Dexter, Democracy, and Nietzsche: Puzzling Through the Deep End of America's TV Obsession

By Maxwell G. Mensinger

Abstract

Within the milieu of American television, the vigilante serial killer, Dexter, stands alone with one of the largest audiences. Why should a violent antihero, who stalks and kills other serial killers, be so appealing to Americans with a democratic, law-abiding background? Does this suggest a growing lack of confidence in the American justice system? Or does it provide cathartic satisfactions of dark, deep-seated urges muffled by democratic laws? Specifically, what characterizes this disciplined vigilante, and what motivates him to kill? More importantly, do antihero extraordinaires like Dexter deliver a sort of satisfaction or forbidden urge that Americans desire, but cannot attain in a civil order?

Introduction

His gloved hands grip the blade, both fists, strong above his victim. The victim looks horrified, but that doesn't stop the knife that, after hovering momentarily in pregnant anticipation, descends quickly and mercilessly. The body is sliced up, packed into a few neat Heftys, and dropped into the bay. It's a cool Miami evening for Dexter Morgan: officer, family man, serial killer, protagonist. Not only is Dexter a protagonist, but his show, Dexter, has shattered the Showtime network's viewing records. The season four finale had three million viewers, and thousands more online. As a show, its fan base is growing rapidly, without showing any signs of receding. How, one may wonder, can such a decadent main character attract such broad popularity in a country with a firm lawful framework? Why would such immoral actions fascinate a population that enjoys arguably extensive freedom and wholesome communities? Why does Michael C. Hall, who plays Dexter, receive numerous awards for his performance as such a seemingly evil person? One thing is clear: people like Dexter. This essay investigates these questions, primarily using evidence from Nietzschean philosophy, in hopes of providing adequate answers to the above inquiries. First, Dexter is analyzed as a character; secondly, the current governmental and economic context of the United States is classified; and finally, the paper articulates exactly what it is about America that drives its desire for Dexter.

The Overman

Nietzsche has several characters within his texts. His most famous and most elusive character is the overman. Nietzsche's overman only exists as a character in Thus Spoke Zarathustra; his other books never, or very rarely, mention the overman explicitly. Zarathustra proudly declares “'I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome'” (Nietzsche TSZ 12). Zarathustra describes man as “'a rope, tied between beast and overman–a rope over an abyss...What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under'” (Nietzsche TSZ 13). Just as humans consider themselves above apes, “man...for the overman” is “a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment” (Nietzsche TSZ 13). Humans at their greatest simply perish to make way for the overman. Zarathustra loves him “'who works and invents to build a house for the overman and to prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for thus he wants to go under'” (Nietzsche TSZ 15). Even Zarathustra himself is only one of the “heavy drops, falling one by one out of the dark cloud that hangs over men” that “herald the advent of lightning,” whereas the “lightning [itself] is called the overman'” (Nietzsche TSZ 16).

The overman lives beyond conscience, and beyond good and evil. One way of seeing the overman is literal. With such a reading, modern day people cannot possibly imagine such a man, what he would act like, or even what he would look like. The overman is a separate species in itself, superior in every way to man. The overman is a thing of the future; exceptional human beings can create, become, and overcome great obstacles, but their lives only serve as progress towards the grander transition of the human being into the overman. In other words, the overman exists outside of any human contexts.

Another way of seeing the overman, however, is as a state of mind. Above all else, people are limited by their temporal existence, and “the will suffers from its inability to change the past” (Havas 11). The cripple describes such frustration to Zarathustra:

Willing liberates; but what is it that puts even the liberator himself in fetters? 'It was' – that is the name of the will's gnashing of teeth and most secret melancholy. Powerless against what has been done, he is an angry spectator of all that is past...that he cannot break time and time's covetousness, that is the will's loneliest melancholy (Nietzsche TSZ 139).

Feelings of doubt, helplessness, regret, and transience are the real plagues to liberation. The cripple pines over the hump in his hunchback, or his

blindness, etc., but all of this ties one inextricably to their past limitations. Regret for 'what could have been' represents a large, perhaps the largest, impediment to improvement, to saying 'yes' to life. One who is übermenschlich, that is, one with the overman mindset, works to exercise his will free regardless of such constraint, to recognize what he does as having value despite its imperfections and transience, and to exist in the moment independent of guilt or constraint. To put this thought simply, an übermenschlich individual recognizes the conditions of his existence, but does not care. Nietzsche describes such a person:

[One] could conceive of such a pleasure and power of self-determination, such a freedom of the will that the spirit would take leave of all faith and every wish for certainty, being practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities and dancing even near abysses. Such a spirit would be the free spirit par excellence (Nietzsche GS 290).

Men must have issues and problems to overcome, for the overman itself is just a conviction, and “[men] of convictions are prisoners” (Nietzsche AC 153). No human being can escape the inalienable conditions of his existence, namely being perspectival and living temporally. Because of such permanent limitations, one can never truly transcend his human nature to become an overman. However, “Nietzsche holds that far from being a hindrance to agency, the situated, perspectival character of action is in fact a necessary condition of it” (Havas 21). As Zarathustra makes clear, every overman needs an “overdragon that is worthy of him;” greatness requires “[your] wildcats” to “first turn into tigers, and your poisonous toads into crocodiles; for the good hunter shall have good hunting” (Nietzsche TSZ 144). This notion of overcoming and becoming suggests that one cannot be great unless he has conquered, and is conquering, growing issues. There is no 'overman' per se, unless we think of the overman as a state of mind, as being übermenschlich. Just as lightning strikes instantaneously and randomly, as do one's deeds in this temporal existence, it does so without regard to any target and without any deference to the past, present, or future. Lightning exists as pure energy, and emerges furiously from the ground reaching towards the sky. The overman as an agent appears idealistic and unattainable, whereas übermenschlich qualities and endeavors are entirely attainable, if not transient and only momentarily evident. One who possesses such attributes will henceforth be called a 'free spirit,' for such a man is attainable, yet still human.

‘Free Spirit’?

One might wonder why I choose the seemingly arbitrary ‘free spirit’ as the manifestation of the overman. The name ‘free spirit’ indeed requires more justification than just one quote from The Gay Science, but there are reasons why this title is sufficient for our purposes. Firstly, Zarathustra discriminates between the overman and the higher man:

The higher its type, the more rarely a thing succeeds. You higher men here, have you not all failed? Be of good cheer, what does it matter! How much is still possible!...Is it any wonder that you failed and only half succeeded, being half broken? Is not something thronging and pushing in you—man’s future…You higher men, how much is still possible! And verily, how much has already succeeded! (Nietzsche TSZ 293).

This distinction, present not only in this passage but throughout the fourth book of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, suggests that aside from the ideal of the overman, men can indeed be higher. These higher men are fallible, experimental, often erring, and far from over humanity. However, they are not herd animals, and they are certainly higher than last men. What makes them higher is that they are particularly übermenschlich.

A significant amount of scholarly research investigates exactly what Nietzsche means by ‘higher men,’ for the term is vague. Throughout his writings, Nietzsche discusses admirable traits and qualities, as well as various characters, both ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ Weaver Santaniello identifies “eight supposedly ‘higher men’” in a particular study of Zarathustra, namely: ‘the soothsayer’, ‘the two kings’, ‘the conscientious of spirit’, ‘the magician’, ‘the last pope’, ‘the ugliest man’, ‘the voluntary beggar’, and ‘the shadow’ (Young 1). Broadly, Zarathustra teaches each what he lacks, and this knowledge helps to elevate them above mediocrity. These characters are, however, rooted in Nietzsche’s historical time period. This essay does not tackle an inquiry into all such specific characters because their existence simply proves that higher men can, and do, exist within Nietzsche’s texts as conceivable types of people.

