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RE: The Philosopher as Clown & the Clown as Philosopher: Nietzsche & Oscar Wilde
The best way to resist temptation, Wilde said, is to yield to it. I'm not sure but i think Neitszche mentioned something similar.
Brilliant piece, bro. I've never really considered any similarity between these two, but the way you brought it together here makes it all too apparent. Though the difference still lies in the fact that Wilde can never--and never meant to be--taken serious, while Neitszche, even when he's being humorous, can never be not taken seriously.
Thank you, for your appreciation; I'm glad you enjoyed this piece. Yes, in praising the Dionysian and living dangerously, Nietzsche, too, could be amoral, or immoral (suggesting that we yield to temptation).
I do beg to, politely, differ with your assessment. Wilde was, and meant to be, taken seriously as a thinker (in essays, Platonic dialogues, and even his paradoxical aphorisms). It's dismissive to think otherwise. Further, Nietzsche is, often, not taken seriously by the philosophy community for being unsystematic, whimsical and full of contradictions :) So, their legacies are somewhat more complex that you portray.
Damn I must have been getting the wrong vibes all these while. Lol. But I have noticed that mixed opinions about legacies are very rampant in the literary community.
I guess I should have said I find it hard to take Wilde seriously. He was being sarcastic when he called The importance of being Earnest "A trivial comedy for serious people", wasn't he? Cos it is not a trivial comedy and it is definitely not for serious people. I dont think he himself liked serious people very much.
And at least if it was really for them then I supposed it was to get them to be a little less serious. But ya, on the whole as an aesthetic and a philosopher he definitely deserves to be taken seriously.
Such a shocker about Neitszche. I used to get the vibe that everyone talked about him in awe. But then again I really know too little about Nietzsche than I wish I did.
Cheers man.
Thank you, for the qualification and good to see your own serious reading list (as well as your longing for the wisdom of humor). In my view, it does not detract from a serious work's gravitas, but only adds to it, if used intelligently.
Regarding, Nietzsche, as a German satirist once quipped: “Tell me what you need, and I’ll supply you with the right Nietzsche quotation.” And, in fact, with his ability to lend himself to innumerable interpretations, Nietzsche especially has been claimed by almost everyone: Anarchists, Atheists, Christians, Fascists, Liberals, Postmodernists, Deconstructionists, Existentialists, Rationalists, Irrationalists, Positivists and Nihilists.
Undoubtedly, we do not find Wilde or Nietzsche as outrageous as they were to their 19th
century sensibility. Rather, in our age, skeptical of absolutes and susceptible to pluralism of interpretations, we consider them contemporaries, or modern diagnosticians whose experiments with values mirror our own. Even in their contradictory works we recognize, writ large, the remarkable and complex workings of the human psyche.
Be well, brother, and wishing you more happy literary discoveries, as you deepen your knowledge of the classics.