But you’re right that, in the end, he thinks it is up to this “artifact of grammar” to impose values upon the world, and your quote from Mussolini does indeed sound like a scary Nzean echo. How can this “ball of snakes” declare there to be values without those values ending up as arbitrary as a fascist’s? Sometimes, I think, Nz tries to bring in “Life” as a kind of deus-ex-machina to solve this problem: the “right” values are the ones that promote Life, the wrong ones are sick. (My essay on “Valuing from life’s perspective” describes how this works.) But other times Nz seems perfectly content to let the relativistic winds blow, and he seems acutely conscious that the consequence of his view will be wanton cruelty. So, in the end, I think you are right to find the view at least worrisome, and maybe loathsome. (As Kleiner says about me: I walk with Nz up to the end, and then I blink!)