Whenever the topic of ethics and human sensitivity arises, some attempt to discredit it all with a single label. Merely invoking the term “sentimentalism” is enough to make moral concerns appear childish or romantic.
Kabul 24:It’s as if ethics has no place in the reality of human behavior. This seemingly simple tactic is, at its core, a fallacy that paves the way for justifying violence and eliminates the possibility of critiquing it.I saw a clear example of this fallacy today in an essay referencing Freud.
When Sigmund Freud spoke of the aggressive and dark instincts of humanity, his intent was descriptive, not prescriptive.Freud aimed to show that traces of violence and the desire for domination exist in the unconscious.
But the existence of these traces does not mean they ought to exist. One cannot derive a moral prescription from the description of a psychological reality.
If that were the case, genocide and every crime could be deemed “justifiable” simply because they stem from human behavior. This is the fundamental error that extracts a prescription from a description.
A similar mistake occurs with Nietzsche. When he spoke of the “will to power,” his intent was to express an ontological principle: that life has an inner force for overcoming itself, transcending limitations, and creating new values.
Yet many have equated this concept with a desire for domination, power-seeking, and the suppression of others, as if Nietzsche were an advocate of ruthless power.
This reduction not only distorts the understanding of Nietzsche but also diminishes the grandeur of his thought to the level of justifying violence and prescribing totalitarianism.
As Deleuze reminds us, such an interpretation is an insult to Nietzsche, for his “will to power” is a force for creativity and an affirmation of life, not a tool for domination rooted in the vengeful morality of the enslaved and servile—something Nietzsche deeply despised.When we speak of the “human” or the “all too human,” sometimes we mean behavior that arises from humans, whether it be love or violence.
This is the biological and psychological sense of the term.But there is another meaning, one that belongs to the realm of ethics: the human as that which is worthy of human dignity, that which manifests human nobility.Violence is human in the first sense, but not in the second.
In contrast, empathy and compassion—though some label them “sentimental”—are precisely what build humanity in its ethical sense.The label of “sentimentalism” is, in truth, a way to discredit this second meaning.
Those who resort to it aim to portray ethics as mere raw emotion, unworthy of serious consideration.But this is the exact opposite of reality: if we push ethics aside, if we invalidate sensitivity to the suffering of others, nothing remains of humanity but the blind repetition of instincts.Freud, with all his candor, never prescribed such a thing, nor did Nietzsche ever glorify domination.
It is our misunderstanding that turns description into prescription.Defending ethics and human compassion is neither romanticism nor fantasy.
It is an effort to keep alive the boundary that, if erased, makes it impossible to condemn violence as reprehensible.What is truly fanciful and unrealistic is the notion that the human world can be explained solely through dark instincts and drives for domination.
To be human is to have the capacity to say no to these darknesses and yes to the dignity that shines through empathy and the creation of new values.
Jamshid Mehrpour, Kabul