A ‘free spirit’ embodies the qualities of a particular type of higher man. In relation to the previously defined übermenschlich qualities, one “could conceive of…pleasure and [the] power of self-determination…a freedom of the will” present within a free spirit (Nietzsche GS 270). The term ‘free spirit’ allows us to conceptualize the higher man outside of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It is a concrete, workable manifestation of the broadly defined ‘higher man.’ Mark Jonas claims that the true self, or the “higher self,” is the “hope and the promise that one can become strong, whether

one is a genius or the common individual” (Jonas 14). Again, this notion of übermenschlich struggle comes to define the individual as ‘higher,’ rather than some sort of physical or mental perfection. Such defining struggle presents itself in the character of the free spirit. From this logic, I argue that the higher man, or the ‘free spirit’ as he will be known henceforth, is an übermenschlic, realistic manifestation of the overman.

The Overman Clarified

We thus have two conceptions of the overman: the first is as an ideal which arguably no human can achieve. There are, then, no conditions upon which to identify a material overman, he is either a myth, or inconceivable, for the purposes of this essay at least. I will no longer address this literal conception of the overman. The other conception though, that of the free spirit, has several conditions we can identify. First, the free spirit strives to overcome his limitations, both temporal (like guilt or regret), and perspectival. Second, the free spirit's will expresses superabundant raw power, a vehement 'yes' to life. He perpetually works to overcome, discover, and express this power, and though he may falter, his ambition and will to power remains strong. Third, as quoted above, this free spirit abandons “all faith and every wish for certainty” for he is “practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities,” and is comfortable “dancing even near abysses” (Nietzsche GS 290). Such a person may still seek truth with the knowledge that he can never acquire it, and will still struggle against internal and external obstacles with the knowledge that he can never overcome all obstacles. Finally, though a free spirit recognizes his limitations, he still takes full responsibility for his actions, therefore imposing his will over the limitations by sapping their influence over him. The will, and the value of that will, are manifest in the struggle itself.

To clarify, a free spirit need not be devoid of morality. Indeed, the free spirit's morality is simply “no longer the bitterness and passion of the person who has torn himself away and still feels compelled to turn his unbelief into a new belief, a purpose, a martyrdom” (Nietzsche GS 286). In other words, the free spirit's morality must be grounded in the knowledge that “the way of this world is anything but divine,” or else one's morality will say 'no' to life as does the Christian's (ibid). Even more explicitly, he identifies “everyhealthy morality [as] governed by an instinct of life” (Nietzsche TI 174). Excellent people do not necessarily need to be beyond good and evil, they simply need to be excellent, which is to constantly struggle towards and aspire to greatness as described by the four characteristics above.

The Last Man

Another of Nietzsche's characters, the last man, appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This model is completely separate, disgusting, and somewhat similar to the overman all at once. Zarathustra warns an audience that “'the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself...the last man'” (Nietzsche TSZ 17). The last men claim “'“We have invented happiness,”...They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth'” (Nietzsche TSZ 17). This last man lives solely within, and for the herd. As Zarathustra explains “'No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse'” (Nietzsche TSZ 18). Therefore, the last man is the herd animal par excellence. His extremely weak will to life makes him completely interdependent within his community. There is no individuality within the last man, just a sedated person content in his weakness and ineptitude. His inability to despise himself represents the complete loss of self, the capitulation of one's will in its entirety. Nothing is more pathetic than the last man. There is more to this last man, however, than Zarathustra's facial description. Later in his journey, Zarathustra encounters the ugliest man. The ugliness of this man will help us understand what makes the last men so reprehensible.

The ugliest man murdered God, and despises himself just as much as he loves himself. He hated God for seeing his essence, seeing his ugliness, and killed him in revenge.

“'How poor man is after all,' he thought in his heart; 'how ugly, how wheezing, how full of hidden shame! I have been told that man loves himself: ah, how great must this self-love be! How much contempt stands against it!...None have I found yet who despised himself more deeply: that too is a kind of height. Alas, was he perhaps the higher man whose cry I heard? I love the great despisers. Man, however, is something that must be overcome'” (Nietzsche TSZ 267).

This ugly man, the man who despises himself the most, resembles the last man in several important ways. Though the ugliest man lives in solitude, consumed by grief and self-loathing, does not the last man embody weakness and self-loathing as well on a fundamental level? Indeed, such self-loathing forced his hand in killing God, so that he could no longer recognize himself as ugly. This ugliest man killed God, then, because God's pity was a mirror which reflected his ugliness and his faults. To the ugly man, God “'had to die: he saw with eyes that saw...man's depths and

ultimate grounds, all his concealed disgrace and ugliness'” (Nietzsche TSZ 266). In other words, the ugly man and the last man have both internalized the pervasive self-hatred that is so poisonous to life. Therefore, the last man is just like the ugliest man, but more ignorant. The last man is even less aware of his ugliness, and has completely surrendered to his weakness. Whereas the ugliest man exiles himself to live alone in the spirit of masochistic self-hatred, the last man does not even recognize his weakness, and needs to live among others just like him to achieve happiness. Both the last men and the ugliest man, unlike the free spirits, have stopped striving for anything. None of the last men can ever be free spirits, for their existence is entirely passive; they have stopped struggling. Their sense of agency, will to life, has evaporated, and no responsibility can be taken for any action, for only the herd exists anymore. The last man, then, is everything the free spirit is not.

More specifically, there are several conditions upon which we may base our definition of a last man. First, and most importantly, the last man is the same as everyone else in the herd. Nothing distinguishes one member from another, for “'everybody wants the same, everybody is the same'” (Nietzsche TSZ 18). Second, the last man must exist for the herd. A last man cannot stand out in any way from any other person, or else he would go “'voluntarily into a madhouse'” (Nietzsche TSZ 18). With this standard, one could conceivably imagine a last man as an individual whose independent actions are done in the name of the herd, in which case he still has agency; this conception is undermined, however by the first standard, which eliminates any differences between last men. Third, a last man does not seek truth or seek to overcome anything. He is content in his ignorance and “'still loves [his] neighbor and rubs against him, for [he] needs warmth'” (Nietzsche TSZ 17). In other words, this last standard suggests that the last man's existence must be passive, and the suggestion that a last man does not take responsibility for his actions reasonably follows, and is indeed inherent within this lack of agency. Lastly, because the last man is the most excellent herd animal, I will characterize him as an sick moralizer. As Nietzsche makes clear, the fact that a person “needs a faith in order to flourish...that [cannot] be shaken because [he] clings to it, that is a measure of...one's weakness” (Nietzsche GS 287).

Ecce Dexter Morgan

The antiheroic Dexter Morgan represents many things that Americans are not, and cannot, be. Independent of any image, or meaning Americans may project onto Dexter, he exists fundamentally within the show Dexter, and I will attempt an objective analysis of his character before theorizing on Americans’ fancy for him. A brief summary of Dexter reveals a man

with an uncontrollable bloodlust. His mother was killed before him when he was a child, and he was adopted by the police officer who found him; when this officer, Harry Morgan, discovers Dexter’s bloodlust as a small child killing animals, he resigns himself to the fact that he cannot change this fundamental element of Dexter’s nature. Instead, he teaches Dexter to harness his urges to do ‘good,’ (that is, to kill other serial killers). He teaches Dexter how to prove the person’s guilt, and then how to avoid capture. Dexter calls this method ‘The Code of Harry,’ which includes not killing innocents, and most importantly, not getting caught. We find Dexter in his mid-thirties working as a blood-spatter expert in a crime lab, courting a girlfriend and her kids, spending time with his friends and police officer foster-sister, and murdering baddies willy-nilly. When he narrates his thoughts to the audience, they feel as if they are delving into forbidden, exciting, illicit territory. Such is the necessary context of Dexter thus far.

