>A reverse or inverse categorical imperative indeed it is not, anymore
>than it is the apology of irresponsibility. But the ethos of the ER
>demands that one be responsible for one's reactions, as much as innocent
>in one's actions: it is after all a selective thought for a selective
>action; a rule "as rigorous as Kant's rule" (Deleuze), but certainly not
>Kant's rule. It does not prescribe an impersonal (universal) content or
>form for one's actions, only that one be sure that their return should
>be welcomed an infinite series of times- and thus act accordingly.
The thought does open up some interesting threads in Nietzsche's thinking.
For instance, according to N., we can only ascribe responsibility to a
"subject," which Nietzsche suggests was invented so that such responsibility
could be ascribed in the first place. In other words, the subject (soul,
ego, etc.) does not exist prior to the ascription of responsibility, but is
brought into being by such an ascription (_as_ such an ascription?).
>However, one should keep in mind the ultimate implications of the ER
>seized as return of the other, not as return of the same: if one is to
>welcome the return of the active affects, rather than be depressed by
>the prospect of an unending repetition of the same tiring reactions, one
>should learn that the key to preventing one's unacted reactions from
>recurring lies precisely in becoming responsible for them, in activating
>them. That alone is the condition for innocence: selecting one's
>reactions out from recurrence. So, one man's evil may be another's
>salvation without that having to imply any equalization whatsoever of
>values: as qualities of force, reactive still remains such, whether
>activated or not, and active retains its difference.
The difference is between being in command of one's reactions, being able to
"marshal" them, if you will, and being "in thrall" to them. Nietzsche refers
to the "ability to not react" as a sign of the higher type, the "master."
Which I take to be the ability to interpose a self-generated response in the
place of a reaction. Still, it is difficult for me to think of this as a
"responsibility," rather than simply as a capacity. If anything, Nietzsche's
"savage nobles" are free in their reactions right here--they are uninhibited
to the extreme. They are free to react or not react. The "slave," on the
other hand, is inhibited in his immediate reactions, is forced to swallow
them in fear of the "master." Even so, he is not free to not react, but must
react against himself as the immediate target of his enmity. Thus, his full
reactivity, as "reactive pathos," is the result of his own
self-laceration--he lacerates himself for his own impotency, but,
ironically, recovers a measure of power (potency) thereby (for he is both
the lacerated and the lacerator).
>Lastly, the ER hardly has anything to do with Mr. Sherwood's simplistic
>banalization, which reduces it to a mere narcissistic affectation: as if
>one could not tear up one's painting, etc, without welcoming the return
>of the painting, the act of painting and the act of tearing it up.
Having spent a fair amount of time daubing about with brush and pigments,
the question arises as to at which point the painter knows that a painting
or drawing is finished. I know from experience that many times the
realization that a work was done was an immediate and sudden one, and not by
any means arrived at in a gradual fashion, bit by bit. I would suggest that
it is just for this moment that the "artist" lives, the moment at which the
whole, generally a messy affair, becomes perfect. The experience of the
return is that nothing need be added, nothing removed. The apotheotic
moment. It is in this sense that the Eternal Return is a quintessentially
"creative" experience. On the other hand, every artist also knows of those
many times in which a work does not come to perfection, where the sudden
realization of completion never arrives, or only arrives slowly, begrudgingly.
>There is hardly anything more threatening to the ego than the assumption
>of the ER as an ethical thought and a selective action.
Especially since, according to Nietzsche's thought, the ego is a social
fiction invented specifically so that there might be that which is
commanded, held responsible. This is why the ER is destructive to the "weak"
who cannot bear the deadly truths (for instance, that the ego is a fiction).
You quote from Deleuze is, I think, quite appropriate:
>"[...] It makes willing something whole. The thought of the
>eternal return eliminates from willing everything which falls outside
>the eternal return, it makes willing a creation, it brings about the
>equation 'willing = creation' ". (Nietzsche & Philosophy, G. Deleuze, p.
>68-69)
Best,
Steve C.
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