Matt Yglesias Thought-about As The Nietzschean Superman

I. Bentham’s Bulldog

Blogger “Bentham’s Bulldog” not too long ago wrote Shut Up About Slave Morality.

Nietzsche’s idea of “slave morality” (he writes) is only a dysphemism for the standard morality the place you’re not unhealthy and merciless. Proper-wing edgelords use “rejection of slave morality” as a justification for badness and cruelty:

When folks object to slave morality, they’re simply objecting to morality. They’re objecting to the notion that you need to care about others and doing the proper factor, even when doing so doesn’t materially profit you. Now, one can constantly object to these issues, but it surely doesn’t make them any form of Nostradamus. It makes them morally poor, and likewise typically philosophically confused.

The tedious whinging about slave morality is only a strategy to cross off not caring about morality or taking ethical arguments significantly as some form of subtle and cynical myth-busting. Nevertheless it’s not that within the slightest. Nobody is duped by slave morality, nobody buys into it due to some form of deep-seated ignorance. Those that comply with it accomplish that due to a mix of social stress and a real want to assist out others. That’s, in truth, not in any method weak however a noble impulse from which all good actions spring.

Some right-wingers have responded to the piece, however their responses are largely “however I like being unhealthy and merciless” – which appears to show Bulldog’s level.

I feel we will do higher – that it’s doable to make a case in opposition to “slave morality” that doesn’t depend on being pro-badness and cruelty. I’m an professional on Nietzsche (I’ve learn a few of his books), however not a world-leading professional (I didn’t perceive them). So take all of this as a riff on the idea, reasonably than a information to Nietzsche’s unique intent.

II. Friedrich Nietzsche

To start with (says Nietzsche), the phrase “good” was synonymous with “noble” – ie the virtues that made the the Aristocracy higher than the serfs they dominated. This was method again within the Bronze Age, so your mannequin for a noble needs to be Achilles, Agamemnon, and many others.

The superb noble delights in being sturdy, wholesome, and virile. He lives in a gorgeous palace and wears shining golden armor. He could also be cultured, subtle, and even good. He’s nice at every little thing he does, and harbors ambitions to turn out to be even larger, perhaps conquer a kingdom or two. He’s highly effective, skillful, and awe-inspiring. Life is sweet!

Worth methods naturally move from elite to commoners. However a commoner can’t do a lot with this sort of grasp morality in addition to conclude “yeah, I suck”. Commoners are poor, sickly, and dwell in mud huts. They’re unlikely to attain many targets past “not die”, they usually’ve in all probability had their spirits crushed. However “I suck” isn’t a psychologically steady proposition. So someday across the Iron Age, the slaves began engaged on a morality of their very own, one the place they’re the nice guys and the masters are the losers.

Slave morality says that the sturdy are tyrants, the wealthy are grasping, and the formidable are puffed-up braggarts. The wisest man is he who admits he is aware of nothing; the strongest man is he who conquers his personal wishes; it’s simpler for a camel to cross via a needle and so forth. God loves the standard, the salt of the earth. The worst factor you are able to do is attempt to pridefully rise above your fellows (cf. Tall Poppy Syndrome); the perfect factor you are able to do is to minimize your self, via strategies sacred (fasting, celibacy, self-flagellation) or mundane (giving to charity, serving your fellow man).

Nietzsche speculates that slave morality originated with the Jews (an particularly downtrodden and persecuted race) however caught on after the rise of Christianity. Someday across the fall of Rome it took the lead over grasp morality, and it’s been gaining ever since. As time goes on, slave morality will turn out to be an increasing number of dominant, grasp morality will fade right into a dimmer and dimmer reminiscence, and in some unspecified time in the future we’ll come to what he calls the Final Man – somebody so utterly poisoned by slave morality that he worships mediocrity, feels no emotion however envy, and refuses to ever do something as a result of doing issues appears insufficiently humble.

Instead, Nietzsche proposed the Superman. This idea is complicated, everybody will get it flawed, and I may also get it flawed. Generally it sounds just like the Superman is the man who brings grasp morality again in type. Different occasions it seems like he reconciles each methods, holding the perfect components of every. Nonetheless different occasions, it seems like he transcends them completely.

However (asks Bentham’s Bulldog) why do we’d like this man? Isn’t slave morality, with its concern for charity, peace, and equality – merely right? Isn’t grasp morality – with its barbarian warlords bragging about how their golden palaces make them higher than peasants – simply flawed?

I need to give two linked unfavourable views on slave morality earlier than coming again to Nietzsche’s query of whether or not there’s one thing higher than both possibility. First, slave morality as ensmallening. And second, slave morality as an try and keep away from optimistic judgment.

III. Ozy Brennan

Grasp morality favors the large. Folks with extra stuff – extra virtues, expertise, accomplishments, wealth and energy – are higher. In a grasp moralist society, every particular person is challenged to embiggen herself. Those that fail are judged worse than those that succeed.

Slave morality favors the small. It doesn’t overtly, in so many phrases, problem the person to ensmallen herself. It simply arranges the incentives in order that they should.

Ozy Brennan has a self-help submit, The Life Targets Of Useless Folks. It’s framed as psychological well being recommendation. Possibly you’re some form of responsible/anxious doormat sort particular person. Your targets are issues like:

• I don’t need to make anybody mad.

• I don’t need to harm anybody.

• I need to take up much less house.

• I need to want fewer issues.

• I don’t need to fail.

• I don’t need to break the principles.

• I don’t need to offend anyone

• I don’t need to have upsetting feelings.

• I need to cease having emotions.

Ozy factors out that lifeless folks obtain these targets higher than the residing ever might. In case your life aim is to be extra like a lifeless particular person, that’s a crimson flag for being a responsible/anxious doormat who wants to realize some self-confidence.

They recommend changing a few of these with the types of targets the place residing folks outperform corpses. For instance:

• I need to write an awesome novel.

• I need to be a superb father or mother to my youngsters.

• I need to assist folks.

• I need to get a elevate.

• I need to be taught linear algebra.

• I need to watch each superhero film ever filmed.

Ozy may be very good and mainly by no means will get in comparison with barbarian warlords. Nonetheless, this essay is a grasp morality manifesto. Slave morality is targets for lifeless folks. Corpses aren’t grasping. They don’t oppress anybody. They by no means harm folks. They don’t stand out, or attempt to be higher than anybody else, or specific delight. Slave morality is about compulsively making your self smaller, weaker, much less distinctive, and fewer disruptive to anybody else – which makes corpses the acknowledged specialists.

Evaluate Achilles (grasp morality) to among the early Christian saints (slave morality). Achilles desires private glory. He seeks private glory by being the perfect – the strongest, essentially the most good-looking, essentially the most expert in warfare – and by doing nice deeds of renown. He had essentially the most stunning armor, the most well liked ladies, and the perfect troopers. When Agamemnon offended him, he was prepared to let all of Greece perish to piss him off and restore his honor.

The early Christian saints undoubtedly didn’t need private glory – if anybody had tried to glorify them, they might have stated one thing very pious like “I’m solely a humble servant of God, it’s He who needs to be glorified”. They’re remembered primarily for his or her excellence in ensmallening themselves. They would quick till they turned residing skeletons, take vows of silence, or brick themselves in a tiny cell and spend the remainder of their lives there. They’d wash the toes of lepers out of humility, put on sackcloth to verify they didn’t get overly proud about their clothes, and whip themselves bloody in the event that they caught themselves having wishes. Different religions’ saints are even worse – the Buddhists would attempt to meditate themselves into nonexistence!

No less than the saints had the excuse that they have been ensmallening themselves so God might fill them up with His personal glory. But when you ensmallen your self, you’ll simply find yourself anxious, depressing, and devoid of accomplishments.

And not less than the saints have been doing this as a result of they genuinely believed in it. For Nietzsche, the essence of slave morality is the herd intuition – ie a distributed mob of individuals saying “you had higher ensmallen your self if you recognize what’s good for you” as a form of sinister backscratcher membership. A person may ensmallen themselves due to private fealty to slave morality. However extra usually they’re doing it lest they appear to be Tall Poppies – individuals who defect from an unstated social consensus that everybody ensmallen themselves, and so earn the envy and hatred of their friends.

IV. Edward Train

The opposite helpful method to consider slave morality is as a bundle of concepts that lets folks keep away from optimistic judgment.

(by “optimistic judgment”, I imply judgment based mostly on whether or not somebody has accomplishments – versus “unfavourable judgment”, judgment based mostly on whether or not somebody has prevented inflicting hurt)

This comes from the identical place because the embiggening critique. If folks will be judged on their accomplishments, then it looks like you need to exit and get some accomplishments, ie embiggen your self. If folks can solely be judged on their harms, it looks like you need to attempt to keep away from inflicting hurt, ie ensmallen your self. So one other method to consider slave vs. grasp morality is as coefficients on the traditional utilitarian equation, good = advantages – harms. Grasp moralists chubby the advantages time period; slave moralists give attention to the harms.

In a second, I’ll listing some methods for avoiding optimistic judgment, however first, a warning. All good protection mechanisms comprise a component of reality. Folks deploy these methods as a result of they’re usually true. I’m not saying that these are all false issues folks solely imagine for psychological causes – simply that should you discover somebody who appears obsessive about them, deploying them much more usually than the reality appears to warrant, perhaps there’s one thing psychological happening.

1. You obsess over the concept that the system is rigged. That is an obsession reasonably than a delusion – the system could very effectively be rigged, however you care about it method an excessive amount of. The extra rigged the system is, the much less you may decide anybody positively for succeeding in it.

2. You imagine that each one virtues are subjective, meaningless, and type of a grift. Intelligence” is only a measure of the way you do on IQ checks; “well being” is fatphobic and ableist; “laborious work” is a rip-off by Puritan Boomers to stigmatize non-neurotypical learners. Once more, these are obsessions and never delusions – it’s definitely cheap to query conventional metrics of success – however in some unspecified time in the future it turns into an try and keep away from judgment as a result of all potential judgment requirements are corrupt.

   

3. You interpret any try to speak about good issues, pursue good issues, or (God forbid) obtain good issues as a bid for standing, and pre-emptively attempt to lower it down. You unfold rumors about anybody who appears higher then you definitely. In the event that they make an excessive amount of cash, they’re a shady profiteer; in the event that they’re too sensible, they’re an IQ-obsessed r/IAmVerySmart techbro; in the event that they’re too fairly, they’re a slut. Your aim is to unite all of the envious folks right into a Tall Poppy Police who agree that profitable folks suck, to forestall anybody from doubtlessly judging you as worse than them.

   

4. You do every little thing paradoxically. In the event you did one thing non-ironically – wrote a deep poem that laid your total being naked, dedicated whole-heartedly to a political place you really believed in – you’ll be opening your self up for judgment. As a substitute, you talk solely by tentatively placing out little feelers, after which, the second somebody begins to frown, retracting them with a “Haha, trolled, I used to be solely joking”. If anybody else does issues non-ironically, you deride them as “pretentious” and “cringe”.

5. You substitute the traditional cost-benefit calculus with your personal model that ignores advantages and obsesses over harms. Scientific geniuses, lofty reformers, nice altruists – all of their actions in all probability harm a few folks alongside the way in which to revolutionizing society, so solely individuals who have by no means completed something in any respect are really pure. If everyone who has achieved issues is a nasty particular person, then you definitely win by default.

6. You turn out to be collectivist. You demand that each motion be completed solely after getting unanimous non-hierarchical collective approval. If somebody is allowed to behave individually, their motion may go effectively, after which they would appear higher than you. Or somebody may ask you why you weren’t doing any good particular person actions. Due to this fact, anybody who acts individually needs to be tarred as an smug defector who refuses to cooperate and hates different folks, and the collective ought to cross legal guidelines banning no matter they did.

   

7. You imagine that folks needs to be judged not by their actions, however by the purity of their concepts. Actions are tough and your actions is perhaps unhealthy, so that you undoubtedly don’t need to be judged on these. However concepts are simple, and you may at all times imagine that your concepts are essentially the most pure of all. Additionally, anybody who acts on this planet or achieves one thing in all probability is lower than 100% slave moralist, so should you decide folks based mostly on who has the purest slave moralist concepts, you’ll at all times be higher than anybody with accomplishments.

Once I first learn Nietzsche, my query was: why fear concerning the grasp/slave dichotomy? Certain, perhaps this was the way in which ethical codes first shaped in the course of the Bronze Age; who cares? You may love excellence and be altruistic. It doesn’t take some Superman to mix them – you may simply take the nice components of every. Proper?

I feel Nietzsche would have two solutions:

First, you don’t decide your ethical commitments like meals at a buffet. You deploy them as psychological protection mechanisms. You deploy slave morality when life has crushed you down and also you need to preserve a few of dignity. You don’t select which subparts to swallow; you get whichever bits are load-bearing in your private dignity-maintenance undertaking.

