Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays: Collected Works, Volume TwoNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays: Collected Works, Volume Two
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Philosophy, Ancient
And even on this height of "labour" the Greek at times is overcome by
a feeling, that looks like shame. In one place Plutarch with earlier
Greek instinct says that no nobly born youth on beholding the Zeus in
Pisa would have the desire to become himself a Phidias, or on seeing
the Hera in Argos, to become himself a Polyklet; and just as little
would he wish to be Anacreon, Philetas or Archilochus, however much he
might revel in their poetry. To the Greek the work of the artist falls
just as much under the undignified conception of labour as any ignoble
craft. But if the compelling force of the artistic impulse operates in
him, then he _must_ produce and submit himself to that need of labour.
And as a father admires the beauty and the gift of his child but thinks
of the act of procreation with shamefaced dislike, so it was with the
Greek. The joyful astonishment at the beautiful has not blinded him
as to its origin which appeared to him, like all "Becoming" in nature,
to be a powerful necessity, a forcing of itself into existence. That
feeling by which the process of procreation is considered as something
shamefacedly to be hidden, although by it man serves a higher purpose
than his individual preservation, the same feeling veiled also the
origin of the great works of art, in spite of the fact that through
them a higher form of existence is inaugurated, just as through
that other act comes a new generation. The feeling of _shame_ seems
therefore to occur where man is merely a tool of manifestations of will
infinitely greater than he is permitted to consider himself in the
isolated shape of the individual.
Now we have the general idea to which are to be subordinated the
feelings which the Greek had with regard to labour and slavery. Both
were considered by them as a necessary disgrace, of which one feels
_ashamed,_ as a disgrace and as a necessity at the same time. In this
feeling of shame is hidden the unconscious discernment that the real
aim _needs_ those conditional factors, but that in that _need_ lies the
fearful and beast-of-prey-like quality of the Sphinx Nature, who in
the glorification of the artistically free culture-life so beautifully
stretches forth her virgin-body. Culture, which is chiefly a real need
for art, rests upon a terrible basis: the latter however makes itself
known in the twilight sensation of shame. In order that there may be a
broad, deep, and fruitful soil for the development of art, the enormous
majority must, in the service of a minority, be slavishly subjected
to life's struggle, to a _greater_ degree than their own wants
necessitate. At their cost, through the surplus of their labour, that
privileged class is to be relieved from the struggle for existence, in
order to create and to satisfy a new world of want.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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