Friedrich Nietzsche: some aphorisms

"The good four. Honest with ourselves and with whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy; generous toward the vanquished;  polite--always: that is how the four cardinal virtues want us."   

I don't know what he means by "the four cardinal virtues,"  but as I was raised a Catholic, they were justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence.    Doesn't seem to be much of an overlap here, is there?
Polite?  That seems to have disappeared today or so it seems to me. 




"Against an enemy.  How good bad music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy!"

I guess the mind or the reasoning faculties shut down and emotion takes over.



"Shedding one's skin.   The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes.  So do the spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be spirit."  

Didn't one of our two political parties make a virtue recently of not changing one's opinions regardless of the situation.  Those who do are accused of "wobbling."



All quotations are from
The Portable Nietzsche
Walter Kaufman:  Editor and translator

Friedrich Nietzsche: on disarmament

#284

"The means to real peace.   No government admits any more that it keeps an army to satisfy occasionally the desire for conquest.   Rather the army is supposed to serve for defense, and one invokes the morality that approves of self-defense.  But this implies one's own morality and the neighbor's immorality;  for the neighbor must be thought of as eager to attack and conquer if our state must think of means of self-defense.  Moreover, the reasons we give for requiring an army imply that our neighbor, who denies the desire for conquest just as much as does our own state, and, who, for his part, also keeps an army only for reasons of self-defense, is a hypocrite and a cunning criminal who would like nothing better than to overpower a harmless and awkward victim without any fight.  Thus all states are now ranged against each other: they presuppose their neighbor's bad disposition and their own good disposition.  This presupposition, however,  is inhumane, as bad as war and worse.  At bottom, indeed, it is itself the challenge and the cause of wars, because, as I have said, it attributes immorality to the neighbor and thus provokes a hostile disposition and act.  We must abjure the doctrine of the army as a means of self-defense just as completely as the desire for conquests.

And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, 'We break the sword,' and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations.  Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling--that it is the means to real peace, which must always rest upon a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind.  One trusts neither oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms.  Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared--this must someday become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth too.

Our liberal representatives, as it is well known, lack the time for reflecting on the nature of man:  else they would know that they work in vain when they work for a 'gradual decrease of the military burden.'   Rather, when this kind of need has become greatest will the kind of god be nearest who alone can help here.  The tree of war-glory can only be destroyed all at once, by a stroke of lightning:  but lightning, as indeed you know, comes from a cloud--and from up high."

--Friedrich Nietzsche --
from The Portable Nietzsche
p. 71


A bit naive, isn't he?   Could this really work?  For example, could the US really unilaterally disarm today?  The last paragraph is somewhat confusing.  Is Nietzsche saying that only god could bring this about?  Is he suggesting that while disarmament is best, humans are incapable of achieving this? 

Many years ago I read an SF story in which a character stated that if WWIII is a nuclear war, then WWIV will be fought with clubs and stones.  Perhaps that cloud Nietzsche writes of is a mushroom cloud.

Nietzsche: on prohibitions

#48
"Prohibitions without reasons: A prohibition, the reason for which we do not understand or admit, is almost a command not only for the stubborn but also for those who thirst for knowledge: one risks an experiment to find out why the prohibition was pronounced.  Moral prohibitions, like those of  the  Decalogue, are suitable only for an age of subjugated reason: now, such a prohibition as "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not commit adultery,"  presented without reasons, would have a harmful rather than a useful effect."

-- Nietzsche --
from The Wanderer and His Shadow
in  The Portable Nietzsche


I have to disagree with Nietzsche at one point for I think he was overly optimistic about the state of human reason.  He seemed to think that no longer could anyone simply issue a prohibition without adequate reasons and get people to obey.  Or, perhaps when Nietzsche was writing, this was true of the general population.  If so, then the situation has deteriorated for I see millions of people who simply follow orders about doing or not doing something simply because they were told to do so and without questioning the rationale for such orders.

But, some, no doubt, will argue that I'm wrong here because I don't accept someone saying "God said so" or "the government said so" or some "Leader said so" as being an adequate reason. 

Nietzsche: Some relevant thoughts (or perhaps not)

Nietzsche says:


"And to say it once more. Public opinions--private lazinesses."


"Enemies of truth.  Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."


"The value of insipid opponents.  At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."


"Not suitable as a party member.   Whoever thinks much is not suitable as a party member:  he soon thinks himself right through the party."


"The party man.  The true party man learns no longer--he only experiences and judges; while Solon who was never a party man but pursued his goals alongside and above the parties, or against them, is characteristically the father of the plain maxim in which the health and inexhaustibility of Athens is contained: 'I grow old and always continue to learn.'"

 -- Nietzsche --
from The Portable Nietzsche
Walter Kaufmann,  Editor and translator



.What sayest thou?   Relevant or not?

Serendipity: Nietzsche

Quotations taken from Human, All-Too-Human



83
The sleep of virtue. When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed.

I guess a little sinnin' is good for you, at least according to Nietzsche. But, I wonder--are people really more virtuous after engaging in an sinful escapade, or two, or three, or . . .?




184
Untranslatable. It is neither the best nor the worst in a book that is untranslatable.


I included this because I don't understand why he thinks this should be so.



189
Thoughts in a poem. The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm: usually because they could not walk.

I've often thought the same about many contemporary music groups: those with the spectacular light shows, colored smoke, strange costumes and hairstyles, and bizarre behavior usually are trying to hide that they are, at best, mediocre performers and/or singers. I guess they hope the audience won't notice how truly bad they really are.


All quotations from Human, All-Too-Human are taken from The Portable Nietzsche, translations by Walter Kaufmann.

Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf

Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and the endings of various works.

It’s been several decades since I last read Hesse’s Steppenwolf, so I was curious as to how well it would hold up and how I would understand it now, a half century later. At the end, I thought it still a very interesting and intriguing work, but my understanding of it now is quite different from what I understood the first time I read it. When I first read it, I saw it as a novel in isolation, something unique. Now, I see that Steppenwolf has its relatives; it does not exist in isolation.

Steppenwolf has essentially a two-part structure. Part One consists of defining Harry Haller’s personality, his conflicts, and his relationship to post-war society in Germany. Haller reveals himself and learns even more from a remarkable “free pamphlet” he is given —Treatise on the Steppenwolf: Not for Everybody.

In the second part, Harry meets the classic prostitute with a heart of gold who makes it her goal to teach Harry how to live and enjoy himself. Her lessons involve sex, drugs, and the fox trot. At the end, in the Magic Theater, Harry embarks on a trip of self-discovery with a rather unique goal—he is to learn to laugh.

Harry Haller can be seen in several different ways. One is that of the respected academic who is torn by conflicting feelings about himself and his relationship to society--a sense of isolation or alienation. Another would be that of a seeker who is searching for enlightenment. Yet, another would be that of a man undergoing a severe depression. One more might be what is called a “mid-life crisis” in pop psychology. The work would support any of these views, but the ending seems to support the second theory—that of the seeker searching for enlightenment, in a Buddhist sense, that is. This would give it ties to another work of his, Siddhartha, about which I posted a short commentary a short time ago.

Harry, though, sees himself as two conflicted beings: the respected academic and the Steppenwolf, the outsider, the free creature who is outside civilization. Frankly, however, Haller comes across, to me anyway, more like an wolf/dog who has run away, but who also clings to the outskirts of human society, fearing to enter, but unable to leave.

While reading it the second time, I was reminded throughout of several works which seemed, to me at least, to share common themes: Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground (1863), Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy ( 1872), and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice (1911). Steppenwolf was the latest of the four, first published in 1927.

I think Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy serves as a unifier of all three works. Nietzsche’s definition of the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies in human culture is exemplified by the three main characters: the German Gustave Aschenbach, the respected professor in Mann’s Death in Venice, the Russian underground man in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, and Harry Haller..

Nietzsche describes the Apollonian mind as possessing “that measured restraint, that freedom from the wilder emotions, that calm . . .” It is characterized by an intellectual, reasonable, temperate, and controlled life. The Dionysian is characterized as “chaos,” “a terror,” “blissful ecstasy,” or “intoxication,” “complete self-forgetfulness,” or ”union with nature.” It is the unpredictable, the irrational, the “uncivilized.” In other words, it is the two sides of human nature, antithetical but both necessary to art, to society and to culture—control and restraint civilization versus excess and extravagance and nature—the yin and yang of the Taoists.

The Notes from Underground has a structure that is similar to Steppenwolf. The first part consists of an extended passage in which the underground man (UM) reveals himself. He is a civil servant who has come into a small inheritance and has retired. He is an outsider with no friends or relatives. He lives in isolation. He sneers at society, but at the same time longs to join them, to be one of them, just as Harry mocks the bourgeoisie, but always lives among them and gains honor and respect as an academic.

In the second part, the UM forces himself upon some former student acquaintances who are giving a going-away party for one of the students. It is here we see, just as in Steppenwolf, the protagonist in action. The UM insists on attending the party, while mocking himself and eventually the others. He desires to be one with them, but actively works to make this impossible.

In the second part of Steppenwolf, Harry Haller meets Hermine who introduces him to a life of pleasure and sensuality drugs, music—especially dance music, alcohol, and sex—most of which Harry has sneered at in the past. Like the UM, Harry is immersed in society, but can’t really join them. Hermine is necessary to help him break out of his straitjacket, before he can move on.

The UM also meets a prostitute in the second part, but his encounter is quite the opposite of Harry’s. Where Harry is induced to join the pleasure seekers, the UM persuades Liza to escape from the life of a prostitute. However, when Liza appears at his apartment the next day, telling him that she wants to escape, he rejects her and sends her away.

Like Harry Haller, Thomas Mann’s Gustave Aschenbach is a respected academic. Unlike Haller, Aschenbach has dedicated his life to research and writing, with no contrary thoughts. Being a Steppenwolf is something Aschenbach has never considered throughout his life. However, at the beginning of Death in Venice, Aschenbach is tired, overworked, and sleeping badly. He decides to go for a walk, in hopes of reviving himself for another evening of productive work.

During the walk, he sees a traveler bearing a rucksack on his back, and this produces a most surprising emotional response: “the most surprising consciousness of a widening of inward barriers, a kind of vaulting unrest, a youthfully ardent thirst for distant scenes—a feeling so lively and so new, or at least so long ago outgrown and forgotten that he stood there rooted to the spot . . . a longing to travel. . . such suddenness and passion as to resemble a seizure . . .”

He ”imaged the marvels and terrors of the manifold earth. He saw. He beheld a landscape, a tropical marshland, beneath a reeking sky, steaming, monstrous, rank—a kind of primeval wilderness-world of islands, morasses, and alluvial channels. Hairy palm trunks rose near and far out of lush brakes of fern, out of bottoms of crass vegetation, fat, swollen, thick with incredible bloom. There were trees , misshapen as a dream . . .”

Nietzsche would recognize this as a Dionysian seizure, emerging from decades of a controlled life of mental activity. Unlike Haller though, Aschenbach has not led a tormented life of struggle between the two tendencies but had successfully suppressed that aspect of his personality. Now the desire to travel, actually more of an escape from his life of dedication to the intellect, has taken over and he flees to Venice. It is in Venice that he sees the Polish youth Tadzio and forgetting all restraint, becomes obsessed with him. Like Haller, he puts aside his Apollonian measured and controlled existence for the chaos and excesses of the Dionysian.

The three works conclude quite differently and, in fact, cover the possible spectrum of endings. The UM apparently is trapped in his self-induced isolation, with no exit seemingly possible. Aschenbach’s obsession ends in death. Haller really comes to no end in the work for he is now trapped in the Magic Theater.

“I would sample its tortures once more and shudder again at its senselessness. I would traverse not once more, but often the hell of my inner being.

One day I would be a better hand at this game. One day I would learn how to laugh.”

This has the flavor of the Buddhist belief that all are trapped within the endless cycle of birth and death until one becomes enlightened and now free to achieve the ultimate goal of existence—Nirvana. For Harry, the goal is to laugh the laugh of the immortals.

Is it coincidence that Harry Haller’s initials are HH, as are those of the author?

Overall Reaction: a remarkable book, which I now find richer and more thought-provoking than I found it the first time around, when it did not bring to mind the works of Nietzsche, Mann, and Dostoyevsky. No doubt there are other works that other readers can bring to mind while reading Steppenwolf.

Something to think about

Friedrich Nietzsche

Original Error of the philosopher.

All philosophers share this common error: they proceed from contemporary man and think they can reach their goal through an analysis of this man. Automatically they think of "man" as an eternal verity, as something abiding in the whirlpool, as a sure measure of things. Everything that the philosopher says about man, however, is at bottom no more than a testimony about the man of a very limited period. Lack of a historical sense is the original error of all philosophers . . .

Several questions here-

Is this a common error? Is this even an error? Has human nature remained constant over the tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of years?

Do all philosophers share this error? Are there exceptions?

If not philosophers, then one might consider anthropologists and archeologists. They have found burials from 20 or 30 thousand years ago with flowers and other items along with the body. Are they wrong in assuming this showed something significant about the way they felt about the death of this person because we sometimes bury important items with our loved ones?

Or the significance of the cave paintings . . .?

Or in literature? Can we really understand Gilgamesh's behavior or that of the Greeks and Trojans in The Iliad and The Odyssey?

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Nietzsche on Deities.

For the highest images in every religion there is an analogue in a state of the soul. The God of Mohammed--the solitude of the desert, the distant roar of a lion, the vision of a terrible fighter. The God of the Christians--everything that men and women associate with the word "love." The God of the Greeks--a beautiful dream image.

Nietzsche
from The Portable Nietzsche (p. 49)


What do you think? Is he right on or way off, or somewhere in between?