Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely MeditationsWagnerian reform, yet any real reform could be expected to lead to asimilar result. It is quite impossible to produce the highest andpurest effect of which the art of the theatre is capable without at thesame time effecting innovations everywhere, in morality andpolitics, in education and society. Love and justice grown mighty inone domain, in this instance that of art, must in accordance with thelaw of their inner compulsion extend themselves into other domainsand cannot return to the inert condition of their former chrysalisstage. Even to grasp the extent to which the relationship of our arts tolife is a symbol of the degeneration of this life, the extent to whichour theatre is a disgrace to those who maintain and frequent it, onehas to adopt a completely new viewpoint and be able for once toregard the commonplace and everyday as something very uncommonand complex. Strangely clouded judgment, ill-dissembled thirst fo ramusement, fo r distraction at any cost, scholarly considerations,pomposity and affectation on the part of the performers, brutalgreed for money on that of the proprietors, vacuity and thoughtlessnesson that of a society which thinks of theeople only insofar as it isemployable or dangerous to it and attends concerts and the theatrewithout any notion of possessing a duty towards them all thistogether constitutes the musty corrupted air of our world of arttoday: but if one is as accustomed to it as our cultivated people are,one no doubt believes it necessary for one's health and feels ill if deprivedof it for any length of time. There is really only one short wayof convincing oneself of how vulgar, how peculiarly and oddlyvulgar, our theatrical institutions are, and that is to compare themwith the former reality of the Greek theatre. If we knew nothing ofthe Greeks, then the conditions that now obtain would perhaps beunavoidable and the kind of objections first raised in the grand mannerby Wagner would be regarded as the dreams of dwellers in theland of nowhere. The way people are, it might perhaps be said, thekind of art we have is satisfactory and suited to them - and they havenever been any different! - But they most certainly have been different,and even now there are people who are not satisfied with ourpresent institutions - as the fact of Bayreuth itself demonstrates.Here you will discover spectators prepared and dedicated, peoplewith the feeling of being at the summit of their happiness and that.their whole nature is being pulled together for yet higher and widerendeavours; here you will discover the most devoted self-sacrifice onthe part of the artists and, the spectacle of all spectacles, the victoriouscreator of a work which is itself the epitome of an abundance210