Everything Is F*cked(34)

Nietzsche argued that the cultures of the ancient world (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Indian, and so on) were master morality cultures. They were structured to celebrate strength and excellence even at the expense of millions of slaves and subjects. They were warrior civilizations; they celebrated guts, glory, and bloodshed. Nietzsche also argued that the Judeo-Christian ethic of charity, pity, and compassion ushered slave morality to prominence, and continued to dominate Western civilization up through his own time. For Nietzsche, these two value hierarchies were in constant tension and opposition. They were, he believed, at the root of all political and social conflict throughout history.

And, he warned, that conflict was about to get much worse.

Each religion is a faith-based attempt to explain reality in such a way that it gives people a steady stream of hope. In a kind of Darwinian competition, those religions that mobilize, coordinate, and inspire their believers the most are those that win out and spread throughout the world.8

In the ancient world, pagan religions built on master morality justified the existence of emperors and warrior-kings who swept across the planet, expanding and consolidating territory and people. Then, about two thousand years ago, slave morality religions emerged and slowly began to take their place. These new religions were (usually) monotheistic and were not limited to one nation, race, or ethnic group. They preached their message to everyone because their message was one of equality: all people were either born good and later corrupted or were born sinners and had to be saved. Either way, the result was the same. Everyone, regardless of nation, race, or creed, had to be converted in the name of the One True God.9

Then, in the seventeenth century, a new religion began to emerge in Europe, a religion that would unleash forces more powerful than anything seen in human history.

Every religion runs into the sticky problem of evidence. You can tell people all this great stuff about God and spirits and angels and whatnot, but if the entire town burns down and your kid loses an arm in a fishing accident, well, then . . . oops. Where was God?

Throughout history, authorities have expended a lot of effort to hide the lack of evidence supporting their religion and/or to punish anyone who dared question the validity of their faith-based values. It’s for this reason that, like most atheists, Nietzsche loathed spiritual religions.

Natural philosophers, as scientists were called in Isaac Newton’s time, decided that the most reliable faith-based beliefs were those that had the most evidence supporting them. Evidence became the God Value, and any belief that was no longer supported by evidence had to be altered to account for the new observed reality. This produced a new religion: science.

Science is arguably the most effective religion because it is the first religion that is able to evolve and improve upon itself. It is open to anybody and everybody. It is not moored to a single book or creed. It is not beholden to some ancient land or people. It is not tethered to a supernatural spirit whose existence cannot be proven or disproven. It is an ongoing, ever-changing body of evidence-based beliefs, one that is free to mutate, grow, and shift as the evidence dictates.

The scientific revolution changed the world more than anything before or since.10 It has reshaped the planet, lifted billions out of disease and poverty, and improved every aspect of life.11 It is not an exaggeration to suggest that science may be the only demonstrably good thing humanity has ever done for itself. (Thank you, Francis Bacon, thank you, Isaac Newton, you fucking titans.) Science is singularly responsible for all the greatest inventions and advances in human history, from medicine and agriculture to education and commerce.

But science did something else even more spectacular: it introduced to the world the concept of growth. For most of human history, “growth” wasn’t a thing. Change occurred so slowly that everyone died in pretty much the same economic condition they were born in. The average human from two thousand years ago experienced about as much economic growth in his lifetime as we experience in six months today.12 People would live their entire lives, and nothing changed—no new developments, inventions, or technologies. People would live and die on the same land, among the same people, using the same tools, and nothing ever got better. In fact, things like plagues and famine and war and dickhead rulers with large armies often made everything worse. It was a slow, grueling, miserable existence.

And with no prospect for change or a better life in this lifetime, people drew their hope from spiritual promises of a better life in the next lifetime. Spiritual religions flourished, and dominated daily life. Everything revolved around the Church (or synagogue or temple or mosque or whatever). Priests and holy men were the arbiters of social life because they were the arbiters of hope. They were the only ones who could tell you what God wanted, and God was the only one who could promise any salvation or a better future. Therefore, these holy men dictated everything that was of value in society.

Then science happened, and shit got cray-cray. Microscopes and printing presses and internal combustion engines and cotton gins and thermometers and, finally, some goddamn medicine that actually worked. Suddenly, life got better. More important, you could see life getting better. People used better tools, had access to more food, were healthier, and made more money. Finally, you could look back ten years and say, “Whoa! Can you believe we used to live like that?”

And that ability to look back and see progress, see growth happen, changed how people viewed the future. It changed how they viewed themselves. Forever.