Exceedingly Nietzsche: Aspects of Contemporary Nietzsche-Interpretation

WARWICK STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE General editor: David Wood It used to be commonplace to insist on the elimi...

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WARWICK STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE General editor: David Wood It used to be commonplace to insist on the elimination of the 'literary' dimension from philosophy. This was particularly true for a philosophical tradition inspired by the possibilities of formalization and by the success of the natural sciences. And yet even in the most rigorous instances of such philosophy we find demands for 'clarity', for 'tight' argument, and distinctions between 'strong' and 'weak' proofs which call out for a rhetorical reading. Equally, modern literary theory, quite as much as literature itself, is increasingly looking to philosophy (and other theoretical disciplines such as linguistics) for its inspiration. After a wave of structuralist analysis, the growing influence of deconstructive and hermeneutic readings continues to bear witness to this. While philosophy and literature are not to be identified, even if philosophy is thought of as 'a kind of writing', much of the most exciting theoretical work being done today, in Britain, Europe and America, exploits their tensions and intertwinings. When one recalls that Plato, who wished to keep philosophy and poetry apart, actually unified the two in his own writing, it is clear that the current upsurge of interest in this field is only reengaging with the questions alive in the broader tradition. The University of Warwick pioneered the undergraduate study of the theoretical coition of Philosophy and Literature, and its recently established Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature has won wide acclaim for its adventurous and dynamic programme of conferences and research. With this Series the work of the Centre is opened to a wider public. Each volume aims to bring the best scholarship to bear on topical themes in an atmosphere of intellectual excitement. The series will be further developed by the inclusion of monographs by distinguished academics.

EXCEEDINGLY NIETZSCHE Aspects of Contemporary Nietzsche-Interpretation Edited by DAVID FARRELL KRELL and DAVID WOOD

ROUTLEDGE London and New York

First published in 1988 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Published in the USA by Routledge & Kegan Paul Inc. in association with Methuen Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Set in 10 on 12 point Sabon by Column$ of Reading and printed in Great Britain by T.]. Press (Padstow) Ltd Padstow, Cornwall © University of Warwick 1988 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Exceedingly Nietzsche: aspects of contemporary Nietzsche - interpretation I edited by David Farrell Krell and David Wood. p. em. - ( Warwick studies in philosophy and literature: vol. 1) Includes index. 1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. I. Krell, David Farrell. II. Wood, David (David C.) III. Series. B3317.E89 1988 87-18615 193-dc19 British Library CIP Data also available ISBN 0-415-00189-7

Contents Vll

Notes on the Contributors Preface Abbreviations PART ONE:

1

XI XV

M USIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS

Dionysus - In Excess of Metaphysics

3

John S a l lis

2 3

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of Art'

13

Michael Haar

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time

31

D avid Wood

4

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche

63

D avid Pol l a rd

5

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow: Gasche, Derrida and Klossowski on Ecce Homo

80

David Farrell Krell PART TWO :

6

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WAR

Orchids and Muscles

97

Alphonso Lingis

7

'Ideal Selfishness ': Nietzsche 's Metaphor of Maternity

1 16

Alison Ainley

8

9

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man '

13 1

Alan D . Schrift

Nietzsche on the Edge of Town: Deleuze and Reflexivity Hugh Tomlinson

v

150

Contents 10

Nietzsche and the Critique of Ursprungsphilosophie

164

Peter Dews

Index

177

Notes on the Contributors

ALISON AINLEY is a graduate student in the Department o f Philosophy at t h e University o f Warwick, where s h e is currently working o n a thesis on feminism and ethics. She h a s written on Levinas a n d Kristeva in and

has

poems

The Provocation of Levinas ( forthcoming) i n The Eric G regory Anthology

included

(Sal amander, 1987).

PETER DEWS is currently Lecturer in European Thought and Literature, i n t h e Department o f Humanities, Cambridgesh i re College of Arts and Tech nology. He is the editor of an anthology

Autonomy and Solidarity Logics of Disintegration: Post structuralist Thought and the Claims of Critical Theory (Verso o f interviews with Ju rgen Habermas, (Verso 1986) a n d is the author of

1987).

MICHEL HAAR is

maitre des conferences

at the University of

Paris (Sorbonne) . He has transl ated Nietzsche f or the French edition o f the

Gesamtausgabe

and has written many articles on

contemporary philosophy, especi a l l y on Hei degger and Nietzsche. He is the author o f

La Chant de Ia terre

( L ' Herne, 1987).

DAVID FARRELL KRELL is Senior Lectu rer a n d Chairman in the Department o f Philosophy a t the University o f Essex . He is the author o f

Intimations of Morality: Time, Truth and Finitude in vii

Notes on the contributors

Heidegger's Thinking of Being ( Pennsylva n i a State Un iversity Press, 1986) and Postponements: Woman, Sensuality, and Death in Nietzsche ( I n diana Un iversity Press, 1986) and the editor of a number of Hei degger's works in English, including the m u l ti vol u me

Nietzsche.

ALPHONSO LINGIS is Professor o f Philosophy at Pennsylva nia

Excesses: Eros and Culture Libido: The French Existential Press, 1986) and Phenomenological

State University. H e is th e a u th o r o f (New York, SUNY Press , 1983),

Theories ( I n d i a n a University Explanations ( M a rtinus Nijhoff, 1986).

He has also transl ated six

works of Merl eau-Ponty, Levinas and Janicaud.

DAVID POLLARD l ives and works i n Sussex. He special izes in the p h i losophy o f l anguage a n d is the author o f

The Poetry of

Keats: Language and Experience. J O HN S A LLIS is Schmitt Professor o f Philosophy at Loyol a

Phenomenology and the Return to Beginnings, Being and Logos, The Gathering of Reason, Delimitations, a n d Spacings - of Reason and Imagination. He is founding editor o f Research in Phenomenology.

Un iversity o f Chicago. His books include

ALAN

D.

SCHRIFT

teaches

p h i losophy

and

humanities

at

Grinnell Col lege, Grinnell, Iowa . He has published a number o f articles o n Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, is co-editor of

Hermeneutics and Post Modern Theories of Interpretation

and is

completing a manuscript on Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze's readings o f Nietzsche .

H U G H TOMLINSON is a writer a n d translator b a s e d in London. He h a s translated

a

number o f books by Giles Deleuze, including

Nietzsche and Philosophy; Kant's Critical Philosophy; Cinema I: the Movement-Image and Dialogues . He is a member of the

viii

Notes on the contributors Second of J a n u a ry Group and has recently publ ished, among other writings, several discussions of post-modern i s m .

DAVID WOOD teaches phi losophy at th e Un iversity of Warwick. He is author of The Deconstruction of Time ( 1988); Philosophy and Style ( 1988); and editor or co-editor of Heidegger and Language ( 198 1); Time and Metaphysics ( 1982); and Derrida and Differance ( 1985), all with Parousia Pres s . He has published numerous p apers in the field of continental phi losophy, particu l a rly on Time and on Derrid a . He i s Programme D i rector of Warwick's Centre for Research i n Philosophy and Literature.

ix

Preface

Friedrich

N ietzsche

i n Turin

to Jacob

Burckhardt

m

Basle,

postmarked 6 January 1889: Dear Professor, In the end I would far rather be a Basle professor than God. But I did not dare on that account push my personal egoism so far as to leave the creation of the world undone. You see, one has to make sacrifices, depending on how and where one lives . . . What is unpleasant- and it diminishes my modesty- is the fact that at bottom every name of history I am. With heartfelt love, Yours, Nietzsche Tomorrow my son Umberto is coming with the lovely Margerita, whom I also receive here, quite simply, in my shirtsleeves. The rest for Frau Cosima . . . Ariadne . . . From time to time all is magic.

In the new critical edition of Nietzsche's correspondence (Berlin,

1975 ff.) the letter fro m which these extracts are taken (nu m ber 1,256) i s cited as Nietzsch e ' s very last. Its excesses are m any: the elevation to divine status, a status i n ferior only to that of a Basle professorship; the creation o f the universe a s an act of

oblige

noblesse

and personal sacrifice; and the identification with every

name i n h istory, an identification i n which the very syntax of the i s distorted: daf3 im Grunde jeder Name in der Geschichte ich bin . And yet i t is a l l yoked by irony and by a certai n control exercised by the rhetoric, releasing itself only to the

l anguage

figure o f Ariadne. Beyond the names o f h i s tory, the names of enchantment:

Von Zeit zu Zeit wird gezaubert. xi

Both the overflow

Preface a n d the contro l , the transport and the destination, the trance and the i r o n y , both t h e transhistorical exultation a n d the unstinting identification with history are exceedingly Nietzsche . T h e history o f Nietzsche-interpretation i n th e past twenty-five years is already exceedingly complex : we will not even try to sketch i t here. The Warwick Workshop in Continental Philosophy fo r the year 1984 was quite consciously designed to reflect as many aspects o f Nietzsche i n contemporary phi losophy, l i terature and the social sciences as poss i b l e . Nevertheless, the i n terests of t h e participants s e e m i n retrospect to h ave fallen rather ne at l y i n to two general areas - whence the two parts of the p resent collecti o n . I n Part One, ' Music, Madness and Metaphysics ' , t h e papers

focus o n Nietzsche at the limit o f the metaphysical traditi o n . J o h n Sallis

traces

t h e elusive

and

explosive

figure

o f Nietzsche's

Dionysus as it exceeds conceptual grasp, exceeds metaphysics; Michel Haar examines Heidegger's hesitation before the ' m adness o f the body' i n Nietzsche's physiology o f artistic creativity; David Wood

locates

Nietzsche 's

exceeding

of

metaphysics

in

the

tra nsvaluative thought o f time as eternal recurrence o f the same;

D avid Pollard examines the excesses, antagonisms and attempted reconci l i ations th a t Wi l l i a m Blake and Nietzsche to an astonishing

degree share; finally, David Farrell Krell traces certa i n fami l i a l excesses i n Nietzsche's accounts o f h i s mother a nd sister, h i s fath er and l i ttle brother, t h e last t w o i nvolving excesses o f music. I n Part Two, 'Women, Men and Machines o f War', the focus is on the cutting edge o f Nietzsche's thought - h i s genealogical critique, as taken up i n the work o f a number o f contemporary thinkers,

particularly

in

France.

Alphonso

Lingis,

taking

his

inspiration from remarks o f Nietzsche's o n the body a s artwork and o n the corruptibi l i ty o f the artist, analyses the contemporary cult and ancient rites o f body-building; Alison A i n ley ela borates a reading

of

the

Nietzschean/Derridean

metaphor

of

'wom a n ' ,

u n folding in a positive w a y t h e seductions o f fecundity and pregnancy; A l a n D. Schrift discusses the m u l ti p l e s e ns e s of the 'end' o f ' m a n ' i n two devoted readers o f Nietzsch e : Foucault and Derrida; H u g h T o m l i n s o n debates t h e question o f the vulnera b i l i ty of Gil les Deleuze's systematic account of genealogical critique in

Nietzsche and Philosophy,

as we l l as i n his a n d Fe l ix Guatta ri 's

more recent work; finally, Peter Dews attempts to guide recen t

xii

Preface post-structu ralist accounts of genealogy back to the soci al-critical thought o f T. W. Adorno, by means o f a guideline which stretches from Schelling's 'absol ute Indifference' to Derri d a 's ' d i ffera nce ' . Not all t h e papers presented here were read a t t h e 1984 Workshop : those of Alison Ainley, Alphonso Lingis and Michel Haar came to our attention a fter the event. Each would h ave been a welcome addition at that time, and we are delighted that they shall join the discussion now. We owe debts o f gratitude to the authors o f the papers, who have not ceased to revise and to refine them since the time of the Workshop ; and to Tamra Wright for her help a t each stage o f the book's producti o n . Sarah Richmond kindly compiled the i ndex . D.F.K. D . C.W.

xiii

Abbreviations

Nietzsche's works w i l l be cited throughout a ccording to the fol lowing a b b reviations. Natural l y , the authors used various editions a n d translations, so u n i formity could not be guaranteed except i n the case o f reference to the paragraphs and aphorisms of Nietzsche's own individual p u b l i cations.

Die Geburt der Tragodie [The Birth of Tragedy], 1872 UB I-IV Unzeitgemdsse Betrachtungen [Untimely Medita tions], 1873-76 Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [Human, All Too MA Human], 1878-80 Morgenrote [Daybreak], 1881 M Die frohliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science], 1882 FW ASZ I-IV Also sprach Zarathustra [Thus Spoke Zarathustra], 1883-85 ]GB ]enseits von Gut und Bose [Beyond Good and Evil], 1886 ZGM I-III Zur Genealogie der Moral [On The Genealogy of Morals], 1887 Gotzen-Ddmmerung [Twilight of the Idols], [1888], GD 1889 Der Antichrist [The Antichrist], [1888], 1895 AC Ecce Homo, [1888], 1908 EH Dionysos-Dithyramben [Dithyrambs of Dionysus], DD [1888-89], 1891 GT

XV

Abbreviations

WM

*

Der Wille Zur Macht [The Will to Power], 190 1 *

This volume is i n cluded here for ease o f reference, a lthough the posthumous editoria l p rocesses of which i t is a product make i t a less than reli a b l e Nietzschean text.

xvi

·

PART ONE

·

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS

•

1

•

Dionysus - In Excess of Metaphysics JOHN SALLIS

I

shall be concerned with a figure, one that is d i fferent from most,

perh aps

fro m

a l most

all,

others;

a . figure

drawn,

or rather

withdrawn, i n such a m a nner that i t can h ave no direct im age , even though, o n t h e other hand, i t can become, i n its way , manifest. This figure could be considered the most perfectly metaphysical, the origin a l thoroughly

an sich,

an sich,

so compactly a n origi n a l , so

as to withhold itsel f fro m direct disclosure i n

an i mage. And y e t by virtue o f t h i s very withdrawing i t can instead be considered a transgressive figure, a figure which veers o ff toward the l i m i t o f metaphysics, that exceeds metaphysics, a figure

in

excess

of metaphysics. The name

Dionysus. The text Birth of Tragedy.1 Dionysis- in

of the figure is

i n which the figure i s drawn: Nietzsche's

Euripides'

Bacchae

The

Pentheus declares h i m an

impostor, a deceiver, a seducer. Y e t such i s h i s power that a l l t h e women o f Thebes h ave flocked to M t Kithairo n t o t ak e part i n t h e revel s o f the god; even th o s e w o m e n whom Pentheus h a s h a d pu t i n chains and thrown i n to the dungeon h ave escaped, the ch ains

on t h e i r l e g s sn a p p i n g apart, t h e d o o r s o f the dungeon swinging open. When Pentheus then imprisons the stranger i n the darkness o f the stables he discovers how hopeless i t i s to try to confine this Dionysian figure: a n earthquake, shaking everything loose, leaves the entire p a l ace i n ruins. The stranger recounts exactly what h appened when Pentheus sought to chain h i m: Pentheus suddenly found himself engaged i n binding not the stranger but a b u l l;

3

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS i nstead of constraining the stranger, he ended up, ridiculously, trying to p u t a rope around the knees a n d hooves o f the b u l l . Pentheus' outrage against t h e g o d i s s o o n repaid i n ful l : Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Dionysian throng, among whom is his own mother i n a state o f frenzy. O r aga i n , i n a Homeric hymn, D ionysus i s seized by certai n Tyrrhenian p i rates who bind him as a s l ave o n l y to find th at the ch ains fal l away, that he breaks a l l b o n d s , t h a t he cannot be b o u n d . Stories also a b o u n d concerning t h e practices o f his votaries - stories, for e x a m p l e , o f how t h e M a e n a d s c o u l d tear goats or d e e r to p ieces with th e ir bar e hands and then devou r the raw fles h . But also stories o f how, on the other hand, they demonstrated deep sympathy with the beasts, o ften

suckling

kids

and

fawns.

The

apparent

contradiction

disappears as soon as i t is recognized that i n both instances i t i s a matter of a disruption of the l i mits that would delimit the i ndivi d u a l . I n one instance i t is a matter o f exceedi n g those l im its, that i s , o f a bond with what otherwise would be the other: Under the magic of the Dionysian not only is the bond between man and man reestablished, but nature which has become alienated, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more its reconciliation with its lost son, man.

(§ 1 ) I n the other instance i t i s a matter o f dissolution, o f tearing to pieces, as D ionysus himself was each year torn to pieces by the Titans. It is a matter, o n the one h a n d , o f expanding the l i m i t indefinitely and, on t h e other, o f contracting i t i n definitely - a m atter of expanding or contracting i n definitely, that i s , l i mitlessly h ence in both cases a matter of disrupting the l i mit. Near the beginning o f The

Birth of Tragedy,

N ietzsche schematizes

the Dionysian i n the most classical manner: the D ionysian is , first o f all, one o f the 'artistic energies which burst forth from nature itself

without the mediation of the human artist' (§2).

matter

of

dividing

the

Dionysian

accordi n g to

Thus it is a

the

classical

opposition between nature and art and the classical concept o f mimesis. There i s, fi r s t o f a l l , a natural Dionysian state which would then be mimetically reproduced i n D ionysian art. Let us, for the moment, follow the l ines o f this classical schema and consider first the natural Dionysian state. A note written i n the Fall o f 1869 provides a point o f departure

4

Dionysus - In Excess of Metaphysics Nietzsche write s : In those orgiastic festivals of D i o nysus there prevailed such a degree o f being-outside-oneself of

ekstasis,

that

men

acted

and

fel t

like

[Ausser-sich-sein], transformed

and

en ch anted beings. 2 Add t o t h i s a phrase from The Birth of Tragedy: Nietzsche writes o f 'the rapture [Verziickung] o f the Dionysian state with its a n n i h i l ation o f the ordinary bounds and

limits of existence'

(§7).

The D ionysian state i s , then, one of

ecstasy, a state o f being utterly outside oneself. And yet the concept, the figure, o f being-outside-onesel f releases a strange logic, especi a l l y i f i t is not stabilized by a dialectic o f appropriation. In D ionysian ecstasy, i n being-outs i de-oneself, one transgresses the limits that ordinarily would delimit one's self, one's individ u a l i ty, one's subj ectivity. These l imits separating m a n fro m man a n d m a n from nature would be a n n i h i l ated, and man w o u l d be reunited with both man a n d nature. The Maenads would mother a l l creatures, suckling even k i d s and fawns. But kids a n d fawns were also torn to pieces by the Maenads, as D ionysus himself was each year torn to pieces by the Titans, and as Pentheus was torn to p ieces by his own mother. The logic is such that, i n transgressing the l i m i ts tha t would separate ' inside' fro m 'outside' - t h e l imits tha t w o u l d delimit o n e ' s own subj ectivity one would also disrupt that delimitation. The ' inside' would not simply remai n i n tact, but rather the subj ective would vanish i n to

Selbstvergessenheit:

as Dionysian emotions ' grow in intensity the

subj ective vanishes into complete

Selbstvergessenheit' (§1).

More

precisely, D ionysian ecstasy, being-outside-oneself, would be a matter not simply of relating an inside to an outside but rather of shifting t h e ' inside' i n to the 'outside', d i s p l a c i n g it, disrupting t h e very l o g i c o f the opposition i n s ide/outside. T h e Dionysian, t h is ecstasy bursting forth fro m n a ture itself, would be a deconstruction indeed o f subj ectivity. Because i t i s sheer ecstasy, the D ionysian i s u tterly opposed to the other o f those artistic energies which burst forth from n a ture itself, namely the Apol l o n i a n . I n the Apollonian, especi ally in Apollonian art, beautifu l i mages serve as trans figuring mi rrors in which one appears to

oneself more perfect, more complete,

shining i n a higher truth . I n other words, in the Apol lonian image one is given a measure by which to measure oneself, a measure by which to draw around oneself the l i m its o f an individua l i ty, even if one never entirely measures up to it. The drawing of this l i m i t

5

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS a n d the drawing of oneself i nto it constitute Apollonian self knowledge. But to this Apollonian measure the votaries of D ionysus oppose

excess (Uberma{J).

Or rather, as ecstasy, the Dionysian state i s

excess itself, w h a t one c o u l d call excess excess

precisely

such

as

to

disrupt

as such,

the

very

were not such operation

of

delimitation that every ' a s such ' presupposes. I t i s the exceeding of any limit by which one's indivi d u a l i ty would be delimited, by which the self woul d be defined a n d constituted a s an interior space o f self-possession. This exceeding, this being i n excess of subj ectivity, i s a t t h e same time th e dissolution o f subj ectivity, t h e utter disruption of determinate selfhood, b e i n g to r n to pie ce s . Th e D i o n ys i a n state i s a n a b y s m a l loss o f self, and this i s why N ietzsche

consistently

relates

it

to

(Schrecken, Entsetzlichkeit, Leiden);

terror,

dread,

s u ffering

not because the Dionysian

state produces or discloses terror, dread, a n d s u ffering, but because

the D ionysian i s as such (I write here under erasure) that abysmal loss o f self, loss o f self-possession and its measure, that one u ndergoes i n various degrees and i n various connections when one i s struck with terror,

possessed

by dread, o r overcome with

s u ffering. I n the h is tory of Greece the Apollonian culture was overwhelmed by the intrusion of the Dionysian festival . Here is how Nietzsche describes this intrusion : And now let us consider how this world built on appearance and moderation

[Miif:Jigung]

[Schein]

and artificially dammed up, there rang out in

every more alluring and magical ways the ecstatic sound of the Dionysian festival; how in these all of nature's

excess

(Ubermaf3] in pleasure,

suffering, and knowledge became audible, even in piercing shrieks . . . The muses of the arts of 'appearance' in its frenzy

[Rausch],

['Schein']

paled before an art that,

spoke the truth. The wisdom of Silenus cried 'Woe!

woe!' to the serene Olympians. The individual, with all his limits and restraints

[mit allen seinen Grenzen und Maf:Jen] succumbed to the Selbstvergessenheit of the Dionysian states, forgetting the Apollonian precepts. Excess revealed itself as truth [Das Ubermaf3 enthullte sich als Wahrheit]. Knowledge audible in p i ercing shrieks, truth spoken in frenzy, wisdom heard i n the cries o f S ilenus- the Dionysian festival i s a revelation of excess as truth, or equally, of truth as exces s . But excess, D ionysian

ekstasis,

i s not simply a truth, not even a

6

Dionysus - In Excess of Metaphysics fundamental truth, not even the fundamental truth . One could o f course u ndertake to stabilize t h e resu l t o f t h e revelation, asserting, for instance, that Dionysian excess underlies all things as their ground, as the origin from which they arise i n their determi n a te ness. But one could p u t forth such a formulation only by ignoring the way i n which that would-be ground disrupts the very ordering t h a t belongs to the concept o f g r o u n d and dissolves the very determi nateness that it would, as ground, p roduce. What the Dionysian revelation reveals i s not a ground o f determi n ation but the dissolution o f ground and o f determination . Wh at i t reveals is not ground but rather - and I use the word very cautiously -

abyss . Apo l l o n i a n truth, the figure of Apollo i n which the l i m its of individuation are d r a w n , the Olympian i mages i n wh ich one i s reflected b a c k to onese l f, s u c h truth can cover over t h e abysmal Dionysian truth but can never cease being threatened by it. Metaphysical truth too, as i t comes i n to the world through Socrates, w i l l be cast at the edge of the abyss, the drive for grou nd and determinateness diverting i t from ecstatic exposure to t h e abyss . F o r m o r e than two millenia, metaphysics will move wit h in t h e space between beings a n d B e i n g , tu r n i n g paradigmatically

from what i m mediately and always somewhat i ndeterminately shows itsel f, to that eidos, pure determi nacy, that shines through it and empowers its showing, thus constituting its ground and its

truth . Metaphysics will seldom, i f a t all, ask about what exceeds Being,

about what would be

Dionysian

epekeina tes ousias,

abyss which exceeds metaphysics.

about the

In this respect,

Nietzsche's text, broaching the abyss i n the figure of D ionysus, exceeds metaphysics, transgresses it. I f the l ines o f the classical schema were sti l l to be fol l owed i t woul d be necessary t o consider n e x t tha t Dionysian a r t i n which the natural Dionysian state would be mimetically reproduced. Nietzsche is explicit about the schema : 'With reference to these immediate art-states o f n ature, every artist is a n "im itator" . . . ' (§2) .

Dionysian

art would

arise

as

mimesis

of

the

natural

Dionysian state. However, the l i nes o f that classical schema are not simply to be fol lowed, for the operation o f Nietzsche's text, its excess, has begun to efface those lines. Consider, more i m portantly, how the operation o f the concept o f mimesis must be a ltered i n a text which exceeds metaphysics. Or rather, consider first how the

7

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS operation of the figure of mimesis is possible within the text o f metaphysics. Recall

the founding text, Aristotle's

Aristotle sets out to discover the

eidos

of

Poetics. I n poietike, that

that text, is, he poses

with respect to art the question that metaphysics w i l l pose to every being, the question

'ti esti

. . . ? ' , the question as to what it is, the

question as to what will l a ter ( through a certai n transformation) be called its

essence.

The essence o f art proves to be mimesis - and

Aristotl e ' s t a sk becomes that o f determining what this essence is, thus reiterating the essential question, posing the quetion o f the essence o f mi mesis, the question o f the essence o f the essence of a r t . Thus m i m e s i s w o u l d be doubly rela ted to essence, constituting the essence o f art and forming itself the obj ect o f a reiterated question o f essence. But how i s this relation possible, this rel ation between mimesis a n d essence? I s not mi mesis opposed to essence? Is not mi mesis a d o u b l i ng, u n l imitable and uncontro l lable, a scattering, a dispersal into

u n l i m i ted multiplici ty?

Is i t not precisely one of those

operations which metaphysics would limit by opposing to it the Socratic turn to o f an

logoi, the gathering o f m a n i fo ldness i n to the u n i ty eidos, an essence? How th en could m i m es i s be an essence,

a n d how could there be an essence of m imesis? Such con j unctions

would be possible onl y i n so far as the figure o f mimesis u ndergoes a certai n reduction, a reduction by which is excluded, repressed, its opposition to essence, to metaphysical gathering. I n the text of metaphysics - as t h e very condition o f its belonging to the t e x t of metaphysics - mimesis must be reduced to contro l l a b l e imitation o f beings, or, at best, i m i tation o f the u n iversa l i n a p a rticular, of Being i n a being. Art would, i n i ts h i ghest vocation, e nter the circle between Being and beings, yet fro m the beginning i t would be an i n ferior circli n g, and i n a sense one could always h ave said what Hegel fi n a l l y proclaimed as the end o f art: 'Art i s a nd remains for us, on the side of its h ighest vocation, somethi n g past. ' Even for Aristotle mimesis is merely the way i n which one learns during childhood, that is, under the control o f others- for whom such means o f learning is something past. Thus mimesis, a n operation o f u n l i mited dispers a l , is domesticated, repressed, within the text o f metaphysics, its figure both i nverted and denatured so as to be superimposable upon the i n ferior portion o f the l i near figure of metaphysics.

8

Dionysus - In Excess of Metaphysics However, N ietzsche's text, drawing the figure of D ionysus, exceeds metaphysics. The question i s whether i n

this

transgression

from

Nietzsche ' s

text

also

frees

mimesis

same the

repression to which i t was subj ected within metaphysics . Let us return to Nietzsche's text, to the p l a ce in The Birth of where N ietzsche conj oins n a ture a n d art, where he adds

Tragedy

to the Dionysian state its artistic mimesis :

In the first p lace, as a Dionysian artist he has become completely one with the proto-one [mit dem Ur-Einen ... eins geworden], its grief and contradiction ; and he produces the copy [Abbild] o f this proto-one as music, assuming that music has been correctly termed a repetition [Wiederholung] and a recast [ein zweiter Abgu/3] of the world ( § 5 ) . This i nvocation o f the Dionysian artist requi res the most carefu l consideration. The passage could be - and nearly always has been - read as one o f those points at which Nietzsche's text is most explicitly secured to metaphysics . The Dionysian state into which the Dionysian artist must a l ready h ave entered would, o n such a reading, be regarded as a matter of uni fication with the origi n a l , unitary w i l l , t h e origi n a l

an sich,

o f which everything else,

including one's own phenomenal existence, is mere appearance. Music would then b e a n imitation of the w i l l and tragedy the projection o f such music upon the dramatic stage. Even i n its h ighest form, as tragedy, art would merely circle within the circle of metaphysics, i n thi s case within the circle, specifically, of Schopenhauerian metaphysics, t h a t c i r c l e j oi n i n g th e one w i l l t o t h e many appearances. Nietzsche's text, thus secured, would become a metaphysical fa ble o f the w i l l , enforcing the meta physical reduction o f art. The figure o f Dionysus, cut to the measure o f the origi n a l

an sich,

the one w i l l , would preserve no

trace o f transgression, and Nietzsche ' s text would i n no wise exceed metaphysics toward the abyss. And yet, much can be brought against such a reading - for example, Nietzsche's ' Attempt at a Self-Criticism'

( 1886), i n

which he voices his regret th a t he ' tried l aboriously t o express b y means o f Schopenhauerian and Kantian formulas strange and new valuations which fundamenta l l y ran counter to the spirit o f Kant and o f Schopenhauer, as well as to their taste ' .3 A n d i n

9

Ecce

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS

Homo Nietzsche is willing to consign only a few formulas to the

Schopenhauerian circle: 'the cadaverous perfume of Schopenhauer clings only to a few formulas'.4 But the withdrawal of The Birth of Tragedy from the Schopenhauerian circle is not only something retrospectively announced. Indeed, the entire fragmented discourse of ekstasis, which deposits traces throughout Nietzsche's text but which is voiced most openly in certain unpublished notes, runs utterly counter to the fragments of metaphysical discourse still intact in that text. The note that I have already cited, for example, or the following, dated winter 1869-spring 1870 : All art demands a 'being-outside-oneself', an ekstasis; it is from this that drama proceeds, in so far as we in our ekstasis turn nothing back into ourselves but rather enter into an alien being.5 Another note written between September 1870 and January 187 1 is still more decisive : Representation is thus the birth of the will, and so multiplicity is already in the will.6 The Schopenhauerian circle is here broken up quite decisively: the will is not simply an sich, in distinction from the appearances which arise through the activity of representation ; and the will is not simply one, in distinction from the multiplicity of appearances. The disruption is more explicit yet in a n ote written probably in the mid -1880s as part of a draft for a preface to the new edition of The Birth of Tragedy: The antithesis of a real and an apparent world is lacking here : there is only one world ? The Dionysian is not one over against many but the exceeding of every such determinacy as would allow the delimitation of a one. The Dionysian is not a one but the one; or, more precisely, it is the oneness that issues not from determination but from the e xceeding of all determination, that is, indeterminate -or, more precisely, indetermining -oneness. The Dionysian artist must already have entered into the D ionysian state, into that ecstatic state of dissolution into the indetermining one ; he must have become one with this proto-one in and as which all determinate ones, everything individual, undergoes indetermination. Thus the Dionysian artist must already have undergone a certain dissolution of his own individuality ; and this is why Nietzsche insists that the individual is only a medium and not the genuine artistic creator. Contrary to the classical schema with which the metaphysical repression of art would be enforced, this means that it is not a matter of an individual artist a dding art to nature, producing a mimetic double 10

Dionysus - In Excess of Metaphysics

of the natural Dionysian state, but of nature adding art to itself, of mi metic excess being born from the very operation of what metaphysics would call excess as such, that is, the operation of the figure of Dionysus. What is born from excess is, in the passage I have cited, at first quite provisionally designated as a copy (Abbild) of the proto one, a repetition (Wiederholung). But the continuation of the passage makes it explicit that Dionysian repetition has nothing to do with images, much less with copies in any ordinary sense. It is rather, in Nietzsche 's phrases, a matter of 'proto-reverberation ' (Urwiderklang) or, still more significantly, and bordering on contradiction, 'imageless reflection ' (bildloser Wiederschein). The Dionysian musician is, in Nietzsche 's words, 'ohne jedes Bild', and does not deal in images. D ionysian mimesis is then a reflection in which the Dionysian state somehow shines forth, announces itself, makes itself manifest, yet without its manifestation taking place through images. The figure of Dionysus announces itself in an imageless manifestation. Presumably this is why it must occur as music, assuming that music is the only art without i mages. And it is thus that, beyond Dionysian music, there is need that tragedy be born, that Apollonian images be made to reflect the image-less m anifestation of the Dionysian. Yet how is it that Dionysian mimesis is imageless ? How is it that the figure of Dionysus withholds itself from the direct disclosure in an image ? It is because, in both senses of the word, there is nothing to be disclosed - no being, no ground, not even Being (e.g., as eidos), but only the abyss of indetermination, nothing. Here it is a matter of mimesis of what would be epekeina tes ousias, of the nothing that delimits Being; a matter of mimesis of what would be in excess of Being; a matter of mimesis freed from its metaphysical repression ; a mimesis in excess of metaphysics.

Notes GT, in Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. Colli & Montinari, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1972, I I I , 1. References to this work will be given i n the text by section number. 2 Werke, III, 3, p. 6 1

11

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PH YSICS 3 4 5 6 7

Werke, I I I , 1 , p. 1 3 Werke, V I , 3 , p . 308 Werke, I I I , 3, pp. 5 2 f Werke, I I I , 3 , p . 1 1 8 WM, Stuttga rt, Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1 964, par. 8 5 3

•

2

•

Heidegger and the Nietzschean cPhysiology of Ar( MICHEL HAAR

'If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and observing, one physiological precondition is indispensable: rapture. ' NIETZSCHE

' When Nietzsche says 'physiology' doubtless he means to emphasize the bodily state; but the bodily state is in itself always already something psychical . . . For Nietzsche, rapture means the most glorious victory of form. ' HElD EGGER

The general tendency of He id egger's in terpretat ion of N ie tzsche is apparently reduct iv e. It cons is ts in show in g how N ie tzschean ph ilosophy rema in s im pr is oned w it h in the structures of trad it io nal metaphys ic s ; so that, for example, the W il l to Power and the Eternal Return correspond to the metaphys ic al concepts of essence and existence; so that the trad it io nal defin it io n of truth as adequatio, homoiosis, is never brought in to quest io n; so that the very essence of n ih il is m rema in s unthought; and so on. However, it would seem that there ex is ts at the same t im e another tendency, wh ic h cons is ts, in contrary fash io n, of 'sav in g' N ie tzsche from metaphys ic s, j ust ify in g h im , as it were, by showing for example that h is vocabulary betrays a more rad ic ally in novat iv e in tent io n or one wh ic h ant ic ip ates phenomenology. 13

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS It is surprising to note that this 'apology' for Nietzsche appears especially

in

the i nterpretation

of Nietzsche's aesthetics.

For

example, Heidegger suggests that Nietzsche clears a path to a 'new interpretation

o f the

sensible',

one which

might

escape

the

Platonic dualism of the sensible and the supra-sensible. Heidegger also shows that the Nietzschean concept of

appearance,

which is

not opposed either to essence o r to rea l i ty, a l ready moves in the p henomenological

direction

of

a

shining forth.

Despite

his

doctrine of perspectivism, i n w h i c h o n e stil l finds t h e relativistic Pl a tonic notion of necessary i l lusion o r error, Nietzsche values art so

highly

only

because

it

makes

manifest

the

phenomenal

character of reality. Art makes the very shining of things apparent, and i n so doi ng transfigures them. 'Art', writes Heidegger, 'induces rea l i ty, which is i n itself a shining, to shine most p rofoundly and supremely i n scintill a ting transfiguration .'1 Neither o f these two points is very extensively developed. There is one point, however, o n which Heidegger dwells at l ength and gives a l a rge n u m b e r o f arguments, and that is t h e t h e m e o f the 'physiology o f art'. T h a t art m i g h t be the expression o f a bodily state does not, i n Heidegger's opinion, mean that Nietzsche sustains a biological or organicist interpretation of artistic creation and thus a deterministic one: Wha t i s strange and a l most incomprehensible is the fact that he tries to make his conception o f the aesthetic state accessible to his contemporaries, and tries to convince them o f it, by speaking the l anguage of physiology and biology . 2 Through a positivistic, materialistic l anguage, N ietzsche woul d , i n fact, h ave wanted to say j us t the opposite. There are two reasons for this. First, that i n fact the l i fe Nietzsche speaks of has nothing whatsoever to do with an obj ect of scientific o bservation: i t i s the Wi l l to Power's metaphysical essence. Secondly, and a bove all, that the bodily state described by Nietzsche

as

the condition

both

o f artistic creation

and of

receptivity to art, the state he calls the fundamental aesthetic state, intoxication or rapture

(Rausch),

does not designate, despite the

terms employed, a state o f the physical, animal body means rather a

Stimmung

(Korper).

It

or a ffective disposition which is neither

purely physical nor purely psychological, neither objective nor subj ective . This

Stimmung

belongs to the 'lived body'

(Leib),

as it

has been described by phenomenology . The question that arises from this is whether Heidegger doesn't go too far i n his 'saving' of

14

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of Art' Nietzsche. Is the distinction between

and

Korper

Leib

one that has

meaning in Nietzsche? Doesn ' t Heidegger introduce the phenom

enological meaning o f the body into Nietzschean physiology so mewhat obtrusively? Why hide o r attempt to minimize the dimensions of

facticity

which Nietzsche attributes to the body? Why should the body as

an organism not h ave any role i n the creative and receptive processes

of

art?

Doesn ' t

Heidegger

rea l l y

show

here

embarrassment over the human body which, he s ays in the

on Humanism,

his

Letter

is a close rel ative of the l iving being and yet

separated fro m i t by an

When Nietzsche establishes a

abyss?

relationship between the artist's creative instinct and the diffusion of semen in the bloodstream,3 or when he indicates that 'rapture ' implies obj ective changes in the circul atory, nervous, and motor systems, 4 it does not seem very straightforward to attribute these clearly physiological i ndications to pure

Stimmung! What Stimmung

Heidegger's arguments in support o f the notion o f

are and

against physiology? Does not Nietzsche a lso criticise the purely physiological

inasmuch

as

he

rej ects

all

determinism,

every

rel ationship of mechanistic causality between bodily states and art? On the o t h e r hand, is not Heidegger correct, in s pit e o f his

withdrawa l from everything bodily, to show that intoxication or rapture is equivalent to a movement o f transcendence in w h ich t h e creator g o e s outside himself in order to unveil forms? Heidegger is right to show that intoxication in Nietzsche does not mean mental confusion, fuzziness, b lindness or mere p a ssivity, but is hyperlucid, clairvoyant, capable o f 'seeing' the main features of Being and of revealing forms. Yet here we touch the most sensitive point in Heidegger' s interpretation, as it seeks to save Nietzsche not o n l y from a n y 'physiologism' but a l s o from any subj ectivi s m . In a rather daring inversion o f terms, Heidegger explains that i t is not intoxication or rapture considered as a subj ective state which is the necessary condition to the production o f forms; rather, i t is form or, if you prefer, beauty whi ch awakens rapture in the subj ect. 'Beauty as an attuning thoroughly determines the state o f m a n . '5 Although he is not speaking here o f beauty i n itself, since 'beauty is not the obj ect of a pure representation ' , i t is the

eidos,

he says, in its origina l

meaning o f t h e face or aspect o f w h a t shows itsel f, which produces the extraordinary force o f rapture. Rapture corresponds

15

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PH YSICS a n d responds to the unconce a lment of Being. Thus rapture, writes Heidegger, 'explodes the very subj ectivity of the subj ect . . . The

aesthetic state is neither subj ective nor obj ective. '6 Here, Heidegger

obviously tries to bring Nietzsche over to his own side, that is, to his conception of the work as the origin of art and of the work as the working out of truth itself, understood as self-manifestation of Being. 'The essence of the work', says Heidegger, 'is at the source of the essence of creation .'7 The essence of truth as the self m a n i festation of forms is in turn the origin of the essence of work . Isn't Heidegger wrongful l y repl acing h e r e t h e Nietzschean primacy of

force aletheia?

by a primacy of

form

that is based on his doctrine of

He a cknowledges the fact tha t there is a lmost no

consideration of form i n Nietzsche, nor of the essence of form in

rel ation to art; 'for that, he would have to take the work of art as his point of departure'. 8 Heidegger's aim, as he makes a shift from the Nietzschean

doctrine of force to a doctrine of form , is clarified in his analysis of the notion of

chaos.

There too we will see that, for Heidegger,

chaos is the 'pulsional' element, the multitude of elementary forces , but in no sense the un-ordered: chaos is 'tha t whose order is hidden, whose law is not i m mediatel y known to us'. 9 Isn't Heidegger closer to the Aristotelian notion of form i m manent in

nature than to the Nietzschean notion of nature as chaos? Doesn't the l a tter belong to a n entirely d i fferent order from n a ture in the p henomenological sense (i . e . from the pure presence-at-h and) , which is never the groun d of things but is always reduced to a being appearing within the horizon of the world?

Rapture as Stimmung: the Heideggerian interpretation of the body, and the criticism of physiology By interpreting intoxication or rapture as

Stimmung,

Heidegger

means to reinstate Nietzsche's true thought on the body, a thought which he finds disfigured by a physiological and naturalistic terminology . In order to grasp Nietzsche's essentia l intention, one must h ave a viewpoint 'disengaged from everything u n fortunate that Nietzsche shared with his time'. 1 0 The basic aesthetic state of rapture is not a purely bodily state, nor even a psychological,

16

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of Art' p urely interior state, but an a ffective disposition in which Being in it s totality reveals itsel f. This doctrine o f Stimmung i m p l ies for H eidegger both passivity and transcendence: passivity, because a mood is an allowing oneself to be determined and disposed (sich Be-stimmen und Stimmen-lassen) by Being; and transcendence, b ecause by our moods we are l i fted, transported, outside ourselves. Transcendence i s thus subm i tted to passivity : 'every understanding

Sein und Zeit (§29) , Heidegger emphasizes Dasein with respect to Stimmung. 'Stimmung (uberfallt) u s . It comes neither from without nor

is attuned'. As early as

the passivity o f takes hold of

from within; i t springs fro m being-in-the-world itself.' 1 1 It i s not a

psychological state that proj ects itself outward, but a way of being in the world. We do not decide to be in such o r such a frame of

m i n d . I f w e rid ourselves o f one state of m i n d o r mood, another comes to take its place. It is

Stimmung

which determ ines whether

we are a ffected, whether we h ave wh at Aristotle calls

tes psyches,

a ffections of the soul.

Stimmungen

pathemata Dasein

mean that

is receptive towards its own being-in-the-world. This receptiveness is not a determinism. To say that the bodily state is Stimmung means therefore that the body goes beyond itself towa rds the psych ic, as it opens up to the worl d . 'The bodily state is , o f itself, always al ready something psychical.'

12

Th is opening up is not

voluntary and is not decided. With respect to Nietzsche's position, one wonders whether Heidegger does not minimize two i mportant elements : 1. the activity (rapture, says Nietzsche, is a feeling of intensified fo rce ) , and

2.

the b o d i l y , in th e n arrow s e ns e o f

obj ective physiological states, t h a t is t o s a y , changes in the organism which are observable from without. Let us see what Heidegger's a rguments against physiology are. Heidegger rightly emph asizes the fact that when Nietzsche speaks o f the body, he is not speaking o f a part of the h u m a n being, but o f t h e total i ty o f m a n . ' T h e soul', s a y s Nietzsche, ' i s a name for a certa in part of the body.' Consequently, it cannot be a matter of physiology in the scientific sense, as science necessarily studies a speci fi c area o f beings, but rather o f 'physiology' in a

metaphysical

sense. It designates

physis,

or the a rtistic Will to

Power. His second a rgument is that the a ffective state which is rapture cannot be assimil ated to natural p rocesses as conceived by the . positive sciences, for Nietzsche would then h ave to recognize the

17

M USIC, MA DNESS A ND META PH YSICS validity in themselves of the l aws of nature and of the cause:.effect relations. 1 3 But Nietzsche considers the l aws and the relations o f cause and effect as fictions. Finally, Heidegger argues tha t positivist scientific physiology would preclude any decision, any selectio n , any i nstituting of values. In N ietzsche, he says, there i s a choice i n favour o f art as a move against nihil ism; N ietzsche is interested in promoting and cultivating art more tha n he i s science. 'To define art at once as an anti-nihilistic movement and as the obj ect o f physiology i s to try

to mix fire with water. '1 4 By water, Nietzsche u n derstands the reactive,

the

determined;

by

fire the

active,

the

affirmative .

Moreover, if we stop at purely physiological variations in the body

(blood content, temperature, secretions, etc. ) we forget

entirely the other aspect o f the creative process, the fact o f being 'l i fted up or out beyond oneself ' , 1 5 i n other words, transcendence, which, says Heidegger, i s , o f course, something very di fferent from a mere 'aspect' o f

Dasein

among others. All these arguments come

back to a single one: there is no 'pure' physiology, except for science,

and

a

short-sighted

science

at

that.

physiology refers us back to metaphysics :

Outside

of it,

to the wil l or to

transcendence.

For Heidegger, to think o f the biological as such as to think of

nothing at a l l . But for him, i t i s only a short step fro m thi s to saying

that

there

is

no

physiology,

and

denying

not

only

objectivity but also facticity, a step which Heidegger takes when he reduces Nietzsche's the mere intensified imply

here',

he

superabundance

intensification of strength- in rapture- to feeling of strength. 'The intensifiation does not

insists, of

'that a n

strength ,

u nderstood i n relation to the

"obj ective"

comes

into

Stimmung.'16

p lay;

i ncrease, it

or

should

a

be

Does Heidegger not

lean somewhat towards idealism i n this? In repudiating the body as an organism, does he not repudiate the body itself? Does the body

h ave

an

ontological

status o f its

own

in

Heidegger's

p h i losophy? This last question wou l d carry us far afield. Suffice i t h ere to reca l l t h a t for Heidegger, man as being-there,

Dasein,

eksistent, open to being, does not need to h ave or to be a body in o r d e r to be understood or defined. 'The b o d y , our b e ing embodied

(das Leiben),

says Heidegger, is something

essentially other

than

the simple fact o f being encumbered with an organism . ' 1 7 Apart from this, Heidegger gives a l most nothing but negative definitions

18

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of Art' of the human body; he insists that i t is radically different from a

Jiving organism, separated from it by a gulf, not the same as

Vorhandenheit

body.

o r the present-at-hand, or the

Korper,

the physical

Positively speaking, the body is inseparable from the

thanks to it, 'the body i n its bodily states permeates 1 th e sel f ' . 8 It i s Stimmung 'which determines beforehand the im plica tive investment o f the body i n our Dasein' (einbehaltender Einbezug des Leibes im Dasein). 19 'Feeling as the fact of self

Stimmung;

feeling

constitutes precisely the way in which we are bodil y . ' 2 0

Now feel ing,

Gefuhl

or

Stimmung,

is transcendence :

'Stimmung

is

precisely t h e fundamental w a y i n which w e a r e outside o f o urs elves . '2 1 I n defining t h e body as ecstatic openness, Heidegger seems to turn his back on any factua li ty of the body. To counter this leap into transcendence- rapture reduced to a

self-surpassing state- we may recal l not only Nietzsch e ' s descrip tion of concrete bodily states but a l so his constant affirming that 'aesthetics is nothing other th an a n applied physiology ' , that 'aesthetics has no meaning i f i t i s not a science o f nature' ,22 that aesthetic

values

are

only

biological

feel ings

of

wel l-being.

Heidegger's only argument to refute a l l this i s that by biology Nietzsche did not mean a science, but l i fe as Will to Power. Nevertheless, a re-reading of Nietzsche's texts on artistic bodily states woul d

suggest another intermedi ate p a th

between the

science that Nietzsche is the first to deny and the abstractedness o f a purely transcendental position t h a t tends t o idealize t h e body.

The body as artist In his reading of the physiology of art, Heidegger leaves aside, as we have seen, several conditions o f fact regarding the making and the receiving of art, conditions hardly assimilable to

Stimmung,

that is, to a pure transcendence without reference to a bodily state. When

Heidegger

inescapably

does

biological

allude- and conditions

with

such

as

embarrassment- to intensi fied

bodily

strength, pleasure, sensu a l i ty, animal wel l - being, or, more rarely, malaise, h e a lways attempts to bring them back to the psychic, or else

to show

th at

they

must

be

'restrained,

overcome

and

surpassed ' . 23 On t h e other hand, he d o e s not ever mention states rel ative to sexual ity, whether sublim ated or not, to cruelty, or to

19

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PH YSICS psychopathology (neurosis or madness, p a rticularly D ionysian m adness ) . We shall examine these traits before we formulate any obj ections to thi s

Heideggerian

interpretation or

absence of

interpretation . For Nietzsche, art is an

intensification of physical strength .

Rapture means an ' i n crease' i n objective strength, both in the creator and i n the receiver. There can be no dou bt about th i s : ' strength , the sensation o f muscular sovereignty, o f suppleness and pleasure i n movement, of dance, of lightness, of vivacity, the strength which is the pleasure of showing one's strength .'2 4 And aga m :

A l l kinds of art act suggestively on the muscles a n d the senses, which are active from the first in a man who is na·i vely artistic; art never speaks to any but artists - it speaks to their kind of more subtle bodily flexibility . . . All art works tonically, increases strength . . . one hears with one's muscles, one even reads with the muscles. 25 Responding 'before the fact' to Heidegger's i n terpretation , as it were, Nietzsche does indicate th a t this overabundance of strength (wh ich is created, for example, by the rapture of being i n love, a na"ivel y a rtistic state) is not illusory, but a real i n crease.

Art does more than merely imagine ; it even transposes values. And it is not only th at it transposes the feeling of values; the lover is more valuable is stronger. In animals, this condition produces new weapons, pigments, colours, and forms ; above all, new movements, new rhyth ms, new love calls and seductions. It is no di fferent with m a n . 2 6 This superabundance of strength can be fel t as a p a i n ful tension which must be eased : ' O n e must first th i n k of this condition as a compulsion and u rge to get rid of the exuberance of inner tension through muscular activity and movements of all kinds. '27 But most often , the supera bundance of strength is accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. I t is surprising to notice th at Heidegger does not devote a single analysis to art as pleasure, as 'sensual feast', wheth er it be the pleasure of the receiver or that which leads to creation . I n the first version of

The Origin of the Artwork,

the unpubl ished lecture of

1935, he even rej ects Genuss, enjoyment, as an authentic relation to art; he calls it

Erhitzung,

getting excited, getting hot.

If rapture is only a nother name for pleasure ('the pleasurable

20

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of A rt' sta te which i s known as rapture'2M ) , what does Nietzsche mean by th e word pleasure ? Sometimes he uses i t in the l a rger sense of j oy , gladness-to-be alive, which implies a certai n spiritu a l i ty, a transfiguring vision.

The states i n which we i n fuse a transfiguration and fullness and joy in life: sexuality , intoxication, feasting, spring, victory over an enemy, mockery, bravado, cruelty, the ecstasy o f rel igious feeling. Three elements principally : sexu a l i ty , rapture, cruelty - all belong to the oldest festal j oys 29 of mankind, all equally preponderate in the early ' a rtist' . Let us note that sexu a l i ty comes first, even before rapture. We shall retu rn to this in a moment. But most o ften , by pleasure Nietzsche means the stimulation

(Reiz)

pleasure of the senses,

wh ich depends on a

of the corresponding bodily zones .

Conversely, when we encounter things th at display this transfiguration and fullness, the animal existence (Dasein ) responds with an excitation of those spheres i n which all those pleasurable states a re situ ated - and a blending of those very del icate nuances of animal well-being and desi res constitutes the aesthetic state. 30 In this case, the aesthetic state is evidently associ ated with an

overflowing vitality and with bodily health i n a biological, even medical sense o f the word.

