Zombie Nietzscheanism

It is very easy to fall prey to Zombie Nietzscheanism, because the fundamental requirement for understanding Nietzsche is that the upper part of the Mind and the lower part of the Mind are already on good speaking terms. This is simply not the case for most people, as social conditioning and the pressure of Superego causes us to repress very much awareness of what Nietzsche terms "the instincts".

Let me make this even clearer by putting it into shamanistic terms. Shamanistic practice facilitates awareness of "the instincts" in Nietzsche's sense. These instincts are not at all who one is in the public and socially definable sense. These can be understood as the individual's underlying character structure as determined by the nature of the appetite for violence, sexuality, etc., but they are also the reflexes that have been acquired -- like the ability to move effectively in martial arts, without having to think about it. As unconscious mechanisms, they are necessarily hidden from the view of society, nearly all of the time.

It is through shamanistic practice that one can open up a dialogue between one's conscious self and the part of the mind that governs reflexive behaviour. This is the key feature of what I have termed "shamanistic doubling". It involve, necessarily, a "doubling" of the sense of self, because the higher parts and lower parts of the mind and function with very different orientations towards the world, and so can never truly become one in a practical sense. The best that can be done is to open up a dialogue between them. But it is this very experiential knowledge of the doubling structure of the mind that enables one to draw co-ordinates on reality, in such a way as to recognise the merit or lack thereof in various actions. For, one measures these on a ladder of value only in shamanistic terms. To attempt to establish a Nietzschean hierarchy of values on the basis of one's cultural or social conditioning is purely nonsensical, and it is an attempt that is doomed to fail. Who, after all, cares how dogmatic your position is, or how resolute, if you are merely stuck in the mud, and project an unpleasing disposition?

Rather, a perfect action is an action in which the "instincts" have become one with the higher mind. A thoroughly imperfect action is where the instincts and the higher mind are at odds. All other actions are on a scale in between these two standards, depending on the degree of coordination that has been facilitated between the higher and the lower minds.

This principle brings me to the issue of Zombie Nietzscheanism, as an example of contradistinction to the basic shamanistic position. A Zombie Nietzschean is one who reads Nietzsche's works in order to discover a hidden recipe for success. "Ah!" he mutters to himself, "Nietzsche confesses to a certain misogyny. It's only right, therefore, that I should also adopt a misogynistic attitude, if I aim to be powerful, like him!"

The abject failure of such a person to even begin to do the essential groundwork of discovering the nature and meaning of his own (rather than Nietzsche's) instincts is very evident. Why should there be any advantage in adopting somebody's else's self-knowledge and assuming their instincts to be the same as one's own? If this is "will to power", it's very misdirected, and a recipe for falling flat upon one's face.

I speak of a huge failure of instinct, measured in shamanistic terms.