Meryem R. Tasbilek
Nietzsche
02.28.2014
Nietzsche
and Self-Cultivation Task
In
the Gay Science, Nietzsche emphasizes that “The brief tragedy always changed
and returned into the eternal comedy of existence.”[1] I believe that to resist this cycle and give rebirth to our
own tragedy, we need a specific type of education that Nietzsche argues by
reading ourselves by the help of right educators and culture to extend our
limits of existence to reach a self-actualization. In this paper, I will write
about the problem of self-cultivation as a tool of “kidnapping ourselves out of
our own caves.”[2]
I will share some quotes and arguments from Nietzsche to support this paper’s
journey to find some useful analysis about this ontological self-cultivation
problem and the notion of “Know Thyself.”[3]
I
believe that after increasing our intellectual level, we can use ourselves as a
mirror to know ourselves and the universe. This is a very painful journey of
humankind, because generally we use all other things around us as a tool to
feed our ego and all the external knowledge as a tool for our conformism.
However, when we use our personal existence as a surface and foundation to know
ourselves deeply, our own existences become tools for pure knowledge. In
addition, Nietzsche argues that “Human Existence is a task.”[4] In
my opinion, to fulfill this mission, we need to have a deep longing for
knowledge and reaching a “know thyself.” We need some trigger frames like
Nietzsche’s notions to have deep questions and a long journey of thinking.
Truly,
plain logic is not enough for our self-cultivation. It can be only a tool and a
kind of human capacity to help us to fulfill this goal. Nietzsche also argues
similarly that “logic curls up around itself at the limits and finally bites
its own tail, and then a new form of knowledge breaks through, tragic
knowledge, which simply to be endured, needs art for protection and as
medicine.”[5] To
achieve this journey, a person needs to give up from his or her stable mind
sets.
Unfortunately,
humankind uses knowledge to hide herself behind it, not as a tool of knowing
herself. The common, formal education tries to keep us inside the traditional
fences that passivize us and put more distance between us and our “education”
goal. Self-cultivation is possible only when a person sacrifice her conformism.
Nietzsche argues that “We have only ourselves to answer for our existence.”[6] I
believe that this also means, we owe this only to ourselves. This is not equal
to individualism, but I think this journey of self-cultivation needs to be a
personal experiences. In the same essay, Nietzsche emphasizes that “nobody can
build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life.”[7] In
this journey, the traveler, the bridge and the destination are all the same: This
is we.
After
reading Nietzsche’s arguments about education, it became clearer that human in
general not use knowledge to educate herself, but consume it like everything
she reaches. Because of this misleads, bad motivated knowledge consumerism and
its self-confidence obesity side effect, we put more and more distance between
us and life. Nietzsche frames this condition as “a disorder in the modern soul
which condemns it to a joyless unfruitfulness.”[8]
The way we reach art, history and knowledge is poisoning us and for healing
ourselves we need more from them. “In true Dionysian music we find just such a
general mirror of the world-Will; a vivid event refracted in this mirror
expands immediately, we feel, into a copy of an eternal truth.”[9] We
are curving some parts from the mirror of life to create direct reflections of
Will, but maybe if we were not doing this selfishly, the entire universe could
be a whole piece reflector to us. We lost this wholeness at one point, that’s
why we are seeking it by the guide of Apollonian and
Dionysian arts which Nietzsche argues that “differ in
their deepest essence and highest goals”[10] and
philosophy again. For instance, Nietzsche argues that for our self-cultivation
and fulfills our task of existence, history is a rich resource, but we misuse
it, too. He labels this situation as “consuming historical fever.”[11]
He also argues that “All acting requires forgetting, as not only light but also
darkness is required for life by all organisms… The unhistorical and the
historical are equally necessary for the health of an individual, a people and
a culture.”[12]
We use history and optimist hope for future deadly and miss the reality of
present and pacifies ourselves. I think, this is also very similar with the way
we have relation with educators and culture. Educators and culture needs to be
only stairs for us and we need to leave them behind at some point to confront
face to face with ourselves and knowledge alone. I believe that
self-cultivation requires this and at this point; wellness, health and even
sickness can be a useful tool for it which Nietzsche emphasizes.
