Keiralika’s review of The Birth of Tragedy > Likes and Comments
9 likes · Like
Nietzsche’s relationship with Wagner was turbulent, and late in life he wrote Nietzsche Contra Wagner and compiled bits of earlier writings into The Wagner Case (Der Fall Wagner). A considerable distance from the early “Richsrd Wagner in Bayreuth.” He also expressed his admiration for “Carmen.” Although I can’t recall whether he published that.
Alan wrote: "It is good that you are wrestling with these philosophical matters. I have always said that Nietzsche was absolutely right half the time and absolutely wrong the other half. When I first read The B..."
That’s the least I can do, wrestling with it in the most raw and intense way; imaginative to be said. I think in a modern sense I don’t quite grasp the point Nietzsche wanted to achieve, but from what I understood the end point is to create the rebirth of tragedy (at least before he changed his mind regarding Wagner). In the beginning of the first half chapter he pointed out that Apollo couldn’t live without Dionysus. Apollo is the harmony, the illusion, the ray of hope, and to achieve it is to achieve the individuation, the image of the artist. It needs Dionysiac force. The aim is for us to be the art who can endure Dionysus and still create with Apollo. Nietzsche was simply defending Dionysian against the over-dominance of Socrates and rationalism, he wasn’t on the Dionysus side.
Since you mentioned Mozart I also feel the same about him being the ultimate Apollonian, not only did he live his name to the world but also he created the universe within his melodies. And from the Romantic era, I would love to mention Paganini as someone who touched Dionysian, his chaotic order, raw nature of diabolical skills, that’s amazing. Bach figuratively being the god of music? Of course I can’t deny it. Wow, I suppose you really love to hear classics to know this much? I love Rachmaninoff though, and in him I can sense both the Apolline and Dionysian, the eruption of emotional feelings, almost too much, but somehow it also feels like it’s held.
Ian wrote: "Nietzsche’s relationship with Wagner was turbulent, and late in life he wrote Nietzsche Contra Wagner and compiled bits of earlier writings into The Wagner Case (Der Fall Wagner). A considerable di..."
Yes I'm aware of that sentiment, but I haven’t reached that point. I think it’s somehow interesting to see Nietzsche getting more and more uncontainable through his works while proceeding into a madness.
Keiralika, I gather that you are young (though I could be mistaken). If so, most of us do go through a youthful phase when we are more attracted to emotionalism than we are later in life, when the passions cool. Neuroscience has found that the prefrontal cortex of the brain, important for rational thinking and impulse control, does not fully develop until one’s late twenties or thirties or later. (Although I have always been a rationalist in philosophy and politics, I must admit that my emotional side was more present during the early decades of my life than it is today, when I approach eighty years of age.) Nietzsche is not, in my view, a good role model. As you state, he descended into madness. Per Wikipedia, “In 1889, aged 44, [Nietzsche] suffered a mental breakdown and thereafter a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and vascular dementia [footnote omitted], living his remaining 11 years under the care of his family until his death.” Vascular dementia is caused by a series of strokes. So, there appears to be, at least in part, a medical cause of his later insanity. Nevertheless, his writings exhibit a tension between reason and strong, negative emotions throughout his life.
My 2022 book Reason and Human Ethics is designed as an antidote to emotional extremism of the Nietzschean or other varieties. This book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions, but it is also freely viewable and downloadable in PDF on my Academia.edu profile page. (Goodreads rules prevent me from linking to that that page in this comment, but you can find that link in my comment at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/....) Of the five books I have written and published since my retirement from law practice more than a decade ago, I regard Reason and Human Ethics as the most important. It is, really, the foundation of all my other writing. For its application to political matters, see my 2026 book Reason and Human Government (also freely available in PDF at the link cited at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...).
As I indicated in my earlier comment, Nietzsche expressed some deep insights in some of his writings with which I agree. However, other notions expressed his writings are, in my view, clearly erroneous. In one of his later works, contrasting his own approach to that of Marx and Nietzsche, Leo Strauss wrote: “But perhaps one can say that their grandiose failures [Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism, respectively] make it easier for us who have experienced those failures to understand again the old saying that wisdom cannot be separated from moderation and hence to understand that wisdom requires unhesitating loyalty to a decent constitution and even to the cause of constitutionalism” (Liberalism Ancient and Modern [New York: Basic Books, 1968], 24). By the way, Strauss confessed to an infatuation with Nietzsche’s writings early in his life.
