Analysis of The Man Chapter 3 Continued
A Man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation”.
Stephen Crane 1871 – 1900
Who Caused My Bad Luck?
No one can deny that Nietzsche had his fair share of ‘bad luck’ during his life time. But when things went pear shaped (bad), for example, with his relationships or his health or when he had money problems, he never complained about his bad luck or blamed his circumstances on someone else.
Nietzsche’s view, which he later developed into a philosophy of life that is the basis of his book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, was that we are responsible for our own life and for making the decisions that will affect it.
Frustration with religion prompted Nietzsche to declare "God is Dead"
Most of you will know that Nietzsche was rabidly anti religion and he had many reasons for that but one was that he felt strongly that man uses religion like a crutch to abrogate (to do away with, to avoid) taking responsibility for his life.
Nietzsche felt we are happy to take credit for our successes (whether we were responsible for them or not) but quick to ascribe (credit, allocate) our bad decisions or our failures to “God’s will” rather than accepting that it is our responsibility to make decisions and to act on them and consequently we have to accept responsibility for the consequences they reap. This concept became very important to Nietzsche and it is echoed so succinctly (with concise and precise brevity) in the above poem by Stephen Crane.
Stephen Crane
I first read the poem “A Man said to the universe” many years ago and it made a huge impact on me that has never waned (decreased). I think of it when I am not happy with the way things are and I often quote it to clients, especially these days when they complain about business but do nothing to change the way they market.
Crane was only 28 and already a great writer, poet and journalist when he died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanitarium.
The poem reminds us that Life, the universe, God owe us nothing. It gave us the miracle of life which as far as we know, has occurred no where else in the universe, what more do we expect? Nietzsche’s continues this theme by arguing that what we do with our life after birth, is up to us.
This is how I understand what they are saying;
Our life is our responsibility. How we live it is our responsibility. Our ethical and moral code, whether we choose to follow the Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu religion or any faith or no faith, they too are our responsibility as long as we don’t use that as an excuse for not taking responsibility for making our own decisions.
Good, bad or indifferent, we and we alone make the decisions that ultimately determine our quality of life. That applies equally if you make a decision not to make a decision or to follow someone else’s decision.
The Meaning of Life
Of course, it does not mean that you are responsible for everything that happens, for example, if you get laid off (fired) from work during a recession. But it is up to you to decide how you respond to that. You can either become bitter and hate the world for doing this to you (i.e. see yourself as a victim) or you can use the opportunity to learn a new trade, spend more time with your kids, start a business or any of a thousand other choices that are within your capacity to make. And if you don’t like the result you get, change it by making another one and so on until you get a result you are happy with.
Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s invention to enable him to answer the question “What is Truth?” Which could be restated as “What is the meaning of life?” Basically Nietzsche’s answer is; isn’t it the realization that there is no truth except the truth which you yourself are? That there is no truth, no meaning to life in the world that is relevant to you, except the truth, (the meaning) that you yourself give your life.
Nietzsche says
There is no truth, no meaning to life in the world that is relevant to you, except the truth that you yourself give your life.
“… To give life a meaning: that has been the grand endeavor of all that have preached ‘truth’; for unless life is given a meaning it has none. At this level, truth is not something that can be proved or disproved: it is something which you determine upon, which, in the language of the old psychology, you will. It is not something waiting to be discovered, (it is not) something to which you submit or at which you halt: it is something you create, it is the expression of a particular kind of life and being which has, in you, ventured to assert itself. …….. Because each particular life and being needs a fortress within which to preserve and protect itself and from which to reach out ….. and truth (your meaning to life) is this fortress.”
In the philosophical novel, The Man we have met two people so far who take responsibility for their life, the chemist and Annie and two who are victims of life, the aboriginal woman and The Man.
What we learn is that when you feel you have no control over your life it is easy to lose hope and without hope there is little point to life and no reason to look forward to the future. It is “Like standing between two mirrors, you see the future but it is just a repetition of today, through to infinity.”
