/lit/ - Literature

>>9052329

oh absolutely. but nietzsche would say that openly: his attacks on david strauss and his contemporary german "culture" show this.

like adorno's critique and the frankfurt innovation that would follow, nietzsche’s critique of hegel’s historicism leads him to argue that the “peak” of human civilization is not the culmination of history in his contemporary era, but the early age of Greece. it was in pre-socratic greek philosophy, and tragedy especially, that Nietzsche found the affirmative elements of man’s suffering that would come to characterize much of his later philosophy. for Nietzsche, the health of a culture may be measured by how well that culture maximizes the outputs and channels of human creativity and strength; it is this instinctual and life affirming capacity that nietzsche appreciates in greek culture, and he comes to call this attitude toward reality as the “master morality.”

one doesn't have to take a stand on the whole huxley/orwell debate to see how categorically nietzsche would condemn contemporary american culture. so little of it offers to sort of resistance/challenge to the self that he admires; we generally seek comfort, supplication and validation in our consumption of "culture," thus rendering it 1. unaesthetic, and 2. therefore not a "culture" whatsoever.

though there are some great artists that america has produced, i don't think he would look to any of our leaders/thinkers/artists as true overmen--maybe whitman? and he would certainly say we do not have the cultural economy that produces overmen.

but, again--does the overman have to emerge in a certain context? or can the overman come to a totally corrupted world and redeem it? is the context least amenable to the overman's emergence the one that will ultimately and most passioantely witness his rise?--is this one of the great ironies of our age? i am not sure, and would care to hear your thoughts.