philosophical conversations

Human, All Too Human

My life is in crisis: personal, political and philosophical. So I've started re- reading Nietzsche's early book of aphorisms, 'Human, All Too Human', as this text was written in crisis: personal, artistic and philosophical.

In aphorism 35 (Bk. 2, 'On the History of Moral Feelings') Nietzsche says:

"That meditating on things human, all too human ..... is one of the means by which man can ease life's burden; that by exercising this art, one can secure presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment amid boring surroundings; indeed, that from the thorniest and unhappiest phases of one's own life one can pluck maxims and feel a bit better thereby: this was believed, known--in earlier centuries. Why has it been forgotten in this century....?

Nietzsche reconnects with the old Roman tradition of philosophy as a way of life through La Rochefoucauld's aphoristic style of writing found in his Maximes and Reflections.

Two examples of Rochefoucauld's maximes:
"What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste." Maxime 1

And maxime no.12:

"Whatever care we take to conceal our passions under the appearances of piety and honour, they are always to be seen through these veils."

Our passions pop or peep though the virtues of our everyday morality by which we conduct ourselves.

This is a different Nietzsche to the conventional one of Nietzsche as the destroyer of Christianity. It is Nietzsche wearing the hat of the moralist of everyday life.

It is the tradition that the Adorno of Minima Moralia works within.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at November 19, 2004 10:20 AM | TrackBack