In the reading, On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense by Nietzsche he elucidates the idea that everyone is an intellect through their own lens, guided by their own intuitions. So when one is faced with either their own truths or lies, they’ll think it’s correct simply because that is just how they perceive and understand it. Deceptions are more common than we’d think and normally, telling the truth is more deemed as moral; but one’s truth is not the truth of another.
“As a means for the preservation of the individual, the intellect shows its greatest strengths in dissimulation. Since this is the means to preserve those weaker, less robust individuals…” (765). Nietzsche implies that everyone has their own little ambience, their own world of what they believe is the truth and the lie and when they show others their own self, it’s almost like they show a piece of themselves in which they aren’t being completely honest with themselves.

Nietzsche mentions how metaphors are the type of language that humankind can communicate and perceive each other and perceive things. So if an individual was to say a remark, they internalize that statement and push it onto the world so that it can become true. “We divide things up by gender, describing a tree as masculine and a plant as feminine  – how arbitrary these translations are!” (766). He discussed how there are borders put into place and become a concern for what is true or not. He states that truth is merely just a “mobile army of metaphors , metonymies, anthropomorphisms” that have been subjected in rhetorical language; that truths are illusions that are not necessarily illusions to people. So while one person may believe one thing, the other thinks of it differently.

It is closely related to subliminal perception, where people will disguise and construct truths and lies to make it so that people wouldn’t question or be aware of their persona/cognition. “By these standards the human being is an architectural genius who is far more superior to the bee; the latter builds with wax which she gathers from nature, whereas the human being builds with the far more delicate material of concepts which he must first manufacture from himself” (769). For example, hypothetically speaking, if there was a person who states that she is the best at the game chess, then she herself will believe it and others can believe it as well, but it comes down to how people perceive her with what information she puts out into the world. One can think she’s the greatest player while another peer can think she’s not the best. Nietzsche describes how human beings themselves have an urge to let themselves be deceived in the way they want, even if they aren’t true.

This is how everyone simply has their own ambience of belief of truth and lies; because as “just as the other did in the midst of happiness: he does not wear a twitching, mobile, human face, but rather a mask” (774). Regardless if a person is telling the truth, there are so many points of views but the most primary thing is how oneself can interpret and perceive themselves and others. 

Nietzsche’s theory on the illusionary truth is mind-boggling; he starts with an introduction that asks the reader to estimate their precedence. As I read through the thicket of his reasoning’s, I was swept into humility. Although truth is subjective, is there a simple premise on which to scoff at the concept of lying? Is it so undetected that there isn’t a fine line between honesty and deception? And, if lying isn’t so bad, what makes lying about the truth so bad?

“In the wake of this peace treaty, however, comes something which looks like the first step toward the acquisition at the mysterious drive for truth. For that which is to count as truth from this point onward now becomes fixed, i.e a way of designating things is invented which has the same validity and force everywhere, and the legislation of language also produces the first laws of truth, for the contrast between truth and lying comes into existence here for the first time:…”

     My interpretation is that the aftermath of building community and agreeableness necessitated the fascination and appointed decision for what truth is via language. While I would agree that objective reality is beyond our capacity, the falsehood of truth is nevertheless imperative to our essence. Even in logic, we assume “truth” until it is proven incredible or incorrect.

We value ourselves more than what we are, and rather than simply existing, our awareness gives us fault. For God’s sake, we believed in geocentricism and initially rejected the science behind heliocentrism, ridiculing Copernicus and placing Galileo on trial; we are undeniably self-centered as a species. To this point, I must agree with Nietzsche’s assertion that we are not interested in the ultimate truth or lie but instead in the harm caused by falsehood or truth for that matter. We would rather have a comfortable lie than a painful truth sometimes.

However, it appears that humankind’s truth of lies benefited us in our expansion, transitions, and prosperity. Human connection is essential to our survival. The formation of societies has made it easier to survive, and while this may be the root cause of desirable “truth,” it is also essential to its function. Society thrives only in the presence of organization, in whatever form it takes. It is an unavoidable factor; definitive truth may never be ubiquitous in reality, but it serves as a principle, not for moral refinement (although we structure it that way), but for our endurance.

And while language is a pillar that helps create this patina of truth, it is also how we share. Language is a fickle thing, and we, like Nietzsche’s bush argument, are predecessors of a shift in its matter too. I can see why he states scientist or philosopher, intellectual or illiterate, that neither shrewdness nor folly, wisdom with or without “concrete” data, can ultimately find the objective truth because our very existence is a plethora of 2d subjective experiences in time and space. And while he clearly states what truth isn’t, he barely expresses what truth is other than the denial of everything we thought was true. Sensational! The bigger question, I believe, is whether we would rather die and be sincere or thrive in fraudulence?

