subject in the history of the western world. In that particular sense, therefore, his detachment from – or his supreme indifference to – the affairs of the world would certainly not be unmitigated. On the other hand, his existentialist disposition would be such as to wish to delimit and constrain the role of the political moment in the life of human beings – and as also in his own life. But his was an essentially Englishman’s existentialist disposition – it was therefore largely devoid of the angst, the tragedy, and the possible melodrama that one could perhaps detect in some of the Germanic (or generally Continental) philosophical-existentialist mindset. Minogue writes briefly of Oakeshott’s existentialist disposition as follows: “… his philosophy dealt with many of the themes of existentialism, but without the angst and the melodrama.” (ibid.).
- What of Oakeshott’s relationship with those around him? We know that Oakeshott had in fact nurtured his own understanding of the world, and as such understanding would come to be expressive of his own creative imagination. We also know that Oakeshott the philosopher would come to see himself as an adventurer. Such a personal stance – and which was above all a personal disposition – would to a large extent determine his relations with others. With respect to others, he could be selective and exacting in his own way. Oakeshott would expect of the other to have cultivated his own imaginative understanding of the world. Similarly, he would seek out fellow adventurers. “For Michael,” Minogue writes, “to know someone was to enter in some degree into that person’s own imaginative world. A human life was an adventure, and he was very considerate of his fellow adventurers.” (ibid.). Such very particular expectations, however, would perhaps not necessarily apply when it came to his personal relations with the opposite sex (according, at least, to what has been said of his personal life). In the case of women, Oakeshott’s criteria seem to have been of a primarily sensual disposition – that, of course, would be his deeply personal prerogative as a unique and independent individual reserving the right to all his own value-creation.
Nikos Vlachos (né Paul N. Tourikis)
April, 2026
