Beyond Good and Evil: or, Breathing is a Virtue

Quatre danseuses et Nijinski (Four Dancers and Nijinsky) by Adolf de Meyer, circa 1914.
Public domain via Wikimedia.

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The other evening, a few pages from the end of this work, I fell asleep listening to Alan Watts lecturing on virtues. I find it difficult to articulate the connection to Nietzsche, but what I comprehended as I awoke, while being in a state not dissimilar to that of Debussy's faun, was this rough recollection:

You cannot be virtuous. If you become virtuous and you are aware of being virtuous, then you are prideful and thus no longer virtuous. Virtues are not self-conscious, and you cannot consciously be virtuous. Breathing is a virtue. You don't think about it, you are not responsible for it, it happens 'un-self-consciously'. That is virtue.

I understand that Alan Watts was discussing elements of Eastern philosophy, but Nietzsche mentions Eastern philosophy numerous times. Following Mortimer Adler's guidance in How to Read a Book, I now take notes in pencil in the margins of my books. This rather short book is full of notations; Latin, French, Greek, German, and Italian words and phrases; class consciousness, waiting too long to display one's genius, "the herd"; the Will to Power; morality; and so on. Too much to summarise here appropriately. But I read in Nietzsche a critique of mediocrity, and it provides me with an awakening to the class-based cringe that has been highlighted by my reading and study over the years. Alan Watts said something like being self-conscious won't help one to be virtuous. Benjamin Franklin wrote that although he worked to consciously improve himself, using his 13-week virtues checklist, he was aware that he could never be perfect. If I take into account Nietzsche's critique of the herd morality and religion, and the privilege of rank and the position adopted by others in relation to my lowly class-based existence (which doesn't manifest itself in any meaningful way outside my own head), then the idea of "beyond good and evil" makes some intuitive sense. Nonetheless, I am far from articulating Nietzsche's ideas beyond what I can grasp from a handful of his work. I may take some solace in that Franklin couldn't be virtuous, that Adler tells me there is nothing wrong with interpreting my reading without the aid of others, that Nietzsche writes much like La Rochefoucauld, and that he thought the Stoics were wrong. This is interesting because the Stoics advocated "living according to one's nature". As it is so natural, then how can one "will" oneself to live in a way that is predestined? This is one of the most helpful explanations of the deductive method! On flicking back through my notes, two things are noticeable. First, the race elements the Nazis picked up on (thanks to Nietzsche's sister, I believe). This is no worse than Jack London, writing not that long after Nietzsche and I encountered parts that wouldn't fit with Nazism. Second, the attitude towards women. This was written before universal suffrage, but clearly, Nietzsche was no John Stuart Mill. Indeed, Nietzsche was a critic of utilitarianism. I will finish with this quote on scholars and artists (I had heavily underlined it while reading - there is always a pencil on hand these days), one that brings together in Nietzsche's words what I felt in my "faunish" moment while listening to Alan Watts (pp. 142-3):

One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness impels them; but this very need of nobleness is radically different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank - to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning - it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. -The noble soul has reverence for itself.

It would seem that it is "beyond good and evil".

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Rilke: Coming to Terms with a Death that Doesn't Fit and other notebook entries...

Lou Andreas-Salomé with (from left) her husband Friedrich Karl Andreas, the architect August Endell and Rainer Maria Rilke in a summer house near Munich, 1897. Public Domain via Wikimedia.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This work is often regarded as the first 'modernist' novel. I find it hard to place. As far as genre is concerned, it is not quite Finnegan's Wake, that Rilke was a poet does not make this like a Bukowski novel, nor is it a work of non-fiction in the vein of Rabindranath Tagore. I enjoyed the work, but usually I write about my reading as soon as I am finished. I finished this work late last night and I am still trying to work out what happened! The Notebooks read just like notebooks. But in the first half or so, one reads about a child born into privilege at a time when the privileged classes are losing their grip. One reads about infatuation, love, wonder, ghosts. Then in the second half, it becomes something of an historical rant. Not as one might find in a novel where historical persons and events have been used as raw material for fiction, but where you are reading a fiction that is discussing historical events. This version includes end notes to the historical figures and events and highlights parts of the work that originated from Rilke's personal experiences. For example, Rilke witnessed a man with St Vitus' dance (Sydenham's chorea) who is captured in the notebooks; and his own experiences as a child are recreated in the person of young Brigge. Such historical renderings were wonderful. I must admit to not having known anything of Rilke. But like all new things, now I see him everywhere - he influenced James Joyce, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and many others. Rilke seems obsessed with death, but he does it so well (pp. 5-6):

[The death of a poor person] is of course a banal one, with neither pomp nor circumstance. They are happy to find one that more or less fits. They don't mind if it's a little too large, because they can always grow into it. But it's bothersome if the front won't do up or it's tight at the throat.

