Dasein "understands itself proximally and, within a certain range, constantly."
"Dasein has had its historcially so thoroughly uprooted by tradition that it confines its interest to the multiformity of possible types, directions, and standpoints of philosophical activity in the most exotic and alien of cultures; and by this very interest it seeks to veil the fact taht it has no ground of its own to stand on. Consequently, despite all its historiological interests and all its zeal for Interpretation which is philologically 'objective' ["sachliche"], Dasein no longer understands the most elementary conditions which would alone enable it to go back to the past in a positive manner and make it productively its own."
RECAP: The question of the meaning of Being has not been attended to, it has been inadequately formulated, and it has become forgotten
Dasein understands either itself or Being in general, it does so in terms of the 'world', and and that the ontology which has thus arisen has deteriorated [verfallt] to a tradition in which it gets reduced to soemthing self-evident-merely material for reworking, as it was for Hegel. (As it was with uprooted Greek ontology of the Middle Ages)
all leading to Metaphysics (from Suarez to Hegel)
...all formalizations of such ontology either neglect the question of Being entirely or reduce Being negatively...or in regard to Hegel- Dialectic has been called in for the purpose of Interpreting the substantiality of the subject ontologically.
Heidegger: "...hardened tradition must be loosened up, and the concealment which it has brought about must be dissolved. We understand that this task as one in which by taking the question of Being as our clue, we are to destroy the traditional content of ancient ontology until we arrive at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being-the ways which have guided us ever since."
"we have nothing to do with a vicious relativizing of ontological standpoints."
this destruction of ontology is a postiive function, not a negative function
KANT was aware of the task of ontology as obscure and justifiying it as such, he shrinks back from the question of Being.
Kant neglected the problem of being, failed to provide an ontology with Dasein as its theme "preliminary ontological analytic of the subjectivity of the subject"
Instead, Kant took Descartes position (indefinite ontological status)
Although he brought time into the equation, he brought in time as it is traditionally understood,
Thus, the connection between time (operating within the structures which Aristotle has set forth) and I think was shroudeded and the question of Being was never at issue.
utlimately he failed to provide an ontology of Dasein. and from here on out the question of Being (seemingly concrete) was brushed over for the remainder of history.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
II.v The Ontological Analytic of Dasein as Laying Bare the Horizon for an Interpretation of the Meaning of Being in General
Heidegger emphasizes that the 'interpretation' of Dasein must be our first requirement in the question of Being. (the interpretation of Dasein remains a problem of access - we have 'no right to resort to dogmatic constructions and apply just any idea of Being and actuality to this entity, no matter how 'self-evident' that idea may be; nor may any of the 'categories' which such an idea prescribes be forced upon Dasein without proper ontological consideration. We must rather choose such a way of access and such a kind of interpretation that this entity can show itself in itself and from itself [an ihm selbst von ihm selbst her]. And this means that it is to be shown as it is 'proximally and for the most part-in its average everydayness.'
everydayness is a provisional preparation for the antrhopological investigation...it is by no means a total or 'essential' character of Being.
This leads Heidegger to look at temporality (Zeitlichkeit):
everydayness is a provisional preparation for the antrhopological investigation...it is by no means a total or 'essential' character of Being.
This leads Heidegger to look at temporality (Zeitlichkeit):
whenever Dasein tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does
so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light-and genuinely conceived-as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially (original) as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the being of Dasein, which understand Being.
Understanding Dasein must be limited temporally
...the central problematic of all ontology is rooted in the phenomenon of time, if rightly seen and rightly explained, and we must show how this is is the case.
...TEMPORAL DETERMINATENESS. Thus the fundamental ontological task of Interpreting Being as such includes working out the Temporality of Being.
Because Being cannot be grasped except by taking time into consideration, the answer to the question of Being cannot lie in any proposition that is blind and isolated.
Monday, March 8, 2010
I.iv The Ontical Priority of the Question of Being
"Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact taht, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it."
"Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's Being. Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological." (Heidegger, p. 32)
The fact that Being is a question for Dasein as an entity and from Dasein as an entity underlines the condition of the question of Being as foremost in understanding the question of Being.
"Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence-in terms of a possbility of itself: to be itself or not itself.
Sciences are ways of Being in which Dasein comports itself towards entities which it need not be itself. But to Dasein, Being in a world is something that belongs essentially. Thus Dasein's understanding of Being pertains with equal primordiality both to an understanding of something like a 'world', and to the understanding of the Being of those entities which become accessible within the world.
- ontical: Dasein is an entity whose Being has teh determinate character of existence.
- ontological: Dasein is in itself 'ontological, because existence is thus determinative for it.
- ontico-ontological: Dasein also possesses-as constitutive for its understanding of existence-an understanding of the Being of all entities of a character other than its own.
The roots of the 'existential analytic' is existentiell (ontical) and must be worked out in an 'ontologically adequate manner' in order to become transparent.
If to Interpret the meaning of Being becomes our task, Dasein is not only the primary entity to be interrogated; it is also that entity which already comports itself, in its Being, towards what we are asking about when we ask this question. but in that case the question of Being is nothing other than the radicalization of an essential tendency-of-Being which belongs to Dasein itself-the pre-ontological understanding of Being.
I.iii The Ontological Priority of the Question of Being
Why is the question of Being above all others?
all other questions seem to be for heidegger confined to limited fields of knowledge where data and information just increases. Whereas the question of being will potentially make clear the necessity of these information structures. Humane sciences are historical in character (tradition). Theology (for Heidegger) is still confined to methodology. (purpose?)
all other questions seem to be for heidegger confined to limited fields of knowledge where data and information just increases. Whereas the question of being will potentially make clear the necessity of these information structures. Humane sciences are historical in character (tradition). Theology (for Heidegger) is still confined to methodology. (purpose?)
The question of Being aims tehrefore at ascertaining the a priori conditions not only for the possibility of the sciences which examine entities as entities of such and such a type, and, in so doing, already operate with an understanding of Being, but also for the possbility of those ontologies themselves which are prior to the ontical sciences and which provide their foundations. Bacially, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task.
I.ii The Formal Structure of the Question of Being
The relation between the question of being and the being of the entity askin the question is integral to Heidegger's reformulating the structure of the question and therefore leads him to conclude that "we must make an entity-the inquirer-transparten in his own being. The very asking of this question is an entity's mode of being; and as such it gets its essential character from waht is inquired about-namely, Being." (Heidegger, p.27)
This brings the term Dasein to the surface.
This brings the term Dasein to the surface.
I.i The Necessity for Explicitly Restating teh Question of Being
Heidegger points out the lack in our dealing with the question of being has led us to stray away from its meaning. Being has been popularly understood over time as a method of existence. Specifically from Plato and Aristotle where the question of being became an ongoing investigation to Hegel who narrowed it down to logic, being has become trivialized through history.
Reasons for restating the question of being. Being is...
Reasons for restating the question of being. Being is...
- most universal - being transcends any universality of genus. (unity)
- indefinable - cannot be conceived as an entity
- self-evident - use is made of being merely in cognition or assertion toward entities
all this points to the necessity for re-assertion and even more an adequate way of formulating its reassertion
definitions
Epoche.
in Greek philosophy,“suspension of judgment,” a principle originally espoused by nondogmatic philosophical Skeptics of the ancient Greek Academy who, viewing the problem of knowledge as insoluble, proposed that, when controversy arises, an attitude of noninvolvement should be adopted in order to gain peace of mind for daily living.
The term has been employed in the 20th century by Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology, who saw it as a technique, more fundamental than that of abstraction and the examination of essences, that serves to highlight consciousness itself. The philosopher should practice a sort of Cartesian doubt, methodic and tentative...
Dasein
Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state.
