Bringing Home

When Nietzsche talks about humans being honey-gathers (pretty sure I'm paraphrasing) what he seems to mean is that we do not understand anything without it being in the context of ourselves. What I take this to mean is that we are self-focused. Of course, he is known for this, but to assimilate this idea into our opposite, into our current cultural demand for sacrifice, requires more precise elaboration.

He means what Rand thought he meant (when she liked him) and that is: self-focus is our ultimate goal. So far as we see ourselves in the world, all kinds of society-focused and others-focused actions will ultimately improve our own condition. This simply means that helping others or helping the planet in fact improves our own lives. In terms of how value works, however, these all come second to self-focus.

The ultimate goal has to be self-focus, in this theory, if there is any focus. The grand idea is helping, say, the environment, which improves our lives as well as others. But in so far as our life is similar to another's life, saving the planet saves everyone. Therefore, "help" is seen through the lens of self-focus.

But here we can make another comment about the rewards of honey-gathering, of fluttering about and bringing ideas and action home to an antecedent premise of self-value. It could be said that a priority system makes the most sense within the confines of our individual lives, and that prioritizing global or "grand" efforts is our mission. To save the environment, for example, has not only a wider effect, but a more efficient potential than giving to the poor. Within a self-focused model, only the self can arbitrate a fine-tuning of potential and priority (without centering on the self, this cannot be understood and is met with rote anger, what N called "rancor"). Without this rational position, the priority is lost, the "truth" becomes pure rote, and the result is a contradiction at best. What this means is that giving material resources to the poor, sacrificing time and money for a swath of underprivileged people, has very little effect on a self-defined system. The consequence, also, will show this and has shown this in our world. The actual material reasons why this equation fails is beyond the scope of this piece, but the take-away is that there is a priority.

Humbling one's ethics, however vague and uncertain, toward the self, is the first step of philosophical self-awareness and the allure of this position, for those who gain it, is exactly the attraction so many people had to Rand's work. Losing one's belief system to rote demands for sacrifice covers over this realization. The consequence is a pitiful and reactionary "giving" that has no real object according to Rand.

However, being positioned at the self, and putting energy into the planet materially, or teaching "grand" ideas, like rational self interest, or, I might add, critical commonsense, has the potential to save the world (or at least to "teach a man to fish.")