VALUES REVALUED

(This entry about a rediscovery of old values by the proving process of their revaluation is a variation on the productive nostalgia theme, sounding as one of the leitmotifs throughout this book.)

Nietzsche’s “Revaluation of All Values” does not appear to me iconoclastic. On the contrary, it is, rather, an urgent wake-up call to all of us. In our iconoclastic New Age, an actual revaluation of values is very much in order, and in Nietzsche’s own words, “we must experience nihilism before we can find out what value these ‘values’ really had.” (Will to Power. Preface. #4.) I have to admit that those very old values have certainly failed us. The only way to save these so-called “old values” is to start looking for the “new values,” and--in the process--to rediscover the old ones anew.

My approach, suggested in outline in the short summary of the Lecture on International Justice, presupposes a revaluation of all values or terms which contain value judgments. Here is a perfect example of Nietzsche’s idea finding an unexpected elucidation, even though we are coming from quite different directions; even though his particular application of the idea in question differs in principle from mine. In fact, there is a close philosophical parallel here with the attainment of the Creative Child perspective both in Christianity and within Nietzsche’s own thinking (giving him of course the due credit for coming up with the incredibly powerful term Creative Child, that goes to the depth of concepts), all despite their seeming incompatibility. In other words, I repeat, values revalued are not necessarily new values, but most probably, the same old values, but now seen and appreciated in a new light.