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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'

a progress grown desperate « Previous | |Next »
December 23, 2006

I'm dipping in and out of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human. It is all I can manage at this Xmas time of the year. At the moment I am reading the fifth section, which is entitled 'Tokens of Higher and Lower Culture', in volume 1. In this section Nietzsche is exploring the building of a new culture out of the old one by the free spirits as opposed to the fettered spirits.The free spirits are those who have liberated themselves from tradition. A central concern for Nietzsche is with character, in that free spirits need to be strong and aggressive to build a new culture.

Nietzsche says:

'Our age gives the impression of being an interim state; the old ways of thinking, the old old cultures are still partly with us, the new not yet secure and habitual and thus lacking in decisiveness and consistency. It looks as though everything is becoming chaotic, the old becoming lost to us, the new providing useless and growing ever feebler'. (para. 248, p.117).

Postmodernism is the name we currently give to the new today. This new grows ever feebler. The attacks from the fettered spirits in the old positivist/modernist culture continue. They have tradition on their side.

Nietzsche goes onto remark that...we cannot return to the old, we have burned our boats; all that remains is for us to be brave, let happen what may.--let us only go forward.. Contra Nietzsche, we build the new out of the old. The old provides the building blocks. for the new

Nietzsche, in Human All Too Human, is very much within the Enlightenment tradition of Voltaire. Christianity represents the old and Nietzsche argues that 'there will never again be a life and culture bounded by a religiously determined horizon. '

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| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:23 PM |