Naturally Cruel: The Nietzsche / Kropotkin Discourse Posted by Marek Vermin on February 3rd, 2006
“To the psychologists first of all, presuming they would like to study ressentiment close up for once, I would say: this plant blooms best today among anarchists and anti-Semites – where it has always bloomed, in hidden places, like the violet, though with a different odor. And as like must always produce like, it causes us no surprise to see a repetition in such circles of attempts made before… to sanctify revenge[1] under the name of justice[2] – as if justice were at the bottom merely a further development of the feeling being aggrieved-and to rehabilitate not only revenge but all reactive affects in general.”[3] – Friedrich Nietzsche.
“…sociality, and its necessary accompaniment – mutual aid, characteristic of the vast majority of animal species and so much more of man, – were the source of moral sentiments from the time of the very first appearance of man-like creatures on earth, and that social sentiments were further strengthened by the realization and understanding of the facts of social life, i.e., by the effort of reason. And in proportion to the development and increasing complexity of social life, reason acquired ever greater influence upon the moral make-up of man… And this moral feeling might have withered altogether if the very nature of man, as well as of the majority of the more highly developed animals, did not involve, aside from the herd instinct, a certain mental bent which supports and strengthens the influence of sociality.”[4] – Peter Kropotkin.
Nothing To Do With Anything
The a priori in the question of from whence morality emerges is a recurring conflict in western philosophy, which must either draw its a priori from transcendental analysis, from contemporaneous phenomenal evidence and hence, a posteriori proofs, or from some dialectical synthesis of the two. Simply stated, the origins of morality either have to be derived from some form of logically or emotionally rooted mythology, from evidence we can witness, or from a combination of both.
However, the problem with even so-called objective scientific approaches, especially in sciences concerned with such obviously subjective (but not necessarily essentially Subjective) and consequence-bearing matter as human ethics, is that these sciences are still tainted with a form of mythos and ideological fantasy. In Slavoj Žižek we find an interpretation of Lacan that helps to elucidate how ideology produces an effect of transference, which basically forces a closing of logic upon signifiers of the subject at hand. Žižek asserts that “transference is the obverse of the staying behind of the signified with respect to the stream of the signifiers; it consists of the illusion that the meaning of a certain element (which was retroactively fixed by the intervention of the master-signifier) was present in it from the very beginning as its immanent essence.”[5] In other words, if Lacan’s thesis is to be accepted, the whole notion that ideological perspectives are concluded from proofs is fallacious and, ‘in fact,’ quite the opposite is true: ideology (the big Other) determines the meaning of its own proofs, retroactively fixing their contextual network of relations within an ideological “quilt.” This is referred to as the ‘effect of retroversion’, where “instead of the linear, immanent, necessary progression according to which meaning unfolds itself from some initial kernel, we have a radically contingent process of retroactive production of meaning.”[6]
But this thesis does not insist that there is no objective “real”; that we are entangled in a hyperbolized post-modern web of absolute intersubjectivity – i.e. the truth is a convenient myth. Indeed, Žižek is acutely aware of this inclination when he asks “…have we not consented also to the usual ‘post-modernist’ anti-Enlightenment ressentiment?”[7] But such is not the case. Instead, what Žižek’s thought produces is a scenario where objectivity (the truth) is not fully constituted in our mind, obscured by a number of psychological processes that are necessary for us to perceive a rational order of our own making. Ernesto Laclau articulates Žižek’s position as such:
There is subject because the substance – objectivity – does not manage to constitute itself fully; the location of the subject is that of a fissure at the very centre of the structure. The traditional debate as to the relationship between agent and structure thus appears fundamentally displaced: the issue is no longer a problem of autonomy, of determinism versus free will, in which two entities fully constituted as ‘objectivities’ mutually limit each other. On the contrary, the subject emerges as a result of the failure of substance in the process of its self-constitution. …Indeed, deconstruction reveals that it is the ‘undecidables’ which form the ground on which any structure is based. …the subject is merely the distance between the undecidable structure and the decision. And analysis of the exact dimensions of any decision reached on undecidable terrain is the central task of the theory of politics, a theory which has to show the contingent ‘origins’ of all objectivity.[8]
This is a paradox exhibited in the television program the X Files. The program boldly proclaims that “the truth is out there,” yet the two main characters, the agents Mulder and Scully, are incapable of uncovering it. Even though they are slowly uncovering facts and peeling away layers of conspiracy which obfuscate the truth, they are still bound by their separate ideological theses, each one proving to the other that they were “wrong.” In the end, whether there are alien life forms or not, is irrelevant, because the kernel of the true is manifested in the fact that there is a conspiracy in their government, regardless of what it is hiding. In the lack of the other can be found the element of the objective truth.
And the philosophy of morals is something inherently political, because it reinforces political structures – the manner in which we order our social efforts – and informs our ideological assumptions while concurrently being articulated through our interactions, which are also informed by our ideological assumptions. This politico-ethical feedback-loop is the reason that a science of morality is so difficult to articulate and why the discovery/manufacture of some a priori ‘truth’ is needed to prop up any given position. It is also the reason why the claim to ‘objectivity’ is so wrought with peril and can carry extreme consequences.
Out current ideological prejudices carry us in such a manner that there is an assumed hard line, a contradistinction, drawn between Enlightenment thought and ‘post-modernism.’ But like any categorization that assists in simplifying the world for our senses and need for rational expediency, it is based upon generalizations that do not apply to the whole breadth of the category – i.e. there are metaphorical trans-genders dispersed throughout the genders. Following the Marxian Hegel-derived formula that the limit of capital is capitalism itself – i.e. that is folds in upon its own contradictions, producing another synthesis – Žižek suggests that “according to Lacan the limit of Enlightenment is Enlightenment itself…”[9] In other words, in a perfectly Hegelian sense, the current epoch of ‘post-modernism’ even contains within itself, in its variance, the remnants of the Enlightenment; it is appropriately titled a “post” something-or-other, because without the various philosophical engagements of the Enlightenment, post-modernism would not exist as such. We are indebted to those ‘dead white men’ who came before us and a blanket disregard for their works is without a doubt a type of ressentiment.
