18 June 2001
The Non-Obvious
I've been enjoying the flurry of activity on Andrew's livejournal over the past couple of days. Andrew has always had a knack for pursuing the non-obvious, which can, at times, be off-putting to some. I'm rather a fan of the non-obvious, which reminds me of Spanish Village on Saturday night. Hallmark will be teaching an Intro to Political Philosophy class this fall, and plans on using Plato's Statesman, a dialogue I've never studied in detail. Apparently, Plato raises the question of whether it is best for the longevity of a regime to have good institutions, or good judgment (among its citizens, presumably). I've no idea what Plato's answer to the question is -- and (going back to previous writing I've done on teaching political philosophy and studying political philosophy) don't think the ACTUAL answer is very interesting (rather, it is the followup question "Okay -- so what difference does that answer make?" that is actually most interesting). The BEST answer to that question, and one that nobody in this undergraduate class will likely get, is that it is a HORRIBLE question -- first, because the two are integrally related yet the question presents them as either-or, second because the crux of the matter is the interaction between the two! And notice I haven't even touched the problem of defining regime and longevity, nor the applicability of the idea to the American regime.
What is frustrating at times is to offer up such observations -- the non-obvious -- only to draw the usual blank stares until the conversation shifts back to the standard mundane way of looking at the problem. Reading Andrew's site earlier set me to thinking about this, and about Nietzsche -- and Leo Strauss -- and the tendency of great thinkers to communicate almost in code, or shorthand. Strauss devoted much of his career to divining the esoteric meanings of just such thinkers, and training his students to do the same. Nietzsche was the master of writing in that style. I'm starting to think it wasn't so much an effort intentionally to "hide" his thoughts from the broader public as it was indifference toward a broader readership that couldn't appreciate -- or even see -- the importance of those thoughts. If you're only writing for yourself and a handful of people who "get" you, why bother with Aristotelian methodology? Why not Nietzsche's style? Or obscure ramblings in a blog for that matter?
[Posted @ 11:44 PM CST]
COMMENTS
Thank you for the analysis!
Here, I couldn't agree more:
> it wasn't so much an effort intentionally to "hide" his thoughts from the broader public as it was indifference toward a broader readership that couldn't appreciate --or even see -- the
> importance of those thoughts.
Knowing how it feels to write, I find it almost inconceivable that Nietzsche could have produced his poetic prose of earth-shattering thoughts while feeling seriously constrained.
Do people really think he took pains to hide? If he did, he was really bad at it! He hid so poorly from bright eyes. He said so many controversial things so directly. If anything, a lot of his prose feels so calculated to agitate that I think he exaggerated his dangerous radicalisms.
He didn't downplay what he meant by "beyond good and evil" or "will to power" or "the death of god", key radicalisms repeated from enough perspectives throughout his writings that most any earnest reader sees how far from normality he is. (Most earnest readers mistakenly think he's even farther from normality than that. Again, his writing style didn't downplay where it might seem most career-preserving to do so.)
With his words, Nietzsche often showed a sort of risk wish. He unpredictably picked fights and renounced allies. (Jaffo's love/hate expressions have reminded me of N's, actually!)
-A
[Posted by Andrew on 19 June 2001, 11:00 AM CST]