Ontico-ontologoical
Existentiale
Phenomenology
in Greek philosophy,“suspension of judgment,” a principle originally espoused by nondogmatic philosophical Skeptics of the ancient Greek Academy who, viewing the problem of knowledge as insoluble, proposed that, when controversy arises, an attitude of noninvolvement should be adopted in order to gain peace of mind for daily living.
The term has been employed in the 20th century by Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology, who saw it as a technique, more fundamental than that of abstraction and the examination of essences, that serves to highlight consciousness itself. The philosopher should practice a sort of Cartesian doubt, methodic and tentative...
Dasein
Dasein has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state.
Ontico-ontologoical
Existentiale
Phenomenology
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
taking down the decorations
Nietzsche concludes by demanding that we strive to "know thyself"
One "must organize the chaos within himself by reflecting on his genuine needs (like the Greeks). His honesty, his sound and truthful character must at some time rebel against secondhand thought, secondhand learning and imitation; then he will begin to comprehend that culture can be something other still than decoration of life, that is, fundamentally always only dissimulation and disguise; for all adornment hides what it adorns." (p64)
One "must organize the chaos within himself by reflecting on his genuine needs (like the Greeks). His honesty, his sound and truthful character must at some time rebel against secondhand thought, secondhand learning and imitation; then he will begin to comprehend that culture can be something other still than decoration of life, that is, fundamentally always only dissimulation and disguise; for all adornment hides what it adorns." (p64)
more on science
"Science-for it is science which would speak of poisons-sees in that force, in tehse powers, hostile powers and forces: for it only takes the observation of things to be the true and correct one, taht is, to be scientific observation, which everywehre sees what has come to be, the historical, and nowhere being, the eternal; it lives in inner contradiction with the eternalizing powers of art and religion so far as it hates forgetting, the death of knowledge, so far as it seeks to remove all horizon-limitations and throws man into an endless-unlimited light-wave-sea of known becoming."
be unhistorical. be superhistorical
By the word 'the unhistorical' I denote the art and the strength of being able to 'forget' and enclose oneself in a limited 'horizon: 'superhistorical' I call the powers which guide the eye away from becoming and toward that which gives existence an eternal and stable character, toward art and religion.
we are without culture...
...we are without culture, still more, we are spoiled for living, for correct and simple seeing and hearing, for the happy grasping of the nearest and natural, and so far do not even have the foundation of a culture because we ourselves are not convinced of having a true life in us.
I may have the right to say about myself 'cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), but not 'vivo, ergo cogito.' (I live, therefore I think)
If life is but imitation, then culture is just a collection if imitated states, lived into by the epigoni of our age.
I may have the right to say about myself 'cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), but not 'vivo, ergo cogito.' (I live, therefore I think)
If life is but imitation, then culture is just a collection if imitated states, lived into by the epigoni of our age.
retreating cynics
...through continuous displacement of horizon-perspectives, through the elimination of an enveloping atmosphere it no longer permits man to feel and act unhistorically. From an infinite horizon he then retreats into himself, into the smallest egoistic region, and there hmust wither and dry up: probably he will attain to cleverness: never to wisdom.
cynicism is a prodcut of 'world process' - our developing hunger for the ripe self within an ironic living structure.
cynicism is a prodcut of 'world process' - our developing hunger for the ripe self within an ironic living structure.
the [dull] masses
The masses seem to me worthy of notice in only three respects: first as blurred copies of great men, produced on pad paper with worn plates, further as resistance to the great, and finally as the tools of the great.
