Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 12:51:57 -0400
From: albright-AT-world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Subject: Footnotes & "In the Wake of..."


Or...

How about the use and *abuse* of Nietzsche?

Last time I was in this group, a jerk was talking about the coming
Imperium, in what I could only view as the worst misuse of Nietzsche's own
admittedly complicated writings.

Take a look at the word "fascist"-- and how it compares to "face value",
for example, in its word genealogy.

Unfortunately, because of the way he wrote, in such an obnoxiously
undemocratic, snobbish, confusing way that allowed his sister to
misappropriate the words so that _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_ could be placed
in the German bunkers of WWI alongside the Gospel of Saint John, or Hitler
mistook "The Will To Power" for German Uber Alles, another thing for which
Nietzsche developed a strong contempt in Wagner and in his own
country.........

Nietzsche demands what Emerson calls in "The American Scholar" an *active*
or "creative" reading, in order to force inter-subjectivity with him,
outrightly say this is bunk, or see what he's driving at, *underneath* the
surface.....

~~~~~~~

>From "Consideration by the Way" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, from _The Conduct
of Life_ (1860):

"Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes better."

"Passions, resistance, danger, are educators."

        "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good
learner would not miss. As we go gladly to Faneuil Hall, to be played upon
by the stormy winds and strong fingers of enraged patriotism, so is a
fanatical persecution, civil war, national bankruptcy, or revolution, more
rich in the central tones than languid years of prosperity. What had been,
ever since our memory, solid continent, yawns apart, and discloses its
composition and genesis. We learn geology the morning after the earthquake,
on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed
of the sea."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Albert Camus has a character in, I believe, _The Fall_, doing good
deeds and going about his business like a good citizen, but feeling *empty*
inside-- again, how does this tie in w/ Nietzsche? How much is he a mere
automotan, going through the motions of "caring", but not really *feeling*
it?

Thanks to "CathB2-AT-aol.com" about the Sartre/Nietzsche connection, by the
way. Beyond being known as the GodFather of PostModernism, Nietzsche is of
course also considered a GodFather of existentialism.

I have a little Sartre story, to show how words can split into two
conclusions, which I think both Emerson and Nietzche (and James and others
like Barthes, Derrida, etc.) would have appreciated. Seeing how close the
Nazis got to what was then called Leningrad, Sartre said, "Amazing!" (Now
just stop there and see what you think he meant.) Then his friend said, "I
know! That the Russians were heroic enough to put up such a battle of
defense!" And Sartre answered, "No. That the Nazis were able to get THIS
FAR."

Sartre and Camus parted ways on backing up the Soviet Union, early on, by
the way.

Do you know that Camus died in an untimely car crash accident? A copy of
_The Gay Science_ was found in the car with him at the time. Camus knew
that Nietzsche had both a "light" as well as "dark" side to him. (Don't we
all?) How does this tie in w/ Luke Skywalker, as he grows up, and being
warned, "Don't ever give in to the dark side of the force, Luke"? And who
is Luke's father, by the way?

~~~~~~~

"Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve."
        ---Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails

Has anyone else heard that Trent's "leather" actually turns to "lace", in
real life?

What if you, voluntarily, WANT to "bow down"? Or-- what if someone is
*coercing* you to do it?

~~~~~~~~

        "Is Hamlet *understood*? It is not doubt, it is *certainty* which
makes mad... but to feel in this way one must be profound, abyss,
philosopher... We all *fear* truth... and, to confess it, I am
instinctively certain that Lord Bacon is the originator, the self-tormentor
of this uncanniest species of literature.... We do not know nearly enough
about Lord Bacon, the first realist in every sense of the word, to know
*what* he did, *what* he desired, *what* he experienced in himself."
        ---Nietzsche, _Ecco Homo_, "Why I am So Clever" 4

~~~~~~~~

Take care---

        Randall Albright
        http://world.std.com/~albright/




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