Question regarding Zarathustra, Lightness, and Eternal Recurrence

[funyun]

Well, I'm reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra finally. Bloody marvelous and, despite its density, surprisingly easy I'm finding. But so far there's this one passage I cannot quite decipher and I'm curious what some of the fellow Nietzsche-philes on here have to say on this.

From "On Reading & Writing":

And to me too, as I am well disposed toward life, butterflies, and soap bubbles and whatever among men is of their kind seem to know most about happiness. Seeing these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flutter-- that seduces Zarathustra to tears and songs.

I would believe only in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity-- through him all things fall.

Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!

I have learned to walk: ever since, I let myself run. I have learned to fly: ever since, I do not want to be pushed before moving along.

Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.

Emphasis mine.

Doesn't this seem to in some sense contradict Nietzsche's sentiments on the eternal recurrence, which, in my view, has always been more than anything else a thought experiment exhorting the listener towards a sort of "heaviness?" But here he seems to be denouncing the heaviness of "gravity" which he sees as profound though solemn and, apparently, life-denying; the work of a personal demon and something which ultimately might cause one to "fall" i.e. (possible interpretation) "go under." I wouldn't have expected Nietzsche to generally compare life to butterflies and soap bubbles; I would have expected "life," as an ideal at least, to be equated with some things stouter and less fragile.

Thoughts/interpretations?

 

[ArnautDaniel]

Well, I'm reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra finally. Bloody marvelous and, despite its density, surprisingly easy I'm finding. But so far there's this one passage I cannot quite decipher and I'm curious what some of the fellow Nietzsche-philes on here have to say on this.

From "On Reading & Writing":



Emphasis mine.

Doesn't this seem to in some sense contradict Nietzsche's sentiments on the eternal recurrence, which, in my view, has always been more than anything else a thought experiment exhorting the listener towards a sort of "heaviness?" But here he seems to be denouncing the heaviness of "gravity" which he sees as profound though solemn and, apparently, life-denying; the work of a personal demon and something which ultimately might cause one to "fall" i.e. (possible interpretation) "go under." I wouldn't have expected Nietzsche to generally compare life to butterflies and soap bubbles; I would have expected "life," as an ideal at least, to be equated with some things stouter and less fragile.

Thoughts/interpretations?

Nope, this is actually the heart of Nietzsche.

He holds that philosophy should be a light and elegant dance, and that everything he opposes is "heavy" and "too serious" (that is to say "teutonic" and "German").

When he talks about "philosophizing with a hammer" in "twilight of the idols" one should not imagine a sledge hammer, but rather the daintiest of hammers which with the slightest tap on the idol causes the heavy unwieldy thing to simply shatter of its own weight.

Nietzsche's philosophy is largely a negative criticism of everything else to prod us to cast off all these weighty and unwieldy things we are carrying around and leave us...

...well unburdened with a dance in our step.

In a sense Nietzsche's philosophy is a therapy.

The overman is simply the one that has cast off all the chains that society has placed on him and has found the freedom to do and be what he wants (or rather to do and be what he really is, as per the subtitle to "Ecce Homo", "how one becomes what one is").

So life isn't fragile, it is all those idols and chains that are fragile, and we put a lot of work (a lot of careful walking) into making sure they don't break.

Life can dance and maybe fall over and be none the worse for wear, where the idols and chains of society can't survive such a thing so we must be careful (the person free of these things can be carefree and dance).

...

Or perhaps it can all be summed up in the tagline from the latest Hollywood blockbuster:

Why so serious?

 

[funyun]

Nope, this is actually the heart of Nietzsche.

He holds that philosophy should be a light and elegant dance, and that everything he opposes is "heavy" and "too serious" (that is to say "teutonic" and "German").

When he talks about "philosophizing with a hammer" in "twilight of the idols" one should not imagine a sledge hammer, but rather the daintiest of hammers which with the slightest tap on the idol causes the heavy unwieldy thing to simply shatter of its own weight.

