Postmodernism in America 5

Nietzsche:

I will go through the main critical influences of Post-Modernism. Let me start with Nietzsche.

Before I begin, I want to stress that I am just interested in how Post-Modernism works in American culture. I am not an academic, that is, I am not interested in ideas for their own sake. To continue, an academic's definition of Post-Modernism is different since they are interested in categorizing a movement that incorporates all movements in history and time.

There are however, certain philosophers and thinkers who are on the top of the pecking order of Post-Modernism.

Nietzsche saw two kinds of people in a culture. There is the "mensch" (man) who's values are determined by religion. Good is obeying God. Evil is obeying Satan or disobeying God. Nietzsche called this the "slave morality" of Christianity. Of course it is a oversimplification of Christianity, but basically, this is how Nietzsche saw things.

Nietzsche was a free-thinker and he found such a morality abhorrent. Man has to right to discrimate and reject things on his own, especially the "uber-mensch" (superman). Man does not need God. In fact, Nietzsche could probably argue that the "uber-mensch" of Jewish society created God to enslave the masses of Israelites.

Now what is the uber-mensch? Literally, he is "overman." His facilities and his intelligence is so superiorly developed that he can literally see a vision of the future. He is a prime mover, like God, the first cause of things and he is a causa sui, he causes himself. Lord Byron, Napoleon, Ghenghis Khan, Steve Jobs, Nadine Gordimer, Nelson Mandela, Billy Holliday, Mark Zuckerman, Bill Gates, etc.

Women: Simone de Beauvoir, Germain Greer, Camille Paglia, Susan Sontag etc.

The ubermensch of a culture engage in a Greek contest to determine who is really the best. And those who prove themselves to be the best are celebrated.

Dionysian and Apollonian.

In the "Birth of Tragedy," Nietzsche explains what turns the wheel of ancient Greek culture. I will adopt his theories to American rock and roll music and the visual arts.

Rock and Roll music is a function of the Will, and the Will is the most elementary part of the human psyche according to Schopenhauer, who deeply influenced Nietzsche. Rock and Roll music is the manifestation of the Will in nature adopted to a culture. As such, it is dangerous in itself. There must be an Apollonian Art of painting, stressing ideological and hierarchical functions within society to couterbalance rock and roll music and its democratizing tendencies. Of course, things are never in balance so the wheel turns and change happens in a culture.

Critique of the Individual:

Nietzsche was the first to start attacking philosophers for burying their personal lives in their supposedly objective philosophy.

Post-Modernists do engage in ad-hominem attacks especially when they think they are going to lose an argument.