by Roy Jackson
The importance of culture
The importance of culture is another theme that runs through all of Nietzsche’s works. As already mentioned, when Nietzsche was at Basel in 1869 he became acquainted with the historian Jakob Burckhardt (‘friend’ would be too strong a word in this case, as Burckhardt for his part kept his distance), and was influenced by his most famous work, The Culture of the Renaissance in Italy, published in 1860. Burckhardt, also something of a pessimistic Schopenhauerian, was particularly interested in the history of culture, as opposed to military or political history, and he argued for three major forces of existence: state, religion and culture. For Nietzsche, culture (which in his case could well include religion) was the highest objective, more so than, say, economics or science.
Nietzsche stresses that Apollo and Dionysus are not opposites but that they work side by side. They complement each other and, therefore, the perfect Art (in the Wagnerian sense) is one that embodies both the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Like Wagner, Nietzsche saw this Art as existing in Greek tragedy. Nietzsche’s most important contribution in The Birth of Tragedy is the attack on the then-prevalent view that life in ancient Greece was idyllic. Rather, Nietzsche argued, the Greek way of life was brutal, short and full of suffering. How did the Greeks cope with these facts of life? Art, through the fusion of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, was their mechanism for making life tolerable.
The Apollonian element was needed to create the illusion – the fantasy – that distracted them from the horrors of everyday life. If, Nietzsche argued, the Greeks were indeed as happy and sunny as pictured, there would be no need for Apollonian art, and yet there is plenty of evidence in Greek tragedy to show that the Greeks suffered immensely. In Greek tragedy, we are presented with the images of gods and men, of heroes and monsters, as a way of transforming their fear of such things, in the same way that dreams are projections of our own fears and doubts.
The role of the chorus
The Dionysian element in Greek tragedy is represented by the chorus. The chorus would narrate the story through song. The chorus acted as an artistic substitute for the Dionysian rites by allowing the audience to identify themselves with these singing, dancing characters and therefore participate within the tragedy themselves and not be mere spectators. This was therapeutic, allowing audiences to feel a sense of unity with their fellows, with the chorus, and with the drama of the tragedy as well as to feel godlike themselves.
Nietzsche’s participation in the Franco-Prussian War, brief though it was, tells us something about him and his views on war at this early age. (The fact that Nietzsche often uses militaristic terms in his writing has served to hinder an understanding of his philosophy, while encouraging those who wish to interpret him as a philosopher of war and military conquest.) Nietzsche had initially hailed the Franco-Prussian War as a catalyst for the revival of culture. However, he was not being nationalistic in any way, for he later distanced himself from the war when he realized that its primary motive was often more in line with profit-making and state-making. Rather, he saw war as part of the inevitable ingredient of culture-making.
An interesting essay, originally intended to be part of The Birth of Tragedy, is ‘The Greek State’, which Nietzsche had had printed privately; he sent a copy to Cosima Wagner. More will be said of this essay when looking at Nietzsche’s politics (see Chapter 10), but for now it is worth noting that in this short work he argues that the state emerges from attempts to subdue war within its own frontiers and rather directs it outwards. The formation and continued existence of states requires that there will always be wars between these states, but in the ‘intervals’ society has breathing space to produce ‘the radiant blossoms of genius’ of culture in ‘the concentrated effect of that bellum [warfare], turned inward’ (‘The Greek State’, 7, 344). Here, Nietzsche was influenced by Burckhardt, who had argued that culture arises from agony. Nietzsche developed this line of thinking in arguing that war was a necessity for culture to thrive in what he calls the association of ‘battlefield and artwork’ (‘The Greek State’, 7, 344).
Life is tragic, and in The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche wrote a phrase that has often been quoted since: ‘Existence and the world are eternally justified solely as an aesthetic phenomenon’ (BT, 5). A moral point of view may well argue for democracy and the welfare state, for the greatest happiness for the greatest number, but an aesthetic point of view – which Nietzsche advocates – is not concerned with such ‘levelling’. If we are looking for recurrent themes in Nietzsche, then undoubtedly a key theme is his criticism of modernity, of the way we are now. This criticism rests upon two key features of modernity. First, we have lost what he calls our ‘metaphysical solace’ when faced with the certainty of death. Second, we have killed myth. In this sense, Nietzsche does not come across at all as a post-modern existentialist, but more of a traditionalist calling out for traditional, indeed ancient, values. Nietzsche says that the modern man is a myth-less man; when, for example, we go to the theatre we can no longer experience the ‘miracle’ that, for children, is a matter of course (BT, 23). We have lost the magic – in particular of art – because we have become too critical when studying history. The modern man breaks things down (is ‘deconstructive’), reduces everything, rather than sees things in a more holistic manner.