...Here the masses are, out of themselve, to give birth to greatness, that is, chaos is, out of itself, to give birth to order; and in the end, of course, the hymn to the birth-giving masses is intoned. Everything is then called 'great' which has for a prolonged time moved such masses and which, as one says, has been 'a historical power'. But is that not quite intentionally to confuse quantity with quality? If the dull masses have found some thought or other, say a religious thought, quite adequate, tenaciously defend it and drag it through centuries: then and only just then the finder and founder fo that thought is said to be great. But why! The noblest and highest has no effect on the masses; the historical success of Christianity, its historical power, tenacity and endurance, all this fortunately proves nothing as regards the greatness of its founder since basically it would testify against him: but between him and that historical success there is a very earthly and dark layer of passion, error, greed for power and honour, of the continuing effects of the 'imperium romanum a layer from which Christianity drew that earthy taste and bit of soil which made possible its continuation in the world and, as it were, gave it its durability.
...The purest and most truthful adherents of Christianity have always questioned and impeded rather than promoted its worldly success, its so-called "historical power"; for tehy used tot ake a stand outside the "world" and did not concern themselves with the "process of the Christian idea", which is why they have remained quite unknown and unnamed by history.
...Here the masses are, out of themselve, to give birth to greatness, that is, chaos is, out of itself, to give birth to order; and in the end, of course, the hymn to the birth-giving masses is intoned. Everything is then called 'great' which has for a prolonged time moved such masses and which, as one says, has been 'a historical power'. But is that not quite intentionally to confuse quantity with quality? If the dull masses have found some thought or other, say a religious thought, quite adequate, tenaciously defend it and drag it through centuries: then and only just then the finder and founder fo that thought is said to be great. But why! The noblest and highest has no effect on the masses; the historical success of Christianity, its historical power, tenacity and endurance, all this fortunately proves nothing as regards the greatness of its founder since basically it would testify against him: but between him and that historical success there is a very earthly and dark layer of passion, error, greed for power and honour, of the continuing effects of the 'imperium romanum a layer from which Christianity drew that earthy taste and bit of soil which made possible its continuation in the world and, as it were, gave it its durability.
...The purest and most truthful adherents of Christianity have always questioned and impeded rather than promoted its worldly success, its so-called "historical power"; for tehy used tot ake a stand outside the "world" and did not concern themselves with the "process of the Christian idea", which is why they have remained quite unknown and unnamed by history.
what are we here for? says he.
...do ask what you, the individual, are there for, and if no one else can tell you then just tyr something to justify the meaning of your existence a posteriori, as it were, by setting yourself a purpose , a goal, a 'for this', a lofty and noble 'for this'. And perish in the attempt- I know of no better life's purpose than to perish, 'animae magnae prodigus (Approximately: having expended all on'es mental energy), in attempting the great and impossible.
cheerfulness?
...only through cheerfulness is there a way to redemption, the redemption from this misleading owlish seriousness. There will come a time when one will wisely refrain from all constructions of the world process or of the history of mankind, a time when one no longer considers the masses at all but once again the individuals who constitute a kind of bridge across teh wild stream of becoming.
...the taks of history is to be the mediator between them and so again and again to provide the occasion for and lend strength to the production of greatness. No, the goal of humanity cannot lie at the end but only in its highest specimens. (the means is the ends of humanity)
...the taks of history is to be the mediator between them and so again and again to provide the occasion for and lend strength to the production of greatness. No, the goal of humanity cannot lie at the end but only in its highest specimens. (the means is the ends of humanity)
modern man
Hard by the pride of modern man we find his irony about himself, his awareness that he must live in a histocizing and, as it were, evening mood, his fear of being unable to save for the future any of his youthufl hopes and youthful strenght. Here and there one goes furhter, into cynicism, and justifies the course of history, of the totald development of the workd, essenctially for the everyday use of modern man according to the cynical cancon: exactly this moment had to come just as it is, man had to become what men are now and nothing else, no one may oppose this "must". He who cannot endure irony flees into the comfort of cynicism of this kind; the last decade, moreover, offers to make him a present of one of its most beautiful inventions, a well rounded and full phrase for that cynicism: it calls his way of living in step with the times and quite unreflectively "the total surrender of his personality to the world process".
