(Originally written July 16, 2007 in Book 25)
The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880)
33: Elements of revenge
The word revenge is said too quickly. Men search for a single root and meaning to the word. But words are pockets into which many things have been put. Thus revenge is something very composite.
Revenge (in some cases) is merely an act of self preservation. When a thing harms us we must harm it back. We act without any wish to do harm but only to get away.
A second type of revenge involves time. We think no longer on ourselves but focus on our enemy. In this type of revenge further harm to us is forgotten to the point we almost always harm ourselves more in the act of revenge. This type of revenge is restoration. But in reality only one loss, the loss of honor can actually be restored.
Fear brings about self-preservation revenge. A lack of fear brings about restoration revenge.
One cannot take revenge against those he despises because if one he despises injures him he cannot have his honor injured by him. Those with honor are not concerned with those they see as unhonorably. Those he despises can neither accord him honor nor take it away.
"Everyone will revenge himself unless he is without honor or full of contempt or full of love for the person who has harmed and insulted him" (Nietzsche, 162).
Judicial punishment restores both private honor and the honor of society; thus, punishment is revenge.
Punishment despises to prevent further damage and to deter.
194: Dreams
On rare occasions where dreams achieve perfection they become symbolic chains of imagery in narrative poetic language. "We use up too much artistry in our dreams - and therefore often are impoverished during the day" (Nietzsche, 163).
202: Tourists
Tourists are stupid; they climb mountains like animals because one has forgotten to tell them that there are beautiful views on the way to the top.
203: Too much and too little
"All men now live through too much and think through too little" (Nietzsche, 163).
204: End and goal
Not every end is the goal.
208: How to have all men against you
"If anyone dared to say now, 'whoever is not for me, is against me', he would immediately have all men against him'. This does our time honor." (163). --> Matthew 12:30, Luke 11:23, Bush policy on terror.
249: Positive and Negative
"This thinker needs nobody to refute him: for that he suffices himself" (163)
Arrogant twit!
263: Way to equality
Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity. Liberty is added eventually by sleep.
297: Not to wish to see too soon
One must surrender to the experience in order to acquire wisdom.
298: From the practice of wise men
To become wise one must wish to have certain experiences and run into the gaping jaws of them. Many wise men have been swallowed.
301: A testimony of love
To love someone is not to reflect on them too thoroughly
302: How one tries to improve bad arguments
Many men try to put personality into bad arguments to straighten them out like a man who throws a bowling ball and then makes gestures to straighten it.
That is funny, this is one of my favorites.
307: When taking leave is needed
You must take time away from what you would know, only after leaving can you truly know it.
317: Opinions and Fish
Possessing opinions is like possessing fish, if one has their own fish pond. One must go fishing and have some luck. Others are satisfied with fossils and have convictions in their heads.
322: Death
Death could make life sweet with levity. But apothecary souls have made it poison that makes all of life repulsive.
323: Remorse
Never give way to remorse; giving way to remorse adds a second stupidity to a first. "If you have done harm, see how you can do a good. If you are punished... bear the punishment with the feeling you are doing good - by deterring others from falling prey to the same folly. Every evildoer who is punished may feel that he is a benefactor of humanity" (165).
326: Don't touch!
Some people confuse problems worse with their meddling. Whoever can't hit the nail on the head should not hit it at all.
333: Dying for the "truth"
We should not be burnt for our opinions because we are unsure of them. We should change our opinions.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
Mixed Opinions and Maxims A
(Originally written July 6, 2007 in Book 25)
Mixed Opinions and Maxims (1879)
- Nietzsche
89: Mores and their victim
Mores come from 2 places
1) The notion that society is more valuable than the individual
2) Enduring advantage is preferable to ephemeral advantage
The betterment of society long-term is more important than any individual's betterment. This maxim holds true even to the sacrifice of an individual's life.
This attitude only arises in those persons who are not victims of the mores.
Morality: "The feeling for the whole quintessence of mores under which one lives and has been brought up - brought up not as an individual but as a member of a whole, as a digit of a majority" (155).
130: Reader's bad manners
Comment: [Type it into the computer]
A bitter pill to swallow, eh Nietzsche?
137: The worst readers
Those who plunder the book to use a few things, confuse the rest and "blaspheme the whole"
145: Value of honest books
"Honest books make the reader honest" (155).
Mixed Opinions and Maxims (1879)
- Nietzsche
89: Mores and their victim
Mores come from 2 places
1) The notion that society is more valuable than the individual
2) Enduring advantage is preferable to ephemeral advantage
The betterment of society long-term is more important than any individual's betterment. This maxim holds true even to the sacrifice of an individual's life.
This attitude only arises in those persons who are not victims of the mores.
Morality: "The feeling for the whole quintessence of mores under which one lives and has been brought up - brought up not as an individual but as a member of a whole, as a digit of a majority" (155).
130: Reader's bad manners
Comment: [Type it into the computer]
A bitter pill to swallow, eh Nietzsche?
137: The worst readers
Those who plunder the book to use a few things, confuse the rest and "blaspheme the whole"
145: Value of honest books
"Honest books make the reader honest" (155).
Notes on Human, all too human
(Originally written July 6, 2007 in Book 25)
Basic Writings of Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
translated: Walter Kaufmann
The Modern Library Classics, New York, 2000
Seventy-Five Aphorisms
From Five Volumes
Human, All too Human (1878)
45.
The concept of good and evil as a dual prehistory
1. In the soul of ruling tribes and castes
2. In the soul of the oppressed, the powerless
Those who are powerful enough to repay good for good and evil for evil are good. The weak are bad.
The enemy is not evil because he can repay good for good or evil for evil.
