us in order to in turn protect us from having
the
There can be no doubt here: wearing the mask of the theoretician of knowl- edge, Nietzsche has made an unprecedented appearance on the stage of philoso- phy.
the
There can be no doubt here: wearing the mask of the theoretician of knowl- edge, Nietzsche has made an unprecedented appearance on the stage of philoso- phy.
Sloterdijk - Thinker on Stage
34 ?
CAVE CANEM
what, in leaving, he had not wanted to recognize and endure: the unendurable Only along the way does it become apparent how little of what the traveler has driven out of himself really allows itself to be shaken off. The more passion- ate his searching flight, the more vehement his realization of that which cannot be gotten rid ? Only the search that despairs of its own passion can arrive at the decisive point at which the search itself becomes as unbearable as what set it in motion. At this point, the agony of the search reaches its crisis point when it gains insight into the unattainability of what is being sought. The searcher must burn out ? when he senses that nothing will save him from himself. He is extinguished in the dilemma of having to choose between the unbearable and
the ? Only in the fire of disillusionment can the last remaining illusions be burned away. W ith the departure of what is being sought, the search itself be- comes the ? and the path flows with a tragic bend into the pain from which it was initially able to turn away. Partir, ? ? ? ? is how ? paths begin. But arriver, c'est mourir
The self-knowledge (Selbsterkenntnis) entrusted to the path of experience therefore, the structure of a negative circle in that it returns to its beginnings -- that is, to its pain and its ? ? the gradual repulsion of disillusioned ideas and the burning away of the images of happiness it had sought. This is, incidentally, completely different from the positive circle of narcissistic reflec-
within which a seemingly material spirit loses itself and then rediscovers that identical self in order to perform, in the happy end, dances of jubilation around the golden idol of
I call this remarkably negative structure of self-knowledge the psychonautical Nietzsche's theatrical adventure into the theory of knowledge is intrinsi- cally implicated in it. His personal and philosophical fate depends to a great extent, I believe, on whether he can complete the task of burning away images and whether his search for self can be successfully completed within the context of a beneficial negativity and lack of ? The risk involved in any such uncontrolled search is extraordinary; it can easily happen that the searcher becomes caught up halfway in a vision of his own ego, because of which he will announce, having been duped and enraptured, that this vision is what he has been Homo. Only a crisis will then reveal whether the seeker will plunge himself into a reflection in order to perish of its ? or whether he will still have a chance to turn away from the mirror in order to assume respon- sibility for his life as a discovery that is void of ? But Nietzsche's drama is still far from arriving at this crisis point. He is still in the process of expanding the stage for his great play, exposing its antiquated foundation and properly de- termining what masks the actors will wear. Let us look at what else Nietzsche had
in mind for his Hellenistic, psychodramatic stage!
Contrary to what might be expected, what appears there the inter- mezzo of his contemporary critique, the Untimely not a classi-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 35
? masked hero, not a Wagnerian tenor who has been transplanted into antiq- and not a hero who has been transposed into modernity from the family of Oedipus, Siegfried, Heracles, and Prometheus. What we observe here is a figure who cannot be foreseen, who hardly seems to exist in a believable relationship to the tragic stage. What is produced there on the stage is a sort of theorizing Le- porello, a freethinker and on-stage enlightener, who reminds us of the philoso- pher figures on the stages of the eighteenth ? the Figaro in the works
of perhaps, and even more of Don Alfonso in Mozart's ? fan who, in his modish cynicism, has already mistaken the truth for a woman and woman for a synthesis of the bottomless cask and the thing " i n itself" (an
sich).
In the third trope of his ? Nietzsche reveals himself prima facie to be on paths that are ? As I have already indicated, a critical activity that seems far removed from the mythological performances of the first scene results from his experience of himself within the ? du- ality. Nietzsche now appears behind the mask of the philosophical specialist in abysses ? known as womanizers as the illusionless grand seigneur to whom nothing inhuman or human is ? He speaks maliciously and with bravura of the lies told by the great men and of the abysses of the lesser ones; he presents himself
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
as a virtuoso of cultural-critical distrust. He poses as a libertine underminer of idealistic values and as a positivist psychologist who, out of boredom with his own depth, makes fun of lending out to the British a dose of platitudes and to the French a prize for their infamous worldliness. Has Nietzsche thus completely turned his back on his classical and Wagnerian inspirations? The truth of the matter is that he acknowledged the Apollonian energy of resistance more openly in the psychocritical writing of his middle period. It is as if the ra- tionalist in him were resisting subversion by the forces of
In order to appreciate the dramatic context of Nietzsche's ? however, one must first see lurking behind this third mask, which is negativistic and im- posed by Apollo, a fourth ? mask of Dionysian prophecy. This is Za- rathustra, drawn up to his full height, who will resound across the stage as the heroic tenor of immoralism, a subject his psychologizing precursor had only hinted at aphoristically, jeeringly, and in a miniaturizing way as an intellectual chamber play It must therefore be understood that the masks of the third and fourth orders the Gay Scientist, there the prophet of immo- essentially only the unfoldings of the Apollonian and Diony- sian double ? from behind which Nietzsche's literary appearance had
The antagonism between the two artistic impulses within the soul thus remains every bit as valid as their relationship as ? the distinction that Nietzsche is now setting in motion what he initially presented within the context of a static symmetry and frozen dialectic. W ithin his process of thought, the po- larity between the extremes begins to swing out of balance ? ? all
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 1
? ? 36 CAVE
Apollonian attempts at establishing control notwithstanding ? because of this oscillation, the Dionysian, which had been at first exhibited only as a dominated and silenced power, gains in latitude.
This is all just another way of expressing how closely this Nietzsche of the middle ? one of the Gay Science and the great dismantling of values -- is connected to the later Nietzsche, the one of the prophetic dithyrambs. The free- thinking, "cynical" underminer of all existing values ? Apollo who has turned ? ? remains the closest accomplice of Zarathustra, the Dionysus who has turned immoral. The all-penetrating psychologist of the stage performs, in his exercises in the critique of knowledge, the recitative to which Zarathustra's proclamation of self provides the aria.
In the thematic arrangement of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche had already es- tablished the prerequisites for his next step forward. In the reciprocal distrust of both deities lay the philosophical dynamite of the future: the age of ideas was drawing to a close, while the age of energies' was announced. Radical doubt no longer leads ? is the case in Descartes ? to an unshakable foundation in the certainty of thought, but instead to a fireworks display of incredible reflection and a free play of doubting power. Doubt can no longer be assuaged in the cer- tainty of ideas.
Nietzsche forges ahead unchecked on the trail ? Spur) of insights and hunches. He discovers while under way through the psychonautical circle that a labor of negation ? be necessary that is as painful as it is invigorating. His gods experience a twilight from which they will never ? adoration vacillates, the brightly colored paper wrappings fall away from the ideals, leav- ing them naked and deserving only of laughter. Wagner becomes questionable to a degree from which he will not recover; Schopenhauer has retreated far into the background. Classical philology becomes completely nauseating, and the values of the new German present evoke only antipathy and ? period of willful self-deception through the idea of a greatness of this sort has come irre- vocably to an end. The exemplary seeker takes it upon himself to destroy, piece by piece, the value system, the world of images, the pantheon of the noblest goals under whose authority his exodus was set in ? Nietzsche commented on this in retrospect:
It is a war, but a war without powder and smoke, without bellicose attitudes, without pathos and dislocated ? would all itself still be "idealism. " One error after the other is put on ice, the ideal is not
freezes to death ? ? ? Here, for instance, the idea of "genius" freezes; around the corner, the "saint" freezes. The "hero" is freezing beneath a thick icicle, and finally "belief" freezes, so-called conviction, even compassion cools down significantly
everywhere, the thing in itself [das Ding an ? is freezing to
? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 37
words could better express what it means to enter the phase of an active dis- illusionment. And yet Nietzsche's reflection remains too alert to settle down into a comfortable attitude of triumphal ? The problem that will prove essen- tial has already emerged on the horizon: if ideals collapse, what becomes of the force that has motivated these ideals? After one is no longer able to deceive
self, the question remains: what becomes of the impulse that has allowed one to deceive and lie to oneself? Nietzsche's thought advances to a level that corre- sponds to that of a thermodynamics of illusion; it orients itself, as it were, to a "principle [Satz] of the maintenance of illusion-creating ? The idols col- lapse, and yet the idolatrizing force remains
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
constant; ideals perish in the cold, and yet the fire of idealism continues to wander about, objectless and passion- ately desiring. The period of self-deception has ended, without the reservoirs from which the lies were supplied having been exhausted.
With this turning point, Nietzsche has begun to grow into a thinker whose thought will have incalculable long-range effects. Now we can understand why, when compared to Nietzsche's critique, all other forms of a critique of ideology seem short-winded and reveal themselves to be almost scandalously in want of a self-critical alertness. His realism thinks, as it were, a whole epoch ahead of itself. In his play with the masks of the deities of antiquity, he has already begun to gaze into the abyss of a self-doubt that cannot be assuaged, from which arose the phenomenon of the fundamental untenability of reflexive ? What he gained from this is as disturbing as it is ? insight into the exis- tential inevitability of the lie. One can imagine what would become of philoso- phy if this conjectured insight were to prove true! To a much greater extent, one is not able to imagine it!
The compulsion to lie has its base in the nature of truth ? the young Nietzsche presumes to define it with the unabashed confessional willingness of the unbroken genius, as well as with the relaxed receptivity of a man who con- siders it a distinction to be a student of an important intellect, Schopenhauer. But what is this truth, part of whose fundamental nature it is to make us lie? Nietz- sche says it plainly: the truth lies in primordial pain (Urschmerz), which has im- posed the fact of individuation on each life. Using the expression "primordial pain" in the singular is in any case paradoxical, since there are as many centers of primordial pain as there are individuals. To be condemned to individuality is the most painful of all pains; as regards human subjects it is at the same time the truest of all truths. If, however, "truth" means primordial pain for the individual who has been "thrown" into being (ins Dasein ? then it is in its specific nature to signify insufferability for us. We are therefore able to want not to rec- ognize it at all ? if we do surmise anything at all of it in its immediateness, we do so only because the veil of pretense and representation that usually con-
? ? ? ? ? 38 CAVE
it has been opportunely pulled understand more than will do us good.
so that ? racked with suddenly
? ? ? ? ? This would mean that the known forms of the "search for truth,"
those of the philosophers, the metaphysicians, and the religious are, in reality, only organized lies that have become respectable and institutionalized attempts escape that have disguised themselves behind the diligent mask of the desire for knowledge. What had previously pretended to be a path toward truth was in re- ality a single thrust away from it, a thrust away from what was unbearable
to the provisory tolerability of comfort, security, edification, and transcendent worlds. After Nietzsche, it is almost impossible to overlook the fact that most previous philosophy was nothing more than an ontological whitewashing. With its whole pathos of loyalty to the truth, it committed an act of betrayal -- as nec- essary as it was ? the unbearable truth, to the benefit of a meta- physical optimism and those fantasies of redemption that project themselves into the beyond.
If, however, truth is not something that can be be ? and if any search for it is defined in advance as terrifying, intellectual candor finds itself in a position it had not expected to be ? Truth no longer reveals ? it reveals itself at
the seeker and the researcher, who actually want to elude it, but instead to him who exhibits the deliberateness and courage required to not seek it. To be sure, how he exhibits these qualities of courage and deliberateness remains his secret, and it is certainly conceivable that enough will always remain from the search for truth as is necessary for the search for deliberateness and courage, without which a nonseeking consciousness could not develop. He who does not seek the truth must believe himself capable of enduring it. A l l problems of truth are therefore ultimately confluent with the question of how to endure what is unendurable. Perhaps this is why there are ultimately no techniques for finding truth in the existential sense; in the labyrinth, one looks not for secure knowledge but for the way out.
One may not therefore dismiss Nietzsche's entreaties of heroism, and tragic wisdom as mere manifestations of pompous and the man- nerisms of masculinity, regardless of the extent to which the latter do in fact play into his ? Courage is necessary within Nietzsche's enlightenment, prima- rily for taking part in the phenomena of truth ? because, for him, it is no longer a matter of a game of hide-and-seek, but one of experimen- tation and constancy, which remains, if possible, in the vicinity of the terrible truth. For this reason (according to Nietzsche), anyone who wants to speak of truth without using quotation marks would have to first prove himself as a non- seeker, a nonescapist, a nonmetaphysician.
With the acknowledgment of primordial pain as the basis of all other bases, Nietzsche's early thought places itself under a tragic, theatrical, and psycholog- ical sign (Zeichen). If truth means the unendurable, then knowledge of truth ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 39
cannot be abruptly defined as enduring the ? It is that which is unen- durable itself that forces us, incircumstantially, to
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
maintain an unwavering dis- tance from it. Accordingly, the truth about the terrible truth is this: we must always have just missed it, and, furthermore, we will never be able to have the sincere volition ? to recognize it in its relentless presence ? For we are able to want only what we can still endure. According to Nietzsche, knowledge of the truth therefore also means always having been placed at a pro- tective distance from what is unbearable.
is the key word in the new tragic theory of knowledge, after which the old optimistic theory of the desire for unity was at an end. Philoso- phers, seekers, and dreamers might therefore continue to speak of identity and unity, but the thinkers of the future, the psychologists, know better. Their the- matic is that of distance, duality, difference. He who knows about distance has made the optics of a philosophical psychology his own. The psychologist also knows that he is enduring just as little of the whole truth as anyone else, but through this knowledge he gains a point of orientation toward which the general theater of self-deception and liar's play of life can be referred. The psychologist is well aware that everything is merely theater: through his personal union with the tragic theoretician of knowledge, he also knows, however, that it would make no sense to want to close this theater in the name of truth. Indeed, the terrible truth is the mother of theater. In accordance with its nature, we maintain an ir- revocable distance from it, a distance that so radically determines our everyday existence in the world that, even with the staunchest will to truth, we are not at liberty to distance ourselves from this condition of distance. As a rule, it is im- possible to survive the final dissolution of the distance that exists between us and the unimaginable reality of the terrible truth. Nietzsche's phrase "W e have art in order not to die of the truth" can also be read in this way: we maintain a distance from truth so that we will not have to experience it directly. To speak ontologi-
old ?
us in order to in turn protect us from having
the
There can be no doubt here: wearing the mask of the theoretician of knowl- edge, Nietzsche has made an unprecedented appearance on the stage of philoso- phy. Do we now understand that this was no longer ? and never was? Do we recognize how something new and unbounded has taken shape within this philosophical project ? ? something new as pertains to truth as the oldest liar, whose wealth of discoveries is not exhausted as long as life itself attends to anything unbearable that might want to save itself in the liar's theater of inven- tions and research along the brink of the unbearable? Do we appreciate what ram- ifications the idea of distance will have? If it is indeed valid, then our position truth (independent of all our conceits of seeking and finding) must be one of an unavoidable evasiveness and a distance from which we cannot distance ourselves. If the terrible truth always keeps us at a distance, we are no longer able ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 40 CAVE
ever simply to "grasp" it. Whatever we may say about it, it is no longer actually j there in what is being said. We can therefore no longer succumb to the illusion that a condition of living without illusions is possible for ? We are condemned to simulation by truth itself. For us, illusion would be the most appropriate way to conduct ourselves toward the terrible ? We would grasp the truth only in that we have already eluded it as far as possible.
All of this will bring forth unimaginable ? since the possibility of our ever fully expressing the truth henceforth becomes a chimera. The terrible truth does indeed precede all ? but this preexistence does not mean that the former could be "expressed" or represented in the latter in the way in which the idea is expressed in the symbol or the object in the sign ? The ter- rible truth is in everything we express and represent, but it is no longer present; it is not this terrible truth that guarantees the truth-value of individual assertions. This could be formulated as follows: from this point on, any assertion remains, as it were, alone. Representations have been abandoned by what they allegedly rep-
truth ? must rely on themselves without the sanction of the final authority. The "whole truth" no longer plays along; it is no longer there in its supposed representations. Thus the signs remain unto themselves ? on nothing but their own internal relationships, their own system, their own gram- mar, their own "world. "
With this, the catastrophe of signs that have been abandoned by the "whole" truth is initiated, a catastrophe that is bitter, but also stimulating. The first char- acter to carry out the prospects and the risks involved in the ambivalent disaster across the stage in an affirmative way will be called ? It is no coinci- dence that this herald of ? is at the same time a rediscoverer of pro- phetic ? Thus Spoke Zarathustra ? in my ? an
the possibility of theater after the end of the "representation" of truth on stage, an experiment that has not been thought out to its conclusion to this day. It is the first hypothesis on the possibility of an absolute play in the form of unprotected pure self-expression; it is the incarnation of the transition from plays that repre- sent to those that present, and an exercise in the semantics of
that is, in speaking in the ? "truth. " Zarathustra's manipulation of language (Wortergreifung) is like a sound that has been transcribed into a linguis- tic music that, in its notes, carries out a fervent revenge on everything that could hinder the resounding of his voice. It ? so to speak, a nihilism that has become music, or a melody that has become immoralism; it would no longer permit any court in the world to either allow or forbid its ringing out and, relying only
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
on the small autonomy of its real sounding, will submit itself to no foreign or external standard. Zarathustra's song is the daring self-staging of the Dionysian release from restraints ? that bursts forth on the stage as the unprotected self- affirmation of a language. That Nietzsche also disguises himself as the An- tichrist and presents himself as someone who will save us from morality
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE EM
embodiment of ? the lies we have ? be seen in this light, not as the expression of an extravagant overestimation of self, but as part of a stringent logic that governs a new understanding of art and truth. ? to be al- lowed to show, in a self- affirming way, what he is or what he wants to be, the frenetic and unprotected representer of self must overthrow what was previously known as culture ? entire system of altruistic and dualistic values with its poi- sonous cargo of restraints, ? and self-negating impulses.
Interpretation is unavoidable here; if what Nietzsche says about the truth is right, there would then be two terrible, which drives us along ahead of it by dint of its unendurability, and one which surrounds us as necessary illusion and as life-enhancing benefactor. As something that is necessary, this i l - lusion (Schein) has retained a strange ontological dignity and imperviousness -- it also retains an ultimate transparency toward bad things that are unimaginable, but is not absorbed into this transparency. The "illusion" therefore cannot be reduced to truth, and there is no longer in any way, as there has been throughout the entire tradition of metaphysics, the "illusion" of a ? even now, what is unbearable in the world precedes the bearable illusion. For all that, it does not impair the self-will of what is bearable. The illusion subsequently be- comes autonomous and necessary a ? What more would it need to flour- ish?
Only now does the impact upon philosophy of what had come into the world in the form of The Birth of Tragedy become apparent. Anyone who might not have deciphered it from Nietzsche's awkward and precocious expositions on the composition of the chorus would ultimately have it forced upon him by the sub- sequent development of the motif. For what the ancient ? self-en- tranced mass of sound that no longer represents Dionysus, but is
wanted to indicate is expressed directly and affirmatively in Nietzsche's aesthet- ic-metaphysical work, and especially in the presentation of ? wit, to hell with deeper meanings! To hell with higher truths! Let's call a halt to the
of the preexistence of meaning with respect to its ? Long live the signified Long live noise and smoke! Long live the sound and the image! Long live the illusion of the autonomous symbol, the absolute dramatic
truths, abysses, ? must tend to themselves from now on. We no longer concern ourselves with them, because everything we are meant to concern ourselves with must be illusion: endurability, perspicuity, conceivability
image, sound, body, stimulation, contiguity, demeanor, taste. It is enough to open one's eyes. Where are the unbearable truths? In this in- a life-dispensing distance separates us from them, and if we look directly ahead of us and lend an attentive ear to the present, we will see and hear the present illusion in its relative endurability. We will be able to do this to an even greater extent if art should occur in our presence, if choruses sing or if
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 42 CAVE
Zarathustra allows his word-music to resound: "From out of an never-ending abundance of light and depth of happiness it falls, drop for drop and word for tender languor is the tempo of this speech. " What blossoms forth here is an intermediate world of sounds and surfaces, not merely bearable but actually inspiring, whose presence conceals the abyss of the terrible truth. It is only a matter of dwelling on the interplay of signs and sensualities and of not sinking into trying to imagine something that is ? theoreticians and those who are absentminded do unremittingly. If, as it seems, the principal truth of primor- dial pain itself brings about a world of bearable secondary truths, we can hold on to the latter as long as we are able to succeed in not thinking about " i t , " and do not break out of cheerful observation into ? Accordingly, we may nei- ther remember primordial pain abstractly nor anticipate its return imaginatively. Whatever was, and will be again, must take care of itself in its own good time. But he who seeks to get a grasp on neither the pain of birth nor that of death and thus lets the matter of the unbearable and the unimaginable drop ? can dis- cover before him, with no further ado, an intermediate world made up of sensual
presences. The average human destiny is fulfilled in ? only in this between or intermediate world (Nietzsche uses this expression in The Birth of Tragedy for the Olympian sphere). And yet, in this intermediate world, the pe- nultimate is perceived as the ultimate, and the tentative as the conclusive. It exists because man engages in the ephemeral as if it were the permanent. The blossom of the intermediate world is art, which in rare instances can ascend to the level of the ? a type of art that itself is the highest form of philosophy. Within it, the illusion of the illusion has become reflexive, and betrays itself, at a dizzying height, as a happy lie and as the most genuine deception. Nothing comes closer to the truth than whenever the beautiful places itself as a fragile, endurable thing before the foundation of the unbearable. " I f philosophy is art
then, to paraphrase Heidegger, it is the art of existing in an endurable way, of being exempted from the
Thus, the idea of scrutinizing oneself in the process of the play of aesthetics becomes one of the points of junction in
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
Nietzsche's philosophical perception. The phenomenon of art as the living manifestation of lying, image-creating, in- ventive energy offers an enticing opportunity for the ? of a life that is compelled to seek. For it may be that individuals with a deep wound and a great sense of compulsion, even though there is no chance of their occupying a defined form of self-existence and finding comfort in a specific mask, are still free to experience themselves within the context of their own aesthetic efforts and to say to ? At least in that which I can reveal of myself as an artist I can leave behind my own truth, the truth of myself, even if it might soon be superseded and ? I no longer need to have any doubt, at least in what the course taken by the storm of the production of myself has exposed of me, and even if it were true that I, like all individuated life, am only a plunge from the
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 43
unbearable into the unbearable, here, at this point in the course of the plunge, I am enduring myself as best I can. I am with myself, and I no longer have to skeptically undermine the fact of my being real as a knowing mask. Fingo ergo There is thus still so much invested in the most unstable self-production that it has placed itself in the world once and for all as a fragment of a real illusion. Through it, the aesthetic subject gains, through the vortex of self-doubt, its
_and perhaps only -- foretaste of an irreducible existence that is superior to any penetration. There is something there; it can see itself and it can be seen. It can even, semiempirically in its own defense, accept itself and validate itself. The world could collapse without any doubt having to arise in what pure self- perception called to the artist at the instance of his expenditure: This is what I
? ? ? ? That happened to
of much use as a work of
be ephemeral, but my
participation in an artistic phenomenon.
I was necessary in achieving this ? It may not be whatever speaks in it spoke through ? I may is negated in what became real through my
? ? Whatever Nietzsche addresses, the movement of his self-awareness is bound to the tracer path (Leuchtspur) of his great literary publications. In that it is actually he who objectifies himself, mask for mask, he begins to exert upon himself a powerful allure of ? ? if he wanted to persuade himself to finally declare himself found. After all, what ultimately looked back at him from the mirror was no longer a short-winded philologist or an intellectually dependent devotee of Schopenhauer and Wagner, but the image of a man who believed that he had reason to look upon himself as a genius and a philosophizing
The author of The Gay Science, the poet of ? the first psychologist of his time, the reassessor of all values; what Nietzsche had before him as his ob- jectified self was in reality nothing ? Yet what is it that seduces him into plunging into his own image, like Narcissus, in order to drown in himself?
There can be no doubt that the daring presenter of himself also had a chance, even at the dangerous heights at which his performance of self was enacted, to withdraw from his masks and let them remain as ephemeral countenances, that
as transitory incarnations of a ? No search is programmed a priori as flight from pain into ? the thinking actor understands his own play as a play and sufficiently draws on the commitment of life to what can be endured. In this way he could carry his "psychonautical circle" to its conclu- and burn the last deadly phantoms of the divine incarnation behind him. Actually, in his post-Zarathustrian period (whenever his compulsion to suffer gave way), Nietzsche sometimes comes very close to an amorphous tranquil-
least until the images finally deluge and devastate him.
With this, our dramaturgical meditation on ? metamorphoses comes to a critical point. Which "mask" would be left for the thinker on the stage after
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 44 CAVE
he played himself out to the very limit of what could be incarnated in the tortu- ously sublime figure of Zarathustra? Where would he ? the gestures of a post- playfulness? How would he elevate his impossible prophetic
exhibition through a fifth masking, and make the attempt to incarnate listically in Dionysus something he could survive? Is not a denial the only thing that remains after a theatrical explosion of this kind, whether it be in the form of a retreat into madness, a resignation into silence, or a metamorphosis into the wise fool? Nietzsche captured with his characteristic precision his experience of the self in the difficult position of a Zarathustra who has left the stage without having a new role:
Except for these ten days of work [a reference to the enthusiastic days spent in writing Zarathustra -- the years during and above all after Zarathustra were a disaster without One pays dearly for the privilege of being immortal; one dies many times during one's own lifetime to make up for it. There is something I call the "rancor" of greatness: everything great, whether a work or a deed, turns, once it has been accomplished, against him who has accomplished it. Precisely
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
because of the fact that he has accomplished it, he is now can no longer endure his own accomplishment, he can no longer look it in the face. To have something behind one that one never could have wanted, something that will be bound up in the fate of
now have it upon ? ? It almost crushes one to death the rancor of greatness! (KSA 6, pp.
Is not the plot of the drama also laid open here? This unhappy compulsion to see behind what he himself is doing? This incessant doubling of the self into what is
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? spontaneous and what is remembered? This despairing
to take possession of himself as the incarnation of the ? grandiose of self-
attempt
? representations?
what, in leaving, he had not wanted to recognize and endure: the unendurable Only along the way does it become apparent how little of what the traveler has driven out of himself really allows itself to be shaken off. The more passion- ate his searching flight, the more vehement his realization of that which cannot be gotten rid ? Only the search that despairs of its own passion can arrive at the decisive point at which the search itself becomes as unbearable as what set it in motion. At this point, the agony of the search reaches its crisis point when it gains insight into the unattainability of what is being sought. The searcher must burn out ? when he senses that nothing will save him from himself. He is extinguished in the dilemma of having to choose between the unbearable and
the ? Only in the fire of disillusionment can the last remaining illusions be burned away. W ith the departure of what is being sought, the search itself be- comes the ? and the path flows with a tragic bend into the pain from which it was initially able to turn away. Partir, ? ? ? ? is how ? paths begin. But arriver, c'est mourir
The self-knowledge (Selbsterkenntnis) entrusted to the path of experience therefore, the structure of a negative circle in that it returns to its beginnings -- that is, to its pain and its ? ? the gradual repulsion of disillusioned ideas and the burning away of the images of happiness it had sought. This is, incidentally, completely different from the positive circle of narcissistic reflec-
within which a seemingly material spirit loses itself and then rediscovers that identical self in order to perform, in the happy end, dances of jubilation around the golden idol of
I call this remarkably negative structure of self-knowledge the psychonautical Nietzsche's theatrical adventure into the theory of knowledge is intrinsi- cally implicated in it. His personal and philosophical fate depends to a great extent, I believe, on whether he can complete the task of burning away images and whether his search for self can be successfully completed within the context of a beneficial negativity and lack of ? The risk involved in any such uncontrolled search is extraordinary; it can easily happen that the searcher becomes caught up halfway in a vision of his own ego, because of which he will announce, having been duped and enraptured, that this vision is what he has been Homo. Only a crisis will then reveal whether the seeker will plunge himself into a reflection in order to perish of its ? or whether he will still have a chance to turn away from the mirror in order to assume respon- sibility for his life as a discovery that is void of ? But Nietzsche's drama is still far from arriving at this crisis point. He is still in the process of expanding the stage for his great play, exposing its antiquated foundation and properly de- termining what masks the actors will wear. Let us look at what else Nietzsche had
in mind for his Hellenistic, psychodramatic stage!
Contrary to what might be expected, what appears there the inter- mezzo of his contemporary critique, the Untimely not a classi-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 35
? masked hero, not a Wagnerian tenor who has been transplanted into antiq- and not a hero who has been transposed into modernity from the family of Oedipus, Siegfried, Heracles, and Prometheus. What we observe here is a figure who cannot be foreseen, who hardly seems to exist in a believable relationship to the tragic stage. What is produced there on the stage is a sort of theorizing Le- porello, a freethinker and on-stage enlightener, who reminds us of the philoso- pher figures on the stages of the eighteenth ? the Figaro in the works
of perhaps, and even more of Don Alfonso in Mozart's ? fan who, in his modish cynicism, has already mistaken the truth for a woman and woman for a synthesis of the bottomless cask and the thing " i n itself" (an
sich).
In the third trope of his ? Nietzsche reveals himself prima facie to be on paths that are ? As I have already indicated, a critical activity that seems far removed from the mythological performances of the first scene results from his experience of himself within the ? du- ality. Nietzsche now appears behind the mask of the philosophical specialist in abysses ? known as womanizers as the illusionless grand seigneur to whom nothing inhuman or human is ? He speaks maliciously and with bravura of the lies told by the great men and of the abysses of the lesser ones; he presents himself
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
as a virtuoso of cultural-critical distrust. He poses as a libertine underminer of idealistic values and as a positivist psychologist who, out of boredom with his own depth, makes fun of lending out to the British a dose of platitudes and to the French a prize for their infamous worldliness. Has Nietzsche thus completely turned his back on his classical and Wagnerian inspirations? The truth of the matter is that he acknowledged the Apollonian energy of resistance more openly in the psychocritical writing of his middle period. It is as if the ra- tionalist in him were resisting subversion by the forces of
In order to appreciate the dramatic context of Nietzsche's ? however, one must first see lurking behind this third mask, which is negativistic and im- posed by Apollo, a fourth ? mask of Dionysian prophecy. This is Za- rathustra, drawn up to his full height, who will resound across the stage as the heroic tenor of immoralism, a subject his psychologizing precursor had only hinted at aphoristically, jeeringly, and in a miniaturizing way as an intellectual chamber play It must therefore be understood that the masks of the third and fourth orders the Gay Scientist, there the prophet of immo- essentially only the unfoldings of the Apollonian and Diony- sian double ? from behind which Nietzsche's literary appearance had
The antagonism between the two artistic impulses within the soul thus remains every bit as valid as their relationship as ? the distinction that Nietzsche is now setting in motion what he initially presented within the context of a static symmetry and frozen dialectic. W ithin his process of thought, the po- larity between the extremes begins to swing out of balance ? ? all
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 1
? ? 36 CAVE
Apollonian attempts at establishing control notwithstanding ? because of this oscillation, the Dionysian, which had been at first exhibited only as a dominated and silenced power, gains in latitude.
This is all just another way of expressing how closely this Nietzsche of the middle ? one of the Gay Science and the great dismantling of values -- is connected to the later Nietzsche, the one of the prophetic dithyrambs. The free- thinking, "cynical" underminer of all existing values ? Apollo who has turned ? ? remains the closest accomplice of Zarathustra, the Dionysus who has turned immoral. The all-penetrating psychologist of the stage performs, in his exercises in the critique of knowledge, the recitative to which Zarathustra's proclamation of self provides the aria.
In the thematic arrangement of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche had already es- tablished the prerequisites for his next step forward. In the reciprocal distrust of both deities lay the philosophical dynamite of the future: the age of ideas was drawing to a close, while the age of energies' was announced. Radical doubt no longer leads ? is the case in Descartes ? to an unshakable foundation in the certainty of thought, but instead to a fireworks display of incredible reflection and a free play of doubting power. Doubt can no longer be assuaged in the cer- tainty of ideas.
