Chapter 5: Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German Philosopher, 1844-1900, was an individualistic moralist rather than a systematic philosopher, and his ideas are written down with less scholarly rigor and more dogmatism than some philosophers. He rejected the idea that men needed God for moral guidance, and famously declared that "God is dead". Influenced by his early friendship with Richard Wagner, Fred passionately rejected the "slave morality" of Christianity for a new, heroic morality that upheld "humanity". Leading this new society would be a breed of supermen whose "will to power" would set them off from the "herd" of inferior humanity. His writings (for example, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-91) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886)) were later used as a philosophical justification for doctrines of racial and national superiority by the American Eugenics (later, Planned Parenthood) movement and the German National Socialist (a.k.a. Nazi) movement, among others. Modern scholars, however, regard this as a perversion of Nietzsche's thought.

Bill knew all of this, of course. But at the moment, he wasn't thinking about it.

As the wipers flipped back and forth, vainly trying to keep the windshield clear of the driving rain coming down, there were several streaks that formed from defects in the wiper blades. If you intend to drive safely at night in the Pacific Northwest, it is important to keep you wiper blades in good repair, and Bill usually was pretty attentive to such things. Not really an avid auto mechanic, but interested in maintaining his vehicle in a high state of repair, Bill was not one to let minor details turn into major problems.

But he'd forgotten about that as well, and his eyes weren't focused on the windshield and the wiping defects of his worn out blades.

The more successful they were at creating ever better and ever cheaper inkjet devices, the longer it seemed to take to get through the stoplight here at 9th and Circle Boulevard. If he was spending less time with Cindy now, it might have been because it was taking him so long to get there. Time to look for an alternative route? Bill wasn't considering that either.

Uncharacteristically for him, Bill's mind was focused tightly on a problem. Even when working hard, his mind was only engaged in work related thinking about 25% of the time. He had an active, probing, some would say wandering mind that kept going off on tangents. He was a successful engineer because he could generally run down the rabbit trails, check them off, and get back to the main subject faster than most could proceed along the main subject. But now his mind wasn't exploring scattered ideas in rapid fire succession. It was tightly focused on one idea.

Bill was irritated, and that was absorbing 95% of his awareness, the other 5% vaguely aware of the traffic and the road ahead.

He knew it shouldn't get him down, that it was none of his business, that he was over reacting. But he was bummed about what his friend Steve had done to Jenny at the pool hall. He'd put it out of his mind the night it happened, but on his way out to the car after work the heavy rain had put him in a somber mood and he'd begun to brood on what he'd seen. His thoughts had become more and more focused since then.

"Why? The guy finally has an opportunity in his life to do something more substantial than, than, making ever better and cheaper inkjet devices or playing games or bouncing around the sheets with his playmate of the month" he said to himself with some heat. His hand rapped the steering wheel of his Honda. Bill didn't often talk to himself, childishly seeing it as a sign of mental weakness. Such thoughts didn't distract him now, either. "And what does he do? What does he do."

"He takes the best opportunity he'll ever have, and kicks it in the face. Just kicks it in the face! What an idiot."

Why was he so worked up about this? Why did he care? He and Steve were still friends, he and Jenny were still friends, he and Cindy were still friends. "Everyone gets along, so what's the beef?" he said aloud. "Where's the problem?" Bill was getting too emotional about all of this, and he knew it. So he took a few deep breaths, and relaxed a little. Traffic started to move. The dark green hills on the north and west sides of Corvallis came into view from behind a few trees and a couple buildings, shrouded in rain and mist. He'd think about it a little more logically.

OK. What was the root of his anger, his passion about this Steve and Jenny and Michelle thing?

Well. He liked Steve, he liked Jenny. He didn't like seeing them apart. He didn't really approve of Michelle.

And? Lots of his friends had drifted together and apart over time. He also liked Steve and Sachico, and he had no anger about the fact that they were not currently together. So what? So why was this different?

It was different, he felt sure of it. But not one to trust his feelings, he attempted to build a cerebral case for the idea. What Steve and Jenny had, after all, was more innocent and more delicate than anything Sachico had been involved in since infancy. "More innocent than anything you've been involved in since infancy" he said to himself with a tight smile. And more innocent than Michelle's limited world could even allow for.

