From: Tristich <Tristich-AT-aol.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:18:34 EST
Subject: Re: Smirking at Nihilism


ddd smirks at Paul S. Rhodes who would "like to think" that Nietzsche's
madness was just devine retribution for N's "nihilism."  [Do I have that about
right, Paul?]  I thought I'd take this opportunity to open a big can of worms.
Now mind you, I ain't no expert, but I have read a lot of Nietzsche's books
and I've read a lot of books about Nietzsche.  I've never seen where Nietzsche
says anything that would brand him as a Nihilist; to the contrary, I've only
seen where he castigates the "metaphysicians" and religions (especially
Christianity as embodied by "The Church") for their nihilism, by which they
deny life and stigmatize it with "sin" in favor of death or else some
pipedream about what is supposed to replace this world after its destruction.
But I see everywhere people burning "Nihilist" into Nietzsche's presumptively
damned flesh.  Would someone please explain to me how it is that Nietzsche
(who, as I said, I've only seen anti-nihilistic statements from) gets turned
into a "Nihilist" by the advocates of the metaphysicians and religions who
themselves have a long way to go to absolve themselves of that taint (at least
insofar as I may be a Judge)?

And as far as speculating about Nietzsche's madness goes, I am sort of fond of
the notion (I think first stated by his friend Overbeck) that his madness
seemed feigned.  Didn't Nietzsche somewhere predict that he would come to a
place in his experiments in thought where everything after would be silence?
Anyway, I would like to recommend, to everyone who has not already discovered
it, David Farell Krell's "novel" about Nietsche's last ten years of madness.
It is called simply NIETZSCHE and I think it's published by SUNY Press.

Friedrick Haines

> [ddd smirks at you.] 
>  
>  Paul S. Rhodes wrote: 
>  
>  
>  >Well, I'd like to think that his nihilism drove him mad, but that's just
>  >little old benightedly Catholic me.
>  
>  ******************************************************
>  D. Diane Davis                  
>  Department of Rhetoric          
>  University of Iowa
>  Iowa City, IA 52242-1486              
>  (319) 335-0184
>  d3davis-AT-earthlink.net or d-davis-AT-uiowa.edu    
>  http://www.uiowa.edu/~ddrhet/
>  ******************************************************
>  


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