And second, you will not be keen on slave morality, however slave morality is keen on you. Grasp morality isn’t keen on you – the masters are out attaining issues and conquering locations, they’re not going to take outing of their day to show missionary and “convert” you to grasp morality too. However slave moralists are obsessive about ideological purity and invested in chopping down anyone who’s much less slave moralist than they’re. Even should you discover it simple to keep away from your self, you must be ready to dwell in a slave morality world.

V. Jason Crawford

Nietzsche’s unique dichotomy was aimed on the particular person stage, the place folks with psychological drives compete with one another for standing. It doesn’t naturally switch to the concept of societies. There’s a form of trivial switch the place you may think about superpowers boasting of their prowess and tiny city-states claiming the geopolitical sport is rigged, however that doesn’t appear attention-grabbing to me.

Once I consider grasp/slave morality on the stage of societies, I consider the slave moralist herd intuition to implement their slave morality on everybody else. This can be a characteristic of all societies – you can argue it’s what society/civilization is – however some may have it greater than others.

Jason Crawford, one of many pioneers of Progress Research, writes a couple of form of mid twentieth century vibe shift.

Within the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western civilization was busy attempting to embiggen itself. A few of this was literal. In America, we had Manifest Future, our God-given proper to stretch from sea to sea (my sometimes-hometown of Berkeley was named after the man who coined the slogan “westward the course of empire takes its method”). Europe had colonialism, the White Man’s Burden, and ultimately lebensraum.

However among the embiggening was metaphorical. We believed within the cult of progress. We might maintain large World Gala’s, the place we tiled entire cities with stunning monuments known as issues like The Temple Of Equipment or The Altar Of Cause. They’d have elaborate friezes of classical goddesses blessing railroads or holding sheaves of mechanically-reaped wheat. Inside, tens of hundreds of males would come from each nook of the Earth to behold the latest innovations making our lives richer, safer, and simpler. It appeared like we have been heading for a Utopia of limitless a lot, and our solely duty was to carry that nice day ahead as quick as doable and unfold our greatness to as-yet-unenlightened corners of the world like Africa and Tibet.

We erected superb Artwork Deco skyscrapers, and boasted of how rapidly they went up. We constructed the Empire State Constructing in a yr and the Golden Gate Bridge in 4. The interiors have been bursting with colour, decoration, and extra classical goddesses representing Business and Ingenuity or no matter. We held ticker tape parades for the wonderful aviators and astronauts bringing us to ever-further corners of the world.

After (?) the trauma of the World Wars (?), one thing flipped. As a substitute of embiggening ourselves, we started to ensmallen. We changed World’s Gala’s with “World Expos”, which Wikipedia describes as “much less targeted on know-how and aimed extra at cultural themes and social progress”. Of the few innovations that did characteristic, an increasing number of have been “inexperienced tech” – machines aimed toward lowering the harm we have been doing to the world.

The classical goddesses received changed by murals of extraordinary employees, then abstractions, then nothing. The final ticker tape parade for a person was 1998; since then the (comparatively few, comparatively small) parades have all been for lessons of individuals (NYC’s most up-to-date was for “COVID-19 Important Employees”).

Our buildings turned smaller and duller. Final month’s Works In Progress journal tried to research why. Some economists have blamed “Baumol’s value illness” – as industrialization makes some issues (like client items) cheaper, different issues (like expert labor) turn out to be comparatively costlier. So perhaps the rising value of expert labor put buildings just like the one of many not noted of attain. However Works In Progress discovered that wasn’t true; if something, industrialization has made fancy buildings cheaper. They concluded that it was “a narrative of cultural alternative, not of technological future” – in different phrases, folks stopped wanting spectacular buildings. The vibes have been flawed, or one thing.

Intellectuals began feting concepts like degrowth. Degrowth says that it’s gross, grasping, and unsustainable to need financial progress. As a substitute, we should always intentionally purpose for financial regress, till First World GDPs are nearer to these of South America or Africa. Advocates are cautious to emphasise that so long as we take common sense steps (like implementing socialism), this received’t power anybody to starve to demise, simply eliminate our ineffective luxuries – and in some sense, wouldn’t that make us higher off?

The promised future utopia was changed by nearly unbroken dystopianism. International warming will kill us all, or perhaps we’ll be caught in a cyberpunk world of hopeless soul-crushing inequality. Technological advance is attention-grabbing solely insofar because it brings our cyberpunk hell nearer and (unfairly) enriches some billionaires alongside the way in which. The one vibrant spots are occasional acts of voluntary ensmallening – energy crops cancelled, merchandise banned, indigenous tribes successful little authorized triumphs over modernity.

Stay-people targets like “construct large skyscrapers!” and “go to the moon!” might have been adopted up with even larger live-people targets like “tile the desert with photo voltaic crops”, “create genetically-engineered superbabies”, “get one billion People”, or “treatment all illnesses”. As a substitute, they’ve been changed by dead-people targets like “don’t harm the normal character of communities” or “don’t harm the surroundings”.

Components of this vibe shift nonetheless confuse me, however the zoomed-out model appears clear sufficient. The outdated pro-embiggening world was complicit in ethical catastrophes – racism, colonialism, the Holocaust, the destruction of a lot of the pure world. In some unspecified time in the future these atrocities caught as much as and outpaced its very actual accomplishments, and society stopped being pleased with itself and shifted to a harm-reduction method. No person comes out and says outright that hurt discount essentially has to imply doing as little as doable and attempting to make your self smaller and fewer spectacular and sadder and uglier till you curl up right into a tiny level and disappear. However “slave morality” and “grasp morality” are attractors; if you choose too laborious for a part of one, you find yourself with the entire bundle.

VI. Andrew Tate

I initially needed to elucidate to Bentham’s Bulldog why slave morality wasn’t clearly “the nice one” and grasp morality “the unhealthy one”. Lest I come down too laborious and get you pondering that grasp morality is clearly “the nice one”, let’s discuss Andrew Tate.

In case you’ve been beneath a rock your entire life, Andrew Tate is a masculinity influencer. He’s a former world champion kickboxer who pivoted to self-help, bought scammy programs on enterprise and relationships, and received wealthy. A few of his programs apparently really helpful beating up ladies (I’m undecided if this was supposed to assist your online business or your relationship), and when folks confronted him on this, his response was at all times “I’m sturdy and profitable and personal a Bugatti, which makes me higher than you, you pathetic weakling failure”. He was credibly accused of rape (by “credibly” I imply that he despatched one of many victims a textual content message saying “I like raping you”) and when folks tried to cancel him over this, his response was at all times “I’m sturdy and profitable and personal a Bugatti, which makes me higher than you, you pathetic weakling failure.” Lastly he was indicted on one billion counts of sexual assault, human trafficking, and being a normal scumbag of a human being; he’s presently awaiting trial.