"Trojan and Greek are both good in Homer. Not he that does us harm but he that is contemptible is considered bad" (147).
Goodness is inherited; a bad man cannot grow out of good soil.
Those who are powerless are bad and all the seemingly "good" things they do are refined malice.
"Our current morality has grown on the soil of the ruling tribes and castes" (148).
92.
Origin of justice
Justice originates among those who are approximately equal in power.
The foundational character of justice is trade.
Revenge and gratitude also grow out of the foundation of trade.
Justice derives from concerns of self-persecution, from egoism.
Justice is so esteemed because it has been forgotten that its roots are egoistic. "A poet might say that God made forgetfulness the guard he placed at the threshold of human dignity" (149).
96.
Mores and Moral
"Being moral or ethical means obeying ancient established law or custom. Whether one submits to it with difficulty or gladly, that is immaterial, it is enough that one does it" (149).
Evil is immoral. To be evil is to be immoral. Being evil is resisting tradition, no matter how reasonable or stupid that tradition is.
This tradition however arose with no regard to good and evil.
Tradition arose to preserve a community, a people. "Every superstitious custom that originated on the basis of some misinterpreted accident involves a tradition that it is moral to follow; for detaching oneself from it is dangerous, even more dangerous for the community than for the individual (because the deity punishes the community - and the individual only indirectly - for the sacrilege and the violation of divine privileges)" (150).
All traditions become more venerable the more time has passed.
136
On Christian Asceticism and Holiness
The nature of asceticism and holiness is complicated.
The marvelors of ascetics and holy men do not wish for science to attempt to explain this phenomena. Much to their fancy when science has attempted it has failed. They revel in the maxim "the unexplained should by all means be unexplainable" (150).
137
Asceticism arises out of man's lust to rule. When they cannot rule others they oppress their own nature, becoming ascetic.
Asceticism is actually a high degree of vanity. For the ascetic is proud of being scorned.
"In every ascetic morality man adores part of Himself as God and to that and needs to diabolicize the rest" (152).
142
Asceticism is merely the religious form that certain "bad" characteristics of man manifests itself.
143
The holy man is what he makes himself appear to be to unholy men. It is this false distinction that leads normal men to view the holy men as superhuman.
"He was not an especially good person, even less an especially wise person; but, he signified something that exceeded all human measure of goodness and wisdom" (153).
The signification of symbol that the holy man has come to represent has become so powerful that even in the age where no one believes in God anymore some (i.e. Schopenhauer) still believe in the Holy man.
144
Jesus Christ, the father of Christianity felt himself the inborn son of God and thus felt himself without sin. This illusion should not be judged too harshly because the complete freedom from sin is a virtuous goal which "is now available to everybody by means of science!" (154).
Basic Writings of Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
translated: Walter Kaufmann
The Modern Library Classics, New York, 2000
Seventy-Five Aphorisms
From Five Volumes
Human, All too Human (1878)
45.
The concept of good and evil as a dual prehistory
1. In the soul of ruling tribes and castes
2. In the soul of the oppressed, the powerless
Those who are powerful enough to repay good for good and evil for evil are good. The weak are bad.
The enemy is not evil because he can repay good for good or evil for evil.
"Trojan and Greek are both good in Homer. Not he that does us harm but he that is contemptible is considered bad" (147).
Goodness is inherited; a bad man cannot grow out of good soil.
Those who are powerless are bad and all the seemingly "good" things they do are refined malice.
"Our current morality has grown on the soil of the ruling tribes and castes" (148).
92.
Origin of justice
Justice originates among those who are approximately equal in power.
The foundational character of justice is trade.
Revenge and gratitude also grow out of the foundation of trade.
Justice derives from concerns of self-persecution, from egoism.
Justice is so esteemed because it has been forgotten that its roots are egoistic. "A poet might say that God made forgetfulness the guard he placed at the threshold of human dignity" (149).
96.
Mores and Moral
"Being moral or ethical means obeying ancient established law or custom. Whether one submits to it with difficulty or gladly, that is immaterial, it is enough that one does it" (149).
Evil is immoral. To be evil is to be immoral. Being evil is resisting tradition, no matter how reasonable or stupid that tradition is.
This tradition however arose with no regard to good and evil.
Tradition arose to preserve a community, a people. "Every superstitious custom that originated on the basis of some misinterpreted accident involves a tradition that it is moral to follow; for detaching oneself from it is dangerous, even more dangerous for the community than for the individual (because the deity punishes the community - and the individual only indirectly - for the sacrilege and the violation of divine privileges)" (150).
All traditions become more venerable the more time has passed.
136
On Christian Asceticism and Holiness
The nature of asceticism and holiness is complicated.
The marvelors of ascetics and holy men do not wish for science to attempt to explain this phenomena. Much to their fancy when science has attempted it has failed. They revel in the maxim "the unexplained should by all means be unexplainable" (150).
137
Asceticism arises out of man's lust to rule. When they cannot rule others they oppress their own nature, becoming ascetic.
Asceticism is actually a high degree of vanity. For the ascetic is proud of being scorned.
"In every ascetic morality man adores part of Himself as God and to that and needs to diabolicize the rest" (152).
142
Asceticism is merely the religious form that certain "bad" characteristics of man manifests itself.
143
The holy man is what he makes himself appear to be to unholy men. It is this false distinction that leads normal men to view the holy men as superhuman.
"He was not an especially good person, even less an especially wise person; but, he signified something that exceeded all human measure of goodness and wisdom" (153).
The signification of symbol that the holy man has come to represent has become so powerful that even in the age where no one believes in God anymore some (i.e. Schopenhauer) still believe in the Holy man.
