“I’m the best minimalist.” If I told you this with a smile, would you believe me? Friedrich Nietzsche would probably consider me a liar and say that I dissimulate my true nature to abide by society’s “peace treaty (753,)” an unspoken contract amongst people that systemizes and categorizes social communication and measures one’s intelligence and sociability. Nietzsche would also think I’m probably from “cloud-cuckooland (755)” for not understanding the implications and unfurled truths when using words, for example, calling myself the best minimalist.

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s essay, On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense, Nietzsche emphasizes the weight of words; they are not what they seem to mean at first sight and should not be treated superficially. Nietzsche uses the example of a stone and how it’s customary to say, “A stone is hard.” However, he questions how one can know the nature of hard, “as if “hard” were something familiar to us (754.)” In other words, who or what deems that hard is what stones are? Who or what deems a stone is what one thinks of as gray, solid, and immovable? Now, Nietzsche’s not saying that a stone is a sponge is a can of soda. No, Nietzsche wants the reader to consider the truth of who they are and their communication. He wants people to stop hiding behind the “peace treaty” and to be like a Buddhist, see that the stone is the caterpillar that climbs it and is the air that blows upon them. Nietzsche wants the reader to think “beyond the bounds of human existence (752.)” He wants sedition against the “peace treaty.” 

To Nietzsche, society speaks in concepts, the natural progression of words that “..is produced by overlooking what is individual and real… (755.)” For example, stones are gray and immovable. People, then, assign these conceptual truths of gray and immovable stones to all stones-like objects. But to Nietzsche, each stone has individuality: one may be gray or have speckles; another may be the size and weight of a soccer ball; that one over there may be the size of a horse and glistens in the sun. That big-horse stone might even be centuries old, history in a rock. Nietzsche uses the example of a leaf and writes, “…no leaf is ever exactly the same as any other leaf…(755.)” 

If no leaf is like the other, then nothing is like the other; everything is individual and different. Isn’t that quite freeing? NO! Because then I’m not the best minimalist. Using Nietzsche’s thinking, how does one define minimalism on a quantitative level? Who or what determines how much is too much or too little? That social contract? Mom? Partner? What determines minimalism, being austere, a robe and some slippers, or just a few necessary amenities (and a tv, books, iPhone, sneakers)? And aren’t their different types of a minimalist? Are some unfastidious? What about the persnickety neat freak minimalist? Or the one that is a minimalist because she hates to cook. But furthermore, what about these people beyond their obsession with “less is more?” The unfastidious minimalist listens to classical music when he attempts to Spring clean. Another jumps ropes with kids after she finishes work. We are more than the sum of our parts; we are those parts. As Nietzsche writes like a Buddhist in meditation, “the leaf is the cause of the leaves (755).” 

In my opinion, in Nietzsche’s piece “On Truth and Lying In A Nonmoral Sense ” Nietzsche’s world describes two types of humanity in a way which can be compared to a double sided coin. Despite his vision of humanity having pieces of greed and self deception, it stems from humanity desiring the truth. This greed for something is, in Nietzches claim, sparked by the motivation to seek the truth. In return, this distorts the perception of reality to humans, as humans themselves desire a form of expression to understand. Nietzsche believes that humans, in their despicable consciousness and arrogance, deceive themselves with the understanding of information that they seek, as truth, distorting their own perception of what they believe to be as true to fit their own design. It’s a system of beliefs that humanity creates for themselves that Nietzsche believes to be a negative aspect to humanity, caused by something that in of itself is not actually terrible. The desire for knowledge is not inherently bad, but it is in humanity’s arrogance and self centeredness that Nietzsche describes to be the root cause of malice. A two sided coin, that Nietzsche interprets, one truth and one evil, both in reaction to the other. Nietzsche defines the two types of humanity as two types of the same thing. It could be said that humanity craves knowledge but in return it could manifest as something bad as a negative aspect like deception onto themselves (753).  Those within said humanity are not only taking in for themselves but they are in turn destroying their own perception of reality and/or humanity. Nietzsche describes truth as something purely subjective rather than what it definitely is, something directly opposite, something that should be purely objective (756). Nietzsche claims that humans lie and propagate this lie in the form of “truth”, because really, all “truth” is in Nietzsche’s view, and to an extent, to all humans, is an observation based on perception in regard to humanity. Truth is an illusion, Nietzsche claims, and he believes that this illusion is further encouraged by society and humanity’s already formed foundation of truth. What humanity knows already becomes propagated, and this lie continues until one forgets or finds a new truth to override the old. In my interpretation, rather than breaking the illusion, Nietzsche believes that this illusion has simply just changed form. The truth that humanity sought, or rather, the lie, can be defined as a construct of feeling and observation, something to create meaning from the abstract. With this, Nietzsche sees truth as a flawed understanding of what certain sensations and feelings mean to humans. Building from understanding, the truth becomes a truth only to humans, and thus a lie to all others, perpetuated or overridden. Going back to previous points, this is the arrogance of humanity, the greed and narcissism that humanity has to formulate a truth unconsciously for themselves.

In “What, then, is truth”? Nietzsche focuses on this word as a mysterious drive that humans do to preserve themself in relation to other individuals because human beings cannot be alone by nature, thus creating consciousness through the formation of arbitrarily repetitive concepts from subjective norms to fit in societies and to interact with others. Thereby, Nietzsche argues that truth has its basis not in absolute reality but in human language which was needed for expression and dissimulation of the sudden forms of thinking.

That is why he argues that the ideal concept of truth is a lie in the sense that it arises from various numbers of interests, historical context, and rules to which the eventual concept of truth does not properly apply because there is no distinction between what is factual and what is made up. Truth is the blindness of reality.

The kind of truth which in turn gives the first step towards something that must count as truth by designating something desired by human beings like peace and love; making those kinds of feelings common in a society in which the opposite is harmful and destructive and as a result are feelings of deception. Here is how the word “lying” was born to release our thoughts to make life more tolerable.

Nietzsche goes further suggesting that “truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions”, Nietzsche’s argument is that the truth was formed when our beliefs, our words, and our concepts were based on our illusions instead of the way things really are in on themselves. An example is when you can see a constellation whose concept is “a group of stars that were imagined—at least by those who named them—to form conspicuous configurations of objects or creatures in the sky”. It relates in the same way that you do not know how and when humans started to imagine in their own perceptions created by their own minds which are based on individual experiences and perspectives.

He answers himself by saying that truth is just an interpretation based on our own perspective, all the things we think are real, are not really real. In a concept that is based on the idea that there is a single, absolute reality that exists independently of any individual’s beliefs or perspectives, which is seen as a universal, abstract concept that is not affected by individual opinion or interpretation. Truth is an elusive concept, as it is subjective and based on the individual’s perception of reality or simply facts.

Analyzing Nietzche’s essay, “On Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense, he captures an interesting theory pertaining towards humans and their motives in a society that is subjected to the inexplicable sense of illusions. Questioning the meaning of truth, Nietzsche has sculpted how human existence is built on the ladder that goes up yet halts due to the analogy that we’ve conformed our minds to believe we are living in reality, only to lift our heads and see a world of metaphorical illusions. We are stuck in our minds and are unable to explore the truth. Truth is a figment of one’s own imagination, unknown at the center of one’s own mind. By setting this inflicting tone, it brings forth this impression, that our morals of reactions mold the abstractions of truth. Nietzche speaks on how it is our knowledge of certain things that are full of what could be figments and don’t originate to the ideal of what is real. But what does Nietchez mean by real? Possibly something that hasn’t been taunted by the ushering of society or what we consume by others. With that being said, he incorporates the usage of words that portray what could be elaborated as ‘truth’. With the example in Nietzsche’s essay, he speaks about a one claiming to be wealthy with the words ‘I am rich’, yet it brings forth deception, allowing “to make the unreal appear to be real”. It’s what we initially want to believe that we are countered by the reality of morals. Humans are tricked, by deception, greed, dreams, and ultimately our internal desires, that we lie to ourselves and try to shy away from the ‘truth’. The illusions we are so blinded by, enhance every time we trick ourselves into deception. It’s captivating how Neitchez’s theory of truth constructs an abundance of questionable thoughts. With his intention to stimulate his readers mind, it’s quite conflicting, feeling as if we’ve obliged to the understanding of ‘truth’, more so his theory in it. We’re subjected to what society has deemed to be real, true, and a fact, that we’re lied to. We ignore the defaults of what was once and now is not. But yet again, that could be the social construct of ‘truth’. Possibly the truth is what we can think it means. With Neitchz’s theory on this, it has definitely confronted the abilities towards what we can make ourselves and others believe and its how we go about it. Humans are very interesting and our perceptions of what we dare to challenge, inflict how others maneuver around it and try to adopt that theory.