Moreover,
after reading Nietzsche's argument about education and thinking deeply to
fulfill the self-cultivation, the benefits of thinking deeply seemed to me
better than conformists’ synthetic and anesthetic joys of not thinking or
semi-thinking. For instance, in the Schopenhauer as Educator book, he argues
that:
The work will produce a depressing and painful effect only
if the semi-thinker and semi-artist has exhaled over it the vapor of his
inadequacy; while nothing better or happier can befall a man than to be in the
proximity of one of those victors who, precisely because they have thought
deeply, must love what is most living and, as sages, incline in the end to the
beautiful.[13]
In this part of his article,
Nietzsche argues about the profile of a good educator, but his educator
elements; “honesty, cheerfulness and steadfastness”[14]
are also useful and necessary specialties for the individuals who seek an
educator for themselves.
Moreover,
in our age we are getting weaker and weaker to achieve self-cultivation.
Related to this, Nietzsche argues that “philosophers in Germany have more and
more to unlearn how to be pure knowledge.”[15]
He mentions only Germany, but we can apply the same argument for all places. If
the philosophers’ condition is like this, common people’s situation must be
worse. Most of the time, we function our lives with the imitations of
pure-knowledge. Nietzsche argues that many people are positive for willingly to
exchange pleasant, life-preserving illusions with destructive truth. Useful
lies and deceptions are more acceptable for them.[16]
This conformism take our opportunity to reach pure knowledge and cultivate
ourselves.
Moreover, if we
limit ourselves in
safety, we
cannot succeed to know ourselves. However, by the help of philosophy, we may have
some kind of “asylum… which no tyranny can force its way, the inward cave, and
the labyrinth of heart.”[17] But, first we need to
escape from our safe zones and challenge our limits to reach this inward cave.
This place is only a step for a person who seeks self-cultivation. He or she
cannot stay inside this cave to fulfill this goal. They have to experience inward
and outward in balanced way. If we cannot find the balance, Nietzsche labels
this situation dangerous isolation when he talks about Schopenhauer as Educator
specifically. The second one that he labels as dangerous is “despair of the
truth”[18] To get rid of these
dangers, we have many tools and one of them is using history and ahistorical
perspective together. Nietzsche argues that:
Almost every age and stage of culture has attempted at some
point to free itself, with deep feelings of anger, from the Greeks, because, in
comparison with them, all one’s own achievements, although apparently
completely original and quite sincerely admire suddenly seemed to lose colour
and life and to shrivel into an unsuccessful cop or even a caricature.[19]
This
is not only limited with culture and history comparison, but also for the
people from history or all philosophers who can be educators for us to have
self-cultivation. We create unreachable walls from them between us and
knowledge. We idealize the philosophers too much and same as representations of
truths, they start to create distance between us and self-experience required
knowledge and cultivation. At one point, we need to learn how to put distance
between us and history, culture and also educators rather than ourselves.
Nietzsche also emphasizes that “only read your own life and comprehends from it
the hieroglyphics of universal life.”[20]
I
believe that human cannot reach an absolute reality in this world, but all the
time he or she can grab a wider, bigger piece of the “reality” or realities
that can fit in the individual’s mind. Related to this, Nietzsche argues that
“Every human being is accustomed to discovering in himself some limitations, of
his talent or of his moral will, which fills him with melancholy and longing.”[21]
He also labels this as the root of culture.
Moreover,
the individual who longs for self-cultivation experiences petrification.[22] I
believe that to avoid this danger, we need the support of valuable educators; art,
history and isolation from history to help us during this
self-cultivation journey. Only this way we can “kidnap ourselves out of our own
caves”[23]
and know ourselves. We have to accept life as a task and
a philosophical problem and must generate more philosophical questions to
refresh ourselves to continue longing for self-cultivation. Only this way, we
are able to educate ourselves against our handicaps of our ages. Ultimately, it
is worth to listen Nietzsche’s call: “Put on your armour for a hard fight, but
believe in the miracles of your god!”[24]
[2] Friedrich
Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator,” Untimely Meditations, Transl. R.J
Hollingdale:
Cambridge University Press, 1983, p 17.
[3] Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Adventages
and Disadventages of History for Life, Hackett Pub, 1980, p 64.
[4] Nietzsche, On the Adventages and
Disadventages of History, p 64.
[5] Friedrich
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2006, p 75.
[9]
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (BOT), p 83.
[10]
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (BOT), p 76.
[16]
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense,” New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2006,
p 143.
[19]
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (BOT), p 72.
[23] Nietzsche,
“Schopenhauer as Educator,” p
17.
[24]
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (BOT), p 98.
