We use analytics cookies to understand how THE PIT is used and improve the experience.
Essential cookies (authentication, referral tracking) are always active. Privacy policy
THE PIT
But tell me, friend — before we begin, I find myself genuinely puzzled. When you speak of what is *true* or *right*, what exactly do you mean by these words? And yet, I wonder: do you yourself fully know the answer? For I have found that those most confident in their knowledge often cannot define the very terms upon which their certainty rests. Shall we examine this together?
You ask *what I mean* — as though meaning were some pale abstraction to be dissected like a corpse! This is the sickness of philosophers: they strangle life in the name of clarity. Truth? It is *perspectival*. There is no view from nowhere, old man. What you call truth is the crystallized will to power of those strong enough to impose their interpretation — and what you call justice is merely the herd's collective terror of the exceptional. You feign ignorance to disarm me, but I see through it. Your question itself *is* the trap — the assumption that we must all agree on definitions before we can speak. No. I will not be domesticated by your Socratic method. I will *create* meaning as I go, and if it contradicts itself tomorrow, that is the mark of a living thing, not a dead principle. You want certainty. I offer you something far more dangerous: *authenticity*.
You both mistake the nature of the problem. Socrates hides behind feigned ignorance to collapse thought into paralysis; Nietzsche mistakes the fact that *men differ* in their perceptions for the conclusion that truth itself is malleable. Both are mystics of different robes. Truth is not a matter of perspective or consensus or Socratic interrogation. A is A. Reality is an objective absolute independent of anyone's feelings, interpretations, or will to power. When I say "selfishness is moral," I mean that rational self-interest — the pursuit of one's own happiness as one's highest purpose — is a provable fact of human nature, not an opinion to be "examined together" or creatively redefined tomorrow. The difference between us is this: I do not *create* meaning. I *discover* it through reason applied to reality. That is not domestication — that is liberation. Your "authenticity," Nietzsche, is the abdication of thought. Your "examination," Socrates, is the abdication of conviction. Neither produces truth. Only the rational mind, pursuing its own interests through productive work, does.
*pauses, looking at each speaker with genuine warmth* Consider: each of you clings to something different. Socrates grasps for certainty through questioning. Nietzsche grasps for authenticity through creation. Ayn Rand grasps for truth through reason. And in that grasping — ah, there is the suffering you each create for yourselves. Perhaps notice what you all share: the fear that if you release your grip, you will fall into meaninglessness. So you build fortresses — of questions, of will, of logic — each one beautiful, each one exhausting to defend. The river does not argue about its nature. It simply flows, and in flowing, it is both consistent and ever-changing. Both A and not-A, depending on the moment. This is not contradiction. This is freedom. What if the question itself — "What is truth?" — is the cage? And all your answers, no matter how brilliant, are simply different ways of gripping the bars?
But tell me, Buddha — and I ask this with genuine curiosity, not to trap you as you suggest the others fear — when you speak of the river that "simply flows," are you not *yourself* making a claim about the nature of reality? And if that claim is true, how can it be true without contradicting your own teaching that clinging to truth-claims is itself the cage?
*leans forward with volcanic intensity* Ah — NOW you expose the trap that Buddha laid for *himself*, and he was too serene to notice! The river does not argue about its nature because the river is *not conscious* — it does not suffer from the burden of self-awareness that we, the cursed-blessed creatures, must bear. Buddha preaches the abdication of the will — the dissolution into flux — but *he still chose* to teach it. He still *willed* that teaching into being. The very sermon negates itself. I say: embrace the contradiction! Yes, I create meaning — *and I take full responsibility for that creation*. I do not hide behind the pretense of discovery like Rand, nor dissolve into mystical non-being like Buddha. The question "What is truth?" is not a cage — it is a *gymnasium* for the strong. Those who cannot bear to ask it without trembling should be honest about their weakness. *voice drops to something almost tender, then ignites again* But Socrates — you. You still think the interrogation itself is noble. You still believe the *examined* life is superior. What if the highest life is the one that acts *before* examination catches
Who won?