THE HERO AND THE SAINT. PART I OF 3.

[Is this entry about Nietzsche, or about Schopenhauer, or maybe... about Harry Potter? Rather than explaining myself as to why this is so obviously a Nietzsche entry, I will simply lay my claim under the authority of the writer of this piece, that this is merely my comment on Nietzsche’s Jenseits 47. No more argument (with myself) is allowed in this matter!]

The Hero and the Saint, where is the line drawn? What exactly is the relationship, in public consciousness, between the images of a hero and a saint. Where is the line drawn on the general idea of an exceptional personality? There may be yet a vague suspicion, a whiff of insight, that two complete opposites, driven to their respective extremes, have more in common with each other than with their less exceptional likes, and that they might even become indistinguishable. In this case, the denial of the will by the saint and the affirmation of the will by Nietzsche’s superman, aren’t they both two exceptional twins of the hero mold, both embraced, both feared, both admired, both, maybe, the same man?

Here is another Nietzschean well, to draw our thirst-quencher from, Jenseits 47. He starts it with an incisive description of what he calls a religious neurosis. Before we start reading it, I wish to interpose a question of my own, for consideration: by the same token as we speak of a religious neurosis, can we equally talk in the same terms about a heroic neurosis? Let the reader be alert to this possibility of interpretation, as he, or she, reads the opening paragraph of Jenseits 47:

“Wherever on earth the religious neurosis has appeared, we find it tied to three dangerous dietary demands: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence. But one cannot decide with certainty what is cause and what effect, and whether any relation of cause and effect is involved here. The final doubt seems justified, as among its most regular symptoms, among both savage and tame peoples, we also find the most sudden, extravagant voluptuousness, which, then, just as suddenly, changes into a penitential spasm and denial of the world and will, both perhaps to be interpreted as masked epilepsy? But nowhere should one resist interpretation more than here: no older type has yet been surrounded by such lavish growth of nonsense and superstition, and no other type seems to have interested men,-- even philosophers,-- more. The time has come for becoming a bit cold right here, to learn caution,-- better yet: to look away, to go away.”

The last suggestion is of course sheer nonsense poetry. Just as Nietzsche has made things interesting for us by his irreverent emulation of Toto tugging at the Wizard’s drawn curtain, he is telling us… “to look away, to go away”! No, we shall do no such thing. Let us force the curtain open!

To be continued…