Nietzsche refers often to "instinct" and we are supposed to know what he means because of the way he views humanity as being organic, natural and idiosyncratic. Some people seem to presume he meant to speak about animal instinct, such as aggression or sexual drives, but we are supposed to be reading him more closely than that. He is concerned with a faculty more akin to intuition, deprived of its mystical connotations. Instinct is the intrinsic capacity to orient oneself in relation to the world without guidance from external sources, such as systems of morality or reason.
My previous post looks at how instinct of this sort works. When I speak to some people, I get the sense that we use the same words with entirely different meanings because of the very different way we have organized our being. The first fifteen years of my life were organized along lines of primeval nature, which means I am a latecomer to the Westerner's table. I understand that he organizes his existence on the basis of moral categories, but I'm not entirely aware of why he does so. He may feel a compulsion to take control of a reality that is in the process of escaping him, but the real event has already occurred in the loss of the inward self
This fundamental organizing principle is the teaching of self-hatred, which occurs when the child is very young. It may even be the case that males in Western culture are taught a deeper self-contempt than women, simply because their sexual drives appear to be more intense at the infantile stage. Women's sexuality develops later in life. As indicated above, sexual drives are not the same as intuitive self-knowledge, but they linked. When deep shame becomes the organizing principle of the psyche, it may be because one has wished to purge a sexual element felt to be embarrassing or wrong. The Western male violently transcends his sense of shame when Christian morality teaches him to save only an outwardly projected identity, through divorcing his emotion from external systems of logic and reason.
Nietzsche, Bataille and Marechera tried to recuperate the Western soul from this inculcated loss of capacity for self-understanding, consequent to its denial of its deeper intensities. Instinct might appear animalistic, but should be explored as part of who we are, for the alternative is to abide in hostile relations regarding the status of the self.
To be hostile to oneself means to divide the world into identity categories and police reality with one's morality. The gaze that should be directed lovingly -- or at times critically -- inwardly becomes hostile and antagonistic toward outsiders. Guilt is the only harsh curb that can contain a moralist on a marauding venture, but shame -- which is the awareness of inner intensities -- ought to have prevented anyone from going to such extremes. Bataille, Nietzsche and Marechera wish to restore a self-aware state, built on the experience of shame. They encourage free experimentation, with the expectation of self-love emerging.
Viewing intellectual shamans through the lens of Christian morality, they may seem to be encouraging the negative aspects of life, such as animal behavior. When emotions are conditioned by an engendered fear of one's self , any invitation to get to know oneself more deeply looks like criminality. Guilt takes hold and prevents the subject from venturing anywhere near self-knowledge.
Others learn to know things differently, meaning the language they speak will not be the same as those outlooks are the product of a guilty lack of self-appreciation.
My previous post looks at how instinct of this sort works. When I speak to some people, I get the sense that we use the same words with entirely different meanings because of the very different way we have organized our being. The first fifteen years of my life were organized along lines of primeval nature, which means I am a latecomer to the Westerner's table. I understand that he organizes his existence on the basis of moral categories, but I'm not entirely aware of why he does so. He may feel a compulsion to take control of a reality that is in the process of escaping him, but the real event has already occurred in the loss of the inward self
This fundamental organizing principle is the teaching of self-hatred, which occurs when the child is very young. It may even be the case that males in Western culture are taught a deeper self-contempt than women, simply because their sexual drives appear to be more intense at the infantile stage. Women's sexuality develops later in life. As indicated above, sexual drives are not the same as intuitive self-knowledge, but they linked. When deep shame becomes the organizing principle of the psyche, it may be because one has wished to purge a sexual element felt to be embarrassing or wrong. The Western male violently transcends his sense of shame when Christian morality teaches him to save only an outwardly projected identity, through divorcing his emotion from external systems of logic and reason.
Nietzsche, Bataille and Marechera tried to recuperate the Western soul from this inculcated loss of capacity for self-understanding, consequent to its denial of its deeper intensities. Instinct might appear animalistic, but should be explored as part of who we are, for the alternative is to abide in hostile relations regarding the status of the self.
To be hostile to oneself means to divide the world into identity categories and police reality with one's morality. The gaze that should be directed lovingly -- or at times critically -- inwardly becomes hostile and antagonistic toward outsiders. Guilt is the only harsh curb that can contain a moralist on a marauding venture, but shame -- which is the awareness of inner intensities -- ought to have prevented anyone from going to such extremes. Bataille, Nietzsche and Marechera wish to restore a self-aware state, built on the experience of shame. They encourage free experimentation, with the expectation of self-love emerging.
Viewing intellectual shamans through the lens of Christian morality, they may seem to be encouraging the negative aspects of life, such as animal behavior. When emotions are conditioned by an engendered fear of one's self , any invitation to get to know oneself more deeply looks like criminality. Guilt takes hold and prevents the subject from venturing anywhere near self-knowledge.
Others learn to know things differently, meaning the language they speak will not be the same as those outlooks are the product of a guilty lack of self-appreciation.
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