>>23622264
>Was Wagner the original decadent pop musician?
Yes, he also a low-IQ anti-semite.

Read Bronze Age Mindset

>>23622463
Also i'm trans, if that helps

I hope Nietzsche repented and sought God before he went mad and died

>>23622469
It does queen, thank you for your service.

>>23622485
Does repentence count if you do it under the influence of madness?

>>23622264
The smart Nietzscheans can be easily sorted from the dumb Nietzscheans by their opinions on Wagner. If they take Nietzsche seriously and believe that Wagner was a pure decadent who created bad art, then they never understood Nietzsche to begin with. It is especially ironic here since Offenbach created the most typically decadent, commercialised music in the world at the time, and Nietzsche is intentionally playing off this irony by praising Offenbach, Wagner's nemesis, as an anti-decadent. It is ironic, it is constructed as a challenge to a much greater man, Wagner. Nietzsche says this himself in his letters, and in Ecce Homo. He praised Bizet to be infinitely superior to Wagner, yet in a private letter he says the following:

>What I say about Bizet, you should not take seriously. the way I am, Bizet does not matter at all to me. But as an ironic antithesis to Wagner, it has a strong effect. (27 December 1888)

It is an ironic antithesis. And in Ecce Homo this should be obvious, when he declares that he only criticises what he admires, what or who he feels is worthy of challenge and being tested, and describes Wagner as the most important influence on his life. If any Nietzschean had known the first thing about art, he would have seen how impossible it was to take Nietzsche's criticism of Wagner seriously, since Wagner is one of the greatest artists to ever live. But the dumb Nietzscheans don't come to beliefs based on what they can see, they just drown in a sea of absorbed opinions, the most confusing and convincing of them being Nietzsche's.

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>>23622264
Also the music of Siegfried is the most typically anti-decadent music ever created, even by Nietzsche's standards, who praised Siegfried as a sin against romanticism in Beyond Good and Evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08vTtu4pmjk

>>23623842
So Nietzsche wrote things he didn't mean? What point are you even trying to make? Of course Nietzsche still had great admiration for Wagner; that doesn't mean that later in life he didn't come to understand Wagner's music as essentially German mental illness.

>>23624142
>What point are you even trying to make?
Is English not your first language? His point is stated in the very first sentence of the post

>>23624178
Let me be more precise: what point is he trying to make in relation to the OP? Because his post doesn't refute anything there; it doesn't even address the OP.

This part is especially nonsense:
>If any Nietzschean had known the first thing about art, he would have seen how impossible it was to take Nietzsche's criticism of Wagner seriously, since Wagner is one of the greatest artists to ever live.

This is just self-fellating bullshit from a Wagnerian. That poster does not address Nietzsche's criticism at all.

>>23624142
>that doesn't mean that later in life he didn't come to understand Wagner's music as essentially German mental illness.
Actually yes, it does mean that, as these statements make clear:

"For, just as Wagner is merely a misunderstanding among Germans, so, in truth, am I, and ever will be. Ye lack two centuries of psychological and artistic discipline, my dear countrymen!... But ye can never recover the time lost."
- Ecce Homo

"Wagner himself, as man, as animal, as God and artist, surpasses a thousand times the understanding and the incomprehension of our Germans. Whether it is the same with the French I do not know."
- Letter from 26 February 1888

You really are the dumbest poster I've ever seen. You're trying to talk authoritatively about Nietzsche, yet you don't even know that he thrives in contradiction.

>>23622264
I wonder if he ever heard African and south American traditional music

>>23624188
You're typing like an ESL or a 90 iq retard. The Op drew from the quotation of Nietzsche the assumption that Wagner was a 'decadent pop musician'. Nothing could be further from the truth, further from Nietzsche's own intentions with that quotation. Another quotation from Nietzsche is used as a demonstration that Nietzsche did not always speak literally. What is confusing about any of this? And anyone with a basic artistic or musical education can tell you Wagner is an artistic genius, not a pop musician; there's nothing self-fellating about that fact. Why don't you study music before you blindly accept what Nietzsche has to say about music?

>>23624194
>You really are the dumbest poster I've ever seen.
This is rich coming from a fucking retard who is literally claiming that Nietzsche wrote an ENTIRE FUCKING BOOK that he didn't actually mean a word of. lol.

YOU misunderstand what Nietzsche is saying. In Ecce Homo, he's not saying "psyche! made you look!" He's saying that he's aware that he's no more a degenerate than Wagner. THIS DOES NOT MEAN WAGNER ISN'T FUNDAMENTALLY A DEGENERATE.

If you pulled your head out of Wagner's ass for a minute and actually paid attention to Nietzsche's criticism, then you would see that Wagner turns music into the redemption-obsessed, luxury-despising passion of peasants. That is precisely Nietzsche's criticism of his music.

>>23624207
>In Rossini, Richard wagner sees the ideal type of the "man of luxury." According to his theory of luxury, this defining characteristic of this reprehensible being is estrangement from the natural or inclination toward the unnatural. The man of luxury exploits the flower for its aroma alone, artificially manufacturing "perfume," in order to "carry it wherever he goes, and sprinkle it on himself and his splendid instrument according to his whims." Like perfume, Rossini's "narcotic, intoxicating melody" is unnatural. Estranged from the unnaturalness of "songs of the people" or "flowers of the people," Rossini's creations are nothing but "artificial growth." He is an "unusually skilled modeler of artificial flowers, which he has shaped from velvet and silk, painted with flashy colors, splashed in the calyx with aromatic substrates until they exude the scent of true flowers." Wagner cites nature or the natural in opposition to "luxurious un-nature." The opera public is, Wagner states, an "unnatural outgrowth of the people," a "caterpillar's nest" that "gnaws at the healthy, nourishing leaves of the tree of the people to glean from it the vital force needed to flap through an ephemeral, luxurious existence as a merry, fluttering flock of butterflies."

Wagner may have been a musical genius, but he was still a peasant-brained German ape who had little to no respect for high culture, and his music accordingly reflects this with its redemptive tones. Nietzsche picked up on this eventually.

>>23624210
>literally claiming that Nietzsche wrote an ENTIRE FUCKING BOOK that he didn't actually mean a word of
Never said that. Learn to read.