Art reminds us of states of animal vigor; it is on the one hand an excess and overflow of blossoming physicality into the world of i mages and desires ; on the other, an excitation of the animal functions through the images and desires of i ntensified l i fe ; an enhancement of the feeling of l i fe, a sti mulant to it. 3 1 Nietzsche goes s o far a s to associate with physical pleasure and animal wel l - being the satisfaction taken in order and logic. ' Pleasure i n the orderly, in wh at can be grasped as a whole, in what i s defined within l i m its, i n repetition, th i s pleasure belongs to the feelings o f wel l - being o f all orga n i c beings.' 3 2 Very o ften indeed Nietzsche marks the analogy between physical and logical pleasure, but he establ ishes a derivative relation in the fol l owing

physical p leasure becomes logical pleasure, wh ich becomes aesthetic pleasure. ' Logical and geometrical simplification in a

way :

consequence of enhancement of strength . ' 3 2 And again, 'The feeling o f logical and geometrical satisfaction constitutes the

basis

of aesthetic evaluations.' 3 3 Thus the pleasure of the senses and of

21

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS the healthy body, which art celebrates, very clearly constitutes the grou nd of more spiritual values (logical, aesthetic values ) . I f all art is first the extension of a state of physical wel l -being, we can understand how art i n general can be a blessing, a n a ffirmation of existence. ' Art is essentially a ffirmation, blessing, divinisation of

existence . ' 3 4 To speak of pessimistic art is a contradiction; ' b y s a y i n g t h a t something is "beauti ful" , w e a ffirm it'. 3 5

But then, how does Nietzsche explain that certain works of art are

compl acent

in

the

representation

of ugliness

or of the

unhealthy ? He h imsel f takes Zol a as a n example of this, and al so Dostoyevs ki. Yet for Nietzsche, there is no ugliness in art. The ugly exists only in reality. It is the contrary of art. The ugly is powerl essness to create because of the impoverishment of l i fe . 3 6 T h e u g l y is a lways transfigured in a r t . A r t m e a n s t h a t a superior force has been able to m aster even the ugly.

The representation of th ings which a re dreadfu l and disquieting is itself in the a rtist an insti nct fo r power and splendour, and is possible because he does not fea r them . . . Zol a ? . . . the Goncourt brothers ? The things they show a re ugly, but they show them because they take pleasure i n their ugliness. 3 7 The interpretation o f the ugly concords with Nietzsche's famous interp retation of the tragic as a symptom of increased strength . 'The predil ection for a l l that is am biguous and fea rfu l is a sign of strength .

A

taste

for tragedy characterized strong ages

and

temperaments. > J S T h i s little detour aroun d t h e question of t h e u g l y may clarify for us the overall meaning of pleasure for Nietzsche. First, pleasure as such is not sought a fter, is not an end i n itself. ' I t is not true that man

seeks

p leasure . . . wh at

man

wants

is

an

increase

of

power.' 3 9 That which is pursued is the greater force . Heidegger is right on this point. Pleasure is the corollary of the a ffirmative Wil l t o Power. 'The w i l l for more is i nherent in t h e essence of pleasure; it wants increase of power. '4 0 Second, pleasure does not exclude

pain; on the contrary, inasmuch as the Wi l l to Power seeks res istance, obstacles to overcome, pain to confront. Nietzsche goes so fa r- and this is something that reminds us of the Lei bnizian theodicy- as

to

say

that

the

world - i f

all

its

pain

were

eliminated- woul d be unaesthetic. 4 1 Nietzsche is opposed to a l l

eudemonism, t o a l l those who i n weariness aspire t o h appiness as

22

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of A rt' to 'the sabbath o f sabbaths'. In spite of this

ontological

character

of pleasure, as a corol l a ry accompani ment of the Wi l l to Power ('every increase o f power i s pleasure') , 42 i t is i mpossible to get rid of the organic, physical dimension. To dissociate strength as Will to Power from bodily dispositions is to make the latter into mere emanations o r surface traits o f the essence th a t Wil l to Power is , an d t o posit B e i n g (Sein) separately from beings which Nietzsche does not do. Art

does

not

e l i m inate

physiology,

but

(Seienden)

rather

makes

it

intelligent; as Nietzsche s a y s in French in the text : 'art is an

intelligente

sensuality'.43 This is the point on which I wou l d

criticise Heidegger, w h o speaks o f a ' reversal' ( Umschlag)44 by which t h e physiological becomes that which must be co mpletely reabsorbed . 'Bodily conditions', says Heidegger, ' turn out to be all that we must tame, vanquish, resolve into the created work. '45 Here Hei degger attributes an exaggerated degree of importance to the notion of form, of rule, basing his interpretation on a single passage i n Nietzsche. 'One is a n artist a t the cost of experiencing that which all non-a rtists call "form" as content, as the "th ing itsel f " . 46 Physiological dispositions remain as the very atmosphere of creation as well as of aesth eti c en joymen t, even among the classical artists whom Nietzsche so admires. There is a sort of asceticism o r puritanism i n Heidegger, wh ile Nietzsche speaks of the pleasure o f the classicists in keep ing to proportion, in spite of a strong sensual ity (wh ich by that very fact is not eliminated, but conserved) : 'the pleasure aesthetic natures naturally take in propor tion; the enjoyment that beauty a ffords them'.47 In a very i mportant fragment on classical style, Nietzsche insists on the fact that in Apollonian rapture, 'sexuality and voluptuous pleasure a re not absent' but are 'quieted, simplified, concentrated, abbreviated'. 48 Heidegger retains nothing of th is except the powerful stylisation o f what Nietzsche calls t h e

grand style,

forgetting, meanwhile, t h a t it

constitutes a d o u b l e pleasure : the state o f enjoyment ( bas e d in t h e body) is conserved and reinforced by its concentration . Th at excite ment and excitability be mastered does not mean that they are diminished o r reabsorbed; on the contrary, they are heightened. Heidegger's puritanism is still more striking where sexual ity is

concerned . 4 9 To be fa ir, wh ile his assertions on the sexual con ditions of a rtistic creation a re repeated and vigorous, Nietzsche nevertheless m a i ntains a theory o f necessary sublimation wh ich

23

M USIC, MA DNESS AND METAPHYSICS resembles somewh at Freud's doctrine. Schematically stated, it says th a t a rtists are individu als whose sex u a l i ty is both strong and controlled .

First

of

all

Nietzsche

posits

thaf sexuality

and

a ffirmative strength a re one single th ing: 'It is the same strength that is spent in the sex act as in artistic creation. There is only one kind o f s trength . '5 0 ' Raphael would be incomprehensible without a certain overheating o f his sexual self. To make music is another

way o f. making children .'5 1 'Sexual rapture i s the oldest and most orignal kind.' Numerous fragments52 mention overabundant sex drives as the fi rst condition o f rapture in general, and especi ally Dionysian

rapture.

But

the

powerful

sexu a l i ty

of

artists

is

controlled a t once by calculation and by instinct. 'The a rtist is perhaps necessarily a sensual m a n . . . But in the acting out o f his mission, o f his will to achieve mastery,

even chaste.

he is generally temperate,

His dominant instinct forces h i m to be so .'5 3 In the

same way, there is a s u b l i m ated satisfaction on the part o f the spectato r : 'The demand for art and for beauty

IS

an indirect

req u i rement for the raptu res o f sex drive.'54 The

similar

silence

with

whi ch

Heidegger

treats

mental

i m b a l ance, neurosis or psychosis, is also puzzling. Dou btless, Heidegger is to some extent j ustified in considering psychiatric classifications and vocabulary, as superficial and inappropriate for the phenomena to which he is referring. And yet Nietzsche devotes long passages to the relationsh i p between art and madness. The connection is made i n

The Birth of Tragedy,

for example, in which

the Dionysian, in accord with an ancient tradition, is p resented as madness ; it is also made i n the ' Attempt at a Self- Criticism' ( 1886,

§4),

where Nietzsche asks, 'what i s ,

physiologically speaking,

meaning o f this madness ?' And he even reca l l s the passages in

Phaedrus

the

fa mous

on the 'divine m adness' o f poetic inspiration.

Nor does Heidegger say anything o f Nietzsche's valuing o f morbid states ('One cannot be an artist without being sick .'55 ) , or o f the a n a lysis o f the ' Greek neurosis' the famous ' neurosis o f health', born o f a superabundance of strength, wh ich brought the Greeks to seek out the disquieting and sini ster aspects of exi stence- not out o f weakness, but in strength. Nietzsche opposes th is neurosis o f health to the pessimistic neurosis o f certai n nineteenth century a rtists, the Romantics, the Naturalists, the post-Romantics such as Wagner, whose neurotic art is addressed to neurotics in order to accen t u a te their m a l ady and plunge them into states o f hypnotic

24

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of A rt' st up or. It is strange t h a t Heidegger, w h o agrees with Nietzsche's pejorative diagnosis of Wagner, does not analyse the physio psychological reasons l i n ked to the general concept o f ' neurosis' and sickness. More genera l l y speaki ng, should we simply reject and declare false the empirical, clinical, aspects o f Nietzsche's physiological descrip tions, because they are o n a n 'antic' level and closely l i nked to the metaphysical ground o f the Will to Powe r ? Nietzsche's physiology

is certa inly not scientific, but i t is perhaps not purely metaphysical, because i t is also simply descriptive, quasi-phenomenologica l .

Chaos, forms and forces In his analysis of rapture, Heidegger retu rns again and aga i n to the essential l i n k between rapture and the perception of forms. Rapture is not drunkenness, o f course, nor is i t a vague sense o f well-being, o r uncontrolled excitement, but rather a l u c i d v i s i o n o f forms. Rapture means t h e most glorious vi ctory o f fo rm.5 6 Nietzsche shows in fact (and Hei degger does wel l to emphasize it)

that artists see things not as they are but with greater force ami

simplicity,

according to their principal features,

and it is th is th at

w e superfici ally call artistic idealization. But t h e point at which Heidegger completely departs from the Nietzschean position is his claim that fo rms are simply encountered by the a rtist and revealed by him. 'The a rtist's vision

discerns

the simpler and stronger

aspects i n what he meets.'5 7 But Nietzsche says that rapture

imposes

forms upon thi ngs through a kind of constra int : the artist

does violence to nature. Never in Nietzsche does the artist submit to the structures of Being; instead he bri ngs them forth . But Heidegger's most ma rked excess is deriving the a rtistic

Stimmung

from forms which would seem to exist prior to his creative work. Let us examine the pass age th at is, i n my opinion, most obviously to be contested :

'Form defines and demarcates for the first time the real m in which the state of growing force and plenitude of being comes to ful fil l ment. Form founds the realm in which rapture as such becomes possible. Wherever form holds sway, as the supreme simplicity of the most resou rceful lawfulness, there is rapture. ' 58

25

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PHYSICS As Heidegger says further on, neither the aesthetic state, nor the creative act can be the 'determining element', but only form.5 9 In givi ng precedence to form in this way, whereas i n the notion o f the 'gra nd style' Nietzsche rather speaks p recisely of rule or l aw, Hei degger purposely u nderestimates the importance o f force. Form is only a temporary guise or visage o f the ever-ch anging strife o f forces. Forms are fictions, usefu l creations that serve like values to uphold momentarily one bundle o f forces or another. Form is a momentary point o f equilibrium a t which the expansion o f a force has paused. Creation for Nietzsche, as

Schopfung,

consists of dipping down i n to a reservoir of forces, not of forms.

Forms are a lways surfaces and masks. Nietzsche is constantly returning from forms under their two essenti a l aspects, i mages and rhythms, to the two artistic drives (Apol l o n i a n and Dionysian) fro m which they directly flow. Nietzsche's genealogy a lways comes back from forms to the forces- whether ascending or declining- that establish the m . I f t h e b o d y o f t h e artist is a t t h e core o f creation, it is because through it a n d beyon d it, the artist draws fro m the great body of universa l l i fe that Nietzsche calls, perhaps awkwardly,

chaos.

For

the i n d i v i d u a l body is not the ultimate source o f artistic activity, and thus is not its base. I n this sense, Nietzsche is a t the limits of aesthetics, i n its traditional sense; perhaps he explodes it, for the subj ective state of creator or spectator is not the fi n a l instance to which we can refer. As i n


the last Nietzsche

a ffirms that there are pre- and trans-individual artistic forces. Individu als are not isolated. 'There is a

common stream

that flows

through a l l individuals.' 6 0 This 'common stream' is the Will to Power, wh ich is not a metaphysical substance (as is, for example,

i n Schopenhauer, the wi l l - to-live) but a n element that presents itself originally to itsel f as chaos, that is, a s a n i n fi nite play of forces dispersed in a multitude o f perspectives and yet as a l iving univers a l medium common to all beings. Perhaps it is difficul t to u nderstand how the infinite difference, which is the Wil l to Power as chaos, can be also the i n finite unity o f the vital fl u x . However we might m a nage, we can

not

understand the body without this

reference to chaos. In itself, the body is multiplicity and unity; but above a l l i t is an opening onto the great chaos o f the worl d, or of nature, or o f universal l i fe . T h e b o d y is not something isolated. Through it flows universal life, o f wh i ch we receive onl y the

26

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of Art' fai n test and most fleeting sparks. Heidegger says very j ustly that th e body is only a 'cut-out' in the flux o f chaos. 'Our living body b illo ws like a wave i n the flow o f chaos'.6 1 Here once more, as he does apropos of rapture, Heidegger

emphasizes strongly the fact th at chaos is not confusion, a savage flowing together o f sensations. 'Nietzsche does not mean by chaos the confused or the un-ordered, but the pulsional, fo rward flowing, moving element whose order is h i dden, whose l aw is not im mediately known to u s .'62 Here again, Heidegger i ntroduces apparently against Nietzsche's deeper i ntentio n - the primacy o f forms . F o r Nietzsche, there is n o t an order in and of itsel f of forms latent i n chaos, but only one o f forces, o f intensities. Further, Heidegger shows his embarrassment i n presenting ch aos some times as a hidden order, or the secretly ordered cu rrent o f universal l i fe ( i s he referring here t o t h e pre-Socratic physis ?), sometimes as a fantastic proj ection of human subj ectivity which would enlarge the i mage o f the body to the dimensions o f the universe. However, Nietzsche says i n paragraph 109 of

Science

The Gay

that chaos i s not even the absence o f beauty or of order,

that one should beware o f applying our human categories to the

world, or o f thinking o f the universe as a great, l iving organism. This interpretation o f chaos as a h idden reservoir of forms limits, I think, the thrust o f Heidegger's interpretation of art in Nietzsche as a return to chaos. Indeed, art is th e r i s k o f a ffronting chaos. The artist alone can bear to look upon chaos. 'I tel l you, you must yet h ave chaos in you i f you are to give bi rth to a dancing star. I tel l you, you still h ave chaos in you.' (Prologue o f

Zarathustra).

But chaos i s rather o n t h e s i d e of wh at Heidegger

calls the earth , the ground, or what Merleau-Ponty calls the pre

obj ective, or, i n Nietzschean terms , the i ndeterminate surfeit of forces. Forms a l ready belong to a constituted historical worl d : form is n o t

Ursprung,

n o t a primordial resource. I f a r t imitates

nature it is not natu re as a reservoir of fo rms, an external model to be represented, but as obedience to forces and principally to the

Verstellungskraft,

the force whi ch displ aces fo rms, which pushes

them into or out o f the visible, into and out o f presence. 'Art', says Heidegger, 'dares to risk chaos'. How could there be any risk, if t h e superabundance were only th e wea l th o f forms h i dden and waiting to be discovered ? What is thi s risk ? The risk i s that art might end up being contrary to the grand style, might end up as

27

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS an art in which the supera bundance is not subj ected to a form or a law, as a decadent, ro mantic, reactive a rt, l i ke Wagneri an art as seen by Nietzsche. Hence i t i s finally force, the type of force,

Gestalt,

which decides. What matters to Nietzsche in art i s not the it i s the genesi s o f forms, the as

die gestaltende Kraft,

Gestaltung:

Wil l to Power i s defined

'the form-creating force ' .

B y conducting the aesthetic experience back t o

Stimmung

a n d to

its transcendence, Hei degger reveals the extent of his distrust with regard to nature, a distrust whose deep motives and consequences would deserve a thorough study. 6 3 He means to exclude the poss i b i l i ty that the body as a living being might possess any dynamic inventiveness worthy o f being called artistic. Most of his demonstrations are deni als : it i s not the body th at p roduces the Beautiful ; it is not nature that inspires art. Now, for Nietzsche, art i s a name for a dimension of

physis.

' A rt itsel f wells up i n man as a force of nature and disposes of h i m , whether he wills it or not. ' 6 4 In strange affinity with Schelli ng, Ni etzschean art derives origi nally from nature and not from human subj ectivity. ' Artistic pleasure must' , writes the young

Nietzsche, 'exist as well primarily outside o f men. ' 6 5 Through physiol ogy,

art finds

itself re-situ ated

in

the

non-totalizable

tota l i ty o f natura l energies. Artistic production does not, i n the last analysis, derive fro m a calculation o f the i n tellect and of a conscious w i l l , a lthough the artist is perfectly capable of it. It is an unmasterable

physis

w h i c h p l a y s and comes to l ight through the

artist's gestures. That th is

physis

be thought as Will to Power does

not invalidate but rather confirms the phenomenological truth of a creative spontaneity of the artist's

physis,

body. Without this u n mastera ble

a l l art works would be reducible to the i l l ustration

o f ideas by im ages and rhyth ms. Every

artist knows

wel l ,

even

when

he

or

she

ventures

constructing doctrines about so-called 'creative thought', th at the work o f the body, the gestures o f the hands, is d ictated by a necessity and an autho rity both younger and more ancient th an the artist. Let us leave the last word o n the question to Nietzsch e :

Even in our time, namely in a rtists, o n e fi n d s i n abundance a sort of wonder, a respectful way o f leaving the answer in suspense, when they are asked to question how they performed thei r master stroke (der beste

28

Heidegger and the Nietzschean 'Physiology of A rt' Wur{) and from what sphere the creative thought came to them : they feel, when they ask themselves th is question, a sort of innocence or childlike modesty ; hardly do they dare to say, 'It came out o f me, it was my hand that threw the dice . '66

Notes

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Martin Hei degger, Nietzsche, vol. I, Neske, Pfullingen, 1 9 6 1 , p.249 ; Martin Heidegger, The Will to Power as Art, translated by David Farrell Krel l, New York, Harper and Row, 1 9 79, p.2 1 6 . Hereafter these will be cited as Nl and WPA respectively. WPA, p . 1 1 3 WM, § 805 Ibid., § 807 WPA, p . 1 23 Ibid., p . l 23 Ibid., p . 1 1 5 Ibid., p . 1 20 Nl, p . 5 6 6 WPA , p . 1 27 Sein und Zeit, T ubingen, Max Niemeyer, 1 9 7 9 , p . 1 3 6 WPA , p . 9 6 Ibid., p.93 I b i d . , p . 93 Ibid., p. 1 1 6 Jbid., p. 100 (translation mine) Ibid., p . 9 9 Ibid., p.98 I b i d . , p . 9 9 (translation mine) Ibid., p . 9 8 Ibid., p.99 Grossok tav Ausgabe, Leipzig, Kroner, 1 9 1 7, IX, p . 2 8 6 (par.2), 1 hereafter GA WPA , p. 1 2 9 WM, § 800 Ibid., § 809 Ibid., § 808 Ibid., § 8 1 1 Ibid., § 800 Ibid., § 801 Ibid., § 801 Ibid., § 802 Werke: Kritische Gesam tausgabe, ed. Colli & Montinari, Berlin,

29

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Walter de Gruyter, 1 97 3 , V I I , 3, p . 3 5 . See also I b i d . , p . 3 4 . This edition hereafter cited as Werke. Werke, VII, 3, p . 3 5 WM, § 8 2 1 Ibid., § 852 I b i d . , § 809 Ibid., § 8 2 1 Ibid., § 852 I b i d . , § 702 I b i d . , § 695 GA, Kroner, XIII, § 227 WM, § 693 . See also Ibid., § 702 I b i d . , § 800 NI, p . 1 5 2 Ibid., p . 1 5 2 WM, § 8 1 8 I b i d . , § 8 70 WM, § 799 The ontological i nterpretation of sexuality ( Geschlechtichkeit) i n volume 26 of t h e Gesamtausgabe ( The Metaphysical Prin ciples of Logic § 10) and the factual dispersion (Zerstreuung) i nto two sexes of the originally 'neuter' Dasein would require a lengthy special analysis. See J . Derrida, ' Geschlecht ' , i n Martin Heidegger, ed. M ichel Haar, Paris, Cahiers de L'Herne, 1 98 3 . WM, § 8 1 5 I b i d . , § 800 See WM, § 800; 801 ; 804 ; 805 ; 806 ; 807; 808 Ibid., § 8 1 3 I b i d . , § 805 , m y italicization o f indirect Ibid., § 8 1 1 WPA , p . 1 1 9 I b i d . , p . 1 1 8 , m y italics for discerns, heraussieht (translation mine) Ibid., p . l 19 NI, p . 1 62 WM, § 6 8 6 NI, p . 5 69 Ibid., p.566 S e e my book, Le Chant de Ia Terre, Paris, L'Herne, 1 9 8 7 WM, § 798 Werke, I I I , 3, 7. See I b i d . , 1 6 WM, §659; Werke, V I I , 3 , 3 6 ( 3 6 )

30

•

3

•

Nietzsche,s Transvaluation of Time DAVID WOOD

For anyone who thinks that the radical rethinking of time and the temporal might turn to deconstructive strategies for assistance it must come as something o f a shock to discover that deconstruc tion's most celebrated practitioner denies the possibility o f a post metaphysical theory o f time, and i ndeed claims that Time itself is a metaphysical concept. 1 However, considering the extent to which the fra mework o f Derrida's work is anticipated by Nietzsche, it i s something o f a chal lenge to try to understand Nietzsche's thought o f eterna l recurrence in the light o f these strictures. Has Nietzsche m a naged to achieve by an indirect route what cou l d not be brought about by a direct assault on the citadel? Nietzsche does not say all that much about Time

per se,

and yet his most fundamental concept- that o f eterna l recurrenceis an essentia l l y temporal one.2 I shall argue that, despite the persistence o f the link between the temporal and the ontological which is so clear in Hegel, Husser! and Heidegger, Nietzsche does not, for a l l that, repeat the metaphysical motif of presence but subverts it instead. The account o f the

moment

which Nietzsche

offers us is fundamenta l l y at odds with any such value as presence. I make the fol l owing more detailed clai ms:

1 Nietzsche o ffers us a brilliant example of how to displace a frame of reference from with i n . In this case it is that of the ordinary 'metaphysical' concept o f time.

2 He retains the centrality o f the instant only to explode the traditional value o f such a primitive concept. With Nietzsche,

31

M USIC, MA DNESS A ND METAPHYSICS the instant opens onto wh at is other.

3 The instant is not merely a non-recuperative opening out, it is also an embodiment o f all those identical moments it repeats . This 'repetition' cou l d be said to be a most primitive kind o f 'rep res entation'.

4 I f that is the case, Nietzsche's 'moment o f intensity' builds representation into its most primitive 'element', which is thereby primitively not self-contained.

(Connections with

Derrida's 'trace' structure should be evident here . ) Broadly speaking, I treat Nietzsche's account as a reflective intensification of our understanding o f the 'present', one which successfu l ly su bverts our everyday recuperative understanding. As such it belongs to the deconstructive phase o f the rethinking of t i m e , which, as I show elsewhere, i s not t h e end o f t h e story. 3 Nietzsche radically questions, subverts and disp laces 'our ordinary concept

of

time',

at

a

number

of

different

levels.

Eterna l

recurrence, as they s a y , i s an undecidable term, and I s h a l l u s e this suggestion as a way of clarifying the various otherwise incompat ible ways in which he expl a ins it. How, we m ight ask, is it in p rincipl e possible to avoid Derrida's strictures ? Derrida, a fter a l l , admits that it is not concepts themselves which are or are not metaphysical , but their textua l exploitation a n d functioning. This opens t h e way, I argue, to Nietzsche's use o f such concepts . It may be, if we s tick to some rather na rrow sense o f the term, that Nietzsche h a s not produced a new

concept

o f time, but th at he has repl a ced its status as a

concept with something else. The impossibility of conceptu alizing eterna l recu rrence may turn out to be a positive feature. I t is, however, worth asking ourselves initial l y whether we can properly talk about 'our ordinary concept o f time'. This phrase can itsel f be understood in a common-sense way as our taken-for granted understanding o f time, but as St Augustine showed long ago,

the

attempt to

transform this tacit understanding into

something more conceptually rigorous is somewh at problematic. The other way o f understanding the phrase wou l d then rest on some such v iew (shared by Heidegger and Derrid a ) as that the one ordinary concept o f time we a l l share is that derived fro m Aristotle.

But are there not difficul ties attached to the idea ? Who are 'we' ? Is it to be taken for granted that we a l l share a common concept of

32

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time time? Might there not be a h idden complicity between the idea o f a concept a n d s o m e particular interpretation o f time? Do w e suppose there is b u t

one

concept o f time? Let me develop this l a s t

q uestio n . Far m o r e 'ordinary' th a n h aving a unitary concept o f time i s t h e fact that we distinguish between di fferent kinds o f time : subj ective/obj ective,

existenti al/cosmic,

qualitative/quantitative,

time as experienced/time as measured, and so on. But what i f each of these oppositions merely

distributed according

to an unana lysed

schema (such as inside/outside) the same fu ndamental value (such as presence)? What if such a distribution functioned to

preserve

that value? It could be a rgued, for example, that the di stinction between subj ective and obj ective time is a conceptual labour that assures under each heading the preservation o f the unity o f the temporal series, and that this i s achieved p recisely by making this distinctio n . All events can then be

located

i n one o r other category

by distinct rules of integration (such as na rrativity for subj ective time, serial ity for obj ective time) . On such an a rgument, the fundamental unity of time would have been p reserved p recisely

by

multiplying the frames

of

reference within which i t operates. Undoubtedly one then needs a further story to integrate these multiple fra mes. The usual one,

with only two frames, is a story o f derivation. Obj ective time is shown to be dependent on, derivative fro m subj ective temporality, or vice vers a . The point o f my remarks here is to suggest that talk about 'our ordinary concept o f time' i n the singular need not be undermined by the fact th at everywhere we find a duality or even plural ity of such concepts. But it m i gh t m a ke sense to allow that there

are

di fferent ordinary concepts o f time, and fal l back on a

more fundamental claim - that they each embody a basic set o f common

values,

which

we

could

call

' u n i ty',

' integration',

' identity', o r even more fundamentally, that o f 'presence' as the condition o f such values being realised. On _Nietzsche's account these would be the values pertaining to Being. The traditional betrayal o f time would consist i n subj ugating the values associ ated with Becoming to those o f Being. Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida share the view (and they are not alone) that the ordinary concept(s) o f time embodies values which are m o re ontological than tempora l . But in each case the lesson thi s insigh t teaches is th a t questions

33

about time

and

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS q uestions about Being col lapse into one another and cannot be separated, as Pl ato long ago made so apparent. Each of them is also engaged not merely i n a

critique

of the

ordinary concept of time, but i n wh a t we might c a l l , borrowing from Nietzsche, a

transvaluation

of time. And for Nietzsche

especi ally, this is presented as the key to a human transformation, indeed a transformation which woul d point beyond 'man'. The focus of this transformative proj ection is the thought of eternal

The Gay Science, c l a i me d (in Ecce Homo) to be 'the fundamental conception' behind Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the title of a p roj ected book bequeathed to us i n his Nachlass. O n e coul d avoid t h e analytical t a s k of separating the recurrence, announced i n

various versions by saying that the thought of eterna l recurrence is not a single thought at a l l , but a

constellation

or

family

of

'thoughts'. But this woul d only be a temporary, because l a rgely uninformative, way of legiti m ating the diverse and seemingly contradictory accounts Nietzsche offers. Moreover, there are other considerations:

1 Nietzsche's mode of discourse and style of presentation vary from one account to another, making a comparison of the abstract 'thesis' i n each case problematic. How, for example,

shou l d we compare the 'poetic' versions { there are a number

Thus Spoke Zarathustra4) and the scientific Will to Power.5 2 The rhetorical strategy varies, and may indeed in

proofs in

The

be the subj ect

of critical disagreement. Again, that there was a 'content' to be drawn out for comparison woul d be made questionable in principle.

3 The audience/level of exposition varies. Wou l d we necessarily expect esoteric and exoteric versions to be consistent ? 6 One can Whitman,

make for

a

whom

virtue o u t of contradiction contradiction

was

a

sign

( vide of

Walt

spiritual

abundance) . J aspers' reading of Nietzsche does just this. Or one can offer general arguments drawi ng on the thesis of semantic indetermin acy or of the fiction ality of truth and hence of consist ency (both of which Nietzsche hel d ) . But these are mere slogans, signposts, the husks of thought; they are not in themselves argu ments . And to s i ft through Nietzsche's various presentations of eterna l recu rrence for a discriminatory classification of the various accounts is essentia l . This will not be theoretica l l y disi nterested,

34

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time but where these interests coincide with Nietzsche's, the reading can be p roductive. My own theoretical interest, to make it explicit, is in understanding the role of etern al recurrence in Nietzsche's transva l uation of time. The value of such a guiding interest remains to be seen. It i s also an open question whether it can be sustained as such, as a 'theoretical interest' , or whether the cool analytical security that such a phrase suggests is not itself funda mental l y at risk. Placing what Nietzsche called the 'greatest weight' on the scales is not an act free from danger. Nonetheless I s h a l l begin by arguing (a) th at t h e va rious ways in which eternal recur rence is form u l a ted reflect the d i fferent modes {levels, di mensions )

a t which time needs t o be transvalued or 'deconstructed' / (b) t h at the question of t h e

status

of eterna l recu rrence (whether it i s a

concept, a theory, a thought, an experience, an ecstasy, a test . . . ) will vary with the level in q u estion a bove; (c) that we ought to take seriously the s uggestion that eterna l recurrence is 'undecidable' in terms o f t h e conceptual fra mework i t s ubverts . (What that i m p lies is that not only woul d eterna l recurrence be a 'moral ' test [Try to affirm that ! ] b u t an intellectual test [Try to thi n k that through ! ] . ) To give some structure to this account I p ropose to distinguish three levels or ways i n which eternal recurrence is p resente d :

( a ) cosmological, ( b ) psychological, and ( c ) ontological . It might be obj ected that this framework is not complete (wh at about the historical, for instance? ) , but perhaps i t is not altogether 'naiv e ' . O f course, Nietzsche m ight p u t these very distinctions in q uestion, but in m y v iew the di fferent presentations of eternal recurrence do work with i n s u ch traditional categories,

if only to dissolve them .

And these categories also correspond to three di fferent d i mensions of tim e : (i) u n i versal (including h istorical ) time, (ii) what I will call 'motivation a l ' time, (ii i ) time as l i n ked with identity (both of things and persons) . I f the ordinary schemas and concepts of time can be understood to rest on the v a l u e of

unity - guaranteeing

it,

reappropriating it, making i t possible, etc.- then the deconstruc tion or transv a l u ation of time will invert and displ ace thi s v a l u e as it is specifically em bodied i n each mode, l evel or dimension. Thus we fi n d corresponding to the category of u n iversal time the idea that time stretches i n finitely in both di rections, that it is one-dimension a l , and that every event h a s a u n iquely determ i ned place withi n it. Ordinary motivational time can be glossed as a structure of asy m m etry between past and future, in wh ich the past

35

M USIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS is complete and unaffectable and the future the scene for the proj ection o f one's freely chosen ends . Time u nderstood ontologi cally, i n rel ation to identity, is understood either as a neutral container

in

which

thi ngs

or

persons

endure

as

they

are

(substances ) , where their identity is i n dependent o f time, or as productive o f i dentity by making possible the development o f a being's identity to ful fi lment or completi o n . It is a s i g n of t h e polysemic depth o f t h e i d e a of eternal recurrence th a t i t works to transvalue each o f these setti ngs. Let us now look at some o f Nietzsche's remarks that wou ld bear out this reading. We shall turn first to the cosmological version o f eternal recurrence.

The cosmological version This is most explicitly formul ated i n

The Will to Powr

Nos. 1062

and 1066, and in various notes dating fro m 1885-8. 8 Let me

quote, as countless others have done, Nietzsche's 'most scienti fic' argument for eterna l recurrence :

I f the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of force and as a certai n definite number of centres of force - and every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless - it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass through a calculable number o f combinations. In infinite time, every possible combination would at some time or another be realised ; more : it would be realised an infinite n u m ber of times. And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have to take pl ace, and each of these combinations conditions the entire sequence o f combinations in the same series, a ci rcular movement that has already repeated itself infinitely o ften and plays its game in in fi nitu m . 9 We begi n o u r discussion of this passage with two observations. Fi rst, it is not convincing, and second, i t is not clear wh at d i fference i t could possibly make i f i t were true, and consequently, it i s not entirely clear what i t would mean for i t to be true. There a re a number o f d i fferent claims to be disti nguished in this passage, some m o re plausible than others, even allowing for its premises (a finite number of forces and i n finite time ) . As it s t a n d s , w e a re not persuaded e i t h e r that a fi n i te number of elements could not generate a n infini te n u m ber o f qualitatively

36

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time different states, thus making the necessary i n fi nite repeti tion of each state a non sequitor. N o r , i f everyth ing w e r e t o be repeated infinitely, can we see why it must take the form o f exact cycles of complete sequences o f permutations. Whi l e we are not the first to have had dou bts about this proof, others have found it more acceptable. Danto, for example, 1 0 bel ieves that with the addition

of various other plausible premises i t can be made to work. We shall argue, however, that Nietzsche does not need the precise repetitions that this argument, i f successfu l , would prove. But first we shall

look at another problem

with the idea of eternal

recurrence as so conceived : What would i t mean for it to be true ? We can pose o u r worry like th i s : what would it be to be in one cycle rather than another ? The request for some distinguishing feature by which one cycle could be distinguished fro m another must always be refused, for ex hypothesi there can be none without

violating

the

principle

that

what

returns

does

so

identically. There is no point outside such a series to mark one's place . The hypothesis cou l d not, then, be confirmed or refuted by our ordinary experience. Yet unlike the hypothesis of a divine being, i t does not posit a transcendence, a higher plane of existence,

j ust

a

horizontal

extension

of

this

one.

Eternal

recurrence is m i n i m a l ly, i t seems, a n u n testa ble hypothesis, consis tent with ordinary experience, requiring no higher being, and one the mere truth o r falsity o f which has no e ffect o n our experience of the rea l world. It sounds l i ke a n empty, uninteresting idea which might at best occupy a marginal place i n the dreams o f a n i d l e mind. And y e t Nietzsche himself claims it to be his most powerful insigh t ! Thu s : 1 He c l a i m s ( The Will

to power,

n o . 5 5 ) it is 'the m o s t scientific

hypothesis'. We shall have something to say about this shortly.

2 I n the plan o f the book o n eternal recurrence (outlined in The Will to Power, n o . 1 05 7 ) , section 2 is entitled 'Proof of the doc trine'. He clearly takes the cosmological argument seriously.

3 He clearly contends th at belief in eternal recurrence does make a n enormous difference. In a letter to Overbeck he wrote,

to

be

true- then everyth ing changes and turns around and

'If i t is

true- o r rather i f it is

all

previous v a l ues are dev a l ued.'

1 1

believed

What we propose is a strategy o f reading Nietzsche's cosmo-

37

M USIC, MA DNESS A ND META PH YSICS logical presentation of this doctrine which will both exp l a i n the importance with which he credits i t and resolve some o f the d i fficulties we have with it. First, Nietzsche i s not j us t o ffering this proof o f eternal recu rrence i n an i n tellectua l vacu u m . He is opposing i t both to the traditional conceptions o f nineteenth century

mechanism,

and

to

the

teleological

conceptions

of

traditional theology. Let us take mechanism first. Nietzsche has a n u m ber of reservations about the idea of the world as a network o f causes and effects. He is sceptical about the very concepts of 'cause' and 'effect' (as varieties o f fiction ) . And if (as Kelvin argued) mechanism leads to a final state (entropy ) , i t must, in i n fi nite past time, h ave a l ready reached it. As i t clearly has not, mechanism must be false. Coming from Nietzsche, and especia l l y where they concern eternal recurrence, whi ch was a fter all the subj ect o f a vision (see below) , these arguments raise certain questions o f evaluation. N ietzsche i s not parodying scientific discourse; 12 yet neither i s he committed to its concepts, its assumptions, its standards. I ndeed, he elsewhere pours scorn on those conclusions that need proving. What he is doi ng, surely, is showing how eterna l recurrence can be a rgued for even i n terms that he did not h i m sel f endorse. Some sort o f confirmation o f h i s willingness to adopt such a strategy can be found in the way he h a n d les the other main view to which eterna l recurrence is opposed - theological teleology. I n n o . 1 0 6 2 , for example, w e fi n d t h e fol lowing argument:

I f the world had a goal, it must have been reached. I f there were for it some unintended fin al state, this must also have been reached. I f it were i n any w a y capable of a pausing and becoming fi x e d , of ' being', t h e n a l l becoming w o u l d l o n g s i n c e h a v e c o m e to a n end, a l o n g with a l l thinking, all 'spirit'. The fact of 'spirit' as a form o f becoming proves that the world has no goa l , no final state, and is incapable of being. The l anguage here is surely that o f theology. The argument can be constructed by substituting the opposition between Being and Becoming for that between Being a n d non-Being i n Aquinas' Th ird Way. Where Aquinas argues that a necessary being must be posited to explain how, i n i n fi n ite past time, we h ave not been swal lowed up by a coinci dence o f non-Being, Nietzsche argues that the absence of a goa l must be posited to exp l a i n how, in i n fi n ite past time, the u n iverse did not cease all becoming. Aquinas

38

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time did not th ink that such proofs were necess a ry, only convenient for some . No more did Nietzsche. Tha t Nietzsche's attitude to the frame of references in whi ch such a rguments are constructed is something short o f total com mitment can surely be seen i n their next paragraph i n which he continues :

The old habit . . . of associating a goa l with every event and a guiding, creat ive God with the world is so powerful that it requires an effort for a thin ker not to fal l into thinking of the very a i mlessness of the world as inten ded. H owever, there is clearly a sense in which the cosmological version o f eternal recurrence m oves within this frame of reference. In my view the cosm o l ogical argument for eternal recurrence can be seen as su bversive o f both teleology and mechanism i n that it can be shown to be no less plausible i n the very same terms . And that is the point of my saying that this proof is not o ffered i n an intellectua l vacu u m . It m a y be quite as i mportant t hat i t cha l lenge the existing contenders for our intellectual assent as that it finally convince us in its own right. The second consideration we would o ffer towards a more receptive reading of the proof o f eternal recurrence is that i t can

be seen as an attempt to give a rigorous scientific j ustification for believing something which in a more general form we might fi nd far m o r e plausible. A n d Nietzsche himself at the beginning o f t h e

very passage from w h i c h this p r o o f c o m e s o ffers us j ust such an account o f his 'new w o r l d conception' which depends, not on any detailed a rgument, but on a model o f a closed economy of forces . Does Nietzsche really need m o re than this? He writes :

The world exists ; it is not something that becomes, not something that passes away. Or rather: it becomes, it passes away, but it has never begun to become and never ceased from passing away - it maintains itse l f in both . It lives on itsel f : its excrements are its food. 13 It might, however, seem that repetition i s entirely missing fro m this picture, which w o u l d m a k e i t deficient i n a vital respect. A s w e s h a l l s e e l ater, t h e a bandonment o f exact cycles is a price s o m e think Nietzsche has to p a y t o give eternal recurrence psychological force . But for this picture to be sufficient we wou l d have to fi nd i n the fact t h a t becoming 'never ceases' a s u fficient embodiment o f becoming. W e s h a l l c o m e b a c k t o t h i s question.

39

MUSIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS We h ave cited Nietzsche's remark in a letter that, if it is

believed true, etern al recurrence turns everyth ing round. It might be suggested that a co mparison with heavenly s a lvation would be appropri ate here. For that too, true or not, m a kes an enormous di fference i f one believes it possible. And it sh ares the feature o f u nveri fiabil ity . Heavenly sa lvation is u s u a l l y thought of as a rewa rd, or at least as a consequence o f having led a certa in sort o f l i fe . The rewa rd is to be led to another l i fe distinct from the first, one in wh ich, one presumes, su ffering is a b sent (or in the case o f hell, in which s u ffering is etern a l and hope is absent) . In this case too, it is argu a b le th a t the truth or fa lsity o f the existence o f an a fterl i fe has no direct bearing on the facts o f this l i fe, while belief in such a state can have an enormous 'effect'. Is etern al recurrence merely a kind of inversion of sa lvation? A kind of upsidedown theology? S u rely, on this first cosmological version, no. Because on this account i t can be shown that the connection between one cycle and the next is neither causal nor moral, nothing I do wi l l h ave the sl ightest effect on the next round. This is true whether I bel ieve eterna l recu rrence o r not. And fu rthermore, if one did suppose the rel ationship

between

one

cycle

and

the

next to

be

one

of

cause/effect i n wh atever loose form, one could not call it salvation (or damnation) for what one does merely to be

repeated

infinitely.

Eternal recurrence does not o ffer a version o f heaven or hel l . It can o ffer in itself neither punish ment nor reward. It is a horizontal move, not a vertical one. It is this feature- the horizontality o f eternal recu rrence- that, as w e shall n o w expl a i n , allows the cosmological version o f eternal recurrence to play its special role in wh at we have called the transva l u ation o f our ordinary concept o f time. We seem to be able to think o f eternal recurrence as a loopy arrow, as a single temporal series o f a strange loopy shape . 1 4 Without departing from serial ity, Nietzsche h a s thereby generated a structure wh ich threatens it. When we talk of a loopy shape, we th ink representati onally o f something like a coi l , a spring shape. On such a model we would possess a way o f distinguishing between the di fferent cycles, even i f there were no clear point at which one cycle begins and ends . But on the cosmological model, there is no external point o f vision, and i ndeed we are not simply dealing with a model . There is no way o f distingu ishing between

40

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time one cycle and the next etc. We are, or are i n s ide, the coi l . We are,

in

unlike Zarathustra's dwa rf,

the gateway

Augenblick , and to us could only seem a

the entire history o f the un iverse as we know it

st raig ht line, the arc of an immense circle. Why do we labour th is l i teral i n terpretation of the eternal re cu rrence as a cosmological hypothesis? Should we not simply fe el its unfa thomable power and not pause to analyse its refl ective im p lications? We claim th a t this cosmological version is the first sta ge (or can be so construed ) o f Nietzsche's deconstruction of ordinary serial time. The key to this operation i s that Nietzsche has man aged to

construct,

using ordinary serial time, a plausible

account of the structure o f time which provides the basis for the transvaluation o f that 'ordin ary time'. Eternal recurrence seems m erely to be a very powerful modification or extension of But i n fact i t puts i n question the assumed self-contained

seriality.

status of its units- nows - and their fundamental success ivity . For as wel l as being located o n a horizontal axis o f succession, each 'unit' also appears to be a member o f a transversal series of repetitions.

Psychological time It is hard to contain this version, as i t appears i n so many guises. Perh aps

key

the

to

it

is

the

role

o f etern a l

undermining a n d displacing the idea o f

purpose -

recurrence

in

be i t personal or

historical . As su c h , however, it is merely negative, and much more needs

to

be

said

about

the

idea

of

a ffirmation

and

the

transformation o f the wi l l . We begin with an a ccount o f wh at we might

call

the

' i ntensity

of

the

mo ment',

which

provides

someth ing o f a template for self- a ffirmation.

The intensity of the moment The cosmological version o f eternal recu rrence functi ons i n such a way as to extend serial succession

( i n ' loops') so th at each

individual moment acquires membership o f a n addition a l , trans versal series. 1 5 Consequentl y- and we take this up more fu l l y in t h e n ex t secti on - t h e identity o f s u c h units wi l l also be divided along these two axes. 'Has time flow away? Have I not fallen . . . into the well of

eternity?' 1 6 Th is second, quasi-verti cal dimension to each moment,

41

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PHYSICS opens up the possibility of depth and, experientially, intensity. Let us first look at some of the formu l ations Nietzsche has given of 'the intensity of the moment'. Writing of the aesthetic moment of 'rapture', Nietzsche says, ' . . . in

this condition one enriches

everything out of one's own abundance : what one sees, what one desires,

one

sees

swollen,

pressing,

strong,

overladen

with

energy . . . '. He goes on : ' . . . the entire emotiona l system is alerted and intensified so that it discharges all its powers of representation, imitation, transfiguration, transmutation, every kind of mimicry and p l ayacting conjointly . . . ' 1 7 And the first p u b lished account Nietzsche gives of eterna l recurrence 1 8 is the occasion

for another depiction of a privileged

moment.

i magines

a

hourgl ass of

demon

suggesting

that the

'eterna l

He

existence is turned upside down again and again' and suggests two possible reactions- (a) utter despondency and misery, (b) exhilar ation .

The

latter he puts

experienced

a

like

tremendous

thi s :

moment

' . . . or h ave you once when

you

woul d

h ave

answered h i m : " You are a god . . . "?'. Elsewhere 1 9 he tel l s of 'attaining' the

Obermensch

'for one moment' and of the immortal

'moment . . . in which I produced return'. The question I woul d like to put is thi s : how fa r are we confronted here with a new

general

account of the moment

and how fa r only of certain privileged moments? And, if the l a tter, in wh a t way is Nietzsche offering a more general transvaluation of time? One thing must be true- any 'general account of time' must a l low the possibil ity of these self-expansive moments. But are they special cases or the general rule? Clearly, at one l evel they must be special cases, or they coul d not exist distinctively, or in contrast to the depressive moments of anguish a t the possibility of eterna l recurrence. And yet I think it is clear that for Nietzsche they are special in a speci a l sense- they realize the highest possibil ity of tempora l experience - an intens it/0 of vision and/or self- mobilization

and a ffirmation .

But what of a l l

the

other

moments that never achieve this status? Do we not h ave to accept that they too are part of time, so th at we cannot say that Nietzsche's account of time Shou l d we

just

in general

is ecstatic and a ffirmative?

say tha t he offers an ideal way of living (the

moment ) , based on possibilities intermittently real ized? This wou l d not be a dull view. Even taken by itse l f, it woul d require

and

j ustify

some

sort

42

of

existential

temporal i ty

to

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time accommodate these peak experiences. But we cannot rest with this picture, for a number o f reasons : 1 The cosmological version of eternal recurrence has a l ready compromised the idea o f time

simply

as a sequence o f distinct

moments . The addition of a depth to each moment redi rects our attention away from rel ations of succession towards the poss i b i l ities o f intensification. When Nietzsche writes o f the 'eternity' o f the moment, this is not s i mp l y a reference to its infinite recurrence at other ti mes. The p i cture we m ight h ave o f l i fe as a sequence o f moments, some high, some l ow, stil l depends on giving seriality the l ast word.

Given that model,

leaping fro m peak to peak wou l d correspond more closely to Nietzsche's

picture.

Yet

Nietzsche

does

not

retain

that

picture. The variable intensity of the eternally recu rring moment constitutes an alternative. We return to thi s shortly .

2 There is a second crucia l reason why these peak moments are not j ust di fferent, but privileged i n relation to those o f the plains or the valleys. Part o f what makes for the experience of exhi l a ration is that they proj ect their own ecstatic a ffirmative vision onto the rest of time. If we th ink o f time from withi n the ecstasy o f such moment, then those moments that do not actualise this peak possibility simply do not figure. This gives us a way of understanding the eternity o f the moment (' . . . j oy wants the eternity o f a l l things, wants deep, deep eternity') i n a way q uite di fferent from, say, Goethe,21 and in

conflict with the supposition that in everything returns, even the meanest. Here

a way that seems to eternal recurrence

we approach Klossowski22 and Deleuze's reading o f the eternal return as a

selective

operation.

3 It is possible to argue that it i s not the privilege of peak experiences that they proj ect their own temporality onto the rest of tim e . Do not such experiences as boredom, depression, and self-destructive feel i ngs do the same? But i f they do so, there is a major d i fference. Only this a ffirmative rapture

itself enough

to will its own

infinite repetition .

wills

Only this total

self-affirmation wants itsel f more and again. Let us now turn to the role of eternal recurrence in undermining and displacing the idea o f purpose in psychological time- the transformation of the wi l l .

43

M USIC, MADNESS A ND METAPHYSICS

The transformation of the will If we consider th at structure of action (and the temporality that underlies it) i n wh ich goals are pursued and ideals ai med at, i t is hard to see i t as avoidable, let alone as being fl awed in some way .

For Nietzsche, th is simple structure- the pursuit of values - very easily takes a pathological form, which he calls n i h i l i s m . For the positing o f ideals- especi ally those tha t could never quite be real i zed - is a tacit

devaluation

of this worl d . Plato, in this sense,

is the consu mmate nihilist. S i m i larly, the belief in the perfectib i l i ty of man, utopi a n thinking, the search fo r truth , can be seen as valu ations o f the future, that, negatively, devalue the p resent. But the mere recognition o f the negative nature o f ordinary human values merely leads to a second stage o f depressive nihilism, in which the world has no value, and there are no values for it to h ave. As we shall see, the thought o f the etern a l recurrence is meant to be able to take this crushing idea to i ts l i m it, and in so doing posing a chal lenge to our attitude to the past. For the wil l fi n d s i n the past an obstacle t h a t it finds impossible t o overcom e : t h e past, i t seems, is over, is n o t subj ect t o m y wi l l , cannot b e changed.

However in the section ' O n Redemption' in Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche cha rts the course o f the l iberation o f the wil l . In his What is Called Thinking? Heidegger devotes some five pages to a discussion o f this section, in which, broadly speaking, he tries to show that the will's l i beration consists i n a triumphant victory over a l l o bstacles by wh ich victory i t instates itself unchal lenged in the seat o f metaphysical subj ectivity . 23 Zarathustra speaks -to his disciples : ' "Will- that is wh a t the l i berator and bri nger o f joy is called" : thus I have taught you my friends. But now learn this as wel l : the will itself is still a prisoner . ' Why is it still a prisoner ? ' Powerless against that which has been done, the wi l l is an angry spectator o f all things past . . . i t cannot break time and time's desire . ' 2 4 There fol l ows an account o f a sequence o f moves the wi l l makes in revenge, as Nietzsche puts it, against this obstacle to i ts power, concluding with the position we could attribute to Schopenhauer and to Buddhism- th a t 'wi l l ing become not-wi l l i n g ' . Zarathustra 's comment on th is is as fo ll ows :

I led you away from these fable-songs when I taught you : 'The will is a creato r . '

44

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time All 'It was' is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful chance - until the creative will says to it : 'But I willed it thu s . ' The w i l l that is t h e w i l l t o power must w i l l someth ing higher t h a n a n y re con ciliation - b u t h o w shall that happen ? W h o h a s taught i t to will b ackwa rds too ? 25 The questi on i s left u n a n swered. Zarath u s tra 'looked like a man seiz ed by extreme terro r ' . It will turn o ut, o f cou rse, that the

Vb ermensch

i s the answer to the question.

