Friedrich Nietzsche wrote on promise-keeping in Genealogy of Morals as a result of a refined, and thus cultivated “breeding” of our species, rather than as an innate part of human nature that can be taken out for a spin on day one. In contrast, lying is more expedient and thus primitive in our nature, as if an instinctual urge that is more reflex than refined. In terms of romantic relationships, whether marital or not, “cheating” sexually is definitely a sign of weakness because it places momentary pleasure above being held as reliable (i.e., trustworthy) in terms of promise-keeping. A boyfriend who admits that he might hurt his girlfriend emotionally by engaging in infidelity is really telling her that he is weak-willed and thus not good boyfriend (or husband) material. To be sure, a couple could agree that both can have sex separately with other people, so not being monogamous need not involve violating a promise. I don’t think Nietzsche’s philosophy goes so far as to embrace such an arrangement (especially if romantic feeling or connection is allowed in the separate sex), but neither is monogamy advocated, given the nature of Nietzschean strength that should be allowed out of the cage of societal convention periodically (but not on a regular basis). The concept of strength plays such a powerful role in Nietzsche’s philosophy that even the occasional raw expressiveness of strength beyond a societal straitjacket of moral convention would not be viewed as violating promised monogamy. I have a friend who periodically spends thousands of dollars to travel to and attend Mariah Carey concerts. Even though he parties at them, he told me that he has not been unfaithful at them. Nietzsche would chastise my friend’s sense of moral obligation and say that the innate, human strength of will and power in embracing living to its resplendent fullness without shame needs (and deserves) occasional stints of breathing room, similar to how ancient Roman conquerors occasionally were able to pillage villages and even seduce or even rape beautiful captured women. To Nietzsche, this does not count as infidelity, given the nature of the strong; not even the wives of the Roman conquerors would have considered their husbands to be breaking their marital vow of sexual fidelity. In utter contrast are the weak-willed, who shamelessly manipulate and lie even to such a person whose love is genuine as if weakness itself requires constant sex with other people—even with other “partners.”
Distaste for and even anger at
pathological liars is deeply engrained in human nature; nobody appreciates
being lied to unless the liar’s motivation or act is in the interest of the
person being lied to, rather than only in that of the liar. Benevolent lying
can thus be distinguished from lying that is intended to manipulate other
people. When a person just beginning to date, or “see,” another person romantically
lies both about the decision to visit another romantic interest and for how
long intends to manipulate rather than benefit the new flame or the budding
relationship. That actually happened to me twice. One time, a woman left me a
voicemail that she would be staying with an ex-boyfriend in New York. I hadn’t
fallen for her, so it was easy for me to stop dating her. The second time was
not so easy. I bolted not only because of the extent of sex with other guys,
but also because of a trip taken to stay with a continuing boyfriend over my
objections. That time, I had fallen in love. Even knowing that in returning I
would be rejected, or else lied to over and over again in a “relationship,” I
had to apply mental thrust to fight against the tremendous gravity of the sort
that is unconditional and diminishes only with time. “Time is a great thickener,”
Lincoln says in Spielberg’s film, Lincoln. Nietzsche wrote of the value
of forgetfulness as preferable to rumination, and as that which makes it possible
to “love thy enemy” and thus engage in universal rather than partial
benevolence. In short, lying is too easy for us mere mortals to do to each
other, which is why building and maintaining trust in relationships with emotional
intimacy can be so very fragile and vulnerable to collapse. Accordingly,
Nietzsche claims that the act of will to keep promises—to hold oneself as being
capable and willing to voluntarily keep oneself from breaking one’s word by
going instead for some momentary pleasure (for oneself)—required some
development of the species rather than being in raw human nature. Those momentary,
proximate instinctual urges that prioritize the immediate moment over the
future (e.g., keeping one’s promises) are, according to Nietzsche, more pressing
than is the opposing effort to hold oneself as reliable. Even just for some
human beings to be able to trust each other can thus be regarded as what
Nietzsche calls “ripened fruit” from a long maturation process that took place in
our species’ long prehistoric time. Even though reliability and the related
trust can by now in human history be achieved by the strong, it is not
difficult to find examples of the weak who lie on a regular basis to use other
people, such as sexually without commitment. It is natural for the strong of
will, who are sovereign enough as individuals to keep their promises as if
doing so were a necessity even though it is voluntary, to keep a pathos of
distance from the pathological liars, for whom momentary, selfish pleasure is their
drug-of-choice.
