The element that had fascinated the philologist in the distant and as yet
undivided
view of this chorus of Dionysian throngs is too evident to require an explanation.
Sloterdijk - Thinker on Stage
a slight taste for dark formula-
it is not the thinker who is engaging himself and thinking. Rather, it is this danger that engages itself and thinks through him.
We must be adamant on this point: from behind the camouflage of genius and a historical-mythological enthusiasm, Nietzsche is able to set about discussing his concept of Hellenism with an unrestrained sense of contemporaneity. From here on, historical references serve only as ? foundation for the performance of the most contemporary of plays. To be sure, the fable upon which Nietzsche bases his attempt is of an archetypal simplicity, as elementary as the most ancient losophy and as monotonic as archaic What is a human being? What is the world? Why must the world cause us to how can we be released from this suffering? These questions have an almost flat and superficial ring when measured against the shocking violence with which the isolated consciousness, awakened to the dilemma that is raging within it, is frightened by its own indi-
and, after having been thus frightened, no longer is anything but the craving to understand what within it is really of any consequence. Who am I? What will be my fate? Why must I be "I"? There are no other questions.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 22 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
In the initial stages of his performance, Nietzsche is still somewhat removed from reducing his undertaking to this primary form. This does not hinder him from already expressing himself within ? with his Hellenist decorum, his Schopenhauerian vocabulary, his illusionist-rhetorical coquetry, and the edu- cated-bourgeois cast of his drapery. None of this can alter the fact that in his first book (as will be the case in general in his later literary work), the dramatic pri- mary structure of the search for the genuine self begins to function with great clarity. Motivated by a powerful need to express himself, the thinker steps out onto the stage, borne up by the certainty that his previous presentiments were sufficient to warrant making a spectacular entrance--whatever might still sepa- rate him from the latest views. Certainly, the actor does not yet know how his compulsion will express itself, and he is certain that the last word cannot be spoken for a long time ? At the same ? because he is beset by the feeling that he is pregnant with great things, he is convinced that he has said something of the utmost significance ? else can a man do who is convinced that the greatest man of his
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
time, Richard Wagner, has acknowledged him as an equal? The drama begins as if the actor wants to say, "I am here, but I am not yet myself. I must therefore become myself. I would therefore wager that what I really have to say will be revealed as the drama runs its ? This might possibly be the fundamental formulation of that thought that is marked by the dynamic between the search for self and the attempt to release oneself from The thinker is not yet in possession of himself to such an extent that he can present himself to the world with the gesticulation of Ecce Homo, but he does promise that he will succeed in retrieving himself through a process of radical self-searching coram publico. The overall effect is as if his shadow should say to the wanderer, " I f I pursue you with a sufficient degree of intensity, I will finally possess ? Or, the reverse, as if the wanderer were to say to the shadow, "I must first jump over you before I can arrive at As paradoxical as this all may sound, these duplications of the ego into the seeker and what is sought, the questioner and he who answers, the present self and the self that is yet to be, belong inexorably to the structure of an impassioned existential search for ? (In Chapter 3 I will comment further on the paradox- ical nature of the search as a means for avoiding the truth. )
In order to discover the truth about himself, therefore, the thinker must ini- tially proceed from himself as relentlessly as he can because, otherwise, nothing else that could be found would be available for ? for the nonobjective impulse. Like all of those who think creatively, Nietzsche must first rehearse what he has to say before he can know what he has been actually carrying within himself. This reminds us of the familiar joke: "How can I know what I am think- ing before I have heard what I am ? This makes it clear, in any case, that the joke has more descriptive power than the serious postulation that "thinking" precedes its expression. In truth, the joke illustrates in the most abbreviated form
? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE ? 23
the structure of the search for ? Therefore, he who seeks the truth about him- self in a positive representation must first realize himself positively in order to find anything in this realization that would permit him to discover himself. For previously there had been, for lack of expression, nothing to discover because nothing had been expressed for lack of its having been sought.
Assuming that we are now in a position appropriately to follow Nietzsche's appearance as the announcer of another Hellenism, what does he say about the Greeks and, through them, about himself? To what extent could a new approach to the psychology of the Greek populace and Greek art also bring to light any truth about the reckless Greek scholar? One ? I believe, summarize the fundamental assertions of Nietzsche's def- inition of the world as it is introduced to us in the book on tragedy in two state- ments. The first of these would be the following: the usual individual life is a hell made up of suffering, brutality, baseness, and entanglement, for which there is no more apt assessment than the dark wisdom of the Dionysian ? that the best thing for man would be to have never been born; the next best, to die as soon as possible. The second statement would read: this life is made bearable only by intoxication and by dreams, by this twofold path to ecstasy that is open to indi- viduals for ? The Birth of Tragedy is to a great extent a paraphrase of this second statement and a fantasy on the possibility of unifying both forms of ecstasy in a single religious artistic phenomenon ? phenomenon Nietzsche identified as early Greek tragedy.
The path of intoxication is delegated to the god Dionysus and his orgiastic manifestations; the way of the dream to the god Apollo and his love for clarity, visibility, and beautiful limitation. To Dionysus belongs music and its narcotic and cathartic power; to Apollo belongs the epic Mythos with its blissful clarity and visionary ? The individual who is weighed down by everyday misery therefore has available to him these two paths for lifting himself out of his
paths that can unite to form the royal path of a single tragic art, provided one has chosen one's birth date appropriately so that one can be incar- nated either as an ancient Greek or a modern Wagnerian. Both paths, that of in- toxication and that of the ? concern themselves in different ways with the overcoming of individuation, which is the source of all suffering. Thus, intoxi- cation ? ? individual out of the limitations of his ego, in order to release him into the ocean of a cosmic unity of pain and pleasure, whereas the dream has the capacity ? the ? as necessary forms of existence under the ? ? ? beau- tiful form. The ? ? ? ? ? Apollo- nian with each other. This fusion takes place, for Nietzsche, under the Dionysian sign because it comprehends the Apollonian ele- ments of epic stage plot and the mythic fate of the ? only the ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 24 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
dreams of the ecstatic chorus, which sees in the visible fates of the heroes ob- of the suffering god Dionysus.
In fecTTWetzsclieVTJooR~r5n~tragedy is almost always fixed to the apparent dimension of its contents and read as a Dionysian manifesto. However, a dram- aturgical reading leads with the greatest possible certainty to the opposite con- clusion. What Nietzsche brings forth upon the stage is not so much the
of ? ? ? Even this reading would seem somewhat scandalous ? the classical image of Greek culture, because it no longer recognizes the serene authority of Apollo as ? given, but instead teaches it as representing a courageous vic- tory over an alternative world of dark and obscene ? This does not alter the fact that in Nietzsche, from the dramaturgical perspective, the Apollonian world of illusion has the last ? or not this illusion dances henceforth before our eyes with an
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
infinitely deeper opalescence. It is almost as if the hu- manistic enthusiasts of Greek culture were suddenly being expected to acknowl- edge that this beautiful Apollonian man's world actually represented a Dionysian
theater and that, in the future, there could be no more relying on the edifying unequivocality of the Apollonian empire of light.
If one examined closely the fabric of Nietzsche's tragic universe, one would deliberately have to falsify one's gaze to not perceive that, in Nietzsche, the Dionysian element is never in power as such. The orgiastic musical element is never in danger of breaking through the Apollonian barriers, for the stage itself, the tragic ? Nietzsche constructed ? in keeping with his overall plan, nothing other than a sort of Apollonian catch mechanism that ensures that no orgy will result from the orgiastic song of the ? The music of the
ing he-goats is a Dionysian paroxysm set apart in Apollonian quotation
And only because the quotation marks are summoned in order to make the sounc s of Dionysian savagery palatable for the stage are the great dark driving force s able, their impersonal casualness ? notwithstanding, to bring fort their contribution to a higher culture. Within this arrangement, the impossible can also be raised to the ? it acquiesces to the Apollonian quo- tation marks, that is, to the compulsion to articulate, symbolize, disembody, rep- resent. Without these quotation marks there would be, so to ? no perfor- mance rights granted. Only when the passions have promised to behave as they should are they permitted to conduct themselves as they wish. The price paid for the freedom of art is the constraint imposed upon it.
Nietzsche's appearance on stage thus assumes a profile that goes beyond empty ? If we only saw it previously in its most superficial appearance on stage masked by the cult of genius and its mythological ? it now puts on a second mask, penetrating deeper into itself and into the ancient presentation of the play. From this moment on, the empty craving for and formless claim to a great self become a stage phenomenon of illuminating ? Nietz-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE ? 25
sche's second masking as a Greek scholar tells us that this self has borne itself into a conflict, and that this conflict is between two deities who interact with each other like impulse and constraint, passion and control, release and moderation, movement and contemplation, compulsion and vision, music and image, w i l l and representation.
In our further discussion, we must accept that everything that happens on stage is being impelled forward by a conflict within the actor, a conflict that is intended to be reflected in the opposition between the two deities of art. It does seem, however, as if Nietzsche was unwilling actually to settle this conflict. To a much greater ? he insisted on exposing it as something that ? to a certain
meant to stand before us as an eternal polarity, comparable to a sculpture carved in stone of two superhuman wrestlers whose potential for violence is im- mediately apparent to anyone without their ever having to move. Both deities seem to have been frozen in a vision of struggling movement.
What is the significance of this state of affairs? We must first understand what it was that Nietzsche was decreeing with such great ? Apollo Dionysus, after an initial ? counterbalance each other and have our in- terests at heart exclusively in their compromise. A resulting attention to symme- try, to a principle of equilibrium ? can therefore be attributed to Nietzsche's second mask; however, the idea of a balance is nowhere established conscientiously as ? but is instead inserted in a manner that is as surreptitious as it is energetic. In truth, the polarity between Apollo and Dionysus is not a turbulent opposition that vacillates freely between the two extremes; we are deal- ing much more here with a stationary polarity that leads to a clandestine doubling of the Apollonian. The Apollonian Unified Subject ? makes certain, through the mechanism of the silently established axiom of balance, that the Dionysian Other never comes into play as itself, but only as the dialectical or symmetrical Other to the Unified Subject. An Apollonian principle governs the antagonism between the Apollonian and the ? This permits us to understand why Nietzsche, although he presents himself as the herald of the Dionysian, at the same time perpetually appears with the demeanor of heroic self-control, to such an extent that what must control itself is named, emphasized, and celebrated as a Dionysian musical force ? always with the sort of emphasis whereby what is stressed remains under Apollonian control. Apollo is, even within Nietzsche himself, the ruler in the antithetical relationship with his Other.
W ith the establishment of this symmetrically frozen mask made up of the two halves of the faces of both deities, Nietzsche accomplished a stroke of genius vis-a-vis self-representation that has fascinated us to this day. For, far from reproaching him for not "really" giving full license to the Dionysian ? we would imagine the case to be after a century of liberalization and
tion ? must wonder at the mythological device that enabled him to open up the passage to the Dionysian a crack wider. Manfred Frank has demonstrated
? ? ? ? ? 26 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
most impressively in his book Der kommende Gott (The god to come) that this device was not without preconditions,
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
but that the groundwork for it had been laid by the thought of early romanticism and Richard
Nietzsche's thought is established within this Dionysian fissure. However, he who begins thinking with the fissure of origin must be prepared to accept, as a logical consequence, the condition of having escaped as also being one of disso- lution and separation. Having made this acceptance possible within a cultural context is the greatest profoundly depth- psychological accomplishment of ro- mantic ? Nietzsche is able to risk putting on the double mask of Apollo and Dionysus because, since romanticism, the motif of a psychological fissure had become culturally acceptable. Even for those who were the most cissistically sensitive and chaste, this high-cultural symbolism had in the mean- time made a noncontemptible means of expression available for ambivalent psy- chological self-representation. Nietzsche made use of the romantic capability for looking back from the rationality of the day into the reason of the night in order to scout out, in his own way, the Dionysian energetics of the foundation of being. We cannot overlook the fact that this represents an extremely mediated and guarded form of playing with primordial
The recollection of Dionysus is precisely not a naturalistic Propddeutik of bar- barism; rather, it is the attempt to sink the foundation of culture deeper into an era of barbaric menace. In any case, Nietzsche's Dionysian fissure proves to be the most promising form for maintaining a relationship to that which precedes a con- scious awareness of ? arrangement to which one continually returns whenever the question arises as to how the Dionysian truths contained within the foundation of pain and pleasure ? can be "integrated" into the forms of modern life without our having to succumb to the barbaric risks of mad- ness and violence. My observations with respect to Nietzsche's acknowledgment of symmetry and his opting for the submission of the Dionysian to the com- pulsion toward the symbolic corroborate the thesis that few nineteenth-century books are quite as Apollonian as The Birth of Tragedy. The extent to which it can also be read as a Dionysian text will become apparent in Chapter 4 ? we imag- ine the esoteric concept of the "Dionysian" as representing philosophical
Nevertheless, what has been said must seem astonishing when dealing with an author who considered himself to be the rediscoverer of Dionysus. We cannot delude ourselves about one thing: whenever Nietzsche referred in his later work to The Birth of Tragedy, as he did in the famous "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" and in the preface to Ecce Homo, he did so in spite of all his reservations about the "immature" features of his first book, and was consistently aware that this
of its new understanding of the ? His own Dionysian reading of The Birth of Tragedy can ? all
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE ? 27
through the fact that, for the later Nietzsche, the word "Dionysian" was the equivalent of ? "heathen," "immoral,"
that correspond overwhelmingly to the tendencies of the book on its semantic
But this thematic prominence of the Dionysian cannot diminish the fact of the the Apollonian.
? ? ? ? ? I suggest that we take a
sian. This degree of exactness is justifiable, not least of all because, in the book on tragedy, there is one point at which the mystery of Nietzsche's Greek scholar concept of the Dionysian is laid bare ? bare, in fact, that there is nothing left that would require ? Nietzsche exposes his Dionysian alchemy, that is, his talent for changing a he-goat into a musician, at this one point more clearly than anywhere else. Let us slowly read through this most important first chapter once again.
What is happening here? Before our eyes, Nietzsche splits the Dionysian throng into two severely differentiated, almost oppositional choruses, which relate to each other like culture and nature or like civilization and barbarism. Ac- cording to the author, a "monstrous gap" separates the Dionysians of Greece from those of the a gap the highly cultured individual will never again bridge will never even be able to want to bridge. This gap ? take on immeasurable significance for the theory of tragedy. We can convince ourselves of this whenever we wait for the moment at which the fictive procession of the approaching god with its followers rolls toward us, only to be divided at the very second at which the winged (beschwingt) classical philologist is attempting to join it.
The element that had fascinated the philologist in the distant and as yet undivided view of this chorus of Dionysian throngs is too evident to require an explanation. For, from a distance and presuming a grandiose disregard for de- tails, the vulgar chorus is condensed into a humanistic dream image with an ir- resistible power to entice:
Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but nature which has become alienated, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her lost son, man. ? ? ? Now the slave is a free man; now all the rigid, hostile barriers that necessity, caprice, or "impudent convention" have fixed between man and man are broken. Now, with the gospel of universal harmony, each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, and fused with his neighbor, but as one with him, as if the veil of had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity. In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community. p. 37)
This is what Nietzsche has written though the reader might not believe his own eyes. If the text were to continue in the
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
vein in which it has ? The Birth
construction of the Diony-
? ? ? ? ? ? 28 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
of Tragedy would be read today as The Socialist Manifesto, one that would not have to shrink from being compared with The Communist Manifesto. The work would be read as the program for an aesthetic socialism and as the Magna Carta of a cosmic ? one would glean from this book precisely those character- istics that only vestigially shared in the image of the corresponding political or- ganizations and ideologies. But the temptation Nietzsche feels to enter into tory as the spokesman for a socialism lasts only for a
long as it takes for the throngs of the to ? past at the appropriate hisj torical distance ? the reconciliation with man and nature is directly
of no
As soon as proximity provides for the dissolution of an idealistic inexactitude,
all previous premises are reversed. Admittedly, to the same extent that the fusion with the whole appeared as pure impossibility, nothing stood in the way of a sac- rifice to the ? But if the raving chorus of sounds, bodies, and appe- tites comes closer, the abyss of primordial origin is opened up into that to which the individualized subject cannot want to revert for anything in the world. Images of horror immediately rise ? of fatal constriction and death by suffo- cation in the cavern of eros. What appeared previously as a blessed disentangle- ment is now seen as a horrible dismemberment; that which longing purported to crave now causes it to recoil in horror with a definite sense of nausea in the face of its realization. The impulse toward unification suddenly changes over into a frenzy of ? and the eros of the return to the womb of earth and com- munity is transformed into a panic of dissolution and revulsion at the prospect of the socialist vulvocracy
This is the decisive moment. The bacchanalian festival procession is now split apart, and while the Dionysian barbarians continue to revel in their group rut, a noble minority branches off that has placed itself under the command of the Greek will to ? And thus, away with the barbaric ? of the Orient! Away with the orgiastic sexuality of the cult of ? Away with the compulsion toward physical contact among the people and other unappetizing ? Away with this leftist, Green Party, all-embracing crudeness! An Apollonian interven- tion is demanded here; a masculine, self-aware, individualistic principle should intervene, one that would confront with its purity and selectivity any sort of ob- scene confusion. Before the common Dionysians can become Greek and Nietz- schean Dionysians, they must be filtered through a sort of preliminary purifica- tion process. This I will call, following Nietzsche's description of it, the process of "Doric
Early Hellenism erected, so we are told, a masculine dam to protect itself against the Dionysian flood. It heroically resisted the "extravagant sexual licen- tiousness" that was characteristic of the Walpurgis Nights of the barbarian Dionysus. The Doric dam construction was responsible whenever the "horrible
of sensuality and cruelty" became ? The Diony-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE 29
attempts at inundation recoil against the rejecting at- titude of Apollo" (BT, pp. 39-40).
What is worth noting here is the radical revaluation of the Dionysian. Sud- denly it no longer appears as a principle that is bent on reconciling the world, because of which all human existence would for the first time be able to achieve its true ? but rather as a primitive force of cultural destruction, an uncouth demonic danger of uncontrollable release and dissolution:
For me the Doric state and Doric art are explicable only as a permanent military encampment of the Apollonian, only [as] incessant resistance to the titanic-barbaric nature of the Dionysian. (BT, p. 47)
For ? then, the Doric process of precensorship existed in the initial stages of the ? it served to break the flood of the Dionysian against the dam of the ? The phenomenon of an art of ecstasy that has been tamed into submission to advanced culture develops for the first time out of the binary energetic complex of dam and flood, restraint and ? In the beginning was the compromise ? play of force and counterforce, which became inextri- cably interlaced with each other for the purpose of reciprocal ascent. Nietzsche represents this compromise graphically and does not neglect to mention that the authority who has succeeded in reaching the compromise is ? and not his irresponsible opponent! Thus, Apollo is the calculating subject who enters into a daring game with his own dissolution. After this same Apollo had finally reluc- tantly acknowledged the imperative of the demands of ? he
according to ? disarm his violent opponent by means of a "recon- ciliation. " Nietzsche goes so far as to note that this is "a seasonably effected reconciliation" (BT, p. 39).
The importance of this process can hardly be overestimated, for it signifies nothing less than the primal scene of civilization -- the historical compromise of Western culture. Because of the Apollonian compromise, the old orgiastic power of nature is forced upward and is welded once and for all to the register of the symbolic as artistic energy. In
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
making this observation, Nietzsche was aware that he was speaking not of an arbitrary episode within the context of the history of Greek art but of an event that would prove fateful for all higher civilizing pro- cesses. "This he says, "is the most important moment in the history of the Greek ? and here we might add, the most important transition along the path from archaic to highly advanced forms of living. It is almost un- necessary to state that these more highly developed forms bring with them an increase in fragility, an ascent by the living being toward more ? more perilous forms that ? as if unavoidably, enveloped in a haze of perversion. Through the inhibiting and intensifying act of power that the Apollonian com- promise represents, the naive orgies of early human beings are transformed into the sentimental festival performances of more recent ? They are no longer
? ? ? ? ? 30 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
"reversions[s] of man to the tiger and the ? but progress toward "festivals of and days of
Only now does Nietzsche's Dionysian undertaking again come into play. After Doric precensorship and Apollonian resistance have done their job and erected adequate defenses, the ? for the Dionysian component
? ? ? ? ? to reenter, a
dance, completely mystical participation and beautiful ? short, every higher form of that the reverential traditional term Just as soon as a distance from the vulgar procession of the satyrs has been symbolically reestablished, the transfiguration of the Dionysian begins anew. Bracketed within aesthetic parentheses and dramaturgical quotation marks, the singing he-goats are no longer libertines who regress to bestiality. Rather, they have been rejuvenated into the media for effecting a fusion with the foundation of being and the subjects of a musical socialism. The magic is re- peated within a secure framework that serves as protection against the risks in- volved in an actual enchantment. From this point on, everything appears in its revelers in place of Dionysian revelers, unifica- tion in place of unification, orgies in place of orgies. This process of "standing in place of something" is, however, conceived of as a process of beneficial sub- and not merely as a forfeiture of the Within the context of this gain, culture begins to affirm itself as and this quality of standing in place of something becomes the key to the mystery of the civilizing phenomenon. The ramifications of this for theories of truth will soon become ? the next two chapters I will discuss the dramaturgy of sub- stitution and the metaphysics of illusion.
