Was Nietzsche MAGA?

I have a friend who I'm pretty sure

voted for Donald Trump and right before

Christmas he was upset because his

daughter supported Harris and she didn't

want her Republican relatives around for

the holidays my friend couldn't

understand this perspective he said that

politics is personal and you should

never shun someone least of all a family

member for their personal choice on the

flip side his daughter couldn't

understand his perspective how could you

put somebody's choice to vote Trump off

to one side like it just doesn't even

matter at all I think we can explain

this conflict with a little bit of help

from 19th century German philosopher

Friedrich ner in fact I think we can

explain a lot of the Maga movement

generally using n's work so here we go

some people think that morality

shouldn't come into business that hey

whatever right and wrong says you've

just got to do what's right for the

company so they still believe in

Morality they just have a different

belief about when it applies similarly

my trump voting friend doesn't lack

morals he's not an animal when he says

politics is personal he just means that

there isn't a universal moral standard

there's no one way that everybody should

vote Just A diversity of opinions his

daughter evidently disagrees and thinks

there is a universal moral standard that

applies in every voting booth that

voting Republican in this particular

election at least was morally wrong and

she doesn't want to associate with

anyone who did so it's not that she has

morals and he doesn't they both have

morals the disagreement is about

when they should come into play now for

n it is a mistake to think that morality

is universal and applies to everyone all

the time he was quite comfortable saying

that for some people the rules are just

different especially if they are a

better class of person we just did a

video about that if you're curious you

can go and check it out now my trump

voting friend is not a white supremacist

in fact he's black but he does believe

in hierarchy I think it's fair to say he

thinks he has some authority over his

daughter especially whilst he's still

supporting her he might not call it

Authority he might say that he has a

responsibility to raise her right and

prepare her for the world and so on but

it's clear that he expects some amount

of difference from her as part of that

relationship and he regards that

deference as flowing naturally to him

despite the fact that his daughter is in

fact an adult in other words in his mind

there is a hierarchy and so the rules

are different morality doesn't always

apply and if there's a disagreement

about when it does he should have the

final say because he's the dad if you're

more inclined to view everybody as equal

then you might not have a problem with

saying no actually the rules are the

same for everyone and there is a

universal moral standard but that is not

the way that n would look at it here's

another example Nancy mace US

Representative for North Carolina she

said some very nasty things about trans

people and triy to have us banned from

using public bathrooms she was

confronted in her office off by AOC and

AOC said hey like don't you think this

is kind of bad don't you think this is

kind of hurtful I mean you shouldn't say

those things about trans people right

and Nancy mace replied whatever you know

it's a game points on the board to me

that doesn't suggest a lack of morality

so much as a disagreement about when it

applies and to whom to AOC morality

obviously applies to trans people like

you shouldn't say those sorts of

horrible things about us or try and have

our rights restricted but to Nancy mace

apparently uh we don't really come under

the scope of morality it's it's just a

game points on the board now it would be

nice if we could all just agree to

disagree about whether morality applies

to say

voting it would be nice if families

around the world could come together

over the holidays and not fight about

stuff but there is a universal standard

that we are all bound by there is

something that affects every single one

of us and that

is the amount of carbon dioxide in

Earth's atmosphere I think about this

quite often uh that some of the classic

philosophers we still read today were

writing at a time when people didn't

know about global warming I mean it's

all well and good to Champion

individuality and individual

perspectives but we do in fact all live

on one very precarious planet and our

actions including voting do have an

effect on whether or not it remains

habitable it certainly seems like some

things should matter from everybody's

perspective I mean isn't that just

science well here's a little story about

science in December of last year I was

in Montana which is a part of planet

Earth I went into a te- shop in Montana

and whilst I was waiting for my order I

ease dropped on the conversation that

the couple next to me were having

apologies if you were that couple your

convers was just too fascinating not to

listen in on they were talking

about vaccines the woman was saying that

she didn't trust vaccines she didn't

want her kids to get any vaccines and

here's some quotes of things she

actually said that I surreptitiously

wrote down in my phone you trust Western

medson because it's worked for you but

for me Weston medson killed my mom I

trust my kids bodies to do what they're

meant to do I'm Cherokee my ancestors

were Cherokee so I'm very in touch with

