I’m a Hack

“I’d rather be a satyr than a saint.” - Nietzsche

A philosopher should not explain. A philosopher is meant to be dynamite. He must detonate. He should destroy even what he loves. Especially what he loves. Philosophy is dead as it exists today. There is too much at stake when it comes to the task of destroying. There is too much to gain by being a philosophical entertainer. This post itself is evidence of my hackery. I am not writing because I must. I'm writing because I want a post a performance. I ought to destroy my own ego. But I haven’t.

Philosophers today want desperately to be liked. They wish to be rockstar intellectuals, TED-talkers who sell merchandise and preach about love. They engage in sophistry and sell transcendence like used cars. A garbageman is more of a philosopher and is in possession of more objects of value. I’m complicit. I fear the consequences of the alternative and quietly reap the benefits of my cowardice. Nietzsche said: “We have art in order not to die of the truth.” But artists do tell the truth, they just tell it through lies.

At university I observed some of the most absurd displays of intellectual vanity. I could almost see the spirit of philosophy dying. I read 30 page essays that needed only a couple paragraphs to say something that really didn’t need to be said. No one will read them besides academics and philosophy students. There is no life in them at all. There is nothing in them that echoes Goethe: “I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.” Everyone hates this in one way or another. I hate this. I diligently applied myself to the discipline of formal logic, perhaps the dumbest thing human beings have ever created. A system that was so painstakingly and intricately designed and serves absolutely no purpose. It is like a fake fruit placed in a bowl on a coffee table. It fails to be math and it fails to be philosophy.

Philosophy is dead. It is dead because of fear and because anything we say may be on social media, may be filmed, may offend, may disturb that consistency of opinion which so essential to our inherent tribal nature. The main purpose of philosophy, if there is one, is to subvert that very same instinctive need to obey the status quo and maintain opinions that are socially acceptable. This is necessary because not all popular opinions are correct. Many are, in fact, not correct. So, it is necessary to point this out. But if you point it out, many people will become quite upset. So, you must point it out eloquently enough and with enough charisma and flair to convince some of the alternative perspective. But that is hardly even possible anymore due to the fact that eloquence is confused with pretense and everything is taken at face value.

A philosopher par excellence was observed in Diogenes. When he was asked why he carried a lamp around in broad daylight, he responded that he was looking for one honest man. Diogenes is said to have entered theatres while everyone was leaving and defecated on the stage. When Alexander the Great sought to meet him he found Diogenes sunbathing on a boulder. Diogenes was told that he could have anything he wanted. He responded by telling Alexander to step aside because he was blocking the sun. Alexander remarked, “if I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes.” Diogenes remarked “If I were not Diogenes I would be Diogenes.”

“Corinth also provides an anecdote which perhaps sums up Diogenes as no other story could: “When it had been reported that Philip [of Macedon] was about to attack Corinth, and all the citizens were hard at work and absorbed in their tasks, Diogenes began to roll his jar back and forth; and when someone asked, ‘Why are you doing that, Diogenes?’ he replied, ‘Because when everyone is toiling away, it would hardly be proper for me to do nothing; so I’m rolling my jar, having nothing else to turn my hand to.” To put it another way: everybody else is indulging in the crowd mentality of meaningless activity, so I too will undertake some pointless activity.”

In philosophy, subversion and subtlety are necessary. One of the greatest Zen stories exemplifies this. Two monks are living with their master. There is a leak in the roof and the master yells at them to go get something to deal with it. The first monk immediately rushes back with a sieve. The second monk comes back with a bucket soon after. The master hits the second monk and praises the first. Why? Because the first monk is not married to preconceptions. It requires a fixed belief: buckets hold water, sieves do not.

If philosophy is merely performative, and exists to strengthen the preconceptions of others for the sake of vanity and self aggrandizement, then it is not philosophy. At that point, it is simply horrible art. Steven Pinker, Jordan Peterson, Alain de Botton, and others do this same dance of theatre and performative philosophy. They are good philosophical entertainers but abysmal philosophers. And I criticize them to strengthen my own feelings of superiority, but I am complicit. I just pretend to do it in a more clever way. Isn’t this performative itself? Am I not looking for likes, views, validation, approval, some kind of thing that would bring more to me? Is it not self seeking and vain? Even by writing this I don’t risk much. Some may think it is weird. Some may admire the honesty. They may be confused. Or not care. But it still does not risk much because we live in an age in which risking much isn’t really worth it.

I am a writer much like Sallust. He was a historian and a governor of a province in northern Africa during the time of Caesar. He wrote about the contemptible decay of the aristocrats. But he admitted that he himself did as they did, fell to the same temptation to embezzle funds and take what he wanted for himself. Perhaps Diogenes was the only true Western philosopher there ever has been. Defecating in theatres, masturbating in public, living in a jug, and behaving like a madman. Today he would be considered a homeless bum. Or he would be working at Goldman Sachs. I want to end by redeeming this piece because I want to create something to make myself feel better. I use the idea that redemption helps others as rationalization for the fact that it helps me primarily. Even my honesty is a form of redemption. But if I leaned into it too much, it would simply be vanity. I pick the sieve.