Throughout “On the Genealogy of Morals”, Nietzsche uses metaphors and appeals to the senses to emphasize different aspects of his argument against ideals. One image Nietzsche invokes over and over throughout the text is that of smell and bad air. Nietzsche uses the description of stench and bad air to emphasize his belief that ideals are a lie and a sickness to men. Also, by using something familiar such as breathing and smell, Nietzsche makes his complex argument more understandable.
I first encountered bad air in the “dark workshop” (31). We descend into the workshop and all around are “mumbling forgers” who are “no doubt miserable”(30). But they say that they are “better than the powerful”(31). Nietzsche writes, “Bad air! Bad air! This workshop where ideals are fabricated—it seems to me to stink of nothing but lies” (32). Here, Nietzsche is drawing a parallel between lies and the stench. The air that is sickening him, making him unable to breathe, is tainted because of the lies. The lies are ideals. The people in the workshop who Nietzsche sees as the lowly and weak, imagine themselves to be the powerful and “good” (because of fabricated ideals). But it is for this very reason that Nietzsche says that man is “sick” (99).
Nietzsche uses bad air and stench to illustrate man’s sickness due to ideals. He says, “Anyone whose sense of smell extends beyond his nose to his eyes and ears detects almost everywhere he goes something like the air of the asylum, the hospital” (101). Nietzsche is using synesthesia to emphasize the thickness of the stench all around. This sickness of man equates to the smell. Once again, the sickness derives from the fact that men believe in ideals, in particular the ascetic ideal, which Nietzsche sees as a lie. Nietzsche remarks, “The more normal sickness is in man...the more one should respect the rare cases of psychic and physical strength, mankind’s strokes of luck, and all the more carefully protect those who are well constituted from the worst air, the air of the sick” (100). Nietzsche wants the rare man who does not not believe in the ascetic ideal to avoid breathing in the sickness of ideals that most men have.
In the end, the way that Nietzsche constantly refers to the bad air and smell helps to reinforce his point about the sickness that the lie of ideals brings to man. Breathing is something that we all do—we must breathe air to live. Also, most people can smell and know what it is like to smell an awful stench. By relating his complex argument to things as natural and breathing and smelling, Nietzsche makes himself much more understandable. He also manages to continually bring our focus back to this understanding that smell and bad air refers to the lie of ideals and the sickness it has created in man.
Discussion Question: Other than smell, what devices or senses does Nietzsche invoke to help both emphasize points of his argument and to clarify his argument?
In response to Marlee's discussion question, there was even more animal imagery in the excerpts we read in the third essay. Not only does Nietzsche use bad air to reinforce his point, he also uses the example of a caterpillar. He writes, "the ascetic priest has assumed the dark, repulsive form of a caterpillar...Has the bright and dangerous winged creature, the 'spirit' which this caterpillar concealed within itself...really sloughed its cocoon and escaped into the light?" (95). I think he does this, as Marlee asserts, to make his argument more understandable and also to more clearly show how sickness really affects men, as a hidden force.
ReplyDeleteEmma and Marlee have both traced important descriptive motifs. On a more general note, I think these types of descriptors also serve to ground Nietzsche's argument. Marlee touched on this idea at the end of her post. Much of what Nietzsche is discussing, such as the ascetic priest, is foreign to us and also abstract. Sensory descriptors help us conceptualize his argument in terms that we are farmillar with. An interesting example of this is the imagery of the trees (42). As we discussed in class this image has ties to Christianity, enabling Nietzsche to explain his arguement through the image and also through the manipulation of other ideas we are already famillar with.
ReplyDeleteMarlee makes excellent points on the imagery Nietzsche uses to explain the sickness that results form the lies of ideals as a bad smell. They allow us to understand and conceptualize the abstract ideas that he is portraying to us. Nietzsche states "even when this master of destruction, of self-destruction wounds himself-it is the wound itself which afterwards compels him to live" (100). This statement helps clarify some of the ideas of the sickly people using their sufferings to bring misfortune and blame to those who are healthy or fortunate. He also notes the sickly men "dangerously poison and question our trust in life, in man" (101). Their ideals are poison to the healthy, just as the bad smell poisons the air making it hard to breathe. As Marlee discusses, the ideals of these people create a sick, poisonous air because of the lies created. They try to fill the void of unknown matters by creating the ascetic ideals, but really, it poisons the air needed for their existence. As it poisons the air, it ruins their existence by filling voids and worries of humanity with falsehoods and disrupts their ability to live in a life full of clean air.
ReplyDeleteOne device that I found especially interesting was his use of the word "nut-cracking" (93) when referring to the exploration of ourselves. The word itself has no negative connotation within itself, but merely suggests a violent action. Indeed, it is only by "nut-cracking" that one can eat the nut that is encased within the protective shell. He further states that this nutcracking makes us increasingly "questionable...increasingly worthy of asking questions." (93) This partial acceptance of something that at first he seemed to find wrong reminded me strongly of his stance on slave morality -- while it is not the noble morality that is healthier, its existence and complications both contribute to humanity and make it more interesting. This willingness to see the silver lining in even those things which seem bad superficially is important to keep in mind while reading Nietzsche.
ReplyDeleteMarlee brings up some interesting points in her blog about the nature of Nietzsche's imagery. I also find that his use of smell and nature imagery help to reinforce his concepts and feel that they also make them much more accessible. As we have seen, many of Nietzsche's theories are not only incredibly complex but also very radical, and his use of imagery allows the reader to conjure tangible images in their heads that they can relate to. I was particularly interesting in Gabe's comment about "nut-cracking" (93). I had originally skimmed over this line without thinking much of it, but upon further examination Nietzsche make makes a very interesting point. He says, "Our attitude toward ourselves is one of hubris, for we experiment with ourselves...we nutcrackers of the soul" (92-3). Man worships the innovator, the "medecine-man," who experiments and causes the sickness, and in doing so we become the questioning individuals that Nietzsche values but also become more questionable ourselves. As Gabe points out we seek to find the silver lining even when it does not exist.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone else has pointed out the images used are typically conjured as a means to elucidate a point or draw a parallel between the characteristics of two things (usually negative like lies and bad air). But besides this the images, to me at least, help to show us where Nietzsche is poking fun or being sarcastic. If you take his statements out of context you quickly find yourself trapped in a struggle between Nietzsche's beliefs and his sarcastic devil's advocate voice which he uses to undermine ideals such as the slave morality and general societal norms and conditions. I've noticed that either when an image comes up or I laugh at something that Nietzsche writes im likely around a key component of one of his arguments; in that he is either clarifying his argument or poking fun to undermine society's counter-argument to his statements.
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