nature and natural healing people say to

me oh you reject science you want polio

to come back and they're so stupid polio

was cured cuz we cleaned up the water it

wasn't the vaccine so I actually know

more science than you that last point is

false by the way uh the the cleaning up

the water did help with the polio

situation but we did actually beat polio

with a vaccine I'd be doing like

misinformation if I didn't tell you that

I was really struck by how often that

woman centered herself and her own

perspective in the conversation they

were having all of the things she said

were about her identity as a woman as a

daughter as a mother as a person of

indigenous American descent even that

last remark about polio was about her in

contrast to some imaginary other person

who knew less than her she talked a lot

more about herself than she did about

things like facts or evidence or studies

and I'm not necessarily bashing her for

that I'm just noticing it and saying

that it's interesting philosophers might

call that

perspectivism and we find a lot of it in

Fredick nature facts and science only

matter from somebody's personal

perspective the value of Truth is not

unconditional the value of a fact

depends on what you want to do with it

here's some quotes from Fredick n's book

the will to power there is no truth the

concept truth is nonsensical there are

no facts only interpretations now you

might well say that's just ridiculous

and it's also self-refuting and you're

risking throwing away so much of what

Humanity has achieved through science

and reason but a nitian would come back

and say no truth is only meaningful in

contexts shaped by our desires and

desire is what life is really about to

deny that is to deny what it means to be

alive in very general terms nature

thought that Society has gone wrong

we're all being held back and kept down

by dominant standards of morality and

the cure for this is to try and have a

personal psychological transformation

become an individual and assert yourself

perspectivism is part of that project

here is another example now you might

say that under President Joe Biden the

United States had the best postco

economic recovery of any G7 Nation you

might say that under Biden the US

economy was pretty good all things

considered relative to other countries

and relative to what it might have been

but a nian would say I don't care what

the macroeconomic picture says when

groceries gasoline rent and health

insurance cost most of my wages yes

those things are facts they are true I'm

not denying that but that truth doesn't

matter to what I want to do there this

trend I've seen where liberals say that

Trump supporters are nihilist that they

don't care about anything but

perspectivism isn't nihilism they do

care about some things again like my

trump voting friend doesn't lack values

he just doesn't value all the same

things at the same time as me and if you

try to impose values on people as if

they are objective if you try to say you

have to care about these facts a lot of

people experience that as belittling

when we think

about freedom and and ask what is

freedom an nian would say it has two

parts to it firstly Freedom means seeing

your values your goals your intentions

and what you want to do as coming from

you chosen by you rather than given to

you by someone else secondly Freedom

means the ability to reflect on those

values and goals and change them if you

want to so now I'm thinking

about

pronouns and how a lot of conservatives

can get up set about compelled speech

when they're asked to use

trans-inclusive language over the last

few years there's been a greater

recognition that queer people exist and

hello we're part of society hi nice to

see you we've been here the whole time

and that includes you know making a few

accommodations so that life is a little

bit easier for us and some conservatives

have gotten very upset about that they

see it as something being forced down

their throats like it's the new religion

it's the new woke

Orthodoxy say the damn pronouns

according to Nature every living thing

has this drive inside

called the will to power maybe a better

translation would be will to agency or

will to Freedom Will To Power is the

translation that everybody knows but the

idea is that we all want to feel like we

are in control of Our Lives we all want

to feel like we're powerful and strong

and the Masters of our own Destinies

there are lots of ways to fulfill the

will to power dominating somebody else

through violence is a very very obvious

way but thought there are more subtle

ways too pity and charity are according

to him expressions of the will to power

if you help somebody out you're really

just trying to reassure yourself of your

own Superior status and you know you

could even call that virtue signaling n

was an egoist he didn't believe in

unselfish actions even things that look

ostensibly altruistic are according to

him secretly selfish all along your

mileage may vary on whether or not you

believe that I see a lot of

conservatives who seem to think that

Liberals are pulling some kind of con uh

whether it's an explicit conspiracy like

queing on or like putting stuff in the

vaccines or or whether it's just virtue

signaling uh they say stuff like well

you don't really care about global

warming or or vaccines or or queer

people or inclusive language you don't

really care about any of those things

you're just using your Will To Power

