The Chomsky Hash

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

B. Second misinterpretation [of the notion of history]

1. That of others. Who are these others [who misinterpret history]?

a. It should be noted immediately that Nietzsche was not always a stranger to these others.

i. Hence,

the supra-historical character of historical knowledge

the theme that history has come to an end

ii. But in the Second Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche clearly said that this was only the exaggeration of historical knowledge.

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

[A. The first misinterpretation of the notion of history - cont'd]

3. Historical knowledge [according to Nietzsche's reframing]:

a. It should be interpreted

not as the annexation of time and the past to the ideal eternity of science [as with the opposition Dühring (cf. cold, nihilistic)-Renan (cf. disguised, watered down)]

[rather,] it must be recognized as the return of the thought of becoming

b. The return is becoming in the form of the same, it is the repetition of becoming:

i. [it is]

not the repetition, by thought, of what happened in reality

but the appearance of history, as an event in becoming

ii. it is the return of becoming

as thought

as destiny of the West

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

[A. The first misinterpretation of the notion of history - cont'd]

[2. We see that this distinction, between a nihilistic history and a disguising history, in The Genealogy of Morality, points here, where it is still very tight and as if in bud - cont'd]

c. More precisely: what the nihilism of Europe brings or returns to us is the thought of becoming:

i. this thought, of becoming,

—it still only points to

the cold accumulation of historical knowledge

[cf. Dühring]

—but the danger [here, according to Nietzsche,] is

that this knowledge is taken up again in metaphysical ideality

that God and eternity are thus restored

[cf. Renan]

ii. therefore, the historical sense, even if it is only the latest avatar of Platonic and Christian asceticism, must form a break in our present.

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

[A. The first misinterpretation of the notion of history - cont'd]

[2. We see that this distinction, between a nihilistic history and a disguising history, in The Genealogy of Morality, points here, where it is still very tight and as if in bud - cont'd]

b. The text therefore means, in short:

i. In the depths of the nihilistic winter of the modern world, a light appears at sky level:

poor, pale, cold light

but light of a new meaning and an unknown happiness

ii. But

—we must think that this clarity is

not the last glimmer of a day gone by

not the last avatar of old religious and metaphysical sentiments

—we must not think that we (our day and our happiness) will henceforth be

nothing other than this white light

not a face from yesterday caught in the frost of the night

rather [than this simple form of accumulation], it's already the finger of the day [i.e., still bursting with new events]

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

[A. The first misinterpretation of the notion of history - cont'd]

2. In other words, two types of sensitivity to history which follow one another:

the first nihilistic (and basically without much “historical sensitivity” like Dühring);

another that disguises, monkeys with it, and waters it down [like Renan]

—and, if we return to the text, we see that this distinction, written in large letters in The Genealogy of Morality, points here, where it is still very tight and as if in bud.

a. We find the two characterizations there:

i. the cold, which is indeed of the nature of the historical sense [cf.

Dühring

pointlessness

a Copernican fall that wounds Man]

ii. amputation, castration (Abnahme) [cf.

Renan

settlement, in the form of a deal, of conflicts

consolation of finding oneself in a special, albeit eccentric, position]

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

[A. The first misinterpretation of the notion of history - cont'd]

[1. In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche distinguishes two types of historians whom he characterizes by two proper names and two sets of metaphors - cont'd]

b. Renan:

castration

gentleness

hope

i. It is history

which renounces ascetic courage,

which mimics the joyful acceptance of life

but which is in reality only helplessness

ii. It is history

that tries to transform nihilistic coldness back into ideality; Western civilization would move towards maximum ideality by freeing itself from all materiality

which would have the aim of reestablishing God on earth, in the form of a smiling god.

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

[A. The first misinterpretation of the notion of history - cont'd]

1. In the great invective against history (The Genealogy of Morals), Nietzsche distinguishes two types of historians whom he characterizes by

two proper names

two sets of metaphors

a. Dühring:

snow

cold

crows

winter landscape

i. This is absolutely ascetic history:

one that renounces all present individuality,

that which makes all past vain and equivalent, and which says: what is the point

that which accepts the whole future, not to reform or improve it, but as it is

ii. He prefers this

history

or rather, historical meaning in the purity of its birth

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[I. Second part of the text - cont'd]

A. The first misinterpretation [of the notion of history]

[Intro]. The one by which Nietzsche is tempted:

a. It consists of saying that [entering history is

less an achievement

more an echo]

i. historical meaning is:

in itself, nothing new

only the extension of feelings which pre-exist

ii. the historical sense [that life needs for recognizing history and historically meaningful events] only brings something new in the sense of a reduction (Abnahme: [as if history were only]

weakening

decline

amputation)

b. These two intertwined themes (

history is only a weakening

[history is only] the old

) are found in Nietzsche:

history (or excess of history) prevents any creative novelty (Untimely Meditations II);

history never appears in the era of high culture

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

I. Second part of the text

[Intro:] The false interpretations of [the notions of] History (there are two):

