Hyder Husain Arastu

Category: Ethics

  • Culture, Schizophrenia, and Madness

    Culture, Schizophrenia, and Madness

    There exists a schism in culture as it is, resulting in its incapability for remaining an object of value.

    There is a notion, the origin of which I will not at this time spend words locating, this notion concerns a certain valuation ascribed to culture, that it is to be preserved. This though is in itself a contradiction, for what culture requires is its own destruction – parallel to the Nietzschian observation on which it is the values that devaluate themselves.

    If a culture holds in regard such ideas as ‘good’ and ‘respect’, then it inevitably falls into contradiction with the history that defines it as culture. That culture is historic is of little debate, that history is characterized by immorality, prejudice against all manner of people is clearer still.

    To preserve culture then is to preserve this history of madness. It itself though is what rejects this, culture then is a dialectic. The only way out of this is an inversion of exactly that which it is, a reconciliation of the schism created through its negation of its own self.

    The manner of surpassing this schizophrenia is its realization. This inversion that occurs as product of the realization though has not yet occurred, for it cannot happen with the individual, but only through the entirety of the culture. A movement that does not rise from within or even without but in which the whole realizes itself.

    So long as this realization remains merely ideal, the schism manifests itself as madness, a hysteria of the masses, the only parallel that comes to mind is that of an ant death circle, when the ant loses its pheromone trail it begins to follow itself resulting in a cycle where its own self is chased until all in the circle kill themselves. This circle is not the product of any single ant, and a single ant who escapes the circle will result neither in the salvation of all others, nor of its own self- in isolation, the ant brings its own death.

    We have forced ourselves into such a circle, existing in a schizophrenia of culture and of progress, both seemingly invoking the other and simultaneously negating it.

    It manifests itself also on the level of the totality that is each particular which partakes in the whole, presenting itself as a dilemma in every social interaction. An impossible choice between doing what one would do in isolation and what society asks of one, neither of these offering any salvation. The realization on the individual level though cannot be cathartic except through a destruction of the self, the individual is forced into madness. All attempts at escape result only in reinforcing this cycle, a constant alienation.

  • Encountering (the) I

    Encountering (the) I

    The encounter with reality begets the I, the I exists only as the synthesis of that which is not I. Freud describes the first tragedy as the clash of the pleasure principle with the reality principle, the conception of the self is from tragedy. The accuracy of the wider Freudian framework is irrelevant to the subject of discussion. What is relevant here is only that there is no meaningful conception of the I without it being understood as the negation of that which it is not, and what it is not is what precedes it and what succeeds it, this is the nature of the self that is subject.

    This I, the self, the first subject is inevitably annihilated as consequence of the apperception of its own truth. It is in this assimilation of what the self is with what it thinks itself to be that is both the end of the I and the beginning of a greater self. The self which has encountered itself no longer is capable of being the self that did the encountering but is a new self, the encountered self, evolution.

    I return again to Freudian language, for its convenience here. — I hold that any sufficiently developed metapsychological framework will express the same as its ‘essence’. The source of morality, of anxiety, grief, and all else that polices the ego, is the superego, the superego exists only as the mirror of the id, and it is this tension between the superego and the id that presents itself as the conscious self, the ego, I. The tension is irresolvable, but the I attempts reconciliation with the superego, the self attempts a movement towards its ideal. This attempt to be what it is not and can never be results in a second tragedy. It cannot be doubted that such an impossible task will result in disappointment, when it fails to realize, which it always will, it collapses into itself, pushed down further by the superego, by reality. All such attempts are fruitless, what follows is the Nietzschian catastrophe.

    There exists a singular escape, release. There is only one way to achieve catharsis, ending the self, this arrogant, deluded phenomenon must be put to an end, not through a harmony of its parts, for such harmony as we have already discussed is impossible, but through unity within itself. The encountered self is both the end of the former I and the opportunity for an evolved I, one that is not a unity of its parts, but is instead the unity itself from which the parts emerged, the whole.

    To be free can only be meaningfully understood as no longer seeking liberation, no person who is free would seek freedom, for this search then would become itself the restricting structure. To achieve freedom then, one must give up their search for it.