it's just a secret Ploy for control and

you cloak your Will To Power in

self-righteous moral language but I see

right through you that's a nan Outlook

they're trying to explain Society in

terms of the will to power they're

analyzing ideologies like progressivism

and trying to tell a story about where

they come from and why they're secretly

bad there's this other Trend I've seen

where liberals and leftists paint Trump

supporters as cruel as delighting in

cruelty and causing suffering and they

often point out things like Donald Trump

has promised to take retribution against

his enemies but on the flip side I see

some Maga people portraying that as kind

of a good thing as a as a willingness to

be tough that in some sense aligns with

reality like yeah it's tough but but you

you got to be that way sometimes or or

you know it's the discipline that that

people need or in some way at least it's

an understandable instinct to want

retribution nature thought that we all

have a desire to cause suffering to

others that we bury deep down inside us

and he actually thought there's nothing

wrong with it in fact he thought it has

several beneficial effects the point

punishment he said was to make people

remember if you do something bad and you

get hit for it you'll remember it and so

he says the desire to cause suffering to

one another is the foundation of all

promises and contract and economic

exchange and even reason itself it makes

people predictable and orderly and hence

it allows us to form goals and make

plans based on the expectation that

others will behave consistently so

painful yes but also kind of necessary

and that's a Sim rationalization that I

see some Maga people making and

now

Jesus JD Vance wrote a very interesting

essay in 2020 called why I joined the

resistance if you didn't know Vance used

to be a left-wing atheist and now he's a

far right Catholic and the essay is

about why that switch happened in his

essay Vance says that the left often

correctly diagnoses problems like

poverty and addiction as structural and

yet even in very privileged places like

Elite universities there are plenty of

people who have a lot of resources who

aren't poor but are still addicted and

depressed and stuck in a nihilist void

thrashing their lives away in pursuit of

pointless prizes and so he says in his

opinion America needs a spiritual

renewal to fill that void he likes that

kind of solution because it gives people

a chance for virtue it's something they

can individually reach for they can make

good choices heroic choices even whereas

the left tends to say well hey here's a

problem with society and if you want to

do something about it too bad this issue

is systemic and by the way here's a list

of words you can't say anymore you don't

really get to be a hero you just avoid

getting canceled while I agreed that

more resources were often necessary

there seemed to me a sense in which our

most dist dtive behaviors persisted even

flourished in times of material Comfort

the economic left was often more

compassionate but there's was a kind of

compassion devoid of any expectation

that rre of giving up a compassion that

assumes a person is disadvantaged to the

point of hopelessness is like sympathy

for a zoo animal and I had no use for it

now n was not a big fan of religion he

hated it so he wouldn't approve of

Vance's conclusions but the steps that

Vance takes to get there are very nichan

it's all about becoming a heroic

individual like becoming the main

character instead of an NPC replacing

Thou shalt not with I will now let's

take a big step back and we'll put all

of this

together there's a genre of writing

called anti-modernism it's been around

for about 200 years and the vibe is this

modern society is decadent and we know

this because values that used to be

unquestionable are now being questioned

it's okay to doubt religion publicly

it's okay to criticize the founding

stories of the nation or go against

long-standing institutions and so we've

lost our absolute values we've lost our

way and this is very very bad not only

bad in fact it's apocalyptic every

generation of anti-modernist has claimed

that the current decadence is the last

straw if Obama wins he'll make

Christianity illegal if Jeremy Corbin

wins he'll never leave office if the

French Revolution sticks Europe will

devolve into Anarchy if the sjws get

their way then video games will be taken

away forever and if if if if the

feminisms

then men forget about it this is always

more of a Vibe than an argument anti

modernists have claimed for the last 200

years that Society stands on the brink

of nihilism and chaos

and they've been consistently wrong but

it is a very popular tune Jordan

Peterson absolutely fits in here you

know how on YouTube now there's suddenly

loads of videos about which video games

and movies are woke or anti-woke and

there's this whole like Dei moral

Panic that's antimodernism too it's all

this anxiet y about old values being

questioned now that more people are

getting included when conservatives say

that Liberals are doing things like

changing the meaning of the word woman

and making it so you can't even speak

the truth about biology anymore that's

anti-modernism too you know you're

questioning the old ways when manosphere

misogynists say that women should be

tradwives and men should be Alphas even

though that doesn't seem to make either

group happy when conservatives say

things like oh immigrants are are coming