Alan wrote: "Keiralika, I gather that you are young (though I could be mistaken). If so, most of us do go through a youthful phase when we are more attracted to emotionalism than we are later in life, when the ..."
Indeed, Alan, I'm young, I may be naive, too green to have a say, but I roam enough to understand I only can be what I am. I know that I know nothing might be the best way for me to present myself; Cogito, ergo sum. I am the silence that acknowledges itself. I'm not prone to the concept of role models, neither good nor bad, but I know I can’t escape my nature as a human (curiosity, forming a characteristic, look at me borrowing their knowledge). I'll consider it wise for you to say that young people are more impulsive and more emotional (brain development started by going forward, frontal lobes last, ironically). It might be impossible for me to look at the future and see myself as less emotional, because it’s what I'm good at, to let the feelings penetrate me, to be fully aware and honest with them, but life is a surprise, right? I don’t know what the future holds. If I may ask, what made you decide to restudy Nietzsche?
Regarding Strauss’s concern about the political dangers of radical thought, I understand, this critique remains at the level of historical consequence rather than ontological grounding. Following Heidegger, the issue is not whether Nietzsche or Marx led to extremism, but that all these frameworks, including liberal constitutionalism, remain within the same metaphysical horizon that forgets the question of Being. What appears as moderation may simply be a more stable expression of the same underlying mode of thinking, rather than a genuine resolution of it.
Oh, and I'll take a look into your book Reason and Human Ethics on Academia.edu, will put it on my TBR list. I appreciate you sharing it.
Thank you, Keiralika, for your thoughts.
Confucius said, “To take what you know for what you know, and what you do not know for what you do not know, that is knowledge indeed” (The Analects of Confucius, translated and edited by Simon Leys [W. W. Norton, 1997], 2.17). Somewhat later, Socrates said, “What I don’t know, I don’t think I know” (Plato, Apology of Socrates 21d [my translation]). The fact that you are young does not mean that your views are necessarily wrong. Indeed, I still hold some important views that I have held since I was fifteen years of age. I have, however, modified other views that I held in earlier decades as I have acquired more knowledge, experience, and understanding. For example, some views I hold today are virtually the opposite of views that I held as recently as my thirties and forties. My purpose here is not to contradict what you say but rather to assist you on your philosophical journey. I have found the above quotations from Confucius and Socrates to be guiding lights for me in my own quest for knowledge and wisdom.
I have never been able to appreciate, or even understand, Heidegger. For one thing, although I may be committing the ad hominem fallacy, I cannot get past the fact that he was a Nazi. I also cannot abide his writing style, which, to me, is impossibly dense, convoluted, and academic. Again, Confucius: “Words are merely for communication” (Analects, trans. Leys, 15.41).
I wish to restudy Nietzsche for two reasons: (1) some (certainly not all) of what he wrote is, indeed, true and wise, and (2) other things he wrote led to such abominations as Nazism, and I wish to understand better how that happened and to what extent Nietzsche can be regarded as responsible for the statements and actions of some of his epigoni.
If you read Reason and Human Ethics, you will understand my views about such philosophical and historical matters. Space limitations do not permit their full expression in this forum.
My discussion of and commitment to liberal constitutionalism and my rejection of the authoritarian and totalitarian alternatives are elaborated in my book Reason and Human Government. My position on free will is set forth in my book Free Will and Human Life, which (like all my books) is also available in PDF on my Academia.edu profile page.
Alan wrote: "Thank you, Keiralika, for your thoughts.
Confucius said, “To take what you know for what you know, and what you do not know for what you do not know, that is knowledge indeed” (The Analects of Con..."
Nietzsche carried a kind of fierce hope, the courage to be himself, and only himself, from that he forged his concept of Übermensch, that was later misused in propaganda. To be honest the mustache guy himself never cared about philosophy, much less academia. Heidegger joined the party and aligned his philosophy with politics, but his concept of Sein already existed before the Nazi, even then never did he get acknowledged, he was treated like a ghost. Hm, yes it might be best for me to read your thoughts in Reason and Human Ethics, it sounds like it’s the closest title for me to be able to grasp since I’m not heavy into politics. Also, I'm a book juggler, it'll take more than a while for me to finish.