Henceforth, the old Dionysian forces are permitted to overflow with a new licentiousness ? place of licentiousness ? the riverbed of symbolization. No wonder, then, that the path to Greek tragedy is accompani6d by the "greatest exaltation of all symbolic faculties," indeed, by a "collective release of all sym- bolic ? Through this elevation into the symbolic, the world becomes more than it was. The substitution is superior to what it replaces; what has arisen from the original surpasses it. "The essence of nature is now to be expressed symbolically; we need a new world of symbols" (BT, p. 40). In short, the bar- baric he-goat has advanced to the status of civilized goat, and, if he were to think back on his wild youth (although this would have to be delayed a priori), could say to himself as a poststructuralist, "A symbol has inserted itself between me and my ? a language has preceded my ability to be present only as myself ? a discourse has taught my ecstasy to speak. But isn't it worth lamenting the fact that lamentation itself has become ? discourse? "
The Apollonian ? however, now notices for the first time, albeit too ? the dilemma in which it has implicated itself by agreeing to a compro- mise with the Dionysian. From here on out it can no longer conceive of itself aus
completely
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
sich selbst. Apollo has lost the illusion of his own autonomy; in his attempts to reestablish it to the extent that he can, he must sink ever deeper into the discern- ment of his own lack of a foundation ? After he has glanced into the Dionysian abyss beneath the forms, Apollo is no longer able to believe in his substantial rationality and his masculine self-control. His initial hope of being able to negotiate a compromise with the Dionysian in which he will be able to preserve himself unaltered is revealed as an illusion. Without fail, Apollo is swept into the undertow of the Dionysian dissolution of identity. It undermines for him the idea that the beautiful illusion of his own self, with its glistening ab- straction and its abundance of rational light, might in truth represent only an ob-
of the amorphously suffering god,
What does this all mean for the actor on the stage with his mask of the two
deities? To what extent does this illuminate for him the structure of his own sub- jectivity? What does it profit his experience of himself to appear on stage in this way? The thinking mime is, I believe, now able to recognize that he himself is not a "One," a Unified Subject, but rather a dual subject who dreams of
able to possess himself as ? This dual existence no longer has the amorphous quality of an unformulated yearning and the pretentious pathos of he who feels that he is pregnant with his own self. This dual existence defines itself within the context of a thinking ? fluctuation in reflection between the Apollonian and Dionysian dimensions of the mask. This uneasily repeated fluc- tuation establishes the pattern of thought for an all-penetrating critical ? A mechanism
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
transformed Nietzsche into a philosopher: the Apollonian in him sus- pected that he was at bottom only a Dionysian ? while the Diony- sian saw through himself with the penetrating clairvoyancy of one who is re- minded of his Apollonian castration. He feels like a mere civilized satyr, like a he-goat in place of a he-goat, who can no longer believe in himself because he must understand that his present self is only a substitute for his true self.
In this way, Nietzsche has set in motion an unprecedented intellectual psycho- drama. Through his audacious game with the double mask of the deities, he has made of himself a genius of self-knowledge as ? He has become a psychologist spontaneously ? has become the first philosopher to be a psy- chologist as philosopher; his antiquating role playing has set him on this path. Nietzsche always finds himself in a position in which he faces himself as a trans- parent phenomenon: he does not believe in himself as Dionysus because he has had to sacrifice his wild lower half to the Apollonian compromise. Conversely, he has just as little belief in himself as Apollo because he suspects himself of being merely a veil before the Dionysian. The self of the thinker on stage that is in search of itself oscillates, within the confines of a sensational reflexivity, back and forth between the frozen halves of his mask. He relinquishes himself to a circular process of total self-distrust, which in time will mount into a distrust of all "truths" and all ? which at the same time rises up in a despair-
? ? ? ? ? 32 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
ing praise of the illusion of autonomy and the divine impenetrability of the phe- nomenal. Whatever position the ego may assume, whatever "representation" of itself it may choose to offer, it will perpetually sense that the other ? the dis- placed aspect, is lacking.
W ithin the framework of this ? confused fluctuation between the processes of masking and unmasking, Nietzsche's third face develops, with dramaturgical repercussions of the most impressive kind. It is the mask of Nietz- sche the ? the psychologist, the critic of knowledge, the thought dancer, the teacher of the affirmative pretense ? W ith this third face, Nietzsche begins to come dangerously close to his "Become who you dangerous because this mask, in its misleading optimism, could induce Narcissus to tumble into his own image. The danger that emanates from the image always strikes the person who passionately desires at his weakest ? fact that he would like to have ? reality" what he allows himself to have only in the
in the imaginary modus of ? Dionysus does not permit himself to possess, and whatever can be possessed is not Dionysus. Therefore, the greatest danger for Nietzsche lies in wanting to incarnate Dionysus so as to at least be able to take possession of him in his incarnate
On the basis of his theory of bipolar artistic forces, Nietzsche immediately emerges as a virtuoso in the art of an uneasy kind of ? that does not believe its own observations. It does not believe itself, not because it has re- nounced itself or because it would abet a "totalizing critique of reason," but rather because the self of this reflection is constituted in itself (an ? beschaf-
in such a way that that which could allow it to believe in itself must always elude it. Nietzsche's dramatic thought is in the process of discovering that it is absolutely impossible for ? and the sense of an experi- ence of unity that could lead to ? occur simultaneously. Whether as Apollo or as Dionysus, the named, identified, and masked subject is never permitted to believe that it has arrived at the foundation of its own identity. For as soon as it sees itself, this subject has already seen through itself as something wherein it cannot set its mind at ease because it is lacking the best part of itself, its Other.
Thus, Nietzsche's theatrical experience of self sets in motion a perfect system for Whatever might say " I " upon the stage will be a sym- bolicallyrepresented" I , "anApollonianartisticcreation,whichweholdout before us like a veil to protect ourselves from perishing of the complete
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Chapter 3
Cave or, Danger, Terrible Truth!
? Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself.
it is not the thinker who is engaging himself and thinking. Rather, it is this danger that engages itself and thinks through him.
We must be adamant on this point: from behind the camouflage of genius and a historical-mythological enthusiasm, Nietzsche is able to set about discussing his concept of Hellenism with an unrestrained sense of contemporaneity. From here on, historical references serve only as ? foundation for the performance of the most contemporary of plays. To be sure, the fable upon which Nietzsche bases his attempt is of an archetypal simplicity, as elementary as the most ancient losophy and as monotonic as archaic What is a human being? What is the world? Why must the world cause us to how can we be released from this suffering? These questions have an almost flat and superficial ring when measured against the shocking violence with which the isolated consciousness, awakened to the dilemma that is raging within it, is frightened by its own indi-
and, after having been thus frightened, no longer is anything but the craving to understand what within it is really of any consequence. Who am I? What will be my fate? Why must I be "I"? There are no other questions.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 22 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
In the initial stages of his performance, Nietzsche is still somewhat removed from reducing his undertaking to this primary form. This does not hinder him from already expressing himself within ? with his Hellenist decorum, his Schopenhauerian vocabulary, his illusionist-rhetorical coquetry, and the edu- cated-bourgeois cast of his drapery. None of this can alter the fact that in his first book (as will be the case in general in his later literary work), the dramatic pri- mary structure of the search for the genuine self begins to function with great clarity. Motivated by a powerful need to express himself, the thinker steps out onto the stage, borne up by the certainty that his previous presentiments were sufficient to warrant making a spectacular entrance--whatever might still sepa- rate him from the latest views. Certainly, the actor does not yet know how his compulsion will express itself, and he is certain that the last word cannot be spoken for a long time ? At the same ? because he is beset by the feeling that he is pregnant with great things, he is convinced that he has said something of the utmost significance ? else can a man do who is convinced that the greatest man of his
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
time, Richard Wagner, has acknowledged him as an equal? The drama begins as if the actor wants to say, "I am here, but I am not yet myself. I must therefore become myself. I would therefore wager that what I really have to say will be revealed as the drama runs its ? This might possibly be the fundamental formulation of that thought that is marked by the dynamic between the search for self and the attempt to release oneself from The thinker is not yet in possession of himself to such an extent that he can present himself to the world with the gesticulation of Ecce Homo, but he does promise that he will succeed in retrieving himself through a process of radical self-searching coram publico. The overall effect is as if his shadow should say to the wanderer, " I f I pursue you with a sufficient degree of intensity, I will finally possess ? Or, the reverse, as if the wanderer were to say to the shadow, "I must first jump over you before I can arrive at As paradoxical as this all may sound, these duplications of the ego into the seeker and what is sought, the questioner and he who answers, the present self and the self that is yet to be, belong inexorably to the structure of an impassioned existential search for ? (In Chapter 3 I will comment further on the paradox- ical nature of the search as a means for avoiding the truth. )
In order to discover the truth about himself, therefore, the thinker must ini- tially proceed from himself as relentlessly as he can because, otherwise, nothing else that could be found would be available for ? for the nonobjective impulse. Like all of those who think creatively, Nietzsche must first rehearse what he has to say before he can know what he has been actually carrying within himself. This reminds us of the familiar joke: "How can I know what I am think- ing before I have heard what I am ? This makes it clear, in any case, that the joke has more descriptive power than the serious postulation that "thinking" precedes its expression. In truth, the joke illustrates in the most abbreviated form
? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE ? 23
the structure of the search for ? Therefore, he who seeks the truth about him- self in a positive representation must first realize himself positively in order to find anything in this realization that would permit him to discover himself. For previously there had been, for lack of expression, nothing to discover because nothing had been expressed for lack of its having been sought.
Assuming that we are now in a position appropriately to follow Nietzsche's appearance as the announcer of another Hellenism, what does he say about the Greeks and, through them, about himself? To what extent could a new approach to the psychology of the Greek populace and Greek art also bring to light any truth about the reckless Greek scholar? One ? I believe, summarize the fundamental assertions of Nietzsche's def- inition of the world as it is introduced to us in the book on tragedy in two state- ments. The first of these would be the following: the usual individual life is a hell made up of suffering, brutality, baseness, and entanglement, for which there is no more apt assessment than the dark wisdom of the Dionysian ? that the best thing for man would be to have never been born; the next best, to die as soon as possible. The second statement would read: this life is made bearable only by intoxication and by dreams, by this twofold path to ecstasy that is open to indi- viduals for ? The Birth of Tragedy is to a great extent a paraphrase of this second statement and a fantasy on the possibility of unifying both forms of ecstasy in a single religious artistic phenomenon ? phenomenon Nietzsche identified as early Greek tragedy.
The path of intoxication is delegated to the god Dionysus and his orgiastic manifestations; the way of the dream to the god Apollo and his love for clarity, visibility, and beautiful limitation. To Dionysus belongs music and its narcotic and cathartic power; to Apollo belongs the epic Mythos with its blissful clarity and visionary ? The individual who is weighed down by everyday misery therefore has available to him these two paths for lifting himself out of his
paths that can unite to form the royal path of a single tragic art, provided one has chosen one's birth date appropriately so that one can be incar- nated either as an ancient Greek or a modern Wagnerian. Both paths, that of in- toxication and that of the ? concern themselves in different ways with the overcoming of individuation, which is the source of all suffering. Thus, intoxi- cation ? ? individual out of the limitations of his ego, in order to release him into the ocean of a cosmic unity of pain and pleasure, whereas the dream has the capacity ? the ? as necessary forms of existence under the ? ? ? beau- tiful form. The ? ? ? ? ? Apollo- nian with each other. This fusion takes place, for Nietzsche, under the Dionysian sign because it comprehends the Apollonian ele- ments of epic stage plot and the mythic fate of the ? only the ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 24 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
dreams of the ecstatic chorus, which sees in the visible fates of the heroes ob- of the suffering god Dionysus.
In fecTTWetzsclieVTJooR~r5n~tragedy is almost always fixed to the apparent dimension of its contents and read as a Dionysian manifesto. However, a dram- aturgical reading leads with the greatest possible certainty to the opposite con- clusion. What Nietzsche brings forth upon the stage is not so much the
of ? ? ? Even this reading would seem somewhat scandalous ? the classical image of Greek culture, because it no longer recognizes the serene authority of Apollo as ? given, but instead teaches it as representing a courageous vic- tory over an alternative world of dark and obscene ? This does not alter the fact that in Nietzsche, from the dramaturgical perspective, the Apollonian world of illusion has the last ? or not this illusion dances henceforth before our eyes with an
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
infinitely deeper opalescence. It is almost as if the hu- manistic enthusiasts of Greek culture were suddenly being expected to acknowl- edge that this beautiful Apollonian man's world actually represented a Dionysian
theater and that, in the future, there could be no more relying on the edifying unequivocality of the Apollonian empire of light.