in and they don't share our values and

they're poisoning the blood of the

nation that's all anti-modernism too you

know you're mixing things that shouldn't

be mixed spiritually morally racially

poisoning the blood that was a phrase

used by Frederick

ner and then by Adolf Hitler and then by

Donald Trump Elon musk's Department of

government efficiency and the British

conservative party saying that there's

too many woke Dei higher civil servants

now too many too many federal employees

getting in the way of the will of the

People Too Much discussion too much

abstraction too much questioning not

enough doing he just said the exact same

thing he said that Germany had too many

representatives and intermediaries in

politics and not enough men of action I

mean once you start reading it it really

is astonishing how much it's just the

same thing when anti-modernist go on

this let's shrink the state Crusade they

become natural allies of big

corporations big corporations hate

regulation and government because it

cuts into their profits so they team up

Elon Musk is the embodiment of that team

up the solution that anti-modernist pose

is usually one of two things either we

all have to become religious again or we

all have to embrace some kind of new

values that don't include things like

pluralism uh and freedom and discussion

and democracy in practice though it

shakes out to the same thing

dictatorship

for anti- modernists Liberal democracy

was a mistake that needs to be rolled

back and when anti modernists team up

with big corporations to take over the

government historians call that

mix fascism but here's why we can't just

dismiss it as nihilism or Madness

because there is a kind of void at the

heart of society of course there is we

can feel it every day I I

mean check this out unless you win the

lottery or you come from money you're

basically just a container for skills

that employers want at the drop of a hat

you might have to move cities move

countries retrain give up your artistic

dreams learn to code take on debt

neglect your family neglect your health

neglect your caring responsibilities you

know disregard your heritage lose your

accent and and become indistinguishable

from a billion people all trying to do

the exact same thing as interchangeable

as nails and a fence posts all to make

money some of which is going to go to

you but but most of which actually is

going to go to your boss uh and your

landlord and your insurance company if

you're American that is a kind of

nihilism that that is against living

it's against human life it doesn't make

anyone feel good I mean it definitely

happens if you're poor but there are a a

lot of places like Elite universities

where there are plenty of people who

would just burned out on how difficult

it is to make a living that is the way

that the economy is organized and it

sucks it it it sucked in n's time and it

sucks even harder now we should change

this in Nature's Universe culture is

Downstream from politics which is

Downstream from values which is

Downstream from race but a more accurate

picture would be be to say that

everything is Downstream from the way

that the economy is organized even our

values and we all have to compromise our

values so often just to survive and

here's the final

twist the philosopher Wendy Brown says

that in a

theocracy the government tells you who

you have to be worship this God value

these things follow these rules but in a

liberal democracy the government doesn't

do that doesn't tell you what you're

supposed to Value because you have

things like separation of church and

state and pursuit of happiness and a

degree of individual liberty and so on

the idea is you bring your own values to

life and you you you find out what they

are by living it making a conscious

choice about what you value out of life

and what it is that you want doing the

kind of Nan thing of becoming an

individual and asserting yourself and

and claiming your own values it's really

really difficult it's scary there's a

lot of obstacles in the way and what if

it turns out that your values and the

things that you want out of life aren't

what mainstream Society approves of well

then things can get a little difficult

believe me so we get this tension

between Democratic nihilism which is

kind of by Design and like kind of a

good thing it allows you room to grow as

an individual and bring your own values

to life and on the other hand we have

capitalism running in and saying I know

what the answer is you should value

making a profit and we have nationalism

running in and saying I know what you

should value you should value the nation

and we have racism running in saying I

know what you should value you should

value the race and we have religion

running in and saying I know what you

should value you should value the

teachings in this book and so there's

this constant push and pull between

democracy and anti-democracy going on

all the time

wow we've really come a long way from

from my friend arguing with his daughter

I really wish I had a a kind of piffy

video essay answer to this uh to this

problem that Wendy Brown identifies that

is kind of the philosophy tube way isn't

it like hey but here's the thing that

you can do here's the here's the John

Oliver positive takeaway but uh I really

do think that that tension is quite

possibly one of the defining questions

of the 21st century so we are all going

to find out the answer together in real

