尼采: 一種自我批評的嘗試

六

人們已經理解我以這本書大膽觸及了何種任務嗎？…現在我感到多麼遺憾，當時我還沒有勇氣（或者一種苛求？），在任何方面都用自已特有的語言來表達如此獨特的直觀和冒險，—我是多麼吃力地力求用叔本華Schopenhauerian和康德 Kantian的套路來表達與他們的精神以及趣味徹底相反的疏異而全新的價值評估！

叔本華到底是怎麼來設想悲劇的呢？在《作為意志和表象的世界》第2篇第495頁上，叔本華說：“使一切悲劇因素獲得特殊的提升動力的，乃是下列認識的升起，即：世界、生命不可能給出一種真正的滿足，因而不值得我們親近和依戀：悲劇精神即在於此 — 因此它引導人們聽天由命。”
狄奧尼索斯Dionysus對我講的話是多麼不同啊！當時恰恰這整個聽天由命的態度離我是多麼遙遠啊！—可是，這本書里有某種槽糕得多的東西，這是我現在更覺得遺憾的，比我用叔本華的套路來 掩蓋和敗壞狄奧尼索斯的預感intimations更遺憾，那就是：我通過攙入最現代的事物，根本上敗壞了我所明白的偉大的希臘問題！在無可指望的地方，在一切皆太過清晰地指向終結的地方，我卻生出了希望！
我根據近來的德國音樂開始編造“德國精神”，彷彿它正好在發現自己、重新尋獲自己似的——而且當其時也，德國精神不久前還有統治歐洲的意志、領導歐洲的力量，剛剛按遺囑最終退位，並以建立帝國為堂皇藉口，完成了向平庸化、民主制和“現代理念”的過渡！

實際上，此間我已經學會了毫無指望和毫不留情地來看待“德國精神”，同樣地也如此這般來看待現在的德國音樂，後者徹頭徹尾地是浪漫主義，而且是一切可能的藝術形式中最沒有希臘性的； 而此外它還是一種頭等的神經腐敗劑，對於一個嗜酒並且把暖昧當作德性來尊重的民族來說具有雙重的危險，也就是說，它作為既使人陶醉又使人發昏的麻醉劑具有雙重特性。—誠然，撒開所有對於當今的急促希望和錯誤利用（它們在當時使我敗壞了我的第一本書），但偉大的狄奧尼索斯問號，一如它在書中所提出的那樣，即便在音樂方面也還繼續存在著：一種不再像德國音樂那樣具有浪漫主義起源，而是具有狄奧尼索斯起源的音樂，必須具有怎樣的特性？……

七

可是先生，如果您的書不是浪漫主義，那麼全世界還有什麼是浪漫主義呢？您的藝術家形而上學寧可相信虛無，寧可相信魔鬼，也不願相信“現在”——對於“現時”、“現實”和“現代觀念”的深仇大恨，難道還有比您做得更加厲害的嗎？在您所有的對位法聲音藝術和聽覺誘惑術當中，不是有一種飽含憤怒和毀滅欲的固定低音在嗡嗡作響麼，不是有一種反對一切“現在”之物的狂暴決心，不是有一種與實踐上的虛無主義相去不遠的意志麼？—這種意志似乎在說：“寧可無物為真，也勝過你們得理，也勝過你們的真理得理！”

我的悲觀主義的和把藝術神化的先生啊，您自己張開耳朵，來聽聽從您書中選出來的一段獨特的話，那段不無雄辯的有關屠龍者的話，對於年輕的耳朵和心靈來說，它聽起來是頗具蠱惑作用的：怎麼？這難道不是1830年的地道浪漫主義的自白，戴上了1850年的悲觀主義面具嗎？背後也已經奏起了通常的浪漫派最後樂章的序曲，—斷裂、崩潰，皈依和膜拜一種古老信仰，這位古老的神祇⋯…怎麼？難道您的悲觀主義者之書，本身不就是一部反希臘精神的和浪漫主義的作品嗎？本身不就是某種“既使人陶醉又使人發昏”的東西嗎？至少是一種麻醉劑，甚至於是一曲音樂，一曲德國音樂吧？但你們聽：