There is no hard line existing between the thought of the Enlightenment and contemporary thought that would allow us to pin the ills of the past solely upon the sweeping generalizations we might make of the Enlightenment. Our philosophical bumbling is exemplified by infinite possibility, not to be corrected any time in the near future, and although we do synthesize dialectically toward greater knowledge[10] and hopefully,[11] in a direction that leads toward the objective truth (even though we are quite likely to never perceive it due to the limited nature of our subject-oriented process of perceiving and conceiving), it is an exercise in pomp to deride the past; an exercise that indicates a decisive lack in the Other of certain contemporary philosophical perspectives. In his work on Kropotkin, Brian Morris illustrates this problematic assumption:
Although Enlightenment thought had a certain coherence – reflected in the writings of Diderot, Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Bentham, Kant, and Herder – it was by no means monolithic and was in fact complex and ridden with inner tensions and ambiguities. The identification of the enlightenment with a blind faith in progress or with a naive rationalism is facile in extreme. Equally problematic is the tendency of postmodernist scholars to blame the ills of the twentieth century on the Enlightenment philosophers – ignoring completely the realities of capitalism and fascist ideology.[12]
And this ressentiment active in contemporary thought, which feels the need to pretend it is not at least partially a product of the Enlightenment’s contradictions, leads us right back to Nietzsche, the great devil’s advocate of morality, who is witnessing an incredible resurgence in popularity, quite possibly partly as a result of this very ressentiment; ironic.
The Philosophical Tantrum
Nietzsche’s moral critique rests to a great extent upon the two major characteristics: the reactionary slave morality expressed in ressentiment, and the a priori economic determinism[13] that is the progenitor of morality. But before considering these notions, it is important to gain some perspective on the context of Nietzsche’s work.
From Nietzsche’s perspective, Europe was a sick place which had contracted a moralistic virus through a form of superstitious ideology, producing a form of animal that loathed its very nature. Undeniably, European Christianity had produced a moral hegemony that maintained an overwhelming distaste for many natural human impulses, drives and behaviours. This distaste was (and quite obviously remains to this day) so exaggerated and brutal that it produced a repressive gulf between the nature of humanity and ‘proper’ morality, so that they should become almost completely mutually exclusive behaviours. Nietzsche noted that the degree to which the “morbid softening and moralization through which the animal “man” finally learns to be ashamed of his instincts…”[14] could be seen around him, exhibited in exquisite detail in the way that “Pope Innocent the Third, disapprovingly catalogues his own repellant aspects (“impure begetting, disgusting means of nutrition in his mother’s womb, bareness of matter out of which man evolves, hideous stink, secretion of saliva, urine, and filth”).”[15] In other words, Nietzsche’s world was a hotbed of repression of instinct and desire, where the intellectual “man” derided the animal “man” and transformed the latter into a caged beast, maltreated and malnourished.
Additionally, psychological science was just barely emerging at the time that Genealogy of Morals (1887) was first published (Nietzsche actually anticipates Freud on a number of occasions, especially when he talks about repression), and Charles Darwin had only 16 years earlier published the Descent of Man (1871), a book which had the potential power to completely undermine the anthropocentric basis of European philosophical discourses. Strikingly, although Nietzsche’s discourse is primarily concerned with the nature of the human as an animal and the repression of such through reason, he makes only one passing allusion to Darwin in the Preface of Genealogy of Morals and completely dismisses him outright as a “mediocre” collector of “small and common facts” in Beyond Good and Evil.[16] Darwin’s other great philosophical offence was of course being English; of belonging to the people that Nietzsche linked with a “profound normality”; England being the home of “European vulgarity, the plebeianism of modern ideas…” – “They are no philosophical race, these Englishmen…”[17] For all his love of the individual, Nietzsche is quick to sacrifice all to the general – the nation.
Hilarity aside, Nietzsche suggests that in order to create a grand newness, one cannot simply be one who is skillful at assembling small facts and drawing conclusions (like Darwin) but may actually have to be lacking in knowledge. This reflects the notion that perhaps on some level knowledge and consciousness need to be destroyed before something grand can be awakened; that creativity requires a certain naivety. Of course, in Nietzsche’s moral speculations, he simply commits the error, not only of failing to remember that all philosophy and science is simply the articulation of how infinitely little we actually do know, but also of supposing that by deducing theories through transcendental methods, he is actually doing something other than assembling “data” a posteriori. For Nietzsche can have similar charges directed back at him – In assembling a theory of morality utilizing semiotic evidence, Greek literature, and armed with an entire canon of philosophical texts, Nietzsche is simply “determining and collecting many small and common facts and then drawing conclusions from them…”[18]
Nietzsche’s dismissal of Darwin, however, is necessary, for it allows him to proceed in Beyond Good and Evil and Genealogy of Morals in stating something grand and provocative, without being tied down in the dry, passionless, arid discourse that accompanied the British Royal Society scholars of the time. And in the name of all grand incendiary statements, like a Johnny Rotten, a Peaches or an Ice T, Nietzsche says something provocative and profound, that inspires and infuriates, forcing a reaction. I don’t think I am out of line, either, when I compare Nietzsche to Ice T, because when Ice T declares “fuck the police” in Cop Killer, even if Nietzsche would claim that it originates from a slavish ressentiment, he nevertheless inverts morality and forces a social reaction amongst his peers. Precisely, this is the initial lure of such a spirit as Nietzsche – that he is unapologetically confrontational and damned be his detractors. All that is required is that philosophy is richer with his tantrum. And a fine tantrum Nietzsche provided, casting aside all of moral assumptions, as it were, because they needed to be cast aside.
Nietzsche, Ressentiment and Anarchist Dogs – Woof Woof
Nietzsche begins his assault on European morality by introducing his concept of ressentiment, in which the natural norms of “good”, rooted in the self-affirmation of the nobility (i.e. masters), are inverted by jealous and vengeful slaves. In nobility, the master is self-referential, but the slave is quite the opposite: “in order to exist, slave morality always first needs a hostile external world; it needs, physiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act at all – its action is fundamental reaction.”[19] In what Nietzsche considers a virtual act of genius, it was the Jews, persecuted and enslaved, who first (at least consequently) inverted the aristocratic value-equation and initiated what he calls ‘the slave revolt in morality.’[20] Unlike the Spartacus slave revolt, which entered into direct martial confrontation with the Roman state and in which the slaves’ demands were material, the Jewish slave revolt was more insidious because was based on a total social revaluation grown out of helplessness and weakness. Thus weakness was transfigured as a type of “good”, and strength became “bad.” In addition, a type of jealous hatred was fostered for those not belonging to the ranks of the helpless, who in reality coveted the position of domination; a ressentiment borne out of the desire for revenge.
