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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.)

128x128hilde45
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,940 posts
 

As time goes by you will see
That we're going to be free
You and me, we'll touch the sky
Can you see in your mind's eye?
That we are one
We're all the same
And life is just a simple game

There, by your side, I will be
When this crazy world is free
Free from doubt
When it finds out
Exactly what we're meant to be
That we are one
We're all the same
And life is just a simple game

Thoughts of another day
Flashing through my head
Thinking how life could be
All of the things that our great men have said
Be what we want to be
What we deserve to be
What we are meant to be

As time goes by, you will see
That we're going to be free
You and me, we'll touch the sky
Can you see in your mind's eye?
That we are one
We're all the same
And life is just a simple game

We're gonna be free
Oohhh, gonna be free
Gonna be free
Free, gonna be free, gonna be free, Oohhh

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,961 posts
 

Great poem ! Thanks.....

jpwarren58
623 posts
 

There is something going on in modern first World society that challenges much of past philosophy. No conspiracy or master plan but an incoherent commercialization of culture promulgated by newspapers, advertisements, films, tv, radio, photography, internet...How do our limited primate brains parse the bombardment of multiple purveyors of what constitutes our happiness? A beer summons beautiful women. A car defines manhood. Clothes hipness. It goes on and on. Are we all resultant outcomes of hundreds of thousands of economic images and subtle (or overt) implications?

Is our audio equipment fixation mere emulation of Esquire magazine or a Hugh Hefner after hours production?  And maybe we return to the OP's subject and something N sensed. 

Neither Gopher or Tortoise.

jpwarren58
623 posts
 

btw significant Materialists to name a few

(and Deists should count along with any who believe "God" has no interest in our affairs or "souls".)

Lucretious

Darwin

Marx

Shaw

Neither Tophit nor Aphor.

hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
4,918 posts
 

@jpwarren58 

"No conspiracy or master plan but an incoherent commercialization of culture"

Agree, except for the plan part! It may not be master, but the incoherence most experience yields a fair amount of control and profit for, let's say, .1%. 

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