Tate has, in some sense, many good qualities. He’s sturdy, athletic, and motivated. He earned tens of tens of millions of {dollars} via hustle and laborious work. He’s charismatic and compelling and, earlier than his arrest, was one of many Web’s most iconic influencers. I feel grasp morality has to approve of all this stuff.

Nonetheless, he’s clearly a jerk. That is precisely the scenario that Nietzsche believes slave morality developed for – letting me really feel contempt for somebody who’s stronger and richer and extra profitable than I’m – and yup, now that I’m on this scenario, I discover myself undoubtedly keen on an ethical system that lets me do that.

The apparent compromise goes one thing like:

• We will genuinely admire that Andrew Tate has the various good qualities listed above.

• But in addition, his impulsive mood and fragile ego are unhealthy qualities even by the requirements of grasp morality.

• And his violence, misogyny, and boastfulness are unhealthy qualities by any morality with even the smallest consideration for altruism and customary decency.

• Due to this fact, we will really feel contempt for him.

I don’t have something higher than this apparent compromise, however I’m not happy by it.

I wish to find yourself with an general unfavourable view of Tate. And if I do a easy calculation, (virtues – vices), then it looks like if his nonmoral virtues have been sturdy sufficient, they might overcome the ethical vices. If Tate was a actually actually good kickboxer, he may nonetheless find yourself within the black. It appears rather more intuitive to say that no quantity of nonmoral virtues could make up for his ethical vices. However now we’re again on the full slave moralist bundle once more! Some “compromise”!

Additionally, suppose Tate wasn’t a rapist, he was just a few kickboxing champion who was a jerk to folks on-line and consistently posted about he was higher than them due to his Bugatti. I nonetheless need to really feel contempt for him! Now now we have to price the vice of “boastfulness” so negatively that it overwhelms all doable optimistic virtues, which seems like some type of ridiculous straw man of slave morality.

All these issues would go away if we gave up on unified assessments of individuals. Then we might classify Tate as an excellent kickboxer who additionally occurs to rape lots of people. But when we surrender on unified assessments, aren’t we giving up on the very risk of heroes? Isn’t this simply the slave moralist denial of judgment?

Additionally, I feel Nietzsche would say one thing one thing vitalism. He appeared to suppose there was a coherent conceptual unity between being sturdy, being expert, and being some form of unconstrained wild one that didn’t care what lesser folks thought. Is there some sense by which Andrew Tate loses some genuinely precious advantage, nevertheless small, if he turns into a traditional civilized one that says please and thanks and is admittedly respectful to everybody? Does he turn out to be much less highly effective, in some sense the place powerfulness is sweet? Is he much less in a position to obtain his future of being superb? I’m genuinely not sure what Nietzsche would have considered Tate, but it surely in all probability isn’t one thing so simple as “he needs to be nicer”.

I’m fearful this nonetheless isn’t coming off strongly sufficient. You may argue “grasp morality is about being sturdy and good; slave morality is nearly preserving your pathetic little emotions”. However most of life is folks’s pathetic little emotions. Folks have confirmed over and over that their choices – about what to do, what to purchase, who to vote for, even what to die for – rely extra on what lets them really feel dignity and self-respect than on any purely materials concerns.

On occasion, often on 4chan, you see an precise bully actually going at it, unrestrained. Some type of shock jock, saying “Be aware to unattached liberal ladies above 40: you’re ugly hags who’ve misplaced your probability with males and all of your eggs have dried up and no one will ever worth you anymore, you need to both beg for some fats alcoholic man to take you in since that’s the one man you may get, or resign your self to being a cat woman rising outdated with nothing to do however dwell in your regrets and what might have been.” Outdoors of 4chan, there’s a form of common alliance in opposition to these folks, which the remainder of us be part of instantly and unconsciously. Is that this the dreaded “herd” of “slave morality”? If that’s the case, lengthy dwell the herd.

VII. Cotton Mather

Wonderful. Possibly we do want a Superman to kind this out. What are our choices?

Preliminary query: the place do the Puritans fall on this dichotomy?

On the one hand, they’re Christian, in order that they have a powerful slave morality heritage. They talked lots about humility, altruism, frugality, and self-discipline.

On the opposite, they certain did discuss them lots. The Puritans have been satisfied that virtues have been actual and good. They have been satisfied that some folks had extra of them than others, and that made these folks higher.

The Puritans would have burnt you on the stake should you accused them of believing within the Promethean human spirit conquering the pure world. However they did form of imagine in it – not less than sufficient to imagine it was their ethical mission to colonize a virgin continent.

My aim right here isn’t to discover the bizarre Puritan theology round who was a superb particular person (no one, we’re all extremely sinful, however God chooses to redeem some folks via no advantage of their very own, after which these individuals are genuinely higher off and do fewer sins). Somewhat, I need to look at two completely different varieties (ranges?) of slave morality.

Within the first kind, you substitute the masters’ virtues with completely different virtues. However these virtues are nonetheless actual. You may nonetheless embody them roughly effectively. This form of creates a brand new hierarchy. The Puritans wouldn’t have revered a Bronze Age barbarian warlord. However they did respect the native minister. And the native minister was in all probability a wise, competent, disciplined, hard-working man. Out of your respect for the native minister, you may rebuild civilization. As a substitute of obeying a warlord, you obey the minister, out of respect for the God and the values that he represents.

Within the second kind, you discover that the primary kind is simply one other hierarchy of masters. You (the wretched of the earth) was once contemptible since you have been weaker and poorer than the warlord. Now you’re contemptible since you’re much less virtuous and disciplined than the minister. Even when there’s no native minister, everybody’s nonetheless holding observe of the way you stated the phrase “darn” as soon as and are due to this fact unsuitable for God’s kingdom. So that you determine to reject not simply the masterly virtues (energy, wealth, and many others), but additionally the slavish virtues (continence, dignity, altruism) in favor of . . . no virtues? The advantage of hating different virtues, which exhibits that you simply’re enlightened to the true nature of the world the place all virtues are pretend?