And? What was important about innocence? Isn't innocence just another word for ignorance? And ignorance is always a bad thing. So therefore....

No. Innocence is not the same thing as ignorance. It involves guilelessness, inoffensiveness, simplicity, blamelessness, integrity, and purity of heart. While ignorance is indeed a problem to be stamped out, innocence is a characteristic to be protected, nurtured like a beautiful flower.

Now wait. Not only is that ridiculously poetic and maudlin, there are several assumptions hidden in it. Who is to say what is offensive and what isn't? Where blame lies? What purity of heart even means, for crying out loud. Maybe Michelle was, by some standard, pure of heart. Who was he to say? On what basis?

Bill drove on down Circle. He was stuck without a good answer to that.

And another thing. "Something that needs to be 'protected' and 'nurtured' like a beautiful flower isn't going to do to well in the real world, is it? Maybe in some garden innocence can be maintained, for a season, a kindergarten or possibly some religious community like the Amish. But in the real world it just wasn't going to survive, it couldn't survive, now could it?" he said.

What had the philosopher said? Only the strong, only the ideals which were tough and could stand up to the real world were going to continue developing, evolving, and spreading. Other, earlier, more fragile ideals might or might not be preserved in some way, but they could not become the dominant ideas of history in the long run. They would be shunted aside, cast off by people leading real lives in the real world, people who needed adaptable, strong ideas to live their lives with.

Well. So it wasn't that innocence was bad and worldliness was bad, it was just that the one was weak and the other strong, and that the strong was coming to dominate the weak. Hard to argue with. Perhaps innocence was over rated? Perhaps.

Bill felt better. Somehow he felt uneasy with the idea that innocence wasn't so important after all, but he had come up with a pretty good case against it. As always, it calmed him to understand a problem, because understanding was most of the battle. Once understood, the solution to the problem simply involved "turning the crank".

So why had he been so upset? Well, innocence has a certain romantic attraction and all that, and he had seen a rare, beautiful, adult example of it crushed like a rose under the tread of a tank, so naturally there was a certain amount of disgust and anguish involved. Why was it natural? His upbringing had involved a lot of romantic influences, from Disney to the Brothers Grimm. His inner child was simply reacting to the dissonance it experienced with the real world. That's the ticket.

Satisfied with himself, he became aware again of his surroundings, and was shocked to see Cindy's smiling face knocking at his window, dripping pink umbrella in hand? What was she doing out here in the middle of traffic! Was she nuts? But she wasn't running, and so he must be at a stop light. But no, traffic was still moving in the left lane.

Looking around, he realized that he was sitting in his car at the curb in front of her duplex, his foot on the brake and his motor running. He hadn't realized that he'd come here.

"What are you doing out here?" she yelled through the window, smiling a mischievous smile. He put the transmission in park, turned off the engine, and got out. "Why, coming to see you of course" he said.

"You didn't have to sit in your car outside the house for five minutes. Whatever you are thinking about you could think about inside" she said. He gave her a quick kiss, put his arm around her waist, and they walked toward the front door.

She laughed. "You'd better turn off your headlights, or you'll have to stay the night."

Embarrassed, he left the relative dryness of the umbrella and went back to turn them off while she waited. Re joining her, they went inside.

"Did you plan to take me out for dinner?" she asked, again with that semi-taunting smile on her face. "Or do you expect me to cook for you? If you want that, you should at least let me know you are coming over, don't you agree?"

"Yes, Cindy, I'm sorry. I'm afraid I was kind of distracted. If you want, we can go out for dinner. Actually, I'd rather like to do that. I want to talk to you about Jenny and Steve. It's probably none of my business, but it kind of preoccupied me the whole way over here."

"What preoccupied you?" she said.

"You know, the way Michelle came on to Steve and he took the bait right in front of Jenny."

"Oh, that. Well, I have to admit that I don't like it either, but I don't know what we can do about it. Just a minute while I get my things" and she went back into the bedroom.

True. What was the point in all of this? Steve was a big boy, and Jenny was an adult. Consenting adults had their rights. Michelle might be a tramp, but who was he to say so?

