My Tussles With Nietzsche
6-12-06 The Superman & The Tragedy Industry
Whenever I go back to read Nietzsche I am refreshed in some fundamental way. Yet I am beginning to see Nietzsche represents something dangerous to me---something powerful but more restraining than liberating. It is his embracing of the tragic mode of life that I find impossible to concede. Life is tragic. No doubt about that. All one has to do is look about one. But I note it staring me in the face in the mirror without remission. That is what I find reprehensible & repulsive in Nietzsche. That his philosophy is mine not by choice but by superimposition. It is as though I have no say in the matter of my own philosophy. I declare myself a compassionate romanticist of the realist order looking to the comic mode as the most promising form of expression. Yet, every morning I wake alone one more time. And I feel the wrongness of my own life. As though I have been waking up in hell for 25 consecutive years. I step out the door and am amazed that at that moment tragedy falls off my back & the radiance of the day greets me. I am never miserable of an average day. I see about me all the symbols and symptoms of hope and pleasure & fulfillment. I am human and among human beings---notably, women. Yet, that seems to be the sum and substance. Nothing ever happens. Nothing. This witty brilliant man full of ideas & life continues to exist completely in isolation. And thus my works accumulate. And the human race murders itself and pillages as it always has done---gets born & gets sick & dies---and I am none the wiser for it. The women fall off my fingers like rain drops. They smile they say pleasant things. Once in a blue moon they are so beautiful I can barely breathe as that lovely maiden at Borders Books just one hour ago reading Tacitus in a chair not far from mine. Unequivocally beautiful & graceful.
What does Nietzsche have to do with any of this? Only this. Whenever I read Nietzsche I think to myself this guy saw farther into human being than any of his contemporaries or any of mine. Yet I despise the tragic knowledge he discovered & espouses. It is boring not only but it is incessantly full of pain. But goddammit, it reads like the map of my life. I get in front of The White Page and am resolved to tell the truth with wit & authority and irresistibility. This will be so true & radiant & harmonious & whole that no reader will be able to turn away from it. Every reader will be magnetized & astonished & illuminated. But whatever my subject before I have reached the end I have been dragged down onto the turf by death & the tragic muse has made a fool of me once more. I cannot seemingly do anything about it. This damned impulse to sing the songs of suffering & sorrow that I so despise in others. It flows out of my pen into my notebooks. Every love I have ever tasted seems to mock my intentions. And I am talking about true love---not some fantasy crap of troubadour poets.
Where did my comic impulse flee to and how can I recover it? Ditto my once happy social gifts which brought guests flowing in my direction. These were never low-grade poets I now recollect. They were my friends or often became them swiftly. Teaching mates or school mates or employment mates, there was always abundant laughter & endless wit. No matter where I sojourned. Even at such a low-paying job as B. Dalton Bookshop where I worked after receiving an M.A. in literature & after teaching at the university. I was treated like the manager of the house and made minimum wage essentially. But Diane Moore & John Pace & I had an hilarious time playing at work. Now for the last 25 years it would seem the hilarity of life has been sucked out of my very psyche and I cannot even find a human being of any night---not one woman of remotely equal status. Not one! And my works lie scattered about my rooms unpublished & unappreciated. And the few times I have sent them out at least recently they are met with stupid opaque silences. Never anything remotely intelligent in response. People are obviously out of sorts. And there is no equitable system of justice at work guaranteeing equality of treatment in the realm of Writing. We are presently living under a totalitarian state posturing as "democracy.' And this includes the self-proclaimed liberal organizations at least as much as the right wingers. I found that out when I worked for Gray Davis against his recall by the reactionaries. There was no harmony or joy or humor in the place I volunteered my services---just an old dead pecking order where the in-people lord it over the out-people with no regard whatsoever as to intellectual qualifications or maturity or vision. What are we going to do---continue to fall to pieces? Or are we going to reorganize the Self & the institutions from which we derive those selves? Nietzsche had an interesting answer to this kind of question. His answer was: Amor Fati. Love of one's fate. That to Nietzsche was the ultimate attitude---the only satisfactory heroic response: to wish nothing other than it is. But I have yet to arrive at this ultimate sanctuary of fatal calm. There is something within me that says we have a greater destiny than resignation.
You know what else gets me about Nietzsche? He never got any women. Did he even care? I never hear any extended treatment of women and sex in his writings. The man was obsessed with ideas. Where in the hell can ideas ever take us? Well, I see I already said it. Yet the most beautiful woman I have ever known just lit up like a Christmas tree the first time I mentioned Nietzsche to her. And it's true. Nietzsche is a transforming figure. He does light us up with his very name. For he stands above it all. His beautiful tragic life somehow justifies true thinking & authentic philosophizing and giving a damn about anything at all. He wasn't afraid. And yes, he was probably right when he said that dangerousness is an essential element in anything that deserves to be called Art or Philosphy. This is what he meant by the Dionysian aspect of the psyche and the work of art. It cannot be avoided according to him without one making a retreat from reality and wholeness & radiance. No wonder I find this philosopher and original thinker so hard to shake. He made that beautiful woman laugh and give me that one and only look of true love.
