Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsmore evil and ruthless, would without it be something feeble andweary: at the first sign of open contempt it would collapse. He whofights for love and justice between men has least to fear from it: for itis only when he has come to the end of the struggle he is now wagingagainst their advanced guard, the culture of today, that he willencounter his real enemies.To us, Bayreuth signifies the morning consecration on the day ofbattle. We could not be done a greater injustice than if it wereassumed we were concerned only with art: as though it were a kind ofcure and intoxicant with the aid of which one could rid oneself ofevery other sickness. What we see depicted in the tragic art-work ofBayreuth is the struggle of the individual against everything thatopposes him as apparently invincible necessity, with power, law,tradition, compact and the whole prevailing order of things. Theindividual cannot live more fairly than in being prepared to die inthe struggle for love and justice and in sacrificing himself to it. Theglance with which the mysterious eye of tragedy gazes upon us is nosorcery that prostrates us and paralyses (jUr limbs. Even though itdemands that we be quiet so long as it is gazing upon us - for art doesnot exist for the struggle itself, but for the intervals of quiet beforeand in the midst of it, for those moments when, glancing behind andlooking ahead, we comprehend the symbolic, when feelings of tirednesswhich overcome us are attended by a refreshing dream. Dayand the battle dawn together, the sacred shadows disperse and art isagain far distant from us; but its morning consolation lies upon usstill. For the individual discovers everywhere else nothing but what ispersonally dissatisfying and impervious to him: how could he fightwith any kind of courage if he had not first been consecrated tosomething higher than his own person! The greatest causes of sufferingthere are for the individual - that men do not share all knowledge incommon, that ultimate insight can never be certain, that abilities aredivided unequally - all this puts him in need of art. We cannot behappy so long as everything around us suffers and creates suffering;we cannot be moral so long as the course of human affairs is determinedby force, deception and injustice; we cannot even be wise solong as the whole of mankind has not struggled in competition forwisdom and conducted the individual into life and knowledge in the. way dictated by wisdom. How could we endure to live in the feelingof this threefold incapacity if we were unable to recognize in ourstruggles, striving and failures something sublime and significantand did not learn from tragedy to take delight in the rhythm of grandpassion and in its victim. Art is, to be sure, no instructor or educator212