Author: Jakob (---.speed.planet.nl)
Date: 12-08-05 13:09
In reflection of passages 809 to 820 of the Will to Power on the artistic temperament, which I have read with gratitude (it is good to be understood by a hinker of higher rank - he understands out of richness, he understands with the bestowing virtue - he geives as he understands, he does not restrict and confine), the following in passage 819 appears to be of relevance to my lust for truth doctrine.
As quotation marks seem not to be allowed on this forum anymore, I will post the quote in italics.
A sense for and delight in nuances (-the real mark of modernity), in that which is not general, runs counter to the drive that delights and excels in grasping the typical; like the Greek taste of the best period. There is an overpowering of the fullness of life in it; measure becomes master; at bottom there is that calm of the strong soul that moves slowly and feels repugnance towards what is too lively. The general rule, the law, is honored and emphasized: the exception, conversely, is set aside, the nuance obliterated. The firm, powerful, solid, the life that reposes broad and majestic and conceals it's strength - that is what pleases; i.e, that corresponds to what one thinks of oneself.
Life corresponding to what one thinks of oneself - that is exactly what I mean by embodying truth.
Where lust becomes will;
The rationale of life. - A relative chastity, a prudent caution on principle regarding ero tic matters, ven in thought, can belong to the grand rationale of life even in richly endowed and complete nature...
In archaic / Homeric Greece, the passions still ruled unbridledly - certainly if we are to take the Iliad as a protrayal of the higest men of that time - Agamemnoon especially. Lust for itself was the motivation for will to power over others. Passion was at the root of man's conquests.
When, as a result of this, a high order was established in a ranking order of the passions of strong men in the form of a polis, and the nature of man reached a level of completeness, the passions were compromised - or, as Nietzsche calls it here, chaistized ro an extent.
But the will to prudence is also a passion: a passion of an organism to itself. Athens wanted to remain itself, as it perceived itself in a way corresponding to what it thought of itself.
This will to power, yes - but in a more direct sense it is lust for truth. It is will to power over excesses and external influeces in order to retain itself - in order to prolong the state of truth.
Henceforth, it is the truth of classical Greece rather than the power of it which remains alive and tangible to us.
The Romans excercized will to power rather than that they were driven by lust for truth directly- they were mere agents functioning to further manifest that which had been born in Greece; truth. The lust for truth of the world used the will to power in the form of the Romans. Although in the highest Roman nature, Caesar, the will to power equalled the lust for truth, as he himself was power, and he had a certain idea of Rome as corresponding with his own nature. He wanted Rome to become as he thought of it. In other words: He wanted Rome to become an image of himself.
As for the nature of Truth of that self-image he had - I call to mind the moment when Caesar wept at the statue of Alexander.
|
|
