Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit by Joshua Foa Dienstag

Author:Joshua Foa Dienstag [Dienstag, Joshua Foa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: General, History, Philosophy, History & Surveys, Movements, Civilization, Psychology, Political, History & Theory, Political Science, Social History, Personality
ISBN: 9780691141121
Google: zdxYIdhod3wC
Amazon: 0691141126
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2006-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

PART III

Chapter Five

NIETZSCHE’S DIONYSIAN PESSIMISM

That there still could be an altogether different kind of pessimism, . . . this premonition and vision belongs to me as inseparable from me, as my proprium and ipsissimum. ... I call this pessimism of the future—for it comes! I see it coming!—Dionysian pessimism.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

THE PRIOR chapters have attempted to give the reader a sense of the breadth and complexity of the pessimistic spirit. It is a long and diverse tradition, sympathetic to the plight of the human condition but, on the whole, not pitying of it. The pessimists, more than any other group of theorists, have attempted to come to grips with the burden placed on human beings by virtue of our residency in linear time. If we cannot return to a cyclical view of history and if narratives of progress now seem suspect, it is pessimism, I submit, that holds the richest set of resources with which to confront the human condition as we know it today. Nonetheless, while I hope that the pessimistic tradition in its entirety will, in the future, receive the broad attention it deserves, it remains the case that any individual, after surveying this vast terrain of possibility, must choose his or her own path through it.

Having presented a variety of overlapping pessimisms in the preceding, this section of the book attempts to crystallize something more particular. The preference I have shown for the pessimists who reject resignation and withdrawal in favor of more activist life-practices cannot have escaped the reader’s attention. The next four chapters attempt, in various ways, to specify what I take to be the best sort of pessimism—that is, the pessimism that best accomplishes the task this tradition sets itself, namely, to define a life-practice compatible with linear temporality. Just as any liberal can appreciate the diversity of the liberal tradition while nonetheless believing that a certain rendering of its principles best captures its core identity, so will I attempt to identify a pessimism that is maximally valuable and persuasive.

In this project, Friedrich Nietzsche is a crucial figure. I have limited discussion of his texts in the previous chapters in order to give his pessimism sustained and direct attention here. In the vast literature that Nietzsche has generated, there is very little direct attention paid to his self-definition as a pessimist. But this self-definition is crucial, not just for understanding Nietzsche, but for helping us to see the possibilities of pessimism; indeed, it is probably more important for the latter. Since World War II, many excellent studies of Nietzsche have been published and most corners of his thinking have been adequately rendered in some portion or another of this literature.[114] Because the reputation of pessimism has been in such eclipse in this period, however, it has been impossible to see Nietzsche as connected to this tradition or as an exemplar of it.[115]1 mean to show here that he is both. But while it may be interesting enough to learn that Nietzsche was a pessimist, I believe it is vital to understand that a pessimist can be a Nietzschean.

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