Friedrich Nietzsche: A Titan Man among Children...

Let me begin by saying that I don't agree with Nietzsche at all, not once... not even with his theories of music and the mind. Having said that, my love for his writings, the immense amount of time that I have spent both reading and re-reading and teaching his works to my students is not the result of being an academic oxymoron. I love the fact that he spoke when the rest of the world turned to platitudes. What Nietzsche gave to the world was an alternative, albeit the fact that it was a terrible alternative, and a very destructive one. His thoughts, however, are as brilliant as he was misunderstood in his time.

Will Durant reaches Nietzsche after a coaster ride at top speed through the history of thought. Accordingly, Durant gives credit to Schopenhauer's theories for the young Friedrich disdain for the establishment. More specifically, Schopenhauer's "The World as Evil" had an impact on Nietzsche, a young lost soul at the time looking for some fuel to the sparks of the life of the mind he was trying to ignite. He certainly found his theoretical foundation in Schopenhauer, but it was Richard Wagner that gave young Nietzsche the forest fire from which the world will remember him. Of course, Wagner and Nietzsche later had a fall out, but the "damage" had been done, and Nietzsche was to write some of the most celebrated and important work of the late 1800s. First, the challenge against conventional morality that Nietzsche mounted was enough to send a chill down the Pope's back. Here was more than Schopenhauer's philosophy of pessimism; this was original... the disrobing of morality as a bluff, a useless obstacle to the fulfillment of men's potential. Nietzsche asked the following question: if men were held down by the use of morality as a harness, then who was exercising the power. He believed in aristocracy then, as the manifestation of the Will to Power, Napoleon I being a masterful example. The idea of extraordinary men (a race of supermen) exercising their power over the ordinary men (the servants or powerless) was later used by the Nazis as justification for their ridiculous and mythological madness. The reason behind this was Nietzsche's sister, really, an advocate of the German post-Treaty of Versailles hate for all things French, British and most certainly American. Nietzsche had been dead for thirty-something years when Hitler came to power, and by that time Nietzsche's sister had done some serious editorial damage. Oh well, how can any of this make any sense now it's beyond me. What is important today about Nietzsche is his contribution to counter-conventional wisdom ideas that challenged the status quo. Of course, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" eventually became Nietzsche's greatest contribution--that fact could never be misappropriated, denied or misinterpreted.

I am often reminded of Nietzsche's views on "Failure." How easy it is to be frightful of failure today, when we have become so accustomed to an obsession with success. Alain de Button presented a short film about it which is available for free on Google Videos HERE. If anything, this should give pause to the present economic situation. Nietzsche believed deeply that failure was humanity's greatest classroom, and that instead of running away from it, men should embrace it and learn from it fully. I show the de Button film to my students and encourage them to see their hardships with a different set of eye glasses on.

"The Story of Philosophy" was a great re-read. I say "was" because I will be finishing it tomorrow or Tuesday, but I won't be writing about what Durant refers to as "Contemporary Philosophers." It is hard to comprehend how Durant writes of Bergson and Bertrand Russell in the present tense :-) I find it fascinating that Durant was alive when William James was at his academic zenith. The last two sections of Durant's book deal with Contemporary European and American philosophers, especially of Pragmatism as the original American philosophical contribution. Since I will be reading Professor Louis Menand's "Pragmatism: A Reader" later this season, I will wait to write about this awesome theory then. Next on the list is William Hazlitt's "On the Pleasures of Hating and Other Readings."
Interestingly, Terry Eagleton just wrote a review of a volume on Hazlitt in this month's copy of Harper's. Serendipity strikes again.

Friedrich Nietzsche: "Why I am So Wise"

It seems such a broad jump from Marcus Aurelius to Friedrich Nietzsche, but this is precisely what I want this year to be--a broad spectrum of the best philosophical ideas in the canon of literature and philosophy. It is difficult to objectify the use of the word "best" to describe Nietzsche's premises and ideas. This is mainly so because there has been a vast (or at least there was in the first half of the 20th Century) misinterpretation of his philosophy. That what he thought of and wrote he did so to raise some eyebrows (that's an understatement) I would totally agree with. However, there's more than meets the eye with Nietzsche, and this little book, "Why I am So Wise", is not only insightful but thought-altering if approached with an open mind. The book is primarily a collection of segments from "Ecce Homo," and "Twilight of the Idols," with a meshing of other ideas in between. For example, Zarathustra is featured prominently throughout. I was most impressed (as I always am) with Nietzsche's willingness to go beyond the propriety of clicheist ideas. This not only applies to religion and Christianity particularly, but also to his ideas about music, nationalism and ethnic identity, among other topics. I believe his fallout with Richard Wagner started with the realization that this idea of the metaphysics in art is just as much a sham as the facade of peace and safety religion offers. I remember reading a quote by Nietzsche some years ago in which he stated clearly that music was not what people make it out to be (to speak of the higher soul, of the inner self, of metaphysical phenomena), but rather that music was simply and most concretely mathematical formulae. This, of course, is the deconstructionist Nietzsche, not the lover of "Tristan und Isolde" (until he changed his mind, that is).

