168 Nietzschestrous, murderous process of life but also to acknowledge compassion
as the passion that is exposed to this monstrosity.
The theme of two very revealing aphorisms from the first book of
Human, All Too Human is the monstrosity of the social sphere and cruel
totality of the human network. Nietzsche stressed that life carries injus-
tice with it and everyone is the prisoner of a desire for self-preservation.
Only because the individual considers himself more important than the
rest of the world can he endure it. A person looks out onto the wodd as
though able to see only through tiny slits. The resultant "great lack of
imagination" allows him the necessary stalwart quality for the struggle.
A person must not empathize with universal suffering. "However, any-
one who could truly take part in it would have to despair about the value
of life" (2,53; HHl § 33). Perspectivism of the individual consciousness
proves to be a social immunization.
In contrast to German idealists, and to Hegel in particular, Nietzsche
felt that an "overarching consciousness of mankind" would be more
destructive than ennobling. Nietzsche accused Schiller of not knowing
what he was saying when he proudly proclaimed "Be embraced, Ο mil-
lions " This "overarching consciousness" would not only have to suf-
fer the untold anguish that people inflict on one another but moreover
be unable to ignore the fact that humanity "as a whole [has] no goals"
(2,53; HHl § 33). The individual may set goals for himself, shielded by
his perspectivist reductions, but the whole is already at its goal precisely
because it is already the whole. As a result, however, the "solace and sup-
port" (2,53) one might find in an idea of progress would collapse.
Whoever looks beyond the fence of mere self-preservation cannot help
discovering the "character of squandering" in the social arena. Nietzsche
concluded this reflection with the following comment: 'To feel squan-
dered as mankind (and not merely as an individual) just as we see every
single blossom squandered by nature is a feeling above all feelings"
(2,53). His notebook entry, which was the basis for this passage, closed
on this despairing note: "That is where everything ceases" (8,179). In
Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche played out this thought as follows: