File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_2000/nietzsche.0009, message 174


Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 18:30:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: rutger h cornets de groot <cornets-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: On that exam - oh delectable treat!


Well, Lambda, these are all very interesting questions
but the best questions are those that have questions
as their answers; we need to broaden the enigma. So,
rather than looking at this as an exam, I like to look
at it as suggestions for topics to "discuss", if that
word can ever be appropriate on this list again. I'd
like to forget about passing and qualifying and get
down to business, which by the way doesn't preclude
anyone hitting anyone on the head, of course. 


> Test #1
> Describe succinctly what is the offense of a lamb
> that we should rear it, and tend
> it, and lull it into security, for the express
> purpose of killing it (ref:
> Nowhere, ch 12)

Of the questions that I can respond to, this seems the
hardest. The Christians nailed their Lamb to the cross
out of resentment turned inward. Other than that, I
don't know what this would be about. Cruelty that
would increase a sense of power? 
> 
> Test #2
> Upon what basis did someone conclude that "at the
> end of his short career,
> Nietzsche would side with the 'criminal' as an
> _irretrievable force_, virtually
> superior to an order of things that excludes it"?
> (clue:what is and who produces
> Kulture?)
> 
My sympathy with criminals is unbound. They are the
test of society. They undermine the status quo. They
make life uncomfortable for those who like their
comfort and have an interest in stagnation, eg Guliani
who criminalized the elephant dung on the Virgin Mary
in that New York museum. The criminal is also what
connects N to Dostoyevski. I am not sure if he is
superior to the established order, but he may be
Derrida's Other, ie that which escapes the authority
and a clear demarcation thereof. Perhaps, the question
of whether 'the' criminal still produces culture has
become problematic in our current day. It is not as
clear anymore as when there was an avant-garde or
counter movement at work. However, Jeff Koons, while
seemingly joining the establishment, still appeared to
function as a poison, a parasite, a mental bacillus.


Test#3
>  From the viewpoint of a gai saber, how would
> Nietzsche's theory of will to power
> be formulated today as a Physics of Energy? 
> (clue:Be brief, a few equations have
> been known to suffice!)
> 
Sorry. I am an alpha.

> Test#4
> Who wrote: "There, we were given to acquire that
> hardness which, in all the days
> of our existence, has accompanied us since; and it
> permitted several amongst us to
> wage war on the whole world with a very light heart
> indeed"?  And what hardness
> was that?
> 
Don't know the source. But the hardness would be that
of a ronin, a samurai who has left the service of his
king and sells himself to the highest bidder in
wartime. Why does he do that? Out of hygienic
considerations. However, it is interesting to compare
this attitude to that of the main character in
Scorsese's Bringing out the Dead, a paramedic (!)
played by Nicolas Cage. Would love to hear your or
anybody's views on that.

> Test#5
> Why must one be awake in the same fashion as one
> should dream: either not at all,
> or in an interesting manner? (Ref: how joyful is the
> wisdom of 2322023!)
> 
Life and dreams are perhaps the only assets that one
should not waste. Other than through this platitude, I
would not know how to answer this. I also don't know
what the number refers to. But I have this:
Dream: the well known address.
Awake: not knowing where one has been.

> Test#6
> In a well known novel, a vampire exclaims: "Oh men!
> Men! Race of crocodiles [who
> eat their young], as Karl Moor says!  How well I
> know you by your deeds and how
> invariably you succeed in living down to what one
> expects of you!"  Then he asks
> of his guests with regard to the dismal scene just
> witnessed - of a nearly botched
> execution that at last was carried out at the start
> of the carnival in Rome: "Here
> is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was
> walking to the scaffold and about
> to die like a coward, that is true, but at least he
> was about to die without
> resisting and without recriminations.  Do you know
> what gave him that much
> strength?  Do you know what consoled him? Do you
> know what resigned him to his
> fate?"    Do you know the answer to the count's
> question, or the count's answer?
> (no clues)

This, again, is about "attitude", or perception as N
would probably say. The criminal, the ronin, and
perhaps also the lamb slaughterer from your first
question are all linked together by it. Here we find
him as victim of a mob; perhaps we could also
recognize him as Zenbuddhist (although not entirely).
What consoled him was that this mob was actually
honoring him by putting him to death, even though they
were unaware of that. It is the exact opposite of
Christ being put to death and worshiped thereafter.
Disgust vs pity; contempt vs compassion.

I'll have to leave the remaining questions on physics
to those better qualified.

-rutger.

====APROPOS - Rutger H Cornets de Groot, Writer, Translator
English-Dutch Freelance Translation Services
Essays on Film, Culture, Art, Literature, Philosophy
a p r o p o s
http://sites.netscape.net/cornets/apropos
apropos-AT-eznet.net / cornets-AT-yahoo.com
"The quality of a good translation can never be captured by the original".

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