The use and abuse of antiquity

(translated from my Chinese blog)

This is my new project, “Nietzschean Philology”. In each installment, I’ll read a passage from Nietzsche’s original writings. By practicing text analysis, we can enhance our ability to understand the world.

The reading of "We Philologists" continues. Section 25, as a comprehensive summary, highlights the central concern of Nietzsche's work: What educational value does classical philology or the study of antiquity hold for us? Not linguistic technique, not the mere imitation of lifestyles, nor the aesthetic display of novelty, the educational value of antiquity should be something far more serious, painful, and difficult.

Where do we see the effect of antiquity? Not in language, not in the imitation of something or other, and not in perversity and waywardness, to which uses the French have turned it. Our museums are gradually becoming filled up: I always experience a sensation of disgust when I see naked statues in the Greek style in the presence of this thoughtless philistinism which would fain devour everything.

"We Philologists" 25, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by J. M. Kennedy 

Section 25 is the final text of the year 1874 that Nietzsche left for the manuscript of "We Philologists." In 1875, Nietzsche started a new title "Plans and Thoughts Relating to a Work on Philology" and these manuscripts were compiled into Section 26 and subsequent paragraphs. Therefore, both in terms of writing time and editorial work, we have reasons to believe that Section 25 is a summary of the previous sections (21-25) or even of all the texts before it (1-25).

First, let's review what topics Nietzsche has discussed since Section 21.

21: Self is a multiplication of many pasts, but people often evade complex historical perspectives and historical responsibilities, entrusting values to external objects.

22: Freedom is to live for one's own sake, and it's incompatible with equality (refuting the view of labor freedom and negative freedom).

23: Three reasons why young people are unsuitable for the study of philology (trivial perspective, moral arrogance, limited experience).

24: Taking Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Wagner as examples, it is proposed that what is needed for philology is a sense of wholeness.

These sections may seem disjointed, but there is one thread that runs through them all: "What should we learn from history?" - complexity, the ancient Greek concept of freedom, the harshness of the ancient world, the holistic view of the ancients. This is a natural extension of the question posed in sections 17-20, namely "What qualities should a philologist possess?" The reader may recall that at the beginning of this series, I mentioned that when writing this book, around 1874, Nietzsche was most concerned with two topics: philology and education. The problematique of these last sections is closely related to these two topics: what educational value can philology/classics have for us.

Back to the text, the first sentence of the last section means exactly this:

Where do we see the effect of antiquity?

The utility referred to here is not economic convertibility, not political utility (such as providing legitimacy for a regime), nor anything like "cultivating one's moral character" or "elegant literary style" (Nietzsche would be the first to refute such possibilities, "not in language"), but should instead refer to education. Furthermore, this education should not be a "compulsory education" for the entire population or "general education" for the masses, but rather "elite education" for the one percent who are willing to "live for their own sake" (although here, "elite" is not defined by background, wealth, power, or status, but rather by vitality).

As a concluding paragraph, we expect Nietzsche to give us a straightforward answer, directly informing us of the educational value of literature. However, Nietzsche does not directly address this question. This could be because he felt he was too young at the time to answer it, or perhaps he was playing with rhetoric, deliberately hiding the correct answer in his mind. In either case, we can only start from the possibility he explicitly negated, that the educational value of the ancients could not be:

"Not in language": From the most basic literacy to ancient philology, etymology, and phonology, Nietzsche excludes all of these. Literacy aims at oral and textual communication, and the best textbooks are naturally contemporary languages and writings rather than ancient ones; as for specialized ancient studies, becoming an expert in a certain field, providing informational increments to the academic community, these are certainly useful, but they are just stepping stones, "ant-like work." What Nietzsche refers to as education is not at the level of facts or information, but at the level of values.

"Not in the imitation of something or other": using ancient times as a cultural example, requiring children to recite the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic, restoring the interpersonal norms of the Three Rules and Five Constant Virtues, or the most superficial imitation in clothing, music, and language, etc. These poor imitations are all superficial, because modern people can never be part of ancient social life, can never understand the hierarchical meaning of rites and music, the Three Rules and Five Constant Virtues (on the contrary, one of modern people's strongest demands is equality), so these imitations end up being just curiosities, with no educational effect.

