The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II
Nietzsche · en
_(b)_ Likewise in _politics_: the individual lacks the belief in his
own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also the worship of
the moment.
_(d)_ Likewise in _political economy_: the abolition of slavery: the
lack of a redeeming class, and of _one who justifies_--the rise of
anarchy. "Education"?
_(d)_ Likewise in _history_: fatalism, Darwinism; the last attempts at
reconciling reason and Godliness fail. Sentimentality in regard to the
past: biographies can no longer be endured! (Phenomenalism even here:
character regarded as a mask; there are no facts.)
_(e)_ Likewise in _Art_: romanticism and its _counter-stroke_
(repugnance towards romantic ideals and lies). The latter, morally,
as a sense of greatest truthfulness, but pessimistic. Pure "artists"
(indifference as to the "subject"). (The psychology of the
father-confessor and puritanical psychology--two forms of psychological
romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt to maintain a
purely artistic attitude towards "men"--but even in this respect no one
dares to make the _opposite_ valuation.)
70.
_Against_ the teaching of the influence of _environment_ and external
causes: the power coming from inside is infinitely _superior_;
much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the
subjection of environment to this inner power.
Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite
ways: there are no facts. A genius is _not_ explained by such theories
concerning origins.
71.
"_Modernity_" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.
Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the
increase of pity), the abundance of different impressions is greater
than ever. The _cosmopolitanism_ of articles of diet, of literature,
newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes. The speed of this
affluence is _prestissimo_; impressions are wiped out, and people
instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking
anything _seriously_ and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of
the powers of digestion. There begin a sort of _adaptation_ to this
accumulation of impressions. Man unlearns the art of _doing,_ and
_all he does is to react_ to stimuli coming from his environment. _He
spends his strength,_ partly in the process of _assimilation,_ partly
in _defending himself,_ and again partly in _responding to stimuli.
Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity_:--the historian, the critic, the
analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,--all
reactive talents,--_all_ science!
Artificial _modification_ of one's own nature in order to make it
resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this
is systematic coolness, equilibrium, a steady _low_ temperature,
just beneath the thin surface on which warmth, movement, "storm," and
undulations play.
Opposition of _external_ mobility to a certain _dead heaviness and
fatigue_.
72.