Strong individuals, whose strength of
will they make so hard regarding promise-keeping that they can be relied upon,
and thus trusted by other people, naturally resist being maltreated and even infected
by the weak. As if weakness were a sickness, Nietzsche advises the
self-confident strong—the healthy—to stay away from hospitals that contain
sickness. Even if the strong by analogy cannot become sick, they can be
entrapped and beguiled by the weak and thus voluntarily renounce their innate
and built-up strength.
Kant also refers to
promise-keeping as being of value, and even argues that rational nature itself
is capable of achieving the necessity of a law in holding oneself to one’s
promises. As rational beings, we should be taken not just as someone else’s
means to their ends, but also as ends in ourselves. Why?
Because it is by reason that we assign value to things (and to people),
and so reason itself has absolute, or undefined value. By analogy, the sun’s
brightness is undefined or absolute in being the source of all of the reflected
sunlight on Earth. Of course, manmade brightness exceeding that of the Sun
itself would place the latter in a relative rather than an absolute position. My
point is that, along the lines of Plato’s Republic, wherein reason
rightly (i.e., justly) rules the passions, we can use reason to hold ourselves
to our promises even when momentary passions tempt us to expediency in
satisfying whatever instinctual urge, including lust, happens to be most
pressing at the moment.
To Nietzsche, the substance of
thoughts consists of instinctual urges, which can be directed along the
channels laid out by reason, which itself is really an instinctual urge.
Plato’s reason-controlling-passions becomes some instinctual urges mastering
others by being more powerful. This does not necessarily mean that momentary
urges that tempt us to violate our promises are preferable, according to
Nietzsche, to the strong, autonomous individual who fortifies one’s desire to
keep one’s promises. On the contrary! To be able to be regarded by other people
as reliable, and thus as trustworthy, is mark of strength in Nietzsche’s sense
of the word. For our species to have reached the point in which some
individuals could by the mental force of sheer will-power hold themselves to
their promises as if human nature had a certain built-in necessity for
promise-keeping (which is not the case) is the product of a long prehistoric
time in the species’ development. Such ripen fruits may seem to be innately
ripe, but, given human nature such as it is, the ripening took effort, just as
keeping one’s promises in the face of seemingly insurmountable urges does. To
Nietzsche, both on the level of the species and individuals, such effort is of
value.
It is remarkable that
particular individuals differ so very much in terms of being willing to keep
promises or to actively choose to indulge in momentary pleasures that
violate one’s promises and even lie about having done so! The gulf is indeed
sad, given that reliability and trust must be in the soil for a couple’s
roots of emotional intimacy to grow long and deep underneath. Any viable
relationship must endure through dry stretches in which promise-keeping is
difficult, but it is precisely during such periods that the roots grow deeper.
Contrast this with seeds thrown on dry rock!
In terms of dating, or “seeing
someone,” and even in having a girlfriend or boyfriend (i.e., an enduring
romantic relationship), I have been struck by my observations that the
promise-keepers tend to occupy one orbit, while opportunist “cheaters” and
their enablers are in their own orbit. When a person from one orbit traverses
into the other without adapting to its norms and values—to its level of
energy—mental explosions can occur and may even be quite likely. Being used
to people who have integrity, a person may impulsively bolt from even a beloved
whose definition of commitment excludes any circumscription or mastery
of immediate impulses for momentary pleasure even though they could be expected
to sabotage any genuine relationship. From the other direction, a person used
to being able to have sex separately with whomever, whether with or without
romantic connection, while still being able to have the benefit of a romantic
“relationship” may reject a promise-keeper who rejects the utter lack of
commitment and return to enablers who accept (and even adopt) such behavior.
Imagine on a second date (or
“hook-up”) with someone, being immediately told, “I’m tired because I spent the
whole night awake having sex with three other people, so I really need to get some sleep (rather than have sex with you).” Would that new information not ruin any forthcoming (tired) sex for the person having been de-valued? My point is that from the standpoints of Nietzschean strength
and weakness, the person who expects acceptance of one’s own self-centered and
disrespectful behavior and the person who accepts such behavior are in
an orbit that is a pathos of distance from the other orbit in which such
behavior would be regarded as a huge red-flag.
