I Give You the Übermensch

Posted on July 24, 2010 by profgiles
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One of the most notoriously misunderstood concepts in the history of philosophy is Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch. The word “Übermensch” is too often mistranslated into English as “superman” but the German “Über” means “over” not “super” and that distinction is crucial to understanding what Nietzsche really said.

Nietzsche’s Übermensch is not a man, or race of men, possessing superior power or strength. The Übermensch is neither a political nor military leader and is not defined by superiority to or power over others. Those fictions were pushed by the Nazi propaganda machine, which twisted the work of many notable German intellectuals and artists to try to make them seem to have foretold the Third Reich. Nietzsche’s philosophy had nothing to with Hitler and his racial fantasies.

What defines an Übermensch is the overcoming of one’s self, which Nietzsche defines both in terms of personal psychology and social pressures. Nietzsche believed most people wallow in their own weakness and limitations, accepting unquestioningly social morals and expectations. They remain trapped in powerlessness and become resentful of those who have more power than them. One becomes an Übermensch when one overcomes his (yes, Nietzsche is sexist on this) own weakness and fear to fully and passionately embrace the fullness of life and its possibilities. Nietzsche believed that all humans have a “will to power”–a desire to control themselves and their environment. But few people have the courage to act on their will to power. The man who overcomes is not afraid to act on his will and use his power to create. He is thus healthy and potent and flourishes in what he does.

The Übermensch, though he exercises his will to power, is not malicious. The Übermensch will transcend the limitations of society, religion, and morality and no longer will be limited and defined by them. However, he is not beyond morality, he is even more moral than normal people because he has transcended the conventional moral codes of society. The Übermensch practices his own independent virtue–self-defined and self-directed. He needs no religion, law, or rationality to tell him how to act, because he acts virtuously in all that he does. Nietzsche placed tremendous importance on not being bound to traditional cultural morality, defined in European society largely by Christianity. The greatest virtue, Nietzsche seemed to believe, was to be morally self-sufficient.

The Übermensch has no masks because he is content in his self and his actions; free from guilt and fear he has nothing to hide. He/she is authentic, open, and honest. He displays style and sophistication in everything he does. He is kindly toward others but does not desire or need the approval of others. The best example of an Übemensch in popular culture today is, ironically, in an ad campaign for a beer. “The Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign from Dos Equis personifies Nietzsche’s ideal man. TMIMW does whatever he feels like, even things that no one else has the strength and courage to try, and excels in doing it. He is never malicious, and is in fact giving and kind, does not need to step on anyone else to be himself, and is respected and admired because of his independence and strength. Take a look at some TMIMW Commercials and see what I mean.

Nietzsche believed that almost anyone could become an Übemensch, but that few people would even try. Depending upon how you look at it, he was either a cynic or a realist.

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Academic Freedom Case at U. of Illinois

Posted on July 16, 2010 by profgiles
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An interesting case over academic freedom has emerged at the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana. A veteran adjunct professor, Kenneth Howell, has been fired by the University for statements he is alleged to have made in class and in an e-mail to students. He is now claiming that his academic freedom has been violated. From public reports (see U. of I. instructor fired over comments on homosexuality and U of I to review removal of religion professor), it appears to me that both sides have behaved improperly.

Because this case deals with attitudes about homosexuality, most discussion will revolve around that contentious issue. However, the actual issue that sparked reactions on both sides is far less important than the reactions themselves. In this case, there are two separate issues: 1. Prof. Howell’s pedagogy; and 2. UI’s treatment of Prof. Howell.

Prof. Howell was teaching two courses, Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought. In those courses he is alleged to have voiced his personal opinion that he believes homosexuality is immoral and unnatural. From public reports, he seems to not deny that he made those condemnations so I will take it that the allegations are true. He defends his pedagogy claiming to have expressed his condemnation of homosexuality in trying to explain Catholic teaching. Prof. Howell is being disingenuous. Saying you agree with a position is not an attempt to explain, it is an attempt to persuade. There is some question about Prof. Howell’s academic neutrality.