Nietzsche forges ahead unchecked on the trail ? Spur) of insights and hunches. He discovers while under way through the psychonautical circle that a labor of negation ? be necessary that is as painful as it is invigorating. His gods experience a twilight from which they will never ? adoration vacillates, the brightly colored paper wrappings fall away from the ideals, leav- ing them naked and deserving only of laughter. Wagner becomes questionable to a degree from which he will not recover; Schopenhauer has retreated far into the background. Classical philology becomes completely nauseating, and the values of the new German present evoke only antipathy and ? period of willful self-deception through the idea of a greatness of this sort has come irre- vocably to an end. The exemplary seeker takes it upon himself to destroy, piece by piece, the value system, the world of images, the pantheon of the noblest goals under whose authority his exodus was set in ? Nietzsche commented on this in retrospect:
It is a war, but a war without powder and smoke, without bellicose attitudes, without pathos and dislocated ? would all itself still be "idealism. " One error after the other is put on ice, the ideal is not
freezes to death ? ? ? Here, for instance, the idea of "genius" freezes; around the corner, the "saint" freezes. The "hero" is freezing beneath a thick icicle, and finally "belief" freezes, so-called conviction, even compassion cools down significantly
everywhere, the thing in itself [das Ding an ? is freezing to
? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 37
words could better express what it means to enter the phase of an active dis- illusionment. And yet Nietzsche's reflection remains too alert to settle down into a comfortable attitude of triumphal ? The problem that will prove essen- tial has already emerged on the horizon: if ideals collapse, what becomes of the force that has motivated these ideals? After one is no longer able to deceive
self, the question remains: what becomes of the impulse that has allowed one to deceive and lie to oneself? Nietzsche's thought advances to a level that corre- sponds to that of a thermodynamics of illusion; it orients itself, as it were, to a "principle [Satz] of the maintenance of illusion-creating ? The idols col- lapse, and yet the idolatrizing force remains
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
constant; ideals perish in the cold, and yet the fire of idealism continues to wander about, objectless and passion- ately desiring. The period of self-deception has ended, without the reservoirs from which the lies were supplied having been exhausted.
With this turning point, Nietzsche has begun to grow into a thinker whose thought will have incalculable long-range effects. Now we can understand why, when compared to Nietzsche's critique, all other forms of a critique of ideology seem short-winded and reveal themselves to be almost scandalously in want of a self-critical alertness. His realism thinks, as it were, a whole epoch ahead of itself. In his play with the masks of the deities of antiquity, he has already begun to gaze into the abyss of a self-doubt that cannot be assuaged, from which arose the phenomenon of the fundamental untenability of reflexive ? What he gained from this is as disturbing as it is ? insight into the exis- tential inevitability of the lie. One can imagine what would become of philoso- phy if this conjectured insight were to prove true! To a much greater extent, one is not able to imagine it!
The compulsion to lie has its base in the nature of truth ? the young Nietzsche presumes to define it with the unabashed confessional willingness of the unbroken genius, as well as with the relaxed receptivity of a man who con- siders it a distinction to be a student of an important intellect, Schopenhauer. But what is this truth, part of whose fundamental nature it is to make us lie? Nietz- sche says it plainly: the truth lies in primordial pain (Urschmerz), which has im- posed the fact of individuation on each life. Using the expression "primordial pain" in the singular is in any case paradoxical, since there are as many centers of primordial pain as there are individuals. To be condemned to individuality is the most painful of all pains; as regards human subjects it is at the same time the truest of all truths. If, however, "truth" means primordial pain for the individual who has been "thrown" into being (ins Dasein ? then it is in its specific nature to signify insufferability for us. We are therefore able to want not to rec- ognize it at all ? if we do surmise anything at all of it in its immediateness, we do so only because the veil of pretense and representation that usually con-
? ? ? ? ? 38 CAVE
it has been opportunely pulled understand more than will do us good.
so that ? racked with suddenly
? ? ? ? ? This would mean that the known forms of the "search for truth,"
those of the philosophers, the metaphysicians, and the religious are, in reality, only organized lies that have become respectable and institutionalized attempts escape that have disguised themselves behind the diligent mask of the desire for knowledge. What had previously pretended to be a path toward truth was in re- ality a single thrust away from it, a thrust away from what was unbearable
to the provisory tolerability of comfort, security, edification, and transcendent worlds. After Nietzsche, it is almost impossible to overlook the fact that most previous philosophy was nothing more than an ontological whitewashing. With its whole pathos of loyalty to the truth, it committed an act of betrayal -- as nec- essary as it was ? the unbearable truth, to the benefit of a meta- physical optimism and those fantasies of redemption that project themselves into the beyond.
If, however, truth is not something that can be be ? and if any search for it is defined in advance as terrifying, intellectual candor finds itself in a position it had not expected to be ? Truth no longer reveals ? it reveals itself at
the seeker and the researcher, who actually want to elude it, but instead to him who exhibits the deliberateness and courage required to not seek it. To be sure, how he exhibits these qualities of courage and deliberateness remains his secret, and it is certainly conceivable that enough will always remain from the search for truth as is necessary for the search for deliberateness and courage, without which a nonseeking consciousness could not develop. He who does not seek the truth must believe himself capable of enduring it. A l l problems of truth are therefore ultimately confluent with the question of how to endure what is unendurable. Perhaps this is why there are ultimately no techniques for finding truth in the existential sense; in the labyrinth, one looks not for secure knowledge but for the way out.
One may not therefore dismiss Nietzsche's entreaties of heroism, and tragic wisdom as mere manifestations of pompous and the man- nerisms of masculinity, regardless of the extent to which the latter do in fact play into his ? Courage is necessary within Nietzsche's enlightenment, prima- rily for taking part in the phenomena of truth ? because, for him, it is no longer a matter of a game of hide-and-seek, but one of experimen- tation and constancy, which remains, if possible, in the vicinity of the terrible truth. For this reason (according to Nietzsche), anyone who wants to speak of truth without using quotation marks would have to first prove himself as a non- seeker, a nonescapist, a nonmetaphysician.