I suppose that one could compare Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius at least in the opinion of both thinkers as to how to approach pain, suffering and hardship. As a stoic, Marcus Aurelius believed that pain (whether emotional or physical, but I suppose more in terms of physical) manifested itself in two ways. First, you would feel it and stand it or put up with it. Secondly, if pain became unbearable, then you would just die... and then have nothing to worry about. Comparatively, Nietzsche embraced hardship and pain and reeled against the "fake" sense of security religion/Christianity offered. An excellent film (and I can't say it with more emphasis: EXCELLENT) by British philosopher Alain de Botton entitled Nietzsche on Hardship is available for FREE at Google videos. This little video is supremely accurate in introducing Nietzsche's anti-religious ideas and the fact that the alternative is not as dark as many have interpreted to be. For example, is not that as individuals we should seek the hardship, but that once it arrives we shouldn't run away from it, or try to placate it with religious belief or liquor. Despite the fact that this sounds like a false analogy (liquor and religion), Nietzsche examines them at the same level and (at least to him) they seem to offer the same reward. I know there's a reason why this idea of "religion as the panacea of the world" has been around for as long as it has... it is no mistake... whether you like him or not, Nietzsche is a genius. Hardship is part of the human condition; to deny it is to deny part of yourself.

Just like with Marcus Aurelius, I have underlined and written too much marginalia with Nietzsche to be included here, but several passages stand out more than others. For example, when examining one's own failures and defeats throughout life

"... [E]ven the blunders of life--the temporary sidepaths and wrong turnings, the delays, the 'modesties,' the seriousness squandered on tasks which lie outside the task--have their own meaning and value. They are an expression of a great sagacity, even the supreme sagacity: where nosce te ipsum [know thyself] would be a recipe for destruction, self-forgetfulness, self-misunderstanding, self-diminution, narrowing, mediocratizing become reason itself."

Most of the language throughout is metaphoric, so the reading is hard going to someone not familiar with the style. For example, most of the title segment "Why I am So Wise" could be interpreted as an attack on the religious and metaphysical, but one can't take the words on the page literally. Doing so will result in missing most of the meaning and I believe this has happened in my previous readings of Nietzsche as it happens to most people who misinterpret his anti-religious views. Along side this interpretation is the Nazi misappropriation of Nietzsche's ideas. Despite the fact that that seems a topic in its own right, and I rather not elaborate too much here, I do have to remind the readers of this blog about Nietzsche's sister management of his literary estate and how she literally gave full permission to the Nazis to interpret the "Will to Power" to fit their demented philosophy of the master race. But let's not bash the Nazis... I'll let the History Channel do that for me.

Next on the list is my re-reading of Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy." I will try to write the blog entries by "Unit" (meaning chronological school of thought format) hoping it will develop into a good resource for those researching philosophy online. The only question I have is which one of my two copies to use... my trusty old 1950s paperback or my hardcover 1920s copy. There's some hardship on that choice... uhmmm.

"Meditations" and Mischa, the Wonder Kitty

Well, the weather decided to strike hard this week, and with luck on our side it struck on a Friday. The temperature was an incredible -32 degrees (wind chill), and practically every school closed in the entire region. So, what are we to do but read and enjoy a good cup of coffee? Here's the "distressful" day I spent in the company of my dear friend Mischa, the wonder kitty. I finished my re-read of "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius a couple of days ago. It strikes me that the best thing about this little volume is precisely what the modern world has decided to ignore. Simplicity of mind, heart and philosophy appears as such a healthier way to live, but how many of us practically ignore the idea. What makes us do so? Is it the struggle for survival? Is it the ever-evolving technology? Is is our seemingly insatiable thirst for money and social position? Of course, what critics have debated over the years (perhaps centuries) is whether or not Marcus Aurelius was a real stoic or not. As for me, I believe he was, and the fact that this re-read has actually changed my perception of what it means to be stoic confirms this interpretation. I believe after analyzing Marcus Aurelius deeper I realized that being stoic means more than just dispassionate and unfeeling; in fact, I believe now that the opposite is the case. Marcus Aurelius left some space for "feeling" deeply, at least for the things that meant a great deal to him. I guess the issue here is the fact that if something is important to you, say, a principle, a virtue, the empirical, etc., then it is perfectly fine to hold it in high esteem.

What was really interesting of this re-reading of the "Meditations" is the inclusion of an essay by Mathew Arnold on the value of the "Meditations" to the modern world. Since I had already read various biographies on Marcus Aurelius, it came as no surprise to me that he was pretty harsh with and critical of the early Christian movement. Arnold, however, goes a bit further when he seemingly uses what appears as "political correctness" language to somehow explain (read, defend) Marcus Aurelius on this account. The essay--at least for this part--turned into an apologia and proved that even in the 1700s people were ready to inflate and idealized antiquity without giving much thought to the impression this would make in posterity. At any rate, I can't even begin to enumerate the amount of insight this re-reading of Marcus Aurelius has given me. I hope I can continue to apply much of what I've learn to the rest of the year.