I used to have this map on my wall:

It’s Progressive-era propaganda concerning the superiority of the American North over the South, however I discover it most attention-grabbing for its listing of virtues. It begins with Liberty, then strikes on to Free Speech, Intelligence, Obedience To Legislation, Information, Equal Rights, Free Faculties, Contentment, Love Of Nation, Philanthropy, Benevolence, Happiness, Endurance, Charity, Religion, Hope, Pleasure, Business, Sobriety, Morality, Justice, Advantage, Fact, Honor, Peace, Gentle, and Immortality.

I admire the Progressive virtues due to how skew they’re to a lot of the moral methods I encounter. They’re not leftist (Love Of Nation? Business? Morality?) or rightist (Equal Rights? Free Faculties?). They’re not Nietzschean grasp moralist (Philanthropy? Contentment? Benevolence?) or slave moralist (Business? Information? Honor?). They’re Christian-ish, however not hair-shirts-and-self-flagellation Christian or God-n-guns-megachurch Christian. They’re the type of Christians who you may type of inform are going to finish up supporting eugenics in a number of years.

I feel I might classify them as a first-form-slave-morality liberalism, whereas a lot of the liberalism you encounter lately drifted not less than a bit of into the second kind.

I’m not 100% on Staff Early twentieth Century Progressive, however they provide me hope that there are weird-yet-coherent groupings of virtues we haven’t even imagined.

I really feel the identical method about some outdated Soviet posters:

These are clearly left-wing, within the sense that they’re literal Communist propaganda. However to the trendy eye there’s one thing off about them, one thing that makes you need to name them right-wing and even fascist. They’re daring and optimistic. Although the commissars who commissioned them in all probability rejected some conventional or capitalist conception of advantage, they nonetheless firmly insist that there’s one thing form of like advantage or energy which is attainable and good.

I feel these are first-form posters, and that almost all trendy leftism is second-form. I feel should you needed to group barbarian warlords, Puritans, Soviet communists, and trendy leftists on a Nietzschean/geneaological/aesthetic axis, it will go:

(Barbarian warlords) | (Puritans, Soviet communists) | (trendy leftists)

So one very weak compromise – hardly even a compromise, because it predates Nietzsche – is to attempt to persist with first-form slave morality, within the hopes that a lot of the issues come from the second.

VIII. Ayn Rand

“Is Ayn Rand a Nietzschean?”- the best thread within the historical past of boards, locked by a moderator after 12239 pages of heated debate.

There’s an actual reply right here. Rand began out respecting, perhaps even loving Nietzsche. She as soon as stated that:

[Nietzsche’s] Thus Spake Zarathustra is my Bible. I can by no means commit suicide whereas I’ve it.

…which perhaps reveals extra about her psychological scenario than I anticipated from the reply to a “who’s your favourite thinker” questionnaire. However in a while she broke from him. It’s laborious to determine her precise place – she has a nasty behavior of treating anybody who disagrees along with her in any tiny element because the Antichrist, such that it’s laborious to determine whether or not she thinks of somebody as a 99% fellow traveler or an arch-enemy.

Nonetheless, there are substantial variations. Nietzsche is extra chaotic – he expects the superior man to defy all exterior guidelines in favor of his personal superb future. However Rand is hooked up to guidelines – most of all of the epistemic guidelines of Cause, but additionally the standard ethical tenets like “don’t kill” and “don’t steal”. Nietzsche’s masters take the Ron Swanson method to justifying their actions:

…whereas Rand’s masters are vulnerable to giving twenty-page-long arguments for why no matter they’re doing is the proper alternative in line with Objectively Appropriate Ethical Legislation.

Rand’s method has numerous benefits. The Nietzschean grasp, like Andrew Tate, is an terrible man to have round. It’s laborious to suit him right into a functioning civilization, besides perhaps an autocracy with him as autocrat. Nietzsche’s pitch is “hey glorious folks, you need to attempt to turn out to be this man”, by no means “hey regular folks, you need to assist my undertaking of making these guys, out of your personal self-interest.” The latter wouldn’t cross the snigger take a look at.

Rand’s masters, whereas nonetheless in all probability very disturbing to be round, have been tamed. They comply with civilized guidelines of honesty and nonviolence – not, in fact, as a result of they’re too weak to defy them, however as a result of following civilized guidelines is objectively the good factor of all. As a substitute of competing in battle and leaving a path of bloody corpses, they compete in Capitalism and depart a path of high-paying jobs and glorious client items. They’re not doing to serve you – “I ought to serve the little man” is slave moralist bulls**t. However, by coincidence, their glorious actions are doing you a service. They could solely invent rocket ships to enact their Promethean conquest of nature and show their very own greatness. However you continue to get to experience in a single.

Rand additionally spares extra of a thought (or not less than an afterthought) for the little man. Capitalism wants all kinds – even the corporate janitor genuinely contributes to no matter superb accomplishments are happening, and deserves to be ok with themselves. She desires everybody to be the perfect, most formidable, and most fighting-for-their-own-aesthetic/moral-vision they are often. But when meaning being the corporate janitor, that’s advantageous. And should you love rockets and also you consummate that love by turning into the janitor for a rocket firm, the Objectively Appropriate Ethical Legislation is 100% on board. I’m not a Nietzsche scholar, however I feel this can be a extra productive reply than Nietzsche has for this query.

The drawback of Rand’s method in comparison with Nietzsche’s is that it solely works should you imagine her proofs about why the Objectively Appropriate Ethical Legislation is unquestionably goal and proper – most of which appear to me to be both hand-wavy or balderdash. In any other case the entire thing breaks down – why is essentially the most masterful factor to be a positive-sum capitalist as a substitute of a negative-sum warlord? Rand actually actually desires to justify a peaceable, superb, positive-sum society, to the precise folks most able to benefiting from defecting in opposition to it, with out bringing in altruism or the widespread good at any level. It’s a particularly sympathetic aim. However I don’t suppose she makes it.

Nonetheless, because of this I’m keen on her. In the event you actually learn her books – versus skimming them whereas subvocalizing “that is that evil lady who loves selfishness” beneath your breath the entire time – it’s apparent that she believes, with a deep and burning perception, that good issues are good. She actually actually desires to suppose that you may objectively persuade folks to assist a peaceable, superb, positive-sum society, with none trace of the psychologically-toxic slave morality that typified the USSR she grew up in. When folks react to her books with loathing – with out even a trace of fondness – I get suspicious that they’ve gotten so deep into slave morality that thy can’t acknowledge goodness when it hits them over the top with a sledgehammer. Elsewhere, I wrote:

Edward Train (Sadly, Porn) is legendary for making up pretend novels to criticize, and it’s a little identified proven fact that the “Ayn Rand” character together with all her novels are 100% his work. They function as a diagnostic take a look at based mostly on his psychodynamic idea of envy.