My view i s that this sentence : 'Th e w i l l that is the w i l l to power

must w i l l something h i gher than any reconci l iation'- wh ich H ei degger does not to my knowledge a l l u d e to - poses a d i fficu l ty for h i s reading of Nietzsch e ' s accou n t as a metaphysics of w i l l . What Nietzsche is insisting on is t h a t t h e a i m o f t h i s new

creative

willing i s not merely reconci l i ation to the necessity of time's passing away, b u t an active a ffirmation o f the fact. The q uestion is wheth e r this a ffirmative w i l l i n g can genuinely exceed the identity seeking, reconciling, appropriating gestures characteristic o f the rationalizations which had preceded it.2 6

Clearly, thi s transformation of the w i l l already subverts w h a t I

have called 'ordinary motivational time ' . We are to w i l l , not j ust accept, b u t

will what

h a s been, and the fact tha t time w i l l conti n u e

t o p a s s o v e r i n to the p a s t . Th i s i s a n idea i t i s a lmost impossible t o t o t h i n k . One can accept t h a t i t m i g h t in theory satisfy t h e condition o f g o i n g beyond m e r e reconci l i ation, but what can i t mean ? T h e i d e a

sticks

there, undecidable i n terms of o u r ordinary

understanding of w i l l ing, and w i l l not go away. I mentioned before the importance fo r Nietzsche o f a tra ns formation o f n i h i l ism - h e saw h i m s e l f as moving beyond nih il i s m o n l y i n the l a te w o rk ,

Ecce Homo-

a n d i n th i s m o v e, w e find the

greatest ch a l l enge to o u r ordina ry understanding of motivatio n . T h e thought o f eternal recu rrence h a s t w o face s : a face o f terror and a face o f e x h i l a ratio n . The

test

that eternal recurrence poses is

whether one can say yes to it, and transcend terror as well as

ressentiment.

'Courage ' , Nietzsche w ri tes 'destroys even death, for

it says "Was

that

l i fe ? Well then, once more." '27 But the passage I

have j u s t been a l l u d i n g to is Nietzsch e ' s first real announcement o f

t h e etern a l recurrence.

When o n e first grasps eternal recu rrence, a l l hope is extingui s hed. Everyth ing incomplete, i l l - formed, unwanted, w i ll retu rn. B u t there fo llows an

expansion,

' a tremendous moment', i n w h i c h o n e

45

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS finds oneself strong enough to a ffirm

all

thi s . We learn somethin g,

I believe, from Nietzsche's precise words:

'If this thought gained

possession of you, it would change you

as you are, or perhaps

crush you', or 'Wh at does not kill me makes me stronger'- as he wrote i n

Twilight of the Idols. 2 8

The idea o f eterna l recurrence is both a test o f one's strength, and also a source, an inspiration. The demon, o n the second reading, i s recognized as 'a god'. The idea can 'take possession'. At this most vital point, Nietzsche is taking as seriously as he coul d the idea that the consequences o f believing something are more important than its truth (if i n deed they can be distinguished fro m it) . Eternal recurrence may be a tria l; i t is also a l a dder. But can i t really could it,

a fter all,

make sense really

to believe i t? In this form? And

make any d i fference, except by a

misunderstanding? We h ave already come across these questions they are i mportant in their own right, but also for j u dging whether Nietzsche has real l y succeeded i n displacing the ordinary moti vational time we usually take for granted. There are at least two ways o f articul a ting a critical attitude to the value or significance of eterna l recurrence, arguing 1. That eterna l recurrence cannot make any di fference because (as we s aw above) we will never h ave any memory of past cycles, nor will our

actions ever

affect

future cycles. Indeed i t could be s a i d th at

experienti ally i t makes no difference whether I do this self-same thing once or an infinite number o f times,

i f each time is

i ndependent o f the other, and each occasion is identical; or

2. That i t makes an enormous d i fference, because i f the doctrine is true then I have no real poss i b i l i ty o f trans forming, or transvaluing anything, unless, of course, I h ave already done so before. This view Nietzsche calls 'Turkish fata l i s m'. When

one

reads commentaries

on

Nietzsche,

and

indeed

Nietzsche h i mself, one is given the i mpression th a t these questions h ave sadly 'missed the point'. Two di fferent general responses are o ffered, whi ch are not, in my view, mutu a l l y consistent. The fi rst, Nietzsche's own, which applies both to fatal i s m and also to the indifferentism

of the

fi rst obj ection,

is

basically

a

form

of

compati b i l i s m .

T h e truth is that every man h i m s e l f is a piece of fate ; w h e n he t h i n k s he is stirring agai nst fate in the way described, fate is being realized here,

46

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time too; th e struggle is i m aginary, but so is resignation to fate - all these i ma gin ary ideas a re included i n fate. You yourself, poor frightened man, a re the invincible Moira reigning far abov e the gods . . . In you the whole future of the human world is 29 p red etermined - i t will not help you i f you a re terrified of yourself. B ut the second explanation o f why they are mispl aced involves a fur ther step away from the idea of eternal recurrence as a scientific hyp othesis about repetitive cycles. The eternal recurrence i s

n either a mech anical nor ' logical ' nor m athematical ' repetiti o n ' . Rather i t c a n exercise a selective power. T h i s selectivity can be

understood i n two di fferent ways : one 'moral' and the other ontologica l . The first, ' moral ' , way i s the more obvious. O n this account, only what can a ffirm its i n fi nite repetition

deserves

to

return. Clearly, such a n idea can function as a principle by which one regul a tes one's words and deeds, a kind of supervil igant conscience. The ability to a ffirm eternal recurrence is a moral test. Nietzsche clearly o ffers us this version, but it h a s its d i fficulties. It seems to leave open the p rospect o f a

gap

between what ought to

happen a n d what does. This is especi a l l y true i f we take seriously the idea that actually

everything,

deservi n g o r not, returns. And

the problem is that for Nietzsche, such a gap invites nihilism.30 The second, l e s s o b v i o u s w a y , we will ca l l 'ontologica l ' . O n t h i s account, w i l l i n g eternal recurrence

actually does

operate as a

selective procedure, such that certai n events, obj ects, rel ations, moments w i l l return and some will not. Clearly this is a significant modification o f the original

cosmological account o f eternal

recurrence. And j ust as obviously there are difficulties with it. For a start, i t undercuts the heroism o f the original a ffirmation that wills the return even o f the lowliest and meanest thing. For such things would n o longer return at a l l . There a re two rather d i fferent w a y s o f thinking through this second alternative. The first would concentrate on such Nietzschean remarks as that the thought o f eternal recurrence l i censes most men to self-erasure (crushed by 'the greatest weight' ) . There w i l l b e s o m e p e o p l e who continue who a ffirm themselves and t h e world, and some also - at l e a s t for a time - who do n o t . ( I t a k e i t this c a n be understood either physically o r existenti a l ly . ) 3 1 B u t here 'continue' is relative t o a particular l i fe, a n d , on t h e

standard

version o f eternal recurrence, those acts (or conditions) o f sel f erasure would themselves return eternally j ust as much as the acts

47

M USIC, MA DNESS AND META PHYSICS of sel f-overco ming. And that would surely spoil the story. The second way o f pursuing the

ontological version

o f selectivity i s not

wholly distinct, but conceptually fa r more subtle. Deleuze3 2 argues that i f ( a ) we take seriously the idea that etern a l recurrence i s 'the being o f becoming' ( a s Nietzsche himself claims ) ,33 and ( b ) we distinguish (as Nietzsche does) between ' a ctive' and ' reactive' ( forces) and apply this distinction to kinds of ' becom ing' ; then (c) we can say that only ' active becoming' ' has b ei n g '

in

t h e se n se

o f embodying

recurrence. So, ( d ) only

active

t h e p r i n c i pl e

of

eternal

becoming returns. Why ? Deleuze :

'the eterna l return would become contradictory i f it were the

return o f reactive forces ' . 3 4

The work here is obviously being done by the rel ation between being and becoming, and we must defer until the next section a proper assessment of this position. Wh a t we can say is that i n Deleuze we fi n d for t h e fi r s t t i m e an account o f how eternal recurrence would fu nction as a selective principle that does not obviously presuppose the ordinary model o f time as a succession o f point instants. The question we will now pose i s thi s : what u n derstanding can we have o f the moment that wi l l allow the return o f only those moments which a ffirm themselves, or perhaps better, i n which we affirm ourselves. The clue must lie in a way o f thi n k i n g o f t i m e t h a t leaves seria l i ty - and t h u s revenge - beh i nd.

' O ntological' time I have suggested that the due to how we can understand 'the moment' i n such a way as to allow the return only o f those moments i n which we a ffirm ourselves l ies i n a way o f th inking about time that leaves seri a l i ty beh i n d . But how i s such a thought to be realized ? Would we not be trapped i n a perpetual present ? Consider the following : 1. What i s a t issue, what i s valuable, what i s at

stake

i n any experience, is

always the same -

i t is the i ntensity

of sel f-affirmation th at it conta i n s . In this sense, other moments, moments that don't make the grade, simply do not come i nto the reckon i ng.

2.

If we ask o f ' the moment' whether it is one or many,

we find ou rselves embroiled i n the most d i fficult thoughts . It is not enough to distinguish q u a l i tative and numerical senses ; we are left with, and I think Nietzsche means to leave us with, a gen u i ne

48

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time 'undeci d a b l e ' . I would like to spend a little time on this , focussing on a fa mous passage from Thus Spoke Zarathustra ('Of the Vision and the Riddle') i n which Nietzsche exp l a i n s the eternal return in relation to the gateway called ' Moment', where the paths o f the in finite past and the i n fin ite future meet. The account p roceeds in tones o f i n creasing h o rror, and then turns to the vision o f the shepherd choking on a snake, who bites o ff its head and i s a transformed being. Let us look at this famous text : 3 5

Then something occu rred which l ightened me: for the dwarf j u mped from my shoulder, the inquisitive dwarf ! And he squatted down upon a stone in front of me. But a gateway stood j u st where we had h alted . 'Behold this gateway, dwarf ! ' I went o n : 'It has two aspects . Two paths come togethe r : no one h as ever reached their end.' 'Th is long lane ahead of us - that is another eternity. They are in opposition to one a nother, these paths; they abut on one another: and it is here at th is gateway that they come together. The name of the gateway is written above it: " Moment " . ' 'But i f one were t o follow them further a n d ever fu rther a n d fu rther: do you think, dwarf, that these paths would be in eternal opposition ? ' 'Everything straight lies', murmu red t h e dwarf disdainfully. 'All truth is crooked, ti me itsel f is a ci rcl e . ' 'S p irit of gravity ! ' I said a ngr il y, 'do not treat th is t o o l ightl y ! . . . ' 'Behold th is moment ! ' I w e nt o n . 'From t h i s gateway M o m e n t a l o n g eternal lane runs back : a n eterni ty lies behind u s . ' ' M u s t n o t all things that can r u n h a v e a l ready r u n along t h i s lane ? Must not all things that can happen have already h a ppened, been done, run past ? ' 'And i f all things have been here before: w h a t do you th i n k o f th is moment, dwarf ? Must not this gateway, too, have been here before ? ' 'And are not a l l th i ngs bound fast together in such a way th at this moment draws a fter it all future things ? Therefore draws itself too ? ' 3 6 Three sections of this p a ssage deserve special comme nt : 1. 'They are i n opposition to each other, these paths . . . and it i s here at this gateway that they come together. ' 2. ' . . . what do you think o f this moment, dwarf ? Must not this gateway, too, have been here before ? And are not all things bound fast together in such a way that this moment draws a fter it all future things ?

Therefore

draws itse l f too ? ' 3. 'The name of the gateway is written above i t : " Momen t " . ' W e first note that the moment i s the

49

coming together

o f two

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PHYSICS paths

(past and

future)

together is not as such past abut, they affront etern a l

recurrence

in

oppositi o n .

And

yet this

coming

a reconciliation, but a ten s i o n. Future and one another. It is left to the possi b i lity o f

to

al leviate

their

oppositional

character.

Second, the question o f the gateway. When Zarathustra asks 'Must not this gateway, too, have been here before ? ' i s he talking of

this particular

moment, o r is h e talking o f the moment as the

basis o f a structure o f repetition ? What would i t be to talk o f moment, to

talk

this

of this momen t ? Nietzsche h a s al ready given it

metaphorical substanti a l i ty by calling i t a

gateway.

And we can

s u p p o s e that t h e verti cal p arts o f t h e gateway w i l l s y mbol iz e t he quasi-vertical dimension o f time. But there i s a third point . It is a commonplace o f t h e structuralist v i e w o f l a n guage t o s u p p o s e that i t has t o be u nderstood as comprising t wo axes syntagmatic/paradigmatic, metonym ic/metaphoric etc:1 7 The serial a rticul ations

of

a

word

are

supplemented

by

p a radigmatic

rel ationships o f s ubstituta b i l i ty - relationships i n which s u bstitu tions o f other words would retai n some important feature, some meaning, some grammatical category, still forming a n intelligible sentence, etc. Now it might be thought gratuitous to suggest a parallel between the double axis of l anguage, and the double axis o f time that eter n a l recurrence would generate. But consider the sentence

'The

name

of

the

gateway

is

written

above

it:

" Moment " . ' At this critical point, Nietzsche introduces not j ust ' l anguage' but writing. What is the force o f this appearance o f writi n g ? It is tempting t o compare i t to t h a t p o i n t i n t h e first chapter i n

Hege l ' s

Phenomenology of Spirit

a t which

he is

demonstrating th at ' the universal is the truth o f sense-certainty ' . He writes :

It is as a u niversal . . . that we give utterance to sensuous fact. What we say is 'this', i . e . the universal this. We do not present before o u r mind i n saying so t h e universal th is, o r being i n general , but we utter w h a t i s universal ; language, as we see, is t h e m o r e truth fu P 8 For Hegel , the moment of l anguage is the moment of universality. C a n we say the same o f Nietzsche - for example, i n 'Truth and Lie in a n Extra-Moral Sense' ? Is not Nietzsche suggesting that the structure

of

'moment'

is

as

i ndependent

of

any

particu l a r

experience as is writing o f any p a rticu l a r i n tentional contex t ? Might i t n o t then b e t h a t i t i s p recisely t h e

50

moment

that eternal l y

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time retu rns the same ? But what is the moment ? When he writes ' this ga teway ' should we read it as one or as many ? It is tempting to rea d him as saying there is j ust one moment, but then we h ave to a dd ' which gets repeated ' . So there are many.

I would suggest first o f a l l that the moment of writing in Nietzsche, as i n Hege l ' s reference to the ' utterance' o f ' th i s ' ,

puts i n question t h e presence of consciousness ( ' We do n o t present before o u r m i n d i n saying so t h e universal this . ' ) B u t with Nietzsche, w e a re n o t , as w i t h Hegel,

led t o another

presence - that o f the realm of universality (which will u l ti mately be subsumed u n der that general s e l f-presence o f spirit) . For Nietzsche, the moment o f writing is the moment o f undecid a b i l ity ; undecidabil ity, that is, as always, within the framework that insists on a clear answer to the question o f metaphysics - one or man y ? W e can recal l here N i etzsche's suggestion that eterna l recurrence is 'the being of becoming', or 'the closest approximation of being in becoming'. Abstractly, i t might suggest (and we might conclude) that eterna l recurrence is the way the force o f becoming is finally

betrayed.

Becoming, we might say, is the one thing that

never changes, and hence embodies the value o f

permanence,

which is the h a l l mark o f Being. Is there not something very strange about such a formu l ation ? 'Becoming is the one thing that never changes' seems like a perfectly intelligible sentence. But what i f becoming were the greatest threat to a l l thinking involving a n ' i s ' ? The ' approxi mation' o f the becoming o f eternal recurrence to being should be read neither as N i etzsche's confession o f a new metaphysics, nor as a n aive admission o f that fact. Rather, the approximation of the becoming o f eternal recurrence to being should

undecidable term

be seen i n to

as

a disruptive

metaphysical

substitution of an

discourse.

'Becoming'

in

Nietzsche functions i n t h e w a y i n which, for example, 'writing' functions i n Derrida. 3 9 Becoming i s n o more i n simple opposition to Being than

opposed to

writing

( i n Derri d a ' s new sense) can be simply

speech .4 0 The function o f eternal recurrence i s to allow

the reinscription o f becoming within the discourse of metaphysics in a way that

undermines

that discourse.

The point i s that becoming demands a q u i te 'di fferent' logic o f

identity from t h a t o f being.

51

M USIC, MA DNESS AND META PHYSICS It is now possible, I think, to distinguish more clearly thr ee q u ite di fferent functions of eternal recu rrence . The first, as I h a v e s uggested, u ndermines the privilege of seri a l i ty by i n troducing, viq ex a c t cycles, a quasi-vertical depth . The second is to parody the va lues of a philosophy of being, by providing for every particular a kind o f universal ity . But there i s a third function, and that will requ i re yet another thinking through o f the meaning o f eternal

recurrence. 4 1

We have a l ready heard what Nietzsche h a s to say about the state of rapture as an a ffirmative proj ectivity. The Dionysian poet could be said to 'go out o f himsel f ' , 42 and when Nietzsche

higher than any reconciliation'. In each case the basic structure is one of a self-exceeding which is not appropriated, but which, p recisely, risks the self, and does not a i m at a higher reconci liation. This, I would a rgue, is the fundamental structure of the moment for Nietzsche. And corresponding to this futural element of risk is the importance o f forgetting; both are aspects of non-appropriative discusses the will to power, he says 'it must w i l l someth ing

thought. How is this idea o f a sel f-exceeding that is not appropriated

compatible with talk o f the etern a l recurrence o f the same ? 4 3 Does

not the reference to sameness imply, i f not identity, at least a conti n u i ty ? And is that not p recisely what is p u t in question by an exceeding that does not ' return ' ? One

' p h i lologica l '

matter

m a kes

such

compati b i l i ty

more

plausible than i t might at first seem : i n the very notebook where the idea o f eternal recurrence is first sketched out, 44 Nietzsche distributes among his notes on

ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen

a

whole series of notes that criticize - in a devastating way - the very

postulation

of

any

das Gleiche

in

either

science

or

philosophy. Wh at then can the 'same' possibly mean in eternal recurrence ? There is a way of reading this reference to the eternal return of the 'same' that does make sense. We can treat i t as a description not o f repeated

contents

of experience

but o f the dynamic

structure o f experience - the rhyth m , the pulse o f excitement and fatigue,

o f arousal

and

consu mmation,

of

exh i l a ration

and

passivity, o f the rising and setting o f the passions. It is this

movement,

the movement o f beco m i ng, that i s repeated eternally.

Or, with Deleuze, 45 we can say that it is

52

the returning that returns.

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time B ut what o f our reference to a non-appropriating exceeding, a no n-re conci l i a tory will ? Surely the point is that sameness is not wh at is repeated, not what retu rns, but, again, what is constituted by that retu r n . The ' return to sel f ' operates without a self, is the self. 4 6 Sameness i s th is eterna l recurrence. Eternal recurrence i s the

condition o f and not merely the extension o r prolongation of sa meness. I now want to return to the question with which I began

whether Nietzsche 's thought is another kind of philosophy o f presence o r whether he might be s a i d t o h a v e

exceeded

the

parameters o f that framework. Without wanting to claim to have mastered the complexities o f Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche, it is worth reminding ourselves that Hei degger does claim that Nietzsche's p h i losophy is i n this way metaphysical. The w i l l that wills the past, that affirms all that has been and which is then able to will 'the eterna l return o f the same' is, he says, ' the supreme triumph o f the metaphysics o f the will that eternally wills its own w illirtg'. 4 7 This will to power is interpreted as a form - the highest form - o f subj ectivity, o f self-presence. But surely everyth ing could

turn o n how we think o f the momen t ? And s u rely the

very least

we can say about Hei degger's interpretation is that when he interprets the closure o f the ring o f recurrence as puts

in

question

his

own

insistence

that

downgoing

Nietzsche's

is

he a

metaphysics of the w i l l . I f Nietzsch e ' s account o f t h e m o m e n t renders i t s relation t o the question 'one o r many' undecidable, and i f the ecstatic moment can be treated not as an

exception

but simply as the highest

possible intensification o f experience, and i f the realization o f that possi b i lity is, as I believe i t is for Nietzsche, the essence ( i . e . non essence) o f time, there surely is a case for saying that Nietzsche ' s thought h e r e at l e a st aims beyond presence a n d sel f-presence. Everyth ing h angs on our being able to accept the idea that (a) a general description can be given of the various accounts Nietzsche gives o f the intensities o f a moment; and (b) that this description is that o f a w i l l i n g/th inking/a ffirming beyond, that does

not

aim at

its own p reservation, but risks itsel f perpetually, a going out that, even as i t anticipates a be returned to.

return,

puts in question what it is that will

Such a reading would take the interpretation o f Nietzsche to a certa in limit, and is undou btedly itself 'selective ' . For, as Derrida

53

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PHYSICS might say, deconstructive theses coexist in Nietzsche with those that remain i nscribed within metaphysics.

Reading Hei degger reading Nietzsch e : an interim report Clearly a challenge is being posed here to Heidegger's reading o f Nietzsche, and w e devote t h i s last section t o a n a l l t o o perfunctory el a boration of that chal lenge. We continue to draw on the work o f Deleuze t o t h a t end. U n l i k e Heidegger, he sees t h e concepts o f Wi l l t o Power and Eternal Recurrence as s uccess fully deconstructing the matrix o f metaphysical conceptuality . And i t may be with Heidegger i n mind that h e writes 'We misinterpret the expression " eternal return " i f we understand i t as ' return o f the same " . ' To readers o f Derrida, his a rgument will be fam i l i a r, although the di rection i t gives to the thought o f the eternal recurrence is new. He writes : 'The synthetic relation o f the moment to itsel f as present, past and future grounds its relation to other moments. The eterna l return is thus an answer to the problem o f passage . ' ( i b i d . ) W e s h a l l return t o discuss t h i s passage ( together with 'The Vision and the Riddle ' ) shortl y . Deleuze conti nues : 'And in this sense it must not be i n terp reted as the return o f someth ing that is,

that is " one " , or the " same " . We misinterp ret the expression " eternal return " i f we u nderstand i t as " return o f the same " . ' ( i b i d . ) W e must p repare ourselves fo r a n inversi o n :

It is n o t being that retu rns b u t rather the retu rning itsel f that constitutes being insofa r as i t is a ffirmed of becoming, and of that which passes . It is not some one thing which returns but rather returning i tsel f is the one th ing which is affi rmed of diversity o r multiplicity . I n other words,

identity in eternal return does not describe the nature of that which returns but, on the contrary, the fact of returning for that which differs. This is why the eternal return must be thought o f as a synthesis, a synthesis of time and its di mensions, a synthesis of diversity, and its reproduction . . . (ibid . ) (our emph asis). Derrid a ' s position seems very similar here. He writes : 'And on the basis o f this u n folding o f the same as the sameness o f

differance

differance

we see annou nced

and repetition i n the eternal retu rn . ' 4 9

For both Deleuze and Derrida the key underlying idea is that i dentity is not a fixed point we need to presuppose for di fferences

54

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time to be poss i b l e ; matters are rather the other way round. And the p os sib i l i ty th at a thing can appear again and again at di fferent ti m es is what gives it an identity ; it is not dependent on i t having a p rio r atemporal identity. Time, then, is not only constitutive o f identit y, rather t h a n a mere medium i n which things u n fold, b u t i s its elf constituted by i t s role i n supporting identities and d i fferences .

But e ven i f we cannot in any simple way say 'what' it is that retu rns, independently o f its retu rning, there are still questions th at need answering. Perhaps I can p u t my disquiet like th i s : when Dele uze talks o f 'the ret'u rning itse l f that constitutes being' i s he

ta lk ing here i n fact o f Being o r beings ? Is he referring to Time its elf, or to thi ngs in time ? I take it that Nietzsche fa irly plainly ta lks about thi ngs in time, o r i f not thi ngs at least events,

co nfi gurations o f fo rces. And yet i f we take seriously these re m arks o f Deleuze, eternal r�turn is being i n terpreted as the ground o f 'time i tse l f' . It may or may not be possible to square th is with any account o f the return o f particu l a r (especi ally non human) beings, but it would certa inly suggest that, yet aga i n , eternal recurrence is functioning as a device for t h e deconstruction of time - here time seen as the locus o f identity. Here Deleuze raises explicitly the question with which we began

- that o f presence. I suggested at the outset that Nietzsche might perh aps have o ffered an account of the present, and indeed o f time based on the p resent, that was not subj ect to Hei degger's (or to Derrida's) critici sms. The vital question will undou btedly be the status o f

becoming

in Nietzsche. Let us now begin to open up t h i s

questi on. Heidegger's verdict on Nietzsche i s rather di fferent from that o f either Deleuze o r Derri d a . Heidegger quotes Nietzsche's rem ark 'that

everything recurs

is the closest approximation of a world of

Becoming to one o f Being - peak o f meditati o n ' 5 0 and comments, 'with his doctrine o f eternal return, Nietzsche i n his way thinks nothing else than the thought that pervades the whole o f western philosophy ' . 5 1

Why ? Because he th inks Being as Time without thinking it as the

question

o f Being.

Eternity, not as a static 'now', nor as a sequence o f 'nows' rol l i ng off into the infi nite, but as the 'now' that bends back i n to itse l f : what is that if not the concealed essence of Ti m e ? Thinking Being, Will to Power, as

55

M USIC, MA DNESS AND METAPHYSICS eternal retu rn, thinking the most d i fficult thought of philosophy me ans th inking Being as Time. 5 2 So, Nietzsche does n o t t h i n k o f t h e

question o f B e i n g ( a n d Time) . thought of eterna l return

But might one not j u stly respond that the

i s a continuous questioning, that to use such a n idea as an explication o f time as Beco m i ng, i s to l odge a question as deep as possible into the heart of time. It may be that when u nderstood as ' the mere bending back o f the " now " ' the eternal return no longer had that disturbing undecidability that we have consistently noted, but perhaps that is a deficiency i n Hei degger's reading. Might not Deleuze be right to query any and every reading o f eternal return as ( always) eterna l return o f the same ? Furthermore, i f our p resen tation o f Nietzsche's break with Aristote l i a n a n d Augusti nian accounts o f time is correct, then surely Nietzsche could be said to h ave anticipated Hei degger's own de-structuring of the history of Being ( a n d Time) as well as Heidegger's own ecstatic account of temporality . O f course, Heidegger denies Nietzsche these achievements . In

What is Called Thinking?53

h e claims that ' . . . the

answer

Aristotle gave to the q uestion o f the essential nature of time still governs Nietzsche's idea o f time ' . We have a l ready a l l uded to his argument: that Nietzsche's use o f a transvaluing will to a ffirm that past betrays a traditional valuation o f Being ( including the 'Bei ng' o f time) as p resent. Our response, we may reca l l , was to say that h e took no account o f Nietzsche's reference to a will that did not seek ' reconcili atio n ' - that Heidegger was

refusing

the radical ity

of Nietzsche's a ffirmative will ing. Finally, I would like to suggest a way o f reading Hei degger on Nietzsche that develops some o f the ambiguities i n the notion of authenticity

to

be

found

in

Heidegger's

Being and Time.

Hei degger's discussion o f authenti city moves between tendencies towards closure ( for example, the idea that one's

'ownmost

possibilities' cou ld ever be anyth ing more than a questio n ) , and tendencies that would preclude such a closure, such as references to anxiety, the abyss, and throwness. 5 4 I would l i ke to suggest that this tension between these two motifs is not j ust found general l y in

Being and Time,

but is found

specifically

connected with the

question o f that ongoing ruptu ring o f selfhood that I

have

associ ated with the Nietzschean moment. Even more i n terestingly,

56

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time Heide gger o ffers us, within the space o f a few l i nes, though wi th out posing it as a problem, the very question th at is most p ressin g - how to understand this ' rupturing' i n terms o f Being.

fi na lly , he does this at one of the very few pl aces at which he invok es t h e name ( i n brackets ! ) o f Nietzsche. These are t he se nten ces i n question :

1 . Anticipation discloses to exi stence th at its uttermost possibil ity lies in giving itself up, and thus it shatters all one's tenaciousness to whatever 55 ex istence one has reached.

Wh at is this 'giving itse l f u p '

(Selbstaufgabe) ?

Is i t j ust death in the

narrow sense, o r i s i t not precisely the risking o f all one is and h a s known ? H o w d o e s Heidegger conti n u e ? Doesn ' t he temper the radicality o f the suggestio n he has j ust made ?

Dasein guards itsel f against falling back beh i n d itself and behind the potenti al ity fo r Being which it is understood. It guards itself against 'becoming too old fo r its v ictories' (Nietzsche). ( i b i d . )

2. In anticipation,

The important t h i n g h e r e i s h o w we understand ' fal l ing back behind onesel f ' and the 'potenti a l i ty for Being' (which it has understood ) . These remarks c a n b e given a direct Nietzschean i nterpretation the ' understandi ng of Being' which

Dasein

h a s u nderstood is not a

sel f to which one clings, but, I would suggest, a grasp of the sense and respon si b i l ity o f the ' i n tensity' o f experience. The p roblem about 'not fal l i n g back' is the same problem as that of 'selectivity ' . O n l y w h a t c a n w i l l i t s o w n return can/should retu rn. The clear Nietzschean influences here suggests what will seem obvious when stated - that we would be wise not to divorce Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche from his continuing attempts at

a self-i nterpretation. 5 6

I would l i k e t o have shown that i f w e suppose that t h e model of Dionysian excess provides a standard by which to measure the intensity o f the moment, and i f th a t excess is a non-recuperable rupture with a i t ' p resence ' , then Nietzsche's ' m o ment', so far from being the reworking o f the metaphysical value of presence, i s the scene o f its explosion. Is th at what we should conclude about Nietzsche ? Does he achieve t h e m a g i ca l result o f a non-metaphysical philosophy o f the

present ?

57

M USIC, MA DNESS A ND METAPHYSICS Perh aps matters a re not q u i te so clear cut. What he does do, I believe, is force us to make a distinction between two levels at which we can understand the meaning of ' p resence' as a metaphysical value. The first we might in modern terms cal l foundationalist, and t h e second we could c a l l appropriative. To

each corresponds a di fferent stratum of that mode of textu al inscription which makes for metaphysics. By foundationalist I mean a kind of th inking that reduces to or derives from one fundamental

point

the

entire

developed

structure

of

some

theoretical field. Arguably, Nietzsche does this a t least i n a fo rmal, and perhaps only strategic way, i f we are right i n giving the moment the

status we

have.

Nonetheless

we

could

say,

in

Levinasian l anguage, th a t for Nietzsche, time, i n the shape o f this ' moment' i s an opening onto the other, onto otherness, onto what may never be appropriated, made identica l , brought back. Here Nietzsche does break with the second characterisation we have given o f the metaphysical value associated with p resence. This cha racterisation brings back the question we raised when discussing whether Nietzsche's was a special o r a general theory. And for a l l the value o f seeing the ecstatic moment as an idea, it s u re l y does not

actually

capture the general structure o f time. It i s

precisely because it d o e s not that i t can fu nction as an idea l . And what that suggests i s that we may learn m o re about the poss i b i l i ties o f exceeding metaphysics from the non-appropri ative stratum o f his thinking than from its putative foundati o n a l i s m .

Notes 1 See ch . 3 of J. Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. G . C . Spivak, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1 9 8 0 2 Nietzsche uses two di fferent expressions - 'return' ( Wiederkunft) and ' recurrence' ( Wiederkehr). One could use these expressions to mark a strict disti nction - between the recu rrence of events and the return of people or things. But no such systematic usage is found in Nietzsche, and my various use of these two terms reflects the p referred terms of different commentators on Nietzsche at di fferent times. Joan Stambaugh, whose book, Nietzsche's Thought of Eternal Return i s one of t h e best things written o n t h e subj ect, further poi nts o u t (pp.29-3 1 ) th at in h i s critical passages, Nietzsche u s u a l l y u s e s the expression Widerkunft and th at he h a rdly ever talks of Wiederholung

58

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time ( repetition ) , which, again, suggests that exact reruns were not part o f his favoured version of eternal return. 3 See D . C . Wood, The Deconstruction of Time, Humanities/MacMi l l a n , Atl antic Highlands/London, forthcoming ( 1 9 8 8 ) . T h i s e s s a y is substanti ally drawn from the first chapter of th at book. 4 See, for example, 'The Intoxicated Song' (Das trunkene Lied) , the penultimate section o f the fou rth and last part of ASZ. References will be to the Penguin edition translated by R.J . Hol l i ngdale, 1 9 6 1 . 5 A selection o f Nietzsche's unpubl ished writings - his Nachlass - was assembled under the title o f Der Wille zur Macht ( 1 90 1 ) . I q uote in this paper from the Holli ngdale and Kaufmann translation of The Will to Power, New York, Vi ntage ( Random House) , 1 9 6 8 . The section containing the most i mportant attempt at a scientific proof is 1 066, see below. 6 An excel lent paper by Robin Small, 'Three Interp retations of Eternal Recu rrence ' , Dialogue XXII, 1 9 8 3 , pp. 9 1- 1 1 2 , makes this point more systematically. 7 The original title of th is essay was t o have been 'Nietzsche's Deconstruction of Time'. I have been persuaded that this may be too loose a use of the term to j ustify the prominence that a place in the title would give it. But there are parallels with even the tech nical account Derrida gives of the general strategy of deconstruction (in Positiqns, Paris, Editions de Min uit, 1 9 72 ) . I will suggest that Nietzsche reinscri bes 'becoming' i n a way parallel to the way Derrida reinscribes 'writing'. I claim, too, that the concept of eternal recurrence is undecidable i n terms of the framework i t puts in question. 8 I n fact many crucial notes on eternal recu rrence as 'cosmological' thought appear i n notebook M I I I 1, dated Spring-Autumn 1 8 8 1 . For th is and other references to Nietzsche's notebooks I am i n debted to David Farrell Krell . 9 WM, no . 1 0 6 6 1 0 Arth ur Danto, 'The Eternal Recurrence', in Nietzsche: a Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Robert Solomon, Garden City, Doubleday, 1 9 73 1 1 The letter i s dated 8 M a rch 1 8 84, cited by Stambaugh, op. cit. supra . 1 2 It is quite true that Nietzsche was strongly and positively influenced by Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus ( 1 8 6 3 ) , but I prefer to treat such positivistic and scientific streaks as there a re in Nietzsche as weapons in an anti-metaphysical struggle rather th an as beliefs strongly held in their own right. Causal determinism, for example, would be h a rd to square with his account of causation i n 'The Four Great Errors' i n Twilight of the Idols. Where Nietzsche's rhetorical and scienti fic tendencies clash, we favour the former. 13 WM, 1 066 1 4 The association of time with loopy structu res is of course not confined

59

M USIC, MA DNESS AND METAPHYSICS

15

16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23

to phi losphical texts. See ch.XX (' Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies' ) of Douglas B . Hofstadter's extraordinary Code/, Escher, Bach, H arvester, Brighton, 1 97 9 . And Faulkner ( i n As I Lay Dying) describes the rope cast by the Bundrens across the surging river to take their Mother's coffin across as follows : 'It is as though the space between us were time: a n i rrevocable quality . It i s as though time, no longer running straight befo re us i n a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread and not the i n terval between . ' Section 34, 'Dar! ' . A n d the significance o f the horizontal axis - the serial order of time - is itsel f compromised by the addition o f the second. A parallel to Nietzsche's construction of an account that is deconstructive in its e ffects, by a simple modification o f serial i ty, can be found i n the Moebius strip, beloved of Lacan, in which the absol ute di fference between the two sides of a ribbon is transformed i nto a continuity merely by a twist and a j o i n . 'At Noontide' in A SZ I V , translation p . 2 8 8 S e e GD, ' Expeditions o f an Untimely M a n ' n o . 9 . See a l s o Heidegger's Nietzsche, vol. l , section 1 4, ' Rapture as Aesthetic State' FW no. 3 4 1 The reference here (Nachlass XIV: 3 0 6 ; XI I : 3 7 1 ) a r e taken from Stambaugh {op. cit. ) p . 23 In th is word 'intensity' we shou l d hear the work of condensation (which latter word is itsel f a kind of intensification) - primarily of the ideas of tension and concentrated focus, a felt intensity - ideas that both inhabit and displace a psychological interpretation i n so far as they suggest all sorts of d i fficulties with any traditionally substantive account of the 'subject' . 'The eternal is present with us in every moment; the transitoriness of time causes us no suffering', quoted by Karl Lowith i n h i s From Hegel to Nietzsche, trans. David Green, Garden City, Doubleday, 1 9 67, p.2 1 1 Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche et le Cercle Vicieux, Paris, Mercure de France, 1 9 6 9 F o r Nietzsche, Heidegger writes, and clearly with Schel ling in m i n d , W i l l is primal being. T h e highest product of p r i m a l b e i n g is eternity . The primal being of beings is the will, as the eternally recurrent willing of the eternal recurrence of the same. The eternal recurrence of the same is the supreme triumph of the metaphysics of the will that eternally wills its own willing. ( What is Called Thinking?, Lectu re X, p. 1 04 . ) I would a l s o refer t h e reader t o th at m o s t subtle discussion of Hei degger's appraisal o f Nietzsche's ' metaphysics of the will' in ch . 8

60

Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Time

24 25 26

27 28 29 30

31 32

33 34 35

36 37

38 39

40 41 42 43 44

('The Last Thinker of the West', esp. pp. 1 3 2-5 ) of David Farrell Krell's Intimations of Mortality, Penn State U . P . , Univers ity Park/ London 1 9 8 6 ASZ I I , ' O f Redemption', translation p. 1 6 1 Ibid. Th is problem is plausibly represented by Vincent Descombes in his Le Meme et /'Autre Paris, Minuit, 1 9 79 (transl ated as Modern Fren ch Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge Un iverity Press, 1 9 8 0 ) as the problem inherited by the 'desirants' - the French philosophers who took up Nietzsche's problems in the seventies - especially Deleuze, Lyotard and Klossowsk i . ASZ I I I , ' O f t h e Vision and t h e R i d d l e ' , translation, p. 1 78 'Maxims and Arrows ', 8 I am gratefu l , again, to J . Stambaugh, Nietzsche's Though of Eternal Return for th is quotation. Vincent Descombes (see n . 2 6 above) a rgues brilliantly that this problem h a unts French Nietzscheans and that they do not escape its grip. We could find here a parallel i n Heidegger's account o f authenticity and his contrast between finding onesel f and forever losing oneself. Giles Deleuze, Nietzsche et Ia Philosophie, Paris, Press Universitai res de France, 1 9 62 (trans. Hugh Tomlinson, Nietzsche and Philosophy, London, Athlone, 1 9 8 3 ) WM n o . 6 1 7 Nietzsche and Philosophy, p . 72 For Heidegger's reading of this passage see sections 6-8 , 24 o f M a rtin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol.2, The Eternal R eturn of the Same, trans. David Farrell Krel l , Harper and Row, New York, 1 9 8 4 See n . 2 3 T h e locus classicus of t h i s v i e w is probably R o m a n Jakobson's (with Morris Halle) The Fundamentals of Language (in particu la r 'Two Aspects of Language : Metaphor and Metonymy' ) , The Hague, Mouton, 1 95 6 . G . F . Hegel, Phenomenology o f Spirit, tra ns. A.V. Miller, Oxford, Clarendon, 1 9 77, p . 1 5 2 See the early essays in Of Grammatology, especially 'The End of the Book and the Begi nning of Writi ng', and ' Li nguistics and Gramm atology ' . T h e non-dialectical possibil ities of Nietzsche's thought rest on s u c h a relation. See n . 1 7 See John Sallis' paper i n this volume, and some aspects o f David Pol lard's. See Deleuze, op. cit. , (translation) p.48 See note 8

61

M USIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS 45 Op. cit 46 One could usefully compare Kierkegaard's position here, when he writes (Sickness Unto Death) th at the Self is the relation that relates itself to itsel f. 47 What is Called Thinking? trans. John M a cquarrie and Edwa rd Robinson, Oxford, Blackwell, 1 9 62, p . l 04 48 Deleuze, (trans), p.48 49 ' D i fferance' (Margins of Philosophy, p . 1 7) 5 0 M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, 2 vols. Pfulli ngen, Neske, 1 9 6 1 , translated in 4 vols. by David Farrell Krel l , New York, H a rper and R ow, 1 9 79-1 9 8 2 . These remarks come from vol . l section 4, 'The Unity of Will to Power, Eternal Recurrence and Revaluation', p . l 9 . 5 1 Ibid. 5 2 I b i d . , p.20 5 3 What is Called Thinking?, p . l O l 5 4 I owe these thoughts (and much more) t o discussions with John Llewelyn and David Farrell Krell 5 5 Being and Time, H264 5 6 There a re very many of these : 'Way Back into the Fundamental Ground of Metaphysics' , his ' Letter on Humanism', 'Time and Being' , etc.

62

•

4

•

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche DAVID POLLARD

There are a n u m ber of similarities in the works of B l a ke and Nietzsche. Both wrote dithyrambic verse as well as rhyme. Both believed i n the superabundance o f creative energy. Both p h i loso phised with a hammer. Both wrote prophetic books as a res u l t o f living i n a destitute a g e . B o t h h a d backgrounds o f religious conservatism a n d both thought that their attitude towards religion and creativ i ty was an annihil ation o r an overcoming o f S e l fhood. It is with some j ustification that B l a ke has been called Nietzschean and N ietzsche a Romantic.

Blake Th roughout Blake's writi ngs there exists a tension between M i l ton and Jesus, a tension which m a n i fests itself a l ready in h i s earl iest work. This tension is, as i t is i n N ietzsche, a n ti-Christi a n . I n the three plates o f 1788, Blake argues against the Ch ristian/Platonic teaching that appetite is evil and should be controlled by reason which i s goo d : 'That Energy, called Evi l , i s alone from the Body & that Reason C a l l ' d Good is alone fro m the soul . ' 1 a n d : 'That God will torment M a n i n Eternity for following h i s Energies. ' 2 But, even as early as this, B l a ke i s rej ecting these simple dichotomies : 'Man has no Body distinct from the sou l . > J

63

M USIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS Although ' Energy is the only l i fe ' , ' Reason is the Bound or

outward circumference of Energy . ' 4 In the u nitary m an

(Einzelne)

Reason i s the true fo rm o f Energy. We misconstrue when we destroy the relation between the terms. True Reason

is

the

Contrary o f Energy and not i ts negation : 'The negations must be destroyed to redeem the Contraries. ' 5 Religion misunderstands these Contraries, downgrading them into Negations which remain distinct and i rredeem a b l e : 'Without Contraries is no progression, Attraction and Repulsion, Reason a n d Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human Existence . ' 6 However : ' From these Contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evi l . Good is the passive that obeys Reason . Evil is the active springing from Energy . Good is Heave n . Ev il is Hel l . ' 7 This downgrading o f Reason and Energy into divisive Negations is Milton's mistake. I n 'The Marri age of Heaven a n d Hell' Blake writes :

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling. And bei ng restrain'd, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow o f desire. The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, & the Governor or Reason is call'd Messiah. And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, i s call 'd the Devil or Satan, and his children a re call'd Sin & Death . But in the Book of Job, Milton's Messiah is call'd Satan. For thi s history has been adopted by q oth parties. It i n deed appear'd to Reason as i f Desire was cast out; but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell & formed a heaven of what he stole from the abyss. This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the father to send the comforter, or Desire, that Reason may h ave Ideas to build on; the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells i n flaming fi re. Know th at a fter Christ's death, he became Jehovah. But in Mi lton, the Father is Desti ny, the Son a Ratio of the five senses, & the holy-Ghost Vacu u m ! Note : The reason Mi lton wrote in fetters when he Wrote of Angels and of God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's pa rty without knowing it. 8 Those whose Desire is weak enough to be restrained will be rea dily controlled by

Reason - a

Reason

of abstract notions

divorced from thei r obj ects - a Reason which 'usurps its place & govern s ' . 9 Plato's organisation of the three p a rts o f the soul has b een turned u p s i d e d o wn . N o w i t is not Energy that combines with Reason to overcome appeti te or Desire but Energy and

64

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche Desire that combine to overcome Reason . But all this is seen through a set o f irreconcilable opposites. The stunning criticism of Milton is that h e unconsciously sided with Energy against Reason . Thus his work is more powerfu l , more poetic, when he writes o f the Devil and o f H e l l t h a n o f t h e angels and o f God. Mil ton is o n

th e right s i d e but nonetheless on o ne side o f a dualism, on o n e side of t wo warring Negation s . In ' T h e Marriage of Heaven and H e l l ' t r u e Energy which delights in the form o f true Reason is seen by Blake as confined an d restricted by the Ratio - ' mental Dieties' 1 0 - abstracted fro m their obj ects . T h i s separation o f abstract i d e a s from t h e obj ects o f which they a r e t h e ideas i s the work o f ' Priesthood > � 1 which then : 'pronounc'd that the Gods h a d order'd such things ' ; 1 2 and, 'Thus

men forgot that All deities res ide i n the human breast' Y Having once forgotten this vital knowledge, Priesthood could label it blasphemy, attribute i t to th e Devil and esta blish t he rule o f Reason over Energy - o f good over evi l . Yet Blake, t o o , retreated fro m t h i s knowl edge and s e t h i mself up against Priesthood, seeing it as the destroyer o f human potenti a l , the denier o f the truth that deities are not a bstracted 'Nobodaddies . t 4 but are bei ngs which ' reside in the h u m a n breast', Blake himself believing t h a t t h e Dev i l ' s p arty which fights against Priesthood is the keeper of true creativity. At this stage Blake saw th i s fal l as personi fied i n Milton, who thought he was writing the great Christi an epic but was, i n fact, destroying it. In Milton's two great poems the true hero is the Satan of the Book of Job. And Satan is the true Jesus. Blake saw this polarisation as implying a loss o f the i m aginative moment i n which there is a fusion o f the prophet and the artist; that is, o f the holy and its expression i n the world. O nce this vital moment o f recognition is dimmed, that part o f the artist which speaks prophecy is dislocated from that part wh ich is artist only, and the magic o f the spell i n which the Imagination is held together is destroyed. Imagination, which is the recognition of the one part

by the other, fades. 'The Divine Arts o f the Imagination ' , 1 5 the ex

pression o f Identity, is replaced by the a rts o f persuasion - the battle to persuade the world to recognise the existence o f Imagination. In this way Imagination is tra n s formed i n to vindication. And the

displaying o f 'Naked Beauty ' 1 6 which is truth and i m medi ate

becomes instead a mediation o f the Imagination which is o n l y

65

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS possible in terms other than its own - in terms of symbolism, theology, metaphysics and mysticism - which are the clothes of beauty and, which, as such, hide its n a kedness. A vision that re covers i tsel f, a vision th a t recal l s what h a s never before been said, becomes merely a process o f concealment. What should be bo th a n a -calypse and apo-calypse becomes merely a n a -calypse. 1 7 In this error which B l a ke saw in both himself and M i l ton lies the greatest peril for the poet. For, in the p rocess of vindicating Imagination, i magination itself, 'Naked Beauty', moves i n to the p l a y o f this vindicati o n . Paradoxically, by the very strength o f his i m aginative powers, the poet is forced to identify Imagination with its display. B l a ke's art becomes for h i m the onl y art. The poet's S e l fhood has usurped h i s Identity - wh i ch ought to be the very a n n i h i l ation o f S e l fhood.

Blake realised what was happening - that the S e l fhood had

reasserted itsel f - and he recognised also that h i s hero M i l ton had su ffered from the same error, and that this very error was the greatest peril for the creative im agination . Blake, however, began to see somethi n g more i n this error - that the poet's recognition of this peril i s itself the essential clue by which h e can be saved, and s a v e d not from it but

by

it. The i m medi acy o f t h e vision granted

by Imaginati o n had been repl a ced by its v i n dication, a vindication d irected towards a world which could not accept it. B l a ke, looking for a cause o f the need for any such vindication, h a d p icked on Reason

( Urizen)

and accused i t o f su bverting the freedom o f

creative Imaginati o n . It was Reason t h a t was mediating, putting i n to a mystical o r symbolic framework, the i mmediacy o f the Imagination and not a llowing i t simply to exist. A duality of I magination versus Reason had taken the p lace o f the u nitary experience which

Imagination

is.

And this d u al ity, which

is

constantly warring with itself, springs from the Se l fhood o f the artist. Reason h a d appeared u nregenerate to B l a ke exactly because he himself had been un regenerate. He saw that h i s own selfhood had i n terposed itse l f between v i s i o n and visionary , o r r at he r was t hat d u a l i ty o f v i si o n and visionary w h i c h a l l owed t h em to war one with the other. Th is duality a t war with itself is the greatest peril for the poet.

It is also what saves him from the peril.

Lying at the

core o f mere vindication is the poss i b i lity o f letting Imagination stand where i t i s ; that i s , o f recognising that the d u a l i ty is i tsel f the

66

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche Sel fhood that has to be a n n i h i l ated. With i n the struggle between Reason and Energy, a t its very centre, l ies the recognition that both are elements of that Selfhood which has to be a n n i h i l ated in

order that a regeneration o f Identity, o f Imaginati on, can take

place. Yet, in this recognition, the poet does not finally overcome the duality and thus end the struggle . The struggle itself is his

creativity.

Or,

regeneration is Imagination.

The regeneration o f

Identity from S e l fhood by t h e a n n i h i l ation o f S e l f is t h e col l aps i ng into ea c h o t h e r o f t h e w a r r i n g elements c.f S e l fhood - Reason and Energy . The Identity o f their common ground, o f the grou n d from which they spring, o f the i n timacy without which no struggle can take pl ace, i s itself the poet's Identity. Such a struggle is the way that what belongs together di ffers . 1 8 Regeneration i s a constant

and never-ending struggle, and the poet's high respons i bi l i ty is to live within i t and uncover the hidden moment i n which they touch

each other a n d are regenerated. All this can be put i n another way. I n 'The Marriage o f Heaven and Hel l ' B l a ke had taken the warring o f Energy and Reason to be the struggle o f the Se l f against the not-Self, a conflict w h i c h c o u l d only be resolved by the annihilation o f Reason and the victory o f Energy - the poetic vision. Later h e came to see that this struggle takes pl ace within the Self - that it is a struggle of the Self with the non-Self. B l a ke, seeing this as the struggle that the poet h a s with himself, has to accept that the poet who allows this struggle to dominate i s totally absorbed by his

own

S e l fhood.

Negation

i s divided

against

Negatio n . Neither can accept any principle beyond itself and battles to dominate and exclude the other. A S e l f divided against its Self i s the form o f Selfhood. B u t from within the dislocation which this division represen ts for the poet springs the saviour which, i n B l a ke's vision, i s Jesus . Satan, the hermaphrodite, dualistic Selfhood a t war with itself now stands i n a new struggle over against Jesus. Jesus,

divine Identity, springs out o f the

struggle within the duality o f Self by the recognition i n each Negation that i t itself i s the cause o f what is hatefu l i n the other. In this way each Negation i s transformed i nto a

Contrary.

Contraries do not exclude each other. They need each other. They resolve into each other's field o f gravity . They circle i n each other's spel l . 'The synthetic power o f Imagination reveals itse l f in the reconciliation o f opposite or d iscordant q u a l i ties . ' 1 9

67

M USIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS The acceptance of the interdependence of the two perm its o f their being regenerated. 'Without Contraries is no progression ' . 2 0 Art is Self-annihil ation, is the col l a psing into each other of th e Contraries . Art is the regeneration, the etern a l recurrence, of the struggle without which Self- a n n i h i l a tion, creation, cannot occur.

