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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Interpreting Nietzsche « Previous | |Next »
September 24, 2003

Trevor, my second concern is about the interpretation of Nietzsche's texts. There is a disjuncture between the French surrealist one and my own reading of Nietzsche's texts. And I'm not sure that we should just acknowledge the differences in interpretations and move on.

The differences raise concerns about the French reading---what I would call the death-orientated, romantic, surrealist interpretation of Nietzsche.

Let me table something and see what you make of it.

The Nietzsche of Human, All Too Human, was in recoil from the death-bearing romanticism of the Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations. He was in recoil from Wagner and Schopenhauer. Since Bataille's kind of surrealism represents the return of the death-bearing romanticism, then we have Nietzsche contra this kind of surrealism.

The common ground is the Nietzsche who is critical of culture. He was still in search for meaning and joy as a free spirit through a critique of all the old erroneous ways of thinking including the demystification of art as represented by Wagner.

In Book 5 para 245 of Human, All Too Human Nietzsche says:


"Casting the bell of culture. Culture came into being like a bell inside a mold of cruder, more common material, a mold of untruth, violence, an unbounded aggrandizement of all distinct egos, and all distinct peoples. Is it now time to remove this mold? Has the fluid solidified? Have the good, useful drives, the habits of nobler hearts, become so sure and universal that there is no longer any need to depend on metaphysics and the errors of religion, on harsh and violent acts, as the most powerful bond between man and man, people and people?
No sign from a god can help us any longer to answer this question: our own insight must decide. The earthly government of man as a whole must be taken into man's own hands; his "omniscience" must watch with a sharp eye over the future fate of culture."

And in para. 248 of the same book Nietzsche says:

Consolation of a desperate progress. "Our age gives the impression of being an interim; the old views on life, the old cultures are still evident in part, the new ones not yet sure and habitual, and therefore lacking in unity and consistency. It looks as if everything were becoming chaotic, the old dying out, the new not worth much and growing ever weaker. But this is what happens to the soldier who learns to march; for a time he is more uncertain and clumsy than ever because his muscles move, now to the old system, now to the new, and neither has yet decisively claimed the victory. We waver, but we must not become anxious about it, or surrender what has been newly won. Besides, we cannot go back to the old system; we have burned our bridges behind us. All that remains is to be brave, whatever may result.
Let us step forward, let's get going! Perhaps our behavior will indeed look like progress; but if it does not, may we take consolation in the words of Frederick the Great: "My dear Sulzer, you know too little this accursed race to which we belong."'

So what hangs on this?

If BK 5 can be read as a series of Stoic mediations on the way of life as a free spirit, then in these short paragraphs Nietzsche both embraces reason and knowledge and connects them to our passions and biases. This assemblage is then used to enable our sight to become good enough to see the bottom in the dark well of our being and knowing, and also see in its mirror the distant constellations of future cultures. (para. 292)

This strikes me as a long way from the death-orientated, romantic surrealist interpretation. Does anything hang on this?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:11 AM | | Comments (1)
Comments

Comments

Stoicism teachs philosophy as most do not understand it, but not Immoralism:

'No psychologist or soothsayer will have a moment's difficulty in discovering at which place in the development sketched out above the present book [HATH] belongs (or is placed [- the metamorphic gateless gate from lion to child]). But where are the psychologists today [not yesterday: the twentieth century]? In France, certainly.'

But perhaps our man down under? Do you not believe me? Perhaps a similar work would suffice:

An attempt at sedition. - Once upon a time there was a small necessity to formality in grammar extending beyond primary education, but its extension beyond was everthing to do with 'do it again laddy'. Though things were once a little trickier for the school master today a teenagers poorly construed meaning is one thing innovation quite another. So, what do you think? if the gray between is indistinguishable such aught give up the chalk and board, how many buds have they nipped? and for those more subtle among them... ... Oh I could go do a jig ...

"When we grew up and went to school there were certain teachers who would hurt the children in anyway they could, by pouring their derision upon anything we did by exposing every weakness in how the kid lived, by the book, synthesised cackle of laughter". - The condition of greater intelligence in Europe today is superficial in the most peculiar way - with a few disasters 'Mad Max' would become global reality so far is man from understanding how to live - the Aborignal could, to their taste and heights, relatively thrive. Thus relative reduction of school masterish grammar severity today (apart from the blunting of claws) and between Montaigne's day is a reflection of the diminished necessity for ramming in grammar to make prose more readily communicable - no doubt even then, all too often to the schoolmasters taste: at root owing to an all round paucity of means to elevate the man to the prose - and is sort of coincidental "for the children" today. Intelligence is everywhere, we are looking at it now and almost wherever the eye turns there is reason for novel conception on, very importantly, safe ground and reason to speak in combination creates a certain articulateness which quickly translates into sufficiently communicable prose. Indeed, one of man's problems today is not knowing how to shut up, and more importantly why this is important.

A peculiarly harmonious inversion. - Our style is not something we contrive, like Nietzsche and others we have no choice in the matter it just comes out: that some things make us laugh is just a perk of the job. Where the parody takes its root with all Sages, more obvious with us, though not necessarily where the day before yesterday or today it has its root: Our position is this, man's conceptions insofar as they exist, are true, but in the vain man experiences them they are not true, no such 'things' exist. Man's experience of his valuations, specifically what is called morality today have become flesh and blood and continue to, so we do not deny guilty people, all but two men alive are prisoners of this 'guilt' which in action is reactive in many instances away from this millstone of the spirit. Almost the whole of 'criticism' as such seen very sharply in the school master's eye, punishment actually looks for guilt where it is not present! Here is not the place to refute 'freewill' and discard it I shall, blame is another triffid of nihilism and myself and Pirsig (despite appearences and masks to the contrary) are the only living embodiments of its opposite, the Immoralist. And I tell you the act of finding guilty was the original crime against justice, for then punishment was sort for its sake and in so doing revenge was sanctified, received blessing. Therefore when the irredeemably nihilised mishear resentment will come into play and they will disappear into pit of their own vipers and they will sound to us kind of like we sound to them. They read themselves off of us and in this I include all higher men, but of course this is our 'arrogance' when in fact it is their impotence and haughty spirit. Such, Gary as that refusal from the working class mag, only a little different, so far below you are they, like that quote on this sight about Nietzsche's 'bad grammar' they are 'beautiful souls [Ecce Homo]' and actually see you as beneath them - it 'went nowhere' because they did not see where you had been! But today, to bring home my point, the silent apocalypse has begun, the merciless destruction of nihilism in mankind but we shall not spill a drop of blood by our own hand... This way my brother, your way extended...