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What Nietzsche Might have said
(This is an hypothetical conjecture of what Nietzsche might say)
(excerpt):
Suppose all that you have always valued in your lives was shown to
you to be: illusion. What would it be like to turn truth on her head?
To have your precious beliefs, maxims, platitudes, and traditions
inverted and distorted beyond recognition? To suddenly realize that
what is good, is bad; what is beauty, is foul; what is virtue, vice?
What if all your points of reference were to shift: North becomes
South; black becomes white; deviant becomes saint; saint
becomes deviant.
Suppose that this transformation--a metamorphosis of perception
were to come to you -- and you alone. Suddenly you awake -- and
in utter solitude -- you discover that the world is its opposite.
Two realities strike you all at once: One, you define yourself in
terms of your values. With your values now reversed, so too are
you reversed: you are a roach! Two, what you have become is
apparent to everyone else.
Gregor Samsa has burrowed his way out of the value set that
defined his social setting. The metamorphosis was inevitable. Look
at where his values were anchored: servant to the needs of an
oppressive boss in order to meet the needs of an exploitive family.
So, he ceases to serve. With new values opposing those of the
family, the employer, and society at large, Gregor emerges as a
deviant. He has entered the world of the despised.
Never forget, my friends, that "truth" is in the eye of the beholder. In
Gregor's world the despised and the beloved are reversed.
Franz Kafka is a new thinker -- one of that breed I spoke to you
about 100 years ago. Gregor Samsa is his agent. Never forget my
brilliant words about such men in Beyond Good and Evil: "The
philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day
after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself,
in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today
(Section 212, BGE)."
So, I Friedrich, will now tell you what my philosophic friend Franz
finds so fascinating about Gregor the bug!
...
"Gregor Samsa woke up one morning changed into a monstrous
vermin:" Really? You think so? "Gregor's eyes turned to the
window, and the overcast weather---completely depressed him." If
you suddenly found yourself in Gregor's shoes--six shoes to be
exact--would the weather be your first concern?
...
Remember my words: "He shall be greatest who can be lonliest,
the most concealed, the most deviant, the human being beyond
good and evil, the master of his virtues, he that is overrich in will.
Precisely this shall be called greatness; being capable of being as
manifold as whole, as ample as full. (BGE 212)"