foreign
Century philosopher from Germany
so it's pretty hard to underrate his
gravity in both 20th century philosophy
and unquotes.com there's something for
everybody some bangers from self-help
gurus to Nazis to metaphysicians and you
might know him from his Greatest Hits
what does not kill me makes me stronger
when you look long into an abyss the
abyss also looks into you and of course
God is dead
so I quickly browsed a few of the
popular videos in nature that are
already on YouTube and with some
exception they generally missed the
point terrifically because they take a
few quotations and Stitch them together
to say that you you are something
special you get it and everyone else is
a herd animal but you you are a true
creative so self-help nature is very
popular they put these up uh quotations
up on the wall at the gym and maybe you
are maybe you are one of those rare
independent free Spirits he talks about
and congrats from me though chances are
you're not chances are you are like most
people quote good natured easy to
deceive a little stupid and heard like
Nietzsche is constantly separating the
common from the noble the bad from the
good and the reactive from the creative
and you're supposed to kind of get that
too it's kind of the point to be like
wow I could be like this instead of like
this but see most people then finish
their Nietzsche book or their Nietzsche
video and then go out believing yeah
everyone else is like that but not me
everyone else naively believes what they
are told and I'm so glad that I am not
like that I am so glad I am not like
that and there you go look this is
important this is a negation not an
affirmation but it says I'm good
relatively because other people are bad
at it and then you've kind of missed the
point of the whole thing which is that
Noble Spirits are actually just too busy
doing stuff to pay attention to what
everyone else is doing
so if there is a lesson to be learned
from Nietzsche what might that be and
this is always a risky Endeavor because
he's really not a big fan of moral
lessons or following rules for their own
sake but he does in untimely meditations
draft a sort of prescription as to how
we should understand ourselves as
historical animals and our particular
relation to our history is what makes us
modern as opposed to
pre-modern or post-modern and we're not
yet here we're here and history is
contentious among modernists where did
we come from and where are we going now
were we Savage until we were civilized
into intelligent Society or were we good
and free until we are corrupted by
civilization
where we once free only to become
enslaved or is history just a mind for
Content history packaged into uh
Commodities histories they are tools
sometimes weapons sometimes screens of
fantasy though they're never really as
simple as the Storyteller presents and
Nietzsche is really insightful on this
question the question of historicism and
today we're still caught up pulling down
statues performing land acknowledgments
and uh taking responsibility for history
whatever that means we expect the church
to take up and step up and take
responsibility for its role in this and
then comparing the present to historical
goods and evils and sometimes just
fantasizing about the simpler days or
times that could have been different so
starting at the title on the use and
abuse of history for life
so we need some sense of History to live
says Nietzsche and that's what it's
useful for though it can also be abused
and that's not to say that mythologizing
or even fabricating history is abusing
it because Nietzsche doesn't have a huge
problem with that now history is a
problem when it no longer serves the
goals of living for instance when it
becomes like a soulless scientific
object uh just debt locked up in a
museum where it can no longer Inspire
longing or ambition so to use history it
can't be an end to itself it has to mean
something to us but there are different
ways for it to mean something so there's
three uses of history that need to be
balanced out one Monumental history so
Monumental history is a chain of
Humanity's greatest hits the greatest
moments the Heights and wonders of human
accomplishment and this this history
when used properly serves as a reminder
that no matter how dull or habitual the
present has become there's still reason
to have faith in humanity because of
what's possible in terms of
I don't know architecture writings ideas
forms of life and most of humanity is
terrified of greatness most of the time
and we feel safe when everything's
reduced to the lowest and stupidest
common denominator but from time to time
there are these moments of overcoming
LED usually by small groups of dedicated
individuals that defy the existing
status quo and remembering that reminds
you that things can be changed so what
could go wrong
a lot as you can imagine so the
mythological can take over real life
here leading to fanaticism and rashness
and purposeless destruction and also if
you believe too fanatically in
