From <i>The Prelude</i> by Wordsworth, more or less the Romantic Manifesto.
And so the deep enthusiastic joy,
The rapture of the hallelujah sent
From all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmed
And balanced by a <u>reason</u> which indeed
Is <u>reason</u>, duty, and pathetic truth;
And God and Man divided, as they ought,
Between them the great sphere of the world
Where Man is sphered, and which God animates.
. . .
This Love more intellectual cannot be
Without Imagination, which, in truth,
Is but another name for absolute strength
And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
And <u>Reason</u> in her most exalted mood.
The Romantics were wary of misusing reason, but they certainly used it. It’s many Postmodernists who despise reason, and who reads them?
It’s a complicated relationship. Although to put it in other terms, while our society seems to become more and more apollonian, the Romantics worshiped at the temple of both deities. My personal prejudice against reason is learned from Yeats and is an over-reaction to which I can’t really see any downsides at the moment. I will admit that it’s more of a post-Romantic idea than truly Romantic.
This culture of the moment, of intense and inexpressible emotion, rough, unsophisticated, addicted to pleasure, in love with the grotesque – Apollonian?
I think that if Nietzsche had had our popular music to listen to, he wouldn’t have bothered to invent the Dionysian. He would have had its embodiment readily at hand.
I can’t know which popular music are you refering to but I’d rather have my hand cut (blatant lie) than call Britney Spears Dionysian. There’s a certain lack of ecstasy there 
As an aside Nietzsche had also composed some utterly forgettable music. It’s a good thing he didn’t stick to it.
This culture of the moment, of intense and inexpressible emotion, rough, unsophisticated, addicted to pleasure, in love with the grotesque – Apollonian?
I was thinking of educated society especially in the university’s present obsession with potivism in the humanities and the more general veneration of science and fact over everything. But yes, what I wrote is absurd.
It’s a mistake to equate The Dionysian with The Comfortable, as that was something Nietzsche railed against more than anything, though also I think he overstated the importance of the D in reaction to the overwhelming A of his time.
Sin: I once said that Logic was for pussies, but I was being very blatantly sarcastic, so. . . good luck on the treatment by the way, because I’m feeling pretty down without most of my frontal lobe and I would really like it to go back in.
You know, considering Yeats was so unhappy with the course he took in life he chose to drink himself to death, right? So maybe, just maybe, you should not reject reason so much, and use enough of said reason to see that following such a person is inane. Yeats didn’t even think it was a good idea to exemplify Yeats. In your writing, maybe (although I’d argue he wrote a few good poems about the Easter Uprising then myraculously lost his balls and wrote more bad poetry until he gained his balls back, became a fascist, and wrote bad fascist poetry, then lost his balls again, and started drinking himself to death while writing mediocre poetry), but his personal life is far from exemplary. It’s like the people who want to emulate Kurt Cobain and Sid Viscious.
As for the post-modernists, any movement with a name that’s that stupid deserves no respect. I mean, I understand that they are called that because they came after the modernists, but Post-Modern as an idea is just stupid, unless they like ot think of themselves as futuristic. In which case they can go write Science fiction and accomplish the same goal to less pretentious, more enjoyable results. Seriously, fuck you, postermodernists.
I’m not sure this was directed toward myself, but I never said a word about Post-Modernists to my knowledge, and if I had, it would have been about how I absolutely cannot stand them. (Perhaps with the exception of the enigmatic Baudrillard, but then in a somehow pitiful way, as he seems not to realize that hyper-reality has been the case for millenia.)
Yeats was 73 when he died, produced one of the most impressive bodies of work in the history of literature, consorted with and extended a massive influence over his greatest contemporaries, and continues to reach out from the grave to this day. Not to mention his bringing an incalculable amount of happiness, wisdom, and the sublime to countless numbers of people across the world.
To imply that his life was somehow a waste or a failure and instead reduce one of the most complicated men known to the world to a couple facile political categories shows an ignorance of his themes and is an affront to every chest in which a heart ever beat.
By the way, two of his last poems, The Circus Animals’ Desertion and Under Ben Bulben are among his finest achievements.
