Thursday, June 11, 2009

Psychology Beyond Good and Evil

It's been a few days since I read in 'Beyond Good and Evil' since I decided to think about the implications of what I have read so far. The book makes claims about psychology and the nature of the unconscious mind. Nietzsche believes that one hides one's instincts and thus deceives him/herself, and the reason one hides these instincts is that the herd or slave morality which aims at the comfort and safety -and which is a result of fear rather than power- has evolved in each person, in other words he says that slave morality is the herd instinct in the individual. A person who frees himself from the herd and their morality does not deceive himself anymore according to Nietzsche.
When I thought about that, I found a striking similarity between that and something I read before about Freud who said that the subconscious or unconscious is a result of the individual trying to fit in society and appearing good according to the morality of society. This part of the human psyche Freud called 'super ego' and was the part that deceived the human mind and hide its instincts as the real motives behind the actions. Seems like both Freud and Nietzsche would agree that we only deceive ourselves for one reason, to fit in society's morality.
Nietzsche also speaks of the growth one achieves in solitude, perhaps this is why? because one learns to judge himself only and one no more needs to be measured, judged or defined by society? I also read a book about psychology which dealt with hiding feelings of hate and anger towards one's loved ones, this also fits in the model of unconscious of Nietzsche and Freud.
It is obvious that judging someone else with my society's moral values is done out of fear, I want these morals to apply to my neighbor to protect myself, otherwise why would I care? This explains why the herd is threatened by the individual that doesn't care about them or their morality. As society exerts this pressure upon each individual, and the individual in turn tries to fit in by deceiving himself into believing in this morality.
It might seem that Freud contradicts Nietzsche at one point, where Freud talks about repression, and that is when one represses one's desires because he/she is ashamed of it, while Nietzsche talks about instincts dictating what we do. But I believe there's no contradiction, because Nietzsche says that slave morality is the herd instinct in the individual, which means that repression of instincts itself happens by means of an instinct, the herd instinct in the individual which Freud calls 'super ego'.
'Me memory says I did it, my pride says I did not, at the end, my memory yields' Wrote Nietzsche in one aphorism. Later Freud would talk about memory repression, which is somehow managing to 'forget' something about the past on purpose and hiding it from the conscious mind in the unconscious realm. Another similarity I found.
I believe the greatest test this theory of Nietzsche and Freud passed is the fact that everyone is against it, since it predicts that society and our herd instinct or 'super ego' would not like psychology beyond good and evil. My psychologist gets angry at the mention of Freud's theories which I used to ask him about, and the one time I talked about Nietzsche's philosophy, which I wrote about it earlier in my diary, he was even angrier as Nietzsche doesn't only state something about the human mind, but goes to ethical implications.By Amr Hima

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