Nietzsche’s Atypical View of Truth and Morality

by Lena Vuong

Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo primarily concerns itself with humanity’s attention to truth and morality. However, this essay is a far cry from conventional ideas of reality and virtue. Instead of succumbing to Christian morality as the proper model for ideals, Nietzsche radically assumes a position diametrically opposed to it, supporting what society may call its vices, instead of its virtues, and more practical, bodily concerns, rather than the questions of God or the soul, as the singular guides to the truth. Of the real world, Nietzsche asserts that humanity has “mendaciously invented” it and that beyond just erecting this false pillar, on top of which sits Christian morality, we mistakenly and wholeheartedly accept its validity, plunging ourselves into a mire untruths from which only Nietzsche has been able to escape, according to him. To be a human, then, is to be more than Christ was. The naming of the text, Ecce Homo, which translates to Behold the Man, is a contrast of Nietzsche, who was a real man, to Christ, who was not.

Assuming the role as a moral decadent, Nietzsche wades through the virtues honored by humanity and proceeds in refuting each one with the assertion that their opposites are those that should be valued. Of “unselfish tendencies” and “neighborly love,” he desecrates the associated selfless intentions and accuses it of weakness and impertinence. Instead, rude words should be appreciated because those who speak them have courage enough to contradict. Sympathy should not be admired but despised by those who receive it from others because it falls under the category of “neighborly love” and so should be refused. In addition, the ability to be an enemy “presupposes a strong nature” because it is an indicator that the person has the strength to resist. Above all, that dubbed the “highest wisdom” is fatalism: not desiring to be different from one’s self; to view ourselves as “a destiny.” In these lies the crust of Nietzsche’s main argument of “how one becomes what one is”. Presumably, what one is, is a man. To realize this requires moving beyond the false view of humanity that Christian morality has imposed on us.

The answers to his self-laudatory titles, Why Am I So Wise and Why Am I So Clever, are in his inversions of conventional values. Nietzsche is wise because he has been enlightened so as to understand that all accepted values need revaluation, and he is clever because he, different from all else, has been able to ascend beyond the lies humanity imposed upon itself to realize the truth that had been masked behind the label of immorality, branded by Christian morality. To Nietzsche, God “is such an obvious and crass solution.” It is behind this shroud that truth lies. Because of this false ideal brought on by Christianity, humanity has come to value all that is untrue and to believe themselves to be capable of being different or better, when what one should focus on are the more practical: diet, locality, climate, recreation, and egoism. In describing their importance, Nietzsche does not directly compare them to the mendacious ideals of God, the soul, sin, or ‘eternal life.’ The only difference between them is that one is actually realistic and so our center of attention must be on them, while the other is an empty promise that will lead humanity nowhere, as said by Zarathustra when he declares that “you had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me,” indicating humanity’s misleading of themselves to reach for something unnecessary. In his rejection of Christian values and defense of what most would call immoral, Nietzsche reaches morality.

An interesting point of discussion stems from the possible reasons Nietzsche had for writing this essay at all. How one becomes what one is, according to him, “presupposes that one has not the remotest suspicion of what one is.” Therefore, “a unique meaning and value is given to even the blunders of one’s life… the earnestness wasted upon tasks remote from the central one.” Wisdom can come from these mistakes. If so, even without reading Nietzsche’s essay, would not one still become what one is? If the right ideas will grow within us, leading “us slowly back from your deviations and aberrations,” but at the same time, we must beware of anything that leads “to the dangerous possibility that the instinct may ‘understand itself’ too soon,” why should this essay be written or read at all? It seems that realizing the falsities of our morals may fall under the ‘dangerous’ time-range suggested by Nietzsche himself.

Clearly, though, the mastery of distinguishing the true truths and the false truths will require the whole of humanity’s attention to everything we previously thought was undoubted.