Does the general character of Dexter reflect a last man's character? In order to solve this question, we must first parse through Dexter's background and compare it with that of a last man. When we find him at the beginning of the show, Dexter uses his father's code, a preordained rule of external laws, and feels bloodlust from a traumatic childhood experience; one could argue that neither Dexter's bloodlust, nor his unique code belong to him. From this conclusion, one may proceed to say that Dexter expresses the same contentedness and ignorance about his existence that a last man would. Dexter, then, seems to satisfy the third qualification of the last man; more on this soon. With regards to morality, Dexter appears to correct “an imbalance in the world”, and to administer justice to protect the people of Miami (Dexter “About Last Night”). He even proclaims that he will “do what it takes to keep the innocent people of Miami safe” (Dexter “Go Your Own Way”).There are two last man-ish tendencies present in such a purpose. The most evident is his arguably sick morality. If Dexter goes through all his illicit effort, stalks criminals, proves their guilt, and executes them, then he seems to personify the last man, herd-like morality. Even more specifically, when preparing a kill room, Dexter hangs portraits of his victim's victims, so that before they die, his victims know that he is executing them to fulfill justice. The other last man-ish tendency here is thus: although he does not identify with the herd, and has trouble understanding people, one might believe that he longs to understand them. Therefore he longs for our first quality of a last man. His actions, too, are done in the name of the 'innocent people of Miami,' or in other words, for the herd, which satisfies the second quality of a last man. According to this interpretation of Dexter, he fully satisfies three of our last man conditions, and longs to satisfy the first one.

Before I label Dexter as a last man, however, I believe there is more relevant evidence to consider. At the end of season 2, Dexter delivers a soliloquy that captures his character quite well:

The code is mine now, and mine alone. So too are the relationships I cultivate. They're not disguises anymore...My father might not approve, but I'm no longer his disciple. I'm a master now, an idea transcended into life. And so this is my new path, which is a lot like the old one, but mine. To stay on that path, I need to work harder, explore new rituals, evolve. Am I evil? Am I good? I'm done asking those questions. I don't have the answers (Dexter “The British Invasion”).

This quote shows us a different side to Dexter. Unlike the quotes above, which were always said in conversation with another character, this quote is a soliloquy, recited only for the audience. In fact, the entire quote is an epiphany that occurs after escaping a seemingly inescapable situation. This is not any regular quote, but rather a climactic moment in the show and for Dexter as a character. Within it Dexter addresses: first, his adherence to his father's code; second, and somewhat related to the first, his independence as a person; third, his ambition; and fourth, his morality.

First, Dexter's view of his father's code of conduct has changed visibly from our earlier conclusion. In this passage, Dexter renounces his father's authority over his code, claiming “My father might not approve, but I'm no longer his disciple” (ibid). Dexter's exertion of his will over his preordained limitations (as determined by his father) show that he has wrested the authority his father had previously held over him, and assumed it as his own. Obviously, he still needs a code, or else he cannot exist as he does; this code is as necessary and unavoidable as developing a particular perspective, or even existing temporally. Without the code, Dexter would be caught, and cease to exist. These limitations, however, are now his, for as he declares, “[the] code is mine now, and mine alone” (ibid). By affirming his limitations, he exercises his will over them, effectively reclaiming control of them by way of imposition.

One might, however, argue that his use of a code whatsoever flatly disqualifies his free spiritedness. A code of conduct, like Dexter’s code, indefinitely limits one’s ability to pursue his desires with the animalistic ferocity characteristic of a free spirit. Is Dexter a slave to his code? Regardless of whether the code is his, can he really be free if he operates in such a technical or mechanical way? This opposition is merited, but not necessarily true. Though Dexter operates by a code, the code was developed reasonably to avoid capture. Each step is provocative and

important, not arbitrary. Dexter uses his code to channel his energy, not to demolish his desires. The code is but a vessel for Dexter’s ambition. Jonas articulates that the “goal of higher men is not merely to discharge their will to power in haphazard and impulse driven ways, but to moderate, control, and direct them thoughtfully, even rationally” (Jonas 9). If Dexter unleashed his energy without constraint, or without his methodical code, he would be captured and put to death. Such an end is not conducive to further living and further growing, which is why “one should use one’s reason to determine which expressions of power will lead to greater power, and which will lead to a diminution of power” (Jonas 12). Without his code and his routines, Dexter risks “coming undone,” as he calls it, and falling prey to his own powerful drives and desires (Dexter “First Blood”). Because a code is important, even preferable to a free spirit like Dexter, our main concern lies in whether the code belongs to him, or his father.

This newfound power, and his refutation of his father, also separates him on a fundamental level from his father, explicitly with the word 'disciple.' Clearly, Dexter has become an independent human being much more in the vein of a free spirit than of a last man. Indeed, he even reclaims “the relationships [he] cultivate[s]” (ibid). Dexter acknowledges his need for relationships with others, while simultaneously identifying himself as the one in control of those relationships, and further, as fundamentally separate from others. In no way does he actually long to be a part of the herd, for the herd has no individuality. His actions are also obviously not for the herd either, in that when he identifies his future course of action, he says “this is my new path” (ibid). Dexter, therefore, no longer satisfies the last man qualities of existing as the herd, existing for the herd, or living in a contented, ignorant state.

Rather, so far he more resembles a free spirit. Evidently, he satisfies the condition of knowing his limitations, and striving to overcome them. This is evident when he says “I'm a master now, an idea transcended into life,” for by declaring himself a master, he recognizes his value and the value of his work, regardless of its transience in history. He also feels no remorse or guilt for his actions; there is no sense here that he wishes he were different, only that he longs to change, or to “evolve” (ibid). Even the source of his bloodlust, the traumatic experience which caused it, does not change Dexter's attitude towards himself or others. He does not regret having bloodlust, or the alienation he sometimes feels because of it. The drive within his will is not fueled by a sense of frustration for 'what could have been,' or retribution for his mother's death; on the contrary, his singular motivation is to “work harder, explore new rituals, [and] evolve” (ibid). From this conclusion, we can see that Dexter's will, like that of the

free spirit, expresses a superabundant raw power. This is not an inherently destructive drive, though in Dexter it manifests itself in destruction. Rather, Dexter's drive is to become, create himself, experiment, and essentially to say 'yes' to life through the pursuit of his craft. This is not to suggest that Dexter never falters in this, for he encounters many obstacles, both personal and external. This statement, then, is a general characterization over time. Dexter develops, and grows stronger over the course of the show. His existence as a free spirit does not truly begin until his soliloquy above at the end of Season 2, but even so, the trajectory of his character throughout the 5 seasons so far shows Dexter constantly overcoming, growing, and learning. The last man does not grow or change, he has no need or desire to. The passionate ‘yes’ to life has left the last man, whereas one can see it fighting for expression within Dexter. Where the last man gives into temptation, morality, and laziness, Dexter avoids such temptations and wills himself towards a higher, freer spirit.

Just as a free spirit abandons “all faith and every wish for certainty,” so, too, does Dexter express a desire to rejoice even in uncertainty (Nietzsche GS 290). When Dexter says “Am I evil? Am I good? I'm done asking those questions. I don't have the answers,” he renounces society's imposed morality in favor of discovering his own more important truths (Dexter “The British Invasion”). He's exchanging questions that society finds important with questions that he's curious about, hence his drive to explore and evolve. Dexter’s “assessments of pleasure and pain have no cosmic...[or] metaphysical[] significance” to them, and he most definitely realizes that the world is not a divine place (Nietzsche WP 417). This godless foundation gives Dexter an “awareness” of his “rare freedom [and] power over [himself] and over fate,” and this becomes his “dominating instinct;” an instinct he calls “conscience” (Nietzsche GM 60). Therefore, Dexter simultaneously affirms his own independent conscience, and takes responsibility for everything he does. In order to become übermenschlich, one must “establish a certain kind of relationship to others…[for] in relationship to others…the temporality of agency is…lived out” (Havas 31). As he notes, the answers to questions like “Am I evil? Am I good?” are of no value to him; only through “work[ing] harder” and “explor[ing] new rituals” will Dexter find any satisfaction. Like the free spirit, Dexter is “practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities and dancing even near abysses,” for his serial-killing activities, like dancing, reject all preordained norms of everyday herd activity (Nietzsche GS 290). While the last man walks, talks, and remains passive and content in his fetters, Dexter dances, exuding creativity, expression, and the will to power in the pursuit of his passions. Though he may falter, his creative pursuit is overall steadfast and clear.