Nietzsche's philosophy is largely a negative criticism of everything else to prod us to cast off all these weighty and unwieldy things we are carrying around and leave us...

...well unburdened with a dance in our step.

In a sense Nietzsche's philosophy is a therapy.

The overman is simply the one that has cast off all the chains that society has placed on him and has found the freedom to do and be what he wants (or rather to do and be what he really is, as per the subtitle to "Ecce Homo", "how one becomes what one is").

So life isn't fragile, it is all those idols and chains that are fragile, and we put a lot of work (a lot of careful walking) into making sure they don't break.

Life can dance and maybe fall over and be none the worse for wear, where the idols and chains of society can't survive such a thing so we must be careful (the person free of these things can be carefree and dance).

...

Or perhaps it can all be summed up in the tagline from the latest Hollywood blockbuster:

Why so serious?

From what I know of Nietzsche I simpy have to disagree with the finer points you brought up at the beginning of your post. Surely Nietzsche is against living a "solemn" life, and no doubt he is for casting off the weighty chains and heavy baggage of societal expectations and norms, among other things. I also completely agree with your (well-worded) interpretation of "philosophy with a hammer." But...what of the eternal recurrence? The whole concept is an entreatment to the individual to live their life as though it were a work of art. If that's not "heaviness" then nothing is. I certainly have to disagree that he advocates "lightness" in the sense Kundera or Valery meant it.

I might point out I'm not a staunch advocate of Nietzschean heaviness, and I’ve never really agreed with Nietzsche’s take on the significance of the idea of eternal recurrence. I’ve always thought the exhortation towards living every moments as if one’s life were a work of art to be a little much. I do still retain a bit of Epicureanism in me.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

From what I know of Nietzsche I simpy have to disagree with the finer points you brought up at the beginning of your post. Surely Nietzsche is against living a "solemn" life, and no doubt he is for casting off the weighty chains and heavy baggage of societal expectations and norms, among other things. I also completely agree with your (well-worded) interpretation of "philosophy with a hammer." But...what of the eternal recurrence? The whole concept is an entreatment to the individual to live their life as though it were a work of art. If that's not "heaviness" then nothing is. I certainly have to disagree that he advocates "lightness" in the sense Kundera or Valery meant it.

Yes Nietzsche does speak of living life as a "work of art" but he also has in mind living a life with no regrets. The point of eternal recurrence (and this comes up whether it is taken as a fact or a metaphor) is to force you to look at your life and say "When I look back on my life is there anything I would change? Is there anything I didn't do that I could have done and wish I would done?"

The overman can look up his entire life and say "No. I wouldn't change a thing." A person like that can look at eternal recurrence and say "Look at that! The perfect life lived again and again throughout eternity. How beautiful!"

Everyone else says "Oh God! That same miserable little life with all its flaws lived over and over again warts and all through eternity!?! How awful!"

To take the idea of life being a "work of art" too far forces one to quibble at this or that flaw in the work and to only notice its imperfections. The person that takes the "work of art" too seriously is doomed to fall in the second category above only seeing the thing that failed to be a masterpiece.

This is heaviness.

The dancer can take the "work of art" with all its flaws and still say it is perfect in its own way.

Imagine two people going to the symphony. The first person has a good ear for music and is a perfectionist, but only notices the places where they symphony didn't do things quite right. This person comes away without having enjoyed the symphony since it failed to be a "work of art". The second person takes the whole performance in as it is and enjoys it for its own sake, doesn't take the time to quibble about a mess up here or there, and enjoys the symphony as a work of art.

Here is lightness.

One's life is what it is and it isn't perfect, but one can live without regrets and at the end look back at it and say "I wouldn't have it any other way."

I might point out I'm not a staunch advocate of Nietzschean heaviness, and I’ve never really agreed with Nietzsche’s take on the significance of the idea of eternal recurrence. I’ve always thought the exhortation towards living every moments as if one’s life were a work of art to be a little much. I do still retain a bit of Epicureanism in me.

Well Epicurus is about living minimally and avoiding attachments to things. He is of the view be happy when you get something, don't be unhappy when you don't get it, and be prepared to live with the minimum of things and still be happy.

Nietzsche is more of the view of living passionately.

Epicurus would say don't get too attached to people because they might die and that would make you sad.

Nietzsche would say live your relationships with all your energies so that when people die you feel it passionately and deeply, because there is beauty in profound grief as much as there is beauty in anything, and grief is part of life and it is beautiful as well.

This is something of what Nietzsche was getting at when he called himself "the first tragic philosopher". There is beauty in the suffering of Oedipus and Antigone, this is what Greek tragedy has taught us. The epicureans and stoics would have us avoid that.

 

[funyun]

Well Epicurus is about living minimally and avoiding attachments to things. He is of the view be happy when you get something, don't be unhappy when you don't get it, and be prepared to live with the minimum of things and still be happy.

Nietzsche is more of the view of living passionately.

Epicurus would say don't get too attached to people because they might die and that would make you sad.

Nietzsche would say live your relationships with all your energies so that when people die you feel it passionately and deeply, because there is beauty in profound grief as much as there is beauty in anything, and grief is part of life and it is beautiful as well.

This is something of what Nietzsche was getting at when he called himself "the first tragic philosopher". There is beauty in the suffering of Oedipus and Antigone, this is what Greek tragedy has taught us. The epicureans and stoics would have us avoid that.

I don't think Nietzsche is quite as black and white as that though. There's no doubt he was partially influenced by Stoicism. Yes, he is all about passion and the beauty in the bittersweet and downright tragic. But at the same time the overman steels himself against the tribulations of the world and does not give in to grieving or bereavement...a certain type of grief or mourning perhaps, but not grieving...inward, not outward. By directing grief inward rather than outward one can channel that passion towards creativity, creation out of loss and destruction, and the life-affirmation of moving on. The overman does not dwell on or let himself be consumed by things like loss or tragedy-- as much beauty as there may be in it.

In any case my point was I moderate between the Aristotelean/Nietzschean imperative towards the absolutely focused drive to purpose and the sheer lightness of Epicurus. I definitely lean towards the side of the former but not to the extreme.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

I don't think Nietzsche is quite as black and white as that though. There's no doubt he was partially influenced by Stoicism. Yes, he is all about passion and the beauty in the bittersweet and downright tragic. But at the same time the overman steels himself against the tribulations of the world and does not give in to grieving or bereavement...a certain type of grief or mourning perhaps, but not grieving...inward, not outward. By directing grief inward rather than outward one can channel that passion towards creativity, creation out of loss and destruction, and the life-affirmation of moving on. The overman does not dwell on or let himself be consumed by things like loss or tragedy-- as much beauty as there may be in it.

In any case my point was I moderate between the Aristotelean/Nietzschean imperative towards the absolutely focused drive to purpose and the sheer lightness of Epicurus. I definitely lean towards the side of the former but not to the extreme.

Well the overman would grieve intensely and appropriately, but would then move on and not be a slave to grief.

It is right to grieve as that is part of life, but it is wrong to be ruled by grief.

Grief is life-affirming, but slavery to grief is a denial of life.

There is a certain Aristotelian appropriateness to Nietzsche, a certain cogniscence that there is a good mean between two bad extremes.

Nietzsche does want to say that in every moment there is infinite value and we should use every moment to its utmost. In fact this is close to zen thought.

Anyway, I wouldn't contrast Nietzsche to Epicurus too much as Epicurus is definitely one of Nietzsche's bigger influences. The overman does possess a certain Epicurean non-attachment (and Epicureanism too is near Buddhism here). The difference is that Epicurus tries to avoid things which lead to unpleasant experiences altogether, whereas Nietzsche advocates embracing all experiences but not being ruled by them.

Epicurus still has that view that one should simply avoid what is bad altogether and thus one will be happy...in fact one should avoid what has the potential to become bad as well.

I think both advocate that one should analyze all the beliefs we have that have been conditioned by society and think for ourselves.

 

[nadroj1985]

Funyun,

Zarathustra (and all of Nietzsche's thought, really) is fraught with a bunch of tensions -- or, as naysayers call them, "contradictions" . The contrast between lightness and heaviness is one.

I think what Nietzsche ultimately wants to attack when he attacks the "Geist der Schwere" (literally the "spirit of heaviness") is dogmatic kinds of thinking -- thinking that admits no alternatives, and naively believes that what it has figured out is true for all. There are other targets, sure, but I don't necessarily think that Nietzsche's constant invoking of lightness means that he is fundamentally opposed to the solemn aspects of existence. For instance, the use of the word "profound" in the "On Reading and Writing" section is meant sarcastically, it seems to me. Nietzsche often uses that word as an honorific, and those possessed by the spirit of gravity as Nietzsche conceives it surely are not really profound, though they might perhaps be thought of by the general populace to be such.

The eternal recurrence is a tougher cookie. The point of the doctrine (or psychological test, which is what it really is), it seems to me, is to keep us completely involved in this-worldly affairs by way of completely ruling out any afterworldly concerns. I like to think of it as a psychological rejection of absolute teleology -- if what you are doing now will recur endlessly, what you are doing has no purpose outside of itself. Whatever "weight" is placed on it comes from the action itself (and your relation to it), not some grand scheme or end to which the action is a mere means. And so, it is really far more of a shifting of the weight than it is a celebration of heaviness itself (whatever that is).

Look again at Gay Science 341, where Nietzsche introduces ER (titled, you'll remember, "The greatest weight"):

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!"— Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!" If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you; the question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or [Or!] how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? —

I point out that one word ("or") to show that the sense of heaviness mentioned seems to be optional. He makes a contrast between the person who feels the ER as the greatest weight and a possible individual who is "well-disposed" toward himself. That indicates to me that the greatest weight ought not to be our goal, although it might well be how we take the ER initially. The goal is to become well disposed enough toward ourselves to be able to take the demon's news lightly; ideally, I suppose, we would have to laugh at it.

But the tension between the two is undeniable, as are many other tensions in Nietzsche's thought. The one that, to me, is even bigger and harder to resolve, is the tension between Nietzsche's insistence on constant self-overcoming on the one hand (which involves constant dissatisfaction with our current existence, and a constant search for a better and more powerful one) and the eternal recurrence on the other (which emphasizes a certain acceptance of the ways things are, a Yes-saying, an affirmation, and ultimately a kind of satisfaction).

Crazy book though, eh?

 

[Taure]

There may also be an element of the master/slave morality theme. "Heaviness", to me, sounds a lot like the slave morality: weighed down by guilt, humility, and all those self-depreciating elements of the traditional Christian outlook. A life as a dance, on the other hand, a morality of lightness, seems to me to be much freer, less bound to the convention and able to create its own values.

This might not be what he was intending at all, but it's one interpretation.

I also agree with the above posters regarding the life of ER being one of lightness, not of weight. Solemnity and suchlike is clearly associated with the hated Socrates, Kant and co., tied down by their will to a system. Carrying weight - being bound and not able to soar - all your life would be something to regret, and thus not compatible with a life of no regret.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

I also agree with the above posters regarding the life of ER being one of lightness, not of weight. Solemnity and suchlike is clearly associated with the hated Socrates, Kant and co., tied down by their will to a system.

Socrates is generally listed by Nietzsche as being among the people he admires and who influenced him positively.

I think you might have had Plato in mind.

 

[Taure]

...

What?

I'm just going to take a few quotations. As many as I can be bothered to type out, really.

Wait, no, I've found an online text. Here we go:

http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html#sect2

The problem of Socrates, followed by an attack on reason and the rationalist tradition - a tradition which Socrates started.

And the line between Plato and Socrates is blurred anyway. We have no way of knowing if what Plato wrote was Plato's own philosophy or that of Socrates.

 

[funyun]

Funyun,

Zarathustra (and all of Nietzsche's thought, really) is fraught with a bunch of tensions -- or, as naysayers call them, "contradictions" . The contrast between lightness and heaviness is one.

I think what Nietzsche ultimately wants to attack when he attacks the "Geist der Schwere" (literally the "spirit of heaviness") is dogmatic kinds of thinking -- thinking that admits no alternatives, and naively believes that what it has figured out is true for all. There are other targets, sure, but I don't necessarily think that Nietzsche's constant invoking of lightness means that he is fundamentally opposed to the solemn aspects of existence. For instance, the use of the word "profound" in the "On Reading and Writing" section is meant sarcastically, it seems to me. Nietzsche often uses that word as an honorific, and those possessed by the spirit of gravity as Nietzsche conceives it surely are not really profound, though they might perhaps be thought of by the general populace to be such.

The eternal recurrence is a tougher cookie. The point of the doctrine (or psychological test, which is what it really is), it seems to me, is to keep us completely involved in this-worldly affairs by way of completely ruling out any afterworldly concerns. I like to think of it as a psychological rejection of absolute teleology -- if what you are doing now will recur endlessly, what you are doing has no purpose outside of itself. Whatever "weight" is placed on it comes from the action itself (and your relation to it), not some grand scheme or end to which the action is a mere means. And so, it is really far more of a shifting of the weight than it is a celebration of heaviness itself (whatever that is).

That's interesting. I never thought about heaviness or eternal recurrence that way. I guess I equated solemnity too much with heaviness. I suppose Nietzsche considers it possible to be somewhat solemn and not weighed down at the same time.

Look again at Gay Science 341, where Nietzsche introduces ER (titled, you'll remember, "The greatest weight"):

I point out that one word ("or") to show that the sense of heaviness mentioned seems to be optional. He makes a contrast between the person who feels the ER as the greatest weight and a possible individual who is "well-disposed" toward himself. That indicates to me that the greatest weight ought not to be our goal, although it might well be how we take the ER initially. The goal is to become well disposed enough toward ourselves to be able to take the demon's news lightly; ideally, I suppose, we would have to laugh at it.

Ah, I see now. I don't think I ever took stock of that "or" before. So he's advocating a life lived as though it were subject to eternal recurrence, but at the same time dismissing heaviness. I guess that kind of heaviness would be the wrong view to take on eternal recurrence, sucking any subjectively-created meaning out of a meaningless existence (to me, a good example of his view on Buddhism).

That "or" makes me think now Nietzsche was talking about transcending both lightness and heaviness; transcending lightness by accepting the eternal recurrence (as a drive to purpose, not as a cosmological reality), and transcending heaviness by not being weighed down by such a realization. I don't think by doing so he arrives at lightness again, but at a third option.

But the tension between the two is undeniable, as are many other tensions in Nietzsche's thought. The one that, to me, is even bigger and harder to resolve, is the tension between Nietzsche's insistence on constant self-overcoming on the one hand (which involves constant dissatisfaction with our current existence, and a constant search for a better and more powerful one) and the eternal recurrence on the other (which emphasizes a certain acceptance of the ways things are, a Yes-saying, an affirmation, and ultimately a kind of satisfaction).

Which to me underlies the tension hinted at earlier in the thread, between Nietzsche's definite debt to Stoicism and also his dismissal of a totally withdrawn life-- his denial of Stoic/Buddhist numbness. That tension is, to me, the first step of the Overman in his new, Godless, meaningless existence, the beginning of the creation of personal values and self-purpose. It's one of the main things that draws me in to Nietzsche.

But I'm still hung up on Nietzsche's insistence on self-overcoming versus his metaphysical denial of free will. From "On the Three Metamorphoses":

"But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred 'Yes.' For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred 'Yes' is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.

Emphasis mine. If he means that "first movement"/"wills his own will" stuff literally then I'm afraid I have to side with Schopenhauer over Nietzsche. Although, I like the "self-propelled wheel" part; I have no metaphysical problem with that.

Crazy book though, eh?

I admit I was intimidated by its reputation. I thought it'd be so dense and cryptic I wasn't sure how much I'd get out of it. I've had a professor at my university who is a Nietzsche expert essentially tell me that it was an obscurantist polemic beyond much meaningful analysis.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

...

What?

I'm just going to take a few quotations. As many as I can be bothered to type out, really.

Wait, no, I've found an online text. Here we go:

http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html#sect2

The problem of Socrates, followed by an attack on reason and the rationalist tradition - a tradition which Socrates started.

Nietzsche's is a philosophy of "overcoming", and typically it is an overcoming of what has become embedded as an idol. So Nietzsche does attack Socrates as a proxy to attacking the whole ossified Western philosophical tradition...

...however...

Socrates occurs in those lists Nietzsche puts down of the thinkers he admires. Typically along with people like Heraclitus, Democritus, Epicurus, Pascal, Montaigne, Goethe (and I forget who else).

So Socrates is also someone that Nietzsche considers a great thinker and a great influence upon himself.

There are these tensions in Nietzsche, and it is a misunderstanding to be careless and read things too simply in a single direction.

And the line between Plato and Socrates is blurred anyway. We have no way of knowing if what Plato wrote was Plato's own philosophy or that of Socrates.

Well, recall that Nietzsche was what we would now call a "classical scholar" by profession, and he himself went so far to draw such a distinction between Socrates and Plato that he could have a lecture series on the "Pre-Platonic Philosophers" which of course included Socrates and left out Plato. He goes on, in places, about how Socrates is a "pure type" and that Plato is the first "mixed type" who takes in the thought of many previous thinkers.

So, I don't think Nietzsche thought the distinction was so blurred that one couldn't pull a distinct Socrates out of it.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

*duplicate post*

 

[funyun]

Socrates occurs in those lists Nietzsche puts down of the thinkers he admires. Typically along with people like Heraclitus, Democritus, Epicurus, Pascal, Montaigne, Goethe (and I forget who else).

Spinoza, Dostoevsky, Emerson, Stendhal...

 

[nadroj1985]

That's interesting. I never thought about heaviness or eternal recurrence that way. I guess I equated solemnity too much with heaviness. I suppose Nietzsche considers it possible to be somewhat solemn and not weighed down at the same time.

I think he needs to consider that possible. The eternal recurrence expresses this need -- I imagine to myself that everything I do will recur endlessly, and in so doing, I learn to take my life more seriously (because it now has "eternal" significance) but I also learn to take it more lightly (because there's nothing outside this life for it to measure up to, no "eternity" from which it must get its significance). This is why the aesthetic metaphor works so well; the work of art is also this curious mixture of solemnity and levity. Of course the artist cares deeply about what she creates, and does so in a very serious way; she must, because this is her life's work. But at the same time, the work of art is not possible without a light touch -- the steps are not always planned out in advance, a great deal of experimentation, and perhaps trial and error, happens, and so forth. Nietzsche wants to say that, without God, our lives have to be like that; they are of ultimate importance to us, because they are our lives, but in a grand sense they are of no ultimate importance, because they are not part of a divine plan.

Ah, I see now. I don't think I ever took stock of that "or" before. So he's advocating a life lived as though it were subject to eternal recurrence, but at the same time dismissing heaviness. I guess that kind of heaviness would be the wrong view to take on eternal recurrence, sucking any subjectively-created meaning out of a meaningless existence (to me, a good example of his view on Buddhism).

That "or" makes me think now Nietzsche was talking about transcending both lightness and heaviness; transcending lightness by accepting the eternal recurrence (as a drive to purpose, not as a cosmological reality), and transcending heaviness by not being weighed down by such a realization. I don't think by doing so he arrives at lightness again, but at a third option.

Maybe so. I'm not sure he really arrives at any "position" or "option." He's just trying to explain the way that our lives are related to this tension that must be characteristic of them after the death of God. The significance of our lives came from elsewhere before, but now we have to see that that elsewhere is gone, and only we can provide that significance for ourselves. This is Nietzsche's existential side.

Which to me underlies the tension hinted at earlier in the thread, between Nietzsche's definite debt to Stoicism and also his dismissal of a totally withdrawn life-- his denial of Stoic/Buddhist numbness. That tension is, to me, the first step of the Overman in his new, Godless, meaningless existence, the beginning of the creation of personal values and self-purpose. It's one of the main things that draws me in to Nietzsche.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Emphasis mine. If he means that "first movement"/"wills his own will" stuff literally then I'm afraid I have to side with Schopenhauer over Nietzsche. Although, I like the "self-propelled wheel" part; I have no metaphysical problem with that.

I don't think that he means all of that literally, but I also think that it raises some problems for his more "existential" ideas if we don't take them literally. Creating values, for instance, seems to be impossible in any sort of meaningful sense without free will, and it surely is a conspicuous thing about Nietzsche's writings that he drones on and on about creating new values and never gets around to creating any himself. The professor who I studied under when I was getting my bachelor's always emphasized that, and used to say that Nietzsche had no right to say all those nice existential-sounding aphorisms (like "become who you are") since he really doesn't believe in freedom. It is yet another tension, this time between essentialism and existentialism.

I admit I was intimidated by its reputation. I thought it'd be so dense and cryptic I wasn't sure how much I'd get out of it. I've had a professor at my university who is a Nietzsche expert essentially tell me that it was an obscurantist polemic beyond much meaningful analysis.

Who's your professor, just out of curiosity? If you don't mind my asking, that is.

But yeah, that's a pretty common view, especially among those who try to make Nietzsche into a more or less "conventional" philosopher (e.g. Brian Leiter, Maudemarie Clark, Richard Schacht, etc.). They tend to think that Nietzsche's importance rests in certain important or interesting philosophical theses that we can somehow glean from his texts. And of course that view makes Zarathustra look pretty silly and useless. It's an interesting view, and I think they've found some worthwhile stuff in Nietzsche, but I tend to think that Nietzsche's importance is more therapeutic -- his writings, by working through these tensions that I think we all understand are there in our own lives, he gets at something a bit more fundamental than mere positions on this or that issue. Which is why I think Zarathustra, while it's hard to know what to make of it, remains one of the most important of Nietzsche's texts. Nietzsche admits to being torn more intimately there than anywhere else.

 

[funyun]

I think he needs to consider that possible. The eternal recurrence expresses this need -- I imagine to myself that everything I do will recur endlessly, and in so doing, I learn to take my life more seriously (because it now has "eternal" significance) but I also learn to take it more lightly (because there's nothing outside this life for it to measure up to, no "eternity" from which it must get its significance). This is why the aesthetic metaphor works so well; the work of art is also this curious mixture of solemnity and levity. Of course the artist cares deeply about what she creates, and does so in a very serious way; she must, because this is her life's work. But at the same time, the work of art is not possible without a light touch -- the steps are not always planned out in advance, a great deal of experimentation, and perhaps trial and error, happens, and so forth. Nietzsche wants to say that, without God, our lives have to be like that; they are of ultimate importance to us, because they are our lives, but in a grand sense they are of no ultimate importance, because they are not part of a divine plan.

I wonder with what significance this thesis can be applied to the Apollo-Dionysian dynamic of "The Artist." For Nietzsche, to be an artistic creator is to be a philosopher on some level, and your individual philosophy I suppose shapes your aesthetics (taste, not theory). Or, it's not as simply causal as that-- one's philosophy and aesthetics may be caught in a causal loop.

Maybe so. I'm not sure he really arrives at any "position" or "option." He's just trying to explain the way that our lives are related to this tension that must be characteristic of them after the death of God. The significance of our lives came from elsewhere before, but now we have to see that that elsewhere is gone, and only we can provide that significance for ourselves. This is Nietzsche's existential side.

He may not arrive at a position he considers unerringly superior, but he's certainly not the type to let one option slide as simply an observation on who we are, without critiquing it. As arguable holder of the title of "Most Opinionated Person Ever," Nietzsche's gotta criticize every position, even the ones he prefers.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

To me Nietzsche is about expounding on just what "God is dead" means. "God is dead" is the fundamental, primary axiom of Nietzsche's thought. From it follows a sort of "well, what now?" in very primally profound sense. Nietzsche's reply is (more poetically than literally): "Make yourself a god, after your own fashion." If God is dead there is no inherent, transcendent meaning. So make your own. And live that meaning to its fullest.

But what does that mean, to create one's own meaning and live it? Is knowing you have a meaningless existence a burden? Is living your own meaning, your own purpose, a burden? Someone who sees "God is dead" as a nihilistic anthem would say so. But Nietzsche argues it is not life-denying but life-affirming; if one sees it as life-denying that is only one's own faults made visible by a kind of existential grief. Moving past that is life-affirming, the path of the overman. It may be a burden but the overman is a beast of burden, so it is no great weight. I guess to me the heaviness/lightness debate now is purely a matter of perspective. It may be heavy in some sense, but to the overman is isn't really. It may still be a lot of mass, but weight changes depending on where you stand.

You have to work out what you want to be, as a response to the begging of the question that is your own existence in a world without divine teleology. Siddhartha's response to "God is dead" is rather contemplative-- something of a withdrawal of the individual from the world. This isn't the same as the Christian withdrawal, with its emphasis on another world, but rather a withdrawal from all worlds, from existing itself: The Will to Nothing. Really, it's hard to say whether that's heaviness or lightness...in some way's it's kind of both. The Stoic's response is related, with another kind of withdrawal, not from the world per se, not that we interact with it but from how we interact with it. Stoicism would have us cut ourselves off in a way similar, but different from, Buddhism. Both it and Buddhism are a kind of numbness to the world. They are ways of coping, I suppose. But Nietzsche doesn't want us to merely cope, but overcome, and in the most impossible way-- not overcome the world but our own selves.

The tension is between the passion for life, for the world to its fullest, a complete embrace of Being-in-the-World, and that overcoming, a rejection of "mere-ness", and the embrace of Power and the Will that shapes and creates out of the mould. How the individual approaches that highly-nuanced conundrum between those two general approaches is the beginning of the overman.

I don't think that he means all of that literally, but I also think that it raises some problems for his more "existential" ideas if we don't take them literally. Creating values, for instance, seems to be impossible in any sort of meaningful sense without free will, and it surely is a conspicuous thing about Nietzsche's writings that he drones on and on about creating new values and never gets around to creating any himself. The professor who I studied under when I was getting my bachelor's always emphasized that, and used to say that Nietzsche had no right to say all those nice existential-sounding aphorisms (like "become who you are") since he really doesn't believe in freedom. It is yet another tension, this time between essentialism and existentialism.

Which he never really resolved. I think Heidegger had to come along to resolve it for him. Not that that's all Heidegger was doing. It completely went over Sartre's head but Heidegger was uplifting ontology's very foundations by completely throwing out the existence vs. essence dichotomy. By doing so he, in my opinion, resolved-- or helped to resolve-- Nietzsche's view on the matter.

Who's your professor, just out of curiosity? If you don't mind my asking, that is.

He's not really my professor. I went to a lecture he gave on Nietzsche at my university and talked to him at length afterwards. His "further reading" advice I took to essentially boil down to: Everything but the more literary stuff.

I'd tell you his name but I don't think it's fair for me to disseminate my understanding of someone else's opinions over the internet, where they can't defend or clarify themselves, or even be aware that it's there.