I enjoyed reading this work without an introduction. If I could compare the work to anyone, it would be closest to Kafka, but without the sense of plot or chronology. And without an overblown introduction, it leaves the reader to "come to terms" with the author, as Mortimer Adler would say. But I doubt that many would find it easy to come to terms with Rilke. This might best be done with his poetry.

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On the Standardisation Aesthetic in Education: All the Same "Just Because"

US Military parade at the Imperial Palace Plaza, 1948. Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Standardisation is an important means to an end - typically efficiency. Shipping containers and pallets are interesting examples. A world without these would be a very different world. Standard electrical fittings, too, are convenient - you notice this most when you travel overseas and you do not have a country-specific adaptor. 

But what about when standardisation is not a means to an end, but an end in itself? This I call the standardisation aesthetic.

I noticed this first in the military. The regimental sergeant major walked into a classroom and ordered the desks to be lined up precisely, and make it "all regimental-like". Later, I found myself being annoyed at the way the cheese was cut. In its extreme, it becomes obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can be unhealthy.

So when I find education managers wanting to make everything "nice and regimental-like", I question: What are they trying to achieve? Efficiency? Hardly. While management is busy checking up on everyone else, some important system is typically offline. Often, it is simply this: the standardisation aesthetic. I find this permeates so many things in higher education.

In a nation that routinely claims universal ideas as part of its "culture" or "way of life", the standardisation aesthetic is surely a cultural artefact that manifests itself regularly, but is rarely observed. And I don't mean "artefact" in the sense of a human-made tool or object, but in the scientific sense of "something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure".

Having worked for a few years in my youth in hydraulic spare parts and industrial bearing sales, I heard the term "standard" frequently. A typical customer engagement would go like this:

Customer: "I need an o-ring/oil seal/tapered roller bearing for a thing".
Me: "What size/type/brand/thing is it?"
Customer: "Oh, it's standard".
Me: "Yeah, right. There's no such thing".

Anyone who has worked in spare parts will know this story. It happens every day, and I have even stopped myself from saying it (it is possible, for example, to have Ford bearings in a Holden trailer hub - and it's "standard").

So we have two issues here. First, standardisation can achieve efficiency. Granted. But second, standardisation becomes an expectation to make things more convenient. But what if "it" isn't standard, and therefore it isn't convenient?

I ask this question because when designing a customer experience, the more convenient, the better. Consumers can mind-numbingly buy the same thing without thinking while retailers pocket the profit. Except in grocery stores. The trick in grocery stores is to routinely rearrange the store. This disrupts habits and forces shoppers to "look" for their preferred or habitual purchases. 

Of course, it typically leads to shoppers buying things they didn't need or want. There is a reason that every convenience store has the bread and the milk at the back of the store, you know.

But what about the people who are meant to be future leaders? Should we provide a consistent customer experience for students? I say no.

The world is not standard. Sure, parts of it are or can be, but this works best when there is an end in sight - an objective. Standardise shipping containers and pallets, and we have efficient physical distribution systems. Standardise the customer experience, and we have an efficient market or distribution system for goods and services. 

But standardise nature, and one day the species is wiped out because we removed the opportunities for critical variations in the evolutionary gene pool to occur. Natural selection ceases to function. Do the same with our markets, and organisations will cease to innovate and eventually die. Just like the Soviet Union. Or Kodak.

What, then, of our students? Elementary knowledge like times tables? Find the best approach and standardise it. Leadership? Find the best approach and standardise it. Oh, wait. That won't work. Why? Because we are all unique individuals and what works for one won't necessarily work for another. 

We have entered the realm of the social sciences and therefore we cannot reduce everything to standardised units. Even if we could, those sneaky humans might change their behaviour, just to annoy our cunning plan.

There are two problems with standardised education. First, the world isn't standard, so creating a falsely standardised learning environment is counter-productive. It may produce efficient consumers, but it won't produce effective leaders. 

Second, creating a standardised learning environment removes opportunities for students to grapple with diverse and nuanced situations. I always tell my students that an undergraduate degree is proof that they can navigate their way through bureaucracy. Watch your grandmother try to grapple with a Centrelink form and you will see what I mean. 

So standardisation as an aesthetic is a cultural artefact - we only notice it when we strip away the rhetoric of good governance. As educators, we need to ask ourselves, what is the purpose of standardisation? Will it improve our efficiency? Making course information or learning materials readily available is a good example. Standardise away.

But when standardisation becomes an end in itself, we need to question the wisdom of such an approach and ask, why?

Management won't like it, but we risk doing our students a disservice if we let the aesthetic run its course. We need to see it for what it is, and, funnily enough, only someone with a bit of social science training could see standardisation as an artefact. The variations are important opportunities for developing new skills, new knowledge, and improving living standards.

If we standardise everything, we will have a beautiful education system, all regimental-like. Why? Well, just because. And that doesn't sound very educated to me.