Nietzsche’s Guide to Reading Literature and Being an Individual

Because he was so accomplished at questioning, and at analyzing the hidden origins of, the beliefs of his time, Nietzsche from 1970 on or so has been recruited into various progressive and postmodern critiques of the contemporary order. An unfortunate result of this move is that it leaves behind, often by misreading Nietzsche egregiously, the extremely rich resources he offers for thinking about aesthetic experience and its role in shaping a worthwhile individual life. On his account, Christianity radically redesigned the human psyche in the ancient world, but with the rapid decline of this religion, that design is now failing and nihilism, ennui, depression, and modern anxiety result. It is his task to model a new design of the psyche. In our conscious interactions with others, he believes, we are indoctrinated into a cult of shared beliefs. But through our experience of music, literature, architectural and city styles, and even of climate, and through our experience of certain profound emotive responses to events, we can contribute to reordering the unconscious mental elements within us, the inner warlords competing for territory, into a more distinctive, convincing, and elevated form, one that is truly individuating and that can help us resist the forces of depression and nihilism. We learn to take a more active stance toward the world by giving form and style to whatever happens to be pressing in upon us. Nietzsche turns out to be the great enemy of academic life in America today. He is a fierce opponent of safe spaces, of protecting individuals from experiencing challenging states of mind. He hates indoctrination by means of a moralizing ideology and advises us to find a healthy solitude, away from the leveling powers of modern social practices. Instead of reading literature to bring out the moral errors of the past, he would have us read it to bring out its implicit music, the rhythms and gestures that underlie it like a form of dancing, so that it may help us to shape a more satisfying emotional life and a more inviting manner of experiencing the world and others. He would worry that today’s education is actually encouraging depression as well as a fragile, weakened individuation that is dangerous to our culture.