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Title: Nietzsche: Untimely Meditations by Friedrich Nietzsche, Daniel Breazeale, R. J. Hollingdale, Karl Ameriks, Desmond M. Clarke ISBN: 0-521-58584-8 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 06 November, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (4 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Skip this one, it's of interest only to Nietzshe scholars
Comment: It's an early book of Nietzsche's, and imo should be qualified as juvenilia. He wrote "Meditations" before he developed his concise aphoristic style he's famous for -- this books is written in the essay form and, with all due respect, he was not good at that. To be sure, now and then you'll hit a pearl, but to undig it from below the layers of totally overwrought, metaphorically overloaded, plodding and grandiloquent logorrhea is not an easy task. Half-a-page, highly elliptic phrases predominate: by the time you're through a page you forget what the hell it was all about. That's about style, but if you persevere and distill the subject matter and argumentation, they will be unconvincing as well, and furthermore, unnecessary. Especially bad is the essay on Schopenhauer, it rambles on without end while going nowhere... Overall, "Mediations" makes an impression of an immature, adolescent work; I suspect it can be of interest to scholars, but a casual reader is unlikely to enjoy it.
My suggestion: Nietzsche should be read from "The Gay Science" and up. Everything before is optional (charitably speaking.)
Rating: 5
Summary: Unfashionable Observations
Comment: Nietzsche wrote "David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer" in 1873, the first of his Unfashionable Observations, at the behest of Richard Wagner. David Strauss was an eminent theologian, whose The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1864) had had a tremendous impact due to its demystification of Jesus' life. Strauss had contended that the supernatural claims made about the historical Jesus could be explained in terms of the particular needs of his community. Although Strauss defends Christianity for it's moral ideals, his demythologizing of Jesus appealed to Nietzsche.
Nevertheless, Wagner had been publicly denounced by Strauss in 1865 for having persuaded Ludwig II to fire a musician rival. Not one to forget an assault, Wagner encouraged Nietzsche to read Strauss' recent The Old and the New Faith (1872), which advocated the rejection of the Christian faith in favor of a Darwinian, materialistic and patriotic worldview. Wagner described the book to Nietzsche as extremely superficial, and Nietzsche agreed with Wagner's opinion, despite the similarity of his own views to Strauss' perspective on religion.
This Unfashionable Observation, accordingly, was Nietzsche's attempt to avenge Wagner by attacking Strauss' recent book. In fact, the essay is at least as much an argumentative attack on Strauss as on his book, for Nietzsche identifies Strauss as a cultural "Philistine" and exemplar of pseudoculture. The resulting essay appears extremely intemperate, although erudite, filled with references to many of Nietzsche's scholarly contemporaries. The climax is a literary tour de force, in which Nietzsche cites a litany of malapropisms from Strauss, interspersed with his own barbed comments.
Nietzsche's second Unfashionable Observation, "On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life" (1874) is "unfashionable" because it questions the apparent assumption of nineteenth century German educators that historical knowledge is intrinsically valuable. Nietzsche argues, in contrast, that historical knowledge is valuable only when it has a positive effect on human beings' sense of life. Although he acknowledges that history does provide a number of benefits in this respect, Nietzsche also contends that there are a number of ways in which historical knowledge could prove damaging to those who pursued it and that many of his contemporaries were suffering these ill effects.
Nietzsche contends that history can play three positive roles, which he terms "monumental," "antiquarian," and "critical." Monumental history brings the great achievements of humanity into focus. This genre of history has value for contemporary individuals because it makes them aware of what is possible for human beings to achieve. Antiquarian history, history motivated primarily out of a spirit of reverence for the past, can be valuable to contemporary individuals by helping them appreciate their lives and culture. Critical history, history approached in an effort to pass judgment, provides a counter-balancing effect to that inspired by antiquarian history. By judging the past, those engaged in critical history remain attentive to flaws and failures in the experience of their culture, thereby avoiding slavish blindness in their appreciation of it.
The problem with historical scholarship in his own time, according to Nietzsche, was that historical knowledge was pursued for its own sake. He cited five dangers resulting from such an approach to history: (1) Modern historical knowledge undercuts joy in the present, since it makes the present appear as just another episode. (2) Modern historical knowledge inhibits creative activity by convincing those made aware of the vast sweep of historical currents that their present actions are too feeble to change the past they have inherited. (3) Modern historical knowledge encourages the sense that the inner person is disconnected from the outer world by assaulting the psyche with more information than it can absorb and assimilate. ( 4) Modern historical knowledge encourages a jaded relativism toward reality and present experience, motivated by a sense that because things keep changing present states of affairs do not matter. (5) Modern historical knowledge inspires irony and cynicism about the contemporary individual's role in the world; the historically knowledgeable person comes to feel increasingly like an afterthought in the scheme of things, imbued by a sense of belatedness.