And your apparent inability to note that I stated emulating him in writing might be a good idea (although I really don’t like a large amount of his work), but his personal life is not something to attempt to recreate. I think a lot of Oscar Wilde’s writing is pretty good. I am not going out an becoming homosexual because he was. I am not hoping to die of an ear infection in prison because he did.
Jack Kerouac, same deal. He wrote some of the most amazing poetry of the twentieth century, in my opinion, but he couldn’t take the problems he saw in society and the way they only looked to get worse and drank himself to death. I think his work is amazing, and I can understand why he did what he did, but I do not wish to emulate it.
Disdaining reason becaues Yeats did is pretty much the same thing as me becoming gay because Wilde was. Unless you admire them as a person, rather than a writer, don’t emulate them as a person. Even then, only emulate them in the places you admire. All I was saying was that Yeats was not worthy of admiration as a person, really, although he probably is as a writer.
The idea that one can separate an artist’s “personal life” from his art is a travesty of language.
It should be assumed, however, that in the cultivation of an identity, one will naturally try to collect only the best parts from this man and that. Although, as I see it, at least half of one’s identity must be composed of the various sufferings and misfortunes that have befallen him from the start, before he begins reaching out and assimilating the various admirable qualities he will come to steal from others. In other words, I already had most of Yeats’s problems (and Yeats’s in particular!) before I even tried to have any of his strengths.
Despite all this reasoning of mine, I do admire Yeats “as a person”, especially in regards to his distrust in reason over emotion and intuition. The analogy with this and Oscar Wilde’s love of young boys is BAD LOGIC, as one is a legitimate choice offered (perhaps by reason) in living one’s life, while the other is a purely aesthetic matter of happenstance.
(Also, as an issue of facts, Oscar Wilde died some 3 years after leaving prison and not of an ear infection.)
Also, in reply to your second last post’s focus on WBY’s political “thinking” I will respond with a poem of his summing up the matter.
Politics
‘In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in
political terms’ - Thomas Mann
HOW can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here’s a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there’s a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war’s alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!
Love that poem.
Too bored to comment on the rest of the discussion. Why does Yeats get such attention here by the way?
Because I’m obsessed with him and through force of will I somehow make people discuss whatever I’m thinking about when I make posts.
No, it is not. Many people can make great art and be complete douchebags. They are, thus, complete douchebags personally, but have an amazing gift. His art may be based upon his personal life, since writing from experience is a good thing, but works are different from life. Not seperate, but different, and you can emulate one without emulating the other.
So, then, the whole thing about the rejection of reason earlier was bullshit, you developed such an inane philosophy on your own, and use the fact that Yeats had it to back it up. Or you picked up the hatred of reasoning from him.
Nope. The logic is that if you follow everything an author does because you like their writing, you follow everying the author does because you like their writing. But, fine, even if your comprehension of analogies is so limited you cannot stomach even the slightest non-linear comparison, Jack Kerouac still stands as an example. He made the choice in living his life to slowly kill himself because the world was going to hell in a proverbial handbasket. While I share his view about the direction of the future, I do not think it is a good idea to drug myself to death because of this fact, or beacuse I love Kerouac’s words.
Oh, and you shouldn’t be allowed to comment on the logic anyway, since you reject reasoning. You’re robbing your point of its validity and saving me the trouble, it would seem.
Right, well, it was some ear thing he contracted in prison. I knew he didn’t die in prison, however, I didn’t really feel the need to type out ‘And die three years later after writing no more comedies because I am a judgemental prick of a condition developed while in prison.’ I forget that it is required with some people for one to be so alarmingly specific when arguing. Well, in this case, I didn’t forget, I simply assumed you might have even slightly more ability to think outside the box, you know, with emotions, intuition, and creativity. However, you only seem to be using concrete reasoning, devoid of all those things.
I’ve read the poem. Waxing poetic about politics all he wants doesn’t change the fact that I lost all respect for him after he joined the blueshirts.
I think you can find just as much meaning in popular culture(such as movies, videogames, and music) as you can any of the old classics. Pop culture is also more accesible.
I garee entirely, pretty much.
While this is true, I find I sometimes enjoy the content of “old classics” more than pop culture. In the end they are both products anyways, meant to make money in some way or the other.
