Your Life is a Hypothesis

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]The one thing that the last man will never do is fail spectacularly.

[00:00:07]All right, this one we did a little differently. We weren't sure where to start, but have ended up having a very interesting conversation about the last man and how to escape the problem of the last man uh through the lens of Nisha's work. I'm as usual the host of the students, Wolf Ty, with Prince Vogel Fry, Jonathan Wallace of Avalon House.

[00:00:28]So, I hope you enjoyed.

[00:00:32]At the start of the gay science, Nietze is writing about sort of his faith in humanity and how even uh people who may be bad or evil on the surface of things are very plausibly provoking um the human race to excel in some way. And how what it needs is not just a state of calm or peace or good order that the that the play of life has to continue and Nze sort of views the greatest threat against humanity isn't disorder right >> it's this state of the last man where no one wants to take any form of risk and they want to work just enough that they can live a comfortable life Um, and just everyone is kind of getting by and getting along with each other.

[00:01:33]>> Mhm.

[00:01:33]>> And so there's no willingness to provoke. There's no willingness to go out on a limb and like do and say things that you cannot provide an immediate justification for >> um to act passionately. In other words, to to be moved to do something. And I think Niche, you know, believes that Christianity as a sociological force has locked a lot of these passions down. and um not just Christianity but like you know the systems that in some ways sort of supplanted it and started constructing new justifications for what it meant to be a sort of universally good or universally acceptable person.

[00:02:12]And I think that our world is is kind of visibly uh becoming dominated by forms of domestication, by forms of efficiency, by forms of ma management that act act contrary to like any kind of real political passion.

[00:02:30]>> Mhm. Yeah. I wonder efficiency is a word that you use there. I'm not I'm not sure that fits. The rest of it I think fits for sure. Like I think the system LAR sufficiency, but a lot of it really is just this lockdown as you're saying, right? It's this it's this like containment of of spirit, you know, this the system and I don't think it's Christianity either. I think you know obviously it's these things that came after Christianity or it's this structural thing that Christianity the structural role that Christianity filled for a time um and maybe you know is still trying to fill but but is also filled by these other things and it's yeah that thing about the last man about everyone everyone kind of becoming the most boring version of themselves the most domestic the most like given up version of themselves I think I I think we have to we have to see that that's because like you know part of that is because people have been propagandized into into like that mode of being and part it's sort of made unthinkable that you could do anything else and part of it is that whenever anyone tries anything else they they're sort of struck down by the system. There's various ways that that um that the I don't know this this comprehensive control matrix is kind of >> behind the the whole thing where where it's it's um whenever you get anything actually radically different in terms of do sort of motivations of action or or lifestyle or something you get in some way the the plug is pulled on that or it gets recuperated into the system and domesticated, defanged. Whatever sort of radical potential it thought it had is sort of um frustrated and humiliated.

[00:04:28]Um, you know, you see this with the hippies, you see this with various kind of political cults in America. You see with V, you know, all the cults basically, they all like reach this limit where they like run into the system and find they can't like go any further and sort of >> lose vitality and and so like it's the last man is a sort of learned helplessness uh about these things. And I wonder where all that goes. It's like I first of all I'm curious if you if you agree that the that the cause of it is like this system of control that that we've ended up in. Um you know I think in NH's time it was maybe identifiable with with this Christian heritage. Nowadays, I guess it still has this this, you know, if you follow mold bug or or land on these things, it's like very much kind of like coming out of it's an evolution of Christianity or it's moral precept.

[00:05:29]>> That was N's hypothesis that Christianity is being weaponized from in in his era. It's what he calls socialism, right? And also nationalism in a way.

[00:05:39]>> Yeah. Um because all of these things are trying to divide the world into good and evil and they're all e esqueological.

[00:05:50]>> Yeah. Good. Good means like things that the system can tolerate and evil means things that the system won't tolerate, right? Like it's and it becomes this very >> petty definition.

[00:06:01]>> Yeah. And I think there is a system of control. Um I think it's a social system of control.

[00:06:08]Mhm.

[00:06:08]>> It is too pervasive to I am not a big believer in conspiracies just in the sense that in the modern world you can't keep large secrets among >> No, but it's it's not a conspiracy and no one's trying to keep it secret. like I think everyone involved is sort of very open about what they're doing and >> well I guess I would just say that I'm um >> I think Nichch's angle on this or you know let's say my own angle informed by Nietze yeah >> and by Arent too >> is >> people are very concerned what I you know when I was talking about management and like perspectives that are formed by maybe it's not efficiency exactly But really by control where trying to maintain um you know sometimes it's referred to as bare life >> where you're just trying to get something keep something going kind of regardless of the costs you pay or what you have to end up doing which is what the ancients would have called very dishonorable behavior where you're like I will do anything so that uh my own life can continue.

[00:07:26]>> And then the ancients look at that and they say well but what is your life? It doesn't have any content. It's not a uh >> it's not a hypothesis. N says that one has to win the right to live one's life as a hypothesis >> which is again you're not saying I know what to do. You're not saying I know what the consequences of my actions are going to be. You're saying that this is something >> this is a way >> coherent. This is a way.

[00:07:49]>> I'm going to wait. I'm going to live this way and you see what happens. But >> and I think people are afraid like I think >> well the reason they're afraid is because all the people who did that like have been erased from the world, right?