With the acknowledgment of primordial pain as the basis of all other bases, Nietzsche's early thought places itself under a tragic, theatrical, and psycholog- ical sign (Zeichen). If truth means the unendurable, then knowledge of truth ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 39
cannot be abruptly defined as enduring the ? It is that which is unen- durable itself that forces us, incircumstantially, to
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
maintain an unwavering dis- tance from it. Accordingly, the truth about the terrible truth is this: we must always have just missed it, and, furthermore, we will never be able to have the sincere volition ? to recognize it in its relentless presence ? For we are able to want only what we can still endure. According to Nietzsche, knowledge of the truth therefore also means always having been placed at a pro- tective distance from what is unbearable.
is the key word in the new tragic theory of knowledge, after which the old optimistic theory of the desire for unity was at an end. Philoso- phers, seekers, and dreamers might therefore continue to speak of identity and unity, but the thinkers of the future, the psychologists, know better. Their the- matic is that of distance, duality, difference. He who knows about distance has made the optics of a philosophical psychology his own. The psychologist also knows that he is enduring just as little of the whole truth as anyone else, but through this knowledge he gains a point of orientation toward which the general theater of self-deception and liar's play of life can be referred. The psychologist is well aware that everything is merely theater: through his personal union with the tragic theoretician of knowledge, he also knows, however, that it would make no sense to want to close this theater in the name of truth. Indeed, the terrible truth is the mother of theater. In accordance with its nature, we maintain an ir- revocable distance from it, a distance that so radically determines our everyday existence in the world that, even with the staunchest will to truth, we are not at liberty to distance ourselves from this condition of distance. As a rule, it is im- possible to survive the final dissolution of the distance that exists between us and the unimaginable reality of the terrible truth. Nietzsche's phrase "W e have art in order not to die of the truth" can also be read in this way: we maintain a distance from truth so that we will not have to experience it directly. To speak ontologi-
old ?
us in order to in turn protect us from having
the
There can be no doubt here: wearing the mask of the theoretician of knowl- edge, Nietzsche has made an unprecedented appearance on the stage of philoso- phy. Do we now understand that this was no longer ? and never was? Do we recognize how something new and unbounded has taken shape within this philosophical project ? ? something new as pertains to truth as the oldest liar, whose wealth of discoveries is not exhausted as long as life itself attends to anything unbearable that might want to save itself in the liar's theater of inven- tions and research along the brink of the unbearable? Do we appreciate what ram- ifications the idea of distance will have? If it is indeed valid, then our position truth (independent of all our conceits of seeking and finding) must be one of an unavoidable evasiveness and a distance from which we cannot distance ourselves. If the terrible truth always keeps us at a distance, we are no longer able ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 40 CAVE
ever simply to "grasp" it. Whatever we may say about it, it is no longer actually j there in what is being said. We can therefore no longer succumb to the illusion that a condition of living without illusions is possible for ? We are condemned to simulation by truth itself. For us, illusion would be the most appropriate way to conduct ourselves toward the terrible ? We would grasp the truth only in that we have already eluded it as far as possible.
All of this will bring forth unimaginable ? since the possibility of our ever fully expressing the truth henceforth becomes a chimera. The terrible truth does indeed precede all ? but this preexistence does not mean that the former could be "expressed" or represented in the latter in the way in which the idea is expressed in the symbol or the object in the sign ? The ter- rible truth is in everything we express and represent, but it is no longer present; it is not this terrible truth that guarantees the truth-value of individual assertions. This could be formulated as follows: from this point on, any assertion remains, as it were, alone. Representations have been abandoned by what they allegedly rep-
truth ? must rely on themselves without the sanction of the final authority. The "whole truth" no longer plays along; it is no longer there in its supposed representations. Thus the signs remain unto themselves ? on nothing but their own internal relationships, their own system, their own gram- mar, their own "world. "
With this, the catastrophe of signs that have been abandoned by the "whole" truth is initiated, a catastrophe that is bitter, but also stimulating. The first char- acter to carry out the prospects and the risks involved in the ambivalent disaster across the stage in an affirmative way will be called ? It is no coinci- dence that this herald of ? is at the same time a rediscoverer of pro- phetic ? Thus Spoke Zarathustra ? in my ? an
the possibility of theater after the end of the "representation" of truth on stage, an experiment that has not been thought out to its conclusion to this day. It is the first hypothesis on the possibility of an absolute play in the form of unprotected pure self-expression; it is the incarnation of the transition from plays that repre- sent to those that present, and an exercise in the semantics of
that is, in speaking in the ? "truth. " Zarathustra's manipulation of language (Wortergreifung) is like a sound that has been transcribed into a linguis- tic music that, in its notes, carries out a fervent revenge on everything that could hinder the resounding of his voice. It ? so to speak, a nihilism that has become music, or a melody that has become immoralism; it would no longer permit any court in the world to either allow or forbid its ringing out and, relying only
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
on the small autonomy of its real sounding, will submit itself to no foreign or external standard. Zarathustra's song is the daring self-staging of the Dionysian release from restraints ? that bursts forth on the stage as the unprotected self- affirmation of a language. That Nietzsche also disguises himself as the An- tichrist and presents himself as someone who will save us from morality
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE EM
embodiment of ? the lies we have ? be seen in this light, not as the expression of an extravagant overestimation of self, but as part of a stringent logic that governs a new understanding of art and truth. ? to be al- lowed to show, in a self- affirming way, what he is or what he wants to be, the frenetic and unprotected representer of self must overthrow what was previously known as culture ? entire system of altruistic and dualistic values with its poi- sonous cargo of restraints, ? and self-negating impulses.
Interpretation is unavoidable here; if what Nietzsche says about the truth is right, there would then be two terrible, which drives us along ahead of it by dint of its unendurability, and one which surrounds us as necessary illusion and as life-enhancing benefactor. As something that is necessary, this i l - lusion (Schein) has retained a strange ontological dignity and imperviousness -- it also retains an ultimate transparency toward bad things that are unimaginable, but is not absorbed into this transparency. The "illusion" therefore cannot be reduced to truth, and there is no longer in any way, as there has been throughout the entire tradition of metaphysics, the "illusion" of a ? even now, what is unbearable in the world precedes the bearable illusion. For all that, it does not impair the self-will of what is bearable. The illusion subsequently be- comes autonomous and necessary a ? What more would it need to flour- ish?