144
Jesus Christ, the father of Christianity felt himself the inborn son of God and thus felt himself without sin. This illusion should not be judged too harshly because the complete freedom from sin is a virtuous goal which "is now available to everybody by means of science!" (154).
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The Birth of Tragedy Section 20-25
(Originally written July 5, 2007 in Book 15)
The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche
Section 20
The Journalist has replaced the professor in matters of culture.
The culture fears art because it is in a feeble state because it has realized its limitations and true art could fully destroy the Socratic-Alexandrian culture in its weakened state.
Schopenhauer was a man without hope but he nonetheless desired truth.
Dare to be tragic. Dare to be Dionysian for the age of the Socratic man is ending. "Prepare yourselves for hard strife, but believe in the miracles of your god" (Nietzsche, 124).
Section 21
We cannot learn from the Greeks without a rebirth of tragedy.
Tragedy is the stitching that held together the paradoxical nature of the Greeks. They were passionate individuals (Apollo) and yet whole-heartedly patriotic (Dionysian). They were their own men and one with the State. Tragedy served to keep these tendencies from tearing each other apart and leaving the Grecian ripped to pieces.
The tragedy produces the giant Dionysian weight of burden but in the same instance lifts it off our shoulders to that of the hero's.
The music creates the myth and yet shields us from its terrible power. The tragedy leads us to the comforting metaphysical illusion and brings about the "highest pleasure" through destruction and negation of the individual. We rejoice in the destruction, not the triumph of the hero and we are then at one, the Dionysian mystical oneness.
Only through music can we comprehend the most universal facts. Through music we hear the world will longing for existence and destruction.
Just as we have been completely destroyed of individuality by the Dionysian we are redeemed by the Apollonian in tragedy.
"The Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals" (Nietzsche, 128).
Music compels us to see most profoundly than ever before.
It is the Apollonian illusion that the Dionysian music serves the Apollonian concepts that saves us, but in reality, music is the real idea of the world and drama in the mere reflection of it.
In the total effect of tragedy is predominated by the Dionysians no matter how powerful the Apollonian image and illusion.
Section 22
The apex and climax of the Apollonian art is the justification of the individual through contemplation.
"The tragic myth is to be understood only as a symbolization of Dionysian wisdom through Apollonian artifices" (Nietzsche, 131).
Those who view tragedy as strictly a morality issue have had no experience of tragedy as the supreme art and thus they are not all together aesthetically sensitive.
The deepest pathos can be merely an aesthetic play.
The aesthetic listener is reborn anew with the rebirth of tragedy.
Art, when used as a moral-religious tool of propaganda or as a socio-political tool dupes the audience and fosters emotions that only occur naturally outside of aesthetic scenarios. But, as with all artificial arts there is a rapid degeneration.
The theater is not a place for the moral education of the public.
Section 23
Without myth, "every culture loses the healthy natural power of its creativity" (Nietzsche, 135). Myth unifies culture.
Myth hayers man to interpret his life and struggles.
The Socratic seeks to destroy myth, but the myth less man stands, "eternally hungry" (Nietzsche, 136).
We must be aware of the necessary connotations of art and man, myth and customs, and tragedy and the state. The demise of one is the demise of all.
Section 24
The aesthetic spectator experiences seeing the myth and transcending all seeing at the same time. The coexistence of these two things is one of the most remarkable effects of tragedy.
Art is not so much an imitation of nature as a "metaphysical supplement of the reality of nature, placed beside it for its overcoming" (Nietzsche, 140).
To define tragedy (and all art) one must primarily seek its pleasure in the purely aesthetic sphere. Whatever further qualities it may have (i.e. moral qualities) are merely secondary.
Existence and the world are justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon.
The rebirth of tragedy will come from music and the German spirit will be born anew and no longer will the German genius live in prolonged degradation, in servitude to 'vicious dwarfs' (Christian Priests).
Section 25
Music and tragic myth are Dionysian and beyond the Apollonian.
The Dionysian and Apollonian must unfold their powers proportionately according to the law of eternal justice.
Fin
The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche
Section 20
The Journalist has replaced the professor in matters of culture.
The culture fears art because it is in a feeble state because it has realized its limitations and true art could fully destroy the Socratic-Alexandrian culture in its weakened state.
Schopenhauer was a man without hope but he nonetheless desired truth.
Dare to be tragic. Dare to be Dionysian for the age of the Socratic man is ending. "Prepare yourselves for hard strife, but believe in the miracles of your god" (Nietzsche, 124).
Section 21
We cannot learn from the Greeks without a rebirth of tragedy.
Tragedy is the stitching that held together the paradoxical nature of the Greeks. They were passionate individuals (Apollo) and yet whole-heartedly patriotic (Dionysian). They were their own men and one with the State. Tragedy served to keep these tendencies from tearing each other apart and leaving the Grecian ripped to pieces.
The tragedy produces the giant Dionysian weight of burden but in the same instance lifts it off our shoulders to that of the hero's.
The music creates the myth and yet shields us from its terrible power. The tragedy leads us to the comforting metaphysical illusion and brings about the "highest pleasure" through destruction and negation of the individual. We rejoice in the destruction, not the triumph of the hero and we are then at one, the Dionysian mystical oneness.
Only through music can we comprehend the most universal facts. Through music we hear the world will longing for existence and destruction.
Just as we have been completely destroyed of individuality by the Dionysian we are redeemed by the Apollonian in tragedy.
"The Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals" (Nietzsche, 128).
Music compels us to see most profoundly than ever before.
It is the Apollonian illusion that the Dionysian music serves the Apollonian concepts that saves us, but in reality, music is the real idea of the world and drama in the mere reflection of it.
In the total effect of tragedy is predominated by the Dionysians no matter how powerful the Apollonian image and illusion.
