“As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned. I am beyond their timid, lying morality and so I am beyond caring.”

As you Otterites are likely aware, we here at S&O are huge fans of the Francis Ford Coppola magnum opus Apocalypse Now. The above lines, written by S&O hero John Milius, are from a letter Col. Kurtz has written to his son. The army intercepted it, and provided it to Capt. Willard as part of the dossier on Kurtz.

I am beyond their timid, lying morality. Something about that just grabs ol’ Martin right in the cerebral cortex. It makes me wonder how we could each have separate morality. Certainly morality has to be something we must agree upon, otherwise our society tears itself apart.

Alas, it does seem these days that we no longer agree on a morality, a code of behavior governing how we can treat one another. Perhaps it can be argued we never have. Certainly slavery would seem to contradict the idea there is a comprehensive, central morality. Still, today feels farther and farther away not just from an agreed upon code, but from a simple understandable idea of what morality even is.

So now I’m back to Nietzsche. He was searching for a new morality when the existing one in Christian Western Europe of the 19th Century seemed such a hollow failure. The super man, for Nietzsche, was a creature of the will who had made his own morality. Note for him it wasn’t a license, it wasn’t about doing what felt good, it was about achieving a state of willpower over the world and others. To reach a state of intellectualism that informed your morality and your relationships with others.

I have to think Milius was plugged into Nietzsche when writing this script. And of course Conrad, author of the source material Heart of Darkness, is from the same era and milieu as Nietzsche, influenced by the same events and attitudes.

And now I hand this off to Robert. He’ll certainly pick up the mantle and move this discussion. I will have do more research and expound on Nietzschean morality more at a later point I think. In the meantime I feel I need a hoodie with “I am beyond their timid, lying morality” emblazoned on it, announcing to the world I have developed into the Nietzschean intellectual ideal. Or just that they need to leave me alone.