Foucault’s recuperation of the Hellenistic care of the self establishes
two points that clear the way to comprehending Nietzsche’s ethics of
subjectivity: (1) that the Christian hostility to pagan self‐love blocks our
comprehension of Hellenistic ethics and continues to pervert the critical
reception of its modern renovations and (2) that the ethics of the care of the
self, properly conceived, is a philosophical therapy guided by the notion that
the self constitutes itself through the voluntary exercise of a range of reflexive
techniques and practices oriented towards treating the affects of revenge,
envy and anger.
In sum, Foucault’s recuperation of Hellenistic ethics clarifies both the general conception of ethical practice and some of the substantive ethical and psychological issues at stake in Nietzsche’s middle works. For our purposes, the significance of Foucault’s resurrection of the Hellenistic and Roman practices of self‐cultivation lies in the way he clears several obstacles that stand in the path of comprehending Nietzsche’s own concern with these practices. In the first place, Foucault demonstrates the extent to which the reception of Hellenistic self‐cultivation has been marred by Christian polemics against self‐love, which its early theologians consider the besetting sin of all paganism. These polemics, Foucault shows, have cast a long shadow over every attempt to recover a positive notion of the work of the self on itself. In other words, one of the great merits of Foucault’s excavation of the Hellenistic practices of the self lies in the way it frees the reception of this tradition from the incrustations of Christian polemics. He demonstrates that Christianity wrongly interprets Hellenistic self‐cultivation as closely connected, either historically or analytically, with a “conceited ontology” that gives license to various brands of hyper‐individualism.13 Foucault’s interpretation of Hellenistic self‐cultivation sets it apart from individualism understood either as a solipsistic withdrawal into the private sphere, a crude exaltation of singularity, or, as indeed Augustine saw it, an inflamed self‐love that blossoms into a love of power over others.14 According to Foucault, an intense labour of the self on itself can, as it did with the Stoics, fuse with fulfilling one’s obligations to humankind, to one’s fellow citizens and to a denunciation of social withdrawal.15 Once it emerges from the shadows of Christianity, he argues, the Hellenistic tradition can be rightfully seen as a rich vein of philosophical therapy that takes as its starting point a conception of the subject as a series of reflexive spiritual and material exercises. We can then recover the remnants of a philosophical therapy, “a treasury of devices, techniques, ideas and procedures”, focussed on analyzing how the self can work on itself in such a way that it does not rage vengefully either against the mortal losses it suffers or against those who brim with such vengefulness. It follows that if Nietzsche anchors his middle works in the Stoic tradition’s intensification and valorisation of the practices of the care of the self then his ethical project must also be sundered from any necessary connections with the chain of synonyms that Augustine associates with this tradition: perverse self‐love, love of domination, apostasy from God and the sin of pride.17 If this can be established then it is also plausible that those critics who equate Nietzsche’s ideal of self‐cultivation with narcissistic self‐ involvement and/or grandiose exaltation of the self over others, merely reprise Christianity’s moral and hermeneutic prejudices against the Hellenistic arts of living.
_________________________________
In sum, Foucault’s recuperation of Hellenistic ethics clarifies both the general conception of ethical practice and some of the substantive ethical and psychological issues at stake in Nietzsche’s middle works. For our purposes, the significance of Foucault’s resurrection of the Hellenistic and Roman practices of self‐cultivation lies in the way he clears several obstacles that stand in the path of comprehending Nietzsche’s own concern with these practices. In the first place, Foucault demonstrates the extent to which the reception of Hellenistic self‐cultivation has been marred by Christian polemics against self‐love, which its early theologians consider the besetting sin of all paganism. These polemics, Foucault shows, have cast a long shadow over every attempt to recover a positive notion of the work of the self on itself. In other words, one of the great merits of Foucault’s excavation of the Hellenistic practices of the self lies in the way it frees the reception of this tradition from the incrustations of Christian polemics. He demonstrates that Christianity wrongly interprets Hellenistic self‐cultivation as closely connected, either historically or analytically, with a “conceited ontology” that gives license to various brands of hyper‐individualism.13 Foucault’s interpretation of Hellenistic self‐cultivation sets it apart from individualism understood either as a solipsistic withdrawal into the private sphere, a crude exaltation of singularity, or, as indeed Augustine saw it, an inflamed self‐love that blossoms into a love of power over others.14 According to Foucault, an intense labour of the self on itself can, as it did with the Stoics, fuse with fulfilling one’s obligations to humankind, to one’s fellow citizens and to a denunciation of social withdrawal.15 Once it emerges from the shadows of Christianity, he argues, the Hellenistic tradition can be rightfully seen as a rich vein of philosophical therapy that takes as its starting point a conception of the subject as a series of reflexive spiritual and material exercises. We can then recover the remnants of a philosophical therapy, “a treasury of devices, techniques, ideas and procedures”, focussed on analyzing how the self can work on itself in such a way that it does not rage vengefully either against the mortal losses it suffers or against those who brim with such vengefulness. It follows that if Nietzsche anchors his middle works in the Stoic tradition’s intensification and valorisation of the practices of the care of the self then his ethical project must also be sundered from any necessary connections with the chain of synonyms that Augustine associates with this tradition: perverse self‐love, love of domination, apostasy from God and the sin of pride.17 If this can be established then it is also plausible that those critics who equate Nietzsche’s ideal of self‐cultivation with narcissistic self‐ involvement and/or grandiose exaltation of the self over others, merely reprise Christianity’s moral and hermeneutic prejudices against the Hellenistic arts of living.