讓我們來想象一下正在茁壯成長的一代人，他們有著這樣一種無所懼怕的目光，他們有著這樣一種直面凶險的英雄氣概；讓我們來想象一下這些屠龍勇士的剛毅步伐，他們壯志凌雲，毅然抗拒那種樂觀主義的所有虛弱教條，力求完完全全 “果敢地生活”——那麼，這種文化的悲劇人物，在進行自我教育以培養嚴肅和畏懼精神時，豈非必定要湯求一種全新的藝術，一種具有形而上慰籍的藝術，把悲劇當作他自己的海倫Helen來渴求嗎？他豈非必定要與浮士德一道高呼：

而我豈能不以無比渴慕的強力，
讓那無與倫比的形象重顯生機？

“豈非必定要麼？“不，決不是！你們這些年輕的浪漫主義者啊：這並非必定！但很有可能，事情會如此終結，你們會如此終結，亦即會“得到慰藉”，如書上所記，儘管你們有全部的自我教育以獲得嚴肅和畏懼之心，但仍舊會“得到形而上學的慰藉”，簡言之，像浪漫主義者那樣終結，以基督教方式……不！你們首先應當學會塵世慰藉的藝術，我年輕的朋友們啊，如果你們完全願意繼續做悲觀主義者，你們就應當學會大笑；也許作為大笑者，你們因此會在某個時候，讓一切形而上學的慰藉—而且首先是形而上學！—統統見鬼去！抑或，用那個名叫查拉圖斯特拉Zarathustra的狄奧尼索斯惡魔的話來說：

我的兄弟們呵，提升你們的心靈吧，高些！更高些！也不要忘記你們的雙腿！也提升你們的雙腿吧，你們這些優秀的舞蹈者，更好地：你們也倒立起來吧！

這歡笑者的王冠，這玫瑰花冠：我自己戴上了這頂王冠，我自己宣告我的歡笑是神聖的。今天我沒有發現任何一個人在這事上足夠強壯。
查拉圖斯特拉這個舞蹈者，查拉圖斯特拉這個輕盈者，他以羽翼招搖，一個準備飛翔者，向所有鳥兒示意，準備停當了，一個福樂而輕率者：—

查拉圖斯特拉這個預言者，查拉圖斯特拉這個真實歡笑者，並非一個不耐煩者，並非一個絕對者，一個喜歡跳躍和出軌的人；我自己戴上了這頂王冠！

這歡笑者的王冠，這玫瑰花冠：你們，我的兄弟們呵，我要把這頂王冠投給你們！我已宣告這種歡笑是神聖的；你們這些高等人呵，為我學習—歡笑吧！ 《查拉圖斯特拉如是說 - 第四部，第87頁。》


【文本來源：尼采 - 悲劇的誕生， 孫周興 譯， 商務印書館 2012，第12-16頁】

Nietzsche - ATTEMPT AT A SELF-CRITICISM


6

Is it clear what task I already dared to tackle with this book?... How I now regret that I did not then have the courage (or the immodesty?) to permit myself a new language as well, in all respects in keeping with such new ideas and risky innovations - that I toiled with Schopenhauerian and Kantian formulae to express strange and new valuations fundamentally opposed to the spirit and taste of Kant and Schopenhauer!

What, after all, were Schopenhauer's ideas about tragedy? In the second part of his World as Will and Representation, he says:
'What gives everything tragic, whatever the form in which it appears, its characteristic tendency to the sublime, is the dawning of the knowledge that the world and life can give no true satisfaction, and are therefore not worth our attachment to them. It is in this that the tragic spirit consists; accordingly, it leads to resignation.'

Ah, how differently Dionysus spoke to me! How far I was then from all that resignationism! - But the book contains something far worse, something that I now regret even more than having obscured and spoiled Dionysiac intimations with Schopenhauerian formulae: the fact that I spoiled the grandiose Greek problem, as I saw it, by adulterating it with the most modern ideas! That I introduced hopes where all was hopeless, where everything all too clearly indicated an ending! That I, on the basis of the most recent German music, began to fabulate about the 'German spirit', as if it were on the point of discovering, refinding itself - at a time when the German spirit, which not long before had had the will to conquer Europe, the strength to lead Europe, had, in its last will and testament, finally abdicated the task, under the pompous pretext of founding an empire, and was making the transition to mediocrity, democracy and 'modern ideas'!