[00:08:02]And like this I'm getting back to this this problem of like where does the last man come from, right? It's it's like okay, yeah, the people are dishonorable because they're the ones sort of left over after this selection process. Like a lot of people were have been sort of disabled and clamped down through the last 200 years, right? like the sort of Napoleonic impulse was eventually contained the you know or at least for a time and then we had world the world wars and that whole thing was contained and then you know you have the hippies you have the Scientologists you have these these like >> attempts right uh at at you know Mishima you have you have uh you know like any number of these these projects of radical content have been uh contained, right? They get to c a certain degree. Even like the Mormon church, right? It used to be this this really quite radical organization with respect to the existing system, but somehow physically the system is able to contain them. It's able to recuperate them. And there's this sense like this I guess there's this question I always have that I argue about friends with. I argue with friends about which is which is that um is it like are we held back primarily by in in or not we per se but but like are these radical projects held back primarily by like lack of belief in some alter in some alternative or by lack of physical possibility under the current system? Like is it is it the case that you know, some group of people could radically depart from from the system uh and continue in that. Could they live a hypothesis in that term? Uh you know, an alternate hypothesis or do all the like attempts to live an alternate hypothesis end up getting recuperated into the system somehow?

[00:10:09]Some someone's playing whack-a-ole and says, "No, that one's we don't know how to deal with that smack." Right? And it actually wipes them out. And I I'm curious um this seems like one of the essential questions, right? Because it it it goes to like where do you invest your effort? You know, in so far as we find the current system intolerable. We have this sense that it's intolerable.

[00:10:29]We we want out, right? We want to live as a we want to live some hypothesis. We maybe even have some hypothesis that we want to live something particular. But uh you know do we put our effort into like radicalization intellectually, socially, spiritually or do we put our effort actually it needs to be in in uh physical circumvention?

[00:10:56]Like this is this essential question for me is like how do you not become the last man? And and that I don't know the answer to that question.

[00:11:04]>> Yeah.

[00:11:05]>> I'm curious what you think. I mean because this this is the problem that NH this is another big part of Nch's big project right is like diagnosing this problem he sees it coming he says we're going to be in the [ __ ] for 200 years >> uh with this problem that he's laying out um and we're going to you know societyy's going to reach this this like totality of the last man nothing else allowed everything just suppressed and he's kind of speaking to this era of of moral escape from that um and so I I I think he's he's been sort of um very justified in that prediction. But um what then we do about that is this question I don't have an answer to.

[00:11:55]>> Yeah. I mean people should do the things that they're particularly well equipped for.

[00:12:03]>> Yes. I know that that it's in some sense a kind of benign answer, >> but we are well equipped to be the last man. Like that's that's the thing, right? We're all we're raised in this cage.

[00:12:13]>> I think that people should I mean one is that they should develop their own sense of values and their own aesthetic priorities. Mhm.

[00:12:24]>> I think that for me it's important to really take the long view and when Nze is writing about, you know, thinking on thousand-year time frames. He's not >> necessarily just thinking about again it's it's often not even a pl so much a planning mentality as like what will stand the test of time. Um, and historically we have plenty of evidence that these attempts that fail or don't immediately sort of overturn the order of the world in the long run can add up to things. And I think there's >> they can add up to something if they keep if some seed stays present and alive, right? And like the the thing that's so horrifying about the current moment is you have these things that were living in some positive direction that it's not like oh they're suppressed and they're kept small. It's that they're wiped out, right? Or that they're they're they're made to rot. They're made to like be converged with the last man.

[00:13:34]>> They haven't succeeded. They haven't succeeded. But it's it's again I'm drawing a distinction as so far as anyone cares about them. Like one of the things that I think has happened in the modern world is that people have ended up only relitigating a really small number of conflicts that all anchor on essentially the modern ideological set. Right?

[00:13:56]>> So we're having fights about capitalism.

[00:13:58]We're having fights about state control.

[00:14:00]We're having fights about uh socialism, fascism. We're having fights about, you know, what kind of rational ideas for how human beings relate to each other should be kind of like imposed on the whole population. Whether that's a certain kind of free speech or whether that's the assertion that you can only enter into certain kinds of compacts with other people. what whatever it is like we're trying we are still trying to hash out the uh ideological struggle and I think that's the wrong struggle to have and when you when you adopt kind of the frame of mind that uh you can relitigate whatever past struggles you want to and that that can have a really kind of lasting significance. So nu believes he's kind of recapitulating certain periods of history, right? And he's like >> reintroducing a conflict over the character of Socrates and also the formation of uh the nation state um in the 15 and 1600s uh that he believes are like better better battlegrounds.

[00:15:07]And so long as you sort of don't admit defeat, it's like yes, I I think it's like I think that the lesson is not to to my eyes the the the cracks in the system are showing.

[00:15:25]>> Yes.

[00:15:25]>> And they may take a very long time. Um I think if you start to see the cracks in something like this, it's very easy to get in the mindset of like, oh, it's going to any moment now.