_________________________________
I have to come back to this text because there is another area that needs addressing in it.
I believe that most Fellowship members are, like myself, coming from a religious tradition that thinks of God as an entity outside of one’s self and of the human being as its helpless subject, at the “feet of his mercy”. In other words, most come from a Christian tradition.
If we look at Martin Luther, it concisely defines the “attitude” most members had been programmed with whether they were protestants or Catholics: (Coming from Colombia I had been raised in a very Catholic tradition that was essentially the same as the one presented in these texts from Martin Luther):
I believe that most Fellowship members are, like myself, coming from a religious tradition that thinks of God as an entity outside of one’s self and of the human being as its helpless subject, at the “feet of his mercy”. In other words, most come from a Christian tradition.
If we look at Martin Luther, it concisely defines the “attitude” most members had been programmed with whether they were protestants or Catholics: (Coming from Colombia I had been raised in a very Catholic tradition that was essentially the same as the one presented in these texts from Martin Luther):
From 1510 to 1520, Luther lectured on the Psalms, the books of Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. As he studied these portions of the Bible, he came to view the use of terms such as penance and righteousness by the Roman Catholic Church in new ways. He became convinced that the church was corrupt in its ways and had lost sight of what he saw as several of the central truths of Christianity. The most important for Luther was the doctrine of justification – God’s act of declaring a sinner righteous – by faith alone through God’s grace. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God’s grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the Messiah.[37] “This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification,” he wrote, “is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness.[38]
Luther came to understand justification as entirely the work of God. This teaching by Luther was clearly expressed in his 1525 publication On the Bondage of the Will, which was written in response to On Free Will by Desiderius Erasmus (1524). Luther based his position on Predestination on St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians 2:8-10. Against the teaching of his day that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.[39] “That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law,” he wrote. “Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.”[40] Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God. He explained his concept of “justification” in the Smalcald Articles:
The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification (Romans 3:24–25). He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23–25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us … Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls (Mark 13:31).[41]
Luther came to understand justification as entirely the work of God. This teaching by Luther was clearly expressed in his 1525 publication On the Bondage of the Will, which was written in response to On Free Will by Desiderius Erasmus (1524). Luther based his position on Predestination on St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians 2:8-10. Against the teaching of his day that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.[39] “That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law,” he wrote. “Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.”[40] Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God. He explained his concept of “justification” in the Smalcald Articles:
The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification (Romans 3:24–25). He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23–25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us … Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls (Mark 13:31).[41]
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I can’t emphasize each of these paragraphs enough, they should be read over and over again to understand what he is saying and the attitudes and beliefs with which most members join the cult in the deepness of their formatory apparatus.
(Note: I will use “formatory apparatus” as the small part of the mind that hasn’t been “processed” by the individual who “reacts” rather than “responds” to the world, “repeats an act” rather than “makes his own self responsible for it”. The understanding of the formatory apparatus as presented in the fourth way system would correspond closely to Wilhelm Reich’s “character armor” but in my opinion it is much better understood in the structures presented by the System reducing it to a fragment of the mind or it’s instinctive realm which makes a great deal of sense when that realm is also understood).
“The most important for Luther was the doctrine of justification – God’s act of declaring a sinner righteous – by faith alone through God’s grace. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God’s grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the Messiah.[37] “This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification,” he wrote, “is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness.[38]”
There is no difference between this paragraph and what is actually practiced in the Fellowship Cult only that Jesus is replaced by Robert Burton, the guru. The attitude and practices members have towards the guru carry exactly the same weight that this text holds towards God or the Messiah. Salvation or redemption is in practice translated into “awakening and consciousness” and faith has been supplanted by verification in the discourse but has assumed the character of absolute submission through blind faith.