You said that your purpose here is to assist me on my philosophical journey, I appreciate it, Alan, thank you, but I wonder, by assisting, in this context, what do you mean? For what purpose, and how, exactly? I’m asking this because philosophical anchor can be, somewhat, tricky.
Keiralika, by “assisting” I don’t mean anything other than your reading Reason and Human Ethics (if and only if you are interested in doing so) and formulating your own reaction to it. I don’t mean any further extended dialogue between us in this thread or elsewhere. As I previously mentioned, you can access and download Reason and Human Ethics in PDF without any expense. As I've also stated, I cannot reproduce the breadth and depth of my thought in this Goodreads forum. I do so only in my books. So, if you are interested, read my book as you would any other and draw your own conclusions about it. If you find it helpful, good. If not, then that’s OK. I believe in free will, and I never try to pressure people to agree with me. Everyone has their own views, which they formulate throughout their own lives based on their own reading, reflection, and experience. I long ago ceased trying to “convert” people to my own way of thinking. I offer my own views, and people can take them or leave them. More often than not, they disagree with me, and I don’t have a problem with that.
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen’s American Nietzsche, mostly about his reception, claims that the young Nietzsche had little or no interest in philosophy until he encountered Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writings, and discovered a contemporary living a philosophical life. He had an edition in which he filled the margins with notes. It never would have occurred to me. Nor Walter Kaufmann, who thought that the ubermensch had roots in Aristotle’s Great-Souled Man, as he would have of course read the Nicomachean Ethics with care, being a brilliant philologist and all that.
Thanks, Ian. Another reason to restudy Nietzsche!
Alan wrote: "Keiralika, by “assisting” I don’t mean anything other than your reading Reason and Human Ethics (if and only if you are interested in doing so) and formulating your own reaction to it. I don’t mea..."
Don’t worry I’m not feeling any pressure. I understand, and I will eventually read it, later than sooner, but will, eventually. Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in.
back to top
date
newest »
newest »
Nietzsche’s relationship with Wagner was turbulent, and late in life he wrote Nietzsche Contra Wagner and compiled bits of earlier writings into The Wagner Case (Der Fall Wagner). A considerable distance from the early “Richsrd Wagner in Bayreuth.” He also expressed his admiration for “Carmen.” Although I can’t recall whether he published that.
Alan wrote: "It is good that you are wrestling with these philosophical matters. I have always said that Nietzsche was absolutely right half the time and absolutely wrong the other half. When I first read The B..."That’s the least I can do, wrestling with it in the most raw and intense way; imaginative to be said. I think in a modern sense I don’t quite grasp the point Nietzsche wanted to achieve, but from what I understood the end point is to create the rebirth of tragedy (at least before he changed his mind regarding Wagner). In the beginning of the first half chapter he pointed out that Apollo couldn’t live without Dionysus. Apollo is the harmony, the illusion, the ray of hope, and to achieve it is to achieve the individuation, the image of the artist. It needs Dionysiac force. The aim is for us to be the art who can endure Dionysus and still create with Apollo. Nietzsche was simply defending Dionysian against the over-dominance of Socrates and rationalism, he wasn’t on the Dionysus side.
Since you mentioned Mozart I also feel the same about him being the ultimate Apollonian, not only did he live his name to the world but also he created the universe within his melodies. And from the Romantic era, I would love to mention Paganini as someone who touched Dionysian, his chaotic order, raw nature of diabolical skills, that’s amazing. Bach figuratively being the god of music? Of course I can’t deny it. Wow, I suppose you really love to hear classics to know this much? I love Rachmaninoff though, and in him I can sense both the Apolline and Dionysian, the eruption of emotional feelings, almost too much, but somehow it also feels like it’s held.
Ian wrote: "Nietzsche’s relationship with Wagner was turbulent, and late in life he wrote Nietzsche Contra Wagner and compiled bits of earlier writings into The Wagner Case (Der Fall Wagner). A considerable di..."Yes I'm aware of that sentiment, but I haven’t reached that point. I think it’s somehow interesting to see Nietzsche getting more and more uncontainable through his works while proceeding into a madness.