[00:15:36]the right sort of but it's like if you take the Roman Empire >> the cracks were showing for a really really long time for hundreds and hundreds of years >> and I think a smart Roman could have figured out all the causal map of decline and it's like okay if you're looking at that you're looking at a really large system and maybe you can't do anything about it right now >> I think the right approach is is is not to say like well everything is doomed or or that all the or that any kind of pocket is doomed. But to really just try and create um something that's consolidated and kind of continues on a logic of its own and doesn't doesn't end up too correlated with the rest of the system, right? And I agree that's a challenging let's say you're not correlated with the system and you you're you're sitting there as one of these cults that has an alternate u reference on value in the world whatever whatever it is you're not you're not trying to be the last man you're trying to be something else >> can I say something just about the because I think it is important like >> the concept of a cult >> and where correlation f Nisha really strongly advances this idea that if you fight something you are correlated with it. The famous beware of fighting monsters lest you become one.

[00:16:59]>> Cults I think really do reenact the logic of modernity by defining themselves into opposition with it.

[00:17:07]>> Something that was new I think would have flexible boundaries. It would have boundaries that the modern world didn't understand and therefore couldn't contain.

[00:17:18]>> Like I think cults are always kind of contained within the logic of the modern world because they are defining themselves.

[00:17:25]Okay, let's say you have let's say you have some tendency that's that's not >> not a cult, whatever whatever thing it might be and you're looking at you're looking at these these ways that I don't know comparable I guess if you if you remove it from all kind of comparison with other things then it becomes very hard to to sort of draw any kind of prediction but if you are looking at if there are comparisons to be made like, oh, it's like this particular movement or that movement or or whatever. You're seeing this consistent trend towards the last man, right? And and like the question is like this is this existential question for every for every like uh you know seed of some some new idea. is why is this idea not going to be defeated in the same way everything else was defeated and why is this not going to just become the last man? Like that's that's sort of feels like this essential question now. It's like why what what is the the actual >> uh evasion here?

[00:18:41]Yeah, I worry about that question because I worry that it introduces too much concern about the future >> and that you are pulling yourself out of the modes of confidence that would allow you to develop anything new by by trying >> maybe the question the question bakes in this sort of omni potent tendency towards the last man. Right? But nonetheless, it seems like there's something there worth understanding, right? It's like, do we have to understand that or don't we? Right? Are we engaged in philosophy or not? I >> I think my question is like to what extent does it does what extent does asking that question give us perspectives that make us healthier in a grand sense?

[00:19:29]rather than trying to like you know engage in an extended hunt for some sort of rational answer that will allow us to like capitulate the entire state of the world and like strike at some weak point on the Death Star or whatever.

[00:19:51]I think sometimes you can ask that question and you know it's like okay what are things that are making people tend towards last madness and then you can find discrete behaviors that are like it's like the equivalent of um sort of finding tactical reasons things went wrong >> like okay well we have this particular case, you know, whatever group or organization or Napoleon and what, you know, what what what what mistakes did they make? Where were they unbalanced? Where did they misunderstand the capabilities of the system or get kind of trapped trapped by its own logic and then I think the discussion kind of becomes fruitful. Mhm.

[00:20:44]>> Uh but I think that when it's sort of a question of like okay you you have when when the logic of the world has changed and like social organization has changed in a big way. I think it's often been a surprise to like almost everyone involved, >> right?

[00:21:04]>> And so I think when you ask the question, okay, how can I conduct myself so that I don't run into the particular thing? I I think you're you're like trying to get around surprise. I think maybe in the wrong way.

[00:21:22]>> Mhm. And that probably what you should do is find things you're really passionate about, do them very well, and then when that creates a conflict with the system, don't sell out basically.

[00:21:37]>> Um, and then I think some number of people will continue doing that and eventually the combination of that kind of external pressure, individuals challenging the system will blow some larger cracks in it and then things will become more dynamic. It's that it's the dynamic of a Chinese dynasty that's slowly losing legitimacy >> and the overall edif edifice is uh the cracks develop slowly. People are really afraid of the system falling apart because it will cause a lot of chaos.

[00:22:10]>> Mhm.

[00:22:10]>> Um and it's unclear what alternatives exist for any kind of stabilization. Um, and you get just local individuals, most of whom lose, but the the the contradictions within the system are continuing to pile it up. And then when a local rebellion starts to win or gather momentum or make a big enough dent in the system that it starts to kind of fall apart on its own terms, I think it's not because they understood the weakest point of the dynasty and uh struck at it. I think it's because they did local things well, right? I think it's because they understood the terrain they were on. I think it's because they understood their own men and how to organize them and how to answer these tactical questions that then created a a wider opportunity within the world. So that's kind of my like and this is you know Doo is always talking about this like retterritorialization thing where I'm almost like you should not not in a way that like ignores the circumstances of the world but kind of overwrites them. you should figure out what all your local advantages are in an ex existential sense and then uh keep trying to multiply them and gather them together and then I think that will create an expanding field of possibilities that you can't I I think you can't anticipate them in advance and this is kind of the the ecological thing I think the solutions that emerge will be the result of a bunch of different a bunch of different powers and trends in the world kind of joining together.

