Comments on: Review: The Birth of Tragedy

By: Anti Citizen One

Anti Citizen One — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:20:30 +0000

Oh I was going to mention Richard Strauss’s tone poem Thus Spake Zarathustra as an example of the Dionysian. The ending of the last movement (Song of the Night Wanderer) has a discordant ending with the key alternating between C major and B major but never resolves. Some sources have identified this as the “world riddle theme”. The ending is beautiful but the riddle is never solved.

I am not sure if Nietzsche would claim to have solved the world riddle but he probably would only claim to have posed the question. (I think the riddle they refer to is posed in the chapter “The Vision and The Enigma” but also seems to be answered in “The Convalescent”.)

AC1

By: El Sordo

El Sordo — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:35:07 +0000

Interesting idea – I’ve just read a complimentary article on Nietzsche and Buddhism which suggests that a) he (and Schopenhauer) misinterpreted some of the concepts of Buddhist philosophy but that b) when re-formulated Nietzsche would be pleasantly suprised at the parallels between his ethics and that of Buddhism – a moving beyond good and evil.

Just one note – Nirvana is very difficult to pin down with a description – it is a non-rational and logico-elusive term. It isn’t nothingness in the sense of the absence or dissolution of something. But it is traditionally written about using via negativistic language. Cue widespread confusion!

Another key point is that suffering (the term is Dukkha) does not simply imply physical-mental suffering – or even existential suffering but entails spiritual ignorance (or sickness I would prefer to describe it). The true nature of suffering is nothingness, or unreality. There is no suffering, the flight from suffering that Buddhism entails is not so much life-negation but life-affirmation. It is about if you like dissolving the perspective of existential cognition that categorizes or ‘evaluates’ phenomenon into good/bad pain/pleasure etc.

These interprative errors can and perhaps ought to be forgiven though considering that Nietzsche was in many respects a pioneer of Buddhist studies in the west. And there is no denying how well-read he was. And ultimately his trail-blazing led to an increase in western scholarship in Buddhism and a cross-cultural exchange in buddhist philosophical exegesis, which has led to a new understanding of its core ideas.

By: Anti Citizen One

Anti Citizen One — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:55:12 +0000

Although Nietzsche does not go into depth about Buddhism in the Birth of Tragedy, he does cover it in later work more extensively. It seems he analyses the role of happiness and suffering in Apollonian, Dionysian and Buddhist traditions. For Apollo, suffering is caused by ignorance, for Dionysus it is a necessary part of life and for Buddha it is cause by craving (see the Four Noble Truths). An attempt to abolish suffering and craving would be to deny the Dionysian rejoicing in all life. Nietzsche calls this nihilistic because to deny the world or to consider it as something to be escaped from is his definition of nihilism (due to him being a rather strong skeptic of metaphysics).

At a more literal level, the only way to reach Nirvana would be to cease to exist (in this world) – i.e. “What is best of all is beyond your reach forever: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing” as Silenus suggests.

AC1

By: El Sordo

El Sordo — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:20:56 +0000

Interesting thesis/review – and as you noted his style seems less abrasive!

I shall certainly look into this – particularly his thoughts on the unintelligibility of the world – particular at the ‘boundaries of science’.

Question – you mention that the third answer to the conundrum concerning what to do with a pointless life is to be found in Buddhism that Nietzsche equates with Silenus’s nihilism. Could you elaborate on this?