The instrument presents an image of some distinctive folks attaining nice issues who do not apologize for his or her greatness, and doesn’t explicitly ask the affected person – I imply, reader – for his or her opinion.

If the reader has no sturdy opinion, or says one thing like “Good for them, I suppose,” she passes the take a look at. “I like these folks and can use them as a job mannequin” additionally passes. Some particular criticisms (see under) may additionally cross.

If the reader says “Ah, people who find themselves higher than the pathetic sheep round them, identical to I am higher than all of the pathetic sheep round me!”, she . . . nonetheless passes the take a look at. That is not what it is testing for!

You fail the take a look at should you completely freak out about some mixture of the Rand characters themselves and the potential existence of smug individuals who determine with the Rand characters. The key is that it is not a screening take a look at for the type of people that would get featured on /r/iamverysmart. It is a screening take a look at for the type of people that would touch upon /r/iamverysmart, ie the self-designated Tall Poppy Police, ie the individuals who construct their ego off being the enforcers of the rule that you simply’re not allowed to look higher than anybody else.

These folks’s primary psychological stance is to hate individuals who appear too glorious. They do not consider it in these phrases. They consider it as calling out conceitedness, though should you look too intently you will discover their definition of conceitedness covers anybody who appears glorious and however would not spend all their time apologizing and abasing themselves and denying it. The brilliance of Train-Rand is how he-she attracts this tendency to the foreground

For instance, why the entire “Objectivism” factor? Not as a result of worth is essentially utterly goal, however as a result of the concept that any worth may ever be even partially goal freaks out the Tall Poppy Syndrome folks. Point out worth in any respect, they usually say you have to be attempting to secretly smuggle within the assumption that you’re extra precious than different folks (and due to this fact you’re much less precious than different folks, and due to this fact they’re higher than you).

The identical is true of Cause. Point out that Cause exists, they usually’ll interpret it as a declare that you simply, the one rational particular person, are claiming to at all times be proper and infallible. However (they retort) really no one is aware of something, and the one clever individuals are the folks like them who humbly admit this.

(how do you determine what’s true with out Cause? By bias-based-reasoning – “You say X, however I can think about a method that may come from a spot of believing you are higher than different folks, due to this fact, Not-X is true. You say that is a logical fallacy? That should come from a spot of believing you are smarter than everybody else and the one one that can use Info and Logic.”)

The Train-Rand take a look at is designed to catch the form of one that, if somebody says that on a proper triangle a^2 + b^2 = c^2^, responds with “Oh, so that you’re claiming to be some type of proper triangle professional who’s higher than the remainder of us? You actually need to work on that conceitedness drawback! Tremendous cringe!” Any criticism of the ebook that does not come from this specific place is irrelevant to the take a look at and would not rely in opposition to your grade.

(which is sweet, as a result of the books are unhealthy in quite a lot of methods. However that is advantageous – Rorschach blots do not additionally should be nice artwork!)

Nonetheless, I don’t suppose she’s the superman (superwoman?) who efficiently transcends the dichotomy Her philosophy is just as sturdy as its proofs of Goal Correctness, which I contemplate weak. With out these, you want some subjective motivation to attach issues collectively – of which altruism is the most well-liked.

But in addition, don’t we like altruism? After we’re bestriding the Earth like colossi, engaged on our superb rocket ships to colonize the universe, isn’t a part of what we’re pondering “that is going to revolutionize humankind and make everyone higher off?” In the event you power your self to reject that motivation, to simply repeat “no no no, I’m solely doing this as a result of rockets are actually large and make cool explosions”, aren’t you chopping out part of your self, in precisely the way in which Nietzschean masters are speculated to attempt to keep away from doing?

I discover one thing very compelling about Rand. I feel she goes among the strategy to answering the Andrew Tate objection to grasp morality. However she’s a method and never an finish. An actual superman must determine some strategy to reintroduce primary human kindness.

IX. Matt Yglesias

Yglesias’s mantra – “good issues are good” – is just too excellent and profound to return from anybody aside from an esoteric grasp of Nietzschean philosophy.

Nietzsche wrote within the Nineties. There have been nonetheless actual nobles and emperors strolling round; communists had not but began calling capitalism “late capitalism”. Certain, his world was in all probability some form of weak compromise between grasp and slave morality, but it surely was completely different from our weak compromise. Our weak compromise was solid via dialogue and warfare with fascism’s novel tackle grasp morality and socialism’s novel tackle slave morality. I consider Yglesias – who combines an insistence that good issues are good and a proclivity for embiggenment with commitments to democracy, the welfare state, and the poorest amongst us – as one in every of its most self-conscious proponents.

The compromise goes one thing like:

1. Everyone seems to be equal earlier than the regulation, earlier than the metaphorical throne of metaphorical God, and in some poorly outlined philosophical sense. This is essential. It’s our headline end result. All the things else needs to be interpreted in gentle of this central reality.

2. That having been stated, some individuals are clearly higher at particular restricted expertise and virtues than others.

3. Most expertise are partly genetic and partly environmental. We’ll grudgingly let scientists examine this and publish their outcomes, however everybody ought to play up the environmental part as a lot because the science permits, and awkwardly sidestep the genetic part, to be able to defuse “innate superiority” claims.

4. If somebody occurs to finish up unusually expert or highly effective, that’s advantageous, they deserve some restricted respect, they usually can maintain their expertise and energy. In trade, they need to be humble, not declare any type of basic superiority, and discourage hero worship. In the event that they’re pressured to attract consideration to their benefits, they need to discuss how they benefited from privilege, and the way tens of millions of individuals with the identical expertise are unfairly languishing in poverty.

5. The existence of wealthy folks will be challenged, however can finally be defended on the grounds that they create jobs and precious merchandise for the lots. Wealthy folks owe a debt to society for creating the circumstances by which they will flourish; by coincidence, this debt precisely matches the present tax price of their jurisdiction.

6. The worth of technological progress, financial prosperity, and cultural sophistication will also be challenged, however will be equally defended insofar as they enhance the lot of the worst-off and enhance equality. For instance, GDP development is sweet because it lifts folks out of poverty; new discoveries concerning the nature of the mind are good since they may someday produce Alzheimers medication; artwork is sweet since it may well embrace underrepresented teams or train some type of lesson about social progress.