[00:23:45]>> Yeah, it's I the one way to to follow that thread like one way I often put this is is in terms of the leap of faith like it's uh I've written about this in Palladium and other places um you can't actually know what strategy is going to work and like if we think of it in terms of strategy you can't know what strategy is going to work. It's this it's this like extremely indeterminate problem. It's not it's it's it has to be worked out the hard way, right? It has to be it's it's computationally irreducible with respect to history. You have to actually just go and try it. You have to live the hypothesis, >> right? And so you have to just pursue some hypothesis. And to your point, just like what does the hypothesis say I should do at like every given moment?

[00:24:33]And how do we do the hypothesis as most as effectively as possible at every given moment? And then that's either going to make it through or it isn't.

[00:24:40]then you kind of just have to be able to stake yourself on that. Um and and that's a leap of faith because you there's no way of knowing prior to getting through whether it's going to get through and I I just just to to kind of connect this I think back to Nietze and so on like I think we have this hypothesis which is a particular tradition of philosophy like a particular way of thinking about the world and particular like set of concerns that are very dear to us that we have been making a hell of a lot of sacrifices for in terms of like things we not doing, things that we are doing.

[00:25:20]Um, and that, you know, I think I think questions like what I was asking about like how do we like what's what's the escape from the last man problem like this is one of the questions that kind of comes up within that philosophy. But I think the philosophy is not simply that, right?

[00:25:37]It's it's it's got its own hypothesis to it. I think this >> this is an interesting kind of >> answer to that which is okay let's just worry about keeping the flame let's just worry about making it making it grow >> and not worry about the strategy so much >> and I think that it's like I think that again part of why I push back on like using a word like cult is I think a cult is a group that thinks that it has the answers >> and it needs to sit there and kind of let its own internal logic build up >> until and then it's kind of like cults always believe that they're going to fume, right? In the AI sense, >> cults believe that they're going to construct this sort of like >> sociologically perfect organization and then and then it'll explode.

[00:26:26]>> We're 6 months away from the from the the whatever the singularity >> there are there esqueological, right?

[00:26:35]>> Yes. A and modern AI is actually really interesting in the sense that rather than this sort of like rationalistic single page program that then perfectly understands itself or whatever, you have something that is uh really hard to interpret. No one knows exactly how it works. It's tied in with like, you know, it's it's it's learned things. It doesn't fully understand what it's learned from like the wild expansive human language, right? And so when I think about organizationally kind of the difference, the the the the wild edge, if you will, between something that's a cult and something that's like, well, we need to just sit here in our little internal bubble until we sort of self-perfect enough or the modern world starts to crumble. So, so that's unbalanced in one way. And then you imagine like you have a fairly normal, you know, modern corporation. And it's like, well, we're we're just interested in making money and getting the efficient product. I think the things that kind of >> find the find their balance there are going to be organizations that >> have a hypothesis but understand that hypothesis as a hypothesis and so are willing to uh listen and engage with others. And it's something that we're both doing is building organizations that really stress like surface area with the world. like people are going to >> it's already a hard question to answer.

[00:27:59]It's like what's the purpose? What's the goal of the students? What what's the goal of Avalon? And I think we're both going to have a degree of hesitancy in answering that question because people are looking for the management. They're asking what you're optimizing for and we'll kind of keep optimizing for. And in the in the realm of the modern world where everyone wants control, right?

[00:28:20]Everyone wants control and we're all very anxious about the future and we have all these arguments about our anxiety about the future and what exactly is going wrong and where where we're like what what what the solutions are and trying to hammer those out in kind of an ideological sense rather than creating uh situations, circumstances, organizations where it's easier to listen to other people, to listen to other traditions.

[00:28:51]engage in this mindset of looking for the right answer really reduces um the individual and all of the things that they contain to like a program for executing the right answer once once you find it where it's more like because again in the Nichian framework you are this like unification of all the all the different traditions and perspectives that have influenced you. You know, you you are your friends, you are your culture, you are the philosophies and the authors you have read and you you know Nich has he started to go mad said that he said I am every name in history and maybe that's going too far but one is a lot of things and those things all come with their own inter internal logic that in order to mean anything in the world has to be self-insistent right >> and so It's not so it's sort of this like everything in the world is not uh is not capital in the sense that it's not all like the the things we believe in like the passions are not reducible they're not exchangeable. Mhm.

[00:30:04]>> If someone came, I think to any individual who has substance to their character and was like, "Well, I I have this plan for like saving or changing the world, I think they might find that interesting, >> but they're not and they they may even put a lot of effort into whatever it is, but they're not going to drop everything, right? Because passions are things that we like sort of find worth doing forever, which I think explains a lot of human character formation, why people appear irrational in a certain sense, right? We could ask the question, okay, like why can't you give someone like why is it hard for people to to pivot, right?

[00:30:41]I'm love Nichze. I'm going to keep reading Nichze. I'm going to keep bringing up Nichze.

[00:30:47]>> Mhm.

[00:30:48]>> Maybe if there's some kind of war in the future, I'll be like reading Nichze in the trenches. And I think the things that matter to kind of like the character of the world are the things of this type that people are just going to keep doing and keep insisting on.

[00:31:03]>> The right the the how would you put this? It's it's like that insistence, the uh the passion, the the thing. This is kind of gets back to something I was talking about or I was alluding to earlier, I think maybe even before this conversation of the um the thing. It's like it's it's almost the wrong question to say like to to it's first of all the wrong question to say you know we're looking for the answer because uh you know that it it's sort of it's sort of like well then what's actually going on here is a particular form of question right and it's also um it's it's like You you have something already in you that is defining your direction and the main problem is pulling that out and articulating it and nurturing it. Like there's some mode of life. There's some the hypothesis is in there, right? It's just kind of it's been it's been contained to some degree. And um at least that's what I think's going on here. It's like we have a hypothesis.