Imagination is Self-annihilation. That wh i c h s a v e s the poet from of Self, which genera tes its own Contrary, is the

the peril

saviour - Jesus. There is a ' Moment i n each Day which Satan cannot find' which ' renovates every moment' o f the day i f ' rightly p l aced ' . 2 1 Th is is the 'Void Outside o f Existence, which i f enter'd into Becomes a womb'/ 2 a womb which reveals the peril to the poet

and

allows

a

regeneration .

It

is

the

womb

in

which

inspiration i s born, the womb o f l anguage i n which the poet goes down to the ' Etern al Death' 2 3 which i s spiritual resurrectio n : ' by S e l f-annihilation back retu rning to Life Etern a l ' , 24 which is always the potential of each Self lost in the world of generation. For 'The Imagination is not a S tate : I t i s the Human Existence i tsel f ' , 2 5 i n asmuch as ' God only Acts & Is, in existing Beings or Men. 2 6 In

travelling this

path

of

eterna l

regeneration

Blake

had

identified himself with Milton. As early as 'The M a rriage o f Heaven

and

Earth'

Blake

had

seen

that

Milton,

perhaps

unconsciously, had made Satan the real poetic hero o f his two

epics . Milton's creative Energy was more inspired when writing of the Devil and o f Hell because, as we have seen, he was ' o f the

D ev i l ' s p arty without knowing i t ' . 2 7 Although apparently siding with the power o f Reason h i s real a l legi ance had lain with the eternal delight of Energy. In the regeneration o f M i l to n ' s Satan, B l a ke h a d found the most personal way o f expresing his poetic knowledge a t the time o f the ' Marriage ' . For B l a ke, Milton's Satan was Messiah, the Saviour, and M i l to n ' s Jehovah was the Devil ; Heaven was seen in Hell and Hell in Heave n . Thus transposed they could come to a regeneration o f each other a nd a m arriage take p l ace. B u t by the time o f the composition o f ' M i lton' Blake had travelled some way further along the path o f regenerati o n . The marriage o f Heaven and Hell, he could now see, was nothing more than the marri age o f one Self to another S e l f, each o f which was a t war with the other and thus each o f which was i n Hel l . N o t o n l y w a s Milton's Jehovah t h e Satan o f t h e B o o k of J o b b u t Milton's Satan w a s t h a t Satan also. B l a ke, inevitably, n o w called

68

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche on Mi l ton himself to speak this new knowledge . Identifying h i m sel f with M i l t o n , B l a k e had t o accept two things. First t h a t i n the mar riage o f Heaven and Hell, o f Energy and Reason, he had been

his o wn Satan ; secondly, that Satan was h i s own Selfhood, one wh ich must be a n n i h i l ated in o rder to overcome the Negations, to ove rc ome the struggle between Energy and Reason, Satan and

Jeh o vah . B l a ke/Mi l ton must come to know h i s own hermaphrodite dua lity. At the opening o f 'Milton' the poet Mi lton dwel l s i n etern i ty while his Emanation - the six-fo l d Miltonic female ( h i s th ree wives and three daughters) - a nd his Spectre (Satan) dwel l i n the world of Memory or generation : 'What do I here before the Judge ment ? Without my Emanation ? With the daughters of memory & n ot with the daughters of inspiration ? ' 2 8 He must go down to the World o f Memory so as to be united with his Spectre and thus also with his i m aginatio n : 'I will go down to Self-annihil ation and eter nal d e a t h , lest t h e L a s t Judgement c o m e & find me u n a n n i h i l ate and I be s e i z ' d & given i n to t h e hands o f my o w n Se l fhood . ' 2 9

Milton goes down into the World of Memory in the hope of ' b y Self-annihil ation b a c k retu rning T o l i fe Etern a l ' ,3 0 t o t h e l i fe o f the Imagination which alone exists and through which alone a l l things truly exist. 'All Thi ngs Exist in the Human Imagin ation ' ; 3 1 'Where is Existence O u t o f Mind o r Though t ? > 3 2 L i fe Etern a l , the immediate, is uncovered by the willing a n n i h i l ation of Se l f, which

can only occur within the play of the Contraries. I n this loving acceptance o f Sel f-annihil ation, within the StJ;"uggl ing i nterplay, the spel l o f the Contraries, the Eternal Moment, is touched and prophecy is possible. The poet who, even for an i nstant, claims the power to speak, who claims power over the prophetic word, wi l l annihi l ate t h e p o w e r o f t h e wo r d itse l f to s p e a k propheti cally and show i tse l f from within the struggl e. Any such claim i s made from one or other pole of two i n d i fferent negations. Yet 'The Negation must be destroyed to redeem the Contraries . . J J Within the struggle of the Contraries the word collapses into the Identity that has annihil ated its selfhood : 'she . . . fl e d into th e depths o f Milto n ' s shadow as a d o v e u p o n t h e stormy s e a >3 4 and Prophecy i s freed to show itself. Thus Blake's M i l ton says : 'To bathe in the Waters o f Li fe ; t o w a s h o ff t h e Not-Human, I come in Self-a n n i h i l ation & the grandeur of inspirati o n . '·3 5 Such Inspiration speaks itsel f with i n the eternal Moment o f

69

M USIC, MA DNESS AND META PHYSICS Imagination and is seen, on waking, to be truth , 'wheth er it existed before or not' . 3 6 This is the very nature o f Prophecy . Bl ak e writes from ' I mmediate dictation . . . without Premeditation & even aainst [his] Wi l l ' . 3 7 When the Bard is asked, 'Where h a ds t thou this terri ble song ? ' , he replies : 'I am inspired ; I know it is truth , for I sing according to the inspiration of the poetic ge niu s, who is the eterna l all-protecti ng Divine Humanity . '3 8

As art is Im agination, so Christia nity is Art. Art is the creation of abundant Imagination . Imagination creates rea l i ty . ' Even as man im agines h i mself to be, such he i s . '3 9 Without Imagination God is not - he becomes a mere figure of a u thority or the j ustification of dogma - 'Nobodaddy ' . 4 ° For B l a ke, Christ is God's attempt to attain to man's visionary Imagination and it is in the bodily, sexual, human Christ that this attempt is realised. ' God becomes as we are that we may be as he i s . ' 4 1 Imagination is ' the Divine Human ity' . 42 Only when man becomes truly what he is can God become truly

what he is. I n imagination the body o f man is 'the Divine Body [ o f ] . . . Jesus [and] . . . we are his members ' . 4 3 Thus, ' A Poet, A

Pai nter, A Musician, An Arch itect : The Man or Woman who is not one of these is not a Christi a n . ' 44 Within an Imaginative Generation, with i n the spell of the bodily, sexual generation lies

the regeneration of imagi n ative j o y : ' 0 holy Generation, Im age of regenera tion ! 0 point of mutual forgiveness between Enemies ! Birthplace of the Lamb of God incomprehensible . ' 45

Nietzsche Like Blake in 1788-93, Nietzsche i n 1870- 1 was esta b l ishing for himself the relation between Energy and Reason - the Dionysian and the Apol lonian. In


Nietzsche di fferen

tiates between dream and intoxicati o n . Dream is clear, the delight o f illusion. Imagination p roduces a clear im age o f reality; a reflexion of the rea l . In the Dionysian rite ' nature itself, long a l ien ated and subj ugated, rises again to celebrate the reconcili ation with her prodigal son, man ' . 46 The Energy o f music, which is im ageless, dwells within the terror and nausea of existence. But, unlike for Blake, the D ionysian is will-less. Nietzsche rea l i ses that no action o f his can alter the eternal condition of things, the chaotic su ffering o f becoming. It is in the Apollonian

70

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche that action makes sense - i f only the sense o f illusion. Action requires i l l usion and it is for t h i s that Apollo created the gods, hi ms e l f being the appropri ate god. 'The gods j usti fied human l i fe by living it themselves ' , 4 7 but the l i fe that they j usti fy is

Ap ollonian i l l usion, whereas l i fe itself remains in the realm o f b ec omi ng, o f cause a n d e ffect. Art, tragedy, is t h e marriage o f the o ne with the other. It is 'an Apol lonian embodiment o f Dionysian in si ghts and powers ' . 48 The Apol lonian artist dreams intoxication an d makes it god-like. When, however, the Apollonian loses its contact with the

nauseous su ffering o f exi stence, reason takes over from art. Plot, action, structure, the discreet world o f i l lusion, takes over from the vortex o f creativity. For Nietzsche, Socrates mystified Western art and killed tragedy. For Socrates, the daimonion always acted against irrational j udgement; its voice was al ways one which dissu aded. The roles o f Apollo and D i onysus a re thus reversed ; ' i nstinct is the critic, consci ousness the creato r. Truly a monstrosity . ' 49 It is this inverted thesis which h a s ruled in Western culture since the time o f Socrates who, 'unable to look with any pleasure into the Dionysian a bysses ' , turned his ' Cyclops' eye - that eye which never glowed with the artist's divine frenzy' 5 0 - upon tragedy and killed it. Socrates is ' theoretical man', the man of the 'I w i l l and I c a n ' , 5 1 who accepts ' the il lusion that thought, guided by the thread o f causation, might p l u m b the farthest abysses o f being and even correct it'. 5 2 This is the meta physical i l l usion that produced a whole series of phil osophies which

are

abso rbed

into

what

is

called

'The

Hi story

of

Metaphysics ' . This is why Socrates w a s h a p p y t o d i e . He had su ffused t h e a bysses of exi stence wi th metaphysical i l l u s i o n . T h u s , fo r Nietzsche a s m u c h a s fo r Blake, D ionysus/Desire had first o f a l l to recl aim Wil l/Energy from the rea l m of the gods and the metaphysical and drag p h i losophy back down again to the sphere o f h u m a n existence. It h a d to appropri ate will from where it was enthroned with Reason and aid Desire in its usurpation of Reaso n ' s empire and reesta blish tragedy i n the modern worl d . O n c e Reason/the Apollonian c a n escape from i t s Dionysian ground, h istory can become process and m a n is free to develop. Yet this ' freedom' is ci rcumscribed by the very rationality wh ich attracted it. I t is a freedom to limit itself, a freedom to accept the dogm atic and custo m a ry . It is the freedom o f ha bit, ' a great

71

M USIC, MA DNESS A ND META PHYSICS deadener' . 5 3

In

th is

freedom

i m i tate and . . . he who obeys

men

' acqu iesce, . . . their

does not listen to himse/{' .54

hear ts

Th er e are thus a plural i ty of moralities to s u i t specific races, peoples, etc . , and one mora l i ty i s set against another. Each group reserves to itself un iversality under the divine, and such right action under God is set o ff against evi l . Socratic or Ju dea-Christian m a n h a s used h i s ' freed o m ' t o rej ect w i l l and subli m a te Energy. The 'herd-man . . . glorifies the q u a l i ties through which he is ta m e ' . 55 He has freely chosen to retr eat

behind a protective w a l l . His is a willing rejection of will j ustified by an illusion of the transcendent, of Nobodaddy. 5 6 This w i l l is reappropriated by the slave who, recogn ising his

submission to the rea l m o f beco m i ng, throws himself vehemently against it, refusing any longer to pretend that he wills in freedom. Turning against the other, he takes revenge to compensate for his resentment. 5 7 This is the mora l i ty o f the S e l f that overcomes the other, that ' from the outset says No to what i s " outside " , what is " d i fferent " , what is " not itsel f " , and

dee d '. 5 8

Nausea,

su ffering,

exi stence

this

No is its creative

reasserts

i tself

against

becoming i n o rder to save i tsel f from submission - a reassertion which is always a ' reaction' aga i n s t a 'hostile extern al worl d ' .

Without t h i s inspiration i t cannot a c t at a l l . 5 9

T h e a r t o f t h e sl ave is l i kewise an escape route from t h e hostile external and eternal fl ux o f becoming i n to the Platonic, Apollonian, Christian world of Being. Here, art i s the saviour which redeems fro m the absurdity o f existence. I t is an ' a rt o f metaphysical

solace ' . 6 0 The slave's fl ight fro m the hostile realities o f becoming i n to the i l l usions o f Being is opposed to the mastery o f s uffering in a d u a l i ty o f Negations - on

one

side of which Nietzsche comes

down. He is for the Dionysian and against Apollo, for the early tragedies o f Soph ocles and Aeschylus and against their Apollonian tra n s formation by Socrates and Euripides. But

here

Nietzsche

h i mself becomes

a

s l ave

to

his

own

presentatio n . He is reacting against what h e sees as a fa lse will springing from what i s weak, Christian and fem i n i n e . This ' w i l l ' i s not an overco m ing o f Self but a Self which overcomes an other an

a n tagon ism which

overcomes

any

possible

reconciliation,

which reasserts i tsel f in the face o f the world. The tone o f much o f Nietzsche ' s work up t o

Zarathustra

and beyond i s a pernicious

s a rcasm di rected against what he takes to be a Schopenhauerian

72

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche ' resig n a tio nism ' which takes all ' a rt, heroism, gen ius, beauty, gr an d sympathy, knowledge, the will to truth , tragedy' to be a de nia l of the ' w i l l ' , to be, in a word, ' the greatest piece of psy ch ol ogica l fa lse coinage i n histo ry, Christi a n i ty a lone excepted ' . 6 1

Nietzsche i nverts this Apollonian into a Dionysian priority a n d ,

as B l a ke does, p l a ces Energy over R e a s o n . T h i s energy j ustifies itself as one pole o f the d u a l i s m . Here, reconcil i a tion is t a ken to be a su bmission o f will, a sign o f weakness against which the singl e one (Einzelne) must rebel in o r d e r to realise him sel f, to rais e hi ms el f above t h e b e a s ts . A positive a c t i o n i n v o l v ing the w i l l is wh at cou nts : to be a yes-sayer, 6 2 to dedicate oneself to ' the v a st and boundless decl a ra tion of Yes a n d Amen ' , 6 3 even if this means

'negating and destroying', which a re the conditions o f saying Yes . 6 4 ' I obey my Dionysiac n a ture, which does not know how to sepa rate doing No from saying Yes . ' 65 Error is cow a rdice. I n Macbeth,

e r r o r is neutralised by Energy :

in spite o f a l l his

grotesquely evil deeds, we a d m i re h i m to th e end. 66 N ow n i h i l i s m has become yes-saying, a n d philosophy vindication. Such a will redeems the past in the future. The noble m a n ' s h a l l not g a z e backward but

outward.

Y o u s h a l l l o v e y o u r children's

land. Let this love be your new nobility . . . . I bid you set sail and seek it. Thus you s h a l l redeem a l l th a t is past' . 6 7 Willing creates. Effect fol lows cause. Because the gods cre a te good and evil by an act of will, the noble man, in order to ret a i n effective will, i s lu red away from them fo r, a fter a l l , 'Wh a t could one create if gods were

there ? ' 6 8 Here expression of Iden tity h a s become the a rt of persu a s i o n a n d Imagi n a tion h a s been turned i n t o vindication . D ionysi a n Energy vindicates itsel f against the Apollon i a n i l l usion of Being which is precisely an idealization of the Energy th a t must sta n d u p to a n y sign o f weakness. Nietzsche h a s crea ted a ' p a thos o f distance' 6 9 which relies on di fferences between - a p a i r of Negations a t w a r with e a ch other. T h u s I m a g i n a tion beco mes v i n dication . ' I t seeks its opposite only so a s to a ffirm triumphantly. ' 7 0

itsel f more gratefully a n d

Parallel to this a ntagonism of two warring Negations runs the recogn ition

overcome

that this very warring itself is what has to be

o r rather, th a t will has to overcome itse l f in a Se l f

overcoming. It must will even more powerfully not what-is-not, in order to effect a cha nge, but exactly wh a t is; not a self overcoming

73

M USIC, MA DNESS AND META PHYSICS but a S e l f-overcoming - a non-reactive reflexive that wills wh at is always a l ready e ffected, what h a s always a l ready been willed. Th is

is a recognition that being is merely the horizon of becoming and

that, as such, the power to will it must recur eternally, must be an eterna l S e l f-overcoming. And such i s Imagination - a redemption i n which the Negations become Contraries and are redeemed. Such a redemption for the artist is creativity, a creativi ty which is not a n act o f will which changes nature, which i mposes itsel f on nature, but a recognition that i t is exactly this effective will which must be overcome i n an act o f affirmation. Such a n affirmation is a redemption in which will attains a potency without weakening, in which the feeling of strength linear time. It is

a

( Kraftgefuhl)

is redirected beyond

will 'without foresight' . 7 1 It is a will that wills

its own existence. Such will wills what was. It craves nothing more fervently than what will have been, to ' redeem by creating a l l th at

was past ' . 7 2

'All " it was " is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful

chance, until the creative will says to it, " B u t I willed it thus " , until the creative will says to it " But I w i l l it thus, thus s h al l I will it. ' " 73 'Men

must endure

their

going hence

even

as

their

coming

hither. ' 7 4 Means o f enduring it: the revaluation o f all values, no

l onger joy i n certa inty but i n u ncertainty, no longer 'cause and

e ffect', but the continually creative, no longer will to p reservation

but will to power, no longer the humble expression 'everyth ing is merely subj ective', but 'it is also our work - let us be proud of i t ! ' 7 5 Amor fati, Nietzsche calls it. ' Ripeness i s a l l . ' 7 6 Imagination, redeeming the warring opposites, is prophetic in this s e n s e - i t creates what will h ave b e e n by destroying the Negations i n order to redeem the Contraries, ' to compose into one a n d bring together what is fragment a n d riddle and dreadful

accident' ? 7 What is willed here is not an overcoming o f fate through strength but the strength to acknowledge fate, to redeem su ffering. Creativity is this redemption o f what

is.

Creativ ity is not

some cause o f which the effect is art but i s origi n a l ; that is, a willing of 'something higher than any reconci liation',78 a 'will to beget' which is 'unguilty ' . 79 The artist does not represent, does not create beautifu l copies o f t h e w o r l d . Rather, he o r she creates t h e w o r l d through p rophecy, through a n involuntary willing o f eternal recurrence . 'One has no l onger any notion o f what i s a n i mage or a metaphor. ' 80 This ' i nvoluntariness o f i mage and metaphor is strangest o f a l l . . . .

74

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche Here the words and word-shrines o f all being open up before you, here all being wishes to become word, a l l becoming wishes to 1 )ea rn from you how to speak. ' 8

Cr e ativi ty is p rophecy and is 'the closest approximation of a wo rld of Becoming to a world of Being' . 8 2 'To impose upon

Becom ing the character o f Being - that is the supreme w i l l to p ower . ' 8 3 'The soul that, having Being, dives into Becoming . . . th e soul . . . i n which a l l things have their sweep and countersweep an d ebb and flood', 8 4 this soul that wants Becomi ng, 'that has and

yet

wants

himsel f ' . 85

to

want and

will . . . is t h e concept of Diony s us

Th is s p i r i t who

accepts

tragedy,

' w ho be ars t he

heaviest fate . . . c a n nevertheless be the lightest and mos t transcendent . . . . [He] who has thought " th e most abysmal idea " considers it " one reason more for being himself the eternal Yes to all things ' " . 8 6 A supreme, divine artist recklessly creating and

destr oying - and t h i s ' i s t h e concept o f D ionysus once again ' . 8 7 This is amor fati. O r , as Blake would have i t , ' God becomes as we are that we may be as he i s . ' 8 8 ' A spirit thus emancipated stands in the midst o f the universe with a j oyful and trusting fatalism, trusting in the fate that only what is sepa rate and individual

(einzeln)

may

be

rejected,

that i n the total i ty

everything is

redeemed and a ffirmed . . . . But such a faith is the highest o f a l l p ossible fa iths. I h a v e baptised i t w i t h t h e name o f Dionysus . ' 8 9

Dionysus is the spell of the Contraries, a Self-overcoming by a

rebirth which speaks in dithyrambs, the l angu age Zarathustra 'speaks to himself before sunrise ' . 9 0 The D ionysians had occult power and the gift o f prophecy, which speaks i n dithyrambs . The proper subj ect o f these dithyrambs is the b irth o f Dionysus, the

only god created i n a double birth and the only god received by the priests at Delphi on equal terms with Apol l o .

A bbreviations and translations William Bl ake

LAEP

Longman 's

Annotated

English

Poets,

edited

by

W.H. S tevenson, London, Longman, 197 1

OSA Oxford Standard Authors,

edited b y Geo ffrey Key, London ,

Oxford University Press, 1986

75

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PHYSICS

Friedrich Nietzsche

Werke,

Herausgegeben

von

Giorgio

Collin

und

Montinari, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1970

Beyond

Good

and

Evil,

translated

by

M a zz in o

R . J . Hol l i ng dale ,

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1973


translated by Francis Go l ffing, New York,

D o ubleday Anchor, 1956

Daybreak,

translated by R.J. H o l l i ngdale, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 1 982

Ecce Homo,

translated by Walter K a u fm a n n , New York, Vintage

Books, 1969

The Gay Science,

tra nslated by Walter K a u fmann, New York,

Vintage Books, 1974

On the Genealogy of Morals,

tansl ated by Walter Kaufmann,

New York, Vintage Books, 1969

Thus

Spoke

Zarathustra,

transl ated

by

R .J . Hol l i ngdale,

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Pengui n Books, 1969

Twilight

of

the

Idols,

translated

by

R .J . Hol l i ngdale,

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Pengui n Books, 1968

The

Will to Power,

translated

by

Walter

K a u fmann

and

R.J. Holli ngdale, New York, Random House, 1967

Notes Blake 1 2 3 4

B l a k e , 'Ma rriage of Heaven and Hel l ' , Plate 4, OSA 5 3 3 , LAEP 1 05 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

76

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Blake, 'Milto n ' , Bk 2, Plate 4 0 : 3 4, OSA 5 3 3 , LAEP 5 6 3 Blake, 'Ma rri age of Heaven and Hel l ' , Plate 3 , OSA 1 4 9 , L A E P 1 05 Ibid. Blake, 'Ma rriage of Heaven and Hel l ' , Plates 5-6, OSA 1 4 9-5 0, LAEP 1 0 6-7 Ibid. Blake, 'Marriage of Heaven and Hel l ' , Plate 1 1 , OSA 1 5 3 , LAEP 1 1 1 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Blake, 'To Nobodaddy ', poem in the 1 79 1 -2 notebook, OSA 1 7 1 , LAEP 1 5 5 Blake, 'Jerusalem', Chapter 4, Pl ate 7 7 , In tro, OSA 7 1 6-7, LAEP 794 Blake, 'Milton ' , Book 1, Plate 4 : 2 9 , OSA 484, LAEP 5 6 9 S . T . Coleridge, Letter t o H . F . Cary o f 6 February 1 8 1 8 in Collected Letters of S. T. Coleridge, edited by E.L. Griggs, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1 95 9 , Vol IV p. 1 1 1 4 Martin Hei degger, ' . . . dicterisch wohnet der mensch . ' in Vortriige und Aufsiitze, Neske, 1 9 67, Vol 1 1 p . 67, translated by A. Hofstadter, as ' . . . poetically man dwel ls . . . ' in Poetry, Language, Thought, Ha rper and Row, 1 97 1 , p . 2 1 8-9 S.T. Coleridge, ' Principles of Genial Criticism', addenda to the B iographia Literaria, London, Rest Fenner, 1 8 1 7, Vol I I p .245 Blake, ' M arri age of Heaven and Hell', Plate 3, OSA 1 4 9 , LAEP 1 0 Blake, 'Milto n ' , Book 2 , Plate 3 5 : 42, OSA 526, LAEP 5 5 0 Blake, 'Milton ' , Book 2 , Plate 4 1 : 3 7-42 : 1 , OSA 5 3 4, L A E P 5 6 4 B l a k e , 'Milton ' , B o o k 2 , Plate 42 : 2 , OSA 5 3 4 , LAEP 5 6 4 Blake, ' V a l a ' o r 'The F o u r Zoas' , Night 7a : 3 44-5 , OSA 3 2 8 , 340- 1 , LAEP 3 8 4 Blake, 'Mi lton ' , Additional Plate 3 2 : 3 2 , OSA 5 2 2 , LAEP 5 74 Blake, 'Ma rriage of Heaven and Hel l ' , Plate 1 6 , OSA 1 5 5 , LAEP 1 1 5 Blake, 'Ma rriage of Heaven and Hell', Plates 5-6 , OSA 1 5 0 , LAEP 1 07 Blake, 'Milto n ' , Bk 1 , Plate 1 4 : 2 8-9, OSA 495-6, LAEP 505 Blake, 'Mi lton ' , Bk 1, Plate 1 4 : 22-4, OSA 4 9 5 , LAEP 505 Blake, 'Vala' or 'The Four Zoas', Night 7 a : 3 44-5 , OSA 328, 340- 1 , LAEP 3 8 4 Blake, 'Jerusalem', Chapter 3 , Plate 6 9 : 2 5 , OSA 707, LAEP 777 Blake, 'A Vison of the Last J udgement' - final pa ragraph, OSA 6 1 7 Blake, 'Milton ', B k 2 , Plate 40 : 3 3 , OSA 5 3 3 , LAEP 5 6 3 Blake, 'Milton ' , Bk 2, Pl ate 42 : 5-6, OSA 5 3 4 , LAEP 5 3 4 Blake, 'Milto n ' , Bk 2, Plate 4 1 : 1-2 , OSA 5 3 3 , LAEP 5 6 3 Keats, Letter t o Benj amin Bailey of 22 November 1 8 1 7 Blake, Letter to Thomas Butts o f 2 5 April 1 8 03 i n The Letters of William Blake, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1 9 8 0 , p . 5 5 , also OSA 823 .

77

.

M USIC, MADNESS AND METAPHYSICS 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Blake, Blake, Blake, Bl ake, Blake, Blake, Ibid. Blake,

'Milton ' , Plate 1 3 : 5 0, OSA 4 9 5 , LAEP 504 'A Vision of the Last J udgement', plate 8 0 , OSA 8 2 3 'To Nobodaddy ', poem i n t h e 1 79 1 -2 notebook, OSA 1 7 1 'There i s No Natural Religion', Second Series, OSA 9 8 'Jerusalem', Chapter 3 , Plate 70 : 1 9-20, OSA 7 0 9 , LAEP 779 'The Laocoon ', OSA 766 'Jerusalem', Chapter 1, Plate 7 : 65-7, OSA 6 2 6 , LAEP 640

Nietzsche 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

G T 1, Werke, Vol . I I I : l , p.25, trans. p.23 G T 3 , Werke, Vol . II I : l p.32, trans. p . 3 0 G T 8 , Werke, Vol . I I I : l , p . 5 8 , trans. p . 5 7 or ' a truly monstrous defect' ' wahre monstrositat p e r defectum', GT 1 3 , Werke, Vol. I I I : l , p.86, trans. p p . 8 4-5 GT 14 Werke, Vol. I I I : l , p . 8 8 , trans. p . 8 6 G T 1 5 Werke, Vol . I I I : l , p . 9 4 , trans. p . 9 2 G T 1 5 Werke, Vol. I I I : 1 , p . 9 5 , trans. p . 9 3 Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, London, Faber and Faber, 1 9 65 ,

p.91 54 ASZ II I : 1 2 , ' Von a/ten und neuen Tafeln' ( ' O f O l d a n d New Law Tables') s. 7, Werke, Vol. V I : l , p . 247, trans. p . 2 1 8 5 5 ]GB, Werke, Vol . V A : 2 , p. 1 22, trans. p . 1 02 5 6 Bl ake, 'To Nobodaddy' OSA 1 7 1 , LAEP 1 5 5 ; see O rtega y Gasser, Unas Lecciones de Metafisica i n Obras Completas, Madrid, Revista de Occidente, 1 9 66, Vol. IV, p . 2 1 9 , translated by M. Adams, Some Lessons in Metaphysics, Norton, New York, 1 9 6 9 , pp . 1 5- 1 6 5 7 GM, Essay 1 : 1 0 Werke, Vol . V I : 2 , p . 2 8 4- 8 , trans. p . 3 6-8 58 Ibid. Werke, Vol . VI : 2 , p . 2 8 4-5 , trans. p . 3 6 5 9 I b i d . Werke, Vol . VI : 2 , p . 2 8 5 , trans. p . 3 7 60 G T, Intro. 7, Werke, Vol . I I I : l , p. 1 6, trans. p . 1 4 6 1 G D 2 1 , Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p. l 1 9 , trans. p . 8 0 62 FW Bk 4, s. 276, Werke, Vol . V : 2, p . 20 1 , trans. p . 2 3 3 a n d 'Die Sieben Seigel' (Das ]a-und Amen-Lied) in ASZ III, s. 1 6 , Werke, Vol . VI : l , p . 2 8 3 , trans. p. 244 passim 63 ASZ I I I :4, ' Vor Sonnen-Aufgang' ('Before Sunrise ' ) , Werke, Vol . V I : l , p . 204, trans. p . 1 8 5 64 EH: ' Warum ich ein Schicsal bin' ('Why I am a Destiny' ) , s.4, Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p . 3 6 6 , trans. p . 3 2 8 65 Ibid., Werke, V o l . VI : 3 , p . 3 64, trans. p . 3 2 7 66 M, B k 4 , s. 240, Werke, Vol . V: l , p.203-4 , trans. p . 1 40-1 6 7 ASZ I I I : 12, ' Von a/ten und neuen Tafeln' ( ' O f Old and New Tables ' ) , s . 1 2 Werke, Vol . VI : l , p.25 1 , trans. p.22 1 68 EH, ASZ : 8 , Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p . 3 47, trans. p . 3 0 9

78

Self-annihilation and Self-overcoming: Blake and Nietzsche 69 J GB 257, Werke, Vol. I I I , p. 1 73 , trans. p. 1 73 70 G M, Essay 1 : 1 0, Werke, Vol. I I I : 2 2 8 , trans. p . 3 7 71 ASZ 1 1 : 2 1 , ' Von der Menschen Klugheit' ( ' O f Manly Prudence ' ) , Werke, Vol . V I : 1 , p . 1 8 0 , trans. p. 1 64 72 A SZ 1 1 1 : 1 2 , ' Von a/ten und neuen Tafeln' ( ' O f Old and New Tables ' ) , s . 3 , Werke, Vol . VI : 1 , p . 245, trans. p . 2 1 6 73 ASZ 1 1 : 20, ' Von der Erlosung' ( ' O f Redemption ' ) , Werke, Vol . V I : 1 , p. 1 77, trans. p . 1 63 74 Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V, sc. i i , line 1 1 75 WM s.26 [ 2 8 4 ] , Werke Vol. V l l : 2 , p.223 ; trans. s. 1 05 9 , p.545 76 Shakespea re, King Lear, Act V sc. i i , line 1 1 77 ASZ 1 1 : 20, ' Von der Erlosung' ( ' O f Redemption ' ) , Werke, Vol. V I : 1 , p. 1 75 , trans. p . 1 6 1 ; also see EH, ASZ : 8 , Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p . 3 4 6 , trans. p . 3 0 8 78 I b i d . Werke, Vol . V I : 1 , p. 1 77, trans. p . 1 63 79 EH ASZ : 8 , Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p.346, trans. p . 3 0 9 80 EH ASZ : 3 , Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p . 3 3 8 , trans. pp.300-1 8 1 Ibid. Werke, Vol. VI : 3 , p . 3 3 8 , trans. p . 3 0 1 8 2 WM, s. 7 [54] , Werke, Vol. Vll : 2, p . 3 2 0 , trans. s. 6 1 7, p . 3 3 0 83 Idem. 84 EH ASZ : 6, Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p.342, trans. p . 3 05-6 85 Idem. 86 Ibid. Werke, Vol. VI : 3 , p . 3 4 3 , trans. p . 3 0 6 87 Idem. 88 Blake, 'There is No Natural Religion ' , Second Series. Application OSA 9 7 89 EH ASZ : 6, Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p.342, trans. p . 3 05 90 EH ASZ : 7, Werke, Vol . VI : 3 , p . 3 4 3 , trans. p . 3 0 6

79

•

5

•

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow: Gasche, Derrida and Klossowski on Ecce Homo . DAVID FARRELL KRELL

In memory of the Little joseph Nietzsche, Ecce Homo - an

1 84 8-1 850

autobiography ? At a l l events, a tale o f fathers

and mothers, loves and execratio n s . And a series of riddles in and about the text. For example, the riddle of an entire section - the third section o f Part One, 'Why I Am So Wise' - that only recently has been restored to the form that Nietzsche h i m s e l f, on the eve of his collapse, devised for it. My question i s whether this textual riddle (or confusion) a ffects three otherwise compe l l i n g i nterpret ations of

Ecce Homo,

those of Rodolphe Gasche, J a cques Derrida,

and Pierre Klossows k i . 1 On 29 Decem ber 1888, from Turin, Nietzsche mailed to his publisher G.C. Naumann a l a rge packet of corrections for the manuscript o f

Ecce Homo.

Among them was an entirely recast

section three of Part One, which Nietzsche instructed Naumann to insert in place o f the one then in h i s possession. The revised sectio n came to light i n July of 1969 among the papers of Hein rich Koselitz ( Peter Gast) i n the Nietzsche col l ection o f the Goethe-Schil ler Arch ive i n Wei mar. Kosel i tz had made a care ful copy o f Nietzsch e's origi n a l , which Naumann had passed on to him,

before sending that original

80

to Nietzsch e ' s mother and

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow si st er - who promptly destroyed it. The first version of Ecce Ho mo, I, 3, written i n October o f 1888 and p resent m most edi tions to date, reads as follows : 2

Diese doppelte Reihe von Er fah rungen, diese Zuganglichkeit zu an scheinend getrennten Welten wi ederholt sich in meiner Natur in jeder Hinsicht - ich bin ein Do ppelganger, ich habe auch das ,, zw eite « Gesicht noch a u Ber dem ersten. Und vielleicht auch noch das dritte . . . Schon meiner Abkunft nach ist mir ein Blick erlaubt j enseits aller bloJ3 bloJ3 lokal, national bedingten Perspektiven, es kostet mich keine Miihe, ein , guter Europaer « zu sein. Andrerseits bin ich vielleicht mehr deutsch , als jetzige Deutsche, bloJ3e Reichsdeutsche es noch zu sein vermochten - ich, der letzte antipolitische Deutsche. Und doch waren meine Vorfa h ren polnische Edel leute : iche habe von daher vicl Rassen- I nstin kte i m Leibe, wer wei B ; zuletzt gar noch das liberum veto. D enke ich daran, wie oft ich unterwegs als Pole a ngerdet werde und von Polen selbst, wie selten man mich fii r einen Deutschen nimmt, so konnte es scheinen, daB ich nur zu den angesprenkelten Deutsch en gehorte. Aber meine Mutter, Franziska Oehler, ist jedenfalls etwas sehr Deutsches; insgleichen meine GroBmutter vaterlicherseits, Erdmuthe Krause. Letztere lebte i h re ganze J ugend mitten i m guten alten Wei m a r, nicht ohne Zusammenhang mit dem Goetheschen Kreise. Ihr Bruder, der Professor der Theologie Krause i n Konigsberg, wurde nach Herders Tod als Generalsuperi ntendent nach Wei mar berufen. Es ist nicht

This double series of experiences, this a ccess to appa rently quite dispa rate worlds, repeats itself in every aspect of my nature - I am an alter ego, I also have the 'second' sight [or: the 'second' face: Gesicht] , in addition to the first. And perhaps the third as wel l . . . . My very lineage grants me a glimpse beyond all merely locally or nationally conditioned perspectives; no great exertion is requ i red for me to be a good European. On the other hand, I am perhaps more German th an o u r contemporary Germans - these mere Imperial Germans - a re able to be: - I, the l ast antipolitical Germ a n . And yet my ancestors belonged to the Polish aristocracy : who knows, that may be the reason why I inco rporate so many instincts pertaining to race, up to and including the l i berum veto. When I thi n k how often in my travels I a m addressed as though I were a Pole, and by Poles themselves, and how rarely anyone takes me to be a German, it might well seem that I only belonged to the mottled Germans. Yet my mother, Franziska Oehler, is at all events a very German phenomenon, as in my paternal grandmother, Erdmuthe Krause. The latter lived throughout her youth in the heart of good old Wei m a r, and not without a connection to Goethe's ci rcl e . Her brother, Professor Krause, a Konigsbergia n theologian, was appointed General Superintendent in Wei m a r after Herder's death . It

81

M USIC, MADNESS A ND METAPHYSICS is not impossible that her mo th er, my great grandmother, appea rs in the young Goethe's d i a ry under th e name 'Muthgen ' . She married a second time, taking the h a n d of Superintendent Nietzsche in Eilenburg; during that vital yea r in the Napoleonic Wars, 1 8 1 3 , on October 1 0, the very day Nap ole on marched i nto Eilenburg with his General Sta ff, she lay i n childb i rth . Being a Saxon, s h e w a s a great admirer o f Napoleo n ' s ; it may well be that I still am. My father, born in 1 8 1 3 , died i n 1 94 9 . Before he became pastor of the congregation at Rocken, near Liitzen, he l ived fo r several years at Altenburg Castle and tutored the fou r princesses there. His pupils a re now the Queen of Hanover, the Grand Princess Constantin a , the Grand D uchess o f Oldenburg, and Princess Theres of Saxony-Altenburg. He was full of profound piety toward the Prussian k ing, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, from whom he had received his pastorate ; the events o f 1 84 8 troubled h i m egregiously. I mysel f, born on the king's bi rthday, October 1 5 , received, as was fitting, the Hohenzollern name Friedrich Wilhel m . I n any case, the choice o f this day h a d one advantage : throughout my childhood my bi rthday was a holiday. - I regard the fact th at I had such a father as a great privilege: it even seems to me that th is accounts for whatever other privi leges I possess - l i fe, the magnificant Yes to l i fe, not included. Above a ll, that I need exercise no specia l i n tention, but can simply wait, i n order to enter willy nilly into a world of lofty and delicate th ings: I am at home there,

u n moglich, da� ihre Mutter, meine Urgro�m utter, unter dem Namen » M uthgen « i m Tagebuch des j u ngen Goethe vorkommt. Sie verheiratete sich zum zweiten Mal mit dem Superintendent Nietzsche in Eilenburg ; an dem Tage des gro�en Kriegsj a h rs 1 8 1 3 , wo Napoleon mit seinem Generalstab in Eilenburg einzog, am 1 0 . O ktober h atte sie i h re Niederkunft. Sie war, als Sachsin, eine gro�e Verehrerin Napoleons; es konnte sein, da� ich 's auch noch b i n . Mein Vater, 1 8 1 3 geboren, starb 1 8 4 9 . Er lebte, bevor er das Pfarramt der Gemeinde Rocken u nweit Liitzen ii bernahm, einige Jah re auf dem Altenburger Schlosse und unterrichtete die vier Prinzessinnen daselbst. Seine Schiilerinnen sind die Konigin von Han nover, die Gro�fii rstin Constantin, die Gro�herzogin von Oldenburg und die Prinze� Therese von Sachsen Aitenburg. Er war voll tiefer Pietat gegen den preu�ischen Konig Friedrich Wilhelm den Vierten, von dem er auch sein Pfarramt erhielt; die Ereignisse von 1 8 48 betriibten ihn iiber die Ma�en. Ich selber, am Gebu rtstage des genannten Konigs geboren, am 1 5 . O ktober, erheilt, wie billig, die Hohenzollern-Namen Friedrich Wilhel m . Einen Vorteil hatte jedenfalls die Wahl dieses Tages : mein Gebu rtstag war meine ganze Kindheit hindurch ein Festtag. - Ich betrachte es als ein gro�es Vorrecht, einen solchen Vater gehabt zu haben : es scheint m i r sogar, da� sich damit alles erklart, was ich sonst an Vorrechten habe - das Leben, das gro�e J a zum Leben nicht eingerechnet. Vor allem, daJ3 es fii r m i ch keiner Absicht dazu bedarf,

82

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow so nd ern eines blo�en Abwa rtens, urn u n freiwillig i n eine Welt hoher un d zarter Dinge einzutrete n : ich bi n dort zu Hause, meine innerste Lei densch aft wird dort erst frei . Da� ich fur dies Vorrecht beinahe m it dem Leben zahlte, ist gewif3 ke in unbill iger Handel. - Urn our etw as von mienem Zarathustra zu ver stehn , m u � man vielleicht ah nlich bedingt sein, wie ich es bin - mit einem Fu�e jenseits des Leb ens . . .

my innermost passion is li berated there alone. That I paid for this privilege a l most with my l i fe is, to be sure, no petty exch ange. - In o rder to u nderstand anything at all o f my Zarathustra, one must perhaps be conditioned i n a way similar to the way I am - with one foot beyond l i fe.

Nietzsch e ' s revised text, obliterated by h i s mother and/or sister but preserved by Koselitz, reads as follows : 3

Ich betrachte es als ein grosses Vorrecht, einen solchen Vater gehabt zu haben: die Bauern, vor denen er p redigte - denn er war, nachdem er ein ige Jah re am Alten burger Hofe gelebt hatte, die letzten Jahre Prediger - sagten, so miisse wohl ein Engel aussehn. - Und heirmit beriihre ich die Frage der Rasse. Ich bin ein polnischer Edel mann pur sang, dem auch nicht e i n Trop fen schlechtes Blut beigemischt ist, am wenigsten deutsches. Wenn ich den tiefsten Gegensatz zu mir suche, die unausrechenbare Gemeinheit der Insti nkte, so finde ich i mmer meine Mutter und Schwester, - mit solcher canaille m i ch verwandt zu glauben ware eine Lasterung auf meine Gottl ichkeit. Die Behandlung, die ich von Seiten meiner Mutter und Schwester erfahre, bis auf diesen Augenblick, flosst m i r ein unsiigliches Grauen ein : hier arbeitet eine vollkommene Hollenmaschine, mit unfeh lbarer Sicherheit tiber den Augenblick, wo man mich blutig verwunden kann - in meinen hochsten Augenblicken, . . . denn da fehlt

I regard the fact that I had such a father as a great privilege : the peasants to whom he preached - for, during his last years, a fter having lived for several years at the court of Altenb u rg, he was a p reacher - used to say th at the angels must look l i ke h i m . - And herewith I touch on the question o f race. I a m a pure blooded Polish noblema n , i n whom not a drop of ignoble blood has been admixed, least of all German blood. Wherever I search for my p rofoundest opposite, to wit, incalculable vulgarity of instinct, I always find my mother and sister - i f I thought I were actually related to such canaille it would be a veritable bl asphemy against my divinity. The treatment I have always received from my mother and sister - up to the present moment - fills me with unutterable horror: here a highly perfected, i n fernal machine is at work, one that operates with unfailing accu racy at the very moment when I a m most vulnerable and most l i kely to bleed - during my supreme moments . . . fo r i n these

83

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS one lacks all the energy that would be needed to defend oneself against venomous vipers . . . . Physiological contiguity ma kes such a

jede Kraft, sich gegen giftiges Gewiirm zu wehren . . . Die physiologische Contiguitat ermoglicht eine solche disharmonia praestabil ita . . . Aber ich bekenne, class der tiefste Einwand gegen die , ewige Wiederkunft " , mein eigentlich abgriindlicher Gedanke, i m mer Mutter und Schwester sind. - Aber auch als Pole bin ich ein ungeheurer Atav ismus. Man wii rde J a h rhunderte zuriickzugehn h a ben, urn diese vornehm ste Rasse, die es auf Erden gab, in dem Masse instin ktrein zu finden, wie ich sie da rstelle. Ich h a be gegen Alles, was heute noblesse heisst, ein souveraines Gefiihl von Distinktion, - ich wiirde dem j u ngen deutschen Kaiser nicht die Ehre zugestehn, mein Kutscher zu sein. Es giebt einen einzigen Fall, wo ich meines Gleichen anerkenne - ich bckenne es mit tiefer Dankbarkeit. Frau Cosima Wagner ist bei Weitem die vorneh mste Natu r ; und, damit ich kein Wort zu wenig sage, sage ich, class Richard Wagner der mir bei Weitem verwandteste Mann war . . . Der Rest ist Schweigen . . . Aile herrschenden Begri ffe iiber Verwandtscha fts-Grad sind ein physiologischer Widersinn, der nicht ii berboten werden kann. Der Papst treibt heure noch Handel mit diesem Widersinn. Man ist am wen igsten mit seinen Eltern werwandt: es ware das ausserste Zeichen von Gemeinheit, seinen Eltern verwandt zu sein . Die hoheren Naturen haben i h ren Ursprung unendlich weiter zuriick, auf sie hin hat am langsten gesammelt, gespart, gehauft werden miissen. Die grossen

disharmoni praestabilita

possible . . . . But I confess th at the most profound obj ection to the eternal retu rn, that is, to my properly abyssal thought, is alway s mother and sister. - Yet even as a Pole I am an incredible atavism. One would have to go back centuries in order to find th is noblest of races ever to exist on Ea rth as p ristine in its in stincts as I exhibit them here a n d now. Toward everyth i ng today th a t calls itself noblesse I possess a sovereign feeling o f distinction - I wouldn't do o u r young Kaiser the honor of appoi nting him my driver. There is one single case in which I acknowledge my equal - I confess it with profound gratitude. Frau Cosima Wagner is the noblest n ature by fa r ; and, i n order not to leave a single word unsaid, I say th at Richard Wagner was by far the man most akin to me . . . . The rest is silence. All the prevailing concepts that govern degrees of consanguin ity are unsurpassable physiological nonsense. Even today the Pope insists on trafficking in such absurdity. One is least akin to one's parents. Higher natu res have their origins much, much fa rther back; with a view to these natures, much had to be accumulated, saved, horded. The greatest individuals a re the oldest: I do not understand it, but Julius Caesar could be my father - or Alexander, this Dionysos in the flesh. At the very moment I write th is the mail brings me a D i onysos-head.

84

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow Individuen sind die altesten : ich verstehe es nicht, aber Julius Casar konnte mein Vater sein - oder Alexander, dieser leibhafte Dio n ysos . . . In diesem Augenbl ick, wo ich dies schreibe, bringt die Post mir einen Dionysos Ko pf. Ignoring most of the intriguing contrasts between these two texts, and setting aside Nietzsche's ( bogus) claim to aristocratic Polish ancestry and his ( m istaken) grandmotherly l i a ison with Go ethe, I wish to stress what is perhaps obvious to any first reading. While the patern a l shadow i n the rev ised text still reta i n s someth ing o f i ts fo reboding aspect, i t is now essenti ally benign, even ' angel i c ' . To h ave had such a father - both texts proclai m was a ' p rivi lege ' . Gone fro m the rev ised text, however, are the rom anzas o f the Oehler side, the maternal side, of Nietzsch e's fa mily, as well as o f that 'very German phenomenon ' o f the paternal grandmother, the Krause side. The rev ised account leaves us with two p ro found obj ections to the etern al recurrence o f the same - who are delighted to act as Nietzsche's editors. The very first section o f

Ecce Homo,

Part One, begi ns as follows :

The fortune of my existence, perhaps its very singul arity, lies in its fatality : I have - to put it in the form of a riddle - as my father al ready died; as my mother I am still alive and am growing old. This double provenance, from the highest and the lowest rungs on the ladder of l i fe, as it were, simultaneously decadent and commencement - th is, i f anything, accounts for th at neutrality, that freedom from all bias in relation to the entire problem of l i fe, which perhaps distinguishes me . . . . I know both , I am both . (6, 264) Nietzsche's 'riddle', propounded originally as the a series of notes we now call the

Ur-Ecce homo

conclusion to 1 3 , 629) , is

(see

taken up by Gasche, Derrida and Klossowski in ways that merit careful attentio n . Nietzsche ' s

double

All three h ave medi tated on the riddle of origi n , the non-dia lectica l , neutra l , i rreduci ble

doubling o f h i gh and low, ascendancy and decrepitude, mother and father in Ni etzsche's ' l i fe ' . However, may the l ast-named p a i r serve as t h e k e y t o u nlock t h e mystery o f t h e others ? Can

85

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS we - and does Nietzsche - attri bute unequivocally vitality to the mother, enervation and death to the father ? Can we assume that it is sheer oversight, or the force of a conventional i d i om, that causes him to place 'h ighest' and ' l owest' i n i mproper sequence, si nce everywhere else the paternal legacy is l isted first ? In short, i s th e double provenance ulti mately reducible to a single binary opposition ? Is the riddle so easily riddled ? All three commentators resist such a reductio n , though perhaps not always successfu l l y . I n deed, such resistance is d i fficult. The bulk o f

Ecce Homo,

I , 1, emphasizes the fatal i ty fo r the son o f the

fath er's early demise the

identi fication

(Mein Vater starb

o f paternity and

.

.

.

), i n such a way that

shadow

appears to

be a

foregone conclusion. Entropy, decli n e and death : are these not the names and negatives o f the father ? However, if decadence appears to be the p a ternal legacy, the legacy o f vitality and

commencement (Anfang)

cannot so readily

be attributed to the mother. The second section o f Part One refers to such vital ity, ascribing it not to her but to Nietzsche ' s own hand :

For, discounting the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the opposite of one . . . . As summa summarum I was healthy, as nook and cranny, as speci alty, I was decadent . . . . I took hold of mysel f [Ich nahm mich selbst in die Hand] , I made myself healthy again . . . . Out of my will to health, to l i fe, I made my philosophy . . . . - So you see, I am the precise contrary of a decadent. (6, 2 6 6-6 7 ) . Whether w e c a n take t h e opposition o f

Winkel

and

( mother

=

Specialitiit

l i fe ; father

summa summarum

to

as somehow corroborating the equation

=

death ) i s doubtfu l , u n l ess one insists on

identifying the organs that gave N ietzsche particu l a r distress (eyes, brain, and stomach ) as those th at su ffered most from N ietzsche's paterna l , spiritual-intellectual heritage. Yet such di stress is matched by the anguish induced by that i n fernal machine o f the maternal p resbytery. I t may well be that much depends o n how we read

section 3

o f Part One - and on

which version

we read.

I n h i s a rticle, 'Autobi ography as Gesta l t ' , Rodolphe Gasche cites these early pages o f

Ecce Homo

to which I have been

referring. Focussing on Nietzsche's 'double origi n ' , he stresses the phi losopher's own search fo r his ' nethermost sel f ' , the sel f that is to be fo und nowhere else than

in physiologicis. 86

Nietzsche's double

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow m ater nal/paternal face or sight makes h i m a veritable janus bi(ro ns. Not simply in physiologicis, howeve r : Gasche invokes the

ga te way A ugenblick in which the eterni ties of past and fu ture ' a ffr ont one another' as an eminent i nstance of the double str u cture i n Nietzsche's writing. I f the gateway - or, as Hei degger would insist, our

standing in

the gateway - closes the ring of

e ter n i ty in a moment o f decision, then the very 'vision ' or 'vi sage' ( Gesicht) o f the gateway marks the closure o f i n fi n i te past ( the

dead father) a n d endless future (the surviving mother ) . Al though I c a n n o t reco u n t all o f Gasche's rea ding here, I at

least want to p resent his ' first transcription' o f t h e s ol ut i on to t he riddle o f Nietzsche's d o u b l e origin - the 'riddle' here referring, not to the striken shepherd o f ' O n the Vision and the Riddle ' , but to Nietzsche ' s

Ecce Homo.