In the first essay of Untimely Meditations (1873), for example, Nietzsche is critical of the Hegelian David Strauss. This is because Strauss wrote a ‘deconstructive’ Life of Jesus in 1835–6. History, as Nietzsche points out in the second essay of his Untimely Meditations, is not to be understood as ‘events in the past’, but rather as ‘representations of the past’. While history of the right sort is essential for life, history of the wrong sort kills life. By ‘life’, Nietzsche means the growth of a people, a community, a culture. The mistake Strauss made was to write the wrong kind of history, to deconstruct a monumental figure. Strauss, by attempting to present an objective, scientific history, kills history and kills religion by presenting it as false, crude, irrational and absurd. Life, for Nietzsche, is possible only if we have illusion; religion is alive only if we have illusion. There is a place for science – at times Nietzsche was very positive about scientific progress – and there is a place for religion, but there is no place for a science of religion. The term ‘modernity’ (or even ‘post-modernity’) is often used today to cover many things in many different fields. For Nietzsche, modern man symbolized something dull, mediocre and lacking in excitement, imagination and passion for life.
Spotlight
There’s a wonderful remark from the character Bernard Nightingale in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia. He says:
‘Why does scientific progress matter more than personalities? … Don’t confuse progress with perfectibility. A great poet is always timely. A great philosopher is an urgent need. There’s no rush for Isaac Newton. We were quite happy with Aristotle’s cosmos. Personally, I preferred it. Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God’s crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can’t think of anything more trivial than the speed of light…’
Nietzsche, for sure, would have seconded this view.
The value of Greek tragedy
In seeking to understand Nietzsche, it helps to put him in historical perspective. He saw, in Europe in particular, a decline in religious belief, which was being replaced by little in the way of positive values. This is why, in The Birth of Tragedy, he feels the need to look for ‘salvation’ – through Art in particular.
Nietzsche portrayed Greek tragedy as an interactive, mystical and unifying experience that provided a therapeutic outlet for a people who were sensitive to the suffering and uncertainties of everyday life, and in which humankind is in tune with Nature. Man is no longer an artist but a work of art. Art possesses form and so by making life a work of art we give the world a form, a structure. For Nietzsche, the greatest tragedians were Sophocles and Aeschylus in the fifth century BCE. He saw Euripides, the other tragedian often associ
ated with these two, as the enemy of great Art.
Nietzsche argued that Euripides rid Greek drama of the role of the chorus, of the Dionysian element. The chorus became less central to the drama and became a matter of mere convention. Euripides, Nietzsche believed, killed tragedy. Nietzsche characterizes Euripides as a rational man who could not understand the seemingly irrational function of the chorus. When Wagner wrote of humankind turning away from Art and towards philosophy, Nietzsche saw this as a movement away from the instinctual, natural element towards the distant, rational capacity. Socrates, like Euripides, emphasized the importance of reason in the belief that, through the power of reason, we can gain access to truth. Nietzsche always placed a greater emphasis on the irrational and the instinctual, and also believed that there is no such thing as ‘truth’. Great art is no ‘truer’ than science or religion, but Nietzsche believed art could at least put people in touch with Nature and their fellow human beings. It is an acceptance that there is only this life and it is full of suffering, rather than a belief that there is a better, pain-free life.
What has this got to do with the modern European whom Nietzsche was addressing? Although the ancient Greeks suffered, the tragedy of Classical Athens, Nietzsche believed, presents a balanced picture of the world. While understanding that individuals inevitably suffer in this life, there is solace in being aware of the underlying energies that pervade the world. As mentioned, Nietzsche saw Socrates as the precursor of an alternative, disabling, vision of ‘optimism’: an over-rationalized, logical, scientific view of the world that represses the emotions, the human instincts. At this time – and remember that Nietzsche was only 28 – he saw The Birth of Tragedy as a manifesto for change, as a call for a revolution. While such rhetoric is rarely appropriate in an academic text, it was heartfelt, reflecting Nietzsche’s frustration with what he increasingly saw as dusty academia. He was also still in the grip of Schopenhauer and Kant to a large extent, and saw their philosophical enterprises as a break away from Socratic ‘optimism’. The resurrection of the Greek world view was also present, Nietzsche thought, in music:
‘From the Dionysiac ground of the German spirit a power has risen up which has nothing in common with the original conditions of Socratic culture and which can neither be explained not excused by these conditions; rather, this culture feels it to be something terrifying and inexplicable, something overpowering and hostile, namely German music, as we see it in the mighty, brilliant course it has run from Bach to Beethoven, from Beethoven to Wagner. What can the knowledge-lusting Socratism of today hope to do with this daemon as it emerges from unfathomable depths?’
The Birth of Tragedy, 19
At this point in Nietzsche’s philosophical career, he was not only under the influence of Wagner but also still Schopenhauerian and Kantian in his outlook. To their credit, which Nietzsche acknowledges, both these philosophers shared in Nietzsche’s own enterprise in putting limits to the perceived unbounded scope of the scientific enterprise. Reason alone could not, after all, provide all the answers. He believed that humankind had lost all sense of purpose and was clinging on to religious and philosophical views that were no longer credible. He called for a return to the principles of Greek tragedy and devotes the final third of the book to praise of Wagner as the new tragedian.
