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Eight. The Natal Self
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Eight the natal Self SigRiDuR thoRgEiRSDottiR the natal Self and the other Nietzsche’s depiction of human encounters as birth and his discussion of the natal self are the basis for an idea of an embodied self that is in a continuous process of emerging. Nietzsche reflects on what it means to be a natal being, which we can achieve primarily through our creative capacities in a way that he suggests is in tune with the emergent character of life itself. His philosophy of birth is meant to underscore how life offers itself to us as a source of possibilities rather than promoting denial of earthly life, as he thinks has been the case in philosophies of mortality in our tradition. Nietzsche’s famous saying that one is always an other accounts for otherness within the embodied subject.1 He yearned for “an ever new widening of distances within the soul itself, the development of ever higher, rarer, more remote, further-stretching, more comprehensive states,”as he wrote in Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche 1966: 201 [257]). Being two is the minimal and irreducible difference within the same (Zupancic 2003). The individual is a composite of different wills that mutually interpret and modify each other (KSA 12, 104).2 He thus showed how the subject is a constant process of becoming by trying out different possibilities. Nietzsche’s writings on how relationality is constitutive of the subject yield a dynamic idea of the self in terms of giving and taking, proximity and distance, recognition and disrespect, friendship and animosity, forgiveness and revenge. Such an idea of the relational self opposes a strict division between self and other, subject and object, mind and body. These reflections stand in contrast to the solipsistic idea of the self and a one-sided model of dominance in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The struggles with relationality and with the solipsistic individual that these reflections display are the point of departure for the interpretations of Nietzsche’s conception of birth by both early and more recent women psychoanalytical thinkers. For Hannah Arendt natality exemplifies the very plurality and difference that makes life and political culture thrive. This is in accord with Nietzsche’s view that dif- the natal Self 187 ference is a precondition for transfiguring encounters. If partners or adversaries were “equal” in every respect they would be unable to challenge each other in a significant way.There has to be a struggle of forces that can change and alter the other. That is a precondition for growth and the avoidance of stagnation.Some kind of asymmetry is necessary if a relation is to be fruitful and transforming. Esteem for the other must therefore be based on respect for the alterity of the other (but Nietzsche also advocates being selective about opponents). The teacher-student relationship is of great interest to Nietzsche. He focuses on the ability of the teacher to help the student to recognize his or her unique strength.3 In his texts he at times also enters into dialogue with his readers, pondering different aspects of the relationship between reader and writer. He describes the relationship between the partners in a good dialogue as a maieutic relationship, such that one of them looks for a midwife for his thoughts, the other for someone who can be assisted (Nietzsche 1966: 88 [136]). Encounter and Birth The emphasis on otherness in Nietzsche’s conception of birth coincides with his notion of justice, at least in one sense. “‘Men are not equal!’—So speaks—justice,”he writes (KSA 10, 58).4 Here he warns against a notion of equality that he fears consists in an undermining of differences. For there to be justice differences must be accounted for as people are not identical. So Nietzsche rejects the moral-political ideal of equality, not the least with regard to the sexes, insofar as it consists in an “increase in similarity,” as he writes in Twilight of the Idols (Nietzsche 1976b: 540, “Skirmishes of an Untimely Man”[37]). In opposition to this he calls for a morality of“actions of many colors,”and a celebration of a multiplicity of types (Nietzsche 1966: 146 [215]). The encounter with otherness is for him fruitful if it yields a productive tension or antagonism that leads to a mutual interpretation of wills, in which wills, as representatives of meanings and opinions, transfigure each other. The encounter thus produces new and unique meanings and contributes to plurality. It is this idea of encounter...