Gasche

writes,

with

the

hand

of

Nietzsch e : ' I h a v e k i l led m y s e l f as my o w n father so t h a t I c a n commit i n cest w i th myse l f as my mother while as m y father I am preventing mysel f from being born . ' I shall defer discussion o f the first half o f Gasche's transcription, a t once necrological

and

oedip a l , hence oedipal i n the fu l l sense (in as much as i t would embrace

Oedipus at Co/onus) ,

i n o rder to emphasize the final

words : ' . . . while as my father I am preventing mysel f fro m be i ng born ' . H e r e the paternal shadow appears as Chronos - T i me j amming the mother, as yet u n touched by the su rgical

legerdemain

of the son. That Nietzsche bore h i s father w i th him always, as though he (Nietzsche, Friedrich ) were h i s own mother, fi l led by the father, p regn ant by and with h i m ; that Nietzsche fel t h i msel f to be reliving the misfortunes and i l l nesses of the father, waiting for h i s own brain to ooze, anticipating h i s mother's tears, the doctor's tragic mein - who can doubt these thi ngs ? Nietzsche took his chances w i th such a father, the

GlUck

o f h i s existence, and

such chances took h i m . Unlike the l atter case o f Jean-Paul Sa rtre, Nietzsche for the first fou r years o f his l i fe

knew his father, Scho{J - a t the

his lap - and i n German a lap is a wom b :

sat on piano,

rapt to h i s father's improvisations, enthralled by the origins o f all music. How could Nietzsche ever have been born from such a l a p ? Once borne on it, he would never be released, never partured. It is as though i n l a ter years h i s father emerged from the grave to fetch the young son back to his bosom, back to the origins o f all music. But that is to anticipate. Indeed, nothing about the p a ternal shadow

seems

to

follow

in

good

87

order,

generation

upon

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS generation ; everyth ing seems to anticipate and presuppose a lo n g l i neage. On both sides, both sides. To hear with a new ear the names o f Nietzsche, Frie dric h

who is himself dead, and whose very signature is now a mark of death - that is the task Jacques Derrida assigns himsel f in 'La logique de Ia vivante'. To read with a new eye the

Wilhelm,

'than atogra phy' of Nietzsche's ' biography ' , to take up again the relation of the ' 1 ' , writing and death as developed, fo r example, in

La voix et le phenomene. Yet the pres ent investigation of the logic of the living is less a logic than a glos s on Glas, a logic of the knell, an obsequy. Derri d a ' s is an essay on ob

chapter seven of

sequence. I t is Nietzsche's fatality to be both neutral (neither-nor)

between the dead and the living, le (pere) mort and Ia (mere) vivante, to be both death, Ia mort, and l i fe, Ia vie, during that stretch o f time that he h i mself, Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm is (was) al ive, le vivant. Obsequence and doubling (both-and ) , to be between

turns

out

to

be

an

enigmatic

sort

of sequential ity,

not

of

generation upon generation, but o f multiple and even un decidable first-person existences. Note in the following passage the va riety of possible senses and sequences of the je suis, 'I a m ' (etre) and ' I fo llow'

(suivre) :

En rant que je suis mon pere, je suis mort, je suis le mort et je suis Ia mort. En rant que je suis rna mere, j e suis I a vie qui persevere, le vivant, Ia vivante. Je suis mon pere, rna mere et moi, mon fils et moi, Ia mort et Ia vie, le mort et Ia vivante, etc. 4 Derrida's transcription of the riddle thus doubles up on itself in a

way

that

no

English

transcription

can.

One

attempt

to

retranscribe Derrida's transcription - to anglicize the logic of o b sequence :

In so fa r as I follow my father, I am dead; I a m and follow the dead progenitor, I am and follow death . In so far as I follow my mother, I am the l i fe that perseveres [cf., by way of contrast, Laca n : je, pere, severe] , I am the living male heir, I am the progenitrix. I am and follow my fa ther, my mother and me, my son and me, death and l i fe, the dead progenitor and the living progenitrix. Thus Derrida spins out the riddle into a complex fa ble o f death an d l iving-on, ob-sequence and survivance. And yet there is a

88

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow te n de ncy in Derrida ' s fa ble to identify the father with decadence a nd to acknowledge the mother, w i thout fu rther ado, a s she who s ur vi ves co l l apse. Like Urs u l a in G a rcia M a rquez's Cien afzos de

soledad,

Franziska would be she who lives on, she who survives to

bury her son. The son whom

Derrida

mistakenly

calls

le fils unique.

For getting Li ttle Josep h . And e v e n i f we a re t o s e t Little Joseph aside, w e may a s k wh ether t h e survival o f t h e mother is t h e

dea thly obseq u ( i ) ence. Pierre Klossowski begins his

survivance

' Consul tation

o f l i fe or o f

of the Patern a l

Sh adow ' by rem a rking, a p ropos o f Nietzsche's ta lent for riddles, that to pose a riddle is 'to s i m u l a te a necessity i n order to flee the vacuity o f something a rbitrary ' . Nietzsche's own account o f the fortu ne a n d fatality o f his ' double origi n ' , the fa ble o f mother and father, Klossowski therefo re calls 'the

shadow o f

a solution' to the

puzzle of h i s ' l i fe ' . Yet even this s h a dow is double, multiple, and

ulti m a tely undecidable. It is a t once the oneiric shadow o f the father and the oppressive shadow(s) o f the mother-in-mourning

and o f a l l the women in the pres bytery who r a ise Little Fritz,

Herzenfritz.

Why is the p a tern a l shadow 'oneiric' ? Klossowski cites two

versions o f a premonitory dream th a t Nietzsche had - presu m a bly at five-and- a - h a l f years o f age, about eighteen months a fter his father's d e a t h - which foretol d th e s u d d e n death of his younger brother, Little Joseph,

]osephchen .

The first report, composed at

Christm a s , 1856, reads a s fol l ows :

At th at time I once dreamt that I heard the sounds of th e chu rch organ, playing as it did during the fu neral [i.e. of Nietzsch e's fa ther] . When I perceived what lay beh ind these sounds a gravemound suddenly opened and my father, wrapped in linen cerements, emerged from it. He h u rried into the chu rch and retu rned a moment later with a child in his a nn s . The tomb yawned again, he entered, and the cover closed over the opening. The ste rterous sounds of the organ ceased instantly, and I awoke. On th e day that followed th is night Little Joseph ab ruptly fell ill, seized by severe cramps, and a fter a few hours he died. Our grief knew no bounds. My dream had been fulfilled completel y. The tiny corpse was laid to rest in his father's arms. 5 Note the p rogression, the obsequence, of this first a ccou n t : hearing o r g a n music, seeing nothing a s yet, discovering th a t this is

89

M USIC, MADNESS AND META PHYSICS the music of the deceased father - not the i m p rovisations p l a ye d while Little Fritz sat on h i s father's l a p (alone before Josephchen 's arrival ? ) but the music o f i n terment - and then the gaping o f th e grave. His father h u rries i n to the church and emerges carrying a ch i l d , ein Kind, in his arms. Not Herzenfritz, who is observing all

this ( b u t from where ? and how ? p resumably from the second floor of the l a rge country house that looked out over the church and the

Ich bin als Pflanze nahe dem Gottesacker, als Mensch in einem Pfarrhaus geboren - another doubling here, adj acent cemetery :

except th at if as a human being Nietzsche was born i n a pastor's house, in the house o f the father, then h i s l i fe as a plant i s rooted in God's Green Acre, that is, the cemetery, w h i ch would be the mother ) , not Little Fritz but

Little Joseph

i s the dead m a n ' s obj ect.

This first account, written at age twelve, is fol lowed by a second, composed when Nietzsche was seventeen :

Some months later [ i . e . , following the death of the father] , a second misfo rtune struck me, a misfortune of which I had a premonition, thanks to a remarkable dream. I felt as though I could hear muffled organ music coming from the nearby church. Surprised, I open the window that looked out over the church and cemetery. My father's grave opens, a white figure emerges a n J J i s a p p e a rs i nt o the chu rch . The gloomy, uncanny sounds continue to su rge ; the white figure appears again, carrying something under h i s arm that I did not clearly recognize. The gravemound yawns, the figure sinks into it, the organ goes silent - I waken. The following morning my younger brother, a lively and gifted child, is seized by cramps, and a ha l f-hour later he is dead. He was buried right next to my father's grave. 6 Klossowski notes several dev i ations from the first account in the second. The music i s now m u ffled, sinister ; the dreamer himself opens a window to seek the source o f the music, uncanny yet fa m i l i a r ; the 'thing' borne under the father's arms i s now not readily identifia ble; and Josephchen ( for i t

will

be he even if no

name i s mentioned) is now, a fter h i s seizure with cramps, cramps caused perhaps by the tightening o f that paternal grasp, removed fro m his father's arms

( their

father's arms) and buried

alongside.

Klossowski, perhaps recalling chapter fou r of the Wolfman case, a n d himself all uding to the 'compensatory value o f a reconstitution o f the traumatism'

(Beyond the Pleasure Principle,

chapters two

and three ) , writes now with the hand of the dreamer h i m sel f :

90

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow I open the window and the tomb is opened: I open the tom b of my fa th er, who then looks for me in the church. My dead father searches me o ut and carries me off because I am trying to see my dead father [or: try ing to see my father .dea d - a voir mon pere mort] . I a m dead, the fa th er of myself, I suppress my self in order to reawaken in the midst of mu sic. My dead father m akes me hear the music. (257) A lthough he i s looking for me i n the church, the father finds instead. Little Joseph i s not i n the house, but has been

Josephchen

removed to the chu rch . Who has removed this gay and gi fted child to the pale altar ? Who h a s exposed h i m to the waxen pasto r ? Klossowski does n o t raise t h i s question explicitly. Y e t i f the oe dipal situation applies ( recall Gasche : 'I have killed myself as my own father so that I can commit i n cest with myself as my mother . . . '), then i t is not only the father but also the second son

who must be removed to God's Green Acre : ' O u r grief knew no bounds. My dream had been fu l fi l led completely. The tiny corpse was laid to rest i n h i s father's arms . ' Note the sequence, the ob sequence, up to the perfunctory close :

m u ffled organ m u s i c ;

surprised, I open t h e w i n d o w ( t h e i n fant Wolfman's e y e s open o f themselves, s a y s Freud, t o t h e primal scen e : i t is a matter o f attentive, interested observation, insists Freud) t h a t l o o k s out onto the cemetery ( Wie lebendig steht noch der G ottesacker vor mir! exclaims Nietzsche at age fourteen ) where I see my father dead. First my father, then Little Josep h . Our grief knew no bounds. Ours. Me ' n Mum's. Unencumbered. My dream had been ful fi l led completely. Alone at last. Yet i f the first o f Klossows k i ' s consultations appears to conform to the usual (oedipal) view - negative identification with the father as decadence, transgression and guilt - the second consultation

(285 ff. ) begins to su bvert and displace that view. Klossowski stresses the asymmetry and diseq u i l i brium o f Nietzsche's 'double origi n ' : the mother simply does not embody ' commencement' in the way the father adum brates closure. Keep ing before him the shadow o f the dead father as a kind o f shield o r amulet, Nietzsche in the course o f his l i fe di stances h i mself i ncreasi ngly from mother and s ister, distances himself through his writing, his texts, such as the new text o f

Ecce Hom o I , 3,

which no mother or si ster should

ever have seen. Beneath the forced j o l l i ty of a l ater missive ( the last)

to

Franziska Nietzsche, written

on December 2 1,

(Meine alte Mutter . . . . Dien altes Geschopf) , 91

1888

in which he assures

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS her

th a t

he

is

by

now

ein ungeheuer beriihmtes Tier

('a monstrously renowned beastie ' ) , we hear overtones that reso n ate

quite disti nctly in a letter four days later to Franz Overbec k :

T h i s does not prevent my sister from writing t o me on October 1 5 [ i .e . , on Nietzsche's bi rthday, t h e halcyon forty-fourth bi rthday commemo rate d by the exergue to Ecce homo) that I too ought to commence beco min g ' renowned' . . . . All the while she calls me 'Darling Fritz', Herzensfritz . Th is has been going on now for seven years ! 7 .

.

.

Thus Nietzsche is driven to i nvert the oedipal situation : he substitutes himself for the mother and the father's daughter in order to become intimate with the father - ' a s through being', says Klossowski, 'his own mother' . 8 Such inversion/s u bversion wi l l not go unpunished. Nietzsche's ' real' mother and sister, his 'editors', w i l l · eventu ally su ffocate him:

Klossowski adduces a mordant

word on the mother's ' m o rtal compassion for the convalescent son ' . Indeed, mother and s ister represent what Deleuze calls 'the second feminine power'. 9 They embody according to Klossowski, ' L i fe i n its most contemptible fo rm', the s l uggish worm and viper - counterimages to the serpent of eternal return. The consequences o f s u c h inversion become i n creasingly radical i n Klossowski's own consultations. I f the father is detachment from l i fe, i f the father - and not the ghostship o f woman - is

Distanz,

then he i s also the great health fulness o f the reval u ation

o f all values. Magnificent health i s the father's, the deceased father o f all genealogy. Hence 'the presence o f the dead father as an ex pla nation o f Nietzsche's struggle with his own fata l i ty ' . Klossowski depicts such distance and struggle as Nietzsch e ' s perilous perch on the crest o f a wave : from i t Nietzsche can descry with 'ultimate lucidity' the fata l i ty against which he wi l l shatter - and yet that very perception marks the onset o f inexpungi ble darkness. I n the end, the e n d ( s )

of Nietzsche h i msel f, Friedrich Wilhelm, the

disequi l i brium of all origins is radicalized. It i s his destiny to replace (to follow

and

to be) the mother and to i n s i nuate h i mself

with the oneiric shadow o f the father - and thus to follow

and

to

be his younger brother, Josephchen. The l i v i ng mother embodies decay o f blood, loss o f exuberance, end o f adventure, the survival o f death, death alone; the dead father, more a dream about l i fe than l i fe itself, yet a dream dreamt by at least one of h i s sons, embodies - if a shade may be said to embody - the very course

92

Consultations with the Paternal Shadow

sens)

and flow (the

of l i fe . Patern a l s h a dow and g a p i n g tomb

become a single sign i n Nietzsche's destiny : the sign o f Chaos. The shadow o f the mourning mother, mourning her spouse, mourning Li ttle Josep h , mourning Friedrich Wilhelm, is finally di spersed in wha t Klossowski calls ' a uto m a ternity ' : ' Yet i n order to rediscover

life itself,

Nietzsche, i n so far a s he is h i s

own mother,

becomes the

ch i ld a new [s 'enfante a nouveau] and becomes his own creature . ' (260) Hence ' th e necessity t o be born t o h i msel f from h i mself a n d

th ereby h i s tendency t o restore himself t o a double p resence, fe mi ni n e and virile. ' (274) And yet this elevation o f the p a ternal s h a dow a nd exp u l s i o n o f

the living mother ought t o give us pause. Such ' a u to m a tern i ty ' , su ch taking-onese l f-in-h a n d : Wie? Und dies ware nicht - circulus vitiosus deus ? 1 0 The a p p a rent restoration of w h a t Klossowski here

calls a 'double presence' a n d ( a fter Deleuze) 'double a ffirmation' may well be no more th a n the dream o f the 'perfect obj ect', the dream

of

the

metaphysics

(and

morals)

of

undi fferenti a ted

presence. Such restoration would fo rget wh a t i t most needs to remember, n a mely, th a t Nietzsche's great good luck i s his fat a l i ty . Automatern i ty fa res no better t h a n a u tobiography.

Ecce Homo -

a u tobiography ? a u tom a tern i ty ? s h a dow ?

Autobiography doubles up with a bsences, not presences, a n d i s th a n a tography. I f Nietzsche, Friedrich W i l h e l m , is once a g a i n with ch ild, is once a g a i n h i mself a child, th a t ch i l d will turn out to be otherwise. I t will be Little Joseph . Doubling up. I n the end there will be noth ing left fo r these children - Josephchen, Herzensfritz but fatal consultation with the p a tern a l s h a dow, fatal embrace o f the moth e r : t h e riddle o f a n o r i g i n th a t will never cease doubli ng, sundering, receding into the i n fi n ite distance o f all music.

Notes 1 Rodolphe Gasche, 'Autobiography as Gesta lt', originally published in boundary 2, IX, 3 and X, 1, 1 9 8 1 ; this double issue of boundary 2 has been published as a volume entitled Why Nietzsche Now?, edited by Dan iel T. O'Hara, Bloomi ngton and London, Indiana University Press, 1 9 8 5 . J acques Derrida, ' Logique de Ia vivante', appears in two places. Fi rst, in Derrida, L 'orielle de /'autre, edited by Claude

93

M USIC, MADNESS A ND META PHYSICS Levesque and Christie V. McDonald, Montreal, VLB-Editeur, 1 9 8 2 pp . 1 3-3 2 ; second, in Derrida, Otobiographies: L 'enseignement d Nietzsche et Ia politique du nom propre, Paris, Editions Galilee, 1 9 8 4' p . 33-6 9 . And Pierrre Klossowski, Nietzsche et le cercle vicie ux ' revised edition, Paris, Mercure de France, 1 96 9 , p.25 1-84. I regret not having discovered until a fter th i s paper was boun d for the printer the remarkable text by Phil ippe Lacoue-Labarthe, 'L'e ch o du sujet', in Le sujet de Ia philosophie, Paris, Fl a m m a rion, 1 9 79, pp.2 1 7-3 03, which is explicitly on the theme of autobiography and music - something that will play a major role in my own more modest efforts here. I would especially like to have been able to reply to 'La cloture maternelle', pp.296-97. I cite Nietzsche's works from the Kritische Studienausgabe, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berlin and Munich, de Gruyter and DTV, 1 9 8 0 , by volume and page, eg. : 6, 45. Nietzsche's autobiographical sketches, not contained i n Colli-Montinari, I cite from the edition by Karl Schlechta, Werke in drei Banden, Munich, Hanser, 1 95 6 . The story of the textua l confusion of Ecce Homo I, 3 , i s recounted b y Mazzino Montinari i n Nietzsche-Studien, B a n d 1 , 1 9 72, 3 8 0-4 1 8 . I cite the edition b y Karl Schlechta, I I , 1 , 073-74. See 6, 267-6 9 ; fo r fu rther details on the textual h istory, see 1 4, 460-62 and 472-74. In L 'orielle de /'autre, p.28 ; in Otobiographies, p.62 S e e t h e Schlechta edition, I I I , 1 7 See the Sch lechta edition, I I I , 93 Nietzsche, Samtliche Briefe, Kritische Studienausgabe, 8 vols, eds. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berl i n and Munich, de Gruyter and Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1 9 8 6 , 8, 542-4 ; 549 (letters 1 204 and 1 2 1 0 ) In the second session of the ' Double Seance', Derrida ( see La dissemination, Paris, Seuil, 1 9 72 p . 3 0 1 n . ) cites Freud's references to such inversion in the Wolfman case :

;

2 3 4 5 6 7

8

The phantasm of a second bi rth was th us here an a b b reviated and bowdlerized version of phantasms involving homosexual desi re . . . . The rending of the veil is analogous to the opening o f the eyes, to the opening of the window . . . . To be born of his father . . . to give him a child at the cost of his own virility . . . homosexuality here finds its supreme and most intimate expression. See Freud, Studienausgabe, Frankfurt am Main, Fischer, 1 9 8 2 , VIII, 23 1 . 9 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche et Ia philosophie, Paris, Presses Un iversitaires de France, 1 9 62, pp.24 and 2 1 4 1 0 JGB, no.56 (5, 75 ) 94

·

PART TWO

·

WOMEN, MEN AND MACHINES OF WAR

•

6

•

Orchids and Muscles ALPHONSO LINGIS

Man is no longer artist, he has become artwork : the reign of art throughout nature, to the supreme delight and satisfaction of the Primal- One, here reveals itself amid frenzied shudderings. Here is kneaded the noblest clay, here is hewn the costliest marble: der Mensch . NIETZSC HE, GT 1 An artist's utility in the service of the ascetic ideal is therefore the most proper possible form of the artist's corruption. Unfortunately, it is also the most common form of corruption: for nothing is more corruptible than an artist. NIETZSCHE, ZGM I I I , 25

The body-builders A cult, certainly, rather than one of the enterprises - that of

sana in corpore sana

-

mens

which culture can know and i n tegrate. A

cult which h a s its clandestine rep airs, its passwords, its i n i tiations, its legends, its rituals, its undeciphered codes. The alerted eye can spot them i n the crowds, not, like punks, by the tri bal garb and arcane j ewelry, but rather by the way neither work nor leisure garb fit their bodies, by the strained fa brics, the pulled seams. If they wear

j ewelry,

they

most

embel lish ments or citations,

o ften

do

not

wear

them

as

but as amu lets . Sportswear and

beachwear, designer-conceived for voyeurist eroticism, pulled tight

97

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R over

their

loins

like

chastity

belts.

In

the

bus-stations

and

si dewal ks, in

the midst of the streams of the busy and th e p reoccupied, sp ace warps and stra ins about them , as thoug h

lacking the gravity these sprung arms and p l o ughshare thighs are

made

to

fu rrow.

The

civilized

head

that

looks

at

them

is

deviated ; i t wonders not where they are going, but where you can get with them. The erotic eye, that which scouts the erotogenic terrai n in the body of another - not the rol l i n g surfaces of taut cutaneous membrane, but the spongy zone o f suscepti b i l i ty j ust beneath and the mucous membrane o f ori fices - i s d i sconcerted to run into packed thongs of drawn muscle. Not muscle that answers to

the

ungendered

resistance

of

tools

and

i mpl ements,

but

speci fically male and speci fically female m u scle a l ignments . One cannot resist feeling the very h a rdness o f these muscles to be the badgering o f the glands o f lust. Whole a natomies p u mped like priapic erections, contracting poses and s h i fting with held vi olence from one pose to the next with the vaginal contractions of labor p a i n s . Flaunting in the nose o f an antiseptic consumer public leathery rutting odors, gleaming with o i l s that deviate the hold the inspecting eye fixes on these bodies i nto the s l i d i ng suctions o f octopus eros. Their codes are undeciphere d ; one does not understand the progra m m ing, or the decision-process, that assigns them their h o u rs in cel l a rs fu ll of iron m i l l stones and rudimentary machines. The process th at ela borates, selects, and distributes the program ming is not i n the control-rooms o f culture nor even i n the science o f coaches and trainers ; it is rigged up i n their own taciturn and superstitious skul l s . The unguarded, unwary eyes with which they walk in the frenetic h a l l s o f stock-exchanges or i n the night of urban j ungles do not seem p ractised in the predatory uses o f the sense-organs perfected by the millenia o f hunters whose genes we inherit; and, unlike the surveillance a m i l l e r maintains on the ox o r the waterwheel that turns the m i l lstone, their eyes u n focused on their u n rotating wheels o f iron seem rather to watch the inward spread of monotonous fatigue and seeping p a i n . Their arms that handle but poles without fu lcrum and wheels that grind nothing are uneconomic, detaching or transforming nothing fro m the raw o r recycled materi als o f nature and i n dustry. I n their h a ndshake we feel no understa nding; we feel an indextrous h a n d that i s not held to the equipment o f our culture. Like kundalini yogis fo rcing

98

O rchids and Muscles the semen flow back upstream and upward, they detach the few implements they use fro m the i nstrumental complex of civilization, detach ing themselves fro m these very i m p lements even as they fi t th em selves i n to them, forcing th e p o we r and t he mass back u pstream , fro m clenched fist toward drummed vortex of the solar

p le xus .

The civilizing of the body Natural evolution elaborated the neurological and physiological potentials i n the h u ma n primate that made culture - imp lements, language, social institutions - possible. But

Homo sapiens

is a

domesticated species; h i s nature is civilized. What has civi l ization done to the biological nature o f this primate ? Paleontologist Leroi Gourhan

(Le geste et Ia parole, technique et langage)

distinguishes

four stages i n the tech nological h istory o f our species that have decisively evolved our biological nature. The first stage is that o f the use o f too l s - cutters, choppers, and grinders. T h e baboons, as all ea rth bound mammals, advance i n to the world snout-first; i t i s w i t h thei r teeth that t h e y m a n e u v e r their way. The human p r i mate put chipped stones i n his front legs to cut, to chop, and to gri n d . H e exteriorized t h e functions o f h i s teeth and powered t h e m with what now becomes hands. He transforms h i mself biologica l l y i n to an upright a n i m a l feel ing his way with his hands, l i fting h i s eyes to survey the distances. At the same time the sense of h i s nose a n d the power o f h i s teeth b e g i n t h e i r atrophy. T h e exteriorized teeth, the chipped stones, sti l l have to be m aneuvered with muscle power. The next species-decisive stage w i l l be the h a rnessing of exterior motor power - that o f animals, water, and wind - to drive his i mp l ements for him. The primacy o f the sense o f the vision that s u rveys w i l l be definitively enhanced - even i n his sexuality, now, Freud hypostasized, unseasonal for not primarily excited by menstrual odors but by the visually exposed genitals o f the upright ape. At t h e same t i m e h i s hide t h i n s into skin a n d h i s muscles b e g i n t h e i r atrophy. But t h e wind, water, and draft animals that operate h i s implements instead of h i s own hands sti l l requ i re h i s surveilla nce. The next species-decisive stage w i l l be the invention o f machi nes - contriv ances that start and stop, control , and, more a n d more, correct their operatio n s . This stage begins

99

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R with the invention of the mechanical clock. Its new vi rtue, by com parison with the hour-glass and clepsedra , is that it recycles its el f,

and can trigger other movements . The first dock-makers of Eu rop e

i m m edi ately set out to construct clocks which filled towers and , as they struck the hour, opened doors fro m which the th ree ki ngs an d the four horsemen of the Apocalypse advanced and gesti culated, while the cathedral clarion tolled above without a bel l -ri nger.

Mechanisms now l i berate humans from their survei l l a n ce - and the attention-span of machine-age humans begi ns its atrophy . Telev ision-v iewers, their fingers on channel-cha nge knobs, today look with incomprehension at Guata malan Indians whose attention may be held on the patterns of a loom fo r hours on end. St i l l , the survei l l a nce mechanisms have to be programmed by the neuro logical circuitry o f the human brain. Today our tech nol ogical civil ization has entered into a cybernetics revolution - which is also

a

new

henceforth

stage

assemble

of

our

and

biological

evalu ate

evol ution.

the

data,

Computers

and

make

the

decisions. The faculty of memory, reason, and decis ion, evolved in our nature th rough the h i story of our civilization, now begi ns its atrophy. The film The Terminator is set a generation fro m now, when the master-computers deciding the racing o f the m i l i tary industrial comp lex now determ ine the use o f all resou rces and of the h u m a n species . A band of guerri l l a resistors, led by John O ' Connor, is waging operations o f sabotage against the cybernetic police.

The

master-co mputers

sel ect

the

Term i nator

( Arnold

Schwa rzenegger) to be time-proj ected back i n to the twentieth century with a mission to terminate the l i fe o f Sarah O ' Connor, John O ' Connor's mother, and thus ensure that the guerri l l a leader will

never

be born. The

human

species

has,

with

the next

evolution o f its technological civil ization, u n dergone regression back i n to ma npower, and the fi l m plots i ts retrogressive a bortion as a bio logical species endowed with in itiative. This film is in fact no science- fiction fa ntasy ; today the stockp i l i ng of weapons of extinction is the most important sector o f our industry, and its exponential adva nce is already progra m med by internal feed-back circuitry.

This

fo rty-year-old

indu stry

has

a l ready

stockpiled

nuclear weapons enough to detonate a H i roshima-size thermo nuclea r bomb over a city o f our civil ization every day fo r the next th ree thousand five hundred years. The equivalent of the annual production o f the poorest fi fth o f toiling mankind is now devoted

1 00

Orchids and Muscles to weapons - the total productive energy of one h u m a n being employed to fa bricate weapons to extermin ate the other four. Certainly not o u r fel low-citizens, but not t h e i r p ol i t i cal leaders ei th er, a re in control of the m i l i tary industry ; our Secretary o f D efe nse awaits t h e d a t a electronically satell ite-espion aged fro m th e Soviet Union t o be processed by t h e Pentagon computers, and they will make the decisions as to what new weapons o u r te ch nology must fa bricate ; t h e S o v i e t Pres i d i u m s i mi l arly only rela ys the deci sions. We have a lready evolved into pure spectato rs,

th e Mouse Folk Kafk a i magined, with huge eyes feedi n g i nto massive brains, floating in the air, with m i nuscule, atrophied l i m b s dangl ing. O r rather, our sight disconnected from a n y decision or motor fu nctions, i t s content determined by t h e image- industry progra mming, h o isted i n to the space o f v i s i b i l ity on the massive trunks o f cybernetic forests - our b u l bous and succulent organisms biologi cally evolving, Leroi-Gourhan says, i n to orchids. Organisms

with atrophied trunks and l i m bs, parasitically cli nging to the rising trunks that shut out the sun, flowering their h uge showy sex organs, awaiting the bees fo r their orgasm i c unions. But i s not

the

glorification

of

our

primary

and

second a ry

sex ual

splendors - t h e orch id-wo m a n flowering a g a i n s t the hood o f t he Mercedes, t h e orchid-man flowering u n d e r th e sky-diver para chute - also

destined

to

lose

their

biological

relevance

and

atrophy, in t h e measure that t h e flickering computer c h i p s o f biological engineering, and not our physiol ogical ostentations, which will decide which genes will be reproduced ? Every great epoch of culture, Nietzsche wrote, is not only an epoch o f h u m a n k i n d ' s cultivating o f n a ture - transforming o f nature's resou rces i n accordance with i t s o w n i dea - it is a l s o a n epoch

in t h e h istory o f h u m a n k i n d ' s cultivation o f i ts own

nature - tran s forming i ts own nature i n accordance with i ts idea l . Every great culture, ma rked by distinctive i ntellectual, artistic a n d moral productions, h a s a l s o s e t up a disti nctive · icon o f bodily perfectio n . The physical ideal of the yogi, o f the lion-m aned moran o f the A frican savannah, o f the serpent-plumed Mayas, of the olympians o f the age o f Pericles, o f the samurai, o f the baris knights o f B a l i - each great center o f culture has set up the corrals, perfected and breed ing and training methods, ordered the subjugations and the testings for its own body idea l . I n the new institutions specific to modern Western society - barracks,

1 01

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R factories, p u b l i c schools, prisons, hospitals, asyl u m s - Fou ca ul t

identified the specifically modern ideal of the All

these

ideal

bodies

have

now

disciplined bo dy.

beco me o bsolete.

Y u ki o M i s h i m a remarked on the anomaly of the cult of body-buil din g ; it

appeared in Japan only a fter the defeat of the Second World Wa r, the last s a m u rai fantasy - that i s , in a J a p a n where m ass iv e musculatu re is without employ in h igh-tech industry and poin tless in a nation whose constitution forbids any rem i l i tarization . It is, indeed, irrelevant across o u r planet without such constitutions,

where the next war will be won o r lost ( more exactly, reciprocally lost) by fingers pushing buttons, and where in the hour it wi l l last there will be no occasion for ingenius strategic plans, skillful tactics, heroic feats o f endurance, o r non-participati o n .

The cause, the adventure, the corrida There is a pervasive resentment o f · the exh i bitionism of body b u i l ders. It is not a resentment of physical exhibitioni s m ; h u man nature in our epoch i s cultivated especi a l l y by means of the glorification of athletes, female nudity, and fea ts of physical bravado. A

cause

wins

with

the

athlete - the

school,

the

French

national ized automative industry, the nation-state, the free-market world. In the team-instincts of football pl ayers, the tail-gaters read the name of a brand of beer that is on their own gregarious chests too ;

in

the

personal

engineering

of

mountain-cl i m bers

the

telespectators read the name of a multinational corporation in which they are p rogram med stockho l ders ; i n the single-mindedness o f boxers they read the ruling fi n a l i ty o f one o f those multi corporation consortiums with a world-m arket i n v i ew called nations. The bodies of athletes are causes. They are also feed-back loops in the marketing industry . Achievement comes fro m the computer-revealed genetic potenti a l , individually computerized diet and training, drugs and p u b li ci ty and m a rketing. The purely a bstract, formal, numerical, causes o f their competitions feed into the causes

of the rising and

fal l ing stocks

of m u l tin ational

enterprises. At Penn State, which I found myself honored to belong to by readers

of

newspapers

in

London,

1 02

Tokyo,

S i ngapore,

and

Orchids and Muscles M an a gua who exulted in its Number One football tea m , Ken

Gra ves attends a body- building meet a t the local h igh school ; he rep orts th a t not even the high-school kids were there, o n l y the bo dy -bui lders, their s i b l i ngs, a n d their spouses. The am ateurs Ken Gra v es is interested i n have no patrons and trai n and go to

exh ib itions at their own expense, which the trophy received by the top one o f the class will not reim b u rse ; even the world-class profes sionals can earn extra dividends as ad lay-out models only

for barbell companies and vitamin-supplement p roducts bought by th e other body- builders. Ken Graves's camera encounters them p um p i n g and oiling themselves i n the delapidated movie theaters of small towns, i n locker-rooms covered with graffiti and in

classrooms whose blackboards a re covered with musical scales and high-school geometry formulas. Indeed the public i m agination depicts them as fixated adolescents i n high-school locker-rooms after hours. In the absence o f a public cause before them and before

us,

the

psychological

public

causes

mind

can

only

producing these

rummage

around

cases - d istorted

for

father

figure, anti-soci a l underworld instincts s u b l i m ated by fear o f the police, fixated l i b i d i n a l compulsations. One sees them n a rcissistic ally pumping themselves into ostentatious sex symbols - but symbols the sexually l i berated p u b l i c recognizes as the obsolete figure of virile p ro tector, who was also phallocrat and w i fe-beater. When the mind finds i tse l f seduced to look where there i s no cause inscribed, i t turns away i n resentment. Wh at i s she trying to p rove, that woman who has gotten herself hung u p on a centimeter here a centimeter there o n her calves and neck ?

The

i m age- industry

o f our

time

instead glorifies

the

exhibitionism o f the un athletic - fem a l e but not male - body. The nudity o f the male athlete i s a locker-room nudity before or a fter the competi tion, j ust the time to buy o r sell a Marlboro. The nudity o f the male non-athlete i s that j ustified baring o f the arms to operate machinery, baring o f the legs fo r speed, stripping fo r underwater welding. The p recision-tooling gives the male body seriousness and seemliness; the axis o f bravery can give it nobil ity. Without the gearing-into the tool - o r without a vision o f bravery at grips with death - unathletic male nudity is ridiculous. But the female an atomy verges on the ridiculous too, as our adverti zing, our high a rt, a n d our p o rnography know ; i t has to be relayed with stage props - be they reduced to the m i n i m u m , as in Noh theater,

1 03

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R to h igh-heeled shoes, a garter, atmosphere spread with vasel ine o n the camera lens, or, as Marilyn Monroe said, perfume . With th e props that female anatomy is ex h i b i ted in a theater, wh ere acts - be they that of lying there, indolent and fatuous - h ave

consequences and weave a plot. The theater of adventure is a space m a i n tained alongside the politico-economic fields of ou r enterp rises. Maleness is exh i b i ted in an en terp rise, where th e causes that produce results are also the causes of our industri ou s

and mercantile zones ; femaleness is denuded in a theater, w here the causes a re a leatory and the chain of consequencs an adven ture.

Secretively, clouded with gauzy sunl ight, or brazenly, in front of a casto ff n u rse's uniform, female nudity is a cause in the plot of an adventure which j ustifies it. The voyeur, crouched behind his telescope l i ned up with the windows o f the building oppos ite, or

crouched before his vi deoscreen, thinks not of bl ue-prints, data, and w i l l -power, but dreams o f luck and white magic, believes the chemi stry of alchemical legends, the chance encounters by which an ineluctable destiny in the time of horoscopes is deciphered. He fiercely resents those women who, rebuilding their bodies out of muscle, are ruining the an atomy of the central character required fo r the theater of adventu re. But what about the corrida ? No woman spread-eagled in a stripshow is as brazenly exh ibited as the matador in the corrida. His body and his blood are exalted in a monstrance o f scarlet velvets, spun-silver lace, and j ewels over against the black fu ry of the b u l l . Inso lence flau nts his torso, contempt splays his thighs, flash-fires o f fool h a rdy intelligence crackle across his tensed and cynical posturings. His testicles and penis j eweled i n the codpiece and provocatively exposed to the lusts o f the crowds .

It is,

Hem i ngway says, not gladiatorial spectacle, but tragic theater. It also became this only i n our time. Only a century ago did the corrida cha nge fro m being an activity of aristocrats fo r the sake of k i l l i n g bulls into a theater fo r the extreme glorification of the torero, whose splendor bl azes not in the ecstatic love of killing ( the love o f, and consequently the gift fo r, k i l l i n g is, Hemingway reports, all but obsolete in the legendary m atadors of our time), but in the sovereign power to lead the raging horns o f the doomed b u l l to his own brandished torso and to a torrent of blood and death at his feet. Hem ingway misleads us where he tel l s us to th ink o f it not as

1 04

Orchids and Muscles Ro m an gladiatorial spectacle but Greek tragic theater. Greek tra gi c theater is not a theater fo r the exh ibition of deeds, but fo r th e inel uctable revelation of a concealed truth . The death of the her o is decided by a destiny that the spectators are i nduced to gr asp with a higher intell igence, which the insertio n o f the

in di vidual into a cosmic order o r providence o r political cause made possible. In the corrida it is not the death of the torero but th at o f the bull that is plotted, in the th ird act, within fifteen minutes of the opening of the gates . The facts a re that all the toreros do get gored, but most die of syph i l i s o r tu bercul o s i s . The

death present i n this Black Mass is not a sacrificial death ; i t i s not the Orphic death o f a god by which his power will pass i nto the cosm i c order; i t is not the intelligible exposition of death i n nature where the dying o f one organism is its redistri bution into others ; i t i s not a cultural death where a dynasty, a n age, a revolution triumphs through o r perishes with the death o f the tragic hero. Here there i s not a solitary l i fe th at confronts its pl ace i n a revolution, a kingdom of God, or the cosmic order; there is an ani m a l i ty in which n o th i n g i s visible but a condensation o f the ferocity o f natu re, a single-minded and brave, u n retreating rage th at drives the bull to his death, but which has made o f the organization o f l i fe in him the most powerful in nature. The

corrida then is not a theater with a plot o f i n teractio ns to be intelligibly grasped, nor a truth to be deduced fro m events, nor a

con fused spectacle to be understood in na rrative order, with

beginning, middle, and end ; it i s a ritual o f atavist nature, i n the time o f repeti tion, the time o f I n the Begi nning. What is true is that it is the inner force that calls fo rth death that here is revealed as what the m a l e body i s made o f. This fo rce i s the dark blood o f nobility t h a t swel ls t h e p h a l l i c anatomy. All t h e minor a r t s o f costu me and j ewelry, o r choreographed mannerisms and mani cu ring, all t h e fl a ttering cultivation o f patronage and t he priming of critics with g i fts, which would make an athlete fa l l to the ridiculous, do not tarnish but set o ff the dark l ight of nobil ity i n h i s exposed ca rnality . T h e ritual o f t h e torero is m a d e o f precise and complex and instantaneously discharged intelligence, to be sure,

and

neurol ogical

precision,

and

the

impecca ble

taste

breeding and not training can produce, and the unwavering fo rce of valor. All this is visibly inscribed on, is sustained by, o r prod u ces an epiphany o f arrogant and fateful phallic sexu a l i ty . It

1 05

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R is viril ity erected in splendor at the brink of raging death . What our culture's mind can understand is a virile body, a bo dy where viril ity is virtu, the primary vi rtue of courage. Socrat es at h i s tri a l , where the v i rtue or aberrancy of h i s pedag og ic al

enterprise was to be defended, i nstead spoke of h i s courage in battle, which a l l his fel low-citizens knew. Aristotle was to explain further, when i n the

Nicomachean Ethics

h e p u t courage first in

the list o f vi rtues, that courage is the transcendental virtue, the condition for the possi b i l i ty of a l l the others ; without cou rage

neither honesty nor magnani m i ty nor service nor even w it in conversation are possible. But a l l courage, the courage to endure physical p a i n as the courage req u i red to make decisions, is but the rami fication of the courage in the face of death . It is through the power to hold one's own posture as the ground gives way beneath one that every power to take a stand i s derived. I s it not the dim

sense that all the causes and works o f civilization are so many ideals o r idols set up to defy death, that the v i rtues o f l aborers and o f athletes, i nasmuch as they are ways o f holding firm when pain assaults and when the support o f the others gives way, are derivative of the power to withstand the confrontation with death,

that saves us from seei ng under the glory we flood o n their bodies

a ridiculous anatomy ? Is not the corrida a ritual in which this dim intuition is ma i ntained i n the midst o f our l a borious culture which o n l y produces com fort and security ? There is then perhaps in o u r resentment of them a d i m sense that the cult o f the body- builders desecrates the ritual structure with which we mai ntain dignity in and disperse ridicule fro m our physical nature. The public does not see i n body-builders ferocious and destructive brutes which o ffend its sacralization o f civilization they are known to use their massive power as guardians of bourgeois p roperty, taking j o bs, typically, as night watchmen and bouncers in nightcl ubs where the rich i d l e ; and they are suspected of being steroid-pumped eunuchs from whom the debutants h ave

nothing to fear. But the resentment se n ses in them a viril ity i n s u l ated fro m death . Yea rs of tra ining that led to no corrida, only

to the footlights o f a high-school stage. Rather than a brave contest with death , a sentimental fantasy o f i m morta l i ty on glossy photographs, fetishized into the metal figures of trophies. The duelling scars obligatory i n German univers i ty students of the l ast century confirmed the nobil ity o f their caste ; the steel o f the body-

1 06

Orchids and Muscles bui ld er's equipment is noth ing but inerti a, exorcised of the death th at fo rged the saber. There is a feeling at large that the musculature gained i n work and i n rule-governed contests, the bodies o f construction workers, deep-sea divers, and boxers, i s vir ile and vi rtuous ; t h e muscul ature b u i l t i n th e ri tuals o f t he bo dy-bui lder's cult grotesque. The hands o f the body- bui lders do not contend with the inertia

of implements o r weapons, but rise to u n fold i n the sunlight or fo ld to frame their great swollen boso m s ; beneath their wasp waists their legs p i rouette ; Arnold Schwarzenegger studied i n a ballet studio how to walk with the grace of a prima donna. The discomfort voiced today before the new b reed o f women body buil ders betrays the vision o f the hermaphrodite that one meant when one called the excessive anatomy o f the male b ody-bui lders ' grotesq u e ' . Psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, a fter viewing the fi l m Commando, spoke o f h o w explicit t h i s has n o w become, Arnold Schwa rzenegger i n happy do mesticity, tender, cari ng, feeding his child - no mention of a woman that would have given birth to this child o r o f what had become o f her. The body- bui lder not only stands i n phallic hardnes s ; he or she also moves rhyth mically with the tensed violence o f labor p a i n s . Is it not t r u e that this b o d y i s not e n n o b l e d wi t h t he contention of power with death within it, toward bi rth ? Bri nging the dead weight o f the steel within h is/her muscles, the body-builder brings him/herse l f ever closer to that l i m i t determined by birth . One's genes harbor another death, an inner death ; as soon as we are born we are o l d enough to die, says a n ancient wisdo m . I n pushing b a c k t o t h e genetic coding o f t h e genus, o n e pushes one's way to the death sentence written in the individual by the immorta l i ty o f the genetic fo rmula. The living organism, Freud taught, discharges its forces to ward o ff the death exterior to it only in order to seek its own death, its own advance to the death th at is its own . The courage that fo rces one i n to this i nternal death , this death that i s one's own, i s the very courage with which one is born. Freud was only thinking that every living organism has a l i fespan that i s indistinguishable from its definition as a

species, even though its l i fe-forces are so many res istances to the death-dea l i n g blows that fal l upon i t from without; the sequoias

are not killed by the lightning that strikes them every year and b urns out their cores ; the seed was progra mmed to live for two

1 07

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R thousand years, and then to die. But the body-builder tea rs dow n, muscle-system by muscle-system, all the strength in h i s/her fib er s

and cells against the death of the steel , and he/she knows tha t th e h a rd will that takes h i m/her all the way to the l i m its of his/h er exhaustion is the very movement by which power, and new , greater, power is born. His/her work, h i s/her feats, are nothing b ut

labor pains ; and he/she knows what is genetica lly coded to b e born in h i m/her only in knowing the time and the effo rt it takes to leave all his/her fo rce on the dead inertia of the stee l . There is then

in the fo rce with which the body- builder assumes all that is and could have been born in h i m/her also a cou rage and a splendor. Even i f, viewed from the outside, it appears as the monstrous excrescence o f matern i ty in the virile figu re o f power.

The surfacing of splendor M onstrous - that is, not only the anomalous and the gigantic, but the ostentatious (monster,

monstrare).

This anomalous, gigantic,

and ostentatious figure would be the way the cult overcomes

derision before the evolution of the h u m a n a n atomy reduced to n ature. Is not the conviction that our anatomy, ridiculous by nature, h a s to serve as the material fo r art coextensive with all civilization ? The civil ization our species h a s lau nched to relay its evolution appears in n ature not only as the exteriorization o f the powers in our organs but also as the exteriorization o f the splendors i n the periodicity o f our impulses. Lero i - Gourhan divi nes that the fi rst art is the most inward - an a rtistry done on one's vi sceral core in the yoga o f Mohen j dodaro and Harappa fou r thousand years ago, a n a rtistry that condensed chant o r invocation i n to a mantra which is sounded only inwardly, which concentrated the periodic moti l i ty o f the body into the scanned rhyth ms o f the circulation of a i r and blood and semen. The compulsion

fo r ordering the

circulation of men and goods i n outer, public space, which Freud fo und contemporary with the first begi n n ings o f civi l i zation, and which

he

attri buted

to

the

compulsion

o f the

principle

of

economy, we wou ld rather see to be an exteriorization o f the sense o f inner rhythm and circulation which were the materials fo r the first artistry our species worked on its own nature. The first artists

1 08

Orchids and Muscles worked, Ni etzsche said, with the noblest clay a n d oil, the a rtist's

ow n fl esh a n d blood. The epochs o f the splendors of civili zation appear to Lero i

Gourh an t o be epochs o f t h e p rogressive exteriorization o f t h i s in w a rdly-worki n g a rtistic compulsion. T h u s t h e a rt o f body movement a n d voca l i zation, dance and song, would issue from the older vi sceral a rtistry o f the yogis . Glorification of the body s u r faces exposed to view comes out o f the distant epochs where dance a n d song were the media for our species' sel f-gl orification ; m aking of the body-surfa ces a col lage of b i rd-of-paradise p l u mes and

boars'

tusks,

or

a

cuneiform

tablet

o f tattooings

and

sca rifications is a n a rtistry that a rises i n a culture of festivity and ch ant. A next stage o f exteri orization is that o f the architecto n i c splendors o f B a bylon i a n , Athen i a n , Mayan, Otto m an , a n d Goth ic culture, which honored as m a j o r a rtists those who frame the construction a n d urban lay-out that houses human movements. The art exteri ori zed on surface effects - i n the a ge when those who are preemi nently called a rtists a re p a i n ters - the ' h u m anist' art of the European Renaissance and subsequent modern period o f pa i nting, was i n fact a n artistry worked on t h e exterior spectacle as bl ocked o ff a n d framed i n to a perspective by the human eye. Now the b u i l d i n gs man's earlier a rtistry h a d su rrounded him with

serve a s the points of depa rture fo r a n artistic eye that orders i n to splendor the views from contemporary

the

balconies a n d the towers.

a rt n o w extends

itself beyond

Our

the perspective

spread out before the h u m a n sense organs to the spaces reached for by the mind a n d by its electronic rel ays - to mi crocosmic a n d macrocosmic exteri ority. Contemporary art is conceptu a l , fra m i n g t h e designs o f microchemistry

and astronomy ; contemporary

music captures the songs o f the wha les a n d those of the earth 's magnetic field. The meaning a n d the origin o f the drive p roductive of splendor seemed to Freud a s enigmatic as it seemed certa inly coextensive with the defensive and utilitarian drives that tran s form nature and tra n s form our nature. Living things a re not only equi pped with organs to perceive what is exteri o r ; they are also ·e q u i p ped with organs designed to be percei ved. Splendor, i f crea ted by the chance co inci dence of random events in a canyon in a desert, in a sunset over equatorial waters, i s also a n orga n i c production o f l i v i n g th ings. T h i s was t h e thesis o f A d o l p h Portm a n , w h o a rgued t h a t

1 09

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR the patterns of animal body-surfaces have thei r own i ntel l i g ibi li ty . The morphology of the i nner, functional body, the form and th e arra ngement

of the skeleton, of the respiratory, circul ato ry , digestive, and reproductive organs, and of the prehensile an d

locomotive organs, does not make intelligible the al ways regular and o ften i n tricate and ostentatious patterns o f the body-surfaces and extremities. These have to be u nderstood, he argues, as

organs-to-be-seen, whose designs and colors become intell igible only when we correlate them with the specific powers and the witness-orga ns for which they are contrived. The inwardly coiling horns

of

the

mountain

sheep

and

the

h a irless,

p rotu berant

b u ttocks o f the baboons a re, he says, organs as closely fitted to the eyes and lips of the spectator as the j aws and hoofs are fi tted to the terra i n and the specific foods of the species. In the human prim ate, a distinctive reflexive circuit was set up with the evolution of the h a n d . The h u m a n species began by p u tting the cutter, chopper and grinder functions o f the j aws i nto its hands. The front legs no longer serve to drive the j aws to make contact with the worl d ; they rise from the ground and conduct s a m p l i ngs of the world to the head. The h u m a n a n i m a l now acq u i res

a

fa ce.

Its

mu s cu l a r

configurations

no

longer react

i m mediately to the front-line of contact with extern al nature, but turns to its own hands. A smile and a n apprehensive gri mace now become possible - movements that are

expressive,

that i s , that

address a sample, a representative of the i ndependent exterior held in the hand - and, soon, held with a mental grasp before an i nner eye.

An

animal

that

faces

considers

representations

it

has

apprehended. Its manual muscul ature becomes not only p rehensile b u t also expressive ; the hands position their take for an appraising eye. They address themselves also to the eyes of another animal that has acquired a face ; they speak. Little by l i ttle o u r whole musculature has learned to speak . The throat m u scles designed for devouring and for expel ling substances and the body's own biles and rages now learns fro m the hands how to shape the samples and

representatives

of

the

outside,

how

to

exteriorize

the

comprehensive expressions the hands first lea rned to make. The whole torso becomes o rgans-to-be-seen, the a bdomen struts and cowers, the legs and thighs acquire h u m il i ty and p ride, the shoulders and back, turned from the face-to-face circuit, sway with resentment and defiance.