Anyone who thinks homosexuality is immoral is making a personal value judgment. Any human being has a right to that personal value judgment, but that right is not infinite. Academic freedom does not give you the right to insert your personal biases into the curriculum, nor does it give you the right to condemn or insult groups or individuals. Prof. Howell appears to have overstepped both of those boundaries.

If Prof. Howell thinks homosexuality is immoral and unnatural, then in my opinion (to which I am entitled) he is ignorant and perhaps a bigot. I concede that Prof. Howell is entitled to his opinion, even if it is ignorant and bigoted. However, the students in those courses did not sign up to hear Prof. Howell’s opinions about homosexuality. If Prof. Howell wants to disseminate his opinions on homosexuality, he can start a blog. He has no right to hijack the courses he was hired to teach and insert his own non-germane opinions. He has, in fact, violated the academic freedom of his students by teaching a biased course and not allowing his students to make up their own minds on at least this one issue.

On the other hand, there seems to be very strong doubt that UI gave Prof. Howell due process. Even if Prof. Howell’s behavior warrants termination, it is hard to believe that an adequate investigation has been conducted. It is also hard to believe that termination was warranted.

What is chilling is the University’s basis for the termination. The idea that a university would fire a professor based upon an e-mail from a friend of a student is repulsive–perhaps more repulsive than Prof. Howell’s alleged statements. A student forwarded an e-mail to the University in an attempt to get Prof. Howell in trouble and amazingly the University obliged. Who runs the University of Illinois? It would be chilling to education if a single e-mail from a single student can lead to a professor’s termination. UI’s reaction was excessive, absurd, and indefensible.

Also problematic is UI’s rationale for the termination, which is that Prof. Howell “violate(d) university standards of inclusivity.” They have not voiced any objection to him voicing his opinion within the context of the course, their objection is to the desirability of the opinion he voiced. Aside from the irony of excluding someone to preserve inclusiveness, censorship of free speech is never an appropriate response to inappropriate speech. John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty argued that even ignorant and wrong speech should be heard because it challenges us to find and defend the truth. If a person is making ignorant and bigoted statements then the useful response is to use that as a teaching opportunity and respond with more informed and enlightened statements. After all, if you cannot intelligently refute a statement that you feel is wrong, then perhaps that statement is not so wrong. The answer to wrong speech is always more speech, never censorship.

So, I believe, from what I have read, that Prof. Howell crossed the line of acceptable behavior as a professor. I believe in free speech and academic freedom, but to publicly condemn a large group of human beings as Prof. Howell seems to have done, is the opposite of free speech, because it is an attempt to silence speech. There is no doubt that Prof. Howell’s statement to his students: “unless you have done extensive research into homosexuality and are cognizant of the history of moral thought, you are not ready to make judgments about moral truth in this matter” is an attempt to silence discussion. He is in effect telling students that they have no right to their opinion and he is especially targeting homosexual students. Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, is correct that a professor can express their opinions “provided students can disagree without being penalized.” Prof. Howell’s statements strongly hint that students will be penalized, at least implicitly, if they disagree with him. From what I have heard, I cannot see how Prof. Howell’s statements, attitudes, and pedagogy can be defended.

Those facts do not mean that UI’s actions are acceptable. They appear to have violated Prof. Howell’s due process by using third party complaints to terminate him. There has been no mention by UI in its defense of its actions that a review was conducted into the allegations or into Prof. Howell’s overall pedagogy. Such a review must be conducted, Prof. Howell allowed to defend himself, and his peers allowed to weigh in on the matter. I am also concerned by the use by the University’s of the concept “hate speech,” especially in the hateful way it has been used in this case. No one should use an accusation of “hate speech” (whatever that means) as an excuse to censor someone. If UI conducts a proper peer-reviewed investigation and finds that Prof. Howell has a pattern of non-germane comments in class and has punished, implicitly or explicitly, students for expressing differing opinions, then termination may be justified. But that has not happened here. UI should reinstate Prof. Howell and grant him due process.

