On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

by Friedrich Nietzsche

Forward "Incidentally, I despise everything which merely instructs me without increasing or immediately enlivening my activity." These are Goethe's words. With them, as with a heartfelt expression of Ceterum censeo [I judge otherwise], our consideration of the worth and the worthlessness of history may begin. For this work is to set down why, in the spirit of Goethe's saying, we must seriously despise instruction without vitality, knowledge which enervates activity, and history as an expensive surplus of knowledge and a luxury, because we lack what is still most essential to us and because what is superfluous is hostile to what is essential. To be sure, we need history. But we need it in a manner different from the way in which the spoilt idler in the garden of knowledge uses it, no matter how elegantly he may look down on our coarse and graceless needs and distresses. That is, we need it for life and action, not for a comfortable turning away from life and action or merely for glossing over the egotistical life and the cowardly bad act. We wish to use history only insofar as it serves living. But there is a degree of doing history and a valuing of it through which life atrophies and degenerates. To bring this phenomenon to light as a remarkable symptom of our time is every bit as necessary as it may be painful.

I have tried to describe a feeling which has often enough tormented me. I take my revenge on this feeling when I expose it to the general public. Perhaps with such a description someone or other will have reason to point out to me that he also knows this particular sensation but that I have not felt it with sufficient purity and naturalness and definitely have not expressed myself with the appropriate certainty and mature experience. Perhaps one or two will respond in this way. However, most people will tell me that this feeling is totally wrong, unnatural, abominable, and absolutely forbidden, that with it, in fact, I have shown myself unworthy of the powerful historical tendency of the times, as it has been, by common knowledge, observed for the past two generations, particularly among the Germans. Whatever the reaction, now that I dare to expose myself with this natural description of my feeling, common decency will be fostered rather than shamed, because I am providing many opportunities for a contemporary tendency like the reaction just mentioned to make polite pronouncements. Moreover, I obtain for myself something of even more value to me than respectability: I become publicly instructed and set straight about our times.

This essay is also out of touch with the times because here I am trying for once to see as a contemporary disgrace, infirmity, and defect something of which our age is justifiably proud, its historical culture. For I believe, in fact, that we are all suffering from a consumptive historical fever and at the very least should recognize that we are afflicted with it. If Goethe with good reason said that with our virtues we simultaneously cultivate our faults and if, as everyone knows, a hypertrophic virtue (as the historical sense of our age appears to me to be) can serve to destroy a people just as well as a hypertrophic vice, then people may make allowance for me this once. Also in my defence I should not conceal the fact that the experiences which aroused these feelings of torment in me I have derived for the most part from myself and only from others for the purpose of comparison and that, insofar as I am a student more of ancient times, particularly the Greeks, I come as a child in these present times to such anachronistic experiences concerning myself....

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Classics, German Literature, Essays, Theory

78 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1874

About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.

Reviews

[Peiman E iran · Rating 3 out of 5]

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، متأسفانه ترجمهٔ کتاب به زبانِ فارسی، اصلاً روان و خوش فهم نمیباشد و من به یاد دارم در خوانشهایِ نخستین از این کتاب، زمانِ زیادی را صرفِ خواندنِ آن کردم ... مترجمانِ این کتاب تا جایی که میتوانستند از واژه هایِ قلمبه و سلمبه و کلماتِ بی معنی و بی مفهومِ تازیان برایِ ترجمهٔ این کتاب، استفاده کرده اند و این خیالِ اشتباه را داشته اند که چنین کتابِ مهمی را، خیلی فلسفی ترجمه نموده اند
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‎دوستانِ عزیزم، این کتاب به طور کلی به سه بخش تقسیم شده است.. در این کتاب <نیچه> زندگی را بر تاریخ مقدم میشمارد و زندگی ای را که بر آن فرمان رانده شود، زندگی نمیداند.. به همین دلیل انسانهایی را که آرمان هایِ بزرگِ قهرمانی دارند را شایستهٔ آن میداند که سرگذشتشان در تاریخ نوشته شود، چراکه تاریخ از دیدگاهِ نیچه سرگذشتِ مردانِ بزرگ و قهرمانان است
‎او آموزشِ تاریخ را در پرتوِ فرهنگِ در حالِ ارتقا، مفید و مؤثر دانسته و البته افراط در تاریخگری را خطرناک و زیان بخش میشمارد... نیچه، بر این باور است که چیزی را که ما به عنوانِ یک فرهنگِ تاریخی بدان مینازیم، جز عیب و نقص چیزِ دیگری نمیباشد... نیچه تاریخ را متعلق به روحِ حرمتگذار میداند، یعنی متعلق به آنکس که با وفاداری و عشق به خواستگاه هایِ خود مینگرد و چنانچه انسانی اینگونه باشد، میتواند سپاسگزارِ زندگیِ خویشتن نیز باشد
‎او تأکید میکند که تاریخ باید به انسانها بیاموزد که چگونه زندگی را حفظ نمایند، نه آنکه بگوید چگونه زندگی را ایجاد کنند
‎به باورِ نیچه، تنها شخصیت هایِ نیرومند در مقابلِ تاریخ دوام می آورند و ناتوان ها به وسیلهٔ تاریخ نابود میشوند... از دیدگاهِ وی، دانستن و درکِ زیاد از تاریخ، امکانِ اندیشه و خلاقیت را در انسان از بین میبرد.. که در این یک مورد با زنده یاد نیچه موافق نیستم
‎نیچه میگوید: تاریخ توسطِ مردانِ آزموده و برتر نگاشته میشود.. و اینگونه ادامه میدهد که: هرگاه شما تجربهٔ کمتری نسبت به کسانی که آنها را نمی شناسید، داشته باشید، چگونه میتوانید به تفسیرِ عظمت و اعتلایِ گذشته بپردازید؟ تاریخ و گذشته همیشه همچون یک پیشگو سخن میگوید و شما فقط به عنوانِ معمارانِ آینده که زمانِ حال را میشناسید، قادر به دریافتِ آن خواهید بود
‎نیچه برایِ اثباتِ گفته هایش یونانیان را مثال میزند و بخشی از گفته هایش را به توضیح در مورد چگونگیِ برخوردِ یونانیان با تاریخ و غرق شدنشان در تاریخ گذشتگانشان، اختصاص داده است
‎در بخش هایِ پایانیِ کتاب نیز، نوشته هایِ <نیچه> خطاب به آلمانی هاست و فرهنگِ آلمان را فرهنگی دروغین میداند و آلمانی ها را میراث خورِ گذشتگان به شمار می آورد
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‎امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ranküne geladene Zeitgeistkritik ohne begriffliche Substanz

Die Sammlung Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen (1873-76) gehört zum Frühwerk, dessen zentrales Werk Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik darstellt. Im Frühwerk emanzipiert sich Nietzsche nach und nach vom allherrschenden Wissenschaftscredo des 19. Jahrhundert, das sich um Objektivität, Detailversessenheit und selbstvergessene Faktentreue im positivistischen Sinne dreht. Nietzsche will davon nichts wissen:

Zerbröckelt und auseinandergefallen, im Ganzen in ein Inneres und ein Aeusseres halb mechanisch zerlegt, mit Begriffen wie mit Drachenzähnen übersäet, Begriffs-Drachen erzeugend, dazu an der Krankheit der Worte leidend und ohne Vertrauen zu jeder eignen Empfindung, die noch nicht mit Worten abgestempelt ist: als eine solche unlebendige und doch unheimlich regsame Begriffs- und Worte-Fabrik habe ich vielleicht noch das Recht von mir zu sagen cogito, ergo sum, nicht aber vivo, ergo cogito.

