The Agonist

On the Love of All and None

2023-04-12T22:11:11+00:00

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra–a book for all and none–champions a love of the world and an embrace of life. Zarathustra’s embrace of life and eternal becoming is, in German, Lust: taking pleasure in all that becomes–one’s own life and the entire world of existence–eternally. “...[Lust] wants the eternity of all things” (Z “Drunken Song” §11). It is an overflowing sort of love, too grand to be directed toward one person.

In his love of all humans, all things, Zarathustra remains unable to acknowledge this Other. In order to love the Other as an equal, Zarathustra would have to forego his love of everyone. The other presents the Abgrund that can only be crossed with a tightrope. A love of everything and everyone is equally a love of no one: no one but oneself, but one’s own world. It is life on a mountain peak.

In its wanting eternity, Lust has no room to accommodate an Other. Is it possible, then, for Zarathustra to love another as an equal? Is there an Other that can exist for Zarathustra at all–or in order to love everything and everyone, must he remain alone? Drawing from a number of specific sections in Zarathustra, we will explore the possibility of loving the Other as an equal, considering the risks and dangers that a mutual love between Zararthustra and an Other might entail. Equal love–sharing in becoming–means relinquishing the solidity of one’s ground in order to experience the Other’s world.

Uses and Abuses of Modern Pornography: Pornography as Aesthetic, Ascetic, Anesthetic

2023-04-12T22:30:22+00:00

How should we evaluate the modern day use and abuse of pornography? Modern day video pornography has the hallmarks of film and cinema industry (lights, cameras, sets, actors, etc), but common sentiment is that it doesn’t deserve the status of being called "Art". An exploitative media that gets a bad review may get labeled as “trauma” or “torture porn.” Calling something pornographic indicates that the creators of a media had poor taste. In the section titled “On the Sublime ones” of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Z II), [1] Nietzsche states “But all life is disputing of taste and tasting!” Nietzsche concerns over taste are directly related to his effort to maximize the role of aesthetic judgments in all parts of life. As the early Nietzsche states in the Birth of Tragedy (BT §5) “…the existence of the world is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon.” [2]

A Nietzschean investigation into the purpose of modern pornography requires a perspectivist and not a moral assessment. Kant’s Critique of Judgement reflected on the topics of both aesthetics and teleology, suggesting the question of aesthetics must include a concern over purposiveness. Thus, what is the purpose of pornography? How does it juxtapose to the actual act of sex itself? To Erotic art? Is it akin to the violent Ancient Greek Doric Frieze? Lastly, in a civilization where pornography is of easy access to all, does this take away the prevalence of sex itself? This paper attempts a Nietzschean investigation on the subject and will touch on the themes of gender, domination, sublimation, and the consumption of media.

Front Matter

2023-05-30T12:28:25+00:00

Yunus Tuncel, Nietzsche on Human Emotions

2023-02-26T18:21:12+00:00

This is a review of Yunus Tuncel, Nietzsche on Human Emotions.

Thomas H. Brobjer, Nietzsche's Ecce Homo and the Revaluation of All Values: Dionysian Versus Christian Values

2023-03-09T10:03:30+00:00

Review of Thomas H. Brobjer, Nietzsche's Ecce Homo and the Revaluation of All Values: Dionysian Versus Christian Values

Amor Fati

2023-05-17T13:20:27+00:00

A poem