In the other orbit, a person
who states, “I’m afraid I might be unfaithful,” really stands out as dangerous
emotionally and is thus instinctively avoided, whereas in that person’s own
orbit, the other person might say the same thing, such that both people would
be fine with mutual cheating at the expense of emotional intimacy. Indeed, such
local (or sub-local) cultures have existed such that relationships endure
without commitment because that is the widely accepted norm that relationships should
be as such. The two orbits are indeed worlds apart, yet both contain the
same Grundlagen of human nature.
Nietzsche is not a relativist
on the two orbits. Promise-keeping is a legitimate exception to the general use
of forgetfulness, which keeps people from ruminating on past emotional injuries
and thus being able to be in the present and even hope for a resplendent
future. Unlike the case of romantic relationships (before as well as during a
marriage) that lack commitment because they are “open” and “poly-amorous”
sexually (and emotionally!), having the strength of will to keep one’s promises
even when doing so is difficult or inconvenient is something that requires
significant effort rather than being raw in human nature itself and thus
natural. Put another way, a strong, self-confident, and resilient will is
superior to a weak, selfish, and expedient will. To a person who is used to
being able to keep one’s promises and thus holds oneself as deserving the
same from others, especially in intimate relationships, a person who refuses or
is unable to keep promises spells nothing but recurrent emotional pain. It is
on this basis that the strength of will can be found to thrust away from the
tremendous gravity towards the other person that goes along with falling in
love. Indeed, it is astounding that an instinctual urge of such power exists
that can overcome, by mastering, the urge to be with a beloved even if pushing
away is known to be in one’s own good.
Such opinion-laden fluff as I have
infused above (though actually from below, in part out of ressentiment from
past, unrequited injuries) to illustrate my rough description of Nietzsche’s theory
on promise-keeping is easy enough; it bears on me now—as if my will had the
necessity of a law bearing inexorably on myself—to provide textual support for
my thesis.
“To breed an animal with
the right to make promises—is not this the paradoxical task that nature has
set itself in the case of man? is this not the real problem regarding man?”[1]
The task is paradoxical because promise-keeping is not as natural—in human
nature itself—as is prioritizing instant gratification and thus momentary
pleasure, which eviscerates promises because they involve prioritizing the distant—the
future—over the moment. The willingness to so prioritize is what distinguishes
and separates the two orbits—the two worlds of interpersonal relations. Behind
promise-keeping is “a desire for the continuance of something desired once, a
real memory of the will: so that between the original ‘I will,’ ‘I shall
do this’ and the actual discharge of the will, its act, a world of
strange new things, circumstances, even acts of will may be interposed without
breaking this long chain of will.”[2]
Parsing this difficult passage, the original “I will” is short for “I will make
and keep promise X.” The “I shall do this” is a statement of recognition that
promise-keeping extends out into the future, so actual discharges of the will,
and the respective acts thereof, in a future even of strange new things and
circumstances, will not break the long chain of willing in line with the
promise. Circumstances in the future unforeseen when the promise is made do not
justify willing (and thus acts of will, such as having a sexual affair) that violates
keeping the promise (e.g., to one’s spouse).
One woman’s boyfriend, for
example, who in the future meets a beautiful young woman and she who drops her
pants as an obvious invitation to a man to cheat on his girlfriend does not
justify the man’s use of his will to break his promise. He is advised not to
return to his girlfriend to explain to her, “I had not met the young woman when
I promised you that I would not have sex with other women.” Neither would, “But
the woman and I bonded before I knew you, so you can’t really object to me doing
some molly and messing around with her when she visits the city.” Of course,
facing such a warped justification, the girlfriend should bolt rather than be so
very rudely maltreated by a boyfriend who really doesn’t care for her anyway as
evinced by his easy willingness to inflict emotional pain in the distended use
of his inordinate power in the relationship with someone who loves him. Should
he punish her for loving him? Perhaps he loathes himself (and justifiably so!)
and thus does not feel worthy enough to receive the kind of love-of-personality
that can be healing such that his self-loathing could justifiably ease and he
could thus love her back. I contend that self-loathing is a salient feature of
the orbit inhabited by the weak-willed creatures of deceit who relish
dominating and thus hurting people of the other orbit in order to feel pleasure
from the will to power.