Keiralika, I gather that you are young (though I could be mistaken). If so, most of us do go through a youthful phase when we are more attracted to emotionalism than we are later in life, when the passions cool. Neuroscience has found that the prefrontal cortex of the brain, important for rational thinking and impulse control, does not fully develop until one’s late twenties or thirties or later. (Although I have always been a rationalist in philosophy and politics, I must admit that my emotional side was more present during the early decades of my life than it is today, when I approach eighty years of age.) Nietzsche is not, in my view, a good role model. As you state, he descended into madness. Per Wikipedia, “In 1889, aged 44, [Nietzsche] suffered a mental breakdown and thereafter a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and vascular dementia [footnote omitted], living his remaining 11 years under the care of his family until his death.” Vascular dementia is caused by a series of strokes. So, there appears to be, at least in part, a medical cause of his later insanity. Nevertheless, his writings exhibit a tension between reason and strong, negative emotions throughout his life.My 2022 book Reason and Human Ethics is designed as an antidote to emotional extremism of the Nietzschean or other varieties. This book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions, but it is also freely viewable and downloadable in PDF on my Academia.edu profile page. (Goodreads rules prevent me from linking to that that page in this comment, but you can find that link in my comment at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/....) Of the five books I have written and published since my retirement from law practice more than a decade ago, I regard Reason and Human Ethics as the most important. It is, really, the foundation of all my other writing. For its application to political matters, see my 2026 book Reason and Human Government (also freely available in PDF at the link cited at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...).
As I indicated in my earlier comment, Nietzsche expressed some deep insights in some of his writings with which I agree. However, other notions expressed his writings are, in my view, clearly erroneous. In one of his later works, contrasting his own approach to that of Marx and Nietzsche, Leo Strauss wrote: “But perhaps one can say that their grandiose failures [Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism, respectively] make it easier for us who have experienced those failures to understand again the old saying that wisdom cannot be separated from moderation and hence to understand that wisdom requires unhesitating loyalty to a decent constitution and even to the cause of constitutionalism” (Liberalism Ancient and Modern [New York: Basic Books, 1968], 24). By the way, Strauss confessed to an infatuation with Nietzsche’s writings early in his life.
Alan wrote: "Keiralika, I gather that you are young (though I could be mistaken). If so, most of us do go through a youthful phase when we are more attracted to emotionalism than we are later in life, when the ..."Indeed, Alan, I'm young, I may be naive, too green to have a say, but I roam enough to understand I only can be what I am. I know that I know nothing might be the best way for me to present myself; Cogito, ergo sum. I am the silence that acknowledges itself. I'm not prone to the concept of role models, neither good nor bad, but I know I can’t escape my nature as a human (curiosity, forming a characteristic, look at me borrowing their knowledge). I'll consider it wise for you to say that young people are more impulsive and more emotional (brain development started by going forward, frontal lobes last, ironically). It might be impossible for me to look at the future and see myself as less emotional, because it’s what I'm good at, to let the feelings penetrate me, to be fully aware and honest with them, but life is a surprise, right? I don’t know what the future holds. If I may ask, what made you decide to restudy Nietzsche?
Regarding Strauss’s concern about the political dangers of radical thought, I understand, this critique remains at the level of historical consequence rather than ontological grounding. Following Heidegger, the issue is not whether Nietzsche or Marx led to extremism, but that all these frameworks, including liberal constitutionalism, remain within the same metaphysical horizon that forgets the question of Being. What appears as moderation may simply be a more stable expression of the same underlying mode of thinking, rather than a genuine resolution of it.
Oh, and I'll take a look into your book Reason and Human Ethics on Academia.edu, will put it on my TBR list. I appreciate you sharing it.
Thank you, Keiralika, for your thoughts.Confucius said, “To take what you know for what you know, and what you do not know for what you do not know, that is knowledge indeed” (The Analects of Confucius, translated and edited by Simon Leys [W. W. Norton, 1997], 2.17). Somewhat later, Socrates said, “What I don’t know, I don’t think I know” (Plato, Apology of Socrates 21d [my translation]). The fact that you are young does not mean that your views are necessarily wrong. Indeed, I still hold some important views that I have held since I was fifteen years of age. I have, however, modified other views that I held in earlier decades as I have acquired more knowledge, experience, and understanding. For example, some views I hold today are virtually the opposite of views that I held as recently as my thirties and forties. My purpose here is not to contradict what you say but rather to assist you on your philosophical journey. I have found the above quotations from Confucius and Socrates to be guiding lights for me in my own quest for knowledge and wisdom.
