John wrote, about Nietzsche's view of the aesthetic:
> Here's the world: it's ugly, it's base,
> it's hope-less. This is the point of the story of Silenus in Section 3 of
> _Birth of Tragedy_. Midas hunts and finally captures Silenus and forces
> him to answer the question: "What is best and most desirable of all things
> for man?" Silenus answers: "The best and most desirable thing of all for
> man is not to be." Midas asks for a second-best option. Silenus answers:
> "To die soon." (See _BT_, Section 3, trans. Kaufmann, p. 42.)
> That's the truth, but, as Nicholson so aptly phrased it (in "A Few Good
> Men") "we can't handle the truth." So we apply some rouge (life after
> death!), some lipstick (sinners can be saved!), and so on. So tarting up
> doesn't seem to be a corruption of the aesthetic sense to me. It seems
> like this basic activity we engage in to adorn the world with as many
> concealing flowing drapes and as many air fresheners as we can lay our
> hands on.
So I've now actually read "The Birth of Tragedy", which is something of an
improvement. It seems to me that your account is not quite accurate.
I would not treat the story of Silenus as an account of "the real world" that
gets contrasted with a rouged world which we furnish ourselves through art.
Rather, I would say that the story itself is a direct example of an artistic
act, namely of "tragic myth". "[...] Tragic myth has convinced us that
that even the ugly and discordant are merely an aesthetic game which the
will, in its utter exuberance, plays with itself. [...] The delight created
by tragic myth has the same origin as the delight dissonance in music creates.
That primal Dionysiac delight, experienced even in the presence of pain,
is the source common to both music and tragic myth." [p.143 of the Golffing
translation, Doubleday Anchor].
"It is vain to try to deduce the tragic spirit from the commonly accepted
categories of art: illusion and beauty. Music alone allows us to understand
the delight felt at the annihilation of the individual. Each single instance
of such annihilation will clarify for us the abiding phenomenon of Dionysiac
art, which expresses the omnipotent will behind individuation, eternal life
continuing beyond all appearance and in spite of destruction." [p. 101]
I think that this is a far cry from flowing drapes and air fresheners.
I was struck, in reading BoT, how very connected to it "Preface to
Transgression" seems; there is almost a feeling of an umbilical cord running
between them.
And how does one relate to the framework of BoT the Baudelairian "dandyism",
the idea of constructing oneself as a work of art?
-m
> Here's the world: it's ugly, it's base,
> it's hope-less. This is the point of the story of Silenus in Section 3 of
> _Birth of Tragedy_. Midas hunts and finally captures Silenus and forces
> him to answer the question: "What is best and most desirable of all things
> for man?" Silenus answers: "The best and most desirable thing of all for
> man is not to be." Midas asks for a second-best option. Silenus answers:
> "To die soon." (See _BT_, Section 3, trans. Kaufmann, p. 42.)
> That's the truth, but, as Nicholson so aptly phrased it (in "A Few Good
> Men") "we can't handle the truth." So we apply some rouge (life after
> death!), some lipstick (sinners can be saved!), and so on. So tarting up
> doesn't seem to be a corruption of the aesthetic sense to me. It seems
> like this basic activity we engage in to adorn the world with as many
> concealing flowing drapes and as many air fresheners as we can lay our
> hands on.
So I've now actually read "The Birth of Tragedy", which is something of an
improvement. It seems to me that your account is not quite accurate.
I would not treat the story of Silenus as an account of "the real world" that
gets contrasted with a rouged world which we furnish ourselves through art.
Rather, I would say that the story itself is a direct example of an artistic
act, namely of "tragic myth". "[...] Tragic myth has convinced us that
that even the ugly and discordant are merely an aesthetic game which the
will, in its utter exuberance, plays with itself. [...] The delight created
by tragic myth has the same origin as the delight dissonance in music creates.
That primal Dionysiac delight, experienced even in the presence of pain,
is the source common to both music and tragic myth." [p.143 of the Golffing
translation, Doubleday Anchor].
"It is vain to try to deduce the tragic spirit from the commonly accepted
categories of art: illusion and beauty. Music alone allows us to understand
the delight felt at the annihilation of the individual. Each single instance
of such annihilation will clarify for us the abiding phenomenon of Dionysiac
art, which expresses the omnipotent will behind individuation, eternal life
continuing beyond all appearance and in spite of destruction." [p. 101]
I think that this is a far cry from flowing drapes and air fresheners.
I was struck, in reading BoT, how very connected to it "Preface to
Transgression" seems; there is almost a feeling of an umbilical cord running
between them.
And how does one relate to the framework of BoT the Baudelairian "dandyism",
the idea of constructing oneself as a work of art?
-m