Amongst contemporary Nietzschean anarchists the notion of ressentiment has come to play a crucial role in analytical discourse, despite the fact that Nietzsche considered anarchism to be the symptom par excellence of this vengeful slave morality. According to Saul Newman, “anarchism could become more relevant to contemporary political struggles if it were made aware of the ressentiment logic of its own discourse, particularly in the essentialist identities and structures that inhabit it.”[21] In this sense, Nietzsche’s notion of ressentiment can become a form of corrective to the conventions of Manichean dualism that Newman finds to be embedded in anarchism. He sees a pattern of oppositional discourse permeating anarchist thought that essentially posits power against nature. This discourse, in which anarchism “operates within a Manichean political logic: it creates an essential, moral opposition between society and the State, between humanity and power.”[22] Citing Foucault’s notion of power as a relation of forces[23] (which, by the way, can be found in Hegel to a certain extent), rather than as embedded in a subject or object, Newman points out that the fetishistic emphasis on the nature of the state as opposing the nature of society is proven weak. This is especially apparent in light of contemporary perspectives that acknowledge the existence of interweaving webs of power.
The Nietzschean anarchist (or post-anarchist according to Newman) reception of Foucault’s theses is that the classical anarchist denial of the power principle produces an absolute weakness in its philosophy whereby the more it attempts “to free society from relations of power, the more it remains paradoxically caught up in power.”[24] Undoubtedly, this understanding of power-relations leads to an abolition of the grand, final orgasm concept that has dominated radical European thinking, and indeed enamoured Bakunin, Kropotkin and Marx alike, since the French revolution. In its place is the millions of orgasms concept of Foucault (both the Foucauldian post-structuralist Socialists and the Lacanian Marxists like Žižek agree on to some small extent on the nature of contemporary revolutionary strategy), which takes on positions of domination one climax at a time, provoking and prodding, in order to reduce the hold of domination on power at a more organic level.[25]
However, the most interesting proposition put forth by Newman is that Nietzsche was opposed to ‘reactive power’ – that is, power that requires an external object to stand opposed to – and not ‘active power,’ which finds its substance in the individual’s instinctive discharge of will. Newman suggests that perhaps communal relations based upon an “openness to difference and self-transformation, and the ethic of care, may be the defining characteristics of the post-anarchist democratic community. This would be a community of active power – a community of ‘masters’ rather than ‘slaves.’”[26] Of course, an active community of ‘masters’ is an impossibility, since a master is defined as a matter of course by the presence and their dependence upon a servant, but Saul Newman’s point is that perhaps Nietzsche’s ‘ethical’ category of the master, who does not define their values through a hostile external, and instead develops its morality “from a triumphant affirmation of itself…”[27] is possible to manifest itself as the ethos for a future society.
This theory is well and good, but it seems a far cry from Nietzschean conceptions of what values of strength are – “a powerful physicality, a flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health, together with that which serves to preserve it: war, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, and in general all that involves vigorous, free, joyful activity.”[28] Undeniably, these were the values of the knightly-aristocratic class that Nietzsche celebrates historically, but he is not calling them into being again. He is no primitivist. He elucidates that the emergence of the ressentiment of the priestly spirit was a necessary intervention in an all-too-comfortable simplicity of the knightly-aristocratic class and its value system. But nonetheless, Nietzsche’s resurgence of the supermen, free of ressentiment must be of spirits “strengthened by war and victory, for whom conquest, adventure, danger, and even pain have become needs… it would require even a sublime kind of wickedness, an ultimate, supremely self-confident mischievousness in knowledge that goes with great health; it would require, in brief and alas, precisely this great health!”[29] If Newman is rejecting the notion of cataclysmic revolt in anarchism, it is a mystery from whence this war-strengthened spirit may be obtained; maybe video games that reminisce past days of glory when men could kill each other for some mythological quest (like protecting the free world from a dictator in Iraq, who is out to destroy freedom with weapons of mass destruction! What was his name again? Cobra Commander?)?
This says nothing even of the cruelty that plays such a significant role in Nietzsche’s celebrated animal, a trap which Newman skillfully evades, since his essay does not even approach this subject. In fact, Newman, unlike Nietzsche, insinuates that all efforts to delineate a sort of collectivity in human nature and even human nature itself are essentialist and therefore inaccurate. Hence, one might even be able to develop a collective impulse “without circumscribing it in essentialist ideas about human nature. Collective action does not need a principle of human essence to justify it.”[30] But if nature cannot be articulated in humanity, then there is actually no animal as such to speak of, and Nietzsche’s whole polemic loses it’s a priori to fall flat on a false premise (which it is, but not particularly this one. We’ll get back to that in a moment). We can just as easily assert that the only reason we don’t see five ton pigs wandering around is because there is just not any pig that has willed it as of yet. The truth of the matter is that there is such a thing as instinct in humanity and there is such a thing as nature; it gives us character as beasts, and one of Nietzsche’s most powerful contributions to moral philosophy stems from this naturalistic assertion and the recognition of natures in humanity that caused a type of self-loathing and sickness when repressed. If essentialism means that one believes that humans can’t transcend the laws of nature and fly naked in outer space, while growing additional functional limbs simply by willing it, then colour me essentialist, since it is just a lackadaisical attitude towards differentiating between the recognition of the possibility of universals and a total dismissal of all universals that makes for shitty post-modernism.[31]
Additionally, the nature of collective action does not need to be justified by human nature. It can indeed be the rational progression from singularity to collectivity, developed for its own ethical purposes, as Newman suggests. But his formula is backwards. If human nature is antithetical to collectivity, then forcing humans to engage in collectivities is a form of repression of the human instinct, and therefore, it is important to know just to what degree humans are social and collective, as well as individualistic creatures. It is also important to reflect upon primary human instincts, if indeed homo-sapiens are actually phenomenally bound to the universe and not just pure transcendent thought (who knows, maybe we are the butterfly dreaming of Zhuangzi).
Newman also falls into the trap of associating Enlightenment thought, and even contemporary anarchist discourse, with a cartoonish simplicity, and in the process manages to obfuscate the real complexity of character of 19th century anarchist philosophy, and most significantly, I would say, the ideas of Peter Kropotkin. He unfortunately associates Kropotkin with the dualistic and essentialist notions that he is dismissing as Manichean, which betrays a complete misreading, or at least a hyper-generalization of Kropotkin’s works.
Kropotkin: hata or playa?
Kropotkin, although firmly rooted in the Enlightenment tradition – he was a staunch materialist, a believer in the French Revolution, and an advocate of eternal progress – was nonetheless also a highly critical thinker, wary of easy dualistic answers and, like Nietzsche, was incredibly critical of not only Romantic thought, but Enlightenment philosophy as well (although Kropotkin is the sunshine and lollypop to Nietzsche’s fire and brimstone). Indeed, Kropotkin, a well-traveled naturalist and anthropological observer, recognized in Darwin’s work the kernel for a potential disentanglement of anthropocentrism that had perverted European philosophic outlooks. According to Morris, what Darwin had done with his advancement of evolutionary theory was nothing less than a total undermining of the “belief in cosmic teleology, the idea that nature has a final goal or purpose.”[32] In fact, Morris asserts that “Darwin thus completely undermined, long before Heidegger and post-structuralists came upon the scene, the philosophy of essentialism, which, stemming from Plato, is deeply entrenched in the Western philosophical tradition as well as being anchored in ordinary language.”[33] Kropotkin himself admitted the endless scope of adaptability and its impact on human sciences, stating that “ethical science is not yet constituted. In fact, it never will be, because new factors and new tendencies will always have to be taken into account as mankind advances in evolution.”[34] Kropotkin built this theoretical model of morality to a great extent on Darwin’s evolutionary thought, and especially on a corrective he himself developed most thoroughly to the Darwinian emphasis on competition – the notion of mutual aid. Additionally, this notion also illuminated the concept of life as a continuum, rather than as encased in separate entities. Life is not static, it is in continuous flux and as a result what constitutes the nature and composition of a life-form today may not even exist in a million years, having either undergone extensive change or passed into extinction. Kropotkin did not see humans as an end result, nor did he see us as a fixed element outside of nature. Rather, he understood that we are a relatively similar cluster of fluidly adapting biological organisms on a continuum of life, differentiable from other life forms in the path which our evolution has taken. The recently acquired knowledge of DNA sequences tends to confirm this postulation.[35]
In Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution Kropotkin establishes the notion of sociability as being a major component of the evolutionary process. Not only is it a marker of ever-increasing complexity (bubblegum for entropy addicts), but it is also a self-developing phenomenon that allows for species to endure and adapt more efficiently to environmental changes. It is also in this observation of sociability amongst species that Kropotkin noticed an emergence of moral structures. This was an elaboration of a process that Darwin himself had noted in the Descent of Man, but had allowed to fall to the wayside, largely unnoticed. Kropotkin does acknowledge that warfare plays a vital role in nature, but that it is to a great extent emphasized only between species where warfare and struggle against takes place. Within species, mutual support tends to be the rule (although, again, it must be made clear that Kropotkin did acknowledge the existence of murder and warfare within species, but it was far less common than not). By and large, he argues that sociability is a primary evolutionary feature and is the hallmark of the success of the various clan, hive and herd animal species.
In his final work, Ethics: Origin and Development, which Kropotkin considered to be a follow-up to Mutual Aid, Kropotkin not only undertakes an exhaustive study of the history of Western thought on Ethics (there is no doubt as to Kropotkin’s Eurocentrism), but he also outlines how he considers the nature of moral structures to emerge in human societies. Most important of his concepts, and it can’t be emphasized strongly enough, is that the emergence of morality in human society is a result of an evolutionary adaptive feature which predates the existence of humans, sociability. Sociability is a characteristic of the mutual aid phenomenon and is as instinctive to the species that possess and utilize it as any major bodily function. And it is the sociability that humanity inherited in its gene structure that allowed us to actually become a ‘successful’ species – to survive. A lack of development of such faculties, not only in humans, but also in most other animal species, would have led to an inability to adapt to hostile changes in the environment and quite likely, extinction.[36] With a general look at the numbers of solitary animals to herd and pack animals one can easily observe that the tiger-like and shark-like creatures are vastly outpopulated by the antelope-type, ant-type and wolf-type socialistically-based animals. Ants are particularly notable, because they are incredibly socially ordered, and they also constitute one of the most successful models of life on this planet, constituting at times as much as 15% of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest.[37] The largest biomass unit known on earth is the Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), again a social creature, living “in large schools, called swarms, sometimes reaching densities of 10,000 – 30,000 individual animals per cubic meter.”[38] Antarctic krill, which weight only around 2 grams each, account for roughly 500 million tonnes of Earth’s biomass; contrast this to humans, weighing on average around 70,000 grams, and which we know to be littered almost everywhere across this planet, who only occupy about 250 million tonnes of biomass.[39] The point being, of course, that simple observation of the perceptible world attests to the evolutionary strength of mutual aid and sociability, and this has been largely understood amongst evolutionary theorists and anthropologists, despite the fact that Kropotkin has gone largely unacknowledged even in these fields.
From the sociability of the human species, Kropotkin contends that all human moral faculties are developed and that this development takes place in three major stages, all intrinsically associated. These stages are identified by Kropotkin as mutual aid, justice and morality proper, all of which are self-preservation instincts, and are “rooted in man’s mind with all the force of an inborn instinct – the first instinct, that of Mutual Aid, being evidently the strongest, while the third, developed later than the others, is an unstable feeling and the least imperative of the three.”[40] Unlike Nietzsche, who postulates that justice emerges in the form of an exchange between two approximately equal parties (all exchanges being a flow of forces), a coming to terms by means of a settlement of good will,[41] Kropotkin suggests that justice is instead an instinct towards social stabilization which recognizes a certain equality in similitude (i.e. the similitude of humans attests to their necessary equality). In both cases, equality is necessary for justice and Nietzsche’s recognition of this actually strengthens Kropotkin’s case. What is the reason for two parties to agree on their relative equity and to come to terms with one-another in good will if not for social stability?
