The masses seem independent but not; the genius seems dependent but not

(translated from my Chinese blog)

This is my new project, “Nietzschean Philology”. In each installment, I’ll read a passage from Nietzsche’s original writings. By practicing text analysis, we can enhance our ability to understand the world.

The reading of "We Philologists" continues. In Section 13, Nietzsche makes his final evaluation of the difference between genius and the masses. In the populist age, the masses has the appearance of independence, but Nietzsche believes that this is merely the result of vanity, "to set one's self up for an individual while not really being one." Conversely, the genius individual, although seemingly dependent on others in every aspect, actually possesses true independence and individuality: independence in the pursuit of creating new values.

Vanity is the involuntary inclination to set one's self up for an individual while not really being one; that is to say, trying to appear independent when one is dependent. The case of wisdom is the exact contrary: it appears to be dependent while in reality it is independent.

"We Philologists" 13, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by J. M. Kennedy 

Nietzsche is still ridiculing Christian moral concepts. Don't forget that Nietzsche himself was entirely skeptical of any religious or ideological "metaphysical schemes." To him, the world is entirely devoid of gods, no higher beings than humans, and no ultimate cosmic laws (according to Nietzsche's perspectivism, that is something only an omniscient being could propose, but omniscience would mean omnipresence, and no human being can occupy every observation point in historical time and space, so ideologies must create gods to propose ultimate laws). "Love your neighbor" or "serve the people" hold no extra credibility for Nietzsche. Without gods, "love your neighbor" is merely a new moral standard invented by humans (specifically Jesus) based on their own survival experiences (specifically the experience of the oppressed common people being oppressed by the nobility) advocating a reversal of the nobility's morality, i.e. "I am weak therefore I am right."This set of standards is, in Nietzsche's view, the "most comical of comedies" because it fundamentally inverts the value hierarchy of the natural world (the strong is the good), and must therefore be overthrown. [Whether there is such a thing as a "natural value hierarchy" is highly questionable; it is likely that all value standards are artificial and that no value standard has absolute superiority.]

If there is anything that Nietzsche hated most, it was undoubtedly populist values. "Everyone's life has its value," "Ordinary is good" ... Such clichés in Nietzsche's eyes are the lowest words, a manifestation of self-abasement. Unable to mobilize their life energy to pursue excellence, and refusing to admit that their life is meaningless, they fabricate a "meaning in ordinariness" story to comfort themselves. Nietzsche would say, you might as well honestly admit that your life is meaningless, at least that's more sincere.

On "necessity": Is there anything that makes a person feel "absolutely necessary" to do, any vocation that he/she feels obliged to ? The vast majority of people do not. Their current job is just a means of making a living, and the reason they feel "absolutely necessary" is only because they do not want to give up their current standard of living, not because the job itself is important to them. If there is a tenfold salary opportunity, most people would change careers without hesitation. In other words, people are not loyal to their jobs. They are even less loyal to the life's calling they should pursue, because they would rather settle for an average and boring job than take the risk of pursuing that career. To put it in the words of Section 10, people would rather live a comfortable old age like Voss, rather than burn out their lives early like Leopardi. And if, like Nietzsche, we equate the value of life with the value of lifelong careers (there is no value in the afterlife, nor is there any so-called "collective value"), and believe that a person is what he does, then not being loyal to one's life's calling is equivalent to not being loyal to one's life.

Nietzsche also spoke of the "collective value" and why this concept is but a castle made of sand: the masses who serve others are like countless zeros, while the geniuses who create value are the 1. Without the 1 at the beginning, all the zeros that follow are worthless. Therefore, Nietzsche never believed in the myth of the organization. This organizational omnipotence ultimately led to the disaster of 20th-century totalitarianism. In terms of certain historical elements (such as biological racism), it is indeed related to Nietzsche, but I would argue that the organizational omnipotence at the core of totalitarian ideology is essentially a belief in populism, and Nietzsche would never agree with it.

The era we live in instinctively doubts and is hostile towards any "individual geniuses" that are "detached from the organization", defaulting to the belief that "everyone has their own intrinsic value", thus "serving others" has an inherent legitimacy, while "striving for oneself" seems particularly reprehensible. In a sense, this populist belief is not without reason, as we have indeed witnessed the continuous growth of organizational power since modern times: enterprises, parties, institutions relying on bureaucratic structures to distribute power and responsibility, organizational mobilization techniques (propaganda, interrogation, meetings, etc.), and academic research formed around the concept of organization (management, organizational behavior, public relations, etc.); In contrast, the concept of the individual has declined, and individuals are vulnerable unless they are attached to a certain collective, serve as the leader or spokesperson of a collective. The growth of organizational capabilities has indeed made individuals vulnerable like never before, and modern people have indeed discovered how to weave a web of power from countless zeros. But this power is often the power of the mob, a blind and destructive power. The masses are masses precisely because they lack the ability to create value. They do not know how to anchor a standard of what is "good"; they are aimless, "they work at this and that, their talents are average." In the best case, the masses can only continue the value standards of the past as "results of earlier generations," but since these standards only deteriorate due to the deterioration of spirit and organization, the masses cannot even maintain the standards of earlier generations.

The aimlessness of the masses contrasts sharply with the necessity of the genius. After all metaphysical schemes have been disenchanted, each of us is forced to confront the problems of our own lives. The reaction of the masses is like the story in the Old Testament, where the Jews, after their victory, immediately abandoned Yahweh and chose to forge a golden calf to worship. Only this time the meaning is not "You must remain faithful to your god," because there is no longer any old god to return to. This time the meaning is that the god has been dismembered, and people have begun to worship the market, the organization, reason, and finally even history (or even worse, "material history"). In other words, everything that still retains the traces of the old gods, everything that still looks "equal" - the market, the organization, the universal mathematical logic, labor production - people throw themselves blindly to worship them. Atheism does not make people truly awake, because science itself has become a new religion, and it is even more vicious and hypocritical than traditional religions. As a result, Nietzsche's insight into history comes true once again: as long as there is no genius inventing new value standards, human society will inevitably unconsciously continue the values of the past (Christian equality, humility, loving one's neighbor), and continuously deteriorate in the ongoing moral and organizational decline.