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Cerebral Contents: Update for 05.13.08: Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis 05.05.08: Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi 04.29.08: The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox Death by Onions by Michael Frissore 04.21.08: Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser Identity Theft by George Anderson A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde 04.14.08: Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem California by Caroline Imreibe Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson 04.07.08: The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin 03.24.08: Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer 03.17.08: The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney 03.10.08: Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson |
The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch
Philosophy — perhaps the liberal arts in general — often looks like a presentation by a group of marketers trying to initiate brands. Hence, a dictionary definition for a school of philosophy resembles a marketing difference between the Honda Accord LX and the Honda Accord EX or the Hyundai Sonata and the Hyundai Elantra.
But I want to say that the number one reason to have a Burckhardt Nietzsche is to reject Nietzsche as an advocate of human cruelty and violence. Such Nietzsches include a Hitler Nietzsche, a Cesare Borgia Nietzsche, a promoter-of-violence and strife Nietzsche, an anarchist Nietzsche... Might, at some point, these Nietzsches share something in common with a Burckhardt Nietzsche? Consider Plato, whose quest for excellence supersedes love for his fellow man. Consider Nietzschean excellence. Consider The Republic.
But Nietzsche escapes neither Plato nor Christ, and in some ways, his philosophy is an attempt to confront this split in Western thought. Most surveys of Nietzsche — namely, those that depict him as an advocate of cruelty and violence — cannot differentiate from a Nietzsche who analyzes violence and a Nietzsche who advocates violence. What Nietzsche advocates. Nietzsche as a philosopher who sees the questions that will shape the world to come, and thus as a thinker in the spirit of Burckhardt, is quite different from Nietzsche as a philosopher who advocates a certain ontology.
Of course, Nietzsche allows us both interpretations for he is both prophet and advocate, but the role violence plays in his new world order is what shapes the way we understand him. Consider a Tocqueville Nietzsche with Hobbes on the Horizon. Or just add to the list: Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche Nietzsche, Lou Andreas-Salomé Nietzsche, Lloyd George Nietzsche, Freud Nietzsche, Jung Nietzsche, Mencken Nietzsche, Heidegger Nietzsche, Jaspers Nietzsche, Kaufmann Nietzsche, Ayn Rand Nietzsche, Foucault Nietzsche, Foucault Nietzche... the anti-rabble Nietzsche... Today’s discussion begins with a brief list — a genealogy — and a claim about the need for a thoroughly historicized Nietzsche.
Before we get to the list, a note for the slackers: On the stock market of fame and fortune, 15 minutes of fame is now down to 1 minute 30 seconds, and eternity is now at 30 years. Then, it’s back to work. Enjoy your forever: now 50 years to 150 years at most. Critics say that when the human population on earth hits 10 billion, the game moves to a new level. A thoroughly historicized Nietzsche needs Burckhardt. Here is a place to start: Basel in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study in Unseasonable Ideas. But note that the comparison is not of 19th Century Basel to Renaissance Florence, but of Basel as a reconsideration of Florence or as a reconsideration of the Renaissance man in light of the French Revolution. It’s hard to avoid Wikipedia. Western civilization, Western civilization, With Leo Strauss, I leave the question of Nietzsche as a matter of political positioning, a.k.a. cynicism. This Bismarck. This Germany. ______________________________________ |
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