Section 22
The apex and climax of the Apollonian art is the justification of the individual through contemplation.
"The tragic myth is to be understood only as a symbolization of Dionysian wisdom through Apollonian artifices" (Nietzsche, 131).
Those who view tragedy as strictly a morality issue have had no experience of tragedy as the supreme art and thus they are not all together aesthetically sensitive.
The deepest pathos can be merely an aesthetic play.
The aesthetic listener is reborn anew with the rebirth of tragedy.
Art, when used as a moral-religious tool of propaganda or as a socio-political tool dupes the audience and fosters emotions that only occur naturally outside of aesthetic scenarios. But, as with all artificial arts there is a rapid degeneration.
The theater is not a place for the moral education of the public.
Section 23
Without myth, "every culture loses the healthy natural power of its creativity" (Nietzsche, 135). Myth unifies culture.
Myth hayers man to interpret his life and struggles.
The Socratic seeks to destroy myth, but the myth less man stands, "eternally hungry" (Nietzsche, 136).
We must be aware of the necessary connotations of art and man, myth and customs, and tragedy and the state. The demise of one is the demise of all.
Section 24
The aesthetic spectator experiences seeing the myth and transcending all seeing at the same time. The coexistence of these two things is one of the most remarkable effects of tragedy.
Art is not so much an imitation of nature as a "metaphysical supplement of the reality of nature, placed beside it for its overcoming" (Nietzsche, 140).
To define tragedy (and all art) one must primarily seek its pleasure in the purely aesthetic sphere. Whatever further qualities it may have (i.e. moral qualities) are merely secondary.
Existence and the world are justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon.
The rebirth of tragedy will come from music and the German spirit will be born anew and no longer will the German genius live in prolonged degradation, in servitude to 'vicious dwarfs' (Christian Priests).
Section 25
Music and tragic myth are Dionysian and beyond the Apollonian.
The Dionysian and Apollonian must unfold their powers proportionately according to the law of eternal justice.
Fin
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The Birth of Tragedy Section 13-19
(Originally written July 4, 2007 in Book 15)
The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche
Section 13
Through Socrates and Euripides the Greek culture placed greater emphasis on enlightenment and knowledge.
Socrates found that the 'wisest' of all Greeks really know nothing and only operated by instinct.
Socrates is the anti-mystic. Rather than relying on instinctive wisdom as the mystic does he uses consciousness to develop a hyper logical system.
The dying Socrates replaced all the old hero of Greece and became the image to which every young Grecian strived for.
Section 14
Socrates and his followers despised tragedy, but found solace and joy in the fables of Aesop.
"Poems are useful: they can tell the truth by means of parable to those who are not very bright" (Nietzsche, 90).
Socrates saw that tragedy did not tell the truth and that it was aimed at those who were not very bright. For these reasons it is doubly contemptible.
Plato also held tragedy in contempt, but his own artistic impulses necessitated him to create an art that was borne of the old ones.
Plato saw art as an imitation of a shadow and thus lower than even the contemptible empirical world.
Plato's dialogues blended narrative, lyric, drama, prose and poetry. He broke the strict law of uniformity of linguistics and created a whole new genre of art.
Plato's dialogues served as the savior of old poetry and the template for the novel.
The Apollonian tendency withdrew to logical schematism and the Dionysian transformed into Naturalism.
The optimistic maxims of
1) Virtue is knowledge
2) Man sins only from ignorance
3) The virtuous man is happy man served to fully kill tragedy.
Optimism destroys the essence of tragedy.
Though harsh against art in life at death Socrates obeyed the divine call to music asking, "Perhaps art is even a necessary correlative of, and supplement for science" (Nietzsche, 93).
Section 15
The Socratic way of life which exists today prompts a constant regeneration of art. The infinite of Socrates guarantees the infinity of art.
Socrates, to be recognized as truthful, must be viewed as the "theoretical man whose significance and aim it is our task to try and understand" (Nietzsche, 94).
The artist clings to the mystery while the theoretical man clings to what was once mystery and is non-known.
Lessing [who is Lessing?] is the most honest theoretical man because he announced that he cared more for the search for truth then for truth itself.
With Socrates, a profound illusion was born. This illusion holds that through unshakeable through using causality one can penetrate the deepest abyss of being and can furthermore correct the errors in being.
This metaphysical illusion accompanies science as an instinct and leads science time and time again to its limits where it must transform into art.
Socrates was the first man to live and die by the instinct of science. The dying Socrates is admired because he has absolved all fear of death through knowledge and reason.
Socrates stands as the turning point of history.
Pessimism in a practical sense will take over wherever art does not appear, especially as religion or science.
Socrates is the anti-pessimist. His optimistic faith that nature is intelligible and that sin is error, which is correctible denies pessimism a foothold.
Science needs art to protect it from its own boundaries. At the boundaries of science man becomes pessimistic if not reminded by art.
Section 16
There is a dichotomy between an insatiable lust for optimistic knowledge and the tragic need for art.
Apollo is the genius of the principium individuationis in which redemption through illusion is truly obtained. Dionysus is the mystical union in which the Apollonian principle is broken. It is from these two sources in which all art is born.
We may regard nature and music as two different expressions of the same thing.
Music is a universal language. It resembles geometrical figures and numbers as a definitive universalism. Music as a universal language is experienced a priori.
Music is not a copy of the physical world, but a copy of the will itself. As such, it stands in relation to the world as the will stands in relation to the world.
The world is embodied music as the world is embodied will.
Music, according to Schopenhauer, is the immediate language of the will.
Image and concept attain a higher significance under the influence of a truly corresponding music.
Music incites to the symbolic intuition of Dionysian Universality and music allows the symbolic image to emerge in its highest significance.
Music gives birth to the myth, most importantly the tragic myth: "the myth which expresses Dionysian knowledge in symbols" (Nietzsche, 103).
It is only through music that individuals can understand the joy of the annihilation of the individual.
Apollonian art triumphs the joys of this life by overshadowing suffering with beauty. Dionysian art overcomes the suffering of this life through the belief in the eternal life of the unified will.
Section 17
Dionysian art seeks to convince of us of the eternal joy of existence. But as Apollonian art does this through phenomena, Dionysian art seeks this from behind phenomena.
Myth was annihilated by the faith in science. Music is the way for myth to be reborn.
Aristophanes saw Socrates, Euripides and the music of the New Dithyrambic poets which mirrored phenomena, not the will itself, as enemies and destroyers of art.
By setting music to be descriptive of phenomena, music has been robbed of its power to create myth.
Music which merely represents phenomena is wretchedly poorer than the phenomena itself.
In Euripides, we see the triumph of scientific knowledge and the demise of artistic reflection. The phenomenal particulars win out over the universals.
Tragedy revealed a metaphysical comfort through music. But with music stripped of its myth-bearing power there is no metaphysical comfort and knowledge leaves us rawer than before we knew. There is no solace in science apart from art.
The new spirit of Greek art, deprived of myth, was to seek comfort in an earthly, phenomenal dissolution of tragedy. The hated deus ex machina replaced the metaphysical comfort.
The Dionysian spirit having been banished from the stage fled into the degenerate form of cult.
With the deus ex machina the Dionysian spirit was driven underground and individualism heralded the deus ex machina as the true comfort.
Metaphysical, universal comfort was lost and replaced by momentary particular comforts.
Section 18
There are three cultures:
1. Socratic (Alexandrian)
2. Hellenic (Artistic)
3. Tragic (Buddhistic)
The Alexandrian culture idolizes the theoretical man, reason, knowledge and science above all else.
The Socratic culture is delusional optimistic in believing that it possesses limitless power.
Myth is the necessary prerequisite of religion.
The tragic (Buddhistic) culture replaces science with wisdom at its highest end.
The Socratic culture will tremble with fear once its optimism has been shattered by learning of its power limitations.
Section 19
The Socratic culture is the culture of the opera.
The Socratic culture endures the music of opera to hear the words. All the while he trembles at the thought of giving the music too much appreciation and undoing the base of his culture.
The art of the opera responds to a powerful need, but it is a non-aesthetic need. It responds to the need for faith in the existence of the artistic and good man.
The origin of opera is the fulfillment of a non-aesthetic need: the glorification of man. It stands contra to the dogma of the inherently corrupt and lost man.
Opera is a birthing of the theoretical man, not the artist. The non-musical heroes of Opera demand t hat words are nobler than the tones as the soul is nobler than the body.
The opera is a crude unmusical combination of image, music and words.
"The premise of the opera is a false belief concerning the artistic process: the idyllic belief that every sentient man is an artist" (Nietzsche, 117).
The cultured Renaissance man let himself be led back to the primitive artistic man by imitation of Greek tragedy.
The opera does not touch sorrow as art ought to, but rather emphasizes the cheery optimism of eternal rediscovery.
Those who seek to destroy the unmusical opera would have to destroy the whole of the Socratic culture.
Art in the Socratic culture is empty because it is void of its true purpose: "to save the eye from gazing into the horrors of night and to deliver the subject by the healing balm of illusion from the spasms of the agitation of the will" (Nietzsche, 118).
Music is powerless when it is alienated from its true dignity as the Dionysian mirror of the world and as an expression of the will itself.
Music cannot be a slave to the phenomena or be a mere imitation of the formal characteristics of phenomena.
The Socratic culture cannot explain nor tolerate the reemergence of the Dionysian spirit which has taken place in music from Bach to Beethoven to Wagner.
The Dionysian spirit of this German music is the sole purifying fire in the Alexandrian culture of knowledge lust.
"All that we now call culture, education, civilization must some day appear before the unerring judge, Dionysus" (Nietzsche, 120).
Kant and Schopenhauer made it possible for the spirit of German philosophy to destroy Socratic scientific optimism.
The oneness of German music and philosophy points to the emergence of a Hellenic society. The Alexandrian age seems to be receding backwards to the Dawn of a new tragic age.
The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche
Section 13
Through Socrates and Euripides the Greek culture placed greater emphasis on enlightenment and knowledge.
Socrates found that the 'wisest' of all Greeks really know nothing and only operated by instinct.
Socrates is the anti-mystic. Rather than relying on instinctive wisdom as the mystic does he uses consciousness to develop a hyper logical system.
The dying Socrates replaced all the old hero of Greece and became the image to which every young Grecian strived for.
Section 14
Socrates and his followers despised tragedy, but found solace and joy in the fables of Aesop.
"Poems are useful: they can tell the truth by means of parable to those who are not very bright" (Nietzsche, 90).
Socrates saw that tragedy did not tell the truth and that it was aimed at those who were not very bright. For these reasons it is doubly contemptible.
Plato also held tragedy in contempt, but his own artistic impulses necessitated him to create an art that was borne of the old ones.
Plato saw art as an imitation of a shadow and thus lower than even the contemptible empirical world.
Plato's dialogues blended narrative, lyric, drama, prose and poetry. He broke the strict law of uniformity of linguistics and created a whole new genre of art.
Plato's dialogues served as the savior of old poetry and the template for the novel.
The Apollonian tendency withdrew to logical schematism and the Dionysian transformed into Naturalism.
The optimistic maxims of
1) Virtue is knowledge
2) Man sins only from ignorance
3) The virtuous man is happy man served to fully kill tragedy.