1 10

Orchids and Muscles Unlike the birds-of-paradise and the mountain sheep and the baboons, the h u m a n species did not develop distinctive organs-to be-apprehended i n addition to its organs-for-apprehending. Its

h air, become functionally obsolete, is i n an adva nced state of disappea rance; i t has not deviated into a p atterned pelt. Its teeth , whose fu nctions were exteriorized onto tools, are in an advanced state o f atrophy, and h ave not deviated into coi ling tusks to make impressive the face. With the u p right posture, Freud assumed, the pri m a te genitals are permanently exhibited to the frontal view of an other, and, Freud assumed, this has led to the primacy o f the eyes over the smell as the chief organ for sexual stimulation, and th e end o f a rutting season, the unseasonableness o f h u m a n l i b i d o . Yet t h e h u m a n genitals rem a i n organs fitted for contact, and h a v e not become expressive orga n s . T o be s u r e , t h e human species h a s contrived snares for t h e e y e - p e n i s sheaths, cache-sexes , penda nts hung over the breasts - but these are exterior to its own genita l i a , which rema i n glandular, ori fices o f t h e inner, functional body. What has happened is that i t is the h u m a n muscular system that has taken o n the second, expressive, role for which the other animals have evolved distinctive o rgans-to-be-seen . The h u m a n muscul a r system is not only t h e scaffolding t h a t positions a nd turns the sense organs, the organs-for-apprehending; the vectors and su rges o f motor energy i l l u minate the muscular network itself and make its mesh and mounds snares for the eye. O n h u m a n bodies muscle frettings a r e t h e i r peacock ta i l s , c u r l s worked on the lips their crests, biceps a n d pectorals their coiled horns, fi nger waverings their lustrous pelt. But civilization, i n that epoch mutated

into

self-domesticated

when

animals,

the

h u n ter-gatherers

altered

the

human

muscu l a r syste m . As it exteriorized motor e fficacy from t h e h u m a n muscles t o t h e a n i m a l , w i n d , water, a n d steam-power t h a t relayed them, it exteriorized the ostensive fu nctioning o f muscles into masks, talismans, and costu me. To be sure, this exteriorization has not yet become complete and definitive ; there still floats i n civ i l i zation an i m agination that feeds on muscles. Indeed the i m agination, that unpenetrating, superficial vision, vision o f surfaces without depth, is a

the muscles.

Mishima spoke o f the

displacement

faculty of

of his sense of

himsel f when, a n intel lectua l , he committed h i mself to body building; there is a speci fic sense of one's identity that rises out of

111

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R the vi sceral or cerebral depths to find itself hence forth in the contours one's substance spreads out to the s u n . This self, spread in the tensions of the musculatu re, doubles them up as i m agination,

inhabiting

the

fa scin ated

with

forms,

patterns,

surfaces, a fascination a nchored i n the i m age one onese l f forms . And muscles a re not exposed without doubling up their surfaces before the imagi nation o f another. It i s the first effect of their rea lity; their contours excite the imagination before they displ ace res istances. That the v isceral system does not have such an e ffect can seem puzzling. The awareness o f the content o f fluids i n us, of the saline and m i neral composition o f ocean water, the inner gul f streams, cu rrents, a n d tides, the coral reefs, channels lined with tentacled anemones, and floating p l a nkton within does not double up our sense o f ou rselves with a vision o f the oceans from which tide pools now enclosed in a porous sack of s k i n - our muscles have carried us. In fact the imagination i s not divinatory and does not penetrate the deep ; it is a surface-sense, i ts m i rages m i rroring superficial m appi ngs o f the terrai n , excited by the contours of muscles. And our muscles, becoming more and more obsol ete in mech a n i zed i ndustry and autom ated war, designed for the fa culty of i m agination.

become

the

more

With the obsolescence o f an epic i magination does there not flourish now only a tropical erotic i m aginatio n ? The M a rl boro m a n , a torso hardened, accord ing to the legend, by riding the range, i s perhaps a torso riding the range in order to be h ardened i n to a Marl boro model . The editoria l writers o f

Playgirl

declare

that

the

anatomies

they

Playboy

exh i b i t

have

and been

fashioned by Olympic nautical training and ocean s a i l i n g ; but swimming,

saili ng,

bicycling

(on

stationary

m achines

before

mi rrors ) , and work-outs o n un iversal gyms are perhaps designed to

produce

play

musculature.

Is

the

human

muscle

sheath,

strapped to machines, monitored by cardiovascu l a r and fat- ratio d i a l s , turning into the showy carnal corollas and petals o f human o rch i d s ? This evolutionary destiny is unclea r ; the future is complicated by the existence o f the cults. In them the body-su bstance i s turned i n to muscle everywhere, the glands o f the abdomen and its coiled mem branes into muscles th at can pa rry the blows o f a fist, the atrophied mammary glands o f males i nto matrices o f trust and power, the chords o f the neck are not neglected, nor the threads

1 12

O rchids and Muscles p ulling the fingers. But the body- b u ilders use the most elementary bars and weights ; to this day no world-class body- builder has tra ined

on

the

Nautilus

machinery scientific

i ntel l i gence

has

designed for them. These are atavist bodies, h a l ted before the age of the self-domestication of the hunter-gatherer. We found no real

difference between the scene i n Gold's Gym and on the banks of th e Ganges, to which the origins o f every method to divinize the mi nd with every possi b l e cosmological system but also every method to divinize the body with sublunary power can be traced

b ack, where we saw, in 1980, young men making the prostrations befo re the idols o f the Aryan ape-god H a n u m a n which we term push-ups and calesthenics, and, while intoning mantras, l i fting before him rocks and pairs o f m i l lstones fixed on poles. C u l ts where we see not body-mechanisms made on mach i nes, but primogenitor b o d i e s made o f the elemental - t h e weight o f t he terrestrial, and rivers, and s u n . T h e body-builder's i m plements do not r e l a y t h e passage o f his/her o w n body-force outward. He/she confronts the steel, the opaque, inert m ineralization o f death , with a l l h i s/her ani mate power, i n what i s no contest but a p rocess o f symbiosis or synth anatosis.

He/she

tea rs

down

h i s/her

muscles

on

steel ,

exh austing a l l h i s/her force on it, and when m u scle fa i l ure has been reached, receives f r o m the m e t a l i ts p roperties . His/her biceps beco me tempered flails, h i s pectorals, that i s , his mammaries, h i s fem aleness, become gearing, t h e membrane o f h i s/her abdomen a sheet of corrugated steel, h is/her knuckles themselves brass. The luster o f h i s/her muscle-contours acq u i re for the eye the opaque impenetra b i l i ty o f meta l . At the same time i n the repetitions, the contractions

and

flexions,

the

body- builder

i n ternal i zes

i nto

channels of s u rging power the fluidity of the sweat and the o i l s , the vaporous currents o f s t e a m , showers, surf, and sunlight. The power that holds h i m/her upright is no longer that o f a post before the equipment that civilization has erected. Tide-pools o f the maternal ocean enclosed i n a porous sack o f skin carried up to dry land by developing muscles, they stand erect now with the form that a fountain maintains by the i n cessant upsurge and fa ll of

strea ms o f power. The

body- b u i lder

senses

h i s/her

identi ty

on

the

bronzed,

electrolytic l uster o f the beams o f musculature exposed to the s u n ; it is on the sweat-sheets across this h a rd skin and the surface-

1 13

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R gleam of the sun, and on the surfaces of m i rrors displaying the oiled definition that he/she now seeks h i m/herself. Existence, for the

sel f,

no

longer

means

i nwardness,

visceral

or

cerebral

involution, but exposure. This sel f i s a movement to extend its el f across contours and fo rms, and not to maintain a point of view , a rep a i r in space. As the ego surfaces, distends and exposes itse l f, it depersonalizes. Not only does the steel transfer its own prope rti es to the living tissue th at h a s exhausted i ts own fo rce on i t ; its h omogeneity also drives out the principles o f individual ity i n the bodies

that

devote

themselves to i t .

It does

away

with the

eccentricities - the dry and irritable skin, the concave fai nt-hearted chest, the indolent stomach, the furtive hand, the s h i fting eye - by which movements of retreat set up the as-for-me of individuali ty a n d leave their marks on the body. On h i s/her contours the body b u i l der watches emergi ng not the eccentricities his tastes and vices leave in h i s carnal substance, but the l i nes of force of the generic

human animal. How l i ttle the rest o f us see o f our bodies ! Our genitals we concea l ,

even

from

ourselves,

j udging

them,

with

Leonardo

da Vinci, of an i rremediable ugliness ; o u r v isceral and glandular depths, the inner coral reefs and p ulsating channels of antennas a n d gyrati ng polyps, our very i magination blinds i tself to. Our musculature

we

attend

to

with

a

clinician's

or

mechanic's

inspecti o n . The drive to v i s i b i l i ty , to highnoon exposure, i s so a l ien to us that i t has to be driven i n to our s u bstance by the steel. Ken Graves speaks of .the watch - m a ker eye body-builders h ave for the individual components. They do not, l i ke the rest of us, see charm or brutality; their eye is speci a l i zed fo r deta i l s , trained in instant measuri ngs, i n tolerant of dissym metries. As they wait in the wings for the decisions of the j u dges, the contestants l i ne up, h e says, i n almost exactly the order the j u dges will have p laced them. As though it is not the individual eye permanently fixed in a point of view and a perspective that sees, but the i m personal eye of a species in evolution appraising its organs a n d l i m b s for an adva nce

whose

duration

and

d irectio n

are

unknown.

Body

b u i l ders look at one another, and each a t h i m s e l f/hersel f, also with an a lchemist's eye ful l of chemical formulas, protein supplement ations, qu ack remedies inspired by analogies, and drugs made in biochemical l a b o ratories. They know their muscle substance with a cel l u l a r and not general and conceptually formulated knowledge,

1 14

Orchids and Muscles with a knowledge that thinks in the p a i n of cel l s being stretched an d elongated, being torn down, a knowledge that does not preside over yet somehow accompanies the invisible movements of th e m i l l ions o f anti-bodies within which are the real cause a n d re a lity o f t h e separateness o f our bodies. One does not know what role evolution will find for these prodigies o f muscul ature - or, rather, what evolution their artistry is contriving for the speci es. No one, Nietzsche wrote, i s more rea dily corrupted than artists. Their souls, their taste, can be bough t by ven a l p riests o f pagan rel igions, by the big i nvestors in the

i m age- industry,

mil itary-industrial

by

the

complex,

m aster-computers

and by their own

of

the

racing

followers and

flatterers . Today the n a mes o f the body- builders whose names are known are the n a mes o f so many i ndustries, auxili ary epicycles i n the wheels o f t h e planetary machinery. But the i m agination that feeds on muscles imagi nes something else - i m agines that the deviation their cult m a kes from the path of civ i l ization m ight be carried fu rther. Civilization destined the sel f-driving power o f h u m a n bodies to be transferred i nto tools, and then to be transferred out of human muscles i nto draft ani mals, wind, water, ste a m , atomic fission. At this l ate date, the body-builders reverse the movement, d isconnect from the tools, having

i n teriorized

musculature

a

their

splendor.

elemental Civil ization

p roperties, destined

make

of

the powers

and

of

surveill ance i n human sense organs to be di rected on the motor force now exteriorized i n draft animals, w i n d m i l l s and water wheel s , electric and atomic-fission generators, a n d then to be transferred out o f h u m a n sense organs i nto automatic and feed back mech a n i s m s . Can we i m agine at some future date the eyes, the touch, the heart disconnecting fro m the machinery that feeds in the i m ages and the i n formation, and swell and glow with their own resplendence ? Civilization evolved the faculty of memory, reason, and deci sion, and destined i t to program the electroni c sensors and feed-back mech anisms that make t h e human sense organs obsolete. Can we i m agine at some future date the fa culty of memory, reason, and decision di sconnecting from the computers which it now serves, ceasing to be but a n organ-for-apprehending, and, swollen with its own wonders, become a n organ-to-be apprehended, orch id rising from the vi sceral and cerebral depths of the cybernetic fo rest with its own power, rising i nto the sun ?

1 15

7

•

•

'Ideal Selfishness ' Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity ALISON AINLEY

Throughout Nietzsche's texts the metaphors of pregnancy pro l i ferate, i mages of ' formi ng, maturing, perfecting', a 'secret task' 1 most co mmonly al igned with what Nietzsche terms the 'ideal selfishness' o f creativity, and hence with the Greek i m age o f the artist o r p h ilosopher 'giving b i rth' to an idea or a work. In Plato's

Symposium,

Diotima borrows the metaphor o f p regnancy to

furnish

notion

the

of

creativity

as

i m mortality,

the

eternal

perpetuation of l i fe as the child, the work. 2 Pregnancy is a symbol

o f eternity. However, given Nietzsche's suspicion o f the transcen dental ideal i nherent in such a notion, i t i s clear that N ietzsche could not take up the metaphor unproblematically, despite his

nostalgia and admi ration for the ' Ancients ' . 3 Nietzsche i s scornful o f the notion o f creativity as passive, subordin ated production, because

it impl ies

a

will

to

'go

beyo n d ' ,

a

move

towards

i m m o rtality which could-be construed as a denial o f the body and the

pain

at

hand.

And

yet

N ietzsche

seems

to

a ffirm

the

p reoccupation of the potenti ally creative being with i ts own care and responsibility as a positive state or mode of behaviour. Thus on the one hand the metaphors o f p regnancy i n form Nietzsche's attitudes towards creativity. Yet o n the other hand they also have bearing on the metaphors o f wome n . At certa in points Nietzsche appears to reduce women to their reproductive capacity alone - Zarathustra advises the old woman : ' Everyth i ng

116

'Ideal Selfishness': Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity about woman is a riddle and everyth ing a bout woman has one

solution : it is called pregn ancy . ' 4 In other places he suggests that the relation o f mother to child provides the potential i ty o f a re thought eth ical relation to others . It is this a spect o f the metaphor I wish to consi der, in the light of Derrida's reading o f sexual

di fference

and

metaphor

in

Nietzsch e's

texts,

and

feminist

considerations o f the symbolism o f maternity. To this end, I reproduce in ful l a sectio n fro m

Daybreak

which introduces the

metaphor's problematic statu s :

Ideal selfishness - Is there a more h o l y condition than that of pregnancy ? To do a l l we do i n the u nspoken belief that it has somehow to benefit that which is coming to be within u s ! - has to enhance its mysterious worth, the thought of which fills us with del ight! In th is condition we avoid many thi ngs without having to force ourselves very hard ! We supp ress our anger, we offer the hand of conciliation, our child shall grow out o f a l l that is gentlest and best. We a re horrified i f we a re sharp or abrupt; suppose it should pour a d rop of evil into the dear unknown's cup o f l i fe ! Everyth ing is veiled, ominous, we know nothing of what is taking place, we wait and try to be ready. At the same time, a pure and purifying feeling of profound i rresponsibility reigns in us al most like that of the auditor before the curtain has gone up - it is growing, it is coming to light, we have no right to determine either its value or the hour of its coming. All the influence we can exert lies in keeping it safe. 'What is growing here i s something greater th an we are' is our most secret hope: we prepare everything for it so that it may come happily into the worl d : n o t o n l y everything that m a y p rove useful t o i t, b u t a l s o the joyfulness and laurel wreaths of our soul. It i s i n this state of consecration that one should live! It i s a state one can live i n ! And i f what is expected is an idea, a deed - towards every bringing forth we have essentially no other rel ationship than that of pregnancy and ought to throw to the winds all presumptuous talk of 'willing' and 'creating'. Th is is ideal selfishness ; continually to watch over and care for and to keep our soul still, so that our fruitfulness shall come to a happy fulfilment! Thus, as intermedia ries, we watch over and care fo r to the benefit of all: and the mood i n which we live, this mood of pride and gentleness, is a balm which spreads fa r around us and i nto our restless souls too. But the pregn ant a re strange ! So let us be strange too, and let us not hold it against others i f they have to be so ! And even i f the outcome is dangerous and evil, let us not be less reverential towards that which is coming to be than worldly j u stice is, which does not permit a j udge o r an executioner to lay hands on one who is pregnant! 5 117

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R Is there anything to be salv aged here other than re-marking th e means of paying o ff women who might struggle to express dis satisfaction with motherhood as it is u nderstood and reproduced the means of advising the powerless of their superior eth i ca l status ? D i smissing the section in this way would be in l i ne with a general dismissal of Nietzsche's comments on women . But reading the passage simultaneously as an

affirmation

of women ma kes i t

m o r e d i fficult t o assess and l e a d s t o a n ambiguity i n i nterpretation . T h i s is significant for fem i n i s m i n t h a t it raises questions not only about the status o f women i n Ni etzsch e's writings, but also about the status o f interpretation itself. Commenting on the derogatory nature of the word which appears in a section in

The Gay Science,

Frauenzimmer

Walter Kaufmann

wri tes : 'This whole sentence, l i ke many of Ni etzsche's generalis ations about women, descends to a lower level - stylistically as well as in content. It seems to be i n tended merely to lead up to the pun that fol lows it. ' 6 Kaufm a n n ' s apology to women may now seem not only shamefaced but mispl aced, i n the sense that it reduces

the complexity

and

caution

a dvocated

el sewhere

reading Nietzsche t o a s i m p l e equation o f representation,

in a

correspondence of 'word' to 'thing' . Such a reading might well engender indignation and anger, placing Ni etzsche within a p h i losophical tradition of m i sogyny ? But the di rectness of such an approach refuses to consider th at Nietzsch e ' s account o f, and position i n , such a movement is extremely problematic. Nietzsche's constant impl ication o f l a nguage in the metaphysical systems he explores and exposes cannot be put aside fo r 'the question of wo m a n ' . On one level a feminist reader o f Nietzsche might recog nise those women who permeate and perforate the Nietzschean texts as ' hersel f ' ;

my

self. On another level a fem i n i s t critique

which wishes to question the singular, u n i fied self i m pl i cated with patriarch a l systems cannot accept a purely mi metic view of l a nguage and consequently req u i res a more co mplex u n derstanding of 'woman' in Nietzsche's writings. I n Derrida's book

Spurs/Eperons

the enactment o f these modes

o f criticism resu lts in a third mode, characterised by the active a ffi rmation o f the changing, s h i fting, metaphoric, creative phenom ena of 'woman'.

I n th e instance of the th i rd proposition, however, beyond the double

118

'Ideal Selfishness ': Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity n egation of the first two, woman is recognised as an a ffi rmative power, a dis sim ul atress, an a rtist, a dionysiac. And no longer is it man who affirms h er. She affirms hersel f, in and of hersel f, in man. K The double edge of the affirmation of women/creativity as th e

vita femina

life,

i s on the one hand a positive celebration o f the

birth o f culture from the inward care o f that which is 'coming to

be ' ; on the other hand, the 'veiled, ominous' aspect which, togethe r w i t h ' p ro found i rrespon s i b i l ity', corresponds t o Nietzsche's notion of 'truth-as-wom a n ' , 9 the equivocal and a l l usive figure to whom only those who seek with the dogged determination o f the ph ilosopher would be tempted to ascribe a n essence. Nietzsch e's a ffirmation o f the Dionysian, dizzying, dithyra mbic rhyth ms o f l i fe involves his becoming a mother, a woman, and yet, in the mode o f

Dionysus, a god assuming the veils of disguise through metaphor.

'Dionysus adopts Apollo's veil and his enigm atic vis age ; a necessary s h i ft from one divin ity to another that could, strictly, be called metaphor, especi a l l y since Nietzsche expresses this in a language that is above all Apollonian - the metaphorical discourse, poetic and imagist'.

10

Derrida o ffers a timely meditation o n the metaphorical status o f

women in Nietzsche's writings . He suggests t h a t Nietzsche m a kes

an ironic equation of women with the transcendental absolutes he is concerned t o explore and expose. B u t this i s ti e d to ' t he question

of style' - a strategi c appropriation o f q u a l i ties h istorically and cultu rally associ ated with women ( fe m i n i ty ) i n writing. Derrida takes up the equivalence o f woman and truth , the truth o f woman, which is not a closure of equival ence because neither is taken to have a complete and distinct identity. Instead, there is s h i fting ambiguity and p l u ra l i ty - no one woman, no one truth, no one style. The congeal ment o f truth i n to fixity o r essence is countered by the notion o f ' a mobile army o f metaphors, metonyms and U And because such a plu rality might be

anth ropomorphisms ' .

construed as a simple negation o f principled singulari ty, Derrida suggests that Nietzsche p a rodies even his own 'truths' . 1 2 For the reversal, i f it i s not accompanied by a discrete parody, a stra tegy of writing, o r di ffrence, or deviation i n quills, if there is no style, no grand style, this is finally but the same thing, noth ing more th an

a

clamorous

decl aration

heterogeneity o f the text. ' 1 3

of

119

the

antithesis.

Hence

the

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R The possibility of opening perceptions of the ' fe m i n i n e ' , ' coded as that which exceeds the grasp of the Cartesian subj ect' 1 4 to use the critical edge apparently accompanying such an excess, is part o f the force o f the feminine metaphor as i t i s deployed in Nietzsche's and Derrida's texts. The metaphor i s a l ready contained in the horizon of a philosophy of d ifference, part of a system of oppositions, whereby i t i s a l ready a l l usively other. This can be seen in Nietzsche's ironic exposure of the metaphor's h i storic al

p rocess, a p rogressive fo rgetting of its genealogy. In the section in

Twilight of the Idols

entitled ' How the " True Worl d " Finally

became Fable, The Histo ry o f an Erro r ' , he writes : ' ( Progress of the idea : i t grows more refined, more enticing, more incompre hensible emphatic

it becomes woman, i t ph rase 'sie wird Weib'

becomes

Christi a n )

>Is

The

suggests how it is that the

equivalence is made possible. The point at w h i ch the idea becomes a n entity separable and separated fro m the ' true world' is the point at which it beco mes comparable to a n essence o f 'woman ' . I n a n opposition between 'the wise, pious, v i rtuous m a n ' a n d 'the idea ' , the essential nature o f woman can be identified with that w h i ch is other-worldly . The equivalence o f this essential figure of woman,

the

eternal-womanly,

w i th

regard

to

an

absolute

transcendental value, is further h eightened by the fem i n i n e gender o f the idea and its various m a n i festations, a p a rade o f veiled a l l egorical muses :

die die die die die die

Wahrheit Schonheit Ewigkeit Weisheit Gluckseligkeit Idee

( f ) Truth ( f ) Beauty ( f ) Eternity ( f ) Wisdom (f) Happiness ( f ) the Idea

I f Ni etzsche wishes to expose the metaphysical hypostatisation of 'the idea' he i s a l ready i m p l icated in writing o f ' wo m an' (she) . But this entanglement facilitates the exposure o f the hypostatisation of 'Wo m a n ' ,

das Ewig- Weibliche,

which is so far beyond mortal i ty,

so fa r beyond women i n the plural and i n the world, as to become neuter-neutra l . The moment that

she

moment the

becomes

it.

becomes

femal e is the

Ni etzsche writes :

'Man created

1 20

idea

'Ideal Selfishness': Nietzsche 's Metaphor of Maternity woman - but out of what ? Out of a r i b of h i s God, of h i s " ideal " . ' 1 6 And i n The Gay Science:

The sage shook his head and smiled. ' I t is men ' , said he, 'that corrupt women ; and all the fail ings of women should be atoned for and improved upon the men. For it is man who creates for himself the i mage of woman, and woman fo rms hersel f according to th is image . ' 1 7 A n d yet the affirmative mode o f 'woman' apparently rei n fo rces the exposure of the Eternal-Womanly i n Nietzsche's writing. Having al igned the elusive ' otherness' o f woman w i th the elusive, changeable and a l l u ring transcendent value o f truth , Nietzsche affirms and cel e b rates the conti nual surface, o r that which s h i fts and cha nges, through the conti nual displacement of h i s own writing. I f multiplici ty and duplici ty are taken to be the ' nature' of woman, then Nietzsche's own strategy can be seen to employ such dissem blance, o r what Derrida terms "' l 'operatio n " fem i n i n e ' (the

feminine 'operation ' ) . 1 8 Is i t not this displ aced and displacing woman, ' figured' i n Nietzschean and deconstructive strategies, who s i mu l ates orgasm, who defers, di ffers, demurs even at the truth o f this - truth ? Nietzsche writes :

Reflect on the whole history of women : do they not have to be first of all and above all else actresses ? Listen to physicians who have hypnotised women ; finally love them - let you rsel f be 'hypnotised' by them ! What is always the end resul t ? That they 'give themselves' even when they - give themselves. 19 Woman is so a rtistic. And in

Beyond Good and Evil:

'truth h a s so much to stifle her

yawns here when answers are demanded o f her. She is, a fter all, a woman : one ought not to viol ate her. ' 20 Derrida plays upon the metaphor of the unviol ated hymen for the strategic mis-pl acing of the centre . If the ful fi l ment of pleasure , orgasm, is se e n as a moment o f apparent self- fo rgetti ng, but a moment which is also sel f-co n fi rming,

simulating

this moment can

be seen as a series of masks o r ' mock' rea lisations. The poss i b i l ity of parodying such a p rocess through writing res ults in a double distancing. I n this way the fetish is not disma ntled but becomes

part o f an ironic p rocess o f fetishisation.

As Betsey Draine points out in her essay 'Writing, Deconstruction

121

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R a n d Other Unnatural Acts ' / 1 the deferred p a rodying and m ask s

here imply a move away fro m sexuality as a ' means towards an e n d ' , 22 as conception and reproducti o n . The privileged l i ne of descent through the child i s displ aced for the sake o f more m a rgi n a l i sed activities - a necess a ry move to deviate fro m the continua nce that is implied in the name of the father. S uch strategies do not seek to reproduce themselves as inherited l ines of critici s m . De r r i d a takes up Nietzsche's p l a y o n t he continu al surface to play himself at what Draine terms 'sexual deviancy' .

Nietzsche i n dicates his a ffirmation o f s u c h play : ' t h e p h i losopher, as the lover, must learn to " stop courageously at the surface, the fol d , the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, i n the whole Olympus o f appearance . ' 23 Thus it seems the metaphor of p regnancy should be treated with caution,

not

only

because

o f the

danger

o f rei n stating the

patriarch a l l i ne of descent, but also because i t apparently fi l l s the centre,

finds

its mark.

penetration - the

seed

Pregnancy would be the i m p lanted,

the

surface

evidence

o f the

of

hymen

broken, the crude show o f the woman who has given herself away ' . And yet, to equate the metaphor with passivity, a container a w a i t i n g insemi nation, omits the

active

aspect, the conti n u a l and

continued potenti al for creativity and fertility. In h i s reflections upon the Dionysian, Nietzsche writes :

What did the Hellene guarantee to h i mself with these mysteries ? Eternal l i fe, the eternal recurrence of l i fe ; the future promised and consecrated in the past; the triumphant Yes to l i fe beyond death and change; true l i fe as collective continuation of l i fe through procreation, th rough the mysteries of sexuality. It was for this reason th at the sexual symbol was to the Greeks the symbol venerable as such, the intrinsic pro found meaning of all antique piety. Every individual detail in the act of procreation, pregnancy, bi rth, awoke the most exhalted and solemn feel i ngs. In the teachings of the mysteries, pain is sanctified, the 'pains' of childbirth sanctify pain in general all becoming and growing, all that guarantees the future, postulates pain . . . . For the eternal joy i n creating to exist, for the will to l i fe to etern ally affirm itself, 'the torment of childbirth' must also exist eternally. 24 It is the p a i n o f activity Nietzsche a ffirms, the contrast to the notion of the p h i losopher as midwife, passively assisting in the bi rth of an idea. Despite her superior knowl edge, the midwife cannot take over the bi rth but must give a woman space for her

1 22

'Ideal Selfishness ': Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity own delivery, and her passive assistance is comparable to the h ypostatisation o f pregnancy - a reference to the dangers idealising the Eternal-Womanly as the eternal mother.

of

Pregn ancy has made women k inder, more patient, more timid, more pleased to submit; and j ust so does spiritual pregnancy produce the cha racter of the contemplative type, which is closely related to the feminine characte r ; it consists of male mothers. 25 Nietzsche's

re-appropriation

of

the

metaphor

takes

on

the

responsibil ity for pregnancy i n himself, to be actively creative, rather th a n a medium through which ideas are born . ' There are among peoples

of geni u s

those

upon

whom

has

fallen

the

wom a n ' s problem o f pregn ancy and the secret task o f forming, maturing, perfecting - the Greeks, fo r example, were a people o f

t h i s k i n d ' , 26 a n d i n

Thus Spoke Zarathustra :

' For o n e l oves fro m

t h e very heart only one's c h i l d , and one's work ; and where there i s great love o f oneself, then it is a s i g n o f pregnancy, th us h a v e I fou n d . ' 27 One aspect of Nietzsche's exposure of 'the o l d aesthetic' is i ts passivity, phi losophy which is ' content merely to gossip about art'. In this sense the philosopher has ' feminine' traits, or, as Derrida writes : 'he is a steri le woman and certai n l y not the mannliche

Mutter.

Before

a rt,

the

dogmatic

p h ilosopher,

a

maladroit

cou rtesan, rem a i n s , j ust as did the second-rate scholar, i m potent, a sort of old m a i d . ' 2 8 But, as Derrida adds :

Nietzsche here is dealing with a very old phi losopheme of production. And i n so doing he is also manipulating its vaguely unnoticed, yet cleverly imitated nuances of creativity, activity, formul ation, presentation - its connotations o f the formul ation and presentation of manifest presence. Th is concept . . . he inscribes in the analogous equivalence . . . between active, i n formative productivity and virility on the one hand and material un productive passivity and feminin ity on the other. It rem ains to be seen whether Nietzsche, as it would appear, is indeed contrad icti ng certai n of his propositions concerning the woman. 29 Consequently, i t would seem there i s an ambigu i ty i n the 'ideal selfishness' which might be read as a confirmation o f ' m a n i fest presence ' , as Derrida writes. B u t it may also be read as part o f the becoming which i s 'How to Become What One Is', and as such, part o f Zarathustra's teach ings of pregnancy and continuous self overcoming.

1 23

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R You creators, you Higher Men ! One is p regnant only with one's own child . . . . The prudence and providence of pregnancy is in your selfishness ! What no one has yet seen, the fruit: th at i s p rotected and indulged and nou rished by your whole love. Where your whole love is, with your child, there too is your whole vi rtue. 30 In the final part of the book Zarathustra a ffirms his own potenti a l p regnancy, and the trace of h i s children's p resence. However, his chil dren are not to be found as fol lowers or disciples who are reproductions of himself, but rather as h i s own strength of crea tivity and sel f-overcoming. I n a n u m ber o f pl aces Nietzsche indicates the importance o f the final section of the third part of

Thus Spoke Zarathustra,

entitled

'The Seven Seals ' . It is i n this sectio n that ' th e greatest weight' of eterna l recurrence is conceived, and conceived as Nietzsche's chi l d .

Oh how sh ould I n ot lust for eternity and for t h e wedding ri n g of rings - the Ring of Recu rrence ! Never did I find t h e w oma n by wh om I wanted to have children, u nless it be this woman, whom I love: For I love you. 0 Eternity !

For I love you,

0

Eternity ! 3 1

I n h i s essay 'Traces of Derrida : N ietzsche's I mage o f Wom a n ' , 3 2 Gayle L. O rmiston equ ates this passage with Nietzsche ' s p a rody

o r mock-affirmation o f the Eternal-Womanly. Perhaps another dimension can be added by considering the ambivalence o f the phrase ' by (or from whom) I wanted to have chil dren ' . It can be both 'the woman whom I want to have my ch i l d ' , or 'the woman I want to

give me

a ch i l d ' . I f eterna l recurrence i s Nietzsche's

pregnancy i t i s equivalent to a n active a ffirmation o f his self overcoming. In considering pregnancy as 'ideal selfishness' it seems that Nietzsche i nvokes a notion o f subj ectiv i ty as s e l f- a bsorbed ; hence whole to i tse l f, ful l y represented and sel f-contained. B u t the reflection o f the p regn ant subject upon (her)self i s not wholly upon

a

sel f but upon that which i s a l ready other and al ready

strange . It suggests splitting o r pu nctuation, a spacing o f a p resent sel f where the boundaries o f i nner and outer become less distinct. Hence the singular, fu ll p resence which i s the lynchpi n and prom ulgator of p h a llophilosophy i s potenti ally p u t i n to question by the symbolism o f pregnancy. The suppression o f that which i s di fferent and

diverse

in

p regnancy - the

l a ughing,

desiri ng,

orgasmic

mother - has ensured the conti n u i ty o f the p a tri l i near descent,

1 24

'Ideal Selfishness ': Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity the father's name, through successive generations, which is a relation of sameness. In drawing attention not merely to the repetition

of

l i fe

through

p regn ancy

as

stasis,

unchanging

passivity,

but as changea ble potenti a l i ty, Nietzsche suggests a

different

u n derstanding

of

its

symbolism,

an

understanding

presently contextua l ised in contemporary French femi ni s m. 3 3 This re-reading o f the metaphor's symbolism marks a n alternative to

fe minist considerations of maternity as the s i te or even the basis o f o ppressi o n . 3 4 While it counters t h e reduction o f women to 'natural mothers ' , the characteristic of m aternity as a barrier to 'real achievement' may also lead to a denial of the body and hence an identification w i th the fo rces of repression making pregn ancy the subj ect of what J u l i a Kristeva terms ' i dealised contempt' . 3 5 She suggests it i s i mp o rtant for fem i n i s m to claim and explore maternity fro m , on the one h a n d , scienti fic discourse and i ts obj ecti fying treatment o f the body, and on the other, Christian theology whi ch 'defines maternity only as

an

impossible elsewhere, a sacred

beyond, a spiritual tie with the ineffa ble godhead and transcen dence 's ultimate support - necessarily virgi n a l and committed to assumption . . . it establishes a sort of subj ect at the point where the subj ect and its speech split apart, fragment and vanish. Lay humanism took over the configuration o f that subj ect through the cu lt of the mother; tenderness, love and seat o f social conser

vatio n . ' 3 6 In addition to her analysis o f the cultural symbolism of motherhood, Kristeva also ma kes a n identification between poetic

impulses and a notion o f ' feminine' flux and changeability. 3 7 The

insta b i l ity o f poetic rhythms i s related to the flu i d i mpulses o f the sem iotic

chora

and its drives o r energies, a network of rhyth m i c

effects working w i t h i n and between t h e sign i fying p rocesses. The metaphoric alignment o f the

chora

and an equivocal, undecidable

conception o f ' the feminine' i s fac i l i tated by the

chora's

positioning

prior to the rupture o f entry i n to l a nguage ( a n d so i nto the symbo l i c ordering o f the Name o f the Father) . Kristeva states : 'The mother's body is therefore what medi ates the symbolic l a w organising s o c i a l relations and what becomes t h e ordering principle H of the semiotic chora . ' 3 An a ffirmation of the poetic, musicalisi ng, rhyth mical aspect o f language

thus

becomes

equivalent t o

an

a ffirm ation

o f the

feminine, facilitated by the cultural identification of the two aspects. Such a n a ffirmation may be cha racterised as a kind of

1 25

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR

jouissance

mediating between on the one hand schizophrenia (loss

of contro l , delirium, excess) and on the other h a n d l anguage as contro l , reason, com m u nicati o n . B u t this phase is appa rently

still

contextu a lised by a ' feminine' force which is negative. This is

jouissance, th is loss o f control becomes equivalent to a loss o f creativity and an a b andonment to madness. But, Kristeva argues, the con sta nt

because if ' the feminine' is equ ated wi th excess,

renewal

of the oscillation p revents this kind of determination an d

maintains it as a process . T h e pre-Oedipal

chora

remains as a force which p u n ctuates the

symbolic. Kristeva takes up the Kleinian characterisation of this force as m a ternal, the oralising pulsion regenerating through and across the p h a l l i c economy.

Oral isation (is) a reunion with the mother's body which is no lo nge r viewed as an engendering, hollow and vaginated, expelling and rejecting body, but rather as a vocalic one - throat, voice and breasts ; music, rhythm , prosody, paragrams and the prophetic parabo l a . -w What emerges from Kristeva ' s activation of the maternal metaphor is not merely a valorisation o f the ' feminine' side o f l a nguage, the poetic a n d rhythmic 'secondary' aspect, but a subtle aspect of the a l ignment of creativity a n d producti o n . In this sense the possibility of gesturing towards fem i n i s m ' s ' u n known' is m a de possible by the

metaphor

which,

Kristeva

writes,

creates

'a

surplus

of

meaning' which ' ma nages to open the surface o f signs towards the

u n representa ble' .40 By taking up the metaphoric potenti als of p regnancy and femi n i n i ty it seems Nietzsche i s able to e ffect a ' strategic p a rody o f sex u a l di fference . B u t such a p a rody is only possible on the basis o f the return o f those distinctions, al beit re thought. It is a dangerous move to see the strategic, textual freedom o f masks and changea b i l i ty as a freedo m fro m sexual d i fference . The space created apparently becomes an economy beyond conservatio n and l i mitation, a gift of the body which gives o f the associative qual ities o f sex u a l di fference to make them available i n a general economy. This move apparently frees men and

women

to appropri ate or

open

up strategies o f sexual

di fference i n a space o f interchange. B u t the space which is created is empty. It i s not even a space, but a n n i h i l ation, because i t seeks neutra lity. Nietzsche writes : 'if both p artners felt i mpel led by love to renounce themselves, we

126

'Ideal Selfishness ': Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity sh o uld then get - I do not know what; perhaps an empty space ? ' 4 1 To reintroduce sexual di fference into the space may seem to rein state the problem of di fferenti ally assigned values, and hence th e problem of priority. Is sexual di fference prior, or part of a mo re general economy ? The decidability of this question is, for Derrida, a dubious p roj ect to work towards - the choice between th e neutral i ty o f Being o r a biologically determined sexua l i ty is no choice at a l l , i f i t implies there is a teleological ' truth ' at the end to answer the question finally. However, this does not p revent the question

being

'voice d ' ,

as

Derrida

writes .

Neutral ising

the

questions may lead to the systematic reincorporation o f those voic es under the (closed ? ) umbrella o f p a triarch y . Putting a question to Derrida, Christie McDonald asks :

What seems to be at stake as you take up Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche is whether o r not sexual difference is ' a regional question i n a larger order which would subordin ate it fi rst to the domain of a general ontology, subsequently to that of a fundamental ontology and finally to the question of the truth (whose ? ) of being itsel f ' . You thereby q uestion 42 the status of the a rgument and at the same time the qustion itself. Derrida would not return a simple answer because to do so would, i n h i s term s, simply reinstate either a funda mental essen tialism o r a notion o f Being prior to sexuality. In p u tting binary differentiation i n to question, he must also p u t such an either/or solution

i n to

question .

Hence the employment

of ' feminine'

metaphors may be exploitation, or i t may open a general economy with radical i m p lications, but to decide this question would necessitate

returning

to

some

o f the

criteri a

o f truth

and

intentionality which have a l ready been made problematic i n the

course o f Derrid a ' s texts a n d within fem i n i s m . It seems ' t h e p h a s e o f revers a l ' 4 3 Derrida h a s referred t o may make a space for women to reflect o n the

implications

o f using

such metaphors. Derrida questions the w i l l to a ' p roper' body, a 'val ue of existence' attached to one figure a bove another, and adds a fu rther question as to the status o f a simple ' representative' model o f the metaphor. Can the metaphor be seen as the sole criterion o f exploitation o r freedom ? ' i s i t not d i fficult to recognise in the movement o f this term a ' representation of women ' ? Furthermore, I do not know if it is to a change in representation

th at we should trust the future' 44 The metaphor of m aternity

127

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR attempts to name that which seems unnameable, a nd yet in this very gesture is contained the danger o f its being i n corporated into the terms of representation it is attempting to question . But, as Damna

C.

Stanton

suggests,

the

dilemma

requires

constant

attention to p revent the silence o f the same. ' Fo r either we name a n d become entrapped in the structure of the already named, or else we do not name and remain trapped i n passivity, powerless ness and a perpetuation o f the same. ' 45 The constant re-thinking of the space of the body, while it dissolve di fference, displ aces it, and i t i s such a displacement which challenges phal locentri s m . The enactment of

cannot

the p rocess, a n active displ acement, may prove to be a n action not ful l y recuperable i n to phallocentric discourse. As p a rt o f such an action, the metaphor of m a ternity m a y not be reducible entirely to a relation of domin ance - 'being

' as ,

'Woman

as

mother' - but

may express an attempt to give ear to the potenti a l i ties o f other, surpnsmg vmces .

Notes 1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. R.J . Holli ngdale, Harmondsworth , Penguin, 1 9 77, p . 1 6 1 . Hencefo rth B G E 2 Plato, The Symposium, trans. Stanley Rosen, N e w Haven, Yale University Press, 1 9 6 8 3 'What I Owe the Ancients' Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, trans. R.J. Holli ngdale, Harmondsworth, Pengui n , 1 972, pp . 1 05-1 1 . Henceforth TI 4 Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for Everyone and No One, trans. R.J . Holli ngdale, Harmondsworth, Pengu in, 9 6 8 , p . 9 1 . Henceforth

TSZ

5 Daybreak, Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, trans. R .J . Holli ngdale, Cambridge University Press, p.223 6 The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York, Vintage, 1 974, p . 3 1 7, n . 9 3 . Henceforth GS 7 For example, see Eva Figes, Patriarchal A ttitudes, London, Vi rago, 1 9 7 8 , pp. 1 27-9 8 jacques Derrida, Spurs/Eperons, Nietzsche's Styles/Les Styles de Nietzsche, trans. Barbara Harlow, University of Chicago Press, 1 979, p.67 9 B GE, p . 1 3

128

'Ideal Selfishness ': Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity 10 Eric Blonde!, 'Nietzsche : Life as Metaphor', David B. Allison (ed. ) , The New Nietzsche, London, M I T Press, 1 9 8 5 , p . 1 62 1 1 'On Truth and Lie in an Ultra-Moral Sense', 1 8 73 12 B GE, p.23 1 1 3 Spurs, p.95 1 4 Domna C . Stanton ' D i fference on Trial : A Critique of the Maternal Metaphor i n Cixous, I rigaray and Kristeva ' , i n Nancy K. Miller (ed), The Poetics of Gender, Columbia University Press, 1 9 8 6 , p . 1 5 8 1 5 TI, p.40-1 16 ibid., p.23 17 GS, p . 1 6 7 1 8 Spurs, p . 5 7 1 9 GS, p . 1 3 7 2 0 BGE, p . 6 9 2 1 Betsey D r a i n e , 'Writing, Deconstruction and Other Unnatural Acts ' , Boundary 2, Spri ng/Fall 1 9 8 1 , vol . 9 no. 3/vol . 1 0, no. 1 , pp.425-3 7 22 TSZ, 'For the woman the man is only the means ; the end is always the child.' p . 9 1 2 3 'N ietzsche contra Wagner', The Portable Nietzsche, (ed.) Walter Kaufmann, New York, Viking, 1 954, p . 6 8 2-3 24 TI, p. 1 1 0 25 GS, p. 1 29 26 B GE, p. 1 6 1 2 7 TSZ, p. 1 8 1 2 8 Spurs, p . 77 29 ibid. 3 0 TSZ, p . 3 0 1 3 1 i b i d . , p. 244-7 3 2 Gayle L. Ormiston 'Traces of Derrid a ; Nietzsche's I mage of Wom a n ' , Philosophy Today, S um mer, 1 9 84, pp. 1 78-8 8 33 Principally taken up in the works of Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray and J u l i a Kristeva . 34 F o r example, Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H.M. Pashley, Harmondsworth, Pengu i n , 1 9 84 35 Julia Kristeva , 'Stabat Mater', trans. Leon S. Roudiez, in Tori! Moi (ed.), The Kristeva Reader, Oxford, Blackwel l , 1 9 8 6 , p . 1 6 1 3 6 ' Motherhood According to Giovanni Bel l i n i ' , trans. Thomas Gora, Alice J a rdine and Leon S . Roudiez, i n Leon S . Roudiez (ed . ) , Desire in Language, a Semiotic Approach to Literature and A rt, Oxford, Blackwell, 1 9 84, p.23 7 37 Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. Marga ret Waller, Col u m b i a University Press, 1 9 8 4, Henceforth RPL 3 8 RPL, p.27 3 9 ibid., p . 1 5 4 40 Histoires d'amour, Paris, Denoel, 1 9 8 3 , p.254, 344

129

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R 4 1 GS, p . 3 1 9 42 'Choreograph ies', Diacritics, no. 1 2 , 1 9 8 2 , p . 6 6 43 Derrida writes : ' I strongly and repeatedly insist on t h e necessi ty of the phase of reversal, which people have perhaps too swi ftly attempted to discredit . . . To neglect this phase of reversal is to forget that the structure of the opposition is one of conflict and subordination and this is to pass too swiftly . . . to a neutralisation which i n prac tice leaves thi ngs in their former state . ' Positions, trans. Alan Bass ' London, Athlone Press, 1 9 8 0 , pp.56-7 44 'Choreographies', p . 75 45 ' D i fference on Trial', p . 1 64

130

•

8

•

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man' ALAN D . SCHRIFT

I teach you the overman. Man is something th at must be overcome. What have you done to overcome h i m ? NIETZSCHE Does man really exist? To i magine, for an i nstant, what the world a n d thought and truth m i g h t be i f m a n did not exist is considered t o be merely indulging i n paradox. This is because we are so blinded by the recent manifestation of man that we can no longer remember a time - and i t is not so long ago - when the world, its order, and human beings existed, but man did not. It is easy to see why N ietzsche's thought should have had, and still has for us, such a disturbing power when it introduced i n t h e form of an i m m i nent event, the Promise-Th reat, t h e notion t h a t man would soon be no more - but would be replaced by the overman ; i n a philosophy of the Return, this meant that man had long since disappeared and would continue to disappear, and that our modern thought about man, our concern for him, our humanism, were all sleeping serenely over the threaten ing rumble of his non-existence. FOUCAULT The name of man being the name of that being who, throughout the history of metaphysics or of ontotheology - in other words, th roughout his entire h istory - has dreamed of full presence, the reassuring foun dation, the origin and the end o f play. DERRIDA

131

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR Approximately fi fteen years a fter the appearance

of Geo rg es and i m m edi ately follow i ng the of Hei degger's two-volume Nietzsche in 1 9 6 1 , a

Bataille's i n fluential publ ication

Sur Nietzsch e '

significant revival of i n terest in Nietzsche developed in Fre nc h circles. The next two decades were to be ma rked by a vir tu al

explosion of new approaches to Nietzsche i n terpretation. In 1 9 6 2 , G i l les Deleuze's Nietzsche et Ia philosophie 2 appeared. Two years l a ter,

an

i nternational colloquium on

Nietzsche was held at

Royaumont, 3 with such figures as Deleuze, Michel

Foucault,

Henri Birault, Jean Wahl, Gabriel Marcel, Jean Beaufret, and Karl Lowith in attendance. The next ten years saw books dea l i ng exclusively or primarily with Nietzsche by, among others, Jean Granier, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Klossowski, Jean-Michel Rey,

Bernard Pautrat, Pierre Boudot, Sarah Kofman, and Paul Valadier; 4 special issues on Nietzsche by some of France's leading j ourna ls, S and

a

second

major

addressing the theme

conference,

at

Cerisy-la-Salle

in

1 9 72,

'Nietzsche aujourd'hui. '

This p ro l i feration of Ni etzsche i n terp retatio n in the 1 9 60s and 1 9 70s exh i bits two of the basic trends o f a new generation of

French p h i losophers . First, these interpretations reflect the passage away from the p receding generati o n ' s p reoccupation with Hegel,

Husserl, and Heidegger. Although the 'three H ' s ' continue to exert a great i n fl uence on contemporary French p h i losophy, the problems which engage this new generation are framed by another i n fluential tri u mvirate : the ' masters o f suspicion ' - Nietzsche, Freud , and Marx. The second trend accompan ies the first: a move away from the metaphysical humanism which cha racterized, for example, S a rtre 's existenti alism, toward a new awareness o f the subj ect as a fu nction of di scourse within the space of i n terpretation. It is this second trend, the subj ect as a fu nction o f i n terpretati on rather than a privileged epistemological o r metaphysical starting poi nt, which I will examine in the fol lowing discussion o f Foucault's and Derri d a ' s readings o f Nietzsche. Both Foucault and Derrida refuse to view Nietzsche as a figure within the tradition of philosophical anth ropology and they refrain

fro m

viewing Nietzsche as a

forerunner of the existential ists. Instead, they focus o n , among other things, h i s critique o f the foundations o f metaphysical h u m a n i s m and his initiating a deconstruction o f the phil osophi cal anthropological subj ect. I n what follows, I shall examine their respective discussions o f Nietzsche and the 'end' o f ' m a n ' and will

1 32

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' attempt to show that their respective conclusions regarding the future o f ' m a n ' pick up on themes drawn from Nietzsche's critique of man, subj ectiv i ty, and authority. Moreover, I will a rgue that while their critical strategies appear on the su rface to diverge, this divergence belies a basic s i m i l arity i n their positions concerning the concept o f subj ectivity and the need for a criti que of authority. To begin , i t will be helpful to survey briefly the general in tellectual scene i n which Foucau lt's a n d Derri d a ' s readings o f Nietzsche fi r s t a ppeared. I n t h e e a r l y w o r k o f Michel Foucault, w e fi n d a typical enunciation o f t h e connection between Nietzsche and three basic themes o f contemporary French p h i losophy : the hermeneutics

of

suspici o n ;

Philosophical

Colloquium

the

reflectio n

on

the

nature

of

l a nguage ; and the end o f ' m an . ' At the Seventh International at

Royaumont

in

1 9 64,

Foucault

presented a paper entitled 'Ni etzsche, Freud, Marx . ' 6 In these

three thinkers, Fouca ult locates a p ro found change in the n a ture of the sign and the manner i n which signs i n general can be interpreted. This change, which Foucau l t views as breaking the ground for the modern epoch, 7 involves a transform ation fro m an empha s i s o n the rep resentative fu nction o f the sign toward a view of the sign as already a p a rt o f the activity o f interp retati o n . This is to say, signs are no longer v iewed as the reservoi r of some deep, hidden meaning; rather, they are su rface phenomena, linked to an inexhaustible

network

which

condemns

i nterpretati on

to

an

infinite tas k :

Interpretation c a n never be brought t o an e n d , simply beca use there is noth ing to interpret. There is nothing absolutely pri m a ry to interpret because, at bottom, everyth ing is al ready interpretatio n. Each sign is in itself not the th ing that p resents itsel f to interpretation, but the interpretation of other signs. 8 In Marx's talk of phenomena as 'hieroglyph s , ' Freud's view of the drea m as always al ready a n i n terpretation, a n d Nietzsche's theory of masks and the essenti a l incomp leteness o f the i n terpretive a ct, Foucau l t locates a movement away from the 'hegemony o f the sign' as a univocal relation between a signi fier and a signified towards the properly

hermeneutical

view o f the sign as al ways

already i n terpreted and i n terpreting. It i s i n this sense that the hermeneut must be suspicious, for the n aive view o f the sign a s a simple relation of signifier and signified o bscures rel ations of

133

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R domination

(Marx ) ,

neurotic

desire

( Freu d ) ,

and

( Nietzsche) .

decad en ce

This is the context in which Foucaul t issued h i s o ften quoted dictum

'hermeneutics and semiology are two ferocious

that

enemies . ' 9

What is not o ften mentioned in discussions of Foucault

is that, i n this context, it is the task o f hermeneutics which is a ffirmed a n d that of semiology which is criticized. I n the context of h i s remarks at Royaumont, Fouco u l t views ' semiology' as that investigation of signs which remains at the level of the structural transformations with i n l anguage and which asserts the ' a bsolute existence of sign s . ' To hermeneutics, on the other hand, he ass ig ns a l l i n q u iry into what these signs might signify , i . e . , their ' meaning, '

and i n so doing he subordinates the absolute exi stence of signs to

the i n fin i te task of interpretation. We need not, at this point, become embroiled in the controversies over if a n d when Foucault renounced h i s approval of the hermeneutic enterprise. All that is requ i red for our present p u rposes is to make explicit Nietzsche's inclusion,

with

Freud

and

Marx,

at

the

forefront

of

the

contemporary French scene. The next two themes, the reflectio n o n the nature o f language and the dissolution of m a n , a re both central motifs o f the struc turalist movement that became prominent in France concomitant with the renewed interest i n Nietzsche.

