March 10, 2019
CYNICISM IS FAITH:
Nietzsche and the Cynics: How Friedrich Nietzsche used ideas from the Ancient Cynics to explore the death of God and the nature of morality (Helen Small, 2/28/19, Aeon)
Ancient Cynicism was an eccentric model for practising a philosophical life. Diogenes of Sinope (c404-323 BCE) and his followers claimed independence from conventional material desires and the normal turmoil of emotional life. They were notoriously without shame - pissing and satisfying their sexual needs in public, like the dogs (kynes) from which their name partly derived.Diogenes himself was said to have slept in a tub or a shack in the Athenian marketplace. Seeing a youth scoop up water in the hollow of his hand, he threw away the wooden cup he had been using, pleased to see that he did not need it. When Alexander the Great announced himself: 'I am Alexander the great king,' Diogenes replied: 'I am Diogenes the dog.'For Friedrich Nietzsche - steeped in the Classics - the Cynics, and the much later account of them in the gossipy collection of anecdotes The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius (no relation to Diogenes of Sinope), were attractive material long before he parted company with an academic career to practise a more abrasive public philosophy of his own. 'Diogenes Laertiades' was how Nietzsche signed himself in a letter to a friend in his late 20s: 'son of Laertius', or literally 'sprung from Laertius', ie from Diogenes Laertius. In the wake of a great deal of critical work in recent years, excavating Nietzsche's Cynicism, two questions are worth asking afresh: how far did the identification go? And what did his philosophy hope to gain, and risk losing, by it?The Cynic Diogenes of Sinope appears in Nietzsche's The Gay Science (1882) as der tolle Mensch ('the crazy man') who proclaims the death of God; it is a canonical scene of modern philosophy:Haven't you heard of that madman who in the bright morning lit a lantern and ran around the marketplace crying incessantly: 'I'm looking for God! I'm looking for God!' Since many of those who did not believe in God were standing around together just then, he caused great laughter. Has he been lost, then? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone to sea? Emigrated? - Thus they shouted and laughed, one interrupting the other. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. 'Where is God?' he cried; 'I'll tell you! We have killed him - you and I! We are all his murderers.'The drama of the madman performs a serio-comic riff upon The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers: 'He [Diogenes of Sinope] lit a lamp in full daylight and walked around with it, saying: "I'm searching for a man".' Sometimes more loosely translated as 'searching for an honest man', the words are a challenge and potentially an affront to all who hear them. Tapping into the radicalism of the ancient example, Nietzsche echoes its original cynicism - the sorry absence of anyone capable of living in the knowledge of what it means to be human - and gives it updated point. A new Diogenes declares the death of God, the collapse of the belief system that underpinned Judaeo-Christian morality and provided the culture's sources of valuation for hundreds of years. Or rather, the crazy man demands attention to what should have followed from that realisation, since the realisation itself is hardly news.Later in The Gay Science, Nietzsche clarifies what is at issue. By 'God is dead', we should understand that 'belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief': the time has come for human beings to live truthfully, in accordance with their situation. The neo-Cynic affront lies not in the debasement of long-lost metaphysical certainties, but in a fresh insistence that destruction of the old basis for morality raises urgent consequences about how to live now.
The choice between dog and God is and can only be a function of faith--a choice between different conceptions of what it means to be human. And, because we can not know the correct answer, the sole bases for making the decision are either emotional or aesthetic. Judeo-Christian morality is onerous, so a reaction against it is perfectly understandable. Meanwhile, the desire to lower the standards of behavior to the merely animal level seems liberating, so it has obvious emotional appeal. To live in a world with no meaning, where our every act is excused, where our basest instincts can be indulged without guilt; how could there ever be fellow beings who do not choose this escape from responsibility?
Of course, the problem always follows that no Cynic ever wants this "freedom" for anyone other than himself. Take food away from Diogenes, as dogs do from one another, take him sexually, consume his young, etc., etc., etc. and his tune quickly changes. We all recognize that the way of the animals is ugly.
So the way of God is difficult, as it summons us to our higher selves, imposing moral obligations that we know ourselves unable to attain with perfect consistency, as even God showed Himself. However, we also recognize that the existence of a universal morality and the insistence that it is worthwhile for us all to engage in the striving renders a beautiful conception of what it means to be human. And a God who was even willing to become one of us in order to try to comprehend the meaning of mortal life and who loves us despite our conspicuous inability to meet His standards has a beauty that is entirely worthy of faith.
So, we choose beauty over ugliness.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 10, 2019 12:00 AM