[00:32:24]It's just we don't we haven't figured out how to articulate it. And I think to your point like and to to Nichch's point about this this kind of Disian aspect of truth. It's like maybe it can't be articulated. It can't it's not something that is subject to verbalization. It's this instinct that that is uh instinct for life. It's this instinct for life that that you know maybe can find boundaries with other things instinctually. It can find alliances with other things instinctually. I mean I try I I sort of try to understand it verbally as this kind of I call it philosophy right it's specifically philosophy in the Nichian kind of tradition but even that you know it's it's not this like tight it's not like you write down its axioms on a piece of paper and be like yeah this is the thing right there's nothing like that it's it's a living thing it's a living tradition that has like you're like you were kind of alerting alluding to earlier it's kind of got encrypted boundaries like the your point about cults like a cult maybe is trying to make itself too legible and the real thing is actually this this thing that's not necessarily legible even to itself but does exist and it is insistent and um unfortunately this makes the whole thing very difficult to talk about >> but I think there's something here >> uh that we have this this tradition that that we're pulling on and maybe maybe as it finds footing in the world, you know, it will find names, right? It it will come to be referred to by one one in one way or another. But yeah, I like your point that that like to sort of pre-attern yourself with this kind of VC optimized like metrics, you know, it's like, well, here's our goal, here's our metric, like here's here's how we're subordinate to your pattern of of of optimization, right? in your pattern of evaluation. It's like that's what you're declaring in in that is is like a certain kind of subordination.

[00:34:31]Um that that I think um in one way it's right to resist that that sort of the subordination of of clarity. On the other hand, clarity is this difficult and valuable thing and it's easy to like cope about not having it. You know what I mean?

[00:34:55]>> Yeah.

[00:34:55]>> Like it's easy to say, "Oh yeah, like we're avoiding, you know, answering what our what our things for." Cuz it's actually just a bunch of people hanging out and like wasting time and like, you know, it doesn't have any goals. It doesn't have any tendency. It doesn't have any reality to it.

[00:35:10]>> Um, and you know, it's easy to [ __ ] that, right? That's >> so I wonder how you distinguish those.

[00:35:17]>> Yeah. I mean, >> not that we have to make ourselves accountable to anyone, but but >> internally like value and it's like you were talking about with with language. I mean, I think Nietze does a remarkably good job of evoking a lot of the significance of life in language. And that kind of evocation is different from >> explanation or just or specification really getting pinned down. It's trying to bring out something in you. Um >> Yeah. He's painting impressions. He's showing metaphors. It's like poetic.

[00:35:52]It's it's not Yeah. It's not this this like analytic mode, right?

[00:35:58]>> Yeah. And I mean sometimes he's very clear-sighted and NZ engaged really extensively. We know from his notes that he was sometimes sitting there and running through different logical patterns like he read logicians. He had he had familiarity with that tradition.

[00:36:16]It's just that he didn't believe it was the ultimate and final good of philosophy >> just that it's not right. It's like you do have to engage a lot with the anal with the analysis. you do have to gauge a lot with these questions of optimization, these questions of of strategy or these questions of of like, you know, how do you get out of this or how do you get through that or what's the what's the specification of what we're doing? Like I think these are all actually really valuable questions which is why I've been asking them. Um, but they can I guess the thing that that you're getting at about Nichch's work is he's he's sort of denying the sovereignty of any of those questions, >> which I think I think that's correct. I think that's that's like the sovereign the thing that has sovereignty is much more in Nicha's thought is much more like the will to power itself. It's just this kind of instinct of life and it's this it's this uh or or this like particular pattern of play and joy and and living.

[00:37:12]>> And I think that things that are worth giving sovereignty to are often mysterious.

[00:37:20]They don't also do not try to um insist upon themselves in all cases. I often think about civilization as this remarkable ability to sort of pass the crown. And it's like in a genuinely civilized environment, the political leaders go and they watch the musicians and give all due respect to the musicians or the philosophers or whatever other traditions which are all going to go and insist upon themselves and have their own interior loyalty which should not just refer back to the loyalty to >> the state or the ideology or the correct way of managing the world. Right? People should be loyal >> even if they exist within that order.

[00:38:00]People should be loyal to their own things and we have to find like anything that's remarkable, anything that's a civilizational level order or or even like a a good national level order, right? Where you're like, well, here here is a here is a framework which we don't even fully understand by which we've miraculously managed to get all of these uh all of these crazy people with their own priorities and their own things that they kind of want to do eternally and their own passions. And here's some framework where we can all kind of participate mutually in paying attention to some set at least of the same musicians, the same films and then creating like this rich culture around that. And that's kind of like >> like I am not personally I you know I love answers. I have studied as much as many people about like the origins of the modern world, the particular subsystems that compose it. There's a lot of time I think for that strategic and tactical discussion. But I think that there is more. It's like finding sovereignty not just kind of within ourselves. Not just in terms of like you know Mishima writing about like the inner darkness of the body and growing thematically.