>He's saying that he's aware that he's no more a degenerate than Wagner.
That's not what he's saying. You're referring to a different statement made by Nietzsche elsewhere. What Nietzsche is saying is that Wagner is ultimately a significant figure like himself, and that, like himself, he escapes the comprehension of the herd. Since the herd Nietzsche had most experience with was the Germans, he criticised them the most, but he hints at the fact that he doesn't know if the French are any better, despite his praises for them.

>Wagner turns music into the redemption-obsessed, luxury-despising passion of peasants.
A poor setup of Nietzschean cliches that are clearly not based on any musical knowledge of Wagner. Do you even know what 'luxury-despising' means here? Could you tell me what's 'luxury-despising' about Lohengrin? You cannot borrow Nietzsche's (the supreme individualist) meaning just by vaguely quoting his words, and it is a common mistake of plebs in thinking they can. If you had read what Nietzsche had to say about Wagner in any depth, you would see that he has much to say that is contradictory, and is NOT confined to 'redemption-obsessed'. Not least 'luxury-despising', which makes no zero sense here at all.

>>23624230
>Never said that
You said more informed readers wouldn't take Nietzsche's criticisms of Wagner seriously, even though Nietzsche clearly took his own criticisms seriously given that he published them. In other words, you reek of bullshit.

>What Nietzsche is saying is that Wagner is ultimately a significant figure like himself, and that, like himself, he escapes the comprehension of the herd.
Sure.

>A poor setup of Nietzschean cliches that are clearly not based on any musical knowledge of Wagner.
See the post above yours.

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>>23624225
>Rossini is high culture

>>23624244
And why isn't he? Can you articulate an intellectual point justifying your stance?

>>23624225
This idiotic paragraph has extended a single, very minor metaphor, used in Opera and Drama, into a totalising expression of Wagner's aesthetics. So you, having read this crappy book, are relying on it in all your strangely concocted opinions on Wagner. Dunning kruger in full effect. What you should know is that Wagner regarded Rossini as a genius, that outside of Opera and Drama he didn't consider Rossini musically unnatural, but he did consider him commercial and superficial, undeniable traits of his. And the contrast between the expressive content of a Beethovenian melody and a Rossinian melody should tell you the prior has every right to be called 'natural', as it covers the full extent of nature, while the latter has every right to be called 'unnatural', as it is restricted to its culture's sphere of idle enjoyment. There is a world of difference between why Beethoven composed and why Rossini composed, so much so that Rossini stopped composing once he became rich and comfortable! And to finally say that Wagner had no respect for high culture is patently ridiculous, and makes you sound like a peasant who thinks such superficial estimations are the shortest path to becoming 'cultured' yourself.

>>23624275
>while the latter has every right to be called 'unnatural'
Not according to Nietzsche, who refutes Wagner on this point and whose philosophy appropriately incorporates Rossini into nature, nature as will to power, which has no such ideological limitations. Wagner consequently made nature into an ideology.

>>23624243
>You said more informed readers wouldn't take Nietzsche's criticisms of Wagner seriously
A great deal of what Nietzsche says about Wagner is not being serious, or is a serious criticism but exaggerated for effect, or is a falsity being used to make a larger point, all of which then confuse his followers. On the whole, the safest bet, for beginners, is to ignore what Nietzsche says about Wagner until they understand why Wagner is significant to begin with. Otherwise they'll just take on board, wholesale, anything Nietzsche says about Wagner, or anyone or anything else in the world, without really understanding it. Which unfortunately happens all too often.

>even though Nietzsche clearly took his own criticisms seriously given that he published them
You think this is sound logic? Despite the letter already quoted in which Nietzsche says he was only being ironic?

>>23624282
Wagner had a philosophical outlook on nature which was materialistic and scientific a la Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. There's no ideological bending of what 'nature' means, and Wagner's judgements of art in respect to nature are astute observations of a reality. What you are describing is the role Rossini's music can play in the life of someone, not the worth or characteristics of his music itself, and it is extremely ironic to draw any associations between a will to power and the soft frivolity of Rossini's music. And once again you take Nietzsche's statements for granted, you have no real understanding here, otherwise you wouldn't use Nietzsche's criticism as logical refutations. What Nietzsche responds to is all the same worth looking at, it's not like he devalues culture or history, and only a moronic Nietzsche worshipper could look at his cultural criticism in that way.

>>23624290
>A great deal of what Nietzsche says about Wagner is not being serious, or is a serious criticism but exaggerated for effect, or is a falsity being used to make a larger point, all of which then confuse his followers.
Perhaps, but that's not the case in this thread. What's presented here is a very grounded criticism of Wagner, with quotes directly from him to back it up (even if they were posted afterwards, which is why I won't hold it against you).

>Despite the letter already quoted in which Nietzsche says he was only being ironic?
His point was that he had to take on an aesthetic position he doesn't actually adhere to in order to make a criticism of Wagner that he genuinely does adhere to.

>>23624290
Maybe they/you could listen some of his operas to the end to form their own opinions and understand the aesthetic descriptions of Nietzsche better

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>A direct relation to morality has not as yet been generally ascribed to music. In fact music has even been judged as morally harmless. But that is just not so. Could an effeminate and frivolous taste remain without influence on a man’s morality? Both go hand in hand and act reciprocally upon each other. We could refer back to the Spartans, who forbade a certain type of music as injurious to morals. But instead, let us just think back to our own immediate past. With tolerable certainty we can state that those who have been inspired by Beethoven’s music have been more active and energetic citizens-of-state than those bewitched by Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, a class consisting for the most part of rich and lordly do-nothings.

>>23624302
>There's no ideological bending of what 'nature' means
There is, considering the luxurious character of Rossini is perfectly natural, if not the supreme expression of nature. For Wagner to have considered his music unnatural means Wagner held an ideological view of nature.

>What you are describing is the role Rossini's music can play in the life of someone, not the worth or characteristics of his music itself
I'm referring to both. Rossini's music is "light," in Nietzsche's language, which he considers to be healthier for the spirit.

