Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 08:22:22 -0500 (EST)
From: "John B. Morgan" <jbmorgan-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Nietzsche and SF


On Mon, 11 Dec 1995, H. Curtiss Leung wrote:

> 	Just to pick nits: I thought the 'end of history' thesis was
> something out of Hegel and Kojeve.  Anyway...

Well, I can't recall Nietzsche ever using the phrase, but it shows up a 
lot in stuff on Nietzsche, and it is a pretty accurate description of 
some of his "prophecies."

> >	...and SF has ALWAYS
> > insisted on the subjectivity of truth and the impossibility of definition. 
> 
> 	Always?  Funny ... most of the science fiction I know seems to be 
> nothing but technocratic, militaristic propaganda.

Then you haven't read much science fiction.  

> > It certainly was no accident that Stanley Kubrick used Strauss' "Also Sprach 
> > Zarathustra" to open "2001: A Space Odyssey", perhaps the most Nietzschean 
> > film ever made. 
> 
> 	Most Wagnerian film ever made is probably more like it.  The sonic
> bombast of Strauss' _Zarathustra_ is a perfect complement to Kubrick's
> visual bombast.  And speaking of Strauss' _Zarathustra_, does anybody else
> find the opening overpowering and completely out of proportion to the opening 
> of N.'s _Zarathustra_?  "For no sunrise, even in mountains, is pompous,
> triumphal, imperial; each one is faint and timorous, like a hope that 
> all may yet be well, and it is this very unobtrusiveness of the mightiest
> light that is moving and overpowering." -- Th. Adorno, writing of Strauss'
> _Alpine Symphony_, but I think it applies to his _Zarathustra_ as well.

I've thought about that as well...but Nietzsche certainly had his share 
of bombastic moments. I've always seen Strauss' "Zarathustra" as more of 
a reaction TO reading Nietzsche than a musical interpretation of N. Delius'
"Mass of Life" is a completely different musical take on Zarathustra. As for
Kubrick...it's probably better to just not get into it.

> 	Why speculate?  This is from _Human, All Too Human_, 
> "Assorted Opinions and Maxims":

Why not? The list has been dead for weeks anyway. Is it of any value to 
speculate about Nietzsche's SF? Probably not, but considering the degree 
to which N. was concerned about the direction western civilization was/is 
heading, I find it an interesting speculation.


John Morgan                       "Much there is I can stand, and most 
The University of Michigan          things not easy to suffer 
jbmorgan-AT-umich.edu                 I bear with quiet resolve, just as a god
                                    commands it.      
                                   Only a few I find as repugnant as 
                                    snakes and poison --        
                                   These four: tobacco smoke, bedbugs, 
                                    garlic and    |    ." --Goethe
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