Thursday, January 22, 2009

Question sparked by Birth Of Tragedy Section 1-6:

My first blog post.



Is Nietzsche writing about Attic Greek gods and art because he believes they were a positive expression of life. His criticism of modern religions seems to be that they are death worshipers and live for death. Whereas the Greek gods loved life and the Greeks themselves created these gods because they too wanted to enjoy life, as opposed to fear and prepare for death. Yet this interpretation of Nietzsche does not seem consistent with his nihilism. Perhaps what he is trying to get at in the first six sections of the Birth of Tragedy is what Schopenhauer expressed as the artist mirror. Schopenhauer’s pessimistic assertion of the impossibility of enjoying life favored the escape of will through art, by which artists have the capacity to distract their audience from the pain of living. Yet Nietzsche seems to express an interest in something more than escaping pain, as seen in his criticism of modern religions. Can it be that through his nihilism he will favor the hedonism exemplified in the Dionysian? That seems contradictory as well though.

Truly confused,

Cody

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