If one examined closely the fabric of Nietzsche's tragic universe, one would deliberately have to falsify one's gaze to not perceive that, in Nietzsche, the Dionysian element is never in power as such. The orgiastic musical element is never in danger of breaking through the Apollonian barriers, for the stage itself, the tragic ? Nietzsche constructed ? in keeping with his overall plan, nothing other than a sort of Apollonian catch mechanism that ensures that no orgy will result from the orgiastic song of the ? The music of the
ing he-goats is a Dionysian paroxysm set apart in Apollonian quotation
And only because the quotation marks are summoned in order to make the sounc s of Dionysian savagery palatable for the stage are the great dark driving force s able, their impersonal casualness ? notwithstanding, to bring fort their contribution to a higher culture. Within this arrangement, the impossible can also be raised to the ? it acquiesces to the Apollonian quo- tation marks, that is, to the compulsion to articulate, symbolize, disembody, rep- resent. Without these quotation marks there would be, so to ? no perfor- mance rights granted. Only when the passions have promised to behave as they should are they permitted to conduct themselves as they wish. The price paid for the freedom of art is the constraint imposed upon it.
Nietzsche's appearance on stage thus assumes a profile that goes beyond empty ? If we only saw it previously in its most superficial appearance on stage masked by the cult of genius and its mythological ? it now puts on a second mask, penetrating deeper into itself and into the ancient presentation of the play. From this moment on, the empty craving for and formless claim to a great self become a stage phenomenon of illuminating ? Nietz-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE ? 25
sche's second masking as a Greek scholar tells us that this self has borne itself into a conflict, and that this conflict is between two deities who interact with each other like impulse and constraint, passion and control, release and moderation, movement and contemplation, compulsion and vision, music and image, w i l l and representation.
In our further discussion, we must accept that everything that happens on stage is being impelled forward by a conflict within the actor, a conflict that is intended to be reflected in the opposition between the two deities of art. It does seem, however, as if Nietzsche was unwilling actually to settle this conflict. To a much greater ? he insisted on exposing it as something that ? to a certain
meant to stand before us as an eternal polarity, comparable to a sculpture carved in stone of two superhuman wrestlers whose potential for violence is im- mediately apparent to anyone without their ever having to move. Both deities seem to have been frozen in a vision of struggling movement.
What is the significance of this state of affairs? We must first understand what it was that Nietzsche was decreeing with such great ? Apollo Dionysus, after an initial ? counterbalance each other and have our in- terests at heart exclusively in their compromise. A resulting attention to symme- try, to a principle of equilibrium ? can therefore be attributed to Nietzsche's second mask; however, the idea of a balance is nowhere established conscientiously as ? but is instead inserted in a manner that is as surreptitious as it is energetic. In truth, the polarity between Apollo and Dionysus is not a turbulent opposition that vacillates freely between the two extremes; we are deal- ing much more here with a stationary polarity that leads to a clandestine doubling of the Apollonian. The Apollonian Unified Subject ? makes certain, through the mechanism of the silently established axiom of balance, that the Dionysian Other never comes into play as itself, but only as the dialectical or symmetrical Other to the Unified Subject. An Apollonian principle governs the antagonism between the Apollonian and the ? This permits us to understand why Nietzsche, although he presents himself as the herald of the Dionysian, at the same time perpetually appears with the demeanor of heroic self-control, to such an extent that what must control itself is named, emphasized, and celebrated as a Dionysian musical force ? always with the sort of emphasis whereby what is stressed remains under Apollonian control. Apollo is, even within Nietzsche himself, the ruler in the antithetical relationship with his Other.
W ith the establishment of this symmetrically frozen mask made up of the two halves of the faces of both deities, Nietzsche accomplished a stroke of genius vis-a-vis self-representation that has fascinated us to this day. For, far from reproaching him for not "really" giving full license to the Dionysian ? we would imagine the case to be after a century of liberalization and
tion ? must wonder at the mythological device that enabled him to open up the passage to the Dionysian a crack wider. Manfred Frank has demonstrated
? ? ? ? ? 26 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
most impressively in his book Der kommende Gott (The god to come) that this device was not without preconditions,
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
but that the groundwork for it had been laid by the thought of early romanticism and Richard
Nietzsche's thought is established within this Dionysian fissure. However, he who begins thinking with the fissure of origin must be prepared to accept, as a logical consequence, the condition of having escaped as also being one of disso- lution and separation. Having made this acceptance possible within a cultural context is the greatest profoundly depth- psychological accomplishment of ro- mantic ? Nietzsche is able to risk putting on the double mask of Apollo and Dionysus because, since romanticism, the motif of a psychological fissure had become culturally acceptable. Even for those who were the most cissistically sensitive and chaste, this high-cultural symbolism had in the mean- time made a noncontemptible means of expression available for ambivalent psy- chological self-representation. Nietzsche made use of the romantic capability for looking back from the rationality of the day into the reason of the night in order to scout out, in his own way, the Dionysian energetics of the foundation of being. We cannot overlook the fact that this represents an extremely mediated and guarded form of playing with primordial
The recollection of Dionysus is precisely not a naturalistic Propddeutik of bar- barism; rather, it is the attempt to sink the foundation of culture deeper into an era of barbaric menace. In any case, Nietzsche's Dionysian fissure proves to be the most promising form for maintaining a relationship to that which precedes a con- scious awareness of ? arrangement to which one continually returns whenever the question arises as to how the Dionysian truths contained within the foundation of pain and pleasure ? can be "integrated" into the forms of modern life without our having to succumb to the barbaric risks of mad- ness and violence. My observations with respect to Nietzsche's acknowledgment of symmetry and his opting for the submission of the Dionysian to the com- pulsion toward the symbolic corroborate the thesis that few nineteenth-century books are quite as Apollonian as The Birth of Tragedy. The extent to which it can also be read as a Dionysian text will become apparent in Chapter 4 ? we imag- ine the esoteric concept of the "Dionysian" as representing philosophical
Nevertheless, what has been said must seem astonishing when dealing with an author who considered himself to be the rediscoverer of Dionysus. We cannot delude ourselves about one thing: whenever Nietzsche referred in his later work to The Birth of Tragedy, as he did in the famous "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" and in the preface to Ecce Homo, he did so in spite of all his reservations about the "immature" features of his first book, and was consistently aware that this
of its new understanding of the ? His own Dionysian reading of The Birth of Tragedy can ? all
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE ? 27
through the fact that, for the later Nietzsche, the word "Dionysian" was the equivalent of ? "heathen," "immoral,"
that correspond overwhelmingly to the tendencies of the book on its semantic
But this thematic prominence of the Dionysian cannot diminish the fact of the the Apollonian.
? ? ? ? ? I suggest that we take a
sian. This degree of exactness is justifiable, not least of all because, in the book on tragedy, there is one point at which the mystery of Nietzsche's Greek scholar concept of the Dionysian is laid bare ? bare, in fact, that there is nothing left that would require ? Nietzsche exposes his Dionysian alchemy, that is, his talent for changing a he-goat into a musician, at this one point more clearly than anywhere else. Let us slowly read through this most important first chapter once again.
What is happening here? Before our eyes, Nietzsche splits the Dionysian throng into two severely differentiated, almost oppositional choruses, which relate to each other like culture and nature or like civilization and barbarism. Ac- cording to the author, a "monstrous gap" separates the Dionysians of Greece from those of the a gap the highly cultured individual will never again bridge will never even be able to want to bridge. This gap ? take on immeasurable significance for the theory of tragedy. We can convince ourselves of this whenever we wait for the moment at which the fictive procession of the approaching god with its followers rolls toward us, only to be divided at the very second at which the winged (beschwingt) classical philologist is attempting to join it.
The element that had fascinated the philologist in the distant and as yet undivided view of this chorus of Dionysian throngs is too evident to require an explanation. For, from a distance and presuming a grandiose disregard for de- tails, the vulgar chorus is condensed into a humanistic dream image with an ir- resistible power to entice:
Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but nature which has become alienated, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her lost son, man. ? ? ? Now the slave is a free man; now all the rigid, hostile barriers that necessity, caprice, or "impudent convention" have fixed between man and man are broken. Now, with the gospel of universal harmony, each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, and fused with his neighbor, but as one with him, as if the veil of had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity. In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community. p. 37)
This is what Nietzsche has written though the reader might not believe his own eyes. If the text were to continue in the
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
vein in which it has ? The Birth
construction of the Diony-
? ? ? ? ? ? 28 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
of Tragedy would be read today as The Socialist Manifesto, one that would not have to shrink from being compared with The Communist Manifesto. The work would be read as the program for an aesthetic socialism and as the Magna Carta of a cosmic ? one would glean from this book precisely those character- istics that only vestigially shared in the image of the corresponding political or- ganizations and ideologies. But the temptation Nietzsche feels to enter into tory as the spokesman for a socialism lasts only for a
long as it takes for the throngs of the to ? past at the appropriate hisj torical distance ? the reconciliation with man and nature is directly
of no
As soon as proximity provides for the dissolution of an idealistic inexactitude,
all previous premises are reversed. Admittedly, to the same extent that the fusion with the whole appeared as pure impossibility, nothing stood in the way of a sac- rifice to the ? But if the raving chorus of sounds, bodies, and appe- tites comes closer, the abyss of primordial origin is opened up into that to which the individualized subject cannot want to revert for anything in the world. Images of horror immediately rise ? of fatal constriction and death by suffo- cation in the cavern of eros. What appeared previously as a blessed disentangle- ment is now seen as a horrible dismemberment; that which longing purported to crave now causes it to recoil in horror with a definite sense of nausea in the face of its realization. The impulse toward unification suddenly changes over into a frenzy of ? and the eros of the return to the womb of earth and com- munity is transformed into a panic of dissolution and revulsion at the prospect of the socialist vulvocracy
This is the decisive moment. The bacchanalian festival procession is now split apart, and while the Dionysian barbarians continue to revel in their group rut, a noble minority branches off that has placed itself under the command of the Greek will to ? And thus, away with the barbaric ? of the Orient! Away with the orgiastic sexuality of the cult of ? Away with the compulsion toward physical contact among the people and other unappetizing ? Away with this leftist, Green Party, all-embracing crudeness! An Apollonian interven- tion is demanded here; a masculine, self-aware, individualistic principle should intervene, one that would confront with its purity and selectivity any sort of ob- scene confusion. Before the common Dionysians can become Greek and Nietz- schean Dionysians, they must be filtered through a sort of preliminary purifica- tion process. This I will call, following Nietzsche's description of it, the process of "Doric
Early Hellenism erected, so we are told, a masculine dam to protect itself against the Dionysian flood. It heroically resisted the "extravagant sexual licen- tiousness" that was characteristic of the Walpurgis Nights of the barbarian Dionysus. The Doric dam construction was responsible whenever the "horrible
of sensuality and cruelty" became ? The Diony-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE 29
attempts at inundation recoil against the rejecting at- titude of Apollo" (BT, pp. 39-40).
What is worth noting here is the radical revaluation of the Dionysian. Sud- denly it no longer appears as a principle that is bent on reconciling the world, because of which all human existence would for the first time be able to achieve its true ? but rather as a primitive force of cultural destruction, an uncouth demonic danger of uncontrollable release and dissolution:
For me the Doric state and Doric art are explicable only as a permanent military encampment of the Apollonian, only [as] incessant resistance to the titanic-barbaric nature of the Dionysian. (BT, p. 47)
For ? then, the Doric process of precensorship existed in the initial stages of the ? it served to break the flood of the Dionysian against the dam of the ? The phenomenon of an art of ecstasy that has been tamed into submission to advanced culture develops for the first time out of the binary energetic complex of dam and flood, restraint and ? In the beginning was the compromise ? play of force and counterforce, which became inextri- cably interlaced with each other for the purpose of reciprocal ascent. Nietzsche represents this compromise graphically and does not neglect to mention that the authority who has succeeded in reaching the compromise is ? and not his irresponsible opponent! Thus, Apollo is the calculating subject who enters into a daring game with his own dissolution. After this same Apollo had finally reluc- tantly acknowledged the imperative of the demands of ? he
according to ? disarm his violent opponent by means of a "recon- ciliation. " Nietzsche goes so far as to note that this is "a seasonably effected reconciliation" (BT, p. 39).
The importance of this process can hardly be overestimated, for it signifies nothing less than the primal scene of civilization -- the historical compromise of Western culture. Because of the Apollonian compromise, the old orgiastic power of nature is forced upward and is welded once and for all to the register of the symbolic as artistic energy. In
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
making this observation, Nietzsche was aware that he was speaking not of an arbitrary episode within the context of the history of Greek art but of an event that would prove fateful for all higher civilizing pro- cesses. "This he says, "is the most important moment in the history of the Greek ? and here we might add, the most important transition along the path from archaic to highly advanced forms of living. It is almost un- necessary to state that these more highly developed forms bring with them an increase in fragility, an ascent by the living being toward more ? more perilous forms that ? as if unavoidably, enveloped in a haze of perversion. Through the inhibiting and intensifying act of power that the Apollonian com- promise represents, the naive orgies of early human beings are transformed into the sentimental festival performances of more recent ? They are no longer
? ? ? ? ? 30 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
"reversions[s] of man to the tiger and the ? but progress toward "festivals of and days of
Only now does Nietzsche's Dionysian undertaking again come into play. After Doric precensorship and Apollonian resistance have done their job and erected adequate defenses, the ? for the Dionysian component
? ? ? ? ? to reenter, a
dance, completely mystical participation and beautiful ? short, every higher form of that the reverential traditional term Just as soon as a distance from the vulgar procession of the satyrs has been symbolically reestablished, the transfiguration of the Dionysian begins anew. Bracketed within aesthetic parentheses and dramaturgical quotation marks, the singing he-goats are no longer libertines who regress to bestiality. Rather, they have been rejuvenated into the media for effecting a fusion with the foundation of being and the subjects of a musical socialism. The magic is re- peated within a secure framework that serves as protection against the risks in- volved in an actual enchantment. From this point on, everything appears in its revelers in place of Dionysian revelers, unifica- tion in place of unification, orgies in place of orgies. This process of "standing in place of something" is, however, conceived of as a process of beneficial sub- and not merely as a forfeiture of the Within the context of this gain, culture begins to affirm itself as and this quality of standing in place of something becomes the key to the mystery of the civilizing phenomenon. The ramifications of this for theories of truth will soon become ? the next two chapters I will discuss the dramaturgy of sub- stitution and the metaphysics of illusion.