Well, now, wait, there must be logical ramifications to this. After all, a tramp in this context meant a woman who slept with a lot of different men most willingly, and Michelle certainly fit the bill. The word might have negative connotations, but the denotation certainly fit well. So yes, he could say so without fear of bigotry.

What did that make Cindy? He shied away from that. Cindy was not a virgin (as he could attest), and he knew there had been other men before him who'd shared her charms. But somehow it seemed different. Why? Because he like Cindy and was repulsed by Michelle? Well, repulsed was a little strong, but the attraction was only physical. Cindy was more, more, innocent somehow. That concept again. But it had clear application here; each time Cindy had gone to bed, it had been out of love for the man she was with. She therefore met the strict definition of tramp, but she wasn't so cynically self centered, she didn't treat men as, well, sex objects. Currently, her love was given to him, and he certainly appreciated that. She seemed to have a lot of love, in fact.

Maybe there is a connection between love and innocence?

"Lets go!" she said, coming down the hall and into the living room of her duplex. "I'm ready. What do you feel like eating?"

Her bright and cheery demeanor were just what he needed. Must be the weather that made him so introspective. "Oh, I don't know, how about Mexican?"

She made a face. "You always want Mexican food. Let's do something really different tonight. I mean, how often is it that I'm faced with an instant date?"

Unwillingly, he first thought was JID; Just In time Dating. He managed to suppress the irrational urge to blurt that out. TLA's were so unromantic.

"Well, what do you suggest?"

She thought for a second, and said "Let's try the new Arabic restaurant, Jerusalem, down at the Cannery Mall. It isn't fancy, but it is different."

Not fancy. That probably meant inexpensive.... "OK, I'll buy. Deal?"

"Deal!" she enthused. Always had been a cheerleader type.

The drive down to the restaurant was chatty and warm. The rain, though still pounding down, seemed to recede into the background. Bill really enjoyed her company, and she his. They talked about small things, nothing really, but it all seemed fascinating to the two of them.

After arriving at the "restaurant", they almost decided to head upstairs to Sadies Bar & Grill but decided to just do it here instead. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

After ordering things off of an incomprehensible menu, they sat down at a corner booth to wait. There were only two other people in the shop, and both of them were eating ice cream cones and reading the paper.

"Didn't this place use to be an ice cream parlor?" she asked.

"Yes, in fact, I think it did. Looks like they held on to the old line. Hopefully it is strictly transitional. I wonder how long this place has been here? Don't seem to have built up much of a clientele for their eastern food yet, have they?" Bill replied.

"Don't you feel like a bold explorer tonight Bill? This place has only been here a couple weeks. Why, we could be the first people in Corvallis to be trying out their rendition of whatever it is we ordered! If it turns out to be good, we'll be trendsetters and community leaders."

"You can always tell the leader by the arrows in his back" he said wryly. "But as to being bold, that reminds me of something I wanted to talk to you about. Of what value is innocence, to you?"

Cindy thought for a minute. "Bill is always doing this to me" she thought to herself. "One minute, nice simple banter and the next some major philosophical question. But he's such a dear, even if an erratic one." She couldn't think of anything.

"Well, what is innocence?" she finally said aloud, biding for time.

Bill nodded his approval. He could be irritatingly professorial at times. "Good question. Define the terms, and sometimes the question simply folds up and goes away. But I think not, this time."

"Innocence," he continued, "is that personal quality which allows the bearer to be free of guilt for sins not committed, to be free of temptation to sins not comprehended, and to be free of any need for deception. One part of innocence is ignorance."

"Well, in the first place, I object to the last part of your definition. Innocence does not have to include ignorance, just the lack of desire to pursue some subjects to their logical conclusion."

"Leaving the innocent ignorant of those subjects?" he replied.

"Well, in some regards, I guess so. But not all knowledge is good knowledge, and some things people are just better off not knowing."

This came as a shock to Bill. Why hadn't he asked that question? He'd merely assumed that all ignorance was bad! An unexamined assumption, and he'd moved right past it without a second glance.

Cindy saw his hesitation. "Ha!" she gloated to herself. "I love it when I do that. He thinks he's such an intellectual jock." Even if she wasn't sure exactly why what she'd said was making him hesitate.

Dinner arrived, unrecognizable but smelling quite good. They ate in silence for a few minutes.