>>23624307
Is this Wagner's? Because his music, which I love, is rather pessimistic and in no way energizes or pushes one to action

>>23624303
>What's presented here is a very grounded criticism of Wagner, with quotes directly from him to back it up
You are saying black in response to me saying white. This is no argument, we've already had the argument, I've already responded to the quotes, and I disagree with you.

>His point was that he had to take on an aesthetic position he doesn't actually adhere to in order to make a criticism of Wagner that he genuinely does adhere to.
It's far from that simple, and it simply is not correct since Nietzsche criticises Wagner for failing to have the characteristics of a certain composer. You cannot separate the criticism of Wagner from the other composer. What really motivates Nietzsche is the desire to radically oppose someone of worth, he says this himself, and it is the only thing that can justify and explain his extensive criticism of Wagner. The point is to see how unscathed the subject emerges as a result of the various criticism.

>>23624328
>You are saying black in response to me saying white.
I'm saying your accusations regarding dumb and smart Nietzscheans don't hold water in this thread.

>What really motivates Nietzsche is the desire to radically oppose someone of worth, he says this himself
Point to the quote, please. The one that clearly states that this is all there is to his criticisms of Wagner and nothing more.

>>23624307
Here, Wagner can be seen conflating art with a peasant-like necessity. He thinks the music of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti is immoral, perhaps inferior, because it doesn't prompt action — Wagner wants music to make him neurotic, in a sense. He thinks of art and compulsion together. This is peasantry, the view of one whose life revolves around having to get things done, and who consequently values things which motivate him to take his course of necessary action. He fails to acknowledge the beauty of the superfluous and the luxurious, just like a peasant.

>>23624313
>considering the luxurious character of Rossini is perfectly natural, if not the supreme expression of nature.
You are an idiot and Nietzsche would, least of all people, seriously believe Rossini to be supreme in anything. Literally study music, you could not make a more idiotic statement, as there is no debate as to whether or not Beethoven is superior to Rossini.

>For Wagner to have considered his music unnatural means Wagner held an ideological view of nature.
Why don't you just study Wagner before you try to be an expert on him? There can be art that plunges to a greater depth in nature, that has a broader spectrum in its portrayal of nature. Using the broadest sense of the word 'natural', Wagner believed Rossini was just as 'natural' as any music at all, since it all was received as music by the human organism. But one can still speak of certain lifestyles as an estrangement of that human organism, i.e. 'unhealthy', as Nietzsche himself constantly does. To go from calling something 'unnatural' to calling it 'unhealthy' is almost insignificant. What Wagner regarded as 'unnatural' in Rossini was that it belonged to a highly specific cultural period's conception of what art should be, that is, bourgeois entertainment, unlike the eternal significance of a Beethoven. These are objective observations and not ideological.

>Rossini's music is "light," in Nietzsche's language, which he considers to be healthier for the spirit.
Rossini's music is idle entertainment that Nietzsche enjoyed as a reprieve from the years of listening to Wagner. 'Healthier for the spirit' here means of lower significance, easier to subordinate to oneself, and we all know Nietzsche found the overbearing presence of Wagner so intolerable that he had to leave him forever. Seen in this way, ironically, it can be called divine, sublime, the greatest music, etc., but it is not a SERIOUS statement.

>>23624357
>You are an idiot and Nietzsche would, least of all people, seriously believe Rossini to be supreme in anything.
Yes he would. Joviality and lightness are perfectly aligned with Nietzsche's sense of the aristocratic. Maybe what you need to do is study Nietzsche more?

>There can be art that plunges to a greater depth in nature, that has a broader spectrum in its portrayal of nature.
Why refer to Wagner's music as "deep" and not "heavy" like Nietzsche does? Wagner doesn't penetrate into nature any deeper than Rossini does. Rather, Wagner makes nature redemptive and pessimistic; "heavy." Nietzsche's characterization is much more refined.

>'Healthier for the spirit' here means of lower significance
It means of a cleaner conscience. "Wagner [...] has made music sick" (Nietzsche)

>>23624350
>I'm saying your accusations regarding dumb and smart Nietzscheans don't hold water in this thread.
Wow such a brilliant observation! Thank you for adding to the discussion! Before your this statement, we had no idea that we were having a disagreement!

>Point to the quote, please.
Read Ecce Homo before you try to be an authority on Nietzsche.

>He thinks of art and compulsion together.
Because he, as a great artist, can see some art has something called depth, and he has standards and values for what he wants to absorb. No amount of flinging out the words 'aristocratic' or 'peasant' will change the fact that you are a peasant attracted to the easily understandable and pleasing, whereas Beethoven or Wagner are a bit too complex and earnest to understand. It requires both intelligence and earnest temperament yourself. You're like an effete gender studies student trying to read Anglo-Saxon poetry. The conflict of values is just too much, the chasm too great to bridge over with understanding. A glutton can never understand the virtuous!

>>23624252
Yes and I can articulate an intellectual point as to why Naruto isn‘t high culture as well. That doesn‘t make it worth my time when this is readily apparent.

>>23624368
>Joviality and lightness are perfectly aligned with Nietzsche's sense of the aristocratic.
Yes, yes anon, your mediocre enjoyment of Rossini puts you straight into the aristocratic world of Nietzsche! You comprehend Nietzsche perfectly just from listening to Rossini.

>Wagner doesn't penetrate into nature any deeper than Rossini does
Except Nietzsche says he does, Nietzsche regularly describes the psychological complexity of Wagner's music, describes the breadth of his vision in musically expressing his own dramas, even praises his dramas, such as Siegfried in Beyond Good and Evil. Only an absolute moron, such as yourself, could not see this.

>It means of a cleaner conscience.
Easier conscience. As, again, Nietzsche makes clear, Wagner is worth criticising, whereas Rossini is not.

>>23624327
Yes, it's a quote by Wagner. His ideal was to be the musical equivalent of tragedy, which means that there is a catharsis through the intensity and pessimism of the music. But this hardly describes all of his music, as it portrays virtually every aspect of human life. Siegfried's Funeral Music is certainly inspiring towards action, Walther's theme is wonderfully quixotic, the music of Walhall is awe-inspiring, the music of the Siegfried Idyll is domestically comforting, etc.

>>23624370
>Read Ecce Homo before you try to be an authority on Nietzsche
I already did. Point to the quote, please.

