Rule or be ruled?
Thoughts on the rise and fall of Ideals
There is much talk about what is called the ‘death of Ideals.’ It is said, that in the West, there used to be a strong belief in Ideals, which found their metaphysical grounding in Plato’s theory of forms. Later, in philosophical modernity, these Ideals lose their objective character, and become wholly subjective characteristics of Pure Reason itself. But now, it is said, we no longer believe in Ideals at all. There are no higher things to strive for, no Ideals to guide our behaviour, and hence, everything goes. Or rather, nothing goes. With no Ideals to serve as guiding lights for our actions, where are we heading? And are we even heading somewhere?
In this text I will offer some of my thoughts on this development from objective Ideals, through subjective Ideals, to ‘no Ideals at all’, only to then question if we are truly without Ideals. Is it even possible to be without Ideals?
I.
In Plato, it is said, arises the idea of ‘forms.’ Everything we perceive with our senses, is only an image of a higher reality. Why? I see someone acting justly, and someone else slightly less just. In both these persons, I say there is justice. But, justice is only present in them imperfectly. It is present, but not fully present. So there is simultaneously justice, and no justice. There is evidently such a thing as justice, but I cannot fully see it here. So where is it? There must be a ‘perfect justice’ somewhere, but this is not to be found in the world we perceive. But it can be grasped through reason by abstracting from all particular instances of justice. I see many people acting justly, and thus I get a notion of justice itself. This justice in itself is never fully present in the sensible world, but it does exist, as an ‘ideal form’ that is both the ground and end for the ‘justices’ we do see in the sensible world. It is the ground, but it is also the end, of a particular instance of justice we see. I strive to be just, and hence ‘justice’ is the drying force for me to strive to be just. And in this striving, justice is also the ideal end of my striving. It is because of justice that I strive, in that it ignites my striving, but is also the goal of my striving. And as with justice, so likewise with Beauty, Wisdom, Temperance, etc. And this basic scheme can be applied to all things we strive for. There is no perfect Philosopher to be found, but there are many philosophers, all of which strive to become the ideal Philosopher. This ideal serves as the ground for the particular philosopher’s activity, and also as his end. Likewise, there are many artists, but there is no perfect Artist. Yet all artists strive to attain the ideal.
Later, in Kant. The notion of Idea finds a new incarnation. Ideas and Ideals are no longer present objectively, rather, they are productions of Reason itself, a reason in which we all share. Ideals have become subjective, yet this subjectivity is shared by all. Ideals are not things outside of us, existing in an ideal realm of forms, they are rather buried in the deepest layers of our subjectivity. But they retain their original function. They are the ground of all our actions and thoughts in the world, but also the end of all our actions and thoughts.
Even later, through Nietzsche and into ‘post-modernity’, Ideals lose their aspect of being inherent to a universally shared reason, and ideals become entirely subjective. The universal subject has died, and there remain only highly particular individuals, each one so different from the other, that there is hardly anything common. And as such, the notion of Ideals has to become likewise highly particular to the individual. Ideals can still exist, but the responsibility for their existence, lies entirely with the individual. Nothing is given. You no longer grow up in a world were Ideals are given to you by Nature, Reason, or culture, your only responsibility residing in following them. Rather, creating them is now entirely up to you.
Freedom! It sounds great, and it is, but only for those capable. For it takes great strength to divine an ideal entirely by yourself, and to keep focus on it entirely by yourself, while the world around you distracts you from it. And you can be sure it distracts you, for everyone has their own particular ideals for which they are striving. Social life becomes a clash of different manners of living, guided by different ideals. There are no longer any Ideals enslaving you, but because of this, there is also no longer any support. Plato could come up with Ideals, and so could Kant, but can we? It is hard, and in those incapable arises the desire to be done with Ideals all together. Ideals are to be done with, not because they were abused for malicious intent in previous ages, but because they are bad in themselves.
We no longer want to be ruled, and punished, by an ideal, because the ideal is bad or distorted. Rather, we don’t want to be ruled at all, not even by our own ideals. The stronger the Ideal one sets, the stronger the punishment when engaging in activities that drag one further away from the Ideal. If I set Temperance as an ideal for my actions, and I act intemperate, I ‘punish’ myself for it. Kant stresses continuously, that the Ideal is a judge.
Hence, it is tempting to try and live without. It is easier to call Plato a tyrant, than to become like Plato oneself. But here is the problem, there will always be other people who do have ideals. And as it is said, he who has no plan, becomes a victim to someone else's plan.
II.
An ideal lays out a goal, and ignites a plan towards this goal. As such, an ideal determines what we strive for, and how we strive for it. But it is impossible to strive for nothing, unless one would stop moving and wait for death in silence. If you do not do this, you are necessarily striving towards something. You might not know towards what, but you are striving, and you are making choices. If ideals are given through Nature, Reason, or culture, man has it easy. But when these ideals are taken (modernity and onwards), man must be capable of postulating these ideals himself, and he must be capable of keeping focus on them by himself.
