Subject: RE: Strauss-Gadamer-Bloom-Nietzsche
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 16:18:21 +0200
From: "Bakker, R.B.M. de" <R.B.M.deBakker-AT-uva.nl>


What were the two key points in the article on Strauss
and Gadamer, the one that Kenneth found worthwhile
reading?

1. inability/aversion to dialogue
2. kabbalism

(1), to Gadamer, is THE philosophical headsin. He only got mad,
when his will to dialogue was pulled into doubt.

(2) here the damage is done by another distinction: the one
of absolute vs relative values. It leads to the Karamozovian
"Everything is allowed". Compare Anthony Crifasi's defence
of the false evidence for wmd's, and the compulsory repeating way
he did it. Also his silence now.

And didn't Allen Bloom tell Kenneth, that Nietzsche hated Socrates?

But Nietzsche never ever was driven by hate: being attacked by him,
meant a distinction.
 


Asia Times:
"It appears, and I hate to say this, that the Iraqis were mostly telling the
truth,"  said Joseph Cirincione, a weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace

I reached the same conclusion reading a bit in Hitler's table conversations. 95%
of what he speaks, is true (accepting the notes on what is unsound). The whole of it,
though, is dominated by the one, spoiling, idea that the Jew is to be blamed for
universal homelessness. A such that is sheer and vile nonsense, i say that for those
who doubt me, i'm not too proud (or as great as Heidegger) to make myself clear.
Another thing is why Jewry, near the ending of the 19th century (and of Nietzsche),
came into the position to be suspected. Goethe, and many Jews theirselves, had forefelt
it. (see Hannah Arendt: The origins of totalitarianism)
The Dreyfus-case in France, the pogroms in Russia were foreboders of the big disaster,
the initiative of which was German, but which was machinated by its enemies. There has been
a smearing campaign, also adopted by the Germans themselves, who now are ashamed to ever
have been the people of thinkers and poets. (What is, over against that, the Judas role of
England?)
Nietzsche had had the right intuitions: shoot all antisemites! By superficially attacking
the homelessness (cosmopolitism) of the Jews, doubtsick Europe would not find a new home. 
Instead, they did.


Friedrich Nietzsche:
Der Freigeist (Abschied)

I. Abschied

Die Krähen schrei'n
Und ziehen schwirren Flugs zur Stadt:
Bald wird es schnei'n -
Wohl dem, der jetzt noch - Heimat hat!

Nun stehst du starr,
Schaust rückwärts ach! wie lange schon!
Was bist du, Narr,
Vor Winters in die Welt - entflohn?

Die Welt - ein Thor
Zu tausend Wüsten stumm und kalt!
Wer Das verlor,
Was du verlorst, macht nirgends Halt.

Nun stehst du bleich,
Zur Winter-Wanderschaft verflucht,
Dem Rauche gleich,
Der stets nach kältern Himmeln sucht.

Flieg', Vogel, schnarr'
Dein Lied im Wüsten-Vogel-Ton! -
Versteck' du Narr,
Dein blutend Herz in Eis und Hohn!

Die Krähen schrei'n
Und ziehen schwirren Flugs zur Stadt:
Bald wird es schnei'n -
Weh  dem, der keine Heimat hat!

II. Antwort

Daß Gott erbarm'!
Der meint, ich sehnte mich zurück
In's deutsche Warm.
In's dumpfe deutsche Stuben-Glück!

Mein Freund, was hier
Mich hemmt und und hält, ist dein Verstand,
Mitleid mit dir!
Mitleid mit deutschem Quer-Verstand!

  



The free-sprit

1. Farewell

"The crows caw
And move in whirring flight to the city:
Soon it will snow —
Happy is he who yet — has a home!

Now you stand stiffly,
Gazing backwards alas! for how long!
Why, you fool,
Did you steal away into the world's winter?

The world — a gate
To a thousand wastelands silent and cold!
Whoever has lost
What you've lost, never stops anywhere.

Now you stand pallid,
Cursed to winter wanderings,
Like the smoke
That always seeks colder skies.

Fly, bird, rasp out
Your song to the tune of a wasteland bird! —
Hide, you fool,
Your bleeding heart in ice and scorn!

The crows caw
And move in whirring flight to the city:
Soon it will snow,
Woe betide he who has no home!"

2. Reply.

God have mercy!
That means, I long to return
Into the German warmth,
Into musty German closet-happiness!

My friend, what here
Dumbfounds me is your intelligence,
Pity you!
Pity German counterreason!

[1884]

------

The reply makes clear, that the necessity of a home,
has not to do with romanticist longing back.

(Is the translation correct? The German says, that
he, who thinks that Nietzsche longs back for old Germany,
is to be pitied by God.)
  
Also 'Woe betide he who has no home!' could suggest this.
But it's the opposite: it is (only) the free spirit who has
a home amidst universal homelessness:
Happy is he who yet —  has a home!  (Heidegger's 'poverty')

(thus Heidegger in GA50)



rene







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