However, even in dramatically hierarchically structured societies, where a general concept of justice is found to be relatively non-existent between classes, there are still highly structured notions of justice within the classes. What Nietzsche assumes, however, is that hierarchies are first established and then justice is needed to administer affairs and expedite the functioning of the master classes, who “compel parties of lesser power to reach a settlement among themselves.”[42] Kropotkin’s thesis is quite divergent from Nietzsche’s, as it postulates that a recognition of equality, and therefore justice, is a primary instinct that emerges out of sociability and that the establishment of hierarchies, a combination of reason, the impulse to lead, and a will to power, is what produces the various social classes; classes are a social affect and justice, to Kropotkin synonymous at its core with the concept of equity, is instinctive (not rational).
Kropotkin notes that the vast majority of ethical theory, including Nietzsche’s I might add, in some way or other recognizes equity as the basis for justice, and justice as a cornerstone of morality, arguing that “no matter how often the principle of equity was violated in the history of mankind, no matter how assiduously legislators up to the present day have made every effort to circumvent it, and moral philosophers to pass over it in silence – nevertheless, the recognition of equity lies at the basis of all moral conceptions and even of all moral teachings.”[43]
From this perspective, we can see where Kropotkin’s vision of human nature diverges dramatically from that of Hobbes and Rousseau. Indeed, Kropotkin asserts that since sociality predated the existence of humanity, and that since humans are inherently social species, there has never been a time when humans where atomistic and asocial. From the very outset, even before the outset of homo-sapiens,[44] we have been composed of a social nature and as a result, we have had a pressing need to establish social stability through justice as well.
However, what this does not preclude is a simplistically reduced notion of sociability, in which we stand like a bunch of domesticated cattle, exerting no or little will or experiencing no jouissance. Quite the contrary, in fact, because sociality develops amongst more complex forms of life alongside a type of intelligence or reasoning. Kropotkin indicated that this intelligence is related to another instinct which involves the exertion of the ego, since a complex intelligence also produces a consciousness of its own existence. But it is more than just a simple reaction of the ego, since intelligence and consciousness actually requires the ability to recognize “self” (and even more importantly, degrees of similitude) in the “other,” and therefore is also a social phenomenon. We can see even a level of developed consciousness amongst dogs that shows the capacity to learn and reflect, and Kropotkin argued that intelligence is primarily a social faculty, especially since, as Morris puts it, “language, imitation, and accumulated experience as well as individual initiative and agency are intrinsically linked to the development of social life and intelligence.”[45]
These two major instincts, which could be loosely categorized as ego and sympathy, produce what could be described as a type of anxiety, which, particularly in humans, forms a major component of behaviour and psychology. To Kropotkin, this anxiety produces a paradox which begs a philosophical question of practical necessity. He noted two seemingly counter tendencies in human nature that required attention:
In one set are the feelings which induce man to subdue other men in order to utilize them his individual ends, while those of the other set induce humans to unite for attaining common ends by common effort: the first answering to a fundamental need of human nature – struggle, and the other representing another equally fundamental tendency – the desire of unity and mutual sympathy.[46]
However, Kropotkin’s answer is not to repress what he considers the more base or vulgar instincts, but rather towards developing a type of synthesis in moral philosophy and matters of politics that manifest themselves in a respect for the nature of the human animal.[47] Basically put, humans are by nature conflicted and instead of repressing our instincts, we need to produce a reality based upon manifesting them in the least harmful manner.
It is precisely in this regard that Saul Newman’s critique of Kropotkin as a product of Manichean dualism is excessive. Despite Kropotkin’s desire to pose the interests of the state against those of the people, he nonetheless declares that human bahaviours, such as domination, are indeed human nature proper. Greed (hoarding) and other so-called unsavoury behaviours are manifestations of primary human instincts and manifest themselves as anti-social only because the society in which they emerge has yet to alleviate their necessity, answer their problematic nature, or is a society of ressentiment.
Die Hard: Che Guevara and the Heroic Myth
Like Nietzsche, Kropotkin saw courage and conflict as a crucial part of the human spirit. However, to Kropotkin, the heroic deed (the act of utilizing courage in conflict) was not only just a manifestation of the need to excel individually (and in this sense I would argue that the hero is the manifestation of the need to personalize – and even anthropomorphize – historical or mythological events), but it was also an incredibly socialistic phenomenon (perhaps born out of the anxiety of the two?). The hero provides us with an individual with which we can invest the force of a social phenomenon into and this myth can serve to provide us with inspiration to excel. For example, Che Guevara, was not the force behind the Cuban revolution. All of the force of individuals acting together (peasant associations, trade unions, etc.) came together in this mythological figure who became the revolutionary hero. Significantly, it is precisely because of Che’s death and martyrdom, that he was able to accumulate such mythological power. The living hero is around to contradict the myth through perceived experience, but the martyr is pure mythos. In this way, Che Guevara can become pure inspiration. One doesn’t even have to be a socialist to utilize him as a hero, which is also part of his appeal and why you can find Che shirts and memorabilia in junk and trinket stores throughout the world – he can be anything to anyone. At one node Che assumes the role of the model for communist revolution, at another he can inspire Muslim perseverance, and at another point he becomes the James Dean rebel without a cause for suburban college student chic.
And in this mythological heroism[48] we witness a significant junction where Kropotkin transcends the very Manichean logic which he is accused of by Newman. In fact, Kropotkin describes this pressing desire for courage and perseverance in very Nietzschean terms, explaining, “Man is not content with ordinary, commonplace existence; he seeks the opportunity to extend its limits, to accelerate its tempo, to fill it with varied impressions and emotional experiences.”[49] Indeed, the strength to act in accordance with a spirit of adventure and play is a manifestation of will. Kropotkin’s will also encapsulates, but is not limited to, Nietzsche’s will to power, but its make-up is also where the agency required for altruism, or as Kropotkin preferred to call it, magnanimity, resides. This particular manifestation of agency combined with the sympathetic instinct emerge in sublime actions of self-sacrifice that provide the substance for heroic mythos: the hero cannot cheat death and it is the hero’s very acceptance of death that allows them to persevere, whether or not they become a martyr; it is the hero’s very readiness to meet death that makes their actions truly heroic. However, it is not even this capacity that humanity is even unique in the animal kingdom. As Kropotkin points out, “Self-sacrifice for the good of the family or of the group is a common fact in the animal world; and man, as a social creature, does not, of course constitute an exception.”[50] Not even in our courageous acts are humans particular in the world. So where does the significance of the hero lie in the establishment of morality particular to humanity (remembering, of course, that in Darwinian logic humans are different from other life only in degrees, not in essence)?
