rhetoric v-2

Ok, this is my second rhetoric paper. Never spent as much time on any other essay (save my college application ones) and yet I don't feel that this is good enough - something I just can't put my finger on. Blargh, and my last attempt got a mere B. I fear for my grades.

p.s. Ontological means existential. Rhetorical diction

Nietzsche’s Suffering and Marx’s Material Reality: A Comparison of Hope

In this paper, I shall examine Nietzsche’s and Marx’s disparate views of the driving force of humans, as laid out in their respective works – The Genealogy of Morals (GM) and The German Ideology (GI). In attempting to be concise and clear, I will highlight that which each author affirms and believes to hold social transformative power. First, I will explain that for Nietzsche, the human driving force is suffering. I will show how he links suffering to the creation of a creditor-debtor relationship, which makes feasible communality and a thinking citizenry. I will then point out that suffering is a means towards communal living through the debtor-creditor relationship. I will explain that there exists a search for meaning in suffering, which has led to the establishment of the Christian faith, among other things. However, I will assert that to Nietzsche, suffering has no definitive meaning; suffering is an end in itself. This, to Nietzsche, is a sign of suffering’s ontological nature. Thus, suffering as a driving force transforms human social relations to enable communality but remains an immutable burden. Subsequently, I will move on to Marx, elucidate what materiality means to him and how it makes mutability a universal trait. I will explain that for him ideology and all states of consciousness are dependent on material reality. Hence, I will assert that since reality never adjusts to ideals, change is only possible through revolution and not through criticism. Thus, material reality as a driving force is not by nature positive or negative, just powerful – powerful enough to change lives and consciousness. Juxtaposing the philosophies of these two great men, I will argue that that dilemma left to us by Nietzsche –the tragic immutability of human suffering - can be resolved through Marxist thought. I will argue that Marx proposes that there is no higher meaning in suffering, because our concept of suffering proceeds from material reality. Because of this relationship, our non-static material reality invalidates Nietzsche’s concept of immutable, ineradicable suffering. To make changes in the way suffering affects us would be as simple as altering our material reality. Indeed, my argument is that when Nietzsche is examined through Marxist eyes, there exists hope.

Starting off, I will proclaim that to Nietzsche, suffering is man’s driving force. Let us examine why. Suffering figures prominently when Nietzsche dissects the foundations of communality. At the basic level of communality, requirements for interpersonal trust are found. And for trust to be mutually beneficial, there must exist men who can make and honor promises. These men must commit the preposterous act of guaranteeing rights redeemable in the future and they must be determined not to forget. This desire not to forget is noteworthy, because it is contrary to the mechanism of “active forgetfulness” (GM pg58), which, according to Nietzsche; serves the beneficial task of preserving psychic order and repose. Therefore, there must exist something that creates preponderance towards keeping promises, despite the two deterrents. Suffering now makes its entrance. Even as Nietzsche writes about justice being born from the concept that “all things can be paid for” (GM pg70), he states that precisely the price to pay for the failure to uphold promises is suffering. Suffering is powerful because “that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory” (GM pg61). Here, the hurt is both the physical and mental products of suffering. Ergo, a memory is now created. This is memory that is wrought by terror and it will make men want to keep their promises. Forgetfulness can now be overcome. Because of suffering, there can exist a creditor-debtor relationship. Where individuals play these two roles, the foundations of communal interaction - “buying, selling, barter, trade and traffic”(GM pg63) are made possible. This basic relationship is observable even in communality, where the creditor is the entire community and the debtor is the individual. Through suffering, the entire community can further bettered – so as to “breed a nation of thinkers” (GM pg61), where according to Nietzsche there can be found the maximum of trust. This is the scope of suffering’s social transformative power.

Suffering drives us to be enjoy the advantages of communality, but it also drives us towards hopelessness. Predictably, suffering, being what it is; has not endeared itself to humans. Nietzsche writes of man’s inability to find meaning in suffering, of how senseless it is, and of how there is no answer to the question “Why do I suffer?” (GM pg162) His idea of man is one who “instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering” (GM pg127). Nietzsche asserts man seeks a cause for suffering because he yearns for meaning, and it so happened that meaning came in the form of the ascetic ideal, which leads to, among other things, the Christian faith. As always, he attacks the Christian, who he says has “interpreted a whole mysterious machinery of salvation into suffering” (GM pg68), here obviously referring to “God on the cross” (GM pg35) – what he finds to be the detestable concept of God sacrificing himself for man - and to the opinion that “misery is a sign of being chosen by God” (GM pg47), this being a foundation of slave morality and an example of the inverted value system. Moreover, Nietzsche observes ironically that the adoption of the ascetic ideal, done to reduce suffering, has only “brought fresh suffering with it” (GM pg162) because it has introduced the concept of guilt. In pointing out that the only salve for man’s suffering thus far has only served to aggravate the problem, Nietzsche highlights the ontomological nature of suffering. Nietzsche speaks of the meaninglessness of suffering and scorns the frenetic activity of man, who is not prone to agreeing with him. In discussing suffering, our path with Nietzsche alone ends here for he offers neither a solution, nor a meaning. Through Nietzsche, there is no hope for the eventual discovery of either.

