Re: Eternal Recurrence: keine Weltanschauung!

Leonardo Raggo (ac857@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca)
Wed, 25 Jun 1997 05:42:01 -0600 (CST)

Lambda C wrote:
>
> That life has no inherent meaning does not imply that Nietzsche's
> evolving concepts of the cycle of eternal recurrence cannot open
> differences in becoming, nor that being is empty for want of identity,
> as Mr. Raggo seems to suggest ("empty repetition", "lack of return",
> "doesn't open any other possibility", "empty being", "radical
> impotence", "coldness and hardness of the ER as an abyss", all
> definitions in the negative, by the negative...).
>
> The concept of the cycle of the eternal recurrence we have put into
> evidence in this forum in a previous post is idiosyncratic, but not to
> Deleuze (as Mr. Rhodes pretends), rather, to Nietzsche. It directly
> presents the positivity of being as the being of becoming (becoming
> other). With the odd exception, this list in general assumes that by
> the ER, Nietzsche only meant an endless repetition of the same and, at
> that, the same reactions and their complexes. But this was merely
> Nietzsche's point of departure for much deeper insights into the matter
> of power, time and the will to life. Zarathustra only takes one to the
> point of negation of all existing values, the values of reactive life
> and the negation of reactive life itself, preparing solely the way for
> the
> double affirmation and the creation of new values. But the realization
> of the pointlessness of the epiphenomena of reactive life (life reduced
> to survival) does not imply that life itself is empty repetition, nor
> that phenomena cannot be willed differently.
.............................................................snip....
> "What in general is the purpose of morality_ if life, nature, and
> history are 'non-moral'?"(GS, 344)
>
> It follows that an actual grasp of the ER, as concept and percept,
> stands for a radical displacement of one's assemblage focus, and can
> serve as source of a radically new power in life. If Rhodes dislikes
> Deleuze, it is solely because Deleuze - along with Klossowski, Bataille
> and a handful of others- has had the courage to affirm the tremendous
> positivity, originality and idiosyncrasy of Nietzsche's thought
> regarding life, time, knowledge and power, the very same positivity so
> easily ignored by his fans (those who use or used Nietzsche as a
> catechism after the orgasm...) and his detractors alike, with their dim
> and gloomy views. It is this positivity which most threatens the world
> views of established values, not criticism of the latter. And it is the
> same positivity which meets with the silence of Nietzsche's self-styled
> enemies - as it has happened often enough, even in this forum.
>
> The ER is not a vision of the world. It is either the world and its
> life, or it is nothing. As for Nietzsche's philosophy, or thought,
> specifically with respect to the ER, no one can claim it is other than
> an open system of thought.
>
> Lambda C in precessionary fall
>
>
I believe life to be a question mark; a certain veil of ambiguity hangs
over it and surrounds it with mysteries. This by no means implies that
life is empty, negative, useless, etc., but rather the distension of a
being yet to be defined, the unfinished animal involved in a process.
This puts the accent on an infinitely postponed future, the earmarks of
the eternal recurrence. The implication lies with the abyssal extension of
the active forms of interpretation that at least put into question many of
the "positivities" of Western culture, of the concept "life" and "being";
this I take be Nietzsche's metaphysical critique, his suspicion of
ready-answers and lack of openness. Nietzsche is trying to interpret the
temporal process of interpretation and its non-coincidence with "truth";
interpretations are active while our whole metaphysics seems in many ways
blind to this positing potential, the active form of infering. Rather,
there's a certain passivity and suffrance built into the metaphysical
notion of "truth." This thoroughgoing critique I think needs to be
acknowledged before we jump in too quickly with the idea of "positivity",
with what might amount to no more than a new variation of an old
empiricist habit. Rather than attacking everyone on this list (for
whatever reason you think it necessary) maybe a little careful thinking is
in order. Say it, don't snarl it. In many ways the differential element as
Deleuze describes it is really the "play" of forces, the differences
beneath which there are no things in themselves, no "truth", but the
temporality of interpretation or becoming. The supreme act of will to
power seems to posit this becoming as the only form of being which itself
implies that being is no more than a vanishing vapor or a trace, a
differentiality, rather than something that can be opposed to the world as
it is, i.e. as its depiction or truth. What Nietzsche is explicating (and
this would require some more careful reflection) is the structure of an
ellipse, a lack that would need to be read between the masks, the rhetoric
of ER, if you will, that involves deferment, women, and death. Listen to
the speech by the animals, their hurdy-gurdy song, and contrast it to
Zarathustra's reaction. It's all in the expression or way of presenting
this "doctrine" that makes it an active operation of form-giving and
shaping. The formation of values is a way of finding our way in this
process, of creating something from this excess of play. In this regard,
Nietzsche seems to be quite aware of what Bataille brings forth, of the
general economy or overabundance. That's my direction in this labyrinth
as well, my way of threading a path between your dissecting needling. I,
of course, welcome such jabs even from such grave heights.

Leonardo R.

PS1:"Life without music would be a mistake."

PS2:"There will be no unique name, even if were the name of Being. And we
must think this without nostalgia, that is, outside the myth of a purely
maternal or paternal language, a lost native country of thought. On the
contrary, we must affirm this, in the sense that Nietzsche puts
affirmation into play, in a certain laughter and a certain step of the
dance."
J. Derrida, "Differance"

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