Optimism destroys the essence of tragedy.
Though harsh against art in life at death Socrates obeyed the divine call to music asking, "Perhaps art is even a necessary correlative of, and supplement for science" (Nietzsche, 93).
Section 15
The Socratic way of life which exists today prompts a constant regeneration of art. The infinite of Socrates guarantees the infinity of art.
Socrates, to be recognized as truthful, must be viewed as the "theoretical man whose significance and aim it is our task to try and understand" (Nietzsche, 94).
The artist clings to the mystery while the theoretical man clings to what was once mystery and is non-known.
Lessing [who is Lessing?] is the most honest theoretical man because he announced that he cared more for the search for truth then for truth itself.
With Socrates, a profound illusion was born. This illusion holds that through unshakeable through using causality one can penetrate the deepest abyss of being and can furthermore correct the errors in being.
This metaphysical illusion accompanies science as an instinct and leads science time and time again to its limits where it must transform into art.
Socrates was the first man to live and die by the instinct of science. The dying Socrates is admired because he has absolved all fear of death through knowledge and reason.
Socrates stands as the turning point of history.
Pessimism in a practical sense will take over wherever art does not appear, especially as religion or science.
Socrates is the anti-pessimist. His optimistic faith that nature is intelligible and that sin is error, which is correctible denies pessimism a foothold.
Science needs art to protect it from its own boundaries. At the boundaries of science man becomes pessimistic if not reminded by art.
Section 16
There is a dichotomy between an insatiable lust for optimistic knowledge and the tragic need for art.
Apollo is the genius of the principium individuationis in which redemption through illusion is truly obtained. Dionysus is the mystical union in which the Apollonian principle is broken. It is from these two sources in which all art is born.
We may regard nature and music as two different expressions of the same thing.
Music is a universal language. It resembles geometrical figures and numbers as a definitive universalism. Music as a universal language is experienced a priori.
Music is not a copy of the physical world, but a copy of the will itself. As such, it stands in relation to the world as the will stands in relation to the world.
The world is embodied music as the world is embodied will.
Music, according to Schopenhauer, is the immediate language of the will.
Image and concept attain a higher significance under the influence of a truly corresponding music.
Music incites to the symbolic intuition of Dionysian Universality and music allows the symbolic image to emerge in its highest significance.
Music gives birth to the myth, most importantly the tragic myth: "the myth which expresses Dionysian knowledge in symbols" (Nietzsche, 103).
It is only through music that individuals can understand the joy of the annihilation of the individual.
Apollonian art triumphs the joys of this life by overshadowing suffering with beauty. Dionysian art overcomes the suffering of this life through the belief in the eternal life of the unified will.
Section 17
Dionysian art seeks to convince of us of the eternal joy of existence. But as Apollonian art does this through phenomena, Dionysian art seeks this from behind phenomena.
Myth was annihilated by the faith in science. Music is the way for myth to be reborn.
Aristophanes saw Socrates, Euripides and the music of the New Dithyrambic poets which mirrored phenomena, not the will itself, as enemies and destroyers of art.
By setting music to be descriptive of phenomena, music has been robbed of its power to create myth.
Music which merely represents phenomena is wretchedly poorer than the phenomena itself.
In Euripides, we see the triumph of scientific knowledge and the demise of artistic reflection. The phenomenal particulars win out over the universals.
Tragedy revealed a metaphysical comfort through music. But with music stripped of its myth-bearing power there is no metaphysical comfort and knowledge leaves us rawer than before we knew. There is no solace in science apart from art.
The new spirit of Greek art, deprived of myth, was to seek comfort in an earthly, phenomenal dissolution of tragedy. The hated deus ex machina replaced the metaphysical comfort.
The Dionysian spirit having been banished from the stage fled into the degenerate form of cult.
With the deus ex machina the Dionysian spirit was driven underground and individualism heralded the deus ex machina as the true comfort.
Metaphysical, universal comfort was lost and replaced by momentary particular comforts.
Section 18
There are three cultures:
1. Socratic (Alexandrian)
2. Hellenic (Artistic)
3. Tragic (Buddhistic)
The Alexandrian culture idolizes the theoretical man, reason, knowledge and science above all else.
The Socratic culture is delusional optimistic in believing that it possesses limitless power.
Myth is the necessary prerequisite of religion.
The tragic (Buddhistic) culture replaces science with wisdom at its highest end.
The Socratic culture will tremble with fear once its optimism has been shattered by learning of its power limitations.
Section 19
The Socratic culture is the culture of the opera.
The Socratic culture endures the music of opera to hear the words. All the while he trembles at the thought of giving the music too much appreciation and undoing the base of his culture.
The art of the opera responds to a powerful need, but it is a non-aesthetic need. It responds to the need for faith in the existence of the artistic and good man.
The origin of opera is the fulfillment of a non-aesthetic need: the glorification of man. It stands contra to the dogma of the inherently corrupt and lost man.
Opera is a birthing of the theoretical man, not the artist. The non-musical heroes of Opera demand t hat words are nobler than the tones as the soul is nobler than the body.
The opera is a crude unmusical combination of image, music and words.
"The premise of the opera is a false belief concerning the artistic process: the idyllic belief that every sentient man is an artist" (Nietzsche, 117).
The cultured Renaissance man let himself be led back to the primitive artistic man by imitation of Greek tragedy.
The opera does not touch sorrow as art ought to, but rather emphasizes the cheery optimism of eternal rediscovery.
Those who seek to destroy the unmusical opera would have to destroy the whole of the Socratic culture.
