Smashed To Pieces

February 1, 2024 Jerry King Comments 0 Comment

That enormous framework
and hoarding of ideas, by clinging to which
the needy man saves himself through life,

is to the freed intellect
only a scaffolding and a toy
for Its most daring feats,
and when it smashes It to pieces,
throws it into confusion, and then
puts it together ironically,
paring the strangest, separating the nearest items,
then It manifests
that It has no use for those makeshifts of misery,
and that It is now no longer led by ideas
but by intuitions.

From those intuitions no regular road
leads into the land of spectral schemata,
the abstractions;
for them the word is not made,
when man sees them he is dumb,
or speaks in forbidden metaphors
and in unheard-of combinations of ideas,
in order to correspond creatively
with the impression of the powerful present intuition
at least by destroying and jeering
at the old barriers of ideas.

On Truth And Falsity In Their Extra-Moral Sense, by Friedrich Nietzsche, Trans. Oscar Levy, p. 157

The paragraph comes near to the end of the final essay in the collection Early Greek Philosophy and other Essays. The writer is ready to show his hand, to face-up the cards that he/she has been holding. For Nietzsche this is a pivotal moment, that reveals a template which links the diverse and unclear comments upon history, language, psychology, religion, etc.

Human beings are social mammals, the possibilities afforded by language is the enormous storehouse of ideas that serve life, to nurture, preserve, to shield us. Put differently vulnerable (needy) man clings to this vast repository to save himself through the arc of birth, maturation, old age and death. The compilation of this shared heritage of ideas is truly an awe inspiring wonder.

But a contrast is drawn between the needy man and the atypical ones, those who play with ideas as a child will play with a collection of building blocks. Do you remember when you built something with toy blocks? Then with joyful abandon you smashed your creation so that you could begin again! Nietzsche suggests the critical point of a child’s play is the ironic paring, the juxtaposition of materials which at first blush, do not seem to belong together. To the child, they do. “Let’s build this way and see what happens!”

As a child confidently and joyfully creates for itself a never before seen future, so we too must create from our intuition, from our collection of inherited “building blocks” — no matter that we hold no written instructions. This is no project to replicate the past! A future for the generation which stands around me now at Starbucks (minding their iphone screens as they wait for their order to be served) needs be risk tolerant, ready to welcome never before attempted combinations of ideas. New metaphors that have been forbidden in the past: Male and female equal status, regard of the earth as sacred, life-style difference is no moral quality, civility as the standard of measure, intolerance of other’s misery, etc.. Of course there are more, many more.

Naturally one is without words, speechless to contemplate such a metamorphosis in our lives. How can we not ridicule, not highlight the old contradictory barriers that stand in the way?

Let’s play together!

Shall we play, move ahead while we quietly sing a song to ourselves! We ought never to outgrow a song! I suggest this one, Glory by John Legend and Common.

Glory

(from “Selma” soundtrack)

[John Legend:]
One day when the glory comes
It will be ours, it will be ours
One day when the war is won
We will be sure, we will be sure
Oh glory
Glory, glory
Oh, glory, glory

[Common:]
Hands to the Heavens, no man, no weapon
Formed against, yes glory is destined
Every day women and men become legends
Sins that go against our skin become blessings
The movement is a rhythm to us
Freedom is like religion to us
Justice is juxtapositionin’ us
Justice for all just ain’t specific enough
One son died, his spirit is revisitin’ us
True and livin’ livin’ in us, resistance is us
That’s why Rosa sat on the bus
That’s why we walk through Ferguson with our hands up
When it go down we woman and man up
They say, “Stay down”, and we stand up
Shots, we on the ground, the camera panned up
King pointed to the mountain top and we ran up

Now the war is not over, victory isn’t won
And we’ll fight on to the finish, then when it’s all done
We’ll cry glory, oh glory
We’ll cry glory, oh glory

[Common:]
Selma is now for every man, woman and child
Even Jesus got his crown in front of a crowd
They marched with the torch, we gon’ run with it now
Never look back, we done gone hundreds of miles
From dark roads he rose, to become a hero
Facin’ the league of justice, his power was the people
Enemy is lethal, a king became regal
Saw the face of Jim Crow under a bald eagle
The biggest weapon is to stay peaceful
We sing, our music is the cuts that we bleed through
Somewhere in the dream we had an epiphany
Now we right the wrongs in history
No one can win the war individually
It takes the wisdom of the elders and young people’s energy
Welcome to the story we call victory
The comin’ of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory