"I wanna die happy"
-Sufjan, song 'Die Happy'
Part 1: Metatheory of truth
My meta-theory of truth says that truth concerns correspondence to reality, and then theories of truth address that correspondence relation.
A power theory of truth says you correspond to reality in the relevant way when something works, helps you survive, or gives you power. The power theory of truth is motivated by three things:
1) The (alleged) failure of analytic philosophy to provide an undeniable method for adjudicating analytic truth;2) The absolute undeniability of experience; and3) Survival as the necessary precondition for the relevance of truth.
We cannot be certain of things like the existence of God or free will. Philosophers waffle and waver and grope about endlessly with no progress in sight when it comes to these kinds of debates. But what we can be absolutely certain of is our lived, authentic experience. Descartes would agree: We can have phenomenal certainty. Maybe my experiences are an illusion or dreamed up or misinterpreted. Doesn't matter. I still have phenomenal certainty of my experiences. Even if my interpretation of my experiences is false, I can still be certain of my experience of myself interpreting my experience in the way I do. My experience of myself interpreting my experience is part of my phenomenal certainty.
There are many cases where truth doesn't matter. If I'm arrested and convicted for a crime I did not commit, the truth that I am innocent has no intrinsic power in that situation. I am forced to endure horrible experiences in prison and propositional truth is worthless in preventing my false incarceration. If raiders descend upon my village and murder the men and take the women, the moral facts that murder and rape are wrong are utterly impotent in stopping the aggressors. Truth has no intrinsic power. There is no karmic system that shoots lightning bolts at those who violate moral facts. Reality doesn't work that way. Ironically, reality doesn't care about reality; truth doesn't care about truth.
And yet, knowledge is power. If I know ahead of time that raiders are coming and I get my family to safety, then my survival and experiences are protected. Then I am connected to reality in the relevant way, and that power connection or survival connection – that's the correspondence relation.
The only thing undeniable is our experience. Phenomenal certainty is our only undeniable guide in life. Everything else is suspect. But phenomenal certainty includes certainty in the goodness of good experiences and the badness of bad experiences. Therefore, what matters most is maximizing good experiences and minimizing bad ones. How do we do that? Through freedom. How do we get freedom? Through power. The only thing that's true, in any relevant sense, is power. Power is what gives us control over our experiences so we can have good ones and avoid bad ones. If I connect to reality in a way that increases my power, then I connect to reality in the only relevant and undeniable way.
Besides, if the name of the game were to believe what's true in some analytical sense, then that presupposes your survival, because you can't believe what's true when you're dead. Survival is a necessary precondition for the relevance of truth. Thus, correspondence to reality is only relevant when such correspondence keeps you alive. We see this in phrases like "Money talks" or "Money validates." If something makes money, then it's true. That is, if something makes money, then it's connected to reality in the only way that matters. If something fails to make money, then it's false in the only way that matters.
The power theory of truth comes full circle: analytic theories of truth don't work. They don't give us power. Therefore, they don't connect us to reality in the relevant way.
But there are three obvious problems with the power theory. The first is that it's false that analysis doesn't work. Mathematics is analytical and absolutely works (though, only when it confers a survival advantage through a successful job or product). Data analysis is analytical and works. But if these forms of analysis work even according to the power theory of truth, then the power theory must admit that there's something about analysis that allows us to connect to reality. But then an analytic theory of truth is true.
The core difference between the power theory of truth and the analytic theory is optimism about a priori knowledge and human reasoning. The analytic theory says yea to a priori reasoning; the power theory says nay. The power theory says human reasoning is clearly deficient, because look at how well it has worked thus far. The analytic theory says we can see for ourselves, using the power of reason, that certain a priori truths are true.
The second problem is that a power theory of truth creates a kind of short-sightedness. What if the survival is short-lived? Then is the truth short-lived? Take Nazi Germany for example. They survived quite well as they rose to power, until they lost the war. So was Nazism true for a bit and then lost its truth?
The third obvious problem is that falsity often confers a survival advantage. Nazism and slavery were never true despite connecting to reality in such a way that conferred power to Nazis and slavers for the time they did.
Perhaps a fourth problem is that truth as a linguistic, propositional notion is necessarily analytic, and humans have no choice but to be linguistic, rational creatures, and thus we have no choice but to adopt an analytic notion of truth.
Because of these problems, we have no choice but to incorporate the power theory of truth into a broader analytic theory of truth. It's clearly true that some truths are more important than others, and it's true that in urgent situations prudential wisdom is far more important than analytic wisdom. All your knowledge of arguments about God's existence does you little good if you keep your door unlocked and are killed in the night by a thief.
(This assumes the importance of survival which we will address in a bit.)
Because we cannot avoid an analytic theory of truth, our lack of an undeniable method for truth is irrelevant; we simply have to strive to discover and establish such a method to the best of our abilities.
The analytic theory of truth comes full circle: the power theory of truth is analytically self-refuting, as its analysis of methodology and the undeniability of experience is itself an analysis. But if analysis is unreliable, then this analysis is unreliable. For the power theory of truth to work, it would have to be totally non-propositional, which is impossible.
There is yet another problem with the power theory of truth: it forces one into the archetype of the animal, while some of us fall into the archetype of the martyr.
Part 2: The martyr and the animal
Normalcy is a deep value because normalcy confers social success, and social success confers survival. But if survival is a misplaced value, then social success is a misplaced value, and so normalcy is a misplaced value. If there is a different value structure – the value of truth – then according to this structure that which gets in the way of truth is that which is bad. If the most normal thing to do is to choose survival over truth, then normalcy is bad according to the truth-oriented value structure.
To survive is to survive as a self, as the self is the recipient of experiences, and you cannot survive without experience. This is why there is no such thing as 'ego death' in this life. I imagine folks who've used psychedelics would disagree with me here, maybe even with certainty. And yet these folks aren't tripping 24/7. Eventually they get back to their lives and have experiences of going to work and doing the basic things of life. But who is it that is having these experiences? Especially if you go on to have painful experiences, the realness of pain asserts the realness of the self. Something without an ego cannot assert the going concern, but someone who chooses survival when aware they could choose death asserts the going concern.
The closest thing to ego death in this life is accepting the fact that when you die you will cease to exist forever, and thus to internalize the truth that reality does not need you or depend on you in any way. This is not to devalue the self completely, but to devalue it massively compared to what the ego wants to assert. Because there is a small amount of value of the self, choosing to live, and thus asserting that value, is not irrational.
Christians are only pseudo-martyrs. Christians are willing to die for what they believe in this life, but only because they believe such a death leads to life. Same for Muslims who die in Jihad. While the Christian appears to be choosing truth over life, the Christian is really just choosing life as they understand it. Only a non-Christian can be a true martyr – someone who disregards survival in any form for truth.
Literal martyrs are people who die for a cause or for their religion. Archetypal martyrs are people who have a non-normal value structure that says the following: When given a choice between survival and non-trivial truth, choose non-trivial truth at the expense of survival.
This demands the question: how can we tell whether a truth is trivial vs non-trivial? What are those truths that are worth dying for?
Choosing survival over non-trivial truth is terrible because of its terrible consequences. So we look to the plausible consequences to see whether the truth is worth dying for. We can give extreme examples where the answer is obvious. Is it worth dying for the truth of how many blades of grass are on my lawn? No. Is it worth dying for the truth that Nazism is wrong? Yes.
Here is a less obvious example: You work for a company that holds false beliefs about social justice or something. You are put on the spot to give your opinion on something. You can either lie and say what they want to hear or tell the truth. If you tell the truth there might be an HR report against you and you could even lose your job.
On one hand, it doesn't seem like standing up for the truth will have any meaningful consequence other than potentially getting you fired or at least turning your co-workers against you.
On the other hand, you might potentially sow the seeds that result in your co-workers changing their minds, which would be very good. Moreover, you might discover other people at your job who agree with you and through strength in numbers you might be able to change the culture within your job so that your beliefs needn't hide in the closet. Failing to integrate the shadow can cause internal turmoil, because you feel like an imposter, withholding your true self for the sake of social success. If you can share your beliefs and thereby integrate your shadow, you can lessen that burden, lower social stress, and increase your happiness.
Most creatures most of the time act as if their survival is the single most important thing in the universe. Ego death, at least the closest to it, is the giving up of this belief. And we should give up this belief because it's false. But what does it look like when someone gives up the most basic belief, and swaps out the most fundamental value with a new, enlightened value? It looks like archetypal martyrdom – a general disregard for survival in favor of believing, discovering, and spreading the truth, and doing what's right.
Am I being a hypocrite? I'm choosing to survive now aren't I?
There is something true when it comes to the value of survival. What's false is that my survival is the most important thing. It's not wrong to choose survival. It's wrong to choose survival at the expense of non-trivial truth. I'm speaking in terms of both analytic truth and truth as in what's right, as in what's truly consequentially best.
Some people define the survival value as the basis of rationality. To be rational just is to hold onto an absolute survival value or to hold to the survival belief. On this view, any kind of disregard for one's survival is irrational.
I disagree with this definition of rationality. Instead, rationality is one's ability to engage in formal and informal reasoning.
Survival is a success term: one can succeed or fail to survive. The martyr is potentially someone who cannot succeed in survival, and so they change their value structure so that survival no longer matters, protecting their ego. In this case, we can give a Nietzschean critique of the archetypal martyr as a dishonest person who, coping with their failure to survive, lies about their true feelings of what's important (really, they do believe that their survival is the most important thing, as all creatures are forced to believe) as a way to protect their ego. In this case, the martyr, far from achieving ego death by disregarding the self in favor of a higher purpose, upholds their ego by shifting their failure to survive to a success in the proper valuation of their survival. ("All those lowly normal people choose survival over truth. Pah! Not me. I choose truth over survival, because I am so enlightened!")
A true ego death involves no concern over success or failure. This is why there is no such thing as ego death in life, because in life one must be concerned with success and failure. The most obvious and basic kind of success is success in survival, and all other kinds of success can be reduced to a success in survival. The martyr survives death by being remembered for dying for the cause, and the cause itself survives the martyr, imparting immortality.
Moreover, if the martyr believes that their work will outlast them, then this is still a kind of reach for immortality, which is an assertion of one's continued existence, or at least continued effect on the living world.
To solve this worry, the martyr should come clean and say of course there is no ego death in this life. The martyr is not rejecting the most fundamental belief, only shifting it. Archetypal martyrdom is just a variation of the fundamental value, and not a true subversion of it.
Instead of pursuing the self-satisfaction of survival, the martyr pursues self-satisfaction through higher purpose, legacy, and virtue. What do you find more compelling: aimless survival, or fulfilling a higher purpose, legacy, and virtue?
There is a simplicity and obviousness to survival, and as such it comes across as animalistic and cowardly. There is bravery in facing death.
If someone truly has the option between survival and truth, then choosing truth is meaningful. But if survival is not an option due to failure, then choosing truth is a way to save face.
Ironically, this call to honesty is exactly the kind of focus on truth the martyr is striving for. Only a martyr would care about the true intentions of the martyr. The non-martyr only cares about whether the person survives; if the person does not survive, then the person has failed full stop.
The archetypal martyr and the archetypal animal talk past one another. Both accuse each other of failure, and both deny each other's accusation. The animal's failure to rise above its genetic impulse is grounded in its success of survival.
The animal is guaranteed to fail by its own value, as its failure to survive is guaranteed. But the martyr can succeed in its task of achieving acceptance of death. I can die happy not because I do not exist, but because my existence has achieved a status that I can be happy with, a status that I take to be in some sense surpassing death.
And here we see the even more fundamental value of both the martyr and the animal: the value of happiness, or good conscious experiences. You cannot have good conscious experiences when you are dead, hence the value of survival. But for the martyr, survival per se is boring. Survival does not and cannot by itself grant happiness. Survival is necessary for a time, to achieve some kind of status that allows the self to die happy.
For the martyr, success cannot be something that depends on being alive, such as hedonistic experiences. That sets the self up for failure, as you set death up to be this invincible enemy guaranteed to defeat you for all time. To have any chance of not meeting total failure, death must be defeated in some sense.
Paradoxically, embracing death is necessary to defeat it, because death cannot be defeated any other way. This is not so much a defeat of death, but rather a making of death's victory your own.
The martyr has zero respect for the animal and vice versa. The martyr is a loser, a failure, poor, weak, etc. The animal is a simpleton, a puppet, a cliche, a lemming, a sheep, an NPC, living an unexamined life, going through the motions, and so on.
Both the martyr and the animal want to be happy, but because they face different problems, they adopt different strategies to achieve happiness. For the martyr, coming to terms with life and death is the most important thing. So for the martyr to be happy, they must achieve a status where they can die happy. The animal can never die happy and rejects death absolutely to the bitter end. The animal sets itself up for guaranteed failure.
The martyr really is an animal, just a variation of it. You cannot defeat death. But you can share in death's victory. By using death as a guide to your life, you prioritize your achievements and work urgently to achieve them. Death, causing you to achieve something so great that you can die happy, gives you a glory you couldn't have achieved alone. Of course, you have to be lucky enough to not die too soon. This is why we shouldn't fear death, only dying before we accomplish that thing that makes us able to die happy.
The martyr's advantage is this: if I can die happy, then I didn't throw away my life pursuing shallow hedonistic pleasures but actually thought about what is it that I could accomplish that would be the most meaningful thing – so meaningful that it allows me to die happy. The animal, in contrast, lives aimlessly in life, trying desperately to hoard as much good experience and pleasure as possible until the end. But the martyr has a cause, a purpose they are striving for. The martyr paradoxically uses his fear of death to overcome his fear of death.
There are risks to being a martyr. What if you die before you achieve what you must achieve to die happy? What if you achieve it and don't feel satisfied like you thought you would? What if you can't achieve it and fall into despair?
There are risks to being an animal. The animal, trying to be happy by chasing good experiences, ironically becomes miserable because they never achieved that thing that could allow them to die happy. Instead, they only achieved shallow hedonistic pursuits.
However, in theory there are people who are so shallow in their character that at the end the thing that would allow them to die happy would be the very thing they did – to live life to the fullest in terms of pursuing good experiences. So not all animals die unhappy.
In summary, both the archetypal martyr and the archetypal animal are the same – someone who wants to be happy. For some of us that means achieving that thing that allows us to die happy and to thereby share in death's victory. For the archetypal martyr, it's wrong to avoid death at all costs if that cost includes reaching that state where one can share in death's victory, as there is no point in making a great effort to survive when you can die happy.
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