Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:17:43 -0600
From: allen scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu>
Subject: same old. . .


At 6:23 AM -0800 2/20/02, Kenneth Johnson wrote:
>in the course of the long drawn years it eventually dawns that the Life
>Force (that portion of it conscious of itself as such, i.e. conscious of
>itself as 'the' singular intelligent entity within WtP) cannot be put at
>the flowing reins of human existence by those merely historically
>authorized forms of it presently ensaddled by the 'man' (the das mann)
>herdtypes to ride herd atop the spiritually regulating power chain today,
>but must, with white hat cowboy grit, pull its own singularized self up out
>of this institutionalized swamp on its own. The only force it possesses
>that has any chance of doing this is the force of persuasion, a competing
>for the urgent attention of all these das man types of religiously
>authorized herd animals who are leading all the packs today, addressing
>them with an urgent communication, one riding hard on the compelling sense
>of emergency, that there is a real and present danger that any potential
>inhering inside this tiny tributary flow of human force will never be
>real.ized if the main attention of those in whom its highest hope and best
>promise reside continue to while away their years composing academic ivory
>tower treatises on the slivery threads of wishful transcendence.

Dearest N.

This latest outburst leads me to ask after one of your more careful 
studies of the same idea ( I think):

"We have art in order not to perish from the truth," (WM, 822) and 
what you think of the " Great Whiler-Away- Of- Years" gloss on it:

"Again 'truth' means the 'true world' of the supersensuous, which 
conceals in itself the danger that life may perish,'life' in 
Nietzsche's sense always meaning 'life which is on the ascent.' The 
supersensuous lures life away from the invigorating sensuality, 
drains life's forces, weakens it."

Shall I read this as indicating what you perceive as the always- 
having- been- struggle -to -the- death between Art ( really the 
Artist) as the prime configuration of Will to Power and truth as the 
supersensuous enemy of life- trying -to -become- more- of- itself 
from out of itself?  And do you further mean to indicate (which 
indication is especially featured in this latest outburst) that 
Supersensuous Enemy Truth favors words, speech, as the primary means 
of seduction/persuasion which art comes to save us from?  And if this 
is the case, would it not be possible for a really smart "Whiler" to 
be a kind of double agent, that is to refuse the seductiveness of 
words as providing direct access to the supersensuous, and to rather 
re-route language through the sensuous, reappropriating it to become 
what another great Whiler called "the living animate discourse of one 
who really knows"?

In lively affection ( which you continue to invigorate),

Allen
-- 
  Allen Scult					Dept. of Philosophy
HOMEPAGE: " Heidegger on Rhetoric and Hermeneutics":	Drake University
http://www.multimedia2.drake.edu/s/scult/scult.html	Des Moines, Iowa 50311
PHONE: 515 271 2869
FAX: 515 271 3826


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