After reading Nietzsche, I had two thoughts. Well, I had many, but I have two to share with you.
First, that his Übermensch, in many ways reminds me of the superfluous man we have been studying in Russian literature. It is not a perfect comparison, in fact the Übermensch is the goal, where as the superfluous man is a leftover of the Decembrist Revolution and a bored and depressed aristocracy. However, both are above the Herd, both rebel against the Romantics, and both seek to be the meaning on Earth. Eugene Onegin and Bazarov both try to rise to the reaches of the overman.
Second, Nietzsche’s interpretation and description of language was brilliant. For Nietzsche , all language, all words are metaphors. This is similar to that. The this meaning, this groupings of letters, this word. The that meaning, an almost Kantian interpretation of the physical world. Nietzsche notes “everything that distinguishes human beings from animals depends on this ability to sublimate sensuous metaphors into schema” (768). Our very identity as unique in creation stems from this ability, not to tell the difference from good and evil, but from the ability to name similarities.
However, these metaphors are flawed, Nietzsche says they cage us in (deconstructionalism much?), and in order to attain peace, security , and consistency, we must forget the very thing that makes us unique, these words.
Nietzsche declares:
Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency: only by means of the petrification and coagulation of a mass of images which originally streamed from the primal faculty of human imagination like a fiery liquid, only in the invincible faith that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself, in short, only by forgetting that he himself is an artistically creating subject, does man live with any repose, security, and consistency. If but for an instant he could escape from the prison walls of this faith, his "self consciousness" would be immediately destroyed. (769)
Anti-Plato says Norton. What says you?
I say Nietzsche is somewhere between depressed, crazy, and brilliant, possibly with a side of wrong, but a healthy helping of remarkably relevant, especially to the study of literature.
He is anti-Plato in my book as well. The thing about Plato is that he believes in the forms as the ultimate reality, which means that he would say that what Nietzsche calls "concepts" would be more real than the "things-in-themselves." With that idea, Nietzsche violently disagrees. We have access to concepts, but we must actively pursue a knowledge of the things-in-themselves. When you think about it, it does sound a lot like the cave metaphor, but what one will find once they leave the cave, according to these two philosophers, is starkly different.
ReplyDeleteAs I read your blog post, I am curious. How do you think Neitzsche would respond to Kant? Obviously, he much of his views on language and metaphor compliment Kant's, however, his refusal to accept Plato's forms leaves me in quandary.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd tag him as a self-hating Platonist. Despite Nietzsche's best efforts, his views on language run to close to parallel to be anything but a self-hating follower of papa Plato.