A writer’s art is his life.
And I already said in the paragraph below the one you quoted that only trying to incorporate the best qualities is a matter of common goddam sense. Whether or not such an effort is futile is another matter. (“It should be assumed, however, that in the cultivation of an identity, one will naturally try to collect only the best parts from this man and that.”)
So, then, the whole thing about the rejection of reason earlier was bullshit, you developed such an inane philosophy on your own, and use the fact that Yeats had it to back it up. Or you picked up the hatred of reasoning from him.
Non sequiter. My entire point was that all things I enjoy in the world have little to do with reason. Most of the people I admire, either personally or in history, cared little for reason, at least in your sense of the word. What’s the point of reason? And why care about “the truth”?
Nope. The logic is that if you follow everything an author does because you like their writing, you follow everying the author does because you like their writing.
Who’s arguing for this, again? Even strawmen usually make more sense.
Oh, and you shouldn’t be allowed to comment on the logic anyway, since you reject reasoning. You’re robbing your point of its validity and saving me the trouble, it would seem.
I don’t like the conotation of “reject” as if I went through some kind of philosophical trial for it. It is simply not worth caring about.
Right, well, it was some ear thing he contracted in prison. I knew he didn’t die in prison, however, I didn’t really feel the need to type out ‘And die three years later after writing no more comedies because I am a judgemental prick of a condition developed while in prison.’ I forget that it is required with some people for one to be so alarmingly specific when arguing. Well, in this case, I didn’t forget, I simply assumed you might have even slightly more ability to think outside the box, you know, with emotions, intuition, and creativity. However, you only seem to be using concrete reasoning, devoid of all those things.
What a rambunctious defense for a momentary lapse in knowledge!
I’ve read the poem. Waxing poetic about politics all he wants doesn’t change the fact that I lost all respect for him after he joined the blueshirts.
31
In their young years, people worship and despise still without that art of subtlety which constitutes the greatest gain in life. And it’s reasonable enough that they must atone, with some difficulty, for having bombarded men and things in such a way with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of all tastes, the taste for the absolute, will be terribly parodied and misused until people learn to put some art into their feelings and to enjoy risking an attempt with artificiality, as the real artists of life do.
The anger and reverence typical of the young do not seem to ease up until they have sufficiently distorted men and things so that they can vent themselves on them. Youth is in itself something fraudulent which deceives. Later, when the young soul, tortured by nothing but disappointments, finally turns back against itself suspiciously, still constantly hot and wild, even in its suspicion and pangs of conscience, how it rages against itself from this point on, how it tears itself apart impatiently, how it takes revenge for its lengthy self-deception, just as if it had been a voluntary blindness!
In this transition people punish themselves through their mistrust of their own feeling; they torment their enthusiasm with doubt; indeed, they already feel good conscience as a danger, as a veiling of the self, so to speak, and a growing exhaustion in their finer honesty. Above all, people take sides, basically the side against “the young.” A decade later, they understand that all this was also still youth!
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Um, I never said you didn’t say that. I’m objecting to the idea that an artist’s life and works are the same. You can emulate a style without emulating any of the personal life. You have said this is a travesty to all that is written or something equally over-dramatic, so I assumed you disagreed. If you’re saying the nearly entirely unrelated bit about emulating only parts of their life was your way of saying you agreed, all right, but I don’t know why you felt the need to accuse me of raping the entire basis of art before getting around to agreement.
My entire point is that rejecting reason is completely inane, whether you do it yourself or out of some perverse desire to repeat all the mistakes of W.B. Yeats.
You implied you rejected reason because W.B. Yeats did, and I was saying doing something because I writer does it is not logical. At the time the argument was made, you had not made it clear you pick-and-choose what parts you emulate, and just happened to pick one of the stupider opinions of Yeats to emulate.
I gave no such connotation. You reject it one way or another and the result is the same, regardless of how you got there.
Even if my knowledge on Wilde’s personal life is flawed, which it probably is, I couldn’t tell you who it was he sued for slander that got him where he was or even if it was slander that he sued for, that doesn’t make the point that I do not wish to emulate everything he did simply because I enjoy his writing style any less valid.