1. the first: “Fast scheinst es uns [it almost seems to us]”

a. ["Us," meaning

Nietzsche

his precursors

his followers

b. As if history were

cold

monkeyed with

watered down]

2. the second: “Anderen erscheint er [it appears to others]”

a. ["Others," meaning

Hegelians

Schopenhauer

b. As if history were

a foreign point of view

an atheistic replacement of God

a universalized subject]

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 3: The Gay Science, parts II and III), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

C. [Conclusion]

1. In Beyond Good and Evil, and in The Genealogy of Morals, history is the final form of

objectivism

nihilism

asceticism

2. Now, these texts [Philology, Aurore, and The Gay Science, which cast history in terms

not just of disease

but rather of newfound sensitivities

and of healing

] therefore show, in the historical sense [that life needs for recognizing historically meaningful events],

[not only agreement, with tradition, that history is an effect]

not only something [determined by prior effects and therefore] not new

not only the weakening of this non-new [i.e., not only just an echo of this prior effect]

but the already old weakening of this non-new [as if history were nothing but the echoes of prior echoes]

3. [Cf. a history of truth: like that of a carnival worker aiming to rig the game,

formerly intervening at every moment

then intervening only at the beginning, deferring to the effects that play out

now casting doubt on the notion of origin]

4. Should we say that Nietzsche distances himself here

from what he has said?

from what he will say elsewhere?

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

[B. Tugend (Virtue) and Krankheit (Sickness) - cont'd]

[4. The historical sense - cont'd]

c. Nietzsche's relationships with history are the individual model of our era's relationships with history. But

i. not in the sense that Nietzsche as an individual would be the expression of his time

ii. rather, in the sense that the relationships of our time to history pass through

Nietzsche

the individual history of Nietzsche

the individual relationship of Nietzsche to history

iii. why am I destiny?

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

[B. Tugend (Virtue) and Krankheit (Sickness) - cont'd]

[4. The historical sense - cont'd]

b. This illness and this healing movement

i. It is what characterizes our time.

ii. That's what Nietzsche himself felt:

—history as a disease,

when he was a philologist

when he worked towards the asceticism of objective knowledge

—history discovered as a symptom,

of a deeper illness

[as if] an expression of the nihilism of the time

(these are the Untimely and Human, Too Human);

—history as a principle of healing

in the form of historical meaning

(this is Aurore, Le Gai Savoir)

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

[B. Tugend (Virtue) and Krankheit (Sickness) - cont'd]

4. The historical sense [that life needs for recognizing historically meaningful events]

a. It is therefore

i. [on the one hand] the symptom of an illness:

its manifest result [cf. effect]

[not in terms of rationality, but rather divergence, abnormality:] this strange irregularity, which appears on the surface of our world

this new form of sensitivity which the high ages have not known

ii. But on the other hand, and at the same time, it is healing, the three-step movement of self-affirmation,

from the experience of the distant

through Ja Sagen [yea saying]

to what is closest to us

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

[B. Tugend (Virtue) and Krankheit (Sickness) - cont'd]

[3. Specific virtue: The virtues of illness - cont'd]

c. The historical sense [that life needs for recognizing historically meaningful events]

rediscovers past systems

rediscovers them in oneself

i. The historically multiple self:

the closest things

ourselves as experiences

ii. Therefore the circularity:

the existence of a historical meaning is a symptom of an illness (which is asceticism [cf. annihilation of the subject], Tugend)

this disease develops a historical meaning, which is the specific virtue ([cf. a property and its effect,] Tugend) of this disease

iii. Yet this specific virtue, when developed, will lead to something which is happiness. This emerging happiness,

it is fragile.

it is in danger; which ones?

what does it consist of?

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

[B. Tugend (Virtue) and Krankheit (Sickness) - cont'd]

[3. Specific virtue: The virtues of illness - cont'd]

b. Now, the disease of resemblance, with which Europe is affected, gives rise to a knowledge:

i. A knowledge which is the historical sense [that life needs for recognizing historically meaningful events]

ii. But:

historical meaning is the vain search for an identity

the costumes, the disguises of the 19th century

iii. And through this, in this parody, we discover that none of the clothes fit.

Jesters of God.

Fall of all veneration.

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt

[the-chomsky-hash]

[II. Analysis of the text itself - cont'd]

[B. Tugend (Virtue) and Krankheit (Sickness) - cont'd]

3. Specific virtue:

The virtues of illness

(see Preface to the second edition [of] Human, too human, where illness is characterized as the hook of knowledge)

a. Illness:

i. It consists precisely in

[vainly] seeking resemblances, while one is in solitude

[finding only costumes and parodies,] difference without [real] resemblance

ii. This disease presents three stages, which are both illness and healing:

—detach yourself (from what you worship)

—assert yourself (

live as an experience

indulge in adventures

desire to have health

effort to mimic it)

—open your eyes (

to the next things

[with newfound sensitivities])

– Michel Foucault, Cours donné au Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes 1969-1970, (Lesson 2: The Gay Science, section 337), from Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt