Nietzsche Contra Olaf Stapledon on the Death of Man

The nihilist and the transcendental idealist

 

 

Recently, I started exploring the speculative writings of British philosopher and sci-fi author Olaf Stapledon, whose fame rests mostly on two hugely influential works: Last and First Men (1930) and Star Maker (1937). 

 

So far, however, I've not been terribly impressed: for no matter how vast the range of material covered by Stapledon - how numerous the ideas or how sensational the imaginative experience offered - there is, as D. H. Lawrence would say, no sense of release. One comes away from his work feeling that one is still trapped within the same old moral-rational universe full of spiritual values and, behind it all, a disembodied consciousness or cosmic supermind.

 

And, even after 2000,000,000 years and eighteen distinct species of human being, when Stapledon decides the game is up and a death sentence can finally be passed on mankind via solar catastrophe, he can't help hoping that we might yet find some way to spunk our essence into the wider galaxy and thus disseminate among the stars the seeds of a new humanity. 

 

And nor can he help coming to the final conclusion: 

 

"Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him there is achievment, small, but actual. Too soon, seemingly, he comes to his end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things." [1]

Obviously, as a Nietzschean and as a nihilist, I can't let that pass and I would refer readers (once more) to the little story that Nietzsche tells us:

 

"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of 'world history', but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die." [2]

 

Nietzsche comments:

 

"One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no additional mission which would lead it beyond human life." [3]     

 

Push comes to shove, I think Nietzsche is on the money and that Stapledon - like all idealists - is kidding himself. As Ray Brassier notes: 

 

"Nietzsche's 'fable' perfectly distils nihilism's most disquieting suggestion: that from the original emergence of organic sentience to the ultimate extinction of human sapience 'nothing will have happened'. Neither knowing nor feeling, neither living nor dying, amounts to a difference that makes a difference – 'becoming aims at nothing and achieves nothing'. [4]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men, (Gollancz, 2004), pp. 303-304. 

[2] Nietzsche, 'On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense', in Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, (Humanities Press, 1979), p. 79.

 

[3] Ibid. 

 

[4] Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 205-206. 

 

For a sister post to this one, on visions of the last men in Nietzsche and Stapledon, click here.  

On Becoming a Vaccine Hero

 

 

One of the big differences between the old school fascism of law and order and our new age fascism of health and safety is that whereas the former terrorised its population into compliance and conformity, the latter unfolds via the insidious infantalisation of its people who become ever-more dependent upon the nanny state (that kindest of all kind monsters).

 

The iron fist has morphed into a helping hand and the boot in the face has become a pat on the head ...

 

Thus, for example, if and when you go to have your coronavirus vaccination - as I did this morning - you'll be subjected to the usual humilations that we've become all-too-accustomed to over the past twelve months. 

 

But, adding insult to injury, just when you think the process has finished and you're free to go, a woman standing by the exit steps forward to place a little sticker on your person featuring a heart and a crown design signifying you've been a brave little boy or girl and that you're a model citizen (or a vaccine hero as I heard someone else say).

 

What is one to do? 

 

Perhaps when I return in a few weeks time for my second jab, I'll wear my Foucault t-shirt and hand out leaflets reading: 

 

Biopower: diverse techniques allowing for the subjugation of individual bodies and the coordination of entire populations by the modern state under the guise of defeating Covid-19; often justified in the UK with the slogan Save Lives and Protect the NHS.    

Why Arachnophobes Have Even More Reason to be Fearful Than They Ever Imagined

D. folliculorum as seen under an electron microscope 

(Credit: Power and Syred / SPL)

 

 

I.

 

Like many other people, a friend of mine - let's call her Miss Muffet - has an intense and irrational fear of spiders: If one were ever to crawl on me, I would die, she has said on more than one occasion. And so I've always resisted the urge to inform her about the existence of a genus of skin mites that live on the human face called Demodex ...

 

 

II.

 

Commonly known as face spiders [1], these tiny arachnids are divided into two species; those that live in hair follicles (D. folliculorum) and those that live in the sebaceous glands connected to hair follicles (D. brevis). 

 

Each has a semi-transparent elongated body, covered in scales, and consisting of two fused segments and eight short legs attached to the first body segment. Each also has a little mouth adapted to grinding up dead skin cells and sucking up the oils which accumulate in the hair follicles. 

 

Sleeping by day, at night they like to slowly stroll around the surface of the face in the hope of finding a mate. Once fertilised, eggs are laid inside the hair follicles or sebaceous glands and take 3-4 days to hatch. The larvae develop into adults within a week and then live out their brief lives within the facial pores of their human host.     

