Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 16:48:51 -0500 (EST)
From: "John B. Morgan" <jbmorgan-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Music, Nietzsche, Rhythm


On Sat, 11 Nov 1995, Steven E. Callihan wrote:

> Chris Devenney wrote:
> 
> >Nietzsche broke w/ Wagner for the simple reason that he
> >found Wagner to be pandering to the basest (sic?) impulses and needs
> >of the bourgeoisie.  And can anyone deny this?  No! (e.g., Parsifal).
> 
> Yes, the music of the future burgers, requiring jaded senses and sated
> appetites to be fully enjoyed.  The Compleat Decadent.

If you are an active participant in the culture of the West in 1995, I 
challenge you to hold yourself up as an example of one free of decadent 
tastes. Wagnerism was a new concept in 1888. Today it is the norm. If you 
think you are free of the influence of Wagner, you are wrong. It is 
inescapable, apart from divorcing yourself from the whole of culture and 
society. Wagner was simply a primary symptom of the cultural trends which 
have since completely immersed western culture. Nietzsche still battles on,
urging defiance, but he knew that the path that culture as a whole was on 
was inevitable. And, as Nietzsche himself said, there is no better way to 
understand these trends than to know Wagner. Simple dismissal is idiotic.

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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