Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: The ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche has had considerable influence on much of twentieth century philosophy and other areas as well. Indeed, the modern dance technique of Doris Humphrey is one of the many, and was taken to be based on his distinction between the Apollinian and Dionysian duality. Walter Kaufmann, the translator and commentator of this book, has given the reader a distinct view of Nietzsche in two of his works, the "Birth of Tragedy" being his first, and one of his last, "The Case of Wagner". Nietzsche was one of the few philosophers who engaged in self-criticism, and is the most honest of all philosophers who took to the pen. This is indeed manifest in his "Attempt at a Self-Criticism", which was added to the 1886 edition of "The Birth of Tragedy". Nietzsche attempted to view the nature of truth without any masks, and his need to do this resulted in his works perhaps being more of a dialog with himself than with his readers. With every line written, Nietzsche was making sure that he himself was convinced of what was put down on paper. But this must at all times be done without "arresting the play" and negating the "terrors of existence". Kaufmann represents "The Birth of Tragedy" as a work that allowed Nietzsche to justify his appointment to a full chair of philology at the young age of 25, but also a book that would not appeal to anyone in German academic circles. It would appear that Nietzsche was determined to remain independent, and not become intoxicated with the "prestige" of being appointed to such a position at such an early age. Nietzsche's later criticism of his own work would seem to justify this interpretation. This total intellectual honesty of Nietzsche is unique in the history of philosophy. What is most valuable about "The Birth of Tragedy" is its restatement of Greek life and culture, which up to Nietzsche's time was conceived in terms of the "Winckelmann view" according to Kaufmann. The "noble simplicity, calm grandeur" of Goethe and the "sweetness and light" of Matthew Arnold were the appropriate adjectives for Greek culture. But Nietzsche brought in the Dionysian festivals, as another aspect of it, and its longing, in the words of Kaufmann, to "exceed all norms". This insight of Nietzsche has wide-ranging applications, for it points to the need of all cultures, and thus all individuals, to at times attend the Dionysian festival and get out of equilibrium, remain for awhile off-balance, and get intoxicated with the dance of unreason. But with intellectual honesty towards oneself comes the same for others, and Nietzsche did not hesitate to depart with friends when there was conflict with this honesty. Thus Nietzsche wrote "The Case of Wagner", a very damning indictment against his former friend Richard Wagner, and a book which Nietzsche subtitled "A Musician's Problem". Nietzsche describes his reasons for writing at it as a consequence of a "special self-discipline: to take sides against everything sick in me". This included Wagner, Schopenhauer, and all of what Nietzsche called "modern humaneness". According to Nietzsche, Wagner was just one of his sicknesses. But sickness can be a stimulant to life, he says, but only if one is healthy enough for this stimulant. So what about Wagner bothered Nietzsche? It was the fact in Nietzsche's view, Wagner's music was nongenuine. Wagner was an "actor in music", according to Nietzsche, and a lack of honesty or genuineness was intolerable to Nietzsche. The integrity and "authenticity" of musicians has never been put to the test so dangerously, he says. Wagner's music is a sign of a declining culture, and in such a culture, believed Nietzsche, authenticity becomes superfluous and a liability. Thus the passion that Wagner's music instilled in people, and the boredom it alleviated in orchestra musicians, was more of a sign of decadence, rather than achievement. It was an attempt to "arrest the flow", to negate the original "difficulty of life", and this, in Nietzsche's view, was its essential crime, a crime that Christianity and other forms of decadence also committed. The ninth part of the book ends with the following lines which make Nietzsche's Wagnerian complaint particularly manifest: "That the theatre should not lord it over the arts. That the actor should not seduce those who are authentic. That music should not become an art of lying. "
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