i can't remember if i've mentioned this previously, but i've been sitting in on a class this semester up at Covenant College, my alma mater. actually, i'm not just sitting in, i'm taking it for credit, which is sort of what's at issue right now because we have our final paper due on thursday. i'm kind of stuck at this point as to what i want to write on so i thought i'd take a few minutes and brainstorm on my blog.
the idea is to talk about nietzsche's fascination with tragedy, or the tragic vehicle. most of his discussion of tragedy is laid out in his first major work, the birth of tragedy, but the ideas continue throughout the rest of his writings and even seem to undergird his later ideas on eternal recurrence and morality. what i find interesting about his ideas is how closely they seem to parallel a christian approach to the questions of existence. at root for most philosophers is the search for meaning in existence and this is no different for Nietzsche. ultimately he determines that one's reality, one's ethic, flows from one's will to power, and this theme informs all areas of his thinking. however, early on, before he comes to this belief, in BT, he seems more interested in dealing with the suffering of life in an authentic manner. that is, attempting to mollify the anguish of life by striking a balance between an Apollonian ignorance of the noumenal and a Dionysian dismissal of the phenomenal. (if that sentence made no sense to you that's okay. i'm not sure it makes sense to me, but i just need to flesh out my thoughts...)
anyhow, what i want to write about is the development of thought from Nietzsche in BT to Walker Percy in Lost in the Cosmos to my own biblically informed response to suffering. which, in turn, should show the circular nature of the whole discussion and the manner in which both Nietzsche's and Percy's (and my own) ideas about suffering and deliverance are informed necessarily by the Holy Spirit. for Nietzsche, and I think for Percy, this is completely unintentional. what we covenant grads would call a common grace insight. whereas for me, it is completely intentional and an attempt to flesh out ways in which all knowledge is from God, or "all truth is God's truth" as Van Til would say.
i think that last idea is what is most fascinating to me about this whole Nietzschian (sp?) study. the fact that though he can be so wrong about so many things, about most of his final conclusions, he can be so right about his starting points. his insights about human nature and human suffering are more accurate, more disarming, than much of what i've read coming out of the Christian camp. and yet, sadly, in his refusal to allow for a "weak" savior, his conclusions feel absolutely contrived.
Posted by andy at April 19, 2003 06:01 PMI think I'm fairly certain, and fairly aware of myself personally, the we develope our own life-philosophies out of and because of who we are and our experiences (both of which include the existential conversation that occurs between ourselves and media(s) and other people).
Hence, I find those people who more or less sneer at or look down on a person (because of their special knowledge of that person) for having apparent subjectivity in their viewpoints, rather, well, annoying. Don't we all generate our philosophies of life out of our own experiences and who we are? Isn't it painful, Enlightenment arrogance to think anyones take or opinion on something has less strength behind it because it is driven by who they are?
Anyways, maybe I'm just writing an apologetic for myself...but on to your post...
You made a really cool comment about Nietzsche trying to "mollify the anguish of life by striking a balance between an Apollonian ignorance of the noumenal and a Dionysian dismissal of the phenomenal." Dividing persons into those two categories has occured in a discussion or two between some friends and I (Chip in particular).
What I've found is I have a very particular distaste for the more Appolonian folks. First, because I think the formal (phenomenal) is just a bunch of bunk and life needs to be dealt in the realm of inter-subjectivity, AND because I often find the Appolonian folks commiting the frustration I talked about in the second paragraph.
Of course, my entire line of argumentation (if you can call it that) here is ragingly circular, but I hope it made a point.
Oh, and Pastor Bob today said something in church that annoyed me a bit. He said all facts have meaning, and that there's no such thing as a meaningless fact (referring specifically to the historical fact of Christ's death.
Now, I definately think all facts have meaning, because of this Kierkegaardian subjectivity thing we've been working on. But didn't Van Til say "A brute fact is a mute fact." Ah well, I guess I'm just really looking forward to sitting down with Pastor Bob and working through all that.
Posted by: JosiahQ at April 20, 2003 11:17 PM...if you believe that there can be facts outside the revealed truths of Scripture...
Nietzsche and suffering...my husband did some work on that topic singling in on Ecclesiastes. Zarathustra is like the Teacher, etc. It was very interesting, though never got to a polished paper.
Posted by: Jeannette at April 22, 2003 03:02 PM"...to mollify the anguish of life by striking a balance between an Apollonian ignorance of the noumenal and a Dionysian dismissal of the phenomenal"
This ends up sounding like a weird Kantian/Hegelian dialectic. Do you Nietzsche was responding to distinctions made be Kant?
Posted by: Jeannette at April 22, 2003 03:04 PMactually jeannette, it's funny you should ask. i was just doing some reading this morning that claims that Nietzche's love of the tragic was anything but Hegelian. at least, so he claims later in life. his early writings definitely feel that way, but in Ecce Homo he says something to the effect of "Birth of Tragedy reeks of Hegel." but then, i do think that Nietzsche, and just about everyone else, us included, can't help but respond to the kantian dialectic. as reg used to say, "we live in a post-kantian world..."
Posted by: andy at April 22, 2003 06:01 PMPerhaps unrelated to Nietzsche... I'm wondering how much we can say that Hegel was "in the air" in the 19th c (esp late 19th c) and that kind of thinking affected people more than they thought? (I'm thinking of this particularly with regards to Wagner...) As an historian, I recoil at something so seemingly nebulous, but at the same time, it seems plausible. Could N have been more influenced than he would've admitted?
Posted by: Jeannette at April 23, 2003 07:02 PMOmg thats right! Please come see me and my friends! ;)
Posted by: watch moi at March 17, 2005 02:07 PM