Dionysian Dexter

Now that I have shown how Dexter is a free spirit, I would like to highlight another aspect of his character. This aspect is perhaps the most pertinent to interpreting how Americans perceive Dexter, which will be discussed later. Dexter exemplifies the free spirit through his existence as an artist. After obtaining a victim, he plunges his paintbrush (knife) into the paint, the body of the work, the spirit, the life essence (blood) and creates for the sake of creation. He lives to create, to evolve, to experiment, to pursue. His familiarity with his creative essence brings him joy every day, especially in his job as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Homicide Department. Dexter's most fundamental instincts are creative, his “[thoughts] [light] up in a flash, with necessity, without hesitation as to [their] form...[he] never had any choice” (Nietzsche 126 EH). Indeed, in the first episode of the series, he claims: “Blood, sometimes it sets my teeth on edge. Other times it helps me control the chaos” (Dexter “Pilot”) Such familiarity, such intuitive recognition of blood gives Dexter a rare happiness. Only when creating, painting, becoming, eviscerating (for Dexter, all are one and the same) does he feel alive and whole. His willingness to express his overflowing creative energy, to exercise his will, makes him free. Dionysian indulgence liberates Dexter. One might wonder how I can be sure if Dexter's drive to indulge is actually Dionysian and healthy, or whether it is a product of ressentiment towards criminals on the one hand, and society's laws on the other. Is not Dexter simply stifled by the legal system? Why are his trespasses considered Dionysian when the real motive behind them is unquenchable hatred? In other words, why do I have any reason to believe that Dexter's energy is healthy as opposed to sick? Nietzsche addresses this issue:

The desire for destruction, change, and becoming can be an expression of an overflowing energy that is pregnant with future (my term for this, as is known, 'Dionysian'); but it can also be the hatred of the ill-constituted, disinherited, and underprivileged, who destroy, must destroy, because what exists, indeed all existence, all being outrages and provokes them (Nietzsche GS 329).

I propose that Dexter's energy, according to Nietzsche, is not just anger, but creative yearning. His destruction has a creative quintessence. He does not destroy out of superficial frustrations with criminals or societal limitations, but rather a fervent drive to create and 'explore' as noted above. His murders are themselves exercises in becoming, for he is constantly evolving, and testing the limits of the human spirit. His superabundant, Dionysian desires manifest themselves through violence. However, can this violence perhaps suggest that Dexter is indeed, as

Nietzsche puts it, 'ill-constituted'? Is his violence a sign of weakness rather than strength? One might go so far as to suggest that “mastering others” is “an inferior form of power in Nietzsche’s mind” (Jonas 9). Indeed, Dexter's bloodlust itself seems to have originated out of trauma, thus forever tainting his pursuit of it with revenge and hatred for all being. However, as proved in the previous section, Dexter's bloodlust is not an expression of hatred for everything. He has come to accept the bloodlust as his own, and pursues it independent of any ill-will towards the original wrongdoers. Dexter’s strength is therefore healthy, and not driven by outright hatred of all being. Dexter often displays compassionate feelings, at one point he confesses “[If] I could have feelings at all, I'd have them for Deb,” his foster sister (Dexter “Pilot”). Often, when Dexter pursues a target, he does so partly out of pure bloodlust, and partly out of a duty to someone or something. The thrill he gets from tracking down targets, sedating them, and killing them reflects an amalgamate drive to kill and to help others. For Dexter, these motives are not separate, but one and the same. Also, Dexter's relationships with others matter to him, which is evident when he says “They're not disguises anymore. I need them [relationships], even if they make me vulnerable” (Dexter “The British Invasion”). Does feeling responsibility for others limit Dexter? Not in the slightest, because in order to become übermenschlich, one must “establish a certain kind of relationship to others…[for] in relationship to others…the temporality of agency is…lived out” (Havas 31). Indeed, Dexter’s senses of duty, protection, and good will, (when he has such senses) arise freely and selectively. Again, one sees passion tempered by reason in Dexter; he has the “ability to sublimate [his] desires, impulses and passions [to] use them in more powerful ways,” making him a “higher individual” (Jonas 12). Americans, as we will see, are not so free as Dexter, which factors into their enjoyment of the show. However, before I can accurately describe America's fascination with Dexter, I would briefly like to analyze what constitutes American life today.

America in a Nutshell

What constitutes modern America? I cannot pretend to accurately address this issue in any comprehensive way. I do, however, intend to conduct a Nietzschean analysis on America. This will help me paint a generalized American context that will serve my purposes insofar as it allows me to describe: first, what general conditions Americans all share, for the most part; and second, which of these Americans constitute Dexter's audience. I will save the question of why these Americans watch Dexter for a later section. In his writings, Nietzsche dealt with the problem of society often:

Those fearful bulwarks with which the political organization protected itself against the old instincts of freedom—punishments belong among these bulwarks—brought about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man turned backward against man himself. Hostility, cruelty, joy in persecuting, in attacking, in change, in destruction—all this turned against the possessors of such instincts: that is the origin of the “bad conscience” (Nietzsche GM 85).

What Nietzsche outlines, broadly, is repression. When man is drawn into society, it forces him to change and hide his intuitive nature. By hiding this intuitive nature, however, and suffocating it beneath the skin, one becomes somewhat masochistic, as embodied most by Christian morality. This “anti-natural morality...which is to say almost every morality that has been taught, revered, or preached so far, explicitly turns its back on the instincts of life” for it “condemns” life affirming instincts (Nietzsche TI 174). Laws emerge to limit the exploration of the human spirit, absolute individual freedom dissolves and is replaced by civil freedom.

The herd thrives in civil society, for laws generally favor the weak, and even encourage weakness as opposed to banning and punishing strength. Life, instead of spontaneous adventure and creative realization, becomes “[m]echanical activity” characterized by “unthinking obedience [in one's] mode of life fixed once and for all” (Nietzsche GM 134). A certain type of nihilism is present within such a perfunctory life, and for all those who recognize the worthlessness of that life. This profound depression in both being and perceiving the herd animal, or the last men, “constitutes our greatest danger, for the sight of him makes us weary.— We can see nothing today that wants to grow greater...what is nihilism today if it is not that?” (Nietzsche GM 44). One might wonder if this is the legacy that society inevitably creates. Are all societies doomed to nihilism? Cannot community ease loneliness, and nurture familial and friendly relations alike? Unfortunately, the potential Nietzschean answers to either of these questions are far too complicated and extensive to be addressed fully in this paper. Nietzsche does acknowledge that the “formation of a herd is a significant victory and advance in the struggle against depression,” for within a community, “a new interest grows for the individual [which] lifts him above the most personal element in his discontent, his aversion to himself” (Nietzsche GM 135). Obviously, people can be self-interested within the context of a society; there are a great many interests in all societies, and one's struggle for those interests hardly ever ends. To a certain extent, this can dull the nihilism inherent in extensive, perfunctory jobs and well-conditioned daily routines. Self interest within a society can distract one from his ultimately pervasive confinementsomewhat, though he will no doubt still be tormented by

masochism and sick conscience. Despite this brief escape from complete nihilism, however, the “violent transition to the peace and tranquility of civil society left the human animal incomplete and indeterminate” on a fundamental level (Conway 15). Again, Nietzsche's philosophy on the state, or society, is far too extensive for my purposes here to be addressed in full. What I seek to outline is that society inevitably causes repression on an individual's instincts, and alters his nature into something sick, tired, and nihilistic. With this insight, I can begin to hypothesize on the current state of American society.

America, like all other civilized countries, has a set of laws and a government to impose them. The governing structure, in a broad sense, is split up into three main branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The only time citizens are directly involved, aside from voting, is when they selected for a jury. Citizens effectively have no authority in enforcing legislation passed, or in creating legislation, or in exacting justice. Even those on a jury often feel burdened by the many rules limiting their right to speak about what they hear, as well as the obligation to cooperate amongst each other to reach a conclusion. There are several objections one may raise at this point in the argument: is not the human animal naturally social? Does not voting allow citizens a voice in their government? Also, just because citizens are not directly involved in decision making or effective politics, does this mean that cooperation negates all satisfaction derived from civic duty or civic participation? Indeed, most children have a fundamental understanding that ‘American freedom’ exists in the context of American laws, and seem to be content with living amongst such laws, in a broad, generalized sense. Morals, not entirely separate from laws, are some of the first societal principles that parents, religions, and schools expose children to. In general, such institutions curb aggression, selfishness, dishonesty, and more importantly disobedience. Here again one might argue that such tendencies must be curbed in order to ensure a proper civil order.

All these objections are legitimate, but altogether not fundamentally dangerous to Nietzsche's assertion that “the sick and sickly instinctively strive after a herd organization as a means of shaking off their dull displeasure and feeling of weakness” (Nietzsche GM 135). As explained above, community, and participation within a community, alleviates some of the depression inherent in a societal condition. One's vote may be self-interested, and a single vote does grant the citizen a voice, but a single citizen's voice becomes quite muted when it is filtered through the electoral college, and even further through the elected representative. Thus, though one's vote grants him a certain degree of political power,

such power is insufficient, and ultimately underwhelming in the grander scheme of Nietzschean free spirited individuality.

Even an excellent human, a free spirit, could be a social being. In fact, a “type of overman” presents itself “in relation to humanity in general,” and thus exists withinsociety, not separate from it (Nietzsche AC 5). The word 'overman' here does not refer to the otherworldly 'overman' of Zarathustra, but rather the free spirit I identified earlier. The übermenschlich quality, what I have called the free spirit, can actually constitute “whole generations, families, or peoples,” thus clarifying the nature of the free spirit as a profound social phenomena, though it can and does characterize particular individuals as well (ibid). For this exact reason is Dexter a believable character; his this-worldly, free spirited existence transcends the transient limitations of American law and social status quo. However, America is saturated with not only legal and governmentally structural limitations, but also myriad complex economic conditions.

One could arguably say that the 2008 economic crisis changed the common American mindset significantly. Considering the causes and explanations of what happened, a few things are generally clear: first, that a majority of Americans are upset about the government bailout of large corporations; second, that certain larger moneyed powers in America could easily topple the inveterate institution of capitalism under the right conditions; third, that underlying the financial system is a complex network of immaterial conditions as best embodied by the modern stock market, and these immaterial conditions have made Americans increasingly detached from the financial structure that so drastically affects their lives. For this analysis, I will periodically employ Marx as well as Nietzsche, though I do not mean to equate the two theorists.

The American “division of labor implies...[that] each person has a particular, exclusive area of activity which is imposed on him and from which he cannot escape” (Marx SW 119). In this basic way, people have less freedom, or at least appear to have less freedom, than the Nietzschean free spirit. Marx anticipated such invisible boundaries when he claimed that “[in] bourgeois society...the living person is dependent and has no individuality” (Marx 69). Just as with its laws, Americans’ economic freedom exists in the context of the jobs available, their level ofeducation, their family name, the size of their bank account, and other relatively distant variables individuals can barely predict, or control. Nietzsche, though fundamentally different in his political theorizing from Marx, noticed some similar problems. As Mark Warren explains, Nietzsche “viewed the capitalist work ethic as self-destructive...as

‘mechanical activity,’ resulting in...unthinking obedience, a mode of life fixed once and for all” (Warren 224).

When the government bailout happened, a majority of Americans did not support it. Indeed, about 60% of American expressed “fear and loathing about the idea of government committing billions of dollars to solve the problem,” and this discomfort “crosse[d] party lines” (The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press). Even among those who supported the plan, about 70% worried that those responsible would evade punishment, which they largely did (ibid). The fact that the most prominent concern Americans held in the face of the economic crisis was that those responsible would not meet justice tells us that punishment, and the desire for justice, are both as yet insatiable desires within the American people. I hypothesize that people, especially American people, encourage and seek such punishment as a way of reclaiming their lives. Just as a free spirit would exert his will over a limitation by imposing the limitation itself, Americans seek to impose the societal and lawful order, as well as the cutthroat economic order, in an attempt to regain control of them. However, unlike the free spirit, who generally imposes his own legal or temporal limitations, Americans have as yet only conceived of American legal and capitalist economic limitations; because the citizen is alienated from both, as noted above, he can thus never truly exert his will over it, and therefore never truly impose it. One could most definitely argue, as Marx has, that people are “more enslaved to a power alien to them,” namely “the world market” (Marx SW 123). The normal American, it seems, is doomed to this nihilistic frustration within the American context. This frustration is only magnified by the promise of the American dream, which grows increasingly more elusive and distant each day.

The American dream is a myth, and many people have begun to realize this. Before I continue, let me clarify just what I mean by 'myth.' There are, broadly speaking, two American dreams: one consists in becoming rich, owning many cars, having an attractive wife, etc.; the other, however, is more simple in that it imagines a house in the suburbs with a white picket-fence, a lawn, a loving family, and a dog. Both of these dreams are altogether unsatisfying, which is partly what I mean by 'myth.' The former, that of the rich man, is almost entirely impossible for most people. This particular dream attributes abundant social mobility to American life, an immaterial and transient if not altogether nonexistent class structure, and compensation for an individual's work ethic and risk-taking temperament. America's liberal institutions promise jobs and fair working conditions, among other illusions, like financial security, and job security. As Nietzsche predicted, however, “nothing damages freedom more terribly or more thoroughly than liberal institutions” (213 Nietzsche TI). These

institutions simply hold the promises of freedom without ever actually delivering them. Someone might object here, that America's social mobility is evident and prevalent still, or further, that the free market provides people with many choices of potential jobs and products in an ever growing marketplace. However, when the wealthiest ten percent of people owns over ninety percent of the wealth, a concrete lack of social mobility, and prominence of class structure becomes apparent, which wreaks upon the country's “moral and intellectual climate” a “heavy, strangulating sense of the emptiness and futility of life” (Baran and Sweezy 281). Though there may seem to be a lot of choices for jobs and products, these choices are streamlined more to make money than to fully satisfy the customer. In other words, the choices are external; one has no control over the American context. A being “only regards himself as independent when he stands on his own feet, and he stands on his own feet only when he owes his existence to himself” (Marx SW 77). In this sense, the first American dream is a 'myth' due to its impossibility.

The second American dream, however, that of the suburbs, is indeed attainable. In fact, many have attained it. The 'myth' then is its promise of happiness. The suburban American landscape hides and suffocates the free spirit more than almost any other context. Many are fooled by the Declaration's promise of everyone's inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. They are fooled in that they assumed happiness is money, a house, a dog, and numerous other products. The happy existence becomes that of the consumer, who chooses what to purchase and purchases. Once attained, however, many find its promise of happiness a farce, for the perfunctory job and daily routine prove to be just as depressing as before, despite the comfortable living. Though one may pose the same objections to this American dream as they did to the first one, the same answers remain: American life, for some, is entirely unfulfilling and nihilistic.