So Nietzche pretty much confirms my belief that most people aren’t exactly so great.  Towards the beginning he says “What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case?” It’s almost like he believes most of sort of lack self-awareness. And maybe alot of us do. After that he goes on to say “Man wishes to exist socially and with the herd”, almost like individuality doesn’t exist. I don’t exactly get his gripe with the concept of the truth or what exactly constitutes as the truth. It seems he believes we sort of lie or just conform to whatever those in our surroundings deem the truth. Which is silly to me because over the course of history people have been fighting and disagreeing over damn near everything. He says “What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding.” Well, of course there are truths that people agree upon. That isn’t inherently problematic. I kind of disagree with this idea or suggestion that to classify something as the truth must involve some level of assimilation or even sacrifice. I know what I believe to be true because maybe I’ve studied it or maybe I’m aware of it. People have a right to reach conclusions and classify something as true so long as their conclusion is reasonable. Later he says “If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his “self consciousness” would be immediately destroyed. It is even a difficult thing for him to admit to himself that the insect or the bird perceives an entirely different world from the one that man does, and that the question of which of these perceptions of the world is the more correct one is quite meaningless, for this would have to have been decided previously in accordance with the criterion of the correct perception, which means, in accordance with a criterion which is not available.” I do understand that perspective has value and that obviously lived experiences plays a role. I obviously believe that an animal or say a child certainly has a different view on the world than I do.  I don’t think I really get the source of his frustration. nietzsche actually seems a bit hard to read here. It’s like he’s saying that I have my truth and you have your truth therefore there is no truth. This however is odd to me. There are most definitely falsehoods and lies out there. If people want to believe the sky isn’t blue I have no reason to argue with them. it’s like Nietzsche doesn’t believe in conclusions. I like conclusions and I like objectivity. Some ideas by some people should be dismissed. Some ideas are silly and serve no benefit. What’s wrong with saying that? Some ideas aren’t as good as others. Not because they aren’t generally accepted or because they aren’t derivative, but because they are poor and nonsensical. Why can’t this man face that? Why can’t he just relax and understand that some ideals should be put to the side? Why can’t he face that some thoughts aren’t as good or as valuable? The rest of us have already landed at these conclusions.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” unpacks the nature behind a lie, among other interesting and important things. One little lie can make one come off as a completely different person. Why is this? Nietzsche gives an adequate example and explanation, “The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, ‘I am rich,’ when the proper designation for his condition would be ‘poor.’ He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception” (Nietzsche 766). When someone is caught in pretty major lie like the one described, they were pretending to be something that they are not. In this case, this person is pretending to be the total opposite of what they actually are. Of course, the person on the receiving end of the lie will feel betrayed since people tend to want to believe what they are told, but at the end of the day, this person was just deceived. Maybe if this lie was more of a white lie, then the reaction would be less dramatic. Possibly, the person being deceived may just brush it off, because everyone tells a white lie every now and then. Perhaps, they might still take great offense to it, but the bottom line is that when it comes to major lies like the one Nietzsche mentions, it is hard to recover on both ends. It is hard for the receiver to find trust in that person again and it is hard for the liar to deal with the consequences of their own actions. On this note, the liar might feel outcasted after the truth is unveiled. With this example, if someone is caught lying about their social status, they will not only be shunned by society, but they also might face legal repercussions if they tried to lie to an authoritative figure. This piece by Nietzsche makes the reader grapple with the art of lying, so much so that the reader may never tell another lie…ever.

Nietzche pointed out many things that stood out but one things that stood out the most to me was “two classes” where it was discussed that there were property owners or property less workers. In my opinion property brought along a major issue where people were mistreated such as people who worked extremely hard and yet didn’t own property. There was no evolvement, working and owning property is to benefit and help the economy grow. Workers were losing reality, people worked a lot and yet saw no profit and yet the production increased in power and range. Nietzche pointed out that when you work so hard your life isn’t your life anymore. That job you are doing then starts to own your life and control how you live. To create, work and live, it is dependent on something else. For example, some people can’t live unless their working and some people can’t create things unless they have an idea. “Labour means life” & “become a slave of his object” (pg 766) in a sort of sense that means that you have to work and if you are working you are making your whole life revolve around it. The man is putting more effort into the object along with more time and value and your giving yourself less of that and degrading those categories on you as a person. To me so far nietzche is trying to explain that you’ll come to realization that when putting your all into work and labour you start to lose yourself. The only thing you’ll actually want to do is work on that specific something or object. It’s becomes mentally and physically draining and you realize and think to yourself “is this benefiting me?”. You work and work and you aren’t growing but the economy will start too and you are left there without property. Workers work in conditions that disturb their life. Going on to page 770, I understood that society happens to follow various orders. What automatically popped in my head was “monkey see monkey do” something my parents always said to me. Don’t follow what others do, be yourself. Along with “social rank”, I believe that’s why workers were slaved to do more then they should and property owners didn’t do much. Over time the economy started to grow way more. There were Chinese markets and trade, development started. Markets grew rapidly and there was never enough, always space for more and more. There was commerce, people bought things and sold it back for profit, something we still do now. These few pages spoke a lot on how truth and lying was occurring in economy and affected the growth. Within time I’d believe the truth came out and people started to make change to better themselves and their society.