Art in the Socratic culture is empty because it is void of its true purpose: "to save the eye from gazing into the horrors of night and to deliver the subject by the healing balm of illusion from the spasms of the agitation of the will" (Nietzsche, 118).
Music is powerless when it is alienated from its true dignity as the Dionysian mirror of the world and as an expression of the will itself.
Music cannot be a slave to the phenomena or be a mere imitation of the formal characteristics of phenomena.
The Socratic culture cannot explain nor tolerate the reemergence of the Dionysian spirit which has taken place in music from Bach to Beethoven to Wagner.
The Dionysian spirit of this German music is the sole purifying fire in the Alexandrian culture of knowledge lust.
"All that we now call culture, education, civilization must some day appear before the unerring judge, Dionysus" (Nietzsche, 120).
Kant and Schopenhauer made it possible for the spirit of German philosophy to destroy Socratic scientific optimism.
The oneness of German music and philosophy points to the emergence of a Hellenic society. The Alexandrian age seems to be receding backwards to the Dawn of a new tragic age.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Some weird thoughts on the number 7 & a recliner I once owned
(Originally written July 2, 2007 in the Red Notebook)
Notes for Epistemological Tautology
7. What is the definition of 7?
a) 1+6 (6+1)
b) 2+5 (5+2)
c) 3+4 (4+3)
d) 8-1
e) 9-2
f) 10-3
g) 7x1
h) 49/7
i) 42/6
j) 35/5
k) 28/4
l) 21/3
m) 14/2
etc, etc, ad infinitum
The definition of 7 is any combination of mathematical equations equal to seven. The complete definition of 7 is the totality of such equations. When we know that 3+4=7 the we know a partial definition of 7. Simply because we do not know that 21,812/3,116=7 does not mean that we do not know the definition of 7, only that we do not know the whole definition of 7.
Every equation that equals 7, is a tautology. That is, 14/2=7 or 21,812/3,116=7 is simply another way of stating that 7=7. All knowledge of numbers is tautological. That is to say that arithmetic is a gigantic conglomerate of tautologies.
Now, we shall apply this methodology to people, places or things that you know (any noun) or any thing that exists. Think on a thing, like a chair. Now isolate in your mind a particular chair, not the universal concept of chair. I have a recliner that is brown leather and beaten up. I purchased it at a yard sale. It is my favorite spot to sit in the whole house.
What is the definition of the recliner I am talking about?
a) brown chair
b) leather chair
c)brown leather chair with holes in it
d) the brown leather chair with holes in it I purchased at a yard sale
Now we can take definitions A, B, C, or D and set them equal to one another and to the name 'Chris' recliner' and we have a tautology. The knowledge we have of my recliner is tautological because "the brown leather chair with holes in it purchased at a yard sale on such-and-such a date" tells us nothing new about Chris' recliner. Wait a second! How could you have known that about my recliner before I told you? You didn't know this information before I told you and thus, it couldn't be tautological.
Remember I purchased this chair at a yard sale. I do not know the entire history of the chair. I cannot tell you its origin or its whereabouts at all times before I purchased it. Does my lack of knowledge make the chair's history any less a part of it? Of course not! But, can you plausibly deny that I do not know the definition of my own recliner? Prior to this silly little experiment did you know that 21,812/3,116=7? No? But you know the definition of 7 surely? All you learned by this is another way of expressing 7, because 7 entails the prior equation, just like Chris' recliner entails "the brown leather chair with holes in it purchased at a yard sale on such-and-such a date"+ some lost history. Thus, once you became aware of the existence of Chris' recliner all other knowledge about the recliner was merely tautological and you learn only ways of expressing the notion of Chris' recliner.
Notes for Epistemological Tautology
7. What is the definition of 7?
a) 1+6 (6+1)
b) 2+5 (5+2)
c) 3+4 (4+3)
d) 8-1
e) 9-2
f) 10-3
g) 7x1
h) 49/7
i) 42/6
j) 35/5
k) 28/4
l) 21/3
m) 14/2
etc, etc, ad infinitum
The definition of 7 is any combination of mathematical equations equal to seven. The complete definition of 7 is the totality of such equations. When we know that 3+4=7 the we know a partial definition of 7. Simply because we do not know that 21,812/3,116=7 does not mean that we do not know the definition of 7, only that we do not know the whole definition of 7.
Every equation that equals 7, is a tautology. That is, 14/2=7 or 21,812/3,116=7 is simply another way of stating that 7=7. All knowledge of numbers is tautological. That is to say that arithmetic is a gigantic conglomerate of tautologies.
Now, we shall apply this methodology to people, places or things that you know (any noun) or any thing that exists. Think on a thing, like a chair. Now isolate in your mind a particular chair, not the universal concept of chair. I have a recliner that is brown leather and beaten up. I purchased it at a yard sale. It is my favorite spot to sit in the whole house.
What is the definition of the recliner I am talking about?
a) brown chair
b) leather chair
c)brown leather chair with holes in it
d) the brown leather chair with holes in it I purchased at a yard sale
Now we can take definitions A, B, C, or D and set them equal to one another and to the name 'Chris' recliner' and we have a tautology. The knowledge we have of my recliner is tautological because "the brown leather chair with holes in it purchased at a yard sale on such-and-such a date" tells us nothing new about Chris' recliner. Wait a second! How could you have known that about my recliner before I told you? You didn't know this information before I told you and thus, it couldn't be tautological.
