In philosophy, contradiction is taboo. In this way, philosophy is of the people and for the people. However, as they are from the earth, the people is not forever--there is still time to breathe, friend! This is what allows a sigh of relief for the contradictory in philosophy--the recalcitrant philosophers. This is so because this being looks for a fight in all everyday matters of life and philosophy serves as the best disturbance of such matters. So much so, that he would risk virtue out of fight. Contradiction is the fight that philosophy runs from, it is because of the avoidance of such fights that taboo is necessary-- it serves the security of the people. In this way, all matters of everyday life and peoples today are best disturbed by a disruption in the philosophy that precedes it.
Here, we see philosophy invite the recalcitrant into its heart. It acts strictly and tyrannically about its virtues and taboos and thus betrays exactly where it is weak and vulnerable. Tellingly, we find the daring recalcitrant in philosophy and life risk the taboo of contradiction. What we will converse about in this episode is why the recalcitrant is interested in defying the people and how this is possible, we may find that the objections protested by the people against the efforts of such a dangerous and reckless person is only a superficial fear. Yes, indeed, maybe the recalcitrant's play with taboo is actually best for their spirits!
Contradiction in philosophy presents as the law of God, it is exactly this law that the recalcitrant has grown weary of. It is exactly for this reason that the recalcitrant focuses his aim on the heart of philosophy in his hope for a breath of fresh air. The recalcitrant is a regular fool in the eye of the people. This is because the recalcitrant denies himself heaven, utopia, relief from breathing. The question then becomes, "Why?" Why is the ways of the fathers that brought him his will and love not adequate for his own continuation thereof? What is the reason for the recalcitrant's ingratitude? The recalcitrant has a simple answer but to this day it remains unutterable and inconceivable for his fathers and their children; this answer is: love. The word of the people is quick to condemn this answer, where the recalcitrant claims love, they only see self-love and for good reason! Reason indeed, my dear recalcitrant, what is wrong with it?
Good and evil and joy and sorrow and I and You - I thought them coloured vapour before the creator's eyes. The creator wanted to look away from himself, so he created the world.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Of the Afterworldsmen'
"Reason is too slow to uphold the fire of my passion," answers the recalcitrant. Reason observes too much and pays more attention to objects! It is because of this that it creates perfections. The recalcitrant is no longer convinced that perfection and perfect object is in his interest or those of his children--this is why he wills no longer to feed this virtue. Instead, he feeds on the poisons feared by the people. The taboo of contradiction assists reason to do its job of perfection, it is only with the knowledge of perfection that we may weed out imperfection. It is exactly at the realisation of this reasonable solution that causes the recalcitrant to spring into fervorous action. Indeed, it is well time to begin his work!
The recalcitrant wants to feel the affection and attention he received as a child, all persons this child was surrounded with wished to provide it with a home and feelings of the homely. It is exactly this memory that causes his aversion to the lessons of his fathers--they are not homely. His father speaks with a terrible distance, as he is always looking above and afar, the innocence of the child beckons for the father to recognise: the future lays in his hand--no need to look into the distance! It is the recalcitrant's own fault that he cannot appreciate the beauty of the heavenly, his myopia forbids it. His father's obsession with the future has made him tremble at the prospect of it, it is now time to learn the innocence of the future so that we may feel at home again in our present.
The perfect has created a world that has served our fathers well, the recalcitrant approves insofar as his father's past has provided him with his will--but no further... His father's past is his own, the recalcitrant wants his own too--thanks to his father! In this way, the recalcitrant eschews the perfect, the heavenly, the godly as his father's goods--and good they were! But, he wants to be the father to his own children--just like the fathers before him.
How will the recalcitrant will his own? you may ask. This is where contradiction, the taboo of his fathers, serves him well. His humouring of this taboo forces his departure of his fathers knowledge and virtues--in order to have his own. If the father gazes into the heaven, the abyss, the never-here, then his child recalcitrant will gaze into the now, the here, the imperfect--which is just that, which his father's people warns him against! This is what they despise as self-love, "egoism", they shout and condemn: "This is not what got us here--you fool!"
Fool he may be, but his head is not in the clouds: they do not see what he does. Where they see hope and dream, he sees only pity and sleep. They sigh and look away from home, and this is when the recalcitrant's memory of the child that he was rebukes them most, this is how his fire is maintained: by their insolence against his home! If it is not fit for the child that he is, it most certainly is not for the children that he may come to father--his own future! He no longer has time for thought of perfection as paradise, these are hurtful and no longer healthy for the recalcitrant. In this way, the laws of God, the perfections of calculation and the happiness of dreams makes the recalcitrant sick. Nauseating sickness sets in when we long for ground and home, it is for this reason that we find the recalcitrant in a desperate plight for his home-coming. He has grown tired of the sighs of happiness of his father:
They wanted to escape from their misery and the stars were too far for them. Then they sighed: 'Oh if only there were heavenly paths by which to creep into another existence and into happiness!' -- then they contrived for themselves their secret ways and their draughts of blood!
Now they thought themselves transported from their bodies and from this earth, these ingrates. Yet to what do they owe the convulsion and joy of their transport? To their bodies and to this earth.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 'Of the Afterworldsmen'
Here, we find the new father and his child: they desire innocence in home and love. Leaving the laws of father and God aside, they now have a new way to walk it--a new good, a new virtue to guide them. It is exactly here where the taboo of contradiction offers the recalcitrant a means. They wish for change by defying the taboo of contradiction. Through this defiance they arrive at the virtue of contradiction and the indispensability of the selfish self to achieve it. Through their ego they announce to the world: this is my home, this is my love. It will be my future, my children. The recalcitrant will take his fight to the sun for his love, he fears no obstacle--it is only opportunity for contradiction. Contradicting is his virtue, this is the gift of the fathers of the recalcitrant to him and his children. Here, I appeal to a claim made by the recalcitrance of Nietzsche, that a youthful organism may be matured best by an initial "tyranny" such as the tyranny of the father over the child recalcitrant..., Initially... (The Gay Science: 11)
Every philosophy that ranks peace above war, every ethic with a negative definition of happiness, every metaphysics and physics that knows some finale, some final state of some sort, every predominantly aesthetic or religious craving for some Apart, Beyond, Outside, Above, permits the question whether it was not sickness that inspired the philosopher. The unconscious disguise of physiological needs under the cloaks of the objective, ideal, purely spiritual goes to frightening lengths -and often I have asked myself whether, taking a large view, philosophy has not been merely an interpretation of the body and a misunderstanding the body.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: 3
