--- Albert Sonntag <berto55 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> what he calls 'the tragic age' of the Greeks or that
> of the Italian cities
> in the Rennaisance. Do you think he wanted to turn
> the clock back? I
> don't think he gave much thought to society as such.
No, I dont think he wanted to turn back time. It's important to insist, as you do, that it was indeed the Age of Greek tragedies that he admired in the Greeks. He found the Greeks of that age life-affirming; the tragedies did not rationalize away death...tragedy happened and was not explained away in terms of karma or original sin. They did not give up on this life in favor of another world. For this reason Nietzsche detested the socratic , platonic influence on greek society.
I can still feel the liberating effect reading Nietzche had upon me when I read him in High School. It just clicked one day. It was great to have passions, to enjoy the world. There was no transcendental cop to regulate my behavior. I did not have to feel guilt about being alive.
Nietzche was one of the "masters of suspicion" along with Marx and Freud. Which is to say, he shed light on the unconscious forces that motivate us. Freud even said that he had to stop reading Nietzche at one point for fear that he (Freud) would have nothing new to discover.
Nietzche's philosophy is revolutionary even if Nietzche the man was not.
Thomas
===== "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
-Karl Marx
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/