The more pressing wager of the book is that, by introducing Nietzsche's thinking into contemporary debates about the nature and function of the psychoanalytic clinic, the future of that clinic can be better secured against attempts to discredit its claims to therapeutic efficacy and to scientific legitimacy.
"Freud compares the conscious mind, in the book I have – I am talking about now, he compares the conscious mind to a garrison. A captured, tiny garrison in an immense city. The city of Rome. With all its layers of history. All its archaic barbarisms. All its hidden avenues. Covered over by civilization after civilization. That’s our mind. That whole thing. But the conscious part of it is that one garrison that’s clear, that holds out in this captured city.
A magnificent metaphor for all the surrounding motives, motivations, motifs, desires, that drive us… that are not philosophical… that cannot, even if we talk to our therapist a long time, all be brought up at once."
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| Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche: The Masters of Suspicion |
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| Left to right, Andreas-Salomé, Rée and Nietzsche (1882) A comical scene laid out by Nietzsche, as a sort of a lament by both himself and his friend, Paul, the two of whom had both recently been rejected after proposing marriage to one Lou Salomé (the relentless 'cart driver'). Photographed in the studio of Jules Bonnet in Lucerne in 1882. |
1. Of prime necessity is life: a style should live.
2. Style should be suited to the specific person with whom you wish to communicate. (The law of mutual relation.)
3. First, one must determine precisely “what-and-what do I wish to say and present,” before you may write. Writing must be mimicry.
4. Since the writer lacks many of the speaker’s means, he must in general have for his model a very expressive kind of presentation of necessity, the written copy will appear much paler.
5. The richness of life reveals itself through a richness of gestures. One must learn to feel everything — the length and retarding of sentences, interpunctuations, the choice of words, the pausing, the sequence of arguments — like gestures.
6. Be careful with periods! Only those people who also have long duration of breath while speaking are entitled to periods. With most people, the period is a matter of affectation.
7. Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.
8. The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.
9. Strategy on the part of the good writer of prose consists of choosing his means for stepping close to poetry but never stepping into it.
10. It is not good manners or clever to deprive one’s reader of the most obvious objections. It is very good manners and very clever to leave it to one’s reader alone to pronounce the ultimate quintessence of our wisdom.
“To examine Nietzsche’s style for causes and conditions means far more than examining the mere form in which his ideas are expressed; rather, it means that we can listen to his inner soundings. [His style] came about through the willing, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing, and lavish expenditure of great artistic talents … and an attempt to render knowledge through individual nuancing, reflective of the excitations of a soul in upheaval. Like a gold ring, each aphorism tightly encircles thought and emotion. Nietzsche created, so to speak, a new style in philosophical writing, which up until then was couched in academic tones or in effusive poetry: he created a personalized style; Nietzsche not only mastered language but also transcended its inadequacies. What had been mute, achieved great resonance.”
Why must we believe that God is dead? Can we accept that traditional morality is just a 'useful mistake'? Did the principle of 'the will to power' lead to the Holocaust? What are the limitations of scientific knowledge? Is human evolution complete or only beginning? It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Friedrich Nietzsche for our present epoch. His extraordinary insights into human psychology, morality, religion and power seem quite clairvoyant today: existentialism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and postmodernism are plainly anticipated in his writings - which are famously enigmatic and often contradictory."Introducing Nietzsche" is the perfect guide to this exhilarating and oft-misunderstood philosopher.
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| Bartleby, the Scrivener: “I would prefer not to.” |