Aristotle’s notion of misordered concupiscence applies to such a boyfriend because people who put momentary, even strongly-felt urges for sexual pleasure above maintaining a chain of willing that is in line with a promise, which itself supports a relation of emotional intimacy, put a lower good above a higher one.
Nietzsche is more complicated. One the one hand, he maintains that promise-keeping, especially by a will that is hardened such that the keeping has the necessity of a law binding on the will even though this is done voluntarily, is superior to human nature in its raw state without such fine breeding as has enabled the strong among us to make and keep promises rather than be primitive, utterly untrustworthy creatures of proximity. After all, the spite of such creatures that is instinctively inflicted in the face of relational resistance can really hurt.
However, lest we conclude that Nietzsche is claiming that promise-keeping is superior because it is a moral custom, he looks back to the ancient Greek and Roman conquerors and notes approvingly that such strong, self-confident men were justified, given the very notion of strength as self-confident rather than cowering power of overcoming obstacles whether internal or on a battlefield by mastery rather than repression, in periodically leaving the cage of societal convention to conquer by fighting, pillaging and even raping along the way. Even their wives would have known that such natural “breathers” from the societal (and relationship) norms and mores befits the nature of strength and thus is justified. Even though promise-keeping is a bred refinement of the will rather than a product of social convention (or innate to human nature), a conquering victor enjoying the spoils of war even sexually is an exception outside of the long chain of the will that is in line with keeping the promise of marital fidelity. So, it is not that going to war justifies sex with the conquered because that lies outside of society and thus its conventions; rather, Nietzsche is asserting that the very nature of strength, out of which the will engaging in promise-keeping is possible, requires that the strong be periodically let out of artificial societal cages of convention.
A certain freedom goes with innately human strength. “The knightly-aristocratic value judgments presupposed a powerful physicality, a flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health, together with that which serves to preserve it: war, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, and in general all that involves vigorous, free, joyful activity.”[3] To circumscribe all these to fit within societal conventions would be to tie up strength as if in a dungeon. “To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.”[4] Strength and weakness are truly antipodal in Nietzsche’s philosophy, as well as being central to it.
To be sure, societal
convention may even have ways in which such strength can be expressed without
having to go to war. Once I went along with a remote acquaintance whom I had
just met asked me to come along as he looking for a two-bedroom apartment.
Initially unknown to me, he wanted to use one room as a sexual dungeon. I was surprised
when he admitted the intended use to me, and I joked to the real-estate agent that,
were I looking for an apartment, I would want one in a quiet building elsewhere
“because he has wild parties.” The acquaintance, who was in my brief time of
knowing him very careful to keep his true self hidden from me, rolled his eyes spontaneously—it
was so cute!—as if the gig were up and he would not even be offered the
apartment. In Nietzschean terms, rather than being willing to flex his muscle by
becoming master in order to overcome resistance in the form of another person’s
resistant will, he relished weakness because he got pleasure from being
dominated and even physically hurt as if he deserved it. Such weakness as
wallows in its own kind of languid power cannot constitute strength.
As a side note, the ancient
Romans admired men who played the active role sexually with other, usually younger
men, but disdained the men who played the passive, “bottom” role because that
evinced being dominated and thus weakness; the ancient Greeks were of course fine
with both roles, as evinced in the Iliad. Secondly, it might it be that constructing a
dungeon so as to dominate and thus express innate strength albeit within a
(marginal) societal convention rather than on a battlefield is something that
Nietzsche would have applauded because strength would be expressing itself? If
so, then such an occasional expression of raw strength within a societal
context, rather than exogenous to one, could be compatible with keeping a
promise to be monogamous. In short, strong people got to let off some steam
once in a while, and this need not be incompatible with achieving and
sustaining emotional intimacy romantically.
Therefore, as I read Nietzsche, he is not defending monogamy though if that is a promise made it is of the nature of strength to keep it in normal time (i.e., except when conquering beyond society’s walls). In practical terms, this could mean that even an otherwise monogamous couple would agree to each person being able to occasionally have “nights on the town” that include drinking (or getting high) with sex with others while still counting the promise of monogamy as being kept. Such “breathers” for our animal nature Nietzsche favors because societal convention is like a cage and thus is not completely compatible with our very nature. This is very different than the boyfriend mentioned above who often has sex with other women and even some of whom he feels an emotional connection with.