In the intervening period, in fact, I have learned to think hopelessly and mercilessly enough about that 'German spirit', and likewise about contemporary German music, which is romantic through and through, and the most un-Greek of all possible art forms; but also a narcotic of the worst kind, doubly dangerous to a people beloved of intoxication, which hails lack of clarity as a virtue, with its dual properties of being both an intoxicating and a befogging narcotic. - And yet - apart, of course, from all the impetuous hopes and applications to contemporary issues with which I spoiled my first book, the great Dionysiac question mark remains, also as regards music: how would a music be that was not romantic in origin, as German music is - but Dionysiac?...

7

But what, my good man, is romanticism if it is not your book? Can the profound hatred of 'the contemporary age', 'reality' and 'modern ideas' be taken further than it is in your artist's metaphysics - which would rather believe in Nothing, in the devil, than in 'the now'? Does a ground bass of anger and destructive rage not growl through all your contrapuntal, ear-seducing vocal art, a furious resolution against everything 'contemporary', a will that seems not too much removed from practical nihilism, and which seems to say: 'I would rather nothing were true than that you were right, that your truth should triumph!'

Listen yourself, my dear pessimist, my dear idolater of art, with a more open ear, to a single passage taken from your book, that not uneloquent dragon-slaying passage which might sound insidiously pied-piperish to innocent young ears and hearts. Is that not the good old romantic credo of 1830, lurking behind the mask of the pessimism of 1850? And behind it, the introduction to the familiar romantic finale - break, breakdown, return and collapse before an old faith, before the old god... What? Is your pessimistic book not itself a piece of anti-Hellenism and romanticism; is it not itself something 'as intoxicating as it is befogging', a narcotic at any rate, even a piece of music, of German music? But listen:

Let us imagine a rising generation with such an undaunted gaze, with such a heroic proclivity for the tremendous. Let us imagine the bold stride of those dragon-slayers, the proud audacity with which they turn their backs on all the weaklings' doctrines that lie within that optimism, in order to live resolutely' in all that they do. Must the tragic man in that culture, trained through his self-education for seriousness and terror, not inevitably yearn for a new art of metaphysical consolation, tragedy, as his Helen, and to exclaim as Faust did:

'And should I not with utmost yearning seek
To bring to life that creature most unique?'

'Would it not be necessary?' No, thrice no! You young romantics: it would not be necessary! But it is very likely that it will end up like that, that you will end up like that, 'consoled', as it is written, for all your self-education in gravity and terror, 'metaphysically consoled'; in short, as romantics end up, Christian... No! You ought first to learn the art of this-worldly consolation - you should learn to laugh, my young friends, if you are determined to remain pessimists; perhaps as laughers you will consign all metaphysical consolations to the devil - and metaphysics in front of all the rest! Or, to say it in the language of the Dionysiac monster called Zarathustra:

Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And don't forget your legs! Lift up your legs, too, good dancers, and even better: stand on your heads!

This laugher's crown, this rosary crown: but I myself put on this crown, I myself pronounced my laughter holy. I could find no one else today strong enough for that.

Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light one, who beckons with his wings, poised for flight, beckoning to all the birds, poised and ready, blissfully flighty.

Zarathustra the soothsayer, Zarathustra the soothlaugher, not impatient, not unconditional, who loves leaps and caprices; I crown myself with this crown!

This crown of the laugher, the rosary crown: to you, my brothers, I throw this crown! I pronounced laughter holy: you higher men, learn - to laugh!

(Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part IV, 'On the higher man')
Sils-Maria, Oberengadin
August 1886


[Source: Friedrich Nietzsche - The Birth Of Tragedy Out Of The Spirit Of Music, Translated By Shaun Whiteside, Edited By Michael Tanner, Penguin Books, 2003, Pp.55-59]