...admittedly you climb th e sunbeams of your knowledge upwards to heaven, but also downards to chaos. your manner of moving, that is, of cimbing as a knower, is your doom; foundation and solid earth retreat into uncertanty for you; there are no more supports for your life, only gossamer threads which every new grip of your knowledge tears apart.
for StrauB - "manhood" is sterling mediocrity" and art is "perhaps what an evening performance of a farce is to a Berlin financier" in which "geniuses are no longer a requirement of the times because that would be to throw pearls before swine, or again because the times have advanced beyond the stage which deserves geniuses to a more important one", i.e., to that stage of social development in which each woerker "leads a comfortable life wit ha workday which leaves sufficient leisure time to cultivate his intellect."
...leads to yearning (selfishness)
...leads to 'intellectual eductaion'
...leads to sterling mediocrity
...leads to disgust (with all of existence)...
Nietzsche cites Von Hartman in reference to modern man...
"...He has nothing to do but to continue to live as he has lived, to continue to to love what he has loved, to continue to hate what he has hated, and to continue to read the newspaper which he has read; for him there is only one sin- to live differently than he has lived. But how he has lived we are told, with the exaggerated distinctness of writing carved in stone, by that famous page with the sentences printed large which has transported the whole contemporary educational ferment into blind ecstacy and ecstatic rage because it believed it read in these sentences its own justification in an apocalyptic light. For of each individual the unwitting parodist demanded "the total surrender of personality to the world process for the sake of its goal, the redemtpion of the world." (Von Hartman, op. cit., p. 638)
...admittedly you climb th e sunbeams of your knowledge upwards to heaven, but also downards to chaos. your manner of moving, that is, of cimbing as a knower, is your doom; foundation and solid earth retreat into uncertanty for you; there are no more supports for your life, only gossamer threads which every new grip of your knowledge tears apart.
for StrauB - "manhood" is sterling mediocrity" and art is "perhaps what an evening performance of a farce is to a Berlin financier" in which "geniuses are no longer a requirement of the times because that would be to throw pearls before swine, or again because the times have advanced beyond the stage which deserves geniuses to a more important one", i.e., to that stage of social development in which each woerker "leads a comfortable life wit ha workday which leaves sufficient leisure time to cultivate his intellect."
...leads to yearning (selfishness)
...leads to 'intellectual eductaion'
...leads to sterling mediocrity
...leads to disgust (with all of existence)...
Nietzsche cites Von Hartman in reference to modern man...
"...He has nothing to do but to continue to live as he has lived, to continue to to love what he has loved, to continue to hate what he has hated, and to continue to read the newspaper which he has read; for him there is only one sin- to live differently than he has lived. But how he has lived we are told, with the exaggerated distinctness of writing carved in stone, by that famous page with the sentences printed large which has transported the whole contemporary educational ferment into blind ecstacy and ecstatic rage because it believed it read in these sentences its own justification in an apocalyptic light. For of each individual the unwitting parodist demanded "the total surrender of personality to the world process for the sake of its goal, the redemtpion of the world." (Von Hartman, op. cit., p. 638)
firstcomers
Nietzsche calls for us to live against the trends of yesterday...not as if we are latecomers within an antiquarian society- but rather we must live against history, against the blind power of the actual, and toward the mindset of "so it ought to be."
...even if they are born as latecomesr there is a way of living which will erase this from memory-the coming generations will only know them as firstcomers. (p. 49)
...even if they are born as latecomesr there is a way of living which will erase this from memory-the coming generations will only know them as firstcomers. (p. 49)
spirit of the "new age" (modern consciousness)
the origin must be understood historically,
history must itself dissolve the problem of history,
knowledge must turn its sting against itself.
....this threefold must is the imperative of the spirit of the "new age" if it really does contain something new, might, original and a promise of life.
history must itself dissolve the problem of history,
knowledge must turn its sting against itself.