historical figures religious figures
let's say or founding fathers you may
end up shutting down anything new so
reverence for the old just because it's
old can become a hatred of life which is
obviously contrary to growth
so next the second one is antiquarian
history this form is about preserving
the past like in museum culture which
was also All the Rage in Nietzsche's
time and it belongs to him who with
loyalty and love looks back on his
Origins so it's supposed to serve Life
as a form of gratitude for a family
history people's history even a Homeland
gathered across time and there's this
gardening metaphor here too because it
comes with weeds and as with Monumental
history this caring for the old can also
become something that's hostile to the
new serving the old simply because it's
old so this is a like a hostile
conservativeness that the old is good
simply because it's old rather than
separating old [ __ ] that's useful from
old [ __ ] that's not useful and this is
what Nietzsche calls the mummification
of History which ends up serving death
instead of life
and this brings us to the the third type
of useful history so as to not allow the
past to Eclipse life we need a Third
Kind personal favorite a critical
history but it can't become excessively
critical the historian must have the
strength and use it from time to time to
shatter and dissolve something to enable
him to live so every past has its weeds
its Illusions its Hollow statues but
hold on before we go too far we have to
remember this is Nietzsche we're talking
about so this does not mean judging the
past using our morality that would be
stupid because only God can do that and
he's dead so it's not Justice which sits
here in judgment but life alone that
dark driving insatiably self-desiring
power its verdict is always unjust but
in most cases the verdict would be the
same where Justice itself to Proclaim it
so to put this in other terms we cannot
take revenge on the past the past
doesn't exist anymore and the feeling to
revenge is more harmful to life than
helpful but every past is unjust and
every past is immoral and since we
happen to be the results of earlier
Generations we are also the results of
the aberrations passions and errors and
even crimes and it's not possible to
free oneself from this chain
the danger with critical history is of
course that it sees Injustice everywhere
because it is everywhere but without the
other two it will end up hacking the
whole thing to Pieces leaving us with no
history and then no Horizon in which to
grow
so history had in his day he thought
become overly disciplinary overly
scientized when that was never the use
of history and this is one of my
favorite nature quotations ever but
ain't nobody putting this on the wall of
their gym 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 a star without an
atmosphere one should not wonder about
its rapidly becoming withered hard and
Barren and that is we need a little bit
of enveloping Madness a little bit of
Illusion a little bit of art a history
that's more than a series of facts and
objects trapped in a museum so becoming
excessive either too critical or too
scientific when it comes to history
deprives us of that little bit of
Madness that's necessary to produce life
but Too Much Madness and too much
monumentalizing that's equally harmful
so he speaks of modern historians they
are specialized they are scholarly and
they know everything that ever happened
but they have no wisdom when it comes to
life
they know that everything is values but
they don't value culture and thus our
modern culture is no real culture at all
but only a kind of knowledge about
culture so for Nietzsche conversely the
good historian is more like an artist
who can bring a past age to life which
includes that little bit of Illusion
that guards against uh withered
Melancholy with respect to humans
capacities both for greatness or for
indolence and in this respect you might
consider a good novelist to be a better
historian than the person in the
University department or the museum
ultimately it's life not accuracy that
measures the value of history now this
is a nice thought about modern history
but it kind of dates itself a little bit
you know like too much history that
seems to be a problem of modernity one
that we've kind of moved passed into an
everywhere present that represents
everything all times and all people
always on in this horizonless present
and the historical sense of modernity
has in that sense been choked out what
we can see here as he identifies that
modernity is defined by this historical
sense to the degree that historical
senses disappeared then we can say we
are no longer modern we are something
else if that is we ever were
and this is in part of course why
Nietzsche said to anticipate the
post-modern to some degree it's
dependent upon the media that we use to
represent history to remember it that
shows we have moved past historical
sense historicism into something else
but if God is dead you're still going to
kiss his ass
foreign