Henceforth, the old Dionysian forces are permitted to overflow with a new licentiousness ? place of licentiousness ? the riverbed of symbolization. No wonder, then, that the path to Greek tragedy is accompani6d by the "greatest exaltation of all symbolic faculties," indeed, by a "collective release of all sym- bolic ? Through this elevation into the symbolic, the world becomes more than it was. The substitution is superior to what it replaces; what has arisen from the original surpasses it. "The essence of nature is now to be expressed symbolically; we need a new world of symbols" (BT, p. 40). In short, the bar- baric he-goat has advanced to the status of civilized goat, and, if he were to think back on his wild youth (although this would have to be delayed a priori), could say to himself as a poststructuralist, "A symbol has inserted itself between me and my ? a language has preceded my ability to be present only as myself ? a discourse has taught my ecstasy to speak. But isn't it worth lamenting the fact that lamentation itself has become ? discourse? "
The Apollonian ? however, now notices for the first time, albeit too ? the dilemma in which it has implicated itself by agreeing to a compro- mise with the Dionysian. From here on out it can no longer conceive of itself aus
completely
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
sich selbst. Apollo has lost the illusion of his own autonomy; in his attempts to reestablish it to the extent that he can, he must sink ever deeper into the discern- ment of his own lack of a foundation ? After he has glanced into the Dionysian abyss beneath the forms, Apollo is no longer able to believe in his substantial rationality and his masculine self-control. His initial hope of being able to negotiate a compromise with the Dionysian in which he will be able to preserve himself unaltered is revealed as an illusion. Without fail, Apollo is swept into the undertow of the Dionysian dissolution of identity. It undermines for him the idea that the beautiful illusion of his own self, with its glistening ab- straction and its abundance of rational light, might in truth represent only an ob-
of the amorphously suffering god,
What does this all mean for the actor on the stage with his mask of the two
deities? To what extent does this illuminate for him the structure of his own sub- jectivity? What does it profit his experience of himself to appear on stage in this way? The thinking mime is, I believe, now able to recognize that he himself is not a "One," a Unified Subject, but rather a dual subject who dreams of
able to possess himself as ? This dual existence no longer has the amorphous quality of an unformulated yearning and the pretentious pathos of he who feels that he is pregnant with his own self. This dual existence defines itself within the context of a thinking ? fluctuation in reflection between the Apollonian and Dionysian dimensions of the mask. This uneasily repeated fluc- tuation establishes the pattern of thought for an all-penetrating critical ? A mechanism
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
transformed Nietzsche into a philosopher: the Apollonian in him sus- pected that he was at bottom only a Dionysian ? while the Diony- sian saw through himself with the penetrating clairvoyancy of one who is re- minded of his Apollonian castration. He feels like a mere civilized satyr, like a he-goat in place of a he-goat, who can no longer believe in himself because he must understand that his present self is only a substitute for his true self.
In this way, Nietzsche has set in motion an unprecedented intellectual psycho- drama. Through his audacious game with the double mask of the deities, he has made of himself a genius of self-knowledge as ? He has become a psychologist spontaneously ? has become the first philosopher to be a psy- chologist as philosopher; his antiquating role playing has set him on this path. Nietzsche always finds himself in a position in which he faces himself as a trans- parent phenomenon: he does not believe in himself as Dionysus because he has had to sacrifice his wild lower half to the Apollonian compromise. Conversely, he has just as little belief in himself as Apollo because he suspects himself of being merely a veil before the Dionysian. The self of the thinker on stage that is in search of itself oscillates, within the confines of a sensational reflexivity, back and forth between the frozen halves of his mask. He relinquishes himself to a circular process of total self-distrust, which in time will mount into a distrust of all "truths" and all ? which at the same time rises up in a despair-
? ? ? ? ? 32 ? THE PHILOLOGY OF EXISTENCE, THE DRAMATURGY OF FORCE
ing praise of the illusion of autonomy and the divine impenetrability of the phe- nomenal. Whatever position the ego may assume, whatever "representation" of itself it may choose to offer, it will perpetually sense that the other ? the dis- placed aspect, is lacking.
W ithin the framework of this ? confused fluctuation between the processes of masking and unmasking, Nietzsche's third face develops, with dramaturgical repercussions of the most impressive kind. It is the mask of Nietz- sche the ? the psychologist, the critic of knowledge, the thought dancer, the teacher of the affirmative pretense ? W ith this third face, Nietzsche begins to come dangerously close to his "Become who you dangerous because this mask, in its misleading optimism, could induce Narcissus to tumble into his own image. The danger that emanates from the image always strikes the person who passionately desires at his weakest ? fact that he would like to have ? reality" what he allows himself to have only in the
in the imaginary modus of ? Dionysus does not permit himself to possess, and whatever can be possessed is not Dionysus. Therefore, the greatest danger for Nietzsche lies in wanting to incarnate Dionysus so as to at least be able to take possession of him in his incarnate
On the basis of his theory of bipolar artistic forces, Nietzsche immediately emerges as a virtuoso in the art of an uneasy kind of ? that does not believe its own observations. It does not believe itself, not because it has re- nounced itself or because it would abet a "totalizing critique of reason," but rather because the self of this reflection is constituted in itself (an ? beschaf-
in such a way that that which could allow it to believe in itself must always elude it. Nietzsche's dramatic thought is in the process of discovering that it is absolutely impossible for ? and the sense of an experi- ence of unity that could lead to ? occur simultaneously. Whether as Apollo or as Dionysus, the named, identified, and masked subject is never permitted to believe that it has arrived at the foundation of its own identity. For as soon as it sees itself, this subject has already seen through itself as something wherein it cannot set its mind at ease because it is lacking the best part of itself, its Other.
Thus, Nietzsche's theatrical experience of self sets in motion a perfect system for Whatever might say " I " upon the stage will be a sym- bolicallyrepresented" I , "anApollonianartisticcreation,whichweholdout before us like a veil to protect ourselves from perishing of the complete
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Chapter 3
Cave or, Danger, Terrible Truth!
? Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself.