RLG Copyright 2006
Whenever I go back to read Nietzsche I am refreshed in some fundamental way. Yet I am beginning to see Nietzsche represents something dangerous to me---something powerful but more restraining than liberating. It is his embracing of the tragic mode of life that I find impossible to concede. Life is tragic. No doubt about that. All one has to do is look about one. But I note it staring me in the face in the mirror without remission. That is what I find reprehensible & repulsive in Nietzsche. That his philosophy is mine not by choice but by superimposition. It is as though I have no say in the matter of my own philosophy. I declare myself a compassionate romanticist of the realist order looking to the comic mode as the most promising form of expression. Yet, every morning I wake alone one more time. And I feel the wrongness of my own life. As though I have been waking up in hell for 25 consecutive years. I step out the door and am amazed that at that moment tragedy falls off my back & the radiance of the day greets me. I am never miserable of an average day. I see about me all the symbols and symptoms of hope and pleasure & fulfillment. I am human and among human beings---notably, women. Yet, that seems to be the sum and substance. Nothing ever happens. Nothing. This witty brilliant man full of ideas & life continues to exist completely in isolation. And thus my works accumulate. And the human race murders itself and pillages as it always has done---gets born & gets sick & dies---and I am none the wiser for it. The women fall off my fingers like rain drops. They smile they say pleasant things. Once in a blue moon they are so beautiful I can barely breathe as that lovely maiden at Borders Books just one hour ago reading Tacitus in a chair not far from mine. Unequivocally beautiful & graceful.
What does Nietzsche have to do with any of this? Only this. Whenever I read Nietzsche I think to myself this guy saw farther into human being than any of his contemporaries or any of mine. Yet I despise the tragic knowledge he discovered & espouses. It is boring not only but it is incessantly full of pain. But goddammit, it reads like the map of my life. I get in front of The White Page and am resolved to tell the truth with wit & authority and irresistibility. This will be so true & radiant & harmonious & whole that no reader will be able to turn away from it. Every reader will be magnetized & astonished & illuminated. But whatever my subject before I have reached the end I have been dragged down onto the turf by death & the tragic muse has made a fool of me once more. I cannot seemingly do anything about it. This damned impulse to sing the songs of suffering & sorrow that I so despise in others. It flows out of my pen into my notebooks. Every love I have ever tasted seems to mock my intentions. And I am talking about true love---not some fantasy crap of troubadour poets.
Where did my comic impulse flee to and how can I recover it? Ditto my once happy social gifts which brought guests flowing in my direction. These were never low-grade poets I now recollect. They were my friends or often became them swiftly. Teaching mates or school mates or employment mates, there was always abundant laughter & endless wit. No matter where I sojourned. Even at such a low-paying job as B. Dalton Bookshop where I worked after receiving an M.A. in literature & after teaching at the university. I was treated like the manager of the house and made minimum wage essentially. But Diane Moore & John Pace & I had an hilarious time playing at work. Now for the last 25 years it would seem the hilarity of life has been sucked out of my very psyche and I cannot even find a human being of any night---not one woman of remotely equal status. Not one! And my works lie scattered about my rooms unpublished & unappreciated. And the few times I have sent them out at least recently they are met with stupid opaque silences. Never anything remotely intelligent in response. People are obviously out of sorts. And there is no equitable system of justice at work guaranteeing equality of treatment in the realm of Writing. We are presently living under a totalitarian state posturing as "democracy.' And this includes the self-proclaimed liberal organizations at least as much as the right wingers. I found that out when I worked for Gray Davis against his recall by the reactionaries. There was no harmony or joy or humor in the place I volunteered my services---just an old dead pecking order where the in-people lord it over the out-people with no regard whatsoever as to intellectual qualifications or maturity or vision. What are we going to do---continue to fall to pieces? Or are we going to reorganize the Self & the institutions from which we derive those selves? Nietzsche had an interesting answer to this kind of question. His answer was: Amor Fati. Love of one's fate. That to Nietzsche was the ultimate attitude---the only satisfactory heroic response: to wish nothing other than it is. But I have yet to arrive at this ultimate sanctuary of fatal calm. There is something within me that says we have a greater destiny than resignation.
You know what else gets me about Nietzsche? He never got any women. Did he even care? I never hear any extended treatment of women and sex in his writings. The man was obsessed with ideas. Where in the hell can ideas ever take us? Well, I see I already said it. Yet the most beautiful woman I have ever known just lit up like a Christmas tree the first time I mentioned Nietzsche to her. And it's true. Nietzsche is a transforming figure. He does light us up with his very name. For he stands above it all. His beautiful tragic life somehow justifies true thinking & authentic philosophizing and giving a damn about anything at all. He wasn't afraid. And yes, he was probably right when he said that dangerousness is an essential element in anything that deserves to be called Art or Philosphy. This is what he meant by the Dionysian aspect of the psyche and the work of art. It cannot be avoided according to him without one making a retreat from reality and wholeness & radiance. No wonder I find this philosopher and original thinker so hard to shake. He made that beautiful woman laugh and give me that one and only look of true love.
RLG Copyright 2006
posted by rlg at 6:20 PM
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