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Friedrich Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy Part 3

So what is Nietzsche trying to tell us about these opposing forces within us and within art, and why did he use the word “tragedy” in his title? For Nietzsche, there had been only one culture that managed to strike a balance between Dionysus and Apollon, creating an expression of the true human condition: the Greek tragedies, the vast spectrum of theatre and poetry present in classical Greek society. 

For Nietzsche, these stories represent the right balance between Apollon and Dionysus. They were both expressions of reason and man's need for order, while also using deep-rooted mythical and archetypal symbols. The idea of opposing positions in a conflict or dialogue as a means to progress ideas. It's the reason why modern thinkers often build their philosophical arguments in dialogue with Greek classics. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein builds on the myth of Prometheus. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, the classical story of Oedipus; Camus famously formulated his ideas of the absurd in his book The Myth of Sisyphus. 

So what does Nietzsche say about these two positions? Interestingly, Nietzsche argues that we have become too bound to the Apollonian aspect of the form of expression. A position later reinvigorated by the post-modernists after the Second World War. For example, thinkers like Adorno, Sartre, and Foucault were deeply inspired by Nietzsche's scepticism of rationality. Do you guys think Nietzsche might have had a point? Øst

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All-Too-Human Part 2

At the time of writing Human, All-Too-Human, Nietzsche had left his job as a professor in Basil due to illness and was moving around. For a long while, he lived with author Paul Rée and Lou Salomé, who might have influenced Nietzsche's writing. This can be seen in some of the book's themes, such as love and friendship, as well as other related subjects. It is on the topic of women and children where Nietzsche perhaps is at his least relevant, with few exceptions.

While Nietzsche's earlier books have had a frame, encapsulating his arguments within a system, this book moves away from any attempt to provide proof, references, or even clear reasons for many of his thoughts. From this book forward, we will see that Nietzsche presents us with a barrage of observations, some contradictory, others humorous, but rarely with any clear basis for why he argues as he does.

Nietzsche is here living out his rebellion against systemic thinking and science's attempt to reduce life to simple answers. Nietzsche lived his teaching as a “free thinker,” not concerned with others' opinions. Reading this, do you guys think that writing philosophy should be less reference-heavy and more purely philosophical reasoning?

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Friedrich Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy Part 1 Nietzsche's first book, often translated into English as The Birth of Tragedy, was the result of a few lectures he held at the University of Basil in the early 1870s, where he worked as a professor. This position had been appointed to him at an impressively young age, at only 24. In many ways, this is one of Nietzsche's more accessible works because it is structured as a classical philosophy book, a choice Nietzsche later moved away from. The book was itself inspired by Hegelian dialectic*. Hegel, who was seen as the absolutely dominating philosopher during Nietzsche's lifetime, died a mere 40 years before Nietzsche put pen to paper to write The Birth of Tragedy. Later in Nietzsche's authorship, he would come to oppose the style and influence that both Hegel and Schopenhauer had on this book. This can be seen in 1886 when he added a preface to it and in his self-biography Ecce Homo, where he still defended his main theses, but deeply regretted the book's form. 

*Dialectic is about constructing arguments and counterarguments, and explaining the world through opposing positions, a point that will become very relevant in part 2.

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Daybreak Part 3

So why did we create moral structures? In Nietzsche's view, we created customs based on strong needs in our societies, and over generations, we lost touch with why these customs were developed in the first place. It's in this change that we start to see the custom as an authority in itself; thus, it dictates what we should do, without our having any emotional connection to the reason it came to be. The custom exists as an abstract idea, disconnected from the need it served. Morality thus functions as a tool of the weak to exert influence over the strong. Compassion, as Nietzsche sees it, came to be because if the weak can convince the strong to be compassionate towards them, then they have gained relative power and influence that they benefit from against the strong.

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Untimely Meditations Part 4

As I see it, Nietzsche builds on the idea in The Birth of Tragedy that culture serves to affirm our life force. A strong, unified culture made by cultural geniuses, whom breaks with our ideals of morality, live outside society, and create life-affirming art, like the Greek tragedies. 

If you are considering reading this book, I will argue that it offers insight into how Nietzsche's thoughts take shape. The essays aren't too long, and he writes with a certain verility. There is something refreshing about being reminded that art doesn't have to be about the here and now, and that we can spend a lifetime perfecting our skills as artists. 

At the same time, I can't help but disagree with Nietzsche's attraction to the geniuses. By Nietzsche's standard, there would be no one left to fit the box. I also dislike the idea that art shouldn't be a mixture of cultures, but rather a culture excavating itself. I can see how easily these ideas can be used by fascist ideology (even though Nietzsche dislikes the German culture more than most others).

Do you think art should reflect our times and culture, or live outside of it and see past the here and now? Øst

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Daybreak Part 1

In his 1881 book Morgenröte, often translated as The Dawn of the Day, just Dawn, or, as I prefer, Daybreak, Nietzsche explores the basis for human morality. Given that the goal of a culture is to let geniuses create great art, this is only possible when ideas of evil do not hinder the artist. Nietzsche, therefore, needs to show why we shouldn't care about right and wrong by elaborating his ideas of the source of morality.

This is a subject Nietzsche will spend a lot of time with throughout his authorship and is the basis for one of his most acclaimed books, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morals, in which Nietzsche delves deeper into the history, as he sees it, of our attitudes toward what's right and wrong. An exploration that goes hand in hand with his ever-growing criticism of Christianity. 

So why did Nietzsche choose the title he did? In his autobiography, Ecce Homo, Nietzsche describes this book as the starting point of his “campaign against morality”. We can therefore understand this book as the metaphorical morning of this conflict that only intensifies throughout Nietzsche's career.

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All-Too-Human Part 4

So why should you read Human, All-Too-Human? This is a powerful book in which Nietzsche offers the reader a wide selection of quotable observations. Some especially interesting ones relate to a subject we will explore much more deeply, namely Nietzsche's critiques of Christian values. 

There are, in particular, two sides to Christian values that Nietzsche begins to see as a problem. The first is the concept of compassion. For Nietzsche, compassion is one of the worst things you can have for someone, and you should never want it in return. The reason he gives is that we should grasp for life-affirming ideals. If you have compassion for those that suffe, it means you suffer with them, which, in turn, means you are just suffering unnecessarily. In a world of power, compassion is just the tool the weak have invented to extend power over the strong.

Same with the concept of Hope. Hope, for Nietzsche, is a denial of reality and an embrace of passivity. In arguing this, Nietzsche draws on the old myth of Pandora. This Jar (referred to as Pandora's Box today) from Greek Mythology consists of all the evils in the world, and at the very end, hope resides.

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Friedrich Nietzsche - Untimely Meditations Part 3

In contrast to the genius, we have the moral Philistines - the ones who despise art. These are those who concern themselves with worthless ideals, such as caring about the here and now. They are swayed by others' moral concerns and attempts to inhibit strong emotional artistic expression. The Philistines try to hinder the geniuses in creating something timeless and greater than themselves. In a way, the Philistines' ideals are normality and the common, forced upon the exceptional and rare. 

Some of the tools these Philistines use are morality - a perspective that will become stronger in later books. Morality, as Nietzsche sees it, is the masses' control over the expression of artistic freedom. Not in the sense we would use that term today, meaning that everyone should be free to express their own experienced reality, but that those few should have the freedom to exist uncluttered by the morals of their time to create something bigger than the fleeting truth of the society they live in.

Strong cultural expressions can take the form of the Greek myths mentioned in my last series. These ideas are also echoed in Jung's archetypes. Jung, like Freud, was deeply inspired by Nietzsche in developing his philosophy of the human mind. Øst