The weak
person “is neither upright nor naïve nor honest and straightforward with
himself. His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places, secret paths
and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security,
his refreshment.”[5]
His warning that he might engage in infidelity is perhaps his most honest
statement, for it proclaims a weakness of will and a refusal to master (not
repress!) sexual urges as they arise in the future apart from any natural
coupling. Give him credit for his momentary fit of honesty, then bolt, for he
does not even care about himself. His coldness even to a woman who loves his
personality even with all of its dents and still wants to be with him nonetheless
can ironically be warmed by just such now-absent love, yet this he rejects in
favor of his urge to fuck whenever and whomever he wants, even in the bed he shares
with his wife, under the idol of momentary pleasure, as if commitment (i.e.,
promise-keeping) were a dirty word—or feared. Mastering this fear by
overcoming it honestly, with the help of love, which Nietzsche doesn’t mention,
could, I submit, strengthen a weak (which Nietzsche also doesn’t mention) such
that such a boyfriend could be in an emotionally mature relationship rather
than always running away by dropping grenades along the way to distance the women
who love him.
The sex of victorious noble
conquerors whether to willing captives or even by dominating them by raping
them in Greco-Roman history was not done with emotional (e.g., “poly-amorous”)
attachment and neither was it done often, so I would be surprised to discover
that the wives felt that that their relationships were threatened by the
extra-societal expressions of raw strength or even regarded them as breaking
their respective husbands’ long chains of will in line with fidelity. Just
because Nietzsche writes positively of the ancient noble values such as courage
and self-confident subduing and castigates modern morality that opposes such
values does not mean that he applauds men of the sort who incessantly lie,
including on having separate sex with other women—even those with whom a
connection or emotional bond has been made—or demand acceptance of that behavior
as if it should be required in order to be something more than friends with sexual
benefits (i.e., a couple).
Nietzsche trumpets the ancient noble values of honesty and honor, and thus integrity too, rather than a life spent prioritizing the primitive sexual urge for momentary pleasure without regard to keeping promises that are in line with not hurting those whose love can make life worth living. Strength is in line with having an emotionally-mature significant relationship, whereas weakness of the will is not. Indeed, the very nature of strength means that a romantic relationship with deep emotional intimacy need not be completely monogamous, and thus entirely within societal convention. Yet this is not an open invitation to the selfish and weak-willed to flaunt convention daily in a way that expunges romantic intimacy whether by lying rather than keeping promises, or demanding that an addiction to sex be accepted as a condition for being with the person romantically. Whereas the strong are free, even from time to time from societal convention, the weak are slavish, according to Nietzsche. Because strength and weakness are for Nietzsche ultimately physiological, he does not allow for healing and thus for strengthening. The healthy are healthy even when the weak who seek to dominate even the strong out of ressentiment beguile the strong so they will voluntarily relinquish expressions of their strength in overcoming resistance. The weak are innately ill-constituted, but are they really?
I would rather hope that the
selfish boyfriend who exploits his girlfriend or wife so he can satisfy his sexual
urge in any way he wants at the time can find it within himself to pull himself
up even if he is afraid to ask his partner for help. I would like to hope that
emotional intimacy can furnish a context in which a weak person can become stronger—from
within rather than from someone else’s emotional urge to rescue or save another
person so to gain more self-esteem. It may come down to the fact that a minimal
amount of self-esteem is requisite to being able to tolerate and maintain
emotional intimacy with another person without sabotaging every relationship
that comes down the pike. In other words, a certain amount of self-esteem may
be necessary for a person to be able have the necessity of a law in one’s will
such that promises can be kept rather than undercut for momentary pleasure. A
relationship in which one person’s sexual urge is not mastered but instead is
allowed to be satisfied spontaneously whenever it is acutely felt is not really
a relationship in any sense of the word. Unquestionably Nietzsche would regard such
a person as weak rather than strong.
2. Ibid, p. 494.
3. Ibid., p. 469, italics added.
4. Ibid., p. 481.
5. Ibid., p. 474.
