Malaspina Great Books, Established 1995; Created by Russell McNeil, PhD, Visitors:

With the growing importance of global warming, Climate News Live provides up-to-date news and information. This is a non-partisan source of timely news articles, current events, and the relevant topics that are shaping the public policy debate in the United States and elsewhere. ... (click on picture or headline above for more)

title author

Malaspina Great Books Blog

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained Russell McNeil, PhD Editor, Malaspina Great Books In 1862 the English literary critic and poet Matthew Arnold described Marcus Aurelius as "the most beautiful figure in history." The Stoicism of Aurelius is grounded in rationality and rests solidly on an ethical approach rooted in nature. Stoicism promises real happiness and joy in this life and a serenity that can never be soured by personal misfortune. This philosophy has universal appeal with practical implications on problems ranging from climate change and terrorism to the personal management of sickness, aging, depression and addiction. I truly believe that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has much to offer us now...(Click on book cover for more)

Category:	Romantic Literature
Name:	Friedrich Nietzsche - Philosophy Gregor Samsa as Functional Deviant
Birth Year:	1844
Death Year:	1900
Representative Image:
Biography, Lectures, and Research Links:	Biography - World Philosophy Series Blog Friedrich Nietzsche SEARCH NOW: by title by author Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a famous and influential German philosopher. He is famous for his rejection of altruism; his attacks on Christianity (he declared that "God is dead"); his origination of the Ubermensch concept (translated as "Overman" or "Superman"); his embrace of a sort of irrationalism; and something he called "the Will to Power" (Wille zur Macht), possibly best regarded as an early attempt at psychology. Nietzsche was strongly influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer and his concept of "the Will to live". Nietzsche presupposed that humans are always attempting to inflict their wills upon others. Every action toward another, according to Nietzsche, is born of a basic desire to bring that other under one's own power in some way. Gift-giving, claims of love, praise, or harmful acts such as physical violence, carrying tales, etc. all stem from the same motive: to exert the will over others. Nietzsche's presupposition entails that human beings are basically and only egoistic. Therefore there are no truly altruistic actions. The theory of the will to power is not limited to the psychology of human beings. Instead, it is the essential nature of the universe, manifest in all things. Growth, survival, dominance in business or physical competition, all are seen as elements of this will. Some see Nietzsche's "will to power" as life-affirming. Creatures affirm instinct in exerting power and dominance. The suffering born of conflict between competing wills and the efforts to overcome one's environment is not evil, but a part of existence to be embraced in that it signifies the healthy expression of the natural order. Enduring satisfaction and pleasure result from living by instinct and successfully exerting the will to power. Nietzsche is important as a precursor of existentialism and an inspiration for post-structuralism and an influence on postmodernism. Nietzsche contracted syphyllis as a student, endured periods of madness during his adult life and died in an asylum for the insane. Works: Die Geburt der Tragodie, 1872 (The Birth of Tragedy); Unzeitgemasse Betrachtungen, 1876 (Untimely Meditations); Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, 1878 (Human, All Too Human); Morgenrote, 1881 (Daybreak, or The Dawn); Die frohliche Wissenschaft, 1882 (The Joyful Science); Also sprach Zarathustra, 1885 (Thus Spake Zarathustra); Jenseits von Gut und Bose, 1886 (Beyond Good and Evil); Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887 (On the Genealogy of Morals); Der Fall Wagner, 1888 (The Case of Wagner); Gotzen-Dammerung, 1889 (The Twilight of the Idols); Der Antichrist, 1895 (The Antichrist); Nietzsche contra Wagner, 1895 (Nietzsche vs. Wagner); Der Wille zur Macht, 1901; (The Will to Power, a highly selective collection of notes from various notebooks, not intended for publication by Nietzsche himself, but released by his sister); Ecce Homo, 1908 (Behold the Man, an attempt at autobiography; the title refers to Pontius Pilate's statement upon meeting Jesus of Nazareth). The character of Superman has sometimes been said to be a popularization of Nietzsche's concept of the Ubermensch. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.] The Great Books: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Post Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books.
	Great Books Online: Amazon Search Search: Books Classical Music DVD Popular Music Software Video magazines Toys & Games Baby Computer & Video Games Electronics Wireless Phones Tools & Hardware Outdoor Living Kitchen & Housewares Camera & Photo All Products Keywords:
	Biographical & Documentary Video Research