Modern Family Season 6, Episode 07

Nietzsche, questioning and admiring himself throughout “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”, is trying to speak in the fourth dimension, criticizing the people of the age, to explain how it is the norm to be deceive oneself realizing the truth. This concept is similar to translations within languages; when certain words cannot be transcribed to represent the original word as a whole. Nietzsche (765) describes people being fake to oneself and to one another, in an effort to

“preserve himself in relation to another, in the state of nature he mostly used his intellect for conceal-ment and dissimulation; however, because necessity and boredom also lead men to want to live in societies and herds, they need a peace treaty…”

In order to have a moment of peace, people let go of what they believe in to assimilate into society, burying deep inside them their true self. It gets confusing to what is the “truth” (766-771), in sum, truth is an illusion depicted through metaphors (768) but these truths are unique,

“the only things we really know about them[, the relations between things,] are things which we bring to bear on them”.

Nietzsche states that things are things because we make them “things”. The way one person sees something can differ from what another seed it as, but as a society we have to adjust this thing with a name.

For example, what is a mental picture of rock to you? A bland gray colored rock perhaps, I pictured sand first and caves. Nietzsche would say that we do not have a precise concept of what it is supposed to look like but depends on what we have been taught and what is in the area around us. For the word “rock”, it could’ve been a pebble or even testicles, according to Google, as part of vulgar slang.

First picture of rock, grayish and rectangular shape, in Google Images as of 9AM on 02/04/2022.

Now, following on in Google, for me the first thing that appears is this picture from a Wikipedia page.  All of these things have a similar ideal in common, a “rock” is roundish-shape, bland in color, in an empty area, perhaps surrounded by other rocks.

In Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”, He explores the genesis of Truth, Lies, the differences between the two and how they intersect in more ways than we believe. Nietzsche begins the piece with a jarring truth about humanity, The universe existed before us and it will continue after us. He proposes human intellect is “purposeless and arbitrary” within nature and only serves and exists within the bounds of humanity. (752)  He argues our intellect is merely a tool for survival as the horns or teeth would be on another animal and its main function being “concealment and dissimulation” making “deception” more natural than truth. (753) In fact, he proposes ideas of shared “truths” created language which was birthed from “necessity and boredom” that left humans wanting to build societies.

Nietzsche believes language, which is constructed on a collective social “peace treaty” and is the foundation of the first laws of truth, as well as cognition is heavily reliant on deception. (753) Humans perceive the world in forms, and that informs our limited ability to categorize and create “metaphors” for there existence. Nietzsche explores the flaws in languages ability to accurately describe nature. According to Nietzsche, each word becomes a concept and concepts are created by “dropping individual differences arbitrarily,” (755) So “concepts” like “leaf” “tree” “flower” are born, but Nietzsche clarifies “nature knows neither forms nor concepts and hence no species, but only an ‘X’ which is inaccessible to us and indefinable by us.” (755) further arguing that truth isn’t something natural rather a human invention. There is no link between language and reality so it is all deception and metaphors accepted as truths. It is through language that deception is possible because language dictates what is “true” and “not true”. Language imposes meaning on nature, and since we shape language to fit our needs for survival, truth is not fixed. Nietzsche talks of how truths can contradict each other and often do and how what was once deception or metaphors can become truth overtime.

Self dissimulation is human nature, it saves us from misery and is a survival tool. Nietzsche says,

That drive to form metaphors, that fundamental human drive which can- not be left out of consideration for even a second without also leaving out human beings themselves, is in truth not defeated, indeed hardly even tamed (759)

Nietzsche observes dissimulation and deception as something humans often welcome and seek out as long as it is not harmful. He says “…human beings themselves have an unconquerable urge to let them- selves be deceived,” (760) and cites the fascination of one listening to a fairytale or epic poem. We know it is not true, but are drawn to it nonetheless.