Thursday, February 18, 2010
at least I . . .
The instructions given and the questions asked by Sebastian in that portion of his post on space highlighted by Pseudonoma are exactly those which I am never capable of following and meaningfully answering--a kind of task of thinking that I can never enter into (even when invited). The "can" may be a "should." It isn't really even a question of invitation and entrance. I'll give an example of something similar. Once, when the school was reading Thus Spake Zarathustra, Pseudonoma suggested that he read aloud one chapter and then I the other. When he read, I could not begin to hear the meaning because I spent the time trying to mark the inflection of a reader in whose reading I--ahead of time--absolutely trusted. I wanted to focus on and remember the appearance of the continuity of meaning. When it was my turn I could not hear the meaning because I could not help but hear my own lack of appropriate inflection--a hearing that happened not only in the moment, but off into the future, into the memory of the sound of my present reading just before a future reading. After a few chapters someone else came into the room and I was relieved to let him take my place and to put some distance between myself and the peculiar boredom that follows upon the realization that my own self-consciousness, all by itself, could keep me from meaning after it had already appeared.
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11 comments:
I would like to comment at a later time on what is truly an interesting reflection --regarding the appearance of meaning --rearing its head from a murky biographical account ---one which is darkly personal. But for now I just want to say that I have a vague recollection of that time you refer to, and I remember something unusual: that as we proceeded and alternated in reading, I had to actually struggle to retain and maintain the authentic and immersed ---that is, self-forgetful --tone that initially came so effortlessly. A sort of Zarathustrian vacuum or something was whirlpooling its way from out of the black hole in the center of your room. And you, though affected, kept your voice unaffected, your back touching the wall, your chin perhaps perched on the meniscus, positioned aloof along the whirlpool's rim.
I had a similar experience reading Shakespeare aloud with a group as a freshman. I was so focused on the fact of everyone being focused on my reading that I was completely unable to focus on theirs. Or, you know, on Shakespeare.
Yeah, I suspect that ---despite Kaufmann's best efforts in capturing the archaic tone of Also Sprach Zarathustra ---Shakespeare would in a certain sense prove more susceptible to a reading that lapses in to --how shall we now call it? --poetic blasphemy, perhaps. As was once pointed out in a personal testimony given by Mr. Shea, Shakespeare has grown more and more "perfectly shy" to the Modern English ear. One struggles to gain even a belated entry into that house. This mysterious retreat leaves us with the result that, even for the nuanced reader, only with the catapult of some conspicuous contrivance can he be launched into that lofty domain; the tone will ultimately be affected in some undesirable way en route to the proper inflection. This is perhaps never more true than in the comedies, which I feel often mock the one who tries to make his stay with them, bereft as his struggling voice is of their easy, earthy resonance.
But if this peculiar refusal is indicative of a mysterious historical withdrawal of language, it is operative in the reading of Zarathustra in a different way altogether: this withdrawal, this vacuum as it were, comprises the innermost content of that horrible book. The refusal is consummate. I think Rimwell's lurid description of the pull of such a withdrawal goes a long way in showing how the "appearance of meaning" is, as a poetic blasphemy, also a BETRAYAL of onself ---in the sense of an exposure which also abdicates, handing over what it once guarded (PARADIDWMI). While we are in the business of resuscitating what has lapsed into ellipsis ---for what else was my post on space? --I think the question of poetic blasphemy as a betrayal of one's own self, one's own spirit, might well be applied to the since lapsed discussion over at KTL regarding poetic inspiration: http://philosophyktl.blogspot.com/2010/01/results-of-conversation.html
A link to Boy Siris?? For shame--about akin to linking to say your favorite WF Buckley's conservative quotes.com, tho' Siris not quite as eloquent....
