Towards a Genealogy of an Image: Nietzsche's Achievement According to Nietzsche

ADRIAN DEL CARO Towards a Genealogy of an Image: Nietzsche's Achievement According to Nietzsche In Ecce homo Nietzsche used four questionable chapter headings: 'Why I Am So Wise,' 'Why I Am So Clever,' 'Why I Write Such Good Books' and, to close his strangest work, "Why I Am a Destiny.'l It is convenient to dismiss these statements and Nietzsche's latest works in general with the charge of megalomania, and this has been done throughout the history of Nietzsche scholarship. But to dismiss Ecce homo is to err by omission, because the work represents something so Nietzschean, so fundamentally characteristic ofhis fame and influence, that he did not shrink from calling attention to himself in this semantically charged juxtaposition. Ecce homo, i.e. 'behold the man' as uttered by Pilate in allusion to the flogged Jesus, means behold the man Nietzsche, or behold the nihilistic man, or behold the man of the twentieth century - it does not mean behold Jesus. As for the chapter headings ofthis seemingly offensive book, they too have their genesis in the Bible, notably Isaiah 5:20-1, where the warning is found: 'Woe to those who call evil good and good evil ... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight!'2 That Nietzsche was himself guilty of all these transgressions is clear. In paragraph one of the foreword to Ecce homo, Nietzsche explained that he has become convinced, by the autumn of 1888, that so far as scholarship is concerned, he did not exist. Therefore he cried out: 'Listen to me! for Iam so and so. Above all do not mistake me for another!'3 This is part of the problem connected with Nietzsche's own image-building and his philosophy; it is true that he remained virtually unknown after the publication of fifteen works, so that his propagandist statements in his own behalf can be understood on the 'all-too-human' level. But it is also the case that Nietzsche's new philosophy constitutes a radical reappraisal of two traditions which are related: first the break with Christianity, then the break with scholarly tradition. Nietzsche's brand of philosophy, which encompasses the transvaluation of all values, the overman, the eternal recurrence of the same, the death of God, and the will to power, is similar to a new teaching, a new view of man's place, and as any good student of Christianity knows, someone must spread the news. Since Nietzsche did not have a College of Propaganda to enlighten the people, and since those disciples who would follow him were primarily children of his imagination, he spread the word about Nietzsche himself.4 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3, SPRING 1985 NIETZSCHE 235 The logical objection at this point is that Nietzsche did not want disciples, that Zarathustra's transvaluation of Matthew 10:24, 32 speaks against faith and against his own propaganda, for Zarathustra explains to his disciples: 'One repays a teacher poorly if one remains ever the disciple ... Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you all have denied me, will I return to yoU.'5 Indeed, this is the Nietzsche whom most commentators appreciate, i.e. the existentialist philosopher who denies the existence of the 'right way,' who exhorts the individual to stand in an independent, authentic relationship with living. Walt Whitman expressed himself very similarly in his 'Song of Myself' and with equal success. Often overlooked is another passage found in Zarathustra which is every bit as lucid. This is found under the heading 'On Reading and Writing': 'Of all that is written I love only that which is written in blood. Write with blood: and you will learn that blood is spirit ... Whoever knows the reader will do nothing more for the reader. One more century of readers - and the spirit itself will stink ... Whoever writes in blood and maxims, he does not wish to be read, but to be learned by heart.,6 To reflect on this passage, with its disdain for bloodless intellectualism, for casual reading, is to open the portal to an understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy as...