Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche

Rating:
Summary: Difficult, maybe preposterous, with few comic triumphs
Review: The first thing that I am likely to notice about a book is whether it has an index. This book has no index. I have the 1991 English translation by Gillian C. Gill of Luce Irigaray's book MARINE LOVER OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE in paperback, and between pages 75 and 119, the only indication at the top of the page to show what this part is about are the words, "Veiled Lips." This is not too surprising for a book that seems to be mainly about the attractions of Nietzsche's ideas because it builds on a section of SPURS / NIETZSCHE'S STYLES by Jacques Derrida called `Veils' in which truth is compared to woman as "Nietzsche revives that barely allegorical figure (of woman) in his own interest. For him, truth is like a woman. It resembles the veiled movement of feminine modesty. Their complicity, the complicity (rather than the unity) between woman, life, seduction, modesty--all the veiled and veiling effects . . ." (SPURS, p. 51).

Fortunately, there is an index in WOMANIZING NIETZSCHE / PHILOSOPHY'S RELATION TO THE FEMININE by Kelly Oliver, and "Veiled Lips" even appears in her index, for a discussion of this book in a chapter on Jacques Derrida (3 The Question of Appropriation). Kelly Oliver suggests, "Irigaray's criticism could be seen as a lesson in psychoanalytic theory." (Womanizing Nietzsche, p. 81). The theory here is not as interesting to me as the possibility of gaining a woman's perspective on a point at which philosophy seems to be close to humor, if modern comedy is recognized in the playful manner in which Derrida explains the great question "Supposing truth to be a woman--what?" found at the opening of Nietzsche's BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. His translation gains clarity by emphasizing a term of contempt: ". . . all philosophers, when they have been dogmatists, have had little understanding of women . . . [and] the gruesome earnestness, the clumsy importunity with which they have been in the habit of approaching truth have been inept and improper means (ungeschickte und unschickliche Mittel) for winning a wench (Frauenzimmer is a term of contempt: an easy woman)?" (SPURS, p. 55).

Do I need to be forgiven for such a rude interruption? By emphasizing the comic aspects of modern society, I often make myself feel that I am interrupting people who have far more serious concerns. This could be a good time for appreciating the earnest efforts of a woman to meet Nietzsche halfway on ideas which he chose, as Luce Irigaray attempts to do in MARINE LOVER OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. The section `Veiled Lips' opens with a few paragraphs containing words that might be found in joking about which lips are meant: "if not its accessories and its underside. And the opposite remains caught up in the same. . . . With a flip of the coin," (p. 77). She knew what Nietzsche's laughter was: "And you laughed at having been so blindly trusting. And burned as you reclaimed the flames once devoted to their cult." (p. 53). I have not usually been too concerned with the interpretation which might be placed upon Nietzsche by typical modern scholarship, such as it is, but the problem of the education of women looms large in trying to understand what moderns might consider the worst things he wrote.

Nietzsche had excelled in school in studies of the ancient Greeks, and he was made a professor at the age of 24 in 1869 so he could teach Greek ideas to boys in an educational system that was primarily about dead European males. His first book, THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, praised the Greeks as surviving from one culture to another:

"And so one feels ashamed and afraid in the presence of the Greeks, unless one prizes truth above all things and dares acknowledge even this truth: that the Greeks, as charioteers, hold in their hands the reins of our own and every other culture, but that almost always chariot and horses are of inferior quality and not up to the glory of their leaders, who consider it sport to run such a team into an abyss which they themselves clear with the leap of Achilles." (BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, section 15, Kaufmann translation, p. 94).

Taking such a long view of things hardly helps the modern student who is looking for something useful, but this book is not likely to find readers for whom it accomplishes much. Women having equal access to such an education could hardly fail to make their own proclamations about what might be worth knowing, and the chaos of modern society gets boosted for diversity in the process, but my personal theme of praising the hemlock which Athens granted Socrates as a sentence for engaging in philosophy is not too wild to be found in this book, even where it is not stated explicitly. "What are you unable to abandon? What place are you unwilling to leave? What weight always holds you back at the same point? The will to live or to die? . . . Because to receive, without swallowing up what has been given to you . . ." (p. 42).

"Socrates desiring death, and achieving it thanks to a drink given to him by the citizens, signifies his allegiance to the Dionysiac. It is by this means that he will take away its power. . . . the death `for a laugh' of the philosopher whose potion is the logos." (p. 98).

I probably left out the best parts (for everybody but me), but by cherrypicking a few themes and some indication of who might consider this book important, some people might get the idea that guys aren't likely to do great in the humanities anyway, so why try?

Rating:
Summary: Irigaray tries hard but misses her mark
Review: Unfortunately for feminists, the mythology and set of symbols commonly recognized by feminists as "universal" do not apply in a large part with anything Nietzsche writes. Granted, Nietzsche does address similar subjects of discourse as include such symbols, but he doesn't utilize his symbology the way feminists have decided he does. Furthermore, Irigaray intentionally confuses Nietzsche with Man In General, and thus loses site of Nietzsche as individual, with individual experiences and opinions concerning Woman In General and separately the individual women he loved. The worst part of Irigaray's failed attempt to respond or understand Nietzsche is when she declares *evil* his inability to find greater good in the happiness of others as opposed to his own individual goals! Has she never read Thus Spoke Zarathustra? Has she no idea what this cult of the ego is all about? Humanism is outdated. Nietzsche was probably the first individualist, and she just doesn't get it.

Rating:
Summary: Irigaray tries hard but misses her mark
Review: Unfortunately for feminists, the mythology and set of symbols commonly recognized by feminists as "universal" do not apply in a large part with anything Nietzsche writes. Granted, Nietzsche does address similar subjects of discourse as include such symbols, but he doesn't utilize his symbology the way feminists have decided he does. Furthermore, Irigaray intentionally confuses Nietzsche with Man In General, and thus loses site of Nietzsche as individual, with individual experiences and opinions concerning Woman In General and separately the individual women he loved. The worst part of Irigaray's failed attempt to respond or understand Nietzsche is when she declares *evil* his inability to find greater good in the happiness of others as opposed to his own individual goals! Has she never read Thus Spoke Zarathustra? Has she no idea what this cult of the ego is all about? Humanism is outdated. Nietzsche was probably the first individualist, and she just doesn't get it.