>>23624371
>That doesn‘t make it worth my time
Don't post then.

>>23624383
>Yes, yes anon, your mediocre enjoyment of Rossini puts you straight into the aristocratic world of Nietzsche!
Chicken shit response.

>Except Nietzsche says he does
More than Rossini? Where?

>As, again, Nietzsche makes clear, Wagner is worth criticising, whereas Rossini is not.
Wagner is worth criticizing because his music is dirtier, not superior, which is what you're really trying to get at.

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Nietzsche's point, which is typically overlooked, is that it is a triumph of the intellect to appreciate a Rossini over others, while it is a triumph of sensuality to appreciate a Wagner over others. Both are geniuses in their respective domains. However, the intellect is what makes us human, while sensuality is more animalistic; thus, a Rossini is far rarer in nature, and consequently more miraculous. Nietzsche was only able to come to this conclusion by putting aside his intense passion for Wagner's music for a moment and instead listening carefully to his intellect alone. This contemplative adherence to the intellect is ultimately what characterizes aristocracy and what Nietzsche wishes to cultivate among Europeans once more when he praises Bizet, Rossini or Offenbach over Wagner.

>>23624393
>I already did.
Kek, no you haven't, otherwise you would know it is chapter 7.

>Chicken shit response.
Non-entity response.

>More than Rossini? Where?
Any music is more psychologically complex than Rossini. Because there is no psychological complexity to Rossini. It is all the same over and over again. He had a very simplistic style, so your opinions, clearly not based on any musical knowledge, are just jokes. But to get an idea of the psychological complexity Nietzsche found in Wagner's music, see the letters he wrote to his sister after first hearing the overture to Parsifal. They can be easily found online.

>his music is dirtier
Like the negro drums and vulgar Italian opera that Nietzsche praised? At any rate, there are many dirty things in the world, and I've never yet found Nietzsche justify talking about something so much on account of its dirtiness.

>>23624416
But Rossini is, in every single aspect of his music, far more intellectually simplistic than Wagner, whether it's in orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, motivic organisation, etc., and he belongs to a style of music (which he perfected) that was far more common and established than Wagner's. It is a very silly leap of logic to claim that Rossini was rarer in nature, after you have already convinced yourself that he is more intellectual and also that intellectual art is more rare. Look at the real history of the time and you will see your view doesn't make much sense. Wagner was the titanic genius who opened up a whole new world of art, whose music is of the highest technical complexity and mastery. And the only way Rossini, Offenbach and Bizet can be considered more 'intellectual' is if they aid the intellectual life more, they are less burdensome on the intellect, but that does not amount to their music in itself being intellectual. Meanwhile Nietzsche prided himself on his intellectual ability to absorb and appreciation the dangerous music of Wagner without being overcome by it:

>I suppose I know better than any one the prodigious feats of which Wagner was capable, the fifty worlds of strange ecstasies to which no one else had wings to soar; and as I am alive to-day and strong enough to turn even the most suspicious and most dangerous things to my own advantage, and thus to grow stronger, I declare Wagner to have been the greatest benefactor of my life.

>>23624449
>But Rossini is, in every single aspect of his music, far more intellectually simplistic than Wagner
It's not the music itself that you need to look at, but its effects in its listeners. Wagner's music subordinates the intellect to sensuality. It doesn't provide a freedom for the intellect to dance and roam in like Rossini's music does. As such, Rossini is the friend of the intellect, while Wagner is the friend of sensuality. The friend of the intellect, however, is the aristocrat. Entertainment is aristocratic while passion is animalistic. Passionate music is more moving and complex, but more animalistic. The aristocrat, the spirit of the intellect, prefers to be entertained by what is frivolous. Both seek to alleviate themselves of themselves and become intoxicated in something other, but their different natures lead to wanting different others.

>>23624393
>Don‘t post then

Identifying you as a gay retard is worth my time

>>23624466
If frivolity is a requirement for aristocratic art, then I can't find any aristocratic art in Greece. Unless by aristocratic you mean 18th century aristocratism, in which case I don't hold it up as any artistic ideal at all. When one seriously evaluates artists I just cannot find any room for your claims about the intellectual and animalistic. This all seems to stem from Nietzsche's glorifying of French Classical culture, which only was done out of a reaction to Wagner, in an attempt to be radical for his era. It is interesting, but not historically true.

>>23624494
The Greeks didn't experience a split between intellect and sensuality like we do. They were different people. Aristocracy, from the Renaissance onward, is what we're talking about, and it is true as far as the intellect is concerned. Entertainment is much better nourishment for the intellect than passion.

Why was everyone THAT much into Wagner back then? It's completely psychophantic.

>>23623842
>>23624194
>>23624230
>>23624290
Someone who *actually* reads Nietzsche carefully. Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your posts, anon.

To add to your citations to buttress your point, I'd point to Nietzsche's notebooks, where he's a bit more frank about the rhetorical dimension of his work, such as in his notebooks of 1885-1886, where he says that "it is today necessary to speak temporarily in a coarse manner and to act coarsely. What is fine and concealed is no longer understood, not even by those who are related to us. That of which one does not speak loudly and cry out, is not there." And then in the notebooks of 1882 he says that "to speak much of oneself is also a way of hiding oneself." This tends to be underappreciated among readers like anon you're arguing with.

>>23625228
Passion music like Wagner's appeals to the sexually frustrated, which Christianity and Capitalism both produce en masse.

>>23623842
So what are we to make of Nietzsche's criticism of Wagner? I have no understanding of music or art, nor have I read anything of Wagner. It was in my good sense to ignore NCW since I knew it would only confuse my understanding. To the best of my reading, Nietzsche's stance on him is indeed critical and yet respectful, not so different to his seemingly equivocal stance on Socrates or even Christ. Am I at least correct in saying that to Nietzsche, Wagner represents romanticism which is opposed to Dionysian tragedy (GS 370)? It is agreed that he acknowledges Wagner's greatness, but if his criticism only falls into irony, then what must we make of his critique against Wagner? Surely you're not saying to simply disregard it for being ironic. If Wagner's status still stands against Nietzsche's criticisms, do his criticisms still stand against Wagner?

>>23623842
based
>>23625740
It might be conceived as a very complicated "anxiety of influence"--you have to understand Nietzsche's severe decline in health, where he lost hope in his destiny. He says in Case of Wagner that a Wagnerite suggested to him that he wasn't healthy enough for Wagner's music. The incredible morbidity of sensation that Nietzsche experiences almost comes from a too extreme hyper-refinement (this kind of sensibility is going to be rarer today, given the brutality of the times, technological advances, the "violent" nature of almost all pop music (remember when the Beatles came out the older generation found it actively unpleasant)--but Wagner's art is indeed the most hyper-refined art that, in may experience, exists, and so Nietzsche identified Wagner's art with his declining health condition. He said we moderns are decadents and Wagner is the modern artist par excellence. All of this is going to be difficult for someone today to understand, because that modernity is so estranged from our own.

> Wagner was a revolutionary—he fled from the Germans.... As an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris; that subtlety of all the five senses which Wagner's art presupposes, those fingers that can detect slight gradations, psychological morbidity—all these things can be found only in Paris. Nowhere else can you meet with this passion for questions of form, this earnestness in matters of mise-en-scène, which is the Parisian earnestness par excellence.

There's also the issue that Wagner embraced pity/sympathetic morality and Nietzsche came to regard this as a sickness. His movement away from Schopenhauer and Wagner is roughly conterminous. This in my opinion may be the essence.

>Am I at least correct in saying that to Nietzsche, Wagner represents romanticism which is opposed to Dionysian tragedy (GS 370)?
Wagner's work was the original inspiration for this concept -- later he claimed that he heard something in the music that wasn't there (I don't think this is how music works but that's a whole other issue). He did dream of a new music, beyond pity, a music of world historic (in the utmost sense) intensity
>the proximity of the resurrection of the Greek spirit, the need of men who will be counter-Alexanders, who will once more tie the Gordian knot of Greek culture, after it has been cut.
Put differently he wanted something better--but there is little reason to believe anything better will come.

Your questions are difficult to answer and because ultimately you have to be in Nietzsche's head to understand his bizarre reactions. He was a very unusual type. In Case of Wagner, though brilliant in style, he really does sound crazy. With Nietzsche you can well imagine that if he had been Shakespeare's friend at the time, or rather Lord Bacon, something similar, in terms of intense love followed by ambivalence, would have occurred (and indeed what is said of Wagner as a dramatist can just as well be applied to Shakespeare).

Weinginer's perspective, though I wouldn't say, or am not sure, I accept it, may be useful:
>The self-loving person can also hate; namely, he hates whatever disturbs his life ... he is the “aesthete”. The self-hating person, on the other hand, cannot love no matter what. In extreme cases, even sexual intercourse is fully impossible for him. He is thus certainly much unhappier than the other. Shakespeare and Sophocles (particularly the former) belong, in the highest degree, to the self-loving type, which gives an essentially tender form to their castigations – this is likewise a condition of writing an autobiography. Goethe is not purely self-loving – many passages in Faust attest to how false it would be to classify him without further qualifications in this type. One is altogether deceived if he supposes Goethe to be a harmonious person, as he has been commonly said to be since Heine, and as is repeated ad nauseam today. Rather, Goethe was one of the unhappiest people there has ever been, and thus more modest and more rigorous than so many others in concealing his unhappiness. – The person who hated himself the most had to be Nietzsche. His hatred of Wagner and of asceticism, and his wish to switch allegiance to Bizet and Gottfried Keller, was merely a hatred of the Wagnerian, the ascetic and totally non-idyllic person that he was himself. Self-hate is certainly morally superior to self-love. Thus the insincerity is bad, with which Nietzsche pretended to have achieved the transition (the “recovery” from Wagner, from his “illness”) – this is not the only pose which Nietzsche affected in front of himself and everyone else. Pascal, who certainly hated himself terribly, ranks high above Nietzsche in this – moreover, he is never as superficial as Nietzsche can sometimes be. While Pascal was able openly to declare as a fundamental principle, “le moi est haïsable”, (Pensées I, 9, 24), Nietzsche even denied this, his own hatred of himself, and – he hated himself so – slandered it and disparaged it – of course only as a characteristic of Pascal. There is only one passage where Zarathustra is sincere about this: in the glorious song, which is absolutely to be understood as an ethical symbol, “Before Sunrise” (in Part III): “O, heaven above me, pure.... What I want with all my will is to fly, to fly up into you! And whom did I hate more than drifting clouds and all that stains you? And I hated even my own hatred because it stained you. I loathe the drifting clouds, those stealthy great cats which prey on what you and I have in common – the uncaring, unbounded Yes and Amen.”

>>23624416
>>23624466
Pseud lol

>>23625324
Those were some very interesting quotations, which I've never read before. Thanks for posting them. I always feel the people Nietzsche would hate most of all would be his own followers.

>>23626956
>In Case of Wagner, though brilliant in style, he really does sound crazy.
I disagree; his criticism of Wagner makes sense given the direction his philosophy was taking.

Recall that late Nietzsche not only distanced himself from Schopenhauer and Wagner, but also the Greeks and Europe at large; in Twilight of the Idols he praises the Romans over the Greeks and the Russians over Europeans:

>For institutions to be possible there must exist a sort of will, instinct, imperative, which cannot be otherwise than antiliberal to the point of wickedness: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuries to come, to solidarity in long family lines forwards and backwards in infinitum. If this will is present, something is founded which resembles the imperium Romanum; or Russia, the only great nation to-day that has some lasting power and grit in her, that can bide her time, that can still promise something.—Russia the opposite of all[Pg 97] wretched European petty-statism and neurasthenia, which the foundation of the German Empire has brought to a crisis.

>I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong impressions; and, to speak frankly, they cannot be to us what the Romans are. One cannot learn from the Greeks—their style is too strange, it is also too fluid, to be imperative or to have the effect of a classic. Who would ever have learnt writing from a Greek! Who would ever have learned it without the Romans!

Consider also that while Zarathustra grounds the Overman in an earthly sense, he also distances the Overman from apes — and also humans. The Overman is neither a Christian nor an atheist ideal; Nietzsche is hostile to Darwin and Darwinism in GS:

>The whole of English Darwinism breathes something like the musty air of English overpopulation, like the smell of the stress and overcrowding of small people.

>[...] in nature it is not conditions of distress that are dominant but overflow and squandering, even to the point of absurdity. The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will to life.

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Why is it that every discussion on Nietzsche boils down to:

>You're misunderstanding Nietzche
>No, you're misunderstanding Nietzsche
>NO, you're misunderstanding Nietzsche!
>YOU'RE the one misunderstanding Nietzsche!
ad infinitum

>>23627814
because he was an emotional quasi-schizo who contradicted himself various times, and the third worlders who post him on here can barely get through azquotes of him, much less actually read a book

>>23627813
Meanwhile, in The Artwork of the Future, Wagner lambasts this same "overflow" under the name Luxury, and instead praises the "struggle for existence" under the name Want:

>Luxury is as heartless, inhuman, insatiable, and egoistic as the "need" which called it forth but which, with all its heaping-up and over-reaching, it never more can still. For this need itself is no natural and therefore satisfiable one; by very reason that, being false, it has no true, essential antithesis in which it may be spent, consumed, and satisfied. Actual physical hunger has its natural antithesis, satiety, in which by feeding it is spent: but unwanting need, the need that craves for luxury, is in itself already luxury and superfluity.

>Want will cut short the hell of Luxury: it will teach the tortured, Need-lacking spirits whom this hell embraces in its bounds the simple, homely need of sheer human, physical hunger and thirst; but in fellowship will it point us to the health-giving bread, the clear sweet springs of Nature; in fellowship shall we taste their genuine joys, and grow up in communion to veritable men.

There is a fundamental philosophical divide between the two; ultimately, Wagner's "artwork of the future" is insufficient for creating Nietzsche's Overman. Nietzsche's Overman, in contrast to Wagner's art, is cold and rational, like the Roman and the Russian, rather than intoxicated. Nietzsche posits rationality against intoxication in Will to Power:

>The highest rationality is a cold, clear state very far from giving that feeling of happiness that intoxication of any kind brings with it

He also points out that Christianity "takes up the fight" against the "classical ideal" and the "noble religion" that "the lower masses, the women, the slaves, the non-noble classes" had already started, a mass that, curiously, believed in Dionysus, and as such "desired" a "religion" with a "hope of the beyond," "redemptive deed," "holy legend," "asceticism," "world-denial," "superstitious 'purification'," and "a form of community" (WTP §196) — all of which are things which he attributes to Wagner's art. Late Nietzsche came to realize that intoxication cultivates a soil ripe for such a religion, like a cure for its agitation.

On deeper analysis, Nietzsche's criticisms of Wagner's music is not a byproduct of madness, but of his own attempt to not concede to such a desire which he no doubt possessed himself on account of being a Wagnerite — a very courageous attempt to retain the "classical ideal" and the "noble religion." This might sound bizarre coming from the champion of Dionysus, but, as Nietzsche acknowledged, the "Dionysian Greek needed to become Apollinian" — ultimately in order not to lose itself.

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>>23627814
the neetzsche and wagner spurdo spardes are always kekworthy
>Verification not required.

>>23627819
>Meanwhile, in The Artwork of the Future, Wagner lambasts this same "overflow" under the name Luxury
Did you even read it? He describes at the very beginning nature's creative overflow. And how on earth is Nietzsche describing a state of continual hunger when he says squandering is the natural state? Clearly he is much closer to Wagner here, as creativity implies a strength of desire and its corresponding satisfaction, and he would probably agree with Wagner's criticism of the weak, flabby desires of 19th century luxury. Nietzsche has some very real criticisms of Wagner, but you're just confusing them by forcing a critique of Wagner that doesn't exist and doesn't even make sense. Your quotation from Artwork of the Future is so arbitrary and random.

>>23627892
Nietzsche's "overflow" in that passage is not Wagner's; it's Wagner's "luxury." Examine it closer. He pairs "overflow and squandering" together — superfluity. He juxtaposes it against the "struggle for existence," meanwhile — against need and want, survival. Nietzsche's "overflow" here is luxurious in that it isn't born of need or want. Wagner, in contrast, holds such an "overflow" in disdain, according to the passage.

There's nothing bizarre about my assessment — Nietzsche consciously distanced himself from Wagner, after all.

>>23627907
I think there is a great confusion here because the two authors are using similar words to mean very different things. When Nietzsche is describing squandering, that doesn't equate to superfluity. The sprint of a leopard is not quite on the same level of lived-life as a corpulent capitalist. The one is ideal, the other is lowly. You cannot call the experiences that are all-important to the leopard superfluous, but the capitalist might even say himself that his life is superfluous. Wagner does not view life as a 'struggle for existence', he is actually concerned with the pleasures of existence, as his 'want' ('Noth', also translated as 'need') is simply the desires which justify themselves by the power of their own nature.

>Nietzsche consciously distanced himself from Wagner, after all.
Yes but not from the intricacies of Wagner's philosophical writings, which he was never much concerned with. You can more firmly use Nietzsche's critique of Wagner to dismiss any kind of moralising in the latter's work, but the Feuerbachian Wagner has quite a lot in common with Nietzsche, as can be seen by Nietzsche's expressing his wish to become the heir of the 'genuine Wagner', which was, in Nietzsche's view, the young Wagner.

>>23628065
>I think there is a great confusion here because the two authors are using similar words to mean very different things.
My argument is that they are using different words to mean the same things. Nietzsche's "overflow" and Wagner's "luxury" are the same in principle. You can see this yourself if you analyze their words more carefully.

>When Nietzsche is describing squandering, that doesn't equate to superfluity.
His "squandering" is compared with "overflow," which are both juxtaposed against the "temporary restriction of the will to life" that is the "struggle for existence" that the Darwinist maintains is the natural state of life. Further, he considers this Darwinian portrayal of nature as stemming from the "musty air of English overpopulation" and the "smell of the stress and overcrowding of small people." In other words, it is the conditions of English society which make the Darwinists define nature as a matter of survival, with need and want — hunger — as their prime contextual subjects. Superfluity is absolutely what he's referring to — superfluity, which is the absence of hunger (since hunger forms the chains of necessity connecting one to the environment), is the opposite of the English ideal, which is overly concerned with dominating one's environment (domination is want, hunger). The English struggle against superfluity rather than embrace it. But for Nietzsche, the natural state is about superfluity, which we can also translate as abundance, which allows for an overcoming of hunger. Nietzsche himself is conscious of the opposition I am positing here when he writes, in Will to Power:

>Deepest difference: whether hunger or overabundance becomes creative? The former generates the ideals of romanticism.

Taking this criticism of Darwinism alongside his criticism of Wagner, we can see that Nietzsche ultimately does not share Wagner's disdain for "luxury." Further, when we consider Nietzsche's praise for the Romans, the Russians, and the cool-headed rationality in general that the two represent for him, we can see that Nietzsche's Overman might be regarded as the most luxurious being of all, in the sense that Wagner uses the term "luxury." His Overman is not defined by hunger, like the ape or the human, but by overabundance, or overflow:

>Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss!

And when Zarathustra's "cup" empties itself (returns to hunger), Zarathustra "is again going to be a man." His Overman is not part of the chains of necessity, is not a member of the species; he is a luxurious being; Wagner does not care about such a being. His music does not invoke such a being.

>>23628167
Hunger and superfluity in a Darwinian sense would not mean the same thing in Wagner's sense, or be equivalent to Wagner's 'need' and 'luxury'. You are pointlessly conflating them, because you've spotted a vague association of words. And despite proclaiming Nietzsche's conception of the Ubermesnch as beyond any prior estimation of existence, you're foolishly conflating a prior conception of luxury with the Ubermensch. If the Ubermensch is not restrained by Darwinian hunger, then he is also not constrained by Darwinian superfluity. So stupid is it of many Nietzscheans, in their reaction against 'morals', to still be hemmed in by them from the negative direction. You say Wagner is restrained by an outmoded view of life, and yet you think the vulgarity of 19th century luxury can define the Ubermensch.

You are utterly incapable of sorting through different philosophies, contrasting and differentiating different worldviews, so you confuse them all together upon an abstract set of philosophical notions. And most likely out of an over-eagerness to affirm Nietzsche's ideas. It's childish. You can find countless statements by Wagner describing his creativity originating from an overabundance, even Nietzsche describes the Meistersinger overture as embodying it, and a billion more quotations that could just as precariously be used to show the opposite of your constructed view. What I said at the beginning remains correct: you are simply reading too much into a quotation and without any understanding of it anyway. Furthermore, all great artists feel a NEED to impart something, to construct a whole, which leads to the artwork. You can twist what exactly the word 'need' here however you want, but it can easily be used in accordance with Nietzsche's philosophy. And surely you don't think Nietzsche never felt a strong creative urge, a 'need' to do something. Because all of this is just idle intellectual chatter a thousand leagues from a real look at the ideas and writings of these men.

>>23628344
>You are pointlessly conflating them, because you've spotted a vague association of words.
There's nothing vague here; I've provided various passages which clearly demonstrate my points.

>If the Ubermensch is not restrained by Darwinian hunger, then he is also not constrained by Darwinian superfluity.
Do you have a passage from Nietzsche that can justify this? I've provided it for my argument, it's only reasonable that you provide it for yours.

>So stupid is it of many Nietzscheans, in their reaction against 'morals', to still be hemmed in by them from the negative direction.
Nietzsche's criticisms clearly support my thesis, though. He has a stance on the matter; he is in favor of "Darwinian superfluity" while Darwin was not in favor of it. Further, he took a stand not only against Darwin, but against Wagner. What are you proposing is the alternative reason for his opposition to Wagner, if it's not what I'm positing?

>You can find countless statements by Wagner describing his creativity originating from an overabundance, even Nietzsche describes the Meistersinger overture as embodying it, and a billion more quotations that could just as precariously be used to show the opposite of your constructed view.
You would need to provide one that shows that Wagner's "overabundance" is the same as Nietzsche's which, given the passages I've provided, has a luxuriant nature. So far, you've not displayed very precise analytical skills when deciphering texts, so I'm not going to just take your word for it.

>Furthermore, all great artists feel a NEED to impart something, to construct a whole, which leads to the artwork.
Yes, sure — but the artist is just a type for Nietzsche. The Overman is more than just this type.

>>23628416
For what it's worth, I do think your posts have been the more diligent at putting together Nietzsche's stance on "Wagner." >>23628344 's charge against you for conflating terms and misunderstanding Wagner may well be correct, but I do find it worthwhile to remember that Nietzsche often reduces a great person into a type for him to simplify and make points both for and against. Recall that Nietzsche does make a point to say that he never attacks the person, only what they stand for; and perhaps it also gives him license to only attack certain things they stand for. Whether you're accurate about which aspects of Wagner Nietzsche was attacking or whether it was merely a caricature, that I do not know. I do not even know if it is fruitful to get to the bottom of it or if it is better to leave it to our scholars to tally the score. Finally, >>23626956 the attention he pays to Nietzsche's health and psyche is also appreciated, that perhaps old Nietzsche felt the end coming and needed a great enemy to muster his strength again. Unfortunately this psychologizing seems to force us to discard Nietzsche's criticism as a mere defense mechanism. Perhaps we can keep it in mind to temper the all too prevalent dick-riding a reader of Nietzsche is prone to.

Hope to see both you gents around. Same for the anon posting about "smart" and "dumb" Nietzscheans.

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I dont get why people like Wagner so much. Id rather listen to Beethoven or Bruckner.

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>>23628992
Wagner successfully blended the art of Shakespeare and Beethoven. Bruckner is also very good, but Wagner is a true master. Parsifal is the capstone of western music.

>>23622552
madness that leads to god is called epiphany, revelation or enlightenment

>>23622485
He became God--that's the goal of any true seer.

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>>23622485
>In 1883, Wagner ascends into the spiritual world. Nietzsche ... is in danger. The spirits of darkness threaten to lead him onto particularly evil pathways. ... as Wagner ascend into the spiritual world, the spirits of darkness are already down. ... he [Wagner] is going to be - here certain things that are paradoxical but nevertheless true need to said - Nietzsche's guide from the spiritual world. He doesn't let him continue to pursue his thoughts, instead he causes Nietzsche to play in a region appropriate to him by giving him the favour of being overtaken by madness in the right moment. This saves him from getting consciously into dangerous regions ... what Wagner really wants from Nietzsche is to save him as much as possible in his karma from the spirits of darkness who had already come down to earth.

>>23628992
See >>23625689

People are animals and Wagner's music is animality deified.

>>23629325
>dude.. SEX

>>23629330
Do you not feel intense emotion when listening to Wagner? That's the intention. Emotional intensity is animalistic, though.

>>23629341
Emotional intensity of all kinds unknown to monkeys are experienced by humans, so you cannot call them 'animalistic', and emotional intensity is not at all restricted to sexual urges. Freudian interpretations don't work with Wagner because he was completely unashamed of eros, and if someone is unashamed of sex then you can't reduce their religious feelings to repressed sexual urges.

>>23622264
It’s a shame Nietzsche didn’t live the see the 90s rap scene. I think he would have fucking loved Tupac

>>23629161
I dont feel it desu

>>23623842
I just don't like Wagner.

>>23623842

I never read the Wagner ones.
Do I miss something?

>>23629179
That's a nice image, Wagner in the other world watching over his crazed disciple

>>23629325
>animalist
It's actually at the utmost limit of spiritualization. There are certain exceptions to this like the Bacchanal part of Tanhausser but they are few and far from what's most prized. To like Bruckner and Beethoven and then have problems with Wagner is, I suppose, possible, but to say that it's because Wagner is "animalistic" is an ultimate absurdity

>>23629580
He would have liked EDM. Rap represents a genuine corpus of warrior poetry. Surely the European's need for this "music" is significant and from the vantage of 100 years ago hard to believe. He did say the criminal was a man of strong instincts, anti-social in the best sense--would his opinion change, or would he see that it is not just Asiatic man, but the Negro as well, that is superior to that contemptible herd animal, the European? Strindberg challenged him, near the end, on this point of the criminal

>>23629784
Give it time, and one day you will access the
> the fifty worlds of strange ecstasies to which no one else had wings to soar

>>23628598
>perhaps old Nietzsche felt the end coming and needed a great enemy to muster his strength again
This doesn't seem likely to me, as I've never come across a passage from Nietzsche that suggested this. What seems to be the case is what Nietzsche himself said: he played devil's advocate to make an argument against Wagner and Europe as a whole, because he had a very different project / vision in mind. Nietzsche's exuberant writing style, which he maintained even while writing his "madness letters," indicates that he wasn't "old" or "felt the end coming" — he was in good spirits.

>>23631566
>because he had a very different project / vision in mind
That's exactly it--very few people who read Nietzsche have even the slightest sense of what the Ubermensch actually meant to him, they liken it to their own image; so that (laughably) it will be just a more vital version of themselves. It's really a transcendental vision, but enacted on the earth. It ends with him considering himself to be God. The madness letters--which to me are sublime--are critical here

> When it comes right down to it I'd much rather have been a Basel professor than God; but I didn't dare be selfish enough to forgo the creation of the world. You see, one must make sacrifices, no matter how and where one lives.

> What is unpleasant and a strain on my modesty is that in fact I am every historical personage; and as for the children I have brought into the world, I ponder with some misgiving the possibility that not everyone who enters the "kingdom of God" also comes from God.

>Fräulein von Salis
>God is on the earth. Don't you see how all the heavens are rejoicing? I have just seized possession of my kingdom, I've thrown the Pope in prison, and I'm having Wilhelm, Bismarck, and Stöcker shot.
>The Crucified.

Rossini is a better artist than Wagner because humor and whimsy are superior sensibilities to seriousness and profundity.

>>23633269
Is it an 18th or 19th century idea that art had to be superserious? I get the feeling renaissance and baroque artists were joking around a whole lot more.

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>>23633301
>I get the feeling renaissance and baroque artists were joking around a whole lot more

>>23629580
Tupac was an unironic homosexual doing the "gangsta" thing as a bit to sell records

>>23633335
Not all the time of course.

>>23631646
>It's really a transcendental vision, but enacted on the earth. It ends with him considering himself to be God.
Glad I'm not the only one here who caught that. I'm not sure what exactly is the origin of this widespread misunderstanding of the Overman you're talking about. I think liberal and postmodern academics added fuel to this fire over time by "subjectivizing" Nietzsche's perspectivism, which was never wholly subjective in nature — the oft quoted phrase "there are no facts, only interpretations' is part of a longer passage that has a drastically different meaning than what is assumed when the shorter phrase is quoted:

>In opposition to Positivism, which halts at phenomena and says “There are only facts and nothing more”, I would say: No, facts are precisely what is lacking; all that exists consists of interpretations. We cannot establish any fact “in itself”: it may even be nonsense to desire to do such a thing. “Everything is subjective”, you say; but that in itself is interpretation. The “subject” is nothing given, but something superimposed by fancy, something introduced behind. – Is it necessary to set an interpreter behind the interpretation already to hand? Even that would be fantasy, hypothesis. To the extent to which “knowledge” has any sense at all, the world is knowable; but may be interpreted differently; it has not one sense behind it, but hundreds of senses. – “Perspectivism”. It is our needs that interpret the world; our instincts and their impulses For and Against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power; each one has its point of view, which it would fain impose upon all the other instincts as their norm.

Nietzsche takes subjectivity so far here that he ends up arriving at a position that acknowledges both the incessant relativity of all "knowledge" and the undeniable sovereignty of it, which he gives the name "will to power." In Will to Power, meanwhile, he calls both pagan and Christian religions nihilistic, but for opposite reasons:

>Physiology of the nihilistic religions. Each and every nihilistic religion: a systematized case history of sickness employing religious-moralistic nomenclature. With pagan cults, it is around the interpretations of the great annual cycles that the cult revolves. With the Christian cult, it is around a cycle of paralytic phenomena that the cult revolves—

If we view Nietzsche's stance as something in between, or a third position altogether, then he can't really be fit into the "subjective vs. objective" dichotomy.

I've always thought that Nietzsche, more than anyone else, understood the perspective of the Christian God, were that god to have a perspective, better than anyone else. His "abyss" that stared back into him was this god.