HBD Wimp-Centered View of History

2 posts

Dogmatic Tower
But who defines that greatness? The aristocrats and artists themselves, and nobody else. This is what I meant by 'self-referential'. “You must value what I do because I value it! Therefore you must value me because I do it! Indeed, you must value me because I value myself!” Heh. Not only are our ghettos full of true aristocrats, but so is Tumblr. Art that owes nothing to its audience, and scorns them for taking nothing from it because it gave them nothing, is the death of art … or at least a divorce into “high” and “low” art, the latter of which is eventually declared to not be art at all, despite the fact that it is what actually moves people.
I'm not comparing superficies. How are ghetto blacks and Ancien Regime aristocrats even superficially similar? I'm comparing mentalities. There's all the difference in the world between having a value system, striving to live up to that … versus basically looking in the mirror and declaring whatever you see in there to be Good, while everything else is shit and deserves to get treated accordingly, and treating it accordingly makes you even more Good.
Shakespeare was considered among the lowest of the low in Elizabethan society because of his association with the stage. The aristocrats who patronized him and enjoyed his work would still have mocked or been horrified at the idea that he would one day be held up as one of the glories of humanity because of that work, while they themselves would be all but forgotten.
I'm partial to Spengler's notion of a true, organic elite as arising from the people – on merit – and is distinguished from them only quantitatively. All the better to represent them in the nation's struggle for survival. To put it glibly, the man you wish you were, and would therefore gladly follow and serve in vicarious fulfillment of your own value system … as opposed to the alien horror that Nietzsche envisioned the ubermensch being, and which historical aristocracies invariably were to those they dominated. Likewise the elite themselves feel a sense of kinship with those they lead, since they see a lesser version of themselves much like how a man sees himself when he looks at his son. Ability and rank has never been what divides men, but rather conflicting notions of virtue, which one has the power to rub in the face of the other.
To my knowledge, there has never been an elite that did not demand the support of those it lorded over in splendid idleness, but also demanded their love even as it hated them.
Except Nietzsche goes on to say that it is not enough for the elite to stand above the rest on their own merits. They must also act to deprive the rest of what merits they do possess in order to make the two as unlike as possible. Whatever virtues the aristocracy possesses – which are declared to be virtues because the aristocracy possesses them: much as how the religious will argue that everything God does is good not in itself, but because He who does it is God – the commoners must not possess them even to a lesser degree. But more than that, they must possess nothing at all that an aristocrat would deem a virtue. The very idea of having virtues must itself be restricted to the aristocracy; all other men, no matter what they do with themselves, must be declared to be vulgar and wicked, and perhaps not even men at all. The classic example is Phidias: the sculptor of the Parthenon. The great men of Athens praised his work, but scorned the man himself for doing the work. In that sense, to them he was nothing more than any of their slaves.
Herr Gundolf
The aristocrat, the active and creative type of man, is NOT differentiated by "mentality." To compare the latter type with the ghetto nigger on the basis of "mentality" is a comparison of superficies. The greatness of the task of the artist, or of the statesman, or any man who can be called an individual in the true sense, is a culmination of historical forces: how much of that he can bear is his measure. This is Nietzsche's view. It comes out in Spengler in a less essential way.

That it actually moves people is a worthless barometer of quality. If that were ever made the measure of art that would mean a surer death of art than the greatest gulf of aristocratic distance. Whether or not the "high" art of a society has any value is measured by who those people are, whether or not they represent ascending or descending life. The measures of "high" and "low" are meaningless when abstracted from who those words are meant to represent. If a man represents the height of an ascending culture, his self-love, his slavish devotion to be being who he is, pays greatly. If that sort of man is crippled by the complaints of the "people" it is the people who lose out. This principle was laid out in a primitive form by Aristotle, when he said that the good man ought to love himself. His existence is a gift, is giving itself: that is the nature of abundance, like the sun.

That is not what he goes on to say. I take you mean in sections like 891. There he says:
The third sentence is important.

Not merely because the aristocracy possesses them, but because of who they are, what they are embodiments of, are aristocratic virtues made virtues.

Then the great men of Athens had good sense. Any artist of worth ought to consider himself a slave. The idea that the personality of the artist is valuable is a malignant tumor. The being of the artist must be a sacrifice, else his existence is worthless. His self love consists in the devotion to his art.

I am also horrified that William Shakespeare, the man whom history has had the good sense NOT to provide a biography for, has been held up as one of the glories of humanity, and had so many stupid books dedicated to uncovering it.