Only now does the impact upon philosophy of what had come into the world in the form of The Birth of Tragedy become apparent. Anyone who might not have deciphered it from Nietzsche's awkward and precocious expositions on the composition of the chorus would ultimately have it forced upon him by the sub- sequent development of the motif. For what the ancient ? self-en- tranced mass of sound that no longer represents Dionysus, but is
wanted to indicate is expressed directly and affirmatively in Nietzsche's aesthet- ic-metaphysical work, and especially in the presentation of ? wit, to hell with deeper meanings! To hell with higher truths! Let's call a halt to the
of the preexistence of meaning with respect to its ? Long live the signified Long live noise and smoke! Long live the sound and the image! Long live the illusion of the autonomous symbol, the absolute dramatic
truths, abysses, ? must tend to themselves from now on. We no longer concern ourselves with them, because everything we are meant to concern ourselves with must be illusion: endurability, perspicuity, conceivability
image, sound, body, stimulation, contiguity, demeanor, taste. It is enough to open one's eyes. Where are the unbearable truths? In this in- a life-dispensing distance separates us from them, and if we look directly ahead of us and lend an attentive ear to the present, we will see and hear the present illusion in its relative endurability. We will be able to do this to an even greater extent if art should occur in our presence, if choruses sing or if
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 42 CAVE
Zarathustra allows his word-music to resound: "From out of an never-ending abundance of light and depth of happiness it falls, drop for drop and word for tender languor is the tempo of this speech. " What blossoms forth here is an intermediate world of sounds and surfaces, not merely bearable but actually inspiring, whose presence conceals the abyss of the terrible truth. It is only a matter of dwelling on the interplay of signs and sensualities and of not sinking into trying to imagine something that is ? theoreticians and those who are absentminded do unremittingly. If, as it seems, the principal truth of primor- dial pain itself brings about a world of bearable secondary truths, we can hold on to the latter as long as we are able to succeed in not thinking about " i t , " and do not break out of cheerful observation into ? Accordingly, we may nei- ther remember primordial pain abstractly nor anticipate its return imaginatively. Whatever was, and will be again, must take care of itself in its own good time. But he who seeks to get a grasp on neither the pain of birth nor that of death and thus lets the matter of the unbearable and the unimaginable drop ? can dis- cover before him, with no further ado, an intermediate world made up of sensual
presences. The average human destiny is fulfilled in ? only in this between or intermediate world (Nietzsche uses this expression in The Birth of Tragedy for the Olympian sphere). And yet, in this intermediate world, the pe- nultimate is perceived as the ultimate, and the tentative as the conclusive. It exists because man engages in the ephemeral as if it were the permanent. The blossom of the intermediate world is art, which in rare instances can ascend to the level of the ? a type of art that itself is the highest form of philosophy. Within it, the illusion of the illusion has become reflexive, and betrays itself, at a dizzying height, as a happy lie and as the most genuine deception. Nothing comes closer to the truth than whenever the beautiful places itself as a fragile, endurable thing before the foundation of the unbearable. " I f philosophy is art
then, to paraphrase Heidegger, it is the art of existing in an endurable way, of being exempted from the
Thus, the idea of scrutinizing oneself in the process of the play of aesthetics becomes one of the points of junction in
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
Nietzsche's philosophical perception. The phenomenon of art as the living manifestation of lying, image-creating, in- ventive energy offers an enticing opportunity for the ? of a life that is compelled to seek. For it may be that individuals with a deep wound and a great sense of compulsion, even though there is no chance of their occupying a defined form of self-existence and finding comfort in a specific mask, are still free to experience themselves within the context of their own aesthetic efforts and to say to ? At least in that which I can reveal of myself as an artist I can leave behind my own truth, the truth of myself, even if it might soon be superseded and ? I no longer need to have any doubt, at least in what the course taken by the storm of the production of myself has exposed of me, and even if it were true that I, like all individuated life, am only a plunge from the
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? CAVE 43
unbearable into the unbearable, here, at this point in the course of the plunge, I am enduring myself as best I can. I am with myself, and I no longer have to skeptically undermine the fact of my being real as a knowing mask. Fingo ergo There is thus still so much invested in the most unstable self-production that it has placed itself in the world once and for all as a fragment of a real illusion. Through it, the aesthetic subject gains, through the vortex of self-doubt, its
_and perhaps only -- foretaste of an irreducible existence that is superior to any penetration. There is something there; it can see itself and it can be seen. It can even, semiempirically in its own defense, accept itself and validate itself. The world could collapse without any doubt having to arise in what pure self- perception called to the artist at the instance of his expenditure: This is what I
? ? ? ? That happened to
of much use as a work of
be ephemeral, but my
participation in an artistic phenomenon.
I was necessary in achieving this ? It may not be whatever speaks in it spoke through ? I may is negated in what became real through my
? ? Whatever Nietzsche addresses, the movement of his self-awareness is bound to the tracer path (Leuchtspur) of his great literary publications. In that it is actually he who objectifies himself, mask for mask, he begins to exert upon himself a powerful allure of ? ? if he wanted to persuade himself to finally declare himself found. After all, what ultimately looked back at him from the mirror was no longer a short-winded philologist or an intellectually dependent devotee of Schopenhauer and Wagner, but the image of a man who believed that he had reason to look upon himself as a genius and a philosophizing
The author of The Gay Science, the poet of ? the first psychologist of his time, the reassessor of all values; what Nietzsche had before him as his ob- jectified self was in reality nothing ? Yet what is it that seduces him into plunging into his own image, like Narcissus, in order to drown in himself?
There can be no doubt that the daring presenter of himself also had a chance, even at the dangerous heights at which his performance of self was enacted, to withdraw from his masks and let them remain as ephemeral countenances, that
as transitory incarnations of a ? No search is programmed a priori as flight from pain into ? the thinking actor understands his own play as a play and sufficiently draws on the commitment of life to what can be endured. In this way he could carry his "psychonautical circle" to its conclu- and burn the last deadly phantoms of the divine incarnation behind him. Actually, in his post-Zarathustrian period (whenever his compulsion to suffer gave way), Nietzsche sometimes comes very close to an amorphous tranquil-
least until the images finally deluge and devastate him.
With this, our dramaturgical meditation on ? metamorphoses comes to a critical point. Which "mask" would be left for the thinker on the stage after
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 44 CAVE
he played himself out to the very limit of what could be incarnated in the tortu- ously sublime figure of Zarathustra? Where would he ? the gestures of a post- playfulness? How would he elevate his impossible prophetic
exhibition through a fifth masking, and make the attempt to incarnate listically in Dionysus something he could survive? Is not a denial the only thing that remains after a theatrical explosion of this kind, whether it be in the form of a retreat into madness, a resignation into silence, or a metamorphosis into the wise fool? Nietzsche captured with his characteristic precision his experience of the self in the difficult position of a Zarathustra who has left the stage without having a new role:
Except for these ten days of work [a reference to the enthusiastic days spent in writing Zarathustra -- the years during and above all after Zarathustra were a disaster without One pays dearly for the privilege of being immortal; one dies many times during one's own lifetime to make up for it. There is something I call the "rancor" of greatness: everything great, whether a work or a deed, turns, once it has been accomplished, against him who has accomplished it. Precisely
Peter-Sloterdijk-Thinker-on-Stage. txt[3/29/23, 1:19:20 AM]
because of the fact that he has accomplished it, he is now can no longer endure his own accomplishment, he can no longer look it in the face. To have something behind one that one never could have wanted, something that will be bound up in the fate of
now have it upon ? ? It almost crushes one to death the rancor of greatness! (KSA 6, pp.
Is not the plot of the drama also laid open here? This unhappy compulsion to see behind what he himself is doing? This incessant doubling of the self into what is
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? spontaneous and what is remembered? This despairing
to take possession of himself as the incarnation of the ? grandiose of self-
attempt
? representations?