I will now move on to explain what Marx views as the driving force of humans – material reality, and the hope that it offers. Marx starts this all with the beautiful statement - “we ascend from earth to heaven” (GI pg154). What he basically means here is that everything begins on this temporal plane, not from lofty ideas – “phantoms” born of human imagination. Taking this to be true, it must be viewed that all of morality, religion and ideologies are no longer independent of material variables. To Marx, material reality cannot be changed by its products – especially so since its products are only “echoes” (GI pg15) of life. Contrary to consciousness, material reality is very tangible, making it “empirically verifiable” and “bound to material premises” (GI pg154). Acknowledging the centricity of material reality to Marx’s philosophy, it would be prudent to discuss these material premises before delving into the subject of material reality. For Marx, the first material premise of human history is the “existence of living human individuals” (GI pg149). They exist as “human” individuals when they themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals through the production of their means of subsistence. They begin to satisfy their needs – starting off with the basic ones like sustenance and habitation. Ultimately, this is the production of material life. Marx later restates this premise to say that man needs to be able to “make history” (GI pg155). From this equation, it is logically inferable that history in Marx’s eyes is made when lives are lived, not thought out. It is through the material efforts of humans that change is attained – this is what Marx asserts when he writes “not criticism but revolution is the driving force of history” (GI pg166). Marx also asserts that the fundamental changes in history are not typified by an overlying consciousness of the period, but by the observable material result of the changes. This is simply the sum of productive forces of the era. Likewise, it is not the ruling ideas that are important, it is the dominant material relationships that should be noticed, of which the ideas are a mere representation. This philosophy is contiguous throughout Marx, and when he later gives us a solid example of proposed change i.e. communism, he write that it is first “not an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself” and that it is “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things” (GI pg162), “real” here meaning bounded to reality. Thus, material reality is presented as that which can change the world, for better or for worse. It is not inherently good, just inherently powerful. It is powerful because there is the hope that all can be changed, even suffering.

In considering both philosophies hitherto presented in this paper, I will now argue that the issue of suffering, which in Nietzsche has reached an impasse, is resolvable through Marxist thought. To this end, I will have to apply Marx’s philosophy as presented in the German Ideology as an extension to Nietzsche’s take on suffering. The term “meaninglessness of suffering” appearance recurrently in both essays two and three of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. Man’s abhorrence of there being “meaninglessness” becomes the basis for the acceptance of Christian faith and of the ascetic ideal – products of man’s search for a meaning. Nietzsche stresses the ontomological nature of suffering, hence nullifying the possibility of suffering possessing a higher meaning. Here, Marx concurs, if the state of suffering proceeds from material reality as is stated in his philosophy, then it cannot have meaning – for that is not inherent in material reality. However, Nietzsche’s concept of suffering, by virtue of it being ontomological, is one that is immutable and intangible. This presents a problem to man – a tragic dilemma - who despite his spiritual efforts to counteract suffering, finds its presence a constant in his life. In Nietzsche, there is no hope. Marx provides another angle with which we can view this problem. Marxist thought asserts that there is no resolution to suffering via spiritual and moralistic means because change is only creatable via the production of material reality. Furthermore, by Marx’s philosophy; suffering is only a concept that is formed by our material reality. To decrease its magnitude in our lives or even to annihilate it altogether, we need only affect change to material reality, that which created it. Here, it is not probable that a complete eradication of suffering be achieved, but at least Marx returns a semblance of hope and power to man.

In conclusion, it is important that, by juxtaposing Nietzsche’s and Marx’s versions of the driving force of man, we understand how their philosophies complement and detract from each other. Nietzsche’s concept of suffering – the memories of pain and terror, the hopeless search for meaning – is mostly one that resides in the consciousness. Marx’s idea of materiality as driving force, is pivoted on the idea that the consciousness is inconsequential and on the idea that empirical material reality determines consciousness. I have shown that in Nietzsche, suffering enables communality but exists as an ineradicable burden. This is a dilemma, which through Nietzsche we have no hop of resolving. I have also shown that in Marx, material reality determines all consciousness, and because material reality is dynamic, there is the hope that all things can be changed. Thus I have argued that when Marx’s philosophy is applied, Nietzsche’s concept of suffering and the dilemma that it poses is resolvable.