	Malaspina Great Books Lecture Series Gregor Samsa as Functional Deviant Russell McNeil, PhD (Copyright 2005) [Malaspina Great Books Exclusive] A Hypothetical Interpretation by Friedrich Nietzsche Russell McNeil My dear friends: 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! Society is an association of institutions held together by a set of artificial values. You like to call them "truths." I say they are masks -- but never mind. Your prestige in your society is measured by the degree to which you choose to conform to its values. When you conform you are close to the norm. If you deviate from the norm, you are a deviant. But beware. Deviation is met with indignation. But deviation and deviants are essential for your survival. Here's where I, Friedrich, come in. You see no one knows where the norm is! Why? There is no truth! The deviant defines the norm for you. The norm is established with reference to the deviant. In a world without crime you would have to invent crime. Oh, I know how much you 90's people rail against crime and justice and criminals--I read your electronic musings--but believe me, without crime you would be lost souls with no reference to good or evil...dare I say you would be beyond good and evil? In your society your deviant subgroups become isolated from the main group because you insist judging everything the deviant does as a further manifestation or proof of the deviance. In fact the label itself defines the deviant individual. Because individuals so defined tend to become isolated and alienated from your main culture, individuals with common "deviant" characteristics define their own separate sub-cultures. These sub-cultures in turn may differentiate too, generating their own versions of deviance within deviance and new sub-sub- cultures form. Remember that the cohesion of your society depends on these deviant groups as reliable points of reference. The more firmly you believe in the "truth" of their deviance, the more faith you have in the steadiness of your "values." Because you define deviance in terms of masks--you call them moral principles (one ought not to deviate), deviant individuals and the subcultures to which they belong can and often do become targets for social oppression. You despise them, but you cannot exist without them. This all serves an important social function. Let's say you as a social group adhere to the moral principle, "one ought to behave within the law." Under such a belief "outlaws" are deviant. Outlaws are a threat to your security. You form a mental model of what an outlaw is like: a certain stereotype emerges. Outlaws reveal themselves by their dress, language, and habits. You and I know this is not always true about outlaws, but the stereotype provides some comfort to you. Of course if you are an outlaw and comfortable as one, adopting the dress, language, and mannerisms of the stereotype may make you feel at home with your outlaw peers, and comfortable as a member of an outlaw subculture. You have exaggerated cultural examples of this in your portrayals of outlaws: prohibition gangsters, old western movie villains, Mafia operatives, outlaw motorcycle gangs. You even use age as a basis for referencing deviation to a norm. To some extent young people (teens in particular) and very old people tend to occupy sub-cultural niches in which they feel comfortable because they have become isolated from the main social group. Teens and old people do deviate from the norm with respect to age. But the very label "teen" or "old" carries a whole catalogue of behavioral expectations for you. You know the stereotypes: teens are rebellious and careless. Old people are senile and unreliable. Whether true or not, the behavior, dress and mannerisms of young and old people are seen by the main group as further evidence of the stereotype. These age based social reference points help anchor your social norm: that of the ideal, reliable and conforming, middle aged conformer. The deviants: teens and old people in turn tend to cluster within cultural sub- groups in which they mirror common forms of dress, behavior and mannerisms. There are endless ways in which people in your society can deviate from behavior norms. Religion or religiosity is or was seen as a basis for defining sub groups: a hot debate in some US states right now over school prayer is pitting those against prayer (labeled by the large group as "atheist") against more mainstream Christian believers. Point being here that the anything the "atheist" says or does is seen as further evidence of the label. Again, according to the argument, the social stereotyping reinforces the values of the main group by giving it reference points. Once labeled you are marked forever. There are other examples: skin color (black, white, native); economic class (rich, poor, employed, unemployed), ethnic background and illness illness (both physical and mental). The behavior of anyone who suffers from a serious mental or physical disability tends to be interpreted as flowing from the conditions of the disability--to the exclusion of anything else. If you are labeled insane (or mislabeled insane) there is little you can do or say that will not be seen as further evidence of your illness. Ten years ago Guy Paul Morin was labeled schizophrenic. Look how easy it was for a jury of 12 to convict him of a horrendous murder and rape of a child based mainly on the expert characterization of someone with that label: psychiatrists said: "Mr. Morin could have done what he did in a delusionary haze and utterly repressed the