"This is great! I like it, the cook really knows what he's doing" she said. "So, if innocence includes ignorance, it only includes ignorance of the good sort, right? To get back to what we were talking about."

"Yes, yes, you could look at it that way. This food really is good; I'm glad I thought of it."

She smiled and shook her head. It was an old joke between them. "Whatever."

He grinned back, then became serious again. He looked down at the cracked linoleum on the floor. "Cindy, I'm not sure there is such a thing as 'good ignorance'."

"But Bill, look at all of the bad things that have come out of people knowing more than they should. A-bombs, for one thing, and environmental disaster, global warming for another."

He shook his head and look up. "No, Cindy, those problems came about because the people with the knowledge were too weak to make good use of it. The knowledge is good. We are either strong enough to deal with it, or we are not."

Cindy was getting irritated. This was supposed to be a fun, spur-of-the-moment evening out, and here he was arguing some silly point of philosophy. She fumed quietly for a second. Randy had been so much simpler to date. Except that dating him had turned into very little but sex. She'd been glad to get to know Bill, who treated her like she had a few thoughts worth listening to. But sometimes he could go overboard, like now. Why were men always so single minded about whatever it was that interested them?

Finally, she said "Look, Bill, I don't agree. I think innocence is a good thing, which means I think it is better not to know some things at some times. I want my children to be innocent, for crying out loud. Strength has nothing to do with it, and an unhealthy preoccupation with power has a lot to do with the problems we have all around us. Love is more important. Looking out for the best interests of the innocent, sacrificing your own best interest for theirs, practically defines what it means to be good."

She wasn't making sense, but she obviously believed it, whatever she thought she was saying. He'd give it another try.

"But, Cindy, how do you know what is best? What standard, what yardstick do you use to define evil, awful, bad, fair, good, better, best?"

"What my parents taught me. What makes me happy. What I want!" she said, somewhat too loudly. Then she calmed down. The whole subject frustrated her, and she didn't like dealing with it. But, on the other hand, it was better than just vegetating through life, so she put her mind back to it. "Actually, none of those standards make much sense, do they. I mean, what makes me happy might not make you happy, and then we have two 'bests', which is nonsensical. And what I want varies from minute to minute. Like earlier, I was so excited about doing something new, something simple like going to a new restaurant for dinner, and now I'd like to be able to justify my feelings about the importance of innocence but can't. And why should my parents have had any more insight into what is good than I've had? Unless... they have lived longer. And their parents lived full lives, and so did theirs. Looked at in that way, I suppose that what has been handed down to me as right and wrong from my parents has been distilled from literally hundreds of individual lives." This was a new thought for Cindy, and it made her pause. She was startled, and went back over the thought process again to look for flaws.

Meanwhile, Bill was impressed. It was an original thought for her, arrived at independently, though the concept of tradition as a source of wisdom was, of course, well known to his philosopher-heroes, and well thrashed too. But it occurred to him that, for all their thrashing of it, those enlightened men hadn't really offered a better yardstick. Really, the modern philosophers had come to the conclusion that yardsticks are irrelevant, that they don't matter, because nothing really matters in any ultimate sense. And yet, and yet some things do seem to matter.

Their wandering, thoughtful gazes both arrived at each other's face simultaneously, with the same thought.

"She matters."

"He matters."

"Ahem" seemed to be the best that Bill could come up with. He dove into whatever it was he was eating, but he wasn't tasting it any longer. His mind was running fast, but logical thought wasn't forming. Just fleeting, alarming mental pictures and half baked ideas. It was disconcerting for the normally disciplined thinker.

Cindy also fell silent, for similar reasons. She couldn't believe how important Bill was becoming to her, and that thought frightened her as much as it did Bill, maybe more. Society screamed at her not to become dependent on a man, yet here she was, falling in love. Fallen in love? She felt that it was a good thing, like innocence, but she was doubtful.

They finished their meal in silence, and he drove her home. They had a fight in the car on the way back over something inconsequential, as a couple who suddenly realizes that they need each other will often do. The fight was fairly bitter and she ran into her home crying. Though he'd put aside his concern over Jenny and Steve's problems earlier in the evening, on his way home he was just as upset about his own.

Engineering is so much more straightforward.