    Prerequisites to moral high ground is the collapse of the notion of a moral high ground, so long as one holds an awareness (a deluded one at that) of their superiority, one cannot be so. To let go of this seeking is impossible through a will for it, it is achieved only through the movement of the I along the stages following which it births itself anew as the freed self, the stages it must go through revolve around the encounter with itself. The ultimate act then is not a willed act, but a realized act, realized through tragedy.

  • On Authenticity

    It is turning out to be that what I speak most of concerns ethics, I am perhaps then deceiving myself in believing that this is not my primary interest… Does that make me inauthentic, and consequently my actions immoral?

    A question that plagues my waking hours at this time is that of authenticity. Within the Aristotelian framework for virtue, to be virtuous is to have your reason disposed towards the kalon (fine), and for your passions to be in harmony with this disposition.

    Further, within this framework, it is the case that to ‘become’ virtuous requires a sort of ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude. That to become virtuous one begins by emulating virtue, analogous to pursuing a craft- in this regard virtue is a craft (tekne).

    But what if reason tells you that to deceive yourself is vice? I cannot but be confident of an awareness of that which is the moral action to take, and this appears to be an orientation towards the kalon; and yet reason asks of me that I do otherwise.

    I am left in a predicament- that either I do that which is kalon, pretending that I do it for the sake of the kalon, and yet with full knowledge that I would prefer to do otherwise; OR, that I act viciously, but do something beneficial.

    Deception cannot be virtuous for it admits of an inadequacy of my own self, and yet to ‘without’ being deceptive to act in a manner that ‘feels’ appropriate is to indulge in what I am confident is vicious.

    How does one reach a reconciliation in a scenario such? It is the reason of the psuche that itself appears to be at odds with itself.

    To act virtuously is in such a regard seemingly impossible. Is it virtuous to be yourself or is it virtuous to pretend to be something you are not?

    Perhaps it is the case that what I feel is correct is to give in to my ‘appetites’, on the contrary, since I cannot decide for certain what is correct and only through reference to that external to me which I take to be instances of virtue that I seem to define what is to be classified as virtue.

    And yet how am I capable of possessing a disposition to the kalon if it happens to be that I can do this only through a priori knowledge of its?

    This reasoning appears circular, it implies that to be virtuous, I must first know virtue. But had I known virtue, why would I need to ‘become’ virtuous? And if virtue is foreign to me, how do I acquire it?

  • On Living

    I had not intended earlier to be writing this, but I have moments prior experienced what is perhaps simultaneously the most frightful and most comforting epiphany.

    As I lay in bed, it occurred to me that perhaps I may not wake up. I realized then that this was not restricted to only the moments prior to slumber, but that it extended to every waking moment.

    If it is the case that each moment be my last, against which I have no rational justification, then it stands to reason that I live this as the only one I have.

    And if I were only to live in this singular moment, then I could not afford to waste it. I understand now perhaps what Nietzsche meant when he said, “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—but love it.”

    I have understood this always as concerning the life that I have lived, but this cannot be sufficient- baked into such an understanding is the indefensible presumption concerning temporal matters, whose basis remains unfounded. Prior’s notion of the present comes to mind here- that the only ‘real’ is the ‘present’.

    If this is the case, then to justify life in terms of either what ‘has been’ done or alternatively in terms of what ‘will be done’ is wholly insufficient. The only way to be capable of living ‘meaningfully’ is to live in the present, and to in THIS moment live as if it is the totality of your existence, for you are ONLY what you are right now. To even conceive of how you will do better tomorrow is incoherent, and to assume that what you have done will redeem you of a ‘mistake’ you make in this moment is equally incoherent.

  • Vice- A Short Thought

    There is much to say concerning this, but for now – I limit myself. In a part of the Nichomachean ethics Aristotle describes a kind of person, in secondary literature labelled the ‘Principled Vicious Person’. What characterizes this person is that his soul is in harmony but not aligned towards the ‘fine’.

    That is to say that he asserts a person who acts viciously, but feels no regret, that his vicious act to him is a noble act, and consequently he is beyond redemption.

    It seemed at first to me impossible that such a person exist, but on further contemplation, I think this kind of person more likely than one who is in conflict with themselves. For is it not more likely that people are simply ignorant of the vicious acts they commit than that they choose consciously to be vicious?

    But how can this be the case?

    Further, is the one who behaves viciously out of the lack of an alternative not more vicious than the one who behaves viciously knowing that they do so?