As for the Nietzsche, I’d appreciate it if you quit throwing quotes at me. I’ve read them, I know the basis I’m arguing from. Nietzsche, it should be remembered, essentially created the largest logic-loop in the history of Philosophy by arguing that all values are baseless, and nothing can be known or communicated (I believe that’s a definition of nihilism, the philosophy he mainly supported), thereby arguing that everything he said was baseless, also. Thank you for wasteing our time, Friedrich Nietzsche. Anyway, rant on the inanity of nihilism as expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche aside, I do not respect him as a person because of a conscious choice he made of his free will that goes against everything I personally morally believe. You can argue that such beliefs are baseless, by quoting nihilists, but I really don’t care. When it comes down to standing up for what I believe in over sitting around whining about how none of it matters, I’ll take the one that doesn’t let a Hitler, Stalin, or Mao kill millions upon millions of people. I’ll leave your decision up to you.
The “travesty of language” I was talking about wasn’t about a slight against literature or any some such thing, but rather that the idea one can separate the subject of “the artist” (“Yeats” here) into a million different predicates is a fallacy that happens when we let the rules of language take over our thinking. I can see where the misunderstanding came about.
My entire point is that rejecting reason is completely inane, whether you do it yourself or out of some perverse desire to repeat all the mistakes of W.B. Yeats. You implied you rejected reason because W.B. Yeats did, and I was saying doing something because a writer does it is not logical.
But that’s the thing!
Nietzsche, it should be remembered, essentially created the largest logic-loop in the history of Philosophy by arguing that all values are baseless, and nothing can be known or communicated (I believe that’s a definition of nihilism, the philosophy he mainly supported), thereby arguing that everything he said was baseless, also. Thank you for wasteing our time, Friedrich Nietzsche. Anyway, rant on the inanity of nihilism as expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche aside, I do not respect him as a person because of a conscious choice he made of his free will that goes against everything I personally morally believe. You can argue that such beliefs are baseless, by quoting nihilists, but I really don’t care. When it comes down to standing up for what I believe in over sitting around whining about how none of it matters, I’ll take the one that doesn’t let a Hitler, Stalin, or Mao kill millions upon millions of people. I’ll leave your decision up to you.
Nietzsche was NOT a nihilist. You seem to have a poor understanding of him. There are two ways someone can be a nihilist: the first is to acknowledge that there is no essential (phil. jargon) basis to the world, which becomes a starting point to be transcended. The other way someone can be said to be a nihilist, which seems to me the popular understanding (though a poor one), is a stagnant condition after the first which is probably better described as apathy. Nietzsche believed things can be known, just always from different perspectives, and that all the value of something comes only from what one places on it, and secondarily, I suppose, what one can get others to place on it. He did place great emphasis on physiology as a determinst, and though skeptical, he seems to allow room for such a thing as “free will”. And he certainly did not sit around whining about things, as the over-riding theme of all his work is to embrace life in all its ups and downs. You can be absolutely certain that Nietzsche would have reviled and stood up to all three of those famous monsters you’ve cited, Hitler being the king of anti-semites and Germanic pride, two of Nietzsche’s major qualms, and the others being socialists. I also might point out that your response is an argument ad hominem that didn’t address the point of what I quoted.
In fact, I just read a very interesting book called “Marx & Nietzsche” that compiled two interviews an American woman conducted with Nietzsche and Marx in 1882 and to top it off, a debate between the two. The Nietzsche interview was a great introduction to his thinking, and the debate like something out of a medieval romance, full of choice quotes like “Fate has chosen me to do battle with this giant of collectivism.”
Not quite! Nietzsche argued that the <i>apparent</i> world is the only world we should concern ourselves with. In short, we sense things; we don’t know if what we sense corresponds to any reality; all we <i>know</i> is our own existence and our potential to fulfill it with an unintelligible aesthetic satisfaction. Therefore, stop thinking and start doing.
As for Nietzsche vs. Marx: well, Western Europe and America embraced Nietzschean values and Eastern Europe embraced Marxist values. The unimpeded pursuit of self-satisfaction is capitalism and Marxism is communism. There’s no question who won, albeit a century later.