Although Nietzsche was convinced that the current approach to history was psychologically and ethically devastating to his contemporaries, particularly the young, he contends that antidotes could reverse those trends. One antidote is the unhistorical, the ability to forget how overwhelming the deluge of historical information is, and to "enclose oneself within a bounded horizon." A second antidote is the suprahistorical, a shift of focus from the ongoing flux of history to "that which bestows upon existence the character of the eternal and stable, towards art and religion."
Nietzsche's third Unfashionable Observation "Schopenhauer as Educator" (1874), probably provides more information about Nietzsche himself than it does about Schopenhauer or his philosophy.
Schopenhauer, in Nietzsche's idealizing perspective, is exemplary because he was so thoroughly an individual genius. Schopenhauer was one of those rare individuals whose emergence is nature's true goal in producing humanity, Nietzsche suggests. He praises Schopenhauer's indifference to the mediocre academicians of his era, as well as his heroism as a philosophical loner.
Strangely, given Schopenhauer's legendary pessimism, Nietzsche praises his "cheerfulness that really cheers" along with his honesty and steadfastness. But Nietzsche argues that in addition to specific traits that a student might imitate, Schopenhauer offers a more important kind of example. Being himself attuned to the laws of his own character, Schopenhauer directed those students who were incapable of insight to recognize the laws of their own character. By reading and learning from Schopenhauer, one could develop one's own individuality.
"Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" (1876), the fourth and final of Nietzsche's published Unfashionable Observations, was intended as an essay of praise to Wagner, much like "Schopenhauer as Educator." Nietzsche's relationship with Wagner had been strained by the time he wrote the essay, however, and the tension is evident in the text, which emphasizes Wagner's psychology (a theme that would preoccupy Nietzsche in many of his future writings). Nietzsche, himself, may have been concerned about the extent to which the essay might be perceived as unflattering, for he considered not publishing it. Ultimately, Nietzsche published a version of the essay that was considerably less critical of Wagner than were earlier drafts, and Wagner was pleased enough to send a copy of the essay to King Ludwig.
Rating: 4
Summary: Ought to be Properly Introduced
Comment: Nietzsche and Wagner were adept at picking on their contemporaries in a way that is so thoroughly unpopular now that I would not be surprised if this book is never again printed with the Introduction by J.P. Stern which was in the 1983 version reprinted in 1989, and which I purchased in 1990. It is clear from that introduction that David Strauss had read the first portion of this book and furnished his friend Rapp with a clear question about Nietzsche's character in a letter of 19 December 1873. "First they draw and quarter you, then they hang you. The only thing I find interesting about the fellow is the psychological point -- how can one get into such a rage with a person whose path one has never crossed, in brief, the real motive of this passionate hatred." (p. xiv) Those who are familiar with legal procedures, or how the media treats anyone who is suddenly perceived to be a fink, might enjoy this book as something that might be considered an unforgivable outburst today. Who could wish for such a triumph now, over intellectual paths which crossed twice? When Nietzsche was young, he perceived a scholar who displayed the real Straussian genius. Later, Nietzsche could only find a writer who, "if he is not to slip back into the Hegelian mud, is condemned to live out his life on the barren and perilous quicksands of newspaper style." (p. 54) I could have rated this book a bit higher, for being much more truthful than is expected of scholarly work today, but the kind of scholars who read these books might have no idea what I meant, or they know that they are better off not raising questions about those political issues which are most questionable. Nietzsche's real fearlessness began here.
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Title: Nietzsche: Daybreak : Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche, Maudemarie Clark, Brian Leiter, Karl Ameriks, Desmond M. Clarke ISBN: 0521599636 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 13 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human : A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Nietzsche, R. J. Hollingdale, Richard Schacht, Karl Ameriks, Desmond M. Clarke ISBN: 0521567041 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 07 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche ISBN: 0394704371 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 August, 1968 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Nietzsche: Writings from the Late Notebooks by Friedrich Nietzsche, Rüdiger Bittner, Kate Sturge, Karl Ameriks, Desmond M. Clarke ISBN: 0521008875 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 20 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Gay Science : With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs by Walter Kaufmann, Friedrich Nietzsche ISBN: 0394719859 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 January, 1974 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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