Nietzsche bricht eine Lanze für Perspektivismus, Motivation, Inspiration und Tatendrang, und diagnostiziert in diesem Aufsatz eine Art universelle Krankheit des herrschenden Akademismus. Insbesondere an demjenigen im deutschsprachigen Raum will er kein gutes Haar lassen. Konsequenterweise scheidet er 1879 auch aus der Universität aus. Leider, wie so oft, entwickelt Nietzsche keine differentielle Beschreibung. Er pendelt von einem Extrem ins Andere.

● Monumentalistische, Heldentum verehrende Geschichtsschreibung: gut für die, die mutig sind und den letzten Anstoß für eine gewagte Tat benötigen; schlecht für die, die sich von dem Heldentum anderer ins Bockshorn jagen lassen und dadurch feiger werden.

● Antiquarische, bewahrende Geschichtsschreibung: gut für die, die zufrieden mit sich ein Heimatgefühl aufbauen können und wollen; schlecht für die, die unzufrieden mit sich die Gegenwart nur als Abglanz der einstigen Höhepunkte der Vergangenheit zu sehen vermögen.

● Kritische, verneinende Geschichtsschreibung: gut für die, die, ein Ziel vor Augen habend, schädigende Erinnerungen zersetzen wollen; schlecht für die, die, kein Ziel vor Augen habend, alles und jeden Sinn daraufhin zersetzen müssen.

Wer dies begrifflich auseinander klamüsert, merkt: Der, der bereits ohne Geschichtsschreibung einen Sinn im Leben sieht, erkennt auch Sinn in der Geschichtsschreibung, und andersherum vermag die Geschichtsschreibung denen nicht zu helfen, die keinen Sinn sehen und deshalb auch keinen aus der Geschichte extrahieren können.

Was Nietzsche hier an am Gegenstand der Geschichtsschreibung ausführt, läuft auf seine denivellierende Anthropologie hinaus, d.h. aber auch: der Gegenstand des Aufsatzes, die Methodologie, die Theorie der Geschichtsschreibung, spielt gar keine Rolle. Er dient nur als Anlass, Aufhänger und nicht als Gegenstand, um über das Verhältnis einzelner zur Masse zu sprechen:

Immerhin: es giebt jetzt vielleicht hundert Menschen mehr als vor hundert Jahren, welche wissen, was Poesie ist; vielleicht giebt es hundert Jahre später wieder hundert Menschen mehr, die inzwischen auch gelernt haben, was Cultur ist, und dass die Deutschen bis jetzt keine Cultur haben, so sehr sie auch reden und stolziren mögen.

Auch hier: nach welchem Maßstab unterscheidet Nietzsche die, die etwas von „Poesie wissen“, von denen, die nichts wissen? Was zeichnet monumentalistische Historie von antiquarischer von kritischer aus, rein methodisch gesehen? Wie lassen sich diese im Einzelfall erkennen? Worunter fällt sein eigener Aufsatz? Was heißt hier überhaupt begrifflich „Sinn“, „Nutzen“, „Krankheit“ und so weiter? Nietzsche zeigt sich in diesem Aufsatz von seiner ressentimentalistischen Seite. Er hadert, zetert, aber beliebig, ins Leere hinein. Es steht alles fest – aber warum dann darüber schreiben? Die einen können, die anderen wollen, die meisten murren jedoch nur, und witzigerweise gehört er zu den letzteren. Im Spätwerk wie Jenseits von Gut und Böse lässt er ganz andere Federn und Begriffsspiele walten, die hier aber völlig ausbleiben. Gute Bonmots gibt es dennoch zuhauf:

[…] wie das elendeste Thier die Entstehung der mächtigsten Eiche verhindern kann, dadurch dass es die Eichel verschluckt.

Nur leider, hegelisch gesprochen, erweist sich die Eichel als Substrat der mächtigsten Eiche erst in der Retrospektive, im komplexen Zusammenspiel von Boden und Wetter und Anlagen, was wiederum heißt: die Eichel konnte nicht gefressen worden sein. Sich vorzustellen, sie wäre dennoch gefressen worden, gleicht dann nicht einmal einem Zirkelbeweis, einer petitio principii, denn eine Tautologie ist denkbar, aber eine im Nachhinein prophetische Voraussicht bleibt immer Unsinn, und so leider dieser Aufsatz.

[Steve]

On the Usefulness and Disadvantage of History for Life

Between 1872, when his first book Die Geburt der Tragödie appeared, and 1876, when he left the University of Basel to write in Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) wrote an enormous amount of prose, most of which he did not bring to a satisfactory completion. However, he did publish, singly, a series of short books/pamphlets he called Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (Untimely Considerations), which at one point he had projected to include as many as 21 parts. In the end, he published 4.

It is of note that during the manic phases of his manic-depressive cycles he viewed these publications as a process of tearing down the many aspects of 19th century life he hated, a clearing away of encrustations to enable him to see clearly the visions he knew were going to come (he already had intimations of them, but these he kept in his notebooks and did not publish).

One of the Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen I find interesting is Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben (On the Usefulness and Disadvantage of History for Life).(*) For Nietzsche historians' history was one of these encrustations which had to be chipped away. As one of my esteemed GRamazon friends has pointed out in a review of this book, in the early 21st century almost nobody knows or gives a damn about (historians') history, so now Nietzsche would be preaching to the choir. Of course, precisely the same people wouldn't give a damn about Nietzsche, either.

In view of the fact that the word "historicism" has been used in a dozen mutually contradictory ways since Karl Popper took up the word (and incorrectly ascribed his meaning of the word to Hegel), I won't use it. I doubt the word has any fixed meaning now, except in the discourse of certain schools of adepts among each other. I have read claims that in this text Nietzsche made the first criticism of historicism. Maybe, if you search around in the many meanings of that word, this could even be true. But what did he actually say?

He begins by explaining why both forgetting and remembering are necessary for mankind. Why remembering the right things at the right times is necessary is clear; but he sees forgetting the past and entering fully into the moment are necessary both to experience happiness and to act. Mankind needs history - memory - but not too much.

He then distinguishes three kinds of history, which he calls the monumental, the antiquarian and the critical. The first is necessary for the doers and the mighty, in order for them to learn from the past acts and examples of similar men. And this is good for life because only such men can make changes for the better (he says). Nietzsche sees in this kind of history something eternal and über-historical (manifestations of Greatness, of Genius), and this almost immediately after distancing himself from über-historical thinkers who see the eternal in every moment (a point of view he seems to associate with Eastern thought). This is curious because it is evident from the longing in his description of these mighty doers (and from his other writings) that he wants to be among them; he also uses almost the same language in describing the disdain both feel for their own bodies. I suppose he views the "Eastern" kind as passive and inactive, and those attributes he finds repugnant.