7. We must always use checks, balances, vetocracy, and redistribution to restrict the ability of any particular person to some ceiling, though folks can disagree on how excessive the ceiling can be and proper now it’s fairly excessive.

Slave morality hates energy/excellence and refuses to justify it. Grasp morality says energy/excellence is its personal justification, and the remainder of us should justify ourselves to it. Liberalism says that certain, we will in all probability justify energy/excellence, so long as it stays inside cheap bounds and doesn’t trigger hassle.

Slave morality ignores advantages and units the significance of harms at infinity. Grasp morality ignores harms, and units the worth of “advantages” (not that it will consider it in these phrases – greatness doesn’t exist to learn others) at infinity. Liberalism accepts the traditional, finite utilitarian calculus and tries to steadiness advantages in opposition to harms.

A last secret of this compromise is that grasp morality and slave morality aren’t excellent opposites. Grasp morality desires to embiggen itself. Slave morality desires to really feel safe that everybody agrees embiggening is unhealthy. The compromise is that all of us agree embiggening is unhealthy, however depart folks free to do it anyway. So half of Western mental output is criticisms of capitalism and neoliberalism, but capitalism and neoliberalism stay hegemonic. Everyone agrees to hate billionaires; additionally, billionaires are richer than ever.

This isn’t a whole answer – certain, we’re a free nation, however we’re additionally a democracy, and if folks hate one thing too a lot they will ban it. However add within the utilitarian justifications above, and it form of hangs collectively.

X. Richard Hanania

So liberal democracy is an uneasy compromise between slave and grasp morality. One pure interpretation is that the left is the social gathering of slave morality, and the proper of grasp morality. I admire how instantly Richard Hanania proves that flawed.

Richard is an honest-to-goodness Nietzschean grasp moralist, one of many final you’ll discover. Like Rand, he tries to mix Nietzschean grasp morality with a civilized society and obedience to regulation. In contrast to Rand, he’s not obsessive about presenting a bunch of multi-step proofs displaying precisely the way it works, and actually I’m undecided of the precise particulars. I discover him attention-grabbing insofar because it clearly works inside his personal head and he’s clearly coming from a spot of aesthetic coherence. He writes:

We will name my philosophy Nietzschean Liberalism. The Nietzschean half consists of the next beliefs.

1. Simply as intelligence, an ethical sense, aesthetic appreciation, and different elements place people above animals, some people are in a really deep sense higher than different people.

2. Society disproportionately advantages from the scientific and creative genius of a choose few. An vital aim of presidency and public coverage is to channel their energies in productive instructions and depart them free to pursue their missions.

3. As confirmed by trendy behavioral genetics, heredity is the dominant power behind human variation.

4. Egalitarian ideology and issues over what is known as “social justice” are primarily pushed by ugly instincts, particularly envy and emotions of inferiority.

5. Whereas all rational beings have to be utilitarians to a point, everybody has non-utilitarian commitments. One of the best ones put an emphasis on magnificence, freedom, and progress, reasonably than pleasing supernatural beings, fealty to some “pure” order, the glorification of imagined communities like nations, or equality of outcomes.

To this point so predictable. He haltingly endorses the liberal compromise as one of the simplest ways to make it work:

1. Markets and democracy are the perfect forces ever found for pushing forward with the artistic destruction obligatory for human progress.

2. Even extraordinarily flawed or restricted human beings can nonetheless have a lot to contribute to society as a result of miracle of the division of labor. There’s fortunately no want due to this fact to show in direction of concepts that contain incapacitating or repressing giant numbers of individuals, with the comparatively few criminals amongst us being the exception.

3. Human nature is just not so unhealthy that collectivist and egalitarian ideologies are at all times going to be prevalent among the many lots. They merely have to be shielded from cancerous concepts that make them a risk to progress, which come from each the proper and left. Considerably paradoxically, democracy does a reasonably good job of this relative to different methods.

Okay, so right-wing man claims to be Nietzschean, why am I saying this disproves one thing about partisan politics?

Hanania is horrible at being right-wing. He’s pro-choice, pro-immigration, pro-euthanasia, pro-vaccine, pro-globalism, pro-Ukraine, atheist, and helps the current responsible verdict on Trump. As with Donald Trump, he’s residing proof that right-wingers will welcome anybody sufficiently offensive with out caring about their coverage positions.

My impression of Hanania is that his Nietzscheanism is extremely deep, principled, and heartfelt, whereas his right-wing-ness is at greatest an alliance of comfort. This adequately explains most of his positions:

• He’s pro-immigration as a result of he’s obsessive about glorious/gifted folks and desires them to return to the US and use their abilities extra successfully.

• He’s pro-vaccine as a result of he appreciates the Promethean triumph of know-how over the pure world.

• He’s pro-euthanasia as a result of he’s disgusted by the concept of illness and weak point. It feels intuitively apparent to him that after you’re sick and weak there’s no level in residing and also you’d reasonably die.

• He began out as pro-Russia as a result of he thought Russia was stronger and extra vigorous than the West. When Russia failed in its preliminary invasion, and Ukraine outperformed everybody’s expectations, Hanania flipped to Ukraine’s aspect, as a result of he realized that Russia was incompetent, Ukraine was brave, and the West’s cultural bundle made it extra highly effective and spectacular than its autocratic rivals. Additionally, I’d count on he was disgusted by Putin’s coverage of sidelining/arresting gifted folks in his authorities to forestall them from threatening his energy, and was anxious to change to the aspect that does much less of that form of factor.

In the meantime, as Hanania has observed, MAGA Republicans are slave moralists. They need the gifted (high-skilled immigrants, economists, artists, intellectuals) to be completely yoked to an underclass of overweight conspiracy-theorist hillbillies. They’re elevating tariffs to guard weak American corporations from stronger overseas rivals, banning IVF and vat meat and any know-how that makes them uncomfortable, and attempting to retvrn to some type of crunchy natural notion of life which in all probability doesn’t even have any skyscrapers. Even the proper’s so-called Nietzschean vitalists are largely LARPing steppe nomads as a substitute of constructing rockets.

There is no such thing as a Nietzschean political social gathering. There isn’t even a correctly Nietzschean subculture or coalition. It’s simply Richard Hanania and a handful of his Substack followers.

XI. Sid Meier

I stated above that the liberal compromise was utilitarian-flavored. Slave morality can grudgingly accommodate motion, advantage, and distinctive habits if these are justified as ultimately being good for the weak. I additionally stated that the liberal compromise concerned quite a lot of saying stuff that no one is anticipated to imagine or comply with.