....this threefold must is the imperative of the spirit of the "new age" if it really does contain something new, might, original and a promise of life.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
nietzsche forsaw blog culture
They [young scholars] only need on occasion to sit down well to that mixed popular need and curiosity. Such a comfortable act one later calls pretentiously "modest condescension of a scholar to his people": while at bottom the scholar only descended to himself so far as he is not a scholar but a plebian. Create for yourselves the concept you can never think nobly nor highly enough. Were you to think highly of the people you would also be merciful to them and would beware of offering them your historical 'aqua fortis' as a quickening refreshing drink. But at bottom, you think very little of them because you are not permitted a true and well founded respect for their future, and you act as practical pessimists, I mean as men who are guided by a premonition of ruin and therefore become indifferent and careless of the welfare of others and even of their own. As long as the earth will still bear us! And if it will no longer bear us we can accept taht too:-thus they feel and live an 'ironical' existence."
In the age where information is seeping out of every corner, we all become experts at something. And yet our specialized interests are a pile of filthy rags in world that continues to follow the continuum of entropic 'progression'
What are we contributing to the health of our public by simply knowing? cynicism is contagious nad we must contribute positively (spiritually) within a physically deteriorating world (science).
historical sense
The young man is whipped through all millennia: youths who understand nothing of war, of diplomatic action, of commercial policy are deemed worthy of being introduced to political history. but just as the young man runs through history so we moderns run through art galleris, so we listen to concerts. One may well feel that this sounds different from that, this makes a different impression from that: increasingly to lose this sense of suprise, no longer to be excessively astonished by anything, finally to tolerate everything--that is what we call historical sense, historical culture.
melancholy and apathy.
the proliferation of historic culture simultaneously perpetuates the desensitized self which is essential in constructing a framework for science (also objective) and our capitalist economy. (estranged labour)
...the historical sense makes its servants passive and retrospective; and almost only from momentary forgetfulness, at a brief period of inactivity of that sense, does the man struck ill by historical fever become active, only to dissect this deed as soon as it is done and by observing it analytically to prevent its having any further effect and finally to pare it down to 'history'. In this sense we still live in the Middle Ages and history is still disguised theology: just as the reverence which the layman acords the scientific caste is a reverence inherited from the clergy. What earlier one gave to the church one now gives, even if more sparingly, to science: but that one gives at all is a consequence of the church and not of the modern spirit which rather, along with its other good qualities, is known to be somewhat miserly and a bungler when it comes to the noble virtue of liberality.
Nietzsche points his finger at the hopelessness of momento mori that came from the medieval origins of Christianity...
melancholy and apathy.
the proliferation of historic culture simultaneously perpetuates the desensitized self which is essential in constructing a framework for science (also objective) and our capitalist economy. (estranged labour)
...the historical sense makes its servants passive and retrospective; and almost only from momentary forgetfulness, at a brief period of inactivity of that sense, does the man struck ill by historical fever become active, only to dissect this deed as soon as it is done and by observing it analytically to prevent its having any further effect and finally to pare it down to 'history'. In this sense we still live in the Middle Ages and history is still disguised theology: just as the reverence which the layman acords the scientific caste is a reverence inherited from the clergy. What earlier one gave to the church one now gives, even if more sparingly, to science: but that one gives at all is a consequence of the church and not of the modern spirit which rather, along with its other good qualities, is known to be somewhat miserly and a bungler when it comes to the noble virtue of liberality.
Nietzsche points his finger at the hopelessness of momento mori that came from the medieval origins of Christianity...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Nietzsche on love and religion, briefly
A religion for example which, under the rule of pure justics, is to be transformed into historical knowledge, a religion which is to be thoroughly known in a scientific way, will at the end of this path also be annihiliated. The reason is that the historical audit always brings to light so much taht is false, crude, inhuman, absurd, violent, that the attitude of pious illusion, in which alone all that wants to live acna life, is necessarily dispelled: only with love, however, only surrounded by the shadow of the illusion of love, can man create, taht is, only with an unconditional faith in something perfect and righteous.
in other words, religion as historical objective living constricts us from being human (from love w/o illusions, or even shadows of illusions).