 

It's important to note - before you start scrubbing your face like a lunatic - that Demodex pose no threat to our wellbeing; unless they gather in unusually large numbers, in which case they may provoke certain skin conditions that necessitate a visit to the dermatologist. 

 

But that's rare; most people - including my friend Miss Muffet - live blissfully ignorant of the fact that their face is crawling with hundreds - maybe thousands - of microscopic mites, feasting and fucking [2].  

 

Notes

 

[1]  Actually, they don't look much like spiders and the name Demodex - derived from the Greek terms δημός and δήξ - gives us a better idea of their appearance (i.e., fat-bodied and fat-loving little worms). I'm not sure this will do much to calm my friend, however. 

[2] Interestingly, whilst Demodex might eat, sleep, and reproduce on your face, they're not shitting on it in a conventional sense as they possess no anuses via which to do so. What happens, rather, is that they retain their waste matter throughout their lives, then, at death, there's one large release of the stuff in what some describe (somewhat exaggeratedly) as an explosion of shit. It's thought that this might cause skin irritation and/or inflammation in some people.   

Talaria: On the Secularisation of Winged Footwear from Hermes to Jeremy Scott

 

Adidas Originals by Jeremy Scott 

JS Wings 2.0 Gold (2014)

 

 

As everybody knows, the first pair of winged sandals belonged to the Greek god Hermes ...

 

Made of imperishable gold, they enabled him to fly as swift as any bird and to move freely between worlds (which is handy when employed as a divine messenger). They also magically ensured that he left no footprint at the scene of a crime (which is convenient when out on the rob). 

 

Interestingly, Perseus famously wears the sandals to help him slay the Medusa. But how he came to be in possession of them - and what happened to them afterwards - I don't know.  

 

What I do know, however, is that we live today in a very different world; one in which, thanks to irreverent American fashion designer Jeremy Scott,  everyone is entitled to wear wings on their feet, not just gods and heroes ... 

 

Determined to become a fashion designer from a young age, Scott launched his own brand in Paris, in 1997, just a year after graduating from the Pratt Institute in New York, mixing street style, pop culture, and high fashion in a distinctive style. Although considered neither serious nor commercial by many within the fashion establishment, Scott became a cult figure with an enthusiastic fan base.

 

Recognising his talent and his appeal, Moschino appointed him as their creative director in 2013. But that's not what interests me here. What interests me here, rather, is his extraordinary collaboration with Adidas beginning five years earlier ...

 

When Adidas Originals launched Scott's eye-catching collection of footwear in 2008, his winged high-tops transformed the sneaker market and elevated him to superstar status with mass appeal. Since then, there have been various versions of the shoe, including my favourite version shown above from 2014, designed in reflective gold patent leather, with a gum sole speckled with gold dust.       

 

Who could ask for more? They make the talaria made by Hephaestus pale in comparison and John O'Connor's winged boots designed for Mr Freedom in the early 1970s - as famously worn by Elton John (and written about by Paul Gorman here) - look somewhat clumsy and clownish.

 

 

At the Polar Bear Hotel

 Photo: Xinhua / Rex / Shutterstock

 

 

I wouldn't go so far as Morrissey, who once described the Chinese as a subspecies of human being due to their absolutely horrific record on animal welfare, but, really, do the owners, staff, and guests of the new Harbin Polar Land Hotel feel no shame?

 

It's bad enough how the Chinese treat their own native bears - with the exception of the panda, which is regarded as a national treasure and thus afforded some degree of protection - but do they really need to import members of a threatened species all the way from the Arctic, just to make a sad spectacle of them for the amusement of tourists? 

 

The hotel, in the frozen north-east province of Heilongjiang, resembles a giant igloo and is built in a reverse panopticon manner around a brightly lit central enclosure, complete with fake rocks and icicles and a white painted floor, housing a pair of live polar bears. Guests can thus gawp out of their windows and watch or photograph the animals 24/7. 

 

To be fair, even some Chinese commentators are raising voices of concern. But the fact is that businesses are allowed to exploit animals in any manner they may wish without having to worry about infringing any laws. 

 

I suppose the best that can be said is that at least these snow-white bears are not being milked of their bile like their Asiatic cousins and that, push comes to shove, an air-conditioned enclosure is better than being kept in a cage that is not large enough even to stand up in or turn around. 

 

What's more, if those who bang on about melting sea ice are correct, then polar bears may be heading for extinction by the end of this century. So perhaps those individuals that find sanctuary of sorts - and a life in showbiz - at a theme park hotel might one day be regarded as the fortunate ones ... 

