A Passage I Enjoyed

I’m currently reading Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Specifically, I am reading The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche’s first published book, which is included in the volume.  When I read the following passage, I thought of the many “the sky is falling” warnings with which individuals are bombarded by learned men.  Earth destroying meteors and the need for protective measures, devasting earthquake predictions for California by September, the West Nile Virus crisis, the silly posing around the movie The Day After Tomorrow, etcetera, etcetera.

“It is certainly the sign of the “breach” of which everyone speaks as the fundamental malady of modern culture, that the theoretical man, alarmed and dissatisfied at his own consequences, no longer dares entrust himself to the terrible icy current of existence: he runs timidly up and down the bank.  So thoroughly has he been pampered by his optimistic views that he no longer wants to have anything whole, with all nature’s cruelty attaching to it.  Besides, he feels that a culture based on the principles of science must be destroyed when it begins to grow illogical, that is, to retreat before its own consequences.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Translated and Edited, with Commentaries by Walter Kaufmann, 1968, The Birth of Tragedy, Section 18, pg. 113

Posted by on 05/12 at 05:25 AM

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