With no ideals given by nature or by culture, man is confronted with his own weakness of will. It is hard to posit an ideal, one reason being that an ideal is a judge. The ideal of Beauty, judges one if one is ugly. And it is hard to focus on something that one cannot see with one’s senses.
What starts as a theoretical deconstruction with the hopes of making stronger and freer individuals, ends up being abused to excuse slavery. At first, Ideals are objective and eternal. Later, Ideals become inherent to reason, and even later, Ideals become merely ideals, fully subjective and temporal. Where our lives used to be creations urged on by the motivating power of eternal Ideals, Ideals are now created entirely by us. And if their existence depends entirely on us, then why even care for them? They are just fictions made up by people, so why would I follow them? An Ideal I set for myself is just a creation of me. So why should I care for it, if what is in front of my eyes is much more real than this fiction of my imagination? And so starts the long deconstruction of the notion of Ideals.
But why does one deconstruct ideals? Which life is doing the deconstructing? The life that wants to set its own ideals vis-à-vis a corrupt society with false ideals, or the life that wants to be done with the subjection to ideals altogether?
Nietzsche writes:
"One wants to get around the will, the willing of a goal, the risk of positing a goal for oneself; one wants to rid oneself of the responsibility (one would accept fatalism)”
(Nietzsche, WTP, §20)
Man wants, he needs, an ideal, a goal, to be given by some authority outside of himself. For he is too weak to do it for himself. But there are no longer any ideals to be found in this world. Yet the paradox, man is a being that strives forward, necessarily.
So he is left with the choice: he either musters up his strength, and posits an ideal for himself. Or, he becomes a slave to the goals of others. Mostly, he chooses the latter option. But of course, it is easier to tell oneself that one has no ideals, than to admit that one is a slave to the plan of someone else. This way, one can have the benefit of seeming like a strong person AND one doesn't have to actually be a strong person, one can still be a slave.
'I do not follow because I am weak, I follow because this because it is the right thing'. 'You might think I am ugly, but I do not believe in such a thing as Beauty, you see it is subjective, et cetera.’
‘I am not the victim of societal degeneration, it is my own choice to live without ideals, go with the flow you know.’ This is of course a highly psychologising manner of looking at things, but let us look further:
The streams of thought that posit that there are no ideals, could all be victim of this nihilistic tendency that Nietzsche speaks about. It is easier to deny that there are ideals, than to have the strength to posit an ideal, and be judged by it.
When certain concepts are questioned, one must always ask oneself: who is doing the questioning? And why are they questioning? From what motivation does this question stem? From what mode of life? Who questions the existence of God, he who has a real argument, or the sinner? Who questions the Self, he who wants to understand himself out of self-love, or he who wants to be done with himself out of self-hatred?
The same goes for Ideals. Who questions Ideals? He who wants a better and more accurate notion? He who wants better Ideals? Or he who wants to escape the hard work of working towards an Ideal? There might be life-affirming reasons for questioning the notion of Ideals, but there are also life-denying reasons for doing the same.
"What even is health?" as an excuse to not better one's own health. There is a pernicious benefit that comes with posing such questions, in that you can retain the praise formerly only given to those who attained the ideal, but at the same time you don’t have to do the hard work of actually attaining the ideal. You get both benefits; you seem strong (what an intelligent guy!), and you can still be a slave. You can still be rewarded for your power, which no longer consists in actualizing an ideal, but in having the intelligence to question ideals. But you are still a slave. A slave to whom? This is a more difficult question...
There might be no more hard ideals, but you are still a striving being. You eat when you are hungry, you go to work to sustain yourself, you watch tv to enjoy yourself.
And here's the trick. The people producing food for you, the people offering work, the media producing tv-shows, they do have goals/ends/'ideals'. They want to sell you food, they want you to be a slave in their factory, and they want you hooked to the screen. You might have no goals and ends encapsulated in an ideal, but the person selling you their product does have an ideal: riches.
But you no longer have ideals, which act as rules. If health is an ideal for you, you give yourself the rule to not eat things that are bad for your health. But if you have no ideal, you'll swallow anything that fulfils your immediate desire.
You don't care about the quality or conditions of your work, you have no ideal concerning this, you just want to work. Next thing you know you're getting infinite booster shots to go to work. For you have no ideal, you won't know how to judge. But the paradox, you judge either way. You do something, or you don't do something. You do this, or you do that. Even those who strive for nothing and choose to rot in their apartment behind a screen, are still eating, still buying products, and still consuming media.
So you become a pure slave, merely a means to the goals of whoever has most power to grab your attention.
First, there are objective ideals. Then, in modernity, there are no longer objective ideals residing in a realm of forms, but there are ideals inherent to Reason. Later, in 'post-modernity', there is not even a ‘Reason’ anymore, and thus, no more ideals. Nietzsche was visionary in that he saw where this would lead; with this death of God, and later of Reason, man has two choices. He either posits an ideal for himself, or he becomes a slave to someone else's ideal.