The heroic deed is not only an act of supreme courage – an ultimate exertion of the will – but it is also an ideological function, and here it is where its particular human component is manifested. In elucidating Guyau’s theories, Kropotkin suggests that in our consciousness emerges the concept of surplus, which is a recognition of our ability to exert more forces than is required for our own self-preservation.[51] Because of this consciousness, we understand that “there are more thoughts in our mind, and that there is in our heart more sympathy, or even more love, more joy, more tears, than is required for our self-preservation; and so we give them to others without concerning ourselves as to the consequences.”[52] Beyond sustenance is fecundity and it is from surplus consciousness that all specific human culture emerges, interacting and producing amongst each other, developing common languages and concepts.
With the consciousness of surplus forces is also the innate knowledge that not only can our forces be given freely, but also that they can be hoarded and exploited; and it was this capacity inherent within the human psyche that Nietzsche understood so fully. Kropotkin referred to these tendencies to exploit or dominate as anti-social, and pointed out that although they were pervasive, they were far from sufficient to account for the breadth of all human experience that transcended mere self-preservation. Indeed, “side by side with the anti-social tendencies there exists also a striving for sociality, for life harmonizing with the life of society as a whole, and the latter tendencies are no less strong than the former. Man strives for good neighbourly relations and for justice.”[53]
This fecundity present in surplus of agency also produced another type of adventurism – the intellectual risk. It is here that ideology, myth, and science reside: i.e. the faculty of building a daring hypothesis… and of deriving one’s morality from this hypothesis. All the prominent social reformers were guided by one or the other conception of the possible better life of mankind, and although unable to prove mathematically the desirability and the possibility of rebuilding a society in some particular direction, the reformer, who is in this respect closely akin to the artist, devoted all his life, all his abilities, all his energy to working for this reconstruction.[54]
It is here that Kropotkin hits upon a kernel relating to ideological formation. It is in the recognition of the future as a concept that humans are able to curb our immediate desires and impulses. Without the capacity to recognize past and future there would be no morality proper or ideology to speak of. It is precisely the recognition that something better may be arrived at in the future, and the utilization of history to provide examples, that we would devote our energies to repressing certain immediate tendencies. Further, it is through our capacity as social creatures with highly evolved linguistic capacities that we develop those tendencies communally, in junction with one another. Thus, the ethic and the ideology are developed dialectically in conjunction with each other and this is what is so unique about human morality.
The Herd of Will and Agency
Nietzsche makes no illusions as to his distaste for the herd or the rabble. He readily invests in it all of Europe’s sickness – the obsession with morality based in ressentiment. However, Kropotkin’s theory flips Nietzsche’s perspective of the herd on its head and transvalues it to a certain extent. This is because to Kropotkin, the herd is simply a description of a type of animal behaviour that is observable in nature, organically a manifestation of the mututal aid principle, and humans are a herd animal through and through. This nature, however, does not run counter to individualism, nor is it antithetical to creativity, art, jouissance, or bravery. Indeed, all assertions of individual will can only be defined through their experiential relation to others. Art only becomes art proper, that is, it ceases to be ‘art’ therapy, when it is viewed by an other who can perceive it (perception here is not solely limited to vision). The notion of a fully atomistic individual, like the notion of a purely collective-type entity (notice how difficult it is for the crew of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise to imagine the motivations of the borg) is indeed so inconceivable to human consciousness, that it becomes an almost fetishistic impossibility. Even the solitary ‘mountain-man’ or ‘sage’ is indebted to the herd for the provision of their clothing, food, security, etc., and their life is typically associated with a type of insanity, often of a divinitive nature, but something that we might today classify as ‘cabin fever.’
Nietzsche’s herd concept, while somewhat essentialist and dualistic, is nonetheless not so simple as to suggest that the herd is something to be abolished. Certainly the herd is something that is plebeian,[55] and therefore it is reasonable that this instinct manifest itself amongst the plebeian classes. However, according to Nietzsche, it is not the herd morality – ressentiment – that should permeate society, but rather the morality of nobility. Basically, he is calling for the complete overturning of a morality that favours the weak and chastises the strong. That’s a great idea, but the dualism implied here is unnecessary and somewhat inaccurate.
The herd is not a brainless mass like Yeaworth’s 1958 classic the Blob,[56] it is simply the establishment of consensus amongst those that consider themselves relative equals. That consensus can at times be incredibly frightening is not contestable – no one of sound mind will ever accuse humans acting in unison of coming to consistently good conclusions. But the idea of the herd is drawn from false assumptions as to the mentality of leadership (the act of an individual) and following (the act of joining the herd). The picture of the follower as a brainless automaton without will is excessive. Followers are not simply passive participants, they make decisions as to whom to follow and when, exerting an act of will in order to combine their will with those of others of be given direction as to where to place their surplus will. In contrast to the ruler and ruled, where power is structured in such a manner that domination over secures the relationship on behalf of the ruler and the ruled are characterized by their lack of interest to do anything about it (an example of one type of herd mentality), the follower is the one who actively chooses and wills their participation, who chooses their leader – the leader is the recipient of the voluntary will of the follower, selected on the basis of their skills or charisma or some other characteristic defined as desirable through the relative consensus of their followers (the herd).