This nihilism manifests itself almost everywhere within America in different degrees. A majority of the American pop culture scene, in particular, expresses this nihilism. Due to a lack of creativity, and a lack of the free spirited, vehement 'yes' to life, the artistic expression within movie theaters, coffee houses, popular novels, and other items, becomes muted and dull. Nietzsche's belief that the state “hastens the destruction of peoples by usurping their social fabric of customs and rights” begins to resemble America (Warren 228).. However, though the state indeed does this in America, one might extend the word 'state' to include industries like Hollywood, and others, which maim art of its value through mass-production, leaving Americans overexposed to most forms of art, and jaded. Though freedom of expression allows for the proliferation of numerous television shows, movies, books, and other sorts of media

(including Dexter itself), most available entertainment is formulaic and redundant. All too familiar productions are reflected through typical sitcoms, romance/fantasy novels, and a wide swath of other mediocre entertainment. Americans rarely witness true art, the bulwark of a healthy culture. An abundance of repetitive, unaesthetic material has transformed most Americans' television-viewing, book-reading, movie-watching rituals from active enjoyment into habitual boredom. Real beauty, born of creativity, invigorates; it “reminds us of states of animal vigor...[and serves as] an enhancement of the feeling of life, a stimulant to it” (Nietzsche WP 422). Beauty itself is “relative” to individuals' “most fundamental values of preservation” (Nietzsche WP 423). Every person may reconnect to his or her primordial nature through art, but few have been able to do so in the relatively dormant vacuum of American pop culture.

Are Americans last man-ish? In some ways, they seem to be. Their nihilism and contentedness with mediocrity in their own lives surely resembles last man-ish tendencies. However, there is a shadow side to such tendencies as seen above. Unlike the last men, or the traditional herd, Americans subconsciously feel squandered by the herd. On the one hand, they do not feel adequately human in the herd. On the other hand, they are too afraid to leave it for a higher life, and would probably prefer the easy life of the last man to difficult struggles of the free spirit. Americans have, one might say, a love-hate relationship to America. They do not want to live with it (to a certain extent), but they really do not want to live without it. There is, then, a potentially disconnect between how people act every day, and what they like to read, watch, or think about. This, I argue, is the primary separation between most Americans and free spiritedness.

As this section addressed America, it articulated some generalized drives within many Americans, but did not identify who exactly watches Dexter.

Fandom

Though one might, at first glance, assume that Dexter's audience consists of disillusioned 18 to 20 year old males, at second glance Dexter's fan base reveals itself as large and quite ecletic. As blogger HieroHero notes, Dexter's audience is 50% female. Wendy Dennis, an author for “Maclean's” articulates how “Men aspire to Dexter's 'James Bond-like power and clarity,'...whereas women admire his 'etiquette among thieves'” (Dennis 2). She candidly describes why women like Dexter in more detail:

“Sure, he keeps a ghoulish stash of his victims' blood samples behind his air conditioner, and leads a sinister double life. But he's brilliant at his job, mordantly funny...deeply aware of his limitations, and gallant toward women (he thoughtfully made [his girlfriend's] troublesome ex disappear)” (Dennis 2).

For my purposes, these confessions should be accepted only at surface value, Dexter is an appealing character to both men and women within America (and Canada, apparently).Despite Dexter's outrageously masculine characteristics, he is alluring to both men and women. One may genuinely be surprised by this aspect of Dexter's demographic, but he surely cannot refute it. When an edited version of Dexter aired on CBS, the show multiplied its viewership by seven, totaling 8.1 million viewers as opposed to an average 730,000 viewers; this was following the first season, and the show has only grown in popularity since then (The New York Times). The show has also received widespread critical acclaim, and in 2010 Michael C. Hall won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series – Drama, as well as a Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

The show has much more than a cult following, and though not comparable to shows like American Idol in its audience, it has generated enough attention to inquire into what makes so many Americans so attracted to Dexter. From this point forward, I will refer to Dexter's particular audience as both 'America,' and 'Dexter's audience,' for the demographic is widespread and eclectic enough to suggest more-or-less normalcy inDexter's American fan base. Rather than identifying some discernible difference between Dexter fans and regular Americans, I postulate that there indeed are none. Other than the fact that fans might enjoy the crime-drama genre more, or a variety of other inconclusive variables, I believe the most important reasons some are drawn to Dexter are found in their status as Americans, not their status as weird people. In other words, I will ignore any distinction between 'Dexter's audience' and 'America' for facility in writing, and also because the generally American conditions listed above, when juxtaposed with Dexter as the Nietzschean free spirit, are the concepts that will give us insight into why so many normal Americans are drawn to Dexter.

Dexter Contra America

In America, in which the Constitution supposedly fosters equality of opportunity, safety, liberty, and justice for all, why would people be drawn to a dangerous wrongdoer like Dexter Morgan? One might think that such

a sinister vigilante would be unpopular, and that the show would fail before its first season ended.

To be sure, a wide swath of America seems disgusted by Dexter's popularity. In particular the Parents Television Council (PTC) opposed the show's premier on CBS, claiming that “'[t]hey intend to air material that effectively celebrates murder'” (New York Times). The show receives flak whenever a mentally unstable fan decides to exercise some vigilantism in Dexter's name; this has sadly happened several times. Many people however, upon hearing of Dexter, immediately refuse to watch it. Others despise his character's actions as 'disgusting' and leave the room or close their eyes during a kill. Naturally, most of these people stop watching entirely. The most accurate name for the sentiments of those actively opposing Dexter is moral outrage. Indeed, such outrage is implicit in the many remarks from the PTC, as well as other activist groups against the show. Moral outrage of any sort at Dexter is an interesting phenomenon. Why should one feel insulted if Dexter kills on his own time? Why, in fact, must the show mean anything whatsoever to these persons? Dexter only exists because Showtime allows cuss words, unlike regular, more widely viewed cable networks; this rule extends to nudity as well. On regular cable networks, sexual innuendo is allowed, provided such innuendo does not lead to any actual sexual encounter. The purpose of repulsion, indeed, “seems to be to exculpate a forbidden desire” for the atrocious acts committed, a “yearning that is made licit by an outward appearance of disgust” (Duclos 60). If someone hides his eyes, or vacates the room, he must obviously feel a need to show his objection to the acts committed. To viewing buddies, this guy is too kind, too soft for the graphic content. To Duclos, the disgusted man has more deeply repressed urges than the others in the room.

I propose that some Americans' repulsion at Dexter signifies a larger phenomenon of secret identity with hisviolence and destruction. This identity is founded on a misinterpretation and perversion of the Nietzschean free spirit's creativity, which I will address later. Americans do not so completely denounce tales like Batman, or vampires like Edward Cullen in Twilight. With such protagonists, audiences are spared the reality, or even the appearance of reality, of tangible bloodlust and animalistic, Dionysian indulgence. Dexter, therefore, represents the disturbing human embodiment of the “bloodsucking vampire” (Duclos 61). America was repulsed when it“caught a glimpse of itself in the mirror” (ibid). Myths like Twilight and Batman gain a terrifying representative in Dexter, who shamelessly indulges his dark urges without regard for societal misgivings concerning expression of such dark urges. What Duclos calls the American 'werewolf complex,' as represented by these

omnipresent dark urges, is America's unwillingness to “acknowledg[e] its urges. It feels obliged to label them as 'bad'” (Duclos 119). One might say that those with any strong aversion to Dexter embody a fundamental fear of their repressed instincts, and a rejection of one's internal “blond beast prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory,” the “hidden core” of one's being that “needs to erupt from time to time” and never is allowed within the confines of civil society(Nietzsche GM 41). Of course, there are numerous Americans who do not watch the show simply because they do not fancy the genre, or do not want to pay Showtime's network price. For these people, no deep repression is evident whatsoever, they are simply indifferent, a sign of self-comfort people from the PTC are unfamiliar with.