[00:39:15]That's all very important, but also like with other people and like starting to actually have a a sense of a a sense of a Wii that is like sophisticated. And this is another just like a problem with cults is they're like ecologically boring from a cultural perspective.

[00:39:31]>> Yeah. And this is this is I I like what you're saying here. This is this is very much like pulling together a bunch of different things. Like that point about every every sort of tradition in society whether it's the musicians or the philosophers or the politicians the statesmen or the military people they have their own uh in a way their own gods right and they're doing their own thing and each thing is mysterious to the others.

[00:39:58]Nonetheless, in a healthy civilization, they're able to work out some kind of mutually beneficial relationships, right? It's like, okay, well, the musicians learn how to engage with the statesmen and the statesmen learn how to sponsor the musicians and they learn how to like get mutual profit out of this, but that doesn't mean that any of these things is like fully subordinate to the other, right? There is no there's no like shared sovereignty. And this is one of the the flaws maybe of like modernist or rationalistic thinking is attempting to kind of place society in a single hierarchy, right? That is like this sort of social monotheism of like, you know, there's going to be some set of axioms, you know, held by the philosopher king and like everything else is self-consciously in reference to the philosopher king or whatever, right? And I think that's um you know it's a it's an impoverished view like you're saying kind of cultlike right and and this is why a lot of the big modernism the the modern totalitarianisms have been these these sort of cultlike outbreaks of simplification.

[00:41:02]Um, and and this also ties back to Nichch's what you're what you're sort of pointing out in Nichch's work, which is this kind of ecosystem thinking like, and you know, Nichch is very much looking at the thing much more in in this kind of mysterious multiplicity.

[00:41:22]Um, and I um I wonder even the religious angle seems relevant. And I think this is another thing we wanted to discuss in Nietze is like Nietz is maybe a little bit more pagan than a lot of other philosophers had been up until that time. You know, he's he's certainly like not Christian. Uh he's certainly, you know, a Hellenist. You he likes the the ancient Greeks. I don't think he's explicitly invoking gods in any sort of kitschy way. But but there's something polytheist about that ecosystem view that sees the multi the multiple forces in society as having their own traditions and their own gods. M >> um and yeah that that that's this question that fascinates me is like is like okay if we are in the grips of some mysterious tendency some mysterious divinity even that is going in a particular direction with a particular hypothesis uh that's not the totality of of you know it's not the one god or whatever like what does that what does that mean religiously that's this is fascinating question to Um I'm curious to hear your take on on that set of angles.

[00:42:41]>> One of the first uh poems that Nichza ever uh wrote when he was a kid, it's like 14 or 15 or something like this was uh entitled to to an unknown god >> referencing Paul and Alexandria. Um, and I think something that remains really consistent throughout Nichzche's thought is that he has this real hatred of people trying to, you know, it's almost like you said, this like kitschiness or obviousness, >> right? where you take something that is in fact the central mystery of everything >> whether you believe in God or not. We can just replace that with like where are things headed? What should we do?

[00:43:31]Mhm.

[00:43:32]>> Is it all adding up to something like you are going to I mean you you could certainly say and Nichze certainly entertains the idea um as much as sometimes he writes about there being some kind of directionality to to life or some kind of you know legibility through like the will to power as an interpretive system. At other times he thinks about the other perspective.

[00:43:52]Everything's raw irreducible chaos. You can say that and then sort of ends the discussion. So in so far as the discussion is kind of continuing and it references the mystery of what ends up on top of your hierarchy of values, what is ultimately most valuable.

[00:44:11]>> Um that whatever was even a good symbol or articulation of that would have to be almost unimaginably rich. rather than this kind of systemic pastiche. So, so what I mean by that is like you take I I think for for for Nietze the thing that is kind of almost like a a horrific uh mutilation is like well you know we figured it out guys here's like the the handful of tenants that conduct you know rational behavior how humans should live or please God and whatever it is and that nature really believes that I mean I think he does believe that some things are are higher He has a lot of faith in life that is kind of uniting this religious orientation towards the world with Darwinism that like >> evolution is real. Evolution is taking place.

[00:45:12]>> But I don't think his thought is is with reference to Darwinism in that way.

[00:45:16]>> Well, he believes in evolution.

[00:45:18]>> We would parse it in that way. Well, >> he had his belie Yeah, I think he's got quibbles with it. But >> but just just just >> evolution, >> we can parse it in that way.

[00:45:27]>> Evolution is happening. It's definitely something as a result of evolution that we find better and better and kind of kind of can presume this is uh continuing. So if we're orienting ourselves, if we like believe that we can have an orientation towards the future of life, then we we're essentially asking the question, how do we even given our sort of limitations and the fact we don't know everything establish the foundations for something better to come uh after us. So this is the question of how do you create something beyond yourself which Nichze essentially characterizes as as um you know paving the way almost as I sometimes think of as like providing uh micronutrients. Nze uses the phrase making the rich earth uh the the earth excuse me making the earth richer.

[00:46:27]>> Mhm.

[00:46:27]>> For what's going to happen next. So we find ourselves within the context of modern civilization and things we find valuable in our own life like NZ was totally revolutionary for me when I I read him like did change my life and we have all of these other things you know >> the songs you found the most moving the poetry the films the existence of you know your nation your country your civilization whatever else you find valuable on like the dimension of sort of social and political order the the road has been paved for your existence.

