For several years, in my twenties, I was a total Nietzsche freak, Neo. I read and re-read everything he wrote, so of course I know about his attitude to Schopenhauer.
I also remember distinctly that in one of his aphorisms he specifically calls consciousness a "disease." And although he may not have meant to say precisely what I extrapolated from it, for fun, he regarded aphorisms as a form of play, and I doubt he would have objected to my playing with it, too.
He did bad-mouth consciousness, though -- or at least, what his contemporaries meant by consciousness. He seemed to regard "conscious consciousness" as an impediment; his ideal was the man who had so absorbed his conscious knowledge that it became instinctive, the man who acted "right" without thinking about it. At the same time, Nietzsche had a positive attitude towards "disease" -- IF, and only if, it served as a means of "self-overcoming."
Now, you inspired me to flip through my Nietzsche collection, and I could not find the aphorism I was looking for. So I will guess as to what he was trying to say: consciousness (i.e., "spirit," "conscience," "rationalization," "ideas," etc.) is a disease we should overcome, by excising the corrupted parts, and then absorbing/sublimating the valuable core, so that it governs our behavior in a free/spontaneous/unconscious/instinctive manner.
I did find something relevant in "The Gay Science," but the translation is just terrible:
Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness, which, "in spite of Fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary. If the conserving bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful, it [consciousness] would not generally serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down: or rather, without the former, there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter! [I, 11.]
He then goes on to blast "this ridiculous overvaluation and misconception of consciousness," and states the following position:
It is still an entirely new problem just dawning on the human eye, and hardly yet plainly recognizable: to embody knowledge in ourselves and make it instinctive,--a problem which is only seen by those who have grasped the fact that hitherto our errors alone have been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness is relative to errors!
Bad translation or not, I think the point is made...
Joan |
