Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 11:56:57 -0500 (EST)
From: "John B. Morgan" <jbmorgan-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Masks


On Wed, 1 Nov 1995, Laura L. Lopez wrote:

> As an effort to change the subject of recent posts to something
> more interesting, I wonder if someone can talk with me a little about
> what Nietzsche means when he talks about masks in (particularly in 
> _Beyond Good and Evil_).   I tend to think that Nietzsche is a believer 
> in self-knowledge, and perhaps the idea that we must somehow conceal
> ourselves is for some sort of self-preservation.  Basically my 
> confusion is: why is it important to make it difficult for people to
> see us as we are (which is how I understand the mask thing and Nietzsche's
> effort to confuse the non-serious reader)?

Can you site some of the passages you're thinking of? I've always had the 
impression that Nietzsche didn't believe that there was some deeply buried,
immutable SELF within us, but rather that the masks that we assume are 
what we become. Hence his idea of self-creation, etc.


John Morgan, Research Secretary   "Poetry must be conceived as a violent  
The University of Michigan         attack on unknown forces, to reduce and
Alzheimer's Disease Research       prostrate them before man."
Center (MADRC)                            --F. T. Marinetti,
jbmorgan-AT-umich.edu                          Futurist Manifesto 1909
  





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