 

 

Picture This: In Praise of the Photo Booth

 

Although we might trace the history of the photo booth back to the late 19th-century, I think it's fair to say that what most people understand to be a photo booth - coin-operated and complete with curtain - didn't debut until September 1925, on Broadway, in NYC. 

Known as the Photomaton, it was the patented invention of a Jewish immigrant from Russia, Anatol Josepho, which would take, develop, and print a strip of eight snaps in under 10 minutes for just 25¢. 

 

In the first six months of operation, the Photomaton captured the images of 280,000 people and soon booths were being placed across the United States. So popular was the Photomaton, that white-gloved attendants stood by the machine during hours of operation in order to control the crowds (and provide any necessary maintenance).

 

In 1928, Josepho - who had arrived in America only five years earlier - sold the rights to his invention for $1,000,000 and guaranteed future royalties. 

 

The new master of the Photomaton, Henry Morgenthau Sr. - a lawyer and businessman who amassed a fortune from real estate and once served as the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire - told The New York Times that the Photomaton would enable him to do in the field of photography what Henry Ford had accomplished in the automobile industry.

 

When, in 1929, the Photomaton was introduced into the European market, many notable figures were keen to have their pictures taken, including the artists André Breton and Salvador Dalí. 

 

So perhaps it's not really surprising that Andy Warhol would later reveal himself to be a big fan of the photo booth, for whom the latter represented "a quintessentially modern intersection of mass entertainment and private self-contemplation" [1].  

 

I'm sure Warhol also recognised the erotic nature of such an intimate space; once squeezed inside a photo booth with someone on your knee, it's almost impossible not to cop a feel or snatch a kiss. 

 

But for him, as an artist, the real fascination was with the actual strip of single frame images produced: "The serial, mechanical nature of the strips provided Warhol with an ideal model for his aesthetic of passivity, detachment, and instant celebrity." [2]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm quoting from a text posted on the website of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to accompany a Photobooth Self-Portrait produced by Andy Warhol (c. 1963): click here. 

 

[2] Ibid.

 

See also: Jason Fate, 'The New Warhol Photobooth!' (2 August 2013), on the behind the scenes blog of The Andy Warhol Museum: click here.  

The 4-frame strip of images used to illustrate this post - featuring an anonymous young couple - was found in a photo booth in Ramsgate, in November 1986.

Only an Astronaut Can Save Us: Notes on the Overview Effect and Overview Institute

The famous Blue Marble photo of the Earth taken by 

the crew of Apollo 17 on their way to the Moon (1972)

 

 

I. 

 

When it comes to seeing the big picture, astronauts obviously have an edge over the rest of us. Indeed, there is even a term for their cosmic perspective and the cognitive shift that it sometimes triggers: the overview effect ...

Apparently, when viewing the Earth from space, some astronauts experience a kind of epiphany; they suddenly realise the fragile beauty of the small blue planet they have left behind and how rare and precious the life that it supports. All borders and boundaries become meaningless and all divisions between people seem arbitrary if not irrelevant and absurd; the need to create a planetary system that acknowledges the brotherhood of man becomes imperative if we are to safeguard the Earth and survive as a species.

 

 

II.

 

I have to say, I'm highly suspicious of this cosmic euphoria ...

 

More precisely, whilst I'm prepared to accept that some astronauts genuinely experience a subjective feeling of awe and wonder - and that this has nothing to do with a faulty oxygen supply or even a God gene - I don't much like the way this is then articulated in the language of moral and political idealism by self-proclaimed space philosopher Frank White [1] and fellow members of the so-called Overview Institute. 

 

In their Declaration of Vision and Principles, they churn out a familiar line of what I would describe as sinister utopian bullshit: this is a critical moment in human history ... we face many challenges ... our greatest need is for a global vision of unity based on the revolutionary experience of the blessed few so that we might transform human culture, etc., etc.

 

The Overview Effect (note their use of capitals) is a fundamental perspective-altering experience which must be brought to the masses via space simulation (i.e. virtual reality and other forms of technology) and space tourism, in order to raise human consciousness to a cosmic level, so that mankind might finally fulfil the Socratic injunction to rise above the Earth.     

 

Hallelujah and amen! 

 

 

III. 

We have, of course, heard all this - or something very similar - many times before; for the will to Oneness and a desire for transcendence is depressingly common throughout human history. 

 

When will we realise that it is our monomania that is so fatally mistaken? When will we accept that the beauty of man is that his unfolding is towards infinite variety, not universal sameness? 

 

As D. H. Lawrence notes, when men finally learn how to live in touch then "the great movement of centralising into oneness will cease / and there will be a vivid recoil into separateness" [2] with all the differences given free expression.