time here's something that I thought of

though when I was writing this episode I

have another friend who was born

disabled and a while ago I used the word

freak in front of her to describe

someone else and she to me

hey that word really makes me feel bad

could could you use something else and

just for a second I got mad in my head

cuz I was like obviously I wouldn't use

the word freak to describe you I would

never use the word freak to describe

somebody who was disabled like stop

telling me what to say obviously I would

use it to describe someone who was weird

I wouldn't use it in that way like why

are you telling me that I'm bad why do

you think that I'm bad how could you

think that about me just just just get

off my back is what I thought but then I

reflected a little bit and I realized

that using a different word probably

wasn't going to impact me all that much

and by using that word I was sort of

throwing her off the balance of her day

I was like you know putting a wrench in

her in her system and I could avoid

doing that so having reflected

internally I made the choice to bump

that word down the list of my vocabulary

I made her life a little easier and that

decision came came from me so I enhanced

her freedom and I also used my freedom

it wasn't a a Will To Power trick she

wasn't trying to Will To Power me and I

wasn't trying to get like woke brownie

points by using my will to power to kind

of virtue signal to her it was it was

just we enhanced our freedom together

antimodernism and nature are both pretty

individualistic and that's where I think

it kind of falls down this trying to

become a heroic individual thing that to

me feels a little bit like being on a

treadmill because even if you you become

the great individual and you achieve

everything you become so dominant and

strong like who who do you have to share

it with I mean you know look at a guy

like Elon

Musk he has so much and he's he's

miserable he's the richest man in the

world but like you know ketman is not

that expensive nobody who accomplished

anything worthwhile ever managed it on

their own and and not everybody who

challenges us is trying to pull some

kind of Will To Power virtue signaling

trick on us sometimes that they're just

trying to grow too I I mean here's my

hot take that's why I kind of like

pluralism and and modernism and

individual freedom because we all have

the potential to grow and change and in

unexpected ways we have the potential to

do it together too and and that's why I

like that the government doesn't tell me

what to believe or what God to worship

because you

know who knows what you could turn out

to be that's that's how I think of it

anyway it's not really a conclusion it's

more of just a hey that's that's

something that occurred to me when I was

writing this I think it's good that

Society doesn't Just Produce clones of

the same person all the time you know I

think it's good that everyone's not just

NPCs and uh and speaking of NPCs I

actually wrote A Part three to This n

series it's about a video game called

the outer worlds uh and how it helps me

confront nihilism uh like a lot of

people I've been feeling the nihilist

void

lately and feeling a little bit of

Despair so I wrote a little video about

a a video game I like and and how it

helps me deal with that that video

wouldn't really work on this YouTube

channel because I get copyright dinged

for using game footage and also it's a

kind of weird artsy experiment so you

can see that video right now by clicking

the link in the description and going to

nebula nebula subscribers also got to

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nebula and they have exclusive stuff too

like documentaries and short films that

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noticed how a lot of people in politics

seem to be really really old well the

YouTuber Tom Nicholas just made a

documentary about that very thing it's

called Boomers you can find that

exclusively on nebula if you like seeing

me wearing weird gothic clothing and

being kind of horny and fruity with it

then I made a short film last year

called Dracula's ex-girlfriend about

vampires and abusive relationships you

can see that on nebula too the other

cool thing about nebula is it's owned

collectively by the people who are on it

like it's it's a collective project I

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which is why I trust them and it's also

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supporting a really cool Collective

project so I will take on the world

again

tonight we'll take on the world again

tonight

we pushed your luck all in over

dry we tore the roof right out of the

sky you made me promise not to ever let

go and so I had to let go go go go go so

I will take on the world again

[Music]

tonight I will take on the world again

tonight

I will take on world again

tonight will take on the world again

tonight

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

we us to up all

pieces I will take on the world again

tonight I will take on the world again

[Music]

tonight I will take on the world again

tonight I will take on the world again

[Music]

T I will take on the world again

[Music]

tonight will take on the way

again

tonight I will take on the world again

tonight I will take on the world again

tonight I will take on the world again

tonight I will take on the world again

[Music]

tonight I will take on the world again

[Music]

tonight

I

I

I I

[Applause]