The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist: Complete Works, Volume Sixteen — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist: Complete Works, Volume Sixteen
Nietzsche · en
Let me point to one single instance. Schopenhauer speaks of beauty with
melancholy ardour,—why in sooth does he do this? Because in beauty
he sees a bridge on which one can travel further, or which stimulates
one’s desire to travel further. According to him it constitutes a
momentary emancipation from the “will”—it lures to eternal salvation.
He values it more particularly as a deliverance from the “burning core
of the will” which is sexuality,—in beauty he recognises the negation
of the procreative instinct. Singular Saint! Some one contradicts thee;
I fear it is Nature. Why is there beauty of tone, colour, aroma, and
of rhythmic movement in Nature at all? What is it forces beauty to the
fore? Fortunately, too, a certain philosopher contradicts him. No less
an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus does Schopenhauer
call him), upholds another proposition: that all beauty lures to
procreation,—that this precisely is the chief characteristic of its
effect, from the lowest sensuality to the highest spirituality.
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Plato goes further. With an innocence for which a man must be Greek
and not “Christian,” he says that there would be no such thing as
Platonic philosophy if there were not such beautiful boys in Athens:
it was the sight of them alone that set the soul of the philosopher
reeling with erotic passion, and allowed it no rest until it had
planted the seeds of all lofty things in a soil so beautiful. He
was also a singular saint!—One scarcely believes one’s ears, even
supposing one believes Plato. At least one realises that philosophy was
pursued differently in Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less
Greek than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an anchorite, _amor
intellectualis dei_ after the fashion of Spinoza. Philosophy according
to Plato’s style might be defined rather as an erotic competition, as a
continuation and a spiritualisation of the old agonal gymnastics and
the conditions on which they depend.... What was the ultimate outcome
of this philosophic eroticism of Plato’s? A new art-form of the Greek
_Agon,_ dialectics.—In opposition to Schopenhauer and to the honour of
Plato, I would remind you that all the higher culture and literature of
classical France, as well, grew up on the soil of sexual interests. In
all its manifestations you may look for gallantry, the senses, sexual
competition, and “woman,” and you will not look in vain.
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