...What one can learn from Christianity, that as a result of a historicizing treatment it has become blase and unnatural until finally a completely historical, that is, just treatment has resolved it into pure knowledge about Christianity and so has annihilated it, all this one can study in everything that has life: that it ceases to live when it has been dissected completely and lives painfully and becomes sick once one begins to practise historical dissection on it.
For the theologian, dissection ought to be a process of embedding truth within the inner being of man, not a callous dismembering of God's extended hand. The depths God can hardly be attained by feeble minds of man who chooses to understand God on his own terms through reason. The wisdom of God is foolishness to Man.
Just imagine a few such modern biographers transferred to the birthplace of Christianity or the Lutheran Reformation; their sober pragmatizing curiosity might just have sufficed to make impossible every ghostly "actio in Distans (Action at a distance): or the most miserable animal can prevent the genesis of the mightiest oak by swallowing the acorn. Every living thing needs to be surrounded by an atmosphere, a mysterious circle of mist: if one robs it of this veil, if one condemns a religion, an art, a genius to orbit as a star without an atmosphere: then one should not wonder about its rapidly becoming withered, hard and barren. That is just how it is with all things great indeed,
"which without some madness ne'er succeed" (Hans Sachs sings this line in Act III of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg).
This is to say that we must retain a distance, a gap, a veil an atmosphere, a mystery...in order for our natural objvective tendencies to surrender to the immeasureable expanse (outward and inward) of God's kingdom.
in other words, religion as historical objective living constricts us from being human (from love w/o illusions, or even shadows of illusions).
...What one can learn from Christianity, that as a result of a historicizing treatment it has become blase and unnatural until finally a completely historical, that is, just treatment has resolved it into pure knowledge about Christianity and so has annihilated it, all this one can study in everything that has life: that it ceases to live when it has been dissected completely and lives painfully and becomes sick once one begins to practise historical dissection on it.
For the theologian, dissection ought to be a process of embedding truth within the inner being of man, not a callous dismembering of God's extended hand. The depths God can hardly be attained by feeble minds of man who chooses to understand God on his own terms through reason. The wisdom of God is foolishness to Man.
Just imagine a few such modern biographers transferred to the birthplace of Christianity or the Lutheran Reformation; their sober pragmatizing curiosity might just have sufficed to make impossible every ghostly "actio in Distans (Action at a distance): or the most miserable animal can prevent the genesis of the mightiest oak by swallowing the acorn. Every living thing needs to be surrounded by an atmosphere, a mysterious circle of mist: if one robs it of this veil, if one condemns a religion, an art, a genius to orbit as a star without an atmosphere: then one should not wonder about its rapidly becoming withered, hard and barren. That is just how it is with all things great indeed,
"which without some madness ne'er succeed" (Hans Sachs sings this line in Act III of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg).
This is to say that we must retain a distance, a gap, a veil an atmosphere, a mystery...in order for our natural objvective tendencies to surrender to the immeasureable expanse (outward and inward) of God's kingdom.
improper justice
If justice alone rules (note: self, pride, anger, hurt, anxiety, superstition, false love) then the creative instinct is enfeebled and discouraged.
unripened epigone
history is written by the experienced and superior man...
Draw about yoursleves the fence of a great and embracing hope, a hopeful striving. From an image for yourselves to which the future ought to correspond and forget the superstition taht you are epigoni. You have enough to ponder and invent by pondering that future life; but do not ask history to show the How? and the Wherewith? If, on the other hand, you live yourselves into the history of great men you will learn from it a highest commandment, to become ripe and to flee from that paralyzing educational constraint of the age, which sees its advantage in preventing your becoming ripe, in order to rule and to exploit you unripe ones. And if you want biographies then not those withtherefrain "Mr. So-and-so and his Time" but rather those on whose title page should be inscribed "A Fighter Against his Time". Satisfy your souls on Plutarch and dare to believe in yourselves when you believe in his heroes. A hundred such men educated against the modern fashion, that is, men who have ripened and are used to the heroic, could now silence forever teh whole noisy pseudo-education of our time."