But of course, part of our weakness is that we are too weak to admit that we are being ruled. So we excuse our slavery. 'I am not pushed around by the ideals of others, there is no such thing as an ideal.' Or, 'ideals are totalitarian', 'having ideals is bad for mental health.’
Questions can be put forth to enhance life, and to find truth, but they can also be put forth to postpone recognition of truth.
As we saw with corona, 'my freedom is not being taken away, don't you know that there is no such thing as freedom? And that true freedom resides in subjection?' And here there is actually a great truth, for in a sense there is no freedom, only subjection to ideals, only being pushed forth and being punished by the goals one sets...
The question is, whose ideals? What goals?
There is no 'out' of having ideals or goals to strive for. The question is, what goals? What ideal?
IF we are ever to have collective ideals again that are worth striving for, to give direction to our communities, it will still be a very long time. So there is a choice. Will you muster up the strength the Ancients must have had, to truly think, and posit an ideal worth striving for, an ideal that is life-affirmative? Or will you be a victim to whoever has power in their hands?
The individual disbelief in ideals, and later renouncement of ideals entirely, makes one an easy victim for self-destruction (‘nothing matters’), and for self-enslavement.
The question becomes; is the 'death of ideals' the cause of this life of slavery. Or, is this life of slavery, the cause of the death of ideals? These are intertwined, and influence each other.
At face value, there seems to be much emancipatory potential in getting rid of objective and shared ideals. For ideals judge us, and they punish us if we are inadequate. Ideals pull us upwards, but they are brutal vis-à-vis those below. There is a slavery to ideals, evidently. But the problem; we necessarily strive, even if we don’t know for what end. There is much emancipatory potential in making ideals purely subjective, and even more in making ideals so subjective that they are no longer of a shared subjectivity, but of the individual. But this emancipatory potential is only there for those who don’t need to be told what to do, because they have the power to tell themselves what to do, and follow through with it. It requires tremendous discipline, focus on one’s own ideals, an ability to renounce listening to distractions, and a harshness towards one’s base instincts. Freedom is dangerous, it is said, for ideals are demanding. And hence, many would rather renounce ideals, while telling themselves they are free because of it.
In contemporary theorizing about politics, there is much lamentation for how we no longer think long-term. The sight of political decision-making only goes as far as the next elections, but there is no long term vision or ideal of where one wants to go. And in this sense, it fits nicely into the idea that we no longer have a notion of anything but what is right before our eyes. We only see with our eyes, but cannot divine a future with the mind’s eye. We have only eye for the material, and no longer for the ideal. This might well be true, but the problem is that it isn’t true for everyone. Even if we as a community of individuals don’t have ideals, I am sure our banks or our internet providers have a long term plan for where they want their business to go. We might only be thinking about what food we will buy to gratify our desires, but the companies providing the food, have hordes of futurists working for them to divine a plan for the future.
It is a cliché that freedom doesn’t consist in being free from rule, but in choosing how and by whom one wants to be ruled. There is truth in this, but one only understands it so far, if one only sees rule in a purely political & historical sense. It is first and foremost a question of how the individual relates to himself. What part of yourself will you follow? The rules set by the higher part of your soul, the part that is able to see further than its immediate surroundings, and is able to divine ideals and plans? Or the lower part, that sees only through its senses, and desires only to fulfil its most immediate desires? If you understand this basic dynamic of individual choice, you can look at it on a larger scale. For just as there is a higher and a lower part of the soul, there are higher and lower individuals. Higher, those who follow their own higher part. And lower, those who follow their own lower part. There seems to be freedom in getting rid of you own higher part, you won’t have to obey anymore! You can now do as you wish, that is, as your senses wish. But here is again the problem, you necessarily wish. You eat, you watch tv, you associate with people, you drink, etc. And here there is always a choice, will I eat this or that? Will I associate with this person or not? Et cetera. But if you have no ideal separate from the gratification of immediate desire, how will you choose? You won’t, your sensuous desires will choose. But someone chooses, either way. You have only traded the tyranny of your ideals, for the tyranny of the senses. How is this political or social? Well, you stand there in the store, choosing what food you want. And you will choose whatever your immediate desires call you to buy. Which is, whatever is most desirable. And hence, you are a slave to he who is able to make the most desirable food, who is able to pay most for advertising, who is best able to genetically modify the food for you palette to become addicted to it, etc. You are no longer a slave to your own ideals, but you have become a slave to your senses, and through them, a slave to the ‘ideals’ of he who wants you to buy his poison.
As much as the Ideal is tyrannical, in that it asks of us to obey it, there is also a tyranny much worse, of the senses untamed by Ideals. And through this, your lower self becomes a means for the ideals of others. You might not care about what you eat, but he who has a product to sell does care. You might not care what is programmed on tv tonight, but he who is doing the programming does care about what you get to see.