In this respect, the book failed. While academics attacked it severely, Wagnerians – perhaps not surprisingly – praised it. Nietzsche himself, in a later preface to the book added in 1886, described it as badly written and confused:
‘I repeat: I find it an impossible book today. I declare that it is badly written, clumsy, embarrassing, with a rage for imagery and confused in its imagery, emotional, here and there sugary to the point of effeminacy, uneven in pace, lacking the will to logical cleanliness, very convinced and therefore too arrogant to prove its assertions, mistrustful even in the propriety of proving things [… and so on…].’
The Birth of Tragedy, ‘An Attempt at Self-criticism’
However, perhaps Nietzsche is too severe a critic of his own work. It has elements of originality and, most importantly, it raises the question of the importance of Art in our understanding of the world and our place within it. Art, together with our instinctual side, can also provide us with insights that are not accessible through reason.
Key ideas
Apollonian: Nietzsche’s characterization of the Greek god Apollo as symbolic of painting and sculpture
Dionysian: Nietzsche’s characterization of the Greek god Dionysus as symbolic of ecstatic music and dance and representative of the life force of the universe
Metaphysics: the speculation on what exists beyond the physical world, such as the existence of God and what is real
Modernity: a term with many meanings, but generally a reference to the increase in secularization accompanied by a belief in scientific progress
Relativism: the idea that morals and beliefs are a product of a particular time and place and that, therefore, there is no such thing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
Things to remember
• When Nietzsche published The Birth of Tragedy, it was heavily criticized by scholars for being too ambitious and, to a large extent, naive.
• Nietzsche was not the first, or only, person to look back to ancient Greece for more positive values. It was very much within the Romantic tradition.
• Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy until his last writings, was always critical of the modern man of science and progress, his ‘theoretical man’.
• Nietzsche is critical of Socrates, and therefore Plato, because of the over-emphasis on the importance of reason and the belief in objective values.
• The Birth of Tragedy emphasizes the importance of art and, more generally, culture as an affirmation of life. This is in contrast to the scientific, ‘deconstructive’ picture of the world presented by modern man.
• Nietzsche gives us the character of the Greek god Apollo to symbolize especially painting and sculpture.
• Nietzsche gives us the character of the Greek god Dionysus to symbolize especially ecstatic music and dance. It is the Dionysian in particular that represents the life force of the universe.
• Nietzsche pictures the world as essentially cruel, but vibrant. If, therefore, we are to find any ‘truth’ at all, we must share in this view of the world.
Fact-check
1 What is The Birth of Tragedy about?
a Persian culture
b Greek culture
c German culture
d Prussian culture
2 What does Nietzsche mean by the ‘theoretical man’?
a The man of science and progress
b Nietzsche himself
c Wagner
d Priests
3 What role did Nietzsche play during the Franco-Prussian War?
a A drill sergeant
b A conscientious objector
c A medical orderly
d A chef
4 What year did the Franco-Prussian War begin?
a 1871
b 1870
c 1869
d 1868
5 According to Nietzsche, which Greek playwright killed tragedy?
a Euripides
b Sophocles
c Aeschylus
d Choerilus
6 Which philosopher did Nietzsche especially criticize for emphasizing reason over the emotions?
a Hume
b Locke
c Socrates
d Heraclitus
7 Which one of the following books did Nietzsche describe as ‘badly written, clumsy, embarrassing…’?
a Plato’s Republic
b Aristotle’s Ethics
c Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason
d Nietzsche’s own work The Birth of Tragedy
8 What, for Nietzsche, did Apollo symbolize?
a Music and dance
b Painting and sculpture
c Science and technology
d Politics and
economics
9 What, for Nietzsche, did Dionysus symbolize?
a Music and dance
b Painting and sculpture
c Science and technology
d Politics and economics
10 What is ‘relativism’?
a The philosophical view that a subjective view of the world is impossible
b The philosophical view that you should treat your relatives better than your friends
c The philosophical view that our beliefs are particular to a time and place
d The philosophical view that nothing exists except what is in the mind
Dig deeper
Douglas Burnham, Nietzsche’s ‘The Birth of Tragedy’: Reader’s Guides (London: Continuum, 2010)
Paul Raimond Daniels, Nietzsche and ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ (Durham: Acumen, 2013)
5
The revaluation of all values
In this chapter you will learn:
• what is meant by ‘morality’
• what Nietzsche means when he says, ‘God is dead’
• about Nietzsche’s naturalism
• about slave morality and ressentiment.
If we had to label Nietzsche as a particular kind of philosopher, it would be as a moral philosopher. Yet readers are often puzzled by what Nietzsche’s moral views actually consist of. This is because – unlike other previous moral philosophers such as Bentham, Mill or Kant – Nietzsche is not prepared to provide the reader with a moral system, method or code. In a sense, it is up to the reader to determine his or her own morality. Nietzsche is therefore primarily concerned with meta-ethical issues and, in fact, is probably the most ruthless critic of the moral philosophical tradition that you will find.
