Nietzsche and Runaway Audio Consumption
Came across this today. A lot of posts bring up the issue of "how much is enough?" or "when is audio consumption justified" etc.
Does this Nietzsche aphorism apply to audio buying? You be the judge!
Friedrich Nietzsche: “Danger in riches. — Only he who has spirit ought to have possessions: otherwise possessions are a public danger. For the possessor who does not know how to make use of the free time which his possessions could purchase him will always continue to strive after possessions: this striving will constitute his entertainment, his strategy in his war against boredom.
Thus in the end the moderate possessions that would suffice the man of spirit are transformed into actual riches – riches which are in fact the glittering product of spiritual dependence and poverty. They only appear quite different from what their wretched origin would lead one to expect because they are able to mask themselves with art and culture: for they are, of course, able to purchase masks. By this means they arouse envy in the poorer and the uncultivated – who at bottom are envying culture and fail to recognize the masks as masks – and gradually prepare a social revolution: for gilded vulgarity and histrionic self-inflation in a supposed ‘enjoyment of culture’ instil into the latter the idea ‘it is only a matter of money’ – whereas, while it is to some extent a matter of money, it is much more a matter of spirit.”
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1996. Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits. Cambridge University Press. (p. 283-4, an aphorism no. 310)
I'm pretty sure @mahgister will want to read this one! (Because they speak so artfully about avoiding the diversion that consumption poses to the quest for true aesthetic and acoustic excellence.)
Shinto refers to spirit or holy powers that reside in everything from landscapes to objects to forces of nature and not just that of ancestors. I wonder if Nietzsche studied that or was it just coincidence. Different cultures have arrived at similar beliefs despite geography and time. Maybe Marie Kondo studied Nietzsche and didn't have that epiphany that led her to tidy things up and keep just what gives us joy. 🤔 All the best, |
I consider that the pursuit of mediocrity. Is this be something that disciples of Nitty aspire to? Guys. That's a win? Upside down and inside out. I prefer these words of challenge from Walt Whitman, an American poet - Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
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@snilf @snilf Good point about aphoristic works, and I took a risk, but I thought the quotation made enough internal sense for it to be related without trying to "size up" Nietzsche, which many know is either impossible or a lifelong occupation. I happen to be reading Nietzsche because I occasionally teach him. I'm a philosophy professor. Regarding you comment about the "corruption" of the real passion that happens sometimes, all I can do is echo Steve Guttenberg's explanation that sometimes the audiophile is really interested in sound itself -- not as a vehicle to music but for its own textures. That seems fine to me, too. The only problem with loving sound is when it somehow *substitutes* for music. That doesn't mean that music is better than sound, only that I was diverted from my purpose, on that occasion.
I think this happens a lot. I did listen to a system yesterday that had the room right and the gear very very right — GR Research Super 7's with incredible mono block tube amplifiers. It was sublime. Regarding Benjamin, I agree completely, especially your point that "the aim of reproduced music is NOT, as it might seem, to re-create an impossible lost original performance, but rather, to provide an authentic experience of its own, an experience of a new kind of artwork" A good article on this general question is here: [Listening to Music: Performances and Recordings Author(s): Theodore Gracyk Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Spring, 1997, Vol. 55, No. 2, Perspectives on the Arts and Technology (Spring, 1997), pp. 139-150] @mglik Nietzsche is anything but a nihilist. He questions the kind of life lived by people who automatically accept and then enact values that are imposed from others because that effectively prevents one from being, themselves, a creator of value. The ideal of the ubermensch is a goal -- a way of life in which one seeks to create rather than merely obey. Create what? What they will. @sns @sns The Pirsig reference struck me. Nice. I can imagine building audio systems as either spiritual work or delusion — but not either, necessarily. It depends on whether one has mastered oneself and know one's own purposes, which is the issue that initially lead me to the Nietzsche quote in the OP. @tunefuldude @tunefuldude —
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Good to know others with spirit and questioning of spirit still exist!
Seems to me information, data taking the place of spirit in decline of civilization. Its rather confusing, on one hand, information, data elevated to level of belief, on other, diminished such that cults of personality arise.
Those with spirit are always mindful of the entirety of universe, and how relatively insignificant they are. And yet, be significant in the sense one can feel united with all the spirited that ever existed upon the earth.
Me thinks the increasing divisions we observe today are in direct inverse to the loss of spirit in the masses.
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@sns Fair points. Regarding data, increasing amounts of it are being used to subtly guide our spirits in profitable directions, all the while maintaining the illusions we are in full control. We don't get to keep those profits of course; we generate them for others. |