 

Staying true to the earth means climbing down Pisgah into the nearness of the nearest - not zooming into space and thinking this gives you a god's eye view from which to judge how everyone should live.

 

 

IV.

 

Perhaps it's just me, but when I look at the above photo of the earth taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts, I don't come over all Louis Amstrong and think to myself what a wonderful world. 

 

Like Nietzsche, rather, I realise there were eternities during which the earth and the clever animal man did not exist, just as there are eternities to come after the earth and mankind are no more. And that when it's all over, when the last trace of human intelligence has long vanished from the universe, nothing will have changed, nothing will have mattered [3]. 

 

How's that for an (admittedly nihilistic) overview!

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Frank White was the writer who coined the term and first explored the concept of the overview effect. See The Overview Effect - Space Exploration and Human Evolution, (Houghton-Mifflin, 1987). 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Future States', in Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 526. See also the related verse 'Future War', p. 527.  

 

[3] See Nietzsche, 'On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense', in Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870s, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale, (Humanities Press, 1979), p. 79.  

Dyspepsia: Notes on Nietzsche, Insomnia and Indigestion

Hans Olde: Nietzsche on his Sick-Bed (c. 1899) 

Goethe-Nationalmuseum (Weimer)

 

 

In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche defines philosophy as a seeking out of everything that has previously been exiled by morality [1]. This includes the little things that are nearest to us; things that are familiar and trusted, rather than alien and questionable, and not so much exiled as overlooked by those who concern themselves with grand ideals or what theologians think of as the first and last things. 

 

What this means in practice is that you must (a) treat your shadow with respect and (b) be concerned with everyday activities such as eating and sleeping, the latter described by Nietzsche as an art (for the sake of which one must stay awake all day). 

 

The problem - as Nietzsche was all-too-acutely aware [2] - is that it can be extremely difficult to eat well and sleep soundly; dyspepsia and insomnia are such common problems today as to be almost defining characteristics of modern life. In fact, a significant proportion of the UK population seem to regularly wash down the chalky remains of Rennie tablets with caramel flavoured liquid Nytol [3]. 

 

Perhaps that's why some religious people like to pray before mealtimes and bedtime; not because they are truly thankful for what they are about to receive or for the day that's been, but in the hope that an insincere expression of gratitude will aid digestion and ensure a solid eight hours kip.

 

Notes

 

[1] See section 3 of the Foreword to Nietzsche's Ecce Homo. See also 'The Wanderer and His Shadow', in Human, All Too Human (Vol. II Part 2), where Nietzsche introduces the notion of the nearest things and alludes to the vital importance of sleep, diet, and the creation of routines and habits by which to structure the day.      

 

[2] Nietzsche's health issues are extensively documented and well-known. As well as suffering from insomnia and gastrointestinal problems, he also experienced blinding headaches and these things combined not only resulted in chronic exhaustion, but doubtless contributed to his later physical and mental breakdown.   

 

[3] Research indicates that a majority of British adults - over 80% - have experienced some form of gastrointestinal problem in the past 12 months, including (but not limited to) bloating, indigestion, and heartburn. Usually this is due to stress, poor diet, a lack of sleep, or a combination of these and other factors. 

      Meanwhile, around 1-in-3 adults claim to suffer from insomnia and two thirds say they suffer from disrupted sleep patterns, with a quarter getting no more than five hours sleep on an average night. Of these, 13% take sleeping tablets to help them nod off, whilst another 13% use alcohol as a sleep aid (a traditional nightcap being the favoured method amongst the over 55s).  

 

The Bats Have Left the Bell Tower: Reflections on Graveyard Poetry and Post-Punk Goth

Love Among the Gravestones (1981) 

Photo by Kirk Field

 

 

La Rochefoucauld famously suggested that people never would have fallen in love if they hadn’t first learnt about it in works of art. And one wonders if something similar might also be said of the morbid and sometimes macabre fascination that many young lovers have for skulls, coffins, epitaphs and worms, i.e., all the trappings and paraphernalia of death. 

 

Would, for example, the two teens pictured above have spent so much time smooching in cemeteries were it not for the influence of the Graveyard Poets upon the erotic imagination?

 

It's doubtful. 

 

For whilst their post-punk queer gothic sensibility was primarily shaped by Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Sex Gang Children - along with numerous other bands from this period (early-1980s) - we can trace their love of the uncanny and the occult all the way back to these 18th-century poets, whose mournful meditations on mortality and the love that tears us apart foreshadowed the work of songwriters like Ian Curtis and Nick Cave.   

