Smallhouse Log

Valentine's Day
"The teams are boys versus girls, and I'm androgynous." -Cora, 02/02/2008

So I've been reading this book lately called Against Love (a Polemic) by a woman named Laura Kipnis. The thesis is basically "Adultery: don't fight it". She makes some good arguments about certain subtheses, but the book contains much that is repetitive and a fair bit of "look at me, I'm saying something outrageous, wah, wah, don't look over there" as an attempt to hide holes in the logic. But, hey, it's a polemic, it doesn't have to cover multiple facets of an issue. It's been tolerably enjoyable reading.

Until today. I'm almost done with Kipnis's book, but I'm also reading Nietsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Now, usually there's no problem when I read more than one book at once, but usually I'm only ever reading one non-fictional, essay/diatribe/treatise-type at most amongst a number of novels or epics. This is probably my first time trying to digest two ethical texts at once, and I've come across a problem: Nietsche, in about five paragraphs, neatly argued what Kipnis has spent about two hundred pages on. Well, the more worthwhile parts, anyway. So what now? How do I finish the last chapter of this book when I know that even after suffering a translation to English, Nietsche has probably said anything worth attending to better and faster that Kipnis will?

How irritating. I only hope I don't come across the same problem with Klosterman, since I plan to resume Fargo Rock City as soon as I finish (or give up on) this book.

And finally, I wish to assure any concerned parties that this subject was not chosen with the date in mind; it's just that I happened to read that passage of Zarathustra this afternoon. The quote, I must confess, was selected with knowledge of both occasion and subject. Couldn't resist.

Comments have closed.

Patrick responded within a day.

Nice. I tend not to read modern books so much because anything good in them is typically a more verbose, diffident version of Nietzsche or Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or one of their ilk.
gzt responded within 2 days.

More verbose than Tolstoy? Good gracious! But, yes, you're quite right, most moderns are shallow vitalists and nihilists who don't quite realize that 1867 just called and wants its stupid philosophy back. At least the ancients were smart enough to know they weren't being clever when they worshiped their own genitalia.
Patrick responded within 3 days.

Just to clarify, Geoff- I agree with you, except insofar as you seem to include nihilism in the category of genitalia-worship (or, more generally, pursuing an animal life). Nietzsche's biography quite contradicts that interpretation. His nihilism seeks to overthrow the tyranny of moral and rationalizing instincts, yes, but not in order to subject oneself to even lower ones. (He rates the aesthetic sense, rather, as that by which the highest human life can be navigated.)
gzt responded within 3 days.

Well, I would argue that Nietzsche is mis-classified as a nihilist; he would certainly object to being called one. It applies in a certain sense, but his oeuvre is largely a polemic against nihilists. He would likely not be included in the sense I meant, though he did die of syphilis.
Patrick responded within 4 days.

Well, he did originate the term "nihilism" for his philosophy, so I doubt he'd object to being called one. It's rather that a lot of shallower people have since called themselves the same. Also, we don't know that Nietzsche died of syphilis- some symptoms of his late madness resembled late-stage syphilis, but he was never diagnosed as such. (And even if he had had it, it's possible he contracted it in the business of being a nurse during the wars of German unification, when he also fell ill with diptheria and dysentery.) One can't know for certain that he was in fact a celibate, but there's no other indication to the contrary.
Patrick responded within 4 days.

Anyhow, it's absolutely clear he was living a hermit's life in general, not what one would call a life of dissipation.