2008 • 4
In the 87th aphorism of The Wanderer, Nietzsche says that whoever doesn't trouble himself about good writing and good reading (both virtues grow and decline together) is showing people a way to become ever more national. We have seen the truth of his perception in the United States over the past several years and in particular in the just concluded presidential campaign. The candidates who could not write or speak with subtlety had as their entire message national power, and nothing else. They evinced no concern for either the health of the people or the health of the world. Furthermore, they preached that good writing and good reading are qualities antithetical to pure, real Americans. Imagine reading something served up by Joe, the Plumber. The denunciation of intelligent reading and writing becomes the means to extreme viciousness, to a view of life where nothing counts other than money and physical power, or, as Republicans would have it, the American dream.
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After Nietzsche
I have titled this page “After Nietzsche” because I want it to be clear that I am not attempting a thorough explication of Nietzsche’s thought. Here, I’m seeking not scholarship, but a kind of conversation.
I will, of course, draw on scholarship as well as on Nietzsche’s writing, and references to either will inevitably present aspects of who Nietzsche was and what he said. So, to a degree, the page will incidentally explain features of his thought. But that’s not its purpose. There is a vast learned commentary about Nietzsche’s philosophy, and taking it as a whole, I think it is one of the finest collections of scholarly writing we have. It would be presumptuous of me to claim to add to it. If you would like an intelligent selection of recent scholarly writing on the subject, I refer you to the bibliography appended to Laurence Lampert’s Nietzsche’s Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil (Yale University Press, 2001).
What I hope to do here is to share with you the thoughts that have come to me as a result of reading Nietzsche, and to invite you to comment on them. Our main purpose in consulting thinkers should be the enhancement of our own thought. We have a duty to be as accurate as possible in accessing their ideas, but simply to know the work of another mind without trying to enrich our own is a stultifying experience. We should read in order to think and not just for the purpose of collecting information in a library-like fashion.
I have been reading Nietzsche for quite a long time. But not until recently --roughly over the past decade -- did I come to see him as an author I needed to read as intently as possible. Why that happened I’m not sure. My best guess is that I was forced, more and more, to conclude that our common modes of discourse and analysis are worn out. They aren’t getting us anywhere nor are they bringing forth anything new and vital. We do need a revaluation of our beliefs about right and wrong, success and failure, achievement and fatuity, meaning and flaccidity. Since a fresh start -- a move beyond good and evil -- was Nietzsche’s principal theme, he’s a useful figure for helping us think about such a turning.
On this page, I’ll follow Nietzsche’s habit of numbered comments. I wish I could say they will fall into meaningful patterns. But I’m not sure they will. I’ll add them as they come to me. If an intelligent unconscious brings them forth in a progressive sequence, so be it. But, if not, each will simply be what it is. I hope that from time to time, an addition will hold your attention and prompt you to write to me about it.
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