This faulty logic has dominated European a priori assumptions on the nature of morality, constituting the conflict between Hobbesian and Rousseauian discourses, and continues to do so even to this day to some extent. The alternative, taken up by a number of socialists who didn’t want to admit to certain natures in humanity, was to propose that there was no nature in humans; that we are the transcendent animal. However, Kropotkin saw in Darwin’s concept of nature a force that undermined this split that needed to show human nature as inherently good or bad in order to establish its case, and therefore also something that the socialist project needed to contend with. Nietzsche and Kropotkin both moved well beyond either of these simplistic perspectives, but Kropotkin’s understanding of what he called ‘primitive peoples’ was far more advanced than Nietzsche’s and he was able to observe first hand, living amongst the natives of Siberia, that pre-statist and pre-capitalist forms of social organization in which the concept of individual as part and parcel to tribe predominated, were not characterized by a lack of individual excellence or agency. According to Morris,
Kropotkin did not view customary rules and common opinion as inherently antagonistic to individual autonomy and expression. Nor did he ever think of the human person as an asocial individual – the very idea of a human individual being “against” or outside of society he thought nonsense. The human person was neither in opposition to “society” nor simply an “effect” of language, culture, discourses, or social custom – as depicted by many cultural anthropologists and postmodern theorists. [57]
We see then that the herd concept, especially as opposed to the autonomous individual, expressed throughout European discourse is a hasty overgeneralization of collective agency, which is at the very least complex, multifarious and composed of a varied set of behaviours, encapsulating not only the phenomenon of the ruled, but also that of followers. It is in this sense that the herd is liberated from the shackles of Manichean discourse. To deride the herd is to be self-loathing, for it is an aspect of human nature which we all participate in and provides us a level of comfort acquired through the relative predictability of human behaviours. In this sense, the herd exposes a degree of ressentiment in Nietzsche’s thinking.
Cruelpotkin
However, one of the most crucial elements of Nietzsche’s philosophy of morals, and one that Kropotkin regretfully ignored in his discourse, is the nature of cruelty as a constructive and primary human emotive pattern. Indeed, cruelty might even be considered a crucial part of our nature. Even today, at the apex (thus far) of human rights discourse and derision of domination – the sublime pinnacle of Nietzsche’s ressentiment society – we still laugh at injury and cruelty. It forms a primary element of many of our joyful pleasures; slapstick is but one manifestation of the joy we derive from watching others get injured. I cannot help but think of how many movies feature the bride getting her head hit on the doorframe as she is being carried across the threshold. Why? Because it is funny. Why? Because we have a natural joyful instinct to witnessing pain and the contextualized irony of the added tragedy (it is supposed to be a delicate, sensuous moment and it is undermined by the pain of being struck) is the cruel streak of our nature exhibiting itself.
This element of human nature, announced so boldly by Nietzsche, is something that problematizes ideological structures and needs to be addressed if there is to be any practical movement towards a differing system of social, political and economic organizing. This is where Kropotkin’s synthesis is most interesting, however, since it shows that he fully understood that a moral groundwork cannot be laid by simply paving over half of our natures. This has serious repercussions for anarchist thought, and if anarchists wish to build socio-economic praxis, it must be a factor that is tackled not through repression of such instincts, but rather through the creative channeling of such potentially harmful, yet constructive impulses. The human species is at the point where it actually does have the capacity to reduce itself to extinction within a matter of days, something that was not the case in Nietzsche’s time and was not something considered extensively in his thought (although it must be admitted that Nietzsche did recognize the potential of humans to eviscerate the environment and that to him this was quite a frightening proposition, for it represented the ultimate split between humans and nature, a final ressentiment; first one hates one’s own nature and then one hates nature altogether).
Of course, one final thing I must mention is this: The Darwinian concept of evolution recognizes a fluidity of nature – nothing is static. The manner in which biological organisms evolve is through adaptations and mutations of the genes of individual organisms within their changing environment. If a sufficient number of mutations or adaptations occur in a species through a period of intense environmental change and those adaptations allow those members of the species to survive, then they will have progressed on an evolutionary path through adaptation and/or mutation. However, humans, more than any other species on earth, have the ability to adapt our environment to us and, unlike sharks, we are a highly adaptable species in the first place. This is one of the strengths of our capacity for consciousness and innovation. Basically, this also means that human evolution follows a dialectical path in which adaptation to our environment and adaptation of our environment to us, occur simultaneously. This further confounds the ability to understand exactly what constitutes human nature and what instincts are repressed. Fortunately, psychological theory, although still in its infancy, has been able to illuminate some basic drives and show us what in particular we are repressing and how these forms of repression can be divined (if you will) through an understanding of the symptom. Yet there is still a great deal of controversy, as there should be, in psychological theory as to what constitutes a biological nature and what constitutes a social phenomenon in humans.
This confusion, along with the recognition that humans are adapting and adaptable, while at the same time constructing an environment for whatever purpose, whether we are conscious of it or not, are also affecting our nature through various networks of agency. However, our forcing of our nature is not as significant as some post-modern theorists would postulate, since evolutionary time is set by the birth of new generations in the species and humans are not only relatively long-lived mammals but are also significantly increasing the length of time occurring between generations (whereas at one point humans were producing a new generation within 15 year spans, now, especially in affluent societies, it is common not to have children until one is in their thirties – that is roughly double the generation gap).
In the end, we are still a species with a nature. After all, we are still drawn to, and mesmerized by shiny objects (excluding of course, those born without sight). So ignoring that there are a number of things in particular that differentiates humans from badgers would be a crucial mistake. The accidental discourse of Kropotkin and Nietzsche provides an interesting departure point for such investigations that have immediate and very real repercussions, especially when contextualized in politics.
Works Cited
Avramova, Zoya V. “Heterochromatin in Animals and Plants: Similarities and Differences”
Kaufmann, Walter, trans. 2000. Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Toronto, Random House)
Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Ethics: Origin and Development (Montreal, Black Rose Books)
Max, Edward E. “Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics: Another argument in the evolution-creation controversy”
Moore, John, ed. 2004. I Am Not A Man, I Am Dynamite: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition (Brooklyn, Autonomedia)
Morris, Brian. 2004. Kropotkin: The Politics of Community (New York, Humanity Books)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York, Verso)
Footnotes
[1] Rache. [translator's footnote]
[2] Gerechtigkeit. [translator's footnote]
[3] Nietzsche, Freidrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic from Kaufmann, Walter, trans. 2000. Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Toronto, Random House); pp. 509-510.
[4] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Ethics: Origin and Development (Montreal, Black Rose Books); pp. 233-234.
[5] Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York, Verso); p. 102.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid. p. 79
[8] Laclau, Ernesto. 1989. “Preface” in Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York, Verso); p. xv.
[9] Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. Op Cit. pp. 79-80.