There is no difference between this paragraph and what is actually practiced in the Fellowship Cult only that Jesus is replaced by Robert Burton, the guru. The attitude and practices members have towards the guru carry exactly the same weight that this text holds towards God or the Messiah. Salvation or redemption is in practice translated into “awakening and consciousness” and faith has been supplanted by verification in the discourse but has assumed the character of absolute submission through blind faith.
“He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23–25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us … Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls.”
In this paragraph, we have all the ingredients needed for a cult to develop but attention must be paid to each of them. “God’s act of declaring a sinner righteous – by faith alone through God’s grace. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God’s grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus as the MessiahHe alone is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”
This “belief” is present in how the “priest” is perceived. Through the priest and therefore the guru who has come to replace him, the “sins”, “our” sins are taken away! “Taken away” as if by magic by his sole presence. This sets off the hierachical structure of spiritual and physical life in cults.
The guru, as the representative of God or in modern terminology: “consciousness” has the same capacity or is at least endowed with it by the followers or lambs, the sheep: The innocent wolves in sheep clothing that the guru must protect and lead to a new land, (for the members perceive themselves and act as both sheep under the guidance and mercy of the guru) and wolves who are making supra-human efforts to reach “salvation”, “consciousness”, “awakening”.
This “belief” is present in how the “priest” is perceived. Through the priest and therefore the guru who has come to replace him, the “sins”, “our” sins are taken away! “Taken away” as if by magic by his sole presence. This sets off the hierachical structure of spiritual and physical life in cults.
The guru, as the representative of God or in modern terminology: “consciousness” has the same capacity or is at least endowed with it by the followers or lambs, the sheep: The innocent wolves in sheep clothing that the guru must protect and lead to a new land, (for the members perceive themselves and act as both sheep under the guidance and mercy of the guru) and wolves who are making supra-human efforts to reach “salvation”, “consciousness”, “awakening”.
“All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood”
“All have sinned”!
Have we all sinned? Did it matter whether we called it sin or something else? Children do not perceive them selves as sinners. The idea of sin is taught to us, implanted in us. People probably adopt the role of goody-goodys (not sinners) or baddy-baddies (sinners) in life early in high school according to how they perceive their parents are in relation to their particular society. This role people adopt carries out throughout their whole life in very precise and determining ways.
“All have sinned”!
Have we all sinned? Did it matter whether we called it sin or something else? Children do not perceive them selves as sinners. The idea of sin is taught to us, implanted in us. People probably adopt the role of goody-goodys (not sinners) or baddy-baddies (sinners) in life early in high school according to how they perceive their parents are in relation to their particular society. This role people adopt carries out throughout their whole life in very precise and determining ways.
We then have: “THIS IS NECESSARY TO BELIEVE”
Here is the rock on which all cults are built including that of Catholicism and Protestantism. We have to believe!
Here is the rock on which all cults are built including that of Catholicism and Protestantism. We have to believe!
In contrast with having to believe, the System presented by Gurdjieff offers the option of verifying but to be able to verify one has to believe the premises. If one believes the premises, practices them, then one can verify them. This never happened in the Fellowship cult! The premises were reinterpreted, taken as dogma and never verified. Discussion on the practices, were never allowed.
And finally the absolute dogmatization of the credo: “This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us … Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls.”
Then we find this:
Against the teaching of his day, that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.[39] “That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law,” he wrote. “Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.”[40] Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God. He explained his concept of “justification” in the Smalcald Articles
Against the teaching of his day, that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.[39] “That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law,” he wrote. “Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ.”[40] Faith, for Luther, was a gift from God. He explained his concept of “justification” in the Smalcald Articles
At least before Luther we lived in “cooperation with God!” (That must be studied). Luther severes all connection between God and man and makes of man his subject. A “beggar” of his grace which is repeatedly echoed in the cult with statements such as “we are all beggars”. Even FAITH becomes a gift from God in Luther. If you are not willing to believe, if you are not willing to have faith, you have turned God against you or your self against God.
In contrast with these philosophy, Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way presents the idea of self-remembering as the key to the development of consciousness. The practice of self-remembering is said to be one in which the individual is able to hold himself aware of his own self at all times and doesn’t allow the external world to “seduce” him out of his own presence through identification, which is the main obstacle to “awakening”, followed by the expression of negative emotions, imagination, lying, inner considering and unnecessary talk.
We wouldn’t need to go too far to understand that negative emotions, imagination, lying, inner considering and unnecessary talk correspond to what in other traditions is understood as our “sins”.