You (and Pseudo) are mostly correct that Kaufmann sterlized Nietzsche, made him safe for frat boys everywhere
I don't know if I would put it that way re: Kaufmann. I don't know that I'd put it any way. I blame myself. It's part of the reason I've never been able to put more worthwhile content on this blog. It's not that I think I'm a moron; it's that I get so embarrassed when I realize that I've, as Prince Myshkin puts it, humiliated the thought and when simultaneously the people whose "conversation" I covet don't immediately shun me. The RSS display is a cowardly compromise.
Not so Nietzschean that, r-well. I think you post worthwhile content (tho' I may not usually agree).
Nietzsche's phunn for a semester or so, but exhausting. On examination, he's not so different than some Barry Goldwater-like hawk, he just knows the classics up and down. Or Mencken.
Like HLM, Nietzsche rarely argued; he merely made grand pronouncements, as with his comments on Kant (barely scratches the surface--scuzi the cliche). At times, he utters something profound (his rips of the English are quite good), perhaps sublime--but often sort of twisted, narcissistic, vainglorious (add other adjectivals). Thus spake Zara. sounds sort of Kahil Gibranish as well (and imitated by countless wannabe visionaries)--
Ezra Pound chuckled at all that quasi-prophetic noise (Wagner chuckled at Nietzsche as well, supposedly--told him to find a frau, instead of hur-- probably with Vati Liszt in the background joining in). His books post-Zara. more to my liking, or at least he outlines his anti-rationalism--and naturalism-- somewhat honestly.... one would think you'd call it ....anathema
First of all, if the content of this blog is in someway, relatively speaking, not worthwhile, then how much more so are the interests of those who, like the present commentator, frequent it often and rarely leave empty-handed. But, as usual, I think Rimwell makes a good point, all self-deprecation not-withstanding. For if it is true at times that in some embarrassing way the thought has been "humiliated", then what of these humble beginnings (to obliquely reference a nice post from Rainscape put out a little while back). In other words, isn't this embarrassment profound and instructive? Isn't it something like a directive for those who have not yet grown thoughtful enough (i.e. everyone of the current age)? Is this embarrassment not something of a gift, an early and fore-boding resonance of something which gives us pause, that we might, for shame, become more thoughtful. It is almost as if, indeed, to the extent that we allow such a quasi-thrasymachian blush to mark us --as if it were some sort of historical scarlet letter --just to that extent does the blush, in the hush of silence that follows, allow for a rush of thinking to come. Indeed, for a thinking to come (zu-kunft) (cf. the recent post at seynsgeschichte on preliminary thinking).
J, I can appreciate your preference for the Post-Zarathustrian works (of which there are authoritatively only four, namely, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist ---not including the unauthoritative Will to Power). But for all that, the most important formulation of Nietzsche's self-professed most significant idea ---i.e. his heaviest and hardest and loneliest thought, namely Die Ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichens, is provided in Also Sprach Zarathustra's most critical chapter: Vom Gesicht und Rätsel. In this way, I tend to think of all post-Zarathustra stuff as pre-Zarathustra, those last four writings remain on a path of though whose scope is predetermined by Nietzsche's desolate and unaccompanied thought of Eternal Return. On the other hand, the picture of frat boys gathered together on a Friday night with some Natty light, reading Zarathustra, while hazing the new kid, is at one mirthlessly hilarious and infernally frightening. A book for everyone and no one indeed.
What happened r-well, and P-man?
At least the Whirlpool might...give a blessing to the nazi-pope in this time of need.
Benedict's pretty entertaining, really.
Working on a masterpiece on Jane Austen in my spare time (which won't be finished now that I've mentioned it - good - I was hitting a wall anyway). Pseudonoma probably has a fever.
What is there to say about sex abuse and homosexual prostitutes? I read child pornography and obscenity cases on a daily basis. There is nothing to do but comment on public relations which is always inadequate.
No fever (not even for cowbell --Ha! Haven't thought of THAT in a long time), the only thing putting me at a disadvantage is my inability to answer a question that I haven't read...since it seems to have been removed...unless the derogatory reference to Pope Benedict is a question (?)
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