The interesting thing is it can happen to anyone, whether you come from a disadvantaged position as per the Aboriginal woman or you are a hot shot like The Man you can lose the Way. However, Nietzsche says it is within the power of even the most disadvantaged person to wrest control of their life back, for example, little Annie who has only known poverty and illness.
Obviously losing control of your life would be a catastrophic situation if there was no chance of “redemption’ as Nietzsche calls it. And it was in developing this philosophy that Nietzsche invented the much misunderstood concept of the Übermensch or “Superman”.
The Übermensch or ‘Superman’
The 'Superman’ is the man who is master of himself. Friedrich Nietzsche
For Nietzsche, ‘the Superman’ is the man who is master of himself.
But Nietzsche tells us that to master oneself is the hardest task of all. It requires the greatest amount of ‘power’ (another misunderstood concept of Nietzsche’s).
Nietzsche believed that man was dominated by two primitive drives; the desire for power and the emotion of fear. However, Nietzsche came to understand fear as the feeling of the absence of power, so he was left with a single motivating principle for all human actions: the will to power. (Where power is the fortitude, the strength of character needed to master oneself).
Thus he who masters himself experiences the greatest increase in power and if happiness is the feeling that power increases, i.e. that a resistance (inside us) is overcome, then the Superman will be the happiest man and experiences the greatest sense of the meaning of existence.
By which Nietzsche means that, by transforming the chaos of life through the continual self-overcoming of the challenges life throws at us, we experience greater joy. This is the real meaning of life, for joy is to Nietzsche the one thing that requires no justification. It is in short, its own justification.
Which Comes First Happiness or Pain?
Nietzsche goes one step further, he says “He who had attained that joy would affirm life and love it however much pain it contained, because he would know that all things are chained and entwined together and everything is therefore part of a whole which man must accept as a whole”.
Wow! So now we know how Nietzsche was able to cope in the face of so many disappointments and perceived failures (I say perceived because that is how he saw himself although we now know that he was not a failed writer, thinker and philosopher, far from it). He saw all the pain, the trials and tribulations he experienced as stepping stones to the joy he experienced such as when he was in love or writing.
Annie seems to naturally know this; “She knew the melody for she was the composer” and as such she is able to be defiant in the face of her mortal illness rather than be a victim of it. She is in Nietzsche’s words a “Superman” and an excellent role model although I must admit, I had no idea she would turn out that way when I planned the story.
So, The Man A philosophical Novel, asks the question “What is reality?” is it what is happening to you or what you make it?
Annie created her own reality because “She revelled in the knowledge that her truth was indeed the truth. No matter what anyone said, it was her life and it was up to her to give it meaning for surely, if life is not given meaning, it has none”
I think this is the secret that Nietzsche discovered that enabled him to live a happy and fruitful life. Mind you, ‘happy’ is a subjective term, if you want love and you don’t get it, can you be truly happy? But that is a topic for another day.
This is the end of the analysis of The Man chapter 3, and also concludes my sub theme on Nietzsche (for now 
).
The next two or three posts will be a short series submitted by a reader on the Philosophy of Change. It is really great so I know you will like it and while that is happening here I hope to use the time to post some articles on the Chinese Philosophy section of this blog which I have neglected this year. I also intend to start work on Chapter 4 of The Man.
The Man, A Philosophical Novel – The Chapters So Far:
Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story
A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2
Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3
I Don’t Want to be Lonely – Author’s Analysis of the Man Chapter 3 – Part 1
Herzog 
Mendia 
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“What is reality?” is it what is happening to you or what you make it? Never a more interesting question asked! I happen to think it’s what you make it… But that’s just me…
Editor:
No, I doubt it is just you. I think you could make a good argument for that case. In fact if you or any reader would like to submit an article on this subject we would be happy to look at it for publication.
Great post ! Thanks a lot for sharing this ! Very interesting
Your idea is so great and interesting. Happy to hear more information from you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.