However, a focus on this one kind of history, while good for the small number of powerful doers, is bad for history and most everyone else - it reduces history to a few special cases surrounding a few special men and leads to illusions and false analogies. We all know how this kind of history has been misused.

The antiquarian history is that of the conservatives and the pious - those who look with faithful love to whence they came and wish to preserve that for those who will follow. This is the history for almost everyone (for the "less gifted" as he says); this is the history of Blut und Boden; this is the history which keeps most people contentedly in one place, preventing dissatisfied searches for greener pastures which would lead to conflict. (Except that it didn't always, as we know all too well.)

This kind of history is too narrow, too provincial, too limited in ways we are all so well aware of that I will leave it at that.

The critical history is not what one would expect. It is not the history of the critical, judging intellectual, far from it. It is the critical, judging history of life itself, which, right or wrong, just or not, puts an end to everything that emerges into existence, whether it be an individual, a mountain, or the Roman Empire. Of course, this critical history can manifest itself through the actions of men. It is necessary for renewal, though he finds the renewal to be generally weaker than the healthy form of the original, at least in the case of human societies.

Clearly, critical history is harmful where it is not absolutely needed.

One must admit that this is an idiosyncratic division of history into types. These types of history all serve life, though they can also hurt it, as mentioned. But all are to be contrasted with the history of the historian, whose science has stepped between life and history and cut their bonds. Here Nietzsche is revisiting in some detail a thesis he already touched upon in Die Geburt der Tragödie : science and its concomitant abstraction have sucked the lifeblood, the instincts, out of modern man. He is skinning just one of their manifestations in this text, the history of the historian, but he is whetting his knife for them all.

He details five ways this history is inimical and dangerous to life: it weakens personality through overexposure to foreign cultures and history (I should have about zero personality by now, if this thesis is correct); it gives the illusion that the current culture has the greatest virtue and justice; the instincts are destroyed and both the individual and the whole cannot fully ripen; it gives the illusion that one is late-born, that one is an epigone; it leads mankind into self-irony, cynicism and egotism.(**) He gives a lengthy discussion of each of these points, taking the opportunity to knee many of his most despised objects - bureaucrats, functionaries, contemporary philosophers, historians' pretensions to objectivity, etc. - in the groin.

Reading over the other reviews of this book, it is clear that each reader has his own Nietzsche. I don't agree with many of his philosophical opinions, and I abhor his cult of genius. But then I am an early 21st century intellectual who has willingly, nay gleefully saturated himself with history and foreign cultures and is disdainful of the antiquarian history into which he was born. I am his Flachkopf made corporeal. And yet I still am reading his texts, because, as I briefly indicated in another review, Nietzsche went where no one else before him went, and he never came back. He went there with a megalomaniacal verve and an astounding prose style. Some of the things he told us on the way are valuable; the course of his travels to wherever he went is fascinating.

A word concerning Nietzsche's prose style: In this text Nietzsche jettisons the purple Romantic prose of his previous writings and offers us something closely approximating his mature style - a fluid, flexible, eloquent prose strongly influenced by Greco-Roman writers. For in this and all subsequent texts Nietzsche is not writing for an academic audience, but rather for a general educated readership, as did those earlier writers. And as they did, Nietzsche tries to make his points to such a audience by telling little stories, using extended metaphors, etc. He even uses a quote from Jonathan Swift to generate a belly laugh and to reduce a target ad absurdum. When he starts going on about the "German soul" or about how his ideas are manly and those of the objects of his criticism are feminine, my eyes begin to glaze over, but, otherwise, even when I object to the content, he holds my attention beautifully.


(*) This book has been translated into English under at least two different titles: On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life and On the Use and Abuse of History for Life . I suppose the translators wanted to have a certain parallelism in their titles which Nietzsche did not have in his - he went with alliteration.

(**) Is it not the case that nearly every one of these is manifested in our age, an age in which history, insofar as it is known to the general public at all, is known only under the guise of monumental, antiquarian or critical history? And if this is true, then what is left of the criticism Nietzsche levels at historians' history?

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[Mojtaba Asghari · Rating 5 out of 5]

نیچه در این کتاب به توجه همزمان به سه گانه تاریخ یعنی عظمت، یادوارگی به همراه انتقاد اشاره میکند چیزیکه ما در داخل کشور خودمان یا میخواهیم مثل تاریخ 2500 ساله خودمان بی توجه به شرایط زمان، عظمت "شدن " داشته باشیم یا یادوارگی حفظ رسوم و سنت خود را اما بدون پیاده کردن "شدن" یعنی فقط زندگی الان را حفظ کنیم
اما چیزی که مطرح نیست بحث انتقادیست ، انتقاد از تاریخ هنر ، دین ، اسطوره ها و کلا هرچیز تاریخی پیش از خودمان
ضمن اینکه در تاریخ کار قهرمان کامل شدن نیست بلکه صرفا مفید بودن در همان شرایط زمانی خاص است بنابراین اسطوره سازی از قهرمان های تاریخی بدون توجه به اینکه این قهرمان صرفا ساخته زمان خودش است خود معظلیست که امروز ما در کشور خودمان از برداشت تاریخ هم میبینیم
این نوع نگرش به تاریخ منجر به تضعیف شخصیت ما میشود چراکه همواره میگوییم هرچیز خوب را پیش از ما ساخته اند
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نیچه میگوید:
انسان مدرن به دلیل زیاده روی در تاریخ از ضعف شخصیت رنج می برد، او غریزه خود را نابود و گم کرده است و هیچ کس جرئت نمیکند که واقعیت خود را نشان دهد بلکه خود را به کسوت فردی فرهیخته با صورتک هایی از محقق ، شاعر یا سیاستمدار نشان میدهد
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نیچه میگوید:
زمانی خواهد آمد که مردم خردمندانه از تاریخ بشریت روی برتابند زمانیکه که دیگر کسی به توده ها توجهی نخواهد کرد بلکه دوباره به افرادی توجه خواهد شد که پلی روی رودخانه متلاطم "شدن" بنا کنند
وظیفه تاریخ برقراری ارتباط بین آنهاست تا بدین ترتیب مکرر موقعیت را آماده ساخته و به ایجاد عظمت کمک نماید.
به برکت تاریخ در تقارن بی زمان
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توضیح: اینجا بحث جالبی از بازگشت جاودانه نیچه به ذهن میاد اینکه تاریخ خطی نیست بلکه دایره ای است هم برداشت میشود که میتواند جالب توجه باشد
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نیچه میگوید:
پاد زهرهای عنصر تاریخی، غیر تاریخی و فرا تاریخی نگریستن است
غیر تاریخی بودن یعنی هنر و قدرت توانایی در فراموش کردن و محصور کردن خود به افقی محدود
و فراتاریخی بودن یعنی تغییر نظر به هستی با کمک علم، زیرا فقط مشاهده اشیاء در نزد علم صحیح و حقیقی است
اما همین علم با زمین لرزه ای فرو میریزد و به ویرانه تبدیل میشود
بنابراین دانش متضمن زندگیست، علم مستلزم نظارت و حفاظت بالاتریست و این یعنی محافظه کاری نسبت به آنچه مشهود است و حتی محافظه کاری نسبت به آنچه خوب است
و ما تنها با خودشناسی میتوانیم به این هدف برسیم
شخص با تعمق در نیاز های واقعی خودهرج و مرج را در درون خود به نظم تبدیل میسازد
چنانچه هراکلیت گفت: آن خدا پنهان نمی کند و آشکار نمیسازد بلکه فقط اشاره می نماید
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توضیح:
برایم عجیب است که چرا این کتاب از روی متن اصلی خود کتاب نیچه یعنی "تاملات نابهنگام" ترجمه نشده و از یک متن انگلیسی با ترجمه پیشگفتار مترجم انگلیسی ترجمه شده است
شاید هدف راحتی کار برای اشاره به پانویس های کتاب مربوطه بوده است اما ترجمه های داریوش آشوری از کتاب های نیچه مختص یک ترجمه نیست و همچنین پانویس نوشتن کار مترجم فارسی کتاب است آنهم نه از یک مرجع بلکه از مراجع مختلف که خوب این ضعف اصلی این کتاب به شمار میرود
مترجم انگلیسی در مواردی به صورت پانویس که خصوصا مربوط به بحث فلسفه تاریخ گرایی از نظر هگل است تعمدی بحث را وارد بیراه میکند
به نظرم هرکجا بحث قضاوت یک فیلسوف انگلو ساکسونی از نوشته های فیلسوفی چون نیچه پیش می آید بایست بسیار مراقب بود!
چراکه به قول خود نیچه:
"فقط سازندگان آینده حق قضاوت نسبت به گذشته را دارند"

