Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

On the uses and disadvantages oj history for lifewith the eternally womanly, I should like to make it clear that, on thecontrary, I regard it rather as the eternally manly: though, to be sure,for those who are 'historically educated' through and through itmust be a matter of some indifference whether it is the one or theother: for they themselves are neither man nor woman, nor evenhermaphrodite, but always and only neuters or, to speak morecultivatedly, the eternally objective.If the personality is emptied in the manner described and hasbecome eternally subjectless or, as it is usually put, objective, nothingcan affect it any longer; good and right things may be done, as deeds,poetry, music: the hollowed-out cultivated man at once looksbeyond the work and asks about the history of its author. If he hasalready several other works behind him, he is at once obliged to haveexplained to him the previous and possible future progress of hisdevelopment, he is at once compared with other artists, criticized asto his choice of subject and his treatment of it, dissected, carefullyput together again, and in general admonished and set on the rightpath. The most astonishing thing may come to pass the host of thehistorically neutral is always there ready to supervise the author of iteven while he is still far off. The echo is heard immediately: butalways as a 'critique', though the moment before the critic did not somuch as dream of the possibility of what has been done. The worknever produces an effect but only another 'critique'; and the critiqueitself produces no effect either, but again only a further critique.There thus arises a general agreement to regard the acquisition ofmany critiques as a sign of success, of few or none as a sign of failure.At bottom, however, even given this kind of 'effect' everythingremains as it was: people have some new thing to chatter about fo r awhile, and then something newer still, and in the meantime go ondoing what they have always done. The historical culture of ourcritics will no longer permit any effect at all in the proper sense, thatis an effect on life and action: their blotting-paper at once goes downeven on the blackest writing, and across the most graceful designthey smear their thick brush-strokes which are supposed to be regardedas corrections: and once again that is the end of that. But their criticalpens never cease to flow, for they have lost control of them andinstead of directing them are directed by them. It is precisely in thisimmoderation of its critical outpourings, in its lack of self-control, inthat which the Romans call impotentia, that the modern personalitybetrays its weakness.87