 

There is - perhaps not surprisingly - much debate within critical circles about what constitutes a graveyard poem and about which authors should be classified as belonging to the Graveyard school (and it might be noted that the term itself was not used to refer to a style of writer and their work until coined by a literary scholar in 1893). 

 

What we can say, however, is that the following four poems remain crucial to our understanding of it:

 

Night Piece on Death (1722) - Thomas Parnell

Night-Thoughts (1742-45) - Edward Young

The Grave (1743) - Robert Blair

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard  (1751) - Thomas Gray

Obviously, none of these works have the pop brilliance of songs by the above bands and artists, but readers who are interested in melancholic 18th-century poetry to do with life, death, ghosts and graveyards should certainly check them out. 

 

Be prepared, however, for a tedious amount of Christian moralising; for it's an unfortunate fact that didacticism and piety often detract from the delicious decadence and horror of these works.    

 

 

Musical bonus: Public Image Ltd., 'Graveyard', from the album Metal Box, (Virgin, 1979): click here.

 

 

Concrete Afterlife: Or How to Become Your Own Gravestone

 

The result is a unique, self-contained and virtually eternal 

concrete object that represents what the person was in life.

 

 

I. 

 

Concrete is a composite material made up of fine and coarse aggregates often bonded with cement that hardens over time into a durable stone-like substance. It is one of the most frequently used building materials in the world; we use twice more concrete (ton for ton) than we do steel, wood, or plastic combined.

 

For the Romans, who also used concrete extensively, it was a revolutionary material which allowed them to build structures that were not only more complex, but bigger and stronger than previously possible; the Colosseum is largely made of concrete and the Pantheon is sealed beneath what remains to this day the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. 

 

It's not, as one might imagine, the kind of material likely to appeal to D. H. Lawrence; a writer who hated stone monuments intended to last for millennia and who hated Imperial Rome which "smashed nation after nation and crushed the free soul in people after people" [1]. 

 

Within his hierarchy of materials, Lawrence ranks wood way above concrete and he praises peoples like the Etruscans who built their houses and temples of the former, so that their towns and cities eventually vanished as completely as flowers: 

 

"Myself, I like to think of the little wooden temples of the early Greeks and of the Etruscans: small, dainty, fragile, and evanescent as flowers. We have reached the stage where we are weary of huge stone erections, and we begin to realise that it is better to keep life fluid and changing, than to try and hold it fast down in heavy monuments. Burdens on the face of the earth, are man's ponderous erections." [2]

      

It's the imposition of stone and concrete that Lawrence loathes; the attempt to impress with a display of wealth and power and to materially manifest the superiority of one's culture over that of one's neighbour who prefers to build in softer materials and keep things on a human scale. 

 

 

II. 

 

Now, one might have thought that Lawrence's wife, Frieda, would've been (or should've been) aware of her husband's views on this subject. Thus her decision - made five years after his death - to have his corpse exhumed and cremated, so that she might then mix the ashes into a concrete block remains puzzling and troubling [3].

 

I mean, wtf was she thinking? Lawrence would've hated the thought of a concrete overcoat. It seems, however, that some people today love the idea ...

 

Indeed, there are now businesses offering to add the cremains of your loved one to concrete and then pour the mix into a mould of your choosing. You can, for example, turn great-uncle Bertie into a concrete bird bath, or perhaps transform a hen-pecked husband into a lovely set of paving stones so that you can continue to walk all over him in death as you did in life. 

 

As Diego Belden and Arturo Acosta of project Concrete Afterlife note: 

 

"The corpse's ashes become a self-sufficient and unique statement of who he/she was in life, almost as eternal as the soul it has parted with. The flexibility of the material and process, allow this concrete avatar to blend much more easily with its surroundings. Whether it is placed among decorative items on a coffee table or shelf, stands silently in the garden, or is disguised as an odd looking rock in a remote natural location." [4]

 

Far be it from me to criticise those who want to have this done - either with their own ashes, or the ashes of a loved one - but, personally speaking, I'm not convinced. I want my remains mixed up with the wind and the rain, not confined within concrete and I have no desire to effectively become my own gravestone.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, Sketches of Etruscan Places, in Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays, ed. Simonetta De Filippis, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 9.  

[2] Ibid., p. 32. It might be noted that Lawrence doesn't just object to ancient monuments; he also complains of "new concrete villas [and] new concrete hotels" [p. 25] being built along the Roman coast in towns like Ladispoli.   

[3] I have written in an earlier post about the fate of Lawrence's ashes: click here.  

[4] To know more about Diego Belden's and Arturo Acosta's project - Concrete Afterlife - see the online magazine Designboom (19 April, 2013): click here. Note that the image and blurb used above is taken from here (the latter having been very slightly revised).