Since Eve Tushnet is on a Nietzsche kick, I thought I’d add a bit to the discussion — but only in a manner that a regular reader of this site might expect from me — Nietszche and The Simpsons.

First, a quick preface. The essay I’m about to excerpt is called “Thus Spake Bart: On Nietszche and the Virtues of Being Bad.” It’s written by Mark T. Conrad and published in a wonderful collection of essays called The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer. I should add that my copy of the book was borrowed from a friend, who then moved to Pakistan before I got around to returning it. The irony of examining moral conundrums via excerpts from a stolen book isn’t lost on me.

On to the essay. Conrad begins by laying out Nietzsche’s general philosophy, while occasionally pulling Simpsons characters in to play the role of the philosopher’s heroes and villains. Conrad likens Lisa Simpson, for example, to Socrates, whom Nietszche loathed for his devotion to reason. Conrad writes:

The point I want to make here is that in Springfield, the town without a state, Lisa plays the role of Socrates, the theoretical optimist. Despite being confronted with the chaotic, absurd world around her, she persists n believing that reason can not only help her to understand that world but to correct it. She tries to stand up for animal rights; she tries to cure Mr. Burns of his greediness and Homer of his ignorance. She tries to mold Bart’s character, to teach him how to be virtuous . . .Lisa struggles from week to week to penetrate the dark, abyssal clouds of absurdity and meaninglessness, vice and ignorance, with her razor-sharp intellect and her reason. But alas, nothering ever really changes. Mr. Burns remains greedy, Homer ignorant, Bart vicious, and Springfield at large absurd. Consequently, from a Nietszchean point of view, the tables might be turned on Lisa. All the characteristics and virtues for which we admire and praise her might in fact be symptoms of a Socratic sickness, a hyper-rational weakness, a flight from reality into illusion and self-deception.

A pretty nice passage, and an excellent whistle-whetter for what Conrad has in store. I could quibble with the designation of Lisa as the voice of ultimate reason — she is, after all, damn near socialist — but let’s move on.

Conrad then gives a brief outline of the final evolution of Nietzsche’s worldview — the “God is dead,” “beyond good and evil” vision he has for the fully realized man — the ubermensch who not only bucks mores and morality, but embraces chaos, shucks the slave morality, and crafts from his own life a new meaning, a new reality, a work of art.

Conrad then dismisses Bart as the ubermensch.

Okay, so Nietszche is the philosopher’s bad boy, and Bart Simpson is Springfield’s bad boy. Certainly Bart bucks authority, and he has rejected (or perhaps never really adopted) traditional morality. Trying to convince Mr. Burns to allow him to come along to retrieve the Flying Hellfish bonanza, for example, he says: “Can I go with you to get the treasure? I won’t each much and I don’t know the difference between right and wrong.” But would Nietszche have approved of Bart? Could Bart in some way be an exemplar of the Nietzschean (reverse) ideal? Alas, the answer is clearly no.

First — and many people make this mistake — even though Nietzsche condemns “slave morality,” calling world-slandering and life-denying, he is not at all advocating master morality. . . . He’s not counseling us to bully others, take their lunch money, and eat their cupcakes. So even if Bart were to adhere to a master morality ethic — and it seems that this characterization would fit Nelson and Jimbo better than him — that still wouldn’t make him an exemplar of the Nietzschean ideal.

No, Nietzsche’s ideal is more the artist, the self-overcoming, self-creating individual, who forges new values, who makes an artwork out of his life. And I think we’d be hard-pressed to describe Bart this way. He does at time seem to have a sense of the chaos of the world and his existence. For example, hoping to play Fallout Boy in the new Radioactive Man film, he says: “If I get this role, I can finally come to terms with this funny little muddle called Bart.” He realize that his life is chaotic, that he’s a “funny little muddle,” which needs to be given form. And indeed there does seem to be a consistent sort of style to his character, but the way he defines himself is largely reactive, and this is of course something that Nietszche would not condone at all. what I mean is that Bart largely defines himself and forges his identity, not as some kind of triumphant affirmation of his talents and abilities . . . but rather . . . in opposition to authority. . .

In one very telling episode, the entire town of Springfield is convinced by self-help guru Brad Goodman that they ought to act like Bart, and “do what they feel like.” News anchorman Kent Brockman curses on live TV and sprays his mouth full of whipped cream; Reverend Lovejoy plays Marvin Hamlisch on the church organ . . . Aunt Patty and Aunt Selma write naked through town on horseback. Seeing that everyone is following his lead, Bart proclaims to his sister: “Lis, today I am a god.”

But Bart soon finds that having everyone do as he does is not all ham and plaques. He wants to respond to Mrs. Krabappel’s questions in class, but everybody is giving wise-cracking answers. He wants to do some of his “patented spitting off the overpass,” only to find dozens of people already standing there hocking lugies. Bart is not happy, and again it is Lisa who provides the answer to why:

BART: Lis, everyone in town is acting like me. So why does it suck?

LISA: It’s simple, Bart: you’ve defined yourself as a rebel, and in the absence of a repressive milieu your societal nature’s been co-opted.

BART: I see.

LISA: Ever since that self-help guy came into town, you’ve lost your identity. You’ve fallen through the cracks of our quick-fix, one-hour photo, instant oatmeal society.

BART: What’s the answer?

LISA: Well, this is your chance to develop a new and better identity. May I suggest . . . good-natured doormat?

BART: Sounds good, sis. Just tell me what to do.

Bart’s whole identity is created around rebelling, bucking authority. Consequently, when the authority disappears, Bart loses his identity . . .

[F]ar from being the Nietzschean self-overcoming, self-creating ideal, the being who actively gives style to his character and forges new values, Bart is still looking to identify himself reactively, in response to others, through the mediation of others . . . Bart flounders and grasps for someone to help define and create himself.

Conrad then goes on to say that while not the Nietzschean idea, Bart still fits into Nietzschean philosophy. He is in fact what Nietzsche most feared, should the world every truly break the chains of religion and conventional morality — Bart is unadulterated nihilism.

[O]nce we abandon any notion of some eternal and perfect beyond, and are left with only the chaotic flux that is the world, we’re in danger of falling into an anything-goes nihilism, an intellectual and moral free-for-all. While the possibility of such a thing terrified Nietzsche, it wasn’t something he had to face. I his lifetime, the Western world was still very religious and oppressively moral place. Consequently, it made very good sense to act out the way he did, to buck tradition, to rebuke the church. The last thing Nietzsche wanted to do was create another religion, another eternal and absolute system, so, once he’d acted out, all he could do was counsel his readers to invest their lives with meaning, to embrace the chaos and make artworks out of their lives.

But what are we supposed to do, now that the dark blanket of nihilism has slipped over us? There’s a thin fuzzy line between continuing to act out, continuing to rebuke and destroy the old idols in an effort to forge a new path, new values, on the one hand; and on the other hand immersing ourselves in the nihilism, engaging in the intellectual and moral free-for-all, not taking anything seriously, believing that, since there are no absolute values, nothing is of nay real value. Bart, the boy in the bright blue pants, may indeed represent this nihilist danger. He has no (or few) virtues; he has no creative spirit; he has accepted the chaos of existence, but not in such a way to form it and forge something beautiful out of it; he accepts and deals with it in a sort of spirit of resignation. Nothing really means anything, so why not act out, why not do what I feel like? He rejects, rebukes and reviles, not in effort to destroy old, life-slandering, life-denying and hollow idols, but really out of a lack of solid identity and a lack of any kind of complete self.

Conrad concludes by writing that while Bart isn’t the Nietzschean ideal, on the whole, The Simpsons series may come close — or at least would have resonated well with Nietzsche. Conrad notes that Nietzsche admired the ancient Greeks for their dramatic tragedies and comedies — the way they molded life’s injustices and absurdities into grand art — and what of it survived history still resonates today. In that way, Conrad concludes, The Simpsons (which I’d add, gets more and more like real life all the time — both as the show incorporates pop culture icons into its episodes, and as pop culture and reality become more and more difficult to satirize) makes an art form of life’s irrationality and chaos.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 22nd, 2002 at 9:23 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.