[Justin Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star's a bit harsh. Popular history can still be understood in terms of the categories he comes up with here: all the biographies of Churchill and Reagan? Lifeless monumental history. The obsession with Americana and 'authentic,' 'simple' living? Lifeless antiquarianism. Post-colonial/post-structuralist/post-modernist history? Lifeless critical history.

But then, Nietzsche was harsh, and it's only fair to be harsh back.

He describes three types of historiography- 'monumental' history, which can either provide examples of greatness for the present, or refuse the possibility of greatness in the present; 'antiquarian' history, which can either make us comfortable in our own time and place by showing its historical context, or encourage us to live in the past and forsake the present; and 'critical' history, which criticises the past and attempts to create a new one for itself, or makes us ignore our own descent, leading to a conflict between our actual and our created pasts.
In the good versions (the former in my list), it is studied for the sake of 'life.' In the bad versions (the latter in my list), history is studied for the sake of itself, or for utilitarian ends. This leads to a people with weak personalities, which believes itself to be more just than other ages, is immature, leads to a melancholy belief that we are nothing more than the children of the great, irony and eventually the cynical inversion of this belief - that, rather, we are the great descendants of the weak.

That's the meat. It's surrounded by a bunch of rants against the late nineteenth century. I'm sure it's all very entertaining when you're young, but by the time you're working or a grad student you know pretty darn well that academics cut off from 'life' is a farce. You know that appeals to 'life' are more or less completely empty: what sort of life? What will you do with this life? And you probably have a hunch that life, whatever it is, might not even be possible.

So, what are we doing when we read Nietzsche's essay? First, we're engaging in monumental history against the present: lauding Nietzsche when we could, for instance, be reading about the crisis in health care, or the destruction of the environment, or the ongoing economic crisis. Second, we're engaging in an antiquarian history which is interested in the past for its own sake, since there's little in this book which isn't common knowledge these days. Third, it will probably encourage us to believe that we've left behind all the old, lifelessness of the nineteenth century when, of course, we've done nothing of the sort. By its own lights, this essay should not be read by the young. In Nietzsche's time history really was over-studied. Today it's all but ignored. Skip this and go straight to Hobsbawm's history of the long nineteenth century.

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had totally forgotten what it was like to read some Neechy and now I remember what it was that I loved about reading his stuff. It’s like an alien mentality. Some of the points he makes and his insights into human nature seem as though they come from an alien that has been secretly observing us for a few hundred years. This book is about the burden with which we transpose the lessons and the fetters of history into our reality today. His point is that the real superman is the iconoclast who can throw away, no, destroy the ballast of history and look at the world as though with a fresh pair of eyes and almost in a history-agnostic kind of way. There were a few very interesting points that he raised:
• Our culture is not so much something that we are continuously improving but rather something that is handed down from generations before and we acquiesce to its norms. Our culture today if truly understood is more knowledge of culture rather than culture itself. A bouquet of words which beautifully describe rather than an explosion of action that actually amount to something real.
• If we want to progress scientifically as quickly as possible then we are likely to destroy science as quickly as possible also. A more patient approach would be ideal when it comes to scientific progress rather than jump headfirst into the next app, or technological theory that comes our way (internet of things, Ai, robotics, big data, cloud, virtual reality). Patience is bravery as imam Ali once said.
• Education does not need to follow the historical model that it has always followed. We don’t need to have one teacher standing up in a class in front of 30 eager to please imitators. The greatest have always bought their children up differently.
• Build your homes on the slopes of Vesuvius was one of Nietzsche’s famous quotes and if once erupted there are only a few that would dare to build their homes with their loved ones on its slopes and yet we live our lives building our existence around the simmering volcano in ourselves. Our worlds are shattered once in a while by some catastrophic event - we don’t crawl into a ball and die but continue to live around the Dantesque inferno that could explode at any time. This takes one away from a mind-set of security and calm and further away even more from the belief in the eternal. How can you look a day in advance when you fear the molten rock rumbling deep within your soul. The superman can Nietzsche says.

[Matthew W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short booklet (basically a pamphlet) was one of Nietzsche's early writings before he became The Anti-Christ and contracted a bad case of megalomania where he would sign his letters to people as "The Crucified." The title "On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life" summarizes Nietzsche's thesis with this work. Nietzsche criticizes the Germany of his time as without culture and lacking instinct, a place where a sick soulless inwardness prevails and a synthetic pseudo-kultur disguises the real feeling of the country. Nietzsche blames this phenomenon on the typical German's abstract feelings and belief in unharmed inwardness.

Nietzsche also states: "Only strong personalities can endure history: the weak are completely extinguished by it." Nietzsche believed that the modern German no longer trusted and had faith in himself, therefore when looking at history he would think "how am I to feel here" as opposed to the actual reality of the situation. Looking at how absurd the typical American's (and European) irrational (and total ignorance of in general) views on the second World War II certainly proves that Nietzsche's views are still more than relevant today. When talking about most historical (and contemporary events), most people have an anti-intellectual emotional response that they have unknowingly been indoctrinated and conditioned with like Pavlov's dog.

All in all, this is a very insightful work in regards to understanding history and its context (especially among different type of individuals, from the neuter to the alpha-powerful). Maybe if more people read works like this they would realize that their worship of historical myths presented as conclusive facts would be extinguished, but that is surely doubtful. In a world where collectivist anti-intellectual metaphysical propaganda dominates and where virtually all "professional" Historians are compromised by the thought police, it is very hard for one to discern the true facts of history from the propaganda of lies.