Note to self: live to change history-not to learn it. unripe yourself foolish wanderers and bare not the burdens of our past generations, but live forward and enoble your seed to make great the history of tomorrow.
Draw about yoursleves the fence of a great and embracing hope, a hopeful striving. From an image for yourselves to which the future ought to correspond and forget the superstition taht you are epigoni. You have enough to ponder and invent by pondering that future life; but do not ask history to show the How? and the Wherewith? If, on the other hand, you live yourselves into the history of great men you will learn from it a highest commandment, to become ripe and to flee from that paralyzing educational constraint of the age, which sees its advantage in preventing your becoming ripe, in order to rule and to exploit you unripe ones. And if you want biographies then not those withtherefrain "Mr. So-and-so and his Time" but rather those on whose title page should be inscribed "A Fighter Against his Time". Satisfy your souls on Plutarch and dare to believe in yourselves when you believe in his heroes. A hundred such men educated against the modern fashion, that is, men who have ripened and are used to the heroic, could now silence forever teh whole noisy pseudo-education of our time."
Note to self: live to change history-not to learn it. unripe yourself foolish wanderers and bare not the burdens of our past generations, but live forward and enoble your seed to make great the history of tomorrow.
vanity and just
...man has just as much vanity as he lacks understanding.
...ages and generations never have the right to be the judge of all earlier ages and generations: rather such an uncomfortable mission occasionally is the lot only of individuals, and the rarest at that. Who forces you to judge? And then-just inquire of yourselves whether you could be just even if you wanted to! As judges you must stand higher than the one to be judged; while you have only come later. The guests who are the last to arrive at table justifiably should receive the last places: and you want to have the first? Well then, at least to the highest and greatest; perhaps one will really make room for you then, even if you arrive last.
Note: write about what is just (world) and just (God)
...ages and generations never have the right to be the judge of all earlier ages and generations: rather such an uncomfortable mission occasionally is the lot only of individuals, and the rarest at that. Who forces you to judge? And then-just inquire of yourselves whether you could be just even if you wanted to! As judges you must stand higher than the one to be judged; while you have only come later. The guests who are the last to arrive at table justifiably should receive the last places: and you want to have the first? Well then, at least to the highest and greatest; perhaps one will really make room for you then, even if you arrive last.
Note: write about what is just (world) and just (God)
quick to criticism
activity is disguised as criticism by the neuters of our age. criticism again has no effect but only comes to see further criticism. In view of this there has come to be general agreement that much criticism is to be sen as an effect and little or none as failure.
The historical education of our critics does not permit any more that there be an effect in the proper sense, namely an effect on life and action: on the blackest script they immediately press their blotter, on the most graceful drawing they smear the their thick brush strokes, which are to be seen as corrections: once again it was all over. Their critical pen, however, never ceases to flow for they have lost control over it and are directed by it, instead of directing it. Just in this immoderation of their critical effusion, in this lack of self-mastery, in what the Romans call impotentia, the weakness of the modern personality is betrayed. (P 32)
(note to self to write brief ideas on criticism)
The historical education of our critics does not permit any more that there be an effect in the proper sense, namely an effect on life and action: on the blackest script they immediately press their blotter, on the most graceful drawing they smear the their thick brush strokes, which are to be seen as corrections: once again it was all over. Their critical pen, however, never ceases to flow for they have lost control over it and are directed by it, instead of directing it. Just in this immoderation of their critical effusion, in this lack of self-mastery, in what the Romans call impotentia, the weakness of the modern personality is betrayed. (P 32)
(note to self to write brief ideas on criticism)
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