“Nietzsche’s idea is that things and actions are already interpretations. So to interpret is to interpret interpretations, and thus to change things, ‘to change life.’ What is clear for Nietzsche is that society cannot be an ultimate authority. The ultimate authority is creation, it is art: or rather, art represents the absence and the impossibility of an ultimate authority. From the very beginning of his work, Nietzsche posits that there exist ends ‘just a little higher’ than those of the State, than those of society. He inserts his entire corpus in a dimension which is neither historical, even understood dialectically, nor eternal. What he calls this new dimension which operates both in time and against time is the untimely. It is in this that life as interpretation finds its source. Maybe the reason for the ‘return to Nietzsche’ is a rediscovery of the untimely, that dimension which is distinct both from classical philosophy in its ‘timeless’ enterprise and from dialectical philosophy in its understanding of history: a singular element of upheaval.”
–Gilles Deleuze, from “Nietzsche’s Burst of Laughter” Interview
Photo by Bruno de Monès
I thank Andrew Walker for bringing this to my attention.
I have issues with Deleuze’s Nietzsche, and the idea of “the Loki’s untimely”, a misunderstanding of Ate and Dionysus. Why conflate the Scandinavian and Greek ideas? Is it that the Greek’s ethical codes were consider too abstract, gods in the sky, whereas the Scandinavian view was how to be concretely violent with the same sense of honour? For the Greeks, it was tragedy. Not a pathway to Valhalla.
If the “untimely” is “that dimension which is distinct both from classical philosophy in its ‘timeless’ enterprise and from dialectical philosophy in its understanding of history: a singular element of upheaval.” What exactly is that dimension? Is the dimension not Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly’?
It appears to be a way for fools to be anti-philosophical and dismiss out of hand the option for 1) perennial considerations or 2) Socratic conversations. The third option is to dismiss out of hand the thinking of Others, and remain cynical and wildly skeptical: indifferent and uncaring.
We truly live in a nasty Age of Trumpism.
There are Three Options in Lebensphilosophie; the Third Option, The Dismissal, is not Philosophy, but a Scandinavian Curse.
Photo by Bruno de Monès and Featured Image: Gilles Deleuze
Neville Buch
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