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What’s Wrong With Higher Ed? Among Others: Colleges Spending in Recreation Outpacing Spending on Academics

Posted on July 9, 2010 by profgiles

About a month ago I wrote about my Thoughts on Improving College Education. Today the New York Times has an article entitled Share of College Spending for Recreation Is Rising that speaks to some of the same complaints I have made.

Yes, you read that right, colleges are spending more money on recreation activities for young people who allegedly are students. These “schools” now spend more money on leisure than on academics for their “students.” Granted, with tuition escalating so much college is an expensive vacation, but that is what it is fast becoming.

I am not surprised by the study’s findings. Most colleges now see their students as customers to be coddled and satiated and academics is being left behind. Too many administrators are ore worried about avoid student complaints than about upholding academic standards. Professors are put in the difficult position of having the job of enforcing standards but not being adequately supported by the institution.

Also important in this article is the verification of the U.S. class structure reasserting itself within higher education. FTA: “While the United States has some of the wealthiest institutions in the world, it also has a ‘system’ of postsecondary education with far more economic stratification than is true of any other country.”

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Husserl: Consciousness is Not a Thing

Posted on July 1, 2010 by profgiles

Our common sense notion of consciousness is that it is a thing—I have a mind and my mind is perceiving and thinking. Much of philosophy has been spent trying to discover what consciousness is or simply assuming that it already understands what it is. However, Edmund Husserl, building on the work of Kant, took issue with the standard notion of consciousness as a thing-in-itself.

The short of it is that Husserl said that when we examine consciousness we do not find a metaphysical substance. He agreed with Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard on that. Husserl said that we detect that which consciousness is aware of but not consciousness itself. What defines consciousness is not a subject (we have no impression of it as Hume pointed out) but the objects of consciousness—consciousness always takes an object. This was Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality. Consciousness “points to” something and all we really “see” is what it points to. I liken it to how we don’t see the eye, we only see what the eye sees. Consciousness is completely transparent in that way. Husserl believed that armed with this understanding we can begin to discover essences because we can leave out the stumbling block of trying to describe the substance of consciousness and can go “to the things themselves.”

The metaphysical question here is whether consciousness can be considered to be any kind of substance—a thing-in-itself. Does consciousness depend on nothing else for its existence as Descartes believed? Can consciousness be predicated (part of Aristotle’s definition of substance) like other objects such as a tree, i.e. it is tall, has leaves, etc.? My understanding of Husserl’s argument is that because consciousness exists only in the mode of intention—taking an object—then it cannot be considered a substance or a thing-in-itself. Thinking is nothing unless it is thinking about something, and only in the action of thinking about something does consciousness exist. One could say that consciousness is never a noun, only a verb. Thus, it is not something that is concrete. In fact, nothing in consciousness can be considered complete because awareness is always incomplete and sketchy. The word Husserl uses is “adumbration.” Our thoughts are not crystal clear, they are adumbrations “surrounded by a halo of indeterminacies which could themselves be filled out only through successive adumbrations.” Our ideas are constantly in flux reactining continually in response to new ideas and new information. Thus, in no way can consciousness be considered a concrete thing-in-itself that can be defined independently. This does not mean that consciousness is not real, but it means that consciousness is not a concrete object such as a tree. I don’t think this reality leads us into the morass of postmodernism but it does mean we can’t go back to a pre-Kantian notion of objective consciousness as I accuse the analyticals of doing.

Some have countered that okay, consciousness is not a thing-in-itself but it is a “state the brain can be in.” I suspect that Husserl would not even agree with that notion because calling it a “state” is to still give it a kind of substance; but it is hard to pin Husserl down on something like that. It also requires a much longer discussion of modality than I want to get into here.

