Philosophizing with a Hammer: Tearing Down, Building Anew, and Climbing the Mountaintops of Life
The subtitle of Twilight of the Idols, one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most blatantly irreverent works, is “Or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer.” But what exactly does it mean to philosophize with a hammer? A hammer is a well-chosen symbol for the kind of philosophical and cultural deconstruction and reconstruction that Nietzsche has in mind. On the one hand, a hammer cane be used to destroy, as in the case of a sledgehammer. On the other hand, a hammer can be use to build, as in the case of a hammer as a construction tool. Nietzsche thus seeks to tear down certain aspects of our worldview and culture and replace them with something qualitatively better, less self-limiting and more life-affirming, less watered-down and more robust, less sickly and more healthy, less Judeo-Christian and more Dionysian.
One of Nietzsche’s fundamental claims is that, although many of us have left behind religious notions of a monotheistic God at the center of creation, the definer of all moral and ethical values, and as the architect of human nature, we nonetheless cling to various moral and ethical notions that are vestiges of this theological mindset. We no longer believe we are made in the image of some deity, but we still tend to believe temperance to be a virtue. We no longer believe that Moses carried the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, but we cling to moralistic approaches to our relationships with others—particularly our culture pressure toward monogamy and sexual exclusivity, demonizing those who do choose to take a more Dionysian or Epicurean approach to our anatomical drives and desires.
It’s no wonder, then, that many people do not even really know how to pursue their own dreams and desires—or even their own fundamental needs—to the fullest. The deconstruction of the religious worldview, for many, has opened a vast field of possibilities, as the well-known paraphrase of a line by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, to the effect that if God does not exist, everything is permitted:
If there's no God, then everything is my will, and I'm bound to express my will. (Dostoyevsky, Demons)
Despite this seeming lack of moral constraints absent a theological or religious worldview, however, many people place unjustified moralizing limitations on themselves in the name of interpersonal loyalty, utility and the common good (especially in the case of the utilitarians, much despised by Nietzsche), self-restraint and temperance, a herd-like desire to fit in with the crowd (yes, even in philosophy, as indicated by the overwhelmingly negative—even vitriolic—response on various philosophy social media groups to my previous article on writing your own suicide note in a life-affirming way as an existential writing exercise), and pursuing those projects and goals which are socially acceptable instead of those that are truly authentic for oneself.
Every building-up first takes a tearing-down, hence the hammer metaphor from Nietzsche. Take romantic relationships, for example. One cannot change relationships, in the promise of obtaining something greater and more satisfying, without ending one relationship to pursue another. To achieve true greatness, one must be willing to apply the metaphorical sledgehammer to one’s current relationship, to destroy it for the sake of climbing further up the mountain, a mountaineer’s hammer being perhaps another interpretation of Nietzsche’s hammer—a tool not merely for destroying or building but for climbing even higher up the mountain of life.
As I’ve discussed elsewhere, mountains feature prominently in Nietzsche’s metaphorical imagery, particularly in his poetry. See Nietzsche’s short poems Upward and Worldy Wisdom for two examples. The interpretation of Nietzsche’s hammer as a mountaineer’s hammer, a tool for climbing one’s own personal mountains, is thus harmonious with Nietzsche’s other metaphorical imagery.
One must first apply the hammer of destruction, destroying the dead idols of one’s own life—God, religion, so-called morality or otherwise—and the lingering vestiges of Judeo-Christian morality that stem from them. One must then apply the hammer of construction, building oneself more authentically and robustly, in a life-affirming, Dionysian way that no longer denies the basic facts of human existence—our embodiment and our psychology, our will to power and our psychology, and the brute-force facts of our biological, anatomical, species-specific, evolutionary, artistic existences—giving oneself the freedom to author one’s own life story in a way that is fully authentic. Finally, one must ultimately apply the mountaineer’s hammer to climb up one’s personal mountains to achieve true greatness—be it artistic greatness, literary greatness, philosophical greatness, or even romantic and sexual greatness, depending on one’s proclivities.
