Ha--Sheesh!

“If one wants to rid oneself of an unbearable pressure, one needs hashish.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Was Friedrich Nietzsche a pothead?

Well… there is evidence that he wrote himself some scripts for opiates, and throughout his work, in a manner so clever many people tend to miss it, he may have hinted at doing various drugs, especially for the mysterious but very debilitating chronic ailment he inherited from his father.

But no, this line is not an indication that Nietzsche was a pothead. Here is the whole paragraph:

“All things considered, I could not have endured my youth without Wagner’s music. For I was condemned to Germans. If one wants to rid oneself of an unbearable pressure, one needs hashish. Well then, I needed Wagner. Wagner is the anti-toxin against everything German par excellence—a toxin, a poison, that I don’t deny.”

As I don’t wish to get sidetracked on a discussion about the complicated relations between Nietzsche and Wagner’s work, I will only remark here that the overwhelming evidence shows that despite Wagner’s influence on the young Friedrich, Nietzsche was outspokenly against antisemitism, to his family, the government, and in his works. He was critical of ALL religion, and did not spare Judaism, but he was NOT an antisemite.

Wagner… well… yeah, seems he was an antisemite, and this is ultimately one of Nietzsche’s reasons for breaking with the Wagners.

But the real reason I proffered the quote above was to demonstrate how easy it would be to give the wrong impression from a single quote taken out of context, and to ask: whose responsibility is it to interpret information, the giver or the receiver?

This problem goes beyond the obscure declarations of philosophers like Nietzsche (not to mention that ridiculous potty-mouth, C. Rommial Butler) and right to the heart of everyday communication. The extent to which we rely on nonverbal signals to cue each other results in a lot of ambiguity, and it is conspicuous how much human communication employs misdirection as a result.

Almost as if we prefer to move the goal posts whenever we feel like it rather than commit to a course of action and follow through with it.

If this is the normal mode of communication tacitly condoned by the majority of people, why should we expect anything but a breakdown?

Modern culture is replete with discourses (not to mention paid courses) on emotional intelligence but fails to adequately define the line where emotional intelligence becomes emotional manipulation… which sometimes it does.

Some might remark that it is the motives for which we employ such techniques that define whether they are compassionate or manipulative, and I once held this view myself, but I am no longer sure.

For it is the nature of the dissociative mind to convince itself that it is deceiving others for their own good and not its own personal gain, which begets the very dissociation that allows for the sort of bad actor that would employ such techniques with ulterior motives.

The best liars lie to themselves first and last. The whole process has to become a lie for them to follow through with it effectively—which is to say, convincingly.

Both marketing executives and meme-makers know this… sometimes. They too can be oblivious to their own preconceived, self-serving biases. They too can, and perhaps must, convince themselves that they are doing it for the greater good.

But ultimately the marketing executive is doing it to convince people to buy something and the meme-maker wants attention… sometimes for the same reason, but often just for the pleasure of knowing we made someone laugh (yes, I am such a one, though I usually just steal ‘em!)

So does the old maxim Caveat Emptor apply here? Or should we insist on truth in advertising?

Well now, do I have a chunky monkey-wrench to hurl into those grinding gears!

This is Mike! If you’d like to help Mike finally get his Pepsi, just tip the writer of this article and he will be sure to pass it along eventually! But first you might want to think about what Abe has to say:

Now everyone should know that Abe Lincoln could not have possibly said that, but, unless you’re a Suicidal Tendencies fan, you probably don’t get the reference to Mike, and over the years, I have seen people in comment sections on the internet literally fuming over Mike’s poor treatment.

Who’s serious? Who’s along for the joke?

Impossible to know for sure…

Best take Abe’s advice and leave Mike to his own devices. (You can still tip me, though. I mean, if you want…)

You see, regardless of what the marketeers and meme-makers should do… they won’t.

So that leaves it up to us not to laugh at the gullible but to educate them.

Okay, maybe laugh a little. I mean, it is funny… but be nice about it, eh?

You were gullible once too!

The real point here is that the only way to defeat misinformation and miscommunication is to educate ourselves and communicate directly and honestly with others.

Don’t get me wrong, others don’t always make it easy by being either shy, devious, or daft, but how will we learn the merit of being assertive, honest, or better educated if we don’t see any examples of others acting as such?

Have we perhaps taken polite discourse to such a disingenuous level that it defeats its own purpose and obscures more than it reveals?

Practical jokes like Mike’s eternally unbestowed Pepsi also confound things. But not only should we let those slide, we should laugh at ourselves and play along.

After all, we don’t know who might be one Pepsi short of a meltdown, and we all need a good laugh.

Thanks, Abe!