Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Richard Wagner in Bayreuthof victorious artistic deeds. Must it not seem almost like magic toencounter such a phenomenon in the world of today? Must notthose who are permitted to participate in it not be transformed andrenewed, so as henceforth to transform and renew in other domainsof life? Has a harbour not been reached after the desert expanse ofthe sea, does a stillness not lie over the water here? - When he who. has experienced the profound and solitary mood which reigns herereturns to the shallows and lowlands of life, must he not ask withIsolde: 'How could I have endured it? How do I endure it now?' *And if he cannot endure to keep his happiness and unhappinessselfishly to himself, he will henceforth seize every opportunity tobear witness through his actions. Where are those who suffer onaccount of the institutions of the present? he will ask. Where are ournatural allies, together with whom we can fight against the rampantaggression of contemporary bogus culture? For at present - at present!- we have only one enemy, those 'cultivated people' for whom theword 'Bayreuth' signifies one of their most shattering defeats - theyrendered no assistance, they raged against it, or they exhibited thateven more effective hardness-of-hearing which has now become acustomary weapon of refined opposition. But the fact that theirenmity and malice was incapable of destroying Wagner or of hinderinghis work teaches us one more thing: it betrays that they are weak andthat the resistance of the former rulers will no longer be able towithstand many more attacks. The time has come for those whowant conquest and victory, the greatest domains lie open, andwherever there are possessions a question-mark is set against thename of the possessor. Thus the structure of education, for example,has been recognized as rotten, and everywhere there are those whohave already silently quitted it. If only those who are already in factprofoundly disaffected could be incited to a public declaration andto public indignation! If only they could be roused out of their despairingdespondency! I know that if one were to deduct what thesenatures contribute to the proceeds of our whole system of culture,the latter would be subjected to the most enfeebling blood-lettingimaginable. Of the scholars, for example, only those infected withthe political mania and the literary scribblers of all kinds would beleft behind under the old regime. The repellent structure which nowderives its strength from the spheres of power and injustice, from thestate and society, and sees its advantage in rendering the latter ever*From Tristan und Isolde.21 1