Date: Sun, 05 Jul 1998 22:35:22 -0700
From: YourName <arthur00-AT-pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: be civil!


>In the first Untimely Meditation, the one on Strauss, he starts by throwing
>cold water on the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War, which had
>concluded only three years prior. His astounding claim is that the war was a
>defeat for German culture. Now, his point here is not at all that the war
>was a defeat for what most people took for German culture at that time,
>which he termed "cultural philistinism," a _faux_ culture, but rather for
>what he takes to have been the authentic German culture, the culture of
>Goethe, Hegel, Schelling, etc. The German culture he espouses here, in other
>words, is an internationalist culture, a European, not simply a German,
>event, which he counterpoises against the new "nationalist" culture of the
>Reich.

That N does not believe the current culture to be "authentic German culture"
is evident in the first meditation, but what exactly this "authentic culture"
is or that it is international in character is not evident in the first
meditation.  Nor do I find any clues in the Birth of Tragedy.  It may be that
N became more of an "internationalist" over time, and later writings would
support that.  

>It is interesting to take note here of Nietzsche's definition of "culture":

>"Culture is, above all, unity of style in all the expressions of the life of
>a people. Much knowledge and learning is neither an essential means to
>culture nor a sign of it, and if needs be can get along very well with the
>opposite of culture, barbarism, which is lack of style or a chaotic jumble
>of all styles." (UM I, 1)

This definition would not seem to support an "international" culture.  I
assume that the "unity of style" that he is looking for is a German "unity of
style."  Unless you believe that he is looking for a unified European style?  

>It is, in fact, "nationalist" culture of the German Reich that he
>consistently brands as a barbarism.

I agree that N was not reichsdeutsch, but the search for a unifying cultural
style indicates that he had a pro-German mission.  This may be more patriotic
than nationalism, but I'm not always sure that there is really a big
difference between these two terms.


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