[00:47:03]Even just, you know, the whole ecology of life, like as human beings, we require such an incredibly rich like we're not we're not photo plankton sitting there just getting like this this single point source of energy. like no, the world has kind of been prepared for us and we absolutely could not exist without all of the extreme diversity that only exists kind of because it uh exists for itself >> and is trying to go trying to go in its own direction and and do its own thing and by so doing produces this environment where more and more sophisticated things can can emerge. So within the context of human life for nature, this essentially means like figure out what you're willing to to kind of die for to to die in the process of doing really to do indefinitely to try to perfect so that you create in your own way your your addition to to the fabric of the world on which like anyone who makes anything you could ever characterize as a kind of progress will emerge. So in the first sermon in Zarath, he's writing about um these people who go under, you know, for the sake of justice or for the sake of scholarship or pity or love. And he runs through all these kind of archetypes of human beings who noly really went and did something and like contributed to this like ecological edifice of culture on which things can mount. And so I think that that's that's at least a an individually oriented perspective is like maybe you will in the course of that find some kind of answer to some set of the modern uh set of struggles we're experiencing. But in so far as you kind of believe that you as an individual are not about to necessarily draw Excalibur from the stone and like strike down whatever whatever force is making the modern world kind of a depressive place.

[00:49:09]>> Mhm.

[00:49:10]>> Then you're in a position of uh trying to have something like in yourself and then trying to to find other people to like do that kind of cultural work with. Yeah.

[00:49:21]>> And I mean that's the question we're both we're both kind of concerned with is that we need to have a new environment where both one can worship one's own god so to speak, do one's own thing without bowing to others but exist around other people enough that you get the flow of a real ecology. And and that is the that is the tricky balance of like finding the right distance from other people in so far as we're both not disposed to be hermits and we also don't want to make ourselves participate in you know the system of the crowd or like the kind of naive normal logic of >> that sometimes I feel like I should just be a hermit but I want to I want to sort of dig a little deeper on the on the question of of like uh some phrasing you used around you creating this kind of thing beyond yourself or like this your contribution to history. I wonder if it's maybe better to even say it's you're participating in something beyond yourself that that is coming from outside yourself. And this gets to this question in Nichza like Nietze very much emphasizes this need for the uber manch to kind of create new values right or like for man and and to like rise above the sort of things that we've received and to kind of do the transvaluation of values to to to sort of push that boundary in this creative way. But I wonder the actual ontology of that act is is interesting. Like are you creating? Is it is it an act of will and creation or is it you know it feels like the the kind of thread we've been pulling on here would suggest much more of a you know you're you're being swept up in something right? You're finding something. you're you're uh getting joining some current that that exists beyond yourself. I I wonder how would how does Nietze think about that? I mean you you've read a lot more of it than I have.

[00:51:26]>> Yeah. One of the things that Nietze and he kind of finds I think a um at least a parallel thread to Buddhism obviously if he has a lot of disagreements with it. One of the things that NZ ends up rejecting quite firmly is what he refers to as like soul atomism.

[00:51:46]>> So this is the idea that there's some permanent irreducible essence.

[00:51:49]>> Yeah. The the Rian atom like the the sort of the the the self that comes out of the ether and incarnates into a person by some random lottery and and then you know takes on moral responsibility for the actions of of just that self but not the circumstances or whatever.

[00:52:07]>> Yeah. Yeah. So he rejects that >> without I I uh do not know everything about how the soul or even the body or mind work but I think that there's a lot that can be gained.

[00:52:18]>> Let's just be atheists with respect to those things >> in well or at least agnostic but let's just try and approach it in a sense practically um and say that you know your sort of naive physical body has a certain kind of value. your relationships have a value, the knowledge you've accumulated has a kind of value and that you are not and this is again you know NZ is definitely pushing against >> the sort of cartisian perspective which again like sections the self off from the world >> and so you are an intersection of a bunch of other forces and things but that intersection is potentially like very very valuable >> and to use again the the metaphor of like dance and music the the dance can have an extreme kind of significance and beauty. It can demand a lot of a lot of uh skill even just a simple like willingness to be moved and also you're not going to get the same kind of dance if like the music is absent. So this is just to say there's just kind of a straightforwardly real interaction that is transformative, but we don't I I think we don't need to invoke a kind of mysterious creation where like you know the the soul the soul atom does something or exercises its freedom of will.

[00:53:46]>> Yeah. Well, there's this sort of like there's this >> I guess you're articulating a what what I might call a healthier viewpoint, which is like okay, the self as this confluence of of existing features of the world, there's existing tendencies in the world, this valuable confluence that then goes and passes on those those inheritances to to to other things. And you know, you can talk about it as as I or as a self or as a you know, you can talk about its actions as actions of will. They certainly involve some level of agency, but yeah, there's this kind of like um what you might even call a satanic kind of view of the will uh that that is that is like that the things you do are yours alone, right? That there this this counterpoint that to that which I think >> um you know, am I accusing RS of being a Satanist? Maybe, right? like that that or deart like it's it's this kind of the moral the moral like self atom.

[00:54:48]>> I think it's worth addressing where that comes from because I think it has >> what do you think it is?

