/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15495007]

From The Gay Science:
>Whatever in nature and in history is of my own kind, speaks to me, spurs me on, and comforts me; the rest I do not hear or forget right away. We are always only in our own company.
What did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.15496297]

Bump

[Anonymous No.15496314]

He likes nature and (I assume) historical narratives or something. It 'speaks' to him, 'spurs' him on, and 'comforts' him. Anything else he doesn't pay attention to.
>We are always in our own company.
I interpret this as meaning we only pay attention to what we want to pay attention to.

[Anonymous No.15496624]

>>15495007
he was a big coomer

[Anonymous No.15496662]

>>15495007
Regardless of source, he takes what's relevant for him, whatever helps him in his act of self-overcoming. It he gets his comfort and facets of his worldview from those that are "evil", then so be it.

[Anonymous No.15497515]

>>15495007
Definitely an ambiguous aphorism, I think there could be a relationship between it with:

>Not being a soldier of culture unless necessary. -Finally, finally we learn what cost us so much by not having been known in younger years: that we must first do what is excellent, and secondly seek out excellence, wherever and under whatever names it may be found: that we should, on the contrary, immediately get out of the way of everything bad and mediocre, without fighting against it, and that any doubt about the goodness of a thing-as quickly occurs for more experienced taste-should already count for us as an argument against it and as a reason to avoid it completely: at the risk of sometimes making mistakes and confusing the harder-to-access good with what is bad and imperfect. Only someone who can do nothing better should assault the bad things in the world as a soldier of culture. But the peasant and scholarly classes destroy themselves if they want to go in for weapons and turn the peacefulness of their occupations and homes into uncomfortable unpeacefulness through all their precautions, night watches and bad dreams.

I think when this idea becomes instinct (automatic), it produces:

>Whatever in nature and in history is of my own kind, speaks to me, spurs me on, and comforts me; the rest I do not hear or forget right away. We are always only in our own company.

[Anonymous No.15497555]

>>15495007

How is this ambiguous????

The origin and focal point of experience is ones own self. Outer forms that share their likeness with us are at once easier to understand by virtue of their familiarity and also comfort us by affirming that our likeness has significance beyond ourselves.

It is really scary seeing some of the brainlets in this thread not understanding or misinterpreting this quote. Those people are def. not gonna make it

[Anonymous No.15497657]

>>15497555

let me add that the OP quote contrasts starkly with Nietzsche's love of the Dionysian aesthetic. That of the foreigner, the alien, that of self sacrifice and self reconstituting. I am uncertain how to plot Nietzsche's intellectual trajectory and I have no read The Gay Science, but it immediately precedes Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, which I have read carefully. But there is of course a higher principle to the Dionysian chaos, that seeking out the foreign leads to antipathy with oneself. When that foreign idea is realized or embodied, what was once familiar is now foreign and may sympathize with it once again and again feel antipathy towards oneself. So that, paradoxically, the other pasture ends up always seeming greener.

[Anonymous No.15497692]

>>15497555
Your interpretation is wrong because he never implies anything about finding it easier to understand things that are familiar, he instead writes about the motivating and comforting effects which things "of his own kind" have. "the rest I do not hear or forget right away" doesn't imply that he can't understand them due to their lack of likeness to him, which your simplistic interpretation would imply, but instead his choice to turn away from things that are beneath him. The ambiguity of this aphorism is created by the lack of full explanation due to its short size.

[Anonymous No.15497726]

>>15497692

>but instead his choice to turn away from things that are beneath him

There is no connotation of superiority and inferiority, the connotation is that of attraction and repelling.

>Your interpretation is wrong because he never implies anything about finding it easier to understand things that are familiar,

"speaks to me", suggests a combination of sympathy and understanding

>he instead writes about the motivating and comforting effects which things "of his own kind" have. "the rest I do not hear or forget right away" doesn't imply that he can't understand them due to their lack of likeness to him,

"forgetfulness" reinforces the connotation that he is speaking not only of desire/attraction but also intellectual understanding. And this passage may suggest a connection between the two. The motivating and comforting factors reinforce understanding

[Anonymous No.15497779]

It's essentially a summary of On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life - Nietzsche has interest in historical and scientific truth only in so far as it supports life, and not in any truth-in-and-of-itself, or truth-for-its-own-sake.

[Anonymous No.15497831]

>>15497515
where's that from

[Anonymous No.15497890]

>>15497726
>"speaks to me", suggests a combination of sympathy and understanding

If "speaks to me" is the combination of sympathy and understanding, then if he implied that things which he doesn't hear don't speak to him (which he never explicitly wrote), it in no way implies that he doesn't understand them -- Christian morality doesn't "speak to him" but that doesn't mean he can't understand it.

>There is no connotation of superiority and inferiority, the connotation is that of attraction and repelling

A common idea throughout Nietzsche's writing is the idea that voluntarily renouncing things which are beneath us is required to soar higher. I don't believe its a stretch to connect that idea here, and question whether he doesn't hear things, or forgets them right away because they are things which are beneath him (which he has renounced).

>"forgetfulness" reinforces the connotation that he is speaking not only of desire/attraction but also intellectual understanding. And this passage may suggest a connection between the two. The motivating and comforting factors reinforce understanding

My interpretation is that his intellectual understanding allows him to prefer whats better, not because he can't understand "the rest" but because his knowledge enables him to prefer whats better compared to whats worse, which is why I included the aphorism "Not being a soldier of culture unless necessary".

>>15497831
Mixed Opinions and Maxims in Human, all too Human.

[Anonymous No.15497931]

>>15497890

I think we agree about the broader views of Nietzsche