[Miguel Rodríguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leer a Nietzsche es, como siempre, un soplo de aire fresco, un torrente lleno de vitalidad que contrasta con el típico ensayo frío que pretende falsamente la objetividad. En este caso, el sujeto del libro es exactamente el indicado en el título del libro. ¿Favorece el conocimiento histórico la vida de los individuos? Cuando aprendemos Historia, ¿implica verdaderamente una mejora física, moral, cultural o vital nuestra? ¿Puede haber exceso de conocimiento histórico? ¿Y déficit?

Dichas preguntas, de difícil respuesta, Nietzsche las responde y matiza, dividiendo la concepción de la Historia en tres formas: anticuaria, monumental y crítica.

“Cada uno de estos tres modos de hacer historia se justifica únicamente en un suelo y bajo un único clima, mientras que en cualquier otro crece como una mala hierba que es capaz de asolar todo a su paso. Cuando el hombre que quiere crear algo grande necesita el pasado, se adueña de éste por medio de la historia monumental; a quien por el contrario le gusta perseverar en lo habitual y venerablemente antiguo, cuida lo pasado como historia anticuaria; y sólo al que una necesidad del presente le oprime el pecho y quiere arrojar toda esa carga fuera de sí a cualquier precio, tiene necesidad de criticar, esto es, de una historia que enjuicie y condene. Del trasplante irreflexivo de estos cultivos proceden algunos desastres: el crítico sin necesidades, el anticuario sin piedad [y] el conocedor de lo grande sin capacidad de hacer algo grande”

Las reflexiones a lo largo del texto son muy diversas, a veces satíricas, otras veces ofensivas. Nietzsche critica duramente cómo en pos de una supuesta objetividad, se pide al historiador que se centre en la recopilación y enumeración de datos, y no en entender el zeitgeist, estudiar la cultura, superar dicha cultura (sino diseccionar). Es interesante cómo en el ensayo el autor avisa que se está desterrando el Dios cristiano por el Dios de la Ciencia, el conocimiento científico-técnico y la meta de producir en sí (en vez de producir para algo). Un Dios estéril, puesto al servicio de la nada, que produce decadencia moral, complacencia con la historia (al asumir que estamos en una tendencia lineal de proceso científico-tecnológico) y que en última instancia incluso destruye la calidad del saber que se genera, orientado a la producción rápida.

“ ¡Cuanto más rápidamente aceleréis la ciencia también antes la destruiréis! Es el mismo proceso que esa gallina que, de manera no natural, perece por ser obligada a poner huevos con inusitada rapidez. Es cierto que la ciencia en los últimos decenios se ha desarrollado de manera sorprendentemente rápida, pero observad al mismo tiempo también a los doctos, esas gallinas exhaustas. En realidad no son naturalezas , sólo cacarean más porque ponen huevos más a menudo. Desde luego que los huevos son cada vez más pequeños (aunque los libros sean cada vez más gruesos).”

“Así pues, la ciencia necesita una dirección y vigilancia superiores: una doctrina de la salud de la vida ha de colocarse justo al lado de la ciencia.”

Posteriormente el libro exclama la necesidad de individuos que transciendan la moralidad de su época: “éste es virtuoso en tanto que se rebela frente al poder ciego de los hechos, frente a la tiranía de lo real y se somete a las leyes que no son las que rigen las fluctuaciones de la Historia. Nada así siempre contra las olas de la Historia”. Varias reflexiones acerca de la no-linealidad de la historia y la necesidad de un ambiente propicio para la formación de personas que “transciendan su época” me llevan al concepto deleuziano del acontecimiento. En términos deleuzianos, un acontecimiento es un movimiento no histórico, una línea de fuga que desterritorializa para reterritorializar nuevamente. Dicho de otro modo, genera condiciones de existencia cualitativamente diferentes a las anteriores. Lo importante no es el momento histórico, sino el clima local en el que se fermenta el acontecimiento.

El libro cierra con una reflexión sobre qué es la cultura, no considerándola una acumulación de conocimiento estéril que no tiene relación con la vida personal, ni el cultivo de una virtud ni siquiera de una práctica útil no productiva:

“[…] el concepto de cultura como una nueva y mejorada physis, sin interior ni exterior, sin fingimiento ni convencionalismo; la cultura como homogeneidad entre vida, pensamiento, apariencia y voluntad” “vivo ergo cogito […] ¡Dadme primero vida, y os crearé a partir de ella una cultura!”

[vanessa]

Need to rewrite the review as my 2024 reading very different from 2021. (Also I like Nietzsche these days).
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Would have never thought that I could like a Nietzsche piece – I have always found him too elusive, erratic and up his ass. Which he is. However, this one on the need of ahistoricity in a ruthlessly historic world, as the only mode conducive to action, is the pragmatic criticism of Hegel I had wanted to read for a long time. Combined with just the right balance between ontogeny and phylogeny (another thing that I usually hate are the frequent misfired attempts of analogising the individual with the whole) makes the piece interesting on several levels. Of course, he then goes on with his usual bullshit – glorifying form over content, the male over the female, the solitary genius over the masses. For all these twisted dichotomies, arrogant übermenschism and essentialism, still a good essay. (Although all my German Studies classmates agreed that English translations of Nietzsche always lack his distinctive sarcastic voice, and self-conscious performative clumsiness and hyperbolisation. So I guess I will re-read this in a couple of years in the original)

“And this is a universal law: a living thing can be healthy, strong and fruitful only when bounded by a horizon; if it is incapable of drawing a horizon around itself, and at the same time too self-centred to enclose its own view within that of another, it will pine away slowly or hasten to its timely end.”

We need to (instrumentally) forget stuff in order to do stuff. “Let us at least learn better how to employ history for the purpose of life.”

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very powerful prose, very imaginary. Much wailing about modern Germany (of his time of course), vehemently against mediocrity and against the mass. Yet it contains also many contradictions (this is Nietzsche after all): this book is not really against history as such.

[Amin Medi · Rating 1 out of 5]

کتاب خوبی است به شرط اینکه آلمانی یا ترجمه انگلیسی اش را بخوانید.
کلا از ترجمه‌های این دو عزیز از آثار نیچه و دیگر عزیزان فیلسوف دوری کنید.

[sumerkidestate · Rating 5 out of 5]

[la tesi principale]
Per ogni agire ci vuole oblio: come per la vita di ogni essere organico ci vuole non soltanto luce, ma anche oscurità.
[...] c’è un grado di insonnia, [un limite massimo] di ruminazione, [una soglia] di senso storico, in cui l’essere vivente riceve danno e alla fine perisce, si tratti poi di un uomo, di un popolo o di una civiltà. [...] [un] limite in cui il passato deve essere dimenticato, se non vuole diventare l’affossatore del presente [...].

