Post #16: A Lovely Passage from Nietzsche, and the Eight Vicissitudes

18 May 2023

Much as I enjoy reading Nietzsche, at least most of the time, I would hesitate to refer to him as a lovely writer, though his prose flows better than that of practically any other German philosopher’s. Nor can he be called a friend of Buddhism, though what he had to say about Christianity was much harsher still and the status of a good enemy in Nietzsche’s thought is not something to be slighted. (I published an essay on this curious theme in Telos many years ago and it’s available from my Academia.edu page if anyone is interested.)

One of his early essays does, however, contain a passage that I find very lovely indeed, and inspiring to boot:

Every human being is a singular marvel…; the strict logic of his uniqueness makes him beautiful and remarkable, novel and incredible like all works of nature, and certainly not boring… We should take heart from the inexplicable fact that we happen to live precisely today, even if it took us all eternity to arise; that we possess nothing more than an arm’s-length of Today, in which we should demonstrate why and for what end we happened to arise just now. We must give a responsible account of our existence before our own selves; it follows that we must wish to be real helmsmen of this life rather than allowing it to become thoughtless and arbitrary… No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!

Because I wanted give my students at the time, a particularly competent and enthusiastic group at Colgate University (cheers to you all, whatever you may be doing these days!), a better sense of what I hear when I read Nietzsche in German, I prepared my own translation, not just of this passage (on pp. 2–4 in my edition), but of the essay from which it is taken, or rather from the earlier sections that give the text its name: “Schopenhauer as Educator.” (You should be able to find it on Amazon, if you would like to know more, by googling my name with the title, but beware that there are many other editions floating around. Mine has a beige cover with an image from Bagan, one of my favorite places in the world.)

For the mortal sin of not including the later sections—which move on to very different matters after a clear break in the argument (or so I would say)—an overzealous keyboard warrior saw fit to rake me over the coals in the following delightful terms (I present the rant in suitably contracted form): “Pellerin, you are a scholar and a charlatan, you have no honor. Was it too painful for you to translate your own shortcomings in the final three sections? You scoundrel, you are a snake, and I implore other potential readers not to purchase this text!” Perhaps I should have laughed rather than letting myself get upset by such an absurd outburst (admittedly funny, though only in hindsight); but the diatribe was showing up right where it might be the first thing prospective readers would see, hence a serious impediment for those who might otherwise benefit from a translation that is, by any reasonable account, both accurate and unusually readable. How was a casual visitor supposed to know, after all, how good the translation really is, without access to the original (not that any concern with the German ever detained my savage detractor as far as I can tell)?

I found it most disheartening, and the degree to which we are now all vulnerable to such ill-natured and undeserved attacks online grieves and distresses me. Not that I am opposed to free speech, not at all; quite the contrary, I take rather a purist line on it. The way I understand the free-speech principle (under the influence of J.S. Mill's timeless On Liberty), it is about letting unpopular views be voiced and heard no matter how mistaken and pernicious they may seem to the majority, or to polite opinion, or to minority sensitivities, because there is something to be learned even from the gravest of errors. They may still illuminate some little corner of the truth, or they may help to keep more correct and established orthodoxies on their toes, and they should anyway be easy to refute if they are so demonstrably wrong. Even all that failing, little is gained by driving such dark bodies of opinion underground, where they will only be more difficult to reach and oppose, and where they are therefore likely to keep festering all the more viciously. That is the case for resisting the perennial urge to silence and persecute disagreeable opinions, as alive in our day as in any, and not making room for vile personal invective, groundless slander, or casual character assassination by a few intemperate strokes of an overused keyboard. Yes, it takes careful judgment to determine where these fine lines run, and we are not doing a very good job with it; but the principle, at least, is not so very obscure or arcane. (Be that as it may, since I thought that the review in question clearly crossed over into abusive territory and since the reputation of my work was at stake, I did flag the bugger and asked for it to be removed. And deleted it was, prompting my detractor to post something more boring but equally nasty and dismissive, thereby demonstrating, in this case too, how it might have been better to leave the sordid thing alone and let it be good for some bitter amusement at least.)

It puts me in mind of a beautiful, if extremely challenging, sermon the Buddha gave on what one might call noble listening, in which he exhorted his followers to smile and put up peacefully even with the most obnoxious speech: untrue, ill-timed, harsh, ill-intentioned, and spoken with ill will. Quite a combination, and I blanch already at the first knock (untrue), to say nothing of the next two punches (ill-timed and harsh), and the concluding kick in the gut (ill-intentioned and spoken with ill will). A nauseating prospect to me. But here is what the Awakened One had to say: “You should train thus: ‘Our minds will remain unaffected, and we shall utter no evil words; we shall abide with compassion for the speaker’s welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate.’” Would the Earth get upset, he explained, if someone came along to dig around or spit on the ground, or to urinate on it for that matter (the Buddha did not mince his words)? Would the Ganges feel threatened by someone with a torch who threatened to burn it away? Could a soft bag, silky and well-loved, be made to rustle or crackle by someone coming at it with a stick? Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it; but as for doing it, especially in the heat of the moment, oh dear…

Human beings are a touchy and opinionated lot (I am too, and you probably are as well), and precisely where we are weakest, or most ignorant, we are often readiest to accuse others of the same. Meeting even the most offensive attacks head-on isn’t therefore likely to accomplish much beyond encouraging more of the same, and worse. Garbage trucks need to be sidestepped, not challenged frontally, and unloaded with great care (and compassion, if they are human). The Buddha said it in the Dhammapada and elsewhere, and the Gospels are at their most sublime on this great theme: nothing but love can dispel ill will, not once or twice or seven times, but seventy times seven. Meeting fire with fire may bring the graveyard peace of mutual injury or destruction, but it can never heal what is hurting—and there is always something hurting behind the scenes.

Pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, disgrace and fame: these Eight Vicissitudes (in my own enumeration, designed to help me remember them better) govern the world, and we simply cannot control which way the wind will turn next, or with what violence, try as we may to adjust our windmills and protective covers this way and that. In the Mangala Sutta (Sutta Nipata 2.4), a sermon for householders on the greatest blessings in this world, the very greatest of them all is said to be a mind that remains unshaken, “ever sorrowless, stainless, and secure.” In the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel (4:12), a great tree appears that lets the raging storm blow through its branches and shelters even the wildest animals under its cover. Wouldn’t it be lovely?

Readings: Majjhima Nikaya 21.11–19 (noble listening), Anguttara Nikaya 8:6 (The Eight Vicissitudes)