The interesting thing is that while traditional religions take the backbone on which an individual can rest to “work” on his self away by separating man from God and connecting them through FAITH, the Fourth Way or any way that stands on man’s capacity to deal with his “obstacles” gives back the AUTHORITY man has over his own self and with that authority, the CAPACITY to achieve “grace”, “redemption” and “consciousness” or “salvation”. Man in such “ways” is conceived as “master” of his destiny!
In contrast with these philosophy, Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way presents the idea of self-remembering as the key to the development of consciousness. The practice of self-remembering is said to be one in which the individual is able to hold himself aware of his own self at all times and doesn’t allow the external world to “seduce” him out of his own presence through identification, which is the main obstacle to “awakening”, followed by the expression of negative emotions, imagination, lying, inner considering and unnecessary talk.
We wouldn’t need to go too far to understand that negative emotions, imagination, lying, inner considering and unnecessary talk correspond to what in other traditions is understood as our “sins”.
The interesting thing is that while traditional religions take the backbone on which an individual can rest to “work” on his self away by separating man from God and connecting them through FAITH, the Fourth Way or any way that stands on man’s capacity to deal with his “obstacles” gives back the AUTHORITY man has over his own self and with that authority, the CAPACITY to achieve “grace”, “redemption” and “consciousness” or “salvation”. Man in such “ways” is conceived as “master” of his destiny!
One of the many problems in cults is that people are unable to “equate” the reality of God, the divine, unity, wholeness or man as “master of his destiny” with themselves and what could be a tool of liberation becomes a tool of condemnation. The same play of “guilt”, “sinners”, “beggars” is played out that is performed in regular society justifying their miserable luck in a recurring agenda that they are unable to free their selves from, only that instead of it taking place within the economic realm, it circles a notch above and is reaffirmed in the spiritual realm or the realm of their being. They end up self-destructing because they are never able to transform their identification with the role they play in the economic realm and life in the cult not only reaffirms their disconnection with God, their selves but with God and the world, leaving only the sinners who failed. It does not matter whether in the economic realm cult members economically successful. What matters is that their role in society is as “dismembered” as it then “crystallizes” in the cult. Society promotes the schizofrenia; the cult crystallizes it. Society implants the structure in the economic realm; the cult crystallizes it in the psychological realm or the realm of being. Then it becomes very dangerous because the individual starts acting against others with fundamentalist conviction. The systematic rape of young men current in the Fellowship of Friends Cult is performed by over a thousand members who support it, accept it and carry out without ever questioning what it is that they are actually doing. This are regular American citizens and regular citizens from the rest of the world all fairly well to do to be able to pay the monthly donation. But in this unacknowledged rape as much as in the automatic “life for the cult”, the members have lost the connection between their self and their actions. They continue to act but no longer live. They are, like the Nazis, obeying orders without connecting to their own humanity. They are the most dangerous people not only to society but to them selves. Mass suicide in cults is a perfectly coherent act in groups of people who have lost the realm of their self and with it, of their humanity.
Cult participants are essentially people who “gave up” on the world or rather were “given up” by the world. Society, with its “Cultish” tendencies to separate everything from everything, proved incapable of holding them. The materialistic reduction current in society was not enough and the search for meaning took the road of the cult but the cult reproduces and worsens the materialistic structure only sublimized in the person of the guru. By so doing, they perfectly conform to the neoliberal credo in which each individual is responsible for itself but ALL must work within and for the society they participate in without questioning it. If they don’t “make it” they are simply losers. The structures of power are the same: in the neoliberal society, the government is an unreachable, invisible force, no matter how much the vote exists and so is economy in the perception of its analysis and in the cult the guru is the all encompassing unreachable authority receiving the profits of his sheep’s labor but the relationship is “sublimized”. In both, the authority acts like a father figure: in the cult the guru decides everything and takes care of their soul avoiding their actual needs, in the neoliberal society, the welfare state, covers the expenses for the inevitable poverty that comes with the economic structure and avoids their soul; It attempts to “heal” the illness without stopping its causes. Like everything about western medicine!
Avoiding its soul: that is what the separation of state and religion brought forth. With this it is not that I don’t see the benefits the separation of state and religion brought forth, but the benefits it brought forth do not stop the negative consequences of what it also brought forth.
If it looks like I drifted out of the subject, it just looks! The subjects are all strongly connected but one day I will be even clearer for our mutual satisfaction! As I’ve said consistently, this is an exploration. You are welcome to explore with me. I’ll continue to turn this over and over again because most of the ingredients are already here! The work of refining it will take a life! It is well worth it! If you want it like they give it in Wikipedia, you could wait till I am dead!! I can’t wait!!!
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