[10] If this is in doubt, consider that thousands of years of building engineering knowledge has culminated to the point where a group of people (refugees in this case, without access to construction aid) is stranded in the desert, they will be able to construct stable, squared buildings from water and sand with relative ease. Such refugee cities with populations larger than most ancient cities have existed throughout the twentieth century, whereas our ancestors of 3000 years ago would have not a hope in hell of producing such a city, as they had yet to accumulate vast amounts of knowledge in such condensed syntheses.
[11] Hopefully, I feel, is a necessary prefix for Hegel’s theory of progress. To exclude the possibility of any objective understanding from the onset is simply dogma that allows one to convert relativism from something relative itself and something conditional into a form of religious nihilism. However, the nature of an accumulation of understanding also bears the potential to lead in a direction of our own physical nihilism (annihilation).
[12] Morris, Brian. 2004. Kropotkin: The Politics of Community (New York, Humanity Books); pp. 129-130.
[13] I do not feel the need to address the weakness of economic materialism in this paper. It has been dealt with thoroughly in contemporary discourse and it should suffice to say that Nietzsche’s a priori logic of markets being preceded by credit and debt requires an in-depth inquiry, as it suggests that there exists a natural, primary human instinct towards credit and debt. Kropotkin’s theory, on the other hand, would view credit and debt as a secondary effect of the instinct for equity (justice), explaining more adequately the need to mathematically “balance the books.”
[14] Nietzsche, Freidrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, Op Cit. p. 503.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Nietzsche, Freidrich. Beyond Good and Evil from Kaufmann, Walter, trans. 2000. Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Toronto, Random House); p. 381.
[17] Ibid. pp. 379-382. Nietzsche’s characterization of the English, by the way, does not pass the attention of John Cleese, who in his 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda, has Kevin Kline’s character Otto, an American con-artist obsessed with Nietzsche, constantly belittling the British for their ‘inferior’ and ‘stodgy’ cultural morality.
[18] Ibid. p. 381.
[19] Nietzsche, Freidrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, Op Cit. p. 473.
[20] Ibid. p. 470.
[21] Newman, Saul. 2000. “Anarchism and the Politics of Ressentiment” in Moore, John, ed. 2004. I Am Not A Man, I Am Dynamite: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition (Brooklyn, Autonomedia); p. 107.
[22] Ibid. pp. 114-115.
[23] Ibid. p. 119.
[24] Ibid. p. 118.
[25] To tell the truth, I am partial to this theory myself, having arrived at a similar “orgasmic garden” conceptualization of revolution, in which strategy is based on multifarious techniques and visions that tackle domination in a network fashion. Plus, who wants just one big orgasm, when it is possible to have millions?
[26] Newman, Saul. 2000. Op Cit. p. 124.
[27] Nietzsche, Freidrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, Op Cit. p. 472.
[28] Ibid. Op Cit. p. 469.
[29] Ibid. p. 532.
[30] Newman, Saul. 2000. Op Cit. p. 122.
[31] I do consider myself to be a post-modernist and yet I believe in a universal truth. I am suspicious of scientific methodology of inquiry, but I also believe in things like electrons and evolution, and that there are observable truths, which are clues to the logic of the universe. This only becomes a contradiction if one is to reduce post-modernist thought to a simple rejection of the principle of universal truth. Just because a universal truth is imperceptible to humans in its totality does not mean that it is non-existent. I consider a dogmatic adherence to the bold, yet presumptuous rejection of all notions of universalism to be a form of shitty post-modernism. We can reject the existence of phenomena, claiming that gravity, for example, is a trick. But such a proposition is absurd. We may experience gravity slightly differently, being different humans, but we experience it nonetheless. If gravity turns out not to exist as we conceive of it currently, then it is not because the phenomenon is lacking in truth, only that we have misrecognized the functioning of the universal.
[32] Morris, Brian. 2004. Op Cit. p. 132.
[33] Ibid. pp. 132-133.
[34] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 9.
[35] It is common knowledge that humans share roughly 99.9% of our DNA with each other, at least 95% of our DNA in common with chimpanzees (imagine reading a book and then reading another book where 95%-97% of the words are exactly the same – nature is the best plagiarist), that the core components of DNA in all mammalia is generally the same, and even plants have similarities to humans (See Avramova, Zoya V. “Heterochromatin in Animals and Plants: Similarities and Differences” http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/129/1/40). For a comprehensive argumentation of similitude in DNA and against creationism see: Max, Edward E. “Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics: Another argument in the evolution-creation controversy” http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/
[36] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 294.
[37] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ants. (4 November 2005)
[38] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphausia_superba. (4 November 2005)
[39] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass. (4 November 2005) Of course, the krill are not to be taken as a model of sociability and this is not to argue that they have any significant level of sentience, only that Kropotkin’s mutual aid theory is far from baseless.
[40] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 31.
[41] Nietzsche, Freidrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, Op Cit. pp. 498-499, 507-507.
[42] Ibid. p. 507.
[43] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 304.
[44] Homo habilis might likely have been incredibly social as well. This speculation is based upon the hypothesis that this primitive ancestor was possibly capable of rudimentary speech and communication is one of the indicators of advanced sociability. The extinction of robustus, despite their superior size, may have been a result of competing in an environment with the quite likely more sociable creatures that are our direct ancestors.
[45] Morris, Brian. 2004. Op Cit. p. 156.
[46] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 22.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Although it must be noted that Kropotkin never pursued the notion of mythological heroism and only hinted at how it could function in his theorization on morality.
[49] Kropotkin is here explaining an element of J.M. Guyau’s theory on morality, but it is in concordance with Kropotkin’s ideas and Kropotking himself felt a strong affinity for Guyau’s theories. Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 22
[50] Kropotkin, Peter. 1992. Op. Cit. p. 329.
[51] Ibid. p. 324.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid. pp. 326-327.
[54] Ibid. p. 329.
[55] See Nietzsche, Freidrich. On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic, Op Cit. pp. 461-462.
[56] The blob is almost the perfect extension of the terrible Nietzschean fear of herd mentality. It can’t be rationed with and it will continue to grow until it has exhausted its purpose, which in this case is most terrifying, because its sole purpose is continuous expansion – a will to power of its own.
[57] Morris, Brian. 2004. Op Cit. p. 182.
