FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

Friedrich Nietzsche. The Portable Nietzsche. Tr. and ed. by Walter Kaufmann. New York: The Viking Press, 1954. Reprinted 1969. Ursinus College library call number: 193.9/N558po.
BIOGRAPHIC AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC

Kaufman was at Princeton University when he did this translation.

The arrangement of the book is chronological.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction by Kaufmann, p. 1.

Chronology of Nietzsche's life, p. 20.

Bibliography, p. 24.

Various Excerpts from such books as Human,All-Too-Human, The Dawn, The Gay Science, pp. 29-102.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (complete), p. 103.

More excerpts, pp. 440-459.

Twilight of the Idols (complete), p. 463.

The Antichrist (complete), p. 565.

Nietzsche contra Wagner (complete), p. 661.

Letters (1889), p. 684.

Editions of Nietzsche, p. 688.

QUOTABLE QUOTES

Prohibitions without reasons. A prohibition, the reason for which we do not understand or admit, is almost a command not only for the stubborn but also for those who thirst for knowledge: one risks an experiment to find out why the prohibition was pronounced. Moral prohibitions, like those of the Decalogue, are suitable only for an age of subjugated reason: now, such a prohibition as "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not commit adultery," presented without reasons, would have a harmful rather than a useful effect. From The Wanderer and His Shadow, Aphorism 48, p. 68.

Perhaps premature.... There is no morality that alone makes moral, and every ethic that affirms itelf exclusively kills too much good strength and costs humanity too dearly. The deviants, who are so frequently the inventive and fruitful ones, shall no longer be sacrificed; it shall not even be considered infamous to deviate from morality, in thought and deed; numerous new experiments of life and society shall be made; a tremendous burden of bad conscience shall be removed from the world....From The Dawn, Aphorism 164, p. 81.

SELECTED SUMMARY NOTES ON THE TEXT

INTRODUCTION, by Kaufmann, pp. 1-19, written in Strobl, Austria, in February 1953.

Kaufmann gives a useful set of reflections on Nietzsche's "unique achievement." Worth noting:

  1. STRENGTHENS THE ENLIGHTENMENT HERITAGE "with a more profound understanding of the irrational." p. 16

  2. HARNESSES ROMANTICISM "by substituting an understanding of the passions for a blind cult and by extolling the individual whose reason is a match for his passions." p. 16

  3. UNCOMPROMISING ATTITUDE AGAINST RELIGION: He is "one of the first thinkers with a comprehensive philosophy to complete the break with religion." p. 17. Kaufmann gives a concise history of the conflict between philosophy and religion from Descartes through Schopenhauer (p. 17), culminating in Nietzsche's unprecedented willingness to reject Christianity.

  4. BRIDGE BETWEEN POSITIVISM AND EXISTENTIALISM, p. 18-19.

  5. ADDRESSES THE INDIVIDUAL: "He does not want to be read as an arsenal of arguments for or against something, nor even for a point of view. He challenges the reader not so much to agree or disagree as to grow." p. 19.

POSTURE TOWARD JUDAISM: The philology of Christiantiy. In this aphorism, N. castigates the "philological farce" by which Christians purportedly attempted to "pull away the Old Testament from under the feet ofthe Jews." [His view is close to that of Jews themselves as they assess the co-optation of the Hebrew Bible for Christian proofs.] The Dawn, Aphorism 84, p. 80.

SIGNIFICANCE, EVALUATION, AND RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER WORK
ANTI-CHRISTIAN ANTI-SEMITISM:Conor Cruise O'Brien finds Nietzsche's pronouncements on Jews responsible for the removal of the "Christian limit" in Germany that led to the Nazi "final solution." Kaufmann in his preface to The AntiChrist declares that N. is "as opposed to anti-Semitism as ever." (p. 565) He wanted to shoot all anti-Semites in his last letters; he loved the Old (Jewish)Testament. (p. 565) He seeks in this book to reverse "the traditional appraisal of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism." (p. 566) He is addressing the Christian anti-Semites: "Where--Nietzsche is saying to the Christian anti-Semites of his day, whose dragon seed Hitler reaped--where do you find all the qualities which you denounce as typically Jewish if not in the New Testament? Not Moses and the prophets, but Paul and the early Christians are 'little superlative Jews.'" (pp. 566-7)

We have done too little research into Nietzsche and Nazism to judge this sharp contradiction of interpretation. Suffice it now to say the following: (1) O'Brien's view has been our view through much of a lifetime. It has been uninformed by a reading of Nietzsche. Our recent reading of N. and of Heidegger has raised the contradiction in a new light for us without resolving it. (2) The virulence of N.'s anti-Christianity could readily be misread. If it was defensible to attack Christianity, the unthoughtful, already anti-Semitic, could readily decide that it was even more defensible to attack the roots of Christianity.

THOUGHT OF ETERNAL RETURN AND ZEN: We discuss the similarities in Table Talk Fourteen.

NIETZSCHE AS POSTMODERNIST: The volume edited by Clayton Koelb approaches this issue.

INTERPRETATION OF THE THOUGHT OF ETERNAL RETURN:

The ugliest man says, "Was THAT life? Well then! Once more!" (p. 430)

All that suffers says, "I want heirs; I want children, I do not want myself." (p. 434)

"Joy, however, does not want heirs, or children--joy wants itself, want eternity, wants recurrence, wants everything eternally the same." (p. 434)

Our reading of this is as follows:

Woe/suffering is unsatisfied. It WANTS ever to strive. It says, "Get on! Go!" Joy, on the other hand is happy in itself. It does not desire what is not present. It laughs because of the fullness of what is present. In so doing, joy stops the time that comes from longing, from grasping, from desiring. The eternal recurrence of the same occurs for/to/in a PERSON who achieves a state of JOY.

This is not ecstasy. There is no "stasis" out of which to "exit." This is the opposite of ecstasy. It is the total "in-stepping" of the person into the full experience of the joy-filled moment.

The Overman is the one who achieves this experience. We compare him to the person who achieves a similar experience, a moment of awakening, in the satori of Zen. The condition of joy/completeness is always present; the person knows this when the grasping, wanting etc. of the ordinary person is let go through/in the moment.

Zarathustra says, "Just now my world became perfect; midnight too is noon; pain too is joy; curses too are a blessing; night too is a sun....a sage too is a fool." (p. 435)

Thus JOY or Enlightenment can come at all times under any circumstances. If one affirms even a single moment of joy, one also affirms all woe.

Zarathustra says, "If you ever wanted one thing twice,...then you wanted all back." "For all joy wants--eternity." (p. 435)

We interpret:

The ordinary Christian condition will not be satisfied with earthly things. The person must want to "go" onward ("Onward, Christian soldiers.") The person has to keep on going onward until she/he ultimately, transcendently reaches heaven, altogether out of earthly existence. The Overman, by contrast, is IN heaven (eternity) on earth because he is full of joy at its condition. This stops the DESIRE for moving on to an illusory satisfaction in an eternal heaven. It allows him to STAY eternally present.

As Zarathustra said, "All this lasted a long time, or a short time: for properly speaking, there is no time on earth for such things." (p. 438)

28 May 1996; updated 10 November 1996
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