[00:54:52]>> I think it has a like I think there is some valid basis for an intense feeling of individuality.

[00:54:58]>> Yeah. And I think that it's probable even from things we could kind of describe mathematically and from a purely sort of even a naive materialist view of the world >> like the the way in which something is is altered by coming in contact with you is extremely individualistic right >> like the way any particular set of information exists inside of your own mind you know your memories are stored holographically within your brain so they say I hardly understand even what that means. But what I know and what you can know experientially is that there is an enormous amount of texture to your own experience. And I think that a lot of that texture may be sort of elements of it may be genuinely irreducible.

[00:55:43]So, so something could be definitively only ever the product of a single mind, right?

[00:55:51]in the sense that I don't even know, you know, >> there are definite like creative there are definitely creative works of of like a single great mind. Yeah. So, I'm not denying that it's but there's there's also this like maybe useful thing even of those great minds for them to understand themselves as channeling something larger.

[00:56:11]>> That is generally speaking how the great minds understand the >> Well, that's that's what I'm getting.

[00:56:16]>> Constantly evoking the muses for a reason. A lot of mysticism including like the Sufis who Nietze has some familiarity with are um evoking the image of being an instrument in some sense you know >> that you are and you can be a you can be a good instrument you can be a really beautiful a really significant instrument you can even be a totally individual instrument and there's like no other instrument quite like it but that doesn't do anything in the absence of the other other forces that are are moving and like moving through you Right. And you have to have a certain openness to that that that um and this like to get back to the last man like the last man sort of feels uh if I can kind of dwell on that for a minute. The last man feels sort of dejected by the belief that none of those larger forces are with him. Right? Like I I think that's part of what characterizes the the last man psychologically is just this this kind of uh detachment from all that. It's like I'm just just myself just living you know in this extremely humble sort of disconnected way not participating in the stream of history not do not have agency over the world uh except to like >> yeah hate and tear down >> satanic or like let's just say you know like an arrogant will >> has a redeeming feature of a kind which is that it's on a collision course the rest of the world.

[00:57:51]>> At least it has ambition. Right.

[00:57:52]>> Right. At least it has ambition and that means that something is going to be worked out. Like something is going to happen.

[00:57:58]>> There's going to be a tragic arc there.

[00:57:59]>> There's going to be a tragic arc and maybe other people will learn from it.

[00:58:02]The world will change. Maybe the maybe the the arrogant person will be usefully humbled. Maybe they'll humble other people and then themselves be humbled, which is often what happens with like a Napoleonic type figure.

[00:58:18]the and then the the last man I think is in a position where they they have a kind of extreme like they're kind of doing everything for themselves.

[00:58:28]Everything is being bent towards just the continuity and comfort of their own.

[00:58:32]>> Yeah. They just they just want to grow >> falling out out of out of out of place.

[00:58:36]Um, and so it's a kind of very odd combination, I think, of a sort of arrogance that says I well I'm I'm not going to be moved to any kind of >> right that they're actually the they're the center of their moral universe, but simultaneously they're not going to really do anything.

[00:58:55]>> They're Yeah. It's like they're the center of their moral universe and their universe is really really really tiny.

[00:59:01]Right.

[00:59:01]>> Right. rather than I'm the center of my moral universe, which means I'm going to go out and and and do these expansive things and think about the whole condition of the world and try to, you know, try to do something definitive within my my domain, whatever that happens to be, whether it's philosophy or politics or uh >> some sport even, you know, or music. um where you often see these people who are like, you know, really possessed of a belief that they're godlike basically and have to go and work that out and they're going to find, you know, they're going to find some very they're going to find something out at the end of the day.

[00:59:39]>> They're either going to succeed in which case, you know, all all honor to them or they're going to fail and add to, you know, the sort of like tragic memory of the human race. But um but yeah, the the moral universe being tiny and almost like nothing can really enter into it, you know, >> like >> I feel I mean this this question of of tragedy of like going beyond yourself to actually live tragically to risk to risk tragedy I guess is is maybe one way to characterize that agency that is not the last man, right? The last man is not willing to risk tragedy. He might have all these other ideas. He might like this intense sort of frustration with his position, but he's not he might even attempt things, but never in a way that risks becoming this tragic example, right? And and maybe like is is the escape from the last man to live as a hypothesis. Is that not just the the will to or the willingness to live a tragic arc, right? to to live in to the willingness to fail spectacularly, right? It's like, yeah, you want to succeed. You're certainly going for success, but like the the lack of fear of failing spectacularly >> cuz like the the last, you know, the one thing that the last man will never do is fail spectacularly, right? It'll it'll the last man will sort of be snuffed out of existence quietly and no one will care.

[01:01:08]>> Yeah. I think if you love anything, then you will be willing to take risks.

[01:01:15]for its sake.

[01:01:16]>> Yeah. Or I wonder if you can turn that around. It's like you're not capable of loving anything unless you're going to take a risk. Unless you're willing to take risks. Yeah. I mean, this might be a good place to end the conversation. I feel like we've had a good sort of tour through the through the problem of the last man through Nichzche's work, the various lenses that he's bringing on that. Um this has been really interesting. Thank you for coming on.

[01:01:39]>> Yeah, my pleasure.