[una specie di sapere intorno alla cultura]
[...] l’uomo moderno si porta in giro un’enorme quantità di indigeribili pietre del sapere, che poi all’occorrenza rumoreggiano puntualmente dentro di noi, come avviene nella favola. Con questo rumoreggiare si rivela la qualità più propria di questo uomo moderno: lo strano contrasto di un interno a cui non corrisponde nessun esterno, e di un esterno a cui non corrisponde nessun interno [...]. La nostra cultura moderna non è niente di vivo proprio per questo [...] vale a dire essa non è affatto una vera cultura, ma solo una specie di sapere intorno alla cultura. [...]
Noi moderni infatti non caviamo niente da noi stessi; solo riempiendoci e stipandoci di epoche, costumi, arti, filosofie, religioni e conoscenze estranee, diventiamo qualcosa di degno di considerazione, ossia enciclopedie ambulanti.
[...] qual mezzo resta ancora alla natura per dominare ciò che si stipa troppo abbondantemente? Solo il mezzo di riceverlo con la maggior facilità possibile, per subito eliminarlo ed espellerlo di nuovo. Ne nasce un’abitudine a non prendere più sul serio le cose reali [...].
[...] alla fine si diventa all’esterno sempre più indulgenti e comodi, e si allarga il pericoloso abisso fra contenuto e forma fino all’insensibilità per la barbarie, purché la memoria venga eccitata sempre di nuovo, purché vi affluiscano sempre nuove cose degne di essere sapute.

[impotentia: la critica senza effetto sulla vita e sull’agire]
[...] qualunque cosa si faccia di buono e di giusto, come azione, come poesia, come musica, subito lo svuotato uomo cólto passa sopra all’opera e si informa sulla storia dell’autore [che] subito viene paragonato ad altri, viene sezionato e squartato [...]. L’eco risuona istantaneamente: ma sempre come «critica» [...]. Non si giunge mai a un effetto, ma sempre e solo a una nuova «critica»; e la critica stessa non produce a sua volta nessun effetto, ma viene soltanto fatta oggetto di nuova critica. [...] si chiacchiera sì per qualche tempo di qualcosa di nuovo, ma poi ancora di qualcos’altro di nuovo, e si fa nel frattempo ciò che si è sempre fatto. La cultura storica dei nostri critici non permette affatto ormai che si giunga a un’efficacia in senso proprio, ossia a un’efficacia sulla vita e sull’agire; mai la loro penna critica cessa di scorrere, giacché essi hanno perso il potere su di essa, e ne vengono guidati più che non la guidino. Proprio in questa smoderatezza dei loro sfoghi critici, nella mancanza di dominio su se stessi, in ciò che i Romani chiamano impotentia, si rivela la debolezza della personalità moderna.

[un’onesta fame e sete]
[...] l’elemento caratteristico nella cultura dei veri popoli civili: che la cultura può svilupparsi e fiorire solo dalla vita, mentre presso i Tedeschi essa viene appuntata come un fiore di carta o viene versata sopra come un’inzuccheratura, e perciò è destinata a rimanere sempre menzognera e sterile. Ma l’educazione della gioventù tedesca prende le mosse proprio da questo falso e sterile concetto della cultura: la sua meta, pensata in modo molto puro e alto, non è affatto il libero uomo cólto, bensì il dotto, l’uomo di scienza, e precisamente l’uomo di scienza utilizzabile al più presto possibile, che si pone in disparte dalla vita per riconoscerla più chiaramente; il suo risultato, visto in modo molto empirico e corrente, è il filisteo storico-estetico della cultura, il saccente e aggiornato cicalatore sullo Stato, sulla Chiesa e sull’arte, il sensorio per mille specie di sensazioni, lo stomaco insaziabile, che tuttavia non sa che cosa sia un’onesta fame e sete.

[conseguenze del trionfo dell’interiorità e scacco dell’agire]
Mentre non si è mai parlato così sonoramente di «libera personalità», non si vedono affatto personalità, e tanto meno libere, ma solo uomini uniformi timorosamente celati. L’individuo si è ritirato nell’interno: da fuori non se ne vede più nulla.
[...] sembra quasi che il compito sia di sorvegliare la storia perché niente ne esca se non appunto delle storie, ma nessun evento!
[...] di impedire che attraverso di essa le personalità divengano «libere», ossia sincere verso di sé, sincere verso gli altri, nella parola e nell’azione.
Sicuro, si pensa, si scrive, si stampa, si parla, si insegna filosoficamente – fino a tal punto è permesso quasi tutto; solo nell’agire, nella cosiddetta vita è diverso: qui è permessa sempre una cosa sola e ogni altra è semplicemente impossibile.

[il giusto]
[...] nessuno ha diritto alla nostra venerazione in più alto grado di colui che possiede l’impulso e la forza della giustizia. Giacché in essa si riuniscono e si celano le virtù più alte e rare, come in un mare insondabile, che da tutte le parti accoglie fiumi e li inghiotte in sé.
[...] il mondo sembra pieno di persone che «servono la verità»; e tuttavia la virtù della giustizia esiste tanto di rado, ancor più di rado è riconosciuta e quasi sempre è odiata a morte, mentre la schiera delle virtù apparenti ha ricevuto in ogni tempo onori e pompe.

[divulgazione scientifica]
[...] se vorrete promuovere la scienza con la maggior rapidità possibile, la distruggerete anche con la maggior rapidità possibile, come vi perisce la gallina che artificialmente costringete a deporre le uova troppo rapidamente. Bene, negli ultimi decenni la scienza ha progredito con sorprendente rapidità: ma guardate ora anche gli scienziati, le galline esaurite. [...] essi possono soltanto schiamazzare più che mai, perché depongono uova più spesso: per la verità anche le uova si sono fatte sempre più piccole (benché i libri si siano fatti più grossi). Ne viene, come ultimo e naturale risultato, la «divulgazione» [...], cioè il famigerato tagliare la giacca della scienza sul corpo del «pubblico promiscuo».

[critica della filosofia hegeliana & dintorni]
La vigna del Signore! Il processo! Alla redenzione! Chi non vede e non sente qui la cultura storica – che conosce solo la parola «divenire�� – camuffarsi intenzionalmente in un mostro parodistico, e dire su se stessa, attraverso la grottesca smorfia che mostra, le cose più petulanti? Giacché che cosa pretende veramente dai lavoratori nella vigna quest’ultimo furbesco appello? In quale lavoro devono andare avanti di buona lena? O formulando diversamente la domanda: che cos’altro ancora ha da fare l’uomo fornito di cultura storica, il moderno fanatico del processo, che nuota e affoga nel fiume del divenire, per vendemmiare un giorno quella nausea, la deliziosa uva di quella vigna? – Egli non ha da fare altro che continuare a vivere come ha vissuto, continuare ad amare ciò che ha amato, continuare a odiare ciò che ha odiato e continuare a leggere i giornali che ha letti; per lui esiste solo un peccato – vivere diversamente da come ha vissuto.

[la cultura può essere qualcosa d’altro che decorazione della vita]
I Greci impararono a poco a poco a organizzare il caos [dell’inondazione delle cose straniere e passate: di forme e di idee straniere, semitiche, babilonesi, lidiche ed egizie (...)], concentrandosi, secondo l’insegnamento delfico, su se stessi, vale a dire sui loro bisogni veri, e lasciando estinguere i bisogni apparenti.
È questo un simbolo per ognuno di noi: ognuno deve organizzare il caos in sé, concentrandosi sui suoi bisogni veri. [...] comincerà allora a capire che la cultura può essere ancora qualcosa d’altro che decorazione della vita.
[...] il concetto greco della cultura [...] come una nuova e migliorata physis, senza interno ed esterno, senza dissimulazione e convenzione, [...] come un’unanimità fra vivere, pensare, apparire e volere.

[gioventù]
[...] la missione [della] gioventù [...] consiste nello scuotere le idee che questo presente ha della «salute» e della «cultura», e nel generare scherno e odio contro così ibridi mostri concettuali; e il segno di garanzia della propria salute più robusta è proprio questo, che essa, cioè questa gioventù, non può neanche usare, per designare la propria natura, nessun concetto, nessuna parola settaria fra le correnti monete-parola e monete-concetto del presente, e viene invece convinta solo da una forza in essa attiva, che lotta, stacca e divide, e in ogni ora buona da un sempre accresciuto sentimento della vita.

[la tesi principale, II]
[...] che l’uomo impari innanzitutto a vivere, e usi la storia solo al servizio della vita appresa.

[WillemC · Rating 4 out of 5]

In dit vroege essay legt Nietzsche uit hoe de mens, door aan de juiste manier van geschiedschrijving te doen, kan leren omgaan met het steeds groter wordende verleden dat we met ons meeslepen: niet via het opslorpen van zogezegd objectieve kennis, maar langs de weg van de creatieve daad, een geschiedenis die orde schept in de chaos, met een verleden dat aanzet tot schepping. Dit klinkt als droog spul, maar door Nietzsches stilistische talent is dit bij momenten spetterend leesvoer.

"Want bij een zekere overmaat verbrokkelt en ontaardt het leven, en ten slotte door deze ontaarding op haar beurt zelfs de geschiedenis."

"[...] zoals een nietig dier het ontstaan van een machtige eik kan verhinderen door een eikel op te eten."

"Daar kan men weerzinwekkende taferelen van blinde verzamelwoede zien, dat rusteloos samenschrapen van alles wat ooit is geweest."

[Seth Skogerboe · Rating 5 out of 5]

just flat out one of the most compelling things I've read.

[Jakob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nok det bedste af Nietzsche jeg har læst

Vildt at hans tanker om historieopfattelsen og brugen stadig er relevant 100 år efter

Vakler dog lidt mod slutningen

[altagracia]

sobre los apocalípticos:
"Su instinto, por el contrario, les revela que el arte podría ser asesinado por el propio arte: lo monumental no debe nacer otra vez, y para esto sirve precisamente lo que posee la autoridad monumental del pasado. Así es como son los conocedores del arte que quieren suprimir el arte en general: se comportan como médicos cuando, en el fondo, se fijan en la mezcla de los venenos mientras adiestran su lengua y su gusto para explicar por qué su refinamiento rechaza insistentemente lo que se les ofrece como elemento artístico nutritivo. Porque ellos no quieren que lo grande vuelva a surgir. Su procedimiento es decir: «¡mirad, lo grande ya está ahí!», pero en realidad lo grande que ya está ahí les importa tan poco como lo que pueda volver a surgir. De esto da testimonio su vida. Por esto, la historia monumental no es sino la máscara bajo la que en ellos su odio contra lo poderoso y grande de su tiempo se hace pasar por la satisfecha veneración de lo poderoso y grande de épocas pasadas, disfraz bajo el que el sentido propio del estudio histórico se invierte en lo opuesto. El hecho de que ellos sepan esto de manera consciente o no es lo mismo, pues actúan en cualquier caso como si su lema fuese: «dejad a los muertos enterrar a los vivos»"
o
"Imagínese a las naturalezas menos artísticas o totalmente no artísticas armadas y enfundadas en esta historia artística monumental: ¿contra quién lanzarían ahora sus armas? Pues contra sus tradicionales enemigos, los espíritus poderosamente artísticos, en realidad contra los auténticamente veraces de esa historia: los que son capaces de aprender para la vida y traducir lo que han aprendido en una práctica más elevada. A éstos se les obstaculiza el camino y se les enrarece la atmósfera cuando alguien con justa diligencia baila en actitud idólatra alrededor de un monumento de algún gran pasado entendido de modo parcial, como si se quisiera decir: «¡mirad!, éste es el arte verdaderamente real, iqué importan los que se transforman y quieren algo!»"

sobre superarlo:
"saber efectivamente que esa primera naturaleza alguna vez fue una segunda naturaleza y que cualquiera segunda naturaleza triunfante también será algún día primera"
"Sólo desde la fuerza más poderosa del presente tenéis el derecho de interpretar el pasado, sólo a través del máximo esfuerzo de vuestras propiedades más nobles adivinaréis lo que es digno de saberse del pasado, lo que es digno de ser conservado y lo que es grande. ¡Lo semejante se descubre por medio de lo semejante! De lo contrario, no haréis otra cosa que descender el pasado a vuestro nivel"
"sólo como arquitectos del futuro y como conocedores del presente podréis comprenderlo"

vine a discernir patrimonio que guardar del prescindible
y acabó contándome muchas otras cosas (que me dieron más igual)

"La verdad, dicho brevemente, como tribunal del mundo, pero de ningún modo como presa atrapada y placer del individuo cazador."

es muy fuerte que lees a este hombre y dices damn con razón se lo agenciaron los nazis

[Chrissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first foray into Nietzsche has left me shaken to the core.

For better or worse, he was an expert rhetorician; even as one shudders to recognize the seeds of justification for later historical atrocities in his philosophies, one cannot help but feel enamoured by his prose and the undeniable style of his arguments. So many times I gave audible way to awe, reluctantly putting the book down to copy some choice phrases into a notebook.

To my view, this essay was a call to action for generations stuck in an obsession with existing fact and history, as pushed by then-modern education, which Nietzsche felt robbed them of their own culture and personalities and very beings, and led them to be easily ruled. The philosophy limits the value of history to that which stirs active improvement in the present, and warns us against becoming slaves to information-- taking art and feeling to be the better virtues. I agreed with much of it, but recoiled at other times, as when the ugly heads of classicism and xenophobia poked through the poetry; Nietzsche argued, for example, that the infiltration of other cultures into Germany left its citizens overwhelmingly fascinated with irrelevant ideas and histories and further moved them from a unified culture. Of course, I may have brought hindsight to the reading and tarnished his original meaning...

Nevertheless, the arguments in the essay, while generally compelling and endlessly fascinating, are a bit messy. There's a lot of self-contradiction and even meta-acknowledgement of it, alongside scathing critiques of irony that bring the effort full circle to meta-irony. A reader recognizing himself as slavishly reading a historical text that both critiques the slavish attention to history and admires the unhistorical virtues of ancient Greek culture soon finds himself in a tangle of recursion, no longer sure which way is up.

Frankly, I loved that facet of the reading. It made me think. Hard. It tickled my beautiful-prose button and mercilessly challenged my intellectual capacities, my own assumptions and philosophies, and my core beliefs as a scientist.
Nietzsche is ultimately, it seems, against science-as-a-search-for-truth, arguing that it only considers what is "true" and "right" and thus "finished and historical." He writes that science "hates the forgetfulness that is the death of knowledge." Whereas I appreciate his point within the context of what he calls the historical malady, I think he has a diminished understanding of what science is. At least to me, science is incredibly fluid and creative, and is never finished. It must adapt to current understandings and must give up the constraints of ego to permit the reality of a constantly shifting truth. Forgetting is as central to science as it is to the beast who "goes into the present, like a number, without leaving any curious remainder," except that for science, the curiosity that remains is precisely the point.

Lovely food for thought. Will chew again.

[Jessica Orrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

*revisited for PHIL5245*

After returning to this work for my Nietzsche class and coming back to it with a much more well-rounded and developed view of Nietzsche and his legacy, I have had to move this book into my favorites list. It is both extremely profound and prescient and I think now I was able to appreciate his view of history and the movement through time as art and play in a way that I didn't before. His attempt to break out of a positivistic, scientific world view and lay the groundwork for an artistic impulse to life is so impressive and commendable. Overall I think my favorite of his works so far.

*read for my thesis*

This is a really great work. I read a lot of reviews that said it was a good introduction to Nietzsche's thought, which I think is pretty accurate and I would say it is a good starting point. One can definitely see the origins of some of the ideas that come up in Genealogy of Morals expressed in this work such as the importance of forgetting and some early strains of the master/slave morality. It is very dense, but I wouldn't say it is necessarily the most difficult of his works that I have read.

This work was incredibly prescient and accurately predicted pretty much exactly how we view the instruction of history today. Nietzsche expresses a view that is fundamentally opposed to essentially everything we are taught in school, and if one can get over that and try to empathize with what he is saying, I think there is a lot of good to be found here. It's pretty incredible to me how he perfectly predicts the democratic party of today's use of history.

A part I particularly liked: "Also leaving out of account those quite unreflective people who, as historians, write in the naive belief that just their age is right in all its popular opinions and that to write in accordance with the times comes to the same thing as being just; a belief in which every religion lives and concerning which, in a religious context, nothing further is to be said. Those naive historians call measuring past opinions and deeds by the common opinions of the moment 'objectivity': here they find the canon of all truths; their work is to make the fast fit the triviality of their time. One the other hand they call 'subjective' all historical writing which does not take those popular opinions as its canon."

Perhaps the most interesting piece of this work is its exploration of justice. There certainly is something to be said about the view of history as progressively leading towards an endpoint, or apex, in contributing to the notion that our current morality or understanding of things is the "objectively right one." I will need to ruminate on this more.

[Kyle van Oosterum · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Nietzsche laments over a condition that he is finding in the youth of Germany: they are lacking a personality. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything and are chained to the past. "The past must be forgotten if it is not to become the gravedigger of the present", he says. He identifies five problems that excess history presents for living a good life:

1. Excess of a contrast between the inside and the outside. We have far too much content and too little form to present it in.
2. We think ourselves more just than people from the past. The same will happen to us in a few years. Our instincts then become denatured.
3. The more knowledge we have of life, the less life we actually have. Living things cease to live when they have been dissected.
4. Too much knowledge of history makes us feel like latecomers who missed the greatest thinkers. When we try to be like them we are like shitty imitators (epigones).
5. We surrender our personality to the world-process. Hegel and Marx both believed in the dialectical process by which human behavior is assimilated and processed into new ideas or social strata. Nietzsche saw the problem being that we would one day attempt to achieve an objective history and then lose our subjectivity.

He finishes by saying we need the power to forget just as much as we need to remember what happened in the past. Nietzsche goes against Descartes by saying that it should be: vivo, ergo cogito (I live, therefore I think). With Descartes, only thinking is guaranteed us, with Nietzsche life is guaranteed us.

[Scott Weyandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Against the “prevailing opinion that there is no other possibility at all than just our present tiresome actuality” (i.e., historical necessity or the End of History), Nietzsche argues for a three part approach to history in accord with a will to experience life:

1) a critical view of history frees us for a future
2) the antiquarian preserves fragments from our inheritance
3) together these make possible the capacity for monumental historical experiences (acts and works) that are our present

According to Heidegger in Being and Time, with this approach to history Nietzsche (unwittingly perhaps) discloses the fundamental meaning of Being - i.e., human temporality (care).

[Emma Chang · Rating 2 out of 5]

read for class. did not know what was going on through the whole thing but still fun nonetheless I guess

[Gavin Peterman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say it lacked definition. there's a ton going on and Nietzsche can't quite definitely spell it out in this one. He has ideas of grandeur but never precisely puts it down. He plays around the point a lot, but who am I to judge this dude. It was a psychedelic literature.

[Danny Druid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I read a book by Nietzsche my mind gets blown and I feel more enlightened. In a mere 60 pages or so Nietzsche totally annihilates Hegelianism and the education system. The thesis of the book is that in our time Knowledge rules Life, and this will result in the end of both Knowledge and Living. Instead, we must consider Life to be the ultimate value and the thing in which our youth should be skilled.

This is by far the most accessible book by this author I have ever read, so don't be daunted by it.

Highly recommended to anyone. By far the most

[Marly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get a load of this guy

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het ging over..ik weet het niet meer, maar volgens mij moet ik dingen actief vergeten om te leven, dus dat betekent dat ik het (waarschijnlijk, ik heb er geen actieve herinnering aan) goed heb gedaan.
Alle gekheid op een stokje, dit is toch stiekem wel 'verplichte kost' voor jonge mensen; Nietzsche weet je als geen ander op te zwepen in naam van en met als doel "het leven." En nee, dat is in geen dooddoener of truisme. En zelfs al is het een truisme, dan is het een vergeten waarheid...

[alessiamandis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scritto nel 1874 e parte delle “Considerazioni inattuali”, questo saggio nietzschiano esplora il legame tra storia e vita, chiedendosi se conoscere il passato aiuti a crescere o, al contrario, finisca per frenare l’esistenza.
Il filosofo critica l’eccesso di storicismo che, a suo avviso, soffocava la spontaneità e la creatività della sua epoca.
Analizza tre modi di rapportarsi alla storia:
quello monumentale, che esalta le grandi imprese del passato ma può renderci rigidi; quello antiquario, che conserva ogni tradizione con devozione, rischiando però di bloccare il cambiamento; quello critico, che ci aiuta a liberarci dal peso del passato, ma se portato all’estremo può distruggere senza costruire.
Il cuore del saggio è un forte appello a difendere la vita dal peso eccessivo della memoria:
Nietzsche si/ci mette in guardia contro il rischio di un’umanità schiacciata dalle troppe conoscenze, incapace di agire perché intrappolata nel passato.
Solo chi sa dimenticare ciò che è superfluo e usare la storia in modo selettivo, senza farsene dominare, può vivere davvero.
Più che uno studio sulla storia (sebbene complesso), questo saggio è un invito a guardare al passato senza lasciarsene imprigionare, facendo della memoria uno strumento per crescere, anziché un freno al divenire.

[Mostafa Shalash · Rating 3 out of 5]

صديق الطفولة المعقدة
https://al-akhbar.com/Kalimat/292705

[Maya Winshell · Rating 4 out of 5]

this guy is really silly when he starts saying thee thou and thy all of a sudden
read for my historiography book club discussion with coltyn

[Chant · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite works by Nietzsche (as of now late-2020).

[Fábio Brás · Rating 5 out of 5]

"a história apenas é suportada por personalidades fortes ;as fracas, elimina-as por completo"