[lit-ideas] Re: The Medium is the Message
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 21:13:16 -0500
Phil: "Thanks to Robert for the reference to Whitman and providing me
another opportunity to quote Nietzsche."
Well here's another opportunity:
"Agenbite of inwit. God, we'll simply have to dress the character. I want
puce gloves and green boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very
well then, I contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi." (Ulysses, p. 17).
I would urge Phil Enns to read Walt Whitman. But DON'T STUDY HIM, please.
Just kick back and enjoy. The study of poertry is the murder of poetry.
Just read him -- if only "Song of Myself"
(from Section 20 of "Song of Myself")
"In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
and the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
"I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must bet what the writing means.
....
"I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,...
"I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content....."
Mike Geary
On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 3:51 PM, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Robert points out that my paraphrase of Nietzsche, 'I am a multitude' is
> very close to the following:
>
>
> Do I contradict myself?
> Very well then I contradict myself.
> (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
>
> —Walt Whitman, 'Song of Myself'
>
> and then comments:
>
>
> "I had thought, on thin evidence, granted, that Nietzsche often spoke of
> himself as standing apart from the multitude—?"
>
>
> It is true that Nietzsche writes from within the Romantic tradition, with
> its notion of great individuals, standing above the multitude, calling to
> each other from mountain tops. I am completely ignorant of Whitman so I
> won't say anything about him except that Nietzsche had read him and I have
> no idea as to the degree Whitman influenced Nietzsche. However, my
> paraphrase of Nietzsche was meant to reference texts like the following:
>
> "In all willing it is absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on
> the basis, as already said, of a social structure composed of many 'souls'.
> Hence a philosopher should claim the right to include willing as such
> within the sphere of morals" - *Beyond Good and Evil*, 'On the Prejudices
> of Philosophers', 19.
>
> "The assumption of one single subject is perhaps unnecessary; perhaps it
> is just as permissible to assume a multiplicity of subjects, whose
> interaction and struggle is the basis of our thought and our consciousness
> in general? A kind of aristocracy of 'cells' in which dominion resides? To
> be sure, an aristocracy of equals, used to ruling jointly and understanding
> how to command? My hypothesis: The subject as multiplicity." *The Will to
> Power*, 490.
>
> All evaluation is made from a definite perspective: that of the
> preservation of the individual, a community, a race, a state, a church, a
> faith, a culture. Because we forget that valuation is always from a
> perspective, a single individual contains within him a vast confusion of
> contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory drives. ... This
> contradictory creature has in his nature, however, a great method of
> acquiring knowledge: he feels many pros and cons, he raises himself to
> justice - to comprehension beyond esteeming things good and evil. The
> wisest man would be the one richest in contradictions, who has, as it were,
> antennae for all types of men - as well as his great moments of grand
> harmony - a rare accident even in us." *The Will to Power*, 259.
>
>
> Thanks to Robert for the reference to Whitman and providing me another
> opportunity to quote Nietzsche.
>
>
> Wandering among the multitude,
>
> Phil Enns
>
Other related posts:
