I've been reading Nietzsche more through a shamanistic lens lately and it is quite clear to me what is going on here, that is what dynamic is driving his need to oscillate between the surface of life and its meaning and its depths. Quite clearly, the self-cruelty that he sees as being necessary for obtaining knowledge is akin to the shaman's self-cruelty in choosing to associate with death.
Quite clearly, too, the "surface" of life and the drive to maintain its apparent superficiality relates to the normative side of life, heavily monitored and policed by ego-defences, and -- according to Nietzsche -- quite rightfully so. (But even in this, we have the resonance of the conceptual and even practical shift between two selves -- the one who would rather stay on the surface, and the one who would rather dig deeper for a better resource of knowledge. This doubling within Nietzsche's writing echoes the doubling that is the norm in shamanism -- one foot on the side of everyday reality, and one foot in the realm of strange and dubious phenomena.)
Apart from that, I am now starting to get an ear for the sound of the patriarch in Nietzsche - which wasn't there for me before. Having conceptually and experientially separated the thrill of the shamanic voyage from the tone of the patriarch -- which is Nietzsche's own -- the latter comes across rather more clearly. One realises that it isn't necessary to have the tone or outward outlook of a patriarch to go shamanic voyaging. The latter part -- which may seem intrinsic to a voyage of this sort, in fact isn't necessary to it. (This could be an aspect in which Nietzsche's philosophy is profoundly misleading -- in Nietzsche's having blended that which is universal and accessible to any with the drive and courage for it with an idea that only males, or a certain kind of man, are properly equipped to understand the issues. Thus he has co-opted shamanism for a certain kind of man, when in actual fact its truer nature goes much deeper in the psyche, to the point where shape-shifting can transform one's psychological gender from one state to another. Yet the FORM and DRIVE behind the psyche's oscillations in Nietzsche's writings are still shamanistic.)
His insights are not fundamentally wrong, either -- although in many ways they don't transcend the 19th Century. I put it down to the cruelty and unnatural morality of my original culture that I have been able to survive, unscathed, so much of the misogyny that is also a part of my original culture.
Chaining a woman down within patriarchal culture is equivalent to robbing her of her libido. This, and more.
1 comment:
There is a reason that Shamans often cross dress. They are coopting the power of the other gender.
And to some degree that is why Priestly types appear to be wearing women's apparel. Some have speculated that this harkens back to an earlier time when mostly women played those roles.
See Female Korean Shamans for an example.
Either way, it doesnt surprise me. His constructs are inevitably built on the foundation of his socialization. And however forward thinking he might have been or may still be, that will always be there lurking in his philosophy. As it does with us all.
Insideous stuff.
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