"Not in perversity and waywardness, to which uses the French have turned it": This is more complex. Nietzsche's three negations are progressive. Firstly, the simplest is to use classical philology as a matter of fact or technique, which is the first level; but the facts and techniques of the ancients are not educational because the ancients were a way of life as a whole, and one must learn the "spirit" of the ancients rather than analyze their surface phenomena. Thinking about this, we can easily enter the second level of error, which is to start imitating all aspects of the ancients' way of life. This is the neoclassicism that swept through the 19th century, which believed that the ancient Greeks pursuit of the geometric beauty of simplicity, proportion, and harmony was the highest way of life. Therefore, in painting, they restored famous scenes from ancient Greece and Rome, strict composition, and morally emphasized the heroic spirit (i.e. "The Oath of the Horatii"). In architecture, they imitated ancient Greek temples and Roman forums (i.e. the British Museum). In literature, it imitates ancient Greek tragedy, often uses Latin and epic structures. This approach had the grandeur of a classical republican passion for the revolution in the early 19th century, but by the latter half of the 19th century, during Nietzsche's active period, it gradually ossified into a formulaic existence.

The Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David

If simplicity in recreating the past results in stiff and formulaic writing, then take a more radical approach to restore the appearance of the ancients, imagining and reconstructing a world vastly different from the modern one. Let your imagination run wild, the more unique the better, and try not to let modern cultural tendencies influence this reconstruction process. Another motivation is that as the initial enthusiasm for the classics fades, neoclassicism gradually becomes a purely aesthetic pursuit. The more emphasis is placed on aesthetics and taste, the more enthusiastic the French, especially the Parisians, become. As a result, the need for aesthetic novelty gradually turns the initial worship of antiquity into an overly ornate aesthetic grotesque. This is the third level of error. For example, Ingres's "The Grand Odalisque," which appears very classical at first glance, actually subtly elongates the figure's body to achieve a stronger aesthetic effect, while transforming the goddess-like sacred dignity into the soft sensuality of a concubine. In other words, the worship of proportional beauty and the underlying metaphysical beliefs (the geometric structure of the universe) have disappeared. Classicism has become a mere display of skill, a purely aesthetic style, and an aesthetic space for pure imaginations. The French neoclassicism indeed overcame the rigidity and strictness of the early neoclassicism, but in its place came the "perversity and waywardness" without any principles. The solemnity and integrity unique to the ancient times have also disappeared. Translated into value discourse: French neoclassicism has indeed successfully discarded modern values, yet with no new values for replacement, it turns into French nihilism.

Grande Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

After these three layers of error, Nietzsche adds:

Our museums are gradually becoming filled up: I always experience a sensation of disgust when I see naked statues in the Greek style in the presence of this thoughtless philistinism which would fain devour everything.

I believe Nietzsche was discussing the overall social motivation behind these three layers of errors: consumerism. Firstly, the division of labor, especially the specialization of the intellectual class, is the root cause of the gradual empirical and technical development of philology and the entire field of ancient studies. In this context, ancient studies have acquired the most basic factual and technical value. With philology as a niche market (both an idea market and a cultural market) continues to develop, people no longer satisfy themselves with merely consuming ancient languages and texts, but begin to yearn for a lifestyle reminiscent of the past, leading to the emergence of neoclassicism. As this rigid and strict style of market gradually becomes saturated, both from the supply side (the boredom of creators) and the demand side (the satiety of consumers) there is a search for more unique and "flavorful" classical culture, resulting in the rise of French classicism.

However, if one is to criticize consumerism, why choose a museum as the target rather than a department store? Wouldn't the mass-produced prints and vintage furniture in department stores be more persuasive? This only demonstrates one thing: the true enemy in Nietzsche's mind is not consumerism but populism. The cultural goods in department stores still have a consumption threshold, belonging to the lifestyle of the petite bourgeoisie; but museums are open to all the people, truly without a threshold, and the most symbolic of cultural populism.

The educational value of the ancients cannot and should not be aimed at the general public, both because the values contained in the ancients are inherently unequal and elitist, and because only a very small number of people have the ability to enter the symbolic world of the ancients and benefit from it. This ability is to perceive the value beliefs of the ancients through the insights of facts and techniques, to transcend the simple imitation of the ancient way of life, and to live out the ancient values in the modern world (pursuing excellence, adventurousness, belligerence, and no retreat), and to overcome aesthetic complacency and kitsch mentality, and to learn to treat aesthetics and life with the most serious attitude. This is an educational goal that no museum can achieve.

Anyone who hopes to learn something from Nietzsche might do well to use his last sentence as a criterion: go to any museum of our age and ask yourself: do I feel disgusted? What makes me feel disgusted? How disgusted? The extent to which modern philistinism disgusts a person is generally a measure of how out of place a person is in their age, how much they are at odds with their surroundings, and how much motivation they have to "live for their own sake."