As of now this wildly popular show is nearly five seasons in, and has not showed any signs of cancellation. I will argue that Americans must somewhat identify with Dexter's superior liberty: first, within the thrill of transgression; second, as a creative being, an artist who expresses himself without limitation. Though this artistic element is somewhat connected to the thrill of transgression, it is fundamentally separate. Transgression assumes some form of ressentiment in its completion, a ressentiment directed against societal laws or criminals. Dexter as an artist, however, does not inherently express ressentiment. Because Dexter is a free spirit, he constantly strives to avoid ressentiment (as well as other limitations) and I have argued that such ill-will is indeed absent from his actions on the show; Americans, on the other hand, enjoy Dexter partly due to feelings of both ressentiment in witnessing Dexter's transgression and in admiration of his artistic self-creation. More on this later.

One might argue that America's fascination with Dexter represents a longing for more personalized, efficient justice. Rousseau’s democratic vision sees the “people...subject to the laws” as “their author,” and further that “public enlightenment results in the union of understanding and will in the social body; hence the complete cooperation of the parts, and finally the greatest force of the whole” (Rousseau 67). Though citizens vote, few would say they ‘authored’ the law, and rarely do Americans feel decisive in their political authority, as was articulated above. Even if jurists briefly feel like arbiters of justice when delivering a guilty verdict, the cooperation required to reach such a verdict was itself a frustrating hindrance to many people's sense of justice. As Nietzsche supposed, to “see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more,” for “[without] cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches” (Nietzsche GM 67). In essence, one with this view might argue that people’s impersonal participation in legislation, and inability to punish wrongdoers for their transgression, creates sympathy for Dexter’s

criminal acts. Dexter’s execution of justice is personal and quick; he gathers his own evidence, conducts his own searches, and exacts his own punishments without remorse. There is no lengthy manhunt, defense attorney, jury selection process, or chance of parole; there is only safer streets, and compensated victims (ideally). In this sense, people identify not necessarily with his liberty, but rather with his direct and personal adjudication, nonexistent in a due-process, criminal rights America. Though this view may have some truth to it, it only addresses man within his socio-political context, and fails to acknowledge the animal core within men that Nietzsche speaks of. Therefore, it can only explain people's desire for Dexter on a superficial level. Indeed, audiences most identify with Dexter's liberty, not his efficiency.

An abundance of restrictions through law, and alienation from its execution, both result in pools of subconscious aggression, frustration, and energy within people’s consciousness. I addressed this phenomenon in “America in a Nutshell.” Also addressed above, Dexter, unconstrained by such societal tethers, freely unleashes “the intense energy that the human animal experiences in a state of demonic or holy rage” (Duclos 9). Americans feel suffocated by restriction, not only on a conscious level, but deep within their socially burdened being. Obviously, a certain amount of repression must occur for one to live in civil society, but due to the inadequacy of the American dream, people feel powerless and lost. Dexter’s actions, his transgression, represents forbidden rebellion that many Americans find attractive. He is rebellious in two ways: first, his illicit activities violate the superficial laws and boundaries within society; second, his nature and means for satisfying it remain undetected by even his closest friends and family members, thus successfully escaping all binding and inescapable societal expectations on a fundamental level. Dexter, through his transgression, frees himself from all constraints that bother Americans. Dexter’s thoughts and actions, shared only with the audience, give the audience a sense of exclusivity and invokes their sympathy with Dexter. This imagined bond allows audiences to excuse his transgression and brutality, while also allowing them to excuse any hidden insecurities, desires, or darknesses they may harbor in their own minds. In general, the show liberates people to the extent that audiences identify with Dexter, and enjoy living vicariously through him in an environment without concrete repercussions for such sympathy; as Duclos so astutely recognizes, in American culture, “criminal violence and the violence that leads to freedom are inextricably linked” (Duclos 35). With such a reading, people's ressentiment and weakness draw them to Dexter.

However, one might wonder how Americans, with their last man-ish tendencies, could ever harbor ressentiment against society at all. Would

not all the ressentiment be directed against the criminals Dexter kills? Are not Dexter’s victims the very threats to society that herd animals fear the most? This view employs a perspective that sees Dexter as an instrument of the herd, and as a sick moralizer. On Dexter’s character, I have already set aside the notion that Dexter is a last man, and argued that he is a free spirit. However, Americans do have last man-ish tendencies, and such tendencies would never harbor ressentiment against society. Therefore, because Americans have a twofold existence, referred to above as a sort of ‘love-hate’ relationship with society, they express ressentiment both against Dexter’s victims and against society. Dexter, then, satisfies both the last man-ish urges as well as the more free spirited urges simultaneously: the audience gets to live out ressentiment against criminals and society. Because this satisfaction arrives via fictional television, namely Dexter, the more predominant last man-ish qualities within Americans are not disgusted; the viewer never intends to commit any actual transgression. In other words, watching Dexter is a safe activity that does not disrupt one’s actual world or daily routine. This still, however, does not fully address certain visible aspects of Dexter’s character, his creativity in particular.

Americans may see Dexter as an artist, restoring American culture through creative expression, as opposed to being represented by mechanical, distant government entities. This theory is somewhat connected to the transgression theory in that art liberates the individual. In order to fully realize this connection, one must first analyze, with a Nietzschean eye, the nature of creativity. There are two ways in which Americans perceive Dexter's free spirited creativity, superficially, in which they are correct, and subconsciously, in which they misunderstand him. On a superficial level, Americans recognize Dexter’s transgression as the union between strength and self-defined purpose. They enjoy seeing such artistic expression, the burgeoning creative will willing its desires, expressing itself without shame. Dexter fans know they lack the courage to venture to the depths Dexter explores, and feel somewhat close to him. In other words, fans somewhat understand Dexter.

This understanding becomes misunderstanding, however, through fans' perceived empathy with Dexter, which is undoubtedly a manifestation of their desire to rebel. Dexter, as a free spirit, “pours over...[and] consumes himself...disastrously, involuntarily” as part of his nature (218 Nietzsche TI). There isn't necessarily any ill intention, hatred, or revenge inherent in his drive to do so. Those who 'empathize' with Dexter, however, attribute to him a “higher type of morality” in exchange for their admiration, a perception which “misunderstands” Dexter's being. Such

misunderstanding emerges from America’s specific type of repression, which is magnified by the myth of the American dream, and Duclos' 'werewolf complex.' To a certain extent, as described above, the damming up of creativity within the individual, caused by state domination, causes weakness, an unhealthy destructive force, masochistically feeding on one’s will to life. This weakness drives Americans’ 'empathy' with Dexter.

One might wonder, however, if Dexter is killing to satisfy justice and eliminate sinners. How can Dexter have a healthy morality if he targets only criminals, and makes them feel guilt for their actions? Earlier, however, I dispensed of this Dexter as the last man argument in favor of Dexter as the free spirit. He is not an overman in the sense of ideal over-ness. Rather he is übermenschlich in his ambition and his state of mind. Thus, Dexter abides by his own morality; he ascribes to none of the guilt his victims feel, and asks not “Am I evil? Am I good?” but rather how to “explore new rituals” and “evolve” (Dexter “The British Invasion”). Along this line of thought, Nietzsche says:

[I]deas are worse seductresses than our senses, for all their cold and anemic appearance, and not even in spite of this appearance: they have always lived on the 'blood' of the philosopher, they always consumed his senses and even, if you will believe us, his 'heart'...philosophizing was always a kind of vampirism...What is amor [love], what deus[God], if there is not a drop of blood in them? (Nietzsche GS 333).

In this passage, Nietzsche connects one's blood, one's creative essence, to sensory experience. Life is indulgence, particularly Dionysian indulgence. The cold realm of ideas saps the blood from the individual, detaches them from beauty, and leaves them cold and desolate. This is why “what is great culturally has always been unpolitical, evenantipolitical” (Warren 222). All the factors limiting Americans today, both legal and economic, are mainly constituted of foreign, external ideas. To most Americans, as noted above, laws and their execution, as well as justice, and even the modern stock market, are concepts without a “drop of blood in them” (Nietzsche GS 333). Actions taken by various institutions within the American nexus of power are devoid of citizen consent or congress. In other words, Americans are increasingly alienated from the factors that govern their livelihoods, and with this alienation comes a lack in understanding, and a feeling of helplessness.

Naturally, I do not mean to suggest that Americans somehow lack creativity; this cannot be true, for otherwise they would have no appreciation or sympathy for Dexter whatsoever. Americans

are not last men, though they have last man-ish tendencies, as articulated above. I simply mean to suggest that people in America have forgotten their 'blood.' He cleaves through all the disguises civil society places on people. All the clothes, signs of one's class, indications of wealth, or any other societal indicators become insignificant; his victims lie bound, supine, and naked on a table. He draws the life essence from people, he drowns his kill room with gore, he freely and shamelessly engages in his deepest desires. Indeed, it is this engagement that liberates him. The government has no veins, ideas do not bleed. Only people bleed. The sole reason for existence, one's creative being, the will to power, etc., all such things are repressed within American civil society. Individuals have forgotten their blood. Commercialized items, digital expression; in a word, other persons' ideas characterize everyone's expression. As a character, Dexter reminds people of their primordial core. He hearkens back to one's seemingly limitless potential before he or she knew the rules of American society. Dexter reminds us of that muffled will to create, grow, and overcome beneath our civil identity. However, despite this intuitive understanding and appreciation for Dexter's free spirited essence on a superficial level, people truly enjoy the show because of their deeply repressed urges that manifest themselves as ressentiment.

Conclusion

Through the course of this inquiry, I first concluded that Dexter was neither the last man nor the overman, but rather the free spirit, a type of higher man who exudes übermenschlich qualities and creativity while still remaining conceivably human. Shortly after, I attempt a brief Nietzschean-Marxist analysis of American governmental and economic limitations. I concluded that Americans feel frustrated and trapped in their work and their home. They have renounced the American dream as a myth, which resembles that last man-ish capitulation of the will to ignorance and nihilism, as directly opposed to Dexter, the free spirit who transcends, or at least strives to transcend, these limitations perpetually, comfortable maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and dancing even near abysses. Next, I identified exactly who Dexter's audience was, and discussed the trouble with separating Dexter fans from the rest of Americans. There is nothing special about Dexter fans, other than they prefer the crime-drama genre to other genres. Other than such a characteristic, no other significant differences delineate Americans from Dexter fans. In other words, the extreme repression present in American society, for many, simply manifests itself in enjoyment of Dexter. Finally, I came to conclude that Americans enjoy, but misunderstand Dexter. While Dexter creates himself artistically and without significant limitations, Americans primarily experience ressentiment through Dexter's violence

and its protagonist's barbarous deeds. Though I concede that Americans somewhat understand Dexter in that they can admire him as a free spirit, and his ability to remain independent and forthright in his actions, I still believe that at a deeper level all Americans, including Dexter fans, are still subject to the ressentiment and nihilism pervasive within American society.

There are many areas in which this essay does not go far enough, or rather cannot go much further, in either diagnosing American society or explaining why American Dexter fans like Dexter. The audience statistics I have for Dexter are not large enough, and do not represent enough people, to make any reliable conclusions about Americans in general. This essay can, however, provide a case study into a modern American antihero. Though I was not able to address the genre of the antihero, Dexter represents one of the larger, more mainstream names in a broader community of antiheroic figures in modern American television: Walter White of Breaking Bad, Al Swearengen of Deadwood, Nancy Botwin of Weeds, Don Draper of Mad Men, and many others. In a further study, I might take a handful of such popular antiheroic characters and conduct a larger analysis on their popularity using more information from audience demographics as well as political surveys.

In analyzing America, I found Nietzschean philosophy somewhat limited in that it failed to accurately describe Americans extensively enough. No one Nietzschean character fit Americas quite right, and I was forced to mix and match character traits at times so as to accurately articulate a point. In further research, I might draw on a wider array of political philosophical texts to aid in characterizing America. Despite the pitfalls of this essay, it provides a detailed, if somewhat incomplete, look into why Dexter has achieved so much success with American audiences.

References

Baran, Paul A., and Paul M. Sweezy. Monopoly Capital. N.p.: Monthly Review Press, 1966. Print.

Conway, Daniel W. Nietzsche & the Political. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Dennis, Wendy. “The thinking woman’s killer.” Maclean’s 18 Mar. 2007: 51-52. Web. 20 Nov. 2010. <http://www.wendydennis.com/

pdfs/archives/macleans/20070319-Macleans-TheThinkingWomansKiller.pdf>.

Domhoff, G. William. Who Rules America? . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Print.

Duclos, Denis. The Werewolf Complex: America’s Fascination with Violence. New York, NY: Berg, 1998. Print.

Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1966. Print.

HieroHero. “Dexter: Why we watch and why women love this serial killer.” HieroHero. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2010.

<http://hierohero.com/2009/11/dexter-why-we-watch-and-why-women-love-this-serial-killer/>.

“I Had a Dream.” Dexter. Showtime. 7 Dec. 2008. Television.

Jonas, Mark E. “A (R)evaluation of Nietzsche’s Anti-democratic Pedagogy: The Overman, Perspectivism, and Self-overcoming.” Springer

Link. N.p., 9 Apr. 2008. Web. 8 Dec. 2010. <http://www.springerlink.com/content/n8570l723463271v/fulltext.html>.

Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988. Print.

Marx, Karl, and Lawrence H. Simon. Selected Writings. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Kaufmann. The Gay Science. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. Print.

- - -. The Portable Nietzsche. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1976. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Walter Kaufmann, and R.J. Hollingdale. On The Genealogy Of Morals. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. Print.

- - -. The Will To Power. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, and H. L. Mencken. The Antichrist. Costa Mesa, CA: The Noontide Press, 1988. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Aaron Ridley, and Judith Norman. The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2005. Print.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Print.

“Pilot.” Dexter. Showtime . 1 Oct. 2006. Television.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On The Social Contract. Boston, MA: St. Martin’s Press, 1978. Print.

“Small Plurality Backs Bailout Plan: Support Declines as Anger Runs High.” The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. N.p., 30

Sept. 2008. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. <http://people-press.org/report/455/bailout-plan>.

Spencer, Herbert. The Man Versus The State. Indianapolis: LibertyClassics, 1981. Print.

Stelter, Brian. “Ahead of Dexter’s Broadcast Debut, Critics Slam CBS for ‘Celebrating Murder’.” The New York Times. N.p., 15 Feb. 2008.

Web. 22 Nov. 2010. <http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/critics-slam-cbs-for-celebrating-murder/#more-817>.

- - -. “‘Dexter’ Gains a Wider Audience .” The New York Times. N.p., 20 Feb. 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2010.

<http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/dexter-gains-a-wider-audience/>.

Warren, Mark. Nietzsche and Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988. Print.

Willoughby, Westel Woodbury. The Nature Of The State. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911. Print.

Young, Julian. “Zarathustra’s Last Supper: Nietzsche’s Eight Higher Men.” Ars Disputandi. N.p., 2007. Web. 8 Dec. 2010.

<http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000280/article.pdf>.