If postmodernism is not a program for the future then those who teach its ideas ought to be aware of its self-imposed limitations, as the future ought not to be left in the hands of those with the determination to seize power
What is good about Nietzsche is his injunction to "live dangerously". Bataille, who in turn proclaims "I am Nietzsche" suggests that we depart from what we know into a realm of experience where nothing is decided. Bataille's injunction, although mystical sounding, was for people to break out of the impasse made up of ideology and convention.
Postmodernism, although having links with Nietzschean "perspectivism" is devoid of the logic of the overall Nietzschean project, which was to create a different kind of human being for the future. It kids itself that it is revolutionary, whilst remaining in a Prufrockian bubble, separated from the realm of experience:
"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?"
By contrast, shamanism has the nerve to want to experience the "thing in itself". This is impossible, according to Kant. But it is this very impossibility that is attractive and which somehow gives shamanistic practitioners their sense of meaning. There is a wish to explore "the abyss" and if necessary become wrecked within this void. As Byron Siedrmann explains:
The Germanic shaman may go into a trance to have visions or receive a specific message from the gods , but he/she seldom has some therapeutic motive. In the big picture the whole thing does benefit the individual human shaman, but it might not be in an expected or pleasant way. The shaman might be driven "mad" or might be physically wounded while in the shamanic state. This is irrelevant. Whether the shamanic is helped or harmed by the experience is ultimately irrelevant. As long as some goal is achieved and the gods are pleased that's all that matters.
The spirit of shamanism and the spirit of postmodernism are opposite. The first is incautious, audacious and foolhardy. The second is accepting of convention, timid, and moralizing.
4 comments:
Nietzsche throught that Shopenhaurean pessimism was really useful to separate the strong from the weak, the realistic ones from those who need something to believe in. This was also related to his philosophy for the future.
I think a lot of people think they understand Nietzsche, but what they really understand is Rush Limbaugh.
From my experience in Internetland, I would say that over 90 percent of people use Nietzsche to back up what they've heard from Limbaugh and other right wing cretins. It's part of the syndrome of wanting to be thought of as superior, but not really understanding what is involved in this. It's emotional posturing, with the shortest route to fake superiority being the proclamation of one's superiority to women "because Nietzsche says."
Just because Limbaugh or Nietzsche say so doesn't make it so, however. There is still a world of difference, in Nietzsche's terms (although not in Limbaugh's) between being one's own person and following the leader.
This difference in Nietzsche's terms is as follows:
The self appointed "good and the just" (Limbaugh's followers) will have no choice but to "crucify" those "who devise their own virtue".
Limbaugh's followers, then, are actually Zarathustra's (Nietzsche's) arch enemies.
This is the danger of superficial ressemblances, especially when the tropes seem rather similar.
"Ah, but Nietzsche spoke about his hatred for the poor and the outcast, and for women in particular!"
Did he?
Quite possibly that is the attitude. But there still has to be some kind of implicit justification of any sense of "who I am". Obviously,in the case of many American "Nietzscheans", "who they are" are not intellectuals. Yet, they mistake themselves for intellectuals regularly. Why is that?
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