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reviewed Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Pippin, Adrian Del Caro: Thus Spoke Zarathustra (2006, Cambridge University Press) 3 stars

Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and his story of the …

False Solemnity with Theatrical Exuberance

3 stars

So there's a tendency in Nietzsche's fans that whenever you criticize Nietzsche they think that's because you don't understand him. In this aspect Nietzsche is very similar to Wagner: if you criticize Wagner it must be that you don't understand the passionate solemnity of Wagner.

This is a great work but equally a profoundly flawed work. In fact I never liked it. I liked Nietzsche's other writings, in spite of their self-contradictions and outright stupidities, I liked, but this book is just much too theatrical. It's a work for the moderns who no longer understand what "solemnity" precisely means. So they'll be immersing themselves in Wagner's, Mahler's, and Bruckner's nearly hysterical sound masses and exclaim "solemn" and "magnificent" without realizing that this sensual chaos has nothing that solemn or "transcendental" per se. I used the word "transcendental", then Nietzsche's fans will be like, no I don't want transcendence I want immanence and I'm faithful to the Earth or whatever. So there's a universal lie that acts as an rhectorical device to segregate Nietzsche's fans from other people who they think are inferior.

Whether they're superior I don't know, it seems plain to me that they're not trying to understand others since this very act of trying to understand leads them to believe that they may not be that unique and that passionate - there's a hidden insecurity in their passion. Anyway, in this childish, hysterical display, I can only see something lamentable rather than something admirable.

Of course they don't want to be admired I know perfectly well. Just see how much resentment and defence they have regarding their uniqueness and passion.

Futile struggle that accomplishes the very feeling of struggle and Amor Fati by means of acting it out. Seeking its own destruction as if it is meaningful somehow. Give it up seriously. This really is a badly written work. It's good for some people, but whomever has read and actually understands this work can only pity and lament Nietzsche's downfall.

replied to gesang's status

@gesang Actually I quite found that in figures like Wagner and Mahler, they have a much dirty and annoying style of what you describe as False Solemnity. Wagner had an Anarchy-esque past of dishonor. Compared to Wagner or Mahler, Stirner was quite clear and religious. Up to today I still don't know why Wagner's music attracted Nietzsche so much.

replied to xenine's status

@xenine I think it is extremely clear why Wagner attracted Nietzsche so much. In fact I think he will prefer Mahler better than Bruckner. He had really a bad taste. He once said that Beethoven's Op.106 is not for piano but for orchestra. You know how dumb it is. He also admired Schopenhauer once, whose style is just awful. In Nietzsche's other works there's no trace of this false solemnity. But in Zarathustra it just reeks.

replied to gesang's status

@xenine To some extend, I think this hysterical false solemnity in Nietzsche is in essence very different from Wagner's, but effectively they're the same. In Nietzsche's case, he's just too damn honest to commit to his lie - he even lied to himself. Deleuze and Heidegger just lie, and they lie happily, they want to deceive and they want to be admired, so Deleuze, a really profoundly immoral and strangely theatrical person, will say things like anti-Facist. Nietzsche was too bound to transcendental things, he's to Platonic, but he also needs to commit himself to mechanistic ideas to stress that Amor Fati out. You see the consequence here.