However,

these two

themes are not the exclusive concern of the structuralists : both are raised in Foucault's

The Order of Things,

a work in which he

explicitly refuses to accept the structuralist label. 1 0 I n t h i s text, Nietzsche is singled out as the p recursor of the twentieth century, the

episteme

of the

episteme

that erupted with the question of l anguage as 'an enigmatic multipl icity that must be mastered . ' 1 1 For Foucault, it was ' Nietzsche the philologist' who was 'the fi rst

to connect the philosophical task with a radical reflection upon l a nguage , ' 1 2 and in so far as the question o f the being o f language is

still

the

single

contemporary

most

episteme,

important

question

confronting

Fouca u l t traces the roots of this

the

episteme

back to Nietzsche. I n much the same way, Foucault discovers i n Nietzsche the first attempt at the dissolution o f m a n :

Perhaps we should see the first attempt at th is uprooting of Anth ropology to which, no doubt, contemporary thought is dedicated - i n the

1 34

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' Nietzschean experience : by means of a philological critique, by means o f a certai n form of biologism, Nietzsche rediscovered t h e point at which man and God belong to one another, at which the death of the second is sy nonymous with the disappea rance of the fi rst, and at which the promise of the superman signi fies fi rst and foremost the imminence of the death of 3 ma n . 1 In speaking of the disappearance or the death of man, Foucault

has someth ing quite specific i n

mind,

and it would not be

misleading to view ' m a n ' i n this context as something o f a technical ter m . ' M a n ' names for Fouca u l t that 'strange e mpi rico tra nscendental doublet,' the analysis o f whose ' actual experience' functions

at the

transcendental

levels

o f the

biological

and

historico-cultural conditions which make empirical knowledge possible.

'Man'

i s thus the

being who serves to center the

increasingly disorganized representations o f the classical episteme and who, as such, comes to be the privi leged obj ect o f philosophical anthropology. 1 4 The pass age q uoted a bove, relating Nietzsche to the uprooting o f anth ropology, fol lows by one page a

reference to Kant's formulation of anth ropology as the foundation

of philosophy. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant discussed the three questions w i th which human reason i s i n tereste d : What can I know ? Wh at must I do ? What am I permitted to hope ? 1 5 In h i s

Introduction to Logic,

we fi n d these three perenn i a l philosophical

questions referred to a fou rth : What i s m a n ? O f these fou r questions, K a n t remarks :

The first question is answered by Metaphysics, the second by Morals, the third by Religion, and the fou rth by Anthropology. I n reality, however a l l these m i g h t be reckoned u n d e r a nthropology, s i n c e the fi rst three questions refer to the last. 1 6 With i n this reckoning, Foucault locates the b i rth of the disci p l i n e of philosophical anthropology. 1 7 T h e references t o Nietzsche and t o Kant appeared i n a sectio n entitled ' T h e Anthropological Sleep , ' a n d i t i s clear t h a t Foucaul t sees t h e modern

episteme

being

awakened from its anthropological s l u m ber by Nietzsche i n much the same way as Kant saw h i mself awakened from h i s own dogmatic slumber by Hume. 1 8 Only by understanding Foucault's talk o f 'man' as designating a foundational concept o f Kantian anthropology can we make sense o f h i s saying that ' m a n i s a 9 recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries o ld . ' 1

135

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R While this foundational concept h a s been privi leged in the

d iscourse of the human sciences since Kant, Foucault foresees the end of m a n ' s reign as such a foundati o n . It i s the announcement of this end that he locates in Nietzsche's doctri ne of the overman, for the overman w i l l overcome n i h i l i s m only by overco m i n g h u m ani ty. This

point

is

crucial

for

understanding

Foucault's

situating

Nietzsche a t the begi n n i n g o f the end o f m a n . For Foucault, N ietzsche o ffers us a p h i losophy o f the future, a n d that future wi l l belong not to ma n but to the overm a n . Thus th e ove rman m akes h i s appearance in Nietzsche togethe r with the ' last m an : ' both are i n troduced for the first time in Zarathustra's ' Prologue. ' 20 Th is

last m a n i s l i terally the last o f man, and the overman i s here

i n terpreted as a compl etely di fferent 'species , ' as something no l onger- m a n . With th i s i n m i n d , we can understand the significance of Foucault's final reference to N ietzsche in

The Order of Things,

in w h i ch he couples Nietzsch e ' s death of God with the death of m a n . 2 1 Viewing Foucault's ' death of m a n ' in Nietzschean terminology , we find the death o f man to be the death o f the ' l ast m a n , ' the death of the m urderer of God. Foucau l t here reca l l s that in Thus Spoke Zarathustra ( 'The Ugliest Man ' ) , God is reported to have died of p i ty upon encountering the last m a n , and he writes :

Rather than the death of God - or, rather, in the wake of that death and in profound correlation with it - what Nietzsche's thought heralds is the end of his m urderer; it is the explosion of man's face in l aughter, and the retu rn of masks ; it is the scattering of the profound stream of time by which he felt h i mself carried along and whose pressure he suspected in the very being of things; it is the identity of the Return of the Same with the absolute dispersion of man. 22 This is to say, Nietzsche ' s announcement o f the di sappearance of m a n as the standard-bearer o f a n a l l-too-serious a n th ropocentrism i s applauded by Foucau l t for opening the post-modern one

that

henceforth

will

refrai n

fro m

viewing

episteme,

man

as

the

privi leged center of representational thinking and discourse. And with Nietzsche's dispersion of m a n , Fouca u l t locates a return of the

p roj ect of a u n i fication

of l anguage.

Foucault's arch aeological p roj ect in

The

conclusion of

The Order of Things

is thus

i n scribed within Nietzsch e ' s eternal recurrence of the same - what recurs i s the problem of l anguage as a m u l ti p l icity to be m astered.

136

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' Whereas the classical

episteme

h a d un ified l anguage around the

function o f representation, the m odern

episteme left

language as a

disorganized fun d to be util ized by the h u m a n subj ect for the p urposes o f meaningful expression. With the death o f th i s subj ect, the question o f the ' being' and ' u nity' o f l anguage is once again posed. The past two decades o f French p h i losophy can to a l a rge extent be viewed as an inquiry i nto the i m p l i cations for the 'human sciences ' o f the return o f this questi o n . L e t us now t u r n fro m Foucault's inscription o f the death o f m a n in t h e eterna l recurrence o f t h e question o f t h e b e i n g o f l anguage to the texts o f Jacques Derrida. In Derri d a ' s texts we find an u n canny consistency as rega rds Nietzsche's appearance. I n general, Derrida 'uses' Nietzsch e ' s texts as a paradigm o f undecid a b i l i ty that frustrates the logocentric longing to choose between one or the other alternative within some sort o f binary opposition . 23 A case in point i s Derrida's 1968 lecture, 'The Ends o f Man . ' At the conclusion o f this l ecture, Derrida bri ngs the undecidable logic of supplementarity to the two strategies that have appeared i n con nection with the deconstruction o f metaphysical h u m a n i s m . The fi r s t strategy p roceeds by m e a n s o f a return to t h e o r i g i n s o f the metaphysical tradition a n d u s e s t h e resources o f t h i s tradition against i tself. I n adopting this strategy, 'one risks ceaselessly confirming, consolidating, rel ieving

[releve]

a t an always more

certa in depth that which one allegedly deconstructs . ' 24 The second deconstructive strategy a ffirms a n absolute b r e a k wi t h tradition, seeking to cha nge ground i n a discontinuous and i rruptive fas h i o n . However, s u c h a strategy fai l s to recognize that one c a n n o t break

with the tradition while retaining its l a nguage. The inevitable consequence o f this bl indness to the powers o f language is a naive reinstatement o f a 'new' ground on the very site one sought to displace. According to Derrida, the first o f these styles o f deconstruction is that o f H e idegger, while the second i s the style that currently prevails in France. ( I might add that we have seen this second strategy i n our discussion o f Foucault's

The Order of Things. )

In

the application o f these deconstructive strategies t o Nietzsche a n d the ' e n d o f m a n , ' two very di fferent i n terpretations result. For Heidegger, Nietzsche emerges as the last great metaphysician, i n whose writi ngs the end o f m a n appears a s the culmination o f metaphysical

voluntari s m .

Overman,

137

as

p u re

will,

thus

for

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR Heidegger assumes the form of a metaphysical repeti tio n o f h u m a n i s m . For Foucault, Nietzsche emerges as the fi rst b reak fr o m the

modern

episteme,

and

the end

of m a n

appears

overman's laugh ter at the going-under of the last m a n .

in

th e

Derrida warns that w e m u s t refrain from choosing one strat egy rather than the other. The two strategies supplement one an ot h er ' and we are now at a point in h istory where there is no questio n o f

a s i mple choice between them. In other words, we must cho os e both at once, thereby effecting a change of ground while returning to the origins. To do so

is

to effect a change

of

style

in

p h i losophical writing. Derrida marks th i s chan ge o f style when he confronts Nietzsche's position on the 'end of m an . ' He finds Nietzsche's position equivocal - that is, there is m o re than one 'end of m a n ' in Nietzsche. To read Nietzsche's texts requ i res that we be p repared for multiple readings, and there are in fact ends of m a n : the end as

eschaton

and the end as

telos.

two

Nietzsche

confronts u s with this equivocal end of m a n at the conclusion of

Zarathustra,

where we find (the last) m a n meeti n g his end in the

choice between the higher m a n [ hoherer

[ Ubermensch] .

Mensch]

and the overman

This equivocation o n the end o f man points to

Derrida ' s own view of the u n decidable p l ace of the subj ect within p h i losophical discourse. Unlike Heidegger and the Foucault o f

Order of Things,

The

Derrida refuses to do away with the subj ect.

I nstead, he seeks to situate the subj ect. As he p uts i t - a d m ittedly i n a d i fferent context - 'I bel ieve that at a certai n level both of experience and o f phi losophical

and scientific discourse, one

cannot get along without the notion o f the subj ect. I t i s a question of knowing where it comes fro m and how i t functions . ' 2 5 To provide an answer to the question of the situation of the subj ect in deconstruction, I would suggest that we return to Nietzsche's text a n d examine h i s attempt to deconstruct h i s own subj ectivity as a n author. I n this Preface to the second edition of

Daybreak, N ietzsche remarks that ' i n the face of any authority, one is not allowed to think, [ i n stead] one has to - obey ! ' I n so far as the

author has come to occupy a position of authority within the tra ditional vi ew of i nterpretation, we should not be surprised to find in h i s affirmation of the activity of i n terpretatio n that Nietzsche expresses a n antipathy to any factor, including the author that tends to i n h i b i t this activity and l i m i t i ts p l a y . Throughout the two volu mes of

Human, All-too-Human, 138

Nietzsche cautions against

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' con fusi ng the work with i ts author. O nce the text has been writ ten, i t lives a l i fe o f i ts own, and by bringing the text i n to the

p ub lic domain the author reli n q u ishes all authority over what i t is to mean : 'When h i s book opens its mouth, the author must shut 6 h is . ' 2 Throughout h i s writings, Nietzsche continues to question the p ri vileged position o f the author within the sp ace o f interpretation and i n the third chapter o f Ecce Homo, entitled 'Why I Write S u ch Good Books,' he openly acknowledges and affirms the conse

quences o f the self-deconstruction o f h i s own l i terary auth o r ( i ty ) . In the opening sentence, Nietzsche separates himself from his texts : ' I am one t h i n g , my writi ngs are another. ' 27 From he re he proceeds to confront the question o f ' being undersood or

not

understood . ' I n the pages that follow we fi n d Nietzsche proudly procl aiming a n u m ber o f reasons for h i s writings' not being understood, reasons that reflect the problematic relation o f the author

to

his

text.

To

understand

Nietzsche's

writi ngs

as

Nietzsche understands them, one would have to be Nietzsche :

Ultimately, nobody c a n get more o u t of things, including books, than h e already knows . For what o n e l acks access t o from experience o n e will have no ear. Now, l e t us imagine an e x t r e m e case: that a book speaks of noth ing but events that lie altogether beyond the possibility o f any frequent or even rare experience - th at it is the first language for a new series of experiences. I n th at case, simply nothing will be heard, but there will be the acoustic illusion th at where nothing is heard, nothing is

there.28 Th is extreme position indicates that there are di fferent ways in which one's writi ngs a r e not u n derstood. Granted Nietzsche's perspectivism, no one could possibly understand h i s text as he does. Y e t s u c h a n understanding wo u l d n o t , in h i s v iew, e ve n be desi rable. One might reca l l here Zarathustra 's remark to his fol lowers :

An experimenting and questioning was my every move; - and veri ly, one must also learn to answer such q uestioning: That however - i s my taste : - not good, not bad, but my taste of which I am no longer ashamed and which I have no wish to hide. 'This - is my way, - where is yours ? ' thus I answered those w h o asked me 'the way . ' F o r the w a y , that does not exist. 29 Nietzsche does not l a ment the lack o f a n identical reproduction

139

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R of meaning in his readers. Instead, he takes pride in the fact that his contemporary readers ' l ack the ears' to hear what speaks within his text and he absolves himself of responsibil i ty for having

caught no fish with the bait his writings set out. 3 0 To be caught by

Nietzsche's fish hooks, to experience h i s writings in the a ffirmative sense, would result in the reader's being i n cited to act, to take action toward a tra nsvaluation o f values. This does not mean that one w i l l duplicate the Nietzschean transvaluation. Rather, having s u fficient style to respond to the call to tra nsvalue values, Nietzsche exten ds to his readers the creative freedom to bring their own perspectives to the task of transv a l u ation . We find in this discussion a transvalued sense of textual com m u n i cation. That is to say, co mmun ication is not the d i rect tra nsmission of meaning or truth between individuals or between text a n d reader. Rather, one communicates an attitude, a stance, a

style

that is

tra n s formed i n the process o f perspectival appropriation. As an author, Nietzsche thus rel inquishes his position o f authority in favor

of

a

performative

position

more

responses

concluding section of

on

conducive the

part

to of

p rovoking his

Beyond Good and Evil,

healthy

readers.

In

the

one finds Nietzsche

expressing a fear that his writi n gs are beco m i n g truth s . The reason fo r Nietzsche's concern is that the co mmunication of truth runs counter to his conception o f his function as a n author i n so far as all truths, including his own, if they a re accepted

as

truth s , can

only serve to inhibit the healthy response o f transvalu ation his writings seek to 'communicate . ' Nietzsch e's

self-deconstruction

of

his

own

authorial

authorita rian s u bj ectivity provides the link between his critique of the traditional view of interpretation and the critique of the phi losophical subj ect. In emphasizing the dynamic character of the i n terpretive process, Nietzsche rej ects the view of i n terpretation as a relationship between a subj ect and an obj ect. For Nietzsche, both 'subject' and 'object' are themselves a l ready i n terpretations, 3 1 and when he writes that 'one may not 3 i n terprets ? " > 2 it is only because such a

ask :

" who

question

then

a l ready

mislocates the process o f i n terpretation . Likewise, one may not ask 'what then is interp reted ? ' Interpretation is not grounded in either the subj ect or the o b j ect; it exists in the

between,

i n the

space that sepa rates them. With i n this space, s u b j ect and obj ect can

fu nction

only

as

l i m i ts,

and

1 40

the

attempt to

focus

the

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' interpretive p rocess in the d i rection of either w i l l serve only to obscure the dynamics of this p rocess a n d p u t an end to i ts p ro l i ferating p l a y . 3 3 W i t h t h i s question o f t h e ' i dentity' Nietzschean

text,

we

retu rn,

do

we

o f t h e auth o r o f t h e not,

to

the

essential

N i etzschean question raised by Fouca u l t : 'who is speaking ? ' 3 4 In the final sectio n o f my paper, I would like to sketch both Foucault's and Derri d a ' s response to this Nietzschean questi o n . Moreover, I w o u l d l i ke to suggest t h a t w h i l e they respond i n di fferent ways, their respective answers pick u p a thread a l ready woven into the Nietzschean text. Foucault raises h i s question on two occasions. I t appears first i n

The Order of Things

i n the

con text o f Foucault's crediting N ietzsche for opening u p l anguage as 'an enigmatic multiplici ty that must be mastered . ' Foucau l t writes :

For Nietzsche, it was not a matter of knowing what good and evil were i n themselves, b u t of w h o w a s b e i n g designated, or rather w h o was speaking when one said Agathos to designate oneself or Deilos to designate others. For it is there, i n the holder of the discourse and, more profoundly sti l l , i n the possessor of t h e word, that l anguage is gathered together in its enti rety . 35 How does Foucau l t respond to th is Nietzschean question o f 'who is speaking ? ' We can find a n outline o f Fouca ult's response p reviewed i n the following remark fro m Nietzsche ' s

Nachlass :

We see: an autho rity speaks - who speaks ? - One may forgive human pride i f it sought to make th is authority as high as possible in order to feel as little humil iated as possible under it. Therefo re - God s p eaks ! One needed God as an unconditional sanction, with no court of appeal, as a 'categorical imperator' - or, i f one believed in the a uthority of reason, one needed a metaphysic o f unity, by vi rtue of which this was logical. Now suppose that belief i n God has vanished : the question presents itsel f anew: 'who speaks ? ' - My answer, taken not from metaphysics but from animal physiology : the herd instinct speaks. It wants to be master: hence its 'thou shalt! ' - it will allow value to the i n dividual only from th e point of view of the whole, for the sake of the whole, it hates those who detach themselves - it turns the hatred of all individuals against the m . 3 6 We find in Nietzsche's remark that

authority

speaks, first the

authority of God and then the autho rity o f the herd. We have

141

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR a l ready seen that Foucault links the disappearance of man w it h the death of God. Nietzsche's overma n , who heralds the de mise o f God and the last/herd man, w i l l be subj ect to no authority an d, inasmuch as both divine and human subj ectivity function w i th in a

network of relations of power, authority and submission , th e overman w i l l not be a subj ect to a l l . Foucault links the subj ect and subj ecti o n . In an essay written not long before h i s death, he writes :

It is a form of power that makes individuals subjects . There are two meanings of the word subject: subj ect to someone else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self knowledge. Both meanings suggst a form of power which subj ugates and makes subject to . 37 The subj ect appears to Foucault as an ideological product, a function a l principle of d iscourse rather than its privileged orig in .

This is not to say that the subj ect is to be entirely abandoned, but that i ts authori ty may be deconstructed. I t i s a matter o f depriving the subj ect of i ts role as originator and analysing the subj ect as a variable and complex functio n of d iscourse a n d power :

We sho u l d suspend the typical questions: how does a free subject penetrate the density of things and endow them with meaning; how does it accomplish its design by animating the rules of discourse from with i n ? Rather, we sh ould ask: und e r what conditions a n d through wh a t forms can a n entity l i ke the subj ect appear in the order of discourse ; what position does it occupy ; what functions does it exhibit; and what rules does it fol l ow in each type of discourse ? 3 8 Foucault h e r e returns to a suggestio n h e m a d e fi v e y e a r s earlier at Royaumont.

In h i s concluding remarks on the o b l igation of

i n terpretation to i n terpret itself to i n fi nity, he notes :

. . . interpretation will be henceforth always interpretation by the 'who ? ' : o n e does n o t i n terpret w h a t there i s i n the signified, but o n e interprets, fundamentally, who has posed the interpretation. The origin [principe] of interpretation is nothing other than the interpreter, and th is i s perhaps the sense that Nietzsche gave to the word 'psychology . ' 39 However, to ask

'who

i n terprets ? ' or

' who

speaks ? ' i s not to

expect as an answer the name of a subj ect. Foucault makes this clear a t the conclusion o f his essay 'What i s a n Author ? ' when he claims that the question 'who is speaki ng ? ' must give way to the

1 42

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' question 'what d ifference does it make who is speaking ? ' Rather, the question 'who ? ' i s inscribed within 'psychology , ' u n derstood

Beyond Good and Evil as ' m o rp h ology doctrine of the development of the will to power. '40 It i s

by Nietzsche i n

and

the

the w i l l

t o power t h a t speaks and interprets, not a ' s u b j ect, ' and the question 'who ? ' calls for a genealogical i n q u i ry i n to the type of force ( l i fe-affirming o r l i fe-negating) that m a n i fests i tsel f i n speech or i n terpretation. The subj ect, Nietzsche tel l s us, i s itsel f an interpretation, a created entity, a ' s i m p l i fication with the obj ect of

defin i n g the fo rce that posits, invents, thinks . ' 4 1 Inasmuch as someth ing

i s defined for the p u rposes o f making i t m o re Nietzsche, l i ke Foucault, recogn izes the oppressive use

manageable,

which can be made o f the principle o f subj ectivity as a principle of domination. As Nietzsche m a kes clear, for example, in h i s tracing the genealogy o f ' free will' to the ' hangman's metaphysics' of Christianity, individuality a n d subj ecti v i ty can and h ave been used for the p u rposes o f subj ection to the will, law or authority of another. The overman wi l l not be, strictly speaking, a subj ect at all. He w i l l be a conglomeration o f forces, a n amalgam o f w i l l t o power. He w i l l not exercize authority, nor w i l l h e be appe al e d t o a s a n authority. Yet there i s another answer to the question 'who i s speaking ? ' , one that adopts a d ifferent strategy i n attacking the classical concept o f the subj ect, and this, I believe, i s the response o ffered by

Derrida.

Like

Foucault,

authoritarian d o m ination

Derrida

within

the

is

also

classical

sensitive

to

the

concept o f the

subj ect. B u t h i s strategy i n decentering the subj ect as a privi leged center o f discourse i s not as overtly pol itical as that of Foucault. Instead, he focuses h i s deconstructive critique o n And when Derrida, i n

Of G rammatology,

literary

authority.

deconstructs the writer

as a sovereign subj ect i n com m a n d o f the reserve within l anguage, or when he fractures the 'subj ect o f writing' i n his discussions o f Freud, a Nietzschean 'subj ect' emerges. The classical subj ect, as a privileged center, thus disappears within the system of relations wh i ch i s writing [ecriture] :

The 'subj ect' of writing does not exist if we mean by that some sovereign solitude o f the author. The subj ect of writing is a system of relations between strata : the Mystic Pad, the psyche, society , the world. 42 In dispersing the subj ect within a system o f textual relations,

1 43

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R Derrida adopts a Nietzschean s trategy of refusing to hypostasize the subj ect. For Nietzsche, the refusal i s grounded i n a p h i losophy o f will to power as active force within the i n fi n i te play o f becoming. For Derrida, t h e refusal i s grounded i n a theory o f textua l ity a n d t h e v i e w t h a t t h e person writing or reading i s always a l ready inscribed i n a textua l network t h a t cannot and w i l l not be domin ated absolutely. What l i n ks these two refusals is the emphasis on fl u i di ty o f relations, as b o t h Nietzsche and Derrida v i e w t h e classical concept of the subj ect as functioning i n a way w h i ch engenders separation a n d fixation. I n N ietzsche ' s case, i t i s the p l a y o f relations o f forces a n d t h e accumulation o f power w i t h i n this play t h a t i s blocked b y t h e hypostasization o f t h e subj ect : t h e concept o f the subj ect performs only a

preservative

function and to enhance one's

l i fe with i n the innocent, i n fi ni te p l a y o f becoming, one must refr a i n

fro m conceiving o f the subj ect as a static, enduring

su bstance.

In

Derrida's

case,

i t i s the relational

'system'

of

writing/pl a y that resists the classical notion o f a subj ectivity which functions as a center and l i m i t to this p l ay/writing. For Derrida, it i s Nietzsche who h a s pointed the way to a n a ffirmation o f the decentered

play

of writing that

d isrupts the

metaphysics

of

p resence which guides the logocentric tradition. Of Nietzsche's affirmation Derrida says that it i s :

the joyous a ffirmation of the p l a y of the world a n d o f t h e innocence o f becoming, t h e affirmation of a world o f signs without fault, without truth , and without o rigin which is offered to an active interpretation. This

affirmation then determines the noncenter otherwise than as loss of the center. And it plays without security, [surrendering] itsel f to genetic indetermination, to the seminal adventure of the trace. Derrida then provides the final

link which brings us to our

concl u si o n . Nietzsche's a ffirmation :

which is no l onger turned toward the origin, a ffirms play and tries to pass beyond man and humanism, the name of man being the name of that being who, throughout the h istory of metaphysics o r o f ontotheology - in other words, throughout his entire h istory - has dreamed o f ful l presence, the reassuring foundation, the origin and the end o f play. 43 Grammato logy, the 'science' o f writing, will not be a science of m a n . 'Man', the n a me bestowed o n the subj ect as center, as the ful l p resence of consciousness in being, must be decentered if there

1 44

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man ' is to be a logic of the

gramme -

' m a n ' must be deconstructed,

must be a l lowed to play. I n Derrida's call for play we can hear the echo o f Zarathustra's message to the h igher men in the fou rth

Thus Spoke Zarathustra,

book of

in which the recurrent theme is

the invitation to learn to dance and l a ugh :

You higher men, the worst about you is that all of you have not lea rned to dance as one must dance - dancing away over you rselves ! What does it matter that you are fai l u res ? How much is still possible ! So learn to laugh away over yourselves ! Lift up your hea rts, you good dancers, high, higher! And do not forget good laughter. This crown of him who laughs, th is rose-wreath crown : to you, my brothers, I throw th is crown. Laughter I have pronounced holy; you higher men, learn to laugh ! 44 The common appeal to a Nietzschean critique of a u thority suggests

that

the

di fferences

between

the

Foucauldian

and

Derridean proj ects may be best viewed in terms o f a di fference in regi onal appl ication rather than a fundamental distinction i n p h i losophical orientati o n . Yet we should not overlook an i m portant rheto rical di stinction rega rding their respective pro nouncements o n the future o f ' m an . ' This distinction turns on a d i fference between the l anguage o f 'ends ' and the language of

'closure . '

Whereas

Foucault

speaks

accompanying t h e bi rth o f a n e w

of the

episteme,

'end'

of

man

Derrida refuses t o

a d o p t t h i s apocalyptic tone, speaking instead o f t h e closure o f man w i t h i n t h e metaphysics o f p resence. This di fference i n tone itself bears on their respective readings o f the future o f man i n Nietzsch e. There a r e t w o ' me n ' whose future wi l l give w a y t o the overman - the last m a n and the h igher m a n - and while Foucault focuses on the former, Derrida appears to address the future o f the latter. Foucault thus speaks o f the 'end' o f the last man - the end o f the ph ilosophical

subj ect as

the

locus

o f subj ection

and

subj ugation - which will accompany the emergence o f the over m a n . Derrida, on the contrary, seems to indicate a closure of subj ectivity - the l i m i ts o f which can be m a rked by a 'certain l a ughter' 45 but from which absolute escape i s impossible. O n this point,

Derrida

may

perhaps

be acknowledging Zarathustra ' s

' dreadfu l ' real ization, i n ' T h e Convalescent ' , t h a t even t h e s mal lest m a n will recur etern a l l y . In l ight o f Zarath ustra 's own concession, Derrida refuses to speak o f an 'end' o f m a n . Nevertheless, man's future will be d i fferent as he escapes from the authoritarian

1 45

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R l i m i tations of a centered subj ectivity, j u s t as Nietzsche ' s h igher m a n w i l l be transformed when he learns to l augh a n d dance away over h i m s e l f. Before closing, however, I should add that Foucault himself moved away fro m the p rovocative rhetoric o f the ' end' o f man in h i s last work. Perhaps recognizing that he h a d beco me too caught up i n the structura l i s t proj ect o f the 'death o f the subj ect, '

Fouca u l t characterized the obj ective of h i s work over the last

twenty years a s an attempt 'to create a h i s tory o f the di fferent modes

by

which,

in

our

culture,

human

beings

a re

made

s u b j ects . ' 4 6 The 'subj ect' i s viewed here as a particu l a r form of individuation, one that i s a product o f the power relations instituted i n the modern Western state. Foucault thus defined his task i n 1 9 8 1 a s promoting 'new forms o f subj ectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been i mposed on us for several centuries . ' 4 7 Neither Foucault n o r Derrida can s ketch in great detail what this new being whose emergence they announce will look l i ke, any more than N ietzsche could give us a detailed acco u nt o f the being o f the over m a n . Yet i t i s i mportant to recognize that their critiques o f metap h ysi ca l h u m a n i s m do not resu l t i n a n anti-humanism . As Derrida

says

overco m i n g

with

respect

meaphysics,

oppositi o n a l

structure

to

the

'if the

are

form

themselves

Heideggerian

proj ect

of

o f opposition

and

the

metaphysical,

then

the

relation of metaphysics to its other can no longer be one of opposition . ' 4 8 Nietzsch e ' s , Derrida's and Foucault's rejection of the subj ect or man w i l l not take the form of a n anti-humanism, for both h um a n i s m a n d anti-humanism rem a i n within the same b i n a ry metaphysi cs a n d confront the same d i l e m m a s . I n appealing to Nietzsche a n d the end(s) o f ' ma n ' , Derrida and Foucault indicate means o f escape - o r temporary leave - fro m the closure of metap h y s i c a l h u m a n i s m by sketch ing a form of h u m a n being based

on

m u l tiplicity ,

play

and

d ifference,

rather

than

the

traditional h u m anistidl o gocentric values o f subj ectivity, conscious ness, a u to n o m y a n d s e l f- identity. I n so doing, they reveal both their indebtedness to N i etzsche's thinking a n d their p lace i n the h istory o f p h i losophy as two o f the ' p h ilosophers o f the future' to whom Nietzsche's writings were addressed.4 9

1 46

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man'

Notes 1 Georges Bataille, Sur Nietzsche, Paris, Gallimard, 1 945 2 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche et Ia philosophie, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1 9 6 2 ; English translation by Hugh Tomli nson, Nietzsche and Philosophy, New York, Columbia University Press, 1 9 8 3 3 The addresses a n d discussions at the colloqu ium , h e l d J u l y 4-8 , 1 964, were publ ished as Nietzsche: Cahiers du Royaumont, Ph ilosophie No. VI, Paris, E ditions de Minuit, 1 9 67 4 Jean Granier, La probleme de Ia Write dans Ia philosophie de Nietzsche, Paris, E ditions du Seuil, 1 9 6 6 ; Maurice Blanchot, L 'Entretien infini, Paris, Gallimard, 1 9 6 9 ; Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche et le Cercle Vicieux, Paris, Mercu re de France, 1 9 6 9 ( Klossowski also translated Heidegger's two-volume Nietzsche for publication by Gallimard in 1 9 7 1 ) ; Jean-M ichel Rey, L 'enjeu des signes. Lecture de Nietzsche, Paris, E ditions du Seuil, 1 97 1 ; Bernard Pautrat, Versions du solei/. Figures et systeme de Nietzsche, Paris, E ditions du Seuil, 1 9 7 1 ; Pierre Boudot, L 'ontologie de Nietzsche, Paris, Presses Universita i res de France, 1 9 7 1 ; Sarah Kofman, Nietzsche et Ia metaphore, Paris, Payot, 1 9 72 ; Paul Valadier, Nietzsche et Ia critique du christianisme, Paris, E ditions du Cerf, 1 974. 5 See, for example, Poetique, Vol . V, 1 9 7 1 on ' Rhetorique et philosophie' ; Revue Philosophique, No. 3 , 1 9 7 1 on 'Nietzsch e ' ; Critique, no.3 1 3 , 1 973 on ' Lectures d e Nietzsche'. 6 Reprinted in Nietzsche: Cahiers du Royaumont, pp. 1 8 3-20 0 ; English tra nsl ation by Alan D . Schrift forthcoming in Hermeneutics and Postmodern Theories of Interpretation, edition by Alan D. Sch rift and Gayle L. O rmiston, Albany, State Unviersity of New York Press. 7 A similar view is advanced by Paul Ricoeur. See Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, translated by Denis Savage, New Haven, Yale Un iversity Press, 1 9 70, p p . 3 2-3 5 ; see also 'The Critique of Religio n ' , translated by R. Bradley DeFord i n The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, edited by Charles E. Reagan and David Steward, Boston, Beacon Press, 1 97 8 , pp.2 1 3-222. 8 Michel Foucault, 'Nietzsche, Freud, Marx' i n Nietzsche: Cahiers du Royaumont, p . 1 8 9 . Unless otherwise noted, the translations from th is text as well as the other French and German texts cited are my own. 9 Foucault, 'Nietzsche, Freud, Marx,' p. 1 92 1 0 See, for example, the following remark which Foucault included in h i s foreword t o t h e English edition o f The Order of Things, N e w York, Random House, Inc., 1 9 7 3 , p.xiv : 'In France, certain h a l f-witted " commentators " persist in labelling me a " structuralist. " I have been unable to get it into their tiny minds that I have used none of the methods, concepts, or key terms that characterize structural a nalysi s . ' 1 1 Foucault, The Order o f Things, p . 3 05 147

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R 12 13 14 15 16

I b i d . , p . 3 05 I b i d . , p.342 I b i d . , pp.3 1 3-3 2 1 Immanuel Kant, Critique o f Pure Reason, A 8 04, B 8 3 2 f Immanuel Kant, Kant's Introduction t o Logic, translated by T . K . Abbott, New York, Philosophical Lbrary, 1 9 6 3 , p . 1 5 1 7 Heidegger ma kes a similar point when he discusses Kant's laying the foundation of metaphysics as philosophical anth ropology ; see M a rtin Hei degger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, translated by James S. Church i l l , Bloomi ngton, Indiana Un iversity Press, 1 9 62, pp . 2 1 3-2 1 5 1 8 See I m m a n uel Kant's Introduction t o the Prolegomena t o Any Future

Metaphysics.

1 9 Foucault, The Order of Things, p.xxi i i ; see also pp . 3 0 8 , 3 8 6-3 8 7 . Kant's Logic was first published in 1 8 0 0 . 20 ' T h e antithesis of t h e overman is the last man : I created h i m conjoi ntly with t h e former. ' Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berl i n , Walter de Gruyter, 1 6 7ff, Abt. VII, Bd. 1 : 4 [ 1 7 1 ] . 2 1 Gilles Deleuze makes a similar point, coupling the death o f God with the dissolution of the Self, in Difference et repetition, Paris, Presses Universitai res de France, 1 96 8 , pp . 8 1 ff. Deleuze there credits Klossowski for having first made th is connection in 'Nietzsche, le polytheisme et Ia parodie', repri nted in Un si funeste desir, Paris, Galli m a rd, 1 9 63 . 22 Foucault, The Order of Things, p . 3 8 5 23 I have discussed the similarities between Nietzsche's and Derrida's critiques of binary, oppositonal thinking el sewhere ; see ' Genealogy ancl/as Deconstruction: Nietzsche, Derrida and Foucault on Philosophy as Critique' in Postmodernism and Continental Philosophy, edited by Hugh J. Silverman and Donn Welton, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1 9 8 7 . 2 4 Jacques Derrida, Margins o f Philosophy, tra nslated b y A l a n Bass, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1 9 8 3 , p . 1 3 5 (transl ation altered) 25 Jacques Derrida, from the discussion following 'Structu re, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences' i n The Structuralist Controversy, edited by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 9 70, p . 2 7 1 26 Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions a n d Maxims, section 1 4 0 ; c f . section 1 5 7 ; MA, sections 1 9 7, 208 27 EH, 'Why I Write Such Good Books', section 1 28 Ibid. 29 ASZ I I I , ' O n the Spirit of Gravity', section 2 3 0 Cf. EH, ]GB, section 1 : 'From this moment fo rward all my writings are fish hooks: perhaps I understand how to fish as well as

1 48

Foucault and Derrida on Nietzsche and the End(s) of 'Man '

31 32 33

34

35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

anyone ? . . . If nothing was caught, I am not to blame. The fish were missing . . . ' Cf. WM, section 4 8 1 WM, section 5 5 6 Derrida recognizes this point when h e writes in Spurs that Nietzsche inaugu rates the 'epochal regime of quotation m arks which is to be enfo rced for every concept belonging to the system of philosophical decidability . ' Uacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles, translated by B a rbara Harlow, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1 97 8 , p . 1 07 . ) This regi me, which for Derrida disqualifies t h e hermeneutical proj ect o f deciphering the true sense of the text, frees reading from meaning, truth, being and presence. It also frees reading from the authority of the author and, i n so doing, opens the text to an infinite play of interpretation. I n Spurs, Derrida displays this epocha l regime i n his discussion of the forgotten umbrella, which I discuss at length elsewhere ; see Schrift, 'Reading Derrida Reading Heidegger Reading Nietzsche' i n Research on Phenomenology, Vol . XIV, 1 9 84, pp . 8 7- 1 1 9 . Foucault addresses this question i n The Order of Things, p . 3 05 ; see also the conclusion of 'What is a n Author ? ' i n Language, Counter Memory, Practice, translated by Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon, Ithaca, Cornell University press, 1 977, pp. 1 3 7-1 3 8 . Foucault, The Order o f Things, p . 3 05 WM, section 275 Michel Foucault, 'Why Study Power: The Question o f the Subj ect' i n Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Chicago, University o f Chicago Press, 1 9 8 1 , p . 2 1 2 Foucault, 'What i s a n Author ? ' , p . 1 3 7-1 3 8 Foucault, 'Nietzsche, Freud, Marx', pp. 1 9 1-92 ]GB, section 23 WM, section 5 5 6 Jacques Derrida, Writing a n d Difference, translated b y Alan Bass, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1 9 7 8 , pp.226-227 Ibid., p . 2 9 2 ASZ I V , ' O n t h e H igher Man', section 20 Cf. Derrida, Writing and Difference, pp.252-25 3 Foucault, 'Why Study Powe r : T h e Question o f t h e Subject', p . 2 0 8 Ibid., p.2 1 6 Derrida, Spurs, pp. 1 1 7-1 9 This paper was first presented in July, 1 9 84 at the Warwick Workshop i n Continental Philosophy. I would like to thank David Wood for inviting me to p a rticipate i n the worksho p ; I would also like to thank David Farrell Krell for his suggestions, both stylistic and substantive. ·

1 49

9

•

•

Nietzsche on the Edge of Town: Deleuze and Reflexivity HUGH

The top i c of this paper is particu l a r

the

TOMLINSON

Nietzsche and Philosophy1 -

v u l nerabil ity

of

Gilles

Deleuze's

and in

account

of

N ietzsche to reflexive attack. I t was, says Sarah Kofm a n , Gilles Deleuze who restored to Nietzsche the freedom o f the city of p h i losophy . 2 Nevertheless, it h a s p roved d i fficult to settle h im down to the sedentary l i fe within its gates . Just what ki nd of citizen is the Nietzsche that Deleuze i nvents for us ? How is Deleuze's ' recom mendation for citizenship' to be rea d ? T h e title o f Deleuze's book i mmediately d irects u s t o t h e central problem for p h i losophers reading N ietzsche : his relationship to p h ilosophy.

The

question

i s not the u s u a l

one o f 'what is

Nietzsch e ' s p h i l osophy ? ' but the more fundamental 'does i t make sense to speak of Nietzsche and p h ilosophy ? ' This is so for two reasons. First, Nietzsche's style does not fit easily i nto the tra ditional categories o f p h i losophical writing. As Paul de Man s ays, we are faced with the ' p a tent l i terariness o f texts that keep maki ng claims usually associ ated with p h ilosophy rather than l i terature ' .3 Secondly, and more i mportantly, N ietzsch e ' s work itself calls radically

into question the whole idea o f p h ilosophy as the

sovereign d iscourse o f truth . N ietzsche turns p h ilosophy back on itself and exposes and encourages its inevitable self-undermining. I t i s Nietzsche who p l aces the problem of reflexivity at the centre of p h i losophy. If his own views are taken seriously the p l ace and

1 50

Nietzsche on the Edge of Town: Deleuze and Reflexivity status of p h i losophy itsel f becomes deeply problematic. The p h ilosophical reader o f Nietzsche's work has two obvious hermeneutic strategies. The first involves the c l a i m that, despite himself, Nietzsche was a traditional p h i l osopher all along. The second, by contrast, involves a ccepting N ietzsche's own assess ment o f h i s relationship with p h i l osophy and, as a result, a ffirming and adopting the radical reflexive thrust o f h i s work. I w i l l call these the ' tradition a l ' a n d the ' reflexive' strategies. Although each strategy a l l ows undecidably many specific ' readings of N ietzsche ' , there a r e i mportant a n d fundamental d ifferences between t h e two . Those who adopt the first strategy seek a ' deep order' beneath the 'superficial i n consistencies ' of Nietzsche's texts. A ' Nietzschean system' is reco nstructed from the fragments o f h i s writings and placed a longside t h e wo r k o f th e ' great p h ilosophers' o f t h e traditi o n .

This

strategy

is

favoured

by

many

Anglo-Saxon

commentators.4 The second strategy involves showing that, what

ever 'truths' and ' fragments for a system' Nietzsche apparently advances, these are always 'taken away' elsewhere, exposed as temporary coagulations i n the flux of l anguage. This is the strategy o f Derrida a n d de M a n . 5 The paradox of Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche is that this

radical ' p hilosopher o f di fference' appears to be following the first, i . e . , the traditional, strategy. He does not concern h i ms e l f w i t h the dilemmas, twists and tu r n s o f ' reflexive' interpretatio n , b u t appears s i m p l y to assume t h a t Nietzsch e ' s w o r k contains a 'syste m ' , which he p roceeds to set out with u n a dorned directness. The first sentence o f the book tel l s u s that ' Nietzsche's most general proj ect is the introduction o f the concepts of sense and

v a l u e i n to p h ilosophy . ' 6 T h e s e n s e o f somethi n g i s dependent o n

t h e forces t h a t take possessi o n o f it. These a r e revealed t o interpretation as b e i n g o f t w o qualitatively di fferent types : active and reactive. Active forces are dominant and go to the l i m i t of what they can do. Reactive forces are dominated and seek to separate active forces from what they can do. The value of someth ing depends on the type o f will power i t expresses : will to power being the d i fferential element from which forces derive, ' the genealogical e l e m e n t w h i c h determines the relation of force with force and p roduces their q u a l ity' ? Two primordial qualities are ascribed to the will to power : a ffirmation a n d negation . These are

more p ro found than the qualities o f forces that derive from them : 8

1 51

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R they are i m mediate qualities of becoming itself. ' A ffirmation is n ot acti o n , but the power of becoming active, becoming active

personified. Negation is not simple reaction but a

reactive. ' 9

beco ming

The will to power makes active forces affirm th ei r d i fference from reactive fo rces ; ' i n them a ffirmation is pri mary , negation is only ever a consequence ' . 1 0 In contrast, reactive fo rce s begi n by being opposed to what they are not, ' i n them negation is

primary ' . 1 1 The formula o f the active, strong man, ' I am good,

therefore, you are evi l ' , is distinguished fro m that o f the weak,

reactive man, ' You are evi l , therefore I a m good . ' 1 2

According to Deleuze, Nietzsche's p h ilosophy is organised along the two great axes of fo rce and power. 1 3 The typol ogy of forces is seen as enabling Nietzsche to describe in deta i l the stages of human h istory as the h istory o f the tri umph o f reactive forces . 1 4

Post-history is reached when the a l l i a nce between reactive forces

and negatio n is broken and negation goes over to the side of a ffirmation and becomes active negatio n . 1 5 Active negation is the state of strong spirits which destroy the reactive in themselves, s u b mitting i t to the test o f the eternal retur n . 1 6 Th is is the point of 'transmutation' o f the 'transva l u a tion o f a l l values ' . T h i s , i n briefest outline, is Deleuze's acco u n t o f a Nietzschean syste m . At first sight i t appears to be a ' p h ilosophical syste m ' o f the traditional kind. But the crucia l reflexive question which Nietzsche himself has taught us cannot be avoided : what happens when this system is 'applied to itself ' , how can i t acco u n t for its own status ? In order to expand thi s question it is usefu l to consider Deleuze's own account o f the relationship between Nietzsche's 'thought' and traditional

p h ilosophy.

Deleuze's

Nietzsche

replaces

the

old

metaphysics, the philosophy o f being, with the p h ilosophy o f the wil l . Creation and j oy are the m a i n p rinciples of this p h ilosophy. These a re to be understood as critical principles : 'The typology of forces and the doctrine o f the will to power are i nsep arable, in turn,

fro m

a critique which

can

be

used

to

determine

the

genealogy o f values, their n o b i lity and baseness . ' 1 7 The overall

enterprise i s that of critique, for 'Phi losophy i s a t its most positive as critique, as a n enterprise o f demystification . ' 1 8 It sets out to expose all the mystifications, all the fictions which enable reactive 9 forces to prev a i l . 1 This i s because 'Nietzsche thinks that the idea o f critique i s identical to th a t o f philosophy . ' 2° Kant's critique was a false one because he saw it as ' a force which should be brought

1 52

Nietzsche on the Edge of Town: Deleuze and Reflexivity

to bear on all claims to knowledge and truth, but not on knowledge and truth themselves'.21 The point of Nietzsche's critique 'is not justification but a different way of feeling: another sensibility'.22 This new critique is an aggression against reactive forces and their philosophical embodiment, dialectics. Nietzsche sets up a new image of thought, which rej ects the field of truth in favour of that of sense and value.23 It is difficult to know what to do with this account of Nietzsche. Deleuze does not link this view of philosophy as radical critique to any account of the status of that critique and its positive products. Despite the 'aggression against traditional philosophy', Deleuze's Nietzsche seems to be engaged in the most traditional of philosophical projects : the unmasking of illusion. The old philosophy is attacked as insufficiently critical, for not referring us to 'the real forces that form thought'24 - as if the 'new thought' will be able to be 'more accurate'. Deleuze appears to ignore the reflexive self-awareness that is constitutive of Nietzsche's texts/5 while he uses the philosphical ruins it leaves behind to reconstruct, in Nietzsche's name, an old-fashioned philosophical system. Richard Rorty seems fully j ustified in describing Nietzsche and Philosophy as a work that takes seriously 'the metaphysical system-building side of Nietzsche' .26 It cannot be disputed that Deleuze sets out a 'Nietzschean system' . The question is: to what extent can it be described as 'metaphysical' or 'serious' ? There is little doubt that, if it is a 'serious metaphysical system', it is not a 'respectable' one. According to Rorty, it uses 'flexible definitions' that make it possible to 'say practically anything one likes and make it sound harshly inevitable'.27 As a result, he says, ' Deleuze dissolves everything into a mush of reactive forces in order to bring out their underlying nastiness. '2 8 Rorty does not object to what he calls 'the good work of dialectical su bversion' (what Deleuze calls 'critical aggression') but to the 'neologistic system building ex nihilo' .29 Deleuze is accused of having cut 'all argumentative links' with common sense and the philosophical tradition.30 This last obj ection is strangely reminiscent of attacks on Rorty's own work : cut yourself off from 'truth as correspondence to reality' and all 'cognitive controls' are lost. But Rorty's point is a different one. He does not obj ect to the Deleuzean-Nietzschean attack on 'truth' and 'reality'; to the fact that the enterprise is not 'controlled' by reference to reality ; rather, he obj ects to the fact that there is an enterprise at 1 53


all. It is not that Deleuze goes too far but that he does not go far enough . In Rorty's view, when the 'good work of dialectical subversion' has been properly carried through, all that can remain is the continuation of the conversation of our culture, 'edifying philosophy' . The construction of philosophical systems is part of the misconceived attempt to provide 'foundations' for the traditions within which we think. This brings us to the central question of philosophy after Nietzsche: is a 'positive philosophical enterprise' possible 'after reflexivity' ? To see the force of this question we can again look at Deleuze's Nietzsche. Vincent Descombes puts forward a number of criticisms of Deleuze in his book Modern French Philosophy.3 1 These are not directly reflexive in form but they once again direct attention to the status of the Nietzschean story as told by Deleuze. Descombes sees Deleuze trying to provide general criteria for differentiating between active and reactive, ' between that which originates from the Slave and that which originates from the Master'.32 More generally, the question is 'how can difference be reintroduced into a world menaced by indifference without going back on the lesson of the Copernican revolution that " we are giving the orders " ? >33 This is the general dilemma of perspectivism. Once it is accepted that the organisation of the world is not an external given, how can we ·a dopt a critical perspective ? From what vantage point can we criticize ? According to Descombes, Deleuze's key distinction is between 'difference' and 'opposition'. The Master begins from his own sovereign affirmation, the Slave from his negation of the Master. The Slave opposes the Master, but the Master differs from the Slave. Recognising that no criterion of differentiation can be external to all j udging, Deleuze attempts to provide one that is internal to j udging itself. The aporias of perspectivism are escaped by the self-validation of one particular perspective : that of the Master. But, Descombes argues, this will not work. The internal criterion of j udgment is manifestly inapplicable. From the perspective of the Master, negation is not negative but different, while from the perspective of the Slave, affirmation is an opposition.34 There is no 'external', third perspective from which Master and Slave can be compared. Organisation has not been introduced into an indifferent world. Furthermore, the whole project is, in Deleuze's own terms, a doubtful one. Who but the 1 54


Slave would wish to have a general criterion for distinguishing Master from Slave ? The very distinction between Master and Slave is a slavish one: such things are no concern of the Masters. The whole idea of a 'general semiology' and an 'ethics and ontology' seems to belong to the central tradition of Western metaphysics and, as such, to a Christian and reactive proj ect. In attacking the 'thought of the Slave', Deleuze's Nietzsche seems, unwittingly, to have reproduced it. The problem is not merely that Deleuze has produced a 'mushy' system but rather that to produce a system at all is to reproduce the thought of the Slave, to fall into the reflexive self-annihilation of nihilism. This can be seen from the notion of 'critique' which Deleuze uses to characterise Nietzsche's project. It is not simply that critique must be directed against 'truth' and 'knowledge' - it must also be directed against itself. For the notion of 'critique' lies at the heart of Western metaphysics : a critique is always in complicity with that which it criticises. As Lyotard says, the activity of critique is profoundly rational, profoundly consistent with the system. Profoundly reformist: the critic remains in the sphere of the criticized, he belongs to i t , he goes b e y o n d o n e term o f the p o s i t i o n b u t J u e s n t a l ter the position o f terms. 35 '

Deleuze is accused of having restored Nietzsche to the freedom of the city of philosophy in order to confine him there, of having presented a conformist, reactive Nietzsche, imprisoned by his own concepts. How would Deleuze deal with such an accusation ? How are such obj ections to be dealt with ? They must be approached indirectly. As Deleuze once said, 'Every time someone makes an objection to me, I want to say, " Okay, okay, let's go on to something else. Objections have never contributed anything. " '36 The space of objections is the sedentary space of negation. We must not simply move back and forth within it - although, as we shall see, there is no simple 'escape' from it. A first step on such an indirect approach to these reflexive criticisms is the later discussion of Nietzsche by Deleuze. This occurred at a 1 9 72 conference which brought together many leading Nietzsche scholars and which can be seen as one result of Deleuze's own earlier book. In this very different strategic context Deleuze takes what appears to be a very different approach to 1 55

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R

Nietzsche. He now stands not at the beginning of post-history bu t at the 'dawn of counterculture'.37 Whilst Marx and Freud aim to recodify the state and the family, Nietzsche ' assists in the attemp t at decodification . . . in an absolute sense, by expressing something that cannot be codified, confounding all codes'.3 8 Nietzsche's aphorisms must be understood in terms of a 'deterritorialisation'. Philosophy is essentially related to the machinery of codification, it is part of the history of sedentary peoples. Nietzsche's position is very different: I f Nietzsche does not belong to philosophy, i t is perhaps because he was the first to conceive o f another kind of discourse as counter philosophy. This discou rse is above all nomadic; its statements can be conceived as the products of a mobile war machine and not the utterances of rational administrative machinery whose phi losophers would be b ureaucrats of pure reason. 39

Deleuze's Nietzsche is now not a 'philosopher of sense and values'. He is not a philosopher at all. Deleuze describes him in the terms provided by his own work with Felix Guattari in the 1 970s, the so-called 'philosophy of desire'. Does this involve a fundamental change of approach ? Both Descombes and Rorty claim that it does not. They see the change as mere word-play, a simple change in terminology, expressing the same basic views.40 Deleuze's own riposte is simple: 'How pleasant it will be if people say : this time they've let us down, they've gone mad ! And if they say : it's always the same old story with them, better still. We are elsewhere.'41 But the account which Deleuze and Guattari give of this new terminology suggests a way of dealing with the ' reflexive objections' to the earlier account of Nietzsche. In Deleuze and Guattari's work the old dualisms of active and reactive, affirmative and negative, Master and Slave no longer play a central part. They have been replaced by a whole series of new dualisms : nomadic and sedentary, deterritorialisation and reterri torialisation, decoding and recoding, molecular and molar, rhizome and tree, and so on. How do these function in the later texts ? A common reaction is to say that all these dualisms are, in effect, the old dualism of 'good' and 'bad' under a series of weird and wonderful new names - the first term being good and the second bad. But none of these dualisms is used in such a straightforward way; rather they are woven into complex webs of interconnections. 1 56


A version of Deleuze and Guattari's 'method' is set out in

Rhizome, the Introduction to Thousand Plateaux.4 2 This account

uses the dualism of rhizome and tree. The image of the tree has dominated the whole of Western thought; its roots are always referred back to the unity of the trunk. When roots divide they always divide in two. Thus, 'binary logic is the spiritual unity of the root tree'.43 The rhizome, on the other hand, has no point of origin or aim. It has no central unifying principle, growing in all directions, and always 'growing from the middle'. A rhizome is heterogeneous, a multiplicity, it is flat; no idea of genetic axis or deep structure can be applied to it. It is a surface, a plateau on whose surface intensities are in a state of continuous variation. Each discussion, each set of operations with one or more dualism, forms a plateau - any point on the rhizome can be connected to any other point. But, once again, the reflexive objection can be put: is not this rhizome-tree dualism and all the other dualisms that proliferate on their plateaux simply another version of the binary logic of the tree ? Have Deleuze and Guattari not, once again, unwittingly reproduced, in the very act of attack, that which they are attacking ? In the later work this objection is dealt with in two ways. First, each side of the dualism is so bound up with the other as to call any simple dualism into question for, 'tree or root structures exist in rhizomes, but the converse is also true; a tree branch or root section can begin to burgeon into rhizomes'.44 Because 'there is no dualism, no ontological dualism or here and there, no axiological dualism of good and bad, no American style blend or synthesis. There are nodes of arborescence in rhizomes and rhizomatic shoots in roots. '45 Apparently simple dualisms always break down under sustained development into a series of complex overlapping and interconnecting terms. Each dualism is twisted, bent, and made to do new work. As Deleuze says, 'We go as far as possible in developing radical oppositions. '47 These descriptions of the multiple interrelations of apparently simple dualisms show that the straightforwardly Manichaean view of Deleuze and Guattari cannot be sustained. But this is, in itself, no answer to the reflexive objection. These accounts can, once again, be turned back upon themselves and subjected to an apparently remorseless 'binary logic' : either they are 'ordered representations' of some pre-existent reality, in which case they are aborescent 157

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R

attempts to re-territorialise desires, or they are not, in which case they appear to be simple fictions of no 'theoretical' interest. This brings us back to the central question of philosophy after Nietzsche: is a positive philosophical enterprise possible after re flexivity ? Deleuze and Guattari do not, contrary to first impressions, simply ignore this question. The few comments they make abo ut the status of their own enterprise indicate a reply that appears surprisingly close to that of Jacques Derrida. Like Derrida's radically undecidable, Janus-faced, 'non-concepts', Deleuze and Guattari 's dualisms and the descriptions that employ them have an explicit strategic function: W e invoke o n e dualism o n l y in order t o challenge another. W e employ a dualism of models only in o rder to arrive at a p rocess which would chal lenge all models. It is up to th e reader to have cerebral correctors which undo the dualisms that we have not wished to draw, but by which nevertheless we travel . It is up to the reader to a rrive at the magic formula which we all seek: PLURALISM MONISM, by passing through all the dualisms which are the enemy, the altogether necessary enemy, the fu rniture which we endlessly shift a round. 48 =

Dualisms cannot be abolished but they can be used strategically, to chal lenge other dualisms and to push in a certain direction, a direction that can - to use a phrase familiar to analytical philosophers - only be shown, not said. Th us, Deleuze and Guattari do, in this way, directly confront the problem of reflexivity. The question of the status of their own work is raised and turns out to be built into its very structure. Any dualism encompasses, in a certain way, all the others . This allows them to descri be their method as 'rhizomatic' - the rhizome-tree dualism apparently being set up as primary. Elsewhere, however, as in the 1972 discussion of Nietzsche, the decoding-recoding dualism appears to be the central one. Yet again, the most fundamental dualism seems to be that between the nomadic and the sedentary. These examples could be multiplied. This does not show that Deleuze and Guattari are simply confused and contradictory, but that their wildly poliferating dualisms are arranged in such a way that none can take final precedence, that each undoes all the others in its different developments . In summary, therefore, Deleuze and Guattari's 'theories' do not claim to be 'true' or 'accurate' representations of 'reality' . Nor do 1 58


they claim 'scientificity', for they 'no more recognise scientificity than . . . ideology'.49 Instead, the aim of all these strange construc tions is strategic: to push us in a certain direction, to connect up certain multiplicities until we catch on - or not, as the case may be. 50 The Deleuzean strategist aims to construct assemblages (agencements) that will connect up multiple elements, that will work in different ways. Every assemblage is always misleading always on its way to becoming fixed and ' recoded', to losing its force. Every assemblage also, in a certain way, exempli fies the overall strategy. As Deleuze says, 'to shout " long live the multiple" is not to make it, we must make the multiple' .5 1 All Deleuze's 'systems' can be regarded as temporary strategic constructions, as the transitory fortifications of an advancing nomadic war machine. They are, to use Lyotard's term, 'stories' or 'accounts' (recits) . 5 2 The different parts of the narrative are woven into the storyline in di fferent ways. Their relations are not 'logical' ones, although there are narrative consi'>tencies and narrative entailments. Such narratives are not to be simply judged or analysed but to be used. As Deleuze says, 'concepts are exactly like sounds, colours or images, they are intensities which either suit you or don't, which are accepted or aren't accepted'.53 Narratives cannot be 'refuted' or 'disproved' - if they are not accepted or do not work we pass on to something else. No narrative can take definitive precedence over any other - although different narratives can take precedence in different situations. A narrative is still a theory in the sense that it advances an 'explanation', but an explanation that can never claim to be final or definitive, an explanation that works by redescribing events so that they fit into a particular story put together for a particular practical purpose in a particular situation. So, according to Deleuze, 'A theory is exactly like a box of tools. It has nothing to do with the signifier. It must be useful. It must function. And not for itself. '54 Practice does not provide a criterion of truth but particular criteria are constructed to respond to particular practical situations . There is a new relationship between theory and practice. 'The relationships between theory and practice . . . are partial and fragmentary . . . . Practice is a set of relays from one theoretical point to another, and theory is a relay from one practice to another. '55 A narrative is a theory that does not claim general application . 'A theory does Pot totalise; it is multiplied, it 1 59


multiplies . '56 Thus, according to Deleuze, there 'is no gener al recipe. We have finished with all globalising concepts. Even concepts are . . . events. '57 And now I hestitate . . . I have been seeking to give you the narrative of all narratives. I have pretended to occupy a non existent place - 'outside' all the proliferating narratives I have pretended to describe. Reflexivity allows no escape of this kind. The only way out is to ignore it - and that in a certain way. By such ignoring it is hoped that you - and I - will catch on and perhaps arrive at the magic formula which the philosophers, from Nagarj una to Deleuze, have been seeking.5 8 Yet now, perhaps, something more can be said about the way in which Deleuze 'takes seriously' the systematic side of of Nietzsche. For Deleuze, a 'system' is an invention, an assemblage constructed from heterogeneous elements - elements that, in this case, are drawn from Nietzsche's texts . The aim is not textual fidelity, but the construction of an assemblage - an assemblage which combines with 'extra-textual practice' in productive ways. As Deleuze said in a discussion of his 1 9 72 Nietzsche paper, 'For me a text is only a little wheel in an extra-textual practice . . . . It's a matter of seeing what use a text is in the extra-textual practice which draws out the text. '59 De leuze constructs an assemblage with Nietzschean materials. This assemblage is taken seriously, yet with a seriousness that belongs not to the 'spirit of gravity' but to humour, for 'one cannot help but laugh when the codes are confounded' . 60 It is seriousness that emerges after the spirit of gravity is dispersed in a gale of Dionysian laughter. Far from being, in Rorty's phrase, overcome by nostalgia for the ' Grand Hotel Abgrund',6 1 Deleuze is rej ecting all ideas of abyssal ground or origin in favour of an undelimited proliferation of narratives. In contrast to Rorty's passive pragmatism, which has 'no more to offer than common sense . . . about knowledge and truth ',62 Deleuze is advancing, or rather practising, a constructive pragmatism . He begins where Rorty leaves off. The aim is not the urbane continuation of cultural conversation, but the exhilarating and dangerous task of post-modernity, ' the manufacture of materials to harness forces, to think the unthinkable'. 63 This does not involve a straightforward 'going beyond' philosophy. On the one hand, it is philosophy in the traditional sense.64 On the other, 1 60


it is something entirely different, an affirmative counter-philosophy, Platonism routed. It is between the two that Deleuze operates : the rhizome always grows from the middle. The 1962 book was called Nietzsche and Philosophy, 'the AND gives relations another direction and puts to flight both terms and wholes, on the line of flight which it actively creates' . 65 The model city of philosophy is under constant threat from the nomadic war machine, but the nomads never try to sack the city. Instead, its inhabitants constantly find themselves caught up in treacherous plots against the authorities. Deleuze has restored Nietzsche to that dangerous group of impostors, the counter thinkers who are neither philosophers nor non-philosophers. They are 'the ones who do not move and begin to nomadise in order to stay in the same place while escaping the codes' . 66 Excitement always happens on the edge of town.

Notes 1 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, transl ated Hugh Tomlinson, London ; The Athlone Press, 1 9 8 3 (hencefo rth NP) 2 Sarah Kofman, Nietzsche et Ia scene philosophique, Paris: Union Generale d ' Editions, 1 9 7 9 , p.7 3 Paul de Man, 'Action and Identity in Nietzsche', Yale French Studies, No.52, 1 9 75 , p . 1 6 4 See, for example, Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psy chologist, A ntichrist, Princeton ; Princeton University Press, 1 95 0 , 4th Edn 1 9 74 ; Richard Schacht, Nietzsche, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1 9 8 3 5 See J acques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles, translated Barbara Harlow, Ch icago : University o f Chicago Press, 1 97 9 ; Paul de Man,

6 7 8 9 10

A llegories of Reading: figural language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke and Proust, New Haven ; Yale University Press, 1 97 9 ; and see also Hilary Lawson, Reflexivity: the post-111 o dern predicament, London, Hutchinson, 1 9 8 5 and Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1 9 8 5 . NP, p. 1 NP, p.62 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche, Paris ; Presses Universitaires de Fra nce 1 9 6 5 , (hencefo rth, N), pp.24-25 NP p.54 N p.25 161

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WAR 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36

37

38 39 40 41

42

loc.cit. p.1 1 9 p.x p.139 pp. 70-7 1 and pp. 1 74-1 75 p.70 p.86 p . 1 06 loc.cit. NP p . 8 8 NP p.89 NP p.94 NP p . 1 04 NP p . 1 03 (my emphasis) See Lawson, op.cit., Chapter 2 Richard Rorty, 'Unsoundness in Perspective', Times Literary Supplement, June 1 7, 1 9 8 3 , p . 6 1 9 Ibid., p.620 Ibid., p . 6 1 9 Ibid., p.620 loc.cit. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1 9 8 0 Ibid., p.159 Ibid., p . 1 66 Ibid., pp. 1 64- 1 65 Jean-Francais Lyotard, Derive a partir de Marx et Freud, Paris, Union Generate d'Editions, 1 973 , p . 1 4 ; Driftworks, New York, Semiotext(e), 1 9 8 4, 13 (transl ation modified) Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues, Pari s ; Flammarion, 1 977, p.7 (henceforth D); Dialogues, translated Hugh Tom l inson and Barbara H abberj am, London, The Athlone Press, 1 9 8 7 Gilles Deleuze, ' Pensee Nomade', i n Nietzsche A ujourd'Hui?, Tome 1 , Paris; Union Generate d'Editions, 1 9 73 ; 'Nomad Thought' , i n The New Nietzsche, edited David B . Allison, New York, Delta, 1 9 77 (henceforth Nn, p . 1 42 NT p . l 4 3 NT p . 1 49 Descombes, op.cit, pp. 1 74-1 75 ; Rorty, op.cit, p . 6 1 9 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, R hizome: Introduction, Paris Minui t, 1 9 76 ; ' Rhizome', i n I & C, No . 8 , Spring 1 9 8 1 , (henceforth R ) , p . 6 7 . A slightly di fferent version of this text can be found as the Introduction to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Mille Plateaux, Paris, M i nuit, 1 98 0 ; Thousand Plateaux, translated Brian Massumi, London, The Athlone Press, forthcoming. see note 4 1

NP NP NP NP NP NP NP

1 62

Nietzsche on the Edge of Town: Deleuze and Reflexivity 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

R p.5 1 R p.60 R p.63 S e e The Anti- Oedipus, translated R . Hurley, M . Seem, and H . R . Lane, London, The Athlone Press, 1 9 8 5 Gilles Deleuze, Vincennes Seminar, 6 December 1 9 77 R p.64 (translation modified) R p . 65 See, generally, The Second of January Group, After Truth: a post modern manifesto, London, Inventions Press, 1 9 8 6 D p.23 See, generally, Jean-Francais Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition : A Report on Knowledge, translated Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Manchester, M anchester University Press, 1 9 8 6 D p. 1 0 ' Intellectuals and Power: a conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze', i n Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. D . F. Bouchard, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, p . 2 0 8 I b i d . , pp.205-206 Ibid., p.208 (transl ation modifed) D p . 1 73 See Second of January Group, op.cit, pp. 2 1 -3 1 Nietzsche aujourd'hui?, Vol 1 , (see note 3 7) , p . 1 8 6 N T p . 1 47 ; see also D p . 8 3 Rorty, op.cit., p.620 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Oxford, Basil B l ackwell, 1 9 8 0 , p . 1 76 Gilles Deleuze, Vincennes Seminar, 7 March 1 9 78 L 'A rc, No.49, Second Edition, 1 9 8 0, p . 9 9 D p.71 N T p . 1 49

1 63

•

10

•

Nietzsche and the Critique of Ursprungsphilosophie PETER DEWS

In a celebrated section of Gotzen-Dammerung, Nietzsche describes what he takes to have been the role of 'reason' in philosophy. Reaffirming an advocacy of 'historical philosophizing' (historisches Philosophieren) which has been central to his work ever since the opening paragraphs of Human, A ll-too-Human, he suggests that one of the most dangerous idiosyncrasies of philosophers has been 'to confuse the first and the last' : They pl ace that which comes at the end - unfortunately ! for it ought not to come at all ! - namely, the 'highest concepts ' , which means the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last smoke of a n evaporating reality, in the beginning, as the begi nning. This again is noth ing but their way of showing reverence : the higher may not grow out of the lower, may not have grown at all . . . That which is last, thinnest and emptiest is put fi rst as cause i n itself, as ens realissimum. 1

For Nietzsche, the role allotted to the I or ego (das Ich) in modern thought is the most obvious embodiment of this inversion . The ego recommends itself for such a role, because of our apparently immediate awareness of the contents of consciousness: 'To derive something unknown from something known alleviates, calms, gratifies and furthermore gives a feeling of power.'2 Yet this immediacy of self-knowledge is, for Nietzsche, an illusion, and consequently so are the unity and identity which the ego proj ects into things : 1 64

Nietzsche and the Critique of Ursprungsph ilosophie Formerly, alteration, change, any becoming at all, were taken as proof of mere appearance, as an indication that there must be something which led us astray. Today, conversely, p recisely in so fa r as the prejudice of reason fo rces us to posit un ity, identity, permanence, su bstance, cause, thinghood, being, we see ou rselves caught i n error, compelled i nto error. 3

Nietzsche's arguments against the 'philosophy of origins', and his connection of such philosophy with the coercive imposition of an identity whose model is that of the self-conscious subject, have had an important impact on contemporary intellectual life, particularly through the mediation of recent French thought. Yet Nietzsche's position is clearly not unproblematic. For the undermining of original identity, and consequently of any comprehensive conceptualization of reality, seems to depend either surreptitiously or explicitly - on an ontology of flux which is incompatible with the critical moti fs in Nietzsche's own thought. Thus, in the section of Gotzen-Diimmerung which we have been considering, Nietzsche suggests that even Heraclitus did inj ustice to the senses in so far as he considered them to be the purveyors of an illusion of stability and identity.4 Yet it can scarcely be denied that our experience of the empirical world is ch a racterised both by (relative) change and (relative) identity. It is not clear in what sense Nietzsche can appeal to an absolute priority of becoming, or insist upon the inherently falsifying and fetishizing function of concepts. These difficulties are no less prominent in the work of those recent French thinkers who have been influenced by Nietzsche, as can be seen from Foucault's essay on 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History'.5 Here Foucault seeks to give a condensed exposition of Nietzsche's critique of Ursprungsphilosophie, and to delineate his genealogical alternative. According to Foucault, Nietzsche fre quently employs the concept of 'origin ' ( Ursprung) in a stressed opposition to those of 'descent' (Herkunft) and 'emergence' (Entstehung) . The origin is the traditional goal of philosophers ; the pursuit of the origin consists in 'an attempt to capture the exact essence of things, their purest possibilities, and their care fully protected identities . . . ; this search assumes the existence of immobile forms that precede the external world of accident and succession.'6 Entstehung and Herkunft, by contrast, form the object not of a philosophical quest but of a new kind of history. The question of 'descent' is the question of the transmission and 1 65

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R

intermingling of racial and social characteristics, and of the body as the 'inscribed surface of events' / while 'emergence' must be understood in terms of the 'non-place' of opposition betw ee n forces which deprives the phenomenon of any single sour ce. 8 Th us, Nietzschean genealogy, in its concern for Herkunft an d Entstehung, shatters the identity of the subj ect and erases the uniqueness of the source. Genealogy, Foucault suggests, is opposed to 'the search for " origins " ' and to 'the meta-historical deployment of ideal significations' .9 Throughout this text, Foucault opposes the conflictuality, singularity and dispersion of the real events of history described by genealogy to the 'profound intentions and immutable necessities' of Ursprungphilosophie. Yet in describing the standpoint of genealogy he finds himself entangled in a contradiction that is similar to the one we have already encountered in Nietzsche. For, on the one hand, he argues that the aim of genealogy is to 'leave things undisturbed in their own dimension and intensity', 1 0 to respect the actual complexity and diversity of events. On the other hand, he argues that genealogy is directed against the ideal of 'apocalyptic objectivity ' : Nietzsche's version of historical sense i s explicit in irs perspective and acknowledges irs system of inj ustice . . . . Ir is nor given ro a discreet effacement before rhe obj ects i r observes and does nor submit itsel f ro thei r processes; nor does ir seek laws, since ir gives equal weight ro irs own sighr and ro irs obj ects. 1 1

Foucault does not attempt to reconcile these two accounts : genealogy is presented as being both 'gray, meticulous and patiently documentary', 1 2 and as being marked - like all inter pretations - by an element of the coercive and the arbitrary. The extent to which 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History' can be read as a methodological manifesto for Foucault's work of the 1 970s, rather than simply as an exposition of Nietzsche, is open to debate. However, even setting this question aside, it is clear that difficulties similar to those which emerge in that essay have characterised Foucault's thought ever since the beginning. Thus in his most explicit phase of methodological reflection, around the time of The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault describes himself as being committed to a 'pure description of the facts of discourse', despite the fact that his own theory of discursive form ations is explicitly directed against any phenomenological 1 66


conception of pure description. 1 3 The conclusion to The Archae ology of Knowledge is one of the few places in Foucault's work where this tension between obj ectivism and relativism is explicitly reflected upon. Here Foucault admits that the attempt to bypass any enquiry into the conditions of possibility of knowledge runs the risk of accusations of naivete ; he therefore tries - without notable success - to define a status for his historical description of discursive formations which would be neither that of science nor of philosophy. 1 4 Ultimately, however, FIJucault's sympathies lie with the scientific challenge to philosophical perspectives: 'if you recognize the right of empirical research, some fragment of history, to challenge the transcendental dimension, then you have ceded the main point'. 1 5 In similar forms, the difficulties which we have outlined in Foucault occur also in the other French thinkers of the 1 960s and 1 970s most directly influenced by Nietzsche. In Jean-Fran�ois Lyotard's Economie libidinale, the autonomy and priority of the concept and of consciousness is challenged from the standpoint of an ontology of force. However, the impossibility of justifying this ontology theoretically then leads to an aestheticization of philosophical discourse. But this aestheticization in turn requires some form of j ustification, and when the political consequences in terms of which the suspension of truth-claims was legitimated turn out not to be those which were anticipated, then the entire structure begins to collapse. By the time of Just Gaming ( 1 979), Lyotard has renounced his metaphysics of libido, and has admitted that 'it is not true that the quest for intensities or things of that kind can provide the substance of a politics, because there is the problem of inj ustice'. 1 6 There is one thinker within the field of post-structuralism, however, whose work does not fall victim to these difficulties. Although Jacques Derrida has been deeply influenced by Nietzsche, his primary training as a philosopher was within the tradition of Husserlian phenomenology, and as a consequence he has always retained a sense of the integrity of the transcendental perspective, and of its invulnerability to direct historicist or naturalistic inversions. One obvious testimony to this difference of outlook is Derrida's review of Foucault's Madness and Civilization , which challenges the coherence of Foucault's conception of an empirical history of reason. For Derrida, 'the internal and autonomous 1 67


analysis of the philosophical content of philosophical discourse' must take priority over any historical insertion. 1 7 We cannot write the history of reason until we know what reason is - and history alone can never tell us this, since in any historical investigation reason is presupposed. In consequence, Derrida concludes - with deliberate provocation - that the ' reduction to intraworldliness' of the hyperbolic cogito is itself potentially a form of totalitarian enclosure no less dangerous than those which Foucault attacks. 1 8 It should be noted that Derrida's objections are not aimed simply against direct attempts to invert the relation of priority between the essential and the factual. More generally, Derrida is opposed to any philosophical strategy intended to blur or weaken the line between the empirical and the transcendental realms. This opposition is clearly exemplified in Derrida's earliest major essay, his 'Introduction' to Husserl's posthumously published text on 'The Origin of Geometry' - an exploration of the problem of origins which had also intrigued Merleau-Ponty. Interestingly, Merleau-Ponty reads this late meditation by Husser! as one symptom of a shift away from Ursprungsphilosophie, as Nietzsche understands it: genetic phenomenology can be seen as an attempt not to place the ideal and immutable at the origin, but rather precisely to see how idealities - such as those of geometry emerge out of the flux and instability of the life world. 1 9 More generally, Merleau-Ponty perceives in Husserl's later work a renunciation of the view that transcendental reflection can function independently of all empirical investigation. He suggests that the later Husser! seems to admit that the philosopher could not possibly h ave i m mediate access to the universal by reflection alone - that he is in no position to do without anth ropological experience or to construct what constitutes the meaning of other experiences and civilizations by a purely i m aginative variation of h i s own experiences. 20

Merleau-Ponty is not, of course, advocating the elimination of the transcendental perspective. But he is challenging its self-sufficiency, and suggesting that such a challenge emerges by virtue of the internal dynamic of Husserl's phenomenology itself. However, in his 'Introduction' to 'The Origin of Geometry', Derrida is explicitly hostile to this softening of the distinction between transcendental and empirical enquiry. For Derrida, to 1 68


admit that empirical facts could have any status other than that of examples for the procedure of imaginative variation 'contradicts the very premiss of phenomenology', which is that 'essential insight de jure precedes every material historical investigation, and has no need of facts as such to reveal to the historian the a priori sense of his activity and objects'.21 In general, Derrida opposes Merleau-Ponty's thesis of a historicization of phenomenology, which argues that, to the very extent that Husserl in his later work makes history an explicit object of enquiry, his phenomenology is able to liberate itself from history, rather than being unwittingly subject to it. Derrida writes : 'We could then be tempted by an interpretation diametrically opposed to that of Merleau-Ponty, and maintain that Husserl, far from opening the phenomenological parentheses to historical factuality under all its forms, leaves history more than ever outside them. '22 Derrida's resistance to the dilution of the transcendental perspective cannot help but raise questions about his own attitude to the philosophy of origins. For, if Derrida defends the primacy of transcendental enquiry, he must surely also be committed to the derivative status of the empirical. And yet one of the most prominent and influential of Derrida's themes has been the criticism of all philosophical conceptions of origin. It is precisely the absence of origin - or of a telos, its mirror-image or counterpart - which blocks the possibility of interpretive closure and opens up the dissemination of the text. Thus Derrida's strategy must take the form of an internal dismantling of the transcendental perspective, which prevents it from performing its founding or originating role, without lapsing into what he would consider to be the incoherence of a prioritization, or even equalization, of empirical enquiry. In order to clarify what is at stake here, it may be useful to refer to an earlier episode in the history of philosophy, in which the status of transcendental philosophy was similarly at issue: the clash between Fichte and Schelling, perhaps the crucial episode in the development of German Idealism. The parallel suggests itself, because the difficulties which Schelling confronted in his attempt to move beyond what he considered to be Fichte's subjective idealism are close to those which Derrida confronts in his effort to transcend the phenomenology of Husserl . In both cases what is 1 69

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R

confronted is a conception of philosophy as 'systematic self investigation '23 as the reflexive explication of the structure of consciousness. In· Husser!, it is true, this explication is eidetic and descriptive, whereas in Fichte it is dialectical-deductive. Yet what is common to both is the conviction that a standpoint has been attained which cannot be gone beyond: there can be no other knowledge more fundamental than self-knowledge, since in all other knowledge the self is presupposed. Thus, in the 1 794 Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte opposes 'the concept of an existent that is supposed, from a certain viewpoint, to subsist independently of presentation' on the grounds that 'whatever we may think, we are that which thinks therein, and hence . . . nothing could ever come to exist independently of us, for everything is necessarily related to our thinking'. 24 Similarly, in the Cartesian Meditations, Husser! argues that Every imaginable sense, every i m aginable being, whether the l a tter is called imm anent or transcendent, fa lls within the domain of transcen dental subj ectivity, as the subjectivity which constitutes sense and being. The attempt to conceive the un iverse of true being as something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely extern a l l y b y a rigid l a w , is nonsensica1 . 25

Such positions appear, at' first sight, to be impregnable. Yet, in his divergence from Fichte, Schelling focuses on one crucial weakness. Transcendental idealism claims to have found an absolute starting point, yet any self-consciousness contains a duality of subj ect and obj ect, even though the obj ect here is merely the subj ect reflected upon by itself. Yet every object is conditioned by its relation to a subj ect, j ust as every subj ect is conditioned by its relation to an obj ect, so that neither taken alone, nor the two their relation, can constitute the absolute standpoint that is claimed. Schelling had already developed this argument clearly in his early ( 1 79 5 ) essay, 'Yom Ich als Princip der Philosophie Oberhaupt' : Si nce the subj ect is thinkable only in regard to an obj ect, and the obj ect only in regard to a subj ect, neither of them can contain the unconditional because both are conditioned reciproca lly, both are equally unserviceable. Fu rthermore, i n order to determine the relationship o f the two, an ulterior reason fo r the determin ation must be presupposed, owing to which both

1 70

Nietzsche and the Critique of Ursprungsphilosophie are determined. obj ect, because and vice versa, unconditional a by a subj ect. 2 6

For one cannot say that the subj ect alone determines the the subj ect is only conceivable in relation to the obj ect, and it would amount to the same i f I were to treat as subj ect determined by an object or an obj ect determined

In this essay, Schelling resolves the d i fficulty by distingui shi ng between t h e subj ect and what he terms th e ' absolute I ' , w h i ch is beyond the subj ect-obj ect rel ation. Eventu a l ly, however, he comes to appreciate that what i s beyond this relation can be cha racterized neither i n obj ective nor i n subj ective terms, but is rather i n a state of ' a bsolute i n d i fference'

(absolute Indifferenz)

with regard to all determinations. From the new standpoi n t of Schel l i ng's

Identitatsphilosophie,

Fichte's i n s i s tence on the pri

macy o f the evidence o f reflectio n , h i s assertion that 'one cannot begin fro m a being . . . but must begin from a seeing' 27 simply confirms the l i m itations o f h i s p h ilosophy, since the metaphor of vision i m p l i es the d u a l i ty of viewer and viewed. I n h i s rep l y to Fichte, Schel l i n g a rgues that 'The necessity o f beginning fro m seeing keeps y o u a n d y o u r phil osophy locked w i t h i n a thoroughly co nditioned sequence. ' 2 8 He p o i nt s out th a t

Either y o u m u s t never move outside seeing, as y o u express i t , and this means outside subj ectivity, and every I, as you say at one point i n the Wissenschaftslehre, must be and rema i n the absolute substance, or, i f you go out to an unconceptu alizable real ground, then the whole reference back to subj ectivity is only valid in a prel iminary sense. 19 It is d i fficult to overlook the parallels between Schell i ng's arguent a n d Derri d a ' s critique o f Husser!. Derrida, a s we have seen, resists any extern a l i s t reduction - o r even q u a l i fication of

transcendental

consciousness.

Rather,

he

focuses

on

the

d i screpancy between the claim o f the i m medi acy of the relation of phenomenological self-presence, and the necessarily conditioned nature of any such relation. Like Schel l i ng, Derrida i nsi sts on the derivative status o f, and attempts to cli m b beyond, the classical oppositions of philosop h y : ' S u b j ectivity - l ike obj ectivity - is a n effect of

dif(erance,

a n effect inscribed i n a system o f

dif(erance.'30

I t could be replied, o f course, t h a t such a co mparison is super ficia l . Schel ling transcends the subj ect-o bj ect relation towards a bsol ute identity, a point o f ultim ate closure and security, whereas Derri d a ' s

differance

i m p l ies perpetu a l deferral o f any s uch point.

1 71

WOMEN, MEN A ND MA CHINES OF WA R Yet even this obj ection is not as convincing as may at first appea r. Firstly, because a

differance

w h i ch is prior to all determinate

di fferences col l apses in to a bsol ute identity : noted long ago, ' a bare concept o f

as Franc;ois Wahl

differance

is a contradiction,

s i n ce d i fference has to be speci fied ' . 3 1 And secondly, because it fo llows

from

Schel l ing's

argument

that

the

absol ute

cannot

become a n obj ect o f consciousness, cannot be made present any more than

differance.

I t is therefore not s u rprising that Schel l i ng's

thought - l i ke that of Derrida - is accompanied by an incessant reflection o n its own con ditions o f meani ngfu l ness . The restless character o f the work of both Derrida and Schel ling can be seen not as a m a n i festation of i nconsistency, but rather a s a logical consequence o f their point of depa rture : it is only through the repeated development, and the repeated co l l apse, o f philosophical terminologies a n d strategies that someth i n g o f the n a ture of philosophy's ' i mpossible' obj ect can be o b l i q uely indicated . 3 2 I f there is any plausibility in this parallel between Derrida and Schel l i ng, then the status of Derri d a ' s attack on the concept of origin clearly needs to be reassessed. Derri d a shows the impossi b i l ity o f an origin, in the sense o f a n epistemological ground which could be made present. But he cannot be s a i d to have a b a n doned the concept of origin, i f we understand by 'origi n ' the uncon ditioned sou rce of the con ditioned structures o f experience. This di stinction is drawn by Derrida h i m s l f in many of hi s statements concerning

dif{erance

and the trace . Th us, in

Of Grammatology,

Derrida wri tes : 'There cannot be a science of di fferance itself in its operation, a s it is impossible to have a science o f the origin of presence itself, that is to say o f a certa in nonorigi n . ' ·3 3 And a l i ttle l a ter in the same chapter he remarks :

The trace is in fact the absolute origin of sense in general. Which amounts to saying once again th at there is no absolute origin of sense in general. The trace is the differance which opens appearance and signification. Articulating the living upon the non-living in general , origin of all repetition, origin of ideality, the trace is not more ideal than rea l, not more intel ligible th an sensible, not more a transparent signi fication th an an opaque energy, and no concept of metaphysics can describe it. 34 Derrida

h i m se l f

has

elsewhere

stressed

that

'neither/nor'

is

differance

to

s i m u ltaneously 'either/or> 3 5 , so that, i n the l i ght o f such passages, it is d i fficult to deny the prox i m i ty of Derri d a ' s Schel ling's

absolute Indifferenz. 1 72

Nietzsche and the Critique of Ursprungsphilosophie It seems that Derrida h a s avoided the contradictions of a reduc tive critique o f

Ursprungsphilosophie

at the cost o f reinstating the

position which the critique w a s di rected against. Noth ing co uld be 'thinner' and 'emptier', to employ Nietzsche ' s terms, than the

differance

which Derrida makes responsible, not s i m p ly fo r the

semantic instability o f the text, but fo r the movement o f the world and o f hi story in genera l . The defence which is frequently made of Derrida at this point, that he is engaged i n some form o f parody of the phi losophy o f origins, is sca rcely adequate. For if Derrida did not become involved i n a certa in argumentative stra tegy against transcendental phi losophy, he would have no need o f concepts of pa rody

and

of

sous rature

the

in

order

to

w a rd

o ff the

implications o f h i s own positi o n . The inherent d i fficulties o f this strategy

were

Christopher

perceptively

Macann,

in

pinpointed

an

article

at

an

whose

early

date

by

phenomenological

standpoint produces a n intriguing convergence with Nietzsche : ' Does Derri d a ' s concept o f " trace " or

" differance"

represent a

tran scendental critique of Husserl 's transcendental analysis ? ' I t may s ee m so at first.

And yet th is retu r n to an original principle, unlike Husserl 's descriptions of the Umwelt or the Lebenswelt, seems to take us away from concrete structu res of experience and to involve us in abstractions more abstruse than those of Husserl's transcendental analysis. Is the concept of the trace a rrived at by a kind of reduction of the transcendental reduction to one single constitutive principle ? But then, how can a principle attained excl usively through phi losophical reflection be ascribed to consciousness as the condition of its realization ? 36 In fact, this is precisely the response which Fi chte makes to Schel ling when he suggests that the latter's absolute identity i s purely negative and fo r m a l . 3 7 Having reached this point, it seems legiti mate to ask whether there i s any sense in which Nietzsche's critique o f

Ursprungsphilosophie

can be reta ined as a strength of contemporary thought, given the d i fficulties o f both a n extern a l i s t reduction o f the standpoint of consciousness,

and

of

Derri d a ' s

attempts

to

transcend

that

standpoint. I would a rgue that a positive a nswer to this question can be found in the work of Adorno, a thinker who plays o ff Nietzsche's in sights against th ose of the d i a l ectical tradition, in

1 73

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R p a rticu l a r

in

his

critique

of

Husserl ' s

Metakritik der Erkenntnistheorie. 3 8

phenomeno logy -

Zur

The signi ficance of Adorno ' s position can perh aps best be

brought out through a contrast with Derri d a ' s assumption that the oppositions of metaphysics have always been thought with i n the horizon o f their own overco m i n g ; the d u a l i ty of signifier and signi fied,

fo r

example,

with i n

the

horizon

of

an

ul t im ate

unmedi ated presence of meaning. Derrida draws the following conclusion : 'The

paradox

i s that the metaphysical reduction o f the

sign needed the opposition it was reducing. The opposition is systematic with the reductio n . ' 3 9 Yet, the secon d statement by no means fol l ows from the first, unless one confuses a

essential

an

historical

with

rel ation. For it could equally well be a rgued that

d u a l ity h a s posed the most persistent problem a n d the most persistent block to proj ects of ' metaphysical reducti o n ' . I t is in this sense that Adorno appropriates the Nietzschean emphasis on the non-origi n a l i ty o f conceptuality and consciousness :

The quali fication of the absolutely first in subj ective i m manence founders because imm anence can never completely disentangle the moment of non identity within itself, and because subj ectivity, the organ o f reflection, clashes with the idea of an absolutely fi rst as pure i m medi acy . 40 Adorno should not be taken to m e a n , o f course, that subj ectivity as currently experienced and p h i losophically construed provi des a b a rrier against the delusion of origins. Rather, h i s argument i s that the suppression of non-identity, the collapsing o f subj ectivity i nto pure

self-presence,

compulsive

against

features

of

which

this

Derrida

suppression,

p rotests, which

and

other

the post

structura list thinkers have highlighted, a re the expression o f a h istorically and soci a l l y determined drive for control . It i s for this reason that i t i s i n s u fficient to oppose to identita rian principles an ' a b stract asservation o f polarity ' . 4 1 Against even the reduction o f d u a l i ty, Adorno takes up t h e l e s s o n o f Nietzsche's thought that the p h i l osophy o f origins can only be dissolved, a n d the non self s u fficiency

of

the

s u bject

d i a lectic of concrete

acknowledged,

experience.

Yet he

in

the

open-ended

moves beyond

both

Nietzsche and his more recent French fol lowers i n suggesti ng that the general poss i b i l i ty of such experience i s a political question : the

question

of

the

practical

domination .

1 74

overco m i n g

of

a

redundant


Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20

21 22 23 24

25 26

27

GD, GD, GD, GD,

' Reason in Philosophy ', para. 4 'The Fou r Great Errors ', para. 5 ' Reason in Philosophy', para. 5 ' Reason in Philosophy ', para. 2 Michel Foucault, 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History', in Donald F. Bouchard, ed., Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Oxford, Bl ackwel l , 1 9 77, pp. l 3 9- 1 64 I b i d . , p. 1 4 2 Ibid . , p. 1 4 8 Ibid., p.150 I b i d . , p. 140 I b i d . , p. 1 5 4 Ibid., p . 1 5 7 Ibid . , p . l 3 9 See Michel Foucault, ' Reponse au Cercle d'epistemologie', i n Cahiers pour /'Analyse, 9, Summer 1 9 6 8 , pp. 9-40 See Michel Foucault, The A rchaeology of Knowledge, London, Tavistock, 1 9 72, pp. 205-2 0 8 Ibid . , p. 203 Jean- Franc;ois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Au .Juste, Paris, C h r i s t i a n Bou rgo i s , 1 979, pp. 1 70- 1 7 1 Jacques Derrida, ' Cogito and the Hi story o f Madness ', in Writing and Difference, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1 9 7 8 , p.44 Ibid., p . 5 7 F o r Merleau-Ponty's i nterpretation of t h e l ater Husserl, s e e ' L a Philosophe et s o n Ombre' , in Etoge de Ia Philosophie, Paris, Gallimard, 1 9 60, pp.24 1 -2 8 7 Mau rice Merleau- Ponty, 'The Philosopher a n d Sociology', in John O'Neill, ed., Phenomenology, Language and Sociology, London, Heineman Educational, 1 974, p. 1 04 J acques Derrida, Edmund Husser/'s Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, Stony Brook, N e w York, Ha rvester, 1 9 7 8 , p. 1 1 2 Ibid., p. 1 1 6 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, The Hague, Ma rti nus Nijhoff, 1 9 73 , p . 8 3 J . G . Fichte, 'Second I ntroduction t o the Science of Knowledge', i n Peter Heath a n d John Lachs, eds, The Science o f Knowledge, Cambridge, Cambridge University of Press, 1 9 8 2 , p . 7 1 Cartesian Meditations, p . 8 4 F.W.J . Schelling, ' O f t h e I as Principle of Philosophy ', in Fritz Marti trans. and ed., The Unconditional in Human Knowledge, New Jersey, Cranbury, 1 9 8 0 , p . 74 j . G . Fichte, Letter to Schel ling, 3 1 May-7 August 1 8 0 1 , in Walter

1 75

WOMEN, MEN AND MA CHINES OF WA R Schulz, e d . , Fichte-Schelling: Briefwechsel, Frankfu rt, 1 9 6 8 , p. l 26 28 F.W.J . Schelling, Letter to Fichte, 3 October 1 8 0 1 , in Briefwech sel, p. 135 29 I b i d . , p . 1 3 4 3 0 jacques Derrida, Positions, tran s . Alan Bass, London, Athlone, 1 9 8 1 , p.28 3 1 'Un concept n u de differance e s t contradiction, car Ia di fference n e p e u t m a n q u e r d'etre speci fiee: Qu 'est-ce que le Structuralisme: Philosophie, Paris, 1 9 73 , p. 1 8 6 3 2 O n this aspect o f Schelling's thought, see Wol fgang Wieland, 'Die Anfange der Phi losophic Schelli ngs und die Frage nach der Natur', in Manfred Frank and Gerh ard Kurz, eds, Materialien zu Schellings Philosophischen Anfiingen, Frankfu rt, 1 975, pp.250-254 3 3 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Spivak, London, 1 9 76, p . 6 3 34 Ibid., p.65 3 5 Positions, p . 4 3 3 6 Ch ristopher Macann, 'j acques Derrida's Theory of Writing and the Concept of the Trace ' , in journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, vol . 3 no.2, May 1 9 72, p . 1 9 9 3 7 J . G . Fichte, Letter to Schelli ng, 1 5 January 1 8 02, in Briefwechsel, p. 152 3 8 Translated b y Willis Domi ngo a s Against Epistemology, Oxford, Bl ackwel l , 1 9 8 2 3 9 Jacques Derrida, 'Structure, Sign a n d Play in the Human Sciences ', i n Writing and Difference, p . 2 8 1 40 Against Epistemology, p.23 41 I b i d . , p. 1 8 3

1 76

Index

Adorno, Theodor, 1 73-4 Aeschylus, 72

alter ego, 8 1

anth ropology, 1 34-5 Appolloni an/D ionysian, 4-7, 70-3 Aquinas, St Thomas, 3 8 Ariadne, xi Aristotle, 1 6-1 7 ; Nicomachean

Ethics, 1 06 ; Poetics, 8

art, 1 3-2 8 , 70-5 assembl ages (agencements) ,

1 5 9-60

Augustine, St, 32, 5 6 Bataille, Georges, 1 3 2 Blake, William, 63-75 body, 1 4-27, 97-1 1 5 Buddhism, 44 Burckhardt, J acob, xi chora, 1 25-6 Christian ity, 1 43 critique, 34, 1 5 2-3 Danto, Arth u r C . , 3 7 deconstruction, 3 1 , 1 2 1 , 1 3 7-9 Deleuze, Gilles, 43, 4 8 , 5 2-6,

92-3 , 1 3 2 ; Dialogues, 1 5 5 , 1 60- 1 ; Intellectuals and Power, 1 5 9 ; Nietzsche, 1 5 1 -2 ; Nietzsche and Philosophy, 54, 1 5 0-2, 1 6 1 ; Rhizome (with F.

Guatta ri ) , 1 5 6-8 Derrida , J acques, 3 1-3 , 5 1 , 54-5 ,

8 0 , 8 5 , 8 8 , 1 5 1 , 1 5 8 , 1 67-9, 1 7 1 -4 ; Dissemination, 9 2 ; Edmund Husser/'s Origin of Geometry, 1 6 8 ; 'The ends of man', 1 3 7 ; Glas, 8 8 ; Of Grammatology, 1 4 3 , 1 72 ; Otobiographics, 8 8 ; Spurs, 1 1 8-23 ; La voix et le Phenomene, 8 8 ; Writing and Difference, 1 43-4, 1 67-8 Descombes, Vincent, 1 54; Modern French Philosophy, 1 54 differance, 54, 1 7 1-3 Dionysus, 3-1 1 ; Dionysian excess, 6-1 1 , 5 7 Dostoyevski, Fyodor, 2 2 Drai ne, Betsey, 1 2 1-2 eternal recurrence, 1 3 , 3 1-5 5 ; cosmologi cal, 3 5-4 1 , 43 ; psychological, 3 5 , 4 1 -8 ; ontologica l, 3 5 , 48-54 Euripides, 3 , 72 fa th er, 1 22, 1 25 ; see also paternal shadow feminine operation, 1 2 1 feminism, 1 1 8 ; French, 1 25 Fichte, J . G . , 1 6 9-70, 1 73 fo rce ( s ) , 1 6-1 7, 22, 25-8 , 1 43-4 ; 1 77

Index see also Will-to-Power form, 1 6 , 23, 25-8 Foucault, Michel, 1 02, 1 3 1-46,

1 65 ; episteme, 1 34-7; The A rchaeology of Knowledge, 1 66-7 ; 'Nietzsche, Freud, Marx', 1 3 3-4 , 1 42 ; 'Nietzsche, genealogy, h istory ', 1 65-6 ; The Order of Things, 1 3 4-6, 1 4 1 ; 'What is an author', 1 4 2 ; 'Why study power', 1 42, 1 4 6 Freud, Sigmund, 2 4 , 1 07-9, 1 1 1 , 1 3 2-4 ; Wolf-man case, 90-1 ;

jaspers, Karl, 34

jouissance, 126

Kafk a , Franz, 1 0 1 Kant, I m manuel, 9 , 1 3 5 , 1 5 2 Kaufmann, Walter, 1 1 8 , 1 5 1 Kelvin, 3 8 Klossowski, Pierre, 4 3 , 8 0 , 8 5 ,

8 9-93 , 1 3 2

Kofman, Sarah, 1 3 2, 1 5 0 Koselitz, Heinrich ( Peter Gast), 8 0 Kristeva, J u l i a , 1 07, 1 25-6

Gasche, Rodolphe, 80, 85, 9 1 ;

Lawson, H i l a ry, 1 1 , 1 5 3 Leroi-Gourhan, A . , 9 9 , 1 0 1 , 1 0 8-9 Little joseph, 8 9-93 Lyotard, jean-Francois, 1 67 ;

genealogy, 1 4 3 , 1 65 Geothe, Johann, 43 Goethe-Schiller Archive, 80 Graves, Ken, 1 03 , 1 1 4 Gu atta ri, Felix, 1 5 6 ; see also Deleuze

Macbeth, 73

'Beyond the Pleasure Principle ' ,

90-1

Derive a Partir de Marx et Freud, 1 5 5 ; Economie Libidinale, 1 67 ; just Gaming, 1 69

Autobiography as Gestalt, 8 6-7

Macann, Christopher, 1 73 24 man, 1 3 1 -46 de Man, Paul, 1 5 1 ; 'Action a n d I dentity in Nietzsche', 1 5 0 Marx, Karl, 1 3 2-4 maternity, 1 2 5 ; see also p regnancy McDonald, Christie, 1 27 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 27, m a dness,

Hegel, G . W . F . , 8, 5 0-1 , 1 3 2 ;

Phenomenology o f Spirit, 5 0

Heidegger, Martin, 1 3-28 , 3 2-3 ,

5 3-7, 8 7, 1 27, 1 3 2, 1 3 7-8 ; Being and Time, 1 7, 5 6 ; 'Letter on Humanism', 1 5 ; Nietzsche, 1 4 ; 'The O rigin of the Artwork', 2 0 ; What is Called Thinking?, 44-5 ; The Will to Power as A rt, 1 4- 1 9, 25 Hemi ngway, Ernest, 1 04 hermeneutics, 1 3 3-4 ; traditional and reflex ive, 1 5 1 Hume, David, 1 35 Husser(, Edmund, 1 3 2, 1 67-7 1 , 1 73 ; Cartesian Meditations, 1 70 hymen, 1 2 1

1 6 8-9

metaphor, 74, 1 1 9 , 1 2 7 Milton, John, 63-75 mi mesis, 8-1 1 Mishima, Yukio, 1 02, 1 1 1 moment, 3 1 , 4 1-3 , 48-5 0 , 5 3 , 5 6 ; see also instant Monroe, Marilyn, 1 04 Naumann, G . C . , 8 0 Nietzsche, Friedrich, ASZ, 27, 34,

4 1 , 44, 49-50, 72, 1 23 -4, 1 3 6-9, 1 45 ; EH, 9, 34, 45, 8 0- 1 , 86, 1 3 9 ; Ur-EH, 8 5 ; FW, 27, 34, 1 2 1 , 1 23 ; GD, 2 6 , 46, 1 2 0-2, 1 64-5 ; G T, 3-1 0, 70,

i m age, 74 instant, 3 1-2 ; see also moment interpretation, 1 3 3 , 1 3 8 , 1 40 ,

1 4 2-3

1 78

Index 9 7 ; ]GB, 1 2 1 , 1 43 ; M, 1 1 7, 1 3 8 ; MA , 1 3 8-9 ; Nachlass, 3 4 ; WM, 20-6 , 2 8-9, 34, 3 6-7, 1 4 1 ; ZGM, 97 origins, p h ilosophy of, 1 65-74 Ormiston, Gayle L., 1 24 overman (superman, iibermensch ) ,

42, 45, 1 3 5-6, 1 42-6

paternal shadow, 8 5 physiology, 1 3-28 Plato, 44; Phaedrus, 24 Portman, Adolph, 1 09 post-history, 1 5 2 pregnancy (metaphors of), 1 1 6-28 rapture, 5, 1 4-8 , 20- 1 , 23-5 , 27; see also Dionysian excess reflexivity, 1 5 1 , 1 54, 1 60 rhizome, 1 5 5-7 Rorty, Richard, 1 5 3 , 1 5 6 ;

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1 6 0

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 8 7, 1 3 2 Schelli ng, F.W.J . , 2 8 , 1 6 9-73 sch i zophreni a , 1 2 6 Schopenhauer, Arth u r, 9 , 1 0 , 22,

44

Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 1 00, 1 0 7 semiology, 1 3 4

sexuality, 1 9 , 2 1 , 23-4, 1 22 ; sexual d i fference, 1 26-7 sign, 1 3 3-4 Socrates, 7 1 -2, 1 06 Sophocles, 72 Stanton, D.C., 1 2 8

Stimmung, 1 4-9 , 25 structuralism, 50, 1 3 4 subj ect (ego ) , 1 24-5 , 1 40-5 , 1 64, 1 70-4 time, 3 1-5 8 ; in Aristotle, 5 6 ; as l i n ked with i dentity, 35, 5 5 ; motivational, 3 5 ; universal, 3 5 trace, 32, 1 72-3 true/truth, 1 3 , 1 6, 1 2 1 , 1 27, 1 5 0- 1 , 1 5 3 ; as woman, 1 1 9 ; true world, 1 20, 1 40 val ues, 2 0 ; transvalu ation of, 34,

140, 1 5 2

d a Vinci, Leonardo, 1 1 4 Wagner, Richard, 24-5 Wahl, Francois, 1 72 Whitman, Walt, 3 4 Will-to-Power, 1 4 , 1 7 , 1 9 , 22-3 , 26, 2 8 , 1 5 1 ; active and reactive (Deleuze), 48, 1 5 2-6 woman, 1 1 6-28 ; see also truth Zol a, Emile, 22

1 79

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