Re: ER as weltanschauung?
Ingrid Markhardt (IMARK@macc.wisc.edu)
Tue, 17 Jun 97 07:59 CST
>From: IN%"nietzsche@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU"
>To: nietzsche@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: ER as weltanschauung?
>
>> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 11:55:03 -0700 (PDT)
>> To: nietzsche@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
>> From: George Sherwood <steppen@lightspeed.net>
>> Subject: Re: ER as weltanschauung?
>> Reply-to: nietzsche@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
>
>> At 08:33 AM 6/6/97 CST, Ingrid Markhard wrote:
>>
>> >Just a comment on the ongoing discussion involving the painting analogy
>> (which
>> >perhaps fatally inserts a thread of Plato into the Heraclitean weave which
>> >George's signature quotation refers us to):
>> >
>> >George wrote,
>> >
>> >> . . .In our study of the ancients we may
>> >>come to an epiphany, which can be compared to the moment of a finished work
>> >>of art. Once we reach an epiphany, or once we finish a work of art, that is
>> >>not the end of it, but only the beginning. In both cases, we have "gone
>> >>under," below the surface of tradition and deeper than we thought reality
>> >>could go, and we want more. More importantly, we now know there is more. We
>> >>"go under" to deeper depths of life that hide below "mere appearance." In
>> >>other words, we start a new painting, only in this one we have "a yes, a
>> >>no, a straight line, a goal."
>> >>
>>
>> Ingrid Markhard also wrote:
>>
>> >"Going-under" in _The Gay Science_, in _Zarathustra_, in _The Will to
>> Power_ &
>> >elsewhere in Nietzsche, esp re the overman/superman and ER is quite often
>> >the verb "untergehen" which means to sink, be wrecked, to founder, go to
>> ruin,
>> >perish, be lost or annihilated, become extinct, and not "going-under" or even
>> >"undergoing" This is important both in terms of "creation"/affirmation,
>> and in
>> >terms of the "surface" which is to be allowed to veil the deeper depths. see
>> >"Nietzsche Contra Wagner" at the end of _The Portable Nietzsche_ where he
>> says
>> >(this is from memory--I'm at work & away from my books)
>> >
>> >"Oh those Greeks! They had the courage to stop at the surface. . . adorers of
>> >appearances,. . . tones!"
>> >
>> >Does this perhaps tuns the thread again slightly to a discussion of music,
>> >tempo, rhythm...? a crucial element in _The Birth of Tragedy_, and the
>> notion
>> >of ER.
>> >
>>
>> Could it be that I harbor a deep misunderstanding of N? Quite possible,
>> perhaps even probable, since my reading and interpretation of N is based on
>> experience and not scholarly debate, or, for that matter, any type of
>> debate. This is why I joined the list, to put my views to the test. In the
>> context of this thread, I offer this quote from Kaufmann's Nietzsche (p 216):
>>
>> "Nietzsche proposed to explain all human behavior in terms of the will to
>> power... One may now quote him specifically: 'our drives [Triebe] are
>> reducible to the will to power' (xiv, 287). This is the result of
>> Nietzsche's 'small single questions and experiments' by which he penetrated
>> human motivation far more deeply--so he thought--than any of the more
>> systematic philosophers had done before him: they had all been impeded by
>> the conventionally moralistic presuppositions of their systems:
>>
>> 'All of psychology to date remained stuck in moral prejudices and
>> apprehensions: it did not dare go into any depths. To comprehend it
>> [psychology] as the morphology and the _theory of the evolution of the will
>> to power_, as I do--that nobody has come close to doing yet even in
>> thought--insofar as it is permitted to recognize in what has so far been
>> written a symptom of what has so far been kept secret (J 23; cf. xviii,
>> 399].'"
>>
>> So my question is this: Wouldn't leaving the surface meaning behind be a
>> "going under" below the depths of surface meaning, resulting in
>> '"untergehen" which means to sink, be wrecked, to founder, go to ruin,
>> perish, be lost or annihilated, become extinct'? After all, isn't the
>> Dionysian a death and a rebirth? Isn't an existential nihilism a perquisite
>> to an overcoming?
>>
>> From Zarathustra:
>>
>> "I would give away and distribute, until the wise among men find joy once
>> again in their folly, and the poor in their riches.
>>
>> For that I must descend to the depths, as you do in the evening when you go
>> behind the sea and still bring light to the underworld, you overrich star.
>>
>> Like you, I must _go under_-- go down, as is said by man, to whom I want to
>> descend" (Zarathustra, 1,1).
>>
>> What is it that N gives away and distributes if not deeper insights? So I
>> propose that a self-going-under leads to an affirmation of the moment, the
>> ER, which leads to the overman through a will to power. After all, isn't
>> the experience of music the experience of the moment?
>>
>> And then there is this: "What you are doing and opining now is not really
>> you." (a paraphrase?). Wouldn't this realization itself result in
>> "untergehen"? But if we wish to discover the real self, "_one thing is
>> needful_," and this one thing is a search for the real self and a creation
>> of the same, which of necessity requires suffering--"untergehen." Somewhere
>> along the line, we might also experience the "great contempt" for the
>> surface illusion we thought was life--we thought was us. Sure, there will
>> be nausea, but "What does not destroy us makes us stronger."
>>
>> George
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> A man's maturity--consists in having found again the seriousness one had as
>> a child, at play" ~ Nietzsche.
>>
>>
>> --- from list nietzsche@jefferson.village.virginia.edu ---
>>
>> After all, isn't
>> the experience of music the experience of the moment?
>
>As Walter Pater saw it, music is the highest art in its inseparable
>combination of form and content. The "moment" is, in this sense, a
>flagrant example of immediacy, and so there is no depth, only an
>overabundant surface appearance.
>
>In all literature the work which best satisfies the "condition of
>music" is Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground, the reasoning
>behind which, if anyone is interested, i shall explain.
>
>Andrew
>
>
>
>
> --- from list nietzsche@jefferson.village.virginia.edu ---
I would be interested in a linkage between surface/moment/music and _Notes from
Underground_
Ingrid
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