I should add that Husserl’s views of consciousness are why I am so skeptical of neuro-this and neuro-that trying to tell us what consciousness is, because the most it could ever show are the objects and effects of consciousness, if that, and the field seems to fundamentally not grasp that it can’t do what it tries to do. Neuroscience claims to be “finding the neurocorrelates of consciousness” when they hook up a person to a machine and lights flash on their monitor. I agree that that is what neuroscience attempts. I will use the Turing Test to illustrate my problem with it. Let’s say we have a machine that lights up when we hook it up to a person. What do the lights tell us? Like Turing’s machine—we see only the result, we cannot tell what is at the other end causing the result. A glitch in the machine could cause the same light pattern on the monitor—is that consciousness? How would be able to tell? Another illustration is Wittgenstein’s “beetle” thought experiment. If someone says “beetle” to describe the contents of a box they are holding but we cannot see into, what does that tell us? Do we, in hearing “beetle,” now know what is in the box? Can we be sure that what they mean by “beetle” is what we mean by “beetle?” And how would we be able to tell if they are telling the truth? If someone says “beetle” we can be sure only that someone has said “beetle” not what is actually in the box. What these two thought experiments illustrate is that effects are not to be confused with causes. The lights on a machine tell us only that there are lights on a machine. It does not tell us “aha! consciousness is found!” anymore than we could say we know that is a human (Turing) or there is actually a beetle in the box (Wittgenstein).

Consciousness still eludes objectification and probably always will. It is not a thing-in-itself.

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The False Freedom of Flippancy

Posted on June 27, 2010 by profgiles


Conformity Comes in Many Costumes

It is a common conception, especially in young people, that having an “attitude” brings independence and freedom. I call them the “Too Cool to Care” crowd. Whether it is being a slacker, punk, goth, counter-culture, anti-establishment, or whatever, the philosophy of flippancy is the idea that by being contrary to what is proper one creates an independent identity. I see this often in college students today. They are too cool to care about learning or the world (of course the hardcore flippant ones are “too cool” to even go to college). They are focused only on themselves and their life; oh, and on looking cool. Because being flippant and sarcastic is cool in their perspective. Flippancy has been cool since at least “Easy Rider.” Or, I should say, thought to be cool, because it isn’t, it’s a dead end.

It’s a myopic world view. Sarcasm can be fun; I use it too. But if cynicism is all that you bring to the table, you’re pretty lame. Snide, flippant, and sarcastic comments may get you a laugh but the laughter stops pretty quickly and you’re left with what exactly? Actions and appearances also are made to be flippant and snide and coalesce around certain fads. Punk, goth, death metal, blah, blah, blah ad nauseum, are personas of the counter-culture – identifiable norms of not being “normal.” Gravitating toward a counter-culture identity is fundamentally no different than gravitating toward a culturally-approved identity. They are just different costumes, equally superficial, equally vapid.

Kierkegaard wrote in his book Either/Or about the flippant mindset. In it, a young man describes his personal philosophy of flippancy: being as unpredictable as possible, moving from one role to the next, never doing what was expected of him. In this way, he said, he was free from society because no one knew who he was and no one could say he fit into what society expected. Life is a game, he said, a masquerade ball of masks and tricks. Kierkegaard has another character tell the young man how stupid he was being:

“Life is a masquerade, you explain, and for you this is inexhaustible material for amusement; and so far, no one has succeeded in knowing you; for every revelation you make is always an illusion…Your occupation consists in preserving your hiding place and that you succeed in doing, for your mask is the most enigmatic at all. In fact, you are nothing: you are merely a relation to others, and what you are you are by virtue of relation.”

In rebelling against society, the young man is still defined by his relation to society. Similarly, the flippant person today, by their rebellion against society, is defined by their relation to society. To be counter-culture is to be determined by culture. Flippancy is not freedom it is just another role; it is consciously choosing to be contrary to societal norms. Society tells you to behave appropriately; flippancy is saying you won’t. But since proper behavior is defined by society then being flippant is also defined by society. Being “Too Cool to Care” requires knowing what one should care about and consciously desiring to not do it.

Anyone who is truly free does not care what the roles are, does not notice and is unconcerned by what is culture or counter-culture. Real freedom begins when you stop trying to impress others.

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