Remember I purchased this chair at a yard sale. I do not know the entire history of the chair. I cannot tell you its origin or its whereabouts at all times before I purchased it. Does my lack of knowledge make the chair's history any less a part of it? Of course not! But, can you plausibly deny that I do not know the definition of my own recliner? Prior to this silly little experiment did you know that 21,812/3,116=7? No? But you know the definition of 7 surely? All you learned by this is another way of expressing 7, because 7 entails the prior equation, just like Chris' recliner entails "the brown leather chair with holes in it purchased at a yard sale on such-and-such a date"+ some lost history. Thus, once you became aware of the existence of Chris' recliner all other knowledge about the recliner was merely tautological and you learn only ways of expressing the notion of Chris' recliner.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
An unfinished, unpolished essay on free will & bumper cars
(Originally Written July 1, 2007 in the Red Notebook)
Essay: Determinism, Free Will & Bumper Cars
Are we who we are because of our selves or because of something beyond our control? Are we free or are we determined creatures? This question seems to have plagued us since we have become cognizant of God, which means that we have been plagued by it forever.
It is my opinion that we are in some sense free creatures who are subject to a number of determinations. If we were purely free creatures we would be free to will our own existence. But, since none of us chose to be born we all must be determined in some way.
Our birth is akin to being placed in an amusement park. There are many rides for us to choose to ride or choose not to ride. Sometimes, other factors in the park force us to make decisions, but these decisions are wholly ours. Once we make any decision there are limitations to the outcome of those decisions.
Say for instance, we choose to ride the bumper cars. While we had no choice of entering the amusement park (birth), we did choose to ride the bumper cars over not riding the bumper cars. Once we have made this decision, possible outcomes have been determined and others have been eliminated. We cannot, while we ride the bumper cars, ride the Ferris wheel (though we may choose to do so later). But as it stands we have chosen to ride the bumper cars out of our free will.
The bumper cars simply represent any situation we choose to place ourselves into. So, now that we have chosen to ride the bumper cars we must enter the car. Once we enter the car we face things that are out of our control. We face determining factors.
The pole must touch the ceiling in order for our car to have power. Without contact our car cannot move an inch, no matter how much we will it to do so. The pole and ceiling connection is like the natural world. Without the laws of nature and simple natural phenomena we cannot function regardless of our strength of will.
Secondly, even if the connection of the pole and ceiling is correct, we cannot will our car to move if the ride operator has not engaged the electricity. In order for us to achieve our willed end of riding the bumper cars we must rely on the determining factor that the operator will engage the electricity. The operator in this scenario is an aspect of God, the sustaining power of God.
Once the operator has turned on the ride and we begin to move we have full control of our cars in the space allotted to the ride. This space is predetermined by the builder. The builder here is the creating power of God.
As we move the car we notice that there are many other cars. We only have control over our own car though. We can choose to impact or not to impact other cars, but we cannot choose to have others not impact us except by maneuvering away from them. That is, we have no control over the will of others. Other cars in this scenario are the other creatures. Their wills and thus, there actions, can impact our actions, but not our wills. Likewise, our wills and actions may impact their actions, but not there wills, except in an indirect way.
Sometimes in life and in bumper cars, we get stuck. Sometimes it is in a corner. Other times it is behind lifeless cars. Sometimes we drive ourselves into these situations. Other times we are bumped into them. No matter the power of our will or action we can't get ourselves unstuck. We must rely on the operator (God) to remove us from the situation.
Essay: Determinism, Free Will & Bumper Cars
Are we who we are because of our selves or because of something beyond our control? Are we free or are we determined creatures? This question seems to have plagued us since we have become cognizant of God, which means that we have been plagued by it forever.
It is my opinion that we are in some sense free creatures who are subject to a number of determinations. If we were purely free creatures we would be free to will our own existence. But, since none of us chose to be born we all must be determined in some way.
Our birth is akin to being placed in an amusement park. There are many rides for us to choose to ride or choose not to ride. Sometimes, other factors in the park force us to make decisions, but these decisions are wholly ours. Once we make any decision there are limitations to the outcome of those decisions.
Say for instance, we choose to ride the bumper cars. While we had no choice of entering the amusement park (birth), we did choose to ride the bumper cars over not riding the bumper cars. Once we have made this decision, possible outcomes have been determined and others have been eliminated. We cannot, while we ride the bumper cars, ride the Ferris wheel (though we may choose to do so later). But as it stands we have chosen to ride the bumper cars out of our free will.
The bumper cars simply represent any situation we choose to place ourselves into. So, now that we have chosen to ride the bumper cars we must enter the car. Once we enter the car we face things that are out of our control. We face determining factors.
The pole must touch the ceiling in order for our car to have power. Without contact our car cannot move an inch, no matter how much we will it to do so. The pole and ceiling connection is like the natural world. Without the laws of nature and simple natural phenomena we cannot function regardless of our strength of will.
Secondly, even if the connection of the pole and ceiling is correct, we cannot will our car to move if the ride operator has not engaged the electricity. In order for us to achieve our willed end of riding the bumper cars we must rely on the determining factor that the operator will engage the electricity. The operator in this scenario is an aspect of God, the sustaining power of God.
Once the operator has turned on the ride and we begin to move we have full control of our cars in the space allotted to the ride. This space is predetermined by the builder. The builder here is the creating power of God.
As we move the car we notice that there are many other cars. We only have control over our own car though. We can choose to impact or not to impact other cars, but we cannot choose to have others not impact us except by maneuvering away from them. That is, we have no control over the will of others. Other cars in this scenario are the other creatures. Their wills and thus, there actions, can impact our actions, but not our wills. Likewise, our wills and actions may impact their actions, but not there wills, except in an indirect way.
Sometimes in life and in bumper cars, we get stuck. Sometimes it is in a corner. Other times it is behind lifeless cars. Sometimes we drive ourselves into these situations. Other times we are bumped into them. No matter the power of our will or action we can't get ourselves unstuck. We must rely on the operator (God) to remove us from the situation.
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