For achieving a life of true authenticity is not easy, despite the ease at which this lofty talk of reconstruction and mountain climbing flows from the writer’s fingertips into the keyboard and onto the screen—or from the pen to paper in Nietzsche’s day. One must really climb, overcoming the obstacles that block one’s path, avoiding the hidden traps awaiting one’s next steps while keeping one’s eye unwaveringly on the pinnacle ahead, taking a few steps back for the sake of finding a surer route to the summit, using your hammer to secure your anchor and find surer footing in the granite cliff faces of life that simultaneously inspire one with a majestic impulse to climb but also strike fear into the hearts and minds of the timid and unsure.
So, yes, one must first deconstruct the false idols of one’s own life and then rebuild oneself anew, but one must then immediately begin (or keep) climbing and climbing and climbing, for the vestiges of our moralizing idols lurk like shadows in the darkness in every nook and cranny of the journey to summit of your dreams, attempting to push you back to mediocrity, compromise, and the inauthenticity that prompted the changes in your life and the ascent toward a new summit in the first place.
Nietzsche isn’t advising us to go it alone, but instead to come prepared with the tools for the journey—our own inner strength, in the still-developing process of being rediscovered after two thousand years of the Christian era with its incessant moralization and its troublesome averaging and watering-down effects on the human spirit, but also our trifold hammer of destruction (or deconstruction); of building, rebuilding, or building anew; and our mountaineer’s hammer to continue the ascent to the mountaintop of our most authentic selves and dreams, whatever they may be. Philosophizing with a hammer indeed—the Dionysian hammer of life itself!
Reflect on just how many different kinds of hammers there are, the metaphorical and life-affirming connotations of which can be drawn out in a similarly Nietzchean way:
A ball peen hammer to round off the rough edges of life
A brick hammer to break off the unneeded pieces o the misplaced bricks in the masonry of one’s own life
A claw hammer to pull out the nails that hold the piece of one’s former life together
A drywall hammer to cut holes in the drywall of the prison cells of one’s own life
A framing hammer to hammer the nails in the construction of one’s new life squarely ad without any slippage
A sledgehammer for the brute-force deconstruction of one’s own former life and worldview when subtler methods prove ineffective
A trim hammer for the fine work and finessing of the trimmings of life when its Dionysian reconstruction is nearing completion
And, of course, the mountaineer’s hammer for climbing to the very peak of life itself—the summit of your most authentic dreams and needs and desires
So what are the idols of your own life that need systematic deconstruction? What cultural or personal vestiges of this waning sun of Judeo-Christian morality do you see in your own life and in the world around you? Where have you placed artificial, external, moral, ethical, religious, or interpersonal limitations on yourself that need some attention from the Nietzschean claw hammer of disassembly? What mountaintops do you envision in your most authentic dreams and desires, toward which you should no longer prevent yourself from climbing, regardless of the destruction and deconstruction you must employ in your own life to get there?
Nietzsche could just as easily have employed the subtitle “How to Psychologize with a Hammer,” for it’s not just our Judeo-Christian worldview that needs a Dionysian reconstruction in order for us to reach our full human potential, but our very selves and the false limitations we have placed upon our own lives by the psychological limitations—moral, religious, ethical, and cultural—within our own minds, which, despite 2,000-plus years of cultural limitation and religious oppression, continue to reach toward the summits of our dreams and toward our true potential, despite the cultural setbacks and the ever-present possibility of failure.
The human spirit is irrepressible, in this Dionysian sense, and it will continue to exert itself and its will toward true authenticity, its relentless drive toward the pinnacle of life itself, no matter the climb it takes to get there, both individually and culturally. The dawn of a new day for your own life is here, and a new dawn for humanity and the human spirit as well—but there is work to do. So grab your philosophical, psychological, or cultural hammer and get busy tearing down, building anew, and climbing toward the mountaintops of your dreams. No one can make the arduous climb for you, but the airy peaks and mountaintops await you above the cultural and personal valleys you’ve been dwelling in—far too long!
For Further Reading:
Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer by Friedrich Nietzsche
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Upward by Friedrich Nietzsche
Worldly Wisdom by Friedrich Nietzsche