I have never been able to appreciate, or even understand, Heidegger. For one thing, although I may be committing the ad hominem fallacy, I cannot get past the fact that he was a Nazi. I also cannot abide his writing style, which, to me, is impossibly dense, convoluted, and academic. Again, Confucius: “Words are merely for communication” (Analects, trans. Leys, 15.41).
I wish to restudy Nietzsche for two reasons: (1) some (certainly not all) of what he wrote is, indeed, true and wise, and (2) other things he wrote led to such abominations as Nazism, and I wish to understand better how that happened and to what extent Nietzsche can be regarded as responsible for the statements and actions of some of his epigoni.
If you read Reason and Human Ethics, you will understand my views about such philosophical and historical matters. Space limitations do not permit their full expression in this forum.
My discussion of and commitment to liberal constitutionalism and my rejection of the authoritarian and totalitarian alternatives are elaborated in my book Reason and Human Government. My position on free will is set forth in my book Free Will and Human Life, which (like all my books) is also available in PDF on my Academia.edu profile page.
Alan wrote: "Thank you, Keiralika, for your thoughts.Confucius said, “To take what you know for what you know, and what you do not know for what you do not know, that is knowledge indeed” (The Analects of Con..."
Nietzsche carried a kind of fierce hope, the courage to be himself, and only himself, from that he forged his concept of Übermensch, that was later misused in propaganda. To be honest the mustache guy himself never cared about philosophy, much less academia. Heidegger joined the party and aligned his philosophy with politics, but his concept of Sein already existed before the Nazi, even then never did he get acknowledged, he was treated like a ghost. Hm, yes it might be best for me to read your thoughts in Reason and Human Ethics, it sounds like it’s the closest title for me to be able to grasp since I’m not heavy into politics. Also, I'm a book juggler, it'll take more than a while for me to finish.
You said that your purpose here is to assist me on my philosophical journey, I appreciate it, Alan, thank you, but I wonder, by assisting, in this context, what do you mean? For what purpose, and how, exactly? I’m asking this because philosophical anchor can be, somewhat, tricky.
Keiralika, by “assisting” I don’t mean anything other than your reading Reason and Human Ethics (if and only if you are interested in doing so) and formulating your own reaction to it. I don’t mean any further extended dialogue between us in this thread or elsewhere. As I previously mentioned, you can access and download Reason and Human Ethics in PDF without any expense. As I've also stated, I cannot reproduce the breadth and depth of my thought in this Goodreads forum. I do so only in my books. So, if you are interested, read my book as you would any other and draw your own conclusions about it. If you find it helpful, good. If not, then that’s OK. I believe in free will, and I never try to pressure people to agree with me. Everyone has their own views, which they formulate throughout their own lives based on their own reading, reflection, and experience. I long ago ceased trying to “convert” people to my own way of thinking. I offer my own views, and people can take them or leave them. More often than not, they disagree with me, and I don’t have a problem with that.
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen’s American Nietzsche, mostly about his reception, claims that the young Nietzsche had little or no interest in philosophy until he encountered Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writings, and discovered a contemporary living a philosophical life. He had an edition in which he filled the margins with notes. It never would have occurred to me. Nor Walter Kaufmann, who thought that the ubermensch had roots in Aristotle’s Great-Souled Man, as he would have of course read the Nicomachean Ethics with care, being a brilliant philologist and all that.
Thanks, Ian. Another reason to restudy Nietzsche!
Alan wrote: "Keiralika, by “assisting” I don’t mean anything other than your reading Reason and Human Ethics (if and only if you are interested in doing so) and formulating your own reaction to it. I don’t mea..."Don’t worry I’m not feeling any pressure. I understand, and I will eventually read it, later than sooner, but will, eventually. Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in.
I don’t like Wagner for the same reasons that the early Nietzsche liked him. It should be noted that Hitler and the Nazis considered Nietzsche and Wagner as their heroes. I regard Mozart (the ultimate Apollonian) as the greatest composer who ever lived, though the early Beethoven, some of Brahms, and other classical and neoclassical composers are close. I also admire Bach and others in the Baroque era, though I don’t relate to them emotionally as I do with composers in the classical period. Bach may have been the greatest “god” (figuratively speaking) in music, but Mozart was the greatest human. To my knowledge, I don’t like any composer of classical music in the twentieth- or twenty-first centuries, except, to some extent, Rachmaninov. I am not familiar with Asian music.
IMHO (“in my humble opinion”), as people say (or used to say), with intentional or unintentional irony, in these parts.