memory." Everything that Guy Paul Morin said or did during his 10 years of life as a social cockroach was understood through the filter of your society's characterization of the mental deviance known as schizophrenia. Mr. Morin was cleared on Monday. DNA evidence proved that he could not have committed the crime. Sexual deviation can be seen in this light too. Where heterosexuality is the norm and where there is a social moral principle that that is the way one "ought" to be, those who deviate from that norm are labeled as deviant. The "gay" subculture is a reference for normal behavior. The subculture in turn may appropriate its own set of normal rules, dress, and behavioral standards. "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? Consider the possibility that Gregor had acquired a label: a label from which he knew he would never escape: a label so odious in the eyes of family, boss, and society at large that nothing Gregor could do, or say could ever be interpreted as anything other than further evidence of the condition to which that label had attached? Had Gregor acquired the characteristics of a functional deviate? The real metamorphosis that takes place in labeling is complete. Not only do others see us in terms of the label, we see ourselves that way too: The label becomes deeply internalized. "Gregor was shocked to hear his own voice answering, unmistakably his own voice, but from below an insistent distressed chirping intruded." On page 11 Gregor answers his father's request that he open the door with a clear "No." The response produces a stunned silence and a sob from his sister. It was the last intelligible word Gregor would ever utter. It would soon become apparent to the rest of the world that Gregor was indeed what he himself knew he was: a social deviant. With the door opened everyone was shocked. It was Gregor--but Gregor transformed- his long speech on page 16 appeals to the manager to accept him. "I'm in a tight spot." He isn't heard. His appeal for understanding, forgiveness and a second chance fall on deaf ears. Gregor has become something loathsome to the social norm. His appeal is nothing more than the ranting of a labeled man. Nothing he says or does from this point forward will or can be referenced in any other light. Familial and social stability depend on it. As odious and as reviled as Gregor has become, he serves a critical function within his social setting. His very existence allows his family to establish a familiar norm--one that was missing when Gregor the salesman ruled the roost. His father had been, sullen, and lethargic. His mother asthmatic. His sister lazy. With Gregor, the deviant as a point of reference all three experience a transformation: they become socially defined. The father regains vitality; the mother sews, the sister learns music, French and short hand. All three become economic producers. The deviant, Gregor, has an important role to play in this family. There are other pieces in this puzzle that fit the picture. Gregor the bug may hold alien values, but he is essential. He is isolated from the main stream but tethered to it. Deviants are reviled but critical for survival. For Gregor the tethers are universals: music and love. "Was he an animal that music could hold him so? (p.49)" The cleaning lady says, "Look at that old dung beetle." She later credits Gregor with, "unlimited intelligence." Her friendly derision towards Gregor Samsa expresses a winking acknowledgment of certain shared values. She is a ally. She too is a deviant--and as part of an economic underclass recognizes and shares something of Gregor's world. And what of Gregor's world and Gregor's values? 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)" Thank You.
Best Choice Books, Music, Art:	Beyond Good and Evil On the Genealogy of Morals The Will to Power Thus Spoke Zarathustra
	Etext: Beyond Good and Evil Etext: Birth of Tragedy Etext Use and Abuse of History
Browse Books, Music, Art & Book Reviews:	Books from Alibris: Nietzsche Books from Amazon: Nietzsche
	Audiobooks at iTunes: Thousands of Classics
Library Catalogs:	COPAC UK: Nietzsche Library of Canada: Nietzsche Library of Congress: Nietzsche Other Library Catalogs: Nietzsche
External Links:	Research Links: Nietzsche Malaspina Canada Links: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Online Research:
Records from Related Period and Category:	Romantic Literature

About this Database:

This web page is part of a biographical database on Great Ideas. These are living ideas that have shaped, defined and directed world culture for over 2,500 years. By definition the Great Ideas are radical. As such they are sometimes misread, or distorted by popular simplifications. Understanding a Great Idea demands personal engagement. Our selection of Great Ideas is drawn from literature and philosophy, science, art, music, theatre, and cinema. We also include biographies of pivotal historical and religious figures, as well as contributions from women and other historically under-represented minorities. The result is an integrated multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary database built upon the framework of the always controversial Great Books Core List published in 1940 by the late Great Books Pioneer Mortimer Adler (1902-2001). Most of the works on that list are available in the 60 volume Great Books of the Western World.