I feel efficient altruism is what occurs whenever you really enthusiastically endorse this a part of the compromise – the half you have been speculated to grudgingly settle for as an excuse for what you needed to do anyway.

Sure flavors of the liberal compromise, accepted grudgingly and half-heartedly, are psychologically poisonous. A standard one says – go obtain no matter is taken into account regular in your class. Get a level at Yale, go into finance, and get a brownstone in Brooklyn – so long as you very barely hate your self and suppose that in a super society you wouldn’t exist.

Efficient altruists have all kinds of regular psychological issues – despair, nervousness, what have you ever. However I’ve observed they’ve a lot much less of the form of poisonous self-hatred that comes from tying your self in knots round these items.

I wouldn’t have observed this if not for the motion’s enemies. Everybody naturally disagrees with their critics – however as somebody who will get criticized from numerous completely different angles, the EA critics boggle me essentially the most. Not those who suppose another charity is simpler; these guys are advantageous. I imply those who completely ignore the place the charity goes and vomit twenty pages of the phrases “smug”, “billionaire”, and “white”. The explanations these folks hate efficient altruism by no means appear to attach in any respect with the explanations I discover it precious.

My working mannequin of those folks’s psychology is one thing like: should you admit that charity is sweet, or that some charities are higher than others, that’s an goal worth. Any goal worth enables you to smuggle within the declare that some individuals are higher than others. These folks’s psychopolitics focus nearly completely on chopping down Tall Poppies, and on pre-emptively salting any soil that may someday permit a Tall Poppy to develop. An optimist may say it’s because their first dedication is to the final word equality of humankind, past any dedication to short-term materials welfare. A cynic may say they’re fallen so deep into Avoidance Of Judgment Hell that it’s not possible for them to parse any motion or perception besides as a hostile standing declare – and that it’s not possible for them to deal with the exterior world, whether or not ravenous folks dwell or die, and many others, as something aside from a prop of their inside standing obfuscation pantomime. Whereas a traditional particular person may hear “Invoice Gates led an incredible anti-malaria marketing campaign that saved ten million folks’s lives” and have some form of emotion concerning the ten million lives being saved, these folks solely hear the phrase “led” and turn out to be obsessive about the necessity to lower Gates down a notch so folks don’t suppose he’s cooler than they’re.

However should you do a ok job translating from Narcissist to English, these folks aren’t utterly flawed. Efficient altruism tries to double down on the liberal compromise: it’s permissible to embiggen your self (or your civilization) if say you’re doing it for the overall welfare. This allows you to add the lacking altruism again into Rand. You will be an glorious-destiny-having billionaire, and as a substitute of utilizing your talent to pursue a imaginative and prescient of constructing an enormous gold mansion, you should utilize your talent to pursue a imaginative and prescient of creating the world a greater place. Otherwise you is usually a scientific genius, and as a substitute of transcending your fellows with arcane visions of the gears of the universe, you may work on curing malaria or one thing. I don’t suppose any of this issues as a lot because the external-world perspective the place actual individuals are helped in the actual world. However so long as you’re serving to folks, I feel it’s additionally permissible to make use of it to resolve seemingly-unsolvable deep questions concerning the narrative of your life.

I’m an professional on Nietzsche (I’ve learn a few of his books), however not a world-leading professional (I didn’t perceive them). And one of many components I didn’t perceive was the psychological enchantment of all this. So that you’re Caesar, you’re an incredible normal, and also you completely wipe the ground with the Gauls. You’re a wonderful navy genius and can be celebrated without end in music. So . . . what? Is thrashing different folks an finish in itself? I don’t know, I suppose that is the way it works in sports activities. However I’ve by no means discovered sports activities too attention-grabbing both. Additionally, should you defeat the Gallic armies sufficient occasions, you may end up ruling Gaul and making choices about its future. Don’t you want some type of lodestar past “I actually like beating folks”? Doesn’t that should be one thing about leaving the world a greater place than you discovered it?

Admittedly altruism additionally has a few of this identical drawback. Auden stated that “God put us on Earth to assist others; what the others are right here for, I don’t know.” In some unspecified time in the future altruism has to backside out in one thing aside from altruism. In any other case it’s all a Ponzi scheme, simply folks saving meaningless lives for no purpose till the final life is saved and all of it collapses.

I’ve no actual reply to this query – which, in case you missed it, is “what’s the which means of life?” However I do actually get pleasure from enjoying Civilization IV. And the essential construction of Civilization IV is “you mine assets, so you may construct models, so you may conquer territory, so you may mine extra assets, so you may construct extra models, so you may conquer extra territory”. There are sidequests that make it much less apparent. And you’ll ultimately win by finishing the tech tree (he who has ears to listen to, let him pay attention). However the primary construction is A → B → C → A → B → C. And it’s actually enjoyable! If there’s sufficient vibrant colours, shiny toys, razor-edge battles, and threat of failure, then the type of ratchet-y-ness of all of it, the spiral the place you’re doing the identical issues however in an even bigger method every time, turns right into a virtuous repetition, repetitive solely in the identical sense as a poem, or a melody, or the cycle of generations.

The closest I can get to the which means of life is one in every of these repetitive melodies. I need to be joyful so I will be sturdy. I need to be sturdy so I will be useful. I need to be useful as a result of it makes me joyful.

I need to assist different folks to be able to exalt and glorify civilization. I need to exalt and glorify civilization so it may well make folks joyful. I would like them to be joyful to allow them to be sturdy. I would like them to be sturdy to allow them to exalt and glorify civilization. I need to exalt and glorify civilization to be able to assist different folks.

I need to create nice artwork to make different folks joyful. I would like them to be joyful to allow them to be sturdy. I would like them to be sturdy to allow them to exalt and glorify civilization. I need to exalt and glorify civilization so it may well create extra nice artwork.

I need to have kids to allow them to be joyful. I would like them to be joyful to allow them to be sturdy. I would like them to be sturdy to allow them to elevate extra kids. I would like them to boost extra kids to allow them to exalt and glorify civilization. I need to exalt and glorify civilization so it may well assist extra folks. I need to assist folks to allow them to have extra kids. I would like them to have kids to allow them to be joyful.

Possibly in some unspecified time in the future there’s a hidden offramp marked “TERMINAL VALUE”. However it will likely be many extra cycles across the spiral earlier than I discover it, and the journey itself is nice sufficient.