beyond college boyfriendsSplinters links to Jonathan Rée’s “excellent radio series” Journeys in Thought with Nietzsche, which I plan to listen to soon.
My fondness for N. comes and goes. At thirteen, I bought Beyond Good & Evil and loved it, but the love had less to do with its ideas than the pride I felt in reading it and being seen reading it; even if my classmates had never heard of Nietzsche, I thought the book cover by itself conveyed a stoic intellectualism. (Nowadays, unfortunately, it would probably be mistaken by 9th graders for this.) But then, during my senior year of high school and freshman year of college, I made the common mistake of dating a prospective philosophy major, one of those deeply maladjusted and unhygienic boys who invariably decides, somewhere between the ages of 18 to 20, that Nietzsche is a kindred spirit, and mistakes each conversation for another opportunity to give a long-winded misreading of N. Later in college, single and free to love N. without inciting post-coital speeches on the superman, I signed up for a seminar in continental philosophy and bought most of N.’s books. But halfway into the semester, I got a raging case of mono and had to drop my classes, and ever since have associated the uncracked spines of N.’s books with sickness and failure. And, in general, when it comes to books, I try to avoid a recognition of my avoidance of them by continuing to avoid them.
Earlier this month, though, I reread parts of Tony Davies’ Humanism while composing a blog post, and came across several great passages by or about N. Among them, this, which makes me very excited to listen to Jonathan Rée’s broadcast:
Unlike other philosophers, before and since, [Nietzsche] offers his ideas not as truth-statements but as poetic fictions, parables, images, which he makes no attempt to separate from his own mood, temperament and personal circumstances. Indeed, he argued that all statements must be read as metaphors of a particular disposition — physical, psychological, or digestive (he himself was a vegetarian). … The only grounds that remain for distinguishing between statements are the strength, authenticity, and beauty with which they are uttered: their ‘will to power.’
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Better a wannabe Nietzschean than an Ayn Rand cultist, is all I can say.
I’ve never been able to make much sense of Nietzsche myself, although I suspect a lot of second-order aphorists I enjoy may be rewarming his ideas. (Have I referred you to Bob Black’s Nietzsche Trigger Finger rant yet?) At the moment I’m reading Machado de Assis’s Epitaph of a Small Winner and thoroughly enjoying it. It features a Dr. Pangloss-like minor character who the translator’s introduction assures us is Nietzsche in Brazilian disguise. Works for me.
Oooo! I dated a philosopher king [and billionaire’s son, it turns out] in college. Nothing worse than waking up next to someone who tells you he’s nearly done reading the last of Heidegger’s books translated into English.
Posted by cinetrix at April 19, 2004 11:33 PMI look back to my days as a Nietzsche-worshipping, Schoenberg-fetishizing, Rilke-spouting high school student, and I wonder how I ever got laid. Then it occurs to me: I didn’t.
Posted by j-go at April 20, 2004 12:56 PMIt wasn’t such a compelling programme actually. But it’s better than the usual stuff.
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