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February 15, 2005
Back to Blanchot's reading of Nietzsche on nihilism in The Infinite Conversation. In his 'Crossing the Line' essay Blanchot asks a number of questions:
Another consequence is the following: to the void made by nihilism corresponds the movement of science; to the achievement of science, the domination of the earth. The greatest force of surpassing is set in motion. Now what happens to man when this transformation is realized and history turns? Does he come transformed? is he ready to become what he is, the lucid man who can rely on nothing beytond himself? Is he ready to become what he is, the lucid man who can rely on nothing and who is going to make himself master of all? (p.146)
Blanchot says no. We are still bourgeois. Man is still the nineteenth century bourgeois that Nietzsche knew. And he adds that Nietzsche sided "with science and with the being of exceeding, which is the becoming of humanity."
This is a historical reading. The bourgeoisie have broken with the nineteenth century with the rise of consumer society. However, Blanchot captures the moment of surpassing in Nietzsceh that is often overlooked. But does Nietzsche side with science in this? Is he not critical of science. He views science from the perspective of art? Does he not affirm the importance of values and ethics in opposition to the hegemony of a value-free positivist science?
Blanchot then turns to Heidegger's commentaries on Nietzsche and nihilism. He says that Heidegger's interpretation of the overman:
..he is not the man of today elevated disproportionality, nor a species of man who would reject the human only to make the arbitrary his law and titanic madness his rule; he is not the eminent functionary of some will to power, any more than he is an enchanter destined to introduce paradisical bliss on earth. The overman is he who alone leads man to what he is: the being who surpasses himself, and in whose surpassing there is affirmed the necessity of his passing.(p.147)
Let us accept this interpretation. What then? What is the significance of the overman in relation to the process of nihilism?
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Blanchot is clear on this. He says:
...the overman could be considered as the first decisive affirmation of the extreme negation of nihilism..the overman is the being who has overcome the void (created by the death of God and the decline of values), because he has known how to find in this void the power of overcoming, a power in him that has not only become a power, but will---the will to overcome himself.
This pretty much concurs with my interpretation of Nietzsche's understanding of overman, surpassing and nihilism. Once we have had values that guided our mode of living, then they decayed and we lost them, now we have to create new ones. The overman creates the new values.
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The overman creates the new values.
I always liked his observation (was it in 'Will to Power'?) that philosophers/poets create the linguistic currency which we rub smooth through usage. He manages to capture both the splendour and the mundane functionality of language.
Great articles, btw :)