Wednesday, February 24, 2010

worth and worthlessness of history

On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for life
(preface)

Nietzsche on historic education of man

Nietzsche understands historical education as a defect. With hypertrophic virtue comes hyptertrophic vice, and ultimately the decay of man.

why instruction fails to quicken activity
why knowledge enfeebles activity
why history as a costly intellectual excess and luxury must, in the spirit of Goethe's words, be seriously hated; for we still lack what is most necessary

superfluous excess is the enemy of the necessary.

we require history for life and action, not for avoiding it.

there is a degree of 'doing' history and an estimation of it which brings with it a wither and and degeneration of life: a phenomenon which is now as necessary as it may be painful to bring to consciousness through some remarkable symptoms of our age.

terms of thought:
historical reification
entropic humanity
degeneration
degradation
a posteriori lack

No comments:

Post a Comment