Nietzsche on "The objective man"

[Nilsi]

However gratefully one may welcome the OBJECTIVE spirit--and who has not been sick to death of all subjectivity and its confounded IPSISIMOSITY!--in the end, however, one must learn caution even with regard to one's gratitude, and put a stop to the exaggeration with which the unselfing and depersonalizing of the spirit has recently been celebrated, as if it were the goal in itself, as if it were salvation and glorification--as is especially accustomed to happen in the pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the highest honours to "disinterested knowledge" The objective man, who no longer curses and scolds like the pessimist, the IDEAL man of learning in whom the scientific instinct blossoms forth fully after a thousand complete and partial failures, is assuredly one of the most costly instruments that exist, but his place is in the hand of one who is more powerful He is only an instrument, we may say, he is a MIRROR--he is no "purpose in himself" The objective man is in truth a mirror accustomed to prostration before everything that wants to be known, with such desires only as knowing or "reflecting" implies--he waits until something comes, and then expands himself sensitively, so that even the light footsteps and gliding-past of spiritual beings may not be lost on his surface and film Whatever "personality" he still possesses seems to him accidental, arbitrary, or still oftener, disturbing, so much has he come to regard himself as the passage and reflection of outside forms and events He calls up the recollection of "himself" with an effort, and not infrequently wrongly, he readily confounds himself with other persons, he makes mistakes with regard to his own needs, and here only is he unrefined and negligent Perhaps he is troubled about the health, or the pettiness and confined atmosphere of wife and friend, or the lack of companions and society--indeed, he sets himself to reflect on his suffering, but in vain! His thoughts already rove away to the MORE GENERAL case, and tomorrow he knows as little as he knew yesterday how to help himself He does not now take himself seriously and devote time to himself he is serene, NOT from lack of trouble, but from lack of capacity for grasping and dealing with HIS trouble The habitual complaisance with respect to all objects and experiences, the radiant and impartial hospitality with which he receives everything that comes his way, his habit of inconsiderate good-nature, of dangerous indifference as to Yea and Nay: alas! there are enough of cases in which he has to atone for these virtues of his!--and as man generally, he becomes far too easily the CAPUT MORTUUM of such virtues. Should one wish love or hatred from him--I mean love and hatred as God, woman, and animal understand them--he will do what he can, and furnish what he can. But one must not be surprised if it should not be much--if he should show himself just at this point to be false, fragile, questionable, and deteriorated. His love is constrained, his hatred is artificial, and rather UNN TOUR DE FORCE, a slight ostentation and exaggeration. He is only genuine so far as he can be objective; only in his serene totality is he still "nature" and "natural." His mirroring and eternally self-polishing soul no longer knows how to affirm, no longer how to deny; he does not command; neither does he destroy. "JE NE MEPRISE PRESQUE RIEN"-- he says, with Leibniz: let us not overlook nor undervalue the PRESQUE! Neither is he a model man; he does not go in advance of any one, nor after, either; he places himself generally too far off to have any reason for espousing the cause of either good or evil. If he has been so long confounded with the PHILOSOPHER, with the Caesarian trainer and dictator of civilization, he has had far too much honour, and what is more essential in him has been overlooked--he is an instrument, something of a slave, though certainly the sublimest sort of slave, but nothing in himself--PRESQUE RIEN! The objective man is an instrument, a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the REST of existence justifies itself, no termination-- and still less a commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful, self-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated, delicate, movable potter's- form, that must wait for some kind of content and frame to "shape" itself thereto--for the most part a man without frame and content, a "selfless" man. Consequently, also, nothing for women, IN PARENTHESI.

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This made me think. What's your take on this Leo? This seems to be a very deep existential trade off that Nietzsche is alluding to here and I'm not quite sure what to make of it or how to transcend it (which would again be more "selflessness"/"objectivity"). How do you reconcile awakening with being a philosopher is my question i guess. I'm not quite sure just being God satisfies this itch because I'm still planning on continuing in this dream so what the hell am I supposed to do here if I even transcend philosophy?  

[Oeaohoo]

Since no one picked up on this I’ll share my thoughts. In context, earlier in this book Nietzsche has called into question the very possibility of simply caring about the truth for the truth’s sake. Nietzsche is thus forced to consider the “objective man” because he could be used as an example of this pure pursuit of truth (when in fact he is exactly the opposite).

On 15/05/2022 at 0:57 PM, Nilsi said:

put a stop to the exaggeration with which the unselfing and depersonalizing of the spirit has recently been celebrated, as if it were the goal in itself, as if it were salvation and glorification--as is especially accustomed to happen in the pessimist school, which has also in its turn good reasons for paying the highest honours to "disinterested knowledge" 

There is a funny way in which modern science represents a sort of inverted ascesis. Plato and Pythagoras, for example, showed how mathematics could be used as a discipline to overcome attachment to the animal body and the ego. Today, however, it is not an ascesis towards transcendence but towards nothingness, mere abstraction and “depersonalisation”.

You do also notice how often miserable people say they are just “facing the cold hard facts” of reality.

On 15/05/2022 at 0:57 PM, Nilsi said:

The objective man is an instrument, a costly, easily injured, easily tarnished measuring instrument and mirroring apparatus, which is to be taken care of and respected; but he is no goal, not outgoing nor upgoing, no complementary man in whom the REST of existence justifies itself, no termination-- and still less a commencement, an engendering, or primary cause, nothing hardy, powerful, self-centred, that wants to be master; but rather only a soft, inflated, delicate, movable potter's- form, that must wait for some kind of content and frame to "shape" itself thereto--for the most part a man without frame and content, a "selfless" man. Consequently, also, nothing for women, IN PARENTHESI.

Yes, he is a passive creature fit only to serve those with real vision. Of course, society needs such people, but today we have a mass infestation of them (and they have eaten their way up the walls!)

Here and for most of the rest of the passage you have quoted, Nietzsche just seems to be poking fun at the aridity and mediocrity of modern academic types. I agree with him but so what? They are just doing what they can.

On 15/05/2022 at 0:57 PM, Nilsi said:

This made me think. What's your take on this Leo? This seems to be a very deep existential trade off that Nietzsche is alluding to here and I'm not quite sure what to make of it or how to transcend it (which would again be more "selflessness"/"objectivity"). How do you reconcile awakening with being a philosopher is my question i guess. I'm not quite sure just being God satisfies this itch because I'm still planning on continuing in this dream so what the hell am I supposed to do here if I even transcend philosophy?  

I doubt Leo would want to waste his time wading through this rather contrived and occasionally petty passage. I’m not sure what this has to do with the conflict between awakening and being a philosopher. After all, philosophy is the “love of wisdom” and God is ultimate wisdom. There is only a conflict because modern philosophy is rootless and profane. The duality that has been set up today between the “objectivity” fit for cosmopolitan insects